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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. I'd say this is my favorite of the series so far. This, I would guess, gets the most time of any of the 6 matches and they work a slow build to some basic but effective highspots and near-falls at the end. The slow start works, because there's lots of countering going on to establish that these two guys know each other inside and out now.
  2. I love the show and listen every week...but I think, maybe, after hearing it 5 or 6 times in the first segment and the first story of the NJPW segment, it's time we put a moratorium on the dramatic trumpet soundbite. Let's see if we can get through a whole show without it, at least.
  3. Rich Swann is under contract as well.
  4. Ah, Jericho...at one time he was a shining light in a sea of darkness, whereas today he's closer to the opposite. He actually has better chemistry with Skee-a-vone than he would have with Okerlund, I suspect.
  5. Hardly an outstanding segment, but I can't get too angry since Giant cuts an actual honest-to-God WRESTLING promo hyping something, even if it's not a great one. How is it that no one in this company can remember the name of the upcoming PPV when cutting a promo? Now the fucking VP is talking about "the pay-per-view."
  6. Hmmm...no, I think some of HHH's dick-centered jokes were lamer. More people yapping at each other with no action taken.
  7. So now we're back to talking about the power bomb being illegal. Or formerly illegal. Or something. There's not a sober person in this room and this segment just goes to hell--just total undeserved ego run amok. Hogan takes another personal shot at Nash, talking about the "skinny legs underneath those long pants." Not a single actual thing, match, or future confrontation is given any hype nor are we given any further reason to tune in aside from a vague threat about "collecting" from Nash. And how in the fuck do we go from this Hollywood vs. Wolfpack stuff to DDP main eventing against Rodman? There was a perverse part of me that was actually looking forward to the WCW stuff on the '99 Yearbook just because it's so new to me (I completely stopped even flipping over to Nitro after the Fingerpoke of Doom) and because it's so bad in a legendary way, but this is the Nitro where I've gone from shaking my head at WCW's decline to getting legitimately angry at the promotion and everyone at the top of it.
  8. Yep, lots of shit that doesn't make sense here. JJ has already been portrayed as being incompetent, now he's being lazy. Even Konnan holding a microphone feels off. The Wolfpack make empty threats--and didja notice no one in the Wolfpack responded to Hogan's grandstand challenge that opened the show?
  9. Ooh boy, the fans want DDP in the Wolfpack! WC-what now? Do I have to keep repeating how fucking STUPID this is for WCW to be pissing on its own brand and history like this? I HATE talking about "brands," but I don't have a choice if I want to talk about this shit at all! The NWO Hollywood music kicks up and is ignored and is replaced by the NWO wolf howl. Dig that WCW quality control. Larry Zbyszko still being ambivalent about the Wolfpack is about the only consistent and logical thing about this mess of an angle. Sting not only has red facepaint, he's now Shiny Happy Sting again. Nash sports a hockey jersey and a beret and is just too cool for school, and pauses after his opening spiel to wait for chants and cheers that...don't really come. He blithers for awhile trying to recruit DDP--what the incentive is for DDP, no one can say, other than the Wolfpack is kewl and WCW sux. Finally Nash's mic goes out and we get Hogan, Bret, Bischoff, and Rodman playing with the equipment (Larry Z with mock surprise: "Wow, Rodman can push a button!"). Nothing and no one about this segment is nearly as edgy as everyone (except possibly Bret) obviously seems to think it is. Hogan is losing his voice and loses the plot halfway through his promo. This is less of a wrestling segment and more of a political slapfight being played out in public. At least Bret and Shawn were mostly able to hype matches in-between the insider potshots.
  10. Things have definitely deteriorated from a year prior...of course, that may have been WCW's absolute peak as a company and as a "brand," so I guess there was nowhere to go but down. Rodman elevates this with a killer promo, though: "A hey hey hey hey hey. Hey hey hey hey hey. A hey hey hey hey hey." And so on and so forth.
  11. Yeah, this is a pretty shallow attempt at re-doing Austin vs. McMahon on a minor-league level. Like the others, I can see the appeal in gangly, awkward Randy Hales becoming drunk with power, but as Lawler said...he's no Vince McMahon. This isn't a bad segment but Lawler comes off as way too whiny and heelish here, though that's always been part of his character even as a babyface.
  12. Memphis wrestling returns to the Mid-South Coliseum and we've got a darn good main event.
  13. This was not a classic lucha title match by any means but I did like it--1998 seems to have a gigantic glut of good-to-really-good matches while being low on real classics. Obviously work in the Big Two is going down but even internationally there seem to be issues. I suspect my year-end MOTY list will have the most "low-end" MOTYCs of any list so far. Anyway, Octagoncito with his crazy dives and springboards and Asai moonsaults seems more like Octagon's imitator the Great Sasuke than Octagon himself, and the match is much better for it. Mini Abismo seems more like a base who's just there for most of this, but he does suitably kill Octagoncito dead with a power bomb at the finish. I think this might have actually been better with *more* shtick and gaga, since the bigger Abismo was the better rudo and the stuff with the seconds got great heat.
