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NOV 2017 WRESTLING DISCUSSION


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Whether or not Roman might technically be "better" than Finn doesn't matter all that much right now.  The fans in general aren't going to be receptive of another Roman world title push, even though I'd agree that he's gotten incredibly good.  Roman needs an extended period of time to cool off and doing Shield stuff while having a run with the IC title is a good way to do that before thinking about putting him in a main event run again.  Finn is as good a guy as any to plug in the universal title picture for now.  Finn/Good Brothers vs. The Shield is something I could get behind.

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12 minutes ago, evilwaldo said:

In the old days, Vince would just throw stuff against the wall rotating the title around various guys until he found someone over and pushed them to the moon.  

 

It is not that difficult.

You forgot the middle step: panic and return it to Bret while deciding who to try next.

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Finished the second Wrestling Gold disc. Every match is pretty much an insane, short brawl that dissolves into chaos. Tully/Manny I would have watched a full hour of. Heenan bleeds and bumps all over the place and gets beat up by a little person. Lawler fights a very young (second year in the business) Rick Rude who already looked great. The cherry on top though is of course Lawler/Savage for the first time ever after they had been legit feuding in separate promotions for years. It's also in a cage which is a hilarious rickety looking thing set about a foot away from the ring so both men can bump on the outside. Savage jumps OFF THE CAGE and splatters on the mat which looked painful; he also does his axehandle off the cage too. It had to be a legit twelve, fifteen feet high fall. The commentary is so encyclopedic that your head will spin. Also, the heat for all these matches is off the chain, the crowds are all leaping up and down for every punch and bump. 

Again, if you didn't see it in the merch thread, Corny's selling the complete five disc set for only $10 at Cornette's Collectibles. That's an hour a dollar! Highest recommendations. 

EDIT: Here's the link if you wanna grab it, or just check out the matchlist http://jimcornette.com/store/wrestling-gold-5-disc10-hour-set

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8 hours ago, HumanChessgame said:

Whether or not Roman might technically be "better" than Finn doesn't matter all that much right now.  The fans in general aren't going to be receptive of another Roman world title push, even though I'd agree that he's gotten incredibly good.  Roman needs an extended period of time to cool off and doing Shield stuff while having a run with the IC title is a good way to do that before thinking about putting him in a main event run again.  Finn is as good a guy as any to plug in the universal title picture for now.  Finn/Good Brothers vs. The Shield is something I could get behind.

And that's the problem with Finn as well:

On the one hand, Finn is vanilla ice cream.

On the other hand- when your kids are saying "I want chocolate!" "I want strawberry!" "Strawberry sucks and I won't eat it and you can't make me!" "Chocolate sucks and I won't eat it and you can't make me!" - you see the joy of vanilla ice cream. 

 

Finn's whole benefit is not that he's the most over- but rather that the fans are all most invested in their favorite, and only their favorite, right now, and nothing short of them getting their own platonic ideal as the top star in the company will make them happy.

That is even worse, because right now (and arguably since the Cena era), there's an image that whoever is the number one star in the company is inherently holding YOUR platonic ideal BACK and keeping them from being the top star. 

With that in mind, the next wave for top stars in the business will not be "Who the fans universally love", but rather "who the most fans can LIVE WITH as the top star." Finn isn't a good choice as far as "he's undeniably the best", but he ticks just enough boxes that the most different fans, different demographics, and different fanbases will say "Yeah, he's not my FAVORITE, but I guess I'm okay with  seeing him at the top.".

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Just finished watching Starrcade 87...

Which I'd say was a little worse than the previous year.

Opening six man wasn't special.

Dr. Death vs. Windham was really bad considering the guys involved. Finished seemed like it was botched.

I really wanted to like these Midnight Express Skywalker matches, but they're such a limiting stip.

I like Nikita Koloff more than most people, but that match with Terry Taylor was a snoozer.

Arn and Tully vs. the Road Warriors was good stuff. Liked the idea of Arn and Tully going after Hawk's knee which Hawk did an excellent job selling. The finish wasn't ideal as I would've prefer someone going over clean. Regardless it was still very good.

Both cage matches were fantastic. Dusty vs. Luger was far better than it had any right to be. Super hot crowd for Dusty's comeback. Also nice little touch by ending the match with the first chair spot in the match. Flair vs. Garvin looked brutal. Both guys really stiffed each other/ The crowd was hating on Garvin since his entrance with the "Garvin sucks chants." That finish was beautiful. Exhausted Flair catches a flying Garvin and just rams him face first into the cage and just lands on Garvin for the pin. This Flair title match had a much more big match title feel than the previous years title match against Nikita.

Tony Schiavone and Jim Ross were a fantastic commentary duo for this event too.

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How over do you have to be to job to the champ at the Royal Rumble (where you are not the main event) of all places? They ran Lesnar-Holly once!

That said, I think I'm with Vince on this one. He's a bit bland and his moveset is worse than Ambrose's. Yeah I said it. People used to rag on JTG's work, but his Slingblade was niiiice. What good does it do for Lesnar to be bumping around for that nonsense? 

The most fun match I could think of for Royal Rumble is Owens (with Zayn) against Lesnar, if they're going to follow through on them going to RAW.

