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The SmarK DVD Rant for The Ultimate Warrior: The Ultimate Collection

The SmarK DVD Rant for Ultimate Warrior: The Ultimate Collection

One of my faithful readers bought this for me a while ago, and I figured it was an interesting counterpoint to the Randy Savage documentary, in that Savage didn’t live long enough to come crawling back to Vince and thus got a begrudging DVD set and Hall of Fame induction. Plus the guy has been waiting very patiently for me to find 7 hours to do this one, and since I was working Easter weekend while the others in the family went out of town for festivities, I figured tonight was perfect. Well, plus Furious 7 was sold out tonight anyway. So anyway, whereas Warrior gave them the narrative of the guy changing his ways and worldview and coming back home, and so now he gets a friggin’ STATUE and yearly award named after him. Yeah, he was always one of my favorite guys growing up, but Randy Savage ate steroids and shit money for the company year in and year out, and always did business when asked. Warrior was such a nutjob that they dedicated an entire DVD to talking about what a cancer on the sport he was, and now suddenly he’s a saint? Come on, man. And he’s getting ANOTHER set later this month!

I think this set was available on Netflix a while back, by the way, although I haven’t looked for it in a while.

Hosted by WARRIOR. This is a “show and tell” set, with Warrior introducing matches and telling his story. His introduction basically says that this DVD set is to set things right again after the previous hatchet job.

Disc One

Warrior talks about studying to be a chiropractor and getting into bodybuilding, but getting lured into wrestling by some of the guys at the gym. They started out as the Freedom Fighters: Jim Justice and Flash Borden. If you ever read Meltzer’s old Observers from that time, his burials of them are legendary. And the footage is hilarious here, as both guys were doing ALL of the steroids and were greener than grass.

The Blade Runners v. Harry Jackson & Sean O’Reilly

From the UWF in 1986. Whatever terrible music they were using is clearly overdubbed here. So at this point they were Sting and Rock, as Jim’s hair was starting to regrow and Eddie Gilbert was managing them. They do a quick Road Warriors style squash and flex a lot. A lot a lot. Rock presses one of the geeks and Sting finishes him with a splash at 1:00. These guys made the Ascension look like the stars of the future. DUD

Warrior talks about all the money he was losing in the UWF, so he moves to World Class and reinvents himself as the Dingo Warrior.

The Dingo Warrior v. Chris Adams

From World Class, later in 1986. The Warrior look is starting to take shape now, with the tassels and facepaint added and the steroids toned down a lot. Percy Pringle stops by to cut a promo on Adams and really up the depressing death factor of the match. Adams goes to attack him and gets whacked with the cane as a result, and Warrior presses Adams onto the top rope to take over. Warrior chokes him out and Adams fights out of it and hits the superkick, putting Warrior onto the floor. Back in, Adams grazes him with another superkick and adds a piledriver, but he goes up and gets caught in a shitty powerslam. Dingo drops an elbow for the surprise pin at 4:55, which was a pretty big upset considering Adams was World champion and all. Warrior was just terrible here, sloppy as hell, but he looked like a superstar. ½*

Warrior talks about getting the call from WWF, and he was on his way.

Ultimate Warrior v. Barry Horowitz

From Wrestling Challenge, in 1987. Warrior quickly finishes with the press slam at 1:33.

Ultimate Warrior v. Steve Lombardi

From Superstars, November 1987. Another quick squash as Warrior beats Lombardi all over the ring and does an inset promo as well. I actually remember going to a house show in Vancouver around this time and getting this match. Press slam and splash finishes at 2:00.

Warrior talks about practice, practice, practice as his philosophy. And then a gross story about sucking the pus out of a staph infection in his leg because he was worried about losing his push. He talks about working with Harley Race and how Race saw what the business was becoming but wasn’t bitter or angry about it.

Ultimate Warrior v. Harley Race

From Boston, March 1988. Warrior was starting to become a really big deal by this point, although the yellow and green color scheme here makes him look like Billy Jack Haynes’ slightly less crazy cousin. Warrior overpowers Race and dumps him. Race takes a funny bump, as Warrior punches him on the apron and Race kind of slides down the stairs in slow motion. Back in, we get the usual Race spot where he “accidentally” headbutts Warrior low to take over. Warrior shakes it off and chops away on the ropes until Race goes over the top. Back in, Race hits a piledriver to take over again and then tosses Warrior out and suplexes him back in. Warrior lands on his feet, rolls Race up, and gets the pin at 4:50. Not much to this one. *1/2

Warrior talks about upgrading the look and feel of the character, going more over the top with the superhero styling and altering his body shape to be more chiseled and cut. He had a lot of fun doing the weasel suit matches with Bobby Heenan.

Ultimate Warrior v. Bobby Heenan

From July 1988 in the Los Angeles Arena. And is that Dave Meltzer in the aisle when Bobby Heenan runs away to start? We get an astonishingly long stall to start, as Heenan runs away for the first 3:00 before Warrior hides behind a post and catches him. Back in, Warrior takes Heenan and runs him into three of the corners, but Bobby finds a foreign object and uses it to gain the advantage. Finally Warrior just grabs it away from him, ragdolls him all over the ring, and finishes with a sleeper at 7:25. Poor Bobby gets stuffed into a weasel suit and doesn’t deal with it very well, sadly. Just a goofy comedy match, but that’s fine. *

Warrior moves onto the IC title win over Honky Tonk Man, and thought it was a really cool time.

Intercontinental title: Honky Tonk Man v. Ultimate Warrior

From Summerslam, of course. You know the drill here. Still one of the all time greatest payoffs to a storyline ever, as Honky escaped every challenger for 18 months and then stupidly puts his title on the line with an open contract and gets destroyed once and for all. Say what you will about Honky, but when it came time to do business, he put Warrior over like the biggest killer in history.

Intercontinental title: Ultimate Warrior v. Honky Tonk Man

From Philly, December 1988. That is one empty arena, although the results show attendance of 5,000 so it’s an OK crowd. Warrior attacks Jimmy Hart and hauls him back to the dressing room right away, and takes over on Honky with a bearhug before throwing him around the ring. Jimmy Hart emerges from exile and nails Warrior with the megaphone on the floor, and Honky adds a guitar to the back for good measure. Honky continues cheating outrageously in the ring and choking away on the ropes with any object handy. Honky chokes him down with tape, but Warrior makes the comeback, blocks Jimmy Hart’s attempt to throw powder, and tosses Honky into Jimmy for the pin at 7:10 to retain. Honky had to go to crazy lengths to get any kind of believable heat on Warrior. ½*

Warrior talks about his relationship with Randy Savage and how much coffee that Macho used to drink. I am so not surprised. Warrior absolutely loved his intensity and gonzo demeanour. I am so not surprised by that either.

Title v. title: Randy Savage v. Ultimate Warrior

From Boston, February 1989. So yeah, this was just after The Main Event and Randy Savage was a massively hated heel, suddenly on fire as champion and the biggest star in the industry again. Warrior wins a slugfest and puts Savage out with a shoulderblock, then chases him out and presses him back into the ring again. Savage keeps running and tries a flying bodypress, but Warrior catches him and drops him with a powerslam that looks exactly as bad as the one he did to Chris Adams at the beginning of this disc. Warrior keeps beating on Savage in the corner, but misses a charge and gets put on the floor. The heat for this match is just crazy, with the crowd booing everything Savage does and cheering everything Warrior does. Back in, Savage necks him on the top rope for two and chokes away for two. Macho goes to a chinlock and drops an elbow for two. I’m no fan of Rod Trongard to say the least, but he’s selling this like the biggest match in history, which I appreciate. Warrior fights out of a chinlock, but runs into a clothesline and Savage gets two. Double axehandle gets two, and Warrior makes the comeback with a suplex for two. This brings Rick Rude down to the ring for some posing, and Warrior gets an atomic drop for two. Savage rolls him up with a handful of tights for two. Warrior gets the splash, but hits knees and Savage gets two. Rude continues posing while Warrior makes the full comeback and lays Savage out with clotheslines. Now Warrior finally goes after Rude, and Savage hits him with a cheapshot from behind and wins by countout at 10:35. Rude and Savage do their own Megapower handshake (with the crowd chucking garbage at them) and Warrior comes back and destroys both guys afterwards. Too bad they never went anywhere with that Rude-Savage deal. This was a hell of a match, by the way. ***1/2

Warrior never had a problem dropping the title to Rude. “This too shall pass” was always his motto. He didn’t need the belt or really care about it.

