Bruiser Chong

As it turns out, today is her birthday, which makes all the pissing and moaning over the last several days even more unusual. She's probably one of those people who celebrates their "birthday week."

I suppose it can work if it's one of those situations where you just jive better as friends than as lovers. On than that, I can't imagine why you'd want to stay friends with an ex. There were obviously enough flaws in one or both parties involved that the relationship got terminated. I have no desire to be friends with my most serious ex, mostly because I can't stand her taste in music, movies, her lack of wit, or the silly attempts to spark jealousy once the relationship ended. But I digress.

Yeah, that's the downside of trophy wives.

I think he means the actual cartoon, since he adds that the cartoon's demise will spell the end of the dolls, pajamas, etc.

Most people can't make the transition from an intense romantic relationship to a platonic relationship. Mostly because the former tends to end in a messy fashion. If not, most people just aren't able to sit by as a "friend" and watch someone they were once in a serious romantic relationship start up another one.

Time for some Observer notes from the week of Wrestlemania 2. I posted the March 1986 notes I had here. I didn't realize I left things so up in the air. These are just the notes pertaining to the show, by the way. 4.3.86 - The latest news is that three celebrities have been added to the show, along with the possible subtraction of one. Ray Charles will sing the national anthem; Robert Conrad will referee a match in Los Angeles and Joan Rivers will serve as a guest ring announcer. Meltz notes the Funks will wrestle in New York and that it'd be funny for Jimmy Hart to be there, too, since he's told Ray Charles jokes for years. He adds even Ray should be able to see how bad the battle royal will be. - Hercules may not wrestle Steamboat, since Meltz isn't sure what Hercules' current status in the group is. He's heard different stories about Hercules being threatened to be fired or suspended. - Uncle Elmer broke three ribs in a match against King Kong Bundy. The two almost brawled in the dressing room in one city, with many of the wrestlers egging Bundy to pound Elmer's head in. Meltz doubts the match with Adonis is canceled, since Elmer "could break both legs and not be any worse." - Paul Orndorff has a badly sprained ankle, but he should appear since his current style "requires no movement." - Meltz is impressed with how serious the company is taking the boxing match. Both have been working out with boxing people. Even a fixed boxing match takes work because of having to hold the gloves up for long periods of time. The Orton boxing match was a disaster live, but seemed action-packed with editing. The problem with this match is that it's live. This match will certainly end in some sort of DQ. T can't lose because the moment he loses, he's just a gimmick. Piper can't lose to an actor. - Ed "Too Tall" Jones won't be in it. The Cowboys felt it wouldn't be keeping with their image to have him appear in the battle royal. 4.22.86 - Wrestlemania 2 would have to be considered a major flop. Money-wise, the show was not a winner. The losses in the long run won't be big, but from a psychological standpoint, the show had to be devastating to Titan. From a cost-productive standpoint, the show wasn't worth the time or effort. Most of the matches were as good as could be, which still isn't very good. The tag team title match made the show worthwhile. - It's obvious wrestling is no longer a hot item with the media. The event was not heavily covered, despite the involvement of the football players and celebrities. - The gate was probably between $4.5 and $5 million. They claimed between $7 and $12 million at last year's Wrestlemania, although it was closer to $4 million. This year's show cost about $6 million to put on, meaning a loss of about a million dollars. They also lost money on t-shirt and merchandise expenses. They produced for an expected crowd of a million in live arenas; less than 300,000 showed. Titan also canceled three weeks of live shows between 3.31 and 4.19. Meltz doesn't expect the video to be a money-maker either due to production costs, Coliseum Video's cut and the decreased number of sales. - Meltz has five reasons the show was a flop. 1) All the talk about script change with the football players made it into even more of a carnival. 2) Mr. T is obviously not a popular TV star anymore. 