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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 4, 2024 8:01:11 GMT -5
Amazing Spider-Man #35 Avengers #26 Fantastic Four #49 (Galactus!) Daredevil #14 Tales to Astonish #78 Thor #126 (Thor vs. Hercules!) X-Men #18 (Magnet, plus a floating head cover!) 3-D Batman #1 (50 cents is killing my budget, but I've got to have this) Adventure Comics #342 Justice League of America #43 Teen Titans #2 Green Lantern #43 (I'm picking this up because it guest stars the Flash, and I love superhero team-ups) Detective Comics #349 My cover of the month:
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 4, 2024 7:53:25 GMT -5
Yeah, it's also mind blowing that Demolition isn't in. Must be a political thing. I mean, come on, Koko B. Ware is in!
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 2, 2024 16:09:11 GMT -5
On this day 35 years ago, WrestleMania V aired on PPV, taking place at the the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey: Hulk Hogan won his second WWF World Heavyweight Championship, by defeating the Macho Man. It was a great match, although I believe the two had better matches than this one. The rest of the card was pretty good, too, including Intercontinental Champion Ultimate Warrior vs. Rick Rude, WWF Tag Team Champions Demolition vs. Mr. Fuji and The Powers of Pain, Mr. Perfect vs. The Blue Blazer, Jake Roberts vs. Andre the Giant (with Big John Studd as the guest referee), and The Rockers vs. The Twin Towers. I don’t believe every match needs a storyline behind it, certainly not on an undercard, whatever Vince Russo has to say. Sometimes, competition is enough, so other bouts here, like Brutus Beefcake vs, Ted DiBiase, were what they were. Roddy Piper returned to the WWF here, hosting a “Piper’s Pit”. His guest was Morton Downey Jr. (Brother Love gatecrashed proceedings). My match of the night was the tag team championship match. For over 8 minutes, Demolition and The Powers of Pain held nothing back, beating on each other in the most brutal and believable way. This is one of the best WMs. Speaking of matches on the undercard not needing a storyline behind it, Mr. Perfect vs. the Blue Blazer might have been my favorite match on the card! My only complaint is that it was too short.
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 2, 2024 16:05:06 GMT -5
I recently saw Superbrawl IV from 1994. Which apparently was for some reason never released on home video. I can hear driver1980 groaning right now. This WCW PPV is coming from Georgia (of course) and with Tony Schiavone, making his WCW PPV debut, is Bobby the Brain Heenan! Apparently this is Flair’s first job as a booker. The main event here is Flair vs. Vader for the WCW championship in a Thundercage match! The first match was supposed to be Johnny B. Badd vs. Michael Hayes, as they’ve recently started a rivalry (they were partners until Hayes attacked Badd). They introduce Badd with his music and his glitter gun and all that….Then Hayes comes out in a wheelchair pushed by his old teammate Jimmy Garvin, and Hayes and Garvin tell conflicting stories of how Hayes really wanted to wrestle Badd but he got hurt in the way in (reminiscent of what Lawler Pulled at Summerslam 1993 except that in this case apparently Hayes really is hurt) so the match is off. However, new Commish Nick Bockwinkle comes out and says that he’s looked through the old Freebirds contracts (which are still in force) and is Hayes can’t wrestle Badd, then Garvin (who hasn’t wrestled in 2 years and is now a commercial pilot – for real!) must wrestle him, or they will both be heavily fined. So, they have 45 minutes for Garvin to get ready. Apparently, they had to do this because Hayes had a legit injury and since WCW films things months in advance, they got railroaded into having a retired guy wrestle at a PPV. Okay, fine, but why bother wasting 5 minutes on the Badd entrance if you know the match isn’t going to happen and we’ll just have to do it again. Good ol’ WCW. So, now the first match is Harlem Heat (Kole & Kane) vs. Thunder & Lightning. Thunder & Lightning are a green, generic babyface team who haven’t been in WCW very long. Harlem Heat now sport their new, cool looking leather (or vinyl?) outfits. Harlem Heat win when Kane stomps Lightning in the head (unseen by the ref of course), allowing Kole to cover him for the win. The was a decent match. Kole, AKA Booker T, was the best part of it. It would be pretty weak otherwise. But anyway, this match was fine, if nothing special. Next match is Jungle Jim Steele vs. The Equalizer. Ugh. This match has NO business on a PPV! Jungle Jim is supposed to be a Tarzan gimmick (he sort of looks like a cross between Jimmy Snuka and the Ultimate Warrior) and he’s supposed to be from the jungle and his intro has animal sounds – including monkey – and they say he’s from…the Florida Everglades?! Oh, WCW! Jungle Jim hasn’t impressed yet in WCW but he’s still worlds better than the Equalizer. Jungle Jim wins with his closer, which I think is a Lou Thesz Press. Terrible match. Next match is Diamond Dallas Page (w. a Diamond Doll) vs. Terry Taylor. Both guys are back in WCW after a lengthy absence. I guess DDP had recently come back and was challenging wrestlers by pulling names out of a fishbowl, but every name he pulled was a retired guy. Finally Taylor called his bluff when his name was called, and accepted Page’s challenge. Taylor wins with a rollup, which surprised me. This was a decent match, though the crowd didn’t seem to care much. Perhaps because, like I said, these guys have been away from WCW for a while. Besides, whatever momentum Taylor had is long gone. Oh, and on his way out, Taylor shoves the Diamond Doll for no particular reason. Real nice, babyface. Next, we finally get that Johnny B. Badd vs. Jimmy Garvin (w. Michael Hayes on the entrance platform in a wheelchair) match. Badd wins the match with a nice looking sunset flip off the top rope. After the match, Badd goes over to the platform and threatens Hayes (the guy in a wheelchair) then Garvin jumps him from behind then throws him into the ring. Then Hayes tosses Garvin his boot and he clobbers Badd with it, and the heels go off, crowing. This was an okay match. Considering that Garvin hadn’t wrestled in 2 years, it cold have been worse. They worked the crowd but that doesn’t do much for the people watching on TV. Not a terrible match but not really PPV quality. This match was too long at 12 minutes and really dragged at times. Next is for the TV Championship with Lord Steven Regal (champ) w. Sir William vs. Arn Anderson. Regal wins when Arn goes for the sunset flip, but Regal sits on his chest, then holds onto Sir William’s umbrella for additional leverage, and the win with something like 6 seconds remaining in the match. Normally I enjoy Regal’s matches, but I thought this one was just plain boring. TV title matches are normally 15 minutes (and sometimes even 10 minutes) but for some reason they made this one 30 minutes, and it would have been a much, much better match if they’d kept it at 15 minutes (or at most, 20 minutes). It seemed like they were just stalling and going for the time limit draw. I’ll at least give them credit for going against the grain and tricking us by actually giving us a decision right at the end. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long to get it. By the way, someone in the crowd was holding up an “Arn rules the world” sign so I’m guessing that that person her about the Sid Vicious stabbing incident somehow, way back in the pre-internet days. Next up is the Tag Team title match with the Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne. These two teams have had several battles recently, and they’ve been pretty good. No Missy Hyatt as she has left the company at this point and I think had sued WCW for sexual harassment. The match ends when Payne gets Knobbs in his finishing submission move, the Payne Killer (and armbar), then Sags hits him over the head (twice) with the guitar that the Nasty Boys had brought with them to the ring to mock Payne (who was a guitar player) so the Nasties lose by DQ but retain their belt. This will set up a no DQ match between these two teams at the next PPV, I think. This match was fun and brutal. Jack took a nasty bump off the apron onto the cement floor (the Nasties had pulled up the padding) but then doesn’t he in every match? How could that guy even remember his own name? Payne was very impressive here, too, suplexing guys and tossing them around like a Stainer at the beginning of the match, and to this point, Payne hadn’t really impressed me, but he showed me something here. These two guys make a good tag team. Too bad the Hollywood Blonds broke up, I love to see the tackle Jack & Maxx! Next is Thundercage match #1, a 6 man tag team match with Paul Orndorff, Rick Rude, and Steve Austin vs. Sting, Brian Pillman, and Dustin Rhodes. These guys have all sorts of feuds going on between the 6 of them. So here we go! Oh, the cage is a few feet away from the ring, so it doesn’t come into play as often as in a regular cage match, but don’t worry, guys definitely still got smashed into it! The good guys get the win when Sting picks up Pillman and throws him onto Austin for the pin. After the match, Rude slams the cage door on Sting’s face then gives him the Rude Awakening on the floor. Orndorff and Pillman both got opened up in this match. This was a very good match, with some ood heat segments, and the crowd was into it. At just under 15 minutes, maybe they should have made it longer (and shortened some of the other matches that were way too long) but overall an enjoyable match. The final match is the Thundercage between Flair (champ) and Vader (w. Harley Race) for the WCW championship match (no DQ’s, and Vader brought a chair with him!) and the Boss (AKA Big Bossman) is the special guest referee to bring “law and order” to WCW! The match was pretty good until the last couple of minutes, where it got pretty silly. Vader & Race manage to get the Boss handcuffed to the cage, then Race gets the key to the cage (the cage door had been locked at the beginning of the match so Race, and everybody else, couldn’t get in) then Race goes inside the cage and locks the door. And Vader and Race gang up on Flair. Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat frantically try to get inside the cage to help their buddy, to no avail. The Boss eventually breaks the cuffs, then he clips Vader I the knee with his nightstick, then Flair slaps on the Figure Four and Boss calls for the bell less than a second after the Figure Four was applied. Heenan kept saying over and over that Vader never quit, and he’s right. Boss ran the bell so quickly that Vader literally didn’t even have time to say I quit, plus I don’t think Boss even looked at Vader. It honestly looked more like he was calling for the bell due to a DQ, except that this was a no DQ match. Pretty good match but messy finish. Vader is furious after the match, terrifying the announcers, and I can’t say I blame him. Well, I guess this sets up a feud with him and the Boss now. Overall, I thought this a decent PPV. Well, average at best, really. I’m glad you’ve got to see this. Sorry you didn’t enjoy Arn/Regal that much. I did find it absorbing, and was engrossed, but I do remember some negative letters about it in one magazine published here, so I appreciate that its not for everyone. I was never 100% sure what was supposed to be special about “Thunderdome”. Ever. Or perhaps it was that WCW didn’t effectively hype it in the way the WWF did with Hell in a Cell. It just felt like Thunderdome was an afterthought. I thought the good bouts on here were good, others were solid, and the bad bouts didn’t ruin things. I had to get an imperfect copy of this in the late 90s because of WCW’s utter inconsistency with its home video releases. I’m pleased that the Boss/Vader shenanigans led to a heated feud between the two. In 1994, Sting seemed lost in the shuffle a tad. Or is it me? This PPV also shows how relentless and ever-changing wrestling was. When people watched Flair/Vader, did they ever suspect that five months later, Flair would be a heel, challenging Hulk Hogan, who had been synonymous with the WWF for so long? What's special about "Thunderdome" is...the name, I guess. I was thinking the same thing about Sting myself. He was the most popular wrestler at WCW, yet they seemed to move him down the card, which didn't make sense to me. That's WCW, though. Yeah, the Flair/Hogan stuff is a pretty amazing turnaround.
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 1, 2024 16:05:38 GMT -5
I recently saw Superbrawl IV from 1994. Which apparently was for some reason never released on home video. I can hear driver1980 groaning right now.
This WCW PPV is coming from Georgia (of course) and with Tony Schiavone, making his WCW PPV debut, is Bobby the Brain Heenan!
Apparently this is Flair’s first job as a booker.
The main event here is Flair vs. Vader for the WCW championship in a Thundercage match!
The first match was supposed to be Johnny B. Badd vs. Michael Hayes, as they’ve recently started a rivalry (they were partners until Hayes attacked Badd). They introduce Badd with his music and his glitter gun and all that….Then Hayes comes out in a wheelchair pushed by his old teammate Jimmy Garvin, and Hayes and Garvin tell conflicting stories of how Hayes really wanted to wrestle Badd but he got hurt in the way in (reminiscent of what Lawler Pulled at Summerslam 1993 except that in this case apparently Hayes really is hurt) so the match is off. However, new Commish Nick Bockwinkle comes out and says that he’s looked through the old Freebirds contracts (which are still in force) and is Hayes can’t wrestle Badd, then Garvin (who hasn’t wrestled in 2 years and is now a commercial pilot – for real!) must wrestle him, or they will both be heavily fined. So, they have 45 minutes for Garvin to get ready. Apparently, they had to do this because Hayes had a legit injury and since WCW films things months in advance, they got railroaded into having a retired guy wrestle at a PPV. Okay, fine, but why bother wasting 5 minutes on the Badd entrance if you know the match isn’t going to happen and we’ll just have to do it again. Good ol’ WCW.
So, now the first match is Harlem Heat (Kole & Kane) vs. Thunder & Lightning. Thunder & Lightning are a green, generic babyface team who haven’t been in WCW very long. Harlem Heat now sport their new, cool looking leather (or vinyl?) outfits. Harlem Heat win when Kane stomps Lightning in the head (unseen by the ref of course), allowing Kole to cover him for the win. The was a decent match. Kole, AKA Booker T, was the best part of it. It would be pretty weak otherwise. But anyway, this match was fine, if nothing special.
Next match is Jungle Jim Steele vs. The Equalizer. Ugh. This match has NO business on a PPV! Jungle Jim is supposed to be a Tarzan gimmick (he sort of looks like a cross between Jimmy Snuka and the Ultimate Warrior) and he’s supposed to be from the jungle and his intro has animal sounds – including monkey – and they say he’s from…the Florida Everglades?! Oh, WCW!
Jungle Jim hasn’t impressed yet in WCW but he’s still worlds better than the Equalizer. Jungle Jim wins with his closer, which I think is a Lou Thesz Press. Terrible match.
Next match is Diamond Dallas Page (w. a Diamond Doll) vs. Terry Taylor. Both guys are back in WCW after a lengthy absence. I guess DDP had recently come back and was challenging wrestlers by pulling names out of a fishbowl, but every name he pulled was a retired guy. Finally Taylor called his bluff when his name was called, and accepted Page’s challenge. Taylor wins with a rollup, which surprised me. This was a decent match, though the crowd didn’t seem to care much. Perhaps because, like I said, these guys have been away from WCW for a while. Besides, whatever momentum Taylor had is long gone. Oh, and on his way out, Taylor shoves the Diamond Doll for no particular reason. Real nice, babyface.
Next, we finally get that Johnny B. Badd vs. Jimmy Garvin (w. Michael Hayes on the entrance platform in a wheelchair) match. Badd wins the match with a nice looking sunset flip off the top rope. After the match, Badd goes over to the platform and threatens Hayes (the guy in a wheelchair) then Garvin jumps him from behind then throws him into the ring. Then Hayes tosses Garvin his boot and he clobbers Badd with it, and the heels go off, crowing. This was an okay match. Considering that Garvin hadn’t wrestled in 2 years, it cold have been worse. They worked the crowd but that doesn’t do much for the people watching on TV. Not a terrible match but not really PPV quality. This match was too long at 12 minutes and really dragged at times.
Next is for the TV Championship with Lord Steven Regal (champ) w. Sir William vs. Arn Anderson. Regal wins when Arn goes for the sunset flip, but Regal sits on his chest, then holds onto Sir William’s umbrella for additional leverage, and the win with something like 6 seconds remaining in the match.
Normally I enjoy Regal’s matches, but I thought this one was just plain boring. TV title matches are normally 15 minutes (and sometimes even 10 minutes) but for some reason they made this one 30 minutes, and it would have been a much, much better match if they’d kept it at 15 minutes (or at most, 20 minutes). It seemed like they were just stalling and going for the time limit draw. I’ll at least give them credit for going against the grain and tricking us by actually giving us a decision right at the end. I just wish I didn’t have to wait so long to get it.
By the way, someone in the crowd was holding up an “Arn rules the world” sign so I’m guessing that that person her about the Sid Vicious stabbing incident somehow, way back in the pre-internet days.
Next up is the Tag Team title match with the Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne. These two teams have had several battles recently, and they’ve been pretty good. No Missy Hyatt as she has left the company at this point and I think had sued WCW for sexual harassment.
The match ends when Payne gets Knobbs in his finishing submission move, the Payne Killer (and armbar), then Sags hits him over the head (twice) with the guitar that the Nasty Boys had brought with them to the ring to mock Payne (who was a guitar player) so the Nasties lose by DQ but retain their belt. This will set up a no DQ match between these two teams at the next PPV, I think.
