Childs
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I remember people being excited about Al Snow and the "innovative" head character. I didn't get it then and don't get it now.
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This was mostly a good match, with two guys who had an understandable beef fighting like they actually disliked each other. Bret was always good at communicating his desire to hurt an opponent without stepping outside the bounds of a normal wrestling match. And he did that here with his focused work on Savage's knee. I could've done without Piper entirely, and the Hogan stuff didn't really work because the motivations were still so unclear (and not in an intriguing way). But this at least got close to a vision of what WCW could've been around this time--big, established stars producing solid matches with some nonsense thrown in.
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There should be a thread dedicated to this in the forum Part of what's interesting with efforts like this is that people define GOAT differently. I don't know that you'd want everyone using the same rubric. I agree that's what makes it interesting, but I think there has to be some understanding of intent. I maybe interpreting Matt's post wrong, but to me the question is this a "Hogan" List or a "Flair" List. By that I mean a list that looks at greatest from drawing and starpower would historically most likely have Hogan finish number one. Whereas one focused on more subjective criteria like being entertaining and ring work would historically most likely have Flair finish number one. I presume this GOAT list is a "Flair" list rather than a "Hogan" list, which would be more about numbers and is generally less fun in my opinion. Yeah, I agree with that. I didn't read Matt's original post well. Invariably, if one of these projects comes off, one of the major currents is a debate about what GOAT means. I just think it's cool that at the end, you still have thoughtful people with radically different definitions. We've certainly seen that with the match voting on the DVDVR projects. And I recall lots of interesting discussion along those lines with the Smarkschoice threads.
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There should be a thread dedicated to this in the forum Part of what's interesting with efforts like this is that people define GOAT differently. I don't know that you'd want everyone using the same rubric.
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I'm all for it. The discussion threads for the Smarkschoice poll were a great resource for me as I dived deeper into my fandom, and it'd be fun to try to recreate that. I'd rely on the discussion to provide the diversity rather than trying to break the project into multiple category polls.
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But you can't talk about the Attitude Era without talking about '98-'99. That's pizza without the cheese. Austin owned the fans at the dawn of the whole thing. Later on, you're right. He was huge but not on the same level. -
Even in a promotion characterized by pointlessness, this came off as a special waste of time. Schiavone, a good company man for years, could barely hide his derision for it.
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The reaction to this was a huge nod to Jericho's work in elevating mundane material. Too bad none of his bosses gave a shit. The pop Malenko got when he pulled off the Ciclope match was wild, and they did a good job working a hot opening to the singles match. Their intensity waned a bit, but overall, this segment popped way more than you'd expect on paper.
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Wow, you went Tiger Jeet on him. That's rough.
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Good, hard-hitting match of course, but I'm not sure I'd put it above Benoit-DDP or Benoit-Raven, simply because Benoit did so much with more limited guys in those previous PPVs. The finishing stretch took it up a notch. We got some excellent comeback teases from Benoit and vicious cut-offs from Finlay. Finlay's dropkick to the back of Benoit's head when Booker had him distracted was especially nasty. I'm looking forward to the Booker-Benoit series, which I haven't seen since it happened.
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They had a really good match the previous year, however, and not entirely because of Tamura.
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Walking dead.
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Go read the 1998 threads if you want to see some raving about Austin and the early Attitude Era. Austin was on fire as a performer, even if the neck injury had reduced him to a lesser in-ring wrestler. And he deserves every bit of recognition he's received for it. But what's really struck me is how much Vince exploded as a performer at the same time. In a year, he went from overblown announcer and semi-hidden power figure to all-time great heel. He played a huge role, for example, in elevating Foley to a guy the fans accepted as a threat to Stone Cold.
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Take that straw man horseshit elsewhere. If you knew this place at all, you'd know indy stars are hardly sacrosanct compared to the Savages and Steamboats of the world. People love the Regal-Ohno match because they watched it and saw great performances from both guys. If you want to go watch it and then offer some specific analysis, feel free.
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They were fighting out in the rain with hardly any crowd. This episode was quite the greatest hits reel for '98 WCW.
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This didn't make sense at all. Dusty seemed to be dissing Hogan, but then he went after Savage for bitching. Was this a roundabout plea for NWO unity? Why was Dusty in the NWO again? Argh.
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I'm starting to wonder why I thought Nash was cool in this period.
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And he couldn't even follow through on his reactionary garbage. If you're going to cut a promo on Vince and dare him to show up at the PPV, don't end it by saying there's no way he'll take the challenge. Obviously, no sane person would've expected Vince to show. But Bischoff effectively ended the segment by declaring that the whole thing had been pointless. Asshole.
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It no longer felt like a marquee match at all, which I'm sure they couldn't grasp inside their bubble. The motivations were so muddy, and neither guys had done anything interesting in the ring in months. Who the hell would choose to watch this over Austin-McMahon?
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The Bret Hart segments might be the most consistently depressing elements of a depressing promotion. I have no idea what they were trying to convey about his character. And Okerlund made blatantly contradictory statements about Bret's history with Savage. It's like everybody who touched the main event scene caught the same brain-liquifying disease.
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As promised by Mr. Cooke, this was excellent. These guys knew how to work a tag match, plain and simple. Helms did the crazy spots you expect from an indy match, but he hit them at the right moments--to punctuate the early shine and to finish the match. Parker and Anderson didn't do anything flashy, but they worked the crowd brilliantly during their long stretch of control. Helms escaped FIP purgatory off a huge missed dive, which worked perfectly to set up the finishing run. The crowd loved everything. I enjoyed the little kids celebrating with Helms in the bleachers and the folks still giving the business to the heels as they skulked out. Good stuff all the way around.
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Terrific end to a terrific episode of Raw. Hatred of stunt brawls has been a major theme of the '90s review for me. But in this case, Foley really got across that he was willing to kill his buddy to get back in Vince's good graces. Funk, for his part, delivered exhibit 6022 of why he was a crazy bastard. Austin was excellent on commentary, both putting over the match and adding heat to his growing feud with Foley. I love, love, loved that even he couldn't suppress a grin at Vince and Mick dancing with the strippers. Just an awesome blend of character, intensity and comedy that WCW couldn't have hoped to match. Even if the Attitude Era went to hell eventually, it deserves to be remembered warmly for this beginning period.
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This was a truly fantastic segment, with Vince cutting a captivating, honest promo about Foley and himself. Mick was good too, with his facial expressions communicating the transition from total frustration to buying Vince's message. All of this got me totally psyched for the Funk-Foley main event. I know we're saying it over and over, but Vince McMahon in 1998--holy shit he was good.
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This certainly lacked the drama you'd want from a long quest culminated. But honestly, that payoff came in the 6/9/95 tag match. Kawada looked great, hitting some brilliantly timed kicks. Misawa did what he could. It would have been nice if Kawada had won by going a different route somehow. Instead, his old approach simply worked this time around. These are all pretty obvious things to say. I still felt good for Kawada in the final moments as the crowd got juiced for his last big run of offense.
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I didn't miss the cut footage at all, as the match meandered a fair amount. Vader looked fine, albeit slower and heavier than he had a few years earlier. I enjoyed his interactions with Kobashi. Not sure I would've used Vader's debut as the stage to remind everyone of Kobashi's resilience (how could we forget it), but that's OK. Hansen looked notably diminished from even two years earlier.