Grapple City Rewind
Taking you all the way back to the VHS era PPVs that shaped wrestling history. Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.
Grapple City Rewind
Red, White, and Blonde Mullets - Great American Bash 1989
Brad and Aaron watch NWA / WCW’s Great American Bash 1989 (The Glory Days) featuring both a War Games match and a world title bout pitting Rick Flair against Terry Funk. Plus Brad goes to the immersive experience known as Cosm to watch WWE’s Elimination Chamber, and the two co-hosts weigh in on John Cena’s recent heel turn.
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Music by Bradley Palermo & The Shadow Queens.
Created by Bradley Palermo & Aaron Fink.
00:00:00.42
Bradley Palermo
Hello and welcome to Grapple City Rewind, taking you all the way back to the iconic pay-per-views that shaped wrestling history. I'm Bradley Palermo, along with Aaron Fink, and today we we will be getting into the NWA slash WCW's 1989 event, the Great American Bash, also known as Great American Bash Glory Days.
00:00:23.72
Bradley Palermo
It took place in Baltimore Arena in Baltimore, Maryland on, I believe, July 23rd of that year. it was full of lots of blonde mullets and had championship match between...
00:00:37.22
Bradley Palermo
funk and rick flair and it even had a war games match and ah paul e dangerously versus jim cornett tuxedo match paul e of course being who we call paul hayman today so it was full of some action and it was a lot of fun um Drop us a call.
00:00:56.99
Bradley Palermo
Actually, yeah, drop us a call. Drop us a message. Leave us a call. Leave us a message on our machines anytime, day or night, 626-657-SLAM. That's the phone number where you can call and cut a promo on us, 626-657-SLAM.
00:01:11.70
Bradley Palermo
You can always contact us via email, grapplecitypod at gmail.com or find us across social media at grapplecitypod. But aaron before we go down memorly before we go down memoryly memory Aaron, before we go down memory lane, perhaps we talk a little bit about the current product after all.
00:01:31.39
Bradley Palermo
The Elimination Chamber, w WWE's Elimination Chamber was this past weekend. Did you get a chance to check that out?
00:01:39.32
Aaron
I did, you know. ah i wonder if there's anything to talk about. Hmm, what could we possibly talk about from Elimination Chamber, I wonder.
00:01:46.98
Bradley Palermo
What do you want to talk about?
00:01:50.56
Aaron
So actually, what I'll say about the whole, ah the show as a whole, i thought it was an excellent pay-per-view, an excellent premium live event for WWE. um
00:01:59.01
Bradley Palermo
Yes.
00:01:59.97
Aaron
Every match was entertaining. i will say, you know, I wasn't as... invested in every single match as I was others, but as a whole, excellent show, lots of surprises, lots of exciting moments, which is what WWE is in the business of creating. So I feel like it was a success on all fronts and not to mention the big news coming out of Elimination Chamber, which is that John Cena has turned heel for the first time in his career.
00:02:31.54
Aaron
and I can say from my side, I was not I had thought about it. You know, you and I both consume a lot of wrestling media, as I'm sure all of our listeners do. And it was a topic of discussion, but it was usually an unlikely topic. You know, most people couldn't really wrap their heads around the fact that this would be Something that would actually happen after Cena being a good guy for 20 plus years of his 25 year career. So it was an excellent moment. I was shocked.
00:03:06.34
Aaron
I think I stood up off my couch and was just like, what are you kidding me? Like, holy shit, they're doing it. That's amazing. You know, like I just got to say. ah Props to WWE creative props to John Cena props to everybody who felt like this was an okay thing to do.
00:03:25.13
Aaron
It takes a lot of guts to do what they're about to do right now. And as a fan, I'm just ready to strap in and go along for the ride.
00:03:35.45
Bradley Palermo
I feel like um John Cena, he started as a heel, right, briefly? Before we, I mean, I don't remember it or anything, but like two.
00:03:40.57
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah, very, very early on. I mean, he was still trying to find his footing in the WWE wwe at the time. It was 2002, 2003.
00:03:49.31
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:03:50.100
Aaron
um Yeah, he was the I think he was kind of heelish when he was the doctor of thuganomics. So, you know, but but but once he became who we all know him as, he was never anything other than that.
00:03:56.69
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:04:02.11
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:04:04.67
Bradley Palermo
Right, and his fan base is made up of cognitively disabled preteen boys. and his gimmick And his gimmick is, I guess the best way to describe it, is fucking dork.
00:04:16.36
Bradley Palermo
So how will he turn into ah heel being a fucking dork that you know only appeals to these sort of ill children?
00:04:25.48
Aaron
Well, he he's had all kinds of fan.
00:04:27.92
Bradley Palermo
I hate John Cena, by the way.
00:04:29.24
Aaron
i yeah I'm shocked. I couldn't tell.
00:04:31.22
Bradley Palermo
ha ha.
00:04:32.78
Aaron
i think that he I have every every belief that he's going to do a good job.
00:04:32.70
Bradley Palermo
Ha
00:04:37.82
Aaron
um I think that, you know, he was force fed down viewers throats for many years, just like Roman was before Roman became the tribal chief.
00:04:45.67
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:04:48.93
Aaron
And that can leave a bad taste in, you know, the smarter adult fans mouths us, you and I included, I didn't like him either.
00:04:49.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:04:58.17
Aaron
Uh, when he was having his run, I really wasn't a fan. Um, but as I've gotten older, I've come to respect what he did for the company and what he did for business in general.
00:05:08.97
Aaron
Um, and, yeah and even if I didn't like the character and it was, it it wasn't,
00:05:09.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:05:14.62
Aaron
marketed towards me, right? We weren't like you said, I know you were joking, but his target audience was teenagers, preteens, the younger demographic of the WWE wwe audience.
00:05:17.13
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:05:24.23
Aaron
And so now all of those kids are in their late twenties and they understand how the world works.
00:05:31.33
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:05:32.61
Aaron
And so I think it's probably really fun for them. I'm sure some of them are shocked beyond belief, but I think it's going to be fun.
00:05:38.05
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. It's there sort of like Hogan, 1996 bash of the beach sort of moment.
00:05:43.34
Aaron
Yeah, yeah. Which is what everyone's comparing it to, and and I can see how you would make that comparison.
00:05:44.61
Bradley Palermo
Um,
00:05:49.38
Aaron
What I'm excited about, though, is I know...
00:05:49.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:05:53.49
Aaron
What I know about John Cena is that he takes his work very seriously. And there was a time 2012, I believe, where he was going to go and and make a heel turn, become a bad guy when he was going to face The Rock at WrestleMania.
00:06:08.83
Aaron
But I guess that got changed at the last moment, but he was ready. He had a plan. He had gear. He had a song.
00:06:13.92
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:06:15.66
Aaron
um and And the way that he talks about what that could have been like makes me excited for what this is going to be like because if he does what he said he was going to do back then he's going to be the exact opposite of what he's always been and that's how you make a truly compelling bad guy is you you take all the good stuff away and then he's just you just hate him
00:06:20.96
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:06:27.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:06:30.44
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:06:33.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:06:38.92
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I wonder, um you you wrote that book, I think you recommended it to me, right? The the Brian Gewirtz book um about the Attitude Era.
00:06:45.42
Aaron
yeah i can't remember the title because it's
00:06:47.68
Bradley Palermo
I think it's just, there's just one thing, and there's just one more problem or something of that effect.
00:06:51.26
Aaron
Yeah, I'll look it up.
00:06:52.58
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, there was a lot of of that stuff between Cena and The Rock, sort of um riffing off of one of another, but they would kind of hurt each other's feelings at the same time during that feud. And Um, so, I mean, it's good that he, he ends his career with someone that he's historically attached to the rock.
00:07:12.03
Bradley Palermo
Um, But I do get tired of these old guys. Like we have really good current wrestlers and these old guys kind of come back with these glory hogs for WrestleMania.
00:07:24.25
Aaron
Yeah.
00:07:24.09
Bradley Palermo
And they kind of insert themselves into the, to the storyline. You know, John Cena has been jobbing for like new guys for years. Right. And ah lost to Austin theory and all this stuff.
00:07:35.39
Bradley Palermo
And he looks like that sort of, who's that guy that played earnest and like earnest goes to college and all that stuff.
00:07:36.62
Aaron
Yeah.
00:07:42.03
Aaron
I think his name is Ernest. I don't know.
00:07:43.71
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he looks like Ernest, you know, and it's like.
00:07:47.12
Aaron
Well, but that's but they made a part of they they made his 2,000-something days part of the story. I feel like, I understand what you're saying. I'm not disagreeing with you that like there' there will always be, when when someone who has no longer a full-timer comes back, there will always be ah segment of the audience that that are, you know i think, entitled to feel that other people deserve the time that they're getting.
00:07:56.30
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:08:13.64
Aaron
I totally get that.
00:08:13.92
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and Cena's never really gone away, right? He always pops up when it's a big show.
00:08:18.48
Aaron
I mean, on and off.
00:08:19.80
Bradley Palermo
There's never been a year where he hasn't wrestled.
00:08:21.57
Aaron
Yeah, I suppose he he does show up pretty often. But I guess what why I'm not feeling that way in this particular instance is because they're going to do something different, right?
00:08:33.22
Aaron
If it was him just coming back for the last year of his career and just doing the Nostalgia Greatest Hits tour, I probably would be annoyed.
00:08:40.30
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:41.64
Aaron
But this makes me excited because... at least I get to see something different. And at least I get to experience something that I didn't think I would experience.
00:08:47.90
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:08:51.91
Aaron
And that's, I think, like I said a few minutes ago, it's about creating moments. Like, I don't think I'll ever forget that moment that we saw, you know, just like seeing the way his face changed and hearing the crowd and and then all of the ensuing chaos that came out afterwards.
00:08:59.63
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:09:03.43
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Right.
00:09:09.50
Aaron
It was just a really awesome moment, a really fun pay-per-view.
00:09:11.30
Bradley Palermo
Right. I hate that his shirt says, you, no letter me. And people think that it says, you can't see me. It's like, that's a no letter C sign. You, no letter C, me means nothing.
00:09:27.45
Bradley Palermo
I can't wait for this year to end. So John Cena never returns. um But I do, I respect your, your, um,
00:09:33.71
Aaron
Tell me how you really feel. jesus
00:09:36.38
Bradley Palermo
your your uh your take on it's good to have some healthy discourse i also think the rock um he can't stay healed for more than like two minutes without explaining his character and that he's he's really a good guy he's just playing the final boss he's kind of every every two seconds he's you know let's say you got like you know you're a bunch of white trash you know syphilis mouths and then he's like thank you all for coming out you know
00:10:00.38
Aaron
Thanks for Moana.
00:10:01.58
Bradley Palermo
yeah and it's just and then he's on he's doing like shoot interviews afterwards talking about his character and it's just i wish you would just wait you know last year during wrestlemania you know you're about to watch the match match where he's playing a bad guy but he's he's pumping his um his youtube uh short about the documentary about how he chose to be the final boss on commercials like before the match
00:10:02.62
Aaron
I mean, it's a little...
00:10:27.20
Bradley Palermo
they're just really, really heavy on like, you guys look how fucking fake we are reminding us when we're trying to just get and and engulfed and like enjoy the moment. So I don't know.
