Kevin Ridge

Hate, hate, hate this interview and just days after his death.

Austin got involved in IC Title match for Owen to win so he could face him. Austin will agree to sign the waiver to return to the ring as long as he gets a shot at Owen. Vince, eagerly agrees to this deal. I thought Montreal was the big turning point for Vince and had just viewed him as the owner trying to work with a difficult employee like Austin. Then he because evil boss. I’m suddenly wanting a Austin/Faarooq match. Austin punting King’s crown into the crowd is fantastic.

This promo is kind of humorous coming right off of Michaels/Triple H with Cornette ranting about the immaturity of Nash, Hall and Syxx. I always liked the line about Bischoff being on the credits of WCW PPVs. Jimmy ranting is good.

Triple H bullies the crap out of out of Michael Cole. Michaels refers to himself as the Icon of professional wrestling. Curtain call from MSG is shown on the Titantron. So who does that work? Did the dude who taped it illegally (well not sure if it was not allowed back in 96) get compensated for his video being used on TV? Geez Bret. He tells us what the H stands for both HBK and Triple H. He does call Chyna a guy which is funny. Shawn got his ass kicked in Hell In a Cell but here he is the next night making goofy faces and no selling Bret completely. I suddenly feel dissatisfied that Undertaker didn’t get the job done.

They do the 10 bell count with all the wrestlers on the stage. Vader is one of the guys who gets a close up on TV. I’m trying to jog my mind that Vader had made some inappropriate comments when Pillman died but can't remember. Like he was more focused on the layout of his match I believe.

Michaels finally shows some fear for Undertaker when the cage is locked. Michaels is taking some huge bumps right from the start. I think this is the right cage ceiling height. War Games is bit too low and the current Hell In a Cell is much too high now. That is a pretty sweet blade job by Shawn. I also like how they made a legitimate reason for opening the cage door to let the injured cameraman out. When the go on top of the cage they have another cameraman go inside the ring to get a wonderful view from underneath as Shawn gets his face mashed back and forth on cage ceiling. Shawn’s bumping is so huge in this match with Undertaker taking out his fury and just throwing Michaels all over the place. Undertaker chair shot on Michaels is crazy. Kane’s interference didn’t hurt it for me as Bearer had been talking Kane up for months now and he brought him out at a crucial moment in match. I like this match but they hype was so much that I didn't think it was as great as people said. Other years in WWF, it's their best match but I just find Austin/Bret to be a much better one in 97.

Fireball was sold big with emergency crews rushing the ring to aid Sandman. First a cane shot to the eye and now Sandman takes a full fireball.

This was pretty amazing to watch with how fluid the action in the ring was. The comedy exchange with the chest slapping was great. Really fun match to see but I was perplexed when they showed close up of the fans they were just sitting emotionless.

Great line by Flair towards Hogan. You feel bad for Ric right now and want him to come back and kick ass. Flair disbands the Horsemen which is sad but the right thing with Anderson no longer around. Strong promo by Flair that it would have been live in the arena but it did have the benefit of not having Okerlund interview him.

It would be interesting to see survey results depending on which other NWO member(s) is with Hall. Does Vincent move the numbers?

Yeah, those features being shown earlier would been great for fans who didn’t know much about lucha or the wrestlers. DDP was better pretending to be a masked luchadore. Tony is in the know but doesn’t outright say it’s Eddie or maybe he does't know after all. El Caliente keeps trying to untie Rey’s mask. Rey’s knee looked fine on that triple jump hurricarana. Tony, “Guerrero didn’t fool anybody but us.” Looking forward to watching these matches over next couple months.

I can't say why Bret/Bulldog attacked Undertaker either. Their singles match from UK was gone and past. Quick match. Michaels stayed on the outside while Rude came down the ramp and then hit Undertaker. Why didn't Shawn interfere? Unless he was suppose to be scared about getting involved but he's not really acting that way. Undertaker fights of Triple H and Shawn is finally running for his life from Taker.

Was Owen’s shirt legitimately sold? Hart and Faarooq will face each other in the finals for the IC Title. Owen tries to convince McMahon into getting rid of Austin. They re use the riot squad segment from Rude and Barely Legal. Austin runs through the crowd and is fast enough to get away from the fans chasing him.

I thought Vince should a lot of restraint after getting stunned previous week. He gives Austin three options about his future in the WWF. Could have just fired him. Even after being given options, Austin gives McMahon the double bird. Vince’s facial expression showed signs he was going to have lots of trouble with Austin.

