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Post by driver1980 on Apr 25, 2024 16:05:52 GMT -5
"You know something, brother, because of my ability to live 400 days in a year, I accidentally traveled back in time coming home from Japan and discovered Abe Lincoln. I said, dude, you need to wrestle and then become president and then free the slaves. So, you know, I actually invented pro wrestling and gave that Lincoln dude some great ideas, so I can't be racist, brother"  |
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Post by commond on Apr 25, 2024 16:21:29 GMT -5
The Regal vs. Zbyszko Saturday Night match is one of my all-time favorite WCW matches.
I really loved this period of WCW before Hogan showed up. Dusty reuniting with Dustin is another all-time great moment. And I absolutely love the '94 War Games.
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 25, 2024 16:38:08 GMT -5
The Regal vs. Zbyszko Saturday Night match is one of my all-time favorite WCW matches. I really loved this period of WCW before Hogan showed up. Dusty reuniting with Dustin is another all-time great moment. And I absolutely love the '94 War Games. That War Games match is so underrated. I’m not sure there’s a bad match on the Slamboree ‘94 card, although to this day, Rude vs. Vader is my most missed dream match. Oh, if only. Heel vs. heel dynamics were so rare back then. Oh well, at least the WWF gave us a heel vs heel bout that year (The Quebecers vs. Adam Bomb & Bam Bam Bigelow).  The card was very heated, and I believe each bout was spirited. Now, Flair and Windham had better matches in the 80s, but their bout here was still pretty solid. And I’d say that although Sting and Vader had better bouts in 1992/93, their bout here was very solid. The best match of the card had to be The Nasty Boys vs. Cactus Jack & Kevin Sullivan, surely? This card really represents the end of an era, with Cactus Jack leaving later on that year (although he appeared at the next two PPVs), and Stunning Steve Austin beginning a decline which saw his profile diminished up to and including his final days in WCW, circa 1995. We knew change was in the horizon, and I did feel a bit of excitement about Hogan’s forthcoming change of scenery, but nothing was the same again. History is interesting, eh? As people watched this PPV, who’d have thought that in 1-2 years, we’d be seeing a dominant Hogan, cartoony villains like the Dungeon of Doom, and Rick Rude being a distant memory. (I wish Rude had not been injured; imagine him showing up in the WWF to challenge either Intercontinental Champion Razor Ramon or WWF Champion Bret Hart). |
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 25, 2024 21:17:36 GMT -5
Just finished watching the Dark Side episode with Sherri Martel. I always enjoyed Sherri, in the ring and Jim Cornette makes a great point about the women who worked for the AWA. They didn't have many; but they were all highly accomplished and Sherri was that. Heartbreaking episode, though, since he drive for success came at the expense of her family. She was married and had a baby, but walked out to go become a wrestler. She saw her son occasionally, but not for long periods and he was raised by his father and step-mother. On the up side, she was friends with the step-mother and their relationship was good, so he got the love and attention that he needed from her, while his mother was away. He does speak of being with her, though, and rarely seeing her sober, in times on the road. She medicated for pain (especially with her physical style and the bumps she took, even as a manager) and other things, including alcohol. The hard part is seeing the health of her son. Her best friend says she doesn't know for sure, but believes he has cancer and he lost part of his tongue to cancer. He has to speak slowly and deliberately and you just feel for the guy, with some of his memories of his mother and just what he is going through, physically. However, he shows great love and forgiveness for her, when he has every right to be bitter. Jim Cornette speaks about managing her, at the start and a bit about different parts of her career (including appearances for Smokey Mountain) and Madusa Miccelli and Rockin' Robin both talk about working with her and Madusa speaks about what it took to succeed, as a woman, in the business. Her ex-husband is featured, as is her son Jared and his step mom, and her best friend. The surprising aspect is Jake Roberts, who dated her when he was refereeing and she was a fan, and they stayed close over the years (to the point that I heard t caused issues with his wife, Cheryl, when Sherri came to the WWF). He adds some nice perspectives to her, as a person and performer. Bischoff appears and is his usual smarmy, political self, saying the things he thinks the audience wants to hear. He always comes across to me like you can believe a third of what he says, a third are outright lies, and the other third depends on who is in the audience. They also have clips from a shoot interview she did for (I believe) RF Video, which, thankfully, lacks the inane questions and complete lack of follow up. Luckily, on that occasion, she id on form and speaks well about her career and is honest (as much as a wrestler will be) about things. They