Respect, respect.

The thing that was so enjoyable about that period that's missing today (especially in the cartoony WWE) is that they made you believe these guys really wanted to fight (and often hurt) each other. There were builds and stories and when someone turned it meant something.

There was an oddity in the most recent episode I watched where Bill Watts cut an angry promo at the start of the show against Andy Kaufman amidst the ongoing Lawler-Kaufman feud. I was left going, "Uhh, why is he putting over some other territory's angle?" There's no way he failed to realize it was a work, so I just didn't know what was going on there. I don't know of any cooperation between those territories.

They were all regional and more part of a team (the NWA) than competitors. They would send guys back and forth all the time, so they wouldn't get stale in one territory.

Mother of God. I remembered that shovel shot to Foley's head to close out the Nasty Boys vs. Cactus/Maxx match at Spring Stampede '94, but I just rewatched that match and my memory had suppressed just how hideous that shot really was. That's one of the grossest unprotected head shots I know of.

Tomorrow is the monthly classic content drop.

It seems inevitable that they're going to keep dropping Superstars at least every other month until they've uploaded everything after April 1992 (hopefully no longer bothering once it just became a recap show with no new content), but I'd sure like to see them drop some more WCW Saturday Night circa 1994 or Wrestling Challenge circa 1987. Would also welcome 1987 WWF house shows (they've dropped what feels like a full load of these for 1983 through 1986, so I'm guessing 1987 gets a drop before long).

EDIT: Meh, I thought a batch of 1995 Superstars had dropped last month, but it was two months ago. Have to strongly guess it's just going to be more of that tomorrow.

One week on WCCW, Ric Flair (then the world champion) shows up, and he and Kerry Von Erich get into a confrontation. This leads to a fight, Kerry gets Flair down, and he gets on top and slaps the mat three times himself to create the appearance of a visual pinfall despite there being no match. Flair leaves in a huff. They go to the announce booth, where Kevin Von Erich is on guest commentary, and Kevin says something like, "After that, if Kerry isn't the world champion, who is?!" Uhh, I don't quite think that's how it works, Kevin.

Ever since then, WCCW's lead announcer, Mark Lorenz has just casually referred to Kerry as "the uncrowned world champion." Latest episode I watch, he says it again: "We call him the uncrowned world champion. Ric Flair, of course, holds that belt, under a cloud of doubt." Dude. No. WTF. There has to be a better way of making hay out of the fact that Kerry bested the world champion in an unsanctioned fight.

I don't really have a problem with it. When you were dealing with regional promotions, you didn't have a world champion to feature every week or even every month. He was traveling around to the different regions. You had to find a way to make your top guy(s) look like the top star(s) without belts. The NWA was never really going to push a WCCW guy as their world champ (at least not for more than a few weeks - when Kerry won on a special tribute show and shortly lost it back), so they gotta do what they can to make their superstars.

I don't have a problem with WCCW using it to make it look like Kerry might be as good or better than Flair, which is why I said that there had to be a better way of making hay out of it. Say that Flair is running scared and hasn't shown his face in WCCW after Kerry showed him up. Complain that Flair isn't giving Kerry a title shot. That would all make perfect sense to me. I just think that pretending that Kerry was the victim of an injustice because his little brawl outside of a match didn't result in a title win is seriously goofy.

Yeah, I guess he was just the first 24/7 champion then.

As I grew up on wrestling and the WWF transitioned from Bobby Heenan to Jerry Lawler as the lead heel commentator, while I never liked Lawler anywhere close to as much as Heenan, I did really enjoy Lawler and at least deemed him to be a fairly acceptable replacement.

I feel great shame for having not hated him. His act was so hacky. Very few improvised witticisms, just a series of forced pre-written one-liners. I did eventually learn to be annoyed by him as he morphed from "heel" to the rare affiliation of "tweener pervert" during the Attitude Era, and of course the heel rendition was still the better rendition between the two, but man he was never good on commentary.

I was never able to buy into the notion that the opponent turning over in the figure-four reversed the leverage of the move and put his opponent in a position to potentially submit. It just never looked like what they insisted it was.

Only one way to find out.

IIRC they warned me not to try this at home.

The Headshrinkers' double-team finisher was for Samu to stand in the corner and make menacing motions at the air while Fatu splashed a guy off the top rope.

Pretty sweet gig for Samu.

Destroys his knee performing a spot that was obviously dangerous and never had a prayer of looking good no matter how well he executed. Boggles the mind.

Strong nominee for dumbest spot ever. Even if it came off "perfectly" as intended it would have still looked silly.

And yet they were still stupid enough to let Sid try something similar just a couple of years later.

Loll, there’s a major difference between Savage’s jump and a tiny hop off the second rope.

Sid's really tall so they were actually the same height off the ground.

Yeah I wouldn't liken the Sid spot to that at all. I feel like he had occasionally jumped off the second rope successfully in the past. Think he went there in the Raw match where he won the WWF Title from Bret in 1997.

What would make anyone think landing on their feet there is a good idea? Its like jumping out of a 2.5 story window, ****ing tuck and roll man. Even if you're jumping into something flexible like an airbag, you jump onto your back.

Also look how shitty and flimsy that cage is. When Savage jumps off, the cage is bending a lot so he isn't able to get the jump that he wants. Probably would've been even worse though had he been able to get more distance on it.

I'm really not confident I would have been smart enough to notice this, but it's a good shoutout and does deserve appreciation.

The suicide dive does seem like it should be a good spot, but in reality it ends up looking bad a lot more often than it looks good. Obviously there's just something inherently broken about a move when it's the one move that Bryan Danielson does badly.

I was just talking to someone about how that move mostly looks bad, unless your name is Darby Allin.


:12 mark.