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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 17, 2024 7:22:26 GMT -5
I’d asked it for details on the first ladder match to take place in the WWF, to see how accurate it would be. AI is absurd. Another member here posted a question to ChatGP to clarify how Lex Luthor found out about Kryptonite in the 1978 movie - and the answer mentioned Emil Hamilton. AI conflates things. I was asking one question once about the 1989 Batman movie - and the answer implied Penguin had appeared with Joker in the first movie. An absolute joke! Which AI are you using? Copilot or Google Chrome? It should be AS -= artificial stupidity.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 17, 2024 7:20:30 GMT -5
Here’s a blast from the past: I did enjoy those compilation tapes. Here, there was a real novelty of seeing Hulk Hogan & Roddy Piper team up to face Ric Flair & Sid Justice (Hogan and Piper had teamed up previously, such as one 1987 bout against Kamala and Paul Orndorff), but this is the first time I saw them as a unit. Also, the peculiar trio of Bret Hart & The Natural Disasters took on The Mountie & The Nasty Boys, which was a good bout. Tatanka vs Warlord was a rather spirited bout, and, unlike so many matches on these Coliseum compilations, ended with a pinfall (home video releases did show a *lot* of DQ matches, it felt).Macho Man vs Berzerker was quite fun. The other matches were solid, although Bushwhackers, Hacksaw Jim Duggan & Sgt. Slaughter vs Nasty Boys & Beverly Brothers was merely okay. This was the third and final Battle of the Superstars compilation. Agreed! I just finished watching Invasion of the Bodyslammers and Bashed in the USA and there sure were a lot of DQ/countout finishes! Some entertaining stuff in there but it would sure be nice to have some more clean wins.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 17, 2024 7:16:08 GMT -5
What did you type in to get that bogus result?
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 11, 2024 15:33:16 GMT -5
Fall Brawl ‘93 is a horrible PPV that doesn’t deserve 3 hours of anyone’s life. I either disliked the matches or found that they were overlong - or didn’t live up to expectations. Steamboat/Regal is the only good match on the card, if you ask me (Steamboat was always a good seller). The Nasty Boys vs. Roma & Anderson should have been half the time. Who decided it should be nearly 24 minutes? Rude/Flair was a dream match on paper, and in theory, going 30 minutes should have meant a dream match for those two, but, much like Windham/Flair at the previous PPV, it just didn’t work. Lack of chemistry? An off-night? Who knows? WarGames was horrible. A bearhug finish is anti-climatic. Also, it felt like a random alliance on both sides. Yes, it’s okay for babyfaces to team with other babyfaces, and heels to team with other heels, without requiring a storyline, but Vader/Vicious and Harlem Heat seemed a random alliance, as did the babyfaces, if I’m honest. In 1992, Sting’s Squadron against The Dangerous Alliance made sense, as the Alliance had been a plague on WCW’s babyfaces. WarGames bouts from previous years made sense. And it’d make sense again (1994’s WarGames is so underrated, I know you’ll get to that). But WarGames should occur based on existing feuds, not because WCW wants to randomly throw something together. (I hate how WWE made Hell in a Cell a PPV, that should be a blowoff match for hated rivals) I smiled when you mentioned the random pairing of Orndorff and Equalizer. We’ve covered it a lot, but WCW really went to town on random pairings. Random pairings might be fine on TV as one might just accept it as two guys seeking a payday, so Ric Flair and Berzerker teaming up can probably be seen in those terms, but PPVs are supposed to be different, with high stakes and meaningful pairings. In my opinion, of course. Maybe just like comics, we need logic: if Riddler and Lex Luthor are gonna team up, give us a reason why, not just because an editor wants it one month. I guess I just prefer PPV tag pairings to make sense, it felt like WCW just drew names out of a hat. Incidentally, Fall Brawl ‘93 was the final WCW PPV released on tape in the UK (by a company called First Independent) until Uncensored 1997. Seems someone in WCW didn’t care for us Brits. I’d have been lost without tape traders, and I appreciate my mother for writing a lot of cheques (at least until I was old enough to earn my own money). Yes, Steamboat/Regal was definitely the best match on the card. The tag match with Bagwell & Scorpio (against that random tag team) was only watchable because of Scorpio. And yet, the other matches were either too long or just plain bad. and I also agree that random tag teams are fine for a "free TV" match but I expect bigger stakes/better pairings for a PPV. Wow, you were (are) a dedicated fan of US wrestling to go through all that to keep up with WCW back in the day! Good job!