get some good clips from it and hers is the last voice you get, in the program. That was the thing about the women who didn't work through Moolah; they would put on better matches and do more athletic stuff and not the same old Moolah spots. Sherri trained with her (after initial training with an outlaw wrestler); but, got kicked out for partying too much, but it helped her develop beyond that. The AWA was a good showcase for women doing more athletic matches, in that period, with Martel, Madusa, Candi Divine, Lisa Moretti/Tina Ferrari/Ivory. It had that pedigree, with women like Penny Banner , Kay Noble, Vivian Vachon and Betty Niccoli. Really, women's wrestling had a lot of great performers, into the 70s, before Moolah and her troupe became a near-monopoly. Watching match clips in the documentary Lipstick and Dynamite, you get a better appreciation for that generation of women, compared the the later 70s and 80s, under Moolah's control, in the US. Japan was a different story, as was Mexico, and Canada, to a certain extent. Thanks for posting this. I’ll watch this eventually. RF Video were often bad at follow ups. Sean Oliver is the MVP of shoot interviewers, if you ask me. Another one I felt just asked a list of questions, and didn’t follow up, was Mike Johnson of PWInsider. Are you please able to provide any further details on what Bischoff said? Basically that he claimed he didn't know why Sherri was fired from the WWF and didn't care and he hired her (because he would hire anyone that had been on WWF tv) and that she was showing up unable to perform and he fired her. Maduse followed the last bit saying that there were at least 5 male wrestlers with worse drug problems than Sherri and none of them were let go, emphasizing the things the women had to do to get a spot and how the standards were different. Madusa was really good with that, talking about the bumps the women were taking, on a much smaller frame, which can't absorb the blows as well as a man's, which leads to all kinds of physical issues for them, well before men would experience them, at the same level. It's a pretty fair point and the guys got away with a lot of garbage. The sad thing, apart from her son's health and their relationship, was that she had gotten a call, from the WWE, just before she died, with what sounded like an offer to become a trainer for the women. She ODed on opiods within a day or two. Speaking of the double standard, someone on the Wrestling Classics board said they watched 10 minutes and turned off when Sherri left her family to pursue her dream job. He got immediate responses of "Now picture that she is a man, instead......" and the guy pretty much admitted that he had been cool with male wrestlers who had done, essentially, the same thing, or were deadbeat fathers. Sherri did leave, but she financially supported her son and spent time with him throughout his life, as she was able. Not condoning what she did, but not condemning her, either. Some people aren't cut out to be parents and she appeared to be one of them. Still, she continued to be involved in his life and he had his father and a step mom who raised him and that he loved as much and said she was Sherri's "tag-team" partner in his life. Who am I to judge that? |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 26, 2024 5:11:01 GMT -5
Did anybody ever buy the Best of Raw tapes?  |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 26, 2024 7:35:27 GMT -5
Taped on this day 30 years ago, the Head Shrinkers defeated The Quebecers to win the WWF World Tag Team Championship (the victory would air in early May):  I really enjoyed this title change as The Quebecers were heels you loved to hate, and had been so dastardly at times. Seeing The Head Shrinkers humble them was great. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 26, 2024 7:55:29 GMT -5
I never bought any wrestling tapes until I discovered the indies after college (so, like 2001 ish) then I started getting some RoH and PWG stuff. Do you get any sense of the storylines on a tape collection like that? Or is it just the matches? I'm not sure late 90s WWE was good enough tech wise to watch out of context for me |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 26, 2024 8:00:41 GMT -5
I never bought any wrestling tapes until I discovered the indies after college (so, like 2001 ish) then I started getting some RoH and PWG stuff. Do you get any sense of the storylines on a tape collection like that? Or is it just the matches? I'm not sure late 90s WWE was good enough tech wise to watch out of context for me More often than not, tapes provided little context. For instance, the WWF’s “Year in Review” tapes (released between 1992 and 1996) were often all over the place, with key events out of order and not explained. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 26, 2024 10:57:29 GMT -5
Most wrestling tapes were just match collections. PPV cards would have some context, via the announce team emphasizing the points of the feud that led to the match; but, that's about it. Youtube playlists that progress through feuds give you better contaxt than just about any tape I ever saw, aside from tapes of actual wrestling tv shows, like the Mid-South tapes that were out there, before the sale to the WWF.
