PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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The All-Japan guy was Joel DEATON, who was also one of the Thunderfoots and did underneath work for JCP under the Deaton name. No relation to Len Denton. May or may not be related to fellow JCP underneath guy Vernon Deaton (lots of conflicting info over that). -
Random thoughts that come to me during the listen... Jerry Jarrett as WCW booker in 1990 is an all-timer of a What If. At the time, Jarrett was absolutely on fire in both Memphis and Dallas from a creativity standpoint. Of course, that leaves the future of those promotions in doubt and if he keeps all 3 of them he'd doubtless spread himself way too thin. I tend to agree with Chad that the general hotness of the promotion matters more than what's being "given away" on TV, even pre-Monday Night Wars. Lots and lots of promotions have put big matches on TV. All the Japan promotions, World Class, and Portland basically didn't run TV squashes at all. Mid-South always had hot television. It could be argued that Watts in particular burnt himself out, but I'm not sure how long of a shelf life any "boom period" in wrestling can really have no matter what you do, at least with the promoters running wrestling in 1990. "Local TV" = Worldwide and Pro. Or Superstars, Challenge, and Spotlight, for the WWF. There's no question the WWF was far ahead of WCW in this regard, with them running Event Centers. I know it doesn't sound all that intuitive, especially now, but wrestlers talking of coming to the Ohio Center or the Market Square Arena to settle their issue did matter. The WWF Event Centers had gone mostly generic at this point, but I do know Meltzer reported a noticeable uptick in ticket sales when the WWF ran a localized angle for Oakland where Dino Bravo put Hogan on a stretcher after a match with Earthquake, and Hogan appeared on Bay Area television discussing it and vowing revenge for the next show. Woman wasn't Sherri, but I do think she added to the Horsemen and the idea that they wanted Missy as their "only" woman is something I find imbecilic. Sheiky, incredibly, would stick around all the way through at least the end of 1990, with I don't think a single match on television. But he did work a full house show schedule. (EDIT: Sheiky turns up at the Bash, working his old enemy Mike Rotunda!) The racial stuff with Rocky King is every bit as bad as Meltzer makes it out to be. And yes, Flair and Ole's promos sucked, too. Even if the delivery and the lines were good, and some of them were, the content was so horribly distasteful that it can't be overlooked. I think Ole's issue re: managers on commentary is that they were entertaining on commentary to the point where it would endear them to fans and it would hurt their heel heat in arenas. I'm sure Jesse Ventura would have gotten cheers had he made house show appearances, though admittedly it never seemed to hurt Heenan. Objectively speaking (as objective as one can be about music) I have to go with U2 as the top rock band in the world at this point, though I think they were in sort of a transition period as Achtung Baby wasn't out yet. That Cappetta/Gigante interview makes sense in the abstract, but yeah, that didn’t come off well. I only have conversational knowledge of Spanish but Parv’s comments about Gigante’s charisma is spot-on: he is no Alfonso Morales or Pierroth, Jr. Not having seen Callous/Pillman specifically, I agree that he's looked better than expected in 1990. I can buy that this match was sort of underrated. Can't believe there was a J. Tapper shoutout. He must have been a personal stylist for some Turner bigwig, maybe Ted himself. Lameness of the finish aside, I liked that MX/R'nR match a whole lot. They didn't hit everything they tried, but there was some truly awesome shit there. Eaton coming off the top to cream Morton as he went for the huracanrana was one of the all-time great tag transition spots. I can think of a bunch of great Kroffat singles matches in All-Japan, but I'm not sure I can recall even seeing a singles Furnas match period, much less a really good one. These go-go-go Clashes are going to get worse before they get better. Clash XV in particular is a total mess in this regard. The difference between Gigante and Andre is pretty stark and definitive. Andre wasn't as tall, but he looked MASSIVE--he looked otherworldly, like a giant out of The Odyssey. Or The Princess Bride. Gigante didn't have any of that--he was just a skinny guy who happens to be freakishly tall. It's almost like expecting Conan O'Brien (who's 6'4") to come across as an intimidating wrestler. Main event performance worse than JYD...could Scott Steiner at the Royal Rumble against Triple H be a qualifier? Was Raja Lion vs. Giant Baba the main event of that card?
