Loss Posted February 18, 2011 Report Share Posted February 18, 2011 Talk about it here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 12, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 This is a challenge match to knock Yokozuna off his feet. This is actually pretty great. They did a good job building up Yokozuna quickly for Wrestlemania, considering he debuted in late '92. After four attempts, he knocks Yoko off his feet and the crowd goes insane. Duggan is celebrating as the fans are screaming for him to turn around, which is awesome, and Yoko blinds Duggan with Fuji's salt and then does three bansai drops before burying Duggan under an American flag and doing yet another bansai drop. Yoko has tons of heat and Vince is incredible in getting this over on commentary. Duggan starts bleeding from his mouth and does a stretcher job. The production values of the WWF really shine through here. I wish Vince still booked like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 I remember this like it was yesterday. Just a great angle to put over Yoko as an indestructible monster and a blood thirsty beast to boot. Simple, super well executed. Wrestling isn't that hard to book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Agree with the consensus. I remember thinking this was so fucking great when I saw it at the time and I fucking HATED Duggan at that point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benj Posted March 12, 2011 Report Share Posted March 12, 2011 Vince could do this angle the same today.....except the part with the American Flag covering a body. Loved the shoulder block stuff, the crowd eating it up and Yoko's selling. Great finish with the multiple bonsai drops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeCampbell Posted March 20, 2011 Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 One thing I miss about those days were how long wrestlers would sell for. Yoko put Duggan on the shelf until the spring, and he was still so hurt that Bam Bam beat him pretty easily during King of the Ring. If they did this same angle on RAW, the injury would last all of two weeks tops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted March 20, 2011 Report Share Posted March 20, 2011 One thing I miss about those days were how long wrestlers would sell for. Yoko put Duggan on the shelf until the spring, and he was still so hurt that Bam Bam beat him pretty easily during King of the Ring. If they did this same angle on RAW, the injury would last all of two weeks tops. I realized things got fucked up during the Attitude era in that infamous show where the NOA thrashed Cactus and Funk into a dumpster. They made it seems like a huge deal in the first hour, it was an awesome angle. Then Cactus and Funk got back during the main event to do a run in, and everything was ruined. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted March 21, 2011 Report Share Posted March 21, 2011 One thing I miss about those days were how long wrestlers would sell for. Yoko put Duggan on the shelf until the spring, and he was still so hurt that Bam Bam beat him pretty easily during King of the Ring. If they did this same angle on RAW, the injury would last all of two weeks tops. Well it's not the same thing but they did the HHH angle on Raw where he was attacked by Sheamus and sat out for close to a year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironmikesharpe Posted March 25, 2011 Report Share Posted March 25, 2011 Man, Duggan hasn't been this good since the Mid-South set. I have to say, between this and the Crush/Doink angle a couple discs previous that they were doing simple, old school angles that were very non-WWF. Was Vince active in booking around this time or was this during the period where he was on trial? Some of this stuff doesn't feel like him at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2011 Man, Duggan hasn't been this good since the Mid-South set. I have to say, between this and the Crush/Doink angle a couple discs previous that they were doing simple, old school angles that were very non-WWF. Was Vince active in booking around this time or was this during the period where he was on trial? Some of this stuff doesn't feel like him at all. WWF booking in '93 was very interesting. The constant line in the WON was that they were doing a lot of things to cater to the hardcore WWF audience (Who knew one existed?) that were atypical. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ironmikesharpe Posted March 26, 2011 Report Share Posted March 26, 2011 It's why these yearbooks are so great. I had no chance to watch WWF in 93 and had always assumed it was awful based upon the big shows, but clearly there was fun and creative stuff going on. Such a smart idea to do these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strummer Posted March 26, 2011 Report Share Posted March 26, 2011 The atypical booking can be traced back to late 91/almost all of 92. The WWF was trying new things and going more towards a traditional wrestling product. Of course there were ridiculous gimmicks and angles but there was a definite shift. It didn't work in terms of turning business around but still have to give Vince some credit for trying a style he obviously loathes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted March 26, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 26, 2011 The atypical booking can be traced back to late 91/almost all of 92. The WWF was trying new things and going more towards a traditional wrestling product. Of course there were ridiculous gimmicks and angles but there was a definite shift. It didn't work in terms of turning business around but still have to give Vince some credit for trying a style he obviously loathes Going back to basics in a rebuilding period -- which this was -- makes sense. So much about this time period explains Vince's mindset today, I think. He parted ways with Hogan, Flair, Savage and Piper, thinking that they had seen their best days and