Loss

SULLIVAN, YOU HAVE FINALLY ARRIVED!

Al Snow and Unabomb have purchased TV time on SMW programming. Snow assures Unabomb he'll pay him back next week. Snow says the Rock & Rolls will NOT get another title shot, as they had their chance and they lost. They also say that something personal was taken out of Snow's bag and that they both know who's responsible. That person better be returned to him by next week or there will be hell to pay. Amusing.

Hot main event match when the technicos start getting in some of their own shots. Konnan's hairstyle is amusing, and he does look pretty good in a few sequences, surprisingly enough. Loved Parka's extended dancing in the final fall where he ends up tricking the rudos into triple-teaming Pentagon. A big part of the third fall is opening match/feeling out/comedy-type stuff, which seems a little late in the match. All the drama surrounding the coke bottle is fun, and this is a really terrific main event spectacle, even if it's not really that well laid out a match.

This has been explained before, I think by tomk, but that was intentional. 80s washout gone corporate. Plus, in the ring, he was the best heel of the three at this point.

There is probably a case for Eaton being the best guy anywhere in the world that year. I'm not sure he is, but he was talked about as a contender at that level at the time.

You may find the most amazing suit of all time and want to buy it. But if the suit doesn't fit, it's pointless. The amazing suit is the excitement level/drama/highspots. The fit is the logic.

One of my favorite "Oh WCW" things ever was listing the company that did the Black Scorpion's magic trick in the show-ending credits.

Dave posted this and later took it down. It came up on my RSS feed but is no longer on the web site. He fell for a very obviously fan-edited video. He is all over the place on this story.

In the latest WON, the FIRST ONE after that long report:

I still don't understand what the point of all of this back and forth is. "Ric Flair did it to pop the fans and he liked that" and "Ric Flair did it for the fans" are the exact same thing.

There is no exact quote. Dave paraphrased Flair. The word "kid" was never used. But whether it was or not, "Fans don't expect to see certain moves or spots in matches unless they're smart marks, therefore, Ric Flair is a liar" is a confusing point.

Saying something is "overrated" by arguing that other things matter too is creating a false paradigm, don't you think? To say wrestling making sense is important is not to say nothing else is.

To answer the thread's question, NO. Wrestling that makes sense is good wrestling. That they can make something fake logical is the fun of it. Otherwise, what's the point?

And by the way, that is pretty much what he says in his shoot. He admits that lots of things he did in his matches didn't make sense, but they got a reaction, so he didn't care.

I don't love this *quite* as much as others, but I do acknowledge and respect its greatness and think it's an all-time classic. This is a match about a team that is sick of Misawa being The Man. Taue just lost to him at the Carnival and we all know Kawada's story. They're willing to push the boundaries of sportsmanship as much as they need to in order to get the win. Simple moves from Kobashi that don't require desperation counters get them anyway. Taue kicking Kobashi in the knee just to break up an armbar early on really sets the tone of the match, and Kawada is a pretty slimy opportunist throughout this. The knee chokeslam is a given, but I also love the spot where Kobashi keeps trying to Irish whip Kawada and Kawada keeps blocking. Finally, Kawada decides to let him and uses the opportunity to cheapshot Misawa. At a certain point, this crosses the line from a team determined to win to a team whose win is inevitable. When Kobashi covers Misawa to just make all this stop and it doesn't stop, it's pretty clear that there's no way Kawada and Taue can't win. They look like world beaters, and in turn Kobashi looks like the big hero for taking so much punishment, even though he failed. And by the way, his performance is not enough to bring down this match, but I thought he was too "attention-seeking", if that makes sense. I wanted the spotlight on Misawa vs Kawada/Taue, but Kobashi kept overly dramatizing and got himself more over than I think he should have. But that's Kobashi, and he's so great at what he does that it's hard to fault him for it too much. All the kickouts at the end are perfectly in context of the match and feud, because Misawa is a guy who can withstand a lot, and of course it's going to take more to put him away than it does anyone else. I am probably the only person on the planet that thinks Misawa/Taue was better than this (if only slightly), but these are easily the top two matches of the year at this point.

I don't think when he told the story he was a kid at the time, but the only reason I bring that up is because I could see a college age person watching wrestling and looking for the same stuff that we look for. If Flair was a late teens/early 20s guy (mid 60s-ish), saw Stevens and saw something different, was disappointed because he wanted the familiar stuff and decided that was how he wanted to work, I don't think it's such an outlandish story. Like you said, true or not, he probably convinced himself at some point that it was true. It doesn't really matter if it's true or not, even. It's going to be his go-to. Him not saying "I like the pop" isn't underhanded or anything. It was me earlier in the thread who said he came off a bit dense in the shoot. When I hear Flair talk, I don't hear a guy who seems like he gets it, and it surprises me that his promos are so good when he doesn't really explain wrestling well when he's not performing.

Watching this, but paused to ask a question. I'd like some context on Kobashi's taped up knee since it's such a big part of the match. Did he get the injury in a match? If so, what match? Was it the Ace match at the end of May? I guess that was the last relatively high profile match he had before this one, right?

Why are you using kids as an example? Flair wasn't marketed to kids, and neither was the company where he made his name. It was the "adult" alternative to the WWF.

Moved the Flair talk in the power wrestler thread here, which I re-opened after moving the infamous Ginger Lynn stuff out of there to its own self-contained and closed thread. Feel free to resume the power wrestler talk, but the Flair conversation can go in the other thread. Jerry, a lot of what you mentioned was discussed in that thread, so you may find it an interesting read. Carry on.

Moved the Flair talk in the power wrestler thread here, moved the infamous Ginger Lynn stuff out of here to its own self-contained and closed thread, and re-opened this one.

Well, Flair's signature spots are not his offense as much as they are his bumps. Yes, he removed things over time, but when I think of Flair, I think of his bumps far more than his offense. I might have been disappointed if I saw him live and he didn't flip over the top turnbuckle or do the Flair flop. I do agree that Flair should just say something straightforward, though. What I thought was more interesting was that Arn and Tully really didn't like the way he worked with Sting and Luger and had a conversation with him about it. He said he had to work the matches the way he did because he had to teach them and try to draw money with them at the same time. All of that can be interpreted in a few ways, as I'm not sure what specifically Arn and Tully didn't like, or what Flair would have to work differently with someone in that predicament.

I agree with that. I remember the story of Sting asking Flair not long into their run why they did the same match every night, and Flair told him people want to see the familiar spots and feel disappointed when they don't get them.

If we're talking about Luger, we should also talk about Hogan.

I forget who it was Orndorff didn't want to do a TV job for, but that was the reason he left. Hansen, I think.