PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Jeannie threatens to come out with a tell-all book about her marriage to Chris Adams that will be better than what's in the National Enquirer. She then cuts a really great promo on the wives of the World Class viewing audience, saying that when they're snuggled up in bed that they're actually thinking about her. -
We get a recap of the match from 5/18 that we apparently missed out on--Dundee's boot had gotten removed and Tessa tossed it into the ring. Dundee caught it and hit Tatum with it for the pin--so whom did Tessa throw the boot to? Tatum declares that it was a mistake anybody could have made and coerces Tessa into declaring her love for Tatum. Dundee isn't interested in fighting and gives up his interview time to Tatum, only to get leveled from behind and posted, all while Tatum dares Tessa to take Dundee now.
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Weird segment with Gary Young more or less outing himself as the culprit who apparently destroyed a surprise party set-up for Kerry Von Erich. This looks like a babyface turn for Terrence Garvin when suddenly he hands Young his $1000 payoff and Young jumps KVE, and both heels take off. Fun little swerve even if this feud set-up doesn't make a great deal of sense. A Von Erich *would* be taken in by a trick like that.
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Yeah, Kerry is almost Hogan-esque in his complaining about how everyone is against him. Pringle comes off as incredibly reasonable in his defense of his viewpoint. On the other hand, even if it was unintentional it's a nice way of building to a turn without giving it away. "Matt Borne either leaves...or he stays." How Zen. "But if he stays, he'll be injured." Like the similarly coherent Jimmy Snuka, Kerry does have an undeniable presence on the stick even when he isn't making sense. I don't see how it's possible that the Texas-raised Kerry and Oregon-raised Borne could have been longtime friends, but Kerry does sound sincere.
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THE NEW FAMILY ENTERTAINMENT. Ted Turner is the "owner of the NWA." I can see a few prominent wrestling authorities' heads exploding as we speak. $33 million in revenues the first year! Higher ratings than the baseball and basketball teams! Well, considering how awful the Braves and Hawks had been I'll buy the second one. (And of course Georgia was a ratings powerhouse and more or less kept the burgeoning SuperStation afloat during the rocky first few years). WCW's shameless attempts to pander to kids in this segment are pretty galling. Appealing to kids is fine and desirable, but I think even the modern PG-rated WWE is less up-front about it. Jim Nelson gets about 3 seconds of lip service and then disappears. Connie levels us with the revelation that "million dollar salaries and championship titles" are decided more by public appeal than athletic ability. Jim Herd confirms this by saying he won't put a popular wrestler in with someone who can tear him apart. Christ, breaking kayfabe outright probably would have come across better than that. Sting's knee injury resulted in millions in lost revenues for WCW, but nothing to fear--George Gonzalez is waiting in the wings.