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Vader just levels Thames with a punch right at the bell. They could have ended the match right there. Vader ends up getting disqualified afterward, as Race manhandles the referee before putting paint on Thames, as Vader whips him with the strap. This whole show was built well--pity they couldn't get clearance in time to hype Ric Flair.
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Terrific promo from both guys. Doug is ready to slap Eddie around the next time he's late for a match, but quickly changes his tune when Eddie makes a surprise appearance in the studio. Eddie gives Doug a public dressing-down, but makes the mistake of asking Doug to walk to the back to talk the situation out, and naturally Doug clobbers him from behind. That sets up Eddie vs. Doug at the MSC this week. Hard for anyone to touch Eddie on the stick but Doug did a good job of keeping up with him here.
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Konnan kind of sucks, and his grass-skirt/tassle entrance gear is ludicrous, but his charisma is still off the charts. He does some really weird selling, sometimes taking crazy bumps for routine moves and then he can't/won't sell punches. Still, the other five guys pick up the slack from a work standpoint. Los Hermanos Dinamitas cream the babyfaces before the bell and put Santo away with an awesome triple-team submission--basically Caras does a gogoplata while the other two lock on half crabs. I want to see that for an Undertaker+partners-vs.-Shield 6-man. Konnan is about to join in on a dive train when Caras intercepts him with a jumping knee, then kicks him low to draw the decisive DQ. Really fun match--where did Caras & co. get the reputation as bad workers? Caras hasn't been anything less than awesome from what I've seen.
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I dunno, I think it's a closer call than people are giving credit for. 'Taker doesn't have as much muscle mass but he's taller than Hogan by a few inches. That is what we're talking about, right?
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I'm really not a fan of these long shticky, working-the-crowd segments in AAA. I mean, I can't deny that it's effective, because the crowd's way into it, but it's very WWF house show-y and not 1/10 as entertaining as the Brazos doing the same idea more creatively. But once that big dive train started, I was hooked. Not only did the dives look great, but they all hit 100%--even Rey's moonsault to the floor was dead-on, which is hard to do. I don't get what the finish was either--my only guess is that two of the rudos were counted out, but that only makes a modicum of sense. The referees kept on counting, though. Anyway, the second and third falls have more intense work from the rudos with some fierce brawling on the floor and that sick Samoan drop off the second turnbuckle that absolutely crushes Rey. Then we get another different kind of dive train, with everyone trying to jump off the turnbuckle into the ring and everyone missing. Psicosis is the man of the match here but Winners also turns in a great performance--knowing his reputation that he's not exactly a guy to be confused with Casas or Satanico as far as great workers go, I wonder if this may even be a career performance for him. Misterio and Heavy Metal both try to dropkick each other and both get nailed in the groin. The referees disagree over who fouled whom and I guess that leaves this as a draw. I don't mind the cheap finish because it was a complicated idea that was executed perfectly. Slow start but turned into a very fun match, possibly the best AAA trios match yet since the departure from LA.
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Good action, with Sting grabbing a strap given to Windham by Harley Race and clotheslining him for the pin. Sting then goes nuts afterward and hangs Windham with the strap! That's hardcore shit. Vader pulls Windham to safety and Mike Atkins awards Windham the victory by disqualification. More Omni hype--aw shit, it's been awhile since we had to hear that.
