Jul 10, 2021 2:54:53 GMT Baker said:

UT who was Virgil's teammate?

Jerry Fox. I just enjoyed the whole get up. Like a lankier paler Matt Hardy that really tried for a second.

The RnR Express! Just in time for the Tag Team Countdown.

I really like Joe Fowler. Weird I had no recollection of him.

Edit - I also love these “WWF Unbelievable” promos. They are legit great.

Jul 10, 2021 3:46:47 GMT UT said:

I really like Joe Fowler. Weird I had no recollection of him.

Ever watched an American Gladiators spinoff called Knights and Warriors?  Well, he was the host there.

Jul 10, 2021 3:49:24 GMT CM Punk'd said:

Jul 10, 2021 3:46:47 GMT UT said:

I really like Joe Fowler. Weird I had no recollection of him.

Ever watched an American Gladiators spinoff called Knights and Warriors?  Well, he was the host there.

I don’t even believe that’s a real show.

Jul 10, 2021 3:49:24 GMT CM Punk'd said:

Jul 10, 2021 3:46:47 GMT UT said:

I really like Joe Fowler. Weird I had no recollection of him.

Ever watched an American Gladiators spinoff called Knights and Warriors?  Well, he was the host there.

I don’t remember this either and now I am intrigued.

Jul 10, 2021 3:50:19 GMT UT said:

Jul 10, 2021 3:49:24 GMT CM Punk'd said:

Ever watched an American Gladiators spinoff called Knights and Warriors?  Well, he was the host there.

I don’t even believe that’s a real show.

Here's proof.

Oh snap! First appearance of the J-E Double F J-A Double R -E- Double T!

Business is about to pick up.

Jul 10, 2021 2:21:58 GMT Baker said:

Jul 9, 2021 2:08:09 GMT 🤯 said:

Luger also didn't WANT to apply himself or have that pressure though, right? 

Speaking of Flexy Lexy, I'm surprised how little love he's getting two episodes in on these WBF Body Stars in-program ads. I always thought he was the star and focal point of the WBF while either waiting out his non-compete or recovering from his motorcycle accident. But he seems awfully downplayed?

Yep to the bolded. Lex just wanted to get paid. And get paid he did! Lex got a lot of cushy contracts because he was the first wrestler to have an agent. Having an agent is another one of those things Luger did that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Flexy Lexy did at least show up for work. On his podcast JJ mentioned Luger was the one big star who would actually bother to show up at house shows in dying day WCW. By all accounts Luger was just your basic punch clock employee. He'd show up to do his job but was never one to go the extra mile. 

How hard did they push the WBF? It's weird because I don't remember that in real time at all. I swear I didn't know it existed until reading about it in (I think) the 1996 PWI Almanac. Yet the ICOPRO hype is forever embedded in my brain. Was the WBF as heavily pushed as ICOPRO and I just blocked it out like it was a boring Foo Fighters song or what?

Jul 9, 2021 19:50:50 GMT UT said:

Baker - Borga just got color in a squash match. Is this the only time the squasher gets busted open?

It's entirely possible.

I dug your 1993 WWF power rankings. You know I love seeing The King near the top along with Borga & the 'becers getting honorable mentions.

I vaguely remember seeing a couple of promos for WBF, one with our cherished Flexy Lexy and one with Gary Strydom that was it. Ico Pro was everywhere, those arena banners are emblematic of 1993 WWF. 

They hyped WBF during (at least) Wrestlemania 8, which was the first time I saw Luger in the WWF. Remember the house I was watching it at and we were like, "That's Lex Luger!" and we were really confused as to why it was to promote a bodybuilding league, just utterly perplexed. Feel like there were recaps during the PPVs, in between some shitty undercard match throw to a few minute package of the exciting happenings of the WBF. But maybe it was only WM8?

UT, I'm hot on your heels!

SUPERSTARS | S07 E18 | 05/02/1992

Jobber to the Superstars: Red Tyler
Red Tyler and Ron Cumberledge were both on this episode, but Red gets the nod for being featured in a singles bout and making Papa Shango look more proficient in the ring than I recall.