This match was fun and brutal. Jack took a nasty bump off the apron onto the cement floor (the Nasties had pulled up the padding) but then doesn’t he in every match? How could that guy even remember his own name? Payne was very impressive here, too, suplexing guys and tossing them around like a Stainer at the beginning of the match, and to this point, Payne hadn’t really impressed me, but he showed me something here. These two guys make a good tag team. Too bad the Hollywood Blonds broke up, I love to see the tackle Jack & Maxx!
Next is Thundercage match #1, a 6 man tag team match with Paul Orndorff, Rick Rude, and Steve Austin vs. Sting, Brian Pillman, and Dustin Rhodes. These guys have all sorts of feuds going on between the 6 of them. So here we go!
Oh, the cage is a few feet away from the ring, so it doesn’t come into play as often as in a regular cage match, but don’t worry, guys definitely still got smashed into it!
The good guys get the win when Sting picks up Pillman and throws him onto Austin for the pin. After the match, Rude slams the cage door on Sting’s face then gives him the Rude Awakening on the floor.
Orndorff and Pillman both got opened up in this match. This was a very good match, with some ood heat segments, and the crowd was into it. At just under 15 minutes, maybe they should have made it longer (and shortened some of the other matches that were way too long) but overall an enjoyable match.
The final match is the Thundercage between Flair (champ) and Vader (w. Harley Race) for the WCW championship match (no DQ’s, and Vader brought a chair with him!) and the Boss (AKA Big Bossman) is the special guest referee to bring “law and order” to WCW!
The match was pretty good until the last couple of minutes, where it got pretty silly. Vader & Race manage to get the Boss handcuffed to the cage, then Race gets the key to the cage (the cage door had been locked at the beginning of the match so Race, and everybody else, couldn’t get in) then Race goes inside the cage and locks the door. And Vader and Race gang up on Flair. Arn Anderson and Ricky Steamboat frantically try to get inside the cage to help their buddy, to no avail. The Boss eventually breaks the cuffs, then he clips Vader I the knee with his nightstick, then Flair slaps on the Figure Four and Boss calls for the bell less than a second after the Figure Four was applied. Heenan kept saying over and over that Vader never quit, and he’s right. Boss ran the bell so quickly that Vader literally didn’t even have time to say I quit, plus I don’t think Boss even looked at Vader. It honestly looked more like he was calling for the bell due to a DQ, except that this was a no DQ match. Pretty good match but messy finish. Vader is furious after the match, terrifying the announcers, and I can’t say I blame him. Well, I guess this sets up a feud with him and the Boss now.
Overall, I thought this a decent PPV. Well, average at best, really.
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Post by dbutler69 on Apr 1, 2024 16:03:22 GMT -5
I watched the 1994 Royal Rumble recently. We’ve got Vince McMahon and Ted DiBiase as the announce team.
The first match is Bam Bam Bigelow (w. Luna Vacho)nvs. Tatanka. It was supposed to be Ludvig Borga facing Tatanka, as that feud had been going in since before Survivor Series, and is what had been billed, even in WWF shows just a couple of days before the Royal Rumble. However, Borga had a career threatening injury, so he gets replaced by Bam Bam. Actually, I think this works better. Tatanka also had a long running feud with Bam Bam, and frankly I’d much rather watch Bam Bam than Borga, anyway. The match ends when Tatanka gets out of the way of a Bam Bam moonsault (!) and goes up top for the crossbody and covers for the win. The Bam Bam moonsault was very cool but the rest of the match was average. Frankly, about what I expected. Kind of an odd choice for an opening match, though.
Next match is the Quebecers (champs) w. Johnny Polo vs. Bret and Owen Hart. Of course, Bret and Owen got into a shoving match at Survivor Series, and Owen in subsequent weeks called Bret selfish and challenged Bret to a match, which Bret refused. They eventually reconciled and formed a tag team, getting this title shot. In an odd bit of booking, the Quebecers lost the tag team titles to Marty Jannetty and the 1-2-3 Kid just about a week or so before Royal Rumble, making it seem like this would not be a title match (then in interviews Bret saying he was happy for Jannetty and Kid with Owen being upset about it) but then the Quebecers won the title back just days before the Rumble. I’m not sure what the point of giving Jannetty and Kid the titles for just a week, especially as people wanting to buy the PPV might think they’re not getting a title match, but anyway…
The Quebecers win when the ref stops the match, judging that Bret is unable to continue with his badly injured knee – which also renders him doubtful for the rumble. Owen is furious with his brother as he didn’t (or, in Owen’s view, wouldn’t) tag out to him. Owen kicks Bret’s injured knee out from under himl leaving Bret laying on the mat. Owen then leaves to a chorus of boos. This was a good match, with very good storytelling, which set up even better things to come.
Next match is for the Intercontinental Title: Razor Ramon (champ) vs. IRS. Of course, if you’re Shawn Michaels, then this isn’t the Intercontinental Title match, since Shawn Michaels is claiming at this time that he’s the intercontinental champ. Anyway, the ref gets knocked out, then IRS tries to clobber Razor with his metal briefcase, but Razor dodges it and instead hits IRS with the briefcase. However, the ref can’t count IRS out because he’s still out himself. So Razor superplexes IRS then sets up the Razor’s Edge, but Shawn Michaels comes in and clobbers Ramon with his Intercontinental belt, knocking him down, allowing IRS to pin him, and the ref is just conscious enough to count Razor out and awards the match to IRS, so we have a new Intercontinental champ! But wait, another ref comes from out of nowhere, and tells Joey Morella what happened, and he has the match go on. However, IRS is unaware of this, and is celebrating on the turnbuckle, so Ramon easily rolls him up with the win. The match itself was okay, but I HATED the ending! First of all, I hate when another ref comes in and gets a decision reversed. Why not do that for every match? Then nobody will be able to get away with everything and half the fun of pro wrestling will be gone. Second, they didn’t even let IRS know what was going on, so Razor just rolls the poor guy up from behind for an easy an unfair win. Not that I wanted IRS to win the match, but that ending was ridiculous and unfair, even in kayfabe.
Next is a casket match for the WWF Championship: Yokozuna (champ) w. Mr. Fuji vs. Undertaker w. Paul Bearer. Unlike the last PPV casket match with Kamala, you don’t have to pin your opponent before putting him in the casket this time. It never made sense that you had to pin him first before, but they didn’t really make the rule change clear.
This was not a particularly good match, though there was one really cool looking DDT by Undertaker, and there was also a pretty brutal looking chair shot. Anyway, Undertaker has Yoko in the casket and is about to close the lid (up until this point it’s not all that bad of a match but it goes seriously downhill from here on out) when Crush comes out and stops him. They brawl and just when it looks like Taker is going to win, two more Fuji guys, Genichiro Tenryu and the Great Kibuki, come out to join in the fight. Boy, talk about taking advantage of the no DQ rule! Well, at least these are all Fuji guys, so I guess this sort of makes some sense. However, a bunch more heels with no involvement with Fuji or Yoko or anything all come out and join I the attack. The Undertaker is fighting 11 guys, and at one point, he’s winning (just like Hulk Hogan) but eventually the numbers take their toll and he gets put in the casket and the lid closed and Yokozuna wins!
That was all pretty dumb. I know there are no DQ’s, but at one point the other 10 heels are trying to put the Undertaker in the casket while Yokozuna is in the far corner of the ring resting. So how the heck does somebody else putting Taker in the casket make Yokozuna the winner? I’m pretty sure the rules said you had to put your opponent in the casket and close the lid to win, not have a bunch of other people do it for you. There’s some WCW logic going on here. And with so many guys spending so much time ganging up on the Undertaker, why didn’t any of the faces come out to help him?
Somehow there’s a camera inside the casket, from which Undertaker delivers a promo. Then, I guess the Undertaker…died...and rose out of the casket into the rafters. More to come on this, but you’ll have to wait a long time for it.
On to the Royal Rumble!
Now only 90 seconds between entrants instead of 2 minutes.
The WWF roster is really thin at this point, as evidenced by the fact that they brought in several guys (Kabuki, Tenryu, and Greg Valentine!) to help get us up to 30 guys, plus a bunch of guys had to pull double duty by wrestling in a regular match prior to the Rumble, which was not typically done to this point. We also had some late replacements, with Sparky Plugg (making his televised WWF in-ring debut) replacing the 1-2-3 Kid and Virgil replacing Kamala.