00:10:37.82
Bradley Palermo
I, um I went to watch it's different.
00:10:39.64
Aaron
I mean, it's a different world now, you know, right? Like I don't.
00:10:41.62
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:10:43.67
Aaron
So I think what you're part of what you're referencing in case our listeners didn't see a couple weeks ago on SmackDown, Rock came out and said to Cody Rhodes, I want you to be my champion. I want your soul.
00:10:57.23
Aaron
And then right after that promo on the show, there was a press conference and The Rock came out and spoke out of character, speaking about what we just saw like 30, 45 minutes ago on the show.
00:11:12.69
Aaron
So I agree with you. i i don't think that that's not what I would have done. um
00:11:18.71
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:11:20.21
Aaron
I like keeping some of it.
00:11:24.66
Aaron
It's 2025. We know that things are predetermined. Things are discussed that this is entertainment, right? We are watching a show.
00:11:35.44
Aaron
Um, but at the same time, yeah, you're about to say it.
00:11:36.43
Bradley Palermo
But it's like, yeah.
00:11:39.16
Aaron
I'm about to say, it but at the same time, every form of entertainment benefits from the audience having a suspension of disbelief, meaning that when you're watching the avengers you know that that shit isn't real right but the filmmakers and the story draw you in so that you don't constantly think about that and are not constantly reminded of the fact that it's not real and i think that in this specific moment that you're talking about he made a choice that called attention to the fact that this is
00:12:12.58
Aaron
a soap opera and not an athletic contest. And I don't think that that gave anybody anything positive. but he's the rock. And if you want, you know, you could just as easily say, well, he was pretend like he was still in character because he's the arrogant, ah you know, chairman of the board of TKO. And that's what the final boss is. So like, I agree with you.
00:12:36.16
Aaron
i don't like when that happens. It's not like we can do anything about it. And you could just as easily make an argument that him doing whatever he wants is part of the character that he's currently portraying.
00:12:47.08
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think I would like to see um someone who's the same age as Cena, you know, CM Punk finally get his WrestleMania moment. So maybe that was part of my disappointment as well.
00:12:56.25
Aaron
Sure. I was mad too. I really i really wanted Punk to win.
00:12:57.10
Bradley Palermo
um
00:12:59.77
Aaron
um
00:13:00.01
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:13:00.93
Aaron
But you know, he just keeps saying in interviews, like, I don't i don't know if I actually need to main event WrestleMania anymore. And I'm like, no, stop. Keep the dream alive for me because that's what I want.
00:13:06.81
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:13:09.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:13:11.38
Aaron
But.
00:13:10.97
Bradley Palermo
That's, i mean, that's what I want. I went to see, you know, ah this match, the Elimination Chamber, this sort of immersive venue called Cosm in Los Angeles last night, which which is kind of like going to watch a...
00:13:23.20
Aaron
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:13:27.16
Bradley Palermo
a wrestling match in a um IMAX theater of sorts. You know, you you have a server, you're they're kind of like in a fancy movie theater.
00:13:35.37
Aaron
hu
00:13:35.63
Bradley Palermo
It's meant to make you feel like you're actually there, which it doesn't really make you feel like you're there, but it's definitely...
00:13:42.13
Aaron
But it draw it like drew you in, right? like you felt You felt focused and immersed.
00:13:43.98
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah, it's, they have four of their own hard cams there and they're like ringside seats.
00:13:49.55
Aaron
Oh.
00:13:50.10
Bradley Palermo
So, um so you're watching it And you can, you know, you can watch what's going on on the on the broadcast feed, if you like, they have those monitors up.
00:14:00.14
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:14:00.95
Bradley Palermo
But then if you decide you want to see what's happening on the other side of the ring, or what the managers or the crowds doing, like, you have a perspective where as if you're there, you can look around at everything else. um
00:14:10.70
Aaron
It's cool.
00:14:10.89
Bradley Palermo
The people and stuff aren't necessarily to scale. So
00:14:13.74
Aaron
Yeah.
00:14:14.12
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it doesn't feel totally real because everything's just so, so big.
00:14:17.88
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:14:17.74
Bradley Palermo
But, um, but it was funny because, you know, we're not there. um But there's, there's hundreds, if not a couple thousand people in the room. So you still get some chance and some like Cena sucks.
00:14:29.32
Bradley Palermo
Let's go Cena, CM Punk.
00:14:30.74
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:14:32.69
Bradley Palermo
But, um, but it's not, don't know, it's not quite the same, like, rowdiness as if, if you're actually, actually there, but I'm, I'm like yelling into the ether, like,
00:14:36.55
Aaron
Yeah.
00:14:42.96
Bradley Palermo
I can see you. i don't see your fucking hair, but I can see you. And people are laughing and shit around me. So but yeah, it was, it was a cool experience, but um yeah, if you' if you're in l LA and or Dallas and you ever want to check out ah live wrestling event from WWE, that's not, um you know, playing and in your actual town, I would check out Cosm for a trippy little, little night.
00:14:50.14
Aaron
Good. Well, you had fun. That's important.
00:15:09.39
Bradley Palermo
I think you can watch other sports there too, but
00:15:11.81
Aaron
Yeah, they have all kinds of stuff there. I've seen like ah at the LA one, they have ah Premier League soccer ah matches as well. So yeah, there's all kinds of stuff.
00:15:20.04
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, there were some hockey folks leaving when I came in. So they're doing multiple shows in a night. It's like a movie theater. I mean, they're like, give us 15 minutes to clean um before you go up to your seat, you know, that kind of thing.
00:15:27.46
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:29.67
Bradley Palermo
Um,
00:15:30.60
Aaron
Yeah, it was a fun show all around. I liked Jade Cargill returning, and I thought it was... i had a feeling that is the direction that we were being led by wwe WWE, that it was Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez who attacked Jade Cargill, was...
00:15:48.03
Aaron
fake the swerve and i think i was right uh because when jade got in the elimination chamber it looked like she was gonna go to live but nope she turned and went straight towards naomi and beat the crap out of her so that was exciting and i'm sure there'll be something going on on raw this week or maybe smackdown where we get a little bit more of a hint as to who did what
00:16:04.10
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:16:10.36
Bradley Palermo
Bianca's going to have to side with Jade probably so she can be the heel against um the babyface she'll be facing for the championship of WrestleMania who is what? Charlotte?
00:16:20.68
Bradley Palermo
No.
00:16:21.50
Aaron
No, it's either Rhea Ripley or EO Sky because they're wrestling on Raw this week, and whoever wins that will be facing ah Bianca.
00:16:23.48
Bradley Palermo
Tiffy? Oh. Oh yeah. Alright. Okay.
00:16:31.48
Aaron
You know, i don't know. i don't i don't think... I mean, i feel like it's more likely that be it's Bianca Rhea and it's just babyface versus babyface.
00:16:41.99
Aaron
But maybe I'm wrong.
00:16:41.66
Bradley Palermo
Okay, yeah.
00:16:42.71
Aaron
I don't know. They did have Jade come out in black gear and that's the first time she's ever worn the black year. I think her hair was different. So she could definitely be the heel in this situation.
00:16:52.79
Aaron
But I just assumed it was going to be the person who attacked her. And then once we find out who that is, they, you know, they're the bad guy. But who knows? Well, we'll have to wait and see.
00:17:00.02
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:17:02.06
Aaron
What about fucking KO and Sami Zayn though?
00:17:02.18
Bradley Palermo
Alright. Yeah,
00:17:05.26
Aaron
That match was gnarly. Holy crap.
00:17:09.16
Bradley Palermo
that's fun.
00:17:10.68
Aaron
who
00:17:10.24
Bradley Palermo
Um...
00:17:11.59
Aaron
That's the first time I've seen barbed wire in a wwe WWE match and I don't even remember how long, like maybe 20 years.
00:17:17.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, was like a old school hardcore match.
00:17:21.83
Aaron
Yeah, it reminded me of the matches that they used to have in Ring of Honor when they were El Generico and Kevin Steen, which actually Michael Cole, I think, mentioned on commentary, which was pretty surprising as well.
00:17:34.23
Bradley Palermo
That's funny.
00:17:35.54
Aaron
Yeah, it was a good time.
00:17:35.46
Bradley Palermo
um sure we go Should we go ahead and get into the...
00:17:38.14
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
00:17:39.88
Bradley Palermo
all right so let's get into the great american bash glory days from 1989 it was baltimore maryland 14 000 sold out arena ah cheesy 80s graphics and fun 80s music for the intro we had bob yeah it was very 80s it's like
00:17:55.04
Aaron
Yeah, dude. That was the first thing I noticed. It's like, oh my God. Yeah. Like if anybody watching this now would be like, oh my God, cheese fest. But it was great.
00:18:04.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, it's and so perfect though.
00:18:06.14
Aaron
It's funny. Yeah.
00:18:07.57
Bradley Palermo
Jim Ross and Bob Caudell, I believe. um ah Bob Caudell on commentary. First event was a $50,000 triple crown battle royale final.
00:18:21.92
Aaron
It sure was.
00:18:21.94
Bradley Palermo
um it's
00:18:25.32
Aaron
Did you feel like they?
00:18:25.09
Bradley Palermo
It's one of those like dust.
00:18:26.94
Aaron
No, go ahead.
00:18:26.71
Bradley Palermo
I think Dusty was doing the booking at this time. He had some convoluted ideas.
00:18:31.27
Aaron
Yeah, dude, that was the I was like, whoa, why are you hitting me with so many rules right now?
00:18:31.24
Bradley Palermo
um
00:18:35.79
Aaron
First match of the card. I'm just like, well, what's happening? Like, i don't I don't care.
00:18:39.14
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:18:40.96
Aaron
i just I'm just gonna watch them fight.
00:18:42.75
Bradley Palermo
right it's basically it's you're you're supposed to win $50,000 if you win the match there's two rings it's kind of like a Royal Rumble style battle royale if you lose in the first ring you get to join the second ring where the losers are having like a ah constellation fight
00:19:01.80
Aaron
The loser fight.
00:19:01.75
Bradley Palermo
um
00:19:03.21
Aaron
Yeah, no, that it i I did actually pay attention, but it was weird because you they only they were only throwing people over the top rope that connected the one ring to the other ring.
00:19:03.56
Bradley Palermo
and then at the end
00:19:13.18
Bradley Palermo
and Yeah. Right.
00:19:17.09
Aaron
And then once...
00:19:16.84
Bradley Palermo
So they just throw all the losers into the second ring and then they've...
00:19:19.79
Aaron
Right, and then in there, it's a battle royal where you actually get thrown over the top rope.
00:19:24.42
Bradley Palermo
And in theory, ring you know ring one, ring A we'll call it, has a winner and ring B has a winner.
00:19:28.67
Aaron
Yeah.
00:19:31.03
Bradley Palermo
So you have the winner of the loser ring. You have the guy that was never eliminated. and They go after each other. The winner of that then gets $50,000, $50,000, which is something I saw in WCW. or I see when I watch the old stuff, like they'll have like prize fighting for a dollar amount.
