Superstar Sleeze

Sunny is the most underutilized talent in wrestling history. Backlund talking about banning Saturday night is funny. Vince is fucking hilarious in this setting. He is such an uncool dad but it works. His line about Mothet Smucker with a name like that she must be good referencing the food brand had me rolling.

WWF made two Christmas Carols centered about Sycho Sid powerbombing the shit out of people and they were GLORIOUS!!! FIND THEM AND REVEL IN THE GLORY OF SID!!!!

Anti-climatic. Shawn Michaels does his sarcastic fuck you shit which is fun and fine. Bret deserves it because he is a sanctimonious hypocrite. All the Bret bullshit that Shawn is a nancy boy and poses in Playgirl is so lame. I wanted Shawn to kick Bret's teeth down his throat for going on and on. SID! YES! YES! YES! POWERBOMB THESE TWO CRYBABIES TO HELL!!! Sid is by far the coolest muthafucka on RAW. Austin is a dangerous, sadistic prick. I cant get behind that. Sid is cool. Sid/Taker/Vader brawl. Good to see Vader in the mix.

I have been enjoying the Karate Fighters tournament. The best part was Sunny getting DQ'd for using bubble gum to her toy on this allowed Sable to make the finals. Lawler is facing Sable in the finals. Sable has her husband, the Wildman so Lawler brings out Triple H. Lawler throws fit after he loses to a woman. They beat up Mero. Goldust saves. Lawler is confused why Goldust would care if Triple H made a pass on Marlena if he is you know...Goldust says "what?" Lawler stammers you know and finally says Queer. Goldust says No and punches him. That is how you turn babyface by asserting your heterosexuality. Lame. Original Goldust gimmick was so fucking good. Babyface Goldust was so lame. Don't feel like making threads for the followup. Goldust keeps watching HHH's matches from the arena. Marlena is ridiculously hot. When you have Sunny, Marlena and Sable that is just an embarrassment of riches. HHH beats Mero after Mero misses the Merosault and hits the Pedigree. After being treated like shit, surprised to get HHH get the straight, clean win. Next week, HHH faces Flash Funk and again HHH has a forgettable but solid performance if it was not for connections I don't see why he got pushed. HHH clobbers Funk with the title to win but Funk still gets to hit the 450 splash. I am disappointed Lawler/Goldust only got like two minutes. Goldust/HHH brawl after HHH kidnaps Marlena caveman style. HHH throws Marlena to Mero, who is trying to stop him and Goldust runs over Marlena and Mero by accident. HHH kicks his ass hey HHH does get some heat on Goldust which he needed. It is weird but HHH has been the most prominent of these RAWs wrestling more frequently than the main eventers and having more storyline progression.

This thread was created solely to tell everyone to watch this match to see Sunny's entrance. Damn! I MEAN DOUBLE HOT DAMN! WOW! Sunny has had her eye on young Rocky. Lots of good innuendo. Sunny is really good on commentary. In the first Rocky/Sincere match about a month ago, Sincere kissed Rocky and she said "Now Im jealous" the way she said had me laughing out loud. These two have your basic, wrestling 101 match, but Sunny kills the game here.

I fast forwarded to the finish. Never heard of this and was totally surprised. Interesting. Billy takes a hot shot and sells it as a stinger, temporary paralysis. Wives rush the ring as does the medical team. This has Russo's fingerprints all over it. Novel idea to waste on a midcard match. Billy's selling was pretty good. Bart was atrocious. But by doing it on a midcard match makes it feel like it could happen anytime. I don't know. The follow up the following week was weak and to really sell it they should have had all the heavy hitters talking about it and make the repercussions felt in other storylines. That is the downfall of Russo booking, no follow-up.

Thus begins the Bret heel turn. I don't know if that was the intention, but that's how the promo feels. Bret is pissed at Austin & Shawn for fucking around in his match with Sid the previous night and costing him the belt. I agree with what Bret says in his book that the commentators were quasi-burying on RAW. He was wrestling fucking Fake Razor and Vince was all like I don't know if he will get another chance at the title. Austin/Vader was great in the same vein as Austin/Mankind not quite as good as that. Austin is so energetic at this point in his career. A bull in a China Shop. He is such a miserable son of a bitch too. Vader gets into it and starts clobbering him. Bret swears up and down he wont interfere, but he does. So much for being a role model, but that was the point. Bret gets a modicum of revenge by applying the Sharpshooter.

