Loss
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[1998-10-26-WWF-Raw] Steve Austin vs Ken Shamrock ('I Quit')
Loss replied to Loss's topic in October 1998
This is a fun match, but Austin isn't quite at his best compared to his normal level. I still think this was a solid TV, angle-driven match. Foley runs in after Patterson assaults the referee to attack Shamrock. Patterson, Brisco and Slaughter eat back-to-back stunners. -
[1998-10-26-WWF-Raw] Steve Austin, Vince McMahon and Shane McMahon
Loss replied to Loss's topic in October 1998
Austin announces that he has a brand new WWF contract that guarantees at least one title shot. Vince interrupts and is quite unhappy with this development and tells Vince he has to compete tonight against Ken Shamrock in an I Quit match. Vince's sneer and contempt is something to behold. Shane McMahon is now officially a character and confirms that he's the one who rehired Austin. Shane McMahon ... oh boy, I can't wait. Shane cuts a promo on Vince as a bad father, but it's horribly whiny and it's a testament to Vince's facial expressions in reaction to what he's saying that Shane didn't heel himself here. I like this as Austin cracking the facade that has always existed around Vince, but I could do without the Shane monologue. Shane did kill the crowd though. -
Vince is still selling his embarrassment over what happened last week. He holds Austin responsible, but he also holds the WWF fans responsible for what happened. He claims that he has lost all faith in humanity and asks where the morals and values of WWF fans have gone. He recaps the events of last week, which gets a series of amazing pops. He chastises the stooges for not coming to his aid. He claims that despite re-injuring his ankle, his feelings are hurt more than anything. Tremendous. Austin placed a letter in Vince's pocket that didn't make sense at the time, but they followed up on it here, as it was a legal document. I presume further explanation is to come, but Austin is not fired. So anyone who bought Judgment Day got no champion decided and a bait-and-switch stipulation of Austin refereeing.
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I thought this was a very good match. I was remembering it as great and it wasn't at that level, but it was Goldberg's best match for sure. While Goldberg remained inexperienced in competitive matches, I thought he showed a lot of great aptitude here. His selling was very good and he got to show off a few new moves. Give credit to DDP for his micromanaging approach to laying out matches - it works here and we get a satisfying main event.
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[1998-10-25-WCW-Halloween Havoc] Hulk Hogan vs Ultimate Warrior
Loss replied to Loss's topic in October 1998
Well this was a disaster, which is pretty well known. You kind of need to see it in full to appreciate just how bad and disastrous it was. It's one thing to see a bad match where someone is dogging it, but to watch a bad match where the guys are trying and the match is just falling apart is always depressing. The announcers try to cover for all of Warrior's missed stuff but they aren't miracle workers. Way too many ref bumps on this card. Then there's the messed up fireball spot. The crowd doesn't respond to much of anything, as they weren't interested in either guy at all. This feud bombed and the PPV buyrate was lower than expected, which led to Hogan taking some time off to avoid further blame for WCW's decline. We'll get into Presidential candidate Hulk Hogan very soon. But this was the match where it was clear Hogan's Midas touch was finally gone. -
Last few minutes. Bret decks the referee then drops a leg on him for good measure. It's too bad this match didn't measure up to what Sting had been doing in recent weeks. Sting sporting facial hair. He does a great top rope superplex. Bret just getting up to walk into the position to be Stinger splashed looked awful. Sting overshoots and hits the ringpost, then Bret works him over with the bat and gets the win with a sharpshooter. Sting even does a stretcher job. And just like that, Sting disappears for six months to save his marriage and get his life in order. Bret-Hogan clearly wasn't happening at this point, so I still don't understand why Bret didn't just officially join the NWO. By the way, no Wolfpac help when he's being stretchered out?
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[1998-10-25-WCW-Halloween Havoc] Scott Hall vs Kevin Nash
Loss replied to Loss's topic in October 1998
It's old news by this point in 1998, but wow does this video package make Hall and Nash look like WCW guys as much as anyone else. In the final few minutes, Nash destroys Hall with two powerbombs in what we see of this and then walks out of the ring rather than take the pin as announcers sell that Nash has made his point. -
What are the best matches from that time period?
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Are there any Heel Lawler matches in 80s Memphis outside of Superclash? I think he's an awesome babyface and love him in that role. I just think he needs some heel matches at the same level on his resume. I've seen the Dundee match from '77 which was great, but that's really the only one. If he has some great heel matches, I want to watch them.