00:19:46.96
Bradley Palermo
You never really see that anymore, but, um, but the, the winner, the winner of this was, um, Sid Vicious and dangerous Dan Spivey, the skyscrapers.
00:19:49.10
Aaron
Yeah, that's true. Add some realism for sure.
00:19:58.84
Bradley Palermo
Um, so, so,
00:19:59.80
Aaron
Yes, it was actually kind of funny how it played out because Sid won in ring Spivey won in ring B, and then before they could fight to see who would win, their manager, Theodore Long, who you might recognize as Teddy Long in the w WWE,
00:20:18.22
Aaron
Came on the, or peanut yeah that was the chant.
00:20:17.88
Bradley Palermo
or peanut head.
00:20:21.75
Aaron
That's what they were chanting, right?
00:20:22.44
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah.
00:20:23.24
Aaron
Yeah, that was funny. So he comes out and gets on the mic and says, you guys are so stupid. You think I'm going to have my tag team fight each other? We're just going to take the money and split it. And so then the match is just over.
00:20:32.60
Bradley Palermo
Split the money. It's just over.
00:20:34.35
Aaron
i was like, oh, okay. It's just our cool, whatever.
00:20:36.38
Bradley Palermo
And it took longer to happen than it took for us to explain it. It was a couple minutes long. It was for that many guys to be eliminated and and to have some sort of result out of a match. I mean, um i don't know if I have it here on the screen, but it was it was very, very brief. um And we would see Vicious and Spivey come back out, um I don't know, a few minutes later and and do some sort of tag team match.
00:21:00.33
Bradley Palermo
So they were all over this fucking thing.
00:21:02.44
Aaron
Yeah, they saw a lot of people twice, actually. a Pretty much everybody who we saw in matches later in the ring, with a few exceptions, they were in this battle royal at the start of the show.
00:21:11.55
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:21:12.20
Aaron
So it was kind of kind of strange. It was ah an interesting start to the event. But once that was over, we had a very quick little interview with Teddy Long talking about the match that his team was going to be in later.
00:21:26.41
Aaron
And then we had our second match of the night, which was Flyin' Brian Pillman against Bill Irwin. And only note I wrote down for this match is Bill Irwin is loud. LOL. Did you hear him?
00:21:38.94
Aaron
Just like yelling the whole match.
00:21:39.02
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:21:41.06
Aaron
My God.
00:21:41.55
Bradley Palermo
Come on, Brian. Brian, you want to fly?
00:21:44.50
Aaron
Smacked.
00:21:44.20
Bradley Palermo
You want to fly, Brian? Throws his ass out of the ring. He talks the whole match.
00:21:50.10
Aaron
The whole match.
00:21:49.79
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he is just harassing the shit out of... Brian, and that's what I wrote too, Wild Bill talking mad shit the entire time, screaming at him.
00:21:57.96
Aaron
Yeah.
00:21:59.82
Bradley Palermo
And he's, you know, he's got this like kind of flabby farm boy body, like an old school brawler, loud mouth, just like, I just like fucking eat steaks and like lift weights and talk shit and fucking fight.
00:22:05.96
Aaron
Yeah, still pretty big, though.
00:22:10.52
Aaron
hmm.
00:22:12.59
Bradley Palermo
Like he, um, he's you know He's on top most of the match and Brian's kind of fighting underneath until he pulls out a cross body from the second ring that's just still sort of hanging out um from the previous match.
00:22:24.58
Aaron
Yep, that was cool, actually. This is something that I noticed. So the the way that this match ended, the finish of this match, and and the finish of some of the other matches, it was really fascinating to me because, of course, in modern-day wrestling, when a match ends, the crowd erupts or boos, depending on the result of the match.
00:22:47.18
Aaron
But the the audiences back then, the way that they reacted was very differently. that Throughout the entirety of the match, there's just sort of this like base level of noise.
00:22:59.02
Aaron
And it goes up and it goes down as things happen throughout the match.
00:22:59.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:02.84
Aaron
But with this finish and with some of the other finishes, the the you know the ref counts to three and the crowd erupts and they get so loud and they're so excited.
00:23:10.26
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:23:12.68
Aaron
And I feel like modern crowds it's not the same like they're they get they get excited but there's just something about it back then like that was the moment that was what you were always building towards sometimes in matches nowadays of course the counting the three and finishing the match ringing the bell gets everybody excited but i oftentimes feel like the highest spot in a match isn't always the finish nowadays and And I feel like back then in this in this specific pay-per-view, most of the highest moments of the match were that one, two, three at the end.
00:23:37.84
Bradley Palermo
right
00:23:46.83
Bradley Palermo
yeah and big finishers you know usually people aren't going to kick out of them and when you have a big uh nine match card you know you got to fly through the matches there's not a lot of space in between but
00:23:57.94
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:23:59.98
Bradley Palermo
But yeah, Brian got that cross body from the other ring scores a pin 123 big pop and then they don't waste any time going into ah Paul E dangerously promo it's it's funny to see ah Paul Heyman he's looking spry he's young.
00:24:16.38
Aaron
Got an incredible mullet.
00:24:16.22
Bradley Palermo
um yeah he's he's everyone in this whole thing has mullets mostly blonde mullets paul's is his darker mullet um but yeah he's referencing the the jim cornett scaffold match from 86 where he of course fell off the scaffold and busted his acl um he says he doesn't care if he wins he just wants to hurt cornett um so then we uh we you know
00:24:25.46
Aaron
Yep.
00:24:38.60
Aaron
Yep.
00:24:44.04
Bradley Palermo
then we get through that promo and they go right onto the skyscrapers with peanut head, Teddy long versus the dynamic dudes, um, which is, uh, righteously late eighties.
00:24:52.66
Aaron
The dynamic dudes, bro.
00:24:56.74
Bradley Palermo
Also, um, if you picture, uh,
00:24:58.86
Aaron
Yeah, and one of those dudes was, ah wasn't it Shane Douglas from ECW?
00:25:02.77
Bradley Palermo
beliefs, yeah, I believe so.
00:25:06.60
Aaron
I gotta look it up, because I was like, that guy looks like Shane Douglas.
00:25:06.59
Bradley Palermo
Um,
00:25:09.66
Aaron
Hold on.
00:25:10.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Who are, who's on the dynamic?
00:25:11.66
Aaron
Shane Douglas and Johnny Ace.
00:25:11.90
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:25:13.02
Aaron
Yeah, yeah. Dynamic dudes or Shane...
00:25:13.60
Bradley Palermo
Johnny Ace. Oh, Johnny Ace was the one that, um, worked in the office with Vince while he did all the, some of the dirty stuff, right?
00:25:19.68
Aaron
Oh, it's fucking Laurinaitis. That's right.
00:25:21.59
Bradley Palermo
Laura Nias, giant Johnny Ace.
00:25:23.04
Aaron
oh man.
00:25:23.44
Bradley Palermo
He, he, um, he had some fun with some defecation or something.
00:25:24.36
Aaron
I didn't realize that.
00:25:28.10
Aaron
We don't need to talk about it. We don't need to talk about it.
00:25:28.91
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. all right.
00:25:30.74
Aaron
It's not worth it.
00:25:31.42
Bradley Palermo
I can just cut it out. Yeah.
00:25:33.20
Aaron
Yeah. ah
00:25:33.62
Bradley Palermo
You don't want to talk about it.
00:25:35.14
Aaron
No, I don't think we should.
00:25:34.94
Bradley Palermo
Um, we can at least mention it's Johnny Ace though.
00:25:36.14
Aaron
Hold on. ah Yeah. Yeah.
00:25:40.10
Bradley Palermo
um
00:25:41.07
Aaron
Dynamic dudes, Shane Douglas and Johnny Ace. Wow. I did not realize that's who that was. Well, yay for Shane Douglas and boo for Johnny Ace, I say.
00:25:47.15
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:25:51.36
Aaron
It's a good thing he lost.
00:25:53.14
Bradley Palermo
Yes. So the skyscrapers, they seem to be really popular with these with this crowd. They're the, you know, they're the heels, but...
00:26:02.12
Aaron
Sid, though, Sid was so over with the crowd. And yeah, you're you're exactly right. They were clearly the bad guys in this in this tag match. But it seemed like the crowd didn't really like the dynamic dudes and they really, really liked Sid Vicious.
00:26:16.05
Aaron
It didn't matter what he did. I even heard the crowd saying we want Sid multiple times.
00:26:20.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, when dan was when Dan was in there, they were chanting, we want Sid the whole time, which ah Sid was super over.
00:26:23.86
Aaron
Yeah, yeah.
00:26:27.78
Bradley Palermo
Teddy Longcourse gets his interference in there as ah as a heel manager should.
00:26:32.64
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:26:33.38
Bradley Palermo
um I feel like Teddy looks older 40 years ago than he does now at age 77.
00:26:39.14
Aaron
Dude, i was thinking I was thinking the same exact thing.
00:26:40.05
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:26:43.30
Aaron
He just wasn't taking care of himself. He's like, you know, he's like taking care of himself. He got his teeth fixed. He realized he doesn't need to.
00:26:48.80
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:26:50.23
Aaron
you know I mean, he was if he was a heel manager, it kind of makes sense that he was like playing up the fact that he was bald because, you know, it gives somebody something to make fun of him for.
00:26:55.82
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:26:59.22
Aaron
But I thought the same exact thing.
00:26:59.29
Bradley Palermo
Right. And they were...
00:27:01.12
Aaron
I was like, wait, this is from 1989. He looks worse then than he does now. But good for him, man.
00:27:08.12
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. What was I going to say? Did...
00:27:11.37
Aaron
Are we going talk about ah Sid, this the funny Sid stuff?
00:27:16.04
Bradley Palermo
Well, I was going to say that, oh, this was actually the match where the crowd was yelling peanut head at Teddy Long. And they were so like, they had so much conviction with their fingers pointing right at them in the front row.
00:27:27.20
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:27:27.12
Bradley Palermo
Peanut head, peanut head, which I've never really heard anyone called a bald guy peanut head before.
00:27:30.76
Aaron
Me
00:27:33.51
Bradley Palermo
I don't know where that came from, but, um but they, they, yeah.
00:27:34.20
Aaron
neither. It was funny. And the way the the the camera angle you and they had a can't. So ah for those of you who can't or haven't watched this yet, ah there while the crowd is calling Teddy Long a peanut head, they cut to a camera angle of him where he is showing off The triple crown that the skyscrapers won in the battle royale and the camera is angled above his head. So it's just pointing down at his bald head. And he's like, stop, stop pointing the camera down there. Look at my face. This is all that matters.
00:28:09.17
Aaron
Can I just say that fucking paper crown was the the worst prize. I have ever seen.
00:28:15.54
Bradley Palermo
Oh yeah.
00:28:16.75
Aaron
He's like, this is all that matters. I'm like, dude, that's made out of plastic. Like, come on, guys, we could get a better crown than this.
00:28:20.46
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Like a Burger King crown or something.
00:28:25.38
Aaron
Yeah, dude, it was like exactly like a Burger King crown with some fake jewels on it. It made me laugh super hard.
00:28:32.19
Bradley Palermo
So the skyscrapers win again. It's a big day for them. They've now won two two out of three matches on this one pay-per-view.
