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The Philadelphia card, on the same night:

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WWF @ Philadelphia, PA - Spectrum - February 8, 1986 (19,710; sell out)
Televised on the PRISM Network - included Dick Graham & Lord Alfred Hayes on commentary:
George Skaaland pinned Ron Shaw with a sunset flip at 8:58
Pedro Morales pinned Rene Goulet at 11:56 with a reverse roll up
Hercules pinned Scott McGhee at 8:44 with a backbreaker
Cpl. Kirchner pinned the Iron Sheik at 7:47 after reversing a suplex attempt into an inside cradle
Adrian Adonis (w/ Jimmy Hart) pinned George Wells at 10:23 with the DDT
The Junkyard Dog pinned Terry Funk (w/ Jimmy Hart) at 13:05 with a small package after Funk missed an attempt to hit JYD with the branding iron; after the bout, Funk & Hart attacked JYD, with Funk attempting to brand Junkyard Dog until JYD grabbed it away and chased both men from the ring with it
WWF Tag Team Champions Brutus Beefcake & Greg Valentine (w/ Johnny V) defeated Davey Boy Smith & the Dynamite Kid at 15:35 when Beefcake pinned Dynamite after Valentine reversed Dynamite's small package behind the referee's back
Dan Spivey pinned Iron Mike Sharpe at 5:32 with a bulldog
WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan defeated King Kong Bundy (w/ Bobby Heenan) via disqualification at 9:15 when Heenan interfered after the champion brought him into the ring; after the bout, Hogan cleared both men from the ring after Bundy knocked out two referees and accidentally hit the Avalanche on Heenan in the corner

So the Boston Garden was a strong show while kinda being the B show compared to the Philadelphia show. But the Boston show got the A show announcers.

I think that there’s not a lot (or any?) Spectrum shows on the network. 

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36 minutes ago, Cobra Commander said:

The Philadelphia card, on the same night:

So the Boston Garden was a strong show while kinda being the B show compared to the Philadelphia show. But the Boston show got the A show announcers.

I think that there’s not a lot (or any?) Spectrum shows on the network. 

They do mention the Spectrum in the "Old School" opening.

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11 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

 

Randy Savage vs Tito Santana: This match is on no shortage of tapes that I watched in 1998 and it rules. Memorable finish that was teased a time of two before it was pulled off. I forget if they just retroactively attached this to the "Danny Davis is evil" highlight reel or if it was part of the plan all along. Kinda weird to see the heel doing the rollover out of the Figure Four after so many matches where the face does that (but faces would just reverse the pressure a little before breaking the hold)

 

Savage did the same finish against Steamboat two shows earlier in Boston and at the Wrestling Classic PPV.

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After the awful news today, I decided to watch Good Friends Better Enemies for the first time (I had seen the Main Event before but not the entire card)

Ahmed was still an amazing combination of energy and recklessness around that time. Watching him is like watching a cat run up and down the hallway before colliding with a tableleg.

Nice to see Omaha-area legend Mantaur getting a cameo as the only person who could bump for the Warrior during that card. Guess that PN News was busy or else Goldust could have had two bodyguard stooges while he was unable to work an actual match.

Somebody did Vader a little dirty by having Razor kick out of the Vaderbomb and lose on a buttdrop counter.

Michaels/Diesel was the best Kevin Nash match ever and really made Shawn look a lot more like an asskicker champ that people could get behind then they did stuff that accidentally undermined him.

If GFBE was the best Nash match, I'm not sure what the best Nash match is where he was on the winning side. There's probably something really obvious that I should have remembered.

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On 10/20/2022 at 9:38 AM, Cobra Commander said:

The Philadelphia card, on the same night:

So the Boston Garden was a strong show while kinda being the B show compared to the Philadelphia show. But the Boston show got the A show announcers.

I think that there’s not a lot (or any?) Spectrum shows on the network. 

