PeteF3

Good match that I'm not as high on as the others--the criticisms people had of Kanemoto in earlier bouts, which I hadn't really noticed, seemed to rear their heads here, as he seems to have trouble holding matches together as well as Liger and Otani can. He has some terrific moves but isn't as complete a worker as the best NJ juniors. This is still very good and feels really evenly matched--a lot of these upsets come off as flukes because the guy doing the job gets to control the offense for the bulk of the match. They don't work like that here--Kanemoto is on top for a healthy chunk of this and while Liger gets in some good near-falls, he spends most of this fighting from underneath.

The tear gas line is from the 5/5/90 episode of USWA-Texas, when Jeannie pepper sprays Chris Adams. No recollection about the religious fundamentalism line and am baffled as to its context--maybe something he said to Akbar. My favorite non-ironic Lowrance call is from the Gordy/Roberts vs. Von Erichs Badstreet Match of 1988, pleading for Kevin to be okay after Gordy has piledriven him and is sitting on the mat, cackling with glee. One of the indelible images from my wrestling childhood--I didn't watch much World Class as a kid but I did happen to see that on ESPN one afternoon.

Right, one of Tenryu's other beefs was being asked to team with Wajima, so that was part of the turn.

AND NOW THAT FAT SLOB IS CHOKING JEFF JARRETT.

I still think Marc Lowrance is in the next tier down from the all-time greats. He wasn't a guy you turned to if you wanted a breakdown of the pressure points of a figure four, but few people have been better at getting over heel atrocities. Lowrance *made* Embry-era World Class/USWA--Embry himself was the only guy more important in making that run as ridiculously fun as it was. I'd be curious as to what El-P thinks of him as he makes his way through WCCW.

"Same as it ever was" was precisely the problem, since the consensus at the time and as it appeared watching the Yearbook was that WCW Flair was stale as month-old bread and could have used a change of scenery (or a babyface turn), and there was some naive hope that the WWF would provide it. "This is how Vince always did things" doesn't really fly either, considering what a huge left turn in booking philosophy is coming for the WWF in just a couple months' time.

This was definitely Gilbert working entirely on his own.

No idea why the Dudleys came out, other than to set up a contrived series of run-ins. Rude is having too much fun being filthy--"Big Dick is choking Balls!" Sandman is a guy who seems to have totally lost direction since his feud with Raven was blown off. This ends with Stevie knocking out Terry Funk with the Stevie Kick and doing the Big Stevie Cool pose over him.

Richards regales us with the story of hitching a ride to Madison Square Garden the Philadelphia Civic Center and seeing Jimmy Snuka dive off a cage the Midnight Express win the tag titles from Arn & Tully and being inspired to be a wrestler. Sorry--just kind of funny to see this in proximity with the Mankind interview. The BWO--Da Blue Guy, Hollywood Nova, and Thomas "Inchworm" Rodman--follow up, and they're not happy about Stevie abandoning them. I like Stevie's promo and don't even mind the glasses, but they still seem to be half-assing this transformation. The Raven split was drawn out to ridiculousness and now even though he's seemingly no longer a member, Richards is still wearing BWO colors.

Dutch Mantell is feuding with GYPSY JOE now?? And talking about Raw? And aligned with ECW?! "Weird" barely begins to even describe this episode.

Fake Diesel and Fake Razor are now feuding--not exactly the MegaPowers exploding. McMEMPHIS!! Vince carefully explains to the USWA fanbase what an "ingrate" is, and explains how a "complete bum" who can't wrestle but can do impressions was made into something by the World Wrestling Federation, only to turn his back...for the USWA, of all things. Vince is much more animated here than in 1993. Razor and Diesel end up brawling.

Billy Joe still throws a wicked punch. And he's still sporting his ridiculous one-legged tights from 1989. He and future WCW cup-of-coffee-holder Luther Biggs do a number on Christopher with an electric guitar in the WMC parking lot.

Razor cuts a Spanish-tinged promo on Billy Joe Travis. Pretty bad and I don't know why we're bothering to continue with this gimmick charade, unless like with Jacobs they were just killing time until or if they could come up with something better.

Yeah, sadly Lawler and Lance are starting to feel and sound really out-of-touch here--Dreamer's name being dropped draws a noticeable pop from the studio crowd, too. This is an interesting addition to the Lawler-ECW feud with Lawler taking a different tone than what he was doing in the WWF, but I don't think this is going to do much for the USWA. Lawler also takes time to gloat about ECW's role model taking a shotgun to his head--stay classy, Jerry.

Hot closing stretch and a mega-pop for the title change from a crowd that was subdued to start. But I have a feeling that if this whole match were that good, they wouldn't slash it from 28:40 down to 5 minutes.

There's nothing quite new here--we've seen bogus Stings worshipping Hogan before, we've seen Sting Death Drop Bischoff before, we've seen him come down from the rafters before, we've seen Hogan cower before...but damn, it just doesn't get old. We do get one new twist, as Sting flies back into the rafters as the NWO surrounds him. This is one of those segments I remember absolutely losing my shit over and a lot of details--Schiavone's "We are out of time!" "HE'S GONE! AND SO ARE WE!"--have stuck in my mind. Incidentally, one thing I didn't remember was Hogan pratfalling over the bowed-over fake Sting. That was pretty funny.