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 11, 2024 13:38:36 GMT -5
The WWE Hall of Fame is meaningless until the Rosati Sisters are inducted.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 11, 2024 13:36:21 GMT -5
Another month, another WCW PPV.
I watched WCW Fall Brawl 1993, the first Fall Brawl PPV. This is the moment we’ve al been waiting for – the PPV debut of the Shockmaster. This has Wargames as its main event. A lot of empty seats in this arena. We’re in Houston and it’s Schiovane and Ventura again.
First match is WCW Television Championship: Ricky Steamboat [c] vs. Lord Steven Regal w/ Sir William. The story here is that Regal attacked Steamboat which I think was supposed to happen the day before on WCW Saturday Night (but doubtless was actually filmed long before) so Steamboat comes in with taped up ribs and a vendetta against Regal. I was really looking forwatd to this match. It starts out as a brawl, which is not at all what I expected, as Steamboat is furious with Regal. However, after a few minutes of that it settles into a very nice mat wrestling match (which the Houston crowd doesn’t seem to care for) and Ricky does a reat job of selling the injured ribs, and we see that it affects his performance (how nice when wrestlers can actually sell injuries realistically) and ultimately Regal wins when Steamboat is struggling to skin the cat (due to the aforementioned rib injury) and Sir William walks by and whacks him with his umbrella, allowing Regal to win the match with a German suplex. Nd we have a new Television Champion! Good match overall with good psychology and storytelling. I can’t believe that I heard a “Steamboat sucks” chant during this match, though! Wow, tough crowd. Also, once again the stupid over the top rope rule. Steamboat throws Regal over the top rope, but I guess because it just so happened to occur where the raised entrance platform was, it wasn’t a DQ. Uh, okay. I once again have to agree with Jesse Ventura’s complaints on that one.
Next match is Charlie Morris vs. Big Sky. Charlie Morris is a Native American with a Tatanka-like gimmick, though he’s not in as good of shape or as good a wrestler as Tatanka. He’s only been in WCW a few weeks at this point, I believe, and he’s here in a PPV. Big Sky (who’s got to be close to 7 feet tall) was in a tag team with Vinnie Vegas (AKA Kevin Nash, and it looked to me like Big Sky was the taller of the two!) until Vinnie jumped to WWF recently and became Diesel. So now Big Sky (who played Wolverine in the first X-Men movie) is a singles wrestler. This match was awful, and had no place in a PPV. The crowd chanted “We want Flair” less than a minute into this match and “boring” not long after and frankly, it’s hard to disagree with them. Anyway, Norris wins with a bicycle kick followed by the cover. Next match, please.
Next match is 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Bagwell vs. The Equalizer and Paul Orndorff. Too Cold & Bagwell have been together for a while and Orndorff/Equalizer are a randomly thrown together tag team, so guess who’s going to win. Scorpio/Bagwell win with Scorpio’s 450 splash onto Equalizer in a chaotic ending (like every WCW tag team PPV match) for the pin. This was a decent match. Not really PPV quality, but better than I was expecting, considering that the Equalizer (Evad Sullivan) was involved. Oh, and Orndorff and Equalizer attack Scorpio and Bagwell after the match, natch.
One complaint about this match is the ref once again clearly completely ignoring the rules in that chaotic ending.