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Sycho Sid vs Bret Hart - WWF It's Time 1996 Shawn is definitely at a low point in his life, but goddamn if he doesn't come up with some real gems on commentary. Shawn mocking Bret as the Moral Judge of the Universe and calling Sid the biggest piece of luggage in history because he has to carry him everywhere is lol-worthy. Bret is not as good as carrying Sid to a great match because he forces Sid to wrestle his match. Bret is a grinder and he just grinds Sid into the ground forcing Sid to sell (yuck!) and work underneath. Stupid! Sid is a badass. Bret is a great seller! It could have been great. Just a dumb match from Bret that shows he didn't trust Sid at all. Lots of shades of grey booking in the main event. Sid seems to be straddling the line. Shawn is all over the place. Bret seems like a babyface, but wrestles this match as a heel, but Bret wrestles as a heel more often than not. The finish was great with Austin clipping the knee. Bulldog saves, but Owen is arguing. So that's interesting and definitely was Austin/Bulldog for Mania 13 before Shawn left. They take too long to get into finish losing some of the momentum. Shawn lets Bret have the chair. Sid decks Bret and is pissed at Shawn. Pie-faces him. Shawn takes exception to it. Gets on apron. Don't get on the apron in a Sid match! Sid throws Bret into Shawn and Sid powerbombs him for the win. The Master & Ruler of The World! ***** booking, pretty average match though. Bret by the numbers.

They call Hunter, Triple H in the video package. 1996 is such a cool year in the WWF. I feel like everyone had a distinct and interesting gimmick. The sadistic Greenwich snob that uses people vs the Macho Man/Liz reboot for the 90s is actually a good contrast. I think in terms of characters/gimmicks in WWF, 96-97 is the peak. This match unfortunately is not very good. They kinda skip the shine which is silly because Mero is over for two reasons: Sable and his moves. GIve the crowd something to invest in! HHH focuses this match on lots of cutoffs because he doesn't have any offense. There is not a whole lot of emotion in this match which is a problem with most HHH matches. I really liked the transition of HHH grabbing Sable using her as a human shield and then cheapshotting Mero. That's good heel work. But after that there is no gas. Mero does get to hit his cool moves. On commentary they informed us that Helmsley hit on Marlena. Thus beginning the babyface turn of Goldust, BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Just as Goldust was healing up they cut his balls off by turning him. Goldust should have had a main event heel run. Sad! Goldust attacks both men with the title. Mero wins by countount and is pissed and hits the real Shooting Star Press (see JR that's a Shooting Star Press!). Nice they send the crowd home happy with that finish. HHH looks like a chump two weeks in a row squashed by Sid on RAW and then this. Internet fans would be so pissed nowadays lol. HHH does need to get some heat in this Goldust feud. Meh match.

Squash match! Helmsley gets no offense. Eats a POWERBOMB! He rolls out for a countout loss. Vince's bitching out of the IC Champion was happening as early as 1996. Did it happen earlier than that? I feel like the prestige dropped when Jarrett/Razor were feuding and when Shawn dropped it due to Syracuse was the last straw. Interesting match. Also the opener which continues the trend of WWF not starting with promos but with big names in big matches (Bret/Owen, Austin/Mankind and now the World Champ).

I wouldn't say it is specifically this match, but I think 1996 in general shows the shift in the WWF landscape. These type of matches used to be the domain of WCW. Two random good, hard working midcarders having a workrate match. Here it is on WWF TV with the announcers extolling it for just that. I actually enjoy the Flash Funk gimmick quite a bit. The jumpsuit was shit, but the coat, hat and dancing is fun. I think wrestling fans just don't like fun sometimes. The babyface shine in this sucked and Scorpio seemed off. Snow doing a bunch of cool moves is so 90s. Overhead belly to belly to the floor was an impressive bump by Scorpio. By the end Scorpio gets a bunch of cool moves in and they are great. His moonsault may be the best ever. Jim Ross blowing the call of the 450 Splash as the Shooting Star Press after being such a prick about Vince not being call moves is rich. It is too bad Vince didn't know to correct him because that would have been great. Fun match, more interesting as a paradigm shift in WWF booking more than anything else but nothing extraordinary and pales in comparison to Rey Jr, Eddy and Benoit at the same time.