Intercontinental title: Ravishing Rick Rude v. Ultimate Warrior.

From Summerslam 89. So of course Rude screwed Warrior out of the belt at Wrestlemania V, in what was Warrior's first good PPV match, well, ever, so they had a lot to live up to here. Warrior was already starting to feud with Andre and Rude was programmed with Roddy Piper, so it was obvious that this feud was over one way or another after tonight. This matchup was kind of like the Batista-Undertaker of its time, as they just had freakish chemistry against each other for whatever reason. Rude tries slugging away to start, and gets nowhere. Warrior clotheslines him to the floor, but Rude comes back in with a sunset flip, which Warrior blocks by punching him. Gorilla press follows, and Warrior opts to dump Rude on the floor for a nice bump. They brawl outside and Warrior hits him with the belt, triggering a classic rant by Jesse Ventura about whether it's legal to shoot someone outside the ring and how Tony is even stupider than Gorilla Monsoon. But tell us what how you really feel, Jesse. Warrior brings him in, then changes his mind and tosses him again. Back in, Warrior goes up with a double axehandle for two. He whips Rude into opposite turnbuckles and slams him for two. Suplex gets two. Warrior gets an inverted atomic drop, giving Rude a chance to do his tailbone sell, and Warrior drops him on his ass for good measure. Back to the top for LUCHA WARRIOR~!, but Rude brings him down the hard way to take over. Rude starts working on the back and a suplex gets two, then he goes to the rear chinlock. He stomps the back and goes for the Rude Awakening, but Warrior powers out of it, so Rude goes with a rare sleeper instead. Criss-cross and the ref is bumped, but Heenan manages to shake Rude out of it first. Warrior hulks up and powerslams Rude after the three clotheslines, and of course there's no ref. Piledriver, and that gets two. Running powerslam sets up the big splash, but Rude gets the knees up to block. Rude gets his own piledriver, almost a powerbomb, for two. To the top for the fistdrop, and that gets two, but now Roddy Piper joins us. Another piledriver gets two and Rude gets all distracted by Piper, who moons him in response. And that was six years before Braveheart! Warrior suplexes the distracted Rude, and it's shoulderblock, gorilla press, big splash and we have a new champion at 16:03. The reaction for this was GIGANTIC and anyone who wouldn't have taken a shot with Warrior as World champion after seeing this is nuts. Even more than Warrior! And this one of the few times, I might add, where Rude got what was coming to him and did a clean job. Definitely one of the best matches of Warrior's career. ***1/2

Warrior talks about how great all the jobbers that put him over were. He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful when he was doing stuff like pinning guys with one foot or leaving the belt on, he was just asserting dominance.

Ultimate Warrior v. Bob Bradley

From Superstars, September 1989. This would be an example of the previous notes, as Warrior leaves the belt on, beats on Bradley all over the ring area before taking the belt off. Press slam and splash finish at 2:32 as Warrior strikes a Comic Book Guy-as-Lorne Greene pose while making the pin.

Ultimate Warrior v. Brian Costello

From Superstars, December 1989. Another example of jobber abuse, as Warrior chases the poor guy all over the ring and finishes with the press slam and splash at 1:33, complete with barbarian pose this time.

Brother Love presents Andre the Giant, from July 1989. He dislikes Ultimate Warrior, you see.

Warrior talks about his brief feud with Andre and how it was set up to get Warrior to the next level in preparation for the World title run. Warrior has an entirely different view on the feud than Bobby Heenan did on the previous Warrior DVD.

Intercontinental title: Ultimate Warrior v. Andre the Giant

From MSG, August 1989. Heenan gets thrown out of the arena before he even does anything. That seems a bit unfair. Andre decides to mock the rope shaking, so Warrior hits him with three clotheslines and splashes him to retain at 0:30. Andre protests that the timekeeper never even rang the bell, but it falls on deaf ears. Nothing to it as a match, of course, but I’m glad they put one of these on a DVD for historical sake.

Intercontinental title: Ultimate Warrior v. Andre the Giant

From SNME, November 1989. This is pretty legendarily bad. You can actually re-enact this classic in the Warrior DLC for WWE 2K15 if you’d like. Andre chokes him out on the ropes and they actually edit the match to cut to the crowd! Are you fucking kidding me? Warrior comes back and misses a clothesline, landing on the floor. Back in, Andre works on a surfboard hold, but Warrior fights out and clotheslines him to the floor, and we take a break. Back with Andre finally crawling back into the ring, but Warrior goes to a bearhug until Andre escapes with a headbutt. Andre goes back to the corner and just totally ignores Warrior’s attempts at offense and then goes to his own bearhug, as he obviously wants no further part of this match. Warrior fights back and Andre cuts him off again, but Warrior ties him in the ropes and Bobby Heenan runs in for the DQ at 7:46. A giant mess, one of the worst matches in SNME history, as Andre wasn’t selling anything properly and Warrior had no idea what to do with him out there. -**

Disc Two

Onto the World champion era now.

Warrior was in Stamford doing some stuff when Vince presented him with the idea of doing the Wrestlemania match with Hogan.

Ultimate Warrior v. Mr. Perfect

From MSG, March 1990. Non-title match, apparently. Hennig tries to interrupt Warrior’s entrance and ends up taking a stunt bump over the top as a result. Perfect tries to match strength and goes flying again, and Warrior drags him around the ring by the hair and ragdolls him. Random note: Who seriously thought that a commentary team of Gorilla Monsoon, Hillbilly Jim and Lord Alfred Hayes was something that should happen? Perfect gets a cheapshot and blocks the splash with the knees to take over. He gets some heat on Warrior on the ropes, but Warrior slingshots in with a sunset flip for two. Perfect goes back to working Warrior over with a lengthy rear chinlock. Warrior fights out and hits his clotheslines before finishing with the press slam and splash at 10:03. They couldn’t have been phoning this one in any more without actually paying two other guys to wrestle the match for them. *

Warrior talks about the Hogan match and annoying Vince by running to the ring instead of riding the cart.