Seems to be the formula of the time A show got Hogan and the B show was a stronger undercard

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watching the 11/30/91 MSG show and the old ref in the undercard matches ended up having Vince McMahon say the ref was out of position because of how fat he was (I have no idea who the ref is and they didn't name him but I figure if any group of people could identify a WWF ref from 30 years ago)

edit: on doing Googling, that was Jack Lotz? they were still doing NYSAC assigned referees for WWF cards in 1991?

edit 2: I made the mistake of checking how much time was left just before the start of Bossman/IRS and I was shocked that there was 38 more minutes of this show. Hogan/Flair went way before halfway, even by the standards of an MSG show. It was the 4th match of the show, and then we got Duggan and Bret in matches 6/7 and IRS doing the same promo he always does is match 8

early 90s WWF is sort of a weird comfort food but I'm questioning why a 1h50m show had Hogan/Flair going at like 35 minutes into the show

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Jim Cornette talked about this on his pod once. Apparently there was a riot back in the Bruno days that got wrestling kicked out of MSG for a bit. So when they came back they would put the main on in the middle of the card so the if the fans where upset they wouldn't riot cause they knew they where still getting Ander or what ever. Other possible reasons are letting Hogan get out of the building before the fans and putting the Hogan  match before intermission to goose merch sales

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The WWF was running the Spectrum and the Garden on the same day back in November 1991 with the Spectrum as the matinee

Hogan/Flair main evented the Spectrum with the Rockers, of all people, making the save for Hogan at the end.

The Spectrum card placements compared to MSG:

  1. Kerry Von Erich vs Berzerker opened in Philly, was 2nd in MSG
  2. Nasty Boys/Rockers was 2nd in Philly and the main event (8th) in MSG
  3. Virgil/Skinner was 3rd in Philly and MSG
  4. Tito Santana vs Kato was 4th in Philly and leadoff in MSG
  5. Duggan vs Barbarian was 5th in Philly and MSG
  6. Bossman vs IRS was 6th in Philly and 7th in MSG
  7. Hart vs Mountie was 7th in MSG and 6th in Philly
  8. Hogan vs Flair was the main event (8th) in Philly and 4th in MSG.

The first 3 matches at MSG went 17:32 combined and then we got Hogan/Flair.

They did return to the Garden on December 29th as the matinee with Hogan/Flair at the end of the card. The 12/29 MSG crew also had a show in Worcester (with Flair/Piper as the de facto main event and Hart/Dibiase closing) because the WWF scheduling was run by people trying to run 16 house shows from December 26th to 30th.

Ric Flair was in Hershey, Landover, Richmond, maybe Duluth? (no card listed but they mention crew member Big Bossman was on the card), Minneapolis, MSG, Worcester, Bangor over a period of 5 days.

Edited by Cobra Commander
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the Bret/Mountie, Bossman/IRS matches sorta interlocked with each other on the Garden card. With the Bossman showing up to take Mountie's shockstick before Bret/Mountie, and Mountie interfering during Bossman/IRS.

That set up a match where the team of IRS and the Mountie faced Bret Hart and the Big Bossman at the Nassau Coliseum. Which was one of two times that Ray Traylor and Bret Hart were in the same non-battle royal match (they faced each other on a 1990 House show pre-Bossman turn).

I think they could have been able to successfully recycle some Hart Foundation spots for a Bret Hart/Bossman tag team

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Some stuff about Starrcade '96:

  • Malenko always does this cursory mat work that is totally unnecessary. His idea of selling an armbar is to be visibly thinking about the next spot before remembering to sell for two seconds. He just screws up his face in an unconvincing show of pain before going back to thinking about the next move. At least Ultimo Dragon sold the interminable legbars. Malenko also wasn't athletically crisp tonight. 

 

  • Speaking of not athletically crisp, Madusa really needed to stop trying moves that she wasn't athletic enough to do. Her match with Akira Hokuto was mostly hair whips, chokes, and ugly-looking high spots. 

 

  • I think Heenan was chugging the vodka hidden in his water bottle during Rey/Liger. He totally gets confused when Tenay compares this matchup to the opener and starts talking about how Rey can't be worrying about Ultimo Dragon right now because he's facing Liger. Then, Dusty asks Heenan a question about Liger looking heavier since the last time he was in WCW and Heenan blanks for so long that Dusty just moves on and asks Tony

 

  • Dusty is amazing, on the other hand. He gets such a kick out of Tenay calling a dragon screw: "I'll need to remember that one for later tonight! Honey, what was that? Oh, that was a dragon-screw leg whip!"