Sunny, HOLY SHIT! Good God in Heaven! Skipped most of the match. Caught the end and there was a total holy shit bump. They were going for a superplex and both of these muthafuckas just tumbled from the top rope to the floor. It looked scary as fuck. Of course because there are two bad muthas they no sell it and do some lame finish I cant remember. I don't care if that was not planned, they should have sold the hell out of it. Ahmed Johnson is rover like over getting the crowd to chant thunderously "Youre going down" at Faarooq.

Stone Cold Steve Austin vs Mankind - WWF RAW 11/18/96 The beginning of this match is fucking awesome. This is how you do an organic, out of control, chaotic brawl! Nothing feels rehearsed and everything feels earned. They are great at looking uncooperative with one another. Austin is just a total unhinged, loose canon psychopath. He is madder than a fucking hornet and is a total bull in the china shop. Him cutting out all that passé technical bullshit was the best thing that ever happened to him because he is so much more interesting here. Mankind takes a bunch of nutty bumps. I love Austin just kicking a field goal in between Mankind's legs at one point to stop his momentum. The match does peter out once it becomes a more conventional heat segment with Mankind working on top and eventually the Executioner (Terry Gordy) comes out to run interference. Definitely watch the beginning because it is incredible and demonstrated proto-Stone Cold brawling. ***1/2 Interesting on how these RAWs they tend to run the main events as openers kinda like the SNME's front-loading the show. I wonder when that changes.

Dustin vs Windham in 96 is SAD! Really should have gotten a blowoff to the DUUUUUUUUUSSTIN heel turn by Barry in late 92 with a badass series of matches in early 93.

Same RAW as Austin/Pillman gun angle. Sid is way cooler than Shawn here. Sid has crazy charisma. He is hilarious as a bully picking on Michaels. if Donald Trump was a wrestler, he would be Sid. Tons of charisma, but no talent. Sid calling Shawn little man felt fucking hot as hell. I thought this was a great heated segment. We see these type of lame orchestrated confrontations all the time, but I thought they did a good job making this feel uncomfortable with the shots each one was taking at each other and actually leading to getting psychical in an organic way.

I feel like Vince was way too quick to jump down Shawn's throat. Shawn was trying to convey anger about the situation but was not exactly working and I feel like Vince should not have undercut him there.

Never seen this before but have heard about since almost Day One of being a fan. Melanie Pillman was quite distracting to me in this. ;) I thought Brian and Austin were good in this. Austin is such a great psycho. You really believe that he is completely unhinged and dangerous as fuck. The Gun thing was stupid. It was funny Vince calling this promotional stunt when he was the one orchestrating it. Great shoot comment that was supposed to be a shoot comment moment.

I watched all the November RAWs recently as actually enjoyed these bits a lot. I love how once Sid wins the World Title, he gets too big for britches and pulls out of the tournament. WWF was killing it with the triumvirate of Sunny, Sable & Marlena.

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Jushin Thunder Liger vs AKIRA Nogami - NJPW 8/9/91 I skipped the Benoit title defense in July, but will re-watch later when I can actually watch matches that I don't already have on my harddrive. To me I thought this was a total spotfest after the opening matwork, which is odd because I thought this was some of the best juniors matwork of this era. I loved how surfboards were not given they had to be earned. We need to see that more. After that it was just bombs away! I have no problem with that because Liger may be my pick for the greatest offensive pro wrestler in history. I loved the Akira seeking dropkick that Akira almost avoided twice, but still got nailed. Then that dive from the top rope out into the crowd was insane! Liger is the man! But still there was stuff like Liger doing a Super Butterfly Suplex (awesome spot) and AKIRA was on offense shortly thereafter. That's what this was a string of bombs. Liger outclassed Akira, but Akira was not a total slouch. It was just a great spotfest. Liger misses a moonsault and then AKIRA hits a German for two. Great nearfall! That was a good transition. The fighting over the different suplexes before AKIRA settled into a butterfly suplex with a BRIDGE!!! WOW! AWESOME FINISH! I thought it was missing long term selling and transitions, but Liger's offense was incredible and that finish was all sorts of awesome. ***3/4

