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Loss

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Everything posted by Loss

  1. Loss
    Great segment that's pretty well known as Austin "Pillmanizes" Pillman's ankle. Austin was obviously the hottest star in the WWF by this point. His heat isn't through the roof just yet, but it's obvious he has something special.
  2. Loss
    Yeah, this is every combination of wrong. Unnecessarily dangerous, hard to shoot properly and bad camera angles that keep making the height look less impressive than it really is. Because sympathy is not a really a concept that existed in ECW, it's hard for them to get the heat for some of the teases that an 80s NWA or Memphis match would have. They do work hard and I think they want to put on a good show, but it just isn't meant for this setting. 20% match and 80% post-match celebration.
  3. Loss
    This is as much about the layout of the match as it is the matwork, which is a nice change of pace. Terrific, heated match with all the great RINGS matwork you'd expect.
  4. Loss
    This was one of the matches I wanted to watch most on the set, just because Dave giving a Rick Steiner match ****1/2 as late as 1996 stood out to me. And he still looks good enough that I think WCW could have gotten some mileage out of him had he been motivated and given some clear direction. That said, this match is just kinda there until a semi-hot finishing stretch. This is definitely one of those matches from New Japan that you can tell is worked for TV and looks better JIP. Steiner coming in to break up Nakanishi's torture rack twice felt like the exact same sequence repeated twice in a row. Nowhere near a ****1/2 and only really a solid match, even with a heated finishing stretch.
  5. Loss
    Not so much a stubborn streak, but an outspoken one who usually had no problem telling Vince his opinion. I suspect no one told him because they knew if he put the pieces together, he had the potential to threaten the spots of some people who were being pushed on top at the time. The longer he was in the dark, the longer he could be buried. I think the silence was deliberate.
  6. Loss
    The point is that the matches were worked in a different way. Jericho got the rep of not knowing what he was doing because he didn't know matches were worked that way. So babyfaces would be waiting for him to bump in succession, because that's what every heel in the promotion did, and he would just lay there because he didn't know this. It affected his matches and his reputation. This is a separate argument than saying one style is better than another style. This is not saying Jericho was a bad worker, or that the WWF style is superior or inferior to another style. Just that it's different, and Jericho had to learn how it worked. He himself says how would he know, as he never worked with Hogan, Savage, Sting, Luger or Nash in WCW. He had little experience working bigger guys in main-event style matches. There aren't a huge amount of matches out there of Jericho facing tall guys in the 250-275 pound range prior to joining WWE. In a match against Big Show, he wanted to do the Antonio Inoki/Andre the Giant short-arm scissors spot. He tried and ended up slipping off of Show. To try to cover for it, he slapped him hard in the face. Show apparently ended up so angry that he yanked the stereo out of his rental car. He chalks up the X-Pac match to him trying too hard instead of going with his instincts. He had the idea of doing the Michaels flip into the turnbuckle and getting stuck there, where he would get Bronco bustered while hanging upside down. But he didn't go up far enough and the spot ended up looking terrible. Again, he blamed himself. And yes, he does admit that Russo was his only advocate in the company and that his leaving did hurt, but that things got better when Brian Gewirtz, a big Jericho supporter, came on. He says a big point of contention was that Russo liked his WCW character and wanted him to continue in that vein while Vince wanted him to be more serious and threatening, and he was caught in the middle.
  7. Loss
    Give Samurai credit for taking three consecutive top rope double stomps. This is a really fun match that kind of breaks the juniors formula of the time, with Liger and Otani in particular showing lots of personality in their interactions. I love animated Liger, and it's great seeing him opposite someone like Otani who has just as much physical charisma. The dive train rocked, especially because Liger seemed to be joining just because everyone else had. Also, Samurai isn't on the level of Liger and Otani. He just isn't. But he's excellent in his own right, and he's a guy whose rep (while it was always really good) has improved with me with this set.
