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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    Most of the other posters hace said what I was going to. I really liked this match, especially Caras' work on the leg and Canek's selling of it even when he was hitting big kicks on the way to taking the second fall. For a match that was mostly matwork, this one never dragged or felt boring, and I liked how the crowd exploded when Caras finally scored the winning fall. I saw this in an earlier match and thought it was a mistake, but apparently refs in Mexico can count pinfalls on both guys during a knockout spot. In the U.S, Canada, and Japan, of course, the refs treat that situation like a possible countout. Speaking of double pins, I've never seen one teased three times in a row like it was here. It added to the drama, and if one of them had actually reached a three-count it might have been the first finish of its kind that didn't feel like a complete copout. Is ramming another wrestler's body parts into the canvas frowned upon in Mexico? I noticed the ref getting on Caras' case for doing it several times during the second fall. Was that Mil in his brother's corner? One of the masks certainly looked like one Mil might wear. Speaking of Mil, I once heard on a Coliseum Video tape that he never wore the same mask twice. Does anyone know if this is true or not?
  2. garretta
    This was unintelligible for me. I just now realized when reading Pete's comments that I saw the finish totally wrong (I thought Los Cowboys and Hamada had won), and that takes an already confusing match into the garbage pile. Too much flying, too many spots where I couldn't tell what was what and who was who, and I couldn't even tell Los Cowboys apart again. This is what I call a "Flair-Dusty" match, in that I wished Flair and Dusty would come down with Tony and David in tow for English commentary and take over to give me something I could relate to. I don't think I'll ever understand lucha trios, and I've watched countless matches in that style. It's just too different from what I know and consider to be entertaining. Is it my imagination or did one of the refs count a nearfall on Rambo when nobody was pinning him?
  3. garretta
    You could be right. Or maybe New Japan was mad that WCW was talking to Gordy and Doc, two guys from All-Japan, about coming in instead of two New Japan guys.
  4. garretta
    Lousy driver named Herd, huh? Corny 500, WCW 0. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but I don't think either Phil or Bob really believe that Corny even has a tag team, at least not yet. Of course, he'd have one hell of a team soon enough. Meanwhile, as cheesy as this vignette seems to be, it really does do a tremendous hype job. If the Hooters waitresses are going this crazy over whoever this is supposed to be, they must really be a couple of heartthrobs. Corny may have run out of booking steam eventually, but he was always a masterful promoter. I'm wondering how many fans thought that this just might be a reunited Rock 'n' Roll Express, since Ricky Morton was a heel now. A sustained Rock 'n' Roll partnership with Corny (more than the handful of matches they ended up being together for in '94) might have been enough to really pop the territory, if Corny could have found the right faces to oppose them.
  5. garretta
    Um........yes. I don't know why Craig had to have a cold. Then again, I don't know why an obviously intelligent, well-spoken man dresses up like a Ninja Turtle and lies under a bench to conduct an interview claiming that he's some sort of a snake. If I'd been on the crew for this mess, I'd have laughed my head off too.
  6. garretta
    Brother Love lives! I'm surprised Vince didn't send a cease-and-desist letter to the GWF after seeing that. If he'd actually taken a few seconds to watch his competition, the GWF might not have been competition anymore. The ref was a bad actor, but the visual aid was effective. Eddie could have hurt him with a fireball or a punch, judging from the burn/bruise. I'm guessing that the GWF was "headquartered" in Barcelona at this time in order to get a rub from the Summer Olympics, which would be held there later in the year.
  7. garretta
    This might be the best shoot-style match I've ever seen. The action is back and forth from beginning to end, and the momentum switches between both guys seemingly with every strike or takedown. If this is what they can do with just a little less than three months under their belts, I'd love to see them after they gain a little experience. After never seeing a match end on points before, this is the second time I've seen it on this set. Yes, I know Maeda tapped, but he would have lost no matter what unless he somehow kicked Kanehara off, since he was out of rope breaks. As I said above, I'd love to see more of these two, either against each other or against a veteran so we can see how far they've really progressed.
  8. garretta
    Thanks, Andrew. I don't know why JR or the production crew would make that mistake; you'd think they'd want to advertise Liger as a champion to make Pillman's victory seem like a bigger deal.