Next up is Shanghai Pierce (w. Tex Slazenger) vs. Ice Train. This is another match that had no business on a PPV. Pierce is in an established tag team wit Slazenger, but hasn’t wrestled much singles in WCW. Ice Train is very inexperienced. He’s got a tremendously muscular physique, but is just not any good in the ring. He’s got a gimmick that reminds me a lot of Tugboat. Tugboat wanted to be a tugboat and made those tugboat tooting sounds, and Ice train wants to be a train and actually says “choo choo!”. For real. A kid friendly gimmick, anyway but that’s not going to go over with a lot of middle aged guys. He’s a likeable enough character, though. Anyway, this is a typical (though not very good) power vs. power match, though I did like when Tex & Shanghai held each end of their bull rope and Ice Train just ran through it, crashing the two heels together. That was cute. Oh, and Ice Train wins with a power slam. On to the next match, please.
Next up is Arn Anderson and Paul Roma vs. the Nasty Boys for the WCW tag team championship. FYI, the Horsemen are faces and the Nasty Boys heels. This match shows some of the problems with WCW’s habit of filming things months in advance, and having storylines set in stone. First of all, the big reveal (as the Nasty Boys teased a big surprise) was that they took on Missy Hyatt as their manager. However, since they’ve already filmed content in front of audiences with this, a lot of people already knew. There were even people in the audience here with signs about Missy being with the Nasty Boys, so these people knew enough in advance to come up with those signs. I’m not sure what she’s suppose to add to the team, but whatever. For that matter, the Nasty Boys wining this match was already known. Finally, doing this doesn’t allow you to change stories on the fly if you find the crowds reacting differently than you expected.
Anyway, on to the match. Whenever Sags came in, the crowd chanted “Porky Pig.” Cute. The crowd was pretty brutal to Missy, too, throwing dollar bills her way and calling her a crack whore. And I thought Philly sports fans were tough!
The Nasties had bragged before the show that they’d win the match with a doomsday bulldog. When they tried it during the match, Arn Anderson spoiled the bulldog by shoving Sags into the ring and giving him a spinebuster, allowing Roma to hit a flying splash on Knobbs, but then Sags hits him with a flying axehandle (which the ref didn’t see) and roll out of the ring, allowing Knobbs to cover Roma for the wins. This match hd some decent moments, but was too long at 24 minutes and overall not that great. Man, I wish the Hollywood Blonds were still the tag team champs at this point!
Next up is Cactus Jack vs. Yoshi Kwan (w. Harley Race) in a Bounty Match. WCW keeps having these bounty matches which don’t seem to be anything different than a regular match. Like I guess just calling it a bounty match is supposed to raise the stakes.
Anyway, first of all, Yoshi Kwan, like all good Far East characters (such as Charlie Chan) was played by a white guy – Chris Champion. I guess maybe WCW was trying to capitalize on the popularity of Mortal Kombat by creating a Raiden-like character. I totally get that, and am fine with it, but couldn’t they have at least gotten an Asian wrestler for that role? He does a lot of martial arts style kicks and has used some sort of weird looking nerve hold as his finisher (don’t worry – he won’t get a chance to employ that here). I’d seen some of his matches before that and I found his performance enough.
Second of all, the Cactus Jack storyline going on right now is a classic example of WCW screwing up a good thing, as Mick Foley himself has said. They had a great feud between Jack and Vader. In the last of a series of great matches, Vader powerbombed Jack on a cement floor, and he left on a stretcher. Meanwhile, Harley Race took the little leather bag that Jack had stated contained what was most important to him in life. WCW sent a reporter to look in on Jack in the sanitarium where he’d gone to recuperate. It turns out that he had amnesia and had no idea who he was, and had disappeared from the sanitarium. So for weeks we get vignettes of this reporter looking for Jack, asking people here and there. She eventually finds him living on the streets in Cleveland, living with some woman, with no memory of his wife, son, and previous life. By the time of this PPV, WCW had apprarently seen the error of their ways in this silly storyline (better late than never) and Jack cut a promo saying that the whole amnesia and homelessness stuff was a ruse on his part to psych out Harley Race. Jack actually cut a really good promo here. I’ve read that Jack wanted the whole angle to play out in such a way as to build sympathy for him for his triumphant comeback, presumably with some vignettes of him in the hospital, but WCW decided to go the comedy route instead. Anyway, this is building up for a Vader/Jack fight at next month’s PPV, Halloween Havoc.