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Champion Norio Honaga vs Jushin Liger - NJPW 6/12/91 Jushin Liger finally gets the monkey off his back. He does so by wrestling within himself and not letting himself be provoked into anger. As a standalone match this is good, but in the context of the matches beforehand, this is excellent. Liger got all his hate out in May and now it is time to win the championship back. He knows he cant afford another loss and this may be his last crack at his title for a while if he loses. So he cant go apeshit and leave himself open to a fluke loss. Honaga has the balls to offer a handshake, which makes me smile and Liger slaps his hand away in disgust. You see Honaga try to goad Liger to the outside or to lash out in anger by going for the mask, but Liger stays cool. Honaga definitely loses a lot of his charm without the ballshots and scumbag tactics, but he still had some good cutoffs and offense. His dive to the outside where he completely belly flops on the concrete is insane! Liger beats the living shit out of him after that. Honaga gets some offense in, but this is the best hits of Jushin Thunder Liger in one compact, badass package. He finishes with Top Rope DDT to prove that he still is The Man. Not as great as their bloody brawls prior, but as a definitive climax that showed Liger needed to stay calm, play his own game and not play Honaga's game I thought it was excellent in the context of the story. ****

IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Champion Norio Honaga vs Jushin Liger - NJPW 5/31/91 I feel like no one says hey you gotta check out the Honaga vs Liger feud well they fucking should! Because this has been gold. I love how hate-filled the early 90s Liger feuds are (Sano, Honaga and Sammy) all have bloody brawls in their series. Not that mid-to-late 90s with their more technically inclined matches aren't great, but these are just superb. It really shows that the early Juniors style was more harkening back to the glory days of 70s and 80s bloody brawling. Here Honaga is more confident and is controlling on the mat. Liger seems tentative. Liger is able to use some speed and to create a Honaga mistake as he misses a clothesline. Big suplex over the top! DIVE FROM TOP TO THE FLOOR! Liger is feeling it and he wants the strap baby! Honaga gets the ballshot in when he kicks his leg up. Honaga tears the mask complete off and then just goes to town on Liger. Powerbomb onto the table again! But this time LIGER IS PISSED!!! Liger finally unleashes that can of whoop-ass we have been waiting for. He blasts Honaga repeatedly in the head with the chair. Honaga exposed the turnbuckles and Liger repeatedly sends his head into the buckles. Kneedrops and kicks to the head. Clawing at the open wound. Liger rips off the remnants of the mask and is just kicking ass. Ramping Honaga head in to hard metal and punching him with metal objects. Hell he pulls one out of my brother's playbook beating him with the turnbuckle padding. The thing is Liger wants revenge, inflict pain and humiliate Honaga, but he is not trying to put him away. That could spell disaster for Liger. Liger really needs to try to pin him. Liger goes for a bulldog and Honaga hoists him up and drops him balls first on the top rope. I love how ballshots are Honaga's way of transitioning. He doesn't get the top rope clothesline but the missile dropkick instead for two. Clothesline gets two. Did Liger really blow it? German -> 2! KAPPO KICK IN THE CORNER FOR LIGER!!! Here we go! Go for the win brutha! Liger, sunset flip in the corner, Honaga kneels down on it, hands on the ropes! Honage does it again! Liger blows it! Great progression here both booking and match execution. Liger finally gets a chance to tear into that piece of shit, Honaga, but overindulges and Honaga pulls out a cheap win. ****1/4

