General thoughts about 1994

[Loss]

I honestly think from a wrestling standpoint that this has been the best yearbook so far. Do those who have watched others agree? Oddly enough, I was looking forward to it the least because I was sick of this time period.

 

Also, I have to say how very cool it is to see so many people posting in each of these threads.

[soup23]

This is my first yearbook but I thought January was a sneaky great month of matches since going in the only matches I recalled getting much play were Hotta/Aja, Quebecs/Harts, and Steiners/Harts. The 1-2-3/Janetty tags were at the least very fun and with only 4 matches so far, I am greatly intrigued in the joshi especially considering I have looked ahead and know what you think Loss of the Queendom tag.

[jdw]

In the middle of the 90s, we called the WON fans/readers who had their fandom climax in 1989 and then drift away after that "Class of 89ers". It wasn't really a compliment, since we thought that there was tons of great/good/interesting stuff in 1993-95.

 

I've jokingly referred to myself as a Class of 94er, pretty much as payback at myself for what I thought of the 89ers. That said... I did stick around a bit longer than they did before slowly tossing in the towel on promotion after promotion.

 

1994 was quite good. Felt lucky at the time to be a fan with so much intesting stuff going on.

 

John

[Loss]

I don't know if it's just favorable editing, but wow, WCW was a great wrestling promotion in 1994, both in terms of good matches and solid booking.

[Loss]

In the middle of the 90s, we called the WON fans/readers who had their fandom climax in 1989 and then drift away after that "Class of 89ers". It wasn't really a compliment, since we thought that there was tons of great/good/interesting stuff in 1993-95.

 

I've jokingly referred to myself as a Class of 94er, pretty much as payback at myself for what I thought of the 89ers. That said... I did stick around a bit longer than they did before slowly tossing in the towel on promotion after promotion.

 

1994 was quite good. Felt lucky at the time to be a fan with so much intesting stuff going on.

 

John

Thanks for sharing that.

[Childs]

I agree that it has featured the best wrestling of any yearbook through the first third of the year. I wonder if the tail end will feel a little weaker, with Hogan ruining WCW and the best of the best All-Japan stuff falling in the first 2/3 of the year. Guess we'll see.

 

It's an enjoyable set for me, because, though I've seen most of the highlight matches piecemeal, I was a freshman in college in 1994 and had drifted far away from wrestling fandom. So I'm seeing stuff in sequence for the first time. That was also the case for 1995, which was really great but less engaging week to week than '94.

[FLIK]

I don't know if it's just favorable editing, but wow, WCW was a great wrestling promotion in 1994

Nope it really was, pretty much near universally loved period for the company until the Hogan era really kicked in.

[Exposer]

I'm a HUGE fan of the Dustin-Stud Stable feud and it might be my favorite feud ever. I wasn't even two years old through most of 1994. That's another major reason that I wanted this. I'll probably one day try and get the other yearbooks as well. I picked 1994 because WCW was so great and it looked like the best yearbook on paper to me.

[Kevin Ridge]

I've hit the half way point of the yearbook and I have to admit that WCW has probably been the most impressive overall of the wrestling groups. Great matches and great promos. I was not a WCW fan at this time so it has been pleasantly surprising to have my view of this organization changed. SMW has had their moments with Rock n' Roll Express/Bodies and Roberts/Dirty White Boy. These yearbooks have really been great at showing off people like Tony Anthony. Best thing going in WWF has been the Bret and Owen feud. Some great tag matches in January also. Steiners had a strong start and then disappeared. ECW is in the beginning stages of their run and USWA had been a bit disappointing. AJPW was barely seen until the Carnival but we got some great matches in that and May and June had probably two of my favorite matches of the year. FMW has provided me with some good Onita/Tenryu action and a tag match that had me really excited about when watching. Super J Cup delivered well. Mexico has had some matches that have opened my mind to Lucha. I'm still remain stubborn on Joshi and Shooto Crapo when viewing.

 

Overall, 1994 has been great so far. I think the match selections and promo/angles choices have got better as the yearbooks have progressed. Congrats to Goodhelmet/Loss for putting these together and for the various posters with their match suggestions. I looked forward to many years to come.

[Loss]

What a decline Flair had almost immediately when Hogan showed up, huh? He was never really the same guy, was he?

[Frankensteiner]

The whole Hogan thing was such a sham. I just loved everything about WCW before he showed up. Good matches up and down the card, their big shows finally had great production, etc. To your point, Flair was just a victim and they booked him horribly. I can't argue that those Flair/Hogan and Flair/Savage programs did well financially but they did nothing for Flair personally. I would have liked to see him booked as a living legend type character he was throughout 1993 and early 94.

