PeteF3

I'm less high on Gertner than everyone else, namely because he takes 10 minutes to say what could be said in 5 even though his character is effective. The Gangstas are still technically ECW Tag Champions--I think--even though the Dudleys have the belts. Bubba Ray seems to be regressing back to his old goofy character.

This started off with a terrific heated brawl that brings to mind a wilder version of the Midnights/Fantastics Clash I match, and then kept going, and going, and going, to the point of silliness and tedium. The weapons and the brawling were mostly under control for awhile, but they climaxed with Aja unleashing the fire extinguisher, which sets off a chaotic scene of announcers running for cover and Korakuen fire alarms going off. After that, we enter a stretch I've seen all too often in joshi where the 2.9s are so numerous and overdone that I start to lose interest in who wins or loses. We also get both teams looking rather stupid as they completely decimate one opponent but don't even bother to make an effort to subdue their partner, who inevitably brushes against the pin attempt thus forcing a kickout. They do manage to tie this back together somewhat towards the end, as Kyoko does a great job of reviving an unconscious Aja, who has just enough in her to unleash one Uraken before collapsing on Mita for the pin. They got me with that one--I expected Aja to miss and knock Kyoko out leading to another run of offense for LCO. Overall though, this was too long for its own good and all the heeling by LCO--the weapons, the interference, the MIST (which Kyoko sells like her outfit got stained instead of like death)--reeked of desperation and trying too hard. If this is the best AJW has to offer for 1997 then I'm glad we got as little on the Yearbook as we did.

Hey now...Toyota DID bust out a new finisher at the end here. Anyway, I thought this was a nice solid meat-and-potatoes match--one of the closest things to an AJW "TV match" that we've seen on a Yearbook. Ito has a bunch of nice counters and submission work to keep Toyota grounded while also keeping her off-balance with a few Inoue-inspired flying spots, and Manami's hit-and-run moves seem more like a legitimate strategy to deal with that rather than Manami Being Manami. Good stuff here, even if the atmosphere feels a bit like late-1987 UWF.

Good in a house show sense but I wasn't overly wowed by this, though I agree that it beats the Douglas match and that Sabu throws nice punches. Bill Alfonso's verbal banter was entertaining--that damned whistle wasn't. Scary post-match scene as Sabu and RVD seemingly have to cut their post-match beatdown short and they wisely bail to avoid the crap being thrown at the ring.

Just think they wanted something big for the 100th and first 3-hour Nitro. Luger winning a non-title match over Hogan had already happened, so that wouldn't have added much, either.

It may have just been a happy coincidence, but there's something cool about the 100th Nitro main event being a re-match of the bout that instantly put Nitro on the map. Hogan completely carries this--Luger is competent, but for most of this he's just a warm body as Hogan sets the pace, works the crowd, and completely controls this match. The clinching Torture Rack is pretty electrifying--this time period feels like the peak for *both* companies. There's good stuff to come, but now Austin will never be the same, Shawn's a heel and is already starting to overshadow Bret, and WCW will be entering a holding pattern until Starrcade and we know how that goes.

JJ cuts a long, boring promo seemingly designed to kill time, before we get Sting out here. JJ's big announcement is a disappointment--what is it with Curt Hennig and letdown announcements? Bischoff's not in power anymore--at least have the opponent be Buff Bagwell or some other NWO B-teamer.

Ted throws one last hail mary pass for relevance. The era of managers--particularly babyface ones--was past at this point. Not a change for the better, but a fact. You'd think they'd let the Steiners say *something* since they're in Detroit, but DiBiase does all the talking. I forget when the titles actually switched but Road Wild would be past time for this chase to end for good.

The Hall thing is extra-weird because Hogan waits until his music starts playing again to suddenly bring it up.

We get to see more of Pillman than we really needed, and he gets into a ringside argument with Goldust and counted out against Bob Holly.

Huge boos as soon as Vince gets out the words "most flamboyant..." out. Shawn cuts to the chase and tells off Vince, Undertaker, and the WWF fans for passing the buck onto him. Vince *still* can't help but smirk when Shawn tells him off. I did like Vince saying "fuck this" and shoving the mic in his chest and bailing, though. Undertaker appears as Shawn wraps up, and we get our first "Shawn Michaels has left the building" remark in many a year. Undertaker warns Shawn that he'll pay for his crimes...which brings out Paul Bearer, "speaking of paying for crimes!" I liked how these promos all segued into each other.

