PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Savage's contract was up and he was pretty unhappy with how things were going, and who could blame him? Havoc was essentially a contractual obligation and then it was widely assumed he was WWF-bound. I guess getting into the NWO and avoiding a demolition every week was one of the perks of his re-signing.
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Mulligan was very much the Big Boss Man of the '70s--a big man who was not only surprisingly nimble but who could do a stunningly effective job of working underneath as a sympathy babyface, despite dwarfing most of his opponents. There's a face Mulligan vs. heel Paul Jones match on the Mid-Atlantic films that should totally not work, but it does.
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Fire Pro Wrestling Returns for the PS2 calls it a "bat hanging lock." Sometimes they fudged move names to get around trademarks but that works for me. -
pol explained it better than I did. No problem with the videos at all, I just take issue (and it may not entirely be rational) with the style of criticism it's unintentionally created.
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I hate how it's made "botch" into some sort of quasi-insider term, complete with a fucking Wikipedia entry.
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When was it confirmed that that actually happened? The PWO, F4W, and KFM threads all end ambiguously.
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I think the more accurate statement would be, "Ask TV how important the major sports leagues are."
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Or Hakeem? Or did he get done and I missed it? Could Olajuwon be Bret Hart? Two titles in a Jordan/Hogan-less era, "foreign" (to differing degrees), technically sound, not the outsized personality of the other major stars of the era...I dunno, maybe it doesn't hold up.
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I doubt NJPW would have gone for a joint Dome show if their guy wasn't going over in the end somehow. That said...WCW would have been better off trying to swing it with Muto here, whose name carried at least some cache with their audience.
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Buddy Landell?
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I'm just embarrassed to have forgotten that Kobashi-Hansen match already. That was on the Yearbook and well-loved and everything. Still, point stands. I think AJPW's limit on the Jr. title was 105 kg, as opposed to NJPW's 100 kg (220 pounds). Still, as good as the matches were, yeah, Kroffat as a junior was kind of an odd sight.
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One of my main takeaways as I near the end of 1996 is that Kobashi is getting quite the Rey Misterio-as-World-Champion-style title reign. He couldn't beat Kawada in his first defense. He's still working as an underneath babyface in the RWTL matches, the blame for which may be just as much on him as on the booker. And while I get the double round-robin format allowed for more upsets than a typical AJPW tourney, I remain baffled by the decision to job him to Gary Albright. I also don't get the vibe that he and Patriot are serious contenders to walk home with the trophy in the end (even accounting that we already know what the final match is). Not sure that's really a good place for your Triple Crown champion to be.
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[1996-11-16-GAEA-Big Target] Chigusa Nagayo vs Sonoko Kato
PeteF3 replied to PeteF3's topic in November 1996
Lynch. FLIK sold me on it in the Other 1996 thread. -
This RULED. All kinds of low blows, payback spots, distracted referees (!), outside interference (!!), and other things that serve to disgrace puroresu but are oh so glorious when Team Chono are doing them. Iizuka does what he does best which is take a beating and provide hope spots, but Yamazaki is really who's holding this together, as he decides, "fuck sportsmanship" and gives back everything that Chono & Tenzan like to do. Some heart-stopping near-falls down the stretch make this one of the better under-the-radar NJPW tags of the year.
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Hirata gets tortured quite a bit here, but the real focus is Choshu gunning for Hashimoto as he prepares for an IWGP title shot on 1/4. Gotta love old man Choshu throwing dropkicks at Hash standing on the ring apron. We get more good chop-down-the-tree stuff at the end, too. Another nice short cozy tag, though not as great as the AJPW sprint from the day before.
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I dunno, I'd say Sasuke took quite a FIP-style beating. Still, everyone gets to shine here and the closing stretch is one of the very best of the year. Hell, Yakushiji pinning Togo seemed like a legitimate possibility. I think These Days was a smidgen better, thanks to a better atmosphere in part, but on the other hand Sasuke definitely felt like a missing piece there.
