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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    I dunno...I never really believed at the time that this was a title match. I mean, yeah, that should have been clarified before-hand, but what did Piper do to actually earn a shot at the title? (Yes, I think in '96 it was still time to take something like that into consideration). It's telling that even Dusty thinks Piper's won the belt afterward, though. I'm not as high on this as others here, though this was by no means bad, and the finish is chill-inducing though not to as great of a degree as Luger beating the Giant. Piper looked pretty bad for the most part, though it was fun to see Hogan finally getting a taste of his own medicine, and Hot Rod can still sell you on simple character-based spots like yanking out Hogan's hair (Heenan: "That won't take long.") Mega-pop for the finish, the shock of which Randy Anderson sells beautifully. Then Piper actually holds off Hall & Nash and bails, and the stage is set for the Giant-NWO fallout the next night. Not since 1990 have we had a month that felt more like a "changing of the guard" all across wrestling than the tail end of '96. Kaientai finally loses a big match to the Michinoku Pro babyfaces. Toyota drops the 3WA title to Kyoko Inoue. Golden boy Shawn Michaels loses the WWF title and the whole main event scene of the company is in upheaval. El Hijo del Santo is still a rudo. GAEA may be starting to have their younger trainees make some noise. Young Kobashi has the Triple Crown. And WCW finally gets one (or two, to be exact) over on the NWO. 1997 is shaping up to be the most exciting year of the decade yet.
  2. PeteF3
    Billy was clearly the driving force and I like Adore fine as well, but the band clearly lost a lot without Jimmy Chamberlain. Er, pro wrestling only...sort of like the '90s Horsemen.
  3. PeteF3
    Piggybacking on a side conversation during the Death of Crockett episode of Exile on Badstreet: even a Bushwhacker-type role for La Parka would have been an improvement from a push, marketing, and money standpoint than what they actually did with him. The 'whackers were never top-of-the-card guys, never threatened to be top-card guys, and never really contenders for the Tag Titles. But they were generally protected and served a purpose for a number of years.
  4. PeteF3
    Vader had a forgotten babyface turn at the end of '91.
  5. PeteF3
    I don't know if they called this themselves or had help from an agent, but this match is an example of how a great layout can carry two "lesser" guys. Lex is still a smart worker when he wants to be but is pretty past his prime, and Giant is still raw despite his great athletic skills. But they work a very smart match and play the crowd like a violin, resulting in monster heat for the overbooked but still effective run-in. Luger looks like he's conquered the longest odds in the world, both from the constant Giant cut-offs during the match and the run-ins from Patrick and Syxx, all of which are masterfully set up to look like yet another NWO screwjob. The announcers have had a pretty strong showing all night but they were GREAT here, especially Schiavone selling this like the win of the decade.
  6. PeteF3
    Really good finishing stretch with some great counters and creative spots, especially DDP leaping off the top turnbuckle into an inverted atomic drop from Eddy. Eddy wins the U.S. title in a tournament final with help from the Outsiders, making DDP pay for spurning them. Eddy manages to hold off the 3 of them for a minute, but doesn't make a break to run away and gets laid out and Syxx leaves with the belt. One match for Souled Out set up.
  7. PeteF3
    I didn't care at *all* for the Outsiders working FIP and doing babyface comebacks, regardless of the pro-NWO crowd, but they certainly gave a lot to the Faces of Fear.
  8. PeteF3
    No, they really weren't. I think if a non-ace junior like Samurai were to pin anyone above the mid-card heavies, it'd have been seen as a colossal upset, and a pretty big upset if Liger were to do it. Plus Hase was essentially in Liger's role for the latter part of the '80s, so at worst they'd be seen as being on even ground.