Match of the Week: The Ultimate Warrior vs. Skinner
Essentially a squash. I don't think Skin got any offense in, but Steve Keirn proves himself the consummate pro in making Warrior look great. It's crazy how deflated Warrior seems here compared to a year or two ago.

Interview of the Week: Sid Justice
Sid kills it a second week in a row. El Matador is probably my runner-up. Sid should've absolutely been the top guy during this time. So much so, I'm convinced, that I'm willing to give him the RR92 title win, then crush Hogan outright in a title vs. career match at WM8, then same to Warrior at SummerSlam, then Savage at Survivor Series, then a de facto face-turned Flair at RR93, before putting Bret over big at WMXIX.

Other Random Thoughts:
- Correct Posture Day has to be one of the most random madeup holidays I've ever heard of.
- The referee leap-frogging Bossman as Bossman slid out of the ring was a low key super dope spot.
- Was Papa Shango wearing a cape made out of a straight-up tarp?
- Mooney calling Sid "El Sid" was low key super hilarious.
- Tatanka's "thong" on his long tights looks so bad. He improved is look so much when he changed his ring gear.
- High Energy as heels... I could honestly see it working the way UT pitched. I'll also agree with UT in thinking High Energy, at least in their early days, were not good. Especially at promos. I'm still digging Crush, Tito, Tatanka, Skinner, and even Virgil though!
- Looking forward to Sarge vs. Flair next week. Imagine if they were allowed to have a boot camp match like Sarge/Patterson!

What do you enjoy about Tito at this point? Just curious.


I liked Tatanka for awhile but there is only so much tomahawk chops I can take. His character and skillset just goes stagnant.

One more for the road. It's Mother's Day Mayhem!

SUPERSTARS | S07 E19 | 05/09/1992

Jobber to the Superstars: Bob Bradley
Looks like one of the Mean Street Posse guys (I can never remember which one is which) and/or Meat with a splash o' Brakkus. Dig the no knee pads look. Runners-up are whoever LOD squashed. I didn't catch their names (if they were even announced - Mark Kay & Terry Davis?) but I did really dig their colorful ring gear.

Squash of the Week: Tito Santana vs. Bob Bradley
UT is nuts. Tito can still cut a decent promo, and he still wrestles a helluva match. IMO he would've been right at home helping to usher in New Style wrestling. Also, El Matador is a great nickname and a low key GOAT contender IMO for ring gear and entrance attire. A very close runner-up is Crush's "debut" against Kato. I don't agree at all with UT's take on Crush either. So much better than I recall as a kid/teen.

Match of the Week: Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ric Flair (w/ Mr. Perfect)
Could've been even better if this wasn't a vehicle to advance Mountie's deal with Sarge. Baker-man, have Flair and Sarge ever tangled more seriously elsewhere or at other times?

Interview of the Week: Papa Shango
Guessing they're pivoting to Shango vs. Warrior because Sid has departed at this point? Sad. Then it gets worse because Warrior warriors. Shango and Sid should've both been so much more in 1992. Runner-up is Rick Martel. Martel as the Model is so damn good. He should've had an IC title run.

Other Random Thoughts:
- The Bret vs. Shawn seeds are being played up so much I'm surprised their Survivor Series 1992 match wasn't a more anticipated encounter.
- UT, I made it! Update on Repo trying to murder Bulldog on Challenge. Love the subtle continuity with Bulldog's neck still having a red mark as he cuts his revenge promo.
- Sonny Blaze looks like he's from Goodfellas or Sopranos. Abrupt cut to token black fans booing Kamala.
- Sarge and Mountie should've feuded over their similar hats.
- Surprised Vince never tried to separate and push Hawk and Animal as singles stars.
- Have to echo UT on how cheesy bad early face Undertaker was.
- Everyone in 1992 WWF either weights 240 lbs. or 320 lbs. Makes establishing weight class divisions pretty easy!

