PeteF3

Very good match, though this is one I started to tune out more down the stretch whereas Aja/Manami drew me in, so I think I still liked that match better--I think Watanabe almost disappearing entirely had something to do with that. Still, Maekawa really stands out as fresh in this setting and it's amazing in a way how she's able to get so much out of pretty much nothing offensively except kicks. Still, it's clear she's a limited worker, as is Watanabe outside of her usual spots, so it's up to LCO to hold this match together.

Pretty decent action from what we see. I could give much of a shit about Hotta, but her hard-ass submission style does make for a nice contrast with Kyoko's down the stretch. And it's refreshing to see a big joshi match built around submissions. That said, the actual finish is REALLY, eye-rollingly contrived as Kyoko does this bizarre method of attempting a pin that's never been done and serves no purpose except for her to get pulled into a cross armbreaker.

In some way I think Loss is completely right about the staleness of this match-up and how a seasoned joshi viewer (or even a not-so-seasoned one like myself) could call out a lot of these spots and transitions before they happened. And the weird match coverage and announcing adds to the exhibitiony, traveling-match feel. And yet they pulled me in down the stretch, as they gave us a few good near-falls without overdoing it too much, and the final bell took me by surprise, which is about all I can ask for out of a draw. All in all a very good match, though I'm anxious to see what Aja does in new settings going forward.

Burning question: did Tatsumi Fujinami ever wrestle the Italian Stallion?

I think both of those felt more organic than the "tater tots" line, which is based on an awfully thin premise (Irish = potatoes = ... little potatoes?) "Paula" came from the fans first--to my knowledge, at least. I don't recall a babyface dropping it in a promo and then the fans picking up on it from that. Piper's kilt was pretty low-hanging fruit and was way less of a logical leap than Reigns' attempted catchphrase. Edit: Get your minds out of the gutter and try to rise above that very wrong-sounding "low-hanging fruit" line.

I have to say I don't at ALL like the idea of incorporating mic work into these rankings, just because an apples-to-apples comparison falls apart when comparing American wrestlers to the Japanese and Mexicans (Pierroth and maybe a few others excepted).

I definitely viewed it Contest's way when I watched this again on the '96 Yearbook--at one point, Hogan literally breaks character and practically pleads for Piper to get back on track. That said, Piper was such a rambler that it was often hard to tell when the working stopped and shooting began.

The Observer covering this main event is pretty fascinating, piggybacking on Loss' recent post about the NWO vs. Flair conflicts. Running down the key points: - Terry Taylor booked this show to have Jericho to regain the Cruiserweight title from Alex Wright, and the Steiners to win the tag titles from the Outsiders. Then the Wolfpac went to Bischoff and told him that WCW had been running too many title changes--two title switches were then changed to zero. - Zero title changes quickly got changed to one--you get one guess why that was. They had no finish planned for Hogan to regain the title, which is why they had to rehash yet another fake Sting gimmick. - Hogan was hit by a rock after regaining the title--Meltzer made it a point that this was a much more wrestling-oriented crowd in Sturgis than last year. Hogan got the proper reaction this time, and there was no particular hatred for Harlem Heat. As a result of that, he called an audible and ushered the NWO to the back. That resulted in the broadcast booth having to stall--which Schiavone did a commendable job of, drawing on his experience at the '91 GAB presumably. The last part of '97 really feels like the Clique will be going all-out to take over both promotions, and almost(?) succeeding.

Without exaggerating, I think the hot tag to Luger may be the single loudest crowd pop in WCW history, at least to this point. Good Lord. Match is thrown out almost immediately afterward, but Flair and the Giant are out to prevent a long NWO beatdown, and we go off the air with the brawl in progress. Not a super-remarkable Nitro, but a darn good one made almost great by this legendary crowd.

Nash draws a Bret Hart-esque cartoon of JJ Dillon and the NWO plays Spray-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey with it. This is possibly the only black-and-white paid-for announcement that sees face time paid to Scott Norton of all people.

