PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Lawler comes out to "Rockin' in the Free World," which I don't quite get on any level. Lawler goes into his "not a company championship" spiel and almost turns himself babyface by lighting into Hulk Hogan, but quickly rights himself by going after Flair as well. Lawler tells a black fan to sit down or he'll "wet his lips and stick you to that wall over there." Loong stall job revolving around a storyline I don't quite get with Lawler believing that the clawhold is outlawed. More hide-the-chain, which Lawler is a master at, but nothing we haven't seen before. Finish comes out of nowhere but makes for a nice surprise "gotcha!" moment. If only Kerry had sold it like it was something more than an eye rake. -
Drake and Winters are both pretty objectively bad workers but there is an element of psychology to this, with Winters coming in with an injured arm and Drake going to work on it. There is definitely a proto-ECW vibe with the "I'll walk with you if you grab my hair" brawling to the upper reaches of the arena, with some pretty fucking dramatic brawling in the press box. Both guys trade piledrivers on the floor and Drake eventually switches to the leg, and after figure fouring him and crotching Winters on the top rope he gets the submission. Five thousand guys run in after the match and the post-match brawl is more fun than the match itself. Not really a good match but I'm glad I saw it as Goodheart's TWA was something that needs to be represented. I think there's more to come with some bigger names but this is at least a record of what his "homegrown" talent was doing. Edit: I feel like the crowd and setting should get some mention. The crowd looks pretty damn good by indy standards and is FAR more diverse than an ECW audience--not really a lot of kids but lots more women and older folks. I can see the comparisons to a Japanese indy--a Temple University gym is sort of a higher-end venue than most of the places ECW ran.
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Lawler speaks to what is undoubtedly a Creationist audience and pushes a pro-evolution agenda on them. That's drawing heat! Lawler again comes close to burying his opponent again, though I'm sure he'll attempt to make up for it during the match itself. If all of these overinflated bulging muscle masses can't compare to Lawler then why should we give a fuck who he's wrestling?
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Warrior FINALLY draws into something resembling focus for his final, least-bad promo, but too little too late. Hogan tells a bizarre story of riding his Harley Davidson into the waters of Venice Beach and asking God for his fate. The apparent conflict between Hogan's Christianity vs. Warrior's paganism is one worthy of more in-depth discussion than these two are providing. God reassures Hogan that "Hulkamania will never die," and that's all the Hulk needs to hear. Um, I couldn't help but notice that God didn't mention the result of the match itself. Truly setting us up for a painful twist worthy of O. Henry, or Rod Serling. Or more like R.L. Stine.
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Best USWA Texas bout yet. Surprisingly Lee works the bulk of this and looks like a perfectly acceptable wrestler--clearly this was the better role for him than lead babyface of SMW. Dundee gets worked over before tagging in Jarrett, who dodges a loaded boot from Fuller that hits Lee, costing the Stud Stable the match. Several weeks after their breakup in Memphis, they repeat the angle for Texas and Lee eventually runs Fuller off.
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Very good match but I think the sheer one-sidedness in favor of Morton holds this back from being great. It was almost worked backwards with the heel Flair doing hope spots and then constantly getting cut off by Ricky. It was interesting as a role reversal but still too jarring for me. That said, the energy level was great throughout and Morton did look great taking advantage of a rare opportunity to work on top.