Jul 10, 2021 12:29:47 GMT UT said:

What do you enjoy about Tito at this point? Just curious.


I liked Tatanka for awhile but there is only so much tomahawk chops I can take. His character and skillset just goes stagnant.

Tito's look, promo, and wrestling.

I get the Tatanka criticisms too. I think Tatanka will be much more a case of hot and cold, hit and miss.

It is so interesting looking back at Jerry Lawler in 1993. I will never stop believing how different in most ways yet, similar in other ways he was compared to how he carried himself in the Memphis territory for 24 years. I can't explain why I feel the way I do.

Jul 10, 2021 2:36:39 GMT Baker said:

Jul 10, 2021 2:27:16 GMT UT said:

A few things. It’s incredible that Razor never got a title run , watching his booking and push - Vince clearly loves him and he was really good. Like on that level below Hart and Lawler good at working the crowd and he was also extremely over. Yeah though dude was so protected , good in the ring and had good size. Was his substance abuse already an issue with trusting him?

It's always a possibility but I never heard any stories about Razor having major substance abuse issues this early on. Could be another case like Luger where he never wanted to be the top guy. Hall is on record in shoots saying he never cared about championships. He just wanted to get paid. There's one pretty famous Hall clip where he shoots on Bret for being a mark who cared more about winning fake titles than he did about money.

I do wonder if Bret was afraid to rock the boat by not demanding more money being world champion. Guess he was happy with the pay (more or less) and the chance to be the guy. I know Nash has commented on this in the 300 retellings of going to WCW. Bret's refusal kept everyone's pay down since if the WWF champ is content, how can upper midcarders complain? Guess it was the rare trickle down economics in action?

That said I completely see why people loved mid90s and the new generation. I've been contemplating doing a 96/97 watchthrough. Seeing Foley's run and those Shawn PPV matches makes me want to see it for the first time, when before it was just clips and certain segments.

Bret Hart is a lot of things - afraid to rock the boat isn’t one of them.

Jul 10, 2021 13:11:40 GMT 🤯 said:

Jul 10, 2021 12:29:47 GMT UT said:

What do you enjoy about Tito at this point? Just curious.


I liked Tatanka for awhile but there is only so much tomahawk chops I can take. His character and skillset just goes stagnant.

Tito's look, promo, and wrestling.

I get the Tatanka criticisms too. I think Tatanka will be much more a case of hot and cold, hit and miss.

Different rocks for different roads.

I do appreciate him in the 80s and I’m sure some of it comes down to him now just randomly appearing with no direction as well - sort of the just being the “good match guy” that I dislike about current WWE.

I seen in the synopsis in the next episode that Crush finally shows up to complete his heel turn. Pretty excited about that as I think he will be much better off.

Jul 10, 2021 13:11:11 GMT 🤯 said:

 Baker -man, have Flair and Sarge ever tangled more seriously elsewhere or at other times?

Surprisingly not to any large extent. I did find 5 Sarge/Flair matches from 85-86 on "Pro Wrestling USA" shows. PW USA was a short-lived alliance of Not WWF promotions uniting to try holding off Vince's juggernaut. There's also a pair of cool-on-paper Sarge & Savage vs. Flair & Mountie 1992 house show matches. Fwiw the Mountie/Sarge feud is another thing I don't remember.

Agree with your other post when you implied these two all time great bleeders could have had an all time great bloody brawl on par with Sarge/Patterson. 

I'm sure watching Tatanka week after week is boring (as it was for me in real time) but he did have the occasional good match. I remember liking his bouts with Horowitz & Mountie back in the day. The famous 1993 Halloween weekend match with Borga is genuinely great imo. Tatanka also had a surprisingly good match with Underfaker, of all people, on a 1994 episode of Superstars. 

Fun Fact: Jobber Bob Bradley was RVD's regular partner in a Nevada super indie not long before Van Dam went to ECW. They had a really cool finisher. Bradley also played the failed "Battle Kat" character. Battle Kat is another character I don't remember seeing in real time. Bradley was an AWF (Where We Wrestling In Rounds) jobber as well. 