WWF World title v. Intercontinental title: Hulk Hogan v. Ultimate Warrior

The heat for this is UNREAL, with the crowd divided 50/50. Staredown to start and they do the shoving match, and then the lockup, which Warrior wins to start. Another lockup, and Hogan wins that one. The crowd is popping for everything. Warrior wants a test of strength, so they do that, and Warrior gets the advantage, but Hulk fights up from one knee and powers him down again. Warrior fights it off, so Hogan legsweeps him and drops an elbow for one. They do the CRISS-CROSS OF DOOM and Hogan slams him, but Warrior no-sells it. So they try it again, and this time Warrior slams him, and Hogan stays down. Clothesline to the floor, and Hogan whines to Hebner about hurting his knee. Hulk Hogan: Bumping Maniac. The selling is Oscar-worthy material. Warrior smartly goes right after the knee, as Hogan bravely fights off the fake pain and they head back in. Warrior goes for the knee, but Hogan rakes the face to hold him off, and they choke each other as the knee injury disappears for good. Hogan slugs Warrior from behind and clotheslines him in the corner, then hammers away on him. Hogan drops a pair of elbows for two. Front facelock, as Warrior is now blown up and Hogan has to carry the match. Let me repeat that: HOGAN has to CARRY a match. He gets the small package for two and hits the chinlock. He hammers on Warrior while down there, and then slugs away in the corner and chops him down. Axe Bomber gets two. Shoulderbreaker gets two. Back to the chinlock, as Warrior is sucking wind. Hogan works on the back and gets a backdrop suplex for two. Back to the chinlock, as we wait patiently for Warrior to join us back in the world of oxygen-breathing mammals again. Warrior fights out with elbows and they clothesline each other and both guys are out. Warrior is the first up, as he shakes the ropes to recharge his batteries, and Hogan is FLUMMOXED. Warrior slugs away on him and gets the THREE CLOTHESLINES OF DEATH and some chops in the corner, and Hogan is begging for mercy. Suplex gets two. Guess he’s feeling better. And now it’s bearhug time. But man, once you’re not watching it live with a coliseum full of people on closed-circuit TV, the drama is reduced a lot. Ref is bumped on another criss-cross, and Warrior goes AERIAL, baby, hitting Hogan with a double axehandle. He misses a shoulderblock, however, and Hogan faceplants him, but there’s no ref. Warrior recovers with a backdrop suplex, and the ref is still out. Man, criss-crosses are a hazard to referees everywhere. The ref finally recovers and Warrior gets two. Hogan gets a rollup for two. Hogan slugs away and elbows him out of the ring, and they brawl outside. I was getting visions of a double-countout at this point in 1990, but it just ends with Hogan hitting the post as they head back into the ring. Warrior hits him with a clothesline and botches the gorilla slam (I mean, how do you screw that up?) and the big splash gets two, as it’s Hulk Up Time. Punch punch punch, big boot…but the legdrop misses, and Warrior splashes him for the pin and both titles at 22:46. I can actually appreciate Hogan’s efforts in carrying, and really the rest spots don’t hurt it that much compared to the awesome drama of Pat Patterson’s intricately booked spots here. And after all these years it's still one of my personal favorite matches of all-time, regardless of the star rating. ***1/2

Warrior thought it was neat to see how far he could push himself on the road while touring with the title. Here’s a randomly nerdy note: The clips between the matches are all done 16x9 instead of the original 4x3, but the ones backstage at WM6 look like they opened up the frame on the sides instead of their usual cropping. I don’t think that would be the case because they wouldn’t be shooting film, obviously, and they definitely didn’t compose for widescreen until 2009.

WWF World title: Ultimate Warrior v. Ted Dibiase

From the Tokyo Dome, April 1990. Now where is THIS show on the Network? I’ve never seen the whole thing and I’d love to because it’s such an oddity, mixing New Japan and All Japan guys. Attendance was 53,000, but with exchange rate it was closer to 70,000. This was on a previous Coliseum video but I forget if I’ve reviewed it before. Warrior puts Dibiase on the floor and throws him around the ring to start, but Dibiase takes over with a cheapshot and gets a clothesline for two. The crowd is of course completely behind Dibiase, cheering along with every punch. Dibiase with a snapmare and fistdrop, and a suplex gets two. Piledriver gets two. Warrior comes back with the press slam and splash to finish at 6:10. Whole lot of nothing here. *1/2

WWF World title: Ultimate Warrior v. Rick Rude

From SNME, July 1990. I didn’t like this match on my first review, so we’ll see how it holds up. Rude attacks and Warrior whips him around the ring and clotheslines him to the floor, then sends him back in for a clothesline that Rude sells like death. Warrior to the top with a flying axehandle, but the splash misses and Rude grabs the belt and nails Warrior with it to take over. Back in, Rude goes up and gets caught and Warrior tries a corner clothesline, but misses that. Rude takes over again, but Warrior blocks a slam attempt and Rude tries a sleeper instead. We get the weird deal where the ref checks Warrior’s leg and he fights out at two, so Rude drops elbows on Warrior’s neck and tries the Rude Awakening. Warrior blocks it and fights back, but Rude gets it on a second try and gets two. Warrior makes the comeback with the shoulderblock and splash, but Bobby Heenan breaks up the count and Warrior beats on him outside. Rude saves his manager and Warrior presses him onto the floor, then beats up Heenan in the ring and wins by countout at 9:43. This was supposed to make us want to see the cage match at Summerslam? No wonder his title reign was such a flop. Good, fast-paced match that I enjoyed way more here. ***

WWF World title: Ultimate Warrior v. Ted Dibiase.

From The Main Event #4, November 1990. Warrior was tanking badly as champion by November and a title change was imminent, while Dibiase was a non-factor by this point and was reduced to feuding with his own hired help by Wrestlemania VII, so that shows you how well this one was destined to do. Warrior powers Dibiase into the corner to start, but he slugs back, so Warrior dumps him with a clothesline. Back in, Warrior clotheslines him off the top and slugs away in the corner. Blind charge hits knee, however, and Dibiase takes over with the middle rope elbow. Piledriver gets two. Another is reversed and Warrior shoulderblocks him down, but gets dumped. We take a break and return with Dibiase dropping a fist for two. He grabs a side headlock, and clotheslines Warrior down. Warrior comes back with a backslide for two, but Dibiase suplexes him for two. Another is reversed to a sunset flip for two by Warrior, and Dibiase tosses him. Back in, Warrior reverses a suplex and starts no-selling, and they collide for the double KO. Warrior recovers and comes back with some rope-shaking, and the clotheslines and shoulderblocks follow, so Virgil runs in for the DQ at 9:50. Pretty energetic effort from Dibiase here. ***

WWF World title: Ultimate Warrior v. Sgt. Slaughter

No talking head from Warrior about the whole Iraq angle? You’d think he would be ALL OVER that shit. This is from a Superstars taping in January 1991, not the Royal Rumble match. I guess they didn’t want the Warrior loss on the set, because they’re weird like that. Slaughter pounds away in the corner to start, but Warrior chases him out of the ring and slingshots him back in. Slaughter takes his trademark bump to the floor and Warrior chops away in the corner, but he misses a blind charge and hits the floor himself. It’s like rain on your wedding day. A free ride when you’ve already paid. Back in, Slaughter pounds away in the corner, but Warrior comes back with a backdrop that nearly misses completely due to Slaughter not being able to flip over for it. Warrior catapults him into the post, but Slaughter gets a neckbreaker for two and a backbreaker for two. Slaughter drops elbows on the back, clearly blown up at this point, and gets two. Slaughter with the camel clutch, but Warrior is in the ropes and makes the comeback. Shoulderblock and splash finish at 9:22 to retain. Kind of a dull mess that mostly seemed like a walkthrough for their PPV match. **

Disc Three

OK, Warrior finally talks about the Slaughter deal here. He liked the retirement match angle and didn’t give it much more concern.

Cage match: Ultimate Warrior v. Randy Savage

From MSG, March 1991. Warrior goes crazy and beats on Savage all over the floor and then sends him into the cage and beats on him some more. Finally Savage sends him into the cage in desperation, and that puts him down. They collide off a clothesline and Savage gets two, but Warrior fights back until Savage runs him into the cage again. Savage pounds on him and goes up with the big elbow, but Warrior tosses him off at two and makes the comeback. Big splash hits knee, however, and Savage climbs out of the cage, only to be foiled by Warrior grabbing a handful of hair. That’s a dubious gameplan at this point in Savage’s career. Sherri decides to run in and help, so Warrior drops Savage and goes after her instead, giving Savage the win at 10:35. Well Warrior owed him a bunch of jobs anyway. This was pretty cookie cutter for them, but totally fine. **1/4 And then Warrior puts an epic beatdown on Savage in the cage until the Nasty Boys run in and make the save, trying to calm him down. Finally Sherri gets back in the ring, hits Warrior with the scepter, and gets Savage the hell out of there. And then Warrior beats the hell out of HER, too. What a maniac.

Brother Love interviews the Ultimate Warrior, March 1991. Brother Love thinks that Warrior is just a has been, so Warrior puts an end to the Brother Love Show and destroys his set, then grabs the fleeing Love and chases him to the ring, beating him to a pulp and sending him into (nearly) permanent retirement as a character. Poor Bruce just got MURDERED with clotheslines here. And with that, the Funeral Parlor replaced Brother Love. After three years it was time to kill off the character anyway.

