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OOOLD SCHOOOOL

JLM

By JLM
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BionicRedneck Community Regular

BionicRedneck

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I'm stuck in the house because of this ridiculous snow, but the Youtube thread has delivered. Somebody found this channel, which is a veritable Old School goldmine. I've never actually seen the 1991 Great American Bash in its entirety, but because of its notoriously poor reputation, I just can't resist.

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Boon Town Rat Enthusiast

Boon Town Rat

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Been going way back lately with watching Mid-Atlantic from 1982, its really good, some of the talent they had down there in the early 80s was amazing, Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts, Barry Windham, Terry Taylor, Jay Youngblood and Austin Idol. As-well as some bigger names like Ole Anderson, Stan Hansen, Ivan Koloff and Sergeant Slaughter, but the main man for me, is a 27 year old Roddy Piper. This so good on the mic even back then, hes started to do commentary on the TV show. Watching the old school raw and seeing how he build the world title match with one promo, you should see what he does each week. He comes across as a tweener at the moment, but he mainly interviews the heels.

 

Its funny how story-lines we see today were played out in 1982. Take Alex Shellys paparazzi gig he was doing a couple of years ago, well Austin Idol has started coming and filming matches at ringside. The main story-lines of 1982 are the crowning of the new NWA World Tag Champions, the Anderson (Ole and Gene) were stripped as champion because of Genes injury. Now a worldwide tournament is taking place. Whats brilliant is they get matches from Florida, WWF and Georgia to show on air, even some commentated by Vinny Mac. It looks like we are building to a Briscos-Ole/Hansen final.

 

The other main feud is Slaughter and his privates Jim Nelson and Don Kernodle who are beating down the younger talent. The talent mainly being aimed at is Ricky Steamboat, Jake Roberts and Jay Youngblood. I know where this builds to, Im currently watching March 1982, the feud ends in March 1983 at a show called Final Conflict. Thats booking for you, the match that ends it is Sgt. Slaughter and Private Don Kernodle Vs Ricky Steamboat and Jay Youngblood in a cage match for the NWA Tag Team Titles. Great and simple build.

 

ANd occasionally the World Champion pops up, Ric Flair were he builds up a local house show.

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Boon Town Rat Enthusiast

Boon Town Rat

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Jim Nelson

 

BORIS ZHUKOV! Great stuff. I think you should be approaching Piper's face turn soon.

 

There are some real hints in his commentary that he will turn. He keeps mentioning about the Mid-Atlantic Title compared to Slaughter US Title, maybe thats where the turn will come, i dont know. Never followed this early on. Piper is a face at Starrcade 1983 isnt he?

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Phil Austin Collaborator

Phil Austin

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I've been currently watching through a 15 disc 'Best Matches in Nitro History' set I recently acquired. Reached 1997 and my word was Hector Garza more fun than I remembered. There was a six man with him, Calo, Juvi, Ciclope and some others I forget that was just tremendous-Calo wipes out two rows of fans with a full on plancha at high speed!

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Boon Town Rat Enthusiast

Boon Town Rat

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I've been currently watching through a 15 disc 'Best Matches in Nitro History' set I recently acquired. Reached 1997 and my word was Hector Garza more fun than I remembered. There was a six man with him, Calo, Juvi, Ciclope and some others I forget that was just tremendous-Calo wipes out two rows of fans with a full on plancha at high speed!

 

I could be wrong but i think Garza was being built up quite a bit. Is that the match where Garza does the spinning corkscrew of the top to the outside?

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BionicRedneck Community Regular

BionicRedneck

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I implore anyone who hasn't seen it, to watch the GAB '91, if only to see how long it takes you to laugh out loud at something. For me it took about 30 seconds when, during the ridiculous intro, some bloke says "HEY HEY HEY!" for no reason at all. If that doesn't get you, the absurdly enthusiastic ticket man probably will.

 

And then Terry Taylor shows up. As 'The Computerized Man Of The 1990s'! As nicknames go, it's up there. Remember that shit? The York Foundation with the computers and all that? Was that before or after he became The Taylor Made Man? For whatever reason Steve Austin is curtain jerking with Terrence in a scaffold match against PN News and Bobby Eaton. I've no idea why. One would think that this would be the blow off to a fued of some sort. If it is, it's never mentioned. It pretty much sums up the madness of the event. I mean, to start a PPV with a match that, because of the stipulation, is unlikely to have much action, is generally not a good idea. To do it involving people the audience doesn't give a shit about, is even sillier. And it's not even one of those scaffold matches with a big bump for the crowd to get excited about. Nobody seems to know the rules. Or maybe nobody cares. It takes about about 10 minutes to remove the scaffold post-match, further annoying an already hostile crowd. They are gone and they don't come back. Thumbs up for Bobby Eaton's hair, though. And Lady Blossom looks like a lucky dip of STDs-level filthy.