On to the match. To be honest, this match wasn’t much and wasn’t particularly good. Certainly not PPV quality, anyway. They both spent a minute or two outside the ring after Jack clotheslined them both over the top rope, but no double countout because…reasons. Anyway, Jack wins with the double arm DDT then suplexes Harley Race, who’s standing on the apron, into the ring and takes his beloved little mysterious bag.
Next is Ric Flair vs. Ric Rude for Flair’s NWA World Championship belt, though they never actually say NWA, just calling it the “world title”. I guess NWA and WCW were on the outs (again) at this point. Fifi, who is the maid on Flair’s talk show, comes out with the Nature Boy, to our surprise. Rude grabs the mic and says after he wins, he’ll take Fifi with him (the feud started when Fifi rejected Rude’s advances and slapped him) so I guess this is a Fifi match? Anyway…
Rude wins when, Flair has him in the figure four, but the ref is talking for Fifi (I have no idea why, maybe asking for a date?) and Rude pulls out some brass knuckles and slugs Flair, then covers for the win when the ref turns around. We have a new world champ! One funny thing in this match is that you could clearly hear Flair ask the ref “how much time” so the announcers tried to sell it like Flair was worried about the 60 minute time limit might expire soon.
I know these guys are two legends, but to be honest, this match was pretty boring. There was some psychology in there, but this match went about 31 minutes and I’m pretty sure that over half of it was rest holds. This would have been much better if it had been half as long.
Finally we get the War Games Match: Sting, Davey Boy Smith, Dustin Rhodes, & The Shockmaster (w/ Road Warrior Animal) vs. Big Van Vader, Sid Vicious, & Harlem Heat (w/ Harley Race & Col. Parker)
Rhodes is selling rib injury he suffered the day before (on an episode of WCW Saturday Night that was probably recorded weeks ago) with taped ribs, and he foolishly gets in the cage first, ahead of his teammates – to face Vader. They have a pretty cool exchange for that initial 5 minutes before the next man (one of the Harlem Heat guys) enters the ring. Announcers making fun of Shockmaster’s clumsiness. They seem to be plying him up for comedy after the accidental Clash of the Champions debacle. He played the surprising hero, though, in a lame finish, as he got one of the Harlem Heat guys (Kole, the future Booker T, I think) into a bearhug and Kole submitted. What a terrible finish!! I was also wondering, how can ref even tell if someone gave up when he’s outside the ring? Anyway up until then, the action (just under 17 minutes) was okay but not nearly as good as last year’s Wargames match and probably one of the weaker Wargames matches. Neither Vader nor Sid came across as monster heels. Dustin looked really good here, which kinda surprised me. I’d call him the MVP of this particular Wargames match.
So we had 3 title change hands in this PPV. I think that all 3 previous title holders had the belts for a matter of days or, at most, weeks. I guess turnover is the rule at WCW. I think heels hold all the many WCW belts at this point, by the way.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 11, 2024 13:34:36 GMT -5
I think the tennis court one was on WrestleFest 1992, which also featured The Berzerker showing us how to host the perfect party. A year earlier, WrestleFest 1991 gave us some hair cutting tips from Brutus Beefcake. I need to check out the Bushwhackers/Lord Alfred Hayes remodelling a house segment because I don’t believe I’ve seen that. Smack ‘Em, Whack ‘Em did feature Yokozuna cooking tips. I wonder, could that have been the tape featuring Bushwhackers/Hayes? IRS’ tax tips on SuperTape 1992 were fun, there’s a video for that one: Yes, Smack 'em Whack 'em is the one. Good job!