I fully admit to laughing my ass off when Michaels is trying to avoid Slaughter's spit while he talks. Sarge makes a match for Raw between Triple H and The Undertaker. Shawn finally shows himself as being upset with something regarding Taker but then he goes and annoys me as while he putting over the seriousness of his buddy having to face Undertaker he is still selling the spit from Slaughter. He is so mad to watch right now.

Another excellent show guys. I'm not a huge cage match fan but the high end stuff like Tully/Magnum definitely ranks very well with me too. I liked that you guys touch on the subject of singles versus tag matches in cages. To me, I much prefer singles matches in the cage. It should be one versus one. I looked at cages matches as being No DQ so when they are doing tag matches but having guys make tags it doesn't make sense to me. It really has to be tornado rules in those tag matches. Bodies/Express match was mentioned which is one of the few that I would say needs to have tags so Ricky can do his thing. Though I felt the Bodies spent too much of that match chasing Rock n' Roll's. I'm not totally into the idea of matches with multiple gimmicks. I don't think more gimmicks necessarily makes a better match. Well, the DiBiase/Duggan match is a clear exception to that since all the gimmicks were played up in the history leading up to the match. Watched it earlier today and again loved it. Loss has mentioned the Flair/Garvin match before so I'm looking forward to eventually being able to watch that one. Wasn't brought up though Will did mentioned how he prefers his cage matches to have blood but what about some of the cages matches we were seeing from early 90's USWA-TX? There seemed to be little to any reason why they were in the cage and then the wrestled straight up matches barely using the cage with no blood and not using escape rules on the TV matches due to censorship. Why even get in the cage if you can't actually have a match worthy of being in there. I've never considered Hell In a Cell to be a cage match. Always thought of it as a different gimmick even though there is the fence around. To me the blue bars look more dangerous. I'd rather have my head rammed into a fence/mesh than into a steel bar. The blue bars just didn't look safe and I've read guys hated them because they were so unforgiven. I grew up on that cage but I'm fine that they ended up ditching eventually. The fence allows for the great visual of rubbing your opponents face along it. I'm fine with escape rules as I grew up on those but I agreed pinfall/submission is better.

They couldn't penetrate Sable's force field. Not the way you want to remember Brian as his last segment. Continues to be a crummy angle. I prefer to think of the Stampede 10 man tag a few months back for a high point.

Thought Jim Ross should have done the voice over with all the football talk. In line with the Foley/Goldust stuff but not the sit down comprehensive interviews those guys got.

My problem with the count down portion is the fans didn't seem to be buying any of the pinfall attempts. There was so little heat until the last few seconds. The whole anticipation was the clock running out. They knew they were getting their ring explosion. Nice job by the referee when it gets to the last few seconds and he freaks out by diving to the mat for cover.

I do enjoy their matches. With the no selling of suplexes, I felt like the AJPW guys would at least have a grimace on their face when getting up or do the delayed sell after. Tanaka took one on his head like it was an armdrag. Those tables are too small for the big spots. Near the end Awesome gets power bombed from the ring to a table on the outside. He barely grazed the table and had very little to help break his fall as he landed hard on the floor.

Kobashi in FMW! The first camera shot where you only see some fan's head was worrisome. The taper moves around to get a better location. It is still far away from the ring so visibility is not great. Loss is right about being patient. This isn't really an FMW type brawl as just a straight up wrestling match in the ring. I was expecting more from the crowd though with Kobashi involved. Gets really good towards the end but I thought Kobashi should have put these guys away a few minutes earlier.

The Arena has come a long way now as they have added even more seating to the place. New Jack does one of his crazy balcony dives barely missing hitting bleachers. Match was short with lots of weapon use which works. Dudley's lose the tag titles again.

With the dreaded arrival on MMA happening soon I started to look at these type of matches sooner. What I like here is we get rope breaks. I know Pride would stop matches and move guys away from ropes for safety reasons but having ropes breaks here allows good teases with submissions. Tamura had top position at one point and you would think he would attack. But I looked at it as him being wary of yet another Han counter or set up to submission. Tamura striking is much better but Han ends up getting a knock down and then arrogantly cheers it. Tamura quickly submits him after for a big win.

Loss, can you explain the small shows part? As this looked to be in Nippon Budakon though from lighting it seemed only bottom portion had fans. Seems excessive they would run that place that big for a small show. Jericho also over shot Benoit on a tope attempt later on. Thought it was pretty good too but we have seen better NJPW Junior tags earlier in year.

I don't know how long this segment took place after Street Fight but HHH should have been selling that piledriver more and not be out there. They do put a bandage on his forehead though.