WWE 24/7 July-September 2007 Thread

[Guest DietSoda]

On the same subject, did Flair vs Lawler actually ever happen? I would imagine Flair found his way to Memphis at some point. If so, how was it? I could see them tearing it up for an hour, like Lawler and Race did.

[Guest jushin muta liger]

^Yes it did. I remember having the file from Ditch's site but I think I deleted it by accident. I only got to watch the Flair/Lawler interview segment before the match.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

Wasn't there some story about Lawler tricking Flair into wrestling him on TV? What's the deal with that?

[Guest jushin muta liger]

I don't know about that. I think it was the storyline on TV cause Flair was the NWA champ and said something like that to Lawler but I don't know the whole story.

[jdw]

September 30, 1985 in Memphis, TN

Mid-South Coliseum drawing 9,496

NWA World Champ Ric Flair beat Jerry Lawler via DQ

[Bix]

No footage of the 9/30/85 match ever aired, either as clips on WMC show (and its edited syndicated counterpart) or the Jackson, TN show that aired full house show matches. Lawler thought that the match was terrible, with Flair relying too heavily on the formula that the fans had seen on cable to a ridiculous degree: He set up the press slam off the top turnbuckle spot with Lawler, who was shorter than the average Flair opponent. Flair grabbed Lawler's arms and pulled them upward to try to make the spot work.

 

Their very good 10 minute match from the studio (I have the Louisville airdate as 8/14/82, which would theoretically make the match date 8/7, but results guru KrisZ says that 8/14 was the live Memphis show date) as part of a long, great angle has been a favorite of tape collectors for the past quarter century. An excellent copy of the 60 minute Louisvile version of the show is floating around on DVD, dubbed 2 generations from Cornette's original on SP VHS before being converted to an SP DVD.

[Al]

Basically the angle was Lawler wrestling Flair in the studio in an inpromptu match, with Flair fleeing from the ring. This supposedly made Lawler the champion, except Flair pointed out there was no contract.

 

Flair would visit Memphis on tour as champion, so the promotion frequently ran angles involving wrestlers vying for the challenger's spot. The Bockwinkel/Lawler match on 24/7 is part of an angle where both men are competing for the Mid-South title, because it means a shot at Flair.

[Bix]

Flair never actually came in for house shows in '82.

 

In '85, his match with Koko Ware did air on the Jackson, TN show.

[Jingus]

Does anyone think Lawler could have been successful in JCP?

Lawler thought that the match was terrible, with Flair relying too heavily on the formula that the fans had seen on cable to a ridiculous degree: He set up the press slam off the top turnbuckle spot with Lawler, who was shorter than the average Flair opponent. Flair grabbed Lawler's arms and pulled them upward to try to make the spot work.

And there's your answer. Was anyone else as short as Lawler successful in that company at that time? Tully was about the same height, but he's the only one I can come up with who worked on top. Even Ricky & Robert were a couple inches taller than the King. Even though JCP didn't place the same emphasis on height that Vince did, it still played a factor in who they hired and pushed.

[jdw]

No footage of the 9/30/85 match ever aired, either as clips on WMC show (and its edited syndicated counterpart) or the Jackson, TN show that aired full house show matches.

Didn't think so.

 

 

Their very good 10 minute match from the studio (I have the Louisville airdate as 8/14/82, which would theoretically make the match date 8/7, but results guru KrisZ says that 8/14 was the live Memphis show date) as part of a long, great angle has been a favorite of tape collectors for the past quarter century.

Yep. Seen that ages ago. Don't recall who had it that I saw it, and the angle/interviews from: Barnett, Munrai Tape, or Hoback.

 

Honestly... didn't think much of the match then, and probably would think less of it now. They just aren't that good of a match up. I'd rather watch them talk about each other than wrestle each other.

 

 

John

[Tim Evans]

It's not the match that makes it awesome. The whole angle leading to the match with Flair kissing up to Marlin and Russell, Lawler baiting Flair to change the match from facing a jobber to facing him for the title. And then after the match with Flair and Jimmy Hart. Just great stuff.

