The "I've just watched ..." thread

[Devon Malcolm]

1 minute ago, wandshogun09 said:

I really like that Luger vs Spivey match as well. Often gets overlooked because of who’s involved but it’s really good. Kind of shits on the theory that Luger only had good matches when a Flair or Steamboat or Pillman type was carrying him.

Yeah, it's cobblers. Watching these NWA / WCW PPVs going back to 89, he has consistently had the best run of matches and I honestly can't recall one that wasn't at least good. He had a fantastic run.

[BomberPat]

Christ, I've watched that show a few times and have absolutely no knowledge of their being a women's tag.

I'd never even heard of Mami Kitamura or Miki Handa - and judging by Cagematch, nor had anyone else, as for both of them their two WCW matches come up as the first match they had. 

For what it's worth, Miss A was better known as Dynamite Kansai, while Itsuki Yamazaki was one of the Jumping Bomb Angels, so capitalising on their brief run in the WWF a couple of years prior might explain why they were here. Yamazaki would retire later that year, though. All four women seem to have been working with JWP at the time, so I don't know if there was an attempt to cross-promote there - I'm pretty sure this was prior to the WWF/AJW relationship, so it wouldn't have been in response to that, and does all seem a bit bizarre. 

[Undefeated Steak]

14 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Watched the Styles / Daniels / Joe match from Unbreakable last night, first time I'd seen it in about 10 years. It really is a great match, one of those things that genuinely is as good as everyone says. Everyone looks strong in it too, just brilliant stuff.

Watched this on YouTube recently alongside some of the other TNA classics from around that time and they really do hold up well. Especially this match. Easy to forget how over Joe was around that time, his aura was on another level.

Side note, my girlfriend (never watched wrestling before) said these were by far the best matches she's seen. I've subjected her to the typical WWF/E matches, Hogan vs Rock etc, and some NXT stuff, so it was interesting that mid 2000's TNA was her favourite. 

 

[Devon Malcolm]

Just watched Superbrawl 1, which was back to your typical WCW PPV of having a bunch of matches on it that were just baffling.

The Freebirds vs The Young Pistols wasn't their best match, to kick off with, but still not bad. Freebirds claimed the US Tag titles after some cheating, as expected.

Dan Spivey then just bowled over Ricky Morton. Absolute waste of three minutes and Spivey, who only a couple of months earlier had a near classic with Luger.

Nikita Koloff's back and he ran through Tommy Rich, who got his usual reaction of deafening silence. Would love to know more about why people didn't like him or care about him at all.

Dustin Rhodes beat The Computerised Man of the 1990s in a match where the latter spent most of the time looking at Alexandra York's computer. That's not where I'd have been looking. About as not bad as a Terry Taylor match gets.

Big Josh squashed Black Bart. Why? No idea. Genuinely distressing seeing those bears being led to the ring though, fucking hell.

Oz beat Tim Horner in a mat-based classic that went 25 minutes. Crowd went wild. This gimmick is going to be a fucking goldmine, I tell you.

Barry Windham beat Brian Pillman in a dream match for me. Didn't go long, didn't need to as they twatted each other mercilessly in a taped fist match. Barry got a couple of huge chants. These crowds knew their stuff.

El Gigante and Sid Vicious, then. Gigante's selling is fantastic. At least he tried, bless him. The crowd are hilariously horrified, and gutted for Sid as they should be.

Ron Simmons beat Butch Reed in a cage match that didn't quite get going as I might have expected. Proof that tag team partners turning on each other didn't work that well that often.

The Steiners beat Sting and Luger after interference from Koloff in a match that was never going to be less than high quality. Worked surprisingly well for an all babyface match.

Beautiful Bobby then beat Arn Anderson for the TV title in a superb match after Pillman thwarted some outside interference from Windham. Eaton got arguably the biggest cheer of the night.

I didn't really care for Flair vs Fujinami that much, and I'm not sure why. There just wasn't any real flow to it or something. I don't know, maybe it's just me.

Mixed bag and therefore back to normal for WCW.

[wandshogun09]

Doink’s TV debut in January 1993;

Heenan as usual cracks me up during the replay. ”Look at this. That’s not your average clown move.” Like there are standard wrestling moves synonymous with clowns. Love The Brain. 

I know it’s been said before on here but what a great character heel Doink was. Matt Borne was excellent in that role. His mannerisms and the way his facial expressions change from laughing and happy to sinister and creepy, it’s brilliant. Cracking entrance music as well.

Not sure he could’ve gone much further than he did at the time but I’d have liked to have seen him at least do a bit more with Bret. Their SummerSlam 93 match was really good but it was obviously just to set up and further the Lawler stuff after. But I love evil Doink. Probably a bit too dark a character to do too much with in 93 though, which I guess is why they turned him babyface. That first 8 or 9 months or so with him as basically a wrestling Pennywise are class though.