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 11, 2024 7:25:59 GMT -5
Did anyone own these? I loved the segments on some of those Coliseum tapes, such as Bret Hart sharing his art, Mr. Perfect discussing his stamp collection, etc. On the WrestleFest ‘93 tape, there was a Bobby Heenan/Gene Okerlund segment where they’d broken down. Heenan produced a road map, and Okerlund said, “What is that, it looks like toilet paper?” All good fun. I also liked how there were exclusive matches on those tapes. For many years, the only way to see the Bret Hart/Ric Flair WWF Championship match was on a Coliseum tape, Smack ‘Em, Whack ‘Em. No, I didn't own these, but thank you for pointing them out. I've just checked and they're available on Peacock, so I've added them to my watchlist, and I'll watch them in the not too distant future. As far as the Coliseum segments, they are hit or miss. Some are really enjoyable (I recall some humorous back and forth between Bobby Heenan and Gene Okerlund on a tennis court) and some are a bit of a waste of time (the Bushwhackers showing Lord Alfred Hayes how to remodel a house dragged on too long and was too silly) but I'm looking forward to checking out Bret Hart's art and Mr. Perfect's stamp collection when I watch those videos.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 11, 2024 7:20:14 GMT -5
Hope the prison authorities saw this on PPV - and tracked an escaped prisoner down: Wonder if Hulk Hogan was backstage watching this match, prior to his ‘main event’ at Wembley… I think Nailz's crime was impersonating a professional wrestler.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 10, 2024 16:21:27 GMT -5
Right, Clash of the Champions XXIV, what can I say, dbutler69 , other than I AGREE. 100%. Pretty much on every match. Incidentally, I just had a nightmare: I was dreaming that I was watching a PPV card where Shockmaster took on The Colossal Kongs in a 60-minute Iron Man Handicap Match, with commentary by Vince Russo and Ed Ferrara - and which ended in a no-contest. Worst nightmare I’ve ever had. There was a lot of ineptitude here, and WCW was quite inconsistent in 1993, especially with the over-the-top rule. As has been discussed countless times, there has to be internal logic - in any fiction. Who’d be pleased if they put a James Bond film on - and Bond was seconded, without explanation, to the CIA, and was now able to fire laser beams from his eyes? At least explain it. Tell us why he’s now with the CIA - and how he got his powers. Be consistent. If you’re gonna have an over-the-top DQ rule, make it apply to any move. Dropkick an opponent over the top rope? DQ. Throw him over? DQ. Knee him from behind so he goes over the rope? DQ. I often try to remember that as much as I detest Vince Russo, WCW’s lack of logic was around years before he plagued WCW. Sometimes it was about protecting ego, e.g. neither Hogan nor Vader were gonna lose a strap match (more likely Hogan), so let’s have Hogan drag an interfering non-participant (Ric Flair) around the ring for the win. Other times, it was just inept management. Internal consistency in any fiction is important. As for Shockmaster, that was bad. In my mind, the image I’d built up of Shockmaster was not that. Who on earth thought that would work? A Stormtrooper helmet in isolation from the armour doesn’t work, but it certainly doesn’t work in conjunction with jeans, a black coat, no shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. In fact, I put “Shockmaster wrestler” into an AI art generator and it gave me this: So even AI can’t do anything with such a name. And I say all this as a person who enjoyed seeing Ottman as Tugboat and Typhoon. Methinks the better option would have been to give Ottman another natural disaster gimmick (although could the WWF have stopped him using a word like Typhoon?). Other than the main event, there’s not much to recommend here. When wrestling fans die and go to hell, they have to watch that match on an endless loop. I wish I'd thought to put "Shockmaster wrestler" into an AI image generator. And frankly, I liked Ottman well enough, but I've read lots of unkind things about him as a wrestler by online reviews, so I guess a lot of people don't share our opinion.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 10, 2024 12:57:25 GMT -5
I watched WCW Clash of Champions 24 from July 18, 1993. Since this is a big WCW event, that means there’s going to be a last minute change to the card. Brian Pillman is injured so he won’t be able to wrestle for the Hollywood Blonds in their title defense against Arn Anderson and Paul Roma. But don’t worry, the WCW says that the Blonds must defend their title even though one of their members is unable to go. So, Lord Stephen Regal will take Pillman’s place. Which also means that Regal won’t wrestle against Too Cold Scorpio, so Bobby Eaton will take his place. Confused as to why WCW would make the Blonds defend a title with a substitute member in spite of a legit injury? I know I was. I did some research and found tht, because WCW films their matches MONTHS in advance, they’ve already got filmed content with Androns/Roma with the titles (and, in fact, also with the Nasty Boys as champs as they will dethrone the Horsmene!) so WCW painted themselves into a corner with this one. Good ol’ WCW. Anyway…
We’ve got Tony Schiavone and Jesse Ventura as your announcers.
