Howdy Blog O'Doomers!
Last night's PPV was all right I guess. I'm just frustrated that Orton-Cena haven't had that great, knockout match despite being dance partners on several occasions. We all know Cena has the goods and truth be told Orton has been a damn good worker over the past 3+ years. I was worried he'd go back to crap with the heel turn but he's had some solid outings over the past six months. Sometimes two guys just can't get past a certain level no matter how hard they try.
Anyway for this Monday we'll go back to a Royal Rumble and today it's the 1994 edition which ends in dispute (of course). I would tell you more but I've never really seen this Rumble so I'm going to watch it with you. Enjoy about 10 minutes of silliness known as the Undertaker-Yokozuna casket match and then enjoy the 1994 Rumble.
Last night's PPV was all right I guess. I'm just frustrated that Orton-Cena haven't had that great, knockout match despite being dance partners on several occasions. We all know Cena has the goods and truth be told Orton has been a damn good worker over the past 3+ years. I was worried he'd go back to crap with the heel turn but he's had some solid outings over the past six months. Sometimes two guys just can't get past a certain level no matter how hard they try.
Anyway for this Monday we'll go back to a Royal Rumble and today it's the 1994 edition which ends in dispute (of course). I would tell you more but I've never really seen this Rumble so I'm going to watch it with you. Enjoy about 10 minutes of silliness known as the Undertaker-Yokozuna casket match and then enjoy the 1994 Rumble.
Were PPV's on Saturday's back in the day?
ReplyDeletePay Per Views didn't become 'standard' Sunday shows until about 1995. Before then, it was common to have stuff like SummerSlam '94 on a Monday, or Beach Blast '92 on a Saturday.
ReplyDeleteEven post 1995, there were odd non-Sunday shows. The first Souled Out was on a Saturday, for example.
That's a lot of color and variety of tights in that ring. So much easier when everyone wears black trunks.
ReplyDeleteMan, Nash's facial expressions are perfect. Slow worker, but definitely "gets it".
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't commonplace, but non-Sunday PPVs were a thing. Even Survivor Series was on Wednesday, since it was always on Thanksgiving Eve, up through the '94 edition.
ReplyDeleteDisagree massively. Yeah, the wild neons of the early 90's were a bit much, but it was the early 90's, everything was like that back then. When you think of Savage,m Hogan, Warrior, Perfect, Bret, Flair, Steamboat, Rude, Undertaker, Sting, Cactus Jack, RnRs, Midnights, Demolition etc., do you think "well they look ridiculous, if only they were wearing plain black tights & boots so I could take them seriously"?. Individuality >>>> everyone dressing like Austin.
ReplyDeleteI really think the issue with Orton and Cena is that they are almost always put in gimmick matches against each other and they always put the gimmick above the match. Last night I saw all the same problems I saw in their Iron Man match, for every move one would execute, he would spend the next five minutes opening up a table, cramming a chair in the turnbuckle, or positioning a ladder. It's terribly boring. It's as though every time Cena and Orton meet, they stop being wrestlers and become a comic strip hero/villain pairing. The pyrotechnics spot from their Iron Man match (which I believe to be the stupidest spot I've ever seen in a professional wrestling match) basically represents their entire dynamic.
ReplyDeleteI think Mick may have been joking... as it's been a common complaint on the Blog for a while... the homogenization at whatnot.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, when Providence, Rhode Island made so much of the 90s happen by responding to the namesake Diesel Push in the RR.
ReplyDeleteI thought SurSer was on Thanksgiving itself, because Starrcade started out as a Thanksgiving day tradition.
ReplyDeleteWas that Headshrinker-head-caught-in-rope spot a botch? Steiners sure reacted like the expected him to go out of the ring.
ReplyDeleteLol I just read a review off TLC on 411 that gave Orton vs cena 4 stars! That's the only match from the ppv last night I saw but I must have a had a real bad stream that made me miss some major chunks of that match.
ReplyDeleteNah, most on here are in the 3* range.