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Just finished watching the Bunkhouse Stampede '88...

Nikita Koloff vs. Beautiful Bobby was underwhelming.

Larry Zbyszko vs. Barry Windham was good. Windham took a pretty nasty tumble to the outside in typical Windham fashion. Ref. bump is justifiable as it leads to Zbyszko hitting Windham with the heel of Baby Doll's shoe.

Ric Flair vs. Hawk was fantastic namely due to Flair's performance. Flair realizes he has nothing for Hawk and he low blows Hawk which is what finally weakens him. After that he goes after Hawk's knee which Hawk usually does a good job of selling. Flair does an amazing job at putting over the Figure Four reversal by Hawk yelling  at the top of his lungs in pain right into the camera. The DQ finish makes sense as Flair was visibly frustrating as he couldn't find a way to beat him, so he sticks to losing by DQ, but still holding on to his title. The only thing I'll take away is the cheap chair shot Flair hits on Hawk. Bob Caudle putting over the fact that Flair needs to retain the title to be able to continue living the luxurious lifestyle he has is a nice touch.

The Bunkhouse Stampede match is another limited stip., however they still managed to put on a fun match. Arn Anderson's blade job and Dusty Rhodes arm blade job were great. Ivan Koloff took a nasty beating before getting eliminated. Before watching it, I was confused as to how eliminating someone through the door or throwing them over the top of the cage would be possible, but they made it seem like reasonable eliminations. Fun stuff overall.

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1 hour ago, Edwin said:

Just finished watching the Bunkhouse Stampede '88...

Nikita Koloff vs. Beautiful Bobby was underwhelming.

Larry Zbyszko vs. Barry Windham was good. Windham took a pretty nasty tumble to the outside in typical Windham fashion. Ref. bump is justifiable as it leads to Zbyszko hitting Windham with the heel of Baby Doll's shoe.

Ric Flair vs. Hawk was fantastic namely due to Flair's performance. Flair realizes he has nothing for Hawk and he low blows Hawk which is what finally weakens him. After that he goes after Hawk's knee which Hawk usually does a good job of selling. Flair does an amazing job at putting over the Figure Four reversal by Hawk yelling  at the top of his lungs in pain right into the camera. The DQ finish makes sense as Flair was visibly frustrating as he couldn't find a way to beat him, so he sticks to losing by DQ, but still holding on to his title. The only thing I'll take away is the cheap chair shot Flair hits on Hawk. Bob Caudle putting over the fact that Flair needs to retain the title to be able to continue living the luxurious lifestyle he has is a nice touch.

The Bunkhouse Stampede match is another limited stip., however they still managed to put on a fun match. Arn Anderson's blade job and Dusty Rhodes arm blade job were great. Ivan Koloff took a nasty beating before getting eliminated. Before watching it, I was confused as to how eliminating someone through the door or throwing them over the top of the cage would be possible, but they made it seem like reasonable eliminations. Fun stuff overall.

Here's Scott Keith's review

 

Quote

The SmarK Retro Rant for NWA Bunkhouse Stampede 88

 

I'm going to assume that y'all don't need another history lesson on why this (for all intents and purposes) debut PPV from Jim Crockett Promotions was such a laughingstock, but basically Crockett tried to get a slice of the PPV pie with Starrcade '87, only to see Vince counter-program the Survivor Series and destroy his audience in the process.  When cable companies told Vince never to try that again, Crockett assumed it was safe to re-launch his PPV attempts, and he created the Bunkhouse Stampede show for January '88.  However, Vince countered with perhaps the devious end-run ever devised, as he came up with his own battle-royale specialty match, called it the Royal Rumble, and aired it on free TV at the same time as Crockett's PPV.  Again, the audience was destroyed.  However, Bunkhouse Stampede was already a notoriously weak card going in, and furthermore confusion over start times (tickets said 8:00, PPV said 6:00, and the actual start time ended up being 7:00) rendered the whole thing an exercise in stupidity, and was one of the last straws that lead to Dusty Rhodes being fired and Crockett selling to Ted Turner in the summer of '88.

 

I have specifically avoided ranting on this show because of how notoriously bad it is, but someone sent it to me, so here you go.and please keep in mind as you read along, this was supposed to be the introduction to the NWA for new fans and the show that launched them on PPV to compete with the WWF.

 

- Live from Long Island, NY.  That's always a bad sign right off the bat.  Official attendance is listed at 6000, but from the HUNDREDS of empty seats on the camera side alone I'd say 2000 would be a liberal estimate.

 

- Your hosts are Jim Ross and Bob Caudle.  Speaking of which, via Max Levy.

 

"Bob Caudle was much like Scott Hudson in that pro wrestling was always his side job. Bob Caudle's main job was as an aide to North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms (R). Helms had owned WRAL in Raleigh, NC which had long been the home of Jim Crockett Promotions when the promotion taped matches at the stations studios. Caudle had been the station's weatherman and play by play man for Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling.

 

When Helms was elected to the Senate, he took Caudle along as his media relations/press agent guy (I'm unsure of the exact title). Caudle worked in this role for Helms while continuing to broadcast wrestling in JCP's direct employ and eventually WCW's employ as well. After leaving WCW in the early 1990s, Caudle stayed on as a member of Helms' staff until just within the past couple of years when Bob retired."