  9. garretta
    This is a match that has to be seen to be believed. Not that we Yearbook watchers haven't seen a lot of these spots before; most of them are staples of Japanese junior matches. But seeing them done in front of an American crowd that had never seen them done before makes them seem almost new. It took a while for Pillman and Liger to figure out how exactly things were going to go; early on, they seemed to want to wrestle a typical North American bout, but couldn't decide who wanted to play the face and who wanted to play the heel. Each man subtly heeled for the other at various points, but things just didn't feel like they were clicking, so they decided to pretend they were in Japan and just put on a show, and boy, did they ever. I won't critique each spot; as Sleeze said above, it's better that each viewer form their own impressions. But there was a crispness and a sense of danger to each move which really energized the crowd. I'm not sure that it was just patriotism that led to the "USA" chants- Pillman being a longtime crowd favorite had something to do with it too- but Jesse had it right when he said that the fans came away with a new respect for Liger, and he earned every bit of it. JR and Jesse took a while to get into things too; JR insisted on putting over Pillman's football background right off the bat, and the references continued through the match. It was almost as if he didn't quite understand what he was seeing, so bringing things back to college football made him feel more comfortable. In fact, I kept waiting for him to make up a football background for Liger just because he could. Jesse tried to make a few cracks early on (like the one about Liger's mask making him look like the Predator), but ditched them once the action got hot and delivered one of the best pure wrestling calls I've heard from him. He seemed genuinely dazzled by Liger, and I liked how he put over the idea of a light heavyweight division in general. It kind of surprised me, although it shouldn't have, since his (supposed) all-time favorite wrestler besides himself and Adonis (Savage) could have been a legit light heavyweight for most if not all of his career. Did Liger drop the IWGP title before coming to the States? We last saw him defend successfully against Benoit on 2/10, so if he lost the belt as JR claimed he did, it didn't make the set. This was a hell of a pay-per-view opener and a tough act to follow for whoever was next. Steamboat/Rude will have to be yet another classic to replace this one as the match of the night
  10. garretta
    I liked the Honaga match better because it seemed at times like Benoit wanted to get his moves in rather than simply attacking Liger's ribs and back. Still, the injury played enough of a role that Liger seemed in danger because of it and had his offense affected by it, so I can't complain too much. I loved the ending, where Benoit hits every top rope move in his arsenal, but still can't put Liger away. You can tell how much damage Benoit did throughout the bout, because Liger's bridge into the winning pin is just about the sloppiest I've seen, In this case, though, that's a good thing. The dropkick off the top to the outside is just more proof that Benoit was a maniac long before he started having problems. The man would do literally anything to pop a crowd, no matter how much damage he ended up doing to himself in the process. If I'd been WCW, I would have gotten the rights to this match and shown it on TV to really put over Liger as a phenomenal athlete worthy of being the light heavyweight champion of the world. It's a pity that they only seemed to want him as a means to get the belt to Pillman. (I'd use this match because Benoit was a little more relatable to the average American fan at this time than Honaga was.) A Pillman-Benoit bout at SuperBrawl would have been something to see. I'm sure the two of them met somewhere along the line, since they both came up through Stampede, but I've neither seen nor heard of any footage of a match between the two.
  11. garretta
    How is this so bad? I thought this was excellent for two guys not known as particularly good interviews. Bruno has to do something besides just standing there looking like more of a runt than Okerlund, so why not have him set Sid up by reading the four "demandments"? I liked how Sid answered each one, particularly the prayers. "The only prayer you have is that I get struck by lightning!" That sounded pretty clever to me. Gene's reaction to Sid's use of the phrase "no chance in hell" is another Okerlund classic. If he'd gone to JCP in 1984 instead of the WWF, he'd be getting a lot more respect from so-called "smart" fans than he does now. I'm not sure I'd have had Sid push the idea that he was going to end Hogan's career after it had already been publicized that Hogan was leaving. It's too confusing for the little ones; when Hogan doesn't pop up on their TV screens again in a couple of weeks, is it because he decided to retire after all or because Sid hurt him like he said he would? Something along the lines of, "You'll be spending your retirement in a nursing home!" would have gotten the same point across a lot more clearly. I caught the "I started training five years ago" stuff too. I think not letting Sid say something like that would have been too petty even for Vince. What does he do, build his wrestlers from kits in the basement of Titan Towers? (Shhhh, I better not give him any ideas!)
