PeteF3
-
Posts
10269 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Everything posted by PeteF3
-
It's not like it's an insulting or horrible gimmick or anything, but the only real positive of it came when Disco Inferno asked him, "Don't you know that stuff is gonna stunt your growth?"
-
Sandman breaking up the darkness by lighting up the cigarette was a neat cinematic moment. Sign Guy Dudley gets his leg slammed in the locker door with a nasty gash, as Dreamer attempts to exact payback for the injury to Beulah.
-
Sable has been re-hired by Titan Sports, thus not breaking her deal with Mero. I guess. Austin lays out the stipulations that Kane challenged him to at the top of the show and accepts them. Kane comes out to rebut and drops a batch of Mysterious Red Liquid on Austin. I still think Kane's voice box was a brilliant, creepy gimmick.
-
Undertaker followed up last week by assaulting Paul Bearer as he was cutting a promo from his home. "You think I forgot where you live?!" Mankind draws upon his passion for the Civil War and draws an analogy to his history with the Undertaker. Mankind was hoping for a reconciliation and a nostalgic reminiscing of his past battles with Undertaker...until he attacked Uncle Paul. Now he's going to see to it that his last act on earth is urinating on Undertaker's grave. He also promises a surprise for King of the Ring. One of Foley's best promos of the year.
-
I like the gimmick and he was clearly a guy with promise, but it doesn't really fit with Adam Copeland's more natural persona as a smartass. That was a pretty brutal shot. My original post overexaggerated the nature of the injury--it was bad and he was hospitalized, but it was "just" a stinger/pinched nerve rather than the temporary and almost permanent paralysis suffered by Bagwell.
-
Al Snow accusing Head of getting them banned from Wal-Mart was rather eerily prescient, wasn't it? Again, all the new audience the WWF had gained didn't know of Snow's background. They should have just debuted him like a newcomer. Instead, they're booking like they're trying to appeal to a Full Sail audience that's 15 years away. Russo probably loved all the shooty-shoot comments, though.
-
Agreed on the relative lack of build for such a huge gimmick match. Still, their past history is enough to fill in any blanks...and by the end of the match we all forgot about the build anyway.
-
I believe that may be Brian Gewirtz as the hapless director.
-
Bo-ring. Wake me up when or if Hogan ever puts one of his opponents over in any way. Rodman costing DDP a match against Hogan is a neat idea, but sadly the GAB went directly up against Game 6.
-
Good for Bischoff for staying out of this. '98 Rodman wasn't quite as big as '97 Rodman, but having him face off with Karl Malone right after he was defending him all throughout the NBA Finals was a pretty big deal. I had forgotten about Rodman blowing off practice in the middle of the Finals to go to Detroit to do Nitro, which was a big sports controversy at the time. The NBA and the Bulls each issued separate fines for that. Hilariously, the Observer said that the reaction of his Bulls teammates were like, "Well, he got fined $20,000 and is getting paid $250,000 to wrestle--sounds like a good business plan."
-
This is admittedly pretty cool, less Leno hamming things up. Thank God this should be the last of his involvement in wrestling this year. Malone demonstrates part of a Diamond Cutter on him, then starts a pull-apart with Rodman as we go to commercial.
-
Not a bad quickie promo here, but the graphics suck and WHY ARE WE GETTING INTRODUCTORY VIGNETTES A YEAR AFTER THE GUY DEBUTED? I know he's an easy whipping boy but Raven *easily* could have been in that Jericho/Booker T class of guys who were ready to move up into programs with the main eventers. I believed it at the time, stopped believing it seeing the reaction to him in these Yearbook threads, and have come around on him again watching his '98 work for myself.
-
Joshi tags have way too many pin saves. There, I said it, and I'll say it again. That said, this turned into an excellent match and the same innovative counters by Nagashima are the things that jumped out at me the most, too. Countering the power bomb/Doomsday Device with a huracanrana that takes out *both* opponents was a holy-shit spot, not because it was incredibly athletic by wrestling standards but because the timing was perfect. So was the finish, when it looked like Nagashima was completely dead and buried. This veered a bit into 2.9 territory at times but the actual finish was very satisfying, as she knocked out Uematsu with one shot instead of just setting up another cheap near-fall to extend the match even more. Amano provided lots of awesome ways to put people into cross armbreakers and brought the attitude and character work through most of this. The GAEA team was a little more anonymous and I was hoping Uematsu would be as enjoyable as I remember her being in '96, but aside from her way cool springboard twisting elbow thing, she was more of a warm body than anything. Still a match that left me out of breath and one that could sneak into the MOTY list. -
I think they're still finding themselves with this new style (for joshi, at least), and while the all-matwork opening is interesting at times it looks a bit like mid-'80s UWF noodling-around-on-the-mat not accomplishing much. They do build nicely down the stretch and never delve into joshi go-go-go style, as Yoshida is still about submissions with only the occasional suplex to break it up. I groaned at the sudden time limit draw finish but I guess that's a good thing that I wanted this to keep going.