 

So there you go, Caudle lovers!

 

- Opening match, World TV title:  Nikita Koloff v. Bobby Eaton.  Yes, Bobby Eaton was being booked as a serious threat to the TV title at this point, while still half of the US tag champions.  Stalling from the heel side to start, and Koloff overpowers Eaton.  More stalling.  Eaton gives Koloff a clean break in the corner and grabs a hammerlock, and they work off that for a bit. Eaton slugs away in the corner, but Koloff returns fire and overpowers him again.  They do a wristlock sequence, which Koloff wins with ease.  Koloff works on the arm as the match grinds to a halt.  Bobby kicks him out of the ring to break, and they brawl out there, which Bobby wins via a good old thumb to the eye.  Back in, Eaton works a headlock and they lie around for a while.  Criss-cross and Koloff gets a slam, allowing Eaton to stall some more.  They go back to the headlock and the crowd completely turns on the match.  Eaton slugs him out of the ring, but ends up running into the post.  Koloff hiptosses him on the concrete, but Eaton kind of no-sells and pokes him in the eyes again to keep control.  Back in, he drops an elbow (and that elbow NEVER hits) for two.  Back to a hammerlock.  Cornette tries to distract the fans from how incredibly boring this match is, but is only mildly successful.  Koloff comes back, but Eaton goes low and stays on offense.  To the top, and a missile dropkick gets two.  Back to the hammerlock as the crowd groans.  That goes on for a ridiculous length of time.  Mat-wrestling and grabbing a hold is one thing, but laying on the mat for 4 minutes in a hammerlock is BORING.  We're at the 15:00 mark and by now everyone knows what the finish is gonna be.  Koloff FINALLY fights out and hits the Russian Sickle (which is a clothesline done with a hooked arm, for those who ask), but Eaton goes back to the hammerlock to kill the crowd again.  They start popping for the "time remaining" announcements more than anything else.  I mean, geez, work on the arm if you want, but DO SOMETHING.  Switch from a wristlock to an armbar or something or ANYTHING.  Koloff fights out again, but Eaton knees him and.say it with me.goes back to the hammerlock.  We're down to one merciful minute remaining.  TAKE ME NOW, LORD.  Koloff slugs back with the good arm but makes the standard retarded error of hammering away in the corner instead of doing something useful, and hits an elbow and Russian Sickle as time expires at 20:00.  This was BRUTALLY boring and I wouldn't wish this sort of perverse punishment on anyone.  Well, except maybe Kevin Nash or HHH.  And even then I'd be enough of a gentlemen to leave them a knitting needle in case they feel the need to poke their own eyes out.  ½*

 

- Western States Heritage Championship:  Barry Windham v. Larry Zbyszko.  Oh, great a Larry Zbyszko match.that'll get the joint rocking.   For those wondering what the hell people like myself are talking about when we joke about "pictures of Baby Doll" being in manilla envelopes, this is the general timeframe for it.  Basically, Larry came into the NWA and got put into a feud with Dusty Rhodes, and in order to blackmail him into a US title shot, he produced a mysterious envelope which were supposed to contain pictures given to him by manager Baby Doll, supposedly of Rhodes and Baby Doll in compromising positions.  When the angle completely bombed, Larry was dumped into Barry Windham's lap for a challenger to his completely lame Western States title and the angle was forgotten and never mentioned again.  But I remember!  Actually, the angle might have been after this match, I can't keep all this stuff straight sometimes, but it was around this time.  Windham goes for the arm to start, and Larry executes his most effective offensive move.the SEVEN MINUTE STALL OF DOOM.  Windham grabs a headlock and dodges a dropkick, so Larry backs off again.  He likes to do that a lot.  More stalling from Larry as he ducks out of the ring after every shot from Windham, no matter how minor.  He stops to argue the finer points of embroidery with some fans at ringside, and heads back in for a leglock.  Windham breaks and we get more stalling.  Barry grabs a headlock, but Larry reverses to another toehold and goes to work on the knee.   Windham powerslams out of it and gets two.  Windham goes up and misses his usual "dying seagull" elbowdrop that never hits or even comes close.  Larry goes back to the knee.  Caudle relates a story about how Zbyszko went to the Horsemen for advice and learned that the knee is hurt.  Really?  You don't think the huge knee brace and bandages would be a giveaway by itself?  Man, I hope he didn't PAY for that sort of sage advice.  Larry changes things up, going to a headlock, but then switches to the toehold again in case we get too excited and drop dead from the shock of something notable happening.  Windham fights back and slugs him down.  A bad suplex gets two.  What the heck happened there?  It looked like Larry was supposed to shift his weight and fall on top, and Barry even started to take that bump, but Larry just took it like a regular suplex.  Weird.  Gutwrench gets two.  Sleeper and Larry bails, but Windham follows and gives him a beating, only to run into the post.  He posts Larry on his very favorite muscle in response, but misses the lariat by a mile and goes flying out of the ring.  Dustin totally swiped that bump from him, by the way.  More brawling outside, and Windham flips back in, but Larry blocks for two.  Neckbreaker is reversed to a backslide by Windham, for two.  Windham reverses a piledriver attempt, but for some reason Larry gets two off it.  Criss-cross and collision puts both guys out, and Larry misses a charge to the corner to allow Windham the comeback, and AGAIN the babyface makes the dumb decision and pounds away in the corner.  Ref is bumped and Windham gets a devastating rollup for nothing as a result, but Larry counters with SIZE SEVEN OF DOOM (oh, wait, it's Baby Doll's shoe, so I guess it's the SIZE FOURTEEN OF DOOM.never mind drinking champagne out of it, you can use it as a microbrewery) and gets the title at 19:15.  WAY long, but Windham gave it the old college try near the end.  **  In Jim Ross' opinion, the shoe was the deciding factor.  Now that's insightful commentary.  For those who care, Larry never lost the esteemed and very prestigious Western States title, as he completely forgot about even having it and jumped to the AWA later that year to become World champion there, before destroying that title, too, thus once again proving my theory:   Germans love David Hasslehoff.

