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PeteF3

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  1. PeteF3
    Holy Lord, Angle sounds COMPLETELY different from how he would even 3 years later. Jarring as hell. We finally get a match to put Taz over as a killer who backs up what he says, instead of a typical cheating '80s heel. Guido gets in just enough hope spots to make this match something other than a routine squash. Taz calls out Sabu again afterward.
  2. PeteF3
    Styles passive-aggressively takes shots at Olympic silver medalist Matt Ghaffari--who was in negotiations with WCW at this time--and future ECW Champion Mark Henry. That leads to the introduction of gold medalist Kurt Angle. Angle is a long way away from knowing anything about pro wrestling at this point. Little Guido gets his amateur credentials put over by Styles while he also puts over Angle. Taz is out next--he could have been an Olympian, but he'd rather make money.
  3. PeteF3
    Austin's solo interview is just as good as what we get here, where he outs McMahon as a "greedy, selfish promoter" who's pulling Monsoon's strings and wants the payday of an Austin-Bret match--hence no suspension for Austin for his actions on Pillman. Then he complains about having to fly to Stamford while they're sending camera crews to Bret's house and Pillman's house and promises to be in Cincinnati next week, setting up that ill-fated angle. But this came off great at the time. On the Yearbook itself Bret has joined us, and this segment even more than the Pillmanizing incident is really what made Austin what he is--Bret is a tremendous, underrated interview but he's completely outclassed here, as just about everyone else in the business was or would be when trying to match what Austin was doing. Austin leaves Bret so effectively in the dust that he has to practically beg Bret to say anything. Then we get another example of the WWF going, "Okay, now where do we take this?" as they have Austin snap again and trash a production assistant and the studio. I think this was the same Raw where Austin actually stormed the update desk as Dok Hendrix was shilling the PPV, complaining about having to wait for his segment. Despite the taped nature of the show the WWF was going all-out in its pre-taped segments to try to create a point of difference from Nitro. Truly a banner night for Stone Cold.
  4. PeteF3
    Didn't care for this, as good as Nick Patrick was, and I have no real desire to check out the match in full. Kudos to Nick and Hogan for turning the crowd against them, though. But the finish is overbooked to shit and this is yet another example of a WCW star getting emasculated, as had happened to Savage for most of '96, with him not getting a ghost of a chance of revenge as promised on Nitro. In some ways it's as bad as Booker's job to Triple H at WrestleMania. And man, am I not looking forward to seeing Roddy Piper again. It was a nice shock at the time, and he looked good in the spring, but I just don't like a WWF stalwart being the big conquering hero who finally faces down Hogan with a story based entirely on a WWF past. But, Bischoff gonna Bisch. Hogan seems like he's actually trying to move Piper along, but when Piper says he's shooting I don't think it's a scripted faux-shooty comment. Neither is Hogan when he says, "Let's dispense the backstory." He succeeds in getting Piper to get to the point, but the segment sort of peters out instead of building to a big climax making you want to see more.
  5. PeteF3
    The babyface spots suck, but at least they come against another heel team, and in some ways I admire Col. Parker for staying true to his character (and Sherri as well). I have to give credit to Hall & Nash for laying out a strong match and going 50-50 with Heat, putting over all their offense and giving themselves a somewhat fluky victory. Sadly this is pretty much it for the tag titles meaning anything.
  6. PeteF3
    Put me with Dylan and El-P. This was fantastic, even if it was greatly enhanced by the fact that I didn't know what the result was going in, so I was biting on every near-fall. Loved Dean's mean, aggressive streak and I loved the fact that we got a high-flying cruiserweight match with some meat to the story besides Pure Sports Build stuff (though there's that, too). Maybe Dean's matwork isn't quite as spectacular as it is at GAB, as he's content to use more U.S-style holds here, but those holds are well-worked, too. And it's about 9 million times more effectively laid out and smarter than that match, while also getting more time than their Nitro match. A more than fitting conclusion to maybe the best overall ring-based feud of the year in the U.S.
