PeteF3

Exactly. The "Fappening" and the Erin Andrews incident were both news (and actual legitimate news at that)--that doesn't mean that Gawker, the Huffington Post, or anybody else can actually show the video.

Owen's return is the big story here, but having watched this for the very first time it already feels like he's being downplayed, as he runs away through the crowd and Shawn and Hunter still get to celebrate in the ring as the show goes off the air. Owen's beatdown is very good and realistic-looking, with some Lawler/Snowman-esque going after Shawn's eyes, and if they were going to go with a copout DQ finish to start with, then this show really should have ended on a cliffhanger with the beatdown ongoing.

Rock refers to himself as the "People's Champ" in the pre-match promo, perhaps for the first time. Austin takes a few very safe bumps but this is a match clearly designed to cover for him. Rock does one People's Elbow and attempts another, to NO reaction. Very much a preview of the WWF main event style to come in 1998 and '99. Enjoyable but too brief to really be called a good match.

D-X as a PPV feels comparable to KOTR '94, but not as good. Just a very, very WEIRD vibe throughout--not bad, necessarily, but weird. Like a company in complete turmoil. And yes, it did one of the worst buyrates in company history, so few people saw this. Dustin's delivery is great but the joke sort of peters out really quickly. Luna agrees with me and drags Goldust away before he can finish.

This is a lame and hollow attempt at recreating Superstar Steve Austin. I just said this a few posts ago but between Shane Douglas, the NWO, DX, and now Stevie, ENOUGH OF THE FUCKING GIGGLING HEELS ALREADY. Also, this *may* have had more effect if the puppets at N2R weren't tripping all over themselves to welcome Stevie back even as he was laying out their hero and helping Team WWF.

Another one who liked this more than the '91 match. Some gorgeous technical wrestling on display here, especially Blue Panther's unique scissored takedowns and Atlantis working both an abdominal stretch and various kinds of armbars at the same time. Atlantis feels like he's really overcome long odds to take the win in 2 straight--the build-up to the Atlantida maybe isn't the greatest and I agree that I could have watched this go a good while longer, so maybe not a true MOTYC, but it's another standout match in a terrific year for lucha. This felt like a lucha version of Bockwinkel/Robinson from 1980 Japan with how vicious the matwork seemed at times. While AJPW seems to be sort of losing the plot, AAA and EMLL both seem to be going "back to basics" after a few years of ECW-ized brawls. It's refreshing to see as pure wrestling gets more and more de-emphasized in the Big Two.

Excellent match that just got better as it went along. It didn't seem like they were going for an "epic" like last year, and of course the match wasn't as good--but damned if they didn't have me marking out by the end. This builds slowly by design, with the first psychological hook being Jun's bad back and then a second hook brought on by Misawa being taken out and knocked to the floor, as seems to happen so often in these Tag League finals. Misawa countering the powerbomb/chokeslam at the end was a spectacular hope spot, one of the best I've ever seen, as it caught me totally by surprised. By this point I was flashing back to Kobashi's first Budokan main event, when I was actively getting emotionally involved--TAG OUT, JUN, TAG MISAWA, DAMMIT. Jun survives some heartstopping near-falls, some with Misawa's help, but that final hot tag never comes. This was a sort-of rare AJPW tag match where anybody could conceivably have pinned anybody else, and that kept me guessing the whole way through. Don't know if this will make the MOTYC list or not but AJPW manages to close out the year on a positive note.

Who says Hogan's sex life is "legit news"?

Haha, Dave gave this a DUD rating and called it the worst Kawada singles match he'd ever seen.

UWFI actually banned closed-fist punches to the head, so this has a different dynamic from the start when these two dudes just start whaling on each other. Each guy also only has 5 points instead of 15, which adds to the sense of urgency throughout this. I still like Tamura better as a worker but this was a hell of a war, with some great "near-falls" and nifty hold escapes to go along with the awesome stand-up. I daresay this is the best Kingdom match I've viewed from this year!

DDP is to late '97 what Savage was to late '96. Yawn-inducing all the way. I get the idea of Hogan sending a message to deal with all the Sting masks, but if they were going to do that then the previous week should have ended with WCW standing tall to bring some balance to all this.