00:28:39.02
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:28:39.12
Bradley Palermo
um I was looking up, I don't know a lot about the skyscrapers, but it looks like The Undertaker would join the skyscrapers eventually.
00:28:47.52
Aaron
Oh, really?
00:28:47.10
Bradley Palermo
um Of course, as Mean Mark Callis.
00:28:49.79
Aaron
Yeah.
00:28:49.86
Bradley Palermo
um And so I guess there was a little group that had a few guys in and out, but it sounds like it was brief. um And it also got me thinking about, had you heard about Sid Vicious's obsession of softball and how that everyone rumors that all the old timers say that he would skip matches to play softball, that he would threaten to leave to play softball, that he would put it in his contract and he needed softball
00:29:14.90
Aaron
Oh, my God.
00:29:15.06
Bradley Palermo
off that he's just this huge dude who just goes and like cracks home runs and that's really all he ever cared about was just cracking home runs at like slow pitch softball and and when he died last year you know i heard a few of the old timers like telling stories about him and it always comes out the broken leg and the um how he was unreliable because you're always competing against his like local softball team yeah
00:29:22.25
Aaron
ah cracking softball homers.
00:29:33.98
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:29:39.03
Aaron
softball schedule that's amazing i you know i i feel like they had an a and e documentary about him and the in the last couple years that you know the those ones that the wwe wwe tends to do i feel like i watched because i do remember that he was weirdly into softball but i didn't know extent to which he was into softball that's amazing good for him
00:29:49.16
Bradley Palermo
oh cool.
00:29:52.13
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:29:57.76
Bradley Palermo
Yo,
00:30:02.01
Bradley Palermo
I've got a, I found a YouTube video here from the Hannibal TV back in 2018 where they asked him about the the rumors that his love for softball um interfered with his wrestling career.
00:30:18.39
Bradley Palermo
If you want me play that clip real quick, I can ah and play this video.
00:30:22.41
Aaron
Yeah, yeah, let's do it.
00:30:23.73
Bradley Palermo
Let me see.
00:30:34.66
Bradley Palermo
You what had happened
00:31:00.53
Bradley Palermo
you see what what had happened was...
00:31:14.69
Aaron
Where's the softball talk?
00:31:19.04
Bradley Palermo
He's trying to explain it.
00:31:54.13
Bradley Palermo
For playing softball.
00:31:55.36
Aaron
What the fuck?
00:32:31.65
Bradley Palermo
And during that time, I played some softball.
00:32:45.46
Bradley Palermo
And during that time, I played some softball.
00:32:48.89
Aaron
Ain't nothing wrong with that.
00:32:49.02
Bradley Palermo
So it sounds like it's all um overblown, but I feel like now we've gotten the ah word from c Sid from beyond the grave about his softball.
00:32:54.59
Aaron
It's funny. Yeah.
00:32:59.56
Bradley Palermo
And I've heard it way blown over. Like, I've heard it blown up way more than that. Like, with other guys talking about it, you know. We couldn't find him. He was booked for WrestleMania. He's off somewhere in Iowa at a fucking softball game.
00:33:13.59
Aaron
yeah of course wrestlers exaggerating what else is new
00:33:17.37
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:33:18.45
Aaron
All right. So, so after the dynamic dudes versus the skyscrapers, we got a quick little Cornette promo responding to Polly dangerously.
00:33:18.49
Bradley Palermo
Um...
00:33:29.41
Aaron
And, uh, then we had the match Polly dangerously versus Jim Cornette in a manager tuxedo match. Paul E. Dangerously is very clearly the bad guy and Cornette is the baby face.
00:33:40.46
Aaron
The crowd stood up and applauded when Cornette walked in and, uh,
00:33:44.93
Bradley Palermo
With his Jeffrey Dahmer glasses and his bow tie and his blue tux tennis racket.
00:33:47.28
Aaron
Yeah, it's really shirt. yeah I'm sure there's a name for the type of frills that are on his dress shirt, but I don't know what it is. It was a pretty funny match.
00:33:57.40
Aaron
it I don't even know if I would call it a match. It was just like a like, yeah right.
00:34:01.78
Bradley Palermo
Well, it's a tuxedo match. The goal is to de-clothe, disrobe the other person.
00:34:07.18
Aaron
Your opponent. Yeah. Yeah. that They're both wearing different tuxedos and the loser is the one who has to walk out of the ring in their skivvies.
00:34:08.14
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:34:16.33
Aaron
Uh, so the match begins with some wild punches. Paul Heyman, excuse me, Polly dangerously throws some powder in Cornette's face and goes after Cornette's injured knee from the scaffold match incident.
00:34:31.14
Aaron
Um, It was fun. You know, i mean, it wasn't like a match match, but the crowd was invested. They did not want Paulie to win and they wanted Cornette to win. So, ah yeah, I had fun. um Something that made me laugh about it was they there was a moment where Cornette was punching Paulie and the crowd did the punch count spot. They were counting his punches, which.
00:34:55.100
Bradley Palermo
Oh, okay.
00:34:57.11
Aaron
It was kind of funny.
00:34:56.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:34:57.87
Aaron
You know, you you don't see that as much in the older videos as you do in the current day stuff. So, yeah, it was it was a fun match.
00:35:04.13
Bradley Palermo
Was he standing up on the turnbuckle at that?
00:35:06.59
Aaron
I don't even know if he was.
00:35:06.77
Bradley Palermo
No.
00:35:07.59
Aaron
I think Pauly was just like on his knees and Cornell was just sitting while standing and they and there were in the ring.
00:35:07.64
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, i don't think so.
00:35:11.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, this was this match was the reason that I chose to watch this pay-per-view. I just really wanted to see those two legendary managers in a match because I know that Cornette's trained wrestlers and you know managed wrestlers and done a lot of booking.
00:35:30.31
Bradley Palermo
um He's also on on you know famously you know critical of wrestlers and their work. So I kind of wanted to see how he worked.
00:35:37.84
Aaron
Yeah.
00:35:40.62
Bradley Palermo
And yeah, it's a silly match, but I will say that like the punches looked really good. It did. It didn't look, um, it didn't look all that fake. It was kind of like a sloppy mud wrestling meets bar fight sort of style just, but they, they did throw a lot of punches and they, they didn't look, um,
00:36:00.53
Bradley Palermo
They didn't look all that bad for two guys that are never in the ring.
00:36:04.09
Aaron
huh
00:36:03.60
Bradley Palermo
um
00:36:05.00
Aaron
yeah
00:36:04.52
Bradley Palermo
And some of the slaps that Paul E got on Cornette, I think he was slapping his face because it was loud. you know So it seemed like there was some stiff stuff happening.
00:36:12.97
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:36:17.98
Bradley Palermo
you know, good looking strikes. And um Paul E, ah you know, he's he's a round little feller now, but, you know, back then, he once they disrobe him, he's got, i mean, he's got a body better than Jey Uso does, who's who's challenging for the world title and at WrestleMania.
00:36:37.29
Aaron
She is just full of piss and vinegar today.
00:36:38.30
Bradley Palermo
So,
00:36:42.68
Bradley Palermo
I mean, he does, right? So,
00:36:45.74
Aaron
he had it Yeah, he was he was in good shape.
00:36:45.86
Bradley Palermo
so
00:36:47.54
Aaron
I mean, he was also 40 years younger than he is now, almost 30, 35 years.
00:36:47.77
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:36:51.47
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. Right. So who would have thought maybe Jey Uso has a, has a, uh, um, uh, future as a, short round little angry manager.
00:37:05.86
Aaron
And after a bit of back and forth and a second attempt from Pauly dangerously to throw powder in the eyes of Cornette, Cornette was able to kick Pauly's hand.
00:37:16.65
Aaron
The powder goes in Pauly's face and Cornette wins the match by disrobing Paul.
00:37:20.53
Bradley Palermo
Well, Cornette gets his pants and Paul runs out in his blue tighties, you know, so ding, ding, ding.
00:37:27.41
Aaron
Tidy white is yep.
00:37:30.98
Bradley Palermo
And we get to match four, which is a Texas Tornado tag team match. No need to tag, no DQ, I assume.
00:37:39.30
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:37:39.51
Bradley Palermo
um It's Mike Rotunda. ah father of the wyatts and yeah future uh irs character urban r shyster which is what i knew him from in the wwf he's with kevin sullivan and they are wrestling the steiner brothers rick and scott steiner
00:37:46.99
Aaron
Bray Wyatt, Bo Dallas.
00:37:51.87
Aaron
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:38:02.11
Bradley Palermo
Obviously, the parents of, or the dad and the uncle of Bron Breaker, because like it says at the beginning of the Cody Rhodes intro intro, if you listen really closely, wrestling has more than one nepo baby.
00:38:09.30
Aaron
here
00:38:20.11
Aaron
yep it was a it was a fun match a fun tornado tag match the crowd was really excited about this one and uh there was there was we could i could also hear the crowd barking like a dog and uh
00:38:20.02
Bradley Palermo
And
00:38:26.39
Bradley Palermo
and there was a lady and a dog there too with a Rick and Scott. A lady and a dog.
00:38:34.86
Aaron
you know, for all the people that watch nowadays, that that's where that came from. That's why they bark for Braun Breaker. Cause they barked for his dad, Rick Steiner, the dog face gremlin.
00:38:44.48
Bradley Palermo
It's crazy how many parents are in this thing, right? Because this this map this entire event was booked by Dusty, Cody's dad.
00:38:47.05
Aaron
Yeah.
00:38:52.79
Bradley Palermo
And now you've got Bray Wyatt's dad and Ron Breaker's dad. Like, you really see, like, the old generation.
00:39:00.67
Aaron
Later on, we got Jay and Jimmy's dad, Rikishi.
00:39:03.41
Bradley Palermo
We do.
00:39:04.31
Aaron
Yeah.
00:39:04.53
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, we've got a lot of dads in this thing that are...
00:39:07.31
Aaron
Brian Pillman, Brian Pillman Jr., or I guess Lexus King now in NXT.
00:39:09.69
Bradley Palermo
Mm-hmm.
00:39:11.40
Aaron
Yeah, that was a big and exciting part of watching this.
00:39:11.39
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:16.99
Aaron
you know Watching from this time period, watching events from this time period is always fun for me because not only do I see people that I saw when I was younger, but I see people that I've learned about who...
00:39:28.68
Aaron
are directly related to the people that we're watching now. it's it's We as wrestling fans really like our history.
00:39:31.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:34.79
Aaron
um And so, yeah, I always enjoyed this type of stuff for that reason. you know We saw, we didn't talk about ah Scott Hall was in the Battle Royal, pre-Razor Ramon with his big, huge handlebar mustache and his curly blondish hair.
00:39:45.99
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:39:52.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. That battle royale was just a lot of dudes, a lot of white guys with, with blonde mullets.
00:39:58.61
Aaron
And Ron Simmons.
00:39:58.25
Bradley Palermo
And so it was Enron Simmons.
00:40:00.15
Aaron
Don't forget about it Ron Simmons.
00:40:00.88
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. I know I was, I thought there was, i watched again, the whole, the whole thing over again, briefly, just kind of in the background. i was like, okay, there was, there was some diversity on this card, but, but yeah, it's a lot of, a lot of white guys with blonde mullets and, um,
00:40:17.98
Aaron
And Ron Simmons.
