Loss
-
Posts
46439 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Everything posted by Loss
-
Bischoff did mention in a Prodigy chat once that he wished Jim Ross would stop calling him and looking for work, yes. I don't think Ross was calling him anymore by this time though. That Torch Talk was incredibly diplomatic. I'm curious what got him heat. I haven't read it in years, but I remember my impression reading it that it was very political. He was even putting over Bischoff for the Hogan signing and saying that it was too early for WCW to be getting the criticism they were getting over it. He was obviously trying to keep all options on the table.
-
Obviously, whatever public reason they gave for Ross's firing had nothing to do with his Bells Palsy. How did they spin the first firing?
-
He was with the company for parts of the year. But the "he fired me twice" stuff is a shoot. Again, I've never quite been clear on the timeline or reason. The problems between Ross and Vince at that point had nothing to do with his performance as an announcer. Vince may have not liked certain things about the way he called matches, but that was never the issue that led to the problems they had. Whatever it was, it blew over, because Ross was lead booker for a brief spell in the early part of '95 and was doing the Talent Relations thing by early '96 at the latest.
-
The Vince/JR problems in late '93/early '94 were related to Ross getting blamed for leaking something to the sheets. I don't remember the exact details. But he got fired and then brought back later over it. During the period he was fired, he briefly landed in SMW. When Vince was indicted in the steroid trial, he didn't have the time to commit to announcing, so Jim Ross would do so. For what it's worth, it's often been rumored and I think Dave has confirmed that Ross really wanted to return to WCW for a long time, and made frequent calls to Bischoff looking for work that weren't returned.
-
Honky Tonk Man is an example that can be used. Knew what to do to get heat and did it very well. Had a nice little run as a draw. Didn't have that many good matches. So no one talks about him as an all-time great. I think there's a place to talk about what have/could have/should have stuff, but not in the context of an all-time great discussion. Ranking the all-time greats isn't about righting wrongs. It's not about factoring in what everyone had to work with. It's about looking at what they actually did, regardless of what they had to work with. I do see your point to a degree. But if you rank guys on talent instead of output, DiBiase is hardly the only guy whose status changed. Then, you can start arguing guys like Regal over Flair, which I don't think anyone would agree with. You can't rate wrestlers on what they could have accomplished. You have to rate them on what they actually did accomplish. Bret, for example, will rate above DiBiase for me. Shawn too. Because instead of conforming to the style around them, they made the whole style better. -
The Joshi picks for this set are based on recommendations.
-
Another terrific All Japan six-man tag. Not in the upper echelon of matches I've seen for the year, but still really, really good. Misawa and Kawada continue to do a great job building to their feud, and Kikuchi and Ogawa get quite a bit of spotlight to shine here, and they make the most of it. Kikuchi gets the pin on Ogawa in the end to secure the win for his team. Kawada and Kobashi always bring the hate so much in their exchanges that I'm looking forward to their next singles match too.
-
I love everyone involved in this match, but it did nothing for me and was really disappointing. I was hoping Hokuto would STILL be selling Dreamslam injuries, but I suppose one can't grieve forever, so I got over that quickly. There's some nice attention to detail, which shouldn't surprise anyone in a match featuring Bull and Hokuto -- but the match just sputters along. This is also the most lax AJW crowd of the year.
-
I don't have much to add to what Graham Crackers said. I thought this match was really good, but never quite kicked in to the next gear. It felt a little more like an exhibition than a match.
-
Someone look it up on OWW and shift the focus toward something more "Yes he is/No he isn't/Yes he is/No he isn't", please.
-
I stopped typing too soon. Really, there's no reason Flynn couldn't have gotten over in late 90s WCW with the right push as more than Goldberg fodder. And I was probably unfair about the crowd heat -- it's not sustained, but the momentum shifts do get a response. This style layered with more pro-style stuff may be where wrestling should have gone at this point in time, when the best of the Flair years were over and wrestling was in a bit of a lull. It's exciting and physical without being overly dangerous. And that was not a response I expected to have to this match. This is a more fluid style than UWFI or RINGS. I haven't seen enough PWFG to go proclaiming anything about what the style is, but if this match is any indication, there's promise. It's flashier than most RINGS I've seen while also not having quite as much New Japan influence as UWFI. But even without the direct link to a pretty traditional wrestling company like UWFI, the match has a more classic pro wrestling structure with momentum shifts that have consequence and takedowns that get over as big moments than I expected. I'm anxious to see more.
-
Good matwork, and cool to see Jerry Flynn do some really nice exchanges. Hard for me to care when there is no crowd heat though. That goes for any match, no matter how good it is.
-
It's funny that they think being seen as a wrestling company is what is holding WWE back from going to the next level. No, if anything, it's all the non-wrestling stuff that is holding WWE back from going to the next level. Inside jokes, burials of talent on the air, disturbing portrayal of women and too much talking are the real problems. (I realize the wrestling to talking ratio has improved dramatically in the last five years or so, but perception is reality, and that's the perception.) Then you get into lack of guys on top who are considered "tough", being out of touch with pop culture, being rocked by scandals, running too many repeat matches on PPV involving guys who have been overexposed, lack of angles/storyline twists on PPV shows (Seriously, when results don't matter and you can't sell shows to a mass audience on great matches, what reason is there to buy PPVs?), bad announcing, a look and feel that hasn't changed at all since 1997, too much first-run television and the focus on looks and size over talent. There's also Vince's worldview, which I honestly think is the biggest issue of all, and also the least likely to change. I find it humorous, for example, that this is a company that feels the need to change the name of RAW IS WAR to MONDAY NIGHT RAW after 9/11 for PR/image reasons, yet has no problems exploiting Angle's title win and thinks no one will see it for what it is. That's one example 10 years ago, but I could probably come up with dozens of similar examples if I gave it some thought. Bottom line, if WWE wants to attract ad dollars, you'd think they'd start by trying to appeal to a more affluent audience with more disposable income, which means a smarter overall presentation and less bad comedy. That Vince has been promoting wrestling for 40 years and is still having an identity crisis over what it is that he promotes humors me.