 

Hogan still would have been fine if it was WCW starring Hulk Hogan. Instead it was the Hulk Hogan show with WCW wrestlers.

[Loss]

The first 6-7 months of the year are incredible, and there's a slight dip after that. I still think there is plenty of good stuff after that, but each promotion was churning out less worthwhile stuff in the final quarter. It's evident when you see how little there is for September, for example. WCW falling off a cliff slowed things down. All Japan scaling back TV slowed things down.

 

That said, the yearbook is still excellent, and there are more matches I am looking forward to seeing that I have not yet watched. Looking ahead, Big Egg Universe is probably the show I'm most excited about, but I'm also looking forward to some other things, like seeing how Cornette interjected himself into a feud with the Gangstas.

[Loss]

I'm so used to just being able to scroll to the bottom and click on the thread, and because everything is in order, it's typically there. Now I have to search for it because someone beat me to it. I now know how anyone who has ever tried to comment after me has felt.

[FLIK]

I honestly think from a wrestling standpoint that this has been the best yearbook so far.

Now that you're finished would you still rank it that highly? I kinda got the sense that you might have changed your opinion but maybe i'm reading too much into things.

[Loss]

The year plummets a little bit after July. From August on, there are plenty of good - great matches, but they aren't nearly as plentiful, and they aren't coming from all corners of the world they way they are early on. WCW dropping off created a huge gap.

 

I'm not sure at this point which is the best year of all of them, but yeah, you aren't reading too much into things. August - December didn't match January - July.

[soup23]

One thing I will say as I was not near as disappointed in August as both Exposer and Loss and I can attribute that to two matches. The Owen/Bret cage match, and Hokuto/Kong vs. Hotta/Kansai. The former is one of the biggest "line in the sand" matches in history I think, and the latter I stand by as maybe one of my favorite matches of all time and was a new discovery for me. Add to that the birth of ECW in the best moment from them to be featured and the best shoot style match I have ever seen and August was another great month in my book with only WCW faltering.

[Kevin Ridge]

I have to agree with Loss on the latter half of the year dropping off a bit. There was still plenty of good stuff to watch but the year peaked around July. I had high praise for WCW in the first half of the year and it may have been my promotion of the year with AJPW. But once the Hogan show got in full force it became really frustrating to watch it. Outside of the Rhodes vs Stud Stable stuff there wasn't much going on in WCW. If WCW had remained consistent it would have helped boost the rest of the year. Overall there was still plenty of variety for the full year and found the yearbook to be very enjoyable to watch.

[Loss]

Can't believe I missed this for menu music. I will make it up to all of you, I promise!

 

[goodhelmet]

I would have vetoed that shit and replaced it with a Slayer song.

[CaptCabana]

If I can be of any assistance for the music selections for 1998, please let me know.

[PeteF3]

1994 wasn’t always the easiest of years to get through, especially the second half. WCW turned into the Hogan Show and the WWF kept finding new ways to bottom out. Plus there was fewer AJPW to pick from and New Japan seemed to get very quiet after the WAR feud was blown off, and their situation wasn’t helped by Jushin Liger breaking his leg. By the end, Smoky Mountain and to a lesser extent the USWA were what was carrying the load. Wrestling seemed to be a dying industry just like it seems now. The business surprised us once before, but that was a time when Japan was still very healthy. Time will tell if it can surprise us again, but I think it would require some Bischoff or Paul E.-styled maverick with a Kevin Sullivan-esque creative mind to do so, and I’m not sure if wrestling can attract those people anymore.

 

And the Awards for 1994. As usual real winners in parentheses, with these awards being for the calendar year and not December-to-November like the real votes.

 

CATEGORY A AWARDS

WRESTLER OF THE YEAR (Toshiaki Kawada)

1. Steve Williams

2. Toshiaki Kawada

3. Vader

It was close but I still think Doc had more impact on All-Japan as a whole. He was by a nose the better overall performer in the Carnival and he ended Misawa’s epic TC reign in another terrific match. His performances did tail off toward the end of the year but his first ¾ were strong enough to make up for it. Vader didn’t do much for North American business but he was churning out awesome matches and selling out baseball stadiums in Japan for a promotion that didn’t have TV.

