Loss
-
Posts
46439 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Everything posted by Loss
-
The Rock & Rolls didn't have contracts yet in February, which was probably part of the reason they did more jobs early on. But yes, by this time Ole had replaced Flair. There was actually a gap between the time Flair stopped and Ole started where I am not really sure who was in charge.
-
Anything in any line of work where you pay someone else to do a job is a scam, up front or not up front. If he was going to charge, he should have presented this as a revolutionary wrestling school. "In today's wrestling environment, there are less places to work. Promoters expect more out of you, and you have less opportunities to travel and get better. At my school, we're making the training more intense and true-to-life so that you finish more prepared and better equipped to work in front of crowds. For $250, you get the opportunity to not only train, but train with an audience. You'll be better by the time you have your first professional match than many wrestlers are after a year or two in the business. Spaces are limited, so apply now." -
Gorilla Monsoon announces that the Ultimate Warrior is indefinitely suspended for no-showing three dates! He says in order to return, he must post an appearance bond to have his suspension lifted, but as promised, he is here tonight against Owen Hart. That's some clever editing, and a pretty clear burial. Fun while it lasted??
-
I love the Italo disco-sounding Fukuoka/Kaoru entrance music. It sounds like it was produced by Giorgio Moroder. Anyway, this match kinda annoys the fuck out of me early on. Kaoru does a gazillion dropkicks to Kansai that she doesn't sell in the least. If being kicked in the face really hard doesn't phase Kansai, I have to ask why we should buy any offense Kaoru can possibly dish out. Also, usually your monsters like Vader or Yoko at least sell the body language that they've been rocked. Kansai didn't move at all. She just kind of ignored it. Ugly stuff, and there are a half dozen better ways to get Dynamite over as a monster. That made me really want to tune out the rest of the match, and the clumsy brawling in the moments after didn't help much either. There's this moment where Kansai goes to hit Kaoru with a kick and misses and hits Suzuki instead. Pretty standard tag spot. Then she reacts by just ... standing on the apron. Kaoru goes for the cover and there's a dramatic save, but why did there need to be when Kansai was right there? Because all saves are supposed to be at 2.9? This is simulated wrestling at its finest. Kaoru's facial expressions are similar to those of a woman who was mildly amused by something she heard on a subway. Weird. Coolest moment of the match: Kaoru countering a Dynamite powerbomb into a sleeperhold, which is ruined by only keeping the hold on for about 3 seconds. This match left me clamoring for Toyota. Cutie Suzuki vs Hikari Fukuoka in singles would have been much better.
-
The match felt rushed to me at 30 minutes. I don't know what else they could have done, but a longer-than-usual match for the two biggest stars of the era isn't a weird request.
-
The gimmick was fun, and Martel was a good wrestler in it, instead of a great Steamboat-like babyface like he had shown he could be in the past. But the French-Canadian accent really worked well with the gimmick. Martel was very talented. Had he been pushed higher on the card as a singles babyface in the WWF, and had his awesome WCW comeback not been cut short, he'd be way more in the discussion than he currently is.
-
I love the early part of the match. I understand Rock not blading since he was about to film a movie, but the blood capsule was pretty bad here. They gave these guys just under 30 minutes, and Vince was out there for like half the match, or so it seemed at the time. The part of this match that was really Austin vs Rock was pretty short. I think they should have given them closer to 45 minutes. I'm trying to only point out things that aren't benefit-of-hindsight points, but there are a lot of those (45 minutes with neither guy turning, a clean Austin win and no blood probably would have worked better, for example). I really have grown to love their WM 19 match. I like the atmosphere, I think the feud always worked best with Rock as a heel, and Rock had improved so much by this point, the two had more history, and it felt like the end of something. (How's THAT for a Meltzer sentence? ) It's also the one time they had a match at Wrestlemania that didn't add too much unnecessary stuff to it. It's Austin vs Rock, it's a match that really sells itself, and I always felt like WWE tried too hard when booking their matches, adding a lot of stuff that wasn't really needed.
-
I'll rewatch when the time comes, but my memories of this are the exact opposite: * This was pushed for weeks as a heated and very personal rivalry and was wrestled as an undercard comedy match between the Sting wig, overbooked finish, etc. * This match only has the last few minutes, but I don't think Hogan took but maybe 2-3 bumps the entire match, if that. That said, Hollywod Hogan was an awesome and fresh enough gimmick that it really didn't matter. I'm not sure Hogan gets enough credit for the reinvention he pulled off at this time. Most of your name wrestlers in history had one really big run on top that they're remembered for. Hogan did it twice in two different environments with two different gimmicks. The second would have been as successful without the history of the first, but it's still quite the accomplishment that a wrestler that established could reinvent himself and make it work the way he did. You want an awesome Hogan match from '96, I think you have to talk about War Games, which I'll get to, that I think is an overlooked great match, and probably a low-end US MOTYC.