[Phil Schneider]

Man Great American Bash 1992 is as great as I remember it being. I am about half through and will throw up a review on SC, but has their ever been a greater tourney then the NWA Tag tourney? I guess you can argue for Super J, but I will take heavyweight tag wrestling over juniors wrestling any day

[Childs]

That's interesting. I've encountered more people ripping that tourney over the years than loving it. I've seen most of the matches, but I'll have to check it out as a whole experience. I know I liked Sting-Vader.

[Loss]

I seem to remember enjoying many parts of the tournament when I watched some of it last year, but that was admittedly nothing but the Windham/Rhodes matches. I love how strong Watts put over tag teams during his time in WCW. A full-time tag team like Barry and Dustin getting a clean win over established singles stars Rick Rude and Steve Austin was to me the most shocking decision of the night, at least outside of Sting doing a total clean job for Vader.

 

Tag team wrestling is so dead these days that I really think in order to rebuild it, it would take something this drastic. I've never understood why in WWE the top singles stars don't also show interest in the tag titles and have regular partners. I guess some of that is due to remnants of the stand-on-your-own mentality of the Attitude era being left behind, which in addition to killing managers, also killed tag teams. Yes, in 2000, the tag team division was fairly healthy, but it had been suffering for years prior to that, and continued to suffer for years after. Give credit to Matt and Jeff for getting over so strong as stars that the other tag teams were all able to benefit from working with them.

[Boondocks Kernoodle]

A full-time tag team like Barry and Dustin getting a clean win over established singles stars Rick Rude and Steve Austin was to me the most shocking decision of the night, at least outside of Sting doing a total clean job for Vader.

That was one of Watts' hallmarks as a booker. Two singles wrestlers shouldn't be able to beat a regular tag team. Besides which, it's not like Dustin and Barry weren't established singles stars too. I don't see anything surprising about that booking decision at all.

[Loss]

Windham and Rhodes were singles stars, but were lower on the card than Rude and Austin. While it wasn't Rude taking the fall, he hadn't done any jobs at this point in WCW, at least not any that aired on television. Rude and Austin lost as a team once before, but it was to Sting and Steamboat, who were in equal spots on the card.

[Al]

The wrestling on that show was fantastic, the problem was that there were too many face/face matchups. The two matches with Hase/Hashimoto were dead as the two were not well-known to the U.S. audience, and were not wrestling heel.

[Al]

To clarify, it's not that the crowd thought Hashimoto/Hase were no good. But they had no reason to feel emotional about them, and it really showed.

[jdw]

I seem to remember enjoying many parts of the tournament when I watched some of it last year, but that was admittedly nothing but the Windham/Rhodes matches. I love how strong Watts put over tag teams during his time in WCW. A full-time tag team like Barry and Dustin getting a clean win over established singles stars Rick Rude and Steve Austin was to me the most shocking decision of the night, at least outside of Sting doing a total clean job for Vader.

I thought Barry & Dustin going over was kind of obvious at the time. It seemed like a lock that Gordy & Williams were going to the Final after taking out the Steiners on the Clash. The only true face side in the bottom bracket was Barry & Dustin. The other teams were Rude & Austin, the Birds and Hashimoto & Hase.

 

To me the one upset of the tourny was Hash & Hase winning, and it was a minor one. The Birds would have given a more natural Hell-Face match up in the semi, so that gave them a slightly better chance of being the winners. But Watts & Co. gave New Japan a bone of having someone in the semis, which would match the one WCW wrestler to make the semis of the NWA Title tourny during the G1 in August. I would have said that was a 60-40 match with the Birds somehow cheating to get the win.

 

Vader over Sting was a major upset. It quickly became obvious as to "why" - Simmons getting pushed to the moon. It was obvious from just those first two months of Watts that he was going to push Simmons hard to try to recapture that JYD mojo. I had thought that Simmons might get pushed opposite Rude because the Rude-Steamer was over, since chasing the US Title against what was at the time the clear top heel in the company seemed like the perfect means to get Simmons over. In hindsight, I think it would have been the better route to go: keep the pressure off Simmons of having to be the man on top carrying things, and instead put him in the "co-main". Obviously I was wrong in how far to the moon Watts would push Ron.

