Loss

Is it time for our annual overrated juniors dome show match, or is this going to be an exception to the rule? Let's find out. El Samurai is in a red getup which I can't recall ever seeing him in, so I'm totally open to the idea of this being some bizarro world where juniors matches get over on these shows. Plus, these two work really well together, so maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised. There are absolutely things to like about this match, but it falls far more in the tradition of juniors at the Dome than I hoped for. You can argue that crowd reaction at a show like this is out of the control of the wrestlers, and I'd probably agree with you, but Otani not really going all out to sell Samurai's attack hurt this. Based on the way the match was laid out, I can only guess that the booking goal was to get Otani over as someone who can take a beating and make a comeback. Samurai throws some big moves at him, but Otani's selling is too average and subdued to work in this setting. Samurai probably outperformed Otani. He shows a lot more of his cards, but he's also the one carrying sequences. The loudest pop of the match -- which is almost audible, mind you -- comes when Samurai rolls through Otani's pin attempt after the top rope rana. The struggle for Otani to hit the dragon suplex at the end is also well done and puts a little more emphasis on the finish. But all in all, this isn't one for the ages for either guy.

Whipwreck gets beat up by various guys while Beck's "Loser" plays. The anti-highlight video is an awesome concept any time I see it, and it works better here than Joel Watts trying to make the Freebirds look silly with "The Boys Are Back In Town". I had no idea Mike Awesome was in ECW prior to 1998, but here he is throwing Mikey around.

Apparently, some people think Kama is the baddest man to walk the face of the earth. I wouldn't cross him, but really? My personal favorite Charles Wright gimmick is Papa Shango, and I'm not sure why he had to go get repackaged. Was this gimmick supposed to be a UFC parody?

Makes you wish Hogan and Flair weren't tied to TNA, because that would open up quite a few opportunities. Flair/Dusty would be incredible.

My only thought is that they would have had to do whatever it took to make sure they kept Barry Windham. Flair/Luger had appeal, obviously. I think heel Windham winning the title from a turned Flair had potential too. Maybe Luger still turns, with both of them blaming their previous allegiance shifts on Flair messing with their heads. Sting steps up to team with Flair and there you go. Here's another what-if: Bill Watts almost came in a few times. He even interviewed for the booking job at this point that went to Ole, but negotiations didn't go far because he wanted the ability to go over Herd's head and work directly with Jack Petrik. What if Bill Watts had come in at this point? I know 1992 WCW didn't work, but let's say Watts wasn't brought in and told to slash costs. Let's say he was brought in and told his primary goal was to compete with the WWF. How would things have turned out? I do think with Watts around, Doc and Gordy would have factored more heavily into plans, so they both might have ended up in or near the top mix.

This aired 4 days before the Clash. The 05/13/89 WCW had "prior to the bout, pre-taped comments from Lex Luger were shown in which he said he was going after NWA US Champion Michael Hayes and no one would stop him" type of comments. I would be interested when Dave has "Lex turns on Steamboat" in the WON. Wade doesn't have it until Lex wins the title back, and is very specific that we should expect Lex to turn on Ricky at the Clash. When Hayes won the title, Wade had nothing on the plans. In fact, his predictions the issue before are kind of funny: Lex racks Hayes while Steamboat nc Flair due to Funk run in. John Re-reading this thread, I want to clarify something. The more famous Luger rant where he interrupts the Funk/Steamboat tape was on 6/10. But the weekend after Wrestle War '89, Luger did a canned promo saying he was sick and tired of playing by the rules. Also, the Luger/Hayes title change back to Luger did air on Worldwide. Luger hooked the tights to win, further foreshadowing his turn. So if you look back at that time period, they likely knew they wanted to turn him at Wrestle War, considering that they had big plans for Sting and Flair was turning. You had Steamboat and Luger both as babyfaces and both lower on the card than they should have been, so turning Luger made sense because it gave them both something to do. Also, from reading the WONs at the time, they felt like Flair/Luger still had some milage even though they hadn't really feuded since Starrcade, and part of the Luger heel turn was to set Lex up as Flair's next challenger after the Funk feud ended. The expectation was that because both Flair and Luger were hot at that point that it would draw well. I think it would have, but Flair/Funk seemed to sputter to a finish after Clash 8 and Havoc, which I think cooled Flair off a little bit. They waited a little too long to do face Flair vs heel Luger, and they never did it on PPV. (Starrcade '89 doesn't count.) There is something interesting to be said about how they were drawing at this point. Sting's return at the Great American Bash drew disappointing numbers. Sting's first few rounds of house shows as champion drew disappointing numbers. Meanwhile, Flair/Luger after Wrestle War '90 drew better than anything else they were doing at the time. They weren't doing the business they were doing together in 1988, but the feud was doing far better at the gate than anything that came after it probably until the Hogan years. On shows that didn't have Flair/Luger on top, business dropped considerably. The post-Wrestle War '90 gates created a false high, and some in WCW felt that they had turned a corner.

