Loss
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Now Slick is attempting to recruit Andre the Giant. Slick is standing by a car with an open trunk, so you can guess how it ends up. The WWF's patterned booking is on display here. They love to take a single concept, repeat it with different people, and keep doing that until the point is made. Maybe that's all wrestling, I don't know, but it's definitely WWF wrestling. -
It's kind of odd that this is the first RINGS match on the yearbook. In the long run, it would be the promotion that pushed the most "real" style of the three, but this is so much more showy than the Tamura/Kakihara match. It felt more calculated, because the work in the ring was nothing at all special, but the personalities were big, and it seemed like a good way to get the new promotion off the ground by giving Maeda a charismatic foreigner to best in the main event.
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And the UWF has now ceased operations, with three promotions (UWFI, RINGS and PWFG) rising from the ashes. The matwork was really engaging, but what made this stand out more than anything was the feel of two young guys really laying it all out to try to make a name for themselves. Some people look at this style as its own animal, but the character work here proves that despite any other difference, this is still just pro wrestling.
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This is a great quality handheld that I really wanted to include. It's one of those matches I remember "hearing" about, but I have no idea where. It may have been talked about in the WON, or it may have been something on some best of 1991 comps. I'm not sure. I may have even made it up in my head. All I know is that this is a strong year for both guys and they were given plenty of time, so it felt right to include this. The match doesn't disappoint at all. In terms of execution, this is pretty peerless. The matwork was really urgent and vicious, and they didn't make a huge deal of the junior vs heavy dynamic, which I appreciated, as it would have seemed out of place. They really sold the effects of all the strong matwork for the first 20 minutes of this in a big way, so the bomb dropping down the final stretch seems like two guys just getting desperate to get a lucky win. I'm not sure I've ever seen Hase look better than he does in this match.
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Embry is out to respond to Keirn, and they seem to be setting up yet another program for him. That's the one downside to Embry's booking - he ends up in multiple feuds at the same time, even when there are other people who are capable of filling spots hanging around. He does a final hard sell for Monday night's barbed wire match.
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Highlights of some type of bunkhouse, barbed wire match featuring most of the big stars in the promotion at the time. Lots of wild brawling and blood all over the place, so whatever it is, I'm all for it. Embry, Pritchard, Dundee, Jarrett, Austin, Fuller and the Texas Hangmen I think are involved.
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Marlin explains that the barbed wire match will be a different kind than usual. Instead of wrapping barbed wire around the ring, there will be a glove wrapped in barbed wire. It sounds like it's going to be a coal miner's glove barbed wire match. I'm still impressed at how seamlessly Gilbert has gone from having the best heel run of his career to having the best babyface run of his career. Gilbert doesn't think women belong in pro wrestling, which sounds like post-divorce venting.
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Last few minutes of a Mid South Coliseum match between the two that looks to have been pretty bloody. Embry piledrives Gilbert on a briefcase and beats up the referee. Miss Texas enters the ring with barbed wire, and Gilbert is wrapped in it while they grate it all over him and Miss Texas slaps him. Good Lord! Eddie Marlin mercifully puts a stop to all of this and ends up in a screaming match with Embry on the house mic. This was a horrifying angle that feels like it should be more remembered. Back in the studio, Embry, Pritchard and Miss Texas gloat about what they did on Monday night. Embry may have been electrocuted before this interview, based on his hairstyle. They are pretty obviously building to a barbed wire match with these two. Embry continues taking shots at a resting Lawler, taking credit for sidelining him, to keep a Lawler/Embry feud fresh in people's minds for Lawler's eventual return. Embry is a good booker.
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I think IRS inadvertently told all of the child fans where babies come from. This is a riot. "You can't spare $1 to support the democratic process? What are you, some type of subversive?" Like Pete said, these vignettes do a great job of everything except explaining why exactly he's a wrestler.
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Hogan is a smart babyface, checking all of Undertaker's now-known hiding spaces immediately to ensure the same thing doesn't happen to him that happened to Warrior. In retrospect, they did a really good job of teasing Hogan vs Undertaker all year. Bearer's facial expressions when Hogan is talking are so awesomely exaggerated. Hogan ends the segment by throwing Paul Bearer in one of the caskets.
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Any wrestling match where the participants wear jeans, cowboy boots and kneepads starts off at a huge advantage for me. It's a little more tame than your usual street fight, as they are actually tagging in and out instead of following tornado rules. But what they lack in chaos they make up for in intensity and structure. This is a really strong traditional tag match with more violent tendencies with things like chokes and boot shots, and maybe it's the outfits, but the execution of everything also looks top notch. If this match is judged on the merits of traditional tag matches instead of as a comparison to other street fights, it's a great match that I think people will really like. I've seen better wrestlers early on than Austin, but Austin worked so hard in every match he was in and it's endearing. Here, he looks excellent, which I think is partially because Pritchard is so good at heel tactics and Jarrett is so good at selling that he had strong foils. Robert Fuller is the master of making me care about everything he does, and I think it's because he wrestles with so much emotion. All the briefcase stuff at the end is one great crowd pleasing spot after another. Probably my favorite USWA Texas match of either 1990 or 1991.