  12. garretta
    I don't get why Hogan should give a damn if Sid's angry with him or not. After all the things Sid's done since the Rumble- sending guys out on stretchers, threatening Beefcake, breaking Virgil's nose- Sid's clearly the villain here, regardless of what might have happened at the Rumble. It may fit the anti-Hogan narrative that Hogan's just half a step away from turning into Hollywood circa 1997 about this time, but we as 2016 fans can't outright ignore the story Vince is trying to tell- immortal hero Hogan versus dastardly heel Sid- and make up our own just because we may hate Hogan and think Sid's cool. Sure, Hogan's pretty ham-handed here, and the Dahmer references may hit a little too close to home, but Hogan's still as right as rain and as pure as the driven snow here, whether we like it or not. I can just picture Hogan running footage of the press conference back and forth while saying to himself, "Crazy look, crazy look, where have I seen it before? Yep, there it is at one minute and forty-two seconds." One inexcusable blunder here: Vince should never have brought up the "last match" stuff before an interview that he knew was taped before the decision to send Hogan home had been made. He made Gene look like an incompetent fool for not asking Hogan about his retirement plans, and in fact all but called him one in the outro. Gene's still your main source of hype and information; why hang him out to dry like that, even unintentionally? Talk about the retirement stuff before or during the next match instead.
  13. garretta
    I loved the '91 series between these two, and this one was a more than worthy addition. Honaga is Liger's kryptonite in a sense; he isn't as athletic as Liger, so he works a basic American heel style that Jushin doesn't see a lot of and thus can't readily counter. He works over Liger's ribs and back splendidly, but in the end Jushin finally puts the puzzle together and relies on his gymnastics to get the win, closing things out with a top-rope Frankensteiner. Kudos to Liger for allowing his ribs to be worked over like that when they were legitimately injured. A lot of guys would have insisted that Honaga stay away from the ribs, especially since Liger's big date with Pillman in the States was just three weeks away. I'm fairly sure that WCW wanted no part of Honaga as champion, but I think watching him go against Pillman would have been interesting to say the least, since Honaga's style figured to be more accessible to the American audience than Liger's. After getting a refresher glimpse of him in Japan, I'm left to wonder again how the hell Dusty thought that the way to push Liger in the States was as a stereotypical sneaky Jap. Jushin had the crowd on his feet here, and given the chance to let loose he and Pillman could have really torn the houses down when he first toured the States back in December. I'm looking forward to the Benoit match, and of course SuperBrawl.
  14. garretta
    Holly seems like the perfect heel for SMW here: rich and snobbish enough to be (supposedly) dating Julia Roberts and arrogant enough to believe the title tournament's beneath him. I like the idea that he's waiting to beat one guy rather than three, and I wish he'd stuck around long enough to put it into practice. I guess being a welder was just a bit more steady (not to mention lucrative).
  15. garretta
    I've never heard of this team, but they really looked good in the package. Too bad we didn't see more of them. "Born to Be Wild" has to be one of the go-to songs for wrestling music videos. I've seen at least ten videos set to this song, mostly in the small Southern promotions and indies which can't afford to produce their own music.
  16. garretta
    Yet another tremendous Flair promo, and the first one where he gets a little worked up toward the end. He's still not in total maniac mode, and that's a relief after seeing him do nothing but scream his fool head off for the last five years or so. Curt is great doing very little, but I'd have liked to see Heenan here. I get that he didn't want to be near ringside for fear of an accident with his bad neck, but he should have been included in sitdown interviews like this. The "two favorite studs" line is a Flair classic. If it had been said at 6:05 on a random Saturday night on TBS, it would have been regarded as one of his all-time best lines without question. Gene in full suit and tie aboard a luxury yacht is hilariously typical of him. Always one for getting down to business, huh? His presence in a suit makes up for Flair not having one. I can't believe there are people out there discounting this run because he's not wearing a suit and screaming the same old stuff in the same old studio and being made to look like the same old fool by the same old challengers. Don't worry, guys, Flair/Sting Part 780 with good ol' Tony on good ol' TBS will be up in less than a year. We get a replay of the "Untrue!" promo, and it's hilarious how Gene kept twisting the knife until Savage went off. Heenan and Jesse have been right all these years about him being a disturber. I'd still like to see a bit more in the promo department from Randy, though. He's one of the few people who can match Flair verbally, but he's not getting the chance, and it's hard to figure out why. This may be the most "Flair-like" angle devised since he started on TBS in '85, and, shockingly, it took Vince to come up with it. Talk about ironic!
  17. garretta
    Fuke showed lots of heart, but this was basically a Fujiwara squash, thanks to his unrelenting work on the side of Fuke's leg. This was a rarity, in that Fujiwara was the winner on points (knockdowns) rather than by submission. I look forward to more competitive shoot-style bouts throughout this set.
