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Thoughts on SummerSlam 94

 

Surprised to see Captain Lou take a punch at his age in the opener (Headshrinkers vs. Bigelow & IRS). Afa got a nice pop for his retaliation.

 

Walter Payton didn't do much in Razor Ramon's corner, but Razor won anyway as the Shawn-Diesel breakup began. 

 

I loved Tatanka's heel turn on Lex Luger. I don't think we've seen that before or since, where a babyface accuses a fellow babyface of joining a heel stable, only to join that heel stable himself. Too bad it led to a lot of bad matches.

 

Mabel's singles push seemed to be going nowhere, as he followed up his loss at King of the Ring to IRS with another loss here to Jeff Jarrett. Nobody could have guessed that one year later, he would be King of the Ring and headlining SummerSlam in a WWF title match.

 

As much as I loved the Bret-Owen match at WM X, I really didn't like their cage match. There were way too many cage escape attempts, and they started way too early. The psychology should have been, "This is my brother, I know how tough he is and what a great wrestler he is. I have to beat him half to death before I can even think of trying to get out of this cage."

 

Also, I don't see why Diana Hart Smith had to take the bump over the railing with Davey Boy Smith. Did that lead to anything?

 

Undertaker vs. Undertaker fell flat for two reasons. The fake Undertaker never established himself as a serious threat, and he never did anything to the real Undertaker except imitate him. Once the bell rang, the result was a foregone conclusion.

 

Ted DiBiase gets the MVP award for his involvement throughout the show: starting with IRS and Bigelow, then establishing Tatanka as a heel before trying his best with a fake Undertaker.

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As much as I loved the Bret-Owen match at WM X, I really didn't like their cage match. There were way too many cage escape attempts, and they started way too early. The psychology should have been, "This is my brother, I know how tough he is and what a great wrestler he is. I have to beat him half to death before I can even think of trying to get out of this cage."

 

Also, I don't see why Diana Hart Smith had to take the bump over the railing with Davey Boy Smith. Did that lead to anything?

 

Bret's book has some great insights on the cage match. He said they were really hampered by the "no blood" restrictions Vince placed on everyone at that point so they decided to go with the drama of escape attempts.

 

Both Bret and Owen were upset at Diana taking that bump as well. Diana really wanted to be featured so she and Davey went into business for themselves and had Davey bump her over the railing as well when Anvil dumped him. Bret also said that after they ran off Owen and Anvil, Smith (his oldest brother) climbed up to the top of the cage and was flexing his muscles. I guess they'd already cut to the backstage area at that point on tv b/c you can't see him doing it but it would've been pretty funny.

 

Another tidbit, the whole "brother turning on Bret" angle was originally pitched for Bruce. They were actually going to feed Owen to Bruce and have Bruce brutally beat Owen to write Owen off tv so that he could go home and pursue a career as a firefighter. Bret would make the save and then they'd go from there. Bret talked them into using Owen b/c Owen was a much better worker and the dynamic of the snotty little brother being jealous of his big brother worked better. Pat Patterson was the one who pushed back against it but Vince decided to go with Bret's idea and use Owen. Can you imagine how much different that feud would've been if they'd have gone with the original plan?

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WWE CONSIDERING MAKING PPV EVENTS AVAILABLE FOR $4.99
By Dave Scherer on 2015-07-27 19:09:39

Ziv Himmelfarb sent this item, which is very, very interesting.

WWE sent a survey to ex-subscribers to the WWE Network. One of the questions asked the ex-subscrivers would be interested in an option to buy a PPV on the WWE Network for $4.99 instead of paying for the entire monthly subscription.
 
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WWE 2nd quarter financials have been released.  At June 30, they had 1.156 million paid subscribers to the Network.  While down from 1.317 million at the end of the prior quarter (right at Mania), I think that is still a pretty good number.  They originally hit 1.0 million right around the Royal Rumble, so holding and surpassing that is ok.  It could be better, but I think holding comfortably above 1.0 million in a month that really didn't have anything special is at least a good sign.

 

The stock is up 15% in pre-market trading as I type this.

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Thoughts on Survivor Series 94

 

Razor Ramon became the first wrestler to face a 1-on-5 deficit and come out victorious. It helped that the entire opposing team (Shawn, Diesel, Owen, Anvil, Jarrett) was counted out while arguing on the floor. Diesel turned in another dominant performance to set up his face turn and WWF title win later in the week.

 

The Lawler-Doink midget match was the rare comedy match that was actually funny. My favorite spot was when Jerry Lawler got on Sleazy's shoulders to chicken fight Dink, only to crash down when Sleazy couldn't carry his weight.

 

Mabel was trying to groove to the ring to Lex Luger's USA music, but it didn't quite work. Poor Oscar came out last, without rapping, and he wasn't even near Mabel. It was interesting to have King Kong Bundy and Bam Bam Bigelow on the same team since they were opponents in the first Survivor Series main event in 1987.

 

Undertaker's win over Yokozuna was a satisfying conclusion to their year-long story. Chuck Norris got his big spot in, and Jeff Jarrett sold it big. 

 

Bob Backlund is the MVP for reinventing himself as a crazy old man and outwrestling the champ without cheating or even throwing a punch. Even though Owen Hart duped his mom into throwing in the towel, Bob had the cross-face chickenwing on for five minutes, and Bret wasn't getting out.

 

Bret got the chicken wing procured on him when he turned to Owen to call him a son of a bitch. Not only did he lose the match, but he also accidentally called himself an SOB and insulted his mother at ringside. No wonder she cost him the title!

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Bob Backlund is the MVP for reinventing himself as a crazy old man and outwrestling the champ without cheating or even throwing a punch. Even though Owen Hart duped his mom into throwing in the towel, Bob had the cross-face chickenwing on for five minutes, and Bret wasn't getting out.

 

Can't believe you didn't mention Backlund's epic promo.

 

"It's sports education! I feel like....GAWWWWWWWWWWWWWDDDDDDDDD!"

 

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Sooooo glad the '97 Raw eps were uploaded. First thing I fired up was the May '97 one with HBK/Austin v Davey/Owen. Such a great tag match.

*edit

Good lord, I forgot this was the one with Lawler's "Flaming Fag" promo. Which, for whatever sad reason, got a very audible pop from the crowd.

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Watching an August 1997 RAW. I was sporadically watching at this time, as I was 17 and mostly interested in getting stoned and/or getting with fine foxy ladies.

 

 

Kinda funny how much the 1997 WWF roster mirrors the 1993 WCW roster... In a little over an hour, I've seen Stunning Steve, Cactus Jack, Rick Rude, Dustin Rhodes, Brian Pillman, The Patriot, 2 Cold Scorpio, Vader, and the LOD. Vastly different results though! 

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I'm so excited to get into '97 Raw. I'm so psyched it's finally up. I was waiting to get into the later stuff until the '97 Nitros are up so I could watch them at the same time, but I might scrap that idea now. I mean, who knows if they'll even be put up now since Hogan is the focal point of so much of it?

 

I'm finished up on all the Nitros, but I'm just starting 1996 on Raw so I should be into 97 in a couple weeks.

 

On a side note, I just saw the Raw after Survivor Series 95 where Diesel does the promo about not being Vince's corporate puppet and the suits in Titan Towers, and Shawn and Owen do the "concussion" angle. Say what you want about the Kliq, but if this shit was all put together in their car as said in certain shoot interviews, then color me impressed. This stuff is way ahead of it's time, especially for this era of the WWF.

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