 

- NWA World title:  Ric Flair v. Road Warrior Hawk.  Who thought THIS was a good idea?  I mean, seriously, old-school NWA fans, did you ever buy tickets for a show thinking "Oh, boy, Hawk is challenging for the title, this should be awesome!"  That's like trying to promote HHH v. Bubba Dudley for the title!  Who would be that stupid?  Oh, never mind.  Hawk works a headlock to start and no-sells a chop and Flair decides to re-think his strategy.  Hawk presses him and Flair takes a powder to reinforce just how painful that was.  Back in, Hawk does it again, because when you do a move like that and the guy screams in pain and runs for his life, you might as well do it again.  Who says the Warriors were dumb?  Hawk stomps a mudhole in the corner and hits him with a standing dropkick and fistdrop.  He tosses Flair around, and Ric calls timeout and confers with JJ.  Hawk suplexes him back in and pounds away, into the BEARHUG OF DOOM.  If Flair was Hulk Hogan, it would be OVER.  Man, I wonder if Hogan is ever gonna live down being the only guy in history to submit to a bearhug.  Hawk no-sells some chops and shoulderblocks him, as JR declares that "Flair is as limp as a dishrag".  That's not what the women who ride Space Mountain would say!  Whoo!  Sorry, just to retort on Flair's behalf there.  They head outside and Hawk tosses the balsawood steps at Flair with blatant disregard for the splinters it might cause, but when they head back in Flair goes low to take over.  Speaking of limp as a dishrag.  Flair goes to the eyes to keep up his image as a total pussy (Thanks, Big Dust!) and drops the knee.  That gets two.  They head out and Hawk meets the railing a few times, and STILL won't sell!  Oh, wait, he's taking a few deep breaths and acting mildly distracted, that's practically a crippling injury for the Warriors.  Back in, Flair drops another knee for two.  Hawk suddenly comes back with a neckbreaker, and Flair starts convulsing in pain.  You see the difference selling makes?  Hawk misses a fistdrop and sells the knee.  Explain THAT one, kids.  Flair goes after the knee anyway, and when Ellering protests to the ref Flair gives the most blatant ballshot humanly possible to Hawk, nearly doing a dance afterwards like Leslie Nielsen as the umpire, in the Naked Gun.  Flair wraps Hawk's knee around the post and WHOO!  NOW!  WE GO TO SCHOOL!  Figure-four time, kids, and the ropes get involved, whether they want to or not.  It's not like they were doing anything pressing anyway.  Hawk reverses, but Flair makes the ropes.  You know what a cool bit of psychology would be?  Wrestling someone who has a bad knee, and letting them think that they're injuring YOUR knee, until you sucker them into putting a figure-four on you.  But since their knee is more injured than yours, you reverse the hold and get the submission.  They slug it out in the corner and the ref is bumped (man, this guy is having a rough night), and Hawk clotheslines Flair over the top.  Keep that in mind, it'll probably be important later.  They head out and Flair hits the post, and back in Hawk powerslams him and pounds away in the corner.  Clothesline and superplex get nothing, and Dillon chairshots Hawk, who no-sells it.  Flair tries the chair and puts him down with it, but only gets two.  Flair suplexes him, and it's no-sold.  Hawk pounds away in the corner, but Flair hits him with the chair again for the SUPER-WEAK DQ at 21:42.  Oh man, that's so weak it's like if the finish had four simultaneous heart attacks and tried to run a marathon.  It's WEAK, I tell you.  Hawk doesn't even sell the fatal chairshot, by the way.  This was the usual "Flair wrestles a broomstick and loses by DQ" special.  ***1/2  Hawk had NOTHING to do with that rating, by the way  that's pretty much the baseline for Flair around this time.