 

MOST OUTSTANDING WRESTLER (Kenta Kobashi)

1. Toshiaki Kawada

2. Vader

3. Steve Williams

Both of these awards were actually fairly tough. In addition to being a down year overall, it seemed that few people broke out of the pack to separate themselves from the rest of the world, even as they were turning in good or even great performances. Doc really only broke out in comparison to his previous self. I could have easily given a spot to Aja Kong, Akira Hokuto, or Great Sasuke here. Or even Sabu (the #2 Observer WOTY!) who DID break the mold. Selection bias or not, it also seemed like there were more guys who showed up for a great match or two but with fewer consistent performances throughout the year.

 

BEST BABYFACE (Atsushi Onita)

1. Dustin Rhodes

2. Atsushi Onita

3. Bret Hart

Onita had a fine year but Rhodes had performances that should have launched him into World title contention. Instead he doesn’t even work Starrcade. Bret was a refreshingly real person in a cartoon world that made the “cartoon wrestling” of 1985 expansion WWF look like RINGS.

 

BEST HEEL (Art Barr)

1. Art Barr

2. New Jack

3. Bob Backlund

Vader probably should have been in here but Backlund and New Jack ultimately get nods for subverting prior expectations. I wasn’t always crazy about Love Machine’s work but he redeemed himself by the time of When Worlds Collide, as Los Gringos Locos had turned into a quasi-NWO-type faction that technicos and rudos alike aligned against. I know the Gangstas didn’t draw, but neither did Jake Roberts in ’91 and I wasn’t going to not vote for him then.

 

FEUD OF THE YEAR (Los Gringos Locos vs. AAA)

1. Dustin Rhodes vs. the Stud Stable

2. Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart

3. Lord Steven Regal vs. Larry Zbyszko

Kind of weird that we’d get 3 positive domestic awards in a year where international wrestling really started pulling away from the U.S. But the work in these feuds was just that good. Exposer was right—Rhodes vs. Parker’s gang was really the last of the great southern-style feuds. Bret and Owen were two of the best workers in the company and with the help of some thoughtful booking made what could have been a very hard-to-believe storyline work. Regal feuding with an announcer should have had no business being as good as it was.

 

TAG TEAM OF THE YEAR (Los Gringos Locos)

1. Los Gringos Locos

2. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi

3. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue

Tag wrestling took a major step back in general—the Headshrinkers were one of the last WWF tag title reigns that didn’t feel like a complete afterthought, and the WCW belts bounced from the Nasty Boys to various solid but underwhelming fare like Stars & Stripes and Pretty Wonderful. The Heavenly Bodies and Quebecers were non-factors the second half of the year, and the Rock ‘n Rolls couldn’t get much out of the Gangstas, despite how great the promos were. Barr & Eddy were actually drawing big houses in addition to putting on good matches.

 

MOST IMPROVED (Diesel)

1. Diesel

2. Johnny B. Badd

3. Chris Candido

Diesel’s babyface act is lame as hell but his improvement in the ring can’t be denied. Badd is now starting to come into his own as a semi-serious worker, with the Regal matches and TV title win as a collective coming out party, as we head into what will probably be his best year. The staying power that Mero was able to have with that gimmick was nothing short of amazing. Imagine Oz or PN News lasting all the way until Nitro started—Badd realistically shouldn’t have avoided the same fate as them. I think Candido was good before but he really got a chance to cut loose with some long matches against fairly major opponents in ’94. He’s not to the point of carrying others yet but he put in meaningful contributions to his good matches this year. Meanwhile, Sid Vicious and Shane Douglas would have won Most Improved Interviews Awards if they existed.

 

MOST UNIMPROVED (Hulk Hogan)

1. Lex Luger

2. Masahiro Chono

3. Eddie Gilbert

Hulk for all of his faults had two strong performances on PPV and was a boon to the big shows he appeared on even if his exorbitant contract resulted in a net loss. Luger, a guy who won Florida’s Southern title 18 days after his debut, was probably at his lowest point of his entire career, push-wise. He choked on the big stage again, then had PPV losses to Tatanka and King Kong Bundy (!), firmly entrenching him as mid-card 4 life in the WWF. And he sure wasn’t churning out good performances in the process, not that he could necessarily be blamed. Chono’s heel turn and debut of the all-black look didn’t make the set, but if it hadn’t been for that he may as well have been dead for as much of a non-factor as he was. Gilbert was way past his sell-by date—every USWA comeback saw diminishing returns and he looked awful, lazy, and out-of-it in the NWA tournament. Honorable mention to Jesse Ventura, who really needed to go when he did. His contract actually ran into early ’95 but WCW made the wise decision to eat the contract and make him sit at home for the last chunk of it.