  8. Loss
    UWFI feels more like pro wrestling to me than RINGS, which is probably why it's easier for me to get into, even if the matwork, while outstanding, isn't quite as good. This is a good example of that. The momentum shifts here are classic pro wrestling, even if the wrestling style isn't exactly that. It's not something completely different either though, as this is closer to 70s NWA world title matches in Japan than, say, a WCW undercard match from this same time period. This really is a terrific match though. I do like Billy Scott, and I think this is the first time I've ever seen him. I should also say that Yammamoto busting out a traditional backslide in the middle of all this tricked out matwork is awesome! I love the Tenryu/Anjo, Tenryu/Takada and Takada/Koshinaka matches because they are heavy on spectacle and substance, but I like this more than any of those, and I like it for a completely different reason. These guys only have their work to fall back on, as they aren't stars on the level of the other guys. As a result, the match seems a little more gritty and hard fought, and I'm guessing that this is more representative of the typical UWFI match than any of the other matches I listed. This is more about the match than it is either guy as an individual, and while both are great, the lasting impression for me is about the match, not either guy in particular. The whole exceeding the sum of the parts is always a great thing when it happens in wrestling and it's doubly impressive when there are no booking tricks or star power to use as a security blanket. One of my favorite matches of the year, and definitely my favorite from either UWFI or RINGS.
  9. Loss
    The book stops with him returning in 2007. He left the door open for a third book, so he doesn't cover the last run at all.
  10. Loss
    Notice none of those guys are heavies. He worked a lot of guys who had little differences, but were all doing a Japanese or Mexican-influenced style that he understood.
  11. Loss
    It's not about getting over, it's that he caught Rock off guard, and the perception was that he had taken liberties with him. Make whatever argument about the style, but there is a patterned bumping style in WWE. Jericho mentioned how in WCW, wrestlers sold something by staying down, and in WWE, heels are expected to immediately get up and fall down again and again and again, to basically bump off of every single piece of babyface offense and get right back up. So things like that made the matches look uncoordinated. Jericho got some stuff he didn't deserve, but you can't really watch those matches he had the first few months in the company and think he was doing everything right.
  12. Loss
    Actually, while HHH was part of the problem, I think the bigger issue was that Vince thought he was personally a pain in the ass, and Vince also felt like he dropped the ball with every opportunity he got. Jericho admits that he came in not knowing the proper way to work WWF style, and he just assumed the WWF and WCW styles were the exact same. He accepts plenty of blame for things going wrong for him early on, while at the same time offering plenty of criticism to Vince for not talking to him sooner. I would have leaned more in your direction before reading the book. Jericho had a match with The Rock on Raw and grabbed someone's drink and threw it in Rock's face thinking it was a Sprite. It was tobacco spit. The guy had the total opposite of Midas touch for several months upon his arrival.
  13. Loss
    No.
  14. Loss
    I think he saw some, but a lot of the book reads like people who were in the inner circle who liked him would pull him aside and tell him what was going on. He was pretty close to Patterson, saying he and Rock were probably closer to Patterson than any two guys in the company. He also mentioned Gerald Brisco pulling him aside once to tell him he needed to make sure he stepped it up big time because the knives were out. W/R/T the early HHH stuff, he talks about how his first night, HHH gave him his cell phone and told him to call him if he ever needed anything. Not long after, he was having trouble finding an arena, so he called HHH to see if he knew how to find the arena. HHH responded, "Yeah, get a map" and hung up, and he said he could hear the DX guys cracking up in the background the whole time. Also, with the homeless guy on Smackdown thing, he said when he asked HHH about it, HHH said he thought Jericho would find it humorous. He also doesn't come right out and say it, but he does say Flair gave him advice frequently. Since Flair was close with HHH at that point, the implication is that he was filling Jericho in on what was going on. He does mention how Hogan had a great attitude and was so easy to work with, but it was very difficult working with Flair because of his need for reassurance.
  15. Loss
    Around the time of Summerslam '04, Jericho felt his stock was dropping and that he was falling into the dreaded "good hand" category. He wasn't on Raw the next night either. So he asked Vince why he wasn't on the show. Vince completely tore into him, told him to grow up and that lots of people want to be on the show that aren't. He told him he has a huge chip on his shoulder and thinks he knows everything and that he's this accomplished wrestler and he's not at all. He also told him he was getting a reputation for being very difficult to work with. There's also another time when Jericho had the undisputed title and told him he knew people were in his ear telling him that putting the title on Jericho wasn't a good idea, but they could go fuck themselves, and that if Vince thought it was a bad idea, he could go fuck himself too. He was kinda shocked he said it and thought Vince was about to rip him a new one, but after a few seconds of awkward silence, Vince hugged him and told him that's exactly the attitude he had been looking for. He said he knew had all this drive and passion but never showed it. He wanted him to carry himself like a champion with confidence and was glad he felt that way. I thought the Jericho/Vince love-hate relationship was the best part of the book.
