PeteF3

And here I was all excited at seeing that subject heading. "Oh wow, that sounds awesome." Literally the moment between the time I clicked and the opening of the page I realized, "Oh, wait..."

Kyle wasn't that good but I thought he was at least serviceable in the role he was given--he was never pushed as a main event star that I can recall. That said, when he first opened his mouth as a member of the Gangstas he quickly revealed why he'd been kept silent for 3 years.

I thought this was pretty good, and the final ending with Beulah was GREAT. The lights-out stuff is starting to wear with me, though--I'm not as high on that as others here, but give Heyman credit for getting the surprises to pay off, at least for now. We're approaching diminishing returns, though, as I'm pretty sure the Jake stuff goes nowhere. In the end, though, this is everything you'd want out of Lawler vs. Dreamer.

PG-13 are quite the blend of old school southern tag wrasslin' with enough '90s-style moves and spots to keep them looking modern. It says something for the effectiveness of the tag formula that it gets even cynical ECW fans clapping along rooting for the hot tag for a team they're not all that familiar with and that usually doesn't work babyface. D-Von is lost a few times and this is pretty clearly a PG-13 carry job, so it's a good/solid match rather than a good/great one. I still want to see PG-13 vs. FBI in the worst way.

For a second I thought this was an early episode of Power Pro Wrestling. Good quick interview from Lawler, touching on his past feud with Bret but bringing up the possibility of busting out a Sharpshooter in tribute to him.

I liked the two big '96 matches better, as I can't help but miss the presence of TAKA and Hamada, but this is really good and they manage to throw a few twists into a Kaientai clean sweep. We also get a story of the babyfaces starting out trying to beat K D*X at their own game, with some quadruple-teams and dickishness of their own. The ending is spectacularly dickish as Kaientai apparently agrees to wrestle Hoshikawa 1-on-1, but then they cheat to win anyway and force him to quit into a microphone for good measure.

Well, as much as there's debate over work vs. shoot in RINGS, this is clearly a work. Less cooperative than UWFI but some obvious "near-falls." The first part of this was "eh" to me--lots of fumbling around and re-sets. The highlight was Naruse doing a backflip to get out of an attempted armbar, which was a holy-shit spot and sort of the shoot version of Misawa doing the same earlier in the year. The standup portions down the stretch got better as this went along, with some pretty great-looking strikes and a finishing shot that looked like a finisher, even though the match ended on points. If anything, this is also makes you appreciate just how gifted Volk Han and Tamura were on the mat, because these guys couldn't do nearly as much in terms of working holds in this style. On a shallower note, Haseman has possibly the worst skin I've ever seen in wrestling--horrible bacne and a face that looks like he cut himself shaving and then went to sleep on the IWA-MS ring mat every night for 2 years.

Bruiser Bedlam wasn't good either and I think he was around a bit longer than Kharis. Still, he was at least capable of a few tricks that Cornette did his best to capitalize on. Lee seemed to flip a switch when he turned heel--that run was the best of his career.

Even Schiavone has picked up on what Sting wants, but Okerlund and Dillon can't. I can buy Dillon's offices receiving telegrams, smoke signals, and semaphore codes, but I refuse to believe all, or any of them, were pushing for Sting to wrestle Syxx.

I've had about enough of this feud. The Outsiders don't need the belts.

Absolutely crazy balls-to-the-wall war--one of the most "extreme" matches in Raw history because this felt gritty and intense in a way that many garbage brawls fail at. Some cringeworthy bumps along the way, but they all feel organic as Michaels sort of has to fight to survive. It's not Mind Games, but give it more time and it wouldn't be far off. Triple H, Chyna, and the debuting Rick Rude all help Shawn win, though they're still giving lip service to ambiguity in each man's actions--JR for some reason thinks Rude may have been aiming for HHH with the chair, and Michaels reacts with confusion after winning. Then we get appearances by Undertaker and Paul Bearer--I'll be curious as to what led to Kane's debut being put off, because it sure seems like they're gearing up for him to debut at Ground Zero.

Mankind uses an old standby line of his, but as Loss says, it's a great line. Brakus is coming! Now he's targeting Vader.

Easily the best Link match you're going to readily find, and it's not just a carry job--Robertson had his working boots on here, unleashing some offense besides just headbutts and flying out of the ring with gusto. The ref bump was unique and finish effective as well. Not a *great* match as they sort of go off the rails with maybe one too many cut-offs and comebacks before the finish, but a good effort to set up Link vs. JYD next week.