-
Hey, Hayabusa was a good face-in-peril, too. This was loads of fun and I'm starting to warm up on FMW again after a string of disappointments. Even Ricky Fuji looked really good here. Kanemura was definitely the man of the match, a big fat tornado of offense and bumping, with way more velocity than you'd expect for a rather fat guy (as opposed to the obese Fuyuki). Seeing Ikeda in this environment was a treat and he adapted very well. Team No Respect was full of charisma and could have carried the match on that alone, but they all provided some fun offense and quadruple-teaming while also setting themselves up well for the babyface comebacks. I dunno if there was something on the line in this match but the crowd seems to treat this win by Team FMW as something pretty monumental. As an aside, who the fuck was doing color here? He had the worst voice for a broadcaster since the days of Pete Doherty: Boston Garden Announcer.
-
Those are your picks ahead of "Rap Is Crap"?
-
I really liked this--I could watch Tanaka throw elbows at motherfuckers all day. Kuroda was an overmatched but very game opponent. I mostly like Tanaka for his big babyface comebacks but here he showed he could be really effective working on top, too. I'm not sure this wasn't more enjoyable than the big Hayabusa-Gannosuke matches from earlier in the year precisely because they *didn't* go all-out to make this seem "epic"--they ran through a lot of big moves and some near-falls, but it was sort of refreshing in that it was "just a match."
-
Mostly a big bowl of whatever, outside of Spike's crazy dive. Hype for the debut of the Dreamer Driver--"something that will be copied on every Monday night show." It's a copy of the Emerald Flowsion--yeah, guys, keep thinking how cool and with-it you are as a company. The Big Two you used to make fun of passed you by a hell of a long time ago.
-
And IIRC from the Observer Storm was supposed to be in this match but visa issues cropped up, temporarily preventing him from coming back into the U.S. So we get the absurd sight of Shane Douglas wrestling AGAIN even though his real-life injuries combined with the work by his opponents should mean that his elbow should have snapped clean off by now. The finish with RVD and Sabu both putting Candido through a table does look pretty, I'll give them that.
-
These guys try, but Savage sadly just doesn't have it anymore. There are glimpses of their past chemistry, but the match is wrestled at half the speed and intensity of those great '97 matches. Piper is useless and it's absolutely absurd that the last image before the run-in is Piper singlehandedly beating the shit out of both guys. I guess the big takeaway from the post-match beatdown is that Bischoff hit Savage in the knee with the chair, because Bischoff and Piper are the two guys who need to be put over in this angle. Nash makes the laziest attempt at opening the door you'll ever see--just watch it and see what I mean--before running (!) to the back and raising the cage. This prevents the need to GET SECURITY--GET THE POLICE OVER THERE AND GET OLE ANDERSON AWAY FROM THE SWITCH. Almost no real heat for any of this mess and we go off the air in about the least intense way possible considering we should be seeing a giant steel cage war between two factions of stars. What a sad capstone to a great feud.
-
I don't think we've seen a whiff of Adams since the 1990 or perhaps early part of the '91 Yearbook. I wonder if that's a record gap for a guy who was wrestling regularly. His entrance music sounds like Tom Brokaw is ready to give us the nightly news.
-
Yeah, ideally Jericho would be moving up to heavyweight, borderline main event status, perhaps a feud with Booker T that could elevate both guys before they move on to programs with true established main eventers. HAHAHAHA, I managed to type that with a straight face. Still, we get another good brawl, a better one than at the GAB.
-
Yeah, this seemed to have the atmosphere of a pre-taped Raw, not a live one. Still, the heat for this closing brawl is pretty good.
-
This stuff with Al Snow trying to get a meeting and a contract was dragged out for *way* too long, and it's a wonder that the upcoming KOTR disaster didn't sink him entirely. None of these Attitude Era fans know who Avatar or Aldo Montoya are.
-
Okay-ish for a TV match in the era. X-Pac trying to steal a win during HHH's opening routine was nice to see, and for a bullshit finish it was fairly well-executed. Rock is starting to sound more like his familiar self.