ReplyDeleteIve seen like a half dozen posts today where any reply missed the scarcasim.
ReplyDelete411, from the articles to the contrarian corner that is the comment section, is worthless.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was three stars
ReplyDeleteI just watched summerslam 90 and they were saying it was on a Monday
ReplyDeleteD'oh! I should pay more attention.
ReplyDeleteMinus the Diesel segment, this is a pretty crummy Rumble. Too much punchy kicky and lying around, and no real unique or memorable spots except the ending, which is unique and memorable for stupid reasons.
ReplyDeleteHeadshrinker in Final Four is memorably funny.
ReplyDeleteRikishi, Luger, Hart, Michaels....not a terrible Final 4 at all of their peaks.
ReplyDeleteThe first Sunday Wrestlemania was Wrestlemania IV. Before that they were Monday Night events.
ReplyDeleteHell Survivor Series was actually held on Thanksgiving the first 2-3 years.
1991 Rumble was Saturday for sure. Maybe 1993 and 1994.
HogWild was a Saturday show too wasn't it?
I think Saturday is actually the better PPV days but the competition with UFC and Boxing would force the WWE into certain dates they might not want.
I know people hate the Undertaker-Yoko segment, but I don't mind it. It made sense for the Undertaker's character and was an effective way to write him out.
ReplyDeleteWatching this Rumble is depressing after watching 1989-1992. The company looks so low-rent compared to just two years earlier it's scary.
ReplyDeleteI don't hate it at all...I bask in the silliness of the whole thing. Makes me laugh.
ReplyDelete411 is the asshole of the IWC, anatomically-speaking.
ReplyDeleteOnly WM 2 wasn't on a Sunday
ReplyDeleteSometimes two guys don't have the level of chemistry you wish they would have in the ring.
ReplyDeleteHell, I spent all of 2000 and the first part of 2001 waiting for HHH and Angle to have that classic match to end their slow-burn feud, and it never happened. We never got more than a *** match out of a feud that deserved a ***** match.
It happens. I honestly believe both Cena and Orton would be able to put on the kind of dramatic war the feud calls for in a non PG era. These half-way hardcore matches the WWE tries to put on now feel like watching the tv-edit of Scarface.
The best match they had was their I Quit match, which was basically torture porn for 25 minutes, but had a great story, creative spots, a level of cruelty and brutality that made even the most cynical fans start to feel sympathetic towards Cena.... or if you're like me, just made you love the psychotic Orton character more for how outside the vanilla, PG box it was at the time.
I didn't really hate that spot as much as a lot of people did, because when I saw it, it was kind of a house party type setting and the volume was off. It was just on in the background.
ReplyDeleteWithout the STUPID announcing claiming Orton was trying to KILL Cena, it just looked like Orton was trying to burn or severely hurt him... which was kind of the whole point of the match. The idea that Orton would think to use that as a weapon felt clever and insidious, not stupid and corny as it came off with the bad announcing over top of it. It reinforced a) Orton is a sociopath and b) he's willing to do anything to keep his title.
Which is exactly what you want a spot to reinforce for your vicious heel character.
I agree on both counts...I was expected one of those Angle-HHH matches to be "Best of Decade" quality given how good both of them were. In the Summerslam match Angle got concussed right?
ReplyDeleteWrestlemania was a Monday Night as well.
ReplyDeleteSame here. I will say that the Rumble 1998 ending was way better.
ReplyDeleteI loved the whole bit too as it did fit Undertaker's character, just hated the urn spilling thing and Undertaker's soliloquy at the end.The only problem I had with it that Yoko was suppose to be a 600 pound monster, the angle would have been better served for a Honky Tonk type character.
ReplyDeleteBam Bam should have been in the final four as he had a good showing in the match and had more credibility than Fatu.
ReplyDeleteMy sister hates wrestling, but for some reason watched some of the show with me when it originally aired and even she became a huge Nash mark based on his performance and probably developed a crush on him too based on his facial expressions.
