The SmarK Rant for Monday Night RAW – 10.03.94
I notice that they’re now adding Total Divas to the Network’s archives. You know that the next step is the Marine movies and all the direct-to-DVD features where HHH plays a convict trying to go straight. Don’t fight it, there’s no point. Although really, they have all this stuff in their vaults and the rights to air it, so why not?
Taped from Utica, NY
Your hosts are Vince McMahon & Randy Savage
The British Bulldog v. Jim Neidhart
It makes me feel incredibly old that I vividly remember this era, and now I’m watching their kids compete. Anvil clobbers Bulldog from behind and Owen clarifies that he’s got muscles, but no brains. Bulldog overpowers Anvil to put him on the floor, thus confirming that analysis. Back in, Bulldog with a hiptoss and armbar. Kind of weird that they never went with a straight Bulldog v. Owen feud at this point, because it would have made more sense. Anvil cheats to escape a test of strength and Bulldog goes to work on the leg, but Anvil sends him into the corner and goes to the chinlock. Owen gets a chinlock and we take a break. Back with more excitement as Bret Hart joins us at ringside, teasing a future ****+ tag match on the Action Zone, while Neidhart continues putting me to sleep with restholds. Christ man, I’m taking allergy medication tonight, I’m fighting it off with caffeine as it is! Neidhart goes to a camel clutch and Vince McMahon feels this might be the killing blow for Davey Boy, but instead Neidhart stupidly goes up and misses something ridiculous. Bulldog makes the comeback with a delayed suplex for two while Backlund comes out to mess with Bret Hart, and Owen runs in for the DQ at 15:13. Everyone brawls and Vince declares it a DONNYBROOK. They should totally have a jobber named “Donny Brook” as a rib. *1/2
Meanwhile, a kid is really upset about the World Series being cancelled by those greedy baseball players going on strike, but luckily Randy Savage is there to console him. A month before he too sells out and jumps to WCW, like everyone else in the promotion with any star power. Also, I bet more kids were upset when Vince used to false advertise guys on house shows for weeks when he knew they were injured.
Doink the Clown v. Barry Horowitz
Doink is now firmly into the ugly tights phase. Barry gets his shit in, but Doink quickly finishes with the Whoopie Cushion, complete with overdubbed fart noise at 2:20.
Meanwhile, Undertaker (the real one) is looking for Yokozuna.
The King’s Court, featuring the aforementioned Yokozuna. He’s afraid of caskets, you see, so people shouldn’t mention it.
The Action Zone debuts at the end of the month, and in typical insecure WWF fashion they make fun of football analysis shows for being boring and promise “No talking” on this one. Which held true for about a month before it turned into yet another recap and interview show, of course.
Alundra Blayze & Heidi Lee Morgan v. Bull Nakano & Luna Vachon
Morgan quickly gets caught in the heel corner, and Luna splashes her for two. Morgan fights back with a victory roll on Nakano and slugs Luna down, and it’s the presumed hot tag to Blayze. She gets a bodypress on both heels, but Nakano suplexes both babyfaces at the same time and punches Blayze in the throat. Effective. Luna comes in with a missile dropkick that hits Bull by mistake and Blazye finishes her with the german suplex at 5:00. I think that pretty much blew off the Luna character for good. *1/2
King Kong Bundy returns next week.
Mr. Bob Backlund v. Gary Scott
Backlund allows the jobber to get his back, and then calmly outwrestles him and finishes with the Crossface Chickenwing at 2:30.
Next week: Bam Bam Bigelow v. Lex Luger! King Kong Bundy returns!
The **** Alundra-Nakano singles match is coming up within the next few shows isn't it?
ReplyDelete"I notice that they’re now adding Total Divas to the Network’s archives.
ReplyDeleteYou know that the next step is the Marine movies and all the
direct-to-DVD features where HHH plays a convict trying to go straight.
Don’t fight it, there’s no point. Although really, they have all this
stuff in their vaults and the rights to air it, so why not?"
i bet vince is just licking his chops at all of the "made for network" movies he can do now
i personally am waiting for the wwe after school specials, such as "miz: the boy no one liked" and "benoit doesn't exist here anymore"
Ventura took an extremely ill-timed Hawaiian vacation right as Bobby Heenan was signed, and was essentially Wally Pipped out of the lead commentators' spot.