Jushin Liger vs Norio Honaga - NJPW 4/30/91 Vacant IWGP Jr Heavyweight Championship Liger vacated the title prior to the Top of the Super Juniors Tournament, which I believe was a way to invest more into the tournament. There was a TOSJ in 1988, but this was the first since then and there has been every year since 1991. These two squared off in March of '91 with Honaga getting the surprise upset victory after multitude of nefarious heel tactics. You could say after the loss, Liger vacated the title as a way to give him extra incentive to kick some ass in the tournament. The opening matwork shows Honaga can keep up, but it is maybe a half step behind. After working hold after hold, Liger starts to go off, dropkick, suplex, dive from the top. He looks to be running away with the match when SPLAT! Liger goes over the top rope and eats concrete. Honaga pounces on him from the top rope and then POWERBOMBS HIM ON A TABLE!!! HOLY SHIT! God Bless Honaga! Honaga rips the mask and piledriver gets two. Liger has to fight out of quite the hole. We see sparks of life like the dropkick from the ground to knock Honaga off the top or the belly to belly suplex, but each time Liger is coming up short. I actually really liked Liger's selling here. He felt like a team that could keep coming back from behind to tie the game, but could never really take the lead. I thought it created for some real tension. Liger making one last ditch effort to block the top rope clothesline scrambles up the ropes and there is a scuffle where it feels like the entire match would be decided and BALLSHOT! Love it! Clothesline from the top! 1-2-NO! Don't love it. The biggest misfire was the extra three nearfalls before Honaga wins with a human capture suplex. The way they were fighting on that top rope and then ballshot. Really ought to have been the finish. Like I said, I loved Liger going off early, but then eating concrete. He never fully recovered from the powerbomb on the table. I love when things that happen early in a match matter! Heat segment and hope spots were great. Only thing stopping this from classic status is the overwrought finish. Loved this! ****1/4

You all are crazy! This is fucking awesome! Shawn Michaels vs The Undertaker - WWF Ground Zero 1997 I am a total sucker for absolute chaotic brawls. I have this match a zillion times, but haven't watched it in a good 5 years and I thought it held up so well. Late '97 Shawn is one of my all-time favorite characters in and out of the ring. Undertaker is such a badass. It is just a great dynamic. The thing I noticed this time beneath all the hoopla was how well they worked the story in reverse. Undertaker was working that slow, punishing, stalking style you would associate with a heel. Shawn was peppering in hope spots but ultimately being cutoff as if he were the babyface. It all works though because Shawn is such a cocky little shit so you want to see his ass get handed to him and he was bumping huge like a heel. Undertaker is such an asskicker that you love to root for him. Telling David vs Goliath in reverse is no easy task and I thought they did a great job. Undertaker slugging the ref at the start is one of my all time favorite starts to a match. Shawn's reaction to get the hell out of Dodge was pitch perfect. Throwing the ref over the top rope to the floor at Shawn is probably the spot of the match in a match filled with great spots. Kicking Shawn's ass up and down the rampway. Shawn on his knee's knocking on the In Your House Door to be let out, Shawn falling ass over head down the ramp all great entertaining shit. Shawn tries all sorts of bullshit like pleading with the ref to have Taker DQ'd, clipping the knee, crotching Taker on the top rope. To no avail, the Creature from the Black Lagoon rises again and again. There is a part where Shawn crotches himself on the top rope and Taker shakes the ropes that is just amazing. Shawn's as a bumping lunatic is on fire here and Taker is dishing out the punishment. Love it! Shawn says fuck it and get a chair, which is how this whole mess started (Summerslam 97). Taker gets the chair is about to waffle HBK with it, but the ref grabs the chair. Shawn dropkicks Undertaker into the ref and into the chair. Finally an opening for Shawn! You really get the sense the little fucker had to earn it. He hits the top rope elbow and Undertaker presses him off onto the ref. Shawn cant win! Shawn's insurance policy, Rick Rude tosses him some knuckledusters and Shawn KOs Taker! HHH & Chyna with a 3rd ref, but 1-2-NO! I agree with the naysayers of this match that once D-X got involved it did start to drag. I really, really enjoyed Undertaker chokeslamming that Load, Earl Hebner after he did not get a three count. Really great spot. Tim White calls this whole clusterfuck off. The big brawl and then of course the iconic Undertaker dive over the top rope that wipes everyone out. Amazing spectacle. Just total chaos. Undertaker as the avenging stalker and Shawn Michaels as douche fighting for survival was quite the dynamic. All the ref violence was awesome. It felt like anything could happen. Tons of fun spots. It really, really put over the fact that you needed a really badass match to blow off this blood feud and hence Hell In A Cell was born. ****1/4

"Tanahashi is amazing" - Brad He sure fucking is!

I know I had Invasion Attack at *****. I had KOPW as my next highest at ****1/2. I never got around to watching the post-2013 stuff. I really should have finished it out.