clintthecrippler

My tournament: First round: The Assassin (Jody Hamilton) vs. The Assassin (David Sierra) Tito Santana (WWF) vs. Tito Santana (AAA) Doink The Clown (Matt Borne) vs Doink The Clown (Steve Keirn) - Special Guest Referee Doink The Clown (Ray Apollo) Dangerous Doug Gilbert vs. Gashouse Doug Gilbert Second Round: Doink The Clown (Matt Borne) vs. Dangerous Doug Gilbert (Doink goes over here after a switcheroo with Keirn Doink) Tito Santana (WWF) vs. The Assassin (Jody Hamilton) Finals: Tito Santana (WWF) vs Doink The Clown (Borne) vs. Doink The Clown (Keirn) in a 3-way hastily thrown together after the shenanigans of the previous round. WWF Tito goes over.

I am at this exact moment in my viewing of the weekly TV and...

That's honestly why I ended up loving The Last Battle of Atlanta when it finally popped up after so many years of mythologizing based on the magazine coverage of the era and that "no footage exists" was the mantra for so long. There were some that felt let down after building up what the match was in their heads all those years, but I loved that the entire match is Tommy Rich and Buzz Sawyer simply punching and kicking at each other and ramming each other into the cage to draw blood, with the fanciest move of the entire match being a rock-solid piledriver.

I am always happy to see that Bruno/Hansen match get posted. It somehow both redeems WWF/E doing "leave the cage" rules but also exposes why just about every one of them comes off hollow in the years since. Bruno cage matches weren't about a race to be first out of the cage. Bruno cage matches were about Bruno finally getting the heel locked into a situation that they can't get out of, getting his revenge by beating the piss out of them and leaving them bloody, and then casually walking out of the cage once his thirst for revenge is satiated. ELEVENTY BILLION STARS.

Watching this match now and in awe of the fact that Crowbar is 50 years old and still busting out some new twists on moves (here it's a chair-assisted Northern Lights Suplex) and making it look crisp and credible...AND IT GOT THE PIN!

The point about Triple H being a damn fine "TV match" worker is well boosted by the fact that those watching in real time STILL remember the title defense against Taka Michinoku to this day, which I think may be an all-time "modern era guy working like an NWA Champion" match-up. I do also think though that the No Mercy PPV (2007?) that started with Cena vacating the WWE Championship, Hunter beating Orton to claim the title, successfully defending against Umaga, and then losing to Orton in a bloody Last Man Standing match also somehow fell backwards into being "TNA-level overstuffed booking but done damn well and better than TNA ever pulled off". As champion main eventers go, I have to go with Hunter over Jarrett there.

Saturn vs Raven at Fall Brawl 98 still held up when I watched it a couple years ago. It my have benefited in real time from being the only worthwhile match on a mostly worthless show but it energized the crowd and was a helluva blowoff to the months-long build to Raven's Flock imploding.

I have been doing a watchthrough of the weekly Mid-South TV over the last year and this was easily one of my favorite 1982 angles. I am a sucker for angles that are essentially "scumbag heel got usurped by an even bigger scumbag". Don't get too attached to The Assassin though, he pretty much only pops in for a few weeks specifically for this angle. Though if my memory is correct The Samoans and Orndorff aren't too long for Mid-South either and book it for Georgia themselves, which leads to Bill Watts being super-salty and taking pot-shots for about six weeks straight about how "the toughest competition in wrestling is here in Mid-South because we put competitive matches on TV every week unlike the cable wrestling from Atlanta".

These where the 1-800-COLLECT promos where Lee would call in from the town that Nitro is in next week to talk about how excited everyone in that town was that Nitro is coming, and would typically be tagged with a "weasel" joke at Heenan's expense. Poor Lee Marshall, never actually did get to see a live Nitro.

For some reason I have in my head the ghost of Norm Macdonald telling Dan Snyder that "not only do the NFL owners want to wish you well, they want to throw you down one...THEY WANT TO MURDER YOU IN A WELL, DAN"

As someone who is also doing a Mid South 84/85 watch right now, Ernie Ladd showing up for a street fight wearing a polo shirt, khaki pants, and loafers while everyone else in the match is in workout clothes (Butch Reed and Master G) or tank top and blue jeans (Magnum TA) may legit top the tuxedos for me.

I am already assuming that a major development in Season 6 will be Miguel's dad coming for Carmen either as Johnny is in Japan or about to hop on the flight.

Bobby Fish not on that list because he was already 3 years into his first retirement.

Oh jeez, is this the night he got the scars on his chest and stomach? Anyone know what match this was and if its on tape?

Original Spanish audio too, thank God! Hearing that the Mill Creek set released a while ago only had the terrible modern English dubs commissioned for El Rey broke my heart, as did the couple times I tried putting on an El Santo movie on Tubi where the remaster looked gorgeous but also had the shit dubs with no original Spanish option.