PeteF3

I don't think they count as "MegaPowers"--two singles legends (in their own way) coming together as a unit. They're more like the Road Warriors, Demolition, and Rock 'n Roll Express of jobbers, respectively. Rodz and Scicluna have a much stronger argument.

WWE would be wise to skip the stage for WM--with that giant video board they don't need one.

'96 Cornette was evidently flashing back to the days of less quality control: there's a TBS interview where he makes the exact same burglar-rape joke, about Baby Doll.

Edit: wrong thread.

...or, with trash-throwing and heel turns signified by t-shirt changes, WCW. I do credit Surge for changing outfits for each round. Sweet Dreams is proud to be the first black champion in OMEGA history--eat your heart out, Jackie Robinson. Edit: I do see that Matt's sterling mic skills have fully arrived, though.

Yes, the live play-by-play is Strike 1, right to begin with. Cham Pain has indeed recovered from the Pedigree Driver '97 to reach the semifinals of whatever the hell tournament this is. This could charitably be described as "raw," but it's an interesting enough time capsule. Matt Hardy already knows how to connect with an audience, and the audience themselves make for an interesting contrast to your typical American crowd of 1997--way more kids and families, no snark seen anywhere. In that sense, this was kind of refreshing. This would have been, all in all, a pleasant enough diversion but the use of the table at the end was pretty gratuitous.

Ah, Ravishing Rick--back where he belongs, milking crowd reactions and playing fans like violins. Douglas was willing to trade Francine for one night to gain Rude as an ally, and we close out with a guitar version of Rude's old WWF theme.

Longer than even the longest MSC or Sportatorium beatdowns, it seems. First Dreamer and Sandman, then Funk, then Taz. There are some good moments here, like Lawler finally getting some payback, and Taz getting beer poured on him and Candido locking on the kata hajime, but they're more spread out than they really should be.

Still waiting for that PG-13 vs. FBI match. JC does a decent job of not projecting even a shred of sympathy as he cuts this promo from a hospital bed.

Well, no beating around the bush from Mr. Titan here. "There you have it," indeed.

I had high expectations for these two to come through in a singles match after their work dominating 6-mans, and they didn't disappoint. They smartly worked around the explosions and made you wait for them, and they gave us a ton of dramatic kickouts but never crossed the line into self-indulgence. Tanaka doesn't have Onita's presence and charisma, but he's not far off in terms of fired-up comebacks and has way more athletic talent at this stage--it's a fairly even trade-off.

Our first look at Frye and man was he awesome, and I really wish a guy like him who was capable of believably heeling it up to a degree not seen in shootstyle could have had a run in UWFI or RINGS, just to see what it would have been like. This is all-action and ends before it can possibly wear out its welcome, but Frye is slow to break his winning hold and that draws in Naoya Ogawa and then Inoki himself.

Pretty good match with a borderline-nonsensical finish. It's OK if you want to establish "shit happens" and that refs can get bumped but it doesn't automatically mean a screwjob, but I don't know if that was really NJPW's intention or not. These two always have great chemistry but even ignoring the booking I thought their '96 matches were better and tighter.

Yeah, absolutely nothing of consequence happened here, and the idea of seeing this go 60 sounds excruciating--particularly since it seems that no team was ever really in danger, thus telegraphing the result badly even by the standards of many hour draws. Tajiri and Yamagawa's spunky underdog performances may have come off better in another setting but here they were crying out for more interesting opponents than Jado & Gedo.

Decent enough match and nice to see something different ending Nitro besides some combination of Hogan, Luger, and Sting. Credit to WCW: they did go out of their way to make Giant's chokeslam of Bischoff really feel like a big moment.

Yes, this is one of Flair's lowest points so far. He really comes off as completely out to lunch. I never liked the whole Hennig turn at WarGames but maybe having that door slammed on his head and resulting hiatus was actually the best thing for his career.

Wright's really picked up on some subtle heel touches--it's not the most original spot in the world, but it amuses me that I'm watching him execute the exact same "He's got my hair, ref!" trick I just watched the Midnight Express do in 1984 Houston. And then he combines it with some nice Steven Wright-esque escapes and cartwheels and, in all honesty, pretty much leads Jericho through a good solid match. It's not as spectacular as what we imagine the WCW cruiserweights to be, but this was a nifty little bout carried by a guy wrestling well beyond his years.

Both men play their anthems before the match, and they actually have the audacity to book Bret to jump Patriot in the middle of The Star-Spangled Banner--that was ballsy and eyebrow-raising at the time, even moreso than the O Canada interruption by Austin, and would never, ever fly a few years later. That pisses the crowd off as much as Bret's earlier promo, and we start getting bottles thrown at the ring in a sight you really didn't see outside of WCW and even that had seemingly been toned down in recent weeks. Pretty basic match, as Shawn does commentary and does a decent job at getting the angles and wrestlers over as opposed to just himself. He then needlessly interjects himself in the match and gives Patriot an upset win. Patriot badly needed a rebound after being thrown to the wolves for his wrestling debut the previous week, but I wish they'd had Bret do something to provoke Shawn like knock his headset off or something. Would have also served as good foreshadowing for SummerSlam.

I know he didn't like saying it, but Bret's enema line draws absolutely huge heat that threatens to drown out the rest of his promo. From the viewpoint of a Browns fan who works for a company where 75% of upper management are Pittsburghers, it may be the greatest line in wrestling history. Bret has words for Shawn, Undertaker, and a special challenge for the Patriot.

Lawler is awesome on the mic here--"I see the drug addict drunk, and I see some street walking [bleep], but I don't see a partner!" Rick Rude comes out of the broadcast area to be the 3rd man, but immediately turns, and thankfully Joey Styles doesn't blow the surprise the way he usually does. Cliffhanger ending as Rude chains the door shut with Dreamer and Sandman trapped inside the cage with Sabu, RVD, Lawler, and Fonzie. Things will probably improve with Rude now hopefully off commentary.

Okay stuff here but fairly psychologically empty other than Bubba Ray's ankle. At one point Bubba holds up Mustafa's legs as if to set up for the Wazzup Drop, but instead D-Von drops New Jack's head into Mustafa's groin. That was the definite #2 highlight of this clip behind New Jack's cage dive.

By the end of this I was worried that Doug was going to climb right out of my screen and give *me* what-for. Good promo promising vengeance not just on Tommy Dreamer and ECW but also the WWF.

I wonder if there's any place that has 1997 Memphis Flyers on microfilm. Tommy Dreamer sent in a taped promo that was un-airable, so JC Ice is out to read a letter instead. "'Your whole piece of--can I say that word?" "CERTAINLY YOU CAN'T SAY THAT."

One of the problems this had is that it came right off Santo/Felino, which absolutely smoked this as an overall match but especially as a bomb-fest. This started off *great*, with Taue borrowing one of Misawa's tactics and blitzing him right from the start with a Nodowa, and then Misawa's holy-living-fuck backflip counter to the attempted apron nodowa. But the longer this goes the more it feels like it's meandering, like a bunch of good-looking bombs with not a whole lot in-between and a lot of repetition. It only goes a little over 20 but feels longer. It's a good match, not nearly as disappointing as the Kawada/Misawa bout, but ever since they hit their peak in January AJPW really feels like it's losing the plot--both in terms of booking and in terms of putting together a great match. And that ending was WTF on several levels.

Not a bad closing stretch, but definitely not anything to make you want to seek out the full match. Albright unleashes one monster German but otherwise looks pretty blown up. Doc and Albright constantly throwing up the Triangle of Power sign is unintentionally funny since it looks eerily similar to DDP's BANG!