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 26, 2024 11:15:41 GMT -5
Most wrestling tapes were just match collections. PPV cards would have some context, via the announce team emphasizing the points of the feud that led to the match; but, that's about it. Youtube playlists that progress through feuds give you better contaxt than just about any tape I ever saw, aside from tapes of actual wrestling tv shows, like the Mid-South tapes that were out there, before the sale to the WWF. Know what puzzled me back in the day? The repetition of matches. So, for instance, Hogan vs. Andre from WM III was on at least two Hogan tapes. Hogan/Warrior was on Hulkamania Forever and The Return of the Ultimate Warrior. Crunch Classics gave us a Roddy Piper “profile” which promised us a collection of his best matches, but simply gave us Piper vs. The Mountie from RR ‘92, and Piper vs. Adonis from WM III, both of which were already on the PPV tapes. One tape, Hulk Hogan’s Greatest Matches, gave us Hogan/Savage from Paris (already on another tape), the WM III main event yet again, and Hogan vs. Undertaker from This Tuesday in Texas, which was also on Supertape ‘92. At the time, I was hoping Coliseum Video would be a bit more imaginative and showcase some Hogan matches that had not yet been released on VHS. The aforementioned Year in Review tapes were unimaginative. The 1994 tape just showcased mainly PPV matches, instead of doing something new like - oh, I don’t know - showcasing some TV matches. DVDs were a bit better, but, again, chose to recycle content. The WM X-8 DVD thought that including Hogan/Warrior from WM VI was a good idea. Yes, both PPVs took place in Toronto, but maybe a good extra on that disc might have been another Toronto match. It just felt like the likes of Coliseum Video (and later WWE’s in-house system) thought that regurgitating the same iconic matches made more sense than perhaps dipping into the archives more imaginatively. |
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Post by codystarbuck on Apr 26, 2024 11:38:57 GMT -5
Most wrestling tapes were just match collections. PPV cards would have some context, via the announce team emphasizing the points of the feud that led to the match; but, that's about it. Youtube playlists that progress through feuds give you better contaxt than just about any tape I ever saw, aside from tapes of actual wrestling tv shows, like the Mid-South tapes that were out there, before the sale to the WWF. Know what puzzled me back in the day? The repetition of matches. So, for instance, Hogan vs. Andre from WM III was on at least two Hogan tapes. Hogan/Warrior was on Hulkamania Forever and The Return of the Ultimate Warrior. Crunch Classics gave us a Roddy Piper “profile” which promised us a collection of his best matches, but simply gave us Piper vs. The Mountie from RR ‘92, and Piper vs. Adonis from WM III, both of which were already on the PPV tapes. One tape, Hulk Hogan’s Greatest Matches, gave us Hogan/Savage from Paris (already on another tape), the WM III main event yet again, and Hogan vs. Undertaker from This Tuesday in Texas, which was also on Supertape ‘92. At the time, I was hoping Coliseum Video would be a bit more imaginative and showcase some Hogan matches that had not yet been released on VHS. The aforementioned Year in Review tapes were unimaginative. The 1994 tape just showcased mainly PPV matches, instead of doing something new like - oh, I don’t know - showcasing some TV matches. DVDs were a bit better, but, again, chose to recycle content. The WM X-8 DVD thought that including Hogan/Warrior from WM VI was a good idea. Yes, both PPVs took place in Toronto, but maybe a good extra on that disc might have been another Toronto match. It just felt like the likes of Coliseum Video (and later WWE’s in-house system) thought that regurgitating the same iconic matches made more sense than perhaps dipping into the archives more imaginatively. You have to remembering that they were marketing those as individual releases, for a wider audience, rather than as a collectable series. As such, they went with content they