 

MOST OBNOXIOUS (Hulk Hogan)

1. Hulk Hogan

2. Dave Sullivan

3. Vince McMahon

Hogan could still bring it in the ring when he wanted to but his personality bordered on skin-crawling, and his influence over the rest of the promotion by the fall couldn’t be ignored either. Evad made me want to eject the disc and throw my screen out the window every time he interrupted an interview segment, which seemed to happen hourly. Vince was still good at getting angles over but the NEW GENERATION UNBEE-LEEE-VIABLE ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN THE WWF fake laugh mode had completely overtaken him.

 

BEST ON INTERVIEWS (Ric Flair)

1. Jim Cornette

2. Cactus Jack

3. New Jack

Jack was the frontrunner for most of this, but I’ll concede that his interviews ultimately did more to turn away fans than pack them in, plus Cornette and Cactus made strong pushes toward the end of the year. Cornette rejuvenated himself with a fresh angle managing the Rock ‘n Roll Express and Cactus was doing great work in multiple promotions.

 

MOST CHARISMATIC (Atsushi Onita)

1. Atsushi Onita

2. Nobuhiko Takada

3. Genichiro Tenryu

No one in the U.S. is getting this and the easiest pick from Mexico (Konnan) turned heel, which without a ton of knowledge struck me as a bad, premature move.

 

BEST TECHNICAL WRESTLER (Chris Benoit)

1. Volk Han

2. Hiroshi Hase

3. Lord Steven Regal

As usual, who qualifies as a “technician” is sometimes spurious, especially if you look at the actual rankings (Kobashi and Toyota? I…guess, but I don’t really view them that way). I’ve tended to look at these as being ¾ about pure matwork and ¼ execution of advanced moves.

 

BRUISER BRODY MEMORIAL AWARD (Cactus Jack)

1. Cactus Jack

2. Sabu

3. Terry Funk

These guys all had good chemistry with each other amd were all good in different ways, in promotions that generally booked them to their strengths.

 

BEST FLYING WRESTLER (Great Sasuke)

1. The Great Sasuke

2. Sabu

3. The 1-2-3 Kid

I’m still seeing Rey, the real-life #2 vote-getter, as more of a precocious talent who’s a spectacular sympathetic babyface more than he is a spectacular flyer. I’m sure he’ll be taking this award home more in the years to come. Sabu’s highspots weren’t looking overly contrived just yet, and Kid kept bringing the goods in what was not always a pleasant environment.

 

MOST OVERRATED (Hulk Hogan)

1. The Butcher

2. Dave Sullivan

3. Irwin R. Schyster

Brutus Beefcake in a Starrcade main event—that’s all that needs to be said. Dave Sullivan, #2 or #2a babyface, also all that needs to be said. Career joke mid-carder IRS gets the honor of being Undertaker’s follow-up feud after Yokozuna, a booking decision that’s had me utterly baffled for a full 20 years. This came after a summer where he pretty much vanquished Tatanka, destroying his sacred headdress and then beating him up and down the board on house shows, even in Indian strap matches.

 

MOST UNDERRATED (Brian Pillman)

1. Brian Pillman

2. Steve Austin

3. Felino

Pillman did absolutely nothing after the first month of the year, and in the latter stages was actually putting over the Honky Tonk Man in an ultimate indignity. Austin’s second US title loss speaks for itself, and the planned gimmick of putting him with Sherri and making him into a Flair clone smells like a failure as well, but at least it would have been something. Felino gets the #3 vote for the second year in a row. He got some real-life votes as well, so it’s not just a footage/exposure problem.

 

BEST PROMOTION (AAA)

1. All-Japan

2. Smoky Mountain

3. UWFI

New Japan wasn’t bad, but it got very quiiet after the Tenryu feud was blown off, and seems to be in a holding pattern, apparently needing a Chono heel push or UWFI invasion to shake things up again. Hash otherwise seems to be out of legitimate IWGP challengers. AAA had a big year and returned to drawing big crowds in LA, but despite the magnificent domestic build-up to the When Worlds Collide show I think Pena’s booking generally suffered, with the overreliance on cutesy but non-decisive bullshit finishes reeking of 1987-88 Crockett.

 

BEST TELEVISION SHOW (ECW)

1. Smoky Mountain Wrestling

2. ECW

As always, hard to rate. As usual, all the New Japan footage comes from home video or its extensive Classics shows. Meanwhile AJPW got cut to 30 minutes, which was crippling. Smoky Mountain had some of its best TV matches this year and as always could be counted on for multiple great promos and usually a good angle in every show. ECW was rarely great, but its TV show was daring, different, and very out-of-the-box compared to what everyone else was doing.