00:40:17.83
Bradley Palermo
what was I gonna say? Oh, but in Ron Simmons, but going back to this match, um, with, uh, Steiner brothers versus Mike and Kevin is super fast paced.
00:40:28.02
Aaron
Yeah.
00:40:27.59
Bradley Palermo
It's just right away. They're, they're, you know, they got tables.
00:40:31.93
Aaron
Going 100 miles an hour.
00:40:32.35
Bradley Palermo
They're fighting on the outside. um Rick Steiner gets crotched on the railing, like right away. um crowds barking like crazy. Um, it's quick.
00:40:42.50
Bradley Palermo
It's over quick, but so far I'm,
00:40:44.56
Aaron
Yeah, it was well it was just like seven minutes long.
00:40:47.24
Bradley Palermo
it might have even been shorter yeah it was fast um four minutes steiner gets the pin on sullivan with uh on sullivan with the double team cross body um but at this point in the in the pay-per-view i'm like i kind of like this there's a lot of matches they don't they don't fuck around they get in they get out you know who the good guy is you know who the bad guy is
00:40:50.58
Aaron
Four minutes and 22 seconds. goodness. goodness
00:41:06.48
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:41:10.12
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:41:10.70
Bradley Palermo
um you hit a really You hit a really good move on somebody. like They're not kicking out. um We move right along to the Gary Hart promo and the Sting promo.
00:41:21.100
Bradley Palermo
Gary Hart, is he's kind of like ah a menacing, dark character. He kind of reminds me of like um Anton LaVey or something, like the 90s satanic church leader.
00:41:32.39
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:41:34.14
Bradley Palermo
like He has that bald head and creepy teeth and stuff.
00:41:34.88
Aaron
her
00:41:37.74
Aaron
Yeah, i didn't I didn't recognize this guy. i guess I must have not watched a lot of things with him ah you know in them, being the being a manager. But yeah, he he was unnerving.
00:41:50.25
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, yeah, he's a creepy guy. Sting, he's never really been a great promo, even though he's kind of the face of WCW. Like, his personal personality is flat.
00:41:58.68
Aaron
Well, but he was... Yeah, he and he was being kind of different in this promo, too.
00:42:00.52
Bradley Palermo
But he...
00:42:04.02
Aaron
like He even said, like I'm going to stay calm because like I've got a serious fight against the Great Muda ahead of me. you know um
00:42:11.15
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:42:12.10
Aaron
So yeah, this this next match, Sting versus Great Muda for the World Television Championship, this was the first match that I felt was like...
00:42:22.43
Aaron
the stakes were raised like every match before this was exciting of course and the crowd was behind them but this was the first match where i felt like the crowd was super super hot really really into it really in in the corner of sting the first note i wrote about this match is sting is over af
00:42:37.95
Bradley Palermo
right
00:42:42.90
Bradley Palermo
yeah he's the world champion and here's a world champion match but the catch is the great muta or as jim ross kind of called the great muta or whatever um is undefeated and so you're kind of like is this the end of this guy's on undefeated streak um
00:42:54.60
Aaron
Yeah.
00:43:00.90
Aaron
Or is staying gonna get dethroned? Yeah.
00:43:03.52
Bradley Palermo
so but sting looks great he comes out the tassels the glitter he's in orange and green he's the champion but um yeah he's up against this undefeated guy also they're both in face paints it's face paint against face paint um
00:43:08.36
Aaron
Mm
00:43:20.16
Aaron
hmm.
00:43:21.11
Bradley Palermo
i I thought it was interesting when Sting was wrestling Muta and he just gives him a basic clothesline, all of a sudden it became an American clothesline.
00:43:31.54
Bradley Palermo
i was like, oh, when you clothesline an Asian guy, it becomes ah an American clothesline. Oh.
00:43:39.32
Aaron
Yeah, i don't know. I mean, you know, that this to me was the best match. At this point in the card, this to me was the best match so far in terms of like the flow, giving things time to breathe, getting the crowd, ah you know, truly behind everything that's happening.
00:43:56.30
Aaron
And um kind of an interesting end, you know, Sting Sting gets the pin, but they, you know, they they start talking about how there's a little bit of controversy because it looked like somebody's shoulders were on the mat or somebody's weren't always on the mat.
00:43:59.14
Bradley Palermo
yeah yeah
00:44:12.61
Aaron
And so Muda takes the belt and leaves in the crowd, and the crowd chants bullshit, which I thought was really funny too, because that's like a modern day thing.
00:44:12.28
Bradley Palermo
hu
00:44:21.41
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:44:23.24
Aaron
But then we saw the the replay and I was like, I don't see what you guys are seeing. Like this whole controversy thing did not work for me.
00:44:31.61
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:44:33.34
Aaron
i think they like they tried to make it work and it didn't really. i would have preferred just a clean little thing or like not going back to the the instant replay because when you When you go back and show something that you're trying to pick apart, like you always run the risk that somebody's going to pick it apart the wrong way.
00:44:54.03
Aaron
Because to me, I was like, it looks fine.
00:44:54.03
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:44:56.68
Aaron
i don't it sting Sting's shoulders were clearly off the bat. Mood as we're on.
00:45:00.45
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:45:01.97
Aaron
i don't see how this is controversial.
00:45:02.80
Bradley Palermo
Well, they didn't want to end the undefeated streak of Muta and they didn't want to take the belt off of Sting.
00:45:05.62
Aaron
Yeah.
00:45:06.84
Bradley Palermo
But I feel like the thing that I had an issue with was before that.
00:45:08.00
Aaron
Yeah.
00:45:10.54
Bradley Palermo
It's like Muta spits poison mist at Sting, misses, you hits the fucking ref.
00:45:14.04
Aaron
In the ref's eyes. Yeah.
00:45:16.30
Bradley Palermo
So the ref knows that he's used, you know, some sort of foreign toxins to assault the ref.
00:45:20.72
Aaron
A foreign object. Mm
00:45:24.20
Bradley Palermo
When the ref woke up, he should have said, you're DQ'd, you know.
00:45:27.40
Aaron
hmm. Mm hmm.
00:45:27.70
Bradley Palermo
Um, but instead, he's sitting there counting when he can't see how he's supposed to see who shoulders are down. The guy's been fucking pepper sprayed. I mean, there's, there's, that's where my issue was, but I mean, they got out of it.
00:45:41.28
Aaron
Yeah.
00:45:41.88
Bradley Palermo
They, it's they left it undecided, contested and undecided at the end. Um, but yeah yeah, it was fun getting up to that point. Then we go straight into Lex Luger promo.
00:45:53.59
Bradley Palermo
He's the U.S. champion ah title that's still yeah and it's title that still exists today and WWE.
00:45:55.84
Aaron
Mm-hmm. He's a heel.
00:46:00.49
Aaron
Yep.
00:46:00.82
Bradley Palermo
w e I think it's held by LA Knight right now, right? and
00:46:05.16
Aaron
No, it's Shinsuke now.
00:46:05.54
Bradley Palermo
The U.S. championship.
00:46:07.09
Aaron
It's Shinsuke.
00:46:07.07
Bradley Palermo
Oh, yeah.
00:46:07.78
Aaron
Yeah, he took it from LA Knight, but I think l LA Knight just actually qualified for another match against Shinsuke to maybe get it back, so we'll see how that goes.
00:46:08.26
Bradley Palermo
that
00:46:17.14
Bradley Palermo
I see. So we get the Lex Luger promo and then we go into the Ricky Steamboat versus Lex Luger in a no DQ match, which is how it's announced.
00:46:28.70
Aaron
ah Wait, but before we talk about this dip, can we talk about Ricky's entrance?
00:46:29.86
Bradley Palermo
But
00:46:34.39
Aaron
Because by God, this man standing on a giant plank of wood holding some sort of giant lizard through the entire walkway.
00:46:44.14
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I guess it's some kind of like lizard dragon so because he's Ricky the dragon steamboat.
00:46:48.78
Aaron
Yeah, like a dragon. Oh, like a Komodo. dragon Maybe it was a Komodo dragon.
00:46:50.12
Bradley Palermo
I got a huge, yeah, huge live lizard with like its mouth tapes, which is maybe that's where Jake, this is before Jake came out with the snakes all the time, right?
00:46:52.94
Aaron
Yeah, but also hilarious. Poor guy.
00:47:00.86
Aaron
yeah yeah
00:47:01.04
Bradley Palermo
So this might have been like kind of an influence on that. I don't know, but um but a huge, like gnarly, like terrifying looking lizard, a lizard.
00:47:06.66
Aaron
it was pretty funny he was wearing a leather vest too in case you didn't notice that komodo dragon was was properly dressed for the occasion
00:47:10.96
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:47:14.42
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:47:17.40
Bradley Palermo
oh yeah god dude
00:47:20.34
Aaron
Oh, man. But OK, yeah. So the step that you were talking about in the promo that Luger gave before the match, he was like, yeah, you know, I'm the world I'm the US s champion and i don't have to fight if I don't want to. So like, Ricky, you need to make this a not a non DQ match or else I'm going to leave and we're not going to fight.
00:47:41.24
Aaron
And then he comes to the ring after Ricky. He has this little thing where he gets on the mic and he's like, I'm not going to do it if unless it's a regular match and blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, like after a minute of stuff happening off the mic, then the announcer's like, okay, it's not an ODQ match anymore. It's just regular.
00:47:59.45
Aaron
And then the match starts. I'm like, well, what was the point of that? That was another thing that just like didn't,
00:48:02.62
Bradley Palermo
Well, the point was, we knew at that point, obviously, I'm like, I wrote down, okay, so we know how this match is going to end with a DQ. And we know that titles don't change hands with a DQ. So they kind of just gave us the whole finish in that controversy. But but it also, yeah there's a story behind it.
00:48:20.96
Bradley Palermo
And now you can, I mean, basically it worked into, yeah,
00:48:25.28
Aaron
It played into the finish. Yeah, no, you're right. I mean, it's just like, without knowing that, though, I'm just thinking like of me watching it for the first time.
00:48:27.00
Bradley Palermo
yeah.
00:48:30.46
Bradley Palermo
Right.
00:48:33.30
Aaron
I'm like, well what did that solve? You know, and I guess I, my mind didn't jump to the conclusion that yours did, which is like, oh, that's going to play into the finish, which now that you're saying it. And of course, now that I watched it, I was like, oh, yeah, obviously.
00:48:45.16
Aaron
But at the time, i was like, that's kind of a weird thing.
00:48:46.94
Bradley Palermo
I thought Luger was going to be. I figured Luger was going to be down and and then he would just get DQ'd on purpose so he didn't have to let the title switch hands.
00:48:56.18
Aaron
Hmm, like he would be Yeah, like he would attack Ricky.
00:48:58.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, but you know what? He's not that bright because I remember later on in the 90s, the Lex Express ended with a match with him yo you know versus Yokozuna.
00:49:10.20
Aaron
Hmm.
00:49:09.75
Bradley Palermo
And he Yokozuna out of the... of the ring for the 10 count, just celebrating with balloons that he was the U S champion.
00:49:16.100
Aaron
That's right. I remember that.