Some odd stuff here, with Tatanka completely ignoring Bam Bam in the Rumble. I’d have expected those two to go right at each other. Also, Crush, Tenryu and Kabuki (I think Kabuki was eliminated by the time Luger got in, though) basically ignored Lex Luger, even though they had supposedly been brought over by Mr. Fuji to keep Luger from winning. (They did work Luger over prior to the Rumble, in the locker room, but he came out anyway and acted as if nothing happened, and it’s really odd that in the Rumble itself the Fuji stooges never went after Luger.) There was one spot (in the 20’s) where nobody came out, and McMahon speculated that it was Bret Hart due to the knee injury. However, Brey came out a couple of spots later and we later found out that the no-show was Bastion Booger who I guess supposedly got sick. Must have been something he ate.
Diesel was very impressive here, eliminating 7 guys one right after another and making it look easy. He had the ring to himself a few times. Randy Savage finally slowed him down enough for some other guys to enter the ring eventually.
Of course, the ending is utter chaos with Hart and Luger both going over at the same time. Each guy has one official declare them a winner, then Jack Tunney comes out and declares it a draw. This leads to uncertainty over who will face the champ at Wrestlemania X, but of course that will get cleared up in the coming weeks.
The rumble was decent. It had some slow parts, of course, and a few memorable moments. Not the greatest rumble, certainly, but not terrible.
Aside from the Undertaker-Yokozuna nonsense (and boy, Taker has been in same bad feuds over the past year) this was a decent Royal Rumble.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 30, 2024 14:41:30 GMT -5
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 30, 2024 8:35:44 GMT -5
I watched Starrcade 1993. First of all, we’ve got yet another last minute change to the card. Davey Boy Smith was supposed to challenge Rick Rude for the WCW International World title (or whatever the heck WCW calls it) but due to legal troubles stemming from a bar fight, he’s out and The Boss (AKA Big Boss Man) is in. The Boss attacked Rude from behind (then the ref for some reason rang the bell to start the match even though no contract was signed – Jesse was rightfully complaining about that) on a segment that aired just the night before on WCW Saturday Night, so we’ve at least got some sort of setup for this thing, however rushed and halfassed it might be.
Also, apparently the original plan was for Sid Vicious to beat Vader here but then Sid stabbed Arn Anderson a score of times and he was gone. Of course, in typical WCW fashion, they’d already filmed a bunch of content months ahead with Sid wearing the belt, and all that footage could obviously never be aired. Sigh.
Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura on commentary.
Anyway, WCW did a fantastic job with the opening, showing clips and voicovers by Flair then showing Vader clips, then we see Vader coming to the arena and training, then we see Flair leaving his home and hugging his wife and goods goodbye. Really nice job by WCW of setting this up.
First match is 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Alexander Bagwell (w. Teddy Long) vs. Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma (not yet called Pretty Wonderful, w. the Masked Assassin). Before the match begins, Teddy Long is presented with the manager of the year award. He’s only managing this one tag team, and he’s only been their manager for maybe 3 months, but he wins anyway, probably because the fans voted for it by calling a 900 number and of the 4 choices you were allowed to vote for (and I have no idea why Col. Parker wasn’t one of the choices) Teddy was the only babyface, so of course he’s going to win. Anyway, no particular feud here but this was a pretty good tag team match, and a good choice for an opener. The heels win when the Assassin puts a foreign object in his mask then headbutts Scorpio, knocking him out and allowing Orndorff to pin him.
Next match is the Shockmaster vs. Awesome Kong (?) w. King Kong (?). Who the heck thought this match would be a good idea??? Especially in a PPV??? Especially Starrcade??? The Kongs in particular are awful. Anyway, the graphic and the announcers say it will be Awesome Kong vs. the Shockmaster, but it looks like King Kong that winds up wrestling this match. Either the graphic was wrong, the Kongs got confused and the wrong Kong wrestled the match, or the ref made the wrong Kong leave the ring (they had both attacked Shockmaster in the ring before the bell). Since this is WCW, any one of those is easily believable. Just a couple of big, fat guys pounding on each other. The only good thing is that this match was quick – about a minute and a half – as the Shockmaster wins it by pinfall.
After the match, Tony actually mentions the dark match (Terry Taylor defeated the Equalizer) which I’d not heard an announcer do before, but I thought was a nice touch.
The next match is Lord Stephen Regal (w. Sir William) vs. Ricky Steamboat for the world television title. Regal is the defending champ here. These two have been feuding for a while, as Regal took the TV title away from Steamboat some time back with the assistance of Sir William’s umbrella.
This match had some good technical wrestling with some nice, smooth moves and countermoves. However, the pace was a bit slow and Steamboat didn’t seem to show the sense of urgency you’d expect considering the 15 minute time limit. It looked like Steamboat might steal the win as he went for the flying crossbody off the top rope with 10 seconds left, but Regal ducked it and the time limit expired. So we get a time limit draw. I half expected Steamboat to win since this event is in Steamboat’s (and Flair’s) home town of Charlotte, NC, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Next match is Tex Slazenger and Shanghai Pierce vs. Cactus Jack and Maxx Payne. Jack and both turned face relatively recently, especially Payne. Jack has sort of become his spiritual advisor, as we have a tag team made up of a couple of people who probably hear voices in their heads versus the two big, nasty Texans (or Texicans, as Jesse would say). This was a random matchup, as these two teams have no history together.
Jack and Payne get a pretty good pop from the crowd. Payne never impressed me as a singles wrestler but he seems better utilized here in a tag team with Jack. This match was better than I thought it would be. I don’t know if it was PPV quality, but it was decent with some nice spots and some pretty good teamwork between Jack and Payne. The faces win when Jack puts the double arm DDT on Shanghai then covers for the win.
Next match is a best 2 out of 3 falls for the US Heavyweight championship, with Dustin Rhodes (champ) vs. Stunning Steve Austin.
The lights went out during the second Rhodes-Austin match because WCW. I think this is the second straight WCW PPV where the lights went out. Jesse made a crack that “if this was Georgia I could understand it” which I thought was pretty funny. He also made a joke that it was a dark match, which was good. Anyway, Austin wins the first fall by DQ when Rhodes throws him over the top rope (gotta love that rule) and he crashes into Col. Parker, who was standing on the apron, then Austin indulges in an obvious blade job. The second fall was pretty quick and Austin won that by grabbing the tights. And we have a new US Heavyweight Champion! I was surprised that Austin won two straight. I figured it would go the full three, as these things usually do.
In the first match, they start with some mat wrestling before it turns into a brawl. Then of course the dumb DQ. The ending to the second match came from nowhere. Overall, this match was okay, but nothing special.
The next match is Ravishing Rick Rude vs. the Boss (the wrestler formerly known as Big Bossman. I don’t know why they didn’t just give him his old WCW name when he came back but they’d eventually be forced to change it. However, he has already changed his uniform. When he appared on WCW Saturday Night about a week ago (and attacked Rude from behind with no provocation) he was wearing his WWF Big Bossman uniform, but here he’s in an all black uniform. Speaking of the Boss, to my eyes, he’s acted more like a heel than a face, between attacking Rude from behind with no provocation and then, in this match, he spits on Rude, again with no provocation. He also fought kinda dirty in this match, but the fans love him anyway because he’s a babyface, so any actions are justified.
As stated before, this was supposed to be Davey Boy vs. Rude but we’ve got the Boss as a last minute replacement. Oh well.
A lot of stalling and a lot of brawling (hey, that rhymes!) which is not my kind of match. Rude wins when he gets out of the way of that Bossman charge where the guy is hanging on the middle rope and Bossman splashes into him, then Rude gets the pin with the sunset flip from the apron. Even Schiavone says that the pin came from out of nowhere. Plus Rude hadn’t gotten in much offense to this point, so surprising that Boss couldn’t kick out. This match was okay, I guess, but not particularly good or memorable. This would have been a good match in the WWF in 1990 (they had been building a feud between these two but then Rude left the company) but it wasn’t a very good match in WCW in 1993. Anyway, I would have been extremely annoyed if Boss won this as he just entered (or reentered) WCW and has done nothing to even justify this title shot.
The next match is for the WCW Tag Team Championship with the champs the Nasty Boys (w. Missy Hyatt) vs. Sting and Road Warrior Hawk. Oh boy, I hope Sting is up to carrying this match.
Missy Hyatt is wearing a see-through dress, by the way.
This match went on much too long. It had a 30 minute time limit, then the ref calls for the bell after 29 minutes because Missy tried to pull Sting off of Knobbs? Even Jesse said “Oh come on! They’re going to call a disqualification for that?” They made us sit through that long match for THAT ending? The match was slow and kinda boring. If they had cut the length in half, it would have been much better. The previous match was under 10 minutes and this was nearly 30 minutes. They’d have been better off splitting the time more evenly between those two matches.