 

MATCH OF THE YEAR (Shawn/Razor ladder match)

1. Akira Hokuto/Shinobu Kandori vs. Aja Kong/Bull Nakano (3/27)

2. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (6/3)

3. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue (5/21)

4. Bull Nakano vs. Shinobu Kandori (7/14)

5. Toshiaki Kawada vs. Steve Williams (4/16)

6. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Steve Williams (7/28)

7. Mascarita Sagrada vs. Espectrito (3/12)

8. Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart (3/20)

9. El Hijo del Santo/Octagon vs. Los Gringos Locos (11/6)

10. The Great Sasuke vs. Jushin Liger (4/16)

11. Razor Ramon vs. Shawn Michaels (3/20)

12. Dustin Rhodes vs. Bunkhouse Buck (4/17)

13. Nobuhiko Takada vs. Vader (8/18)

14. Tracy Smothers vs. Chris Candido (4/1)

15. Pantera vs. Felino (12/27)

I seriously didn’t expect the Dream Rush tag not to make it to the end of the decade as the Best Match Ever, but it didn’t. The Queendom tag was a master class in storytelling, moves, excitement…everything. And such a unique story it was, one that I don’t think has been repeated and certainly not repeated as successfully. I don’t keep track of these as strenuously as Loss and Chad or myself when reviewing ‘80s projects, so some things may be missed. But I’m very comfortable with my top 10 at least.

 

ROOKIE OF THE YEAR (Mikey Whipwreck)

1. Mikey Whipwreck

2. Alex Wright

3. New Jack

Mikey was a genius idea all-around, very well-executed. Wright was raw and given a silly Eurotrash gimmick but was a wrestling lifer with great potential and posisble international appeal. Not only had New Jack wrestled in ’93 but we even saw him on that Yearbook, but I think if this were baseball he’d be eligible in ’94. It’s hard for true rookies in wrestling to be evaluated at the time, and this should probably serve as more of a Breakthrough Wrestler award, which in my mind isn’t quite the same as Most Improved. Anyway, New Jack was a pretty lousy worker (though not as bad as Mustafa, who actually had several more years experience) but a guy who screamed potential as a star.

 

MANAGER OF THE YEAR (Jim Cornette)

1. Jim Cornette

2. Woman

3. Col. Robert Parker

Not that good of a year for managers. Cornette is pretty much a runaway, self-explanatory pick. Woman was terrific, one of the best female interviews ever. Parker could be goofy but he was so professional and so committed to his role that it was hard not to like him, and he was involved in the year’s best feud.

 

BEST TV ANNOUNCER (Joey Styles)

1. Jim Ross

2. Lance Russell

3. Dr. Alfonso Morales

Also a bad year for announcing. I know I should put Lance at #1 but Ross had some tremendous performances for both the WWF and SMW despite being beaten around by Vince. Lance really didn’t miss a beat, he just didn’t have the opportunity to call as much until the USWA started picking up toward the end of the year, plus the MSC clips were generally called by Macklin. Morales, along with Pierroth, have such commanding voices and deliveries that they transcend language, and he’s far easier to take seriously than Akira Fukuzawa.

 

WORST TV ANNOUNCER (Gorilla Monsoon)

1. Gorilla Monsoon

2. Randy Savage

3. Art Donovan

Lots to choose from here. Stan Lane and Ted DiBiase were underwhelming at best, Eric Bischoff was a twit, Vince was obnoxious and full of shtick, Lawler had mostly descended into a clown act, and Jesse Ventura had completely checked out and was actively hurting the product when he was on the air. The team of Monsoon & Savage turned in an all-time horrible performance at King of the Ring, and Monsoon on Raw was so bad and counterproductive that he basically forced Vince to go crawling back to Jim Ross until the steroid trial ended. I get that he was badly itching to wrestle again and I can’t blame him for that, but Savage combined Jesse’s indifference with an incessant pushing of himself, and it got worse as the year went on. I truly, really didn’t want to vote for Art Donovan, who was truly a legendary personality thrown into an impossible situation, and who even in that setting was still more likable than Joey Styles. But objectively he has to be there.

 

CATEGORY B AWARDS

BEST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (Super J-Cup). Tough call as the first half of the year was loaded with great cards. I’m going to go with Wrestling Queendom for having the highest-end singles match, though Slamboree, the J-Cup, Spring Stampede, WrestleMania, and Bluegrass Brawl are all worthy candidates, in roughly that order.

 

WORST MAJOR WRESTLING CARD (Blackjack Brawl). Hard to argue with Herb Abrams’ last gasp as a wannabe-major promoter, but the Royal Rumble was a bigger stage and more insulting when compared to expectations. It’s a little better in retrospect than it was live, where aside from the Owen turn I thought it was about the worst thing I’d ever seen, but not that much better.