 

  • The match itself is fun. It's not the quality of match you might expect on a marquee PPV between two of the twenty best wrestlers ever to step in the ring, but it's still good. I partially blame the Nashville crowd, which is more interested in starting U-S-A chants whenever possible so far tonight rather than paying attention to the wrestling itself. They're weirdly dead for most of this. Liger had a sweet counter for Mysterio's springboard rana. 

 

  • Woman has an incredible performance in the Jarrett/Benoit No DQ match. She distracts Jarrett, yanks Benoit out of the way of another Jarrett charge, and scratches Jarrett's eyes to break up his Figure Four attempt. Then, the Dungeon runs down to abduct her and she punts Hugh Morrus right in the balls. Seriously, she's one of my favorite managers ever at this point. The end is all the crowd cares about, which involves Arn pretending to support Jarrett at ringside only to DDT him and toss him back in the ring. Jarrett would normally be food except that Sullivan hammered Benoit with a chair. Arn takes a peek into the ring when the ref's about to count three and does a fine job of looking shocked at the finish. Dusty when Woman hit that dick kick: "She kicked him right in the vitals!" I love Dusty on commentary. Last week, I saw him do awesome color commentary on World Class TV and then get into a brawl with Bob Roop at ringside. Dusty + color commentary = the best (I know we all know this). 

 

  • When Mongo and Debra come out post-match to shit on Benoit for losing, the crowd goes near-nuclear as soon as Debra tries to talk. She then says that Woman has been "rode hard and put up wet too many times." What is this, ECW?

 

  • The Outsiders/Faces of Fear match was great. It was big dudes clubbering and punching and doing clotheslines until Kevin Nash hit a Jackknife on Barb for the win. He got up fired up, too, like he knew he was just in a war and was feeling the victory. Great match, but actually only the second-best match on this show.

 

  • Eddy/DDP was the least of their 1996 Clash/PPV trilogy, but not because the guys didn't try hard. They just didn't have a match that really flowed until toward the end, when DDP's sack got pulverized when he failed to hit a top-rope move. This was the first of three-straight matches, and fourth of five matches to end the night, that had interference, but I was fine with it as the Outsiders punished DDP for refusing to join the nWo with a Razor's Edge Then they yapped the belt off Eddy, who had nary an idea what happened since he was down at ringside the whole time, and whose Frog Splash on top of the damage DDP took from the Razor's Edge was more than enough for a win. 

 

  • Luger and the Giant had a GREAT match, legit fucking great. I'd place it among their best matches for both men. Luger came out like the Terminator, coming at the Giant in waves until the Giant hit a clothesline that led into a fun-as-hell control segment where he hit elbowdrops that landed with a meaty smack and did one of my favorite methodical beatdowns I've seen in a wrestling ring. According to the rule of threes, he showed hubris three times when he should have been more careful or tried to get the win. On the third time - a missed dropkick upon which he took an awesome bump - Luger beat his ass and racked him twice, both times interrupted by nWo interference. Cue Sting, who came down past some drunk Nashville fuck who had to be pushed back by a cop after getting all in the Stinger's grill. Sting comes in, drops a bat, whispers words of sadness and longing into the ears of both Luger and the Giant, and leaves. Luger, with assistance from a forearm to the nuts, takes possession of the bat and drops the Giant for three. The crowd went nuts. I legit applauded in my house. This match absolutely RULED. 

 

  • I will give Piper and Hogan credit for trying their hardest to follow that, and in truth, their match was decent for its type ('90s era wandering brawl that turns into an interference-fest during the end run). We're leading up to the Giant getting booted from the nWo since he had Piper up for a chokeslam, but Piper escaped it and put the sleeper on Hogan. Funny enough, some Nashville nutbar tried to run in during that spot, so I feel as though the Giant had a legit reason for not hitting the chokeslam - he wasn't sure he had space to drop him, what with the fracas in the ring. Anyway, Piper wins, but Hogan is very insecure so he gets the WCW Championship (not on the line tonight even though Dusty sure thought it was after the bell) and poses to the nWo music as the show ends. 