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It's way down on the list of things to talk about in this angle, but since it's the last thing we hear...along with seeing the "serious" side of Bobby the Brain we finally get to see the serious side of Lawler as a heel. The one-liners are funny but it's nice to see Lawler actually putting over his opponent and claiming to be the superior wrestler and not just better because his opponent is a talentless idiot. Now, P.T. Anderson coined the term "gearshift movies" for movies that start in one direction and suddenly stop on a dime and veer into another territory--this is a gearshift angle and it's something I always mark out for*. Lawler is out giving a good but standard promo about Kerry Von Erich when the Snowman and Eddie Marlin are suddenly out arguing over what Snowman declares is a fear on the part of Memphis wrestling of having a "black King," while he also takes shots at Lawler for his comments about black people on welfare and his other snide comments. Marlin says that's bullshit and invokes the names of Brickhouse Brown and others who have been in the territory, all of whom are dismissed by Snowman. Lawler points out that King Cobra beat him for the title, but Snowman says that doesn't matter because the belt is back with Lawler. Eventually security gets Snowman out after a series of false starts and a promise to get a ticket for the Mid-South Coliseum, then Lawler continues the weirdness by VERY sternly addressing a heckler. Lawler briefly continues to defend the promotion's stance on black wrestlers after Snowman leaves, pointing out the large black population in Memphis and how much money could be made with a black World Champion, then veers back towards Kerry Von Erich. And this is probably the best, most well-executed "shoot angle" in wrestling history. Even the CM Punk pipe bomb from the summer of '11 looked planned and organized compared to this: - Dave's understated, "We're doing an interview here" to start with. No McMahon-esque "WAIT A MINUTE, WHAT'S THIS?!" - There are a bunch of unusual, little-used camera angles that really add to the feeling of chaos surrounding this. Cameras in the ring showing the interview set, some jump-cuts as Snowman is doubling back around the ring, etc. Like a live breaking news report--this actually feels more out-of-control than Lawler destroying the set on Chris Champion. - Eddie Marlin is FANTASTIC here. Everyone plays their roles great but I actually thought Marlin was the star of this segment. - True "shades of gray," in a good way and not a Russo way. It's three guys all with a specific point of view trying to get it across and all of whom actually have valid points. Snowman is correct that racism is a problem for black wrestlers, and Marlin has a point that Memphis has pushed black wrestlers who've earned it, which Snowman hasn't done. - Snowman looks like a guy who's both legitimately unhinged and would fuck up Lawler, Brown, Marlin, and security singlehandedly. If there's one weakness to this segment it's the idea of him being successfully escorted out by anyone. - The thing that makes great shoot angles like the Punk promo and this work: kayfabe is never broken once. It's all about title shots and winning championships, something that race can and does play a role in even in a legitimate sport. Not a single "insider" term is ever used by anyone. - To the best of my knowledge, the story that Lawler tells of Snowman going to the local black paper the Tri-State Defender and black radio stations REALLY WAS a shoot, and Lawler & co. decided to bring in Snowman for the angle so as not to alienate their black fanbase (which was sizable as any look at the studio crowd will tell you). That type of authenticity can't be matched or scripted. In that sense this is almost a NJPW/UWF or Choshu's Army storyline based on real-life conflicts. Easily the angle of the year to this point. Absolutely out-of-the-box booking that had never been attempted anywhere and may not have really been attempted since. Race angles had been done but always in an over-the-top, Col. DeBeers or "throwing buckets of paint" type of way, even when the Gangstas were doing this shtick in SMW. This truly felt authentic. Maybe not any less exploitative than those angles, but it was still something that genuinely stirred emotions in people in a real way. *Of course I can only think of two real "gearshift angles" in wrestling, period--this one and the OMX run-in, which came immediately after Cornette hyped what we all thought would be a Midnights/Road Warriors feud over the titles.
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This was effective, I guess, in setting up Tugboat as being Hogan's delegate in the wake of the big injury angle to come. Brother Love, having taken offense to Hogan interrupting his show, dares him to come back again next week when his guest is Earthquake. Nonetheless, Tugboat is about as lame of an attempted upper-card character as the WWF got.
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The technicos actually did win the first fall. Dandy eats a DDT off the second turnbuckle which is sold as a tombstone (and compared to such by the announcers), but Satanico is successfully able to finagle a timeout for his team when it appears that Atlantis has him dead and buried. The subsequent battle with Satanico trying to pay back Atlantis by repeatedly dropping him on his head is my favorite part of the match.
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Sugar Ray Long explains all the penthouses and long Cadillacs he'll be buying as manager of the World Tag Team Champions, while Rick Steiner mercifully gets cut off seconds into his rebuttals. This ends predictably--not that that's a bad thing--with Doom backjumping Rick and Scott making the save.
