El-P

That's it, after being tolerable the first weeks months, the Fabulous Freebirds are officially going into my shitlist. By early 1990, they were unbearable. They totally kill the life out of their matches against Zenk & Pillman at WrestleWar. They don't do shit and still botch spots, restholds galore, I swear they must have gone through 10 pure resthold sequences in that match, don't have any offense, don't bump well, Garvin being the worst of the two. Didn't take long before they got on my nerves.

Not true. He would have been the greatest booker in the history of our sport.

No wonder legit workers think those indy guys are just a bunch of marks. Jeez.

Great idea. I don't think I've seen a decisive timeline of the WCW bookers before.

I don't remember hearing Martel first quiting because of injuries. I know he was involved in real estate as soon as the early 90's, and he was only doing wrestling at this point as a support for his other business. His WCW was cut short because Harlem Heat are poor workers. Got a concussion from Booker T. Then fucked his knee because of Booker T again. Then a few months later after surgery, first match back against Stevie Ray, he tries to protect his brand new knee and got fucked again by Ray's finisher. Then called it quit. But yeah, Martel was smart. Guys quiting when they should have include DiBiase, Santana, Rotundo, Windham... In the 00's, JBL comes to mind.

Dave's report was a gross overstatement. That said, Kobashi looked like he could barely do three steps at a time. Looks totally shot. Looks like a guy who need to retire yesterday and nurse his poor body for the rest of his life. Mutoh is a mystery to me. The guy stopped aging 8 years ago. How can a 48 year old guy with no knee move so quick and do those explosive spots ? 10 years ago if you had told me that by 2010, Misawa and Hash would be dead, Kobashi would be a walking zombi while Mutoh would still do his old spots without missing a beat nor looking awkward, I would not have believed you.

Retards.

Konnan is still one of the very worst wrestler I've ever seen. When you can't have a decent match with Juvy and Eddie in 96/97, you really are a worthless worker. Yep. Until your heart explode, which is something I'm surprised didn't happen to Vince yet. Exactly. Flair isn't better than those guys. He's just "Flair", so he gets to embarrass himself on TV for a reasonnable paycheck instead of looking like an old bozo on scrappy indies. Seriously, I don't even get why people would pay to see the HTM "work". That's a terrible analogy. Wrestling, despite what some may think those days, is still a "sport". Unless your voice is gone, you can sing until your death. I've seen the latest Nanni Moretti movie, "Habemus Papam" the other day, and Michel Picolli, 85, is an amazing actor. Old bluesmen can play until they lose their mind. Wrestling is still a sporting acivity, and at some point the body just isn't able to do it anymore. I don't care about psychology and such, when you are old and shot, psychology only goes a long way, you still look like an old dude slowly mimicking what you were doing before. 1/He's a mark for "Ric Flair" 2/People who book him, in that case TNA, are retards

Incredible, I wouldn't say that. Good, yes. Which Sabu & Douglas matches exactly ?

You mean as Cactus Jack, because Onita wasn't at all about falling from high places. I haven't seen any of Flair's garbage matches, but I don't feel like I would enjoy them in the least. Terry Funk was a strange beast. The on/off nature of his stints sure helps. To me he looked really good until 1995. When he came back in 1997 in ECW, he was showing his age. I'm a Terry Funk mark, and I enjoyed pretty much everything I saw from him past that point, including the WCW stint, but Terry retiring in late 1995 would have been fine with me.

Some really fine work there indeed. Love Earthquake, Sherri, Big Boss Man. Kerry is goofy as hell, but it suits him. Yokozuna is quite great. But The Sheik is AWESOME.

Some would say it was a good ten year overdue at this point. To me Flair already looked sad during the infamous "great" match with Taker. I've seen several big WWE match, and Flair was just old and a sad shelf of his already old self of the mid-90's. I would have been fine with Flair retiring after WCW went down. Quite frankly, I would have been glad to see him go to WWF in 98, have this big feud with Austin and retire. That would have been perfect. Instead we got crazy-ass Flair going to the nuthouse, Asya and Little Naich (well, that was actually entertaining). Some would have been fine with Flair retiring after the 1996 run. Some would have been fine with Flair retiring after his WWF stint, as he wasn't the same when he came back in 1993. 2008 was awfully late for Flair to retire. But in retrospect, as sad as he looked during his WWE stint, it's nothing compared to what he's showed last week. He was dying out there. I morbidly can't wait for Hogan vs Sting...