Retirement match: Randy Savage v. Ultimate Warrior

From Wrestlemania VII, of course. Hey, isn't that the lovely Elizabeth at ringside? More importantly, who's her date? Man, that guy is about to get cock-blocked in the worst way. Warrior's entrance is pretty reserved as compared to his usual, which was kind of the point. Savage goes with the cheapshot to start and pounds away, but Warrior puts him down with a shoulderblock and follows with a clothesline. Warrior chokes him down and gets an atomic drop from both ways, then tosses Savage into Sherri before slugging Savage down again. Macho gets tied in the ropes, but gets free and puts Warrior down with the hooking clothesline, then goes up with the flying bodypress, but Warrior catches him and sets him down to really egg him on. Oooo, BURN. Savage gets frustrated and tosses a chair in for the distraction, then blindsides Warrior, but Warrior calmly pounds him down and stomps a mudhole in the corner. Blind charge misses, however, and Warrior hits the floor, giving Sherri a chance to torment him. Savage follows with a flying axehandle to the floor, and sends Warrior into the post. Another shot from Sherri and they head back in for a Savage kneedrop that gets two. Warrior gets a backslide for two and Gorilla informs us "we've just been informed that this is the largest audience in the history of pay-per-view". Really? In the middle of the show they got those numbers? Warrior tries the flying shoulderblock, but Savage moves and gets two. That was a weak spot, actually. Savage goes to a sleeper, but Warrior fights out of it and they criss-cross into the double-clothesline. Warrior reverses a slam into the small package, but the ref is distracted by Sherri and it only gets two. Ref is bumped and Sherri gets more directly involved, but hits Savage with her shoe by mistake. Warrior goes after her, allowing Savage to get a rollup for two. Warrior slugs him down, but Savage sends him into the turnbuckles and it's looking bad for Warrior. Slam gets two and Savage drops the big elbow, then gets really dramatic and drops FOUR MORE of them. You'd think that would do it, but it only gets two. Warrior powers up and makes the comeback with the three clotheslines and gorilla press, but the big splash only gets two. Maybe he should have done FIVE of them like Savage did. Warrior appeals to the gods for help, or maybe just the photographer in the rafters, who knows with this guy. No answer is forthcoming so he decides to walk out of the match and think it over, but Savage makes the decision for him and attacks. Savage tries to drop an axehandle onto the Warrior's throat ala Ricky Steamboat, but he misses and splatters himself on the railing. And Warrior apparently has his message (perhaps God had voice mail and was just on another call at the time) because he heads back in and spears Savage out of the ring. Back in, second verse same as the first. One last shoulderblock and Savage is retired (with a bazillion more World titles yet to come) at 20:45. Still awesome, although the occasional goofed up spot and slightly anti-climactic ending leave it well short of perfection. ****1/2

And of course, Machiavellian Sherri attacks her former meal ticket afterwards like Lady Macbeth, leaving Elizabeth to make the unlikely save, finally getting physically involved on behalf of Savage after years of being the distraction and nothing more. And so they are reunited again and would have been the happy ending to Savage's career, had it actually been the ending. The retirement proved to be pretty inconvenient because suddenly Savage was the #2 babyface in the promotion again and could have easily carried the belt. Anyway, I think I have dust in my eye, let's move on…

Warrior talks about his program with Undertaker and how people were going nuts for Undertaker, which worried Mark Callaway because he was supposed to be the heel.

The Funeral Parlor with Ultimate Warrior, as Warrior insists that he’s not scared of Undertaker or the creepy Warrior casket with his paint on it, which prompts Undertaker to pop out of another casket and attack Warrior. And then he locks Warrior in the Warrior-themed casket and seals the lid, and that’s…pretty squicky. Especially considering Warrior was dead shortly before this was released. I think I might have deleted this segment from the DVD if I was them. They’ve delayed DVD releases before for far stupider reasons. Anyway, we get the awesome braintrust of Rene Goulet, Tony Garea and Jack Lanza trying to open the casket with a crowbar and chisel and failing spectacularly. Were I trapped in an airtight container with two minutes to live, that would not be the team of experts I would want rescuing me. Anyway, they finally break in and Warrior is unconscious after trying to claw his way out. Hebner tries to give him CPR and Warrior revives. OK, this is very, very wrong to watch for so many reasons and definitely should have been taken off.

The Undertaker v. Ultimate Warrior

From Toronto, June 1991. Warrior clotheslines Taker to the floor, but gets necksnapped from the apron. Taker casually grabs him in a smother hold and that goes on forfuckingever. Taker misses an elbow but doesn’t sell anyway, and Warrior makes the comeback while Taker sits up after every clothesline and then catches Warrior with the tombstone for two. Undertaker gets frustrated and grabs the urn for the DQ at 7:50. Undertaker was such a unique and bizarre character for the time. And then we get ANOTHER uncomfortable bit, as Taker seals Warrior into a body bag until he fights out and sends Taker back to the dressing room. DUD They should have left this one off because it SUCKED.

Warrior talks about the big return at WM8 and how fun it was. Kind of skipped over a pretty important piece of the story there, no?

Macho Man and Warrior have an interview showdown leading up to their Summerslam match…which isn’t on this set. Admittedly three Macho Man v. Warrior matches on this DVD might be enough, but that match was one of the best they ever had! Anyway, Ric Flair comes to the ring and gets the line of the DVD set (“I’ve been beating up guys in face paint since you were in diapers! I specialize in it!”) Savage charges in and gets beat up by Perfect and Flair, and Warrior saves…but he gets a Gollum-like look in his eyes when he sees the belt on the mat and that triggers a fight between them.

Warrior talks about how he was going to get the title back again, but, you know, stuff happened. Warrior doesn’t know where the Survivor Series thing was supposed to go because he left and didn’t care what happened after that.

WWF World tag team titles: Money Inc. v. Randy Savage & Ultimate Warrior

Big brawl to start and the, ahem, Ultimate Maniacs clean house and toss the champions twice. This gives Bobby a chance to work in a lame telestrator joke, and we're back with Savage getting two on Dibiase. Necksnap and it's over to the Warrior as the canned crowd noise is REALLY obnoxious here, like something from the early 80s. I mean, the crowd isn't even MOVING and yet the sound is off the charts. Warrior suplexes Dibiase for two, but misses a shoulderblock and lands on the mat. IRS comes in with a sleeper to take advantage, which gives us a chance to hear from Razor Ramon and Ric Flair backstage, as they hype Survivor Series. So they're using the tag champions to warm up the babyfaces for another team. That's swell. Dibiase comes in and gets the Million Dollar Dream, but Savage breaks it up with a knee to the back. Warrior and Dibiase clothesline each other, but it's hot tag Savage. And now at least the crowd is excited to see him for real. Clotheslines for Money Inc and he drops the big elbow on IRS, but Dibiase breaks it up and we're BONZO GONZO. Warrior dumps Dibiase with a clothesline and IRS goes out from an atomic drop, and they've had enough tonight and walk out at 6:10. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Ramon and Flair and Perfect beat the crap out of the Maniacs on the way back to the dressing room. They might as well have put this together from a store bought kit. **

So Warrior leaves again at that point and goes off to run a gym and his other business ventures. Years later, Vince tries to woo him again and Warrior gets a funny line about that (“So he sent me a contract that was the basic normal contract and I told him to F off or whatever I said at the time, and it’s always funny when I tell Vince to F off…”) but obviously they worked out the details.

Ultimate Warrior v. Hunter Hearst Helmsley

From Wrestlemania XII, as we jump ahead 4 years. You have to wonder if HHH would have as much of an inferiority complex as he ended up having if this hadn’t gone down the way it did. The story is pretty famous, as Hunter went to Warrior before the match and laid out all kinds of ideas and potential spots and Warrior completely shot him down and said they’d do a one minute squash, done deal. And Hunter carried a LOT of bitterness over that for a lot of years. And as promised, Hunter attacks and hits the Pedigree, but Warrior pops right up and squashes the shit out of him with the usual at 1:30.

Warrior claims that he didn’t care about getting the title back, which conflicts with what most others said at that point about how he was whining and wanting Vince to promise him the belt back around the time of his departure.

