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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Re: Dandy, I just remember Satoru Komiyama being touted as the "Japanese Maddux" by somebody Mets-related...I don't know if it was Bobby Valentine, Steve Phillips, or somebody else. He provided 1 year of poor relief pitching and was back to Japan. Shingo Takatsu and Kenji Johjima might also qualify as comps. I don't have time to elaborate really fully, but others that come to mind... Shawn Michaels = Gary Sheffield David Schultz = Albert Belle (though Schultz's career is kind of an insult to Belle, who was an absolute monster at his peak) Bobby Eaton = Mariano Rivera John Cena = Derek Jeter
  2. PeteF3
    Yeah in 71-72 with Murdoch. And after solo. He actually was a babyface in the AWA before his big turn in Florida, teaming with Billy Graham and feuding with Von Raschke & Horst Hoffman.
  3. PeteF3
    Michaels takes a power bomb on the floor and it's sold like a hip toss. Or a Tiger Mask piledriver on the floor. That aside, the use of the camera as a payback spot was a clever touch as was throwing in a false finish off of it--though Shawn blatantly telling Sid to go after Jose on the apron was a pretty badly exposing moment. Complaints about Shawn's drawing power aside, the crowd that he did draw certainly was majorly invested in this. It's the best Shawn has come off as a babyface since the concussion angle a year earlier.
  4. PeteF3
    DFA pretty much echoed my thoughts as I watched this whole thing--the WWF has a good main event scene but is REALLY lacking in depth, compared to previous years and especially compared to current WCW. So the first portion of this is pretty blah and the only guys with any star power are shitty workers like Crush and Ahmed Johnson. It makes you thankful for 90-second intervals. Luckily Austin is in quickly and he gets two opportunities to clear the ring and be the central focus of the match. And the match picks up in general as we get some solid mid-carders like Mero, Helmsley, and Goldust in, as the ring clears out again before Bret's big entrance. Rocky Maivia comes in in the 20's and amusingly enough he and Austin immediately target each other, in some unintentional foreshadowing of the future direction of the company. Terry Funk is the highlight of this thing and after Austin's clear MVP performance, is possibly the most enjoyable participant in the match. The finish was a shocker at the time as it seemed foregone that Bret was winning straight away to go on to face Shawn at WM. Plus a real honest-to-goodness screwjob had never happened in the Royal Rumble, so the idea feels fresh, and Bret's post-match tantrum is one for the ages and it feels legitimately out of control when he goes after McMahon at the announcer's desk. Not a great Royal Rumble, but probably a better one than '96 as the final group of guys was pretty big on star power and the potential result was more wide-open.
  5. PeteF3
    This was good, though there were better matches in '96 from GAEA. Ozaki getting her ass kicked really does feel like justice served if you watch the '96 stuff, as that year was all about Oz Academy running roughshod over everybody, just as Kaientai was doing for MPro and the NWO in WCW. Most of the story here was about Nagayo and her troupe not taking this shit anymore and dishing out to Oz Academy what they'd been giving the previous year. That continues with Nagayo doing a Hulk-Up as Ozaki is beating on her, a spot Ozaki did several times with Nagayo's young partners. All of that still isn't enough, as Satomura still does the job in the end. Not sure where it goes but they're certainly building up to a huge moment when Oz Academy finally loses a match with Ozaki involved.
  6. PeteF3
    The Triple Crown is formed (after a few false starts, IIRC) in April of '89, though for '89 and '90 it revolves around the veterans Jumbo, Tenryu, Gordy, and Hansen. The SWS exodus isn't until March/April of '90 and the young-guys push starts immediately after that, so you'll get the closing days of Misawa as Tiger Mask and Kawada as a member of Footloose in there.
  7. PeteF3
    Yoji Anjo for sure, as well as Ashura Hara in Hara's retirement match.
  8. PeteF3
    Yeah, the camp stuff gets toned down and we get a southern-fried wrasslin' show instead, which from the WWF's standpoint is actually equally as bold of a move and makes for a better show. That ring is *tiny*, as evidenced when Austin and Goldust do ropes-running and basically take one step in the process. Crazy chaotic finish involving most of the WWF mid-card, including Hunter Hearst Helmsley beating down Goldust with a pool cue and Austin backdropping Terry Funk into a beer tub. Next week Shotgun returns to NYC and goes to...Webster Hall. Which we just saw getting torn up by Raven and Sandman! Wild.
  9. PeteF3
    Now *this* is the ideal of the Shotgun format--instead of mildly amusing but ultimately toothless stuff about Fondle Me Elmos and wrestling nuns, this had the feel of something getting out of control. Well, I guess it was--you can tell once Vince starts talking over Funk's promo that he's trying to suppress this any way he can. Hey, you reap what you sow, Vince. Funk goes off on everybody he can, including WCW, Pettingill, Vince, and that Okie asshole JR, until Austin finally has enough.
  10. PeteF3
    Not really a match, sort of a re-do of the Webster Hall angle for the ECW Arena audience. This time the BWO stuff comes in the ring and it's a little more clear what they're teasing. Richards superkicks both Sandman and Raven and both times it looks like he might be aiming for the other. He offers Sandman a BWO t-shirt, which Sandman looks at quizzically before using it to choke Raven out. This ends with Raven tied in the ropes and beaten into unconsciousness with the Singapore cane and Sandman leaves with the belt, though not the champion. Crowd is really itching to get behind a full-fledged babyface Richards, and the clueless putz standing up for himself and becoming a "serious" wrestler is a pretty compelling angle that sadly wouldn't really see a payoff.
