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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. Shawn & HHH are seriously the biggest impediment to me finishing this Yearbook. This is total bury-the-opponent bullshit that's worse than the worst Jerry Lawler stuff from 1990. If "everybody" is younger and better than Bret, why the fuck should we care if HBK beats him? Of course, Shawn doesn't care about any of that at this point, either. D-Generation X officially has a name.
  2. The WWF had teased a split-up between the two the previous week and it seems like they had designs on a one-off Hawk vs. Animal match, but their contracts stipulated tag matches only.
  3. Slow build as the Demon Army methodically tear away at Kobashi's bad knee, but it builds well to a hot closing stretch where Kobashi successfully neutralizes Kawada after a pretty awesome exchange of kicks and lariats. That leaves a wounded Taue against Ace--I'm assuming this is the biggest pin of Ace's career to this point, as I don't recall him getting a direct pin over one of the Corners before. A fun match that had me guessing a few different times as to what would happen next.
  4. The use of MMA on these sets has been pretty well-done, IMO, and this is another worthy addition to the catalogue. Plus it touches on the Rickson-Anjo incident which hasn't been released publicly but was a huge story with major implications for shootstyle. Here, Rickson exposes another UWFI guy in much more public fashion. I don't know much about MMA but Bas and the other guy did a very good job of explaining how clueless Takada looked in the guard position. You can't accuse Takada of lacking guts to take this fight, at least.
  5. What a surreal group of people gathered in here at the start of this. Everything about this was well-done as we take a left turn from the usual Michinoku style match for what's essentially a heavyweight contest with a few dives. I just didn't find myself being grabbed by it--I don't know if I let the crowd get to me or if this whole thing felt like an inevitability because we all knew TAKA was leaving.
  6. Good to see Yakushiji back again, though he's a bit off from his '96 peak. Glad to see everyone else had the same reaction to Delfin that I did--I can't tell if he's holding his arms out like that to try to show off his juiced body or if he's literally so thick and roided that he can't put them all the way down at his sides. Pretty fun match, but it's hurt by some uncharacteristic sloppiness at points. It still builds well to the babyfaces isolating Togo in the ring and eventually grounding him into defeat--it does take a bit too long to get there, and Delfin whiffs badly on what's supposed to be the closing Shotei, making the finish even more anticlimactic.
  7. Do you want to know the *real* story of why the Wolfman got a push? He had an ownership stake in the company that made "Power Maker II," which was a key sponsor of late-period SMW TV. Power Maker II was sort of like ICOPRO if it were made in a moonshine till, as best I can figure.
  8. Apparently a one-time thing as Ranallo was at the funeral of Kevin Randleman.
  9. One of the most fascinating elements that I had no knowledge of at the time was Hogan and Flair becoming unlikely political allies. A few weeks (in 1997 time) ago Loss complained about Hogan ripping into Flair during the robe segment, but Dave actually saw it as a positive for Ric because he believed that it meant that Hollywood was in Ric's corner, at least to some degree. The eventual endgame was even more intriguing: Hogan & Flair as babyfaces feuding with Hall & Nash. Anyway, with Raw being a depressing mess of a show, WCW goes out of their way to give us one of the more overall feelgood episodes of Nitro of the year. Hennig pins Benoit clean after some decent and gritty enough action, and Heenan seemingly momentarily forgets that he's supposed to be anti-NWO. The B-teamers are out to put a beating on Benoit but Ric Flair stuns everybody by making the save and running Hennig all the way out of the Target Center. He cuts a big hometown promo promising to destroy Hennig at Havoc whether he gets a match signed or not, then moves on to Hogan. This is almost a precursor to Flair's return in Greenville in a year--it's not quite that transcendent and emotional, but it honestly doesn't feel that far off.
  10. Mike gives us a history of Salvador Lutteroth and his pioneering of lucha promoting and masked wrestlers, and how that eventually translated to TV and movies. This is pretty all-encompassing, to an almost shocking degree, as Tenay talks about EMLL, AAA, and the UWA in addition to Promo Azteca as well as some non-WCW guys like Hijo del Santo.
  11. Speak of retrogressive feuds...and yet, yeah, this is another hot segment that had no real right to be. Hogan spits out an absolutely vicious, venomous promo talking about how Piper has spent the past 15 years in his shadow--it's actually a bit similar to Shawn's shooty promo earlier in the night, but Hogan is WAY more concise and actually works to sell the PPV instead of spouting bullshit about how he works less and has more money and giving us other irrelevant asides. Hogan promises to end Piper's career at Havoc and put him in a wheelchair, then Piper gets double-teamed by Hogan and Bischoff. Eric lines up for a karate kick but accidentally hits Hogan--a cliched spot but it really works here because that type of thing didn't typically happen during an NWO beatdown, and the crowd goes nuts for Piper's big comeback. And a great job of making the decrepit commissioner look like a threat, as the NWO runs down but wants no part of getting into the ring and confronting Piper head-on--they just pull Hogan away and bail as Piper goes nuts swinging around the title belt. I don't want to see this match again either, but I do approve of everything about this segment.
  12. Schiavone's mocking of Elizabeth crying was truly LOLworthy. Fucking rekt. Bringing back the DDP-Savage feud feels like a bit of a retrogression but this is a well-done segment on all levels, sold great by the NWO. The Minneapolis crowd regales Savage with the na na hey hey goodbye song in a terrific moment.
  13. I actually kind of like this slow piecing-together of Goldberg's background. It works better if you remember a world before Google, pro-football-reference.com, or zabasearch.
