PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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A good studio match with some absolutely vicious punch battles between Travis and Dundee. I could watch Travis throw uppercuts all day. Brandon Baxter, working a weird martial arts gimmick and looking sort of like a karate version of Justin Credible, runs in along with a German guy named Heinrich Franz Keller. Big brawl and a quickie Lawler promo to end the show. These heels are all serviceable in their own way but this is definitely a thinner roster than even the '90s USWA had. -
An underwhelming addition to this angle, as this feels like Lawler tormenting Hales just because he can. Dave and Cory at least make sure to establish that they don't approve of Lawler's actions, either.
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Lawler does his damnedest to try to make something out of this. I don't know if he succeeded as Silva looks only marginally better than Giant Gonzalez. He's at least capable of executing some power moves. Afterward we get run-ins from Randy Hales, Bulldog Raines, Billy Joe Travis, and Stacy. A *lot* of imitation WWF spots, including a crotch chop from Hales and a Chyna-style low blow from Stacy. Hales eats a bunch of piledrivers. He's awkward as hell obviously, but I admit the sight of him ripping his shirt off in a blind rage exposing his toothpick arms is a funny sight.
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This just kept going and going and going for me, and while I understand these guys are all young the sloppiness and lousy fundamentals ended up taking me out of the match. They had a sense of a story structure here, to their credit, and ended things at the right time with the big table spot to a big pop. It probably says more about me than about OMEGA that I'd rather watch 500 matches involving those Anderson clones from the earlier indy match than another match of these four. Edit: Venom takes time after the match to address JEFFREY NERO HARDY. Ha! The endless mic spots both before and after the match further killed my mood, though.
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I'm going to be the downer on this and recite jdw from his old AJPW '90s Pimping post: it's a good match, even borderline great, but nowhere near an AJPW Top 20 of the '90s list. My main problem was there was a *lot* of problematic stuff that would really take center stage in NOAH, like an overreliance on apron spots and the "take a move and then pop up and hit a move of your own and then sell" shit that will never, ever appeal to me. I did appreciate Akiyama cutting off one of those attempted sequences by dropkicking Kobashi right in the knee as he was ready to pop up again. It does continue the story of Jun doing anything to win, as he focuses in on Kobashi's bad knee whereas Kobashi's other major opponents left it alone. This could make the MOTY list just because it's a weak year for great matches but it's hardly breathing down the spot for #1.
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Takayama hits a bunch of legdrops for an...anticlimactic ending, to say the least. It draws absolutely no pop because no one seemed to think for half a second that Izumida would actually get put away by that.
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Holy God, this is the worst Pulp Fiction of all-time. I've seen 60-minute draws that seemed shorter than the last two promos here. RVD's amusing Fonzie impression is the only thing keeping this from being one of the single worst segments on any Yearbook.
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This might not have been tolerable in full but the bits we see are pretty good, minus Dreamer being an idiot at the finish. I'm about as tired of Jack Victory as I am of the Disciple.
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Are there any missing Raws besides the first Raw Bowl (and the most recent ones)? Maybe some of the non-Monday episodes, but even a lot of those are up now.
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I don't want to plug my own posts, but in the '97 Yearbook threads I also observed how much tangible influence Cornette had over the product--even as he was being further marginalized and shock value was taking greater precedence over wrestling. The Goldust-Vader feud is just one example: underneath the whacko Artist stuff you had an angle about a cowardly heel faking injuries to avoid taking on a badass babyface. Cornette was also the one who insisted on Undertaker and Kane being kept apart until WrestleMania. Russo wanted Undertaker to immediately fight back by attacking Kane like a week after his debut.
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Yawn. Taz's monologue and FTW belt don't mean anything because ECW has nothing to rebel against anymore. If they wanted to be rebellious in mid-1998 they should have gone to an ROH-style Pure Sports Build model. (I know Heyman claims he was about to do that had ECW survived but that seems like a pretty post-facto explanation to me). Taz and Bigelow have an okay-ish match of sorts, but it wasn't so good that it made you want to shell out money to see it again on PPV. Storm & Candido lay out Taz afterward, but use Rolling Thunder and then mock Sabu & RVD's trademark taunts, bringing those two out. Sabu then wants at Taz, but Alfonso calls him off and it seems that an uneasy alliance is being formed.
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Francine's finally had a few sandwiches lately and doesn't look like she's about to snap in half anymore. This is a quick 15-second bit after the intro, making this the GREATEST SHANE DOUGLAS PROMO OF ALL-TIME.