 

  • The best spot in the match is probably Randy Anderson holding Hogan's arm up three times when Hogan's in the sleeper. On the third time, it drops, and Anderson does this really great double-take and steps back in surprise before calling for the bell. Yeah, I understand why you didn't expect that, ref.

 

  • This show was the inverse of what people say WCW shows were typically like in this era. The flippy guys cutting a fast pace were okay, I guess. The big dudes throwing beefy forearms were great, on the other hand. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by SirSmellingtonofCascadia
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Watching The Best of the Clash of the Champions where their "don't pay Jesse Ventura royalties" policy turns Tony Schiavone into Mid-Atlantic Joey Styles during Hollywood Blonds vs Flair/Arn. At least there's hard contact during some of the "pauses" in commentary

Edited by Cobra Commander
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The Best of the Clash match list was interesting since it was all 1993-1997

Flair/Arn vs Blonds, Vader/Rude vs Sting/Flair, Steamboat vs Austin, Madusa vs Hokuto in a sub-3 minute match for some reason, and Jericho vs Guerrero from the final Clash. In other words, "here are matches with people who were in the WWE in 2012 or were legends and one womens match"

Vader doing multiple superplexes in that Clash match made me think he woke up and decided "fuck my lower back, i'm doing Superplexes today"

On to Halloween Havoc 91, a PPV whose VHS was in the video store here (but without some matches) back when I started watching.

Much like Superbrawl 94, Michael Hayes is at ringside for Jimmy Garvin vs Johnny B. Badd, but Jimmy Garvin has his hair in this match. The Birds are wearing Braves gear in Chattanooga during Game 7 of the Braves/Twins World Series

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notes from the 4/30/83 Philadelphia Spectrum show thru Backlund/Sharpe:

Baron Mikel Scicluna is the most Harry Dean Stanton looking guy in wrestling. Eddie Gilbert didn't show much until he got a fired up comeback.

Buddy Rogers talks his way into getting introduced, getting Jimmy Snuka a pop, and he issues a challenge through Gary Michael Cappetta towards... Samoan #1. Well, that is one reason to delay Tony Garea vs Ray Stevens for a moment. Ray Stevens looks like a pickled Louie Anderson in 1983. Tony Garea has magnificent hair and Gorilla says Garea has a short fuse now. This match had extended sequences of Garea putting Stevens in a headlock. Stevens did his bump. Dick Graham could not believe how Stevens won the match.

The Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission looked around for a referee for Big John Studd/Don Muraco vs Rocky Johnson/Andre the Giant and they decided to call Swede Hanson. Gary Michael referred to an "Australian-style tag team match" in 1983. Muraco bumps around like crazy for Rocky and Andre. The tape has technical difficulties during a long spot with Studd keeping Andre facefirst on the mat with some sort of wrestling hold. The tape quality gets worse and worse because this match is just that intense. Of course since this is a WWF special ref, Swede Hanson gets into it with Muraco and quickcounts him and gets beat up postmatch.

Gorilla was expecting more American flags for a card where Ivan Koloff is working SD Jones in the 4th match of the night. The story of this match would involve SD Jones not being aggressive enough when Koloff was hurt, ending in a flash pin for Koloff.

Iron Mike Sharpe's Spectrum debut was such a big deal that he faced Bob Backlund for the WWF Title on this card. As far as personalities go, Bob Backlund vs Iron Mike Sharpe is a matchup of two weird dudes. Not sure how long Iron Mike Sharpe was higher than a JTTS in the WWF. Backlund's piledriver kinda stunk. Also hadn['t seen someone miss at applying a headlock. The loaded forearm gimmick of death doesn't connect and Backlund gets a rollup. They show fans cheering Backlund. This almost went 20 minutes. Random young fans rushed towards the rail to yell at Sharpe (maybe the same ones who were yelling at Scicluna earlier).