Syxx points out that Nick Patrick wasn't reinstated until the night *after* Slamboree--hard to argue with that. Then we get a replay of Flair getting destroyed the previous week. Quick and dirty segment--I'm surprised that amidst all the clever lines they didn't further capitalize on being in "Nash"ville (we did get a fan sign to that effect).

Not a bad piece at all, but it is very '80s Macho Man which is sort of jarring in the black-and-white, MTV shaky-cam '90s.

God, if you could combine the WWF main event scene of 1997 with WCW's mid- and undercard, you'd have the greatest American promotion of all-time. This is fantastic, maybe a better TV match than the one I just raved about over on Raw. The spots hit, the comedy works, the complexity of some of the sequences is breathtaking, and this is legitimately one of the better builds to a dive train that you'll ever see. Larry Z notwithstanding, this is also helped immeasurably by Mike Tenay's commentary--his build-up to Garza's corkscrew plancha is letter-perfect and paid off wonderfully. It really does make you wonder how much we're missing in not being able to understand the Moraleses, Riveras, Babas, and Fukuzawas of the world even if great in-ring psychology is universal.

Sullivan is on a "self-imposed sabbatical," which was a shoot. Okerlund chides Konnan for daring to speak Spanish, and Konnan chides Sullivan for not being able to get rid of Benoit and hiding behind Jackie. Sullivan is a "bi-yoz-nitch." He then calls out Hugh Morrus--the feud we all may deserve, but not the one we need.

This was an old-school southern-fried tag match in many ways. The pace is a little rushed, but in about 10-12 minutes they fit in two FIP segments and every tag staple from the double-teams, to the ref distractions, to the false hot tag, to the Hart Foundation swarming the ring as soon as the bell rings, is carried out perfectly for maximum heat. Michaels, for all his obnoxiousness out of the ring, is still bringing the goods once the bell rings. Everyone's at least decent here but he was far and away the best performer in the match. His offense had snap and was surprisingly varied by his standards, and he was great at taking a beating during and after the match. The finish is a little rushed, but it works--it's no Hokuto & Kandori uniting to topple Aja & Bull, but as a free TV match in 1997 it's excellent--probably trailing only the European title final as far as the WWF goes. Austin takes all credit for himself, takes out Bret after the match, and leaves Shawn to the wolves, prompting a backstage argument. This seems to be an increasingly rare Raw that goes off the air in standard fashion, rather than on an in-ring cliffhanger.

Pre-Have a Nice Day, this was pretty much all new material at the time. Though I guess from now on, Mick's inspiration will be the Slaughter/Patterson alley fight or something. We get clips from The Loved One, and even some footage from DeNucci's gym of Mick mixing it up with Shane Douglas. Terrific interview, of course--I don't know if these segments rank up at the very top of Foley's promos, just because there's a lot of competition, but they certainly have a strong argument--maybe the biggest being that it actually tangibly affected his career to a much greater degree than any of his anti-hardcore promos did.

Undertaker appears to be on a crucifix, which I'm stunned they got away with, unless it was just too quick and subtle for anyone to notice.

Dig how Ross and McMahon (who are both awesome here) are more offended at Lawler's comments about Marlena and Dakota than they are about using a slur to describe Goldust. I was ambivalent on the Goldust unmasked interviews before, but the fact is they actually got him surprisingly over for a few weeks...until they threw him in the ring with Jerry Lawler in Evansville. Not the last time in 1997 that the WWF would book a prospective babyface in a city where he'd predictably be shat on. You have to respect Lawler's commitment to staying heel as best he can. Pretty spirited match--the kind of solid mid-card bout that was rapidly disappearing from the thinning WWF roster. Goldust actually throws better punches here than Lawler does, but the King ends up stealing a pretty big upset victory.

Onita's problem isn't the haircut, it's that he's working heel, a situation that doesn't seem to play to his strengths at all. He's all about heat, selling, and big comebacks--here he works like the Undertaker, no-selling and shrugging off pretty much everything that's thrown at him. Not sure what the story is behind the turn but it's not for the better. Tanaka is far and away the star here, putting on a compelling performance both on top and (mostly) underneath, as this comes off as a glorified Tanaka-Onita singles match with occasional contributions by Kanemura--the other 3 may as well have not bothered to show up. Onita being so dominant would be fine if this built to a huge comeback where Tanaka pays him back for everything he did, but outside of a few token moves Onita doesn't actually give him anything. Maybe he's less Undertaker and more Hollywood Hogan. Then Onita pins Tanaka anyway after kicking his ass the whole match. This was a pretty decent match, window-dressing partners aside, but pretty lousy booking. If this leads to *another* match where Tanaka actually pins Onita, then I'll be less upset. Something tells me that's a pipe dream, though.