  18. garretta
    Maybe not the perfect tag match, but not too far from it. The Can-Ams are a wrecking crew from start to finish, even when they're on the defensive later in the bout. Kikuchi and Kawada absorb a frightful beating, but this never seems like a squash, as they get just enough offense in before the stretch run to keep their fans' hopes alive. Most of the memorable spots have already been covered, but my favorite may be the best-executed Doomsday Device I've ever seen, Road Warriors included. (Hawk and Animal's version is more visually impressive, but they're usually giving it to jobbers whose only job is to fly through the air when they're breathed on.) I'm kind of surprised we didn't get more of a flash finish, considering the abuse Kawada and Kikuchi took throughout the bout, but the natives needed to establish themselves as a top team for later matches in the Jumbo feud. Seeing that there's a rematch excites me, especially if it's even better than this. It's just a shame we have to wait three months (in real time) to see it. This one was a blast!
  19. garretta
    One word sums up this match: desperation. Kenta's desperate to get the big win over the former Triple Crown champion, while Jumbo's desperate to teach the youngster a lesson and reassert his place in the pecking order after losing to Hansen. These two pull out every stop known to man, including a DDT on the floor from Kenta that looked like it legitimately messed up Jumbo's neck for the rest of the match. Jumbo retaliates by dropping Kenta face first on the ringside table. Kenta targets Jumbo's neck from then on and gets two and seven-eighths several times, but gets too greedy off the top, allowing Jumbo to catch him with a knee, then pin him after the Jumbo Driver. Afterward, Jumbo still sells the neck to let us know what a close call he'd just had. This wasn't the greatest bout I've seen from either man, but it might have been one of the hardest fought. Count me in with those who hope we have a rematch sometime before Jumbo has to step aside.
  20. garretta
    No, you're not, Pete. I can't tell them apart either. This is another one of those lucha trios matches I got nothing out of. The action was too fast and too flippy-floppy. I don't much care for the style in the first place, so it has to go some in order to impress me, and this didn't. Match of the Year? Best workers in the world? Not from where I'm sitting by a longshot. Throw in some mat wrestling, some identifiable heel spots (eye rakes, choking, use of chairs, etc.), and some English commentary to help me make sense of it all and you might have something average. .
  21. garretta
    I would have loved to see this one in full, as both teams looked great. Sure, Hase and Muto threw Vader and Bam Bam around a bit too easily, but they're the natives, so that's understandable in a way that it wouldn't be in the States. Vader and Bammer have a Mutoh sandwich for the pin and the belts, and Hase and Muto almost do a double stretcher job to prove just how awesome the new champions are. I hope to see a rematch in the not too distant future. I wonder why Bam Bam didn't get a run in WCW at some point while they were working with New Japan. I would have liked to see what he could have done against guys like Sting, Steamboat, and Dustin. Tag matches with Vader against the Steiners or any two members of the DA would have been interesting as well.
  22. garretta
    I think this would have been better if it had been a title match. As it was, this proved nothing except that Ricky's time in WCW was just about up; without the Yorks as backup, there was really nothing left for him to do. He plays his part well, especially during the figure-four when he trash-talks Pillman and slaps his face, but there's no real sense at any time that he's in Pillman's league I didn't really notice the lack of consistent selling on Pillman's part until it was brought up here, but come to think of it, there wasn't much he could do without his legs, so maybe it was best for the match that he didn't sell. Think about it; if he can't fly and he can't use his legs, how is he going to go over? Sometimes the "right" way to wrestle a match has to take a back seat to what's "best for business", as they say nowadays. Of course, why have the match at all then? Why not just have Pillman squash a jobber? I thought JR was in his glory here; he didn't have to set anyone up or stand still for any irrelevant jokes, and he could engage in serious wrestling discussion with someone he liked and respected, rather than having to put up with someone he was flat-out jealous of by his own admission (Jesse). Brad missed his calling, as he was a tremendous analyst, knowing just when to put the match and the wrestlers over and when to put himself over, and he was a great deal more articulate than I ever remember him being on promos. I don't think they quite knew who to push as Pillman's number one contender, hence the mini-tournament. I guess the ideal would have been getting Liger to stay in the States for an extended run, but there was almost no chance of that whatsoever. Wow, Jesse doing the house show circuit, especially a mid-size town like Topeka? I wonder what Kip Frey promised him to get him to do that!