 

- Bunkhouse Stampede Finals:  This is a cage match battle royale (devised by Big Dust, of course) where you lose if you escape the cage.  That's silly on so many levels I don't even know where to begin mocking it.  Okay, so your esteemed competitors are Dusty Rhodes, Tully Blanchard, Ivan Koloff, Warlord, Arn Anderson, Lex Luger, Barbarian and Animal.  Yup, 8 guys in a battle royale.  Warlord pounds on Animal, Luger goes after Anderson, Koloff and Blanchard pair off, and Dusty takes Barbarian.  Dusty elbows away on Tully and tries to put him through the door, but Arn saves.  Barbarian goes low on Luger, and Animal battles with Tully at the top of the cage.  Dusty tries to put Ivan through the door, but he hangs on.  This match is so counterintuitive  do you know how HARD it is to force someone over the top of the cage?  You require so much cooperation from the victim that it has to kill any credibility of the match.  Luger and Animal work Tully over in the corner while Barbarian & Koloff take on Rhodes.  Dusty comes back and sends Koloff into the cage to draw blood, while Animal gives Tully more of the same.  Koloff gets his revenge, choking Rhodes out with wire or something.  Tully is bleeding, too.  Not really much going on.  The Powers of Pain double-team Animal and Barbarian chokes him down.  Rhodes takes off his belt (make your own jokes here.I'll get you started:  "But what will they hold the Lincoln Memorial's pants up with?") and starts whipping people.  Everyone keeps slugging it out as we desperately need an elimination.  The heels take control of things, tying up Luger in the ropes, but DUSTY STANDS TALL.  I'm shocked.  Stardust chokes out Koloff while the Powers keep working Animal over.  The camera is jumping all over the place, making it impossible to follow any one storyline.  Well, unless you're a fan of Dusty, of course, because he takes up the whole screen.  The Powers switch their attentions to Luger, while Animal tries to put Arn over the top.  Meanwhile, Tully teeters on the edge of the apron near the door, while trying to choke Koloff out.  Dusty's arm is a bloody mess.  Animal finally manages to put Koloff over the top and out, for the first elimination.  Animal throws Blanchard into Anderson.  I should stop to make fun of Warlord and Barbarian at this point, as their idea of "come as you are" is wrestling tights with muscle shirts.  Speaking of which, Warlord & Animal both fall out the door to eliminate each other.  So we've got Dusty & Luger v. Arn & Tully (with Barbarian hanging around).  Luger racks Blanchard, which is a meaningless gesture at best.  Tully & Arn soon double-team Luger while Barbarian bites the arm of Dusty.  The Horsemen can't put Luger out, however.  They keep working him over with the door wide open, and Arn chokes him out while standing on the steps.  How dumb is THAT?  Luger and Arn both fall out soon after, and the momentum takes Tully with them.  That's so contrived.  So that leaves Barbarian and Dusty, and if you can't guess who wins, you have no business reading this review. Barbarian uses an international object to go on the offense, and he drops a couple of headbutts from the top.  Ever see Greenpeace trying to move one of those dead whales off the beach?  That's what Barbarian is facing.  They're almost out the door, but Dusty makes the miraculous comeback while the cameras cut to shots of the bored crowd.  Barbarian helpfully climbs up the cage with Dusty for no adequately explored reason, but falls victim to the overpowering presence of the Bookerman's Elbow, and he falls to his doom at 26:23, and probably suffered a concussion from such a devastating bionic elbow, too.  For booking himself to win this prestigious match, Dusty is awarded Baby Doll's cowboy boot.  God bless America!  God bless Dusty!  Earl Hebner declares him the winner and then jumps to the WWF to escape this nonsense.  I don't rate battle royales, but this one sucked.

 

The Bottom Line:  If you think HHH is bad these days, he's got NOTHING on Dusty Rhodes, who devised entire PPVs and match concepts in order to put himself over.

 

The rest of the show ranges from boring (the opener) to lame (the DQ in the title match) to boring again (Larryland running wild).  There is a reason that no one ever mentions this show these days, believe me.

 

Strong recommendation to avoid.  Not like you can find it, anyway.

 

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1 hour ago, cwoy2j said:

Here's Scott Keith's review

 

 

Oh God... He didn't write a single sentence I agree with.

Also why does he hate Dusty? From what I've seen from '86 and onward, Dusty was pretty great. He wasn't this OMGHEKNOWSMOVEZ, nor did he take these massive over the top bumps, but he was over big time and had all of the fundamentals down which made for some great stuff.

I was checking out Meltzer's star ratings for these events and that's also something I couldn't disagree with more than I already did. I know that's subjective/doesn't really matter and has already been beaten to death, but I just wanted to see how my opinion matched up with his and yeah... We don't seem to agree, but that should've been a given as he gives whatever PWG opening match ***** and I can barely sit through most of them.

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45 minutes ago, Edwin said:

Oh God... He didn't write a single sentence I agree with.

Also why does he hate Dusty? From what I've seen from '86 and onward, Dusty was pretty great. He wasn't this OMGHEKNOWSMOVEZ, nor did he take these massive over the top bumps, but he was over big time and had all of the fundamentals down which made for some great stuff.

I was checking out Meltzer's star ratings for these events and that's also something I couldn't disagree with more than I already did. I know that's subjective/doesn't really matter and has already been beaten to death, but I just wanted to see how my opinion matched up with his and yeah... We don't seem to agree, but that should've been a given as he gives whatever PWG opening match ***** and I can barely sit through most of them.

I mean, if you're the type of person who's over the moon for PWG, I imagine JCP is pretty antithetical to your tastes.  Keith was 100% a MOVEZ and workrate guy back in the day, too.

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Just finished watching Great American Bash '88...

Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Sting & Nikita Koloff was really good. Not sure who told Nikita to let his hair grow and get a Sting like flat top... Stings early dive was nuts and really got the crowd going. Nikita throws a weak flying shoulder tackle, but he makes up for it by taking a nasty bump to the outside with a clothlesline on Tully. Loved how the Horsemen capitalized on Nikita's arm after he hit the ring post on the outside after failing to hit the Russian Sickle on J.J. Dillon. The time limit draw made sense as they could keep the titles on the Horsemen instead of putting them on a makeshift tag team.

The Fantastics vs. the Midnight Express was another fantastic tag title match. The pre-match Jim Cornette antics with him getting put in the straitjacket and getting put into the shark cage was great.The Fantastics setting up Stan Lane to backdrop Bobby Eaton was a really neat spot. There was a brutal body slam on the floor from Eaton on Bobby Fulton. The setup was great too as Stan kneed him in the back and Bobby grabbed him from the inside. The post match beating on Cornette with the belt was great too.

Tower of Doom match is such an odd and limited stip., but they do a fantastic job getting this over. Kevin Sullivan shoving Jimmy Garvin out of the cage even though he was going to lose just to stay alone in the cage with Precious was great. The post match angle with Sullivan and Precious alone in the cage and the save was great.

Barry Windham vs. Dusty Rhodes was OK, nothing special. The extensive claws, the choreographed top rope slam and another ref. bump brought this down for me. I don't mind most ref. bumps, but seeing them so frequently sorta kills it.

Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger was a one man show with Luger just along for the ride. Flair put on a show with his bumping and selling. The finish makes no sense, unless you hear to Jim Ross' explanation for the finish. He does an excellent job at explaining the commissions decision.

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35 minutes ago, Edwin said:

Just finished watching Great American Bash '88...

Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard vs. Sting & Nikita Koloff was really good. Not sure who told Nikita to let his hair grow and get a Sting like flat top... Stings early dive was nuts and really got the crowd going. Nikita throws a weak flying shoulder tackle, but he makes up for it by taking a nasty bump to the outside with a clothlesline on Tully. Loved how the Horsemen capitalized on Nikita's arm after he hit the ring post on the outside after failing to hit the Russian Sickle on J.J. Dillon. The time limit draw made sense as they could keep the titles on the Horsemen instead of putting them on a makeshift tag team.

The Fantastics vs. the Midnight Express was another fantastic tag title match. The pre-match Jim Cornette antics with him getting put in the straitjacket and getting put into the shark cage was great.The Fantastics setting up Stan Lane to backdrop Bobby Eaton was a really neat spot. There was a brutal body slam on the floor from Eaton on Bobby Fulton. The setup was great too as Stan kneed him in the back and Bobby grabbed him from the inside. The post match beating on Cornette with the belt was great too.

Tower of Doom match is such an odd and limited stip., but they do a fantastic job getting this over. Kevin Sullivan shoving Jimmy Garvin out of the cage even though he was going to lose just to stay alone in the cage with Precious was great. The post match angle with Sullivan and Precious alone in the cage and the save was great.

Barry Windham vs. Dusty Rhodes was OK, nothing special. The extensive claws, the choreographed top rope slam and another ref. bump brought this down for me. I don't mind most ref. bumps, but seeing them so frequently sorta kills it.

Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger was a one man show with Luger just along for the ride. Flair put on a show with his bumping and selling. The finish makes no sense, unless you hear to Jim Ross' explanation for the finish. He does an excellent job at explaining the commissions decision.

And for shits and giggles, here's SK's review of this

 

Quote

-- Live from Baltimore, MD.

- Your hosts are Tony Schiavone and Jim Ross.

- Opening match:  NWA World tag title match:  Tully Blanchard & Arn
Anderson v. Sting & Nikita Koloff.  Big brawl to start.  There's no real
story here -- Sting needed something to do while Lex took his turn on
top of the card, so he got stuck fighting for the tag titles with
Koloff, who was the opposite of resurgant, whatever that is.  Sting gets
a couple of quick two counts before Arn runs away.  Koloff had a full
head of hair at this point, by the way, which looks...creepy.  Move #393
(ARM-bar) comes into liberal use from Koloff, boring the crowd.  The
faces manage to double-team Tully while the ref argues the legality of
tagging your partner's foot with Arn.  Suddenly, the THE guys do a
Sid-worthy scissor job on the match, clipping to the finish as Sting
gets the hot tag and destroys everything that moves.  Sleeper on AA
leads to a messed-up sequence with Tully, which leads in turn to a
Stinger splash and deathlock.  Crowd thinks it's a submission, but it
turns out to be a time-limit draw, of which we saw 10:27.  That would
turn out to be popular booking for the evening.  I don't know which was
worse -- the effort of the workers or the editing job.  Match looked to
be about *1/2

- US tag team title:  The Fantastics v. The Midnight Express.  The
Fantastics won the titles on a **** TV match a few weeks prior to this,
and prior to that they did a ****3/4 MOTYC on the first Clash that
nearly blew the roof off the place.  For this one, OverBook-A-Mania is
running wild, as Jim Cornette is first placed in a straitjacket, then
locked in a steel cage, and if the Midnights don't win he gets lashed 10
times with a belt.  So nice to see Cornette being given the book from
time to time, isn't it?  Funny bit as Cornette tries to bribe the
officials on the way to cage ("WOULD YOU TAKE $15,000?!?") but no dice.
The pre-match nonsense eats up about 10 minutes, however, which is
ridiculous considering that the 20-minute match is clipped down to 2:16.
Obviously they were still learning how to edit a PPV tape at this point.
I've seen the full match, and it's tres disappointing, about **.  The
ending is the ref getting wiped out and Eaton pulling out a chain and
nailing Rogers with it for the pin to regain the US tag titles.
Cornette still gets whipped in the end, of course, so everyone ends up
happy.

