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Loss

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  1. Loss
    From the same taping as the last Eddy/Dean match. Bill Alfonso is the guest. They set up the 9-1-1 chokeslam that's coming by Alfonso getting in Heyman's face. Alfonso announces that Todd Gordon has been reinstated in Pennsylvania and Florida as the ECW promoter, which was out of his control. Then Alfonso then bans the chokeslam, saying anyone who chokeslams anyone in the arena will be permanently banned from ECW and the fans are FURIOUS. This guy is HATED. So Heyman says if he can't be chokeslammed, he's going to bash his face in with his phone. In a brief moment when Paul E. turns his back, Alfonso knocks him unconscious and Todd Gordon jumps him. Alfonso ends up hitting him with the phone and then starts begging for 9-1-1 to come out. Ridiculous heat for all of this. Finally, 9-1-1's music starts and he grabs Alfonso by the neck, but stops short of chokeslamming him. Stevie Richards and the Dudleys end up involved. By the time all this happens, Paul E. is back up and hits him with the telephone. Alfonso responds in a later-taped promo by banning him from ECW. This is the best thing ECW ever did.
  2. Loss
    Last few minutes of Hogan/Big Bubba. Announcers suck when Hogan does the bodyslam and the announcers don't even call it. After the match, the Dungeon of Doom runs in to attack Hogan and Luger makes the save. Hogan doesn't appreciate the help and they start yelling at each other until Sting and Savage try to calm things down. I'm not sure why Hogan was so upset about Luger helping him, but whatever, this worked. Luger says he's in WCW to take the belt from Hogan, because the WCW World Champion is the only world champion. He says he's sick and tired of playing with kids. He says he's beaten all the same people Hogan has beaten, and Hogan says as good as he is, he's not beating him. Hot, surprising angle to wrap up the first Nitro.
  3. Loss
    Dark match footage of Sabu against mostly one opponent, but there are some others mixed in there, so I guess he had more than one match.
  4. Loss
    Notable for the pretty earth-shattering appearance of Lex Luger at ringside right before the match gets started. Typical Flair/Sting match on fast forward, but I like their match. The match ends with Arn coming in and he and Flair end up getting into it. Post-match, Scott Norton shows up at ringside and starts screaming that he signed a contract. He's in Mongo's face until Randy Savage comes out and they start jacking jaws at each other. Great heat for all of this, and they did a good job creating excitement with this whole segment.
  5. Loss
    Pastamania is running wild. Yes, WCW gave him all this air time to hawk his restaurant at Mall of America.
  6. Loss
    TNT commercial for Thunder in Paradise. Then "Art thou bored? Snap into a Slim Jim!"
  7. Loss
    The original Nitro opening, which had Hogan, Savage, Sting and Vader. Vader would be replaced with Luger within a week. We get some outside shots of Monday Nitro, and maybe it's just me, but Nitro at the mall made WCW feel more like a Tiffany concert instead of a wrestling promotion. I was hoping for stonewashed denim and big hair, but sadly, we didn't get it. Mongo catches Heenan with a joy buzzer, which is unrelentingly hilarious. Liger/Pillman isn't that good of a match, but it has historical value as the first-ever Nitro match. I'm always amazed when most fans remember guys like Liger and Muta when they come back for occasional matches. Chalk it up to injuries or drugs or just spinning his wheels for years in WCW, but this match demonstrates how far Pillman had fallen at this point from 1992. In spite of that, I still think this was a good match to kick off Nitro to distinguish it as a bigger deal than weekend TV.
  8. Loss
    Hotta with long hair instead of a crewcut?? I'm stunned. Early in the match, Toyota ties her arms up in the ropes and starts kicking her in face, which I'm sure makes Hotta haters happy. Toyota has had quite the rollercoaster over the previous few days, but I think I like this match the best of the three because she's so sympathetic. Hotta stomps a mudhole in her and she sells it very well. She seems desperate for the match to end and keeps trying everything she can think of just to cut Hotta off so she can leave the match alive, and nothing works. She doesn't do much in terms of offense, and when she does, it's focused on just ending this damn match. Hotta gets exhausted over time from trying to take her out and beats herself. She realizes this and starts just trying to end the match too, but Toyota keeps kicking out. Awesome match! I wish Toyota would just drop the table stuff all together, but at least Hotta kicked her in the stomach on the way down, so maybe she will learn her lesson. Other than that, this is the bees knees.
  9. Loss
    Hulk Hogan gets in multiple Pastamania plugs, which was a sign of things to come for the first Nitro. He too is with Eric Bischoff and "Maniac Mongo" at Planet Hollywood.
  10. Loss
    Sting, Eric Bischoff and Steve McMichael are at Planet Hollywood promoting Nitro.
  11. Loss
    Familiarity breeds contempt, says the Nature Boy. He mentions the saying that you want to hear your neighbor is doing good, but not too good, and says he won titles both with and without Arn. Arn can't call Flair on the phone and can't have Flair in his corner. They're no longer friends and he's ashamed to call Arn family. Fantastic yet again.
