cabbageboy

It's funny but in that SNME thread I mentioned my decade long loathing of Shawn started with that win over Bulldog. Of course back then I didn't know about all the steroid stuff, though it did seem odd that Bulldog, Warrior, and LOD were all gone at the same time. I might watch that show after all though, that was at least a good match from what I recall. I already watched some Bockwinkel stuff, since he is the MAN. Okay so he couldn't get jack shit out of Otto Wanz but the Memphis match with Lawler is cool stuff. I also watched the Arquette title win in shorties, just because.

Yeah, Alro there was a big TV taping at Louisville Gardens in late Oct. 1992. It was literally the next day after this SNME. Michaels defended the IC title against Virgil at that taping, which was actually a pretty good match (for a Virgil match anyway). Bulldog was playing out the string before being released and he beat The Berserker. At least I got to see Bulldog beat down the Berserker since that match was pulled from WM. Would you believe I saw Nailz wrestle FOUR TIMES at that TV taping? He beat the Bossman in the opener of the show (non televised) by hitting him with the nightstick. He squashed two jobbers in TV matches. And then since Flair was ailing with the ear problem Nailz came back to face the Warrior in the (non televised) main event. Warrior beat him, but good grief the dude had wrestled four times, haha. I was saddened though since I worried that I'd never get to see Flair wrestle, but did see him at some house shows in 2002-04 and of course saw Flair's retirement match in person this year at WM.

I enjoy tag teams but an entire show of this plus Sting/Vader was a dubious card to draw interest. It was a major brainfart to have Steiners vs. Williams/Gordy on TBS at the Clash when it should have been the finals here. As far as Simmons goes, I am torn on that. The way he won the belt was one of the greatest angles WCW ever produced, yet Watts proceeded to do nothing with him as champ. As in they jobbed Vader to Simmons and Simmons went on to do what exactly? They didn't keep Simmons/Vader going as a feud really so Vader didn't do much and Simmons faced an ailing Cactus Jack and jobbers like the Barbarian.

I don't know about that...I mean KOTR 95 is ill conceived just for the hell of it and not due to some fiasco backstage. Hell they had Savio Vega wrestling like 3 or 4 times on a PPV with MABEL winning a tourney to be #1 contender. At least Luger vs. Windham sounds like a somewhat feasible match given the chaos of the situation.

I think the AWA TV title was held up or something, so maybe Vince let Garvin do that one last show to blow off the feud before he debuted in Jan. 1989? I am very hazy on whether the Rockers were heels in Memphis in early 1988. I recall the first time I saw them back then and they wrestled a squash match and I was blown away, but they seemed to just wrestle as faces. I think they wrestled Lawler and Dundee some too and cut heel promos to set up those matches. Either way it's really bizarre to watch the AWA and both the Rockers and RNRs are on the show and both teams are faces doing the same gimmick, haha.

Oh god, not this show. This was without a doubt one of the most traumatizing shows I ever saw and I even KNEW it was going to happen. Bear in mind this didn't air until early Nov. 1992. I went to my first WWF show the night after this SNME and it hadn't aired yet, so I was in shock that Michaels was now the IC champ. Bulldog was far and away my favorite wrestler at this point and when I saw this match on TV I was utterly despondent. I had no idea about the steroid stuff at that point. This would be the show that started a near decade long hatred of Shawn Michaels. I didn't really warm up to him again until about 2002, when the Bulldog died and Shawn made his in ring comeback. Ratings note: I looked it up and this show did a 6.1 broadcast rating, which was considered crap at that time. The 2006-07 SNME shows have done between 2.2 and 2.9!