From RAW April 1996, Warrior returns and tells Goldust that he doesn’t give a shit about what Goldust is into.

From RAW June 1996, the infamous baseball cap promo where Jerry Lawler presents Warrior with a framed picture and breaks it over his head, then bitches about it on the first Warrior DVD because you couldn’t see the picture breaking properly with the cap in the way or some stupid shit. This feud was a huge waste of both guys.

Ultimate Warrior v. Jerry Lawler

From King of the Ring 96, a show we’ve all been trying to forget aside from one notable promo. I guess there’s not really much else you can choose from for his 1996 comeback. Lawler insults most of the front row on his way to the ring and attacks Warrior on the floor, then chokes him out with wrist tape. Piledriver is no-sold and Warrior comes back to finish Lawler with the usual at 3:35. DUD

I feel like they should have just stopped at 1992.

And now we’re off to WCW, as Warrior talks about Hogan talking him into making a deal to come there, and how the first night was electric and then they just had no ideas for him to follow up. Well, aside from Hogan getting his win back after 8 years, but then it’s not like they cared about anything else.

From Nitro, August 1998, Hulk Hogan cuts his usual promo about how he’s the greatest and no one can beat him, and that brings Warrior back from Parts Unknown to challenge him. Hogan’s “I thought you were dead!” is a nice touch. The crowd goes crazy for Warrior but this promo is WAAAAAY too long and he loses the crowd the longer it goes. And then it goes LONGER as Warrior’s words get bigger and bigger. Dude, this DVD is only three hours long, wrap it up already. I’ve seen New Japan PPV shows that were shorter than this promo. This makes the Authority look efficient and selfless with their RAW segments by comparison.

Warrior talks about how the only idea they had for him was to pin him, pay him, and had he known what a shitshow it would be, he never would have bothered.

From Nitro, October 1998, another Warrior promo, this one addressing the loss at Halloween Havoc. Unlike John Cena, he is quite angry at losing a big match and wants revenge. Sadly, he wouldn’t get it, because this was the end of his WCW run. The nWo comes out to confront him, but he beats them up by himself and that was that.

Warrior wraps things up, and notes that his full story is yet to come. One week after this DVD was released, he was dead of a heart attack at 54.

The Pulse

Well obviously this was worlds better than the Self Destruction DVD, although in this case they probably should have put the two Savage matches onto the first two DVDs in this set and just scrapped the third disc all together, because this one goes off a cliff after the retirement match. Still, it was an enjoyable watch and I didn’t regret sitting through it, so I’d call it recommended.

Comments

  1. The ref checking the Warriors leg in that sleeper spot is made doubly hilarious when Warrior sells the comeback by shaking his leg.

    That was quite the inexplicable title match too for those days, having them do 1/2 of the SummerSlam double main event a month ahead of the PPV. That's such a late 90s move.

    The show did as many buys as WM 6 anyway, so I guess it didn't really matter much -- that show was sold totally on the Hogan/EQ match.

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  2. Considering this set actually includes a squash match against the Brooklyn Brawler, what kind of shit is going to be on the next one?

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  3. FYI, the only streaming WWE material left on Netflix is two discs of a Falls Count Anywhere Set..

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  4. Jesse's rant about shooting someone outside the ring is my favourite ever Ventura moment

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  5. Hard to top his rant at Mania 6 about Sapphire and Dusty's combined weight or the Uncle Elmer wedding fiasco...

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  6. Savage and Warrior had crazy chemistry. Had they worked together in 98, I'd bet they'd bust out a *** match.

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  7. Maybe the absolute value of the star rating would be ***.

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  8. I seriously want to see Brooklyn Brawler get the WWE documentary treatment. Would be fascinating to see WWE through the eyes of a lifelong jobber.

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  9. It could probably feature every big name in the 80's and be a great nostalgia trip.

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  10. Yeah, this one had such messed-up timing, coming out right before he died. Though it's funny how he went from this demonic, selfish entity to this great guy as soon as he was back in Vince's good graces.

    The "Lawler/Hat" thing: Lawler said the hat was a dead giveaway that Warrior was going to be hit with something, and that Warrior only wore it to protect his head from the glass. THAT'S why Lawler was mad about it.

    The disastrous Warrior Title run was doomed to failure from the get-go: the company was running out of top heels (Savage & DiBiase were turned into midcarders by this point, with no credibility), and fed Earthquake to HOGAN instead of Warrior (I said years ago on here that they should have had it be a "Revenge Feud" with Warrior defending the injured Hogan against 'Quake- I stand by that being a MUCH better big Summer Feud). The only guy they had for him was fucking RICK RUDE, who both had no credibility in the Main Event, and was ALREADY BEATEN by Warrior last year.

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  11. I liked when the crowd chanted "Faggot!" at The Genius during the '90 Royal Rumble, and Ventura ad-libs "EXCELLENT show of support for Brutus Beefcake by the San Francisco crowd!"

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  12. Had Warrior defended Hogan by defeating EQ, they could have kept the respect thing going once Hogan returned in a deeper way and added some interesting layers with jealousy down the line.

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  13. Why on earth wouldn't Rude get to leave Warrior laying in a heap to set up the cage match? So very odd.

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  14. "Hey, isn't that the lovely Elizabeth at ringside? More importantly, who's her date? Man, that guy is about to get cock-blocked in the worst way." Laughed out loud here.

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  15. Kudos to Triple H for bringing Bruno Sammartino and the Ultimate Warrior back into the fold. I bet if he had more stroke in '08 or '09, Savage would have been brought back in before he died.

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  16. Hey, he might have sucked but he certainly did ok for himself. Gotta give credit where due.

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  17. The more I read about Chris Adams, the more he sounds like the biggest dick that ever dicked.

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  18. Warrior was kinda in the right to squash HHH. As Warrior said on some shoot I watched years ago, "It's not about you!". This was Warrior's big comeback and the match was about getting himself over after being gone for four years. HHH was still going to win KotR so stop whining and do your job.

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  19. The most real life heel ever?

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  20. As said, it does show a lot of great leadership ability on his part.

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  21. I was watching that Dibiase/Warripr match the other day and thinking Ted really seemed to be trying out to take the belt off Warrior.

    If Slaughter isn't around and you go Dibiase getting the belt, I would think with the history that doing Hogan vs Dibiase at mania would have worked.

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  22. It's true. I remember Sid had something similar to say on a shoot where he was in WCW and challenging for the world title on a PPV. He was in a tag match against Malenko and Benoit and Dean was telling him how he wanted to drop toe-hold him and do all these spots. Sid is like, "No, I'm challenging for the title. I'm going to beat you up a bit and then I'm going to beat him up (Benoit) and then powerbomb you for the pin."

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  23. It's true but the way Lawler said it on the DVD was like Warrior just urinated on the only cure for cancer and flushed it down the toilet.

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  24. It's amazing how we remember these small commentary moments and can't recall anything memorable the current announce team has said in years.

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  25. I was debating buying this set at Walmart since they had a huge wwe dvd sale going, but I went with the Mid South set instead since I've seen none of that footage before. I think I made the right call.

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  26. His brother Neil, however, is a bit of a hero of mine. Former World Judo Champion and arguably Great Britain's greatest ever.

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  27. Never heard of him (why would I have?) but that's pretty impressive.

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  28. Neil Adams? Didn't he draw Batman?

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  29. Did warrior ever blade? Has Sting? Now Ya got me thinking.

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  30. How was Warrior disrespecting jobbers? They know what their job is, right? If he's the champ, shouldn't he look like one? A lot of this just seems to be personal.

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  31. I think Scott have should have went 4 stars for the Summerslam 89' match. If for no other reason than the match featuring the greatest commentary of all time by Jesse Ventura. Seriously though an awesome match.

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  32. DiBiase was such an afterthought at that point. It have taken at least 3-6 months to build him back up as a credible Champion.

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  33. His rant after Hogan beat Savage at 5 is also incredible.

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  34. Warrior absolutely should have gotten the Quake feud, and imagine if Hogan put over Rude at SummerSlam.