00:49:18.20
Bradley Palermo
And they had to come tell him like titles don't change hands with DQ.
00:49:21.68
Aaron
With count outs. Yeah.
00:49:22.16
Bradley Palermo
so or with, well, yeah, with count outs. So I was like, wait, he doesn't even, in my mind, he doesn't even understand all that shit. So, so maybe it's Ricky, but ultimately,
00:49:32.92
Bradley Palermo
um It ends with a chair. It's Luger's idea that hit Steamboat with a chair, but Steamboat gets to use it first and he gets disqualified, leaving their feud to <unk> be resolved at another time, I assume.
00:49:47.77
Bradley Palermo
But um yeah, it kind of had an open-ended finish.
00:49:49.19
Aaron
hmm. Dude, can I just say there was a part of this match that I thought was really, really weird, and I'm glad that it doesn't happen as much in modern day wrestling. There was a spot where Luger was in the corner and Steamboat was punching him.
00:50:06.96
Aaron
And the referee came over and stopped Ricky Steamboat from punching Luger and like pulled his arm and took him out of the way.
00:50:19.24
Aaron
he like blocked a punch, which then allowed Luger to punch Steamboat. And I was like, what the hell was that? Like that...
00:50:26.61
Bradley Palermo
yeah yeah
00:50:27.64
Aaron
That is refer ah referee being way too involved in a match. um Maybe that was, it must've been more commonplace back then. I assume that it was, but as ah as a modern day viewer, I'm like, why are you touching a wrestler?
00:50:42.59
Aaron
Like you should not be doing that.
00:50:42.39
Bradley Palermo
yeah yeah it's weird just do your little count threaten to disqualify them but and you don't usually see them throw them off of the other person
00:50:52.06
Aaron
There was also another time too.
00:50:51.75
Bradley Palermo
um
00:50:54.19
Aaron
This doesn't matter. It's just made me laugh. When the referee was counting for a Luger pinning steamboat, did the like a normal speed, you know, count. It was a two count, but then Ricky got a reversal or something, 30 seconds to a minute later. And the ref's count was like, boom, boom. And I was like, what, what?
00:51:14.40
Aaron
That was the most inconsistent cat.
00:51:14.87
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:51:16.68
Aaron
You just like, You just counted for a baby face so fast.
00:51:21.37
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:51:22.06
Aaron
Dude, you got to get your shit under control. Like, get your rhythm good. Just just keep a kid consistent, you know?
00:51:26.90
Bradley Palermo
you can play as the referee on those WWE 2k24 like PlayStation games.
00:51:32.13
Aaron
Oh, that's funny.
00:51:32.13
Bradley Palermo
And if you do any even counts, you know, you get, um, well, like, like gorilla will send a new ref down and you'll like lose, you'll, you'll you'll get a different ref.
00:51:34.91
Aaron
They'll get mad at you.
00:51:41.94
Bradley Palermo
that You're, you're tossed out.
00:51:43.95
Aaron
That's so cool.
00:51:43.82
Bradley Palermo
So, so you can actually practice like fairness and, and you can you can, you can pull a screw job and all that stuff.
00:51:44.92
Aaron
I love that.
00:51:50.92
Aaron
Yeah, that's that's that's really funny.
00:51:50.38
Bradley Palermo
But, um,
00:51:53.44
Aaron
I love that.
00:51:53.56
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, they get really deep with these video games now. But I thought, you know, steam Steamboat's obviously a really good worker. And I was interested to see him again. um Lex Luger is kind of known for, you know, being like the top body in wrestling and ex-football guy with, you know, basic power moves. So it's kind of a good combo just to see the big bulky power move guy versus the the ring savvy dude, um great chest chops.
00:52:21.44
Aaron
Yeah.
00:52:22.12
Bradley Palermo
Like they didn't seem like they were waiting for each other to chop.
00:52:23.100
Aaron
Yeah.
00:52:25.81
Bradley Palermo
it seemed like they were both just going at it, which I feel like today that looks so kind of, kind of hokey when they're just like, hit me, I hit you, hit me.
00:52:28.25
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:52:31.76
Aaron
It can look, it can look, yeah.
00:52:36.18
Aaron
Yes, the
00:52:36.05
Bradley Palermo
I'm waiting for you. Like they were more kind of going at it.
00:52:39.58
Aaron
i don't like the tree out the trading there's a lot more like let me stand here and take punishment and now you stand there and take the punishment i give you in modern day yeah i agree that uh steamboat has great jobs um and yeah back then they were always just like rapid fire i thought this was a really really fun match um
00:52:40.06
Bradley Palermo
So yeah, I don't know.
00:52:49.48
Bradley Palermo
Right. Yeah.
00:53:03.06
Aaron
Again, crowds super invested. um you know, just it's just a weird ending. I think it's it's funny. Like we we saw a lot of finishes in this pay-per-view that we just don't see anymore.
00:53:12.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:53:18.25
Aaron
And some of them, I understand why we don't see them anymore.
00:53:17.100
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:53:21.56
Aaron
But others, I'm like, you know, that would be fun. i wish we would. I wish we'd go back to some of this. Oh,
00:53:26.61
Bradley Palermo
How about this um fabulous Freebirds promo that came on next?
00:53:30.95
Aaron
my God.
00:53:30.57
Bradley Palermo
It's like your classic cocaine infused 1980s. I don't know what they're saying, but it's a vibe. Like curly mullets, sunglasses, Samoans, screaming, slobbering, pacing, shaking.
00:53:38.13
Aaron
yeah
00:53:43.58
Aaron
Gnawing on each like each other
00:53:43.62
Bradley Palermo
Like, yeah, dude, I was, you're like, what the fuck?
00:53:49.48
Aaron
ah It was great. It was great. Yeah. but
00:53:50.83
Bradley Palermo
Roadrunner.
00:53:52.20
Aaron
This is a crazy, this, I actually, I didn't do any research about the pay-per-view before I watched it. I didn't want to know what the matches were. So I didn't even know there was a war games match in this until it happened.
00:54:03.94
Aaron
And I was like, Oh shit, here we go.
00:54:03.60
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:06.25
Aaron
and yeah. The fabulous Freebirds and the Samoan SWAT team had their promo first, which, which as you said, was cocaine-fueled and almost incomprehensible. And then we had the promo of the babyfaces, the Midnight Express, the Road Warriors, and Dr. Death Steve Williams.
00:54:22.49
Aaron
And...
00:54:22.43
Bradley Palermo
Which was a lot more screaming and slobbering. Mm-hmm.
00:54:25.24
Aaron
Yes, but slightly more coherent. and And then we got to the War Games match, which was pretty fun. You know, first thing I noticed was... Man, the ceiling of that cage is very, very low. These guys are going to hit their head on something.
00:54:40.95
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, they don't have a top on the War Games cage anymore, right?
00:54:46.13
Aaron
hmm.
00:54:45.92
Bradley Palermo
and
00:54:47.03
Aaron
hmm.
00:54:46.69
Bradley Palermo
i mean, you're disqualified if you leave the cage. But yeah, back then it was like you were you were caged in.
00:54:53.39
Aaron
Mm hmm.
00:54:52.97
Bradley Palermo
It was probably what, so eight feet, seven feet above ring?
00:54:57.46
Aaron
Yeah, I really wasn't that tall.
00:54:58.27
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
00:54:58.94
Aaron
it it was It was an interesting, a very interesting match because although we see War Games matches nowadays once a year, ah they've changed quite a bit. The thing that I enjoyed the most that was different from what it is like now is all of the teams being outside of the ring and, you know, talking smack to each other through the cage and the managers are there too.
00:55:21.41
Bradley Palermo
right
00:55:22.32
Aaron
And they're talking strategy. i like that because nowadays, you know, all the teams are in their own little shark cages up by the entrance and it's not, there's not as much fun.
00:55:31.77
Bradley Palermo
right yeah they're all there the managers are out there there
00:55:33.01
Aaron
You don't get to play with, you know, the inside outside aspect of it as much.
00:55:42.48
Aaron
They're calling plays.
00:55:42.69
Bradley Palermo
there is no
00:55:43.44
Aaron
They're like writing things down paper.
00:55:46.66
Bradley Palermo
I don't think they they don't bring weapons in like, uh, today it's like you kind of bring a weapon in on your way down.
00:55:49.60
Aaron
Mm-mm.
00:55:52.04
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:55:52.22
Bradley Palermo
There's, there's none of that. Like the ring is kind of the cage is, is, is a weapon of sorts.
00:55:57.06
Aaron
It's the weapon, yeah.
00:55:57.43
Bradley Palermo
That's, that's sort of what makes it dangerous. Yeah. Um, in fact, Dr. Death, Dr. Death lifted Gordy of the free birds up and slammed them like right over above his head.
00:56:09.24
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:56:08.75
Bradley Palermo
So slamming them against the roof of the cage. Like he's a strong ass dude. Gordy is huge.
00:56:13.82
Aaron
Yeah, that guy, yeah, he was so tall.
00:56:14.17
Bradley Palermo
Um,
00:56:16.50
Aaron
My goodness. There are a lot of big, big dudes in this match.
00:56:20.17
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. And War Games is another like dusty creation that's, I mean, we've seen it enough. We kind of understand the rules.
00:56:26.04
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:56:26.55
Bradley Palermo
It's a little convoluted. you know You're bringing another wrestler in every couple minutes.
00:56:31.100
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:56:31.70
Bradley Palermo
And then it's there's there's several moments where there's an unfair advantage. And that unfair advantage was determined by a coin toss that was off the screen before the match. And then once everyone's in the ring, then just whichever team scores a pinball first
00:56:41.79
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:56:46.87
Bradley Palermo
wins but Jim Ross was great at sort of explaining what was happening um commentary was they played a
00:56:51.69
Aaron
sir And strategy.
00:56:55.01
Bradley Palermo
they played the commentary pretty straight on this one. I feel like Jim Ross keeps you kind of in the know.
00:56:57.61
Aaron
Yeah,
00:57:00.66
Bradley Palermo
I think Bob Caudol is, I mean, he's wasn't very interesting, kind of dry, but there was no like kind of Jerry Lawler, like heel commentary, anything like that.
00:57:11.66
Aaron
yeah. yeah
00:57:12.95
Bradley Palermo
They were really playing it like, like a real sporting event. Um, uh,
00:57:17.31
Aaron
Yeah, this the it was the the the show as a whole, commentary included, was very different from what from the the show that we discussed last episode.
00:57:27.69
Aaron
you know It's WCW. It's 1989. The production is simpler. It's more sports-based. it's you know There's not ah the paasantry of WWF.
00:57:38.27
Aaron
It's grittier. It's meant to be an athletic thing.
00:57:39.87
Bradley Palermo
yeah
00:57:41.55
Aaron
And that's how yeah that's how Jim Ross, I feel like, comments, commentates.
00:57:47.05
Bradley Palermo
yeah he explained it it's what you're watching now is a demolition derby with human bodies like okay i get that and and that's kind of how the fighting was it was it was just ah all punches and it' slamming each other against the cage for for the majority of this um yeah
00:57:58.48
Aaron
Yeah.