  7. PeteF3
    Austin now has the glass-breaking entrance, and his reinvention is pretty much complete. Incredible segment, naturally, that incidentally shows how far Pillman has fallen in addition to how far Austin has risen. Pillman, the guy who a few months ago seemed to lapping the entire rest of the business in terms of being cutting-edge, comes off as completely emasculated and impotent now--yeah, it's the injury and yeah, it's the WWF setting...but Austin just completely leaves him in the dust as a "loose cannon"--partly because while Pillman always seemed crazy and liable to do anything at any time, he still rarely come off as DANGEROUS. Austin took his template and added that element of danger to it, and the rest is history. Gerald Brisco takes an incredible bump here--not the last time we'll see Austin abuse him. Sadly we miss out on Austin blocking the ambulance with his car and then heaving his keys all the way across the parking garage. The WWF at this time were starting to become masters of booking hot angles, typically involving Austin, and *then* going, "Okay, now what can we add to it?" We'll see this again on Monday night and we'll see an all-timer, also involving an ambulance, in a few months.
  8. PeteF3
    You can't say these guys didn't give the fans what they wanted to see. Lee has the decency to sell the big fall like death, assuming he was selling at all.
  9. PeteF3
    There was a thread on here awhile back about kayfabed, acknowledged weaknesses in wrestlers. I think we can add Volk Han's ribs to that rather short list--it seems like every match there's a standup exchange where he takes a shot to the ribs and goes down like he's been disemboweled. It's his Jumbo Killer. That leads to some great near-falls on this and Han responds to the second one by dumping Naruse over the top rope, earning a yellow card (!). But Han is Han and has Naruse's number on the mat (plus he murders him with a really unique and awesome-looking sambo-style suplex at one point). Really good match with Naruse coming off as a gutsy bastard even in the face of being outskilled. Loved his somersault escapes from Han's standing armbars.
  10. PeteF3
    I think this is one for the "can a wrestler really be carried" file in the thread on the main board. Not that Mikhail sucks or anything, but this match is made by Tamura applying whacked-out submissions to what is essentially a log. It's enough for this to be a good match even if Mikhail comes across as being along for the ride. Sometimes carrying is about focusing on what a limited guy can do well and working to his strengths, and sometimes it's about said limited guy trusting his opponent to do that with him and not trying to dominate the match.
  11. PeteF3
    Decent enough little bout with Nakanishi being the second straight guy to show charisma and fire that he didn't offer up in WCW. Muto fully filling in for Scott Steiner was pretty fun and he embraced the role completely. ****1/2 is nuts, but there is definitely some stuff here that I can see Dave marking for. I don't know what to feel about the spot where Muto tricks Kojima and Nakanishi into clotheslining each other--it's something that Wile E. Coyote probably wouldn't fall for, but on the other hand it was a novel and fun little twist to the match.
  12. PeteF3
    Nagata holds his own nicely here, and shows way more fire and energy than he seemed to in WCW in months to come. Liger's "na na boo boo" taunt of Otani may win Best Maneuver Award on my Observer ballot. Otani is incredible again--unless there's another Dandy or Casas match that blows me away in the next 2 months, the Most Outstanding Wrestler award is his to lose. The suplex exchanges with both Liger (climaxing with Otani rolling through a German, taunting Liger, only to run into a shotei that he sells like death) and Samurai are just sublime. Otani looks dead and buried but manages to make a comeback and score the win practically all on his own. Finish may have been a tad on the sudden side but hey, the "right" match length is often a tricky endeavor. Really fun stuff.
  13. PeteF3
    Yeah, sort of with Ditch here. The run between minutes 10 and 15 are the best of the match and really some of the best you'll see in UWFI, period--Yamamoto kicks Scott off and Scott goes flying across the ring taking a great theatrical bump that's pure wrasslin', and Yamamoto follows it up with a dropkick (!). It's very much a babyface comeback. Then both guys go on to murder the other with suplexes, and that's clearly the hottest point of the whole match. However, the first portion is pretty middling and they go back down to earth after that, without any other peaks to come as the time limit draws nearer. There's good work, but as the time calls got more frequent neither man really seemed to react. One could argue that both were spent, or that like an NHL team in the waning minutes of regulation they were content to play it out and take the sure draw/point rather than risk running themselves into defeat. This is still a good match with some great selling by Scott and a fine fiery perfromance by Yamamoto, that would have fit right in with any UWFI card when the promotion was at its peak.
  14. PeteF3
    Pretty sure this is the same guy who was "Red Dog Lane" in Mid-Atlantic as well.
  15. PeteF3
    Tommy Dreamer waxes poetic about Brian Lee. Bill Alfonso cuts a promo in the middle of a hurricane. Sabu fears Taz, you know. Footage follows of Fonzie and Taz crashing Monday Night Raw. Shane Douglas shows off his TV title and gloats to Gary Wolfe some more. Dreamer's on top of a wall, apparently this is hype for the High Incident scaffold + tables match. Sign Guy Dudley cuts a promo for the hearing-impaired. Doug Furnas talks about RVD and Sabu. Lori Fullington is going through Raven withdrawal symptoms. RVD gives a pep talk to Sabu. New Jack tells us it's not a black thing or a white thing--it's an extreme thing. Dreamer philosophizes some more. The Eliminators want Doc & Gordy. The MVCs will do their talking in the ring.