  14. Good match that I may have actually enjoyed more than the elimination tag. The crowd certainly did, in any case. I just dug the big Tenryu-Chono showdowns here--Chono felt strangely absent from the big NJPW-WAR feud and he wasn't Black Superheel Chono yet, so it was cool to see such magnetic personalities clashing with each other. Tenzan is awkward at times but no one can accuse him of not working hard. I didn't mind Koshinaka here and I'm far from a fan of his--this wasn't a super-chaotic brawl on the level of some of the famous Japanese interpromotional fights, but this is still a hateful violent match which is where he's best suited.
  15. This was pretty good, but this might be the closest that any of the many NJPW elimination matches came to approaching a Survivor Series-type layout, where guys go down to rather routine moves for no other reason than to move the match along. I too was a little underwhelmed at the early eliminations of some of the heavy hitters, but I do get the reasoning for it and it's almost to be expected of NJPW at this point to have a shock elimination or two. I know everyone here hates Ka Shin and he hasn't impressed me much in my limited views either, but I thought he was really good here and possibly the best man on his team, with lots of really funky counters into the cross armbreaker which is put over really huge as an insta-finish. Takaiwa was good as well heaving motherfuckers all over the place--the two finalists absolutely earned their spot based on quality of work in this match. I can't see it as a MOTY either--at times, this was a rare case of a major promotion coming across as a pale imitator of an indy. They do some MPro-like spots here and some of them are good, and some of them illustrate how much chemistry those guys really have with each other and how hard it is to do what they did. Still, an enjoyable bout that if nothing else gave us a fresh look at some lesser-known junior guys.
  16. Well, Corey sort of pre-emptively covered for the rib tape, speculating that Aries was wearing it to throw Nakamura off.
  17. I think these guys worked house shows as the "Authors of Pain." HOLY FUCK A PAUL ELLERING SIGHTING.
  18. Rubber match then, right? I'm sold.
  19. It's already time to start ranking Jason Jordan among wrestling history's all-time great dropkicks. The Steiner taunt was appreciated, too.
  20. That was cool, but I don't know if we need another Latino Guy Who Likes to Have Fun TM, on any WWE roster.
  21. Good opener but I was way more impressed by Dillinger.
  22. Well, on the subject of excessive kickouts, I thought Kanemoto/Wagner was a badly laid out, overindulgent mess and I thought this was incredible. Was that because the table-setting portion of the BOSJ final got cut? You'll have to take that up with the NJPW TV editors, not with me. This had me guessing all the way until the very end and even wondering if there was a hidden 60-minute draw I didn't know about. Kawada is pretty firmly established as the Man for most of this, as the tide turns drastically every time he comes in and Kobashi and Ace are almost worrying *too* much about trying to neutralize him. Taue does a very good job in a somewhat unfamiliar FIP role before getting the big comeback and chance to shine at the end. Maybe you could say there were a few too many reversals, especially Taue having his "double nodowa" attempt countered twice, but when the reversals were this well-done and sensibly timed and executed, it's hard to quibble that much. I enjoyed this as much as any match on Japanese soil so far in 1998.
  23. Jericho may be trying too hard at times, but he almost has to. To get noticed as a WCW mid-carder you kind of had to do it kicking and screaming. Here he does that quite literally, until Malenko shuts him up.
  24. More fun between these two, with Stevie Ray now making his presence felt. He doesn't get directly involved, but he does serve as a distraction to Benoit that sets up Booker's win. Booker blocking the application of the crossface with his arm was cool and he's really starting to put it together as a worker. We'll see if it continues to hold up.
  25. Yeah, this was pretty terrible on all levels. Gertner has some good lines on paper but he kills them with his overly slow delivery. A big clusterfuck of a finish with Jeff Jones and Jim Molineaux doing more wrestling spots and Gertner showing that he should absolutely positively not be getting physically involved in matches. You know how we pointed out that the Over the Edge main event was overbooked but not *too* much overbooked? This is like Russo without the Filter. Eventually the babyfaces get handcuffed, and Beulah again tries to save Tommy Dreamer and that ends the same way it always does. How ironic--in the past I've said ECW was way too reliant on going to the "beat up Beulah for heat" well and gotten on Styles' case for his dramatic hushed voice every time it happens even though it's happened 500 times. Now we're actually getting an angle where Beulah breaks her neck and is being written out of the promotion, and it's touched upon for like 5 seconds before New Jack comes out and she's forgotten about. At least they sold the dramatic injury well by having New Jack run out, throw his weapons around the medical emergency scene, and do comedy spots with the guitar. A grotesquely overweight Jack Victory "sneaks" into the ring in plain sight and Styles laughably puts over his punch as having Ivan Drago-like power. Styles loses his mind on commentary despite the thoroughly routine beatdown we just saw. Really one of the worst ECW segments of the year.
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