Rock'n Roll Express vs Ric Flair & Arn Anderson (Main Event 1990.02.18) Fuck editing. Seriously. This match was so great at first. Flair & Arn just bumped their ass off for Ricky & Robert, just two little bitches. The crowd ate it. You can argue it made them look weak, but I don't think it's the case. That was Flair & Arn, they can do that and still keep credibility when they finally kick Ricky's ass. But that doesn't come before a while, you feel they really want to give the audience some fun times. Finally they get on control, and it's as good as Arn and Flair can make it in 1990 against Ricky Morton. Then something odd happens, Morton makes a no-sell comeback routine. Yeah, makes me look like an idiot; or maybe it's because of Flair who's just demanding that from anyone he works for, be it Luger or Morton, another Flair stample you can knock him for. But that's not the odd thing, the odd thing is that they cut to the crowd, and when they get back Ricky is still there but Flair is obviously bleeding. 30 seconds later, they go into the finish without a hot tag. Yep. I guess it happened because Flair bladed, and there was a no-blood policy on TV, but it ruined the ending of what was an excellent match until then.

I love the moment during the Luger interview where the Horsemen come out and Flair trips on the steps coming into the ring. Flair covered by selling his humiliation! The crowd pops huge for that and Luger even has trouble keeping a straight face. You remember every detail. Yeah, that was a funny one. Flair selling it made it great. That would have worked pretty well. What was the deal with Doc ? I guess they only wanted to feed him to Luger, I don't see Doc getting the US title while working in Japan for both companies at the same time. The thing is, the babyface front wasn't exactly loaded on top. You had Sting as clear N°1, then Doc as N°2 probably, and then it was down to Pillman. The company was really structured around tag teams at this point, the Steiners being directly under Sting as the N°2 babyfaces, much more than Doc was, equally with the Road Warriors maybe, who were becomig stale by that point. Then you had the Dynamic Dudes and Rock'n Roll Express coming back to fill the undercard. I don't get what the need was to put Z Man & Pillman together, especially since Pillman was over already in single. Maybe it was a way to give some rub to Zenk, but although they were a pretty good team, Zenk looked like Pillman's albatros. I agree with Dylan, Pillman should have been much bigger than he was as a babyface, he had *it*, the work, the good matches, the connection with the fans. It was so out of the blue too. You had Woman making advances to Flair the weeks prior to Clash, and it looked like they were going in the direction of "Will Flair turn to be with Woman", but all of a sudden at the Clash, the Horsemen turn on Sting, next thing you know Woman is with them on TV, and that's it. What ?

Well, he oughta be, being younger than these guys and having stopped working 11 years ago. Still, Bret these days looks pretty sad for a guy his age.

Can't agree more. I'm watching WCW TV from early 90 right now, and listening to Cornette cut promos during squashes on a week-to-week basis is just super impressive. I can't honestly think of anyone better on the mic at this point.

Vince is a very nutty businesman. Inoki is insane.

Yeah, that's the story I recall as well. Thanks for the clarification. I remember hearing the same story now that you mention it. Agree with Will on All Japan old policy about older wrestlers doing comedy matches. It was a nice way to still feature the legends/guys from the previous generations, although it could be painfull to watch at times. I'm not sure I would want to see Flair work comedy matches undercard until he gets to liquid state. Well, one could argue Flair did work comedy matches for a whole decade now... Major injuries or concussions are the main reasons wrestler retire before it's getting pathetic. Guys like Steamboat or Rude we always keep a nice picture of them because we never saw them oer the hill. Hell, Steamboat made a successful comeback at 50 past. Other times, getting back in the ring is just a terrible idea : cf Bret Hart, just sad to watch him not able to do anything.

