PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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In light of the insidious and inflammatory remarks and unmentionable actions of Bobby "The Brain" Heenan and Ravishing Rick Rude, it is Tunney's decision to indefinitely suspend Rude from active participation in the WWF, and to censor Heenan from any and all remarks directed towards the Big Boss Man's mother. In addition, Bobby Heenan must fulfill all of Rick Rude's contractual single-match obligations against the Big Boss Man. Failure to comply with this order will result in a lifetime suspension. Heenan tries to laugh off his comments and pleads for mercy from Tunney, but immediately packs up and goes when he thinks the cameras are off in a cute moment. Another great performance from Heenan but this is all as lame as it sounds. Rude was deserving of getting handcuffed and beaten down with a nightstick until he was taken out on a stretcher as a way of getting written out. -
Lawler or Jarrett, if they really wanted to push either the hot sauce or fireball angles harder than they did. Eric Embry, as we see in '92. Martel apologizes for Jake being a blundering fool who "stepped into the smell of Arrogance," but produces a white cane as a gift for Jake anyway. Vince's reaction is awesome. Jake, sporting the most badass Cosby sweater of all-time has to be led out to the set by Tony Garea. Brother Love uses the word "see" as often as he can as he walks around Jake belittling him. Once Jake realizes he has a white cane he takes a swing at Brother Love with it, then cuts a killer promo on Martel. Martel comes out and he and Brother Love and play keep away until Martel slaps Jake's sunglasses off. Brother Love cackles but leaves himself open to a DDT. That leaves the cameras open to get a shot of Jake's messed-up eyes and it's still a chilling sight now. In reality this is every bit as over-the-top and cartoony as any other WWF angle this year, but it's as impactful as almost any other angle executed this year in any promotion. The idea of being blinded in an accident is a real-life event that I would guess resonates deeply with a lot of people. Jake again gets most of the kudos but everyone--Love, Martel, Vince, and Piper--was great here.
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I'm saddened as we are rapidly approaching Jim Cornette's farewell to the NWA and as a regular on this Yearbook. The Nasties were never great interviews but they were usually decent, and this comes through here. They're really pushing the New Yorker angle with them, which would play fairly well in the South and was an aspect that the WWF would drop. There's a definite difference in production values in the Big Two's respective PPV reports that's evident here. Good-looking top of the card but holy fuck did WCW's undercard go to hell over the course of the year. J.W. Storm, Wildcat Wendell Cooley, the Master Blasters, and a Moondog all get PPV time. Let's not even discuss this time period in that big JTTS thread.
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The contract signing really gets the importance of this bout over--even with the language barrier Satanico comes off as a confident, proud motherfucker. You get a little bit of everything here. Dandy continues his run as the most versatile man in wrestling in 1990 by adding sympathy babyface to his repertoire of roles. Just when Dandy starts to make a comeback, he has to shove the referee out of position and Satanico takes the opportunity to fake a blow to the groin and that draws a DQ for the first fall. The second fall goes all blood-like as at the opening, the technical stuff is tossed out the window. In addition to the brawling and mat skills you probably have the two best guys in the country at throwing big bombs at each other, as both guys try to figure new ways to pick the opponent and drop him. Great payback spot finish as Satanico casually throws Dandy's arm over his head for a suplex and pokes the referee in the eye, and that's enough to draw another cheap DQ. Dandy manages to weather the storm from an angry Satanico in the third fall and gets in a Dandina Cradle for the victory, but nothing really seems settled. The DQ finishes were cheap but brilliant at the same time as now we're all left wanting another match.
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I have nothing substantial to add except that I really should have listed Harley Race in my Bubbling Under list. He might be at the top of that particular list, in fact.
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Don't ask me to think about order: - Terry Funk - Ric Flair - Nick Bockwinkel - Stan Hansen - Rey Misterio, Jr. - Jerry Lawler - Randy Savage - Vader - Tully Blanchard - Eddie Guerrero Guys Bubbling Under or Whom I Could Be Swayed On, or Could Otherwise Get There in the Future: Buddy Rose, Ronnie Garvin, Ricky Morton, Bobby Eaton, Ricky Steamboat, Barry Windham, Bob Backlund, Dick Murdoch, Terry Gordy, CM Punk, Destroyer, Daniel Bryan. I suspect Garvin would vault into the top 10 if we had more Knoxville or '70s footage in general--from what little we see he looks like an absolute tornado. This brings up another point in that I'm a little uncomfortable declaring "all-time" to mean "late 1970's to the present," as is the case for the lists here including mine. There's some token love to the Destroyer and that's it. Yes, footage is an issue, and this is a group that relies on what can be seen first. There aren't records and stats like there are for real sports where it's (somewhat) easier to evaluate Johnny Unitas against Drew Brees. Still, I have a hard time believing the 10 greatest (unmasked) workers of all-time all had their peaks after 1970. Having said THAT I'm equally as lost as to who to actually nominate from the pre-'70s era. Actually I think Pat O'Connor would probably make a personal top 10 GOAT because he looks better than Thesz in contemporary footage, had awesome stuff from 1975, and he looked pretty spry all the way up to the Bockwinkel match in 1981 or so. But...he isn't "U.S." If Regal doesn't fit the criteria then neither can Pat. Thesz will be a hard one to evaluate because there's a temptation to backlash against the deification he receives at places like Classics. I think he's a worthy contender at least. Buddy Rogers' career came to a rather sudden halt in 1963 and primo footage is spotty--honestly, I didn't much care for the Comiskey title change last time I saw it. Verne Gagne is another guy who strikes me as being better than Thesz at the same time period and was also a high-quality worker into the early '80s even with (or because of) a greatly reduced schedule.