-
This was a spectacular match! This match in large part seemed to be building to Misawa/Kawada in singles. Their exchanges are awesome, the heat goes through the roof every time they're both in, and the finish has Kawada powerbombing Kobashi twice to get the win for his team. Kawada and Kobashi have some incredibly brutal stuff with each other. They just lay in their shots really hard. And Taue is still developing, but looks good. But it's Misawa who's the big standout for me in this match (and for the whole year so far, actually). I wouldn't say Misawa was wrestling Kawada politely, but he was approaching him the same way he would Kobashi in a singles match. Then my favorite moment of the match comes, when Kawada decides to make it personal and start slapping Misawa and Misawa responds in kind and ends up getting the better of that little exchange. As great as the '94 and '95 four corners tags are, this is a worthy match in the series. And comparing it to the '96 matches involving Akiyama, those are great matches, but this is better than all but two of the four matches (the RWTL final, and the match the week before).
-
Commercial.
-
Let's go May! #1 - Akira Hokuto vs Toshiyo Yamada (AJW 05/03/93) ****1/2 #2 - El Hijo del Santo vs Heavy Metal (AAA 05/14/93) ****1/4 #3 - Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda vs Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada (FMW 05/05/93) ****1/4 #4 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Stan Hansen (AJPW 05/21/93) ****1/4 #5 - Hollywood Blonds vs Marcus Bagwell & 2 Cold Scorpio (WCW Worldwide 05/08/93) **** #6 - Kenta Kobashi vs Terry Gordy (AJPW 05/29/93) **** #7 - Terry Funk vs Atsushi Onita (FMW 05/05/93) **** #8 - Tatsumi Fujinami & Shinya Hashimoto vs Genichiro Tenryu & Takashi Ishikawa (WAR 05/24/93) **** #9 - Mr. Perfect vs Doink the Clown (WWF Monday Night RAW 05/24/93) ***3/4 #10 - Jeff Jarrett vs Brian Christopher (USWA TV 05/01/93) ***3/4 #11 - Naoki Sano vs Kiyoshi Tamura (UWFI 05/06/93) ***1/2 #12 - Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 05/14/93) ***1/2 #13 - Felino vs Ciclon Ramirez (CMLL 05/21/93) ***1/2 #14 - Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Hiroshi Hase (NJPW 05/03/93) ***1/4 #15 - Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Steve Williams & Terry Gordy (AJPW 05/20/93) ***1/4 #16 - Vader vs Davey Boy Smith (WCW Slamboree 05/23/93) ***1/4 #17 - Shawn Michaels vs Marty Jannetty (WWF Monday Night RAW 05/17/93) *** #18 - Chris Benoit & Bobby Eaton vs Marcus Bagwell & 2 Cold Scorpio (WCW Slamboree 05/23/93) *** #19 - Vader vs Tatsuo Nakano (UWFI 05/06/93) #20 - Sting vs Scott Norton (NJPW 05/03/93) #21 - Hulk Hogan vs Great Muta (NJPW 05/03/93) #22 - Shawn Michaels vs Mr. Perfect (WWF Providence, RI 05/02/93)
-
Kid does a promo saying he can't accept what is now a $5,000 offer to get back in the ring with Razor. It's the initial upset that people remember, but this entire angle was so well done.
-
These are still terrible, as this time Flair, Sting and Arn are doing aerobics with a bunch of kids.
-
Dutch interviews the Rock & Rolls about Cornette's incoming mystery team. Tammy Fytch interrupts and offers to remake the Rock & Rolls as a rap act, but they make fun of her and she storms off.
-
Armstrong does a promo from his backyard with his ribs taped up.
-
Lawler is flirting with Jennifer big time. She keeps saying "That's great" after everything, to a point where Lawler starts calling her on it. Okay, time to be cynical -- what's the story here? Who was she dating? Lawler is quite the charmer: "Everyone thinks I have money to burn" and he pulls his wallet out on fire.
-
The best Kobashi singles match so far on the set. Gordy looks really good and these two do have excellent chemistry, but this is really the Kobashi show all the way. Great drama and struggle for some of the big moves, with Kobashi showing a pretty wide range of offense. Big credit to Gordy to putting Kobashi over so strong. Excellent match. Not one of the best of the year, but one of many really strong matches. An interesting match to bring up in the context of the recent DiBiase discussion, because this is not a career match for either guy (or even a year match), but I'd put it ahead of most DiBiase except maybe some of the Duggan matches.
-
Gilbert laments that he has to wrestle Funk in a chain match, and also that he never got the chance to kill Todd Gordon's dog when they were kids! Funk sends in a promo by video hyping up the match. These announcers are awful because they're too fake in their enthusiasm, but Funk and Gilbert are really good.
-
Razor offers 1-2-3 Kid $2500 to step into the ring with him one more time. The angle got over big right out of the gate, as the crowd is already chanting "1-2-3". Bret comes out and encourages the chants and says Razor should be focused on King of the Ring. Nice segment.
-
This was a hell of a match. The Doink gimmick is already pretty awesome, but when you combine that he wrestles like a 1970s heel, it makes the gimmick even better because there's this entire other dimension to it. Matt Borne is really awesome here. I love that almost all of his wrestling is skillful matwork. The gimmick seemed like Wrestlecrap stuff at the time, but in retrospect, it may have been too sophisticated for wrestling. Perfect wins by pinning the second Doink, who switches places with the original Doink.