3) All the celebrities turned people off. 4) The hard-sell on the TV shows may have been too hard. 5) People are starting to realize the WWF is a joke inside the ring. - Even though it's not a big financial hit, the show's failure is a warning sign. Wrestling's no longer hot with the media, which means fans of the fad will soon go away. There will still be fans, but the company needs to learn to operate on a smaller scale. "The cartoon probably only has one year left--less if the drug story ever breaks." - The live show in New York was a sellout, but there were still plenty of empty seats, including the $100 ones. Chicago drew a half-house, only about 9,000. If the situation that held true in LA, that crowd may be papered (let it for free) Match Rundown 1) Orndorff vs. Muraco: even worse than he expected and he expects very little from the most overrated wrestler in the country (Orndorff) and one of the laziest (Muraco). They were supposed to work a hot match for their upcoming feud. DUD 2) Savage vs. Steele: terrible, but Savage tried. * 3) Jake vs. George Welles: both men worked hard. He'd call it a pretty good match if it weren't so short. Jake brought out the snake after, though Meltz notes he doesn't bring it to most arena shows. ** 4) Mr. T vs. Piper: Meltz calls it the single biggest travesty he's ever seen perpetrated on pro wrestling fans. So horrible it wasn't even boring. T blew up halfway through the first round. Piper's arm weariness was evident by the end of the second round. Titan deserves blame for putting two out-of-shape guys in such a match. T also deserves blame, as he had months to train and from what he heard, T would do 50 sit-ups and go home. Word from Philly is he just wouldn't train. Piper lost 15 pounds, but it was too much weight since he was also out of shape. It was clear Piper could've cleaned T's clock at any moment. Meltz hopes the plan to bring them back for a cage match next April is dropped. -***** 5) Moolah vs. McIntyre: Too short and no action. DUD 6) Kirshner vs. Vokoff: Kirshner tries, but is awful. Volkoff doesn't try, but is also awful. DUD 7) Battle Royal: Andre looked like he was going to have a heart attack at the end. Perry is as fat as Abdullah. Fralic is a great commodity if he'd learn to wrestle. Russ Francis was better than some of Vince's guys like Bruno, Tonga, and Pedro. ** 8) Bulldogs vs. Dream Team: Meltz jokes the Bulldogs won a handicap match against Valentine. Beefcake was used to his upmost potential by watching from the apron. Calls the Dynamite spot at the end one of the world's all-time great bumps. Says the reason for the spot became obvious when Lou and Ozzy took center stage after the match. Says that was booed in many arenas. **** 9) Steamboat vs. Hercules: Didn't see it, but heard it was very good. 10) Adonis vs. Elmer: Also didn't see it, but was told it was better than expected because of Adonis working so hard. 11) Funks vs. JYD/Santana: Didn't see it, but heard it was very good and the second best match on the card. 12) Hogan vs. Bundy: they used a "Calgary Cage," which is easier to climb for Hogan's "incredible athletic prowess." Bundy did a bad job of bleeding. Slow and plodding * 1/4 - By most accounts, Piper was the face and T was the heel in most cities. - Most of the celebrities earned $12,000 and up. Few of the wrestlers were in that bracket. The guys in the battle royal were to ear three times their normal one-night pay. That figures to about $1,500. The lower guys on the card got around $700. Perry got $150,000 and other football players got $10,000. - Rivers and Lasorda did a fine job, but he liked Coppock and Finkel better. Says they should hire Coppock to replace Monsoon. - Most celebrities were booed. The guest commentators were horrible. - It was a mistake to use Crosby on the show because they shouldn't have let anyone watching see anybody that much prettier than Elizabeth, who they're trying to get over as having movie star looks. - Obvious that the WWF only has six excellent wrestlers (Savage, Steamboat, Hart, Kid, Smith and Funk).

I decided to watch the Coliseum Video version last night and this morning. I'm to the end of the second round right now, but I've gotten to this point without a single fast-forward. Some quick observations: - The crowd is horrible. I'm not sure a livelier crowd would've changed this show's reputation, but the dead crowd here seems to suck the life out of any in-ring action. You can't blame it on a lengthy show, either, because they're not in it from the start. Hogan's pop is even suspect, which makes the announcers' claims about how loud the crowd is amusing. - Those of you who remember the Ivana Trump incident with Jake the Snake will note the glass of wine she's holding during the Rude/Roberts match. - There are too many suspect finishes and non-finishes in the tournament. That'll happen when you involve your biggest stars, but there's not even a clean finish to Muraco and Bravo. - Hogan and Andre is bad, but not as bad as their Wrestlemania III meeting. The match doesn't break six minutes and there's a lot of extra-curricular activity packed in there. - Hogan should've been disqualified. He nails Andre with the chair and it's not for many more seconds that Andre retaliates.