WCW 1990.02.17 Great episode. A few fillers including a fun squash from the new team of Kevin Sullivan & Cactus Jack, and Doug Furnas gettinga win over perennial JTTS Jacko Victory, now part of teh Royal Family and managed by Lord Littlebrook no less. Plus a very good Rock'n Roll Express vs MX match with Terry Funk on commentary, which was quite fun. But the show featured some great angles and matches destined to put over the 4 Horsemen as ruthless brutes taking over WCW : _Brian Pillman had challenged Ric Flair the week before, and Flair confronts him. A non scheduled match is booked for the show. _After a Steiner squash, their interview is interrupted by the Andersons, who ask them to not show up at Wrestle War, or they'll get the same treatment as Sting did. The Anderson cheap shot the Steiners, and Arn DDT's Scott on the floor _Interview from Sting at the hospital. Got busted good by the Horsemen and could be out for 6 months to a year. He says he wants to come back before that. _Arn Anderson vs Shane Douglas for the TV title : really good match, with Arn destroying Douglas's left arm after he let him shine for a while. Douglas's selling was fantastic, and finally the referee stops the match before Shane gets his arm broken down. Ole distract the referee after the end of the match so that Arn can still torture Shane, before the Steiner make the save. _Ric Flair vs Brian Pillman : excellent match, Pillman was on fire at the time. Flair was back to the total heel Flair structure, but still busted out some cool suplexes like the butterfly, and actually dove from the top rope (got punched in the gut for it, but still). Stiff chops from left and right. Woman, who looked ridiculously hot, missed Pillman as she was supposed to slap him to break a 3 count, and Pillman didn't sell his leg after the figure four spot, but outside of that, just a super solid match. Pillman really looked like the next big thing on the babyface front. Hum... too bad he was settled with Z Man at the same time, he was ready to get some single gold already. _The main angle was the Horsemen threatening Luger so he would walk out of the title match at WW. They gave him one hour to think about it, and Ole was just great in his role. Luger showed up at the end of the show and punched Ole in the nose as an answer, and disposed from teh three Horsemen on the stage. Quite effective face turn after a great heel run in 1989. This was not taped at Center Stage, and the crowd in that town was just red hot, I mean Korakuen 90-like hot.

I'm not there yet. I totally forgot he turned heel again in 91 though. That would makes his third heel stint in 3 years or so, right ? Well, I guess his comeback in 95 made him fresh again, since by 1998, when he was just cruising around with no real aim, the crowd went batshit insane when he joined the Wolfpack.

You should hang it up *before* it's getting pathetic. Which, in the case of Flair or Hogan, was a long long time ago. I had no idea Funk ha to sell his ranch. That's very sad, I thought he was pretty much set and only did wrestling shows because he was batshit crazy.

I was just watching the pre-Wrestle War 1990 shows, and it's interesting as to show how Luger was turned face after Sting's injury. Luger has had a pretty awesome run as a heel with the US title since mid-89, and he was put in the mix of the World Title chase after Starrcade. With Flair turning on Sting and Sting's injury, Luger had to turn face since they had no one else to fit the spot. It's amazing to see how in one segment, Ole turned Luger face again. The Horsemen mugged the Steiners earlier on the same show after Ole demanded them to not appear at Wrestle War. As Luger was the guest of Jim Cornette and he was just beginning his usual "Total Package" heel interview, self-absorbed and arrogant, the Horsemen hit the ring, surround Luger and Ole does his whole "we give you one hour to tell us you won't show up at WW" deal. At the end of the segment, fans were chearing Luger like crazy. He had been a heel twice already I believe, and had a successful run as a babyface against Flair in 88, and fans just immediately got behind him again. One thing impressive about Luger, is how he stayed over consistently with the WCW audience during the whole decade despite turning face and heel a numbers of time, at points to a ridicule degree.

I think it's a pretty great match, I actually like it better than the SummerSlam one. The way Hennig progressively heels up during the match is excellent. One of my favourites Hennig matches and I'm not a huge fan of face Mr. Perfect.

I watched the match. Flair was blown up a few minutes after the match began. Also, Dave said there was some editing involved, and that the match was a lot worse than what was shown on TV, which is a scary thought. I just wonder how long Flair was really out there before he blew up totally.

Agreed. From all acount, WWE is a putrid work environement. This is not the late 90's, early 00's anymore either when even midcarders made lots of money because the product was hot as hell.