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  35. Considering how sloppy he was in the ring, not sure I'd want Warrior to be my chiropractor...

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  36. He bled in TNA a couple of times.

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  37. Yes! Also love pretty much any Chico Santana match from Jesse and also from Bobby.


    Whenever I watch an old PPV on the network, if Jesse or Bobby or involved it is a much easier decision.

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  38. So if Macho had come crawling back and Warrior didn't, would Conner have gotten the "Macho Award" this year? I think I agree with the Justin Roberts blog post about this.

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  39. I remember that one time JBL said "They're having fun MAGGLE!"

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  40. Neither this, or the new DVD set includes Warrior's match with Savage at SummerSlam 1992. I find that kinda surprising, considering it's one of his best matches and the wembley setting makes it special.


    Is there a reason for such omission?

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  41. I dunno. Conner was a brave little boy...but did he have the MADNESS?!?

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  42. He was right about Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Savage's girlfriend so why in the hell was she in a neutral corner? Savage should have dropped an elbow on her right then and there.

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  43. That was a good day.

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  44. So apparently Vince is furious with Byron Saxton because of his commentary at RAW this past week. Saxton didn't grab that brass ring. Kinda unfair since the guy had to do commentary by himself without any prep.

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  45. He probably had 3-4 minutes prep time when they finalized what they were doing that night

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  46. Maybe Warrior treated them like shit backstage, too. A lot of wrestlers were respectful to jobbers because they knew what they were doing for them. Maybe Warrior acted like an asshole and now he's realizing the favours they did.

    If you think about it, since Warrior was so inexperienced and clumsy, it wouldn't take much for an experienced jobber like Horowitz and Lombardi to make him look stupid, if they were inclined. But they were professionals and maybe Warrior didn't realize that.

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  47. Was that his first RAW? Probably pretty harrowing being out there by yourself, live, during the most important RAW of the year.

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  48. It specifically mentioned keeping the belt on and pinning them with one foot. If those are his crimes then that's stupid. If he was disrespectful backstage then that's a different claim.

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  49. Shouldn't he have been prepared either way? It's like the backup qb not knowing the playbook.

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  50. You're right, that is dumb. I've seen Big Boss Man pin jobbers with just his fingers after his finisher.

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  51. And Don Muraco ate a sandwich while destroying another jobber!

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  52. Yeah, but his coach is Vince McMahon, who seems to re-write said playbook on an hourly basis.

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  53. Let's not talk about the Steiners. Not sure why jobbers would even bother. That 500 bucks couldn't have been worth it.

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  54. Heenan said he didn't take of him while doing moves and hurt his back pretty bad, maybe he just stiffed people he didn't see as equals?

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  55. "Whatever terrible music they were using is clearly overdubbed here."

    IIRC, the original was "Fight For Your Right" by the Beastie Boys.

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  56. I'm sure he was just parroting whatever Vince told him in the headphones. I really just wish Vince would put himself back on commentary if micromanaging the announcers is such a big deal to him. I feel for Saxton, it's awful hard to talk about wrestling when you can't actually talk about wrestling.

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  57. Can't see Sting or Warrior being into rap. Guess it fit the gimmick though

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  58. I'm sure even at 69 and half senile Vince would still be a damn sight better on commentary than the usual bunch of muppets

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  59. I was definitely more of a Warrior guy than a Hogan guy by 89-90. Seems that he had the same issue is ex partner Sting had in WCW at the same time. Once they got the belt, the company didn't have any hot feuds or challengers for them.

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  60. I'll put this here since there's no daily thread, but Barrett confirmed that he had to stop doing his bad news bit because it was getting popular.

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  61. I'm split. On the one hand that sucks because BNB was friggin' awesome. On the other hand, if they want him to be a heel and he's doing stuff that gets cheered, it makes sense to not do that stuff. Heels aren't meant to be cheered. Of course the simple solution is to turn him face because clearly he's connecting with the audience, and as Barrett has never been a face in the WWE before there's much more for him to do/people he can face on the other side.


    Course, now that Lesnar's a face maybe face Lesnar vs heel Barrett could headline a B PPV. Bullhammer vs F5 writes itself. And Barrett's bare-knuckle experiences could be used for some dynamite Paul Heyman promos.


    BARRETT: In UFC, Brock, there's rules. Where I fought, there were no rules.

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  62. The smart thing to do would've been just turn him face.

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  63. Joey Styles could do solo commentary, and even he got annoying as fuck after a while. Commentators need someone to play off, otherwise there's no push or challenging the stupid shit someone says. Vince is an idiot for sending a guy out there, on his first Raw, solo. JR in his heyday couldn't do a Raw solo.

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  64. Vince went back to commentary for an Old School Raw with Ventura. Ventura destroyed him on commentary quality wise. Vince is long past his 'prime' announcing wise.

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  65. I agree. But if they want him heel, he should be a heel. Not a 'cool heel.'

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  66. In a weird "the South is Bizarro World" way because they were obnoxious punks who listened to the jungle music. Anywhere else and they'd be hard-partyin' rebels.

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  67. No offense, but I don't understand your hangups about cool heels.

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  68. They tend to undermine faces that are developing.

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  69. He's a really charismatic guy, he makes way more sense as a face.

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  70. That's one of the things I noticed about 2014. Whenever they were presented a choice to go down one of two roads, they picked the wrong one *every single time* with the exception of the one time the crowd dragged them kicking and screaming into a good decision. I don't know that I've seen anything like last year.

    Bad News Barrett is a great example. He was getting REALLY over for the first time since the Nexus. The crowd was buying into the catchphrase, but then they bring him back as a heel.

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  71. The obvious solution there is to stop making dull good guys.

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  72. That's true also. But the face shouldn't have to be pitted against a heel that's actively trying to steal face pops.

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  73. Pugnacious Saxton: "Book a more interesting show and I'll give you more interesting commentary, bitch."

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  74. In WWE they don't do the smart thing.

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  75. The New Breed used to come out to that same song. That alone was enough to make them my second favorite tag team back in those days.

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  76. THOSE EYES RIGHT THERE LUST MY TOYS!

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  77. Not even that, just let him keep being heel. WWE shouldn't care if it is getting him cheered.

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  78. They probably edited it out of the commentary cause it wasn't PG. Can't have Jesse talking about shooting people.

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  79. Seems like wrestling is to bodybuilding what porn is to stripping/modeling.

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  80. That heels who pander to the crowd with catchphrases are the worst, because - as Jericho pointed out - they care more about making money on shitty merchandise than actually getting the crowd to boo them.

    It's why 'serious' Jericho was such a great heel. And made a shit-load of money. Because he gave a shit and didn't do any of the easy tricks to get cheap pops. He just focused on being someone the crowd could actually boo and - shock - as a result his heel run is lauded.

    It's why Kurt Angle struggled as a heel - when you're going out there and tearing down the house with 5-star matches and doing moonsaults and German Suplexes and shit... are people really going to boo you?

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  81. So being face or heel isn't supposed to matter as much anymore, but only if it doesn't matter as much in the carefully scripted way it's supposed to not matter as much. Got it.

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  82. I'm glad I seem to be immune from watching wrestling matches and being forced to think about the performers' real lives or who's dead from the match.

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  83. I'm glad you can find bizarre ways to feel superior to others.

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  84. Eh, in this case if it mimics reality and Warrior REALLY died trapped inside a coffin? I guess. An old guy with 30+ years of drugs in their system dropping dead from it? No problem with showing the Taker angle

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  85. It's not about superiority; it just seems like that would suck, having a moment of depression every time you watch any wrestling that's more than 5 years old.

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  86. Yeah but I'm talking about how just the presence of Percy Pringle apparently "really ups the depressing death factor of the match."

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  87. Less financially rewarding?

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  88. He's right. You can't watch anything on the Network now without tripping over someone who died. A silly sensationalistic wrestling angle done 25 years before his death being left on the DVD is not a big deal to me.

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  89. Hell, watch any match where Undertaker is managed by Paul Bearer: "It's a guy who's now dead, carrying an urn and talking about resting in peace! My depression!"