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The 3/20/82 Mid-South episode is AWESOME. Great OMG and JYD/Mr. Olympia squashes, and the Bob Roop angle where he gave Paul Orndorff's car FOUR FLAT TIRRRRRRRRRRRES a fucked up starter so he could steal the title match against Ted DiBiase. I came out of this show ready for OMG/DiBiase and Roop against Karl Kox (who beat him clean in a match before the title match) and Orndorff. 

I think an hour-long wrestling show is perfect if you pack it right. You can go to ninety minutes, but past that, the pacing just isn't there to be as memorable as if you pack an hour-long episode. I might be giving too much benefit of the doubt to Vince Russo, but from the perspective of "how do we make this two-hour show feel like it isn't dragging," packing it with a ton of character development and promos is theoretically a reasonable idea. Really, this show was a lot like an Attitude Era show (very short matches, lots of talking) in some ways. Of course, it was actually really good and the characterization made sense and wasn't totally juvenile, but you get my point, hopefully.

Also, the Mr. Olympia fans in the front row, especially the one in the red shirt, were amazing. Red Shirt timed her middle finger and FUUUUUUUCK YOUUUUUUUUUU perfectly, just in time for a celebrating Bob Roop to turn her way with his arms raised. I fell out for a good couple of minutes upon seeing that. 

Edited by SirSmellingtonofCascadia
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On 10/22/2022 at 3:01 PM, Cobra Commander said:

The WWF was running the Spectrum and the Garden on the same day back in November 1991 with the Spectrum as the matinee

Hogan/Flair main evented the Spectrum with the Rockers, of all people, making the save for Hogan at the end.

The Spectrum card placements compared to MSG:

  1. Kerry Von Erich vs Berzerker opened in Philly, was 2nd in MSG
  2. Nasty Boys/Rockers was 2nd in Philly and the main event (8th) in MSG
  3. Virgil/Skinner was 3rd in Philly and MSG
  4. Tito Santana vs Kato was 4th in Philly and leadoff in MSG
  5. Duggan vs Barbarian was 5th in Philly and MSG
  6. Bossman vs IRS was 6th in Philly and 7th in MSG
  7. Hart vs Mountie was 7th in MSG and 6th in Philly
  8. Hogan vs Flair was the main event (8th) in Philly and 4th in MSG.

The first 3 matches at MSG went 17:32 combined and then we got Hogan/Flair.

They did return to the Garden on December 29th as the matinee with Hogan/Flair at the end of the card. The 12/29 MSG crew also had a show in Worcester (with Flair/Piper as the de facto main event and Hart/Dibiase closing) because the WWF scheduling was run by people trying to run 16 house shows from December 26th to 30th.

Ric Flair was in Hershey, Landover, Richmond, maybe Duluth? (no card listed but they mention crew member Big Bossman was on the card), Minneapolis, MSG, Worcester, Bangor over a period of 5 days.

Shawn waited over a decade for Hogan to pay him back for making this save. Hogan never did so in return Shawn saw fit to bump like a pinball during their Summerslam match as payback. 

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5 hours ago, SirSmellingtonofCascadia said:

the Bob Roop angle where he gave Paul Orndorff's car FOUR FLAT TIRRRRRRRRRRRES a fucked up starter so he could steal the title match against Ted DiBiase.

adding that to the list of angles that seem less plausible with cellphones in existence

might be a little too complex for wrestling to do an angle where the heel sabotages the babyfaces airline tickets to send them to the wrong town and they can't get to the arena in time

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WWE recently put out an ad they are looking for a content specialist. Seemingly was something to do with the Network. Could we finally bet getting more classic content than the 10 shows per month?  I really, really hope so. 

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On 10/25/2022 at 4:27 PM, Cobra Commander said:

not sure what job was harder at Havoc 91, filming The Halloween Phantom in a way where you don't give away that it's Rick Rude or filming Lex Luger's piledriver finish in a way that doesn't make the move look shitty

As a kid I really wanted to see this ppv live. I was really young and knew Simmons didn't have a snowballs chance in hell in winning but I wanted to see Pillman-Morton, and the Chamber of Horrors match.  How did this show hold up for you?

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Dustin Rhodes gigged pretty well for someone in the lower-middle of the card TV title match. Chamber of Horrors was probably the same cluster that I always thought it was.

