Mailbag first!
Hi Scott,
I was reading through your review of the World Class dvd (the WWE produced one) and you mentioned a match idea that Dory Funk had called a “German First Blood Match”. It’s like a normal first blood match but instead of trying to bust the person open first, you try to fill up a towel with your opponent’s blood and the first person to do so wins. Obviously this isn’t something that the WWE would use nowadays b/c of the whole PG thing but I thought that was a really cool idea and would be a great feud ender. What other neat concept matches have you heard wrestlers/journalists propose over the years or have thought up yourself that haven’t been tried yet? Feel free to post this on the blog for discussion.
I think we’ve mostly milked the cow dry as far as gimmick matches go. TNA has certainly perfected the art of overcomplicating things with reverse battle royales and cage matches with ladders inside and such. Anyway, I’ve always like the simple idea of the penalty box match from World Class, where you do a six-man tag match but the ref catches you cheating, you get locked in a small cage for a minute, thus giving the other team a 3-on-2 advantage. It’s basic risk-reward psychology and makes small things seems much more meaningful.
Readers?
The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW - July 5 1993
- Live from New York.
- Your hosts are Vince, Bobby and "Macho Patriot" Randy Savage. Is that like the Iron Patriot?
- We immediately return to the USS Intrepid on July 4, as Yokozuna challenges all the weak and stupid Americans to try to slam him. Football player Lee Rouson can't even get him up. Bob Backlund gives up early. Peter Taglianetti from the Penguins? Nothing. Basketballer Scott Burrell gives up without an attempt. Scott Steiner's one attempt goes nowhere. Tatanka gives it a good go by chopping him first, but he ends up getting superkicked and squashed. Bill Fralic gets a leg up, but nothing else. Crush seems to be the great Technicolor hope, but only gets him halfway up. Randy Savage is the last hope for America, but this is his post-steroid phase, so he's got nothing. So that's it, no one slams Yokozuna and the country is humiliated.
BUT WAIT! IT'S A HELICOPTER! With Lex Luger on board, for some reason now a patriot instead of a narcissist. But such is the world of pro wrestling, where you from lumberjack one week to clown the next without much rhyme or reason. And yes, he uses the STAINLESS STEEL FOREARM OF DEATH and slams the champion, which pretty much ended up being the high point of his whole stupid push. Now really, while someone like Hulk Hogan could draw anywhere because the character held universal appeal, Luger was pretty much guaranteed to only get over in the US just because of the limitations of his new "character".
Blake Beverly v. 1-2-3 Kid
Kid's got real tights and music now. Blake bitchslaps him down, but Kid dropkicks Blake out of the ring and follows with a baseball slide. Back in, and he gets a dropkick for two. Enzuigiri gets two. Blake comes back with a powerslam and a standing neckbreaker. Kid then takes a sick bump as Blake suplexes him onto the turnbuckles, backfirst. They brawl on the floor, and back in for a headbutt from Blake. He follows by pressing Kid onto the floor. Back in, it's an Oklahoma Stampede for two. Kid comes back, but a blind charge hits the turnbuckle. Blake lets him think about it and then puts him down with a clothesline before tossing him again. Kid comes back with another crazy dive to the floor, but he hurts himself and back takes over again in the ring. Blake goes up, but misses a flying splash, allowing Kid to finish with a top rop legrop at 9:00. Some crazy stuff here for what it was. **3/4
Bam Bam Bigelow v. Joey Maggs
Aww. I didn't expect to see a double-death match on this show so early. Bammer squashes with a pair of avalanches and flying headbutt at 0:41.