The other problem with the top-rope ban was the second major show after it was the tag title tournament Clash, where because of "NWA rules" moves off the top were allowed--so you immediately had Pilman, Liger, and Benoit leaping all over the place undermining whatever Watts was setting out to accomplish.

Ahmed was turfed from the NOD a week prior in rather anticlimactic fashion, and Ross remarks that he may never be back at 100%--geez, JR, when WAS he ever 100%? ROCK BOTTOM! ROCK BOTTOM! Not called that, but JR *does* refer to him as "The Rock." No one knew it at the time, but as with the Shawn heel turn and Scott Hall appearance on Nitro, this is one of those "nothing will ever quite be the same" moments.

They're using the Patriot music for part of this, which is a little weird. A very babyface-ish video package, though the kid telling America there's nothing we can do about it is fantastic. Yeah, this may well be Bret's last high point, as we're a few weeks away from his forced departure and Raw turning into the Shawn Show.

More hype for Shawn's insurance policy, as Dude offers expert analysis on the upcoming match between Shawn and his friend Mankind--goo goo ga joob, indeed.

Just like Hogan last year, Shawn is becoming a great heel by ramping up everything people hated about him as a babyface. Shawn was almost *too* good of a heel in late '97 as DX was allowed to run rampant over the entire show, particularly with half the roster leaving or injured all at once--in all honesty, as much as I was looking forward to this Yearbook, I'm kinda not so looking forward to seeing both promotions fall off in the last quarter. We'll see how it goes.

Decent slow-paced match, but Tenzan is like a Japanese Carl Oulette with worse execution. I'm not a big execution guy but with Tenzan it's so noticeable as to be distracting--and like Oulette he doesn't really know how to pace or work a full control segment outside of big spots--he is very good at standing and trading blows, though. Hash as usual carries this--at one point he levels Tenzan with a chest kick so hard that Tenzan takes a flat back bump and his entire upper torso literally bounces off the mat. Hash Hulks Up and decisively puts Tenzan away.

Well-worked but too long for the stip, and at times this veered into Rotten brothers territory. They did make sure to get this over as something special and extra-extreme, though--Styles actually did a good job of calling it. One of those '97 Japanese indy "worth watching once" matches, but that's it.

Heenan's sober this year, thank goodness. Y'know, Luger would have been better off just covering up and let the NWO attack him. Take a beating and keep your title. I guess Darth Helmet's declaration about evil triumphing because good is dumb still holds up. A fake Sting whacks Luger with the bat as he bounces off the ropes and even though this is a little bit better disguise than Nash's at BATB, the announcers still come off as dumb for buying it. I don't know why they feared this, but it REALLY seems like WCW was afraid of another crazy trash-throwing incident as the NWO gets out of there FAST with Hogan covering up his head, though we don't get a lot of bottle-throwing. Then apparently it takes 45 minutes for them to get to a proper backstage/locker area, so we get a LONG panning crowd shot of whooping fans who really feel broken up about the title change. Does Tony have a TATTOO on his forearm?? The NWO re-spraypaint the belt with a cameo from Dennis Rodman. The action of the match itself wasn't too bad, but another fake Sting already feels lazy and it's starting to make less sense why Sting would stick by WCW considering how often he continues to be doubted. The Outsiders retain the tag belts AGAIN?? Talk about milking something ridiculously past its sell-by date. That's arguably even worse booking than this World title turnaround, which hurts Luger but for whatever reason never really bothered me either.

Terry Funk hates the ignorant inbreds of Pittsburgh, then talks about how he left Florida because of the stupid crackers there as well as Dusty Rhodes. Now the problems come from Haiti and Nassau. He plans on leaving the stinking professional wrestling business (HA!), but not without his ECW title.

Seems like a good way to destroy your knees in a hurry, though.

He did it in one of the Bulldog matches--I remember noting it in my review. ::looks it up:: SummerSlam '92: " And that pescado-into-a-neckbreaker thing...I don't know what that was, if it was what Bret had in mind, or what, but it looked awesome."

I haven't been high on 1997 Babyface Taz but this is Babyface Taz done right. He's not mad at Candido, and he shows how calm and not-mad he is by destroying his students and not breaking a Tazmission on one of them.