PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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I was pretty lost as to what was going on for a lot of this. Match is slow to start, though it's fun seeing Pierroth work some pretty athletic spots and Azteca (about whom I know absolutely nothing) looks really good. Then Pierroth takes a sick fall to the floor when the ropes break and the match grinds to a halt. We get a LOOONG argument on the technicos side after the second fall, I believe because Los Cowboys want to continue the match 2-on-2 and Azteca wants to keep competing. Then El Texano levels Estrada with a martinete for...what I guess is the DQ, except one referee counts a pinfall on Estrada anyway. This never really got out of first gear and then went off the rails with the (unplanned? shoot angle?) injury to Pierroth. I get the whole technico ref/rudo ref aspect of lucha but the officiating was all over the place. Aside from the finish, at one point the refs act like Azteca can't compete because it's supposed to be 2-on-2 now, but then don't make any real effort to break things up when the rudos move in to attack him. Hopefully the next lucha 6-man is just 6 guys wrestling. -
I'm beginning to see where Yatsu got his rep of suddenly falling off a cliff as a worker, after not really seeing it in the '80s AJPW set. I wouldn't call him horrible but he's noticeably out of shape and is pretty lethargic. The pace when Jumbo tags in is strikingly faster and more upbeat. Yatsu goes down to the Oklahoma Stampede and...how much notice did the SWS guys give, exactly? Between Tenryu eating a countout loss and Yatsu being pretty decisively beaten down here, it sure looks like they're getting jobbed out. Yatsu was a valuable utility man for both major federations in his career, but performances like this...well, as Noel Gallagher said when Bonehead left Oasis, "It's not exactly like Paul leaving the Beatles, is it?"
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I really like Aguayo working as a monster heel, and Hamada provided just the right amount of hit-and-run offense. That said, the first fall finish was a mess...actually, until reading this thread I thought it was a DQ and then a restart. Final finish was a bit anticlimactic with Aguayo just sort of methodically beating Hamada into the ground before finishing with the top-rope double stomp. Aaand there was a lot of meandering outside the ring. That said, I did enjoy this even if could have been pruned by 5-7 minutes. I don't get the purpose of the 2/3 falls stip at all, but this was a fun showcase of all the cool shit Aguayo could do, at least with the right opponent. I have pretty high hopes for the rematch.
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Some of this did look overly cooperative, especially in the early going, but...well, I've overgeneralized enough about UWF without doing it for lucha too, but generally lucha tends to be a lot...looser than this match. No air in this--the holds were worked nice and snug and when they weren't working holds they were pounding the shit out of each other. There were some awkward moments and Asai did a whole lot of spin kicks considering he whiffed on probably half of them. Not a great match but Asai did get to show off a lot more stuff here than he did in the 6-man.
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This is getting into arguing over ice cream flavor territory and I really don't want to come across this way in every post about this promotion, but this was FF material all the way. I'm trying to give this stuff a chance, I really am, but after 100+ '80s matches and a few so far into 1990 my opinion isn't getting any more favorable. The most enjoyable UWF matches invariably involve Bob Backlund, the Brits, or some other outsider shaking things up. The rest, even the good matches, are just a bunch of guys in a blender of matwork that almost never goes anywhere long-term or gets me invested in who wins or the consequences of such. The post-match really was good, though.
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Not much else to say, but yes, this is the #2 MOTY (still behind Liger/Sano). Luger in some ways embodies some of Flair's worst tendencies when it comes to blowing off limb work, but that's something that just has to be accepted during a Flair/Luger match. In a way he's not dissimilar from the Ultimate Warrior. As miscast as both guys were at this point, that they were able to draw a crowd this hot this far into the match is a testament to the both of them. If WCW had had the guts to switch gears and put the title on Luger here or at Capital Combat, they may have had their franchise player fall into their lap.
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I don't think this was as good as Liger/Sano but it's a pretty fair 2nd place. Just an epic teasing beatdown of Ricky Morton even by his standards, with about 5 or 6 hope spots and great cut-offs. Great near-fall on Robert Gibson kicking out of a racket shot and a counter to the double flapjack for the pin. Cornette was absolutely brilliant throughout all of this, timing his interference perfectly, interacting with the cameraman, and little touches like quickly flipping the tennis racket around and using it as a backscratcher to avoid getting caught.
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Paul E. declares that Apollo's mother got pregnant mere months before the Roe v. Wade verdict came down, and that's the only reason he's here today! Only bits and pieces of a noticeably shrunken Tony Atlas' promo comes through to me but he does get some good lines in about how other people wish they were him and how since nobody helped him get to the top, he's not helping anybody. Doesn't have no girlfriend, don't want one--he only needs a woman for two hours. Apollo (or is that Savoldi?) confront Paul E. in the control room and the video cuts out.
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Ross is still trying to push Luger as a tweener here, making qualifying statements like "Whether you love him or hate him..." and stressing that the Steiners are out to confront the Andersons rather than out of kinship with Luger. Somehow keeping an edge to Luger seems to be more effective in making him popular than what the WWF attempted to do.