00:58:01.99
Aaron
But a fun match. A fun match and crowd is hot again. they They really wanted to see the bad guys lose.
00:58:08.36
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, um Hawk wins for his team by putting Jimmy Garvin in a, guess a neckbreaker. He sort of picked him up from behind and kind of strangled him over his own back.
00:58:16.59
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:20.85
Aaron
Yeah, that was, that was cool.
00:58:20.65
Bradley Palermo
It looked cool.
00:58:21.97
Aaron
I i hadn't seen that before.
00:58:23.03
Bradley Palermo
and look cool it looked It looked gnarly.
00:58:25.40
Aaron
Painful.
00:58:25.34
Bradley Palermo
I mean, brutal.
00:58:26.01
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
00:58:26.78
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah. i was like, dude, he's going to rip this guy's throat right off of his, right off of his shoulders. But, um, and then animal gets stuck in the cage with the heels and sort of gets the beat down.
00:58:36.90
Bradley Palermo
So yeah, it was wild. There was, there was a lot of chaos going on in there. And, um, Oh, the road warriors came out on motorcycles. So that ha that happened in 1989, like long before we saw it with the undertaker.
00:58:45.14
Aaron
That's right. Yeah.
00:58:50.33
Bradley Palermo
I don't know if anybody else was riding up in motorcycles and wrestling.
00:58:54.73
Aaron
They did it in the WWF too when they were the Legion of Doom.
00:58:54.21
Bradley Palermo
That was kind of cool.
00:58:57.93
Aaron
I just don't remember what that pay-per-view was, but I remember it was one of the ones that was outside during the daytime. I remember the Road Warriors motorcycling to the ring.
00:59:05.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Right.
00:59:08.51
Aaron
But yeah, fun match. And then leading up to the main event, which was rick Flair versus Terry Funk for the World Heavyweight Championship.
00:59:08.65
Bradley Palermo
Um,
00:59:15.36
Bradley Palermo
Ric Flair is really serious in his promo. He's I've never seen him. He's like the opposite of the promo we saw with the the wild guys from the last match.
00:59:22.30
Aaron
Yeah, and kind of like ah it's kind of a babyface promo, too, like you know in a way, um because I guess he was the babyface at this point.
00:59:23.75
Bradley Palermo
He's calm. He's serious. Yeah.
00:59:30.82
Aaron
Terry Funk is clearly the the heel, clearly getting booed, and clearly a psychopath, which was great.
00:59:37.11
Bradley Palermo
right Ric Flair, he's got concerns over his health. He doesn't know if his neck can handle another match.
00:59:45.70
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
00:59:45.58
Bradley Palermo
I guess if only they knew, he'd still be wrestling 40 years later or whatever. you know but but yeah, he's he's serious. It's a title match. Terry Funk versus Ric Flair, world champ.
00:59:59.81
Bradley Palermo
Terry Funk's got creepy old Gary Hart in his corner. So that guy's back out there.
01:00:05.34
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:00:05.02
Bradley Palermo
Flair at this time... is a six-time world champion.
01:00:11.12
Aaron
Yeah, I think he was the winningest champion at this point.
01:00:10.60
Bradley Palermo
He walks out
01:00:14.70
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think they said it only, ah the only person that had won a feat that only, I think they mentioned someone else that had won six times.
01:00:22.19
Aaron
Harley race. Yeah.
01:00:23.14
Bradley Palermo
Harley Race. Okay. So, but he walks, Ric Flair walks out with golden streaming fireworks and a purple sequence robe and two women on each arm, you know, full on styling and profiling.
01:00:24.90
Aaron
Yeah.
01:00:37.64
Aaron
kissing women in the audience as he walks by.
01:00:38.97
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I mean, dude, full on Ric Flair.
01:00:39.72
Aaron
yeah Peak Ric Flair.
01:00:42.17
Bradley Palermo
And yeah, it starts off intense outside of the ring. Terry Funk starts swinging on him and they get crazy.
01:00:52.38
Aaron
Yeah.
01:00:51.78
Bradley Palermo
And Jim Ross is sort of doing that that thing, that ah tactic that AEW you kind of uses today that's right at the beginning.
01:00:52.57
Aaron
Yeah.
01:00:59.21
Bradley Palermo
He's like, and I've got word that we can we can keep this match going as long as we need to. We've got approval from the cable company.
01:01:06.97
Aaron
Yeah.
01:01:07.47
Bradley Palermo
You're like, oh, wow, this one might go all night.
01:01:10.36
Aaron
Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:11.47
Bradley Palermo
But the camera, the cameras look, the camera shots look cool on this match. I see a couple times it was kind of cinematic, like cameras real low down on ringside.
01:01:21.97
Bradley Palermo
And I mean, for 1989, you know, it's a smoky room, wild vibes, like bright lights.
01:01:28.61
Aaron
yeah
01:01:29.81
Bradley Palermo
You can see everyone in the crowd. Like it looked kind of, it looked kind of cool.
01:01:33.56
Aaron
Totally. Yeah. Really fun vibe.
01:01:34.21
Bradley Palermo
yeah.
01:01:35.16
Aaron
ah And but at the same time, just like very gritty in, you know, amidst all of the all of the cinema, there was, you know, they got brutal.
01:01:39.26
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, of course.
01:01:45.00
Aaron
I think both both men got busted open in this one, didn't they?
01:01:49.31
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, and I guess Ric Flair got the figure four on funk, and funk somehow gets a branding iron while the ref is distracted from Gary Hart. Yeah, then Flair ends up with some color.
01:02:02.20
Bradley Palermo
he's He's got blood all through his blonde mullet, which is kind of classic Ric Flair. They have the blonde hair, and but it's all it's all splattered and crimson.
01:02:09.36
Aaron
Red streaked. Yeah.
01:02:11.20
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um
01:02:14.21
Bradley Palermo
Funk chokes Ric Flair with a rope. They're slamming each other around on the on the cement. They've got the pads pulled up. Flair...
01:02:21.90
Aaron
here
01:02:23.32
Bradley Palermo
flare Flair bleeds more, i more. I wrote down that Flair bleeds more often than Jon Moxley. So he's, and I wonder, yeah, I wonder if Moxley, does he, i don't know if he still bleeds in every match, but I wonder, because Flair kind of bleeds, bled in every match, right?
01:02:31.92
Aaron
Especially now.
01:02:38.90
Aaron
No, he doesn't. Yeah, well, I mean, back then, everybody bled so much more often than they do now, except for Moxley. But Moxley hasn't bled.
01:02:49.95
Aaron
Moxley hasn't bladed in months. Like, I honestly can't even remember the last time. i think he finally realized he was being a moron.
01:02:55.05
Bradley Palermo
Since he got that.
01:02:58.18
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:02:58.49
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. i Maybe since he's gotten the title that he's never worn, he's stopped bleeding.
01:03:03.72
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:03:04.07
Bradley Palermo
I don't know.
01:03:05.36
Aaron
I think you're right.
01:03:05.16
Bradley Palermo
But, um,
01:03:06.04
Aaron
Yeah, I think you're right.
01:03:07.98
Bradley Palermo
Right. So, um but yeah, I always just tie it to the current product. I'm like, oh yeah, like I know someone that does that is just as much today, you know.
01:03:15.95
Aaron
way too much yeah
01:03:17.12
Bradley Palermo
um Not to put Flair and Moxley in the same camp. They're very different, but Flair wins with the reverse cradle.
01:03:21.76
Aaron
no no
01:03:26.89
Bradley Palermo
um oh and then the great Muta comes in to spray.
01:03:32.06
Aaron
Yeah, shit gets real crazy as soon as...
01:03:32.68
Bradley Palermo
on.
01:03:34.30
Aaron
like this is This kind of reminded me of the end of the Stadium Stampede pay-per-view because as soon as the 1-2-3 hits and we have a winner, it just gets even crazier.
01:03:39.94
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Yeah.
01:03:46.14
Aaron
Muda comes down and he missed Flair and then just the fighting continues and continues and it moves all over the arena.
01:03:46.38
Bradley Palermo
yeah
01:03:53.46
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, Great Muta sprays Flair with the mist that he's already sprayed, don't two other people earlier with. Now Flair's got his white, his blonde bleached hair, and he's got red all over one side of the face and green mist on the other side of the face.
01:04:04.99
Aaron
And red and green. Yeah,
01:04:10.66
Bradley Palermo
He's just looking fucking nuts, dude.
01:04:13.26
Aaron
yeah he went a little crazy.
01:04:13.16
Bradley Palermo
um
01:04:14.34
Aaron
ah
01:04:13.78
Bradley Palermo
And sting Sting comes in to save Flair. They fight off into the back. Women are like trying to get away from the bloody men as they as they book it back to the back.
01:04:24.08
Aaron
hmm.
01:04:26.51
Bradley Palermo
i've I've been bled on it in the first row at a wrestling show. I don't know if you've ever been bled on at one of these places, but it fucking ruins your night.
01:04:32.52
Aaron
Mm hmm.
01:04:33.99
Bradley Palermo
It's where the fun ends. It's fun to watch other people bleed.
01:04:35.84
Aaron
Yep.
01:04:36.51
Bradley Palermo
When they bleed on you, it's fucking awful.
01:04:39.76
Aaron
It's like, cool.
01:04:39.26
Bradley Palermo
So I don't i don't mind those tricks like...
01:04:41.18
Aaron
Yeah.
01:04:41.43
Bradley Palermo
ah running away like you you kind of you go to a show you don't think you know you're goingnna be a part of it that you're going get blood all over you and then you're just sitting there looking at this fucking sweaty guy's blood on your hand like what do i go do you know like um
01:04:49.09
Aaron
Yep.
01:04:54.02
Aaron
What do I do with this? Yeah. i think I think the only time I ever was interacted with in that way was when the New Day threw a pancake at me during a Monday Night Raw that I caught. other than that,
01:05:04.42
Bradley Palermo
oh wow yeah see i go to these gcw shows and sometimes i sit in the front because you know and uh
01:05:08.28
Aaron
Right. You catch blood drops, I catch pancakes.
01:05:12.26
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, they just, yeah, bootios.
01:05:17.49
Aaron
ah That's fair.
01:05:16.93
Bradley Palermo
I don't know what a bootio is, but I'd rather have a pancake than ah any any food that has the word booty in it. um Yeah, so that was kind of the final image, that whole, he does a promo with all the blood and the green spray and everything on his face, and um he thinks Sting.
01:05:30.69
Aaron
Mm hmm.
01:05:32.97
Aaron
That's like the flare remember where he's just yelling.
01:05:34.75
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:05:36.30
Aaron
He's just eyes are wide and he's just.
01:05:37.18
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:05:39.37
Aaron
Fuck.
01:05:39.89
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:05:42.80
Aaron
I'm going to get you.
01:05:43.30
Bradley Palermo
He's hyped, yeah.
01:05:44.61
Aaron
yeah
01:05:45.34
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, he promises more with funk. um And yeah, he's hanging out with Sting. So was that was Great American Bash, yeah, Great American Bash 89.
01:05:58.34
Bradley Palermo
um
01:06:00.09
Bradley Palermo
i was going to say, i wanna see i let let me see my final thoughts on this one. Do you in the meantime?