  12. Loss
    Cornette is back with the Bodies and all is right in the world. Did they ever explain how the Bodies were able to come back in after losing a Loser Leaves Town match? Cornette is cutting quite the promo when the Thugz run in and attack Pritchard, going after his leg. Robert Gibson tries to split things up in only his underwear, which is not really something anyone needed to see.
  13. Loss
    Ron Wright gets inducted into a Hall of Fame. Not sure which one it is. Dirty White Boy wants Ron Wright to pin him for the three count, saying that it would mean more than any title he could win.
  14. Loss
    Dreads aside, Jesse James Armstrong is pretty good as a promo.
  15. Loss
    Quite the all-action match. Pretty crazy spotfest. Toyota goes over, but Hokuto makes her earn it. It's hard for me to call the match "great" considering all of the excess, but it is one that I can easily understand why people like. This is a pretty exciting game of top this.
  16. Loss

    Matches of the month

    Loss replied to Loss's topic in 1995

    August: #1 - Shawn Michaels vs Razor Ramon (WWF Summerslam 08/27/95) ****3/4 #2 - Keiji Muto vs Shinya Hashimoto (NJPW G-1 Climax 08/15/95) ****3/4 #3 - Aja Kong vs Dynamite Kansai (AJW 08/30/95) ****1/2 #4 - Hayabusa vs Hisakatsu Oya (FMW 08/31/95) ****1/4 #5 - Al Snow vs Marty Jannetty (SMW Superbowl of Wrestling 08/04/95) ****1/4 #6 - Keiji Muto vs Masa Chono (NJPW G-1 Climax 08/12/95) **** #7 - Great Sasuke vs Dos Caras (Michinoku Pro Mask League 08/25/95) **** #8 - Heavenly Bodies vs The Thugz (SMW Superbowl of Wrestling 08/04/95) ***3/4 #9 - Keiji Muto vs Shiro Koshinaka (NJPW G-1 Climax 08/12/95) ***3/4 #10 - Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa vs Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue (AJW 08/30/95) ***3/4 #11 - Eddy Guerrero vs Dean Malenko (ECW TV 08/08/95) ***1/2 #12 - Shinya Hashimoto vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan (NJPW G-1 Climax 08/13/95) ***1/2 #13 - Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Taka Michinoku (PWFG 08/26/95) ***1/2 #14 - Shinya Hashimoto vs Kensuke Sasaki (NJPW G-1 Climax 08/12/95) ***1/4 #15 - Cactus Jack, Dean Malenko & 2 Cold Scorpio vs Eddy Guerrero, Rick & Scott Steiner (ECW TV 08/05/95) *** #16 - Shawn Michaels vs Buddy Landell (SMW Superbowl of Wrestling 08/04/95) *** #17 - Eddy Guerrero vs Dean Malenko (ECW TV 08/01/95) #18 - Cactus Jack vs Terry Funk (IWA King of the Death Matches 08/20/95) Overall thoughts: Shawn/Razor doesn't have the emotion of some of the best WWF matches ever. But it more than makes up for that by being such a soundly executed, smart wrestling match. This is as close to All Japan as the WWF will ever get. Muto/Hashimoto and Kong/Kansai were similar matches in some ways, in that the wrestler being built around in the present beats the big star of the past few years in a big, meaningful way, with a match layout that enhances the result instead of it being happenstance. I would also call Hayabusa/Oya and Snow/Jannetty similar matches -- "technical" matches on shows that weren't going to have much technical wrestling. Hayabusa/Oya I considered slightly better because it seemed like more was at stake. Muto/Chono is another "big", theatrical match worth checking out, and Sasuke/Caras has Sasuke showing off a totally different element to his game. There's flying, but it's the matwork that makes this match so good. This is not at all how I would have expected all of this to shake out going into the month, so you might say August was the month of shattering perceptions that I had that weren't entirely correct -- both in the matches that I loved the most (Michaels/Ramon, Hayabusa/Oya), and those that were good but also a little disappointing (Toyota/Sakegawa vs Inoues).
  17. Loss
    Even better than the June match. They go to a 30-minute draw, and it's awesome to see Hayabusa slowly building a following. The crowd was much more animated and even in love with Hayabusa than they were just two months before. Kudos to him for rebuilding FMW in his image through his work in the ring. That's pretty impressive. I think going into the yearbooks I expected him to be a garbage-happy guy who blew a lot of moves and had some nice highspots that he could sometimes hit well -- think the Japanese version of Sabu. But he's a much more complete, talented wrestler than that. Classic wrestling match. It may surprise some to hear it, but the best non-gimmick stuff in FMW was every bit as good as any promotion in the world except All Japan. I don't know that there was much output at that level at this point, but they were more than capable of hitting that level on good days. This is another match with old style slow build focused on a body part -- in this case either guy's arm. They do some really nice matwork and build to a great series of highspots for the last 10 minutes or so. What puts this match above the match in June is the way they create so much doubt over the outcome. The draw genuinely surprised me, because there were quite a few *really* close calls. As far as feeling the crowd and timing their kickouts to get the biggest reaction possible, these guys are pros. Hayabusa also gets in a beautiful springboard moonsault to the floor. This is the traditional junior dynamic of high flyer vs base guy transferred to a heavyweight style, and it works really well. But what's cool about Hayabusa is that he can stay on the mat with Oya as long as Oya wants and hold his own, then kick it into high gear to distinguish himself as a star. I am really high on this.