Samu v. Undertaker
I don't like Samu's chances here. It's like I used to tell my clients during my short-lived and spectacularly unsuccessful wrestling bookmaking period in the 90s1, "Samoans against zombies is a bad match for the island people. In fact, wrestling the undead in general is a bad bet." They trade power stuff and completely blow a leapfrog spot, as Taker trips over him in mid-air. He comes back with a drop toehold, and Samu bails for advice from Afa. That advice: "Have lots of kids that you can train in the business, then stay on good terms with the WWE so they all get jobs no matter how shitty they are." No, I'm making that up, he actually just headbutts Samu and sends him back in. Taker goes old school (or elementary school given the time period), but misses the leaping clothesline and hits the floor. He still doesn't sell it, but Samu attacks from behind and Afa beats him down. He still does a zombie sit-up on the floor as we take a break. Back with the Samoans throwing him into the stairs, and back in for two. Taker keeps sitting up, and lands on his feet when Samu clotheslines him out. And now he's had enough, as he runs Samu into the steel post WITH AUTHORITY, but misses an elbow. He's still sitting up, though, and no-sells Samu's sideslam and pair of diving headbutts. Chokeslam and tombstone finish at 7:20. It was what it was. *1/2
1For the sarcasm-impaired, I was never a bookmaker. As far as the government needs to know.2
2For the extremely sarcasm-impaired, that was also a joke.
Yokozuna joins us so that Mr. Fuji can DECRY the "slam heard around the world", as it was apparently a HIPTOSS and thus doesn't count. Does that mean we don't have to endure Luger's endless push, too? Crush comes out to stand up for America and take Yoko up on his boast of an open contract, and that actually sets up a pretty awesome bit of business in the future if I remember correctly how stuff went down. So next week: Yokozuna v. Crush for the WWF title!
Mr. Perfect v. Brian Costello
We've got two minutes left so this should move pretty quick. Perfect gets a dropkick off a criss-cross and they brawl on the floor, and back in for some chops from Perfect. And now you're gonna see a Perfectplex at 0:56.
Next week: Yokozuna defends against Crush!
Related Posts:
- The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW – July 12 1993
- The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW – February 22 1993
- The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW – March 1 1993
- The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW – August 9 1993
- The SmarK Legacy Rant for Monday Night RAW – June 28 1993
Tags: Bob Backlund, DVD, Hulk Hogan, Lex Luger, Locke, Mailbag, Monday Night RAW, Mr. Perfect, Randy Savage, RAW, TNA, Undertaker, WWE, WWF
“Readers?”
I’m a firm believer that wrestling should be kept simple and straight forward.
Climbing a ladder to win a belt = good.
Climbing a ladder to get a key to unlock a manager to secure a briefcase containing an AIDS infected needle = way too complicated.
First blood matches I don’t care for, so filling an entire towel with blood seems like it would be no good.
If there’s one complicated match that I enjoy, it’s the old school Football matches that are long overdue for a comeback. We had a lot of fun with them in Oregon.
What are Football matches? The only thing I can think of is the RAW Bowl but I assume that’s not what you’re talking about.
As for matches I’ve always wanted to see…
I can remember always wanting to see a 6-man match where 2 wrestlers start in the ring and there’s 4 more wrestlers on each corner. You can tag anyone in and the match is elimination rules. Whoever the last man left is is the winner. A TNA version would have 8 men based on their ring.
That would be a “Four Corners” tag team match. It’s been done a few times, I don’t remember any of them being anything special.
Yeah, now that I think about it, there’s no reason why it would be any better of a match than a normal match. I think the reason my mind latched onto it is because I started watching wrestling in the fall of 1987, leading up to the first Survivor Series so elimination matches where the first Big idea in my head.
I can think of one idea for a stipulation match that (a) I haven’t seen yet and (b) could work well for wrestling.
It’s a match that switches between a pure scientific match (where even punches are illegal) and a street fight match. Put a clock on the video screen, and every five minutes the rules of the match change between the two. In a ‘brawler vs. technical wrestler’ feud, this would work because the match changes to favor or the other every five minutes.
I’m surprised nobody has done a Submissions tournament. You advertise it by showing clips of guys screaming in agony and saying only the toughest will survive.
You can do 3 or 4 man matches, which could be cool as say somebody puts a guy in a figure four and another holds his arms making it impossible for them to roll or reach the ropes, nothing to do but quit. You can use your imagination for other moves. It would keep the faces strong or give a hated heal a taste of what they deserve.
As the matches are submission matches with some occasional “resting” as they do the moves, and have multiple people sharing the action, it shouldn’t as hard on the wrestlers as a normal tournament.
It could be a way to boost a fledgling mid carder too, give them a new submission finisher, have them look strong by winning the tournament.
This RAW takes me back, it was the first RAW taping I ever went to.
