Borga/Tatanka was a fun battle of the unbeatens - it’s crazy after all that build and pomp around Tatanka being unbeaten they end the streak with Borga and a one finger cover after pretty much dominating him throughout.

They definitely had huge plans for Baker’s boy.

And all shows it still happened on Superstars.

Vince has also called the official stupid at least 6 times.

Okay this Foreign Fanatics vs The All Americans feud heading into Survivor Series is a ton of fun.

Quebecers attacking Luger in the back trying to prevent his saving Tatanka but he finally made it out and cleaned house. Well played stuff. Great old school wrestling shit I miss.

Edit- and they padlocked The Steiners in their dressing room!

Jul 11, 2021 19:23:33 GMT UT said:

Borga/Tatanka was a fun battle of the unbeatens - it’s crazy after all that build and pomp around Tatanka being unbeaten they end the streak with Borga and a one finger cover after pretty much dominating him throughout.

They definitely had huge plans for Baker ’s boy.

And all shows it still happened on Superstars.

Vince has also called the official stupid at least 6 times.

Gorilla Monsoon was also hard on the officials, except for Joey Marella of course. Gorilla would really go nuts when the officials would physically pull a wrestler out of the corner heel or face when they wouldn't break the 5 count. "Officials should never lay their hands on a competitor!"

Borga beating Tatanka was pretty impressive, too bad he and Luger couldn't have had a proper big blowoff match.

Jul 11, 2021 19:31:19 GMT Shootist said:

Jul 11, 2021 19:23:33 GMT UT said:

Borga/Tatanka was a fun battle of the unbeatens - it’s crazy after all that build and pomp around Tatanka being unbeaten they end the streak with Borga and a one finger cover after pretty much dominating him throughout.

They definitely had huge plans for Baker ’s boy.

And all shows it still happened on Superstars.

Vince has also called the official stupid at least 6 times.

Gorilla Monsoon was also hard on the officials, except for Joey Marella of course. Gorilla would really go nuts when the officials would physically pull a wrestler out of the corner heel or face when they wouldn't break the 5 count. "Officials should never lay their hands on a competitor!"

Borga beating Tatanka was pretty impressive, too bad he and Luger couldn't have had a proper big blowoff match.

This was great!

“Call for help from the back you moron!”

Also to piggyback on a post by 🤯 earlier - the WWF and their ignorance towards racism is crazy.

Calling Tatonto and “that stinking Indian” is crazy to hear 12 times a show - plus a dozen other insults by King or Heenan. I’m not letting it ruin it for me but it is a little jarring at times the stuff they said.

Who was under the mask as the executioner in these jobber matches? Anyone know?

Not the Terry Gordy version. This dude is rather small compared to Gordy.

Edit - I also love when Heenan gets Vince to break and laugh on commentary with some of his jokes. It probably killed Vince not to be able to control it.

Jul 11, 2021 14:47:14 GMT UT said:

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.

Hated the Nasties in real time regardless of their face/heel status. They were just a major turnoff for me. With that being said, they did have more good matches than you'd think. I've always viewed them as a proto-ECW style team. Just a pair of big ugly brawlers...a Rottens 1.0. They were also effective in their roles. I don't remember them getting over as cool heels. Not saying it didn't happen. I just don't remember it. A lot of Nasties stuff I loathed back in the day has been put over by PW posters such as Shoot, Kilgore, Pete, and now you & PI. 

Spoiler Alert: Nasties finished comfortably in the bottom third of my Greatest Tag Team list even without revisiting their stuff. 

Jul 11, 2021 16:56:28 GMT @ck said:

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

Yep.

Jul 11, 2021 19:26:46 GMT UT said:

Okay this Foreign Fanatics vs The All Americans feud heading into Survivor Series is a ton of fun.

Quebecers attacking Luger in the back trying to prevent his saving Tatanka but he finally made it out and cleaned house. Well played stuff. Great old school wrestling shit I miss.

Edit- and they padlocked The Steiners in their dressing room!

Thank you! I've been pimping this match/angle/overall feud for years. Everything about it really is tremendous. 

Jul 11, 2021 19:54:46 GMT UT said:

Who was under the mask as the executioner in these jobber matches? Anyone know?

Either Maryland's own Duane Gill(berg) or his partner Barry Hardy.

Taker joining the All Americans seems really ill fitting. And he still cuts a pretty terrible promo.

And yeah they are working the Yoko feud but still.


I will say , this Crush/Savage feud is off to a tremendous start. Loved Randy being completely unhinged. Also love that they didn’t jump right into a huge match at Survivor Series.