  9. PeteF3
    "When you get dropped on the top rope like that, that'th gunna hurt yo' fraternizin' in Paris, eef you weell!" This was pretty good with both guys actually working out of their comfort zone: Jarrett in working a stiff, realistic, Japanese-style brawl and Benoit getting to show off some character work, having finally been given an actual sports-entertainment storyline with Woman and Sullivan. I didn't have a problem with the pacing but the crowd reactions did hurt this once again--this is not a pro-Jarrett crowd, hometown or not, but they're not really high on Benoit either. And with neither man really taking a face or heel role (until Jarrett works underneath in the sleeper, I guess) the crowd is sort of into the action but not really emotionally invested in a winner. Overbooked finish but the timing is pretty spot-on despite all the moving parts, so I have to credit everyone involved for that, I guess. It's still a good match with both guys turning in fine performances, though with Benoit getting no benefit of the doubt this wasn't really Yearbook-essential. Gregor forgot to mention that in addition to all the wrestlers looking like idiots, Mean Gene has three different people all blow him off for a post-match interview in the span of 15 seconds.
  10. PeteF3
    I'll continue to bitch about this until the end of the '90s: LET LIGER USE HIS REAL MUSIC, WCW. There are some really great moments here from Rey, with Liger working effectively as a base. But, while you can understand why he may not be at peak physical condition, the Liger of old just isn't there. The announcers do a decent job of covering for his more deliberate pace, but it does really make you want to see these two hook it up in their 1995 forms. And for some reason, as Sleeze alludes to, this crowd was somehow hotter for Dean vs. Ultimo than for this. Maybe Liger had just been away for too long, and maybe the dominance by the Japanese to open the show (with Akira Hokuto going over Madusa in-between) took them out of it. This is a good match worth watching, but in the end all you really want to see is for these two to get a second chance against each other.
  11. PeteF3
    Dean has his issues and I generally hate Dragon, but I loved this. Fuck, that GAB '96 was about ten times more tone-deaf than this one was--this wasn't perfect but it certainly did a better job of involving the crowd and incorporating some limb-based psychology. And the build to the big highspots was done really well, which isn't always the case with a Dragon match. I think this is probably the #4 cruiserweight bout of the year, and the best one not involving Rey.
  12. PeteF3
    Yeah, Takayama is really what makes this. He fights like he has something to prove from the moment he blows off Takada's handshake. The stand-up portions are awesome and full of energy and hate. It's Takada who drags this down for the first chunk of the match, repeatedly taking Takayama down and then not doing a whole lot on the mat. But a good closing stretch from both guys, with Takada really stepping up his game with a bunch of awesome low kicks leading to an epic near-KO. With every other promotion on the planet using December to book some long-awaited blowoffs and reversals of fortune, they really had me biting that Takayama could pull off the upset, which is as much as you could ask for for the main event of a dying promotion.
  13. PeteF3
    Scientificwrestling.com apparently has (legally) uploaded all 75 episodes of the Bushido series, which is UWFI with English commentary. So there's that, though I don't think it has the end-of-the-line matches like this. I'm about over this company--this match is fine, but with the promotion about dead, many top stars gone, and having been emasculated by NJPW and then WAR it doesn't really feel like there are any stakes anymore. It's a Takada vanity project with some talented undercarders--okay, maybe it always was, but it feels more transparent now.
  14. PeteF3
    Fine match with a number of twists and turns. Ono and Usuda are sort of the heel team (as designated by their evil black leather jackets) yet it's Ono who's sort of in-peril for most of this. Still, they do a few classic heel staples like the guy on the apron leveling his opponent in the back with a kick as he gets too near the ropes. For the most part this is the shootiest-looking BattlArts match of the set, at least until Otsuka busts out the giant swing and elbow drop. AJPW-style finish in a shoot setting with saves and cut-offs from saves, before Ono CREAMS Otsuka with a high kick for the knockout. BattlArts isn't quite as fresh as it was when I first saw it earlier in the project, so I don't know if I rank this as the promotion's #1 match for the year but it definitely feels like a promotion to watch in the future.
  15. PeteF3
    Whatever caused the demographic shift, it absolutely bit AJW in the ass by 1996. As Dave pointed out in the mid-'96 WONs...the Crush Gals inspired a thousand young women to apply for AJW's tryout camps. From there, AJW could whittle it down to a mere 30 or so legitimate candidates, and from that 30, they could have 6 or 7 girls enter the dojo proper. It was a brutal style and environment, but AJW had their pick from the very best of the best. A few years later, in the early '90s, that 1,000 dropped down to less than a hundred. AJW went from having some of the most elite athletes in the country to having to make do with the women they had, and in a few years it really started to show.