01:06:07.63
Aaron
I could come up with something. Hold on, let me take a hit of this first.
01:06:10.96
Bradley Palermo
I think I have a final thoughts.
01:06:12.96
Bradley Palermo
So my final thoughts on it were it was a fast moving card. All killer, no filler. and really liked it. um You know, i I wish things kind of moved at this pace.
01:06:26.02
Bradley Palermo
Nowadays, I think a nine nine match card sometimes gets a little tiresome or you kind of want to get away, like ah take a bathroom break or skip a mid card match. But this one moved along pretty quickly.
01:06:39.86
Bradley Palermo
um intense atmosphere you know bright lights on the audience you could see every single person in the crowd um they were loud um i noticed um i thought there was like no almost no diversity like i mentioned before like it seemed like everyone was a white guy in this but but yeah there was like the great muta the samoans there was um ricky steamboat so they had a handful of like asian dudes not a lot of black guys for a card but this many fucking people
01:06:46.84
Aaron
Yeah.
01:07:10.24
Aaron
Yeah, just in the just in the battle royal at the beginning, we had two.
01:07:09.64
Bradley Palermo
um
01:07:12.76
Bradley Palermo
yeah Yeah, and Peanut Heads, Teddy Long. So I guess ah Paul Heyman, that's kind of diversity.
01:07:16.28
Aaron
Right.
01:07:21.38
Bradley Palermo
His parents were Holocaust survivors. So I mean, you know, I guess you you know kind of count it, but... um but yeah i feel like just i mean wrestling has so many people from so many backgrounds now and it's it's kind of like um everyone's represented it's like one place where i feel like um you know there's not like one group that sort of has a stronghold on like this is wrestling and back then it kind of did look like a white man thing and somebody might have been doing something to a
01:07:45.10
Aaron
Yeah.
01:07:52.26
Bradley Palermo
To keep it that way. i don't know. kind of went down a Reddit like rabbit hole about like all the different all the different things, like complaints that like Black wrestlers have had with NWA and Jim Crockett and
01:07:56.91
Aaron
That shit's dangerous, man. Yeah.
01:08:02.04
Aaron
Yeah.
01:08:05.50
Aaron
Oh, I have no doubt. I mean, if you think about where wrestling originated in the carnivals of the you know early 1900s, mean... Yeah, not good.
01:08:16.26
Aaron
I, like you, am much happier that there is a lot more diversity and that we don't even really talk about it. It just is what it is. People are there. You see all different kinds of people.
01:08:24.100
Bradley Palermo
It's just, yeah.
01:08:26.100
Aaron
And that's the way the world is. That's the way life is. So, yeah, I agree.
01:08:30.55
Bradley Palermo
yeah
01:08:32.79
Aaron
It was a fun show. You know, it was very different from the first thing that we watched. um It was WCW as opposed to WWF. It was seven years earlier than the first thing we watched. And, you know, it was different in its presentation. WWF is very much entertainment and spectacle.
01:08:53.46
Aaron
And while this was entertaining and had spectacular moments, it's what we think of, I think, or or maybe what people thought of wrestling as back then. It sort of fits that bill a little more.
01:09:03.88
Bradley Palermo
Thank you.
01:09:05.35
Aaron
But, yeah. It still was very enjoyable. It was fun to look back on the past and see some people that I hadn't seen in a while. And also, you know, remind myself of the ways that wrestling has gotten better and some of the things from the past that maybe we could use more of nowadays. You know, I think we're going to find a lot of times that when we watch these,
01:09:28.50
Aaron
It's going to be a mixture of the nostalgia of noticing things that don't really happen too much anymore, whether that's for a good or a bad reason. And then, you know, reminding us of of why we love this in the first place, because there's really nothing like being in that crowd and cheering for somebody that you want to win and booing for somebody that you want to lose.
01:09:37.01
Bradley Palermo
Yeah,
01:09:48.44
Bradley Palermo
yeah I think between the brutality of an early war games match, the flair funk bloodbath, the sting versus Muta controversy and the, the steamboat lizard entrance, you know, we ended up with a high energy, violent, chaotic event with pretty legendary talent and some memorable moments.
01:10:11.59
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:10:12.37
Bradley Palermo
I would suggest watching it. I mean, I had never seen it before. i just heard about the tuxedo thing. So I thought we put it on, see how it goes, but, but, um,
01:10:19.44
Aaron
Yeah.
01:10:21.100
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I think it's, I think this was the first American bash that was done under the WCW name.
01:10:31.18
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:10:31.17
Bradley Palermo
They're still referring to the the event as the NWA because at that time NWA was the governing body of the territories and WCW bought Crockett.
01:10:35.52
Aaron
Mm-hmm.
01:10:42.02
Bradley Palermo
So you don't really hear WCW in the thing. It's just, it's all NWA this, NWA that. So that's kind of an interesting transitional time too.
01:10:53.15
Bradley Palermo
um Yeah, check it out.
01:10:54.18
Aaron
Yeah.
01:10:55.46
Bradley Palermo
I think it's like episode three on Great American Bash on Peacock, right?
01:11:00.06
Aaron
Yeah.
01:10:59.50
Bradley Palermo
and
01:11:00.74
Aaron
the
01:11:00.66
Bradley Palermo
Season three, episode episode one.
01:11:03.03
Aaron
Yeah, that's I think how they do it. Season three, episode one.
01:11:07.09
Bradley Palermo
Should we get to some emails?
01:11:09.42
Aaron
Yeah, let's do it.
01:11:10.100
Bradley Palermo
All right, let me see. i don't want to read all these. Let's just pull a couple. Oh, my buddy Peter in St. Louis wrote to us. Let's see. Peter says, the new red wrestling podcast is great.
01:11:25.74
Bradley Palermo
He tells me about my other friend who recommended it to him. He says, I love that 97 shit. Hit me up if you do SummerSlam 94, which is Undertaker versus Undertaker.
01:11:39.15
Bradley Palermo
um That sounds fun. I don't know if you're aware or if you remember when there were two Undertakers.
01:11:45.85
Bradley Palermo
I lost your audio.
01:11:47.54
Aaron
What you're telling me there was there is a SummerSlam 94 to Undertaker. This is ridiculous.
01:11:55.65
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, two Undertakers.
01:11:57.90
Aaron
Get out of here. What is this?
01:11:57.86
Bradley Palermo
At one point... Sometime in that era, The Undertaker died. He was brought back, I believe, by Ted DiBiase, but only fueled by money at that point.
01:12:04.57
Aaron
In storyline.
01:12:08.63
Bradley Palermo
And I think the Paul Bearer created one that was still like the dead man. Yeah, Undertaker versus Undertaker in 94. I think Peter had a great idea there, so...
01:12:17.65
Aaron
Db ACs undertaker.
01:12:17.42
Bradley Palermo
Who knows? maybe um Maybe we'll have him come on and hang out with us if he wants to do SummerSlam 94. But there's a lot of good pay-per-views that we can get to. And wrestling is not short on ridiculousness.
01:12:28.71
Bradley Palermo
So I'm sure we'll run into lots of cool stuff.
01:12:30.36
Aaron
Very true. Yeah.
01:12:32.36
Bradley Palermo
um Vinny from the Bronx says, i can't do a Bronx accent. Who are these two now who think they know wrestling? Well, Vinny, we're just two dudes that have fun talking about wrestling and we don't think we're anybody special.
01:12:49.50
Aaron
No, I just.
01:12:49.11
Bradley Palermo
um But if you ever want to, you know, if you.
01:12:53.05
Aaron
Good.
01:12:53.60
Bradley Palermo
Go ahead.
01:12:55.44
Aaron
I'm just a guy who's been watching since I was a kid. i like to think of myself as an intelligent person, so I watch critically. i like learning things, so I try to educate myself.
01:13:05.71
Aaron
ah Yeah, that's, you know, if you don't like me, you don't like me, but I like me and I like talking about wrestling, so I'm going keep doing it.
01:13:14.84
Bradley Palermo
Yeah, I feel like I watch so much wrestling in a week. you know like I watch it pretty much every night. I love watching the old shit. I'm like, if I'm going to watch all this wrestling, like let's do something.
01:13:25.39
Bradley Palermo
Let's make something. Let's produce something.
01:13:27.36
Aaron
Yeah, let's talk about it.
01:13:29.11
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. um And so so, yeah, I'm having fun with it. um But someone who wasn't having fun with it was Robert on Instagram, who said... these guys are boring.
01:13:40.29
Bradley Palermo
So, you know, if you guys, if you guys, we have a, pro we have a hotline, you can cut a promo on us and tell us how boring we are and how we don't know as much as, as, as Vinny in the Bronx does about, about wrestling.
01:13:42.95
Aaron
That's fine. I'll accept that.
01:13:55.72
Bradley Palermo
You can just call the number and leave a promo, cut a promo on us It's 6-5-7-SLAM. For Vinny, I'll help you spell that. s l a m six two six six five seven S-L-A-M.
01:14:11.24
Bradley Palermo
um You can leave us an email. It's just grapplecitypod. For Vinny, again, that's P-O-D. It's how you spell pod. At gmail.com. Or at grapplecitypod on social media.
01:14:23.40
Bradley Palermo
You can talk all the smack you want. Suggest what we should watch next.
01:14:28.24
Aaron
Yeah, please.
01:14:28.10
Bradley Palermo
um um Give us your thoughts on the show, whatever you want to do. What are we watching next, Aaron?
01:14:35.27
Aaron
What are we watching next? I think we're going to watch the very first King of the Ring. And if I'm not mistaken, that was 1993's King of the Ring. The very first King of the Ring professional wrestling pay-per-view.
01:14:54.02
Bradley Palermo
Sounds fun to me. i don't think I've seen it. That's part of the fun of this show is I get to see a lot of stuff that i haven't gotten around to yet.
01:14:58.88
Aaron
Yep.
01:15:03.27
Bradley Palermo
just going to pause to figure out where I want to go with this next to how to wrap it up.
01:15:07.39
Aaron
Yeah, I mean, whatever. Just thank everybody and tune in next week. Something like that.
01:15:15.21
Bradley Palermo
Yeah. Right. Well, thank you everyone for listening to our first, ah for our first episode last week, or this has been our second episode this week. ah We'll be coming back before you know it with another one. we appreciate you all listening.
01:15:32.28
Bradley Palermo
You can um please do write contact us. already said that kind of before ah scratch all that. Let's see.
01:15:42.18
Aaron
Do you want me to do it? I can do it.
01:15:43.98
Bradley Palermo
send E-mails and reactions, final verdict, sign off, plugs. Do we have anything else to plug?
01:15:50.38
Aaron
I don't think so.
01:15:50.52
Bradley Palermo
Hmm.
01:15:51.84
Bradley Palermo
OK. Yeah, go ahead. You can go ahead and thank everyone, and then we'll sign off.
01:15:55.27
Aaron
Okay.
01:15:56.24
Bradley Palermo
Yeah.
01:15:56.91
Aaron
All right, so that is going to do it for this episode of Grapple City Rewind. Thank you all for listening. We've had a great time talking about this pay-per-view, and we look forward to chatting with you next time about King of the Ring 1993.
01:16:11.10
Bradley Palermo
All right. Thank you, everybody.