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Every promotion on the planet is at war with the other! Cornette and the Heavenly Bodies come out of the crowd and demand to see Bill Watts, who isn't returning Jim's phone calls. This is badly censored at points, like Cornette taking a shot at Jim Herd--I believe these are the first, ugly fingerprints of Eric Bischoff to appear on WCW programming. Can't have things getting too intense. Cornette is incensed that WCW television showed the Rock 'n Roll Express beating the Heavenly Bodies, and demands a public apology from Watts, lest he sue Ted Turner and reduce Watts to scrubbing bathrooms at CNN Center. Watts' crack about having to have his blood tested because of Cornette's presence gets left in, naturally. "I'll tell ya who you oughta to put in jail: you ought to have the Rock 'n Roll Express arrested for murder, they came out here last week and killed your ratings!" Watts shuts everybody up and gives them the opportunity to settle their dispute in the ring. Both teams are in street clothes, but are ready to wrestle anyway--somewhere Vince McMahon is horrified. The match is on and the crowd is electric, about the loudest you'll ever get in the antiseptic Center Stage environment. This could have been a perfunctory sprint, but they work in some great spots in here--cool reversals between Gibson and Lane, and Morton getting slingshot over the top rope to the floor. Lane is ON here--for a guy who'd been on the verge of quitting wrestling for years and would actually do it soon, you wouldn't be able to tell from his in-ring performances in '93. Weird to say but I have new respect for Sweet Stan as a worker. Bobby Eaton breaks up a pin after the double dropkick, which ends the match but not the fight. Veg-o-Matic with the tennis racket across Morton's throat! Cornette whacking referees and jobbers with the tennis racket never gets old. The Main Event follow-up to this is awesome as well. Watts and Bob Armstrong, making the most badass team of bureaucrats since the York Foundation, call Cornette & the Bodies out, and Watts ends up swapping them into SuperBrawl in place of the Wrecking Crew to face the Rock 'n Roll Express. Cornette laughs it off, saying he doesn't work for WCW, until Armstrong threatens to double the fine already levied on them and strip them of the tag titles. Cornette barely has time to get a tantrum in before Watts adds that the third Heavenly Body will be barred from ringside. That leads to the Bodies creating chaos during an "Underdog Challenge" match, laying waste to Joey Maggs and Mustafa Saed with Cornette ranting on the mic that there's nothing WCW can do--they don't work for them! More referees and jobbers get picked off with the racket and the scene legitimately feels like a proto-NWO invasion. I don't know where this ultimately was going--right as this television was airing, Watts and Ross were being booted from power. Part of me is hoping for a WCW vs. SMW WarGames, but another part of me is actually happy that Cornette and the Bodies ended up with a run in the WWF. This stuff was surreal, but that was on a whole other level--but I'm getting ahead of myself. Still, in a way, that did more to legitimize Smoky Mountain Wrestling, at least temporarily.
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Christopher rants about how smart he is while Doink puts bunny ears on Dave Brown's head. Christopher makes an AIDS crack that barely makes sense, but it's more in the delivery than the content with him, I guess. Brown looks nauseous even having to share screen time with Doink. Doink and Christopher have a conversation over which Beverly Hillbillies Jarrett and Lawler most resemble. Doink warns Lawler and Jarrett that they don't know what lurks behind the face. This is pure Jack Nicholson as the Joker, and it's fantastic.
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Lawler takes out his longtime frustrations with the WWF on the mic, and explains how he went to the WWF just to prove his points. This is a pretty brilliant way of explaining away his heelishness on WWF television--it's because he's from the South! Out comes, not Harvey Wippleman, but DOWNTOWN BRUNO to a tremendous studio audience reaction. BrunoMania runnin' wild! Apparently Howard Finkle thinks he's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but is in fact the biggest nothing since the invention of the zero. Lawler outs Finkle as one of Vince's main stooges who tries to boss around talent. Highlights from a WWF TV taping follow--Bruno doesn't need some "retarded lookin' geek" to conduct an interview. Yeah, this was definitely not taped for air on WWF TV. Finkle has enough of his browbeating but eats a Kamala chop and splash when he makes the mistake of confronting Harvey. A stretcher job for Finkle! This would have been so wild if they'd aired this on Superstars. And they DROP him. That part had to be a rib. And now Finkle gets to cut a green screen promo--"Downtown Bruno, my goodness...that has to be the STUPIDEST name I ever heard!" Holy shit, this lives up to the hype and then some. In some ways this is every bit as glorious of an interpromotional feud as WAR/New Japan. Finkle and McMahon had to have been dreaming for years of getting to cut loose as heels. Finkle is such a patronizing ass, it's fantastic. Bruno the redneck is going to show that Yankee white trash what's what, and we get a crowd singalong with the Bruno catchphrase. Bruno may not have pythons, but he's got a pair of earthworms! The last guy who came down talking like Finkle was Andy Kaufman--and Lawler says we all know what happened to him! Holy mother of God. This whole thing just kept getting better and better.