First match is Austin/Regal vs. Anderson/Roma for the tag team title. Pillman is there on crutches, and of course Sir William accompanied Regal. When they first announced the Pillman injury, I thought it was a scam by the Blonds, who are certainly not above that sort of thing. However, this was a legit injury, and in fact the match where he got hurt aired on WCW Saturday Night a week or two later though of course they made no mention of that fact that it’s the match that kept him out of Clash of the Champions, since that would mean acknowledging that that match was prerecorded.
Anyway, on to the match. This was a decent match, with Roma plying face in peril for much of it, and the Two Horsemen win when Austin crashes into Sir William, who was standing on the apron trying to interfere and Anderson rolls him up for the win and we have new champs. The usual chaotic ending that every big WCW tag team match from this era seems to have. This match was fine, and I love Regal, but I’d have much rather have had Pillman in the match as he and Austin made such a great team. They played off each other very well and there was obviously not that same chemistry with Regal.
Funny thing, in the post match interview, when Roma says people though he wasn’t worthy of being a Horsemen but he proved them wrong tonight, there’s an amusing look of disgust on Arn Anerson’s face.
Next up is To Cold Scorpio vs. Bobby Eaton. I was looking forward to this match as much as any on the card when it was Scorpio/Regal, but it definitely took a dive for me when it became Eaton. Disappointing to me. I know Eaton is highly regarding but never really thrilled me. Anyway, Scorpio wins with his 450 splash. This match was a little sloppy at times, but pretty entertaining. No big complaints.
One thing, though, at one point Scorpio drop kicked Eaton over the top rope. Why is that not a DQ? Another example of the stupid over the top rope rule in action, which never fails to confuse the announcers and the fans. It’s a DQ to throw somebody over the top rope, or to backdrop them over the top rope, but it’s okay to clothesline them over the top rope, or drop kick them over the top rope. Uh, okay. Whatever. Also, Scorpio slightly botched his finisher and appeared to knee Eaton in the head area, after coming off the top rope, which should also be a DQ in WCW’s plethora of rules.
Next up is Maxx Payne vs. Johnny B. Badd. WE finally get the blowoff to this feud. Payne had taken Badd’s confetti gun, then gave it back to him a few weeks later by blasting him in the face with it. Badd has been wearing a mask since then as his face is supposedly scarred. The stakes of this match are that if Badd wins, he gets Payne’s electric guitar (which he calls Norma Jean) and if Payne wins, he gets to unmask Badd. This was a mediocre match. Not terrible, but U can’t call it good, either. Anyway, it ended (in less than 3 minutes) when Payne missed a middle rope splash, and just lay there while Badd rolled over on top of him for the pin. Seriously? That stupid ending, and this kind of match, as a blowoff to a long feud? Also, after the match, Badd says he will finally remove his mask in 3 days on WCW Saturday Night. So if he’s going to unmask in 3 days anyway, what was the point of the match? I guess he just wanted a guitar. Spoiler alert – when he unmasks, he looks the same as he always did.