The show I just watched on DVR was pretty good. More Lawler/Hennig stuff, though why they didn't just let Lawler squash that jobber and then do the angle with Hennig I don't know. The Guerreros vs. Bad Company was a really good match as well. That said, I do agree to some extent about the booking but it's more of the actual philosophy than talent. The AWA had the stodgiest, dullest booking known to man. Gagne was afraid to push newer stars, but aside from that the shows have no immediacy to the booking whatsoever. What is the driving force to these shows? What are they building to? Where is the hard sell for a PPV, a major card, or at least a buildup to a major title match? I guess they did some of that with SuperClash III, but when else? Comparing it to Lawler's own Memphis promotion is pretty funny, because the AWA barely mentioned the match with Hennig in Memphis beforehand while if you watched Memphis that was all they talked about. It was this "OMG, Lawler gets his big shot at the title! Jackie Fargo is the ref! Either Lawler wins or he retires forever!" Gagne had the Midnight Rockers and RNR Express both in the AWA for a while, yet never capitalized on this dream match scenario. I took a look at some old Memphis results and saw that the two teams did in fact wrestle a few times at the Mid South Coliseum, with a title hold up one week, then the Rockers won to retain. See what I mean? Gagne for whatever reason on ESPN never did the hard sell for anything, rarely plugged live dates, rarely set up major matches for the future, it was just "Here's so and so squashing Dennis Stamp, here's another okay match, here's a TV main event." You could watch and reasonably enjoy it, but there was nothing you HAD to see. Also, the 4:00pm timeslot was bad for me in grade school since I wouldn't get home until nearly 5:00 (ironically I did watch Global a lot in the same slot when I was in middle school, but school was out at 2:20). If the AWA didn't hard sell much, Memphis did nothing but hard sell. Everything on their TV show was done to get people to go to the Mid South Coliseum that week, or in my area the Louisville Gardens. It was a forerunner for Russo Crash TV in some ways, with crazy stipulations left and right, gimmick matches, heel turns, title changes out the wazoo (but mostly guys feuding with Lawler, then he regained...nothing that killed a title).

I think the Beautiful People need some scumbag heel manager, just to make them even more revolting and hatable. The Molly head shaving angle was way, way worse than this one. Bear in mind they did a head shaving there with a feud that nobody cared about and put it on WM XX in a spot after the Goldberg/Lesnar fiasco and the crowd was uber dead. So Molly got her head shaved and it didn't even draw the slightest reaction from the crowd.

Oh yeah Ted Sr. would of course be more entertaining than the black hole of charisma that is Bob Orton. But DiBiase doesn't exactly have a brilliant track record as a manager. The Million Dollar Corp. basically killed the heat of everyone associated with it in 1994-96. You know, the whole idea Bischoff had of bringing in music acts wasn't necessarily a BAD one, but it simply wasn't done right. They would simply throw KISS out there with no context, they would play, etc. Or Chad Brock, a little known country singer, simply shows up and plays. The initial Rock N Wrestling 80s angle in the WWF featured the music stars in storylines with the wrestlers, like with Cyndi Lauper.

I think the Rockers were already on the way out by the time they did the Lawler title change but maybe I'm wrong. But again Hasbeen the thing about Michaels is that there was no one back then who thought of him as any sort of serious singles wrestler. This was 1988, not 1992. In 88 Michaels getting a main event push would have seemed really bizarre, like "Why is one of the Midnight Rockers getting title shots?" I guess it beats Greg Gagne getting title shots though, haha. Keep this in mind as well. There was no reason for Gagne to think the Lawler/Memphis cross promoting wouldn't work. It had worked very well in the past with Bockwinkel defending the AWA title in Memphis several times with good results. Memphis was basically the southern outpost of the AWA, though occasionally Memphis did have NWA stars drop by (Race and Flair defended against Lawler on occasion). But I think the AWA was a better fit with Memphis since there was a contrast with the northern AWA stars venturing down south, whereas the NWA and Memphis were already sorta competing for the same southern demographic. Watching these shows I wonder what would have happened if Jerry Jarrett had bought out Gagne instead of buying World Class. It wouldn't have been such a jarring transition, simply shift things more to the Memphis area, build around Lawler as champ, visit the northern states a bit but pull back if they simply couldn't draw there, keep the ESPN deal, and so on. I don't know why Jarrett bought out WCCW when they would have simply gone under later in 1989 most likely anyway, then Jarrett could simply use the Texas guys on his own shows. In the end SuperClash III did the following: It flat out wrecked the AWA as a serious promotion, basically put the nail in the coffin of WCCW, and while Memphis came out of it okay at first the WCCW buyout didn't really work all that well and weakened Jarrett in the long run to where the USWA ended up as a redneck AAA league for the WWF.