Just look at this creepy bastard;

[Devon Malcolm]

Him nearly murdering Crush that time was genuinely disturbing as well.

Love the way Lawler even says it was too much to play up how nasty it was.

[AshC]

He was fucking terrifying.

[wandshogun09]

Yeah that attack on Crush was on the 1993 Year In Review tape I had as a kid. Wasn’t far off the Nailz attempted murder on Bossman, as far as the impact it had on me. Lawler really added to that, as you say, because he never usually showed remorse for the babyfaces.

I have a vague memory of a picture of Doink in one of the WWF annuals where he had these sharp teeth poking out of his mouth. Is that right or am I mixing it with the actual Pennywise? Could swear there was a picture of him with a row of pointy teeth and it was quite disturbing. I know I used to skip past that page every time I opened the book. 

Edited May 10, 2020 by wandshogun09

[tiger_rick]

Been watching 93 on those YouTube comps. I'd never seen the stuff between SummerSlam and Survivors at the time to put together Doink losing as Lawler's jester leading to the turn. The character gets really, really lame, really, really quickly the second Vince and his fake laugh get all over it.

[Egg Shen]

29 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

Yeah that attack on Crush was on the 1993 Year In Review tape I had as a kid. 

I had that tape, must have watched it 50 times, brilliant.

[Devon Malcolm]

Clash of the Champions XV next! Too many matches as usual on this - 11 in under 2 hours ffs.

The Young Pistols vs The Freebirds for the 11,008th time except they added Badstreet and Tom Zenk to the teams for this one. I'm not complaining, their matches are always great and this was no exception. The babyfaces won.

Oz once again put on a Greco-Roman display for the ages in disposing of Johnny Rich.

Dan Spivey then beat Big Josh, thankfully without his bears this time. Somebody interfered in this and I can't remember who because I've slept since I watched it.

The Natural had another match against The Red Rooster, for some reason. Much the same as last time except Ricky Morton interfered so it was thrown out. Big Josh made the save? I never understand half of what's going on with these CotC.

Sting beat Nikita Koloff. One of those matches Sting would occasionally have where he would be battered for 10 minutes and then just win out of nowhere at the end.

Then they just threw away the angle of Gibson and Morton's split as the latter joined the York Foundation. Wouldn't you have thought they'd make the heel turn at the same time as the split? Just a waste.

Barry and Arn then beat Pillman and El Gigante and Pillman has to leave WCW. Or, more precisely, wrestle as the fucking Yellow Dog for a few months. What was the point of this?

The Steiners then beat Chono and Hase in a *fantastic* match. Chono kicked Rick in the head so hard that he broke his headgear. Fantastic stuff. Then, as if that wasn't good enough, Dicks Slater and Murdoch battered the Steiners after the match!

Oh god! It's the Diamond Studd murdering Tommy Rich in about 90 seconds. Rich got the jobber's entrance, the poor git.

Lex Luger then ran through The Great Muta in about three minutes to become number one contender for the world title. I mean, fucking hell, give them some time, they're only two of the best on the planet at that time.

Stunning Steve Austin then beat Joey Maggs in about 15 seconds. What a shite finisher the Stun Gun was.

To round off with, what did we do to deserve a Ric Flair vs Bobby Eaton two out of three falls match? An absolute cracker, of course, with Beautiful Bobby totally at ease in a singles main event.

Great American Bash next! Yeah!

[wandshogun09]

Enjoying these posts Devon. This period was just before I started watching WCW so I’ve only seen some of the PPVs from that time and only certain matches from the Clashes pre-1992. Really loved Flair vs Eaton though and it’s a shame Eaton never got a little bit of a longer singles run at the time. He’s understandably always going to be thought of as a tag team wrestler first but he was on fire as a single in 90-91.

Don’t think I’ve ever seen that Steiners vs Chono/Hase match but it sounds right up my street as I always loved Rick and Scott’s series of matches with different combinations of Hase, Muta and Sasaki from that timeframe. They always used to kill Hase though. Felt sorry for the poor get. 

[Devon Malcolm]

In fairness, both teams were trying to murder each other in this match, which is probably why I liked it so much.

[Perry]

On the topic of Doink does anyone know why Borne and Nash hated each other?  Nash would bury him on every shoot whenever his name would pop up.

[wandshogun09]

Didn’t Borne have a pop about Nash on one of those Kayfabe Commentary shoots? Something about Nash saying “it’s all fake except the miles and the money” I think. And Borne was going “I’m not fake. My dad wasn’t fake” and took it really personally, resulting in Nash taking the piss.

There was also some weird incident where Borne and Jim Duggan were booked on an independent show in Borne’s later years and it broke down into a mess where they nearly ended up fighting and then they both just walked out.