Another confusing thing is that Sting was CLEARLY not the legal man, yet was in the ring for the last 3 minutes of the match. Even the announcers were confused. If the ref isn’t going to pay any attention to the rules, why should I care?
Finally, finally, we get the Vader (with Harley Race) vs. Ric Flair match for the WCW championship. Flair signed a contract stating that if he doesn’t win the title from Vader here, he will retire. So this is really an all or nothing match for him.
Tony has said repeatedly that Ric Flair is in his prime. WTF? He’s 44 years old (and will in fact turn 45 in less than two months)so how is that his prime?
Vader just pummels Flair for about the first half at least of this match (which went for about 21 minutes) and Flair does a great job of selling. At one point, with the ref distracted by Harley Race and both guys outside the ring, Flair hits Vader with a chair! Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do. Flair tries the figure four a couple of times but unsuccessfully. Eventually, he gets the win by grabbing Vader’s leg (which of course he’s been working then takes him down and rolls him up for the win. Surprising ending.
I thought this match was very good, but I didn’t think it was as great as a lot of other people did. It did have good storytelling and all that, and I though it was good and all, but I preferred the several televised matches that Vader’s had against Sting over the past couple of years, plus his match against Davey Boy.
All in all, this was a bit weak for a Starrcade. The main event was very good, and there were some other decent matches (though maybe not quite PPV quality - I particularly did enjoy the Regal-Steamboat match) then the awful Kong-Shockmaster match.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 23, 2024 7:51:19 GMT -5
That’s an interesting one. I’m sure I once read that Andre had some pinfall victories over Warrior prior to that event. Piper was another one, with the WWF claiming he wasn’t pinned until he lost to Bret at WM VIII. My memory is telling me Superfly got a televised pinfall win over him. Makes you think about social media now. No way could they put out a narrative like they did back in the day. Sometimes I do defend the hype, though: the WWF could hardly have promoted Hogan/Andre at WM III with, “Hogan vs. Andre in Michigan! Can Hogan defeat Andre, who has been pinned previously? And can Hogan become the next guy to slam him?” So I get that they pushed Andre as undefeated and having never been slammed. But other times, it felt silly. You're right about Andre and WM III. I'm glad we could enjoy some wrestling before social media and the internet came around to spoil some of this fun. Obviously kayfabe is also impossible in today's day and age. I seem to recall reading about some rather salacious tales involving baseball players that were witnessed by reporters of the time but never reported, as they were travelling with these players an had some discretion as to what to report and what not to. Probably for the best in some cases. Nothing ever goes unreported today, whether it really happened or not.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 22, 2024 15:12:30 GMT -5
Thanks for doing the research. It is funny how things can be. Like Tatanka’s undefeated streak. I’m almost certain he did go undefeated on TV, but I would bet money on the possibility that he got pinned at a house show. Who knows? It is funny how there was a time when the WWF had “two universes” going: televised and untelevised. The WWF seemed to imply Undertaker’s first pinfall loss was to Hulk Hogan at the 1991 Survivor Series, but I’m certain Undertaker would have been pinned by Ultimate Warrior at house shows. Most bizarre was, as things became more insider, wrestlers wearing championship belts on TV tapings even though they’d officially lost the belts weeks prior. You're right that televised and untelevised were different universes. I'm pretty sure they kept claiming that the Ultimate Warrior was undefeated (and supposedly Rick Rude gave him his first loss when he beat him for the Intercontinental championship) but I believe that he did have at least one untelevised loss prior to that.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 22, 2024 8:09:16 GMT -5
I just finished watching Survivor Series 1993. Luckily we are back to the elimination style tag team matches. We’ve got four man tag teams in each match, plus the Smoky Mountain Wrestling Tag Team championship match will be held. We start with Lex Luger and his family wishing us a happy Thanksgiving. Bobby Heenan and Vince McMahon on commentary. The biggest news is that, about a week before this, it was announced that Jerry Lawler would not be participating due to legal problems. This had to do with an indictment for sodomy and statutory rape, I think. I was surprised that McMahan actually said it was legal issues rather than making an angle out of it, like that the Harts attacked him and put him in the hospital or something. Anyway, this is bad news for the WWF as this was the hottest feud by far going into Survivor Series, though you’ve also got the proud American wrestlers versus the evil foreigners feuds, as well. Anyway, the first match is Irwin R. Schyster, Diesel, Rick Martel & Adam Bomb (w/Harvey Wippleman) vs. Razor Ramon, Randy Savage, Marty Jannetty & 1-2-3 Kid. Interesting that the heel team all come out together, to Diesel’s “music” but the Face team all come out one at a time, each to his own music. Also, as far as I know, this is the first time the 1-2-3 Kid has had his own music. After Ramon comes out, he take the mic and announces that Mr. Perfect has already “tagged out” and his replacement will be…Randy Savage! Savage comes out to a big pop. Perfect missed this because of a back injury. Perfect had been feuding with Diesel, so that angle bites the dust here. Savage is feuding with Crush (who recently turned heel and took Mr Fuji as his manager) and unfortunately Crush isn’t on the other team but wat can you do. Marty Jannetty and the 1-2-3 Kid are the survivors from this match. This was a good match overall. While I fully expected the face team to win, I definitely didn’t expect Jannetty and Kid to be the two survivors! This also sets them up as an underdog tag team. I think both of these guys are very exciting, so it was good to see them survive. They also continued to play up some tension between Martel and Bomb/Whippleman which would seem to indicate that a face turn is coming for somebody. Next match is Shawn Michaels and His Knights The Red Knight, The Blue Knight and The Black Knight vs. Bret, Owen, Bruce & Keith Hart (w/Stu Hart). This was of course supposed to be Jerry the King Lawler and high knights, which of course makes more sense because it’s then a king and his knights (the Lawler/Hart feud started because Hart won King of the Ring tournament and there’s only room for one king in the WWF!) but it was a bit late in the game so the WWF did what they could with the hand they were dealt. Too bad, since Hart/Lawler had been a hot feud with a lot of buildup. Anyway, I’ve read that the knights are Jeff Gaylord (Black), Greg Valentine (Blue) and Barry Horowitz (Red) although they wore masks and we were never told who they are. As far as the Harts, we all know Bret and Owen, Bruce was at the last PPV (where he acted like an ass, as usual) and WWF fans and pretty much the entire world has never seen Keith Hart before. So we’ve really got Bret and Owen with a couple of guys that nobody knows and who don’t have great reputations as wrestlers (or even as people, to judge even by Bret Hart’s own book). The prematch interview is weird, as they’re talking as if all the stuff that Jerry Lawler did (the insults to Bret’s family and when he really insulted Stu and Helen) were actually done by Shawn Michaels, in order to build some heat for this out of nowhere matchup. Before the match Michaels goes over and taunts the Hart family members sitting in the front row, again to try and build some heat for this thing. Ray Combs (host of Family Feud) does the ring announcing, insulting the heels (as he did on a previous WWF PPV) but it would have been better if he could have been insulting Lawler instead of Michaels. They mention that Bruce and Keith are a fireman and substitute teacher and haven’t wrestled in years, which doesn’t make Michaels and his knight look good when they start taking bumps for these Harts. There was a “boring” chant during this match. Not a good sign. Especially as, prior to the sudden departure of Lawler, this match was the most hyped one on the card. The crowd was dead for this match. Anyway, this match was boring and much too long (almost 30 minutes!) and the crowd was dead for it (Jerry Lawler not being in it just killed this match), and the finish was lame, with Shawn Michaels just walking off. Also, I was annoyed that Owen got eliminated rather than Bruce and Keith. The events after this match famously set up the feud between Bret and Owen as Owen is upset over what happened (he bumped into Bret, who was standing on the apron, then Owen got rolled up while everybody ignored him and went to check on Bret) and he comes out and starts pushing Bret, then storms off to boos. So, the only good thing to come out of this match was the start