Next up is a “Flair for the Gold” segment. Frankly, most of these haven’t been much, but this one is an all-time classic. Flair brings out Sting and Brtish Bulldog to hype the Wargames match, then Sid Vicious and Harlem Heat come out to interrupt. While they’re yelling, Sting excitedly introduces their mystery partner for Wargames – the Shockmaster! That’s when it happens. The Shockmaster bursts through the wall…and falls flat on his face…and his helmet (a glittery silver stormtrooper helmet, mind you, and how the heck did George Lucas not sue them over this?) falls off. So, “Shockmaster” (Fred Ottman, AKA Tugboat/Typhon) puts the helmet back on, gets up, and delivers a lame promo (voiced my Ole Anderson). I’m laughing just thinking about it as I type this. By the way, while Ottman was a clutz (a week later he tripped over a guardrail while coming in from the stands to help his teammates in an episode of WCW Saturday Night) from what I read, this went fine in rehearsal, but then the production staff decided to add a reinforcing beam down below, without telling Ottman, so he tripped over that new beam (which wasn’t present in rehearsal) during this live event. So, the blame here probably goes with the WCW production staff.
And by the way, even if this segment went as planned, how did anybody at WCW think this was a good idea? You’ve got a guy in a glittery stormtrooper helmet (with some kind of black very and no shirt) calling himself the Shockmaster?! What the heck is a shockmaster anyway? Does that mean he’s rubbing his stocking feet on a carpet then touching then, giving them static shock?
Next match is Paul Orndorff vs. Ricky Steamboat for Orndorff’s TV title. Steamboat wins when Orndorff goes for the slam and Steamboat cradles him for the pin. In a show of sportsmanship, Orndorff clobbers Steamboat with the belt afterwards. Good match, started off slowly but built into something pretty solid. Oh, and Steamboat is back to his WWF gimmick of breathing fire before his matches.
By the way, at one point Steamboat chops Orndorff over the top rope. Again, why isn’t that a DQ? Ventura complained about that and I have to agree with him. Again, as we've discussed before, let's at least have some internal logic to this stuff.
Next up is Sting and Ric Flair vs. the Colossal Kongs (Awesome Kong and King King), w. Harley Race. The Colossal Kings are a couple of big, fat, masked, ugly (Jesse Ventura says they’re the first guys he’s ever seen who are even ugly with masks) guys who are awful in the ring. Sting and Flair win in about two minutes and Flair never even got into the match. Yup, two guys who weigh half a ton and are managed by Harley Race just got squashed. Not much to say about this one.
Next match is Rick Rude & The Equalizer v. Dustin Rhodes & Road Warrior Hawk. So, Dustin Rhodes was to have a mystery partner, and refused to tell who it was, which dronve Rude crazy. He dropped a clue last week that made it obvious to anyone with a brain that it would be a member of the Legion of Doom. So out comes Road Warrior Animal, and Rude says “I had sources that said it would be you” so he’s not to surprised. Then, Road Warrior Hawk sneaks into the ring behind Rude and surprises him. So it turned out to be a fakeout and Hawk is actually the mystery partner. I don’t know what difference it makes, to be honest, since they’re pretty similar, but whatever. Anyway, this match was a mess. The Equalizer is just AWFUL, like some guy they just pulled in off the street, and then, when Rhodes makes the tag to Hawk, the ref doesn’t see it, so he tells Hawk to get back on the apron, and Hawk basically just says “screw it” and cleans house for a couple of minutes, with the ref doing nothing about it. Then Hawk goes to the top rope, and when Equalizer is holding up Rhodes (who is still the legal man, mind you) to slam him, Hawk jumps off the top, knocking them both over so that Rhodes lands on top of Equalizer for the pin. Why should I care about anything when the rules are so blatantly disregarded? I don’t know what Hawk was thinking here, but I guess the ref had no choice but to ignore Hawk’s infractions since he knew what the ending was supposed to be. This match played like a no DQ match, which it wasn’t, with the faces cheating for the win.