  23. garretta
    The match itself wasn't a whole lot; it was worked like a curtain-jerker, to be honest. Not that's there's anything wrong with basic work leading to a solid finish, but I agree with Magnum that this needed more aggression from Rogers and more fire from Horner. To be truthful, I'm not even sure the match was done after the angle; it almost seems like the match was done first, before there was any issue established between the two guys, then the angle was filmed to add a bit more spice to what was a somewhat unsatisfying bout. About Horner's song: I highly doubt anyone listened to the lyrics beyond "The thunder rolls, and the lightning strikes". If they had......well, considering some of the things Corny's said about women who aren't his wife Stacey, I'm not sure it would have made any difference. I'm reminded of the theme to Sunday Night Football, which started life as the Joan Jett ode to battered women, "I Hate Myself For Loving You." How anyone ever got the idea that that song could be adapted into one that would make fans want to watch a football game I have no idea, but someone at NBC did. Anyway, I don't think there was any implicit endorsement of men hitting women, though like I said I can't be 100% sure. Bob and Dutch were as grand together as I remember from the SMW set, and coincidentally or not it was about the tine they both left that the product started going downhill. They're a bit like Gino and Bobby, only Dutch doesn't come off as a comedian the way Bobby does at times. He just makes observations which happen to be rather tartly worded. His saving grace is that he knows enough about wrestling that when he chooses to stick to the subject, he can be very intelligent and insightful As for Bob, he does a good job of walking the thin line between letting Dutch express himself and trying to keep the program respectable. There are times when he objects to thing Dutch says (such as his crack about all the old ladies at the taping being ugly), but he lets things slide when there's no sense in arguing the point (Dutch's complaint that the Fultons may have brought back an "Oriental disease" from Japan). He's also an excellent interviewer, and while everyone knows he cheers for the good guys deep in his heart, he saves his outrage for those people and actions which truly deserve it, and thankfully those don't come too often. I'm looking forward to the main event scene developing further in SMW. Lord knows Tim Horner being its top babyface won't cause Vince, Turner, or even Papa Jarrett to shake in their socks.
  24. garretta
    This was much better done than I thought it was going to be. Piper offers not to fight Bret, but doesn't seem cowardly; he obviously respects Bret and the Hart family and doesn't want to lose his friendship. Bret seems to understand this, but wants to win the IC title back, and if he has to beat Piper to do it, so be it. I didn't think this was contrived at all; the problem is that as fans we're so used to dastardly attacks and boiling hatred that low-key but tough competition seems strange to us. Of course, Piper raises the stakes by threatening to brain Bret with the IC belt, but Bret foils that by turning around at the last minute, and we get an uneasy truce as Piper warns Bret, "I would've had you." It's just a shame that the match was such a foregone conclusion because of Piper's imminent retirement from in-ring competition; I'm not sure if a rematch would have packed Wembley Stadium the way Bret's match with Davey Boy did, but the rematches would have done good business around the house show circuit for the rest of the summer. Nice little back and forth between Gino and Heenan concerning the friendship (or lack thereof) between Piper and Bret, which culminates with Gino complaining, "Everything's dollars and cents with you", to which Bobby replies (with a smile, no doubt), "Yep!" I don't think Bret would have won the title by forfeit if Piper had given it up; it would have been put up in a tournament at Mania instead. The sign from the fan was a great reminder of the point of this whole segment. The only question is, was it a legit homemade sign or a plant? Nice touch having Piper and Bret sit like old friends for the first part of the interview, then stand up when stuff gets real. The only problem was that Gene had to almost be a contortionist to get the mic in between them.
  25. garretta
    The match wasn't much, but I loved Sid reading the letter from the kid. His crocodile tears were absolutely hilarious. I never thought he was capable of this kind of character work. I really don't care for Bruno here either, but if that's who Sid wanted to manage him, good for them both. I remember the Wippleman character more for his feud with Howard Finkel than anything else, and he was too exaggeratedly Southern to be much good on the stick. Being paired with stiffs like Gigante didn't help much either. The doctor schtick is at least something different for the WWF, and I liked the "Call 911" necklace they put around Jay's neck and the Hulkamania doorag they put on his head. Did Vince have to say "I hope justice is served"? Just when I'd gotten that stupid phrase out of my head......... Curt's still saying as little as possible on commentary. I get the feeling this is a pity job due to his injury, and that would be fine except for the fact that's he's managing the World champion. Because of that alone, I would expect more insight, or at least heel schtick, from him.
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