Styles IS wildly entertaining in this foolish hick role, but I'm not sure how seriously anyone will take him now that the angle has turned serious since he's been a comedy heel for months. Cubby, I think Slick Johnson was involved in the Jarrett angle but I don't recall exactly WHY he was or what he was gaining. That in essence is the mark of terrible booking, people doing things out of character, things that don't help them at all (and in some cases hurt them) in order for one guy to get over. With that angle I never understood the exact relationship of JJ/Larry Z. and why Larry would bow down to Jarrett, when in storyline Jarrett had zero power and if anything the upper management hated him. Further, what did Hebner have to gain by aiding the KOTM screwjob when he was temporarily fired by new GM Cornette? Zbyzsko was paranoid about being fired, so he chooses the PPV where a new GM shows up to pull a massive screwjob that could lead to him being fired? Nothing about that angle made any sense, it was all guys acting illogically for the sheer purpose and endgame of Jeff Jarrett getting another unwanted title run.

I'm a bit puzzled by the "big announcement." Like others I wasn't sure if Vince was going to give away 1 million every week or just a sum total of 1 million over time. The draft was a more important part of it and they barely touched on that. No new GM, blah. Ted DiBiase, Jr. looks like the 2nd coming of Orton, so I don't know how optimistic I am about him so far. Why is it that all of these 2nd generaton guys are all bland pretty boy types? Is it due to their dads being famous and thus marrying hot women? I do wonder who his partner will be though. Does Mike Rotunda have a son? It's sad in a way that Ted Jr. talked about winning the tag belts his first match, whereas it took his dad like 5 YEARS in the company.

I actually thought the whore corp. were much more useless before the head shaving angle. This at least has given them a purpose for being on TV. And I'm not sure what numbers Jingus is quoting but here's something I found on another board from the Observer regarding recent ratings: "The only segments to not lose any viewers were matches featuring the women. The Gail Kim vs. Awesome Kong match following the marriage proposal segment stopped the bleeding and gained 25,000 viewers. However, the biggest gain of the show was reserved for surprise, surprise, Velvet Love & Angelina Love. "The Beautiful People" vs. ODB & Roxxi Laveaux match managed to pull in 176,000 viewers. This was the lowest rated show of the year with a 0.87 overall rating."

I don't know if that angle really drove people away, but I would certainly think that Austin's heel turn at WM 17 where he joined up with Vince was something that did drive people away. I went to a SD taping in Oct. 2000 and that show was sold out at Freedom Hall. The next WWF show here was another SD in May 2001 and they had the upper deck tarped off.

The only thing that might have saved BATB 99 from worst PPV ever is maybe the Triad vs. Benoit/Saturn for the tag titles. That said, my friend Ian (who fell asleep during Fall Brawl 98) flat out left during the junk yard match. Some would likely say GAB 91 is the worst PPV ever but I have only seen individual matches from it over the years and not the full show. I do confess to having a morbid desire to see it though.

See, the thing is though with that original SuperClash show it was a combined NWA/AWA show and guys like Flair and Magnum had national exposure on TBS. Shows like World Class and Memphis weren't all over the country on national TV and to be honest WCCW in 1988 was hardly the juggernaut of 1982-85.

I actually have never seen KOTR 95 in its entirety, though I did have the chance to rent it some years ago and passed it up. I kinda regret that now, haha. Thing is, did KOTR 95 really have a long term negative impact of the WWF? It made the Summer of 1995 suck ass with Mabel getting such a push, but after SS 95 he just jobbed and that was it. I think that is what always separated the WWF from WCW. The WWF would sometimes put the wrong guys in the main spots, but they would eventually correct it. Like with Diesel in 1995, there wasn't much actively awful about his title run but he just wasn't over enough for a year long run. The hell with it, I still might say Fall Brawl 98 even with the solid Raven/Saturn match. Everything else was just heinous on all possible levels and isn't even as notably horrible as the 1999-2000 WCW output. I had some friends over and both of them fell asleep on the show. My brother fell asleep on the show. My dad fell asleep at various points. My mom left the room and took a nap. I was the only one who made it through the entire PPV without dozing off.

