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Loss

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  1. Loss
    Bret points out that he respects Flair, but he's not going to just stop calling himself the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be. This brings Flair out, and I like how they use taking the jackets off to build intrigue in these segments. Flair wants him to say it once again, so Bret obliges him. Flair calls it the damndest thing he has ever heard. Flair points out that he has wrestled in Singapore, Tokyo and St. Louis against the greats, and he resents what Bret is saying. This was another good segment, but again, I wish this had been something Bret did after beating either Hall or Nash out of the gate.
  2. Loss
    Last few minutes. Juventud won with a Juvi Driver to win the cruiserweight title. And yeah, not Ultimo's finest week.
  3. Loss
    Just the finish. Hall grabs a chair but ends up distracted by Larry Zbyszko. Hall wants a fight and when will wrestlers learn to never turn their backs to their opponents? Traylor ends up getting a win as a result of the distraction.
  4. Loss
    Larry Zbyszko's theme is just the Nitro song. Larry's speaking style isn't really suited for live interviews because he's so long-winded, even if he is eloquent. I think he should have either done a pre-tape or cut a promo on Nitro from the announce booth. I liked it, especially the part where he talked about his golf game, bench press and wrestling history, but it didn't seem to really work with the live audience.
  5. Loss
    Luger is right to be pissed off. The NWO should not be treated fairly, and it makes WCW look awful that they are. I don't like how entrenched the NWO was at this point. They went from being renegade outsiders out to take over the company to just the top heel faction, so what made it unique is gone. Interesting how all of these problems started creeping up pretty much immediately in 1998.
  6. Loss
    The announcers are talking about problems in the NWO, but they are booking a breakup with more of a slow build. I don't think WCW realized how imperative it was to move on from the NWO and go for a new direction at this point, because instead of taking a new direction, they just doubled down on it. I like Hogan's undeserved gloating here, but it was near the time for yet another reinvention.
  7. Loss
    Yeah, I had no recollection of the cave opening at all. I'm blown away that the first Thunder was three hours long. Just too much wrestling! The set definitely makes it look distinct from the Nitro set, but I remember Thunder always being out of control with the smoke machine.
  8. Loss
    I'm not really a fan of spots involving chairs where the wrestlers do anything but just swing it. Everything else looks too convoluted. This was a fun brawl, but it's not really indicative of the style of match these guys could deliver on their best nights. It's the best possible ECW-style match in terms of crowd brawling and weapon shots. I can appreciate that in my wrestling, but it's harder for me to appreciate it when I know the guys involved are capable of having a great match without outside props. That said, this is what this match is, so I'll try to just judge it on the merits of what they are doing instead of criticizing them for the match I wish they would have had instead. This is a very good brawl and I liked Gannosuke going all Mr. Pogo on Tanaka's arm. There were some good nearfalls at the end too. I also thought this was a decent intersection between old FMW and new FMW in terms of mixing really good wrestling in with the brawling. Gannosuke's tricked out pinning combo thing at the end is my favorite move of his and it was cool to see it here. This was good and I liked it, but I think I'm less high on it than everyone else.
  9. Loss
    Shawn is cutting quite the heel promo - more focused than a lot of his stuff usually is. I don't think he's as viscerally hated as he was before Bret departed, but he still has lots of heat. The casket is wheeled out, but Shawn has done lots of pranks in weeks past, so he seems amused by this. But this time, Undertaker pops up and pulls Shawn into the casket. And yeah, agreed that it's nice to see Shawn actually get some comeuppance like a real heel.
  10. Loss
    Michael Cole narrates a package showing some of the media coverage related to Mike Tyson at Wrestlemania wrapping up with Don King showing lots of excitement over the prospects of Tyson at Wrestlemania.
  11. Loss
    Just the finish, which looks messed up, of the NAO beating the Headbangers. Cactus and Chainsaw Charlie come out and run them off.
  12. Loss
    I agree that Goldust wearing blackface to be Shaftdust was offensive and they should have known better than to do this in 1998. Average and short TV match. I always think it makes the WWF look really bush league when they won't fork over the dough for real music. You just don't do Shaft without the Isaac Hayes track. Luna pushes Scorpio off the top rope to force a DQ. Goldust attacks after the bell until Vader makes a save. I still don't get having Vader around and pushing him as a babyface.
  13. Loss
    Steve Austin walks into the building and promises to raise hell this evening.
  14. Loss
    Ric Flair in a huge dome where his voice echoes on his promos just feels right. Flair takes exception to Bret calling himself the best and is interrupted by Bret and his God awful country music entrance. Bret doesn't really get a superstar reaction in Atlanta, which is probably in part because Flair came out first. Flair dares Bret to call himself the best there is, the best there was and the best there ever will be while Flair stands in the ring. Bret takes him up on the offer and adds a "Whoooo" on the end of it for good measure. "I'm not saying I'm what I was ten years ago. Ten years ago I could go out there with a broom, now I need somebody with a heartbeat." -- Flair gives the first quotable line of the year I really like this simple build, but I also think Bret needed to feud with someone more relevant out of the gate. That sounds like a strange thing to say about Flair, but he had been on the sidelines so long at this point. Still, this was awfully effective and I thought both were very good in this.
