PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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He was never great, but I think '80s Idol is a lot better than his rep--"carry job" or not, he's been in an awful lot of pretty good matches to have the all-talk-can't-work label. That said, that was the '80s and this is 1990 when he's only semi-active. But this is perfectly acceptable with a surprise finish as Sam Lowe throws the towel in when Idol applies the Las Vegas Leglock. Even if it wasn't an actual submission I'm glad to see a match end with a submission hold, and the struggle to get the Leglock untangled was a nice touch in getting the thing over as well. -
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Lawler's doing the Randy Savage different-color-schemes-in-every-round thing, which I approve of. Definitely the best match so far as it was pretty much all action with no Memphis stalling. This takes some unique turns among its false finishes. An especially clever spot sees Lawler getting in a piledriver while Frank Morrell was bumped (after Slater had attempted to piledrive him numerous times, giving the babyface some moral high ground), but Slater yells about the piledriver as he's being covered and Morrell stops the count and the match goes on. Morrell actually comes across as a real-life competent official here, "letting 'em play" while still enforcing the rules.
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That's absurd that they couldn't book a "first man off his feet" finish like they said they were going to do when the rules changes were introduced. And these guys could have worked a great sequence around that. This was good stuff before that and a nice change of pace from the first two matches on tape.
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I love the setting already, with a full camera crew in the MSC along with the announcers, even if we don't really need 3 of them. Funk does the greatest oversell for getting spit in the face in history, and as a result turns this into a ringside brawl. Brown makes an okay comeback but takes one too many trips up top and Funk reverses a sunset flip into a tights-grabbing victory. Another fine Funk performance that whets the appetite for more to come.
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Fun stuff. Ace looked as good as I've ever seen him, apart from having a noticeably shitty Ace Crusher...which is a bit of a problem, but maybe it was just a fluke. Tsuruta and Taue's comeback was maybe a bit rushed, but structurally this match was fine. Just, as mentioned, a bit odd. It could be selection bias but at this point Kobashi honestly seems to be coming across as more of the #2 man on Misawa's team than Kawada.
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Contract signing footage from Chicago. Sting's spectacular outfit is the product of what would happen if Bret Hart were a member of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. No attack at the contract signing, but there is one later on as Sid lays out Sting with a chair and then gives him a piledriver on it. Sid reminds us that he rules the world.
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Well, the thing about these Memphis angles is that it's all about Guys Wanting Titles--period. Honestly the Adams/Austin feud is closer to Russo territory since Austin and Jeannie's goals are a little less clear, but at least there a.) the characters of all involved are consistent, and b.) it's building to grudge matches (or...MATCHES, period), if not titles. Without getting too far outside of 1990, here's hoping CM Punk--who seems to get it as much as the guys in Memphis do in these segments--can make reality cool again.
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Jarrett recaps what happened in the round-robin tournament, where he and Gilbert each cost the other the #1 seed. He's also captured the Southern title from Dick Slater. Eddie Gilbert, ALSO wearing a suit, which I love, comes out and rebuts and at first he's doing it in a calm, rational manner. His anger slowly builds, and even though he actually gives Jeff some props about how he earned his spot, he points out that Jerry Jarrett is signing people's paychecks (including Dave Brown, who only mentioned Jeff's Rookie of the Year Award and not Eddie's). Jarrett hits a verbal low blow of his own, pointing out that Gilbert's walked out on Memphis before and couldn't cut it in the NWA, then brings up his divorce! Holy shit! The personal shot is too much for Eddie, who sucker-punches Jarrett and then unloads on him with his dress shoe with some real stiff shots that bust Jeff open. Jeff does a gigantic bladejob and an unbelievably intense brawl breaks out that gets broken up and re-started a few times. Wow, wow, wow. I had no idea that the Lawler/Snowman incident could be topped, but I think it has been. This really had everything that angle had except that Gilbert and Jarrett are both miles ahead of Snowman as a talker. It had elements of real life, realistic shoot-style brawling, and even the same "shades of gray." Sucker-punch aside, Gilbert isn't a typical cowardly Memphis heel at ALL here--he's a guy who has a real point of view that he BELIEVES, and a point of view that maybe some people can actually relate to. Jarrett isn't nearly as strong on the mic but in no way does he come off as a legitimate Erik Watts/George Gulas type product of nepotism. THAT'S "shades of gray" booking, not Vince Russo bullshit where nobody actually has any point of view. A lot of Memphis studio brawls can be rather contrived and obvious, but the low-keyness of the early part of this segment made the sucker punch and brawl a legitimate surprise and something that came off naturally--an argument that legitimately got out of hand, rather than an excuse for cheap fighting. I've gone on about this and probably could go on even longer. I could be reading more into this than I should but I'm actually legitimately glad the car angle was a failure if it led to more booking like this. The car was all about shock value and this is all about real people in conflict. Maybe the single best non-match portion of this Yearbook.