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[1998-10-25-WCW-Halloween Havoc] Rick Steiner vs The Giant & Scott Steiner
Loss replied to Loss's topic in October 1998
Last few minutes sees Giant make a failed attempt to come off the top rope and then eat a pinfall from Rick Steiner. Rick has no business pinning The Giant in 1998, but since it was known he was WWF bound by this point anyway, I guess it's not so bad. Scott manages to avoid Rick. They went to the trouble of the turn and could never even book a straight up singles match with Steiner vs Steiner. What's wrong with WCW? We do end up getting them in an extended stretch against each other after The Giant is out of the picture, but there's no reason for Giant to even be involved. Rick wins the WCW World Tag Team Title by himself and picks an interesting partner in Judy Bagwell. Rick vs Scott stuff is okay but disappointing. A "fan" shows up in a mask and attacks Rick with a slapjack and it's obviously Bagwell, who swerved Rick for the SECOND TIME in this feud. They have the nerve to try copying spots from Austin-Foley at Over The Edge but they do it in the stupidest way possible. -
This was technically Lawler/Stacy vs King/Hales but the seconds never tagged in, so we effective had a Lawler-King match. Rex King has changed his hairstyle so much from the feathered and frosted look from a decade earlier that I would never have known that was him if I didn't ... know it was him. King is a Randy Hales charge out to destroy Lawler. King was in good shape here and worked hard. This was shaping up to be one of the better Power Pro TV matches of the year, but it was rushed. Post-match, Lawler puts Hales on his shoulders and attempts to take off with him, but KID WIKKID makes the save and pummels Lawler. This gives Hales an opening to grab Stacy and attempt to throw her in the dumpster. However, Brandon Baxter jumps out of the dumpster and attacks an unsuspecting Hales. Action spills outside into the parking lot with Bill Dundee also gets involved. This makes for some great TV, old school Memphis style. After a commercial break, Brandon Baxter cuts a babyface promo in the ring and I feel like we need some resolution to the storyline with him lying about Stacy. Did he ever cop to anything? Baxter wants Hales to come out and fight.
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Cool to see a late version of this matchup. I don't expect this to be anything other than interesting in 1998, but this was very good. Unlike the weird tag that preceded it, this is something that I suspect would look excellent in full if we had it. Liger is always willing to go the extra mile to put Samurai over as a threat. Interesting finish with Samurai trying to gut it out and shake off Liger's strikes until a deadly shotei leaves him prone to a pinfall.
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TV edit of the match, which looks to be about 9 minutes of 19:24. Kashin does an odd looking rolling cradle. Otani and Kanemoto make a great tag team, but they sure go after each other full bore when they are on opposite sides. Kashin is actually good here in ways he normally isn't, busting out a rolling cradle and even reversing Takaiwa's double powerbomb into a cross armbreaker. While clipped juniors matches usually make me long for the complete version, that's not the case here. This was fun, but doesn't seem like it would be anything awesome in full. I think we got the best of the match and this was on the indieriffic side anyway.
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The commercial edit of this match, which is in highlight form. The match doesn't look bad, but it doesn't look like going out of the way to watch. I'm amused by how much handholding Misawa is having to do for Omori. The Misawa-Kobashi stuff is good but we get all of that. Kobashi ends up pinning Misawa after a burning hammer, which is a move I really hate.
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This was the type of mat-based title match that seemed to be far less frequent by this point. It reminded me of Dandy-Azteca. It didn't quite hit that level, but I thought it came closer than expected, and ended up as one of the best matches of the year. Olimpico impressed me with his technical precision and selling. He was the flashier of the two, and Negro made a great base. That in some ways undermines how great Negro was in this match as he was more than the guy who caught Olimpico's highspots. He had plenty of great offense and matwork of his own. But I think his timing on bumps was one of the things that made Olimpico's offense look so good. One of the best matches of the year and I can't wait for the rematch. I'd normally complain about a screwy finish in a match worked so straight but I won't here since it sets up another match with these two, and while what we got was great, I can't help but think there's more where that came from. What a nice surprise. Thanks to OJ for recommending this.
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Malenko beats Kendall Windham and brings the remaining Horsemen out for an interview. Arn issues a stern warning to Bischoff for insulting his family recently. He says if he ever does it again, he'll break into his house and do things to him in front of his wife and children that they shouldn't see. Pretty scary, but I have no idea what he's talking about. Flair vows that one day Eric Bischoff will work for him, which foreshadows where all this is going. Weakest Horsemen segment so far, but this is Thunder, so I can forgive.
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Aja could still go at this point, but she needed fresh opponents to do her best work. Satomura provided that. Toshiyo Yamada (in a GAEA match) and Kyoko Inoue did not. Kyoko isn't terrible, but she has slipped a lot and this match suffers for it.
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Matt, I think you would most appreciate his series with Norio Honaga. I'll come back with dates.
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The big two for me are: vs Volk Han (12/07/91) vs Yoshihisa Yammamoto (07/20/98)
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By what criteria? I want to answer the question, but I want to make sure I understand it properly first.
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Top 20 pick for me. Something I really appreciate about him is his credibility. In the 90s, there were many times that he would be working a multi-man match where no one else approached his stardom, but because he cared and didn't act above what he was doing, the fans ended up getting hot for the match. Choshu has a definite ability to make everyone around him seem better. I don't even fault him for having limited offense because he was able to take what he could do and get so many great matches out of it - not just great matches, but matches that had a big impact on the wrestling style. You could make an argument that in the 1980s where Riki Choshu goes, so goes the best wrestling in the world. That's not entirely down to him, but his infectious energy and charisma turned everything to gold for a while.
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This is very well said. An undercard 7-minute match can be pretty awesome too. Barry Windham and Brian Pillman weren't really put in that epic main event spot at SuperBrawl I, nor were they given as much time as you'd think they would need on paper to work up to their potential. Yet they still produced something strong that people look back on fondly. Regal's short TV matches will get a lot of credit from me too. Look at Akiyama vs Taue on 1/20/97. Undercard booking and limited time to go all out doesn't always work against the idea of having a great match. There's nothing wrong with not doing it, but is a career's worth of not doing it anything worth celebration? Maybe not deserving of scorn, but deserving of praise?