-
Nameless suit. I always felt like it was a missed opportunity and lack of attention to detail to use actors with such New Yawk voices, when that wasn't the culture in WCW at all. Part of the purpose of these skits was supposed to be to make fun of WCW's Southern leanings. There's probably an interesting discussion to be had about the WWF hate of the South, considering that both Vince and his wife are from North Carolina.
-
Well, Martel was way better as a babyface whose only gimmick was that he was a wrestler, but this feud was still fairly memorable.
-
Rey is not only a top 100 pick, he's likely a top 30 pick. I forget where I had him in the SC poll, but I remember having him ranked right next to Vader. Cena I would likely not put in a top 100 because the period where I enjoyed him was pretty short, but there is an argument for him in the lower rungs I'd think, assuming it's a US/Canada-only list. In terms of star power and HOF eligibility, I do think Cena's a lock, and he's eligible for the first time next year.
-
Yes Jim Ross, after hearing it on every big show for 3+ years, we *do* in fact know that Lex Luger graduated college with a 3.78 GPA.
-
Interesting notes/tidbits/BS found in the PWT Wrestling Observer scans
Loss replied to goc's topic in Newsletter recaps
At least part of that show exists as a handheld. -
Awesome, it was turning into a decent discussion and I didn't want it to get lost in this thread.
-
I split the Gabe/Torch stuff off into its own thread. That's a great example of comments that do warrant a thread.
-
FWIW, Scott Hall did say in his Torch Talk that there was a lot of heat on Heenan for that, and that when he and Nash watched the tape back, they couldn't believe he said that. WCW was pretty attentive to detail at this point. They had clearly communicated to Heenan that they didn't want him praising the NWO. Somewhere along the way, someone probably dropped the ball. Either Heenan was given no guidance and was left in the dark, or he fumbled. I agree that it's not a huge deal, and that the moment is a classic moment with or without that line, but it is worth discussing whether or not it was the right thing to say. It stood out because at this point, WCW was so good at thinking through small things like that. I would think that the producers would have thought as soon as the Hogan turn was a go, "How should we handle Heenan?" Again, I think letting Dusty and Tony do the talking until after the turn would have been the simplest way to handle it, but I also have the benefit of 15 years of hindsight. While I do disagree with those who think it was logical for him to say that and see the point about how Heenan was vindicated, I do see the logic behind that argument too. Changing the subject, this has to be one of the top heel promos of all time, right?
-
This is how I read this at first (added word bolded) and I was like, "What?" But to answer your question, no.
-
Even "I'm not sure I've ever been so happy to see Hulk Hogan" would have been better. If WCW left them completely in the dark, that is pretty amateur. Either way, it subtracted from the moment. But if I'm not mistaken, wasn't the possibility of Hogan turning kind of an open secret? I know he didn't agree to it until the last minute, but even PWI Weekly had a "Will Hogan join Diesel and Ramon?" headline a few weeks in advance. Not sure what the WON reported about it in the weeks before the show.
-
That of course led to the awesomely Vince Vince line: "I don't see what anyone's sexual proclivity has to do with this."
-
I think he should have just stayed completely silent at first.
-
It's interesting how the Dusty swipes were always race-baiting. Akeem, Virgil ...
-
Are there matchlists for the Dallas footage anywhere?
-
I definitely don't mind. In fact, I'd encourage it. That subforum is for everyone to use, not just me. I'll start recapping 1989 soon.
-
Yeah, I've watched almost all the CMLL, so I'm in good shape there, but thanks. (There will be quite a bit of it.)
-
It was pretty terrible. The Great American Bash with Heenan not at the broadcast booth was so much better. Dusty and Tony worked really well together. Heenan sat there and told jokes, but only spoke in generalizations about the wrestling. He never really had any genuine observations that gave any clue that he was paying attention to what he was watching. But anyway, that's not what you asked me. It really did take away from the moment a lot, especially when this time period may have been Tony Schiavone at his best. Heenan's timing was also really off. The "Hulk Hogan has betrayed WCW" soundbyte came a little too soon, because he didn't really reveal himself as the third man until Hall and Nash got back in the ring and hi-fived him. "Hulk Hogan, you can go to hell. Straight to hell" is a great Schiavone line, considering that this is a pretty square guy who regularly went out of his way to say "Oh my goodness" regularly instead of taking the Lord's name in vain.