It was probably a bit dumb to put a lot of your best acts in the Chamber of Horrors (Sting, The Steiners, Cactus Jack especially) so that you could give PPV matches to The Creatures, Bill Kazmaier vs Oz, Doug Somers subbing for Michael Hayes to job to Van Hammer in under 90 seconds, and the Patriots getting a tag team title match.

Compare Havoc to the Chattanooga house shows before and after Havoc 91

Quote

WCW @ Chattanooga, TN - UTC Arena - August 16, 1991 (2,500)
The Junkyard Dog defeated Thomas Rich via disqualification when Terrence Taylor interfered
Arn Anderson pinned Big Josh
Dustin Rhodes & Robert Gibson defeated Terrance Taylor & Richard Morton
PN News defeated Johnny B. Badd via disqualification
WCW World Champion Lex Luger pinned Barry Windham
Tracy Smothers & Steve Armstrong defeated Michael Hayes & Jimmy Garvin
Tom Zenk pinned the Diamond Studd in a tuxedo match
Bobby Eaton pinned WCW TV Champion Steve Austin at the 12-minute mark; the title was only at stake for the first 10 minutes
Sting pinned Nikita Koloff in a steel cage match at the 5-minute mark

Quote

WCW @ Chattanooga, TN - UTC Arena - December 30, 1991 (1,800)
Johnny B. Badd pinned Diamond Dallas Page
Johnny B. Badd defeated Paul Lee in an impromptu $500 challenge; Diamond Dallas Page set up the match following his loss
WCW TV Champion Steve Austin fought Scott Steiner to a draw
Cactus Jack & Abdullah the Butcher defeated Van Hammer & El Gigante
WCW Tag Team Champions Dustin Rhodes & Ricky Steamboat defeated Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton
WCW US Champion Rick Rude defeated Sting via disqualification

 

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at least they had an excuse at the Meadowlands:

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WCW @ East Rutherford, NJ - Meadowlands - January 11, 1991 (5,000; the low turnout was partially due to a snowstorm)
Arn Anderson & Barry Windham defeated WCW Tag Team Champions Doom in a non-title steel cage match at 3:54 when Windham pinned Ron Simmons after Butch Reed accidentally hit his partner with a foreign object

 

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Notes from Mind Games (my Midnight wrestling card of the day because the Phillies won):

There was some quality strapation dudes in Savio Vega vs Bradshaw. The ECW beer spit is the main thing that people remember from the match but the match was actually reasonably good too. No word on if Jimmy Hart is El Maestro De Strap in a Caribbean Strap Match. Now if Savio wasn't wearing a top, there could have been some more strapping. The usual tropes about corner-touching in strap matches applies here. Leaving the cage to win a cage match is at least a little bit more dramatic than having to touch all 4 corners in succession.

The New Razor Ramon isn't a friend of Savio Vega. Maybe Bogner is actually Bizarro Razor Ramon.

Cornette enters to Vader's theme. Jose Lothario enters to Shawn Michaels' theme. Jose Lothario goes shirtless and wins quick. I can guess why they didn't have The Sandman spit beer into Cornette's face during *this* match.

Brian Pillman is around as part of his "do something with this guy, we signed him to a deal before he crashed his hummer" period as the shitstirrer in the Bret/Austin saga. Also Bret Hart dropped a video to say Pillman was lying about Bret appearing at Mind Games and we get Owen Hart instead. Which brings out Austin. In retrospect, Austin and Owen being friendly was an interesting visual. Pillman was dressed like someone who open carrys in a WalMart.

We see Cornette signing away power of attorney so that he can devote more time to hating the state of Connecticut and New York City as a WWF office employee. Take your pick between the Gunns and Owen/Davey in this heel vs heel matchup. A long time ago, The Gunns lost the tag team titles to Owen/Yoko before winning them back sometime later. But Yoko is either at Duke or just not around by this point in 1996 (his last appearance being in November 96). I think Owen managed to kick Bart Gunn in the side of the head with an enziguri which looked gnarly. After Billy springboarded off of Bart to do a move in the corner, i'm gonna pretend that the Hardyz were doing a Smokin Gunns tribute act. Billy Gunn is 14 years older than Jeff Hardy and is in way better shape because Billy didn't spend part of his career smoking meth and doing stupid bumps (that I know of). Owen and Davey win the titles, kicking off a long run until Austin/Michaels in May(?) 1997. Sunny fires the Smoking Gunns, so the end of both Sunny and Cornette as regular WWF managers happened on the same night.

