Cox
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Everything posted by Cox
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Not sure if anybody has brought this up yet, since I try not to read too far ahead on these, but I think these promos are suffering from a lack of a real issue for either guy to talk about. I mean, Hogan's previous Wrestlemania matches had actual issues. What was the issue here? They briefly fought in the Royal Rumble (as did a bunch of other guys, and none of them used that as the basis of a Wrestlemania feud) and because they had a brief miscommunication after they had squashed Mr. Perfect and The Genius in a tag team match? Without anything to talk about, it's causing both guys to go off into some really weird directions (not that Warrior needed a lot of prodding, but still) in an attempt to make the match seem "epic," but instead, it's making both men look like psychopaths. I guess there is an appeal to watching two vain psychopaths fight on PPV, but it hasn't really worked for me so far.
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Actually, apparently that was Sacramento the night before, but his review of the Oakland match clocked in at a solid *, so I guess Bret had his working shoes on for the show with the Hogan match.
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You know, what about Matt Hardy? I know a year or so ago he was looking rough, but he seems to have had a full year on the indy scene with no incident, he's always been a decent worker, and while the crowd will always see him as a big deal, management will never see him above midcard, so it's perfect storm of guy who they don't need to push who has a bit of a name and can work some putting people over every week. Granted, a year of no incidents is probably a hilariously low bar for him to clear, but at least it's something.
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None of the Unified title changes that took place in Memphis after SuperClash were recognized in the Texas USWA, so in this part of the world, he had been recognized as champion for over a year. This was some great bullshit, and I love me some great bullshit. Valiant is pretty limited by this point and I suspect Lawler tried to get out of Texas while doing as little as possible (which feels backed up by the stuff I've seen on the Yearbook so far - we will see if that continues) so they build the match around Memphis staples like the hidden chain trick. My guess is even today, Lawler and Valiant could do this match in their sleep.
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Fun segment. Cactus is still green on promos. When exactly did he get good on promos? I remember him being competent in 1991 WCW and slowly getting better from there, so did he get better after he left WCW?
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I don't even get this crack by Ross. I mean, I get that it's supposed to be one of those hilariously hateful jokes about how Cornette is gay, but...I mean, this doesn't even make sense. If two men are playing tennis, it can't be mixed doubles, no matter whether the partners prefer the company of men or women. Is he trying to say Cornette is transgender? This sounds like something Ross came up with that he thought was hilarious and it just doesn't hold up to even a second of scrutiny.
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I think the best was the guy who argued that Cena going in as the top star in wrestling for at least the last seven years was the equivalent of the top star in Continental in 83 going in. To be fair, it would be completely awesome if Ron Fuller made it into the HOF.
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I want to give Luger credit here, as he shows a lot of charisma in there, which I think helps get the crowd on his side (and it is notable to point out that in Greensboro, the crowd is mostly with Luger at the expense of Flair). His comebacks are all timed perfectly (granted, that might be Flair calling the match) and he takes at least one really great bump over the top rope to the floor. But yes, great great match, and Flair does everything he can and more to put over Luger. The finish sucks, but if you get past that, this is great stuff. I know Flair wanted to save the title change for when Sting came back that summer, but Luger probably should have gotten a quickie title change here.
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I think they did about as good a job turning Luger as they possibly could, and he's getting the required crowd reactions. I thought it would be tricky to pull this off, since Flair was a very popular babyface and Luger was a hated heel, but they somehow did the job. I still think it was a mistake, but the execution is as good as it could be.
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Pillman and Zenk win the US tag straps. I wonder if the idea was to put even more focus on these guys as a team as the year progressed, but then they changed course with Pillman and put him into singles instead. This feels like Flair taking the first step towards a big push for Pillman in 1990 that got changed after he quit the booking committee.
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Man, what a wild episode of USWA TV. Two people left bloody, a dude getting doused in water, the saga of poor Nate...they packed quite a bit into 90 minutes. I guess it's just as well that the announcer's desk bites the dust here, as it still has the CWA logo on it and the promotion has been called the USWA for over a year. Great scene here. As an aside, did Ben Jordan ever get a push anywhere? He strikes me as kind of the quintessential early 90's job guy, between being skinny with no body, pasty white, and awesome mullet. I know he worked here, SMW, and WWF as a job guy, and I have to imagine he did job work for WCW at some point as well, but was there ever a territory tiny enough for poor Ben Jordan to get a couple of wins?
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I like that Dave Brown doesn't seem to give a shit that Brian Lee is getting beat up at ringside. There's no emotion in his voice or pleas for somebody to break it up...just matter of factly calls that Brian Lee is a bloody mess on the floor. I guess however many years of Memphis wrestling will desensitize a man to these things. This leads into a great Lawler promo. We've seen a lot of different types of promos from Lawler on the yearbook so far, but we haven't seen him cut a scathing mad promo on anybody, and it's a nice way to bring in Jimmy Valiant by having Lawler get so upset with him. Good stuff which makes me look forward to this program.
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See, I could buy that logic if they weren't relying on Lee to headline the shows for the next several months. But remember, this was before the Rock 'n' Roll had joined the territory (Ricky Morton was still working with WCW through July) and the Fantastics weren't working all of the shows because of Japanese commitments (thus, why the Bodies beat the Rich Cousins at the Volunteer Slam when they were supposed to wrestle the finals of the tag team tournament against the Fantastics). So Brian Lee was made to look like a bag of shit, and was then expected to headline all of the towns against Dirty White Boy with people taking him seriously. Brian Lee probably isn't the guy you want to headline with in the first place, but if you do, you want to make sure you nail the presentation, and Cornette didn't do that. I think Brian Lee would have failed on top anyway, because he wasn't really that good at anything (though admittedly, I liked him a lot more as top heel with Tammy), but it's like they doubled down on him failing on top by making sure nobody would take him seriously.
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