Regarding Robocop, not an Ole thing. In the time period between Flair and Ole, Jim Herd and Jim Barnett were overseeing the booking. Ole did start booking around this time, but he didn't put together the Capital Combat card. He did lay out the finishes to all of the matches, but he didn't determine what the matches would be. We should consider ourselves lucky -- TBS wanted Robocop to single-handedly wipe out all of the Horsemen and the booking committee were adamant that this wouldn't happen. They downplayed his role at Capital Combat as much as they thought they could get away with. Robocop was the focal point of the advertising for the show (along with Sting, who didn't have a match), but they tried to keep it as low-key as they could. It's my understanding Cornette covers all of this in the Midnight Express scrapbook, but the backstage stories of stuff the company was putting him and the MX through are pretty crazy. They got it in their heads for whatever reason that the MX had to be broken up and spent the whole year trying to figure out how to do it. I've been reading the 1990 WONs lately to prepare for the next yearbook, and there have to be at least a half dozen stories about the MX/Cornette politics that would make you shake your head, and I'm only to September. Also, regarding the managers doing color, one of Ole's first moves was to pull them all from doing color commentary because he thought they were so entertaining that it babyfaced them and hurt the heat in the arenas.

Yeah, with RINGS, I end up really preferring the showmen like Dick Vrij because I don't fully understand all the matwork either. There are matches I like for sure, but it's not as easy for me to get into.

Very few indies are content to be indies, which I think is part of the issue. Piracy contributes to it also, but the idea that you can operate regionally and market yourselves nationally is only going to last so long, right?

Can you explain? New Japan seemed to always be doing native vs native as far back as I can remember. Is there a reason you don't consider the Tenryu WAR feud the shift? Were gaijin a big part of the top matches in New Japan in 1994?

It's cool. It took me some time to get into lucha, but I eventually grew to love it. There are some mat-based matches I think you'll find amazingly easy to enjoy later on the set that might shift your perception. Lucha matwork was always something I liked, but trios matches confused me for a while. Still, it's nice that you were at least open-minded enough to watch it even though you're generally not a fan of the style. There is an Atlantis/Emilio Charles match later on the set that's basically laid out like an Arn Anderson match that I think you'll enjoy quite a bit.

This match is exception ... does that mean you like it here?

All the skits with King Curtis after Slamboree were what started the Dungeon of Doom. Avalanche was Shark at that point, and Butcher was Zodiac. At this point, they are just a nameless group.

This pre-dated the Dungeon of Doom and is pretty much here for the reviving elbow and the Vader/Hogan stuff in the post-match.

Bob, you summed it up well. I will say that based on the comments from others in this thread and the general reception of their appearance on Raw, I'm alone in feeling that way and I'm okay with that. I'm glad people liked it. I wish I had.

TBS made them stop for legal reasons.

Interesting tidbit from the WON at the time: Flair/Luger at Capital Combat was originally going to be hair vs hair! No idea how they would have handled that.

That is absolutely insane. I don't think I could even watch a full show that lasted that long, much less a single match.

Was Kawada/Kojima in 2/05 an hour, or just close to an hour? I don't remember.

The difference is that people pretty universally pan those things, but are saying this was awesome. I love the Muppets and grew up watching them myself, so I get the appeal and I understand why people enjoyed it. There has probably been other stuff just as bad. But Vickie Guerrero thinking Miss Piggy was a real person and arguing with her while Jack Swagger made threats to Kermit was too much for me.

Well yeah, I see no reason to make "I'm glad I didn't watch" posts. To tell you the truth, I don't watch most weeks because modern WWE isn't really what I like in wrestling. It's a shame there's not a wrestling company out there that consistently has what I like, because if there was, I would watch that. So most of the time, the "If you don't like it, don't watch" applies to me, because I don't watch because I don't like it most of the time. The few times I do tune in (Punk angle, the Muppets), I end up remembering why I stopped watching. WWE is reliable for good matches pretty regularly, but the things I like the most in wrestling (traditional promos that hype matches, winning streaks and championship runs that last a long time, long-term booking with continuity that acknowledges the past and makes sense, wins and losses that matter and are remembered) aren't really things I can find anywhere these days. What you're seeing right now is someone waiting on the '95 yearbook to arrive who will happily go back to ignoring 2011 as soon as there's something else I can focus on.

I think it's pretty clearly Halloween. It's not a night when most people are at home.

Liking wrestling doesn't require one to like all wrestling. People who like and dislike aspects of what they watch are still fans. Argue the points people make, not the "negativity".

What was the point in posting that? I didn't like it. I'm not trying to convince anyone else that they shouldn't. I'm just posting that I don't. If you don't like that people don't like WWE, don't read message boards. Same argument, right?