PeteF3
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::flipping through law book:: "Where's the section on WCW title belts?" Jericho is starting to remind me in a weird way of Mick Foley in 1995--it's like he "gets" where wrestling is going more than anybody else and is deserving of a bigger stage to show off what he can do. This is more wink-and-nod-to-the-smart-fans stuff like the Over the Edge ring intros, and neither time do they beat you over the head with it like would happen with Russo in WCW. While the WWF has never been more meritocratic, WCW has never been less so.
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Chavo is now beginning his gimmick of having been driven crazy by being subjugated by Eddie. These guys have to be booking their own angles or there has to be a guy like Terry Taylor who's only concern is the mid-card, because it's so much better-booked than the main event scene right now.
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All that and Rick Rude is now back, just to make this group even more haphazard. There's no longer even any pretense of WCW mattering in this war.
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"This man can only be compared to such legendary Canadians as Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, and the great Anne Murray." "We've laughed with him! We've cried with him! But through it all he made our lives worth living. He's given us hope, love, understanding, and and the will to say YES I CAN." Ross: "You'd think he was introducing Frank Sinatra for gosh sakes!" The full ring intros are some of the most brilliant creative writing the WWF has ever done--again, a bit of self-deprecation and winking to the audience that the company just isn't capable of anymore. Once again, there's an undercurrent of, "We know we got our asses kicked for 88 weeks, and it's because these idiots are running the show." Austin's not just fighting against the Man, he's fighting on behalf of WWF fans against a rival company, too. Trying to compare this with something like the high-end RINGS or BattlArts matches as MOTY candidates go is difficult if not foolhardy. But this is definitely the match I've enjoyed the most in 1998 for the same reasons everybody else has. Austin "overcomes the odds" and it actually seems like he's done that, not overcome odds in a phony, contrived type of way the manner that Cena often did or was accused of doing. Austin's comebacks are incredible and this is a terrific crowd, into almost every spot they do--even the low-key stuff before the booking gaga really takes center stage. All of this was so fresh and new at the time, I don't know if a newer viewer would have quite the appreciation for this as we do. But even compared to the '99 stuff, the booking and changing match stips isn't overdone, and Austin's eventual comeback and win is carried out in as logical a manner as possible. One of the true heights of Vince Russo, Filtered.
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That was a KOTR montage. One of them showed Mabel's coronation with the similar title, "What were we thinking??" Vader whiffs on a moonsault and takes a tombstone and we finally find out after all these years that Vader is Leon White. Bearer wearing the mask is kind of funny at least. Vader has his existential crisis after the match--JR does his damnedest to try to put Vader over as being noble in defeat but it was straight to JTTS-ville after this for the next few months before mercifully getting out of his contract.
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Rock is in too much pain to talk to Hendrix, but he's going to have to make his title defense against Faarooq anyway.
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"You know King, some people say Mero looks like Little Richard...I never thought that." Once again Mero shows himself to be utterly without shame, and it's glorious to watch. He suckers Sable into a phony pinfall and then reverses it into a pin himself, and then jumps up and celebrates like he won the Royal Rumble.
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They even worked the finish like a flash pin, with Booker bicycling like crazy and just barely being put down for 3 in the German suplex. Much more urgency in this one due to the shortened nature of the match--maybe that will add some heat to the early near-falls in subsequent matches now that we know this could end at almost any time. For whatever reason I wasn't expecting this series to hold up, but it does so far.
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Jim Molineaux bodyslamming all three members of the FBI was a little much, but otherwise the match was fun. Nova made for a good babyface, we got some cool offense from Smothers as well as some primo, at times over-the-top stooging, and even Meanie was kind of fun doing big fat high-flying offense off the hot tag. His pants almost come off but that sort of fits his character anyway. -
That was a hell of a lot of build-up for...that. At least Cena and the guys Vader bulldozed got some hope spots in. Tariel doesn't seem THAT bad to me but he's no Tamura, that's for sure.
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I was having flashbacks to Joe vs. Balor at the last Takeover with all the blood check stoppages. Not totally sure what that or the ending was about, since this match was clearly a work--it almost seemed to me like Han instinctively tapped the mat while in a wristlock and the referee interpreted it as a proper tapout. Anyway, the countering and counters-to-counters on the mat, first with the cross armbreaker by Han and then the dueling cross armbreakers and sleepers by both guys are just gorgeous and incredibly dramatic. Han also throws in his standard get-shot-in-the-stomach sell for a dramatic early near-KO and there's some pretty fun stand-up in addition to the requisite matwork. This was a pretty good and suspenseful match that sort of breaks an axel at the ending.
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Another match we need to find complete, somehow. Unfortunately this one's not on the Asahi special like the February match. Looks great, though, and super-heated.
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Why are we acting like it's a given that Sting has to choose one NWO or the other? Why can't we at least give lip service to the possibility that he'll stay with WCW? Do I need to keep freaking harping on how lame this makes WCW look as a company and a brand? I don't want to turn into Darren fucking Rovell talking about brand power but god dammit, it's like my hand is being forced. Bret going off on Nash and leaving him temporarily speechless was really cool, though.
