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Loss

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Everything posted by Loss

  1. Really fun match! There are better M-Pro matches, but this has lots of good stuff, and Liger adapts to the style really well. These fans LOVE Liger, and Liger seems thrilled beyond belief to be there, doing all the taunting he did in the Togo match in June times 100, even doing a Rick Rude hip swivel! I didn't realize his time away for surgery was so short, because he returned on 9/23, and removing a brain tumor seems like it might require more time off. Anyone know when his last match was?
  2. It's interesting how the lucha on this set features far more variety in terms of the promotions and wrestlers featured than, say, all the available TV of 1989-1990 EMLL. But those matches still stand out more from the pack than these, even when they feature the same guys over and over. I'd call this a very good match, but there's absolutely nothing this match offers that you don't get in other matches on the set, whereas over in CMLL, guys like Dandy and Casas are doing something in every match they're in that makes it memorable or special in its own way. Not sure why that is. Seeing all the stuff Rey and Juventud can do when they have partners makes me think that maybe WCW would have been better serviced sticking these guys -- at least some of them -- in a tag team division and pairing them up. If anything makes this stand out, it's what Rey and Juventud can do when they have other bodies in the ring that they can use as props to set up spots. Toward the end of this, Konnan and Estrada do some nice stuff, but it takes them long enough.
  3. That post surprised me too. Yes, a large part of Hashimoto's appeal was that he was tough, but it's really selling him short to say that's all there was to it. He was more consistent than Muto and Chono, and projected more superstar aura too. As much as Dave usually gives credit to guys for carrying themselves as stars, it's astonishing that he could miss that about Hashimoto.
  4. Good match. Weird atmosphere, as it's an outdoor show with lots of empty seats and not much heat. You'd think it was the AWA in 1986. The lack of heat hurt it a little for me, but the exchanges were every bit as awesome as you'd expect. I wouldn't mind seeing these two get more time though.
  5. Hogan is definitely still getting some cheers. The crowd is silent for much of this match because they seem to want to still cheer Hogan and aren't sure how to react. Believe it or not, they do a lot of really solid wrestling early on. The crowd starts to turn around when Flair starts laying in chops. Flair bites Hogan's hand during a test of strength! I have no idea why Hogan hulks up here. This seemed to be building toward more Hogan/Flair interaction. Kind of a nothing match that I wanted to like, and I still think with a month of build and some promos, Flair and Hogan would have had a super heated match that drew money. Seeing the Horsemen come down along with Sting and Luger reminds me of one of my favorite parts of the NWO angle that doesn't get talked about as much -- making allies of longtime enemies.
  6. Hogan, Hall and Nash are somewhere in the arena sitting on a couch doing an interview that's not that great. Hogan is awesome here, talking about how he doesn't like the look of the belt and suggests redesigning it or melting it down. Hall and Nash are okay, but Hogan is the highlight here, as Nash tries to use one of Hogan's old "Whatcha gonna do?" lines and Hogan is so committed to reinventing himself that he corrects him.
  7. I don't think I've said this yet, but I really loved Owen's theme music. This is an excellent sprint, with tons of neat spots. These two worked well together and should have had a PPV program. Owen had a strong year in '96 in retrospect. There's a clip of Shawn's Baywatch appearance during his intro, which reminds me that we really need to somehow represent the WCW episode on the '95 set. There are some really good familiarity spots in this match, with Michaels having a cool ground-based counter to the enzuigiri and completely ducking Owen's leg lariat. I'm really surprised watching some of this stuff though, because I really don't remember Michaels being this sloppy, but it's been a pattern in quite a few matches. Michaels counters the enzuigiri again later in the match. I love that he has the move well-scouted considering the history. It's a nice little attention to detail. Cool post-match encounter with Shawn and Owen, with Shawn pulling Owen's cast completely off and challenging Vader after popping Shawn with the racket. Then Vader destroys him.
  8. Bret does an interview with Mr. Perfect from the Wrestle Vessel. There's a video included narrated by Mr. Perfect, and it's funny to hear his voice in that capacity. Bret says he has enjoyed being home and having the time off, but he knows his fans do want him to come back. He says if he comes back, he'll have a shovel.
  9. Sunny does a promo behind a wall trying on bikinis. You see her silhouette while she talks in her sex voice. This is followed by an Ahmed Johnson video with footage of his emergency surgery from the injury. Kevin Kelly does a sit-down interview with Ahmed at his home in Houston, and as usual, it's hard to understand much that he says.
  10. The last few minutes of this are decent basic wrestling, with Giant working from underneath and Hogan dominating. Giant does Hogan's Hulk up, which was actually kind of cool, and again, it's a case of WCW not running in an arena in front of wrestling fans that would pop for it. In fact, they cheer Hogan, making it obvious they have no idea what's going on, despite him working overtime as heel. Booty Man brings out a birthday cake for Hogan, who has a birthday the next day, then gets beat up for his trouble. This goes on too long, as most post-main event NWO stuff did, but it has the historic moment of Hogan doing a great interview and spraypainting NWO on the WCW World title, which was HUGE at the time.
  11. Last few minutes only. Patrick "accidentally" hits Luger's knee when he goes to torture rack Hall, giving the NWO the win. The beginning of a well done angle within the NWO stuff.