ReplyDeleteVentura is the greatest heel color man of all-time, but by mid-'94 he had so badly checked out that he wasn't missed once he was gone. He was clearly disillusioned with the product and was expending as little effort as possible.
That's the night after WM11.
ReplyDelete"The WWF--we never go on strike!" No underlying subtext THERE, no sir...
ReplyDeleteOh. Fair enough. I always thought Bull was gone fairly soon after survivor series.
ReplyDeleteUnless a Hogan-less WCW doesnt fire Austin and Austin:316 never happens
ReplyDeletethere was a match these two had in Japan before the Survivor Series which is said to be great (I have never seen that one, the WWF aired short clips of it).
ReplyDeleteand as results the whole wrestling boom never happens.
ReplyDeletehmm. seems like Hogan jumping to WCW doesn't sound so bad at all.
Nakano is showing up almost everyone on the roster at this point in time
ReplyDeleteVentura had major heat with Hogan around this time too IIRC, as it came out in the court documents during McMahon's steroid trial over the summer before Hogan came in that he was responsible for tipping off Vince on the union Jessie tried to organize.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Hogan was unquestionably good for WCW at very key times, but it was a case of going back go the well too many times as Gorilla Monsoon would say.
ReplyDeleteReally after the Sting Starrcade feud, they didn't really need him anymore in the most prominent position. The WCW PPVs sold crazy good in 1998, most notably shows without Hogan on them. They could have done big business with an extended Goldberg feud, but they were really shooting themselves in the foot relying on a Hogan/Flair feud as the main focus by 1999.
"They should totally have a jobber named “Donny Brook” as a rib."
ReplyDeleteI wish they'd bring back the Ryback squashes just for a jobber named "Donny Brook".
And ..."but Doink quickly finishes with the Whoopie Cushion, complete with overdubbed fart noise..." is this serious? I know I was watching at the time but I was just a kid and I don't recall that at all. That's absolutely horrendous. And Vince wondered why business was bad for a while.
She was probaby showing up Shawn too in how much coke she could snort.
ReplyDelete“What are you smoking, man?”
ReplyDeleteWhat's stopping them from feeding Donny to Rusev?
ReplyDeleteYes, the Doink sound effect was a thing. I'm not positive, but I think it may have even made the Raw video game on Super Nintendo.
ReplyDeleteNitro was going to be a big success with or without Hogan.
ReplyDeleteI remember RD Reynolds writing an article when the Death of WCW book came out. In it he wrote just before he did any research, Alvarez told him prepare to get very depressed and it's hard not to when re-reading all of WCW's blunders. Even 15 years after the fact it makes me depressed.
ReplyDeleteYou mean the time she spent in 1998 before she left again as the 2.5 years you're remembering?
ReplyDeleteFall Brawl needs a 2014 Scott.
ReplyDeleteYou're correct. She went to ECW and even wrestled for WCW.
ReplyDeleteI was doing a fictional horseman group when Ric Flair joined a Indy promotion in Alabama and had Donnie Brook as his enforcer because Arm Anderson stayed with the NWA.
ReplyDeleteI wish Bundy had gotten a bigger push. Maybe if he had joined WCW in 94 - he could have feuded for Steven Regal's lordship -- and we could of had Lord Bundy complete with British cape and wig.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of Network content, I thought of a gimmick a few years ago that I'd love to see: a cheesy, pulpy sci-fi hero character like Buck Rogers.
ReplyDeleteOnly on top of doing the character in the ring, they also do short, blatantly cheaply made (like Plan 9 From Outer Space cheap) sci-fi adventures with him. Just completely embrace the ridiculousness, where you can see the string holding up the cardboard ships and planets.
Wow, I just spent an hour reading old comments from Inside Pulse. Apparently when you long into their site as an admin, the comments haven't been destroyed if you view them on the admin's page. A lot of funny comments, especially on Charlie Rekene's stuff.
ReplyDeleteI think, taken on balance, that they probably would have stayed in business without Hogan's politicking and the MASSIVE contracts Bischoff was handing out. They wouldn't have reached the heights of the NWO period, but it seems to me that "not going out of business" is always a good thing.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite "what if WCW had been run by smart people:" What if they keep Kip Allen Frey and never hire Bill Watts?
Austin could have been a big deal putting on great matches in WCW too. And the end result of the "boom" was killing off one of the major promotions and changing the landscape of the industry for the worse for quite some time. That sounds a lot more like a bubble than a boom to me.