of the Bret-Owen feud. Next match is Rock n Roll Express (champs) vs. Heavenly Bodies for the Smoky Mountain Wrestling tag team championship. Good match, but the crowd didn’t seem to care. I guess because they’re not familiar with these teams. Some amusing spots early on and some very nice tag team work overall. The Heavenly Bodies win thanks to Jim Cornette’s tennis rack (and I found out that Smoky Mountain Wrestling has the same stupid top rope rule as WCW) and are your new Smoky Mountain Wrestling Tag Team Champs! I just wish the crowd had care more about this match. Next match is Bam Bam Bigelow, Bastion Booger and The Headshrinkers – Samu and Fatu – (with Luna Vachon and Afa) vs. The Four Doinks (The Bushwhackers – Luke and Butch – and Men on a Mission – Mabel and Mo) (with Oscar)This was billed as four Doinks, but the pictures showed four real Doinks (we’ve seen two – Matt Borne and Steve Keirn – at once before but never four) so the expectation was, well, not for this. We get what are clearly the Bushwhackers and Men on a Mission (even Oscar has the Doink makeup and wig) waltz up to ringside. We don’t see the “real” Doink (I think Matt Borne had been fired by this point – I’d read that Bam Bam ratted him out to McMahon for smoking pot in the locker room, adding some real life heat to their feud – so I believe this is Steve Keirn now) until after the match, when he appears on the large video screen to mock Bam Bam for losing the match. There had been a “we want Doink” chant during the match, so I suspect that the fans were as disappointed as I in not really getting even one Doink, let alone two or four. This match was awful. Infamously bad. Oh, and the “Doink” team not only won, they shut out the other team! You’ve got perhaps the most dangerous tag team in WWF in the Headshrinkers, and a monster heel (and one of the best big men ever) who’s supposed to be an unstoppable force, and they get shut out by a comedy team! The freakin’ Bushwhackers! I’ll admit there were a couple of spots that amused me, but I think most wrestling fans over the age of 8 would cringe at this match. Mabel was clearly not legal man but allowed to make pin in one instance. Bottom line, this was a comedy match, a joke of a match with the rules completely ignored. For our main event, we’ve got All-Americans: Lex Luger, Undertaker & Steiner Brothers (w/Paul Bearer) vs. Foreign Fanatics: Yokozuna, Crush, Quebecer Jacques Rougeau & Ludwig Borga (w/James E. Cornette, Johnny Polo & Mr. Fuji)I actually saw a Finnish flag in the crowd. I hope they strung that guy up! A little background, Tatanka was originally on the All-Americans team, but in a match versus Ludvig Borga, he suffered his first loss, and both Borga and Yokozuna attacked him after the match, hospitalizing him and leaving him out of service for this event. He All-Americans eventually replaced him with the Undertaker, which of course the Foreign Fanatics were none too pleased about. Then, a few weeks later, Pierre was inured in a match against Lex Luger and left unavailable for this event. He was replaced by Crush, from that foreign nation of Hawaii. Crush has a cool new heel look, though to be honest, I liked his bright orange, yellow and purple babyface look too. Elimination of Rick Steiner was really weak. He came off the top rope onto Borga, then Borga just rolled him over and pinned him. I have no idea what Rick couldn’t have kicked out of that. Nothing really happened to him. Plus it looked like he got his arm up in time, but Hebner counted it anyway. I wonder if Rick had a legit leg injury there, so they just counted him out. Crush is eliminated by counting fighting Randy Savage outside the ring, to further that feud. Since this is a comic book website, I have to mention that Bobby Heenan made a Batman reference. The way Savage keeps getting into the building after getting kicked out (in order to go after Crush) Heenan says “What is he, Batman? Is he coming in through the rafters?” Undertaker was the last one in, and as hardly in this match at all. He and Yokozuna get the double countout, to set up their feud. In the end, it’s down to just Luger and Borga (after all, they’ve been trying to build up a feud between these two as well) and Luger wins it for the All-Americans by hitting Borga on the head with his loaded elbow. I don’t understand why Luger isn’t required to wear a forearm pad anymore. They made a big deal out of it, then they just forget about it and he’s allowed to knock guys out with his metallic arm again. Not a particularly good match, especially for the main event of a PPV. There was a cool Scott Steiner suplex of Borga off to rope, but not a lot else. Undertaker was hardly in this and he was the one everyone wanted to see the most. Oh, and Santa appears and the end and goes into the ring with the victorious Lex Luger. Overall, this was a weak PPV. The match with Ramon’s team vs. IRS’s team and the Heavenly Bodies vs. Rock N Roll Express were both very good matches, but everything else was skippable. In particular, the Hart match was a disaster with Lawler being out, and the Doink match was just ridiculous. As an aside, at one point, they switched commentators for one match so that Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Ross called one match (I forget which one now) while Heenan and McMahon took their place and called the match for WWF Radio. I did enjoy Team Razor versus Team IRS. Macho Man eliminating Diesel seemed a big surprise at the time, was this Diesel’s first televised loss? It may have been, but don’t quote me on that. I was sad Mr. Perfect wasn’t there, though. I was going to say that Diesel didn't have any singles losses yet (though I know he had a bunch of tag team matches) though I also know he'd had very few singles matches in WWF prior to Survivor Series anyway, but I decided to look it up. It looks like he actually lost his first WWF singles match, which was on September 12. Mr. Perfect pinned Diesel after Shawn Michaels interference backfired. Mr. Perfect then defeated Diesel 3 more times in house shows shortly after that, then Diesel beat the 1-2-3 Kid. Then, Diesel beat a bunch of jobbers while continuing to lose to Mr. Perfect. He also beat Bob Backlund a few times in November. With all those losses to Mr. Perfect, that makes it more of a shame that Perfect couldn't make it to Survivor Series (though of course Savage is a great substitute). In fact, Savage pinning Diesel, I would imagine, was originally supposed to be Perfect pinning Diesel, and they just kept that part of the booking the same.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 21, 2024 15:51:22 GMT -5
driver1980, I too like the Battlebowl format a lot and with the WWF had done it. It's pretty tough to choose what matches I'd want, as there are so many possibilities. It also depends upon what year, since so many guys switch between face and heel, a given tag team's dynamics will change a lot depending on which year it is, even given the same two guys.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 21, 2024 15:24:07 GMT -5
I just finished watching Survivor Series 1993. Luckily we are back to the elimination style tag team matches. We’ve got four man tag teams in each match, plus the Smoky Mountain Wrestling Tag Team championship match will be held.
We start with Lex Luger and his family wishing us a happy Thanksgiving.
Bobby Heenan and Vince McMahon on commentary.
The biggest news is that, about a week before this, it was announced that Jerry Lawler would not be participating due to legal problems. This had to do with an indictment for sodomy and statutory rape, I think. I was surprised that McMahan actually said it was legal issues rather than making an angle out of it, like that the Harts attacked him and put him in the hospital or something. Anyway, this is bad news for the WWF as this was the hottest feud by far going into Survivor Series, though you’ve also got the proud American wrestlers versus the evil foreigners feuds, as well.
Anyway, the first match is Irwin R. Schyster, Diesel, Rick Martel & Adam Bomb (w/Harvey Wippleman) vs. Razor Ramon, Randy Savage, Marty Jannetty & 1-2-3 Kid.
Interesting that the heel team all come out together, to Diesel’s “music” but the Face team all come out one at a time, each to his own music. Also, as far as I know, this is the first time the 1-2-3 Kid has had his own music. After Ramon comes out, he take the mic and announces that Mr. Perfect has already “tagged out” and his replacement will be…Randy Savage! Savage comes out to a big pop. Perfect missed this because of a back injury. Perfect had been feuding with Diesel, so that angle bites the dust here. Savage is feuding with Crush (who recently turned heel and took Mr Fuji as his manager) and unfortunately Crush isn’t on the other team but wat can you do.
Marty Jannetty and the 1-2-3 Kid are the survivors from this match. This was a good match overall. While I fully expected the face team to win, I definitely didn’t expect Jannetty and Kid to be the two survivors! This also sets them up as an underdog tag team. I think both of these guys are very exciting, so it was good to see them survive. They also continued to play up some tension between Martel and Bomb/Whippleman which would seem to indicate that a face turn is coming for somebody.