thought would have appeal and then packaging to attract attention. Obviously, they figured more recent would sell better than older, to a wide audience and might draw them to the current product. Classic match colelctions were more for the fans. It was pretty similar to the marketing of tv shows on video tape, in the same period, as you rarely got episodes in sequence or for the whole season. Instead, you got random popular episodes or thematic ones and only a handful. I picked up single episode releases of the UK Avengers tv series, from the first Emma Peel series, but they were haphazard, as were episodes fromt he color series. Then, there was a set of random episodes from both Emma Peel and Tara King. Then, after the show had been airing on A&E, A&E Home Video put out sets that colelcted each year of the show, starting with Emma Peel, then going back to Cathy Gale and did collect them all. Aside from stuff like Star Trek, or Robotech or The Prisoner, you didn't get much in the way of season sets until the latter stages of VHS existence and then DVD replacing them. Even then, it took a while to get DVD season sets for a lot of shows, because consumers tended to buy heavily upon initial release, then the numbers dropped off significantly and studios abandoned releases as not profitable or just put out a complete series set, at a much higher relative sticker price. |
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 26, 2024 12:01:01 GMT -5
I remember the randomness. There were three Airwolf releases here: a “movie” (which was in fact the pilot, a 2-parter). They then spliced together 2 random episodes of Season 1. And then a 2-parter from Season 4, although the image on the back cover was from an episode different from the one on the tape.
I was an A-Team fan, but we only got 2 releases as far as I can recall: a Season 4 2-parter and the “Court Martial trilogy” from Season 5.
I was pleased when full seasons came along.
While I completely understand and agree with what you have posted about wrestling content, I guess I was frustrated. I remember when they did yet another tape with Hogan/Andre, thinking to myself, ‘Come on, show us the Shea Stadium match instead.’ Or a Hogan match that didn’t involve Andre.
The really weird release was “Wrestling Grudge Matches” which featured ‘grudge matches’ such as Tatanka vs. Blake Beverly, Virgil & Big Boss Man vs. Beverly Brothers, Typhoon vs. Kamala, and Marty Jannetty vs. Papa Shango. Those were hardly grudge matches!
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Post by driver1980 on Apr 26, 2024 17:18:01 GMT -5
Is Khan playing a character here, or is this 100% real?
I honestly don’t know the answer. Often, kayfabe and reality are conflated, like those silly WWE press conferences where a journalist will ‘congratulate a wrestler on his/her victory’ and then ask something like, “So, how do you feel about how WWE has booked your reign?”
But, kayfabe or not, I think his comment is pathetic. Why not just tell us how great AEW is - or hype an upcoming AEW event - instead of attacking WWE? Maybe some are right when they say he’s a glorified eFed booker.
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Apr 26, 2024 18:52:12 GMT -5
Hard to have much sympathy for WWE, even without Vince around. They pretty much defined "tasteless" in the dictionary for 25 years or so
Still, yeah, this probably won't do Khan any favors. The little I've seen of these AEW worked shoot bits have been pretty cringe, like WCW was at their worst. At heart he is a 90s hardcore smart fan and is trying to replicate his heroes from that time
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Post by wildfire2099 on Apr 26, 2024 20:08:55 GMT -5
of course Tony Khan is an efed booker... he just is an efed booker with ALOT of money so he can do it with real life. That doesn't mean he can't have good ideas, though. I've read plenty of results and participated in plenty of feds though the Champions of the Galaxy/Legends of Wrestling that are better than the professionals come up with, so I'm ok with that.
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