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Otani looked great here, naturally, and I love it when he flies in from off-camera with a surprise springboard dropkick. Otherwise, Loss pretty much sums it up.
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[1996-12-01-Inoki Festival] Ultimo Dragon vs Gran Naniwa
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in December 1996
This blew. No heat, worked in slow motion, and I lost count of how many huracanranas they did. -
A cozy 7 and a half minutes of bombs at a breakneck pace. There's probably a better parallel to the famous Hagler vs. Hearns fight than this--it's a good match but not *quite* that transcendent--but none are really coming to mind right now. In the first minute, Akiyama takes a backdrop driver, Doc gets knocked out by a rolling elbow, Misawa takes an Ace Crusher, and Ace takes a tiger driver--the car wreck on the highway analogy so favored by JR has never been more apt than it is here. This is like a Yearbook match clipped to the finishing stretch, but the clipping is by the wrestlers and not by editing.
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Another war, with some holy-shit spots that probably didn't go as planned. Garza attempts a shooting star press to the floor but only does about 70% of the revolution, and amazingly doesn't break his neck. That came right after Scorpio Jr. tried a tope and instead of hitting his partner as intended, just goes splat face-first on the floor. Interesting that by the end of this, the main issues seem to be Dandy vs. Santo and Casas vs. Scorpio, instead of the Casas/Santo rivalry that precipitated this whole thing. The technicos are more prepared this time and execute a big comeback at the end, with Casas and Dandy stomping the shit out of Santo and dogpiling him for the final pin.
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In particular, I'll mention Taue countering one of Misawa's elbow flurries with an enzuigiri, but then immediately grabbing his ankle that Misawa had worked on a little bit earlier and being forced to tag out. Just a neat little touch to get the opening matwork stuff over. But that's a relatively tiny and inconsiderate portion of the match. What a fucking match it is. Misawa gets completely destroyed in the first 5 minutes, taking an amazing nodowa off Kawada's shoulders to the floor. Akiyama really feels like a peer in there--he'd already reached that level, but it's still notable to see him taking on Kawada and Taue by himself and actually holding his own. And the counters are out of this world--like the '93 Taue/Kawada Carnival match but quicker and even more numerous. At one point the HDA tries to execute a combo power bomb/choke slam on Misawa, but he huracanranas out of it in another holy-shit spot. Eventually Taue gets taken out and Kawada is left alone with Jun and Misawa and is overwhelmed. Cannot, cannot, cannot wait until 12/9 now.
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Bischoff overdoes a few of his pet gestures like the fake smile and the "we're not worthy" thing, but he's doing an effective job of ramping up all the qualities that made him so unlikable as a babyface. After a few weeks of build, Bagwell completes his heel turn by punking out Scotty Riggs and taking Bischoff up on his offer/threat.
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[1996-11-25-WWF-Raw] Interview: Shawn Michaels & Jose Lothario
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in November 1996
Lawler's really good here, at least. Michaels cuts the John Cena "fans can cheer who they want" promo then talks about how he won't beg for cheers. Ha. Vince calls him out for being defensive, and justifiably so. -
Great finish and heat, with Luger looking like a superman, and guys like Eddie, Rey, and Regal getting to stand up to the NWO for a little bit. Too bad they'd get away from that for everybody except DDP.
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[1996-11-24-WCW-World War III] Hulk Hogan vs Roddy Piper Contract Signing
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in November 1996
Schiavone: "I never thought we'd see Bischoff and Vince walking down the aisle together, but there we are." This is the best WCW use of Piper yet, and for the first time it actually has me looking forward to the Starrcade match. They play on past history--including Piper and Vincent's--without letting it overwhelm the angle and creating their own, new history. It also helps that Piper is still "an island unto himself" as Gordon Solie so often described him. He makes it clear that he doesn't give a shit about about the NWO and WCW, he's out for Hogan only. *And* he even gets the last word after getting beat down, and gets the NWO to bail when he gets back up and throws the table. Yeah, a great angle indeed.