 

Jim Ross sounded kinda scared for the competitors. Either that or he thought it was a terrible idea. Either way, he's pretty unenthusiastic and he remains so for most of the night. Tony Schiavone is more enthusiastic, but I think he might be on the sauce. The two of them together are highly amusing all show, primarily because I get the impression that Ross thinks Tony is a knob. For example, JR responds to Tony's chat about the wooden floor of the scaffold being helpful to the skin, with the contemptuous silence it deserves. There is a quite brilliant moment later in the show when, after doing a bit to camera, JR throws it back to Gary Capetta, only for the camera to stay on Jim and Tony for way too long. Ross' uncomfortable grin reminded me of Alan Partridge at the end of

 

It's noticeable just how many of the era's top stars and most influential figures, are involved in this show. Austin, Hall, Nash, DDP, Pillman, Heyman, Bischoff, Sting...all here, all pretty much wasted in various ways.

 

Hall is still The Diamond Studd with DDP as his manager. Page acts like a cross between Hall's manager, his pimp and his protective boyfriend. Hall beats Z-Man with a back suplex after Tony Schiavone has banged on about Studd's hugely impressive finisher that we don't get to see. WCW~!

 

Nash is Oz and jobs to Ron Simmons, the highlights of the match being when Nash accidentally knocked over a guy's drink at ringside and Jim Ross making an Al Bundy reference.

 

Pillman is wrestling as The Yellow Dog, which is basically like Hogan's Mr. America thing only shittier. He wrestles Johnny B. Badd, who is managed by cool-as-fuck Teddy Long. The match is bad, the finish is worse and the only redeeming feature is when Pillman shouts that "Johnny B. Gay" down the camera and generally acts like a massive homophobe. The commentators have a discussion about how 'happy' Teddy is these days, presumably implying that he's also gay.

 

Eric Bischoff attempts to interview Missy Hyatt in the shower and generally acts like the sleaziest man alive. She calls him a 'peeping tom' and throws stuff at him.

 

Sting is in a Russian Chain Match with Nikita Koloff, which is surprisingly heatless considering they were having quite the hate-filled feud. He loses in the same way Eddy Guerrero lost to JBL a few years back, IIRC. It's a bit of a mess. The best part is probably when Sting trips on the chain and nearly falls on his arse. The pre-match hype video with Sting picking up one of his 'little Stingers' and expressing how much it excites him is slightly disturbing.

 

Heyman is in a mixed gender tag team cage match with Arn Anderson against Missy Hyatt and Rick Steiner. Only Missy doesn't even get in the ring because Dick Murdoch kidnaps her, and Rick Steiner squashes them both in about two minutes. This match actually went on last, presumably to send the crowd home happy. I don't think it worked.

 

There is some absolute bilge on this. Other than the aforementioned scaffold match, we also get 'treated' to Lumberjack match with Black Blood and future Evil Doink, Big Josh. Tony says that the match favours Josh, because he used to be a lumberjack. Fucking hell, Tony. The face lumberjacks and the heel lumberjacks end up having a brawl outside the ring only, in the confusion, Dustin Rhodes accidentally fights with PN News. Black Blood goes after Josh WITH A FUCKING AXE, but Dustin hits him with a plank of wood, and Josh rolls him up.

 

The biscuit-taker has to be El Gigante vs. One Man Gang. Kevin Sullivan accompanies OMG, and cuts a pre-match promo about women with three eyes and death wagons. Gigante comes down with several midgets, one of which he carries on his shoulders. They attack Sullivan for some reason. Gang manages to use a wrench on Gigante without the ref noticing. He tries to use powder, which the ref also allows, but it gets kicked back in his face and he loses. Let's not speak ill of the dead. Let's just say El Gigante was the worst wrestler of all time and move on.

 

To be fair, it's not all bad. There is a pretty good 6 man tag between Dustin Rhodes & The Young Pistols and The Freebirds & Badstreet.

 

Robert Gibson and Ricky Morton have an OK grudge match, but it goes on way too long. Morton is another York Foundation member, so Alexandra York (pre-surgery Terri Runnels) is his manager and she has a computer with her. Morton keeps going to ringside to see what the computer says. Tony calls Richard Morton 'Richey Morton' then incorrectly corrects himself by calling him 'Ricard Morton' before finally settling on 'Richard Morton'. The finish is comical. Terri distracts the ref, but she's in the wrong position, so she actually runs past him to the other side of the ring and the ref follows her around like a retard. Morton uses the computer for the win, hitting Gibson 'in the back of the head' or 'the shoulder blade' depending on which commentator you listen to.

 

The Luger/Windham cage match is decent enough, but the crowd shits all over it for reasons explained here (THEY WANT FLAIR essentially). Even this has a ridiculous finish, with Harley Race and Mr. Hughes coming to ringside, and Race advising Luger to piledrive Windham, which he immediately does for the win (thus claiming the shittiest title belt in history). It's a heel turn, but one that doesn't really make much sense. Not only does Race not actually interfere, but Luger doesn't do anything wrong. And why does Windham get distracted by Hughes anyway? They are in a cage, it's not like he can interfere. And I'm slightly confused as to why Race's advice suddenly makes Luger regain all his energy.

 

At times, this event is so profoundly bad in almost a childlike way that you'll assume they're doing it on purpose to punish the viewing audience. And yet, because of this it becomes as perversely entertaining as any event I can recall. Even when matches are decent, there is something that goes wrong either in the ring, on commentary or in the audience.

 

Having said all that, I don't think it's the worst PPV of all time like many people claim. Some of those later day WCW ones were probably worse and the WWF had some really shitty In Your House PPV's over the years.

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