I'd make the argument that aside from the six-week stretch after Wrestlemania X-7, virtually everything from January 2001 to the commencement of the Invasion angle was some of the company's best booking ever. This show is a representation of that, with almost every match and angle not only being of premium quality, but making sense.

Carlito's likely right. Unless I'm mistaken, most of this is directed at her ex-boyfriend. Apparently she took the whole "let's be friends" thing to heart.

Been wearing out Illmatic lately. I don't see an end in sight after reading a fascinating deconstruction article on the samples used for the album.

He was pretty bad at WM 2. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone use the phrase "tooth and nail" with as much regularity as Mr. Ladd.

This thread was fantastic until Frigid's post.

We should probably stick to a maximum of one per week.

The one in Chicago is definitely smaller. The other two look normal. - I never noticed Dynamite Kid signaling the finish by repeatedly tapping the top of his head while positioning himself on the second rope. - Adonis and Elmer's a guilty pleasure of mine. It's brief and there isn't a shred of offense from Elmer that Adonis doesn't oversell. - Alfred Hayes is still the worst commentator to ever find steady work. One of Wrestlemania 2's problems is the three venues. It's difficult to settle in when there's a shift in location every hour or so. Add in that the arenas in New York and L.A. just don't look very extravagant and there's little of that Wrestlemania mystique present. Something about L.A. is especially jarring. I don't know if it's the heavy lighting around ringside contrasted with the darkness in the rest of the arena, Elvira doing commentary or Uncle Elmer appearing at a Wrestlemania, but the L.A. portion feels like some bizarro world.

A washed out looking one at that.

I was hoping seeing all the TNT build for the show would make it more entertaining. No go. For all the hype this show got, it comes off as such a haphazardly rushed production. I'll give them a break and say some of us are probably too much given that it's a Wrestlemania; but I think most will agree that Mania mystique isn't really there until the 1987 incarnation. I consider the first two test runs that have the objective of figuring out what does and doesn't work. Judging by future cards, they learned their lesson about having the celebrities so involved and throwing in total "what the hell" matches.

- Am I crazy, or does George Steele proclaim "bullshit" after Savage pins him? - If you eliminate the phrases "uh oh" and "come on," Vince is more or less doing solo commentary. - There are more celebrities in the technical sense for Wrestlemania 2 than any other. Too bad most fall into the "who?" or "where are they now?" categories. - The boxing match is indeed one of the worst matches to ever grace a Wrestlemania card. These guys are gassed almost immediately, which leads to a lot of weak hits and both participants hunched over. - Heel Randy Savage is irritating most of the time as far as his in-ring work goes. Yeah, the stalling thing drew heat, but it also killed any momentum those matches had and he tended to dry that particular well out.

As an aside, I've got the Wrestling Observers from before and after this show, so I'll post them in this folder within the next few days.

The three-venue set-up make this show feel even more lackluster than it was. The WWF had some solid talent at this time, but everything is spread so thin to fill the three locations that the results feel diluted. Having celebrities provide color commentary is one of the poorest decisions made among the early Wrestlemanias. At least with the likes of a Monsoon/Ventura tandem, the viewer is likely going to get something to divert their attention from the crappy in-ring happenings. Not the case here. When you realize how shitty some of these matches are, you've got Susan St. James there accentuating it. I haven't seen this show in years, but watched it fairly often as a child. I recall mostly watching the Chicago portion more times than not; my memories of the New York portion are so hazy that I felt as if I was watching the opener for the first time just now. Speaking of the opener, way to kick off your biggest show of the year. A non-finish. One final gripe is that things seem rushed, at least in the early going. I'm not sure I've ever seen the participants of the next match in the ring before the result of the previous match has been announced. That's one clusterfuck with Steele coming into the ring, them cutting to a Mr. T promo and then have Fink giving the result of the previous match before the interview's over.