 

BEST WRESTLING MANEUVER (Sasuke Special). I can go along with that, when he hits it.

 

MOST DISGUSTING PROMOTIONAL TACTIC (Ric Flair retirement). The Observer readers’ choice is really a smaller function of what was voted second: WCW turning into the Hulk Hogan Show. It may have been an ultimately necessary evil but it doesn’t make it any better to watch. Many people would have given this to the Gangstas push, but a.) I think it was worth the try, even if it was financially unsuccessful, and b.) cheap as it was, in some ways it was actually more progressive than your standard push for black wrestlers in the Big Two that you could argue continues to this day. Not quite on the level of the Lawler/Snowman feud, but closer to that end than Four Horsemen/Rocky King or your typical dancing black guy today.

 

BEST COLOR COMMENTATOR (Bobby Heenan). Answer has to be Dave Brown, back in that role with the re-emergence of Lance Russell. It was a bad year for announcing, with Tony and the Brain both having their moments but both taking steps back. The WWF had exactly announcer worth a damn, and Ross was barely active for the company. I don’t dislike Les Thatcher but I’m not as high on him as some others, and regardless he’s no Dave. It was a weak enough year that if I was ever going to give a reputation vote to Arturo Rivera, this was the time.

 

READERS’ FAVORITE WRESTLER (Sabu). Going to go with Dustin Rhodes here. I did like Sabu in this era and revisiting ’94 he aged much better than expected. But Dustin was possibly at his peak.

 

READERS’ LEAST FAVORITE WRESTLER (Hulk Hogan). SO many to pick from: Duke the Dumpster, Doink, the Butcher, Mr. Pogo, Jungle Jim Steele, Hogan…but the guy who inspired the most visceral negative reaction over and over again was Evad Sullivan. MAYBE he could have been tolerable as a personality had the odd-couple team with Kevin been kept around, but his knee injury derailed that. Johnny Grunge is a VERY close second, with babyface Doink not far behind that.

 

WORST WRESTLER (Evad Sullivan). SO many to pick from: Duke the Dumpster, the Butcher, Mr. Po—oh. I think Evad has to take this as well.

 

WORST TAG TEAM (The Bushwhackers). The worst tag team with a respectable reputation was Public Enemy. I don’t always think that highly of Paul E. but getting those guys over as a legitimate champion tandem was one of the great smoke-and-mirrors jobs in the history of wrestling.

 

WORST TELEVISION SHOW (WCW Saturday Night). Well, the cybernetic Center Stage get-up is one of my absolute least-favorite sets of any wrestling show ever, and the canned heat and sterile overall atmosphere made it worse. WWF Challenge was probably worse, as it was reduced to seemingly 7 or 8 markets with a rotating list of announcers like Stan Lane, Ted DiBiase, and Monsoon. But, it wasn’t the flagship TV program either. I’ll go with WCWSN, but it’s close.

 

WORST MANAGER (Mr. Fuji). This was not a good year for managers, but there weren’t really any Coach/Sapphire-type disasters either, and Fuji no longer had to cut promos, so it’s not like he could really bother anybody. So, I sadly have to pick Jimmy Hart, an all-time great in an utterly intolerable role as the little puppy to Hulk Hogan’s Spike the Bulldog.

 

WORST MATCH OF THE YEAR (Doink/midgets vs. Lawler/midgets). MANY disasters to choose from. This was certainly a strong candidate. Undertaker vs. Undertaker was a strong candidate, as well as Undertaker/Yokozuna from the Rumble. But I will go with a match that some people have given ***** too, and that’s the triangle match from The Night the Line Was Crossed, an utter disaster of a match that should never have been such an unwatchable clusterfuck considering the talent involved. A shitty match with bad wrestlers is one thing, a shitty match with good wrestlers is another.

 

WORST FEUD OF THE YEAR (Lawler vs. Doink). This has to be Undertaker vs. Undertaker, which made absolutely no sense, injected comedy where it didn’t belong with a gimmick that was always and would always be very well-protected from such, and led to a WMOTY candidate that main-evented a damned PPV.

 

WORST INTERVIEW (Evad Sullivan). As awful as he was, Evad did at least accomplish what was asked of him. As with NTLWC, bad promos from a good interview are worse. So the answer is Hulk Hogan, who after cutting some tremendous promos in the WWF showed no appreciable skill for selling anything other than himself, which I guess was okay for Hogan but seemed like cutting off his nose to spite his face.