 

 

John

[jdw]

Windham and Rhodes were singles stars, but were lower on the card than Rude and Austin. While it wasn't Rude taking the fall, he hadn't done any jobs at this point in WCW, at least not any that aired on television. Rude and Austin lost as a team once before, but it was to Sting and Steamboat, who were in equal spots on the card.

As Loss says, all four were "singles stars". Barry & Dustin were just forming their partnership, which alway seemed to have the point of breaking up.

 

I'm not 100% certain in the eyes of NWA/WCW fans that Barry was "lower ranked" than Rude. Rick was the "top heel" in the company, but that was largely by default at that moment - there were not Top Heels. In contrast, the company was loaded with Top Faces: Sting, Steamer and Barry had all been legendary challengers to Flair, two of them beating Rick for the title while the third looked like Ric's heir at one point.

 

Even NWA/WCW fans who followed the WWF wouldn't have thought Rude was any bigger. Setting aside Rick's time in Von Erich land since NWA/WCW hardcore fans thought it was a minor territory relative to their no national one:

 

* Barry won the WWF Tag Titles (1985) before Rude won the NWA Tag Titles (1986), and of course Barry later added an NWA Tag Title win with Lex on a major show (Clash I in 1988)

 

* Barry was a major World Title challenger (1987 in Crockettville) before Rude was (1990 in the WWF opposite Warrior).

 

* Barry won the #2 title in the NWA (US Title in 1988) before Rude did the same in the WWF (1989).

 

* the belt that currently was making Rude a Top Star (the US Title won in 1991) was one Barry won back in 1988

 

It was just a unique thing in the NWA/WCW where they had a period of no other established top heel between Luger going on vacation in late 1991 (and then leaving in early 1992) and Vader regaining the title at the end of 1993 for his run on top where he got truly established at a top heel.

 

On Austin vs. Dustin... Austin had the TV Title, so he kinda-sorts "won" the feud with Dustin. But if you recall how they were being pushed under Dusty's booking, Dustin was getting pushed down our throats. They were pushed very much as peers, but Austin was the Dusty-style heel while Dustin was Dusty #2 getting screwed out of the title.

 

I thought Barry & Dustin vs. Rude & Austin was a pretty straight up match up, where Dustin could get his payback for not winning the TV title.

 

 

John

[KrisZ]

Regarding Lawler and JCP, Lawler had a deal set with Crockett early in 1985 to get the world title before the end of the year. This was before the TBS merger and they did do co-promotions later in the year but by that time the plans for Lawler were squashed. Lawler wouldn't have made his retirement guarantee early in 1985 if he thought he wasn't getting the NWA title so after he didn't get it, he went on TV in December saying that he wasn't going to retire.

[sek69]

So I'm watching the WarGames matches in the shorties section, is the 1989 one (Midnights/Road Warriors/Dr Death vs Freebirds/Samoans) the only time Hayes, Gordy, and Garvin teamed as the Freebirds?

[Loss]

They had a couple of syndie squashes on Pro and Worldwide around that time, but otherwise, yes.

[Bix]

Holy crap, the Kowalski HOF matches include a '50s Texas Rasslin match and a '66 AWA TV match that includes "Cowboy" Jack Lanza. Impressive.

[sek69]

So the 1995 Wargames match that was supposed to be in the Shorties section never appeared, so I used my HAWT INSIDER CONNEX to find out what happened. I got this reply:

 

Hello,

 

 

 

Due to legal issues, the provider WWE has asked that the following asset be manually deleted immediately. WWE will send us a replacement for this asset some time in the next week.

 

 

 

PROVIDER: WWE_SVOD

 

TITLE: WCW War Games 1995

 

TITLE BRIEF: WCW War Games 1995

 

START: 2008-07-02

 

END: 2008-07-15

 

CATEGORY: Tier3/Premium Channels/WWE 24-7/Shorties

 

 

The match was Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger, and Sting vs Kamala the Ugandan Giant, The Zodiac, The Shark, and Meng so I wonder what kind of legal issue it might be. I wouldn't think it was any music related stuff, since the guys involved all had plain vanilla WCW themes (at least as far as I remember).