  16. Loss
    I love the story from the RAW the week after HHH tore his quad when they were in Calgary. Jericho's mic stopped working and he threw it into the crowd. Vince asked him later why he did that and he said he had seen Austin do it a few times. Vince told him Steve Austin gets to throw his mic into the crowd. Chris Jericho sets his mic down and politely waits for a new one.
  17. Loss
    There is a whole chapter on his relationship with Benoit, which is one of the best parts of the book.
  18. Loss
    Just so everyone knows, even though the official release date is Tuesday of next week, Amazon is already shipping it. I placed an order on Saturday and I got it today. The book is definitely worth reading. I will comment more in detail after I've read the whole thing, as I just did kind of a skim. I could do without the Fozzy and life outside of wrestling stuff, but I also knew it would be here before picking up this book. I think, if anything, Jericho may have been *too* self-critical. He walks through all of his big programs and give his honest opinions on all of them, blaming himself for quite a few things not working out. He also sheds some light on his relationship with Vince McMahon over the years, which I would categorize as HIGHLY up and down. There is more than one time where Vince just tears him to shreds. This book may be the ultimate vindication of Wade Keller. It may just be a case of him framing it in a way to not burn any bridges, but it seems like the problem bigger than HHH was that he seemed to have a pretty rocky relationship with Vince. There are moments that are good, and there are far more moments where they seem to be butting heads over something or other. He's blunt when discussing HHH, but doesn't really provide much commentary, except for his anger over HHH's Off The Record interview in '02 where he felt disrespected, and a few times HHH kinda gave him the cold shoulder early in the run. He gave all the praise you could possibly give to Austin, Rock and Hogan. However, in the end, it's strange that after skimming all the wrestling chapters, I went from wondering why he wasn't pushed way more than he was during his first run to having a better understanding of why he wasn't pushed harder than he was.
  19. Loss
    I have to admit that with Edge, Batista, Jericho, Michaels and HHH out, and with Undertaker part-time, the point of view that WWE hasn't been this fresh in years makes sense.
  20. Loss
    That was another difference if you compare live production values at the time. RAW was always softer than Nitro for me in real time.
  21. Loss
    I see the point in a way and in a way, I don't. Initially when I came online, the whole reason to follow wrestling on the Internet was to find out where things are going or what was going to happen next. At the time, I couldn't think of any reason to follow wrestling online other than wanting to know more, both about what had already happened and what was expected to happen. I think that changed over time, and even the WON is much less "this is expected to happen" than it used to be. Part of that is probably that the most popular show each week is live, whereas in the past almost all wrestling was taped. The spoiler thing is definitely not unique to wrestling. It's not even unique to entertainment. We live in an age where even the State of the Union address (and responses) are pretty much known in advance.
  22. Loss
    Bill Alfonso does an interview on a beach during Hurricane Josephine in Tampa. They show a clip of the ECW appearance at Mind Games. Tommy Dreamer stands at the end of a tall building doing a promo. Doc and Gordy show up at the end, just saying to The Eliminators that they'll do their talking in the ring.
  23. Loss
    Douglas does a good interview mocking Gary Wolf for being in a wheelchair and making fun of ECW fans for calling themselves smart marks. Like most Douglas interviews, it goes a little too long, but it's good.
  24. Loss
    Savage comes out in solid black and sunglasses not dressed to wrestle. The match never takes place. Bischoff has a video for Savage to watch, and it's of Hogan, The Giant and Liz on the set of Hogan's movie. Hogan is ordering Liz to tell Savage she loves him and wants him back and to mess with his head. This is Savage's response: "It just occurred to me how fragile friendships and relationships can be. And you Eric Bischoff, you and I both know how fragile business can be. Even marriage is fragile. But Hulk Hogan, life is fragile." This is still a weird angle. At the time, it felt like they were implying Savage was going to kill himself because of Bischoff's overreacting "don't go there" response. Now when I rewatch it, I think they were implying Savage was going to go find Hogan and murder him, which isn't any less tasteless, even if it is fairly compelling.
  25. Loss
    The real Sting attacks the fake one while the NWO looks on. They plead with Sting to join them. Sting has a different look than he would have a little while later, with solid white face paint, and even speaks, saying that he may or may not be in their price range, and then he walks off.
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