  18. Loss
    Yes, Barbarian is generally well-received ... in some circles. In the WON at the time, Dave would always say he was a great athlete who had no concept of how to put together a match.
  19. Loss
    Powers Of Pain were awesome in the the NWA, doing all sorts of sick double teams. Then they get to the WWF and they are told "You know all that neat shit you do? STOP DOING IT!!" What sick double team moves?
  20. Loss
    Bret is pretty obviously better than Tito peak vs peak, but I thought the idea was to see which of the two was better in the late 80s. Maybe Tito could have been as good as Bret with the same opportunity, but he didn't get the same opportunity, so he wasn't.
  21. Loss
    There was no Luger/Smith feud teased. They never went in that direction at all. I have read before that the WWF was suddenly interested in using Luger as an upper midcarder again right before he jumped, and the plan was to have him put over Hunter Hearst Helmsley at the next In Your House. But no, I don't think they were moving in any direction with him and Davey Boy. Of course, had Luger stuck around, they might have. (Keep in mind that there was no RAW the night Nitro debuted, so there was the weekend programming recapping Summerslam, but RAW wasn't returning until September 11. By that time, Luger had already jumped. He was still working house shows the weekend after Summerslam and being mentioned on TV that weekend too. He had a match for the WWF on a house show the night before he signed with WCW.) Davey cut his hair pretty quickly after this. By the time he had a long promo with Cornette to explain why he turned, his hair was cut.
  22. Loss
    I had high hopes for this based on the reputation, but this really didn't do much for me. Objectively, I guess it's a really good match in terms of layout and action, but there are too many things that don't make sense that make it hard for me to really get into. First of all, Kyoko Inoue never works as a monster. In previous matches with Sakie Hasegawa, she has never worked monster. So why is she doing it here? It just popped up out of nowhere and frustrated me when she started doing her brick wall stuff with Hasegawa only. Also, they repeated some of the same spots too many times. Hasegawa, who I normally like, is just a series of exploders and not much else. Kyoko's big offensive move against Hasegawa is the no-sell followed by the clothesline over and over, and when she's not doing that, she's doing a camel clutch. Believe it or not, Toyota is the glue holding this together in terms of trying to keep the match at a pace that's easier to follow, involving the crowd, and even selling. It was a surprisingly excellent performance from her, but Kyoko just really brought the match down elsewhere. This doesn't hold up very well either, with them kicking out of way too much in the closing few minutes. The January tag with these four just blows this out of the water. This will do okay when I rank matches of the month, just because in spite of all that, it's a good match. If you don't know Kyoko Inoue is not a monster, she does a good job with the role. If you don't know how well the finishers are established, the final stretch is really exciting and well done. I can only guess those are the reasons this has the rep it does -- it's a well-executed match. It just doesn't fit into the big picture or how they normally work very well at all. And this is a match that foreshadows the decline of wrestling really well, with all the finisher kickout abuse and stuff that's really cool for one match, but subtracts from the big picture because it doesn't make sense.
  23. Loss
    Don't forget the give-and-take with Toyota earlier in the year. I don't forget, I just choose to downplay it because it was a horrible, unnecessary title change. Very similar to Hogan --> Luger --> Hogan --> Sting.
  24. Loss
    Based on FLIK's comments, I'm going to watch this now, but when I finish all the 90s yearbooks, I will watch this one again after watching the others and see how my opinion changes. I've seen this before and have loved it, but I don't really remember much about it. Sometimes, Joshi feels a little dated, or at the very least, it's a style that doesn't seem relevant to other time periods or styles at all because it's so unique. That's not at all the case for this match, as all of their shots still look really good. This isn't a great Joshi match, it's a great wrestling match with universal themes of a long-time challenger knocking the long-time champ off the throne. There's a great moment where Aja gets her arm popped back into socket and taped up at ringside. Kansai has developed quite a bit of momentum and has some close to beating Aja several times. The moment she's back in the ring she is met with a barrage of kicks. Most of this match is built around stiff shots and matwork, and it's an outstanding match. Again, this is another match worked exactly like a title change should be worked, where the person winning the title overcomes big adversity and is made to look strong in the body of the match in order to fully capitalize on the moment. And Aja's long reign ending was a significantly huge moment. (Highly recommended for childs, as I think this will be right up his alley.) August has been a ridiculous month for great wrestling, and I'm not even done!
  25. Loss
    Last few minutes. Mabel and Mo are working over Diesel after a ref bump. Luger runs in, but Diesel -- probably not knowing whose side Luger was on -- starts throwing punches at him, but Luger doesn't turn. I remember hoping for a Luger turn at Summerslam at the time, and also thinking how hard would it have been for Diesel and Luger to find a chance to talk before the show? Anyway, this is probably the most infamous match and feud of Nash's ill-remembered title reign. Believe it or not, he did try hard in this match, but this has its rightful place as one of the weakest matches to headline a PPV ever.
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