  12. What a bunch of winners these fans are, which is obvious even before the backlash starts. Doing a wrestling show at Sturgis seems like an okay idea on the surface -- you'd think a bunch of drunken bikers would make for a great, heated atmosphere, and it would if they were wrestling fans at all. Benoit and Malenko deliver a match that in any real arena in the country would have gotten ridiculous heat and would be remembered as one of the best matches ever, which is evident if you look at every other WCW match where they did the extend-the-time-limit gimmick. This isn't a perfect match. They throw bombs around like they're nothing, and despite the nice exchanges, moves aren't really sold very much in the long-term, and they may do a little too much. But the match was actually well-booked enough to surpass any of that, and the positives of the match outweigh that stuff, live audience be damned. Doing a PPV in front of this crowd and not drawing a gate because Bischoff was a motorcycle enthusiast -- and coming back three more times despite them crapping on wrestling and being generally non-responsive unless the wrestlers were black -- really made WCW look bush league.
  13. Flair does a really great, calm sit-down interview, talking about how he made the mistake of thinking he and Hogan in his new role could co-exist, when that is obviously not the case. There are some great old clips here, and this was a tremendous piece of business. Flair talks about how when Hogan was selling toys, he was winning world titles and performing in the ring night after night. Horsemen vs NWO seemed to be where they were headed, and it just didn't happen that way, which sucks. Hogan vs Flair on PPV at this point would have been a huge draw.
  14. Great match! Ozaki in particular is really good here, and is one of the better wrestlers at working "tough" even though she's on the smaller side. This had almost no heat, which is a shame (and a pattern I've noticed with many JWP matches in '96).
  15. JT Smith brings out Kiss, or rather, the BWO (don't think they were being called that yet) dressed like Kiss. Joey Styles tried too hard to not like them. I have to admit I laughed when Stevie asked everyone what song they wanted to hear and Meanie said "Freebird". Sandman comes out and hits them with the Singapore cane to break things up, Raven ends up coming out, and they all beat him up.
  16. This match shows me how well-booked this tournament was. Chono knows his role well and continues to heel it up. Great past vs present dynamic with Chono dominating and Choshu selling most of the way. I love Fujinami at ringside slapping Choshu around to try to get him back into it, with the crowd loudly chanting his name. Choshu locks on the scorpion, which no one buys as the finish, probably because Choshu had taken so much punishment and Chono had taken so little. The second time he does, he gets a little more heat than before, as he gives him a great lariat first, but the finish still seems anti-climatic because it was unexpected. Still, great ending to a good tournament.
  17. I'd imagine this isn't as good as their '91 G-1 match, which I haven't seen, but it is still an excellent match with some great moments. Chono is awesome heeling it up, sneaking in a low blow, using Muto's figure four against him and otherwise causing problems. Muto fights from underneath for most of this and it works really well. This isn't the most fun-to-watch of all the matches from the G-1 that made this set, although it is fun to watch for sure, but there's an argument that it's the best match.
  18. Super fun match and yet another upset in the G-1 Climax, which is kind of a staple of Choshu booking. Kojima wins big in a match with lots of stiff clotheslines, powerbombs and nearfalls. Terrific sprint.
  19. This is a really cool match. Flair says if Hogan's going to take out his best friend, he's going to take out Hogan's best friend. And no one comes to his aid because he's Hogan's friend. Flair goes a little psycho (jdw's "turn it up to 11" criticism applies here), but Arn Anderson does one of his most famous promos: "Intense pain is a wonderful thing, Gene Okerlund. Your life flashes before your eyes. Things that are the most important to you become crystal clear. You start to begin to learn the meaning of life. Last week, when they stuffed me in that ambulance, and I looked across and I saw Flair, Sting, Woman, Bagwell and myself, I realized that we were people brought together not by philosophy, but by necessity and I started to think 'New World Order, New World Order, where have I heard that?' And I remembered in the good book it says when the new world order is put into place, it signals the beginning of the end of time. Well, WCW is our world. It's where we live and breathe. And if you wanted to destroy it, Hogan and the Outsiders, you've already made a mistake that jumps off the page. If you're gonna take a baseball bat to a Horseman, finish the job, because there's one rule of gang fighting. See, we are the original gang, and we're the most vicious in all of professional wrestling history. They send one of yours to the hospital? You send one of theirs to the morgue."
  20. The same paid announcement from Saturday Night two days prior, but it's interesting to see how head and shoulders this is above a sit-down Shawn Michaels interview.
  21. Could Shawn possibly say "World Wrestling Federation" one more time? Kevin Kelly does a sit-down interview by the water as Shawn discusses his time as champion, upcoming challenges and Bret Hart.
  22. A bit abrupt at the end when they seemed to be working toward a classic, but I'd say that's sort of understandable considering ... yeah. Great high-flying match, and these two do complement each other well.
  23. If the match these two had a few days later was really good, this was great. There were a few All Japan tributes in the middle with Koshinaka trying the series of powerbombs to put Muto away and it not working. Muto does the dragon screw leg whip a few times to catch an over-excited Koshinaka off guard, including a final one off the top rope, which plays into the finish nicely. I love the inside cradle off the figure four, because I don't associate flash pin attempts with Japanese wrestling very often. Very enjoyable.
  24. Strong match, as always, but a little on the short side. Ikeda's kicks are crazy.
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