Don't expect much out of the uncut version of Wrestlemania 2. We get full entrances and a LOT of pointless banter, but nothing else. The only thing of note I can recall is a second promo setting the stage for the battle royal (only one of them made it to the commercial video version). Maybe it's just because I've seen most Wrestlemanias too many times, but I'm underwhelmed by the lineup.

I wonder if ANYONE will remember Cotillard a decade from now.

I'm sure the idea of poking fun at PTC by forming a similar group seemed cute at the time, but they were so limited. It didn't help the stable was packed with sub-par talent. I honestly have trouble remembering anything specific about the group's existence. The faction derailed Val Venis' career. Maybe he wasn't destined for greatness, but he'd turned a corner prior to joining the group after a pretty aimless 1999. Val with the short hair and white ring attire seemed like a legit mid-card staple.

No. She didn't come about until maybe midway through the show's run.

With Wrestlemania in sight and last week's discussion about Wrestlemania IV, it seems fitting to tackle another bloated Mania: Wrestlemania V. Wrestlemania IV catches a lot of grief for its run time and rightfully so. However, the second of the Trump Plaza Wrestlemanias is just as long and packed with as many throwaway matches. The Good - Trump Plaza: even though the audience for both of these shows were awful, the shows are in the group of Manias with a distinct look. We've heard the horror stories of how the arena's configuration didn't make for a good show, but that seemingly endless stairway is one of those little things I've forever linked with vintage Wrestlemania. - Savage/Hogan: Hogan's best Wrestlemania match features Savage going out like a champ. I don't think it was any mystery as to who was going over here, but Macho nevertheless came out with his working boots on. It's one of the few Hogan matches I can actually sit through without searching for the fast-forward button. - Strike Force/Brainbusters: Probably one of the early Manias' most overlooked matches. You don't hear many talk about this, even though it's notable for the split of Strike Force if absolutely nothing else. I kind of take a twisted joy in watching Tito get obliterated once Martel takes a hike. And with the way this went down, you would've figured a Martel/Santana singles match at a show such as Summerslam would be a given. - Rockers/Twin Towers: Really nothing more than a glorified squash for the Towers, but it's a fun squash. - Blue Blazer/Mr. Perfect: Another overlooked match. There isn't much to say about this without sounding cliche, so we'll just all agree it's a terrific little match. The Bad - Pointless undercard matches: This is the show that started a brief trend of Wrestlemania matches that didn't seem to have any point other than to get as many guys on the show as possible. Dino Bravo and Ron Garvin? Hart Foundation against the HTM and Greg Valentine? Brutus Beefcake taking on Ted DiBiase? Duggan and his snotty nose against Bad News Brown? I know there are shreds of reason behind these matches being included, but they're just filler. And not very good filler at that. - Run-DMC: I'm a hip-hop fan, so it's not the genre of music I've got a problem with. It's the group ceasing to be relevant years before this. And a venue filled with wealthy gamblers doesn't seem like the time to bring in a rap act. - Piper/Downey/Brother Love: My god. It's one thing to have a show run long because of the actual matches, but crap like this is what pushed the show to a near-four-hour run time. And it just went on and on. - Warrior/Rude: Their Summerslam match a few months later is one of my favorite Warrior matches, but this one is nothing like it. The Ugly - Jake/Andre: Andre was understandably awful at this point, but unless memory fails me, this match got damn near 10 minutes plus all the extracurricular activities with Virgil and DiBiase briefly stealing Damien. - Demolition/Powers of Pain: The logic was there on paper for these two teams to be at odds, but did they ever have anything closely resembling a decent match? - The celebrities: I've never been one to judge a Mania's quality by the celebrities involved, but this was the first year where it became clear they weren't necessary at all. At least, not this caliber of celebrity. There's Morton Downey Jr., Donald Trump, Run-DMC, and uh, no one else. And let's not forget that we go from Gladys Knight singing "America the Beautiful" to Rockin' god damn Robin doing it on this show. Final Thoughts: I actually like this show, since it's one of the select events I saw dozens of times as a child thanks to home video. There are many moments here that I would dare call "warm and fuzzy" for me. But there's a ton of trash padding the few true bright spots. And yet, it's always Wrestlemania IV we hear about when people bemoan about boring Wrestlemania shows.