 

WORST PROMOTION (WCW). If you could split WCW in half, the first half of the year would be a winner for Best Promotion and the second half would be a winner for the Worst. So looking at the year as a whole, the answer is the utterly depressing WWF, which had no clue what to do with itself and continued to lose longtime valuable stars.

 

BEST BOOKER (Paul E. Dangerously). I don’t know when he took over the juniors division entirely but I’m giving this to Jushin Liger for putting together the Super J-Cup.

 

PROMOTER OF THE YEAR (Giant Baba). I think we have to go with Antonio Pena here.

 

BEST GIMMICK (The Undertaker). In a year of awful gimmicks, this goes to Bob Backlund. Backlund was one of those guys where the thought of him heeling was utterly inconceivable, and he went from being a washed-up guy in the late-‘80s Pedro Morales role to the company’s #1 heel.

 

WORST GIMMICK (Dave Sullivan). My goodness, it’s barely fair having to pick just one. I’ll break with some people on this board and say a “special” gimmick is not INHERENTLY awful, as I think Rick Steiner, Boo Bradley, and later Eugene showed. Sullivan was just an awful performer and way, way overpushed as a near-#2 babyface. Face Doink was a complete insult to a fine performer and great heel gimmick, but I think my final answer would be Duke Droese, an unbelievably misguided attempt at creating another Jim Duggan when the real Duggan was through some miracle going through a mini-renaissance.

 

MOST EMBARRASSING WRESTLER (Doink). Evad is in the running for all of these awards but there was enough shit in ’94 that he doesn’t deserve a clean sweep, which is why I keep looking for excuses to give them to somebody else. Doink is a good pick. One of the embodiments of what a lame, pandering promotion the WWF had turned into, a harder-pushed Bushwhacker whose pathetic comedy served to bring out the worst in his opponents, announcers, and everyone else involved.

[funkdoc]

why has pete's bomb-ass post not gotten any replies yet

 

really surprised you mention how tough 94 was to get through, considering i've heard quite a bit of Best Year Ever talk for it. i feel like the weakness of the american promotions in 93-94 has to hurt the case for those years, no?

 

i'm also surprised at the lack of joshi in your awards given how much you seemed to love it in your yearbook posts. personally i'd vote aja over vader for outstanding wrestler, and not have that hard of a time doing so. it's hard to be more consistently good than vader was, yes, but what MOTYCs does he have in 94 besides arguably the takada match? maybe the dustin one? i'd go so far as to say this was easily vader's weakest year during his prime, if you don't include his WWF time as part of that.

 

in fairness i can imagine how hard it would be to justify any woman for WOTY during this time, since the emphasis on interpromotional matches makes it hard to single anyone out as a key draw. your voting for that award thus far does tend to be dominated by the US & all japan, from what i remember...less confounding factors with those promotions.

 

you make a very good case re: WMOTY. my visceral reaction was the doink survivor series match because that kind of comedy is about my least favorite thing, but i have to give it 3rd because of how low on the card it was compared to the underfaker or the ECW match. personally i would give underfaker both worst match & worst feud, due to all the effort put into it and how much it was expected to draw. i would also argue that undertaker vs. yokozuna was actually a pretty damn good sprint followed by a potential worst angle of the year, so no way in hell would i vote that for worst match.

 

regal vs. larry over los gringos locos in feud of the year? really?!? i think that might be the pick of yours i take the most issue with, but maybe you don't factor drawing into that award like i would. if you're just going by personal enjoyment then i take back my comment. i just tend to see drawing/stardom as a more integral component of a classic feud than a great wrestler, which would make for an interesting thread in its own right...

 

finally, screw your "objectivity" and give me art donovan over joey styles any day! he was just so darned endearing as the guy who didn't have a clue, and i weirdly enjoy that in a non-ironic way. i think it's how genuine he came across, compared to all the people who've had vince shouting in their ears over the years.

 

 

great stuff as always pete, look forward to seeing how much the dungeon of doom dominates the "worst" categories in 95!

[WingedEagle]

I just got started on '94 after abandoning '93 for much of the summer before putting in some OT there to finish it last week. I'm through the first disc but doing my best to avoid recaps of the whole year or individual matches/segments until I've gone through them. Still the best way to pack in some diverse wrestling at any time.

[PeteF3]

why has pete's bomb-ass post not gotten any replies yet

What's there to argue about? I've come to realize I'd draw more reaction for awarding Best Interview to Dave Sullivan and Most Underrated to Duke the Dumpster, but I refuse to compromise my principles.

 

really surprised you mention how tough 94 was to get through, considering i've heard quite a bit of Best Year Ever talk for it. i feel like the weakness of the american promotions in 93-94 has to hurt the case for those years, no?