had nothing left to offer and that he needed to go in a new direction. WCW ended up getting some good years out of those guys. He was wrong. So now, he goes with pat hands way too long, I think for fear of leaving some good years on the table like he did with those guys. Back to this angle, this is a clear difference between the WWF and WCW. WCW had some better angles than this in '93, but with such lousy production that it ended up taking the whole presentation down a notch. For example, A Flair For The Gold felt like public access TV, while the WWF talk shows like Funeral Parlor and Brother Love were always immaculately produced and the sets looked great. This was a solid angle made excellent because of the camera work, announcing, lighting, etc. -- stuff where the WWF really knew how to execute. At times, WCW had pretty good production, but their post-production/editing was almost always terrible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shoe Posted June 14, 2011 Report Share Posted June 14, 2011 Such a great angle. You feel Duggan is channeling his Mid-South character. The blood in the mouth was a great touch. Flag burying angles rule. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ridge Posted June 30, 2013 Report Share Posted June 30, 2013 Oh, like this one. Duggan has the gall to do the three point stance against a charging Yokozuna. Yoko was great at doing the teasing of getting knocked of his feet. Duggan is the first one to knock Yoko down and it is played up huge. Duggan is dumb as hell though and takes the time to wave the USA flag during the match and Yoko hits him with the bucket. Yoko squishes Duggan with the Banzai. What a way to make Yoko look like a monster though. Lots of crowd shots and then a zoom in of the American flag on the mat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteF3 Posted October 25, 2013 Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Such a well-built angle, from Duggan bouncing off Yokozuna at first to jiggering Yokozuna's shoulder to Yokozuna's gradual weeble-wobble selling to the big moment where he goes down (the Royal Rumble finish apparently having been wiped from history). If there's one thing Duggan still knew how to do through the years, it was sell a beating. He does it here and he would work it to perfection some years later in the lone highlight of Goldberg's heel run. The anti-Japanese sentiment really comes off as absurd--Lawler even references 1941, which is insanely over the top. This would get worse, as the WWF attempted to portray the entire country of Japan as a heel instead of being content to push Yoko as a monster. Yokozuna Banzai Dropping the American flag is something else that would never fly today. The angle itself was great, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WingedEagle Posted February 10, 2014 Report Share Posted February 10, 2014 Duggan did such a great job getting the crowd involved for this angle. They do the charging tackles spot and Duggan knocks Yoko down as the crowd goes bananas. Yoko follows up by throwing salt in his eyes & destroying him. Really effective angle with the flag, blood and as noted above, Vince on commentary put things over the top. Really couldn't ask for more to build up Yoko given the time constraints, roster and his place on the card at Mania. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soup23 Posted January 10, 2015 Report Share Posted January 10, 2015 Again that this is so effective and the perfect role for Duggan to play at this point in his career. The commentary here is great with Duggan getting cheered on but eventually he doesn't have enough in the tank and then gets his ass kicked to Vince losing it. Still weird to think about that Raw was in its infancy and this big time angle was on Superstars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garretta Posted June 26, 2016 Report Share Posted June 26, 2016 This would have been a great angle without the jingoistic bullshit at the end. Did you really need to play the yellow menace card, Vince? Our countries are. if not friends, at least political allies, and have been since 1945. The evil Jap stuff that's all over wrestling is bad enough, but it was seldom explicitly about "my flag is better than your flag" until now. Remember what a mess you made out of Sarge's heel run? He could still go enough to be a threat to Hogan and draw some decent houses, but the Iraqi turncoat stuff poisoned the waters so much against him that even a last-ditch face turn couldn't save him. You had to retire him to take the heat off, make him a Commissioner who's almost never seen. Surely you remember, and just as surely you don't give a good shit. It's pathetic, disgusting, and par for your course, unfortunately. (I know Sarge may have been ready to retire anyway, but he could have stayed on as a midcard face for at least another year or so if Vince hadn't messed with him so badly. He was putting on pay-per-view quality matches as late as '97, when he looked good in a boot camp match I saw once against HHH.) Frankly, I was surprised that they gave this spot to Duggan. He may have been the WWF's resident patriot in Hogan's absence, but he hadn't been in a serious program since early '91, when he was Sarge's only other noteworthy challenger for the title besides Hogan. Vince was at what passes for his best these days. Give him an angle to sell or a story to tell and you get a quasi-professional; make him call moves in a match and you get BLECCH! Savage was mostly just there. Lawler was appropriately heelish, but not as obnoxious as he would be later. Actually, I didn't find his Pearl Harbor references all that bad; it was Fuji covering Duggan with the flag and Yoko splashing Duggan while he was covered that bothered me. Cut this off after the third splash and it's no better or worse than any evil Jap angle wrestling's run since World War II. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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