Next match is Shawn Michaels and His Knights The Red Knight, The Blue Knight and The Black Knight vs. Bret, Owen, Bruce & Keith Hart (w/Stu Hart). This was of course supposed to be Jerry the King Lawler and high knights, which of course makes more sense because it’s then a king and his knights (the Lawler/Hart feud started because Hart won King of the Ring tournament and there’s only room for one king in the WWF!) but it was a bit late in the game so the WWF did what they could with the hand they were dealt. Too bad, since Hart/Lawler had been a hot feud with a lot of buildup. Anyway, I’ve read that the knights are Jeff Gaylord (Black), Greg Valentine (Blue) and Barry Horowitz (Red) although they wore masks and we were never told who they are. As far as the Harts, we all know Bret and Owen, Bruce was at the last PPV (where he acted like an ass, as usual) and WWF fans and pretty much the entire world has never seen Keith Hart before. So we’ve really got Bret and Owen with a couple of guys that nobody knows and who don’t have great reputations as wrestlers (or even as people, to judge even by Bret Hart’s own book). The prematch interview is weird, as they’re talking as if all the stuff that Jerry Lawler did (the insults to Bret’s family and when he really insulted Stu and Helen) were actually done by Shawn Michaels, in order to build some heat for this out of nowhere matchup. Before the match Michaels goes over and taunts the Hart family members sitting in the front row, again to try and build some heat for this thing.
Ray Combs (host of Family Feud) does the ring announcing, insulting the heels (as he did on a previous WWF PPV) but it would have been better if he could have been insulting Lawler instead of Michaels.
They mention that Bruce and Keith are a fireman and substitute teacher and haven’t wrestled in years, which doesn’t make Michaels and his knight look good when they start taking bumps for these Harts. There was a “boring” chant during this match. Not a good sign. Especially as, prior to the sudden departure of Lawler, this match was the most hyped one on the card. The crowd was dead for this match.
Anyway, this match was boring and much too long (almost 30 minutes!) and the crowd was dead for it (Jerry Lawler not being in it just killed this match), and the finish was lame, with Shawn Michaels just walking off. Also, I was annoyed that Owen got eliminated rather than Bruce and Keith. The events after this match famously set up the feud between Bret and Owen as Owen is upset over what happened (he bumped into Bret, who was standing on the apron, then Owen got rolled up while everybody ignored him and went to check on Bret) and he comes out and starts pushing Bret, then storms off to boos. So, the only good thing to come out of this match was the start of the Bret-Owen feud.
Next match is Rock n Roll Express (champs) vs. Heavenly Bodies for the Smoky Mountain Wrestling tag team championship. Good match, but the crowd didn’t seem to care. I guess because they’re not familiar with these teams. Some amusing spots early on and some very nice tag team work overall. The Heavenly Bodies win thanks to Jim Cornette’s tennis rack (and I found out that Smoky Mountain Wrestling has the same stupid top rope rule as WCW) and are your new Smoky Mountain Wrestling Tag Team Champs! I just wish the crowd had care more about this match.
Next match is Bam Bam Bigelow, Bastion Booger and The Headshrinkers – Samu and Fatu – (with Luna Vachon and Afa) vs. The Four Doinks (The Bushwhackers – Luke and Butch – and Men on a Mission – Mabel and Mo) (with Oscar)
This was billed as four Doinks, but the pictures showed four real Doinks (we’ve seen two – Matt Borne and Steve Keirn – at once before but never four) so the expectation was, well, not for this. We get what are clearly the Bushwhackers and Men on a Mission (even Oscar has the Doink makeup and wig) waltz up to ringside. We don’t see the “real” Doink (I think Matt Borne had been fired by this point – I’d read that Bam Bam ratted him out to McMahon for smoking pot in the locker room, adding some real life heat to their feud – so I believe this is Steve Keirn now) until after the match, when he appears on the large video screen to mock Bam Bam for losing the match. There had been a “we want Doink” chant during the match, so I suspect that the fans were as disappointed as I in not really getting even one Doink, let alone two or four.
This match was awful. Infamously bad. Oh, and the “Doink” team not only won, they shut out the other team! You’ve got perhaps the most dangerous tag team in WWF in the Headshrinkers, and a monster heel (and one of the best big men ever) who’s supposed to be an unstoppable force, and they get shut out by a comedy team! The freakin’ Bushwhackers! I’ll admit there were a couple of spots that amused me, but I think most wrestling fans over the age of 8 would cringe at this match. Mabel was clearly not legal man but allowed to make pin in one instance.
Bottom line, this was a comedy match, a joke of a match with the rules completely ignored.
For our main event, we’ve got All-Americans: Lex Luger, Undertaker & Steiner Brothers (w/Paul Bearer) vs. Foreign Fanatics: Yokozuna, Crush, Quebecer Jacques Rougeau & Ludwig Borga (w/James E. Cornette, Johnny Polo & Mr. Fuji)
I actually saw a Finnish flag in the crowd. I hope they strung that guy up!
A little background, Tatanka was originally on the All-Americans team, but in a match versus Ludvig Borga, he suffered his first loss, and both Borga and Yokozuna attacked him after the match, hospitalizing him and leaving him out of service for this event. He All-Americans eventually replaced him with the Undertaker, which of course the Foreign Fanatics were none too pleased about. Then, a few weeks later, Pierre was inured in a match against Lex Luger and left unavailable for this event. He was replaced by Crush, from that foreign nation of Hawaii. Crush has a cool new heel look, though to be honest, I liked his bright orange, yellow and purple babyface look too.
Elimination of Rick Steiner was really weak. He came off the top rope onto Borga, then Borga just rolled him over and pinned him. I have no idea what Rick couldn’t have kicked out of that. Nothing really happened to him. Plus it looked like he got his arm up in time, but Hebner counted it anyway. I wonder if Rick had a legit leg injury there, so they just counted him out.
Crush is eliminated by counting fighting Randy Savage outside the ring, to further that feud.
Since this is a comic book website, I have to mention that Bobby Heenan made a Batman reference. The way Savage keeps getting into the building after getting kicked out (in order to go after Crush) Heenan says “What is he, Batman? Is he coming in through the rafters?”
Undertaker was the last one in, and as hardly in this match at all. He and Yokozuna get the double countout, to set up their feud.
In the end, it’s down to just Luger and Borga (after all, they’ve been trying to build up a feud between these two as well) and Luger wins it for the All-Americans by hitting Borga on the head with his loaded elbow. I don’t understand why Luger isn’t required to wear a forearm pad anymore. They made a big deal out of it, then they just forget about it and he’s allowed to knock guys out with his metallic arm again.
Not a particularly good match, especially for the main event of a PPV. There was a cool Scott Steiner suplex of Borga off to rope, but not a lot else. Undertaker was hardly in this and he was the one everyone wanted to see the most.
Oh, and Santa appears and the end and goes into the ring with the victorious Lex Luger.
Overall, this was a weak PPV. The match with Ramon’s team vs. IRS’s team and the Heavenly Bodies vs. Rock N Roll Express were both very good matches, but everything else was skippable. In particular, the Hart match was a disaster with Lawler being out, and the Doink match was just ridiculous.
As an aside, at one point, they switched commentators for one match so that Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Ross called one match (I forget which one now) while Heenan and McMahon took their place and called the match for WWF Radio.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 21, 2024 15:19:04 GMT -5
I watched Battlebowl 1993.
The Battlebowl used to be part of Starrcade, but then WCW realized that there was a month on the calendar without a WCW PPV, so they gave this its own separate PPV.
The rules are that 16 tag teams are randomly drawn from a hopper (by Gene Okerlund and Fifi) for 8 tag team matches. The 8 winning teams from those matches will all qualify for a 16 man battle royal, with the winner being the Battlebowl champ and getting a Superbowl-style piece of bling. These drawings are suppose to be random but it seems to almost always (last year it was every team) team up a face with a heel.
The first tag match is Cactus Jack & Vader (w. Harley Race) v. Kane (from Harlem Heat, AKA Stevie Ray) & Charlie Norris. Jack & Vader still have a hot feud going, so they start beating on each other before the match starts until Race finally convinces them to work together. Vader wins it for his team with a sloppy powerbomb (he stumbled and dropped Norris, but it maybe have been Norris’s fault). It was pretty obvious who was going to win this match. The match itself was so-so. Nothing great, but not offensively bad either.
Next is Paul Roma & Erik Watts v. Johnny B. Badd & Brian Knobbs (of the Nasty Boys, with Missy Hyatt). We actually have two faces teamed together in Roma and Watts. Knobbs wins it for his team (no surprise) by rolling through a bodypress and grabbing Watts’s tights. Again, this match, like the first one, wasn’t anything special. However, as the first match had some good storytelling between the Vader/Jack team, so this one did with the Knobbs/Badd team (Badd taking offense to Knobbs’s underhanded tactics during the match).