There's no getting around this: the stereotype of German being an ugly language is totally based on merit.

There seemed to be a timing/communication screw-up here, as JR and Bret talk about the upcoming title defense against the Patriot--then when Sarge comes out, he announces the same match and Bret suddenly acts indignant. Austin, incredibly, shows up here and we apparently have an IC title rematch scheduled for tonight. Yeah, I'm guessing there's no way we come close to getting that.

Hopefully they do what they did with the WM shows, and upload the Meltzer segments to Youtube. There's some really cool info in those 10-minute bits for each show.

That Onita crying story is hilarious knowing what was going on at Survivor Series, probably shortly after this show was taped. Wrestlingdata says the Shooter was Katsutoshi Niiyama/Great Punk. Verichev's partner was Boris Gogichashivili--yes, THE Boris Gogichashivili. Edit: Bix must have found an outdated site--Online Onslaught is still up-to-date and already has an update on Sheamus winning the WWE title, and Rick Scaia recapping the quarterfinals episode of Raw.

Cornette & the Midnights would have gotten one at Clash IX if such a chant existed in 1989.

The best kind of heel turn! Michael Hayes was just trying to help Kerry Von Erich, too. Very well-booked finish--one might think the WWF would have painted themselves in a corner here, as Bret pretty much had to win, but him beating Undertaker had to be done very carefully to be believable.

This match deserves to be remembered for more than the closing spot, because it's high-energy, terrific, and full of great offense from Owen in particular. He goes all Aja Kong on Austin's hand and we get the rare middle-finger-based psychology for a bit, while then switching focus to Austin's neck, which in a way is serendipitious with what's to come. Lots of twists and turns and momentum shifts, and even the restholds are used effectively and with different variations. Then the sick tombstone spot and scary aftermath...watching Austin attempting to crawl around barely able to move is still frightening. I still don't know to this day what Owen was thinking--the kneel-down version of the tombstone was a semi-regular move of his.

Chyna's timing is pretty far off here at multiple spots--she also absolutely killed Mick with the door, hitting him with it so hard that he didn't grab his head, he grabbed his shoulder. Then of course her jumping into the cage too early and having to leave. The crowd picks up on things as soon as Mankind starts climbing the cage, dropping a "Su-per-fly" chant. Mankind takes off his mask and rips off his shirt to reveal what was supposed to be a Dude Love heart, but by this point is just a pink smudge. Fun follow-up to a pretty fun mid-card feud, and the Dude basically Hulking Up out of his coma afterward in time with the music is great.

This G1 was a single-elimination tournament and not a round-robin, so I could see why Kensuke's victory may ring a little hollow. That aside, we see a pretty good closing stretch in front of a jacked crowd. Tenzan has NWO Japan with him, including Vicious & Delicious, but can't follow up with his win over Hash.

Chono in the all-black casualwear and sunglasses is about the smoothest looking motherfucker in wrestling. Until he gets on the apron and changes the tide of the match, this is way more interesting with Hashimoto on top, as Tenzan for the bulk of this doesn't offer much more than chops and eye gouges. The closing stretch is a lot better, minus one of the weirder blown spots you'll ever see--Tenzan's foot getting caught in the turnbuckle like that seems so fluky and unlikely that one could swear it was a planned spot. They run through a quick Hashimoto comeback before going to what appeared to be the originally planned finish, with Tenzan picking up a big win. Not an overly impressive performance by Tenzan all in all, but Hash carries this to something pretty good.

Yes, that. And release the goddamned Money Inc.-Steiners title change already.

A sampling of crowd chants: "NUR-SING-HOME!" "STEERS-AND-QUEERS!" "TEX-AS SUCKS!" And people think Full Sail can be annoying. Well, that aside, I was looking forward to this, with the Bizarro World crowd dynamic, but this ended up being pointless because of Shane's refusal to work as a babyface. He finally throws a few token attempts towards the end, like asking the crowd if they want one more belly-to-belly, but that's it. Sabu runs in for no reason other than Paul E. couldn't be bothered to book a sensible finish and Funk retains his title.

Bad stuff here--this was a very inauspicious first look at Youth and Storm worked kind of dumb too, though his actual move execution was fine, at least in comparison to the OMEGA stuff. The presence of the cage was dumb if they were going to brawl all over the building anyway. Lots of eye-rolling moments not just limited to the constant entering and exiting of the cage, like Youth's Asai moonsault to nowhere and the blown finish.