PeteF3

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.

The announcer was both infuriating and hilarious to me at the same time. These two are brutalizing each other and this guy is calling it like Jim Nantz at Augusta National. The match itself isn't much at all--both guys work hard but the pace is way too quick and nothing is allowed to breathe. The announcer takes care to mention Jason Jarrett's name so many times that you just know he's going to play a role in the finish, and he does. I don't get what that accomplishes other than to make the babyface a fluke winner and the heel look like an idiot and to get the referee over at the expense of both of them.

Crazy aftermath, though the match itself isn't much. Flanagan is...not a good talker. I do respect that they're carrying over the old PG-13/Flanagan feud from the USWA, with the alignment switched.

I would have put Horst Hoffmann on my ballot, and I blame myself for not thinking to nominate him. Edit: From an old-school standpoint, I also didn't find out until putting my list together that the Spoiler and Don Leo Jonathan didn't get nominations. Not that they were necessarily going on my list but they were both worthy of discussion.

Cornette pretty vehemently denied having anything to do with the finish in his '97 Timeline. Of course a shoot interview is far from gospel, but a.) even though "they have no reason to lie" is often a red herring for people in the wrestling business who lie and work simply because they can, in Cornette's particular case it strikes me as being out of character for him to cover up something like that. Who's he afraid of pissing off? (He *did* say, "Book him against fucking Shamrock!" during a brainstorming session but it didn't strike me as a serious suggestion.) b.) Cornette's influence on the booking committee was evaporating and he'd be off creative entirely right around this time.

This is terrible, as bad as the closing segment of Raw. WCW is completely out of ideas here--not a shred of originality anywhere in this segment. The Vince McMahon push can't get here soon enough, because we'll finally have a top heel who doesn't just guffaw over and no-sell everything. It's why Vince is, like him or not, one of the best performers ever. Bischoff is as bad here as he was good in the opening segment.

Not a great party but attempting to portray wrestling-watching as "cool" is actually one of the smarter things Bischoff did.

Good little segment though, while I can't explain what I'd do differently, I wish they'd gotten to the signing of their Starrcade match in a bit more dramatic way. I'll reserve final judgment though until I watch more, since I can't remember how the control-of-Nitro stipulation or the guest referee got added. Bischoff is at his best here as a contemptible little worm.