Next match is The Shockmaster & Paul Orndorff v. Ricky Steamboat & Lord Steven Regal. We get another team made up of guys involved in a feud (Steamboat & Regal) – what are the odds? Anyway, this match did have some good storytelling and some amusing moments. The team of Orndorff & Shockmaster win (the first result of the night that actually surprised me – why put over the Shockmaster??) when Regal is about to clobber his opponent, but Steamboat (his own partner, mind you) grabs the umbrella from him, disgusted at this attempt at cheating, and hits his own partner with it (maybe accidentally but it looked intentional to me – either way it makes Steamboat look like a dummy) and Shockmaster flops on the fallen Regal for the pin. Steamboat came across as either very upright or very dumb, and I kinda think it was more of the latter than the former. Anyway, this was a fun match.
As an aside, Shockmaster got a “Paula” chant started during the match, to aggravate his own teammate, which makes no sense.
Next match is Awesome Kong & The Equalizer v. King Kong & Dustin Rhodes. Ugh. Dustin Rhodes and 3 big guys who are absolutely awful. Also, all three guys would as soon as clobber Rhodes as look at him, so he’s in a difficult position. The Kings are the first tag team to be on opposite sides. Unfortunately, nobody cares about these guys, so that angle goes nowhere, though there was one cute spot where King Kong was tagged in by Dustin to face Awesome Kong, then immediately tagged Dustin back in because he didn’t want to face his partner. Anyway, there’s chaos in the ring (as with most WCW tag team matches) when Dustin bulldogs Awesome Kong, and he and King Kong advance. No surprise there. Not a good match. I’ll just leave it at that. This was boring and the crowd didn’t care
We’re only halfway through these things.
Next match is Sting & Jerry Sags v. Ron Simmons & Keith Cole. Gee, I wonder who’s going to win this one. This was a decent match, though too much stalling. Anyway, Sting & Sags win when Sting gives Keith Cole the Stinger Splash, then, he’s about to go for his finisher, but Sags taps Sting on the shoulder (which I guess counts as a tag) then gives Keith Cole the elbow off the top rope (his finisher) then pins Cole. After the match, Ron Simmons, furious with Cole’s underperformance, attacks him. So it looks like we’ve got a heel turn for Simmons.
Next match is Stunning Steve Austin & Ric Flair v. Maxx Payne & 2 Cold Scorpio. Again, not much suspense as to who is going to win. Flair/Austin win when Payne misses a corner charge (why do guys even attempt a corner charge???) and Flair slaps the figure four on him. Overall, this was a good match with good storytelling and psychology. It started with a fast, exciting exchange between Austin and Scorpio, then slowed down quite a bit, and the heat segment on Scorpio later on lasted a bit too long, but still a good match.
Ric Flair, of all people, stopped his teammate Steve Austin from cheating. This theme of the face on the team being disgusted by the cheating of his heel teammate is getting used too often in this PPV.
Next match is Ravishing Rick Rude & Shanghai Pierce v. Marcus Alexander Bagwell & Tex Slazenger. Pierce and Slazenger are a tag team, and early in the bout they refuse to fight each other (such loyalty from heels? How touching. Not like comic book supervillains who are all too glad to turn on each other.) but they do finally go at it hammer and tongs towards the end of the match. Tex Slazenger has such a large following (though I could never figure out why) that the crowd cheers for him and perhaps a face turn wouldn’t have been out of place. Rude tags in without Tex even knowing and delivers the Rude Awakening, so Rude and Pierce advance to Battlebowl. Overall, this match was too long and the heat segment on Bagwell lasted way too long, making this match another mediocre one, though Rude did have a couple of really cool moves. He did something like a vertical suplex but rather than falling backwards himself with Bagwell, he just dropped him. He had another move that looked like it would be a suplex but then he just dropped Bagwell on his face. Those moves looked devastating and aren’t things you see every day. After the match, Pierce and Slazenger make amends then beat on the prostrate Bagwell while Rude walks back to the locker room.
I have to point out that, as Okerlund and Fifi are on camera after each match to draw names for the next match, Okerlund is acting like a total pervert. I guess that’s the running gag for the night. That sort of talk wouldn’t happen on WWF – yet.
Also, at some point in this telecast, Ric Flair provided Vader and Race with a contract, challenging him to a title match at Starrcade, with the stipulation that if Flair loses, he will retire from wrestling! Vader & Race don’t formally accept the challenge on this show, but let’s just say I’m looking forward to that match. Vader bragged about how he's already sent a lot of wrestlers into retirement (and in the case of Nikita Koloff and Joe Thurmond, it's actually true!) and of course he'd love to add the Nature Boy to this list.
The last tag match is Road Warrior Hawk & Rip Rogers v. Davey Boy Smith & Kole (AKA Booker T) from Harlem Heat.
Rip Rogers was one of my favorite jobbers from this era. He’s so excited to have his name drawn for this event that, as he and Hawk walk out to the ring, Rip’s giddy celebrating annoys Hawk, who clobbers him and knocks him down. As Kole comes out to the ring, he stomps on Rogers as well. Rogers is unable to participate in the match until the very end, as we’ll see. Stupid move of Hawk to smash his own teammate before the match.
By the way, during this match, Ventura makes a crack about how they’ll have a happy Thanksgiving because they haven’t been indicted. I wonder if that is a shot at Jerry Lawler, who had been indicted for statutory rape (I think it was) right around this time and thus had to miss Survivor Series.
During the match, Bulldog actually starts cheering on Hawk – the opposition – against his own teammate! This is stupid. WCW is trying to make us believe that winning Battlebowl and the ring that goes with it is really, really, important, yet they constantly have the wrestlers do things to undercut their chances of winning their match to qualify for Battlebowl. This sort of booking really makes no sense at all. I think WCW is insulting our intelligence a bit here. Even the announcers think it’s dumb, and it’s not easy to get Tony and Jesse to agree on something! Kole, understandably, doesn’t want to tag in Davey Boy, so most of this match is Hawk (who’s basically in a handicap match since he knocked out his own teammate) versus Kole. The ending, like the rest of the match, is unbelievably stupid. Hawk grabs Rogers, who has finally made it to the apron (but he’s not in the correct corner for a tag, plus there was no tag made anyway) and he picks up Rogers and throws him on top of Kole. Rogers sits on top of Kole and the referee counts to three for the win for Hawk and Rogers! WTF? Rogers was clearly not the legal man, so why is the referee counting? The ending made about as much sense as the rest of the match. It was surprising and disappointing that Bulldog & Kole lost. Poor Kole (Booker T) has done nothing but job since he joined WCW.
We’re finally up to the Battlebowl.
They’ve got a new rule for Battlebowl – while it’s a battle royal, if you throw your opponent over the top rope, but he lands on the walkway instead of the floor, he is not eliminated. Since the walkway is so wide, this basically means you’ve only got 3 sides instead of 4 to throw your opponent over. This rule would come into play. This dumb rule is inconsistent with their other dumb over the top rope rule where if you throw your opponent over the top rope, you are disqualified, even if he lands on the runway.
There should also be a countout rule. What’s to stop somebody from just leaving the ring and waiting until only one person is left before climbing back in??
Rip Rogers is the first one eliminated, in about 30 seconds. No surprise there but I would have loved it if he won.
At one point, Dustin Rhodes gets smashed into the ring post (outside the ring) and gets all bloodied.
I can’t believe that Hawk lasted so long – he made the final five.
Your final four are Sting, Vader, Steve Austin, and Ric Flair. Flair goes out on the wooden walkway and suplexes Harley Race. Vader comes out and attacks Flair, rendering him unable to compete, and he is taken out on a stretcher and we’re down to three.
Vader and Austin gang up on Sting, but Sting is eventually able to eliminate Austin (the ill advised charge at the person leaning on the ropes) and we’re down to just Sting and Vader! Unfortunately, Sting missies his Sting splash and goes over the top rope, eliminating himself and handing the win to Vader.
The Battlebowl lasted over 25 minutes, and the last maybe ten minutes was good (except for the ending with Sting stupidly eliminating himself) but the first half or so was very skippable.
Overall, not a particularly strong PPV. Many of the matches were too long (perhaps because, since Battlebowl is now its own PPV, they had to make the matches longer) and WCW did a terrible job of selling the importance of winning this thing. It had its moments, but not exactly a must see.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 19, 2024 15:52:12 GMT -5
There are some good TV matches on Worldwide and Saturday Night if you do a little cherry picking. Yeah, I've been watching Saturday Night on Peacock (I'm on 1993 now), and the overall quality of the wrestling is pretty good. It compares favorably to contemporary WWF, though there are some too long rest holds sometimes.
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