I always dreamed that one day during the July 4th Nathans Hot Dog eating contest, that after one of the Asian guys from Japan won, a helicopter would fly down and and Lex Luger makes a hot dog eating challenge and wins the hot dog eating contest.
Luckily we have Joey Chestnuts defending America at Coney Island now.
I totally disagree with the Luger hating bit. It’s pretty much a smark cliche to say how crappy Luger’s push was etc.
Yet back in 1993/4 he was INSANE over. The stupid “winning by countout and celebrating” was stupid, as was jobbing him to Pierre, but he was over the whole time. As far as this being the ”high point”, that’s also not true, as when the helicopter first appears we hear “Hogan!” chants!
I think in Power Slam a couple of years ago some guy wrote a bit about “The Best Wrestlemania” or some such like, and chose WM X. He did the usual Luger-bashing, and said how thrilled he was that Luger got dq’d and Bret won, and what a great day it was for true wrestling fans etc. etc. Then, near the end of the piece, just in passing, he admitted that business dropped significantly under Bret as Champion, and that Bret’s win was a bad idea! But it was the greatest thing ever, and showed how the WWF were finally taking the fans’ wishes to heart! And of course he couldn’t see the obvious errors and contradictions.
I’m not allowed to think Luger was incredibly boring during that period?
Of course you are. Everyone should say what they think/feel. My complaint was not so much at you but at the IDEA that has taken shape on the internet that NOBODY bought into Luger, when that is not the case at all.
For instance I can’t stand John Cena, yet there are millions of people who love the guy, which is why he is booked at the top of the card.
of course, according to that logic, Bret Hart must have been more over than Luger (and the decision to crown him champion again would therefore be justified).
personally, I think Luger was very over for a lot of months but as Scott pointed out, the reaction he got in the US didn’t balance out the mediocre crowd responses overseas (and like I already wrote in some other comment, Bret Hart was BY FAR the most over guy in western europe in 1994).
It has continually been my understanding that wrestling was in a recession in the US in the early-mid 90s, but that it remained pretty popular overseas as a result of things such as overseas tours and Summerslam 1992. So while Bret was not a huge draw in the US, he was overseas, the hot markets. So he was given the ball again in 94.
First to “guy incognito”, you totally misunderstood the point. Cena gets pushed because he was over, just like Luger got pushed because he was over. Your comment is unrelated to my original post. There HAVE been people NOT over who got megapushes but Luger wasn’t one of them.
The WWF only went into recession in the early/mid-90s after Bret Hart went over Flair for the belt. Funny that.
Holy revisionist history, Batman! It was my understanding that the wrestling boom was over and the recession began with the Ultimate Warrior’s title reign in 1990.
Is it also your understanding that PRIOR to Hulkamania all rasslin’ was overweight guys in their fruit-of-the-looms doing 25-minute chinlocks in smoke-filled saloons?
that’s totally NOT true. just take a look at the buyrates. for example, the Royal Rumble 1992 did significant less numbers than the one from 1991 (although it’s obviously the better PPV). same for WrestleMania VIII.
there even already has been a noticable drop between 1990 and 1991. and while Bret was not able to turn the market around (btw: I doubt that only one person can turn the business around by himself. Austin without McMahon, Rock and the whole Attitude concept wouldn’t have worked. same for Hogan) so didn’t any of his successors (Luger, Diesel, Michaels).
I’m confused now by your comment.s If Warrior winning the belt was the point of downtur in business, then how was him headlining a show against SERGEANT SLAUGHTER nine or ten months later able to do great business? And that was the show where he dropped the belt. ???
Not only was Bret not able to turn the market around, he in fact caused it so sink to even lower depths. MUCH lower in fact. Luger and Michaels were able to bring business up a bit, but admittedly nowhere near Austin or Hogan-like levels. Disel, like Bret, like to further depths. And Bret holds the records for lowest WWF/WWE PPV byrate ever, lowest quarter hour RAW ratings ever.
Luger SUCKED big time. By 1993 Hulkamania as a mainstream attention thing was dead and anything similar would follow in those footsteps. Besides this was the time when the WWF was doing far better internationally than they were doing nationally… so its a silly time to promote americana when your product is at its most hot on the otherside of the world.
Luger could of been any muscle bound guy dressed in red white and blue it wasn’t exactly a hard gimmick to play.