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Eddie Marlin is out and once again have a belt (which may or may not be the belt). Terry Funk, Austin Idol, Dick Murdoch, Jerry Lawler, Bill Dundee, Jimmy Valiant, Eddie Gilbert, Mark Callous, Jeff Jarrett, Dan Davis, Doug Gilbert, John Tatum, Dirty White Boy, Brickhouse Brown, Steve Keirn, Gary Young, Jeff Gaylord, Abdul Hussein (from IRAQ!), The Samurai, King Cobra, and Dick Slater will be competing for the Unified title. Clips follow of Lawler winning the AWA World title from Curt Hennig. I'm actually a tad surprised they'd show clips of Lance Russell and a packed Mid-South Coliseum. Lawler's out in a suit and he's putting over the other talent in the tournament, thankfully. Another spiel about challenging all the other World Champions and finding out they're only company champions. Clips follow of Snowman's Leon Spinks-assisted title win as Lawler sort of semi-shoots on Snowman's lack of wrestling ability. Marlin calls Snowman out as a coward who wanted to handpick all of his opponents and cuts a promo on him. IF YOU HAVE TO HOCK THE UNIFIED WORLD TITLE TO A DRUG DEALER, THEN YOU ARE NOTHIN' IN MY BOOK. That gets a big pop. I guess they felt they needed to spell all this out in public with Snowman going back to radio and newspapers. In a way, accident or not, I'm not sure the Snowman angle could have ended in any other way. Big hard sell for this tournament. Drug deal tangents aside, this was a pretty classy segment that really got the championship over as a big deal--not always a staple of Memphis booking. (Hah--all typed up before seeing Loss' last sentence). This was about as good of a case of promotional damage control as you'll see.
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Martel is still hawking Arrogance, and this time Brother Love asks him to stick around due to the presence of guest Jake Roberts and his stinking snake. "I have always been the hired gun for my own stable / I am what Cain was to Abel." Goddamn, Jake was the man. I love the fact that he could drop lines like that as a babyface. While that goes on, Jake takes offense at Martel spraying Damian's bag, and when he confronts him about it a second time he gets Arrogance full-force in the eyes. While I still question if cologne can fuck up an eye as badly as Jake's will get, Jake sells it great and would continue to do so in scarily effective fashion. At 8 years old I was about as cynical a wrestling fan as you could get--I was smartened up at an early age and the Zeus push followed by the Warrior push had really soured me on the company as a whole. But holy shit, did this whole angle creep the fuck out of me. Chintzy set-up or not, this really is a preview of the multitude of intense WWF angles that would come the following year.
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I got interrupted during this and put into a real sour mood for work reasons, so I'll probably have to revisit later because I didn't see any way this was on the level of the Misawa/Jumbo matches or the 6-man that spawned this feud. It was really quite good, but...well, I called "time limit draw" about ten minutes into the match. There was a whole lot of sympathy placed on Taue here, with Kawada and Misawa focusing big on his pre-existing cut, and the presence of blood in a '90s All-Japan ring as well as chants for Taue gave this a unique atmosphere, in a bit more epic scope than the big singles brawl in January '91.
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