ReplyDeleteWrong!! It was Nov 94 in Tokyo at the AJW Dome show.
ReplyDeleteDonny's not black.
ReplyDeleteI never understood their attacks on other sports. There's literally no chance I'm ever going to stop watching baseball or football, and certainly not because Vince McMahon made me realize how silly they are.
ReplyDelete"The WWF - we might be dead by 40 but we never go on strike!"
ReplyDeleteThe Raw match is what's more widely seen and referred to, and he was obviously asking about a match on Raw. Outside of the finish the Dome match was never shown in North America.
ReplyDeleteSounds like something the NXT crowd would eat up.
ReplyDelete1999 really proves that there wasn't any other way that Hogan in WCW was going to play out. I can understand trying to recreate Hulkamania at the outset, even if it didn't work, but when your strategy for turning around your promotion in mid-1999 is "turn Hogan face, put the belt on him, and have him go back to wearing red and yellow," you might as well just stamp "we're more interested in keeping Hogan happy and headlining than making money or putting on a good show" right over the Nitro opening.
ReplyDeleteThey couldn't possibly believe that the way to counter Steve Austin's anit-hero was to go back to Hulk Hogan's red and yellow 80's character.
ReplyDeleteI guess Bischoff *could* have, but obviously what they really thought was that that was the way to headline a PPV with Hogan-Nash, and to keep Hogan positioned at the top of the card against foes like heel Luger and Sting, and probably Sid at Starrcade. God only knows where they were going to go with that if Bischoff hadn't been canned.
ReplyDeleteI hated it. I had trouble sitting through it
ReplyDeleteWCW would have gone out of business in 2001 regardless of Hogan, No Hogan or even if WCW signed HBK, Stone Cold and the Rock. AOL/Time Warner executives didn't want "rasslin'" on their cable stations and made sure to kill it dead.
ReplyDeleteAmerica is the only country that maters. Commie!
ReplyDelete"They should totally have a jobber named “Donny Brook” as a rib."
ReplyDeleteOnly if he comes from "Pier Six"
I actually know a dude named Donny Brooks (kinda) I snicker every time I see his name on Facebook or something.
ReplyDeleteYou can tell in some shots of post-Heenan Ventura that he's annoyed by even being in the building. Especially when he fills in on commentary when the Brain has been doing the bulk of things.
ReplyDeleteIt's like nobody gave him the signal that they were live and started before he got his TV face on.
"Doink is now firmly into the ugly tights phase."
ReplyDeleteHe had a phase where he wore not-ugly tights?
"Donny Brook" would be a McMahon rob on hardcore wrestling.
ReplyDeleteSure he could. He could be "Dancin'" Donny Brook.
ReplyDeleteWatching the Warrior set on Netflix, Warrior vs. Chris Adams. Warrior's mustache is hilariously 80's.
ReplyDeleteI think WCW would have survived longer, and been better overall. The Hogan era pre-NWO was a massive failure in all aspects, and was the precursor to the struggles they would have with the inmates running the asylum.
ReplyDeleteI assume (and I probably shouldn't) that WCW would have changed with the times by ~96 and evolved their product to at least be competitive with WWF under folks like Bischoff who blatantly copied others.
But, WCW would have died no matter what in the 00s under the AOL/Time Warner merger, once the wrestling boom would have eventually faded. So, it's moot.
Fucking Chuck Norris.
ReplyDeleteThe Mr. Backlund "I have never eaten marijuana!" promo is definitely coming up in the next few shows, and that's what you should be looking forward to.
ReplyDeleteThat distinction will not stop the whining, but I see your point.
ReplyDeleteIt's Vince's insecurities. What now manifests as DID YOU KNOW THAT WRESTLEMANIA HAD MORE VIEWERS THAN LAST WEEK'S THURSDAY NIGHT NFL GAME used to manifest as HEH, THE WWF DOESN'T DO THIS BORING ANALYSIS TALK WE DO ACTION!
ReplyDelete"Cause these dancing monkeys can't even unionize, bitch!"
ReplyDeleteBischoff talked about Ventura in his book, saying he found him extremely overpaid (He was signed before Bischoff took over), and he was basically looking for an excuse to get rid of him. He claims to have found him sleeping on the job once (Ventura denies it, but then again, he thinks 9/11 was an inside job), so Bischoff fired him.