  14. Not much of a match and the crowd doesn't seem to really know how to react. Once again the Harts get booked like ineffective idiots as Owen, Bulldog, and Neidhart can't prevent Chyna and Michaels from costing Bret the match by countout. A fitting end to one of the most depressing episodes of Raw ever.
  15. This is--incredibly--tone-deaf in more ways than I can even remember--asking Melanie to do a fucking on-the-spot PSA to aspiring wrestlers for not taking too many pain pills?? Jesus God. And then he asks her about the status of their children as the camera zooms in on Melanie's face. "What will you do now as a single parent?" I really hope she wasn't coached on some of these talking points about WWF support and Pillman and living and dying for the business. Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic of the Decade, not year, as if it was even a debate.
  16. This has...not been a good night for Vince. He promises that Austin will get an IC title match with Owen Hart if he signs the waiver, but Austin smartly refuses until he gets that title contract in writing first. No "I owe you one, pal" here. Austin's interrupted by Faarooq, who lectures him on how toughness is more than just saying "ass" a lot, in a pretty good fired up promo. The seeds for Austin's post-Survivor Series program and one of the defining ones of his career are now being sown.
  17. I wish Cornette had focused more on Not-Yet-DX than the NWO. Outing Kevin Nash as being 40 years old was pretty funny, though. This whole episode is like Vince Russo's wet dream so far.
  18. Shawn refers to himself as "the very best sports entertainer in the world today," which makes me die a little inside since it stands out in this environment and is a sign of things to come. Shawn offers to show proof of his glorious victory over Undertaker, but instead we get MSG curtain call footage. And this was turning into a decent heel promo before we get into wankery territory that completely goes over the heads of this audience and serves to set up...Shawn vs. Vince? Shawn rants all the way through a commercial break before we're mercifully interrupted by Bret. He declares that the "H" in HBK and HHH stands for "homo" and accuses Shawn of barebacking his way to main events--yeah, sometimes he takes himself too seriously, but I can't really blame Bret for not wanting to say this stuff either. I continue to draw absolutely zero enjoyment from Shawn and Hunter behaving like asses and verbally no-selling everything. Shawn gets more time to shoot long after Bret leaves.
  19. That Cornette audio sounds like it came from the uncensored version that aired on SMW. Which is better, of course. The Bodies' attack on Maggs & Mustafa came a week or so after that confrontation, after Watts and Bob Armstrong announced that the Bodies were being put into the SuperBrawl match to replace the Wrecking Crew.
  20. http://www.factmag.com/2016/02/11/soundcloud-financial-report-44m-losses/ Since this is site the major source for the majority of podcasts linked to on this forum, I thought I'd spread the word some here. SoundCloud is facing a $44 million loss last year despite striking up a partnership with Universal Music Group, and is going to be dependent on heavy investment and/or additional revenue streams to stay afloat. This may be totally premature, but it may not hurt for podcasters and musicians to be thinking about a backup plan now.
  21. But that doesn't make sense--a wellness suspension is 30 days. Another bit of speculation is that this dates back to before the closing incident on Raw, since earlier on the show Titus' winning streak came to an end at the hands of Adam Rose of all people.
  22. This worked much better as "wrestling theater," to borrow a phrase from Childs, than One Night Only IMO. All the stuff with the chair has been very well-booked all throughout this feud and shows some great attention to detail. It does start off a little slowly, but it all makes sense psychologically with Undertaker picking apart Michaels, and moves and move attempts being set up and paid off with counters later. Then the ingenious way to get out of the Cell that plays off Michaels' past real-life tantrums--the sight of UT and Michaels battling atop the Cell still holds up as a holy-shit moment in the context of what else was going on in the company in '97 and in this match in particular. Even the finish works. As a pure match I'm not sure if this was good as Undertaker vs. Bret, but the stakes felt higher and is definitely the more historically significant match of the two, on multiple levels.
  23. You have to give Paul E. this: he knew how to avoid burning through too many matches, too quickly. This is hyped as the first meeting between Sabu and Sandman, and I can believe it. We never even got matches that seem like they'd sell to an ECW crowd like Raven vs. Sabu or Raven vs. Taz. Sabu doesn't quite connect on the fireball but there have been worse efforts this year and worse efforts to come in '98. Good enough angle because they sold it so well and because of the Sheik-Sabu connection.
  24. Yeah, this was fantastic, and I'm not sure this wasn't better than Santo/Casas to boot. Some terrific offense in this one as this almost turned into a lucha-meets-NJPW-juniors type bout. Psicosis dies for our pleasure on about 4 or 5 different occasions and then fucks Santo over to get the win in a very cleverly done finish, right when Psicosis looked dead and buried. This might be the best year for lucha since 1990.
  25. What an absolutely beautiful wrestling match. It could start a discussion about how card placement fits into rating a match, as this feels very "slight"--not a lot of crowd heat, not a main event, not a match involving major stars, the announcers sort of treating it as a lighthearted undercard sampler (Dr. Morales is so engrossed that he doesn't realize that what he calls the tercera caida is actually the second fall)--perhaps too slight to be a true MOTY, if that's something you care about. But the matwork and the natural build to the big highspots are just fantastic. There's comedy, but it's not the overdone comedy spots you've seen a ton of. And it's quick and isolated, instead of serving to make the rudos look like bumbling idiots--just enough to make the tecnicos out to possibly be a little smarter. The dive train climaxing with one tecnico backdropping his partner onto the opponents who thought they'd countered the dive was great, as was Pierrotito's fantastic plancha that seemed to turn the tide in the third fall. Pretty much impossible to pick out a Man of the Match here--everyone looked terrific at everything they did.
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