stomperspc

I agree with those pointing out that the style Tanahashi is expected to work in New Japan makes his less than impressive offense a bigger issue than it is for someone like Cena in WWE. I get the Tanahashi offense argument and generally agree with it, although some people carry it a tad farther than I would. I think for me it is less that his offense is weak and more that he does very little else to compensate for those shortcomings. The easiest way for a wrestler to compensate for a weak offensive playbook is to limit what he does and really concentrate on making a few things look good. The best way to do that is to not work matches where you are expected to be on offense for a long period of time. Unfortunately, Tanahashi generally works (and is expected to work) longer matches where he is in control for a significant portion of the match. His IWGP title matches were expected to have long significant stretches of near falls at the end. Tanahashi just does not have the offense to pull those things off well. Plenty of very good wrestlers have gotten by with a limited amount of moves because what they do have looks good and the style they work allows them to get by with a limited amount of moves. I’d count Cena among that group. I am a big Cena fan but it is not because he has a great array of offense. It is because of his selling and very good timing mainly, with his offense being passable when added to those other elements. Cena can and does spend the majority of his matches selling. He then makes a well-timed and short comeback most of the time or does the trading/reversing finishers bit to end his matches. Cena is effective because he is a face that sells a lot and makes short-ish come backs. That style compliments his strengths and hides his weaknesses. The style in New Japan, on the other hand, exposes Tanahashi’s weak offense. I like Tananashi’s offense better than Dylan and others. I would add his cross body blocks to the splash as moves of his that I generally like and don’t have any real issues with some other stuff he does. I also don’t think he is terrible at working over body parts. I thought he was perfectly fine working over Okada’s arm in their April match. At the same time, I have watched Tanahashi matches where his periods of offense have detracted from the match. I’d be hard pressed to name recent Cena matches where that has been the case. Again, environment might have as much to do with that as anything else but it does not change the fact that Tanahashi’s offensive shortcomings hurt his matches more than they do Cena.

What a bizarre segment. The concept of Piper taking three unknowns/newcomers to compete on his Uncensored team sounds great in theory. You instantly give three different wrestlers the main event rub and insert some new blood into the promotion. So in theory at least, it is not a terrible idea. The execution however was just awful. The little matches they do just stink and Piper gets in the majority of the offense. If they were actually planning on having these guys be part of Piper's team that they'd let them get something on Piper, but no. The crowd completely dies and it just dragged on and on. Piper nor anyone else came out of this looking good.

Like everyone else has said, this was an unexpectedly great television tag match. Completely actioned packed with a great power vs. high flyer theme throughout. Faces of Fear on occasion had some unexpectedly good television tag matches (even later on I think) but this is likely their best match in WCW.

I loved this. Nick Patrick is tremendous and really was pretty great as a heel the entire time. This is such a good angle and it gets a fantastic reaction. Was Jimmy Jett gone from WCW by this point? For some reason I am thinking he hadn't been around for a few months before this but since they knew that Bischoff had to "fire" the referee that aided Anderson they brought him back for just this angle. He is wearing a different color shirt than all of the other WCW refs are wearing in early 1997. It is sort of disheartening seeing how great of a job they did getting heat on Bischoff (and the NWO) with stuff like this only for Bischoff to not get his in the ring for a long time (if at all).

I really don't like Lawler as heel WWF announcer (especially compared to his Memphis persona in 1997) but I thought he was pretty funny here with the "I trained Ken Shamrock" stuff.

Savage's Halloween Havoc feud with Hogan was centered around the NWO having Elizabeth. Savage sort of went nuts as a result and was clearly a defeated man by the time he disappeared in 1996. I've always took his turn to be a bit "if you can't beat them, join them" but mainly as a way to get Elizabeth back. They could have done a better job explaining it but it doesn't seem completely out of left field that someone who suffered so much at the hands of the NWO would decide to just give up the fight and join the winning side. Savage's involvement with Sting before his turn could also be seen as him testing the waters to see if he wanted to hang with Sting against the NWO or if he wanted to give into the NWO. I'm probably reading too much into that, though. Regardless with Savage now with the NWO, doubt is once again cast on Sting's role since he has spent the last month buddying around with Savage. The finish was not sharply executed at all.

Yea, the US indies haven't had much to offer on the yearbooks thus far but you can see that changing in 1997 beginning with this match from the first Super 8 tournament and continuing with the APW and IWA-MS stuff from 1997. It will be interesting to see how much more time is given to US indies as the 90's wrap up and especially in the early 2000's once ECW and WCW go out of business. The tournament was actually pretty stacked, even in hindsight. Cheetah Master and Ace Darling were pretty big indie names at the time, Kidman would go onto big things in WCW (he already started with them but wasn't being used as more than occasional enhancement talent), Devon Storm was a big-ish indie name already who had future success, and Lance Diamond would have a solid tag team run in ECW & TNA. It is pretty impressive when you look back at the early ECWA tournaments and see just how many guys they featured early in their careers who went onto big things in wrestling. This was an okay, compact match.

This was a fine tag match. I have enjoyed Christopher on the yearbook more than I expected to. The long studio matches are a nice contrast to what WCW, WWF and (to an extent) ECW are presenting at the time. The USWA presentation comes across a little dated when watched in context with everything else, but the presentation is still sincere and well done.

I agree that this probably went over the line from acceptable pro wrestling violence that can be solved in the ring to downright criminal activity. I did think Hall and Nash did a good job selling the seriousness of the situation when they saw the car flip over. Their tones immediately changed from flippant to serious as they scurried to drive away.

Chyna shaking Marlena around was something. It looked like she was just carelessly tossing her around with all of her strength. I'm not sure you can fake that.