ReplyDelete"Later spent with the promotion" as in late 1997-2000.
ReplyDeleteThis was the very first RAW on TSN. I know because I was expecting a syndicated "All American Wrestling" show just like every week for the previous 3-4 years, then BOOM. RAW. I was going crazy.
ReplyDeleteDoing it in a video game is one thing, but to actually do it on "live" tv is just unforgivable. (and sadly, I had it blocked from my memory, now I do recall it.) *sigh*
ReplyDeleteIs Zach Ryder black? Rusev has crushed him twice. Maybe he considers the Jersey Shore tanning freaks as "black"?
ReplyDeleteOf course the Japan match was the great one. DUHHHH.... [/Meltzer]
ReplyDeleteSavage: "Call me crazy, but I'm attracted to Bull Nakano!"
ReplyDeleteMcMahon: "YOU ARE CRAZY!"
The forest fight scene in part 2 was really the only highlight of the movie
ReplyDeleteI thought he was good as Batman in The Lego Movie
ReplyDeleteThey sort of poke fun at it in Turtles Forever where Shredder Prime comes out and the turtles easily gets rid of him by throwing a bunch of garbage at him. I thought that was a cute bit
ReplyDeleteDuring commercial -
ReplyDeleteSavage: What you trying to say; you think I got bad taste in women, McMahon?
McMahon: It's apparent, ain't it?
Savage: Oh, so you're saying your daughter is ugly.
McMahon: Wait, what
Savage: I fucked your daughter. Eat crow, McMahon!
*Awkward silence until commercial break ends:
Warrior without the facepaint and maniacal running is very disconcerting.
ReplyDeleteLunadust.
ReplyDeleteFair enough, I did forget she was there a little longer than I remembered in her second stint. It was pretty forgettable.
ReplyDeleteHe'd have to flop as a big monster first, so the dancing is more ironic.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but had they been profitable still, AOLTW might have bit the bullet longer. That merger ended up not working out anyway -- a lot of the people who didn't want wrestling in the image resigned by 2002.
ReplyDeleteI thought Jesse was the mayor of Brooklyn Park, MN (customer of my company at work) and had to focus more on that than on WCW.
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, as some have said, Ventura was a big paycheck when WCW was bleeding money. I think a guy like Jesse lends credibility and legitimacy to the product and is worth it but i can understand getting rid of him.
The formatting on that rant..much spacing. very headache. so wow.
ReplyDeleteNeeds a re-rant.
ReplyDeleteI think they were on the cusp of breaking through as their 1994 was extremely creatively fertile in the first half and except WMX the WWF was just dead.dead.dead as we can see in the Raw rants. I think Bischoff was just impatient and thought signing Hogan would stick it to McMahon. I think if they had patience they probably could have got Hogan for a song and would have expanded more logically and naturally. It's just WCW....no half-measures, even when half-measures are called for.
ReplyDeleteCouple of bullet points I'd like to make:
ReplyDelete-if the 87 series as a whole was more like the first season, we're talking untouchable Saturday morning status
-the newest series has the best action scenes of any of its previous incarnates
-the first movie always struck me as a comics adaptation, whereas the second one was more like the 87 cartoon
-Clancy Brown and Kevin Michael Richardson should have the other's role in the new series
-Raphael > the other turtles
If they were a good and profitable product they would have found a home on television. Their brand was completely poisoned and unusable. Their ratings were like 3.0s - that's huge. The cable landscape at the time was really different too; fewer channels, less original programming. Wrestling is cheap original programming and easy ratings. That WCW came out of 2000 that damaged will probably make it stand as the single biggest disaster era ever in wrestling.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Who says he couldn't have found the Stone Cold character in WCW? WCW audiences were into Austin in a major way. Every time they cut him off at the knees he came back more over.
ReplyDeleteThey were still pulling in 3s on Monday nights, likely better than other cable shows. The execs were opposed on a high brow level. It was toast no matter what.
ReplyDeleteTurner was the only thing keeping WCW on the air on his networks. Once they managed to put him in the old folks' home, they got rid of it as fast they could.
Hogan pre-NWO era WCW was like the Cena era of today. Hogan just constantly overcoming ridiculous odds against Flair and the Dungeon of Doom. Those Nitro segments just scream "ego trip" years later.