Mark Henry vs Jerry Lawler makes me think it was a shame that Mark Henry was hurt(?) in 1997 instead of developing in the dying days of the USWA. There was a Brian Christopher/Mark Henry vs Jerry Lawler/Scott Bowden match in Memphis in September 1996. Not sure if Mark Henry would have done much in 96/97 WCW and there was a lot shorter of a line in 1996 WWF (and maybe a little less institutional racism in the WWF than what would happen at times in WCW). What i'm saying is that it took some time for the WWF to get Mark Henry right, and that only came after they spent years trying to get him to go away. Mark Henry's outfit here was ridiculous. For some reason, they got this Olympic-caliber weightlifter and were uncomfortable about having him be shirtless. Various heels went after Mark Henry postmatch, which seems a month early for a Survivor Series tease (which Mark Henry didn't compete at)

There was a longggg Undertaker/Goldust feud that had to finally get settled in the background of the Undertaker/Mankind feud. Goldust and the Undertaker had three PPV matches if you count both nights of Beware of Dog as one match, they did a Casket Match as the first big match of this series. Undertaker really didn't look all that taller than Goldust here because the 5 inch difference in billed height. Is it possible that they could have exaggerated Dustin's height up to like 6'7" if they wanted to? Also Marlena has a nice outfit/hair on this night. Dustin's height is sorta in the Billy Gunn zone of being really damned tall but also not seeming all that tall in the land of the giants. I think the Undertaker lifted Marlena by her boobs/armpits but they deemphasized that on the camera angle. That happened to buy time for Goldust before he almost whiffed a gold dust to the eyes spot. Both Dustin and Terri were poking through their outfits in different ways. There was probably a bit of dissatisfying bullshit Goldust PPV matches in 1996 (you try making something out of Roddy Piper and The Ultimate Warrior on back to back PPVs) but this match was pretty good. In the scheme of things, Undertaker/Goldust 4 would have been better than Undertaker/Executioner in December? I haven't seen Undertaker/Executioner but I know that Terry Gordy in 1996 was a bit depressing to watch and it would be surprising if that match didn't kinda suck.

They really committed to having Jose Lothario be Shawn Michaels' Arnold Skaaland, didn't they? But we did get the Survivor Series finish out of that. I think my DVD copy of Hard Knocks and Cheap Pops was faulty but this match was on that DVD. This match, of course, god damn rules because we weren't so sensitive about things like Mick Foley bouncing his brain off of concrete. Not sure if Michaels looks like like an asskicker in this match or against Nash in Omaha but these would be the two best Michaels PPV matches of his first title run? unless somebody wants to speak up for the British Bulldog matches or the Vader match. It's not a Mick match without him taking multiple "holy fuck, why?" bumps. Applicable in 1993 WCW or 1996 WWF. In theory, having the heel be in peril with leg work is kinda backwards. In the world of 1996 WWF, Shawn Michaels is the one described as having a history of concussions when he's facing Mick Foley. The goddamn glitter from the Goldust intro had to be a giant pain in the ass for anybody going after him. Like they realized quickly in NXT that Alexa Bliss couldn't do that stuff in like 2014?  Love Paul Bearer closing the casket in the background like he's putting down a toilet seat (also as a setup for later). The table spot looked a bit batshit crazy in concept but they managed to get through it. We get a bullshit finish as Vader runs in (with the same level of timeliness as Shango trying to do a run-in at the Hoosierdome). Sid showed up to make a save and we got a postmatch Mandible Claw and the Undertaker pops into the casket because magic pal.

Post match posing worked a lot better when it was Hogan than 1996 HBK. Also, Mr. Perfect was around but didn't really stick out in any way in a booth with Vince and heelish Jim Ross.

It was a good use of 2 hours.

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