Cox
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Everything posted by Cox
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Great segment. Nate does a great job building this up, bringing up everything that happened in their last segment together a few months ago, and Lawler is great as the cocky bully all too eager to humiliate poor Nate again. The payoff being Nitron isn't much, as ideally you'd want to see Nate bring back an old Memphis favorite like Mantell, Gilbert, Rich, or somebody else that had a history with Lawler, but with all of those guys presently unavailable (I believe all or most were with WCW at this point), you take what you have, I guess.
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It looks like USWA has exhausted all of their screwjob finishes with Lawler as champion, so they create new rules so they can create new and exciting ways to screw their fans out of clean finishes in the main events, at least until they forget about all of these rules and go back to their old screwjob finishes again.
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A partisan Lawler crowd in attendance this morning in the USWA studio.
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Nice airbrushed Ultimate Warrior speed bag. I wonder what they wound up doing for that? Seems like they probably spent a good deal of money to use that for one TV segment. Then again, by the time Warrior left the company a little over a year later, it wouldn't surprise me if Vince was using that speed bag himself to release some tension.
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I think the main difference between the heel Lawler and the babyface Lawler characters is that heel Lawler isn't incapable, but just lazy. Any fan who has seen Lawler wrestle as a babyface knows what he can do, but when he's not working for the adoration of the crowd, he kinda doesn't give a fuck, and that's why he resorts to chains, cheating, and general dickishness. Maybe that's also a sign of Lawler the wrestler also being lazier as a heel, but that's the way I see his wrestling character as a heel; capable, but not looking to impress anybody, so it's nothing but shortcuts. Anyway, this was a good match, but nothing I'll remember a week from now. Why is Billy Joe Travis a babyface now? That doesn't seem to make a bit of sense, not only because we haven't seen a babyface turn, but because he's an incredible heel.
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I liked the continuation of the story that WCW's booking team put the kibosh on, with Lane hitting Pillman in his achilles heel (the throat) to get the win. I liked the way this was laid out. Pillman and Zeaman looking for revenge dominate the early going, get cutoff with Zeaman (the weaker of the two) in the ring, hot tag to Pillman who runs wild, but gets caught in his weakness to give the MX the win. Good tag team match.
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I liked this. Fujiwara systematically destroys Yamazaki, and Yamazaki powers through it, beats the odds, and knocks out Fujiwara with a nice kick. Now the near upsets lower on the card make sense, as they got the crowd lathered up and ready to see one guy pull it out, and finally Yamazaki is the guy. Nice way to build the card to lead to this moment.
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I don't think anybody is complaining about Punk losing, or even the Shield interference, but more that Punk beat on Rock for most of 15 minutes straight, and then loses to the spinebuster/People's Elbow. It just felt flat watching the match. I still thought the match was good, but the finish could have been a lot better for sure.
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This was similar to Maeda/Nakano, except there was a non-zero chance that Anjo could win, and the match was worked as such. This was a little less pro-wrestling than the previous match, so it was a bit harder for me to get into, but it seemed like it was technically a fine match. The crowd wants an upset badly by this point and they are once again denied.
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The Royal Rumble is the one WWE that never fails to disappoint. A few years ago, I started buying the major PPVs and having friends come over where we drink, eat, and watch the pro wrestling. We've had disappointing Wrestlemanias and disappointing SummerSlams, but I don't remember a disappointing Royal Rumble, because the Royal Rumble match is, if nothing else, entertaining and easy for a large group of people to follow at once while everybody is talking and trying to get their shitty jokes in (I consider myself king of the shitty jokes). That said, this year's undercard was pretty solid too. All three matches were good, and there didn't feel like there was too much filler, other than the non-stop video packages that must make every PPV in order to justify Kevin Dunn's continued existence. Two world title matches and a tag team title match that they have been building to for months, and that's it; no meaningless 3-5 minute woman's match, no in-show 20 minute mic spot, no unannounced matches that resulted from a last-minute Smackdown angle. Just a smart, efficient PPV.
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This was as pro wrestling as anything I've seen out of UWF so far on this set, and I loved it. Nakano was great as this short, pudgy, kinda shitty guy, throwing everything he can to try to sneak out the upset against the legend, but in the end Maeda was just better. One of the best squash matches you'll ever see.
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Hey, Jack Tunney! I miss having an authority figure who only makes decisions a few times per year. I think the thinking behind Title vs Title was to make the match feel even more epic, since a Title vs Title match had never been held before (and really, I think they may have only done it one or two other times since). That said, with hindsight being 20/20, I think it would have been smarter for Rude to drop the IC title to somebody else, which would have further protected Rude as a future challenger for Warrior since he would have never been beat back by Warrior for the IC title, and then have Perfect win the IC belt from that somebody else at Mania. Based on the timeline, I guess Beefcake makes the most sense for that spot.
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Fiesta Garden looks like the homeless man's Piper's Pit, but Al Madril and Scotty the Body are entertaining in this. Fun segment, and it must have been cool to be in the Portland studio that day and see Roddy Piper randomly show up unannounced. Unrelated: who can get to Disneyland on $100 anyway? Even in 1990, I don't think you could take your kids to Disneyland on $100 if you lived in Anaheim, let alone Portland.
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While I like these promos, it would be nice if they eventually had a purpose. We get it, Atlas is the champion and the man, but I can't help but think that if Atlas was in a consistent program cutting promos on a specific target every week, they would be even better. Maybe because of the nature of ICW TV and the way a small indy on the East Coast had TV at this point, you can't do angles every week, or even most weeks, but I can't help but think the presentation would be better if he was cutting promos on a specific target every week to help sell the house shows.
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I vaguely recall flipping through the channels as a lad, happening upon World Championship Wrestling, and seeing RoboCop, and realizing that was even too cartoony for me to believe and shutting it off. I didn't give WCW another chance until the next year. And I was a Hulkamaniac at this point! Poor Sting, they really know how to saddle him with some absolute dogshit.
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Michael Hayes is an old 31 - he might only have existed on this Earth for 31 years in 1990, but he has he body of a 50 year old. Frankly, it's shocking he's still alive today, and it's strange to think that he's only 54 now, and has been retired for at least 18 years. Good match. The Birds don't do anything terribly interesting while on top, but they don't have to when Ricky Morton is in the ring with them. Even then, both Birds are completely gassed by the end of this. Good, but would have been much better as a single fall match.
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