ReplyDelete3 of those 4 guys were in WCW right at or just before this time period. If the idiots running the asylum there weren't such colossal fuck-ups, it's possible that Vince would never have a chance to "discover" them.
ReplyDeleteYou look at the history of WCW, especially early 90's and the question isn't how they went out of business, it's how they lasted as long as they did. 1993 was a huge disaster of mini-movies, Shockmaster, Paul Roma as a Horseman and more. Early '94 was doing well but as others have pointed out, no way WCW rises to those mega-heights of late '90's without Hogan.
ReplyDeleteAt the same time, we would have retained some of that spirit. While I don't buy totally the idea of "Flair gives Austin the rub in feud" logic of others, I'd like to think that without the influx of Hogan cronies like Dugan, Earthquake, Leslie and others, Foley and Austin might have stuck around longer and maybe shown some stuff (let's face it, Austin would have been perfect for a new Four Horsemen). Bischoff still would have gone for ECW guys like Malenko and Benoit and built up cruiserweights but still doubt without Hogan we'd have gotten "Nitro" and thus no Monday Night War so major changes all around.
I still think they'd have gone down in 2001 as it was always Turner keeping them on the air and when he was pushed out, their days were always numbered. Still, the last decade or so would have been a little less painful and thus remembered a bit better than the Hogan/Bischoff/Nash show that blew countless opportunities.
Yeah, some outdated thinking and terms, not to mention better formatting.
ReplyDeleteI think bringing in Hogan was absolutely the right move. The doors opened by Hogan's involvement with the product I think justifies his signing. The problem was the booking through the Hogan years, including the NWO.
ReplyDeleteAs a wrestling fan, it makes me angry more than anything. They had such a great roster for a period of time, and never done anything with guys like Jericho, Benoit, Guerrero, etc. WCW could have set themselves up for years to come, but failed to do so.
ReplyDeleteDifference being, Cena's a company guy, does what he's told, he doesn't really flex his power as much as he could. Hogan, by contrast, was throwing his weight around totally to make sure Flair, Sting, Vader, etc didn't overshadow him.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course, the key factor that WCW audiences were not the same as WWF audiences, they didn't go for that sort of mega-superhero thing. Even Sting had some flaws and losses but Hogan kept pushing it all about him and that more than anything caused true WCW fans to turn their back fast.
because he wouldn't have the same circumstances to play off.
ReplyDeletedo I think Austin becoming a main event worker would have been likely? yes.
but him becoming the mega star he eventually became without the circumstances to play off (the Montreal screwjob and "Mr. McMahon" as his foil)? hell no.
Just wait. They create two sportscaster characters on the first action zone with names similar to the real thing. They cut away to them not doing their jobs and instead watching action zone throughout the hour.
ReplyDeleteHe'd look like Robbie Coltrane in Blackadder.
ReplyDeletehttp://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120418153226/blackadder/images/e/e6/Samuel_Johnson.jpg
Word. If Austin wasn't fired, I'm not sure his character ever evolves into Stone Cold. His famous ECW promotion clearly shows his resentment about being held down / fired lit a huge fire under his ass that made him want to prove he was the greatest of all time ... if WCW kept feeding him just a little bit more every couple months, maybe he would have gotten to the top of the promotion — but would he ever have been hungry enough to change the history of the business?
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say no to Bull Nakano. Although, I doubt she'd let me.
ReplyDeletePeople will always say this I guess, but it's pretty obviously horseshit: WCW died because it became a massive money pit, and no one could even pretend it was going to be profitable in the near term circa 2001. If it had been profitable, it would have found a legit buyer and a television home.
ReplyDeleteVentura walks out of the WWF in 1990. Even gets to cut a goodbye promo of sorts that is simply - I won't be back jack, Then he goes to WCW, but the hogan heat killed that and Jesse went in politics.
ReplyDeleteI didn't mind it so much. I loved the 87 series and it was a huge part of my childhood, but whenever I've revisited the show it struck me as ultra goofy. I'm more of a fan of the 2003 series. The bit where they travel to the comic book universe and we got to see the black and white super grim turtles had me marking out.
ReplyDeleteHow does someone like Jess "sleep on the job?"
ReplyDeleteLike he literally dozed off at the broadcast table during a taping?
Iv always had a thing for her. Check her out after she beats Alundra for the title at the Tokyo Dome in 94
ReplyDelete