Might have just seen the greatest tag squash ever with the Steiners against PJ Walker and someone….? Featured Scotty dragging each guy to their partners at different points to tag them in so he could whoop their ass. Also featured at least an attempted suplex to pile driver thing.

Which brings me to a different thought. Are the Steiners most like the kind of wrestlers we imitated with pillows or stuffed animals as youngins? Watching them wrestling and just suplex and rag doll everyone or try some really fucked up moves reminds me of myself pretending to wrestle growing up.



Also the Crush turn happened. It went a little long for a Crush promo but was still fun. Hopefully I never have to hear Crush say brudda again but he’s already easier to boo than cheer.

I really love Vinces absurd selling of these things. Calling it a “summit” and the most important confrontation in WWF history. It’s funny ; especially considering Savage was one half of the mega powers angle just years prior. I don’t know if it makes a Top 10 confrontation of Savages career.

Jul 11, 2021 3:42:41 GMT UT said:

Are the Steiners most like the kind of wrestlers we imitated with pillows or stuffed animals as youngins? 

Yep.

I really love Vinces absurd selling of these things. Calling it a “summit” and the most important confrontation in WWF history.

Agreed. This is why I can never fully commit to hating Vince as a commentator. Yes, he's terrible at calling moves. Yeah, his over the top verbal blowjobs on guys like Hogan & Michaels were off-putting. But he was so good at getting over the storylines and characters. You could always tell when Vince was really into something. Hopefully we all love someone or something as much as Vince loved Saaaaaavio Vega and Henry Godwinn slopping people. 

Best comparison for Vince as a commentator is actually TNA's Don West. What they lacked in polish they made up for in enthusiasm.

Jul 11, 2021 3:56:40 GMT Baker said:

Jul 11, 2021 3:42:41 GMT UT said:

Are the Steiners most like the kind of wrestlers we imitated with pillows or stuffed animals as youngins? 

Yep.

I really love Vinces absurd selling of these things. Calling it a “summit” and the most important confrontation in WWF history.

Agreed. This is why I can never fully commit to hating Vince as a commentator. Yes, he's terrible at calling moves. Yeah, his over the top verbal blowjobs on guys like Hogan & Michaels were off-putting. But he was so good at getting over the storylines and characters. You could always tell when Vince was really into something. Hopefully we all love someone or something as much as Vince loved Saaaaaavio Vega and Henry Godwinn slopping people. 

Best comparison for Vince as a commentator is actually TNA's Don West. What they lacked in polish they made up for in enthusiasm.

100%. Vince is amazing and as you said - you can tell by the inflection in his voice who he really likes and who he’s lukewarm on. Its pretty much what made me wonder why Razor didn’t ever climb higher because Vince was damn near having an orgasm into the headset whenever Razor is on.

I also enjoy how he constantly bitches at the refs about controlling the match.
Almost like he is pissed they are doing a shitty job and is waiting to yell more at them backstage.

Also the 1-900 gag to try and “reinstate” Shawn is shameless. I wonder how much they scammed off kids parents with that.

UT (as seconded by Baker-man) is so spot on and I have no idea how that Steiners epiphany never dawned on me before.

I move to rebrand the Steiners as the Pillowbusters henceforth.

And here we go again!

SUPERSTARS | S07 E20 | 05/16/1992

Jobber to the Superstars: Glen Ruth
Gets bonus points because I get a kick out of seeing Attitude Era acts in their proto forms. Pre-Headbanger Thrasher gets the nod over Scott Taylor this week for looking even further removed from his final form than the eventual Scotty 2 Hotty, and also for giving Big Boss Man a slightly better squash.

Squash of the Week: The Beverly Brothers (Blake & Beau) (w/ The Genius) vs. Jim Brunzell & Bobby Knight
Meh, they were all about on par with each other this week. I'll give the Beverly Brothers a shout because I've been loving their offense, plus we get a Jim Powers-esque cameo from ol' Jumpin' Jim Brunzell on the enhancements' side.