  16. PeteF3
    That doesn't make Stockton Marty Jannetty, does it? Also last night I spent way too much time pondering the equivalents of non-superstars like Kurt Rambis and World B. Free. Free's difficult because he was flamboyant and charismatic without being overly good, and in wrestling he might well get pushed to the top. Rambis would be a "mechanic" who's really good at working fundamentally and putting on solid TV matches to make his opponent look good, but I didn't want to taint him by comping him to someone like Barry Horowitz. Even though the height thing might tempt you to match him to Spud Webb or Muggsy Bogues, I settled on Rambis = Bill Dundee. A roleplayer for major promotions who "knows how to work," a star for Memphis/Santa Clara.
  17. PeteF3
    The ref gets entrance music, but he doesn't look like anybody special to me, and is introduced just as "the referee." Actually it's the ring announcer who tends to interject himself needlessly more than the referee in these matches. I think we all know the real meaning of "Born in the USA," but in a foreign setting, be it Fabuloso Blondy in Mexico or here, it works perfect as a heel theme. "Belfast" by Boney M is pretty much the same principle, actually. Funk's a little unclear on this whole rounds thing, but he's having fun working the crowd during the breaks. This would have been much better off without the rounds, but Finlay's bloody comebacks are pretty exciting. Finlay wins this by KO/countout. Fun to watch in a "this happened" sort of way.
  18. PeteF3
    Hall's still getting boos at this point, for his declaration that the NWO are the "People's Choice." Nash's pandering is way, way more blatant. "TONIGHT, HERE IN PENSACOLA!"
  19. PeteF3
    Bubba *and* Norton turn in the same segment, after Wallstreet and Chono joined earlier in the show. Yep, the NWO is officially oversatured, though they did at least set all these turns up a few weeks ago with Bischoff's ultimatum. This is actually a pretty half-assed crazy brawl, with guys mostly standing around. Sting comes in and gets attacked by Arn, Mongo, and then Rey Jr., and lays waste to all 3 of them before leaving. He took out three WCW guys and no NWO members, but they all attacked him first. Hmm...
  20. PeteF3
    This was an awesome segment and Sting's bat reveal was great. I'll worry about these segments getting overdone when the time comes--and I do know it's coming. But this ruled.
  21. PeteF3
    Lee Marshall with the 1-800-COLLECT ROAD REPORT! Then Benoit and Woman in a restaurant...it's useless to try to talk about now, but for awhile I loved Benoit's "Kevin, doesn't life SUCK?" This is a pretty awesome brawl, with two guys just stiffing the shit out of each other and Arn providing the greatest counter to the Tree of Woe in history. Arn picking off the DOD one-by-one does bring to mind the idea of him doing that to the NWO, if they really wanted to go with Arn-Hollywood, which of course was a pipe dream even if Anderson were healthy. El-P searching for the one true final Arn match felt like me watching Steamboat in '94, constantly turning up on TV around and after Fall Brawl. We'll end up finding an Arn vs. Kwee Wee match from 2000 or something.
  22. PeteF3
    Man, this crowd LOVES Psicosis. Even a simple armbar reversal gets a huge ovation, and there are lots of great near-falls that have you buying that Psic is really taking home the TV belt. Psic does his stuff pretty well but the match is held together by Regal, who sells great and of course does his usual thing of just constantly finding ways to brutalize his opponent even during down stretches. His punches and palm strikes look absolutely vicious. And a well-done finish, too. A lot of these Nitro matches run together for me but this is definitely up with Malenko-Liger as one of the better WCW TV bouts of the year.
  23. PeteF3
    One Man Gang > Bundy > Akeem. Not just because of the gimmick change, but he really actively regressed as a worker.
  24. PeteF3
    Color me lost as to why "projecting your emotional investment onto a match" is somehow "bad."
  25. PeteF3
    Jimmy Valiant at his peak. And let's not discount the beard factor before we start quibbling over Valiant's ability or lack thereof to carry a promotion.
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