PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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In hindsight, they'd have been better off saving Sting/Rude for last, with the excuse that Sting was going to be given every moment of available satellite time to make it back to the arena. Nonetheless, for such a nothing program in an anticlimactic slot with the chances of a title change being virtually nil, this is heated with a very good closing stretch. Luger escapes the top-rope bulldog via rope. Scott Steiner, Mr. Hughes, and Harley Race all get involved with Hughes eating a Frankensteiner. In all the chaos, Luger whacks Steiner with the title belt for the victory. Hey, whatever happened to Ron Simmons? -
The words "Dangerous Alliance" are uttered for the first time on this Yearbook. I can't say enough about how shockingly great Tony Schiavone has been this year. He was awesome rattling off Mid-Atlantic history during the tag title match and he's expressing some Lance-and-Dave levels of disgust with Rude and Paul E. here.
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This is one of the great sub-five-minute matches of all-time. Everything about this is great, from Paul E.'s promo talking about how Sting doesn't care about the Little Stingers, to the growing pop as the ambulance arrives and Sting gets out, to Paul E.'s panic, to the other babyfaces exhorting Sting to get to the ring. The match itself is a great sprint and a fantastic selling performance by Sting. He gets to show off what he can offensively, Rude gets some good opportunistic moves in, and Sting gets a big kickout after Paul E. whacks him with the phone. Another Paul E. distraction nets Rude the belt and the beginning of a great title reign.
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Is this the greatest substitute in wrestling history? I'm hard-pressed to think of another one that compares. The Enforcers have one of the all-time great heel reactions--"NOT RICKY STEAMBOAT!", Arn making bug-eyed faces, and then my possible favorite: Arn caressing his tag title belt, as though the match is already lost and he's giving it his goodbyes. This is the hottest WCW crowd since the beginning of the year if not all year, and after a fine babyface showcase we get some classic heeling by the Enforcers before the big comeback and victory. I don't think this was as good as the best 1990 tag matches involving the Midnights, Rock 'n Rolls, and Southern Boys, but it has a more compelling, "bigger" storyline and more star power to it, and that counts for a lot. I know business was a long way from turning around, but we've just seen the debut of Cactus, Rude, and Steamboat and coming soon will be Vader, Nikita, and others. Things are looking up for WCW in a post-Flair world.
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Just when you think the box angle has been forgotten, Sting is out to receive what he is told is his final box. A bunch of bodybuilders bring out a Middle Eastern-looking caravan, and out steps a belly-dancing Madusa, who evidently has more interest in Sting's Stinger than she let on. We're approaching the end of the year and we've come full circle with facepainted babyfaces being propositioned by female managers. Lex Luger clips Sting from behind and takes apart his bad knee. Good payoff. The fact that Luger vs. Sting has gotten no lip service at all has felt weird, and this is a good way to re-ignite a match-up that every WCW fan really wanted to see and also put it off at the same time, as Sting will have to deal with the re-injured knee as well as Rick Rude first. Am I imagining this or did Jake Roberts not ultimately take credit for the boxes ten months later?
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This is something the WWF would never, ever, EVER think of doing at this time--the Royal Rumble was as daring as it got in that regard. So in that sense it's an effective marketing gimmick for WCW. Still, I've never been crazy about all-tag-team shows, at least in the U.S., and you'd like for Starrcade to be a show to settle or start big feuds and storylines instead of acting as a gimmick PPV for the second time in three years.
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Dustin is serviceable here and Arn is brilliant with multitudes of career advice for the young Rhodes. Until children reach puberty, they should be seen and not heard, so Dustin needs to shut his mouth and listen. And he needs to not jump on the end of Barry Windham's lightning bolt (it sounds better when Arn says it)--"because the life you save may be your own." Dustin sees that there's no Larry Z around and challenges Arn to step into the ring, but Arn informs him that nothing in the world is free and walks off. At this point they're still hyping Windham as Dustin's (possible) partner at the Clash. I'll be interested to find out at what point Dustin's actual partner was signed. As of early November there was nothing in the Observers about it.
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Well, somebody obviously rented Willard (the original) or saw it in a hotel room. They decided to rip off the Undertaker, but Nate evidently couldn't decide if he wanted to be a Paul Bearer wannabe or a Brother Love wannabe, so he splits the difference and acts like a rat-loving amalgamation of both.
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Spirit of America represents the good ol' US of A by picking up trash. In-between heckling from Eric Embry he exhorts all of us to come out on a Saturday and Sunday to see how fun trash pick-up can be. Because nothing is more patriotic than court-appointed community service--come to think of it, that could have been one of the penances Sgt. Slaughter could have paid instead of going sightseeing. Embry unloads a trash can out of spite. Spirit tells us that Embry is the kind of trash he's here to clean up, and the sadness in his eyes is palpable. WCW wishes their marketing failures could be this spectacular.