Match of the Week: The Ultimate Warrior vs. Brian Knobbs (w/ Jimmy Hart & Jerry Sags)
Way better than it had any right to be, and the pivot to Papa Shango after Sid's abrupt departure has been handled so well it's pretty smooth overall and I wouldn't find myself asking "What about Sid?" in real time as a kid. Long story short here, stolen wristbands lead to tummy aches. Also, I loved speculating on the kayfabe contract aspect here. We didn't know which Nasty Boy was Warrior's opponent until go time. Did Hart insist it be an open contract like that to give his men the edge? They're tag guys, not singles wrestlers, so of course they'd be at a disadvantage against Warrior. The last minute element of surprise is really the only advantage they can leverage. Meanwhile, Warrior -as the bravest if not brightest- probably all too eagerly signed the contract without reviewing or caring about the fine print.

Interview of the Week: Crush
Tito is a runner-up again, but Crush crushing cars in the junkyard got me fantasizing about him turning heel, re-partnering with ex-Smash Repo Man, and doing a gimmick where Repo steals cars and brings them back to their junkyard hideout where Crush crushes the stolen rides.

Other Random Thoughts:
- Apparently it was National Hamburger Week this week. Still not as weird as celebrating Correct Posture.
- Mountie's taped shock stick looks terrible. Why tape it? I'm sure it looks scary enough as is without the red tape to try to match Mountie's gear.
- Repo dragging a black jobber around the ring by a rope around his neck really doesn't age well. Crazy how OK media and people still were with something like this in the early 1990s.

I’m an idiot , I never even put together that Glen Ruth was the Headbanger. I knew that was his name too.

Also like that you enjoyed the Knobbs and Warrior match. I think I commented on how surprisingly solid it was too - definitely had zero right to be as you said.

Jul 11, 2021 13:32:49 GMT UT said:

I’m an idiot , I never even put together that Glen Ruth was the Headbanger. I knew that was his name too.

Also like that you enjoyed the Knobbs and Warrior match. I think I commented on how surprisingly solid it was too - definitely had zero right to be as you said.

Warrior has had plenty of IWC discussion over the years on whether he's good, bad, or depends on the opponent when it comes to his wrestling ability. But the Nasty Boys never seem to get a lot of talk as far as I know. Do you think they get unfair hate because of their latter day rep as Hogan cronies? I feel like they are hated and overlooked so much more than is warranted. They've pretty consistently outperformed my expectations every time in recent rewatches from this time period.

Yeah I was saving some of my thoughts for the tag team countdown but I generally agree with you. They rose up my ranks to possibly very bottom ends favorite adds to legitimately belonging. Great character work and really solid brawlers. I think they worked better as heels but eventually they just became over with the audience. I was going to pose the question once about the Nasties deserving more credit when it comes to the shift of cheering on the bad guys. Razor generally gets a ton of that credit for this era but watching some of these old Superstars and PPVS ... the Nasties might have been even before him - and nothing ever really changed about them.

Nice to see talk of how underrated the Nasty Boys were. I always enjoyed their brawling, and the pit stop was a guilty pleasure. I'll die on that hill of Harlem Heat and the Nasties being one of the great tag team feuds of the 90's, so much fun seeing them fight all over the arena. Still though, I think the obvious number 1 to our tag team countdown deserves a lot of credit for fans cheering the bad guys.

Did Bob Bradley take over the Battle Katt moniker from Brady Boone of WCW jobber fame?

Jul 11, 2021 16:50:59 GMT Shootist said:

Nice to see talk of how underrated the Nasty Boys were. I always enjoyed their brawling, and the pit stop was a guilty pleasure. I'll die on that hill of Harlem Heat and the Nasties being one of the great tag team feuds of the 90's, so much fun seeing them fight all over the arena. Still though, I think the obvious number 1 to our tag team countdown deserves a lot of credit for fans cheering the bad guys.

Oh for sure , you could even say the same for Flair at certain points but specifically to this era it’s usually Razor that gets most of the credit when I think it happened with the Nasties prior and restarted that shift.