You are entitled to your opinion of course. I should however point out that I have had this same discussion with people, who it turned out weren’t even interested in wrestling in 1993/4, and whose only “knowledge” of the situation is from reading internet recaps.
As far as Hulkamania being dead, well I’m sure the buyrates of events such as Bash At The Beach 1994 don’t bear witness to that.
And in fact what may have hampered the whole thing was that Luger was somewhat homogenized. It has been said before that had he just been allowed to be Lex Luger, who was also a patriotic guy it would have turned out different. But saying “Luger SUCKED big time” is just stupid. I’m also quite sure that had they stuck “any muscle bound guy” in the spot it wouldn’t have got the same response.
Often forgotten is that when Luger “choked” Vince was in the middle of the roid scandal, and having Luger win the belt at that point wouldn’t have helped his case. But having a bland mat-wrestler from a respected sporting family as champion would.
Hulkamania popped a big buyrate at Bash ONLY and it was because he was wrestling Ric Flair in one of the only dream matches left in wrestling.
At that point I was a huge Bret mark and wasn’t interested in Luger wrestling Yoko. I think that Steiner or Crush could have been bigger than Luger. Steiner especially considering his athletic background and reputation in Japan.
Dude, we get it, you don’t like Bret Hart. But unfortunately he was hugely over in ‘94 and THAT’S why Vince went with him.
The Bash at the Beach was JUST ONE EXAMPLE. Hogan also did great business against Vader, against pre-obesity Paul Wight etc.
And you should listen to your own words. Yes, YOU were a huge Bret mark, but that doesn’t mean that everyone else was. Clearly the half-empty high school gyms that bore witness to WWF Champion Bret Hart would suggest that there weren’t that many huge Bret hart marks.
My question got printed!
In any case, I thought the German First Blood Match would be a good feud ender back in the 80’s or something but nowadays a match like that would be so overbooked to protect everyone involved.
I think the Lex Express thing might’ve worked if it was pre-motorcycle injury Luger. He was just such a mediocre to bad worker that he couldn’t pull anyone in with his matches and the terrible booking didn’t help him. As a young mark back then, I would’ve bet my Lunchable (those were very hot commodities for middle schoolers in the early 90’s) on Crush slamming Yoko. Seeing Scott Steiner’s slam attempt really makes me wonder how much different wrestling would be if they’d have let him slam Yoko and gave him the huge push.
I think this has been discussed on the blog before, but I think Luger would have worked out absolutely fine it he continued with the Narcissist gimmick. I hated him more than any other wrestler in early 1993 and he seemed to have a lot of heat (or as much heat as any wrestler got in that period). I never watched WCW so I never saw The Total Package but it sounds like he had a lot of ability and charisma. If Lex had been given the monster heel push that Yokozuna got in 1993/94 and Bret had dethroned him at WM10 then that would have been great.
Time and perspective have taught us that some of the best gimmicks are “Amped up” versions of the wrestlers real-life personalities. With that logic in mind, it stands to reason that Lex Luger would have been at least moderately successful as the Narcissist.
About the “gimmicks” thing, have they done something like this before?
You start out with 5 guys on a side face/heel. You then have a one-on-one match until one guy gets pinned/submitted/dq/countout. Another guy takes his place on his team and you continue, only doing 1-on-1 until one whole team is gone. NOT Survivor Series where guys tag in and out, but just a series of normal matches.
So basically a double gauntlet?
All-Japan and New Japan have both done that, both with singles matches and tag matches. AJPW had a tag match like that between the Super Generation Army and Jumbo’s Army in ‘91 and possibly other times as well. New Japan had at least one, with singles matches, during the UWF invasion.
I’ve never understood the argument that it was a hip toss instead of a body slam that heels (Heenan especially) used, as a hip toss would be much more impressive than a simple bodyslam.
How about a “slam dunk contest” sort of event. You bring in a local jobber who is good at taking bumps, have the wrestlers do sick moves on the guy, and have some legends vote on how good the move looked.
Of course, more than likely this will result in the jobber getting his neck broke and end up in a wheel chair the rest of his life, but i maintain that it is a good idea in theory.
Unless of course they try the moves on a crash test dummy.
True. But where is the fun in that?