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This is definitely one of the all-time great Fujiwara performances, as his opening punches in the corner followed by the headbutts are absolutely awesome. And the grin on his face after every Takada flurry makes him look like the toughest, most masochistic motherfucker in history. A really clever finish too--Fujiwara does his punch-and-headbutt-in-the-corner flurry for a 9.9 count on Takada, but gets a little too complacent with that sequence and when he does it again, Takada's ready for it and floors him with a kick for (what I think is) a rare TKO. This was one of those Ted DiBiase matches with the great opening and maybe a good finish, but with a middle that may as well have been cut out for how boring it was.
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Cornette presses Hayes & Garvin on the identity of their mystery partner for their Main Event match tomorrow--Buddy Roberts and Terry Gordy are teased, which is downright unfair. Hayes gets in some cheap slurs about American Indians, bringing out the Renegade Warriors to rebut--they wear paint because they're warriors, not sissies! Not a bad segment but it's really, really hard for me to get excited about the Renegade Warriors against anybody, and even harder when that "anybody" is the '90s Freebirds.
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Dirty White Boy has offered to set up Brickhouse Brown on a date, and produces a picture of the Dirty White Girl's maid, "Sweet Georgia Brown"--Brickhouse in the wig and make-up from the past studio angle. The USWA went over its Unified title rankings earlier, which is a nice touch. Doug Gilbert complements that by running down the top contenders to the Tag Titles--fearsome names such as the Fabulous Kangaroos, the Interns, Kurt & Karl Von Brauner, and Ken Raper & Freezer Thompson. Oh, and Brickhouse Brown & Dan Davis at #100. Dave Brown's exasperated reactions to the names are what really enhance this. DWG has sort of developed a ditzy rich-white-trash persona. She gets the champions' challenge over, at least: Davis & Brown can have a title shot if they put up $5,000 that they've previously won from Doug.
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Highlights of Callous set to AC/DC music as he absolutely brutalizes some guys. Amazing that WCW was unable to hang on to this guy when they had him. Lawler puts over the advantages of Mean Mark having Downtown Bruno in his corner, the deadliness of the heart punch, and his inability to pin Callous in the tournament. Good, to-the-point stuff.
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Let's not overlook the "dream match" factor--in a PWI MOTY discussion, that matters. Even if you didn't specifically lay in bed at night dreaming of such a match, it was WCW's two top singles babyfaces taking on the top babyface tag team. It's a few years after the equivalent of Dusty & Magnum going against the Rock 'n Roll Express, or maybe the MegaPowers against Demolition. These matches just didn't happen in the early '90s. Workrate is usually a secondary (or nonexistent) factor in judging PWI awards.
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This reminds me of something Abraham Lincoln supposedly said, when prodded about his excessively long legs: legs must only be long enough to reach the ground. There have been matches on the yearbook/'80s sets that ended just as they got going, and there have been matches on the sets that needed an editor. The first Larry Z/Bockwinkel match on the AWA set barely goes 5 minutes and Larry gets in all of one offensive move, but I could see it finishing in my top 25, because it told everything that it needed to tell in that time.
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Yes, they teamed up at the beginning of Greg's career. Fun note: so as not to make Johnny out to be too old, they were initially billed as the Valentine Brothers.
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Marquee Moon A compendium of main event matches in which the heels' tights were pulled down.
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Didn't need a payoff, though one could easily inquire as to why we needed a cage otherwise. If Bull had won outright I'd be perfectly fine with that. I'm just not a fan of Bull's "first" loss (that we see) coming in rather screwy fashion, with the purposely shitty officiating and cage escape. God help me for making this comparison but it's not unlike Ryback's first loss coming as a result of a cheap referee double-cross/fast-count.
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I'm still getting freaked out watching Jake's treatment. Martel gives us a preview of the Axe/Tag body spray ad campaign--Arrogance will make babes 18 to 80 crawl all over you. You'd think Rude and Martel would be natural allies--or enemies. Rude is back to being a cartoon character--he's trying but this material is not what he needed at all. I prefer Heenan trying to paint himself as standing up for all the prisoners that the Boss Man abused in jail. I wonder how long they were sitting on the idea of Nailz.
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Taue and Kobashi both take a real beating here, as both men step up to fill the void of Tsuyoshi Kikuchi as designated whipping boy. I loved Kobashi popping out of his half crab to level Jumbo with a lariat when he tried to make the save, and Jumbo replaying the same spot later when Misawa tries to break up the power bomb attempt. This is based a little more on heated brawling than later 6-mans in this feud which were based on pretty moves, though we had those here, too. All that said, I think the two earlier 6-mans were both better.