ReplyDeleteYep.
ReplyDeletePretty good Rumble, in spite of (or maybe because of) the shorter times. It allowed for less dramatic Longevity Runs, but kept guys from doing the Lazy Lean for too long as well. The whole Mass of Bodies thing (when they just keep building the number of guys in the ring) was kind of out of hand, as they built it up for so long with the wrong guys (Sparky & Mo should have been gone, and other later heels should have been in), but led to a nice image at the end.
ReplyDeleteToo much Lazy Leaning in parts held it down, but we had the CLASSIC Diesel Push, which conveniently split up the booking periods into quarters (pre-Diesel, Diesel's run, Post-Diesel, Mass of Bodies run). Only a couple legit winners in it (the two that won, obviously), but that was lessened by some of the stories going on here, and the handiness of having the 1/3 quotient of jobbers required to have good elimination runs.
http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/monthly.html?year=1985&month=3&country=1
ReplyDeleteMarch 31
Yeah, even 1993 was a HUGE drop off from 1992. Definitely the beginning of the "Dark Ages" period.
ReplyDelete'Lazy Lean' is great terminology. Stealing it! I've always wanted a phrase, or tidy adjective, which adequately describes the dead spots in the Rumble where nothing much is happening and competitors are just brawling and trying to avert elimination. Loads of good Rumbles are ruined by extended periods where a bunch of jobbers are clutching ropes and being fake punched by people bigger than them.
ReplyDeleteAs a side point, this is why I've always rated the 2010 RR very highly - it's just so action packed and full of miniature story arcs. There's always something of note going on in the ring and every single little bit of business is worth watching for some reason or other.
The Rumble is always a good indicator of the overall level of talent in the company, and/or the state thereof. If you look at the worst Rumbles, you can see the company was in trouble at those points. That WWE are looking outside the roster to fill the lineup for 2014 speaks volumes...
ReplyDelete10 guys could barely get 1 guy in a casket and it's somehow not stupid?
ReplyDeleteI guess that's not true all the time, at least if we are talking about the state of the company. the Rumbles of 1998 and 1999 aren't particularly strong but the company was a. already heading in the right direction with full speed (98) and b. doing amazing business (99)
ReplyDeletethe Diesel segment is totally awesome though. there is a reason why they have ripped it off almost every year since.
ReplyDeleteAnd because she could recognize him in an airport, yes?
ReplyDeleteWell, he WAS a zombie.
ReplyDeleteEverybody remembers on the 10-on-1 beatdown, which is understandable. But it's good little match before that. Yoko and Taker had chemistry, and Yoko could still go at that point.
ReplyDeleteNot a shock, they were BSK guys
ReplyDeleteMy memory is pretty hazy but I think the head-caught-in-rope thing was a regular spot the Headshrinkers normally did.
ReplyDeleteLOL- thanks. I came up with "Lazy Lean" a few years when I did a series of Rumble reviews on another forum I go to. It seemed a much better shortening that when reviews have to talk about guys just leaning on the ropes trying to get each other out, but not really doing any actual work.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading in the dirtsheets once about how Patterson always booked a guy (or two) who was in the doghouse about his conditioning to go for a weirdly long run in the Rumble, partially as a rib and partially to send a message. I have to believe that Mo was an example of this...that guy was half-winded just getting to the ring and he was booked to last a half-hour??
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, it's a bit loose and may not apply all the time, but I think there's some correlation there. Also, I did put and/or for a reason - but even then, I less meant as an indication of how well a company was doing fiscally, more the quality of the company.
ReplyDelete99 is a great example of the point I was making, actually - the Rumble is completely bereft of legit contenders and booked absolutely horribly. It demonstrates just how weak the roster was at the time, and just how out of control Russo's booking was, and how his booking was hurting the product as a whole.
A week ago I would not have understood what that meant.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it made a lot more sense when someone told me that last time I bitched about both Mo & one of the Harris Twins getting half-hour runs in the thing.
ReplyDelete