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A psychotic Lawler beats down Ben Jordan in an aggressive but not overly chaotic fashion, but when Chris Champion tries to get him to stop he gets the full Moondog treatment and then some. He eats a piledriver and DDT on the floor, gets the desk turned on top of him, gets attacked with the remnants of the desk, and gets beaten to a bloody mess in the ring. All over a bucket of water--incredible.
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Robert Fuller laments that his custom-made tag title belts are around the waists of the Southern Rockers. Brian Lee tries to pay his respects to the Rockers, to the ire of Fuller. Lee finally calls out Fuller for being too hung up on Sylvia to concentrate on wrestling and storms off. Fuller tries to apologize and suckers Lee into a DDT on the concrete, then turns to rant to the camera in a pretty masterful way to cover up Lee's bladejob. Big beatdown follows. Dave: "It appears the Lee and Fuller partnership is in serious trouble." A meme could probably spring from that statement. Eddie Marlin finally runs Fuller off with the threat of a permanent banishment. Kerry Von Erich comes out with a present for Lawler on behalf of Jimmy Valiant, the one man capable of making the JYD look spry. It's a bucket of water, which the studio crowd pops big for. Lawler cuts a promo on Valiant over the phone and they reference their whole history together. Awesome fired-up stuff from the King--amazing how he can make a water soaking sound like the most egregious act in history. Nate picks a really, really bad time to come back from McDonald's. A Jimmy Valiant video follows to "Boogie Woogie Man" by Charlie Daniels. Can we get Valiant vs. Soultaker booked, just for the hell of it?
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The only thing lower than a snake is a law enforcement officer who won't take money. That draws the ire of the Boss Man, who takes Brother Love to "jail." Seeing Brother Love get abused was always a highlight for me. Count me in as one who saw Prichard as walking the perfect line between "heel heat annoying" and "change the channel annoying."
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Warrior's locker room shrine is pretty hilarious, and his post-match promo is still in its own little universe but a little more on-point. Problem is he really comes off as a heel instead of just an egomaniac babyface like Hogan. Abusing Okerlund, accusing Hogan of being afraid when Hogan said the opposite, questioning the faith of the Little Hulksters...why WOULD the Little Hulksters take to this guy?
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When the fuck did the Warrior develop a New England accent? "The Wahryah has felt the powah of Mahs...the powah of Mehcuree, pahking his cah in the Hahvahd yahhhhd..." I'll wait until we see "Amanda" to get into this, but yes, this show illustrates the fundamental flaw that would ever prevent the Warrior from doing what Hogan did, or what Austin, Rock, and Cena did later on. Warrior gets the pin on Bravo but gets laid out by Earthquake afterward. As 'Quake prepares to deliver a splash from the turnbuckle, Hogan makes the save, much to the consternation of the Warrior who declares he doesn't need Hogan's help. Pull-apart follows.
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Douglas was willing to work the show for about $110,000, or 1/10 what Tyson was commanding to appear. A serendipitous victory for the WWF when Douglas knocked Tyson out. Savage comes out with the shocking information that Mike Tyson's great great grandmother was a CARD-CARRYING Hulkamaniac and thus would be too biased to officiate a Hogan title defense, while also putting Buster Douglas over as both a nobody and a guy tough enough to knock out Iron Mike. Hogan declares that he and Douglas are a lot alike, except that Hogan was "chosen by the masses to lead them to higher ground." Then threatens that if Douglas doesn't call it down the middle, he'll also be the Heavyweight Boxing Champion in addition to holding the WWF title. Jesus, man. He was right about Buster's flash-in-the-pan status, though. While Savage is great, it's sort of telling that he was more or less shoehorned into this title match on an NBC primetime special with a guest referee with no real storyline to build up to it--the MegaPowers feud was long dead. As would become more evident later in the year, the heel/babyface imbalance in the WWF was pretty ridiculously slanted--and with the Boss Man turning babyface and Kerry Von Erich and the LOD arriving, it would get worse before it got better. With Earthquake still having to wait in the wings, there was literally no one else to put in this role. Douglas with a very wooden promo of his own, getting in a few extra potshots at Tyson. Standard SNME ad break--someone comes to or gets ejected from ringside. In this case, Douglas escorts Sherri to the back after she chokes out Hogan. This is all Hogan and Savage by numbers, but Savage does have some great clotheslines here. A standard Hogan and standard Savage match in a standard NBC layout deserves a standard "boxer as outside referee" ending, as Hebner gets bumped and Douglas counts the 3. Savage is INCREDIBLE in the post-match, doing a mini-Ali shuffle, laying on the turnbuckle, slapping Douglas and goading him all around. Douglas just sort of stands there until Hogan shoves Savage into him for the knockout blow. I didn't really use "standard" as a pejorative, though this isn't a great match. The post-match from Savage is fantastic, however. Douglas turns in what's far from a great performance but I do think he was coached and used quite well considering the short notice he was booked on.
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Lawler takes one moment too many to mock Dundee's punchdrunkenness and pays for it. As Dundee applies a spinning toe hold, Lawler kicks him into the referee and in a dramatic twist, finds a foreign object other than a chain to use--in this case, taking off his boot and clobbering Dundee with it for the pin. Lawler then announces to the crowd that he's realized the source of the smell he'd been noticing throughout the match.
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