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El Dandy is alive! That his boots say NWA on them is super cool to me for some reason. Dandy is remarkably athletic, and Super Porky does perhaps the most exaggerated sell of a tope in wrestling history to close out the first fall. There's lots of comedy here. It's not the best match, but it's a really charming match, which is how I'd describe all the Brazos matches in 1991 so far.
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April: #1 - Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi vs Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi (AJPW 04/20/91) ****3/4 #2 - Akira Hokuto vs Suzuka Minami (AJW 04/29/91) ****1/2 #3 - Aja Kong & Bison Kimura vs Manami Toyota & Esther Moreno (AJW 04/29/91) ****1/4 #4 - Jushin Liger vs Norio Honaga (NJPW 04/30/91) ****1/4 #5 - Ric Flair vs Brian Pillman (WCW Saturday Night 04/13/91) **** #6 - Toshiaki Kawada vs Akira Taue (AJPW 04/18/91) **** #7 - Jumbo Tsuruta vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 04/06/91) **** #8 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jumbo Tsuruta (AJPW 04/18/91) **** #9 - Jeff Jarrett vs Tom Pritchard (USWA Dallas Sportatorium 04/12/91) **** #10 - Stan Hansen & Dan Spivey vs Steve Williams & Terry Gordy (AJPW 04/18/91) ***3/4 #11 - Jushin Liger vs Owen Hart (NJPW 04/28/91) ***3/4 #12 - Barry Windham vs Brian Pillman (WCW Pro 04/06/91) ***3/4 #13 - Ric Flair & Barry Windham vs Ricky Morton & Tommy Rich (WCW Worldwide 04/06/91) ***1/2 #14 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 04/05/91) ***1/2 #15 - Kenta Kobashi vs Dan Kroffat (AJPW 04/18/91) ***1/4 #16 - Riki Choshu & Tatsumi Fujinami vs Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki (NJPW 04/30/91) ***1/4 #17 - Jushin Liger vs Negro Casas (NJPW 04/30/91) *** #18 - Bret Hart vs Ted DiBiase (WWF Saturday Night's Main Event 04/27/91) *** #19 - Hulk Hogan vs Yoshiaki Yatsu (WWF/SWS Wrestlefest at the Tokyo Dome 04/01/91) *** #20 - Barry Windham vs Brian Pillman (WCW Worldwide 04/27/91) #21 - Jeff Jarrett vs Tom Pritchard (USWA Dallas Sportatorium 04/19/91) #22 - Sgt. Slaughter vs Ultimate Warrior (WWF Saturday Night's Main Event 04/27/91) #23 - Pegasus Kid vs Norio Honaga (NJPW 04/30/91) #24 - Jerry Lawler vs Eric Embry (USWA Dallas Sportatorium 04/05/91) #25 - Octagon vs Satanico (CMLL 04/12/91) #26 - Eric Embry vs Bill Dundee (USWA Dallas Sportatorium 04/12/91) #27 - Roddy Piper vs Ted DiBiase (WWF MSG Network 04/22/91)
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Ultimate Warrior does a solemn interview reflecting on being locked in the casket, with even Warrior and Heenan being sort of cordial. This felt like an attempt to humanize Warrior, and it continues to baffle me how much better they have used him in 1991 since dropping the title. Vince and Warrior in those outfits next to each other is amusing.
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This feels like the time period when Hase was at his best. Athletically, he is an animal in this. The snap in his execution and the way he applies holds is really crisp and intense. Choshu as the elder statesman who doesn't have to do as much as his opponents because every single he does he makes count is a dynamic I always enjoy. Sasaki and Fujinami are fine, and Choshu was good, but in the end, it was Hase who stood out to me more than anyone. Solid match.
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I thought they delivered a GREAT match that felt really big. Honaga is an interesting wrestler -- not at all consistent, but a guy who shows flashes of being excellent, where it occasionally surfaces in a way that works. He's also an effective heel. Here, Honaga wrestles like a far less athletic Benoit, getting really aggressive and even using some of Benoit's trademark moves. I thought the momentum shifts were really well done and everything they did seemed to be for the purpose of getting heat more than showing off. Honaga's low blow to stop Liger from doing the top rope DDT was an awesome, proto-Chono moment. I also love how into this the crowd is. The end result is that you have a match being fueled by attitude and aura, which makes it somewhat unique among NJ juniors matches. It feels more like two smaller guys working a higher-end NJ heavies match than a NJ juniors match, and while I enjoy the junior style most of the time, I do intend that to be quite the compliment. (I also liked the deadlift German for the finish, and thought it fit the match quite well.)
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You have ancedotal experience I don't want to discredit. I'm going off of what was reported at the time. I mainly brought it up because it's a huge asterisk in the point being made about Benoit's ability to emotionally connect with fans. I do agree that Benoit had periods of being very over. Interestingly enough, I always thought WCW crowds took to him way more than WWE crowds.
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Well that settles that then.
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It doesn't mean that the plants were the only ones doing it. It just means it was their idea. And it was mentioned in response to the specific point of Benoit moving people to do standing ovations.
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Agreed. I think it's in bad tastes, at least when he just died yesterday.