Pierre/Luger just had one of the better matches I’ve seen from either shows. Fun stuff.

Oh my got … Superstars before Survivor Series and it has Bruce Pritchard as Reo Rogers!

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

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.

This 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 ragdoll 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 Savage's career.

Check out the Steiner Brothers from 1989-1995. To me, It's the best run for a tag team of all time.

So Survivor Series 1993 - was going to do maybe a thread about it but not sure it warrants it.

The Team Razor vs Team IRS match was fun. Probably the best all around match on the card.

The Hart Family match was hurt a bunch by it being Shawn instead of Lawler. Nothing against Shawn but the entire story surrounding the match was the Hart Family getting their hands on Lawler for everything be put the family through for months. Pigeon holing Shawn in there and then almost passing off Kings remarks as Shawns , while refusing to even acknowledge King until things got cleared up just made it awkward and not as successful as it should have been.


Four Doinks vs Bam Bam is one of the worst things I've ever seen in wrestling. I'm trying to approach all of this with an open mind and I even had fun with the introductions of the Bushwackers and MOM but the match itself was insulting to wrestling fans. I'm not even one of the high brow wrestling fans - I enjoy the stupidity of it sometimes but wow. Slipping on Banana Peels , refusing to cover for half eaten turkey legs or bananas.


The Bodies vs the RNR Express was fine. Good match. Don't care personally for either team - more on that for countdowns probably.


The All Americans vs The Foreign Fanatics was a solid enough blow off the the fun 8 man feud. Crowd was super into it. I was into it. The right team won.

Crush had every right to be mad at Savage. Yokozuna Bonsai dopped Crush 4 times!

Jul 12, 2021 20:14:59 GMT Ed said:

Crush had every right to be mad at Savage. Yokozuna Bonsai dopped Crush 4 times!

Wrong bruddddaaaa!

Jul 12, 2021 20:22:02 GMT UT said:

Jul 12, 2021 20:14:59 GMT Ed said:

Crush had every right to be mad at Savage. Yokozuna Bonsai dopped Crush 4 times!

Wrong bruddddaaaa!

You don't think so? I love Savage but, he was a shitty friend.

As Vince McMahon stated multiple times , announcers were contractually prohibited from getting involved in the action at ring side. Macho could have lost his job.

Plus Crush is a gigantic monster - he should be able to take care of himself. Crush is a little bitch.

And like his whole point was contradicted very soon when Macho attacked him and none of his "new friends" came to help him either.

Jul 12, 2021 21:38:05 GMT UT said:

As Vince McMahon stated multiple times , announcers were contractually prohibited from getting involved in the action at ring side. Macho could have lost his job.

Plus Crush is a gigantic monster - he should be able to take care of himself. Crush is a little bitch.

And like his whole point was contradicted very soon when Macho attacked him and none of his "new friends" came to help him either.

Hypocrisy makes for the best heels.

Also, after the Mega Powers deal, I can understand Savage being leary about rushing to help his friends. DTA, MFer!!!~

It certainly does.

I also loved Macho snapping on Heenan and threatening him , only time in history a person on leave pays attention to the product while they are away and provides some continuity?

Knowing what we know now about how all that Lawler drama panned out, I wonder how feasible it would've been to keep him on the Survivor Series card... job him out... Then let him take a sabbatical for a bit? As much as I love the odd tidbit that Bret and Shawn's paths crossed thrice at Survivor Serieses, I agree 1993 so should've been Lawler.

Yeah it's a nice tie in to Survivor Series but it just didn't make sense. I think Vince made the wrong call in Benoiting Lawler before Benoiting was a thing - so close to the PPV and pretty much pretending that it was Shawn who was attacking the Hart Family for all this time. It didn't work at all - and keeping the henchman named the knights also seemed weird.

Just release a statement saying Lawler was injured and his knights backed out and bring in a reinstated Shawn and his three "heartbreakers" to take their place. Set up a quick storyline and go from there. At least then its not so awkward. Then you don't have to bring Lawler back in the midst of a sexual assault allegation against a minor and some continuity is prepared.

I'd still prefer Lawler but I'd prefer most of all not to waste the match with lazy knee jerk reactions.

Jul 12, 2021 21:45:04 GMT 🤯 said:

Jul 12, 2021 21:38:05 GMT UT said:

As Vince McMahon stated multiple times , announcers were contractually prohibited from getting involved in the action at ring side. Macho could have lost his job.

Plus, Crush is a gigantic monster - he should be able to take care of himself. Crush is a little bitch.

And like his whole point was contradicted very soon when Macho attacked him and none of his "new friends" came to help him either.

Hypocrisy makes for the best heels.