Joey Maggs died? (I didn’t even know he wa sick.)
He died in October 2006. OWW still lists his cause of death as unknown.
I surprised they haven’t combined the casket match with the buried alive match. Put wrestler in casket, then bury it to win.
Also, with HHH weapon of choice being a sledgehammer, I don’t think they’ve done a pole match using it. Whoever grabs it can use it.
Hulkamania wasn’t dead, but it was dead in the WWF. You could just tell that outside of money, they guy’s heart just wasn’t into it anymore when he returned in 1993. I think honestly if Eric Bischoff hadn’t called him, he’d done what he ended up doing in the WWE in 2005-06 over in Japan. A couple of one shot deals, and attempt to work on his acting career.
When Bischoff gave Hogan basically a multi-million dollar contract, and the Main Event booking, plus the title – he set the standard of what Hulk Hogan expected out of wrestling for the rest of his career. And yes there were people like me that welcomed Hogan back in the ring anywhere with open arms. He might not have been WCW’s native son, and he had to turn heel to truly reinvent himself as over in WCW – and at least Bischoff was smart in the short term of booking his other “Main Event” talent when Hogan wouldn’t wrestle for months on end due to movies or just his limited workrate in fear his crap just wouldn’t cut it in the modern era.
I’m not sure which one it was . . . but from 1996-1999 . . . watching Hogan wrestle outside of a few good matches with DDP, Sting, and Macho was horrible as a heel. Oh and God forbid his series with Piper. Hell why not have someone like Benoit (yeah I’m saying his name), a face turn for Scott Norton, one of the midcard guys take him on and lose. Was Bischoff that afraid his talented guys would lose heat if old Hollywood got the better of them once? Oh was Hogan so set in his ways that he’d only work with who he wanted to work with? You’d think if Bischoff promised he could beat Benoit in 15 seconds – Bischoff would have bowed forward and let him do it.
As for Luger . . . since this is about Luger.
Luger was boring as hell during this period, as Scott said. I kept hoping at the time (as a kid) they’d bring Hogan back, or push Razor to the Main Event. Yeah I would have rather seen Scott Hall vs. Yoko. I was anti-Bret and Owen Hart in 1994, but with hindsight – whether it hurt business or not – Bret Hart was the man to go with.
Diesel was the man to go with in 1995 too. Hey Nash had cool mic skills, and yeah the only bright spot of his title regin in 95 was wrestling Bret and HBK – but he was a big cool guy with a cool theme song and a good attitude – although the generic babyface attitude he aquired did hurt him a little. Hell, I enjoyed his matches with Sid. Because as bad as a worker Sid was, he knew how to play to the crowd after hitting “big spots.” Even if Sid’s big spot was a chokeslam or a clothesline to setup for the powerbomb.
I’m kind of hijacking the thread . . . but I hated Luger in 1993 and outside of his techo-theme music that debuted at Wrestlemania X – Luger had nothing.
Quick hijack Scott:
Going back to 1995 for a moment – the only thing I’d change during the Diesel title reign would be his match at SummerSlam with Mabel. I know Vince was doing his Hogan-Andre thing there, and Yoko had gotten so overweight that he was stuck in Tag matches.
But its kind of hard to book a worthwhile feud – when you know your champion can’t put his finisher on this giant Mabel of a man. That SS 1995 was so much crap that it felt like 30 minutes of hell. It’s a 9 minute match, and it feels like it went on for years.
Even a crapfest (well by Scott’s standards) against Sid in 1995 was enjoyable compared to Mable. Then again, Sid could tell a story with people wondering could he powerbomb Diesel and he did powerbomb him at IYH 1 and Diesel was able to powerbomb Sid back too.
Mabel was a mistake. Bulldog was boring and awkard . . . but at least to me it was watchable. No worse than a Nash vs. Jarett match in WCW in 2000.
And of course Bret Hart carried Kevin Nash’s ass off at Sur Series 1995. And Nash’s last great match were his two with Taker at Mania and Shawn at IYH: Good Friends, Better Enemies. Not sure who to thank on the Taker/Diesel match because to me it was much like the Sid matches – with Nash’s playing to the camera after he jackknifes Taker twice made the match.