The GRANNY! A staple of old-timey wrestling makes one of its last appearances, and it's as glorious as ever. I bet that Knoxville lady was around giving Ron & Don Wright what-for when Hogan was still playing bass in local Florida dive bars.

Boy, what a hot main event to try and stem the tide against Nitro. We finally go off the air on a positive note for once, but yeah, that final closeup of Shawn shows what he's really doing.

Yeah, the wheelchair thing is old now. Especially considering Goldust was doing this shit the previous week. Shawn still can't help but take shots at Bret. He's gone, get the fuck over it already. HHH giggles about how dumb Neidhart is, which is easy enough when you have bookers in your back pocket who book him that way. Shawn sounds like he's on Quaaludes. Another laugh-free segment courtesy of DX.

Great way to follow up that previous segment! There's that whiplash effect again...

Yeah, this was...something. In a weird way you have to admire Dustin for committing to this.

Good pop to end some horrible action. "BAM BAM BIGELOW IS GOING TO RID ECW OF THE FRANCHISE"--oh, shut the fuck up, Joey. The reaction at the end can't be denied but it's a little too late for Shane to be trying to play sympathetic babyface since his character has had not one ounce of sympathy the previous 4 years. Compare and contrast to Bret Hart at Canadian Stampede and Ric Flair at Starrcade '93.

This was pretty terrible, though that piledriver was indeed great. I don't care about Furnas & LaFon at this point, which pains me after having gone through the late '80s and '90s with them. The shitheads in the crowd are too busy marking out over Stevie's return, even though he's a heel, to bother providing any actual heat. Beulah gets laid out--again, and Joey Styles does the Owen Voice--again. Joey Styles telegraphs literally everything--again. Dreamer gets buried under the WWF flag--again, and this is sold as the Darkest Day in ECW History--again. Do you think *maybe* Paul E. was running out of ideas at this point?

Pretty good stuff here, though there were higher-end GAEA matches in '96. Even though we've only gotten bits and pieces of the promotion in '97 it's hard not to see Oz Academy as being overpushed to the same level of the NWO and DX against stupid and ineffective babyfaces.

Pretty much the entire video, with ECW action swapped in for the Axl/Stephanie Seymour wedding stuff. All the main matches for N2R get some effective hype. The slomo close-up shows that Sabu clearly got more of that fireball than Sandman did.

Good little TV match, with Dandy providing some fine cut-offs in addition to setting up for Rey's offense. Hennig vs. DDP seems like quite a big main event for late-'90s WCWSN.

Kanemura does the greatest 360 lariat bump in history--it's more like a 780 bump and it makes total sense for a fatso like him to be doing it (unlike Rikishi doing it off a standard clothesline) when you see the velocity that he and Tanaka are going at. A fun balls-to-the-wall sprint with a few twists and turns and some neat offense from everyone involved, especially the heel double teams complete with mocking of Shinzaki's Buddhist prayer rituals. Kanemura in particular would be an interesting guy to see in AJPW for a one-off tour, since he's got a broad heel personality but also really knows how to work a traditional match.

Another really strong match as AJPW suddenly feels hot again after a 10-month cold streak. This is one of Akiyama's better performances so far in his career, selling the fuck out of his lower back as the Demon Army just relentlessly brutalize him. All in all sort of an abbreviated version of the 12/96 classic, with Akiyama out on the floor for an extended period and Misawa having to go it alone.

Last few minutes of a draw. Decent but ultimately unremarkable action--uncharacteristically loose and sloppy in a few points as well. Kobashi's Lariato on Kawada was killer, though.

Agree with Loss on the slow motion portion of this match--a chunk of the time, Misawa and Akiyama work this like a late-'80s WWF house show with basic clubbering offense, while the FMW team shows off all the flashy moves. But the crowd isn't into them as much as the one we saw a few days earlier. Really good finishing stretch though, with Team FMW having a golden opportunity to put Akiyama away with Misawa on the floor, but Mitsuharu having to navigate his away around the ring apron and through Shinzaki to make a fantastic save off the Phoenix Splash. He then asserts himself in taking out both opponents, allowing Akiyama (with a hope spot or two thrown in) to eventually put Hayabusa down. All in all a match on the disappointing side, but the stretch run was enough to elevate this far enough for me to call a good match.