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'Taker apparently walked out of the building rather than face Kane & Mankind, so Vince swapped Austin in for him, just because he could. Pretty straightforward stuff here, and fairly predictable at that. I'll sure as hell take it over the stuff we got with Kaientai and Sable, though. Fully Loaded seems like a pretty minor PPV but the long build to SummerSlam is in full force.
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This was a fun TV match given quite a bit of time for the era and some real thought put into it--Rock doesn't exactly zero in on X-Pac's bad neck but he does just enough for JR to get the psychology over, and the false finishes are all well-done. After D'Lo upset HHH to win the European title (and his sheer joy at being Champion of Europe is fantastic), you could definitely buy that they'd even things out by changing the IC title as well. Instead Jim Korderas for some reason disqualifies X-Pac for HHH's interference even though he wasn't the official of record. Chyna beats him up afterward. The girl in the audience looked like a plant to me, considering the camera found her before HHH did.
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Jackie calls out "Sal" and asks how many pounds she can lose in 6 days. Oh, I guess it was "sow." Lawler is starting to get unbearable reacting to this. Sable comes out wearing a tablecloth which is promptly ripped off. These last two segments were objectively effective but man, this is not the high-quality side of the Crash TV era. Edge lays out Mero for no discernible reason.
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"I think we've had all the Japanese culture tonight that we can stand!" JR hasn't changed much since the time he wondered if there were any nice-looking Orientals. I'm pretty sure there won't be a single Val feud that I'll like until the awesome hate-filled one with Rikishi.
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Undertaker committed one of his gravest sins ever last week: he HURT MR. McMAHON'S FEELINGS. I am personally aghast. This went on a little long and is sort of an ominous forebear of opening Raw segments to come, but Vince is Vince and his act and gimmick are still fresh. And we get a nice payoff for Vince's long soliloquy as Undertaker lays out his entire inner circle and storms off, never saying a word.
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[1993-02-21-WCW-Superbrawl III] Vader vs Sting (Strap)
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in February 1993
Clearly "dragged with the strap" meant that you couldn't just detach yourself and race around hitting all 4 turnbuckles, or drag Harley Race to all four corners instead. After all, Sting attempted to *carry* Vader to all 4 posts earlier in the bout and that was allowed. -
Sting is wrestling in black trousers which is almost as bad of a look as the red Crow paint. Meanwhile Hall continuing to wear red and black because they can't be bothered to get him new ring attire is chalked up as "mind games." Sartorial critiques aside, the action here isn't bad and a very loud crowd helps. Finish is lame as all get-out, though, as Bret Hart distracts Sting and leaves him open to the Outsider's Edge. Note how the commentators don't particularly treat this title change as any kind of pivotal moment--the original goals of the NWO simply don't matter anymore and as Loss has said, they're just another stable.
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This was pretty pathetic. 1998 Nash is perhaps the laziest wrestler of all-time and Hall is on another planet. Watch Scott literally fling himself into the doors either because his timing is off or Nash can't be bothered to make an effort and look like he's throwing him.
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That's crazy talk--Nitro main events are for WWF main eventers, Goldberg, Sting, and DDP. No breaking through the glass ceiling allowed.
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Just a monumentally dumb direction to go, after an angle the previous week that legitimately had people buzzing. This is at least our second phony babyface turn that ends with Rick getting attacked, and this stupidity wouldn't stop WCW from trying to repeat this over and over and OVER. The Steiner vs. Steiner issue, which may have been a big deal once upon a time, is pretty much dead by this point. Injuries derailed the turn as soon as it happened, and I'm not sure if fans really wanted to see this match even in 1993-94.
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Pretty fun--I wish the ground work were half as compelling as the stand-up portions, but the strike exchanges were wonderfully stiff and heated. Maeda is pretty out of shape by this point but they manage to work around that.
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[1993-02-06-WCW-Saturday Night] Rock & Roll Express vs Heavenly Bodies
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in February 1993
They still had a PPV match commitment to hype and an angle to continue, so I don't think they could just edit it off entirely. SuperBrawl was still a Watts show pretty much all the way. As for the WWF Presidency, I'm guessing a.) Watts wasn't interested in any role where he didn't have absolute power, and b.) bringing in Watts would have defeated the purpose of cutting costs, which is why Tunney was let go in the first place. -
Bert Prentice as a straight-laced announcer is pretty amusing. This is sort of closer to 1997 OMEGA in that this is almost a choreographed pretend-wrestling match, but it is interesting to see Jeff Hardy work as a dominant bullying heel, which isn't something he ever got to do too often. Shannon is raw but he does show some pretty great execution on his big spots, and puts Willow away with a primitive version of the YoshiTonic.