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I don't know if that's quite the case. - I've never known Flair to use a chain or other foreign object throughout the match the way Lawler has typically done. Flair busted out foreign objects all the time, but it was almost exclusively for the finish only. (The only exception I can think of is WM8, but that was a near-fall false finish). There's a difference between using brass knucks as a last-ditch desperation hail mary pass and having to use them to gain or maintain any kind of advantage at all. - Lawler doesn't seem to have any offensive weapon in his arsenal that looms over the match the way Flair's figure four does. For all the shit Flair pulled to kill his own finisher, the threat of Flair going to town on an opponent's knee and figure-four-ing him until he screamed for mercy persisted. I don't think anyone bought the flying fistdrop as a killer finisher and the piledriver isn't pushed in USWA TX half as hard as Paul Orndorff's version was in the WWF. You could lay that fault at the hands of the bookers and announcers but I know for a fact that Marc Lowrance knew how to get the piledriver over as a killer move. - I'm entertained by Ronald P. Gossett IV and it's not like his alliance with Lawler was particularly long-lived, but talk about a guy who screams "mid/undercard manager." He was an entertaining joke character, but still a joke. It's roughly akin to Flair aligning himself with Frenchy Martin. - Flair did more to put his opponents over outside the ring than Lawler--this is a criticism I have of Lawler as a heel announcer as well. He gets dangerously close to burying his opponents at times. Entertainingly so, but in the long run claiming guys like Jarrett and Dundee and Cobra and Kerry all had zero talent doesn't really do much to get anybody in the promotion over. Lawler's stubborn steadfast refusal to EVER give the babyface credit for anything wore very thin with me when he was announcing and while I don't consider him bad, it's enough for me to put him squarely behind Heenan, Ventura, and Cornette--and now I'm seeing that problem date back before he was doing full-time commentary. Flair expresses confidence that he's better than his opponent. Lawler expresses confidence that his opponent is a no-talent joke. I love Lawler and I love Flair, and it's not like Flair doesn't do things that grate on me. But, I don't think they're perfectly in sync with what Lawler does that grates on me.
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Good attempt to save an absurdly underwhelming payoff to Ole's "master plan" to take care of the Steiners. The era of masked tag teams was over with by this point and the Crew II were quickly going from putting over the Steiners to putting over Pillman & Zenk.
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This time Warrior goes first and Hogan gets a chance to respond. Hogan raises a good point with people getting sick of the Warrior's "Frankenstein talk" and blithering about injecting with poison. We get a callback to the infamous THIS IS WHERE THE POWER LIES promo. Both men basically promise to assimilate each other's fanbases.
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Super hot start as an Estrada sneak attack backfires and he takes a requisitely loony bump over the turnbuckles to the floor, and Satanico follows with a nasty dive that more or less clinches the first fall, as a nudo gets the submission. Estrada comes back to nearly break his own neck doing a somersault plancha, but is able to beat the count back in to even things up. Total fucking war of attrition follows, with Estrada maintaining control but seemingly botching every chance he has to put Satanico away for good. In the end the vet just has too many counters in his holster and gets in a backslide when he needed it to score the 3. Estrada looks strong as it appeared that one more big move would put Satanico down, but it never came. Definite MOTYC, which came through even though I was interrupted between falls for about 9 hours.
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The first two falls are basically perfunctory appetizers to get us to the meat of the match, which is when the big guns are broken out in the third fall. It's officially technico v. technico but Dandy is working a much rougher style, and Dr. Morales points out that la diferencia es Azteca está luchando para el publico, y El Dandy está luchando para el--wrestling for himself. Azteca has a fantastic counter to a plancha suicida by bringing his knee up, which hurts his own knee but incapacitates El Dandy. This rather suddenly goes to either a time limit draw or a double countout, which has everybody upset. Dandy sucker punches Azteca after the match and then mocks him, acting like he just gave him a shove. The announcers discuss a possible hair vs. mask match to settle. Looking forward to it.
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Austin is still tentative at points during this, but this does have a nice finish with a sense of impending doom as Austin comes towards Adams with the chair, with Adams countering at the last second. Adams then hits a DDT on the chair, fights off Sheik Braddock and Jeff Gaylord, and gets the pin. Devastation Inc. beatdown follows until Matt Borne makes the save. Austin may be a first in that his literal entire career is more or less preserved on tape.
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Cactus isn't afraid to sit in a chinlock for awhile and the draw was telegraphed from the first time limit announcement. I didn't see this as one of Cactus' "best" but it was one of his better singles matches to this point, at least. Ross pointing out Gilbert's broken neck was a great way to justify the use of the chinlock, even if it was a post-hoc explanation, and we do get a few trademark Cactus bumps and a wrinkle I'd never seen before with a dropkick off the ring apron. Good closing stretch at least until the botched time announcements at the end.
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