- The Tower of Doom:  The Road Warriors, Jim Garvin, Ron Garvin & Steve
Williams v. Kevin Sullivan, Al Perez, the Russian Assassin, Ivan Koloff
& Mike Rotunda.  Okay, unless you're a big WCCW fan you've probably
never heard of this one before.  Here's the deal:  There's three cages
stacked on top of each other, shrinking in size on the way up.  The
smallest cage is literally up in the lights.  The object is to have all
five team members proceed from the top cage, down to the bottom cage and
out via the door, which is controlled by Garvin's wife and/or Sullivan's
evil love-slave, Precious.  The issue at the time was whether Sullivan
had brainwashed Precious, see.  Every two minutes, a trapdoor opens in
the bottom of the top two cages, allowing people in them to move down
within a 15-second window.  At the same time, a door in the small cage
at the top opens, allowing a new member from each team to enter the
match.  The gimmick itself was horribly complex and impossible to follow
and book good matches around, so this is the only appearance.  The
Tower of Doom match (called the Triple Dome of Terror at the time) first
took place in World Class a few months prior, with longtime partners
Terry Gordy and Michael Hayes fighting for the first time.  Anyway, on
with the match.  We start with Ron Garvin & Ivan Koloff in the top cage,
and they slug it out for a while, although the light standards are
blocking the view so no one can tell what's going on.  And the cage is
like 4 feet by 4 feet so there's no room to do much.  After 2:00, Garvin
drops into the next cage, while Koloff is trapped above and Williams and
Rotunda enter the match.  Williams handles both easily, and when the
next 2:00 is up, Garvin drops into the bottom cage, and then leaves the
ring to be the first man out for his team.  Hope that clears up the
rules a bit.  Doc and Ivan go into the second level, meanwhile, leaving
Rotunda at the top level as Al Perez and Animal join the match.  Doc
wipes the cage with Koloff for 2 minutes, until the trapdoors open again
and Perez & Animal move down to join Doc and Koloff in the second level.
The top cage opens to admit Hawk and the Russian Assassin.  Hawk holds
off both Rotunda and Assassin.  It's all a giant brawl.  Next period:
Perez & Animal make it into the bottom cage and both leave.  The second
level has Williams & Hawk v. the Russians.  Up top, team captains Jimmy
Garvin and Kevin Sullivan have entered the match, and poor Rotunda is
still up there in the top cage with them.  Next period:  Rotunda finally
gets to drop down to the second level, while Hawk and the Russians all
make it to the bottom and out.  We're down to four guys:  Garvin &
Sullivan in the top cage, and Rotunda & Williams in the second cage.
Next period:  Williams takes out Rotunda and escapes the cage, leaving
Garvin 1-on-2 against the Varsity Club.  Next period:  Rotunda makes his
escape, leaving the blowoff match:  Garvin v. Sullivan.  Garvin works on
Sullivan's leg while in the second level to keep him from making it to
the trap door.  Next period:  The strategy doesn't work, as both are
able to make it to the bottom level, and it's first man out to to win.
Garvin takes out Sullivan with the brainbuster (now THERE'S a perfectly
good finisher just waiting for a new user) and tries for the door, but
Sullivan dives for it, accidentally knocking Garvin to the floor for the
babyface win.  But that leaves Sullivan alone in the cage with Precious,
and he proceeds to basically kick the shit out of her.  I've always
wondered why Kevin didn't get a booking job for the WWF -- he'd be
PERFECT.  The faces have to go all the way through the cage maze again
to make the rescue, but when Hawk drops down and clotheslines Sullivan
on the way down, the pop is HUGE.  The match was...um...interesting,
although if you think I can possibly rate it you're nuts.

- For some reason, they decided to stick a "bonus" match on a tape that
was already hacked more than a WrestleLine article in order to make 125
minutes.