This is not a great match by any means but it is another good segment into the clustered booking they were doing around the championship at this time. It was probably given too much time as it sort of meanders in the middle. You didn't get a lot of non-tag, multi-wrestler matches before this so it definitely was not a style anyone in the match was used to. It was a necessary step to get where they were going but as a match I didn't think much of it.

I had never seen this before and obviously knew the politics behind it, but I did think Shawn came off as phony in this and like he was ducking a fight so I could see the live crowd getting the same vibe. When do you ever see the promotion's babyface champion voluntarily surrender his title claiming injury (but showing little signs of it) with no real angle around it? I think the crowd saw how odd the entire thing was and saw through it. No matter how good the actual promo was it was such an odd segment by standard pro wrestling segments that I think it was destined to be met with that sort of reaction.

Both guys looked fine here and the finish was well done. I agree that Triple H is pretty good in his mid card heel role here. Rock on the other hand is miscast in his current role but still looked okay.

Great angle. Bischoff is detestable in this segment. Hogan and Nash come off like really bullies as well in these Randy Anderson segments. Their cool guy routine works as a heel act when they are put in a situation like this one where they are clearly in the wrong. On Austin's podcast recently, Nash talked about Sullivan doing nothing but booking heat on the heels around this time which is this is a prime example of.

I hadn't realized how quickly DDP got over. DDP was a heel at Starrcade feuding with Eddie (although I think DDP was getting quite a few cheers already by then) and now a month and a half later he looks like the next big thing in the promotion. WCW deserves some credit for it because it was booking him as one of the only guys to stand up to the NWO that got him over. He seemed like an odd choice at the time to give that push to but I'd say that it worked out pretty over the long haul.

Pillman played crazy as well as anyone ever has in pro wrestling. In less than a year he has popped up in WCW, ECW, WWF & Memphis which is pretty cool.

Penn Station is such a random and outside-the-box venue choice but it completely works. I loved the first Nitro at Mall of America just because it gave off a different vibe and this as the same impact. The camera shot of the tombstone onto the escalator was well done. With the stairs moving it really looked like Undertaker planted Triple H right on them.

Hogan was fantastic in this segment. There was just nothing redeemable about him here at all. I've never been a big Piper fan and he wears out his welcome pretty quickly during his 1997 WCW run but Hogan was so great here that it is hard not to get behind Piper.

It is interesting to me that all of Sting's interactions on the yearbook with WCW guys to this point have been wrestlers that are sort of WCW outcasts like himself. Savage went insane at the end of 1996 and was gone forever, so he is not exactly Mr. WCW at the moment. Giant betrayed WCW before turning back. DDP has been a loner heel his entire career since becoming a wrestler and only really turned face because he stood up to the NWO. Maybe it was all coincidental but I do get the impression watching this segment and others that they were heading in the direction of forming a min-group of WCW outcasts with those four. It never happened but it doesn't seem completely coincidental to me that Sting chooses to align with the guys he does align himself with.

Flanagan’s father is all choked up speaking about his severely injured sun. The acting wasn’t the best, but he was committed in a way you usually don’t get from non-wrestler acting on wrestling shows. At parts I thought it crossed over from “this is bad acting” to “I could actually believe this is how his father might react.” The awkwardness made him feel like a real guy at points. PG-13 make fun of Flanagan. PG-13 are over the place in 1997 but never got pushed all that much outside of Memphis which is a shame because they had value as a mid-card heel act.

I don’t get what they were going for with the presentation of Souled Out. The NWO has the President of WCW on its side, a guy portrayed as a Hollywood star (even if they do make it clear that he is a bigger star in his own head), and a billionaire backing them. They are portrayed as being a worthy start-up promotion that can compete with WCW. Yet when they get their chance to stand on their own, they show up to the arena on the back of garbage trucks, hold a beauty contest with sub-par contestants, and put on a production that is supposed to look low rent? From a pure storyline perspective, it feels out of context. The NWO seemed to enjoy putting on a low rent, poor production which never made sense to me, Wouldn't they want to have a Hollywood-type production, models in the beauty contest, and limo rides to the show?

This is a fantastic match. I think I saw this at least once years ago, but I really loved it this go-around. One of of my favorites matches ever in this style. These guys make a difficult style look natural. You see a match like this and wonder why more wrestlers and promotions are not attempting to sell a similar style but its way easier said than done.

I think the screw job ending worked with what they were going for at the start of the year. In January and February Vince harps on the idea that the WWF title has never been this hotly contested. The ending was just another way to sell that idea. Shawn’s injury sort of changed that, but I think the intent was good. This wasn't a screw job to get out of a finish or provide some controversy the next Monday. It was to put over the title and set up a PPV match which is a good enough reason to not give a definitive winner to a battle royal.

Tony reminds the audience over and over that the broadcast will be switching over to the debt of the new TNT Robin Hood show shortly, but the match will be rejoined during commercial breaks as long as it continues. This created quite a stir when it aired since it is an obvious ratings ploy but I didn’t find it that offensive. Tony makes sure it is abundantly clear what is happening, so nobody can claim they didn’t see it coming. I also thought that in a way it made the match seem like a really big deal. WCW was a promotion that always yelled “we’re out of time!” and cut off at the top of the hour regardless of whether a match was finished. This match felt like a bigger deal than the usual main event match because they stuck with the match (in a way) rather than simply showing the rest the next week (or not showing it at all).

This gets over really big and is the start of the big DDP face push. Watching the year book, DDP gets over quicker than Austin even though Austin had a bit of a head start. Both started being pushed around May/June of the prior year (DDP wins Battle Bowl and Austin wins KOTR), but Austin was feuding with Bret by September while DDP was still a mid-card heel. Yet by this time I think the argument could be made that DDP was more over. I am thinking Austin will lap him relatively quickly, but despite the smaller push DDP got over big quicker.