Where the Big Boys Play #51

[JerryvonKramer]

Thanks again to Peter for coming on the show, really fun guest.

 

http://placetobenation.com/where-the-big-b...al-combat-1990/

 

 

Chad and Parv welcome Peter (aka PeteF3) to the show to talk about Capital Combat: The Return of Robocop! In this show:

- [3:32] Peter's background as a fan

- [10:56] Wrestling Observer roundup from March to May 1990, with talking points including: Flair vs. Herd backstage, Midnight Express contract wranglings, more announcing musical chairs, Billy Graham and the start of the steriods scandal, and lots more.

- [00:43:02] Capital Combat review, including Wrestlecrap gallore: world-class hairdressers, jukeboxes, Johnny Ace's theme music, Gordon Solie's adventures in pursuit of Robocop, Meltzer's hatred of Junkfood Dog, David Crockett's trip to a sex shop and El Gigante.

- [2:09:19] End of the show awards

[PeteF3]

A few things I wanted to touch on during the show but just plum forgot in the moment, that I think are important enough to mention:

 

- Speaking as someone who loves southern tag wrestling: this show proves that there is a limit on how much of it you can have on one show. Maybe with more quality control on the finishes and layouts, this would be less of an issue. It also really exacerbates the paint-by-numbers approach of the SSTs and Rotunda/Rich, since you had other teams doing similar spots but in a far more effective way. In hindsight, I would probably have booked a no-DQ stip to the 6-man tag and let them work a crazy tornado street fight, which would have made for something different while also working to those guys' strengths.

 

- This is the final show of the Flair-booked era, and as subsequent shows will prove, it really felt like it. Flair was out by the time this show took place, but the prior build, from the awesome return of Barry Windham to the Midnight/Pillman attack to the surprisingly fun Rock 'n Roll/Freebirds feud, continued in the vein of the awesome 1989. But with the ridiculous, bullshit finish to the PPV, it really spells the end of the high-quality '89-'90 stuff. The ending was a retrogression to something Dusty would have booked, which is a startling contrast to the World title finish at Chi-Town Rumble which was a loud proclamation that the Dusty Era was over. This marked a retrogression back to an era and booking philosophy that at this point didn't really need revisited. There will be some good stuff to come in 1990, and this is a decent show in a vacuum. But it's also an ominous sign of a long downward spiral, that won't turn around from an artistic standpoint for 2 years and from a business standpoint for 5 or 6.

[shoe]

Looking forward to hearing about this show.

[Dylan Waco]

I wish I had been on this show only so I could have made a joke about this being at best the second biggest drawing show with Robocop as a main event bit player

[BrickHithouse]

The out-of-ring stuff made a real dick sandwich out of this show. Or that was the Prime Dick in what was a variety platter of dick sandwiches. Too bad that all the extracurricular BS outside of the ring really did take away from the solid-to excellent matches. Even Norman brought game!

 

Chad really had me losing it with his Tommy Rich discussion and the fact that it would have been a lot easier in theory to find a clothing store as opposed to a novelty sex shop. Maybe David had a shopping list and figured he'd kill two birds with one stone.

[bradhindsight]

These were my notes on the main event from the yearbook thread with some pieces tacked on:

 

So the storyline from the broadcasters was Luger had a knee injury which led to the staph infection. He didn't sell any kind of knee injury (even during the match it was pretty sporadic) though. I don't know why they didn't use this injury to tell the story here - was really odd.

 

After also recently watching WrestleWar 90, things do translate nicely here. Luger is SUPER fired up (despite the illness) and gets all the offense until the knee buckles and Flair takes over. Flair constantly climbing the cage was odd but the announcers tried to cover it with Flair doing this to slow things down and throw Luger off his game. Flair gets super bloody also which the match needed.

 

My favorite part of the Horsemen coming down is Sid doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Of course we get a very lame finish of Ole raising the cage. Gigante coming down (and also doing nothing) was pretty underwhelming, outside Ole being scared.

 

I liked this a lot less than WW90 and can imagine that watching and following the months of build back in 1990 - this was a super lame letdown of an ending. Even not taking into account all the hijinx at the end, I still liked this less (***1/2 tops).

 

Part of me (in hindsight -and in a 2013 vacuum) just assumed Luger was written off TV after this, so the DQ made at least a little sense. Then I check out that he "wrestles" Sid at Clash XI and then he faces Mark Callous at GAB 90. Jesus, they really did bury this guy - even after trying to retcon it that they didn't "really".

[bradhindsight]

Also - loved PeteF3 on the show. Please bring him back prior to SuperBrawl III!

[El Boricua]

I wish I had been on this show only so I could have made a joke about this being at best the second biggest drawing show with Robocop as a main event bit player

I wonder what could have bested this show on Robocop's resume.

[Karl]

I think this was the first WCW PPV I saw as it was the first VHS released here in the UK - alas the VHS seems to have left off half the card, which was annoying. To me, it kind of summed up WCW - a lot of good stuff tempered by the likes of Robocop to damped the overall mood.

 

Great show guys.

[shoe]

A fun show guys. It really is amazing that 1990 was MX swan song. What a year to go out on.

[soup23]

Thank you Karl and Pete. Welcome to the board Karl.

 

MX in 1990 really feels like one of the better extended team runs that went out on a hot period.

[King Solomon]

Prior to this I diDn't know that WCW offered to purchase the AWA. As "Dr. D" would say "That was the day two fools met, the one who offered it and the one who didn't take it"

[Dustys Pencil]

Fun show the best thing about these shows is it makes me go back and watch some wrestling that I probably wouldn't look back on...so WCW 89/90 will be a part of my weekend viewing.

 

As a sports fan I always enjoyed Ross giving college sports credentials

 

There's a possibility that they made big money on that 900 hotline. People were really into match results(back when who won matches mattered) and I'd wager a large portion of the fan base was still without pay per view capability. And they would give match results on the hotline at $2 for the minute and $.45 each additional minute it wouldn't have taken that many calls to get to $80k. 900 numbers were ridiculously profitable for companies in the 80s

 

The 89/90 booking situation is probably the most fascinating aspect of the early WCW.

 

Luger was disliked by seemingly everyone except Sting so I'm sure thats why Flair refused to drop the strap to him

 

Robocop was such a big deal with kids which is really weird considering it was a Rated R movie. They even had a cartoon for awhile(shows how times have changed WWE couldnt even show clotheslines on their Saturday Morning Wrestling show)

 

And I agree there were too many tag matches using the same formula on this show

 

Boy do I hate that flimsy jungle gym cage

[marrklarr]

Too bad David Crockett never got that nipple clamp match that I want to believe he was constantly pushing for.