Maybe we should have just run Birmingham every single week. They can alternate between Raw and Nitro so as not to burn the crowd out too quickly. Sheesh. Dillon still comes off as a dumbshit, though, not that that's anything new with his run.

Hall and Nash say nothing of note, not that they need to do much to get a reaction.

Glad to finally see some attention played to this angle--McMichael winning the U.S. title was a little much, but Jarrett as the Horsemen Wannabe was a little mid-card angle that was way more fun than it had any right to be. HUGE crowd reactions for everything--watch this and try to dismiss Benoit as a Vanilla Midget. He and Mongo are both over like crazy here, and while Birmingham is a classic southern wrasslin' town it's not exactly Prime Horsemen Country either. Well-laid-out match, too--McMichael comes in and they immediately take his leg out, meaning Mongo can simply lay on the mat and yell while Jarrett and Eddie do literally all the work as they try to take out Mongo's knee. It also provides a cover for any blown spots by Mongo to come. Clusterfuck finish that ends with McMichael popping Jarrett with the U.S. belt to give Benoit a win.

Yeah, whether you want to mark the birth as Hall's first appearance, Nash's first appearance, Bash at the Beach, or whatever, ain't NO interpretation of the NWO formation that puts it in mid-August. Weird as fuck and it's not like such a throwaway segment couldn't have been done in July.

I never liked DX and I doubt this Yearbook will change my opinion that much, but I can get behind watching Shawn and HHH work as a Nise Midnight Express, working some nice stooging spots along a few token slick double teams. Mankind seems really banged up at this particular point--even for him, I mean--and doesn't do much, though he does work a nice "babyface falls into the prone heel's groin" spot that's almost a guaranteed pleaser. Rick Rude makes his alignment perfectly clear as Shawn calls him out for backup. He distracts Undertaker long enough for Shawn to absolutely RUIN Undertaker with two sick chairshots. Really a fun match overall and very well laid-out, giving us just a tease of HBK vs. UT but not too much and making you want to see more.

We get a before-and-after montage of Atlantic City--I shudder to think what a 1997-to-now transition would look like. Then a recap of Austin's neck injury--the tombstone was brutal and really should have ended Austin's career, though his neck was already fucked up going into the match. Austin hasn't mellowed with the injury, as he eviscerates JR and the hotel room he's been put up in. He says that despite doctor's advice to do something else with his life, Austin states that he doesn't do anything else. Austin is hilarious here despite the gravity of the situation, taking time out of his tirade to tell JR not to "wipe his nose, it's pissin' me off."

Yeah, the Hart Foundation seemed almost instantly marginalized once Shawn turned--part of why I think the company may have peaked at SummerSlam.

Faarooq lays into Ahmed Johnson: "underneath all that black skin is a white man dyin' to get out ... you couldn't be white if they sandblasted yo' ass twenty times." Wow. Comments for Crush and Savio follow. Rocky's getting good heat already. "Die Rocky Die--that's the gratitude I get from you pieces of crap for my blood, my sweat, and my tears?" Rocky isn't there quite yet as he meanders a bit, but he's showing more potential than he has at any other point in the WWF. DOA show up on the TitanTron and challenge the Nation to fight them backstage. The bikes (as opposed to the wrestlers riding them) were actually over with live crowds, and *maybe* this feud could have had legs if anyone in the DOA could have worked a lick.

Rude doesn't actually answer any pertinent questions and makes a bunch of references to famous insurance company slogans. I still don't get why they felt the need to ambiguate his alignment with Shawn and Helmsley but I admit I kind of like the idea of Rude running a wrestling protection racket--sort of a precursor to the APA.