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  90. Crockett had NO IDEA what they had in the New Breed. Not they were the next Midnight Express by any means but man were they ahead of their time.

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  91. Not to mention the countless nobodies that Hawk and Animal flipped into their necks.

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  92. Well yeah, because it's another dead wrestler.

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  93. No, it was "Castle walls" by Styx. Trust me Scott, it is not terrible at all and gave them some dark aura to the team I think.

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  94. Right, which comes back to the point of I'm glad that I don't have the thing that makes some people instantly count all the dead people in a match from about 30 years ago and then declare it depressing. Couldn't watch any wrestling before like 2007.

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  95. I'm watching the Angle/Eddie mania deal the other day and they called it "the main event"

    Bet Triple H cried a little inside when that happened.

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  96. Scott, Honky Tonk Man was not champion for 18 months. He was champion for 14 months.

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  97. Not getting this one.

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  98. Then logic would say to turn him face.

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  99. Yeah. I mean if they allow it for Cena, why not everyone else?

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  100. Yes it would have worked, two years before, at Wrestlemania V, but that supposed Dibiase winning it instead of Savage at IV.

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  101. Angle struggled as a heel? The you suck chants were just imagined?

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  102. Jungle music?

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  103. Jesus, is the guy ever happy these days?

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  104. How people get into one thing and then meet some random person who drags them into the other. You hear a lot about pornstars who started out modeling and then their agent is like, "how about doing this girl on girl video?" and sends them down the rabbit hole.

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  105. They could have gone with someone like Owen Hart instead of HHH for Warrior to protect Hunter until KotR. By the way, that match was a bit wasted when they decided to job HHH to Bret weeks before.

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  106. I had it at 4 as well.

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  107. "Warrior hits him with a clothesline and botches the gorilla slam (I mean, how do you screw that up?)"


    Wrestle for thirty minutes and then try to hold a 300-pound man over your head for a couple seconds. Not as easy as it looks.

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  108. Only time it's ever really weird for me is if I'm watching something close to the time they died (Eddie in 2005, Warrior WM XXX weekend, etc.). Otherwise, I pretty much just take the attitude that it's a form of respect to their lives/career to just enjoy their work without thinking about all the gloomy stuff.

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  109. Yep. There were 30 or 40 sets on there a year ago but now that's the only one. And what a random choice as the only option. I assume it's because of the Network that they all disappeared?

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  110. Uh, no, Billy Graham quite clearly informed us that he's been champion for OVER TWO YEARRRS NOW, GORILLA MONSOON.

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  111. Really don't get their reluctance to push guys like Barrett and Cesaro after all this time who seem to have everything they're looking for in a main eventer.

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  112. I was in Hartford when the warrior came and te place went batshit crazy. It's to bad wcw screwed that up. Warrior should have beaten hogan and then aced Goldberg at starcade put him over and wcw would still be here today

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  113. I can usually look past that. It's a depressing thought, but I can still enjoy PPVs where a lot of the superstars are dead. I still love watching old Owen matches, even if it pains me a little that he died so young and so tragically. Same for Eddie.


    The only guy, as I've stated many times, that I still don't feel comfortable watching anymore even to this day is Benoit. I have nothing against anyone that can, but I still can't, personally.

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  114. "The story is pretty famous, as Hunter went to Warrior before the match and laid out all kinds of ideas and potential spots and Warrior completely shot him down and said they’d do a one minute squash, done deal."



    Huh. I'd never heard that story before. Doesn't surprise me in the least. Honestly, I love that match because Warrior just trounces him. It gets more entertaining for me as the years go by and Triple H's ego grows.

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  115. It's insane how WCW felt there was *nothing* they could do with Warrior after he lost to Hogan. Since the guy clearly didn't care about jobbing, why not, as Patrick writes below, put him in with Goldberg? Maybe not at Starcade, but Goldberg didn't even wrestle at WW3, so why not do it there? Total freak show match but people would have bought it. Hell, have him turn heel and join the nWo and fight Sting, it's the same old WCW shit but it still would've had people watching.

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  116. WWE, ladies and gentlemen!


    At least Barrett improved as a worker in general around the same time so he doesn't have to worry about relying on just that to get over. Unlike, say, Ken Kennedy when he was there.

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  117. Hell, imagine it booked like this:


    Both Goldberg and Warrior start doing weekly squashes on Nitro. Build them both up as unstoppable monsters (as Warrior was, back in the day).


    Then they meet somehow. Maybe Warrior's match immediately follows Goldberg's and Warrior comes out just as Goldberg is meeting.


    Build this up over a few more weeks and then bam. PPV match between these two unstoppable squash monsters.


    Naturally, Warrior loses in order to pass on the torch. I get the feeling he'd be okay with that, though who knows what his mind/ego was like back then.

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  118. Yeah i'm with you on that. Not to say I dont care per se I just dont feel fazed by it at all. But then again I dont really go back and watch a lot of the old stuff. I should search up a Benoit match on the Network and see how I feel.

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  119. Barrett and Cesaro should be in Kane and Show's spot.

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  120. Those were ambiguous though. All it took was Angle pointing at his opponent during it and now the chant is directed away from him and at the opponent.

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  121. Sting was saying Whoomp There It Is since way back.

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  122. Warrior / Savage was rumored for WW3, but Savage was still pretty injured and Bischoff couldn't think outside the "do what the WWF did" box.

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  123. He was right to be pissed, Saxton was awful. Should have been Rene Young and Corey Graves.

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  124. Was there an angle for these Heenan/Warrior weasel suit matches?

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  125. That's nuts. Just because Warrior was crazy over in Hartford doesn't mean he'd be over anywhere else that wasn't a WWE stronghold first.

    Really, WCW should have been more focused on Goldberg than anything else if you want them to still be in business.

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  126. No way, they were both awesome. Vince playing up being a snooty old curmudgeon and Jesse as the loudmouth agitator? I wish they had done the whole show.

    I bet a Twitter campaign to get Vince back on commentary for a week would be successful. Not like it takes a lot of convincing to get a McMahon on tv.

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  127. The Summerslam match was just put on Savage's bluray, maybe that's why?

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  128. Saxton was exactly like I expected. The guy had no real personality before, why would one flood suddenly through his robot veins during a live Raw broadcast? That's not how people work!

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  129. Is honky Tonk man in the hall of fame yet?

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  130. Aye, it's been said a billion times by fancier men than I, but Goldberg's title run from July to December 98 was a collossal waste and fuckup.

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  131. When the Undertaker dies (for realsies this time), how are we going to cope with all the Dead Man commentary I wonder, panic flowing through my veins at the thought. :/

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  132. Oh man, Animal gave some dude a clothesline. Dude hit the mat and folded like an accordion. Even Crockett gasped

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  133. Someone needs to steal Muraco's shtick. Besides The Rock of course. He was awesome in his day.

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  134. This reminds me of how Ricardo Rodriguez was once an extra in a porn flick
    http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lqz5avUzXc1qfjkvio2_500.jpg

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  135. I missed Kentucky/Wisconsin last night. It's going to be hard to pick Kentucky to win the whole thing in the future. While they play stifling defense, Wisconsin proved you can beat them with a well-executed game plan. Plus, for all the good work Calipari does with freshman (yes, even if they are McD's All-Americans), none of his teams can ever shoot. The only title Calipari has won came with a guy who's going to be the best NBA player for the next 10 years.

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  136. I think it was just warrior feuding with the heenan family.

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  137. Surprising. That phrase is money and he delivers it so well. They should just ride with it

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  138. They could have turned him face and have him deliver good news! #gimmickruined

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  139. Considering the only men who've said that are wrestling fans, how unfancy could you possibly be?

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  140. That whole wearing a cap thing was so stupid. Lawler makes it out to be some major point and really no one gave a shit and wouldn't even remember it today

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  141. RE: KOTR 96. The Taker/Mankind match Mero/Austin match and main event were decent, plus Owen on commentary. Promo though, what promo?