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I'm going to break from the pack and say that I liked the Nitro match a bit better, if only because the outcome was up in the air and this was a little bit more likely that Booker was evening the series. His comeback is nice and drawn-out, however, and the Spinaroonie is so much cooler and more effective as a spontaneous Hulk-Up moment rather than a contrived, stop-the-match-in-its-tracks spot with a pet name. Still a very different dynamic if only for the crowd, which is loudly pro-Booker and anti-Benoit.
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The Wolfpack have their new entrance theme, and it's not bad, though I'm sure I'll get tired of it. My favorite footnote to this ill-fated gimmick is that MLB star Jason Giambi used this as his walk-up music right up to the end of his career, which wasn't until 2014. The music lasted with Giambi longer than WCW did as a corporate promotion. Tony, Lee, and Bobby still aren't sure how to put over this Luger...turn? In any case the Pack are total gladhanding babyfaces whether the announcers want to admit it or not. I'm also not sure if Abject Shock is the way to sell this development with Luger, since in ancient times of 1995-96 we established him as an opportunist not to be trusted. But then I'm putting more thought into this than the WCW brass. Luger's in the Wolfpack to be a player, which just makes WCW come off even more lame. This is enough to make you see the logic behind the burial of WCW by the WWF. Luger closes us out with the lamest "too SWEEEET" in history.
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J.J. Dillon isn't in Nashville because he's a balding, fat, unethical HEATHEN. That's showing 'em. Jericho makes Tony hold up a CONSPIRACY VICTIM sign creating an image that I'm considering making my new desktop wallpaper. Jericho sets the stage for one of my favorite on-location vignettes ever.
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Now this is more like it. I'm pretty sure at this point of the decade, Kanemura is FMW's post-Onita MVP, because all the really great FMW matches seem to involve him. He has great offense, he takes crazy bumps for a guy his size...he's like his partner here, but better in every way. Not to short-change Fuyuki, who's charismatic and a lot of fun and gets the most out of what he has, as he and Kanemura form the world's fattest Midnight Express and it's a pleasure to watch. Tanaka is back to being Tanaka--maybe he's not a ring general, but clearly Kanemura is and otherwise Masato can go. Hayabusa--well, I can't say he bothered me but I can't say that he did anything that wowed me either. His high-flying spots can look good but they do tend to look samey after awhile. Still, this was a lot better when Tanaka was either being double-teamed or trading ultra-stiff lariats with the heels.
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All the Inoki touches are pretty great--I don't know what the Ishikawa/Inoki connection is, but they worked and they popped the crowd and they were also used well in the context of the match rather than just a way to jerk off. Definitely a MOTY contender--maybe a little downtime in the middle will keep it from the top spot, I dunno. The opening was great and the closing stretch was pretty great too, picking up as soon as Ishikawa started imitating Inoki again with the enzuigiri and the octopus hold. Really the most refreshing part of this match was the HATE--you don't always get that in shootstyle in general and in BattlArts in particular, but it's on display here: these two guys weren't going to deviate from their game plan but they were clearly setting out to hurt each other, and that's what we got.
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Pinfall attempts in BattlArts--wow. Yeah, this sort of feels like a UWFI vs. NJPW match, with juniors. Mochizuki throws some awesome kicks but it's almost like his wrasslin'-style attacks like springboards and moves off the turnbuckles really keep Tanaka off-balance. Tanaka eventually weathers the storm and puts Mochizuki away the way he knows how. Not a transcendent match but a lot of fun and leaves you wanting to see more of both guys, both in this setting and elsewhere.
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It was definitely Ric Flair with that comment towards Cactus Jack about being in a wheelchair. He spells it out in Have a Nice Day. That Hansen/Misawa title change...Loss and Will didn't seem to think much of the match in full because they only put the finish on the '95 Yearbook. The closing stretch is pretty hot but the finish is really weak, somewhat in concept but mostly in execution.
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The Alaskan Hunters couldn't be the State Patrol, could they? I've never seen them and only ask because that was the State Patrol's finish. Edit: I was half-right. Dale Veasey/James Earl Wright/Wrestling Bear Icon was one of them. The other guy was a dude named Bob Brown who was not the Bulldog.
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Yeah, we established last week that Austin shouldn't be able to overcome Dude + All the Stooges, so I can see the quibbling in having him lay everyone out this week. That said, we do establish that Austin can have someone in his corner and we establish that Undertaker has a reason for being there. And this was another HOT segment that left you not giving a fuck about not getting a big-time main event on TV, because it gave notice to two top angles and had a number of twists and turns with every moment still being allowed to breathe. Crash TV at its best.
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I actually liked the action here better than anyone else, though maybe it's just because my standards are so low for what constitutes a good match in 1998-99. The near-fall off the belt shot was nice and these two are developing some good chemistry. We go to a rather lame DCOR but there's no point in having either guy job to the other yet, either. Faarooq's piledriver was definitely the best part of this, that was sick.
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*sniff* It's getting dusty in here again. Again, we get a self-deprecating side of the WWF that's pretty much impossible to see now unless they're engaging in a political hit on somebody.
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I'm guessing that skywriting wasn't legit. This was amusing enough and certainly not as overwrought and overdone and ego-stroking as the Bischoff crap.