- World TV title match:  Mike Rotunda v. Sting.  Taped from a house show
a week or so prior, this is a completely paint-by-numbers Sting match,
as Rotundo controls with his boring offense, Sting makes a quick
comeback, and Rick Steiner runs in for the usual DQ at 8:15.  Why even
bother?  *

- US title match:  Barry Windham v. Dusty Rhodes.  The story:  Dusty was
US champion, but he got into a big brawl with the Horsemen that ended
with him going ballistic on the puppet president of the NWA at the time
(I forget whether it was Geigel or Crockett at the time -- he also did
the same angle in Florida and it gets hard to keep track) with a
baseball bat.  He was suspended and stripped of the US title (Dusty?
JOB?  Heaven forfend).  And of course, the next week Windham started
getting dogged by the most mysterious of all mystery men...the Midnight
Rider!  If anyone knows who that enigmatic guy was, let me know, because
I'm stumped.  Finally, the suspension ended, but not before Windham had
won a tournament for the US title, going over Nikita Koloff in the
finals.  So we got this match.  This was the peak of Barry's skills and
luckily it coincided with the peak of his credibility as a wrestler,
1993 notwithstanding.  Barry bumps his ass off for Dusty to begin, as
Dusty even manages a press-slam and DDT...then heads to the top?!?
LUCHA DUSTY!  AMERICANA LA VACA!  Dusty pulls out the cross-body from
the top that he hadn't used since 1979 (when he used it to pin Harley
Race for the NWA World title) but it only gets two.  Man, you gotta
admire Barry for taking the weight of a 600 pound man from the top rope
and then kicking out.  HE'S A MAN'S MAN!  Windham bails, but Dusty
pummels him when he returns.  They fight outside and Dusty opens a
bigger can of whoop-ass.  Barry gets a cheap shot to temporarily take
control, but when he tries to slingshot Dusty in, it backfires and Barry
goes flying to the floor.  Why?  Because Dusty is JUST TOO FAT.  Nice
bump from Barry, though.  Back in the ring, JJ runs interference,
allowing Windham a knee to the back and the most dreaded of all
finishers...the CLAWHOLD!  Nothing will put a man out faster than
massaging his temples while wearing a black glove, you know.  Dusty
spends about 5 minutes fighting out, but gets nowhere.  He even walks
the ropes to escape, but Barry is tall enough to hang on.  Good
psychology there.  Dusty finally elbows out and goes for the
figure-four, but when he bends over Barry slaps the claw back on.
That's VERY good psychology.  Dusty goes back to the ropes, and this
time makes it far enough up to break the hold.  Ref gets bumped as Dusty
comes down, however (a Dusty finish in a Dusty match?  WHAT ARE THE
ODDS????) and Dusty slams Windham off the top and hits the BIG FAT ELBOW
OF DEATH.  Ron Garvin runs in to wake up the ref...then it's KAPOW! and
Dusty is down for the count after a grade-A heel turn.  Crowd is
absolutely in shock as Windham slaps on the claw again and Tommy Young
counts three.  As a young mark, my jaw nearly dropped when I heard
Garvin turned on Dusty.  Windham carried the whole match.  ***

- Backstage, Garvin accepts a big briefcase full of money from Gary Hart
and JJ Dillon.

- Main event, NWA World title:  Ric Flair v. Lex Luger.  This would be
the NWA's first real money match in the PPV era.  Of course they screwed
it up.  The story:  Luger is the young apprentice of the aging Four
Horsemen, but decides that they're holding him back, especially what
with JJ Dillon wanting him to lay down in battle royales so Dillon can
win.  Luger is out, Windham is in, and now Luger is pissed and starts
taking out the Horsemen one-by-one, leading up to Flair.  The Horsemen
systematically attack Luger every chance they get, including a memorable
parking lot beating the week before this show.  Luger totally overpowers
Flair to start and tosses him around.  The usual from Flair as he bails
and argues with the front row, then gets into a shoving match with Tommy
Young.  Flair offers a test of strength, something which I don't think
he ever tried again after what happened.  Luger has his way some more
and goes for the bearhug, getting a two count off it until Flair makes
the ropes.  Luger casually suplexes him back in, but misses the leaping
elbow.  It's not like he sells it or anything, though.  Flair gets a
cheap shot outside the ring to take control, but Luger keeps fighting
him off, as if merely inconvenienced.  Luger goes for the kill but
misses a dropkick and Flair goes right for the knee.  Figure-four gets
put on the wrong leg as usual.  Luger powers out and comes back, but the
knee caves in on him very quickly.  He shakes it off and hulks up,
however.  Luger gets a backslide for two, then a really bad looking spot
ensues as they both go over the top rope after about 3 tries at it.
Flair and Dillon take turns ramming Luger into the post, finally busting
him open....cue ominous music.  Back in the ring, and Luger decides to
just dispose of Flair once and for all, powerslamming him and locking in
the rack for the easy submission and his first World title...ah, no.

See, Baltimore was on this big anti-blood kick at the time, so in order
to run it into their face the NWA booked a goofy ending whereby Luger
would get busted open and the State Athetlic commission would stop the
match and award it to Flair.  The end comes at 23:13 and when the crowd
hears the announcement they are, to say the least, none too thrilled.
I've cut myself open bigger than that shaving, I don't blame them.  A
pretty weak Luger-Flair match here, but they'd have better ones in years
to come.  ***1/2

The Bottom Line:  This card holds nostalgia value for a lot of people,
but the wrestling is easily topped elsewhere.  The first Clash
completely blows it out of the water for instance.  There's tons of
better Luger-Flair matches out there, not to mention WAY better stuff
with Tully & Arn, the Midnights and the Fantastics.  Sting is wasted
here, as are most of the guys in the Tower of Doom match.  If you've
never seen the practically-legendary Luger-Flair screwjob finish or are
interested in the goofy gimmick match in the Tower of Doom, I'd
recommend this one, but otherwise stick with pre-88 or post-89.
 

 

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