  15. Loss
    We continue the build to the heel turn that made Jericho a star. Dave Penzer is the target of his wrath, which would become a pattern. The echo in Jericho's voice was great. Fans already see exactly where this is going and you could argue that they are booing him because of his actions, but I think at this point he had Alex Wright-as-a-babyface heat where people just didn't care about him at all and found him annoying when he was around. To Jericho's credit, he was able to channel that into something that worked in a big way. I'm looking forward to reliving what was a banner year for the guy though, as Jericho was my favorite wrestler in 1998. This is a rare chance to see Jericho against a top-level heavyweight. I've become a big fan of DDP as a guy who works with everyone up and down the card. This was a fun TV match with Jericho laying on the sugary sweet babyface act extra thick, shaking DDP's hand after every exchange that DDP wins, and then sneaking in hair pulling and other heel tactics, then pretending to be frustrated with himself. DDP gets the Diamond Cutter and a win and while this was short, it was also a lot of fun. Jericho snaps once again after the match while screaming about a conspiracy.
  16. Loss
    Don Frey isn't a guy I've watched a ton of but I was intrigued by his gimmick of being a fake shooter who will throw in cheapshots. So it sounded promising on paper. This clip suggests it wasn't so much in practice, but at least we get Frye looking strong to get up his match with Inoki (Inoki's retirement match) in another dome show coming a few months down the line.
  17. Loss
    This was a fitting tribute to one of my favorite wrestlers ever and the guy who I still think is the best booker of all time. Awesome to hear my favorite entrance music in a dome one last time. I wish a bigger deal was made of the retirement of big stars in the U.S. Flair got the deluxe treatment, but Hogan, Austin, Piper, Steamboat, Dusty and most others sure didn't.
  18. Loss
    In doing research for 1999 and in past years, I've seen so much inspired matwork from Otani that I still had high hopes for this, because matwork to start is pretty common for him and he has a way of making it high stakes more often than not. He does it here with little details like scraping Ultimo's face with his free boot to counter a kneebar. I've seen these two have enjoyable matches before, especially in '96 at the J*Crown. I wasn't expecting anything quite at that level this time around, but I think one reason this disappoints is that Otani continued to improve and grow as a worker since their last match while Ultimo was pretty much stagnant. The type of gritty fighting for holds Otani attempts is not really where Ultimo excels. He's more the type of wrestler to take it to the air and I think that works fine since Otani can do that too. But his approach makes this match seem a little "lighter" than most Otani matches. Ultimo does pull out some interesting holds. He's a capable mat worker in terms of technique, but he doesn't seem like he's really fighting or struggling all that much, where Otani is the master of making me care about what he's doing instead of just trying to impress me with what he can do. I like Otani's counter to the first La Magistral, but one thing this match makes painfully obvious is that while he has grown as a worker, his character is still the same it always was - crying over nearfalls, not going for covers when he has his opponent beat ... at a certain point, he needed to move on from that stuff decisively. He wins here and I thought this was a good match in spite of the stuff I'm criticizing about it, and I also thought it was really impressive how they got the Dome crowd so excited for the nearfalls. But Ultimo feels stale and while Otani was a brilliant worker, his character never seemed to learn anything.
  19. Loss
    Hello, 1998! Early glimpse of Matt Hardy and Shannon Moore. Moore took some impressive bumps in this one and his offense is really suited for a babyface. It's weird to me that he ever worked heel in a major promotion. This is very indy, but it's also not filled with a bunch of dumb stuff with green guys either. This was nothing special overall, but it was hardly bad. I'm looking forward to watching the Hardys in 1998.
  20. Loss
    I wouldn't say great so much as good, interesting and worth watching. I like both Hogan PPV matches. I like the Benoit match from Thunder. I like the Goldberg match from Nitro quite a bit. However, Hogan has been the biggest surprise in the ring of 1999 WCW that I've watched lately.
  21. Loss
    I've really loved this guy in every late 90s match I've watched him in lately. I presume the reason a lot of people weren't high on him at the time was because he didn't really fit the mold of an All Japan guy. He was more of an opportunistic, undersized heel. Ogawa never really stood out in a huge way to me in the early part of the decade, but I am loving him in 1998-1999. I'm curious if the criticisms of Ogawa go beyond what I've said, because I really look forward to his matches during this time. His matches with Akiyama and Kakihara were excellent, and I also like him as the cheating pipsqueak who teams with the beloved Misawa.
  22. Loss
    From what I've seen of late 90s pro wrestling, FMW is the best wrestling company in the world for a big chunk of that time. I think you'll love a lot of stuff coming up.
  23. Loss
    He was fucked over by WCW and should have been working main events. I think anyone who was pretty consistently popping out the highest rated quarter hours on the show - even while being misused - and had accomplished so much in wrestling and wasn't being treated like a legend in the booking would be unmotivated to give them something great every time. When he's actually given something to sink his teeth into, like the feuds with Hennig and Bret, he gives some great promos. I'm not disputing that he was unmotivated during this time and should have given more in the Syxx feud, but I also think he should have been booked much closer to the top.
  24. Loss
    I think it would be hilarious if he interrupted Dixie Carter to rant about the old days.
  25. Loss
    Glad people liked the show. I thought Chris's enthusiasm was contagious.
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