Also, after the Mega Powers deal, I can understand Savage being leary about rushing to help his friends. DTA, MFer!!!~

Thanks for the clarification. I haven't rewatched the angle piece by piece.

What exactly is Stan Lane as an announcer?

All due respect to Backlund and not to harp on this New Generation thing but what the hell was he doing around at this time?

How is everyone else too old but Backlund is somehow now back? Not that I don’t think he was effective - I HATED him growing up for what he did to Bret and am looking forward to watching it again now but can’t help but think he is the ultimate contradiction to why they let others go or sidelined them.

Wonder who else could have taken that spot? Did he end up taking the spot that could have been inline for Borga in a perfect world?

Jul 14, 2021 2:44:09 GMT UT said:

What exactly is Stan Lane as an announcer?

A half-hearted heel? 

Jul 14, 2021 2:56:12 GMT UT said:

All due respect to Backlund and not to harp on this New Generation thing but what the hell was he doing around at this time?

How is everyone else too old but Backlund is somehow now back? Not that I don’t think he was effective - I HATED him growing up for what he did to Bret and am looking forward to watching it again now but can’t help but think he is the ultimate contradiction to why they let others go or sidelined them.

I get where you're coming from, but I think the Mr. Backlund character worked so well precisely because he was old. He was the antithesis to the WWF's New Generation youth movement. He also played the psychotic old man character to perfection. It made all the sense in the world to have the face of the New Generation feud with the standard bearer of the Old Generation. I don't think Savage or Lawler (or anybody else available at the time) could have pulled off the bitter old man gimmick as well as Mr. Backlund did. 

I even had a soft spot for old man Bobby B as a babyface because he was such a good guy. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he beat jobbers with fancy pins so as not to hurt them? Then he'd pick them up, shake their hand, and give them pointers? That's how I remember it anyway. And if so, how could anybody dislike this nice old man? He was like a nerdy, yet loveable, uncle. 

The reason why it worked with Backlund is that fans wouldn't have been as familiar with him. Being one generation removed just sharpened the contrast so while it felt like a contradiction, in a way what was once old was now new again. Plus there was more synergy between Bret and Bob.

It's just a shame that the Wrestlemania XI match was over-shadowed by the stipulation and Diesel. I thought their rivalry was really well put together.

Lawler always came across like a dollar store Ric Flair. Some loud-mouth who calls himself the King because he was a big fish in a small pond. Having the Excellence of Execution put him in his place was the right way to go. With Randy I think it would have split the crowd too much and it wouldn't have been as fresh.

Jul 14, 2021 7:00:48 GMT Big Pete said:

The reason why it worked with Backlund is that fans wouldn't have been as familiar with him. Being one generation removed just sharpened the contrast so while it felt like a contradiction, in a way what was once old was now new again. Plus there was more synergy between Bret and Bob.

It's just a shame that the Wrestlemania XI match was over-shadowed by the stipulation and Diesel. I thought their rivalry was really well put together.

Lawler always came across like a dollar store Ric Flair. Some loud-mouth who calls himself the King because he was a big fish in a small pond. Having the Excellence of Execution put him in his place was the right way to go. With Randy I think it would have split the crowd too much and it wouldn't have been as fresh.

Just to add to Backlund's case, wasn't it boosted by a pop culture zeitgeist moment of 45-year-old underdog George Foreman winning the boxing world title he lost to Ali two decades prior?

With Backlund having a valid claim to losing the title without being pinned or submitted, and then never getting a rematch, it all just came together to make him work in a way Lawler, Savage, or even Owen wouldn't have in the Bret foil role.

Yes Baker , he just did that last night when I was watching on Superstars - which is why I brought it up.

Don't get me wrong y'all , I think Bob Backlund is great , I just don't 100% get the WWF way of thinking. Though being a generation removed and technically a fresh face I suppose works just fine.

While you can definitely intellectually talk yourself into Backlund, it was weird in real time and I still don't like it. Lame.

I remember watching in real time having no fucking clue who this guy is or why he was important. I mean they made him effective and the Crossface Chickenwing might be the most feared submission in the history of my backyard/living room wrestling days. We even banned it for the longest time. Can't argue he wasn't effective but also can't argue that couldn't have been Borga given the same push.

Jul 14, 2021 15:12:54 GMT Kilgore said:

While you can definitely intellectually talk yourself into Backlund, it was weird in real-time and, I still don't like it. Lame.

I loved it. Blackland's presence in the landscape in the new generation WWF era was wild to see. You had this bitter old man that couldn't accept that he lost & that his 6-year reign had ended. Bob was acting entitled like the youngsters he hated.