Unquestionably. And New Japan wasn't bad but was sort of in a holding pattern after the Tenryu stuff was blown off, sort of waiting for the Next Big Feud which wouldn't arrive until the Chono turn and wouldn't really kick into gear until '95. AJPW got its TV time slashed, which was devastating. The Big Two were depressing as all hell. In short, there's no way on earth this year was better than '92, and the Yearbook as a whole wasn't as entertaining as '90, if only because '90 was fresh and with a bunch of "new" uncovered stuff.

 

i'm also surprised at the lack of joshi in your awards given how much you seemed to love it in your yearbook posts. personally i'd vote aja over vader for outstanding wrestler, and not have that hard of a time doing so. it's hard to be more consistently good than vader was, yes, but what MOTYCs does he have in 94 besides arguably the takada match? maybe the dustin one? i'd go so far as to say this was easily vader's weakest year during his prime, if you don't include his WWF time as part of that.

One thing that struck me about '94 was--even as the international scene as a whole was pulling away from the U.S.--it was hard for any one wrestler to stand out. Like I mentioned, lots of folks seemed to show up for a great match and then were gone again, at least in this setting. The early part of the decade seemed to (without going back and spreadsheeting appearances for everyone) have more consistency throughout the year. It's not always easy extrapolating isolated appearances for luchadores and joshi folks and compare them to the week-to-week (essentially) appearances by the U.S. folks. I do think Vader's match with Takada was a huge, huge win for him from both a financial and artistic standpoint. And by the end of the year I was, against my better judgment, almost drooling at the opportunity to see him take on Hogan--both at the time and watching it again. Not many have inspired that kind of reaction with me. It was sort of like seeing all those Tony Atlas promos and all those Dawna Teen Reports for ICW, waiting for the two to finally meet.

 

in fairness i can imagine how hard it would be to justify any woman for WOTY during this time, since the emphasis on interpromotional matches makes it hard to single anyone out as a key draw. your voting for that award thus far does tend to be dominated by the US & all japan, from what i remember...less confounding factors with those promotions.

Yeah, and like, Best Booker? Who the hell do I vote for? Who WAS AJW's booker? How much did he or she have to do with the interpromotional shows? I would have gladly voted for them, since I was tired of giving the award to Choshu each year, but that info isn't known to me.

 

you make a very good case re: WMOTY. my visceral reaction was the doink survivor series match because that kind of comedy is about my least favorite thing, but i have to give it 3rd because of how low on the card it was compared to the underfaker or the ECW match. personally i would give underfaker both worst match & worst feud, due to all the effort put into it and how much it was expected to draw. i would also argue that undertaker vs. yokozuna was actually a pretty damn good sprint followed by a potential worst angle of the year, so no way in hell would i vote that for worst match.

In retrospect, yes, the UT/Yoko work was good. The ending and post-match was, at the time, the dumbest thing I had ever seen (in wrestling or anywhere else).

 

regal vs. larry over los gringos locos in feud of the year? really?!? i think that might be the pick of yours i take the most issue with, but maybe you don't factor drawing into that award like i would. if you're just going by personal enjoyment then i take back my comment. i just tend to see drawing/stardom as a more integral component of a classic feud than a great wrestler, which would make for an interesting thread in its own right...

No question who won the box office, but I actually had problems with the booking of the Gringos Locos feud before When Worlds Collide, some of which may have been mitigated by greater knowledge of Spanish and some of which may not have been. AAA refusing to shit or get off the pot with regard to Blue Panther's alignment grew more and more annoying. First he's turning technico. Now he's teaming with rudos again. He's feuding with LGL as a lot of other rudos are. But he's aligned with Jake, who's aligned with LGL! ARGH.

 

finally, screw your "objectivity" and give me art donovan over joey styles any day! he was just so darned endearing as the guy who didn't have a clue, and i weirdly enjoy that in a non-ironic way. i think it's how genuine he came across, compared to all the people who've had vince shouting in their ears over the years.

Art did have some choice quotes for that show. "These two guys could go all night!" "Well, there's a 60-minute time limit for this final..." "That's insane! They couldn't last that long!"

 

great stuff as always pete, look forward to seeing how much the dungeon of doom dominates the "worst" categories in 95!

Thank you. And my aim for '95 is to give as few "positive" awards to the Big Two as possible with the chance of a clean non-sweep, since pretty much none of them will be deserved.

[funkdoc]

could you at least sneak barry horowitz onto the "most improved" list for his push that year? i jest but only partially - from my memory that was pretty much the best thing about 1995 WWF