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Christopher is back out after another babyface squash, and Jarrett is stupid enough to oblige. This time it's oil on the floor that trips Jarrett up, and Doink is back on for yet another beatdown. LOOK AT THE CLOWN WORK JEFF JARRETT OVER! I'm not sure if Doink or Dave Brown is the MVP of this show.
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It's Bubba Johnson vs. Big Bertha Prentice this Monday night in a boxing match. Prentice confronts Texas during her promo, and cracks me up talking about how he would never want a body like Texas'--"you wish you looked as good as me!" Doink is back out and pies Texas. That is just ridi-ku-luss. Prentice stiffs Texas, just to add an exclamation point on all this. Dave Brown is disgusted and appalled--that Clown is getting to be a problem!
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The squash itself is kind of fun. Macklin's enthusiasm makes him hard to really hate, regardless of how poor a broadcaster he may be. Afterwards Brian Christopher calls out Lawler, allowing Doink to set up some banana peels on the floor--you can guess where that goes. Christopher and Doink put a beatdown on Lawler until Jarrett runs them off. Funny visual of Doink peeking his head through the curtain and giggling, then going serious. Bert Prentice makes a nuisance himself. Standard cheap-heat Memphis promo but Dave Brown is AWESOME, maybe legitimately pissed when he starts discussing all the men Bubba has taken the pants off of.
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Such a well-built angle, from Duggan bouncing off Yokozuna at first to jiggering Yokozuna's shoulder to Yokozuna's gradual weeble-wobble selling to the big moment where he goes down (the Royal Rumble finish apparently having been wiped from history). If there's one thing Duggan still knew how to do through the years, it was sell a beating. He does it here and he would work it to perfection some years later in the lone highlight of Goldberg's heel run. The anti-Japanese sentiment really comes off as absurd--Lawler even references 1941, which is insanely over the top. This would get worse, as the WWF attempted to portray the entire country of Japan as a heel instead of being content to push Yoko as a monster. Yokozuna Banzai Dropping the American flag is something else that would never fly today. The angle itself was great, though.
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And we have our contender for 1993's Worst Gimmick, as Jorge Gonzalez makes a staggeringly unnecessary jump to the WWF. I guess Vince felt he needed to at least give the guy a try, and I guess I can't even fault him for that. UT goes all-out to try to get him over, but this was a doomed program.
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The dogpiling elbows is possibly the spot of the year for the first month + 2 days. The only thing I hold against this is that it felt like it could have gone another ten minutes, but Nogami goes down relatively quickly. He did take an ass-beating here, with Hara just murdering him with strikes and Tenryu leveling him with probably the stiffest enzuigiri he ever did when Nogami made the mistake of bouncing off the ropes in Team WAR's corner. Another chaotic brawl afterwards, as Tenryu and his side continue to rack up victories. More of this feud, please!
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He'd just won the belt at the PPV, but was working without a contract. So naturally Vince pounced and offered him one. I always thought that was a fantastic dick move from Vince (if rewarding a longtime hand like Meng/Haku is a dick move)--as near-death as WCW was, it was still the perfect "I'm still watching you" message.