NWA World Wide Wrestling, Peoria, IL
Recorded Dec. 14, 1989, but aired first on the Jan. 6 World Wide, and then again on the Jan. 12 Power Hour, which is actually where my AVI file comes from, which is fine, we love to see the hour of power in this home.
Chris Cruise and Terry Funk are your commentators, however unfortunately. Chris Cruise sucked horribly and turned out to be an even bigger fucking geek in real life than he was on TV with his try-hard overdoing of basically everything, his insistence that Jim Duggan was going “heyyyooooo!” and not “hooooo!” despite it having been incredibly clear for years at that point, and his dipshit bow ties. There was this time years ago on Twitter that Jonathan Coachman dismissed some Cruise criticism or other and everyone went, “UHHH, hello, ‘THE COACH,’ this is CHRIS CRUISE, wrestling genius of the past!” We should have let Coachman have that one; as big a kissass dork as Coachman is, he at least never called a state athletic commission over some gimmicked barbed wire because he apparently has nothing better to do and wanted to get some of that good love from the dummy wrestling fans who all want to pretend it’s still 1977.
As for Funk, he just wasn’t a great color commentator, same with Roddy Piper though Funk was less obnoxious. It’s a different sort of charisma, a different sort of talking. A few minutes into the match, That Woman (Woman) and NITRON!!! (Tyler “Big Sky” Mane) come down ringside. Funk reckons Gilbert is with her. Maybe he’s with Nitron?
Gilbert was a hell of a good wrestler, and more than that just a hell of a good wrestling mind. If he hadn’t died young, he might well have become the most influential American mind of the 90s, more than Paul Heyman. Listen, I don’t drink the Heyman dumb bitch juice, but there’s no question that Heyman’s ECW had massive influence on where the WWF and WCW eventually went, particularly the WWF. But Eddie also might not have, he just might not have had the consistency and stomach to hang around doing the shit like Paul did. You never know.
As a wrestler, Eddie always seemed best as a regional star to me, like a lot of the Memphis standouts I know well — Lawler, Dundee, Brian Christopher. Even Jackie Fargo seems that type, though his era was more specifically territorial and regional (Lawler and Dundee were around then but were stars through expansion, too). They had their own particular style, taken seriously but often comical. Not that they couldn’t hang in the ring, because they could, but they were all so Memphis. This is not a bad thing, by the way. It is simply Memphis.
Flair out-foxes Gilbert, reversing a small package to retain the worlds heavyweights championship. Woman and Nitron play no role here other than to exist.
This is fine, it doesn’t get a ton of time or anything and it’s never staged as any serious threat to Flair. He is taking on a contender, not the top contender, but a contender, and he beats him. It’s not easy, he doesn’t dominate, but he does about as you’d expect, and it’s clean.
Tape Machines Are Rolling 
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