And now the main event, Vader vs. Davey Boy Smith for Vader’s WCW World title! Michael Buffer is the ring announcer here (he’s started doing some stuff for WCW) and he mentions that the disqualification rule has been waived here. He should have been more specific. He didn’t mean that there are no disqualifications. What he meant was, the title can change hands on a DQ. Well, as it turns out, it wouldn’t matter anyway. After a ref bump, Davey gets Vader up for a delayed suplex, and Harley Race trips him (which the ref didn’t see, of course) and Vader falls on top of him and the ref gets up to count for the Vader win. I thought this was a really good match. Vader and Davey Boy have had a couple of really good matches lately. Vader takes bumps quite well for such a big guy. Again, Davey Boy did some impressive power stuff.
Between the Shockmaster debacle, the tag team championship fiasco, the mess of the Rhodes/Hawk tag team match, and the Payne-Badd silliness, this episode is a testament to the ineptitude of WCW. Even so, the main event was great, the Steamboat-Orndorff match was good, the Scorpio-Eaton match was pretty good, and the Shockmaster segment was comedy gold. Not much else here worth watching, though.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 10, 2024 8:20:46 GMT -5
Imagine if WCW had ran a restaurant: they’d have put gravy on your fries (who wants that?!), and when you tried to pay your bill with a debit card, their machine would be faulty and decline it. And when they posted out a coupon for your troubles, they’d send it to the wrong address. I'm thinking gravy on fries is a metaphor for the off the top rope rule. Oh, and don't forget that you're drinking out of a dirty glass because the dishwasher is broken and they're washing dishes with cold water because they forgot to get the water heater fixed. But at least the food itself is good...as long as you like gravy on your fries, that is. (By the way, I don't mind gravy on fries but I prefer ketchup.)
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 10, 2024 8:20:05 GMT -5
I know this is a wrestling thread, but thread drift is always fine. So, if anyone wants to add to the pineapple on pizza debate at any point, feel free (personally, it’s not for me)… I've heard it's good, but I refuse to even try. I think it's an abomination. Now, barbeque chicken pizza, that's another matter.
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 9, 2024 9:09:57 GMT -5
Thank God the folks at WCW weren’t instead running something like NASA… Having lived for a time close enough to Kennedy Space Center to see the rockets take off, I agree. Most likely one of them would have wound up on top of my house!
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Post by dbutler69 on Mar 8, 2024 16:17:09 GMT -5
Only 9 months. That's pretty good for WCW, isn't it? Meanwhile, SummerSlam 1993, which of course aired in August, arrived on VHS before 1993 was out. I did see Eric Bischoff, on 83 Weeks, dismiss WCW’s merchandising ‘department’. Quite scathing, really. Thing is, I’m not a business expert, but surely outsourcing is wise? I am pretty sure Ted Turner’s pockets could have paid a proper company to handle merchandising. Instead, they kept it all in house - and didn’t do that correctly. I mentioned SuperBrawl IV not getting a videotape released (no-one knows why), but other PPVs weren’t. I understand niche stuff like WCW/New Japan Supershow II not getting released, and perhaps rights issues stopped something like Collision in Korea getting a VHS release, but WCW also didn’t bother releasing the following on tape in the US: Souled Out '97 Road Wild '97 Fall Brawl '97 Souled Out '98 Spring Stampede '98 The Great American Bash '98 Bash at the Beach 2000 Halloween Havoc 2000 Mayhem 2000 Starrcade 2000 Sin SuperBrawl Revenge Greed What an absolute joke of a company! I mean, us Brits went from 1993 to 1997 without a videotape licensee, yet in 1997, 1998, and 2000, some of the above got releases in Canada and the UK. Which meant US fans were let down. No consistency. Surely if Souled ‘97 - the first nWo PPV - got a release here, Americans would have wanted it, too. And why Bash at the Beach 2000 got a release in Canada, but not the US, is a mystery to me. Feels like WCW’s videotape department just did what felt right at the moment. “Hey, put Bash at the Beach 2000 on tape, but only ship to Canada, eh?” Like I said, an absolute joke. Not surprising. I've been reading some wrestling autobiographies lately and everyone I've read agreed how unprofessional and chaotic WCW were, so no shock that that extends to their videotape department.
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