I don't see Hancock doing anything like that sort of business. It might do about what I Am Legend did with Smith but is a movie about a drunken ne'er do well superhero going to draw more money than movies about actual superheroes? Wall-E might do Ratatouille type business but I can't see it hitting 300 million. It looks like an animated Short Circuit, haha. I actually think that Mummy movie might surprise some people, the trailer was pretty good and increased my interest. As far as a potential bomb or flop, gotta say Sex in the City. It's getting lukewarm initial reviews and I don't think it was as popular as some magazines like Ent. Weekly seem to think it is (EW had a whole issue about the movie).

Jingus, the Jarrett/Larry/Hebner angle from 2006 is like the lost angle that WCW never booked. It seriously might be the single worst angle in pro wrestling since WCW went under. TNA has an uphill battle in getting me to cheer Styles in this situation. At best he's a redneck moron who was easily manipulated and seduced without knowing better. At worst he's a scheming home wrecker who is trying to nail another man's wife. That said at least on one fundamental level this angle makes sense, namely that I can certainly see two men feuding over Karen Angle since she is mega hot.

Wow, I had totally forgotten that Benoit/Jarrett match. I recall the fiasco with Jarrett's concussion that led to Souled Out being screwed up since he and Benoit were scheduled for a 2 out of 3 series. If that match was in fact decent that might eliminate Starrcade 99 as worst PPV ever. It's hard to truly find the worst major promotion PPV (not stuff like Heroes of Wrestling). Fall Brawl 98 is one of the worst pieces of shit I've ever seen but even it had a pretty decent Raven/Saturn match.

Oh Speed Racer had horrible flop written all over it. Based on a crappy cartoon that no one really likes legitimately, maybe in an ironic cheese way like when MTV showed it. Directed by the Wachowski Bros. post Matrix sequels when most of the world loathes them. How could it possibly make money? Bob, I think Prince Caspian's dubious box office thus far can be attributed to a couple of things:

This was a fun show and the end angle was good stuff, though I do wonder why anyone would buy into Kurt remotely coming out to save AJ from the beatdown. It was obvious he was going to nail him with the chair, but that was a good sort of obvious. I didn't even blame Kurt for doing it really since he figured Styles is banging his wife and all.

To back up to HBK for a second, what main event cred did he have before 1995? Maybe he would have had it in 1994 but they pushed Nash before him. If anything for most of that year he was Diesel's manager and maybe tag partner. He certainly wasn't a world title threat, and if anything had been jobbed out in the IC division. Hasbeen, I agree 100% about SuperClash III. They had a Lawler/Von Erich main event and wanted to draw big money in CHICAGO??? That's an area where neither man often wrestled and had no substantial following. Of course Dallas had largely been killed as a territory by that point as well, but there was a chance it would draw at least. Memphis was really the only promotion of the 3 that hadn't been killed off, sadly enough. If they had done the PPV at the Mid South Coliseum at least they probably could have sold out the venue.

Repo, oddly enough I too was kinda looking forward to GAB 2000 due to Bischoff's promise of a surprise. Thing is, I looked forward to it for all the wrong reasons, as in I wanted to see how horribly disappointing the actual revelation would be. There are 2 Holy Trinities of Russo Crap in WCW: The first was Halloween Havoc/Mayhem/Starrcade 1999 and then he was removed. The 2nd was GAB/BATB/NBR 2000. In all honesty that Starrcade 99 show might be the worst PPV ever. Even worse than atrocities like GAB and BATB 99 (and those should be banned by the Geneva convention). But at least there might be SOMETHING on those PPVs that might approach feasible pro wrestling, stuff like DDP/Bigelow vs. Benoit/Saturn. But there is literally nothing redeeming on Starrcade 99. The entire show sucks, there are no good matches on it, and the top matches were the goofy Nash/Sid powerbomb match and the Bret/Goldberg fiasco. What does it say about a PPV main event when the world champion had a career ending injury during the match, the challenger later ripped his arm to shreds by punching a limo, it had a finish that was a ripoff of the Montreal Screwjob, and it set up yet another lame variation of the NWO?

Oh of course it was worse in WCW since it sent the promotion spiralling horribly out of control and they didn't recover. The WWF doing it again with Austin and Rikishi was kinda bad as well but at most it sent them into a creative funk. In fact the unspectacular Rikishi heel turn, the TNN move, and the crappy end to HHH/Angle/Steph is really what started the WWF's decline in business in roughly Sept. 2000.