  16. PeteF3
    Typical Douglas promo in that there's a good kernel of an idea, done in an overly verbose way. This is better and tighter than many others, though. I like the idea of Shane thinking he's justified in shaking the halo because he finds it "hardcore," and using the ECW crowd's own language and desires against them.
  17. PeteF3
    This is a well-done angle and you KNOW it's serious business when Savage is speaking low-key. That said, this is yet another "Savage walks off the set" ending when I really think this could have been improved if Savage had run to the ring and punked out Benoit. God knows the guy could have gone over *somebody* at some point between May and his title match, and it wouldn't have hurt for him to "send a message." Plus it would have been less over the top than Savage setting out to kill Hulk. The stuff with Hogan firing the 3 NInjas director and replacing him with the Giant is terrific, by the way. Who else noticed the shoot comment that Savage directed toward Bischoff? "We both know business is fragile"--Savage's contract was due to expire (and may well have expired, with Havoc being a final obligation) and was widely believed to have wanted out of the company while all this was going on.
  18. PeteF3
    I like Sting's not-Crow look and his facials as the NWO are speaking (Hall points out that "nobody knows cheap imitations better than us"), but one big problem I always had with the Crow Sting is that he couldn't incorporate the gimmick into his promos. Granted, he didn't have to speak as much, but when he did, the same old Surfer Sting came out. Good move not having him talk for another year and a half.
  19. PeteF3
    Yeah, I think they made a good-faith effort to get Perfect to get into the ring here, but they just couldn't make it worth his while to waive his insurance policy. So we get a lame bait-and-switch instead. That said, I think the idea of a Perfect-HHH alliance is a good one that could have gone places, and I remember the online community exploding with speculation that Perfect would be forming a junior Horsemen stable with Shawn Michaels. Not to be, obviously.
  20. PeteF3
    I agree Dandy was better, but I thought Warrior (my first time seeing him, I think) more than pulled his weight. He showed great velocity when throwing himself at Dandy either with clotheslines or with moonsaults, and I loved his taking apart of Dandy's arm and wish there was more of it. He had a great finishing move at the end, too. They get the first two falls out of the way quickly, with a controversial ending to the second fall that may well have been a blown spot for all I know, but it worked either way. That leads to a long, epic third fall that basically rises and builds and recedes and then builds again, like a one-fall match. Dandy is still one of the better workers on the planet even if the exposure just isn't there. Overall I still think the Casas-Fiera match I watched the other day was better as far as non-Yearbook gems from '96, but this is definitely a treat and probably the #2 lucha MOTY. Edit: Whoops, this is on the Yearbook after all, listed as 11/2.
  21. PeteF3
    Yeah, the Fabs and Cornette were simply too expensive for the money they were (weren't) bringing in, hence the shortened angle. Plus once Eddie came back they weren't as needed.
  22. PeteF3
    Sometimes I wonder if it was actual greed on Vince's part and sometimes I wonder if he and everyone else involved were so in their bubbles that they really didn't see what they were doing as exploitative. Many of them probably couldn't tell the difference between this and the evil Germans and sneaky Japs that populated wrestling in the 1950's. (Of course you didn't see any Vietnamese heels in the '60s and '70s...)
  23. PeteF3
    I'm guessing it had to do with usage rights.
  24. PeteF3
    The whole instant replay debate has been mercifully excised from history--to my knowledge it's never seen a release anywhere, even on the Network. As far as I know the only other guys involved were the Bushwhackers. I'm about 90% sure that Roseanne & Tom Arnold were announced for this show at one point--doing what, I'm not sure.
  25. PeteF3
    Bret supposedly refused to tear up WCW's contract offer on camera, and instead gives a respectful acknowledgment of his negotiations with them. At least somebody attempted to take the high road in this war. Vince does a great job of selling relief when Bret announces he's going to be with the WWF "forever" (HA!)--like he really didn't know what Bret was going to say beforehand. We even get a few traces of WHINY BRET here, as he points out that Shawn Michaels will never be as tough or as smart as him, drawing a verbal rebuke from Vince. Another great, real-sounding promo from Bret.
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