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There were "Misawa" chants during Tiger Mask vs. La Fiera way back in '83. It might have been the worst-kept secret of all-time, if it was a secret at all. There's a big to-do when the mask comes off and some fiery kicks thrown by Misawa immediately afterward, but holy shit this is an ASTOUNDINGLY bad match. It can't be pinned on Yatsu & Fuyuki either, as this is probably the worst Kawada performance I've ever seen. Absolutely lethargic in everything from the pacing to the execution--there were way too many instances of someone getting his opponent down and then standing there picking his nose instead of doing something to follow up. All four men were guilty at various points, usually multiple times. I can't recall a single move other than the first few post-unmasking kicks and a few of the whipping around of TM by his mask that were done with any snap or energy to them. The SWS exodus, at this point, cannot happen a minute too soon. Apparently no one on either side of the fence is interested in making the other look good and the match results are foregone conclusions as the exiting wrestlers are jobbing out. After such a fantastic 1989 it's incredible how disappointing All-Japan has been on the yearbook to this point. Luckily the quality will shoot way up sooner rather than later. But WCW has weathered a somewhat similar left-turn to start the year in far, far better fashion.
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Clips from SNME of DiBiase again jumping the Boss Man during a match with Akeem and handcuffing him to the ropes and beating him down. DiBiase promises that BBM will get the money he refused--stuffed right down his throat. If Boss Man truly did turn down "enough money to retire on" he kind of comes across as the bumpkin that DiBiase and Heenan claimed that he was.
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Had trouble getting into this. It was certainly action-packed and well-executed but at no point did I have any emotional involvement in who won, who lost, or what happened to anyone. Part of that is never having heard of Minami or Nishikawa but part of that was just that the work just didn't grab me. It was just a physically impressive series of spots and counters.
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Austin does tend to meander between moves but his stuff in working over Adams outside was solid--as Percy pointed out, he at least knows the ins and outs of breaking the ten-count. Jeannie yanks Adams leg on a suplex to give Austin the victory and Adams gets slapped around more after the match. It's amazing how much more potent the Austin/Jeannie combo was booked here and during the angle in general--Adams' big opening sneak attack goes absolutely nowhere, he loses the match after Austin controls most of it, and his attempted post-match attack is thwarted as well.
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Effective promo from Luger. At one point something that was on the table was to drive a Brinks truck full of money up to Flair's house in exchange for dropping a hair vs. hair match to Luger at CC'90, which would have been non-title and given Luger a signature PPV win over his rival and been a unique drawing card. Flair understandably didn't trust WCW and the proposal didn't last, and then Luger refused to do another job to Flair and we got...what we got.
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Lawler declares that "What you saw was not actually what happened" and Dave's WTF look of bewilderment is priceless. Lawler plugs some radio station DJ and a masked bodyguard before introducing a video piece on Jimmy Valiant's mother. The audio seems to cut out 1/3 of the way and Lawler has to narrate it for us after the fact. He tracks Valiant's mom to a laundromat where she has to do his laundry and receive dog food as a Mother's Day gift. This part went on way too long for very little payoff. Valiant runs Lawler off with a trash can before exhorting all of us to do something nice for Mother's Day and defends the feelings of the fans in the crowd mocked by Lawler each week as well as the woman in the video. Another stretcher match Monday, this time with Ronnie P. Gossett suspended above the ring, hopefully without the MSC roof caving in.
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A stretcher match that has a ref bump (why? was Lawler going to get a TECHNICAL LOSS for using ether after Valiant had choked him out with chairs?) and a countout finish. Spectacular. And it's too bad because the clips looked pretty good, though Valiant is almost invariably going to look better in clip form. Cornette said that for ether finishes in Mid-South he used engine-starter fluid and used the dry side of the rag.
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Rude delivers an intense, deathly serious promo promising not only to beat the Warrior again but to break him. Ultimately (hah) I have to agree with a previous post that these promos and the Warrior promo and character are simply too incongruous. Save the Pure Sports Build stuff for something else or find a way to tone down the Warrior and maybe provide some insight as to how HE'S training (and not by running to Mercury and back or eating St. Paul's Cathedral, whatever his character would do).