Outside of a nastolgia flashback with Hogan in 1999, I don’t think Nash has done anything really exciting for years. I liked his match with Goldberg, and actually (at the time) liked him beating Goldberg – but it was no longer 1995 and in hindsight it was a mistake – and some felt it was a mistake even in 1998 to push Nash – but I was still using 1995 logic and thought Nash as champion was a smart idea. Thought the same thing when WCW put the title on Sid.
I was wrong.
Samu bails for advice from Afa. That advice: “Have lots of kids that you can train in the business, then stay on good terms with the WWE so they all get jobs no matter how shitty they are.” No, I’m making that up, he actually just headbutts Samu and sends him back in
I came within a centimeter of spitting my beer out laughing.
Was there any reason why Yoko received the push he did besides Vince recycling the “Hulk fights a fat guy or a foreigner” shtick? I agree with the above post, Narcissist Lex Luger carrying the belt and having Bret chase him would have been much more entertaining (both in storyline and matches) than Yoko.
My idea for a gimmick match is sort of taking from different concepts like Survivor Series and BattleBowl. But I think it’d be a fun way to crown a new #1 contender.
Put 8 guys in a hat…pick random teams…do a 4 on 4 Survivor Series match. Then whoever is left on the survivor team has to have their own match to determine who the winner is. I really, really liked the Wild Card match from Survivor Series 1995 but there was no incentive, other than just winning the match, for the good guys & bad guys to work with each other. I liked the idea of it though.
It also would open up a ton of booking opportunities…have one whole team survive, then have a Fatal 4way. Have just won guy survive on a team. You could even stretch it out through two Raws…do the Survivor Series match and then the match between the survivors the following week.
All I know is I cannot watch one more lame Beat the Clock or #1 contenders tournament or such to give us the same PPV match we were going to get anyway. I think the match I describe would really work for like the IC/US title…midcarders fighting for the belt if it was vacant or for a shot at it.
the Crush/Yoko match is one of my fondest wrestling memories from my mark days because I was convinced Crush was going to win the title. Or at least beat Yoko. So the ending….no spoilers, heh….was shocking.
And I actually did not realize the Luger thing was going to take off like it did…I just assume it was a face turn. I didn’t realize at the time that he was going to wrap himself in the flag. I think there was money in Luger just being a good guy who turned because he liked America. They didn’t need to turn the America stuff up 10000 notches. Luger was a pretty good money-making babyface in the NWA by just being Lex Luger.
So what were those Football matches Charlie was talking about anyway?
The only one I know of was something that Mick Foley wrote about in his first book, though I’ve heard of it a couple of times since then.
The idea is that you have two sides, say five men per side, and each side has someone (valet, manager) in a cage ringside with some sort of weapon (kendo stick, chain, etc.). The match in the ring has a football, with two keys taped on it. One key opens one of the cages (face side), and the other key opens the other cage (heels), so that when one team manages to get the ball long enough to get their key off (without getting clobbered), they can unlock their cage and get a weapon to beat the crap out of the other side.
As Foley put it, it became a fan-inclusive combination of keep-away, monkey in the middle, and kill the guy with the ball (I’d say the fans weren’t included in that part). I believe he came across these matches in Memphis. Sounds like something fun to do every once in a while (though not too often).
There was a football match during the AWA Team Challenge Series. I think it was between Mike Enos and Buck Zumhoffe. It was referreed by a real NFL referree. Both wrestlers were in football gear with soccer goals at each end of the ring. The basic object was to get the football into your opponants goal. They basically played a game a football in the ring because the rules were all basically the same, with yards, penalties, and whatnot. I think they replayed the episode on ESPN Classic not too long ago.
It was convoluted and stupid.
New speciality match?
How about…”No pinfalls, no submissions, no disqualifications. This match MUST be won by countout!”
Or how about wrestling goes back to its roots, and require only a one count? I can only remember one Clash of The Champions match with that stip, but I think it would be neat, and make a lot of moves like simple cradles and sunset flips a lot more dramatic.
Since you mentioned WCW…wasn’t there a time (before they had decided how to do 3-way matches) where they settled a “tie” by declaring the first man to knock over their opponent the winner of the match?
NOTE: I’m not suggesting this should make a comeback–just trying to clear my foggy memory.