  11. PeteF3
    Rich and Morton form the team of Whiskey Bent & Hellbound, and they fare okay but not much better than that. They lose, split up, and Morton does the job again in an impromptu match with Rich. Rich can still work moderately well but looks absolutely horrible. I didn't mind Morton working a match like this, but I did have to shake my head at Rich still apparently needing the money badly enough to bleed for 200 bucks.
  12. PeteF3
    Short, but better than the previous week's match, with Regal busting out some new tricks and decisively ending this little mini-rivalry.
  13. PeteF3
    The USWA definitely isn't as concerned with offending anyone in their depiction of the NOD. And it's not like it's even particularly insulting (the goofy NBA names are more amusing than anything). Wolfie in his Shotgun Saturday Night t-shirt calls out Bill Dundee.
  14. PeteF3
    Looks like we're a little out of order here, as I think this incident is what Lawler was talking about during his interview. The lady with the cane is supposedly Wolfie D's mother.
  15. PeteF3
    Lawler's entrance music sounds eerily like the Disco Inferno theme. He speaks about anti-establishment in society and growing up cheering for bad guys, but declares that a line has to be drawn, and calls out PG-13 for their tactics.
  16. PeteF3
    Oh God, the black WMC fans all throwing up the raised fists at PG-13 is too much. This is almost as good as the Snowman angle as far as Memphis race relations in wrestling go. Really good studio tag match showing that PG-13 are still the '90s masters of the style. Dunn's along for the ride and Flanagan has a few '90s moves in his arsenal to keep this interesting. Lots of false finishes and run-ins until an old lady hands Wolfie D a cane which he uses to clobber Flanagan and bring the tag belts back to PG-13. That's not Mae Young, is it??! Also, the USWA's ideas of black men names are fantastic. NOD member Tracy Smothers is now "Shaquille Ali." Reggie B. Fine is now "Kareem Olajuwon." Miss Texas is "Queen Moesha." Had the USWA held on we'd probably get TD Steel repackaged as Lebron Mutombo, or Mark Henry as Asante Ewing.
  17. PeteF3
    So, did Kawada & Taue *not* win the tag titles at the end of the '93 League? Okay then. Squint and you'd be forgiven for mistaking Ace for Greg Valentine here. Ending stretch is basically a Taue-Ace singles match with Kawada and Doc as NPCs.
  18. PeteF3
    In a way this actually *does* make kayfabe sense, since this match was added and announced during the broadcast itself, at a time when doing that was actually fresh and innovative. A year later and no one would even bother trying to explain how a card could be made up on the spot. Hogan is fantastic again here, declaring that there's no piece of paper that says he has to wrestle tonight and blathering about how the NWO does whatever they want whenever they want--only for Giant to cut him off and turn him into a blubbering, begging fool. This match is a testament to the outstanding conditioning of these two athletes, as they go 30-45 minutes into the airing of Robin Hood with neither man breaking a sweat and Hogan not getting in any offense in that time--a normal competitor would be dead if they received punishment for that long. Usual NWO run-in ending by the B-teamers and Syxx, but Giant shrugs them all off and Hogan wants them to get out of dodge! The Robin Hood tie-in was cheesy as hell and critically lambasted at the time, but WCW has really never felt hotter. A big, hyped Dome crowd, a new babyface star born earlier in the night, and for the past few weeks the WCW-NWO battle has felt much more even, giving the shows even greater urgency because they once again feel unpredictable after a rash of long NWO beatdowns.
  19. PeteF3
    This is a strong heel wrestling promo on top of the cool attitude and production work.
  20. PeteF3
    The Outsiders get punked for the first time themselves, and DDP is now a major babyface, completing it by exiting through the crowd. Perfect execution on a great angle that was really as much of a shock at the time as most of the NWO turns.
  21. PeteF3
    Rocky has energy but he was definitely better off once he stopped aping his father's spots. The push was simply too much, too soon, even if he was a fit for the plucky blue-chipper character. He was a natural trash-talker heel who played football for the biggest heel college program maybe of all-time. Anyway, at this point they were still building to Austin vs. Davey Boy and Bret vs. Shawn at WM--this is a decent enough angle that also fosters the potential Owen/Davey Boy split, as Owen is too busy staring at Bret to notice Austin laying the Bulldog out. There's also a lot of weird peripheral stuff here--Honky Tonk Man is sitting in on commentary along with Bret, and Clarence Mason is still managing Owen & Bulldog and not doing much.
  22. PeteF3
    Sid quotes Nietzsche! Holy shit! Uh, yeah, what El-P said. Sid's promo is good but both guys are equally guilty of downplaying the Pete Lothario angle. Shawn is OUT of it.
  23. PeteF3
    I watched a few Yagi matches as part of my supplemental '96 stuff but while I thought they were fine, I found them so unremarkable that I didn't bother to even comment on them because I had nothing to say. But either they were off nights for her or for me, because she looks really good here. She's innovative but not in that RVD/Davey Richards way, she just has really cool and new ways to essentially take people down or roll them up. And she knows how to wrestle--I love when Kuzumi is struggling to break out of a leg or arm lock and Yagi uses her free leg to try to subdue her, forcing Kuzumi to go for the ropes instead of countering the hold. Kuzumi isn't as good but she does have a terrific dropkick--actually one of the best dropkicks in joshi from what I've seen--and matches Yagi in terms of highspots. Finish is a flash pin, but it's flashy (er...in the other sense of the word) and well-executed. This felt refreshingly like a flashback to the JWP of 1990-91.
  24. PeteF3
    I wouldn't start before then, but 1989 is a fantastic year for AJPW. Then again, '90 is where it really assumes its '90s "identity," though the year starts of realllly slowly.
  25. PeteF3
    Okay, this went over like a lead balloon. I'm not sure what type of tone this needed, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't mid-'90s Vince Kiddie Carnival Barker Voice.
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