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  142. I like how your build is identical to that of Baron Corbin/Bull Dempsey. Although Warrior/Goldberg would have somehow been even worse

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  143. Bah, you got me. I'm actually an incredibly fancy man. I was trying to be humble. It's unlikely anyone fancier than me ever mentioned it.

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  144. You'll have to search for the title of the show because they don't ever list his name in shit. The description will be like "Eddie Guerrero vs Kurt Angle, Triple H defends his title, and more!"

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  145. Barrett gets hurt a lot and has had stretches of being not very interesting (not all his fault), but Cesaro is the mystery to me.

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  146. Yep, they really mismanaged the heel side of the roster from 89-90. They definitely should have kept Savage and DiBiase stronger, but for some inexplicable reason, both guys were turned into midcarders. I guess it was to keep the middle of the house show cards strong, but when it came to PPV-level main event feuds, Warrior was really stranded.


    I think the late-80s collapse of the territory system really bit them in the behind here. With Hogan's initial monster run with the title in 84-88, there were literally dozens of heels out there with experience main eventing their respective territories. Guys like Kamala, Killer Khan, even Harley Race could be counted on to come in for a 2-3 match series with Hogan and be credible threats. In fact, Hogan's reign was built on monster-of-the-month type feuds. But by 1990, there were no more independents to raid and the WWF was stuck with guys on their roster who had been languishing in the midcard in the public eye for years.

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  147. Probably. But on this Warrior DVD full of squashes, you'd think they'd make a point to include a match like that. It's just another match for Savage, it's essiental for Warrior imo

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  148. June 2 1987- August 28 1988= 15 months.

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  149. Thanks for the correction.

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  150. Breaking News : Putin vs Mac Mahon in talks for WM XXII : http://31.media.tumblr.com/e0cd102c4a0055bfb8089ac17b99b521/tumblr_nb6w5fZQUh1trud11o1_400.gif

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  151. It would have been very interesting if Warrior had stuck around after Summerslam in 1991. Obviously, the plan was for him and Roberts to headline one-half of the house show circuit that fall, but who knows what would have followed. Would they have stretched it out to a WM blowoff? Probably not, considering even Savage-Roberts got short circuited before then. Maybe a return to the Undertaker feud and a definitive blowoff on SNME/PPV?


    The biggest question would have been whether Warrior would still have been the de facto #2 face behind Hogan or whether Sid would have overtaken him in that role. Fascinating considering the egos involved at the time. We've all heard the rumors about Sid being promised the WM main event when he signed the contract, so my guess is Sid would have been given the nod. That would not have sat well with Warrior, I bet. Alternatively, maybe Sid goes heel that much earlier in the leadup to Mania and Warrior remains the #2 face.

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  152. Who was the commentator for the match with Honky Tonk Man that wasn't Gorilla Monsoon? And wow, Honky did a lot in that....took a big bump on a clothesline that barely connected and turned 90 degrees so Warrior could properly splash him.

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  153. He doesn't want to be because the deal you have to sign would restrict his indy dates too much.

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  154. Superstar Billy Graham was the other commentator.

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  155. Interesting. If Warrior sticks around, does Savage stay retired? You'd have Hogan/Flair on the A-shows and some combination of Warrior/Sid/Undertaker/Jake on the B-shows. Would have been as simple as insetering Warrior into all of Savage's storylines? Or would Savage have come back anyway (he was happily retired and I believe wanted to stay that way)?


    Then maybe WrestleMania VIII ends with Savage being the one saving Hogan from a Sid/Shango beatdown and redoing the Mega-Powers handshake, which would actually be a more satisfying ending to that show.

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  156. Lawler was trashing the crowd on his way to the ring. I think that's what he's talking about.

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  157. Here's Meltzer's awesomely detailed recap of the promo: "Austin got the pin with the Stone Cold Stunner and did a strong post-match interview knocking Roberts religion and drinking problems."

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  158. Sometimes they do wierd things with the DVDs. When Foley's big set came out, he got the Over the Edge match with Austin. When Austin's came out, he got the match he and Foley did at Unforgiven the month before. You'd think they'd flip the order of those so that they who is being featured on the DVD is winning the match.


    Just last night I was watching Savage's Blu-Ray and he was losing A LOT of matches.

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  159. "OK, this is very, very wrong to watch for so many reasons and definitely should have been taken off"

    I feel bad for all the movies you'll skip where the character dies and the actor did later. :). Wrestling is fake bud

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  160. Warrior/Taker in the bodybag match follow up was much better (msg I believe)

    And does footage exist of andre punching warrior in the face? That needs to be shown

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  161. The Backlash description the following month is funnier. "Shawn Michaels and HHH challenge for the World Title!"

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  162. To be fair it's hard to hear the rest of the promo with those cash registers going.

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  163. Yeah, the one year he was thinking of accepting it he had a convention booked that weekend and he didn't believe in canceling that for something he can do down the line anyway.

    I'm sure he'll be in as soon as he's ready to ink the contract

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  164. The Bare Chested Brawl To End It All

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  165. He beat jobbers on the way to getting the belt, beat Hogan, and then went back to beating jobbers.

    The only PPVs he headlined as champion was vs DDP at Halloween Havoc and vs Nash at Starrcade. That was awful

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  166. Much like Magnum TA, who knows what they would have done if not for that car accident. I can imagine that they would have eventually gone to the WWF or ECW and gotten crazy over.

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  167. Like you wouldn't watch Sting come down to "The Message"

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  168. A very, very racist term for Black music.

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  169. I think it was as much as anything that the decision to put the belt on him was so last minute. I think Goldberg/Hogan was meant to be a non-title dark match at first. So after they decided to put the belt on him, they stuck to the regular plans for the rest of the year (Malone/Rodman, Leno, Warrior) and didn't bother adapting things even remotely to the fact that there was a new number 1 star.

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  170. What some older people call Rap when they want to degrade it. My uncle still calls it that.

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  171. He was also selling an atmosphere where he was subbing for announcers who were beaten savagely.

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  172. The downside of getting freshmen. Seniors with talent run their offense and don't freak out.

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  173. They knew exactly what they had in Magnum. He was being groomed for the NWA World Title.

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  174. Sure, it's not like they stopped production of Furious 7 when Paul Walker died or anything.

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  175. I'm still numb from the loss, but honestly, Wisconsin is a very solid team and played a better game in the closing minutes, so I'm not THAT bummed about it. The SEC was no a strong conference, so 38-0 is great, but if UK had played in the Big 10 or ACC this year they probably would've dropped a game or two. Calipari is a great recruiter and I love him as a coach due to his interaction with the Lexington community (especially charity work and getting players to work in the community), but the reliance on recruiting freshman is a problem as they do not get tangible experience.


    Also, as you note, UK has not had a strong core of shooters in a LONG time. The UK squads that won titles recently in 1996, 1998, and 2012 all had guys that could shoot the three (Tony Delk, Scott Padgett, Cameron Mills, Doron Lamb, and Darius Miller). If Jodie Meeks had returned in 2010, I think that team would've won a title because it was made up of guys that were primarily drivers to the basket and that killed the team against West Virginia in the Elite Eight.


    Finally, Calipari is not a good X's and O's coach. He is okay at making some adjustments, but he refuses to play a zone defense. I'd argue that staying in man-to-man cost UK a title last year because UConn struggled all year against zone defenses (see Louisville games they lost) but Cal wanted to play them man-to-man, which UConn's guards just ate up.


    Regardless of the loss, it was still a fun season. Getting to the Final Four is a great experience and it's tough to win 6 games for a title. I wish we were playing Duke tomorrow night, but UK never got into a rhythm after the Sweet Sixteen.

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  176. Yeah good thing that they cancelled the movie too so as not to upset anyone.

    On another note, will you be able to watch any other movie starring Paul Walker when he does? ;)

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  177. I didn't say they should cancel the DVD, I said they should have delayed it and removed the one specific segment where he was sealed into a casket.

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  178. To be fair, the WWF never would've been stupid enough to run Warrior/Sting vs. Hogan/Bret on free TV.

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