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Has Vince viewed any interview segment in the history of the company as anything less than "most interesting"? Hogan is quickly weirded out upon entering the set and seeing his personalized casket. Nothing inside that except a Hulk poster, but before he can check the stand-up casket, here's Ric Flair out for a face-to-face confrontation. Regardless of what one might think of Hulk's mic skills, it's incredibly, incredibly difficult for any other performer to overshadow him in a segment, but Ric shows himself to be the Man here. Everything he says resonates and Hogan's response, even accounting that it's delivered with Undertaker sneaking up behind him, comes off as inconsequential. The WWF can be shameless and manipulative as can be seen in the previous Slaughter segment, but this illustrates what they do better than any other promotion you can imagine. Just an abundance of great images: Flair and Hogan face-to-face, UT coming from behind and the crowd screaming, Flair holding up both titles, Undertaker facing two men with chairs and standing tall, Undertaker yanking on Hogan's crucifix necklace and then dropping it like it's acid, and the cross laying on Hogan's prone body.
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"The people must speak for themselves," says Slaughter SECONDS before calling the students to attention and they respond like Pavlovian automatons. That bit of hilarious irony does not come close to making up for these segments. The kids mob Slaughter and this is as sickeningly pandering as any wrestling segment I've ever seen. Like I've said, they could have pulled off a Slaughter babyface turn, but he had to show some genuine penance--take a fireball from Adnan, or sacrifice himself to take a chairshot meant for Jim Duggan, or something. Taking a month-long break to visit a bunch of monuments doesn't cut it.
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Yep, my first exact thought was "This was a USWA-TX special." There is some good work here, from Morton's offense to Taylor's trash talking, to the abject fear of all three of the York Foundation at being separated from their precious computer. Even York makes herself useful at ringside, constantly badgering ring crew member Gordon Nelson for the key. Still, it's a waste to run a cage match on a syndie B-show and there's no heat for it at all. A somewhat disappointing end, if that's what it is, to this series and to the York Foundation in general. They take the loss but lay out the babyfaces afterward and only then does the cage truly come into play as a weapon.
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Another great showcase performance from Hansen, as his relentless assault really forces Misawa and Kawada out of their comfort zone and they have to fight for their lives. And Spivey actually pulls his weight here, too. This is the best organized-chaos All-Japan brawl since the Kawada/Taue 1/15 match, with Misawa getting in what comes across as a fluke 3-count with what's normally a mid-range move. This is another hollow-feeling victory for a tag team in Japan, a point that Hansen makes physically after the match. But needless to say it's a far, far better match than the joshi bout.
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Sloppy as all get-out, with nothing really mattering all that much in terms of any story being told. There were certainly some nifty double-team moves never seen before, even if a few were better-looking on the drawing board than in execution. Totally agree on the hollowness of the victory--by all rights, Inoue was dead save for a few (blown and late) pin saves. Their finisher was certainly quite finisher-worthy, at least. Pity Hokuto's shoulder was clearly up. Joshi is clearly a "big picture" style, for the most part, and thinking about the little details too much--no rules to speak of, refereeing and counting that doesn't come close to resembling even an illusion of actual officiating--will only make your head hurt. There must have been 3 or 4 separate occasions where a team clearly got a fall and the match ended on what clearly was not a fall. MLB umpires could take note.
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Not recalling the passage from the book, I guess there was a miscommunication towards the end where it looked like Flair called for a rolling reverse cradle and it didn't come, and Flair got sent over the ropes quickly afterward. It was covered very well by both men, in any case. This is Flair-by-numbers but in the WWF that's a refreshing sight--even in an odd role as Intercontinental title challenger, it may well be the closest WWF equivalent to Flair as the traveling champ. You could take this match and run it in Stampede in 1984, just swapping out Perfect for JR Foley or someone to set up future grudge matches.
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Even in 1991 Miss York had the technical foresight to keep her wrestler data on a VPN rather than risk damage on one internal hard drive. That or the laptop is a mere security blanket or placebo. I put way too much thought into this--I think I'm to the York Foundation gimmick what JVK is to IRS. Except IRS never had a performance as good as any of the six guys in this match--including Josh, and including Zenk. The YF provides some good offense and there's some nice fired-up babyface responses, especially from Dustin. Good finish as Rich is accidentally tagged with the computer by Taylor, but Josh checks on him rather than covers him, and Taylor gets another swing and Rich capitalizes for the pin. Rich gets busted open, which in and of itself is far from unusual but in 1991 I feel like we should be documenting all instances of blood on Big Two programming. There's actually a lot more of it than I remember.
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Good stiff-fest, but this still comes off as Tenryu slumming it, even against his old partner. His staying would have changed things in all sorts of ways but all these matches really do is make me want to see Tenryu work Misawa or Kawada in a competitive match. It does have me looking forward to the Hogan match, though. Other than Tenryu heaving that giant trophy the post-match attack is about 1/50 as cool or intense as your typical Memphis beatdown.
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Luger does project "arrogant douchebag" very well, and the impromptu match is fairly hot. Rick takes out Luger, Hughes, and Race in successive fashion before forcing the referee into counting a pin. An interview with Ross follows as Rick displays the value of a University of Michigan education. As a way to quickly thrust Rick into an unlikely title match this was good for what it was, but Rick seems less prepared for a World title match than Scott was earlier in the year.
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Good interview from Lawler making some sense out of a few disparate angles, none of which are all that heated on their own. First they tease a Unified title encounter between Lawler and Jarrett, which sounds promising. Then Lawler talks about his art skills and ties it into Billy Joe Travis' "Super Team," consisting of Jeff Gaylord and "this other goof." They'll be facing Lawler & Dundee Monday night. More community bulletin board material closes things out.