The Observer says Sabu was supposed to wrestle Sandman at Hardcore Heaven, but with Sandman out injured the decision was made to move Sabu into the main event, with the title change being the kayfabe reasoning. Just the finish but this doubtless had some more thought put into it than the Night the Line Was Crossed--certainly this match in full couldn't have been any worse than that, and the finish works okay. The ring fills with trash, because of course it does, and Funk is playing a sympathetic babyface in Florida despite cutting heel promos leading up to this. Joel Gertner and the Dudleys are out to make an invitation for Douglas to dump the Triple Threat for them. (Gertner: "Francine, you dig gold--er, I mean, you--you LIKE to have gold.") Douglas responds by precipitating a shitty brawl with people meandering about like a 1986 WWF battle royal. Mikey Whipwreck is the only guy working with any enthusiasm. The Dudleys clear the ring as no one can bring down Big Dick. Finally New Jack and Kronus make the save. Big Dick overpowers them as well, but after no-selling chairshots all throughout this, a CRUTCH and a diamond cutter are enough to render him comatose. Saturn drops another one-legged elbow off the turnbuckle. Really shitty and nonsensical post-match (why the fuck are Balls and Axl still hanging around for all this?) that completely marginalizes the new World champion. The only positive thing I can say about it is that it ends with an effective and well-built-to payoff, with Joel Gertner getting destroyed.

I think its simply really. Film something backstage. Example (and this is completely off the top of my head and not the BEST idea, but you will get my point): Someone has been taking out Roman Reigns friends one-by-one backstage and leaving cryptic notes and clues. Its now down to Ambrose and Reigns and Reigns has a main event match against ADR. It has been established earlier that night that Sheamus is not in the arena, The New Day have been taken out by Team Extreme. Reigns is about to beat ADR, but now he has to face the odds: 3-on-1. Somehow- through God's grace Roman surives and heads to the back to find a beaten and bloody Ambrose who is being attended by medical staff. One last clue leads Roman to a locker room door- he opens it and gasps. "What the hell are you doing here!?" FADE TO BLACK But this is my point (and I get this was quickly thrown together without a lot of thought)--you can't just "fade to black" on a modern-day WWE show the way you can on The Walking Dead, because Walking Dead characters aren't encouraged to make in-character Tweets and Instagrams and Vines all throughout the week. In this instance, what would the kayfabe reasoning be to stop Reigns or a third party from talking about this situation on Twitter shortly after the show goes off the air? I don't know how often you can go with just, "I'll say what I have to say Monday night." Again, this is not to defend how WWE goes about business, but there *does* need to be more thought put into cliffhangers than you needed to in the late '90s when they were all the rage. To execute an angle like this would require a complete re-thinking of how WWE treats social media--some may say to that, "Good!" and I'm not sure they're wrong.

One clarification: the early UFCs were only about "determining the best martial art" on the surface. The real purpose of the shows was to advertise for Gracie Jiu Jitsu--so yes, the superiority of BJJ was the expected end result.

On the question of which one match you'd most likely to see come out of the WWE vault, I can't believe Bix didn't immediately respond, "Bret Hart vs. Tom Magee."

Just as a general question, not to defend the WWE storytelling culture...how difficult has the rise of Twitter and social media affected the ability to put on a good cliffhanger for a live show? To go way back...when Shawn Michaels keeled over in 1995, once the show went off the air that was *it* until next Saturday morning and WWF Mania--you were waiting for 6 days with no wrestlers posting to Twitter or Instagram, no instant updates on a WWE website much less an Observer/Torch site. If a wrestler were to do a medical emergency angle today, you'd expect to get an update on your phone or on the Network before midnight struck. It doesn't work like a fictional TV show where all the info is entirely in the hands of the writer/director who can cut off and pick up on a story wherever they feel like.

Re: "The Black Ninja"...I can see why this would create some backlash--this match was hyped on SMW television as Armstrong vs. a mystery opponent, and Cornette did interviews that did more than tease that it would be Yokozuna. He's the only name I distinctly remember being dropped, but I think he may have brought up guys like Abdullah as well. It was also either implied or outright stated that it would *not* be Terry Funk. In any event, fans were led to believe that this would be something bigger than Larry Santo in a cheap outfit.