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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Not a good match, with Vader being treated as just another guy, even with the relatively clean victory. Cornette and Lothario aren't even used well in a non-wrestler sense. All the talk of Michaels' killer schedule brings to mind the talk of the "intense pressure" the Ultimate Warrior was facing from Slaughter and Randy Savage in early 1991.
  2. PeteF3
    Man oh man, as unpleasant as Ross is, '90s Monsoon is even moreso, so it did my heart good to see Ross completely light into Gorilla, who finally had to deal with someone who could give it right back to him. Shades of JR having to deal with Jesse in 1992. Oh, yeah, and this is stupid, of course. I guess it was effective in a court of law, and in the long run it would pay off, but that doesn't make for entertaining television.
  3. PeteF3
    Jarrett smashing Ahmed with the gold record was cool, at least. Ooh, SECRET REHEARSAL TAPES. Fascinating. Yes, this is a monumentally dumb and incredibly petty angle. This reveal MAY have worked when Jarrett & Roadie were active parts of the roster, just because they were an effective heel tandem getting split up and not because it's a brilliant plot twist.
  4. PeteF3
    Jake looks terrible, but his timing and ability to control a crowd--and draw the "D-D-T" chant--are still top-notch. They work some good near-falls out of this, and Austin even gets the honor of getting out of a pin attempt after the DDT (with a foot on the rope, not a kickout, but it's something). Lawler spits a swig of Jack Daniels at Jake and that leaves him open for the Stunner. Pretty effective little match that got over 4 or 5 different storylines and future matches.
  5. PeteF3
    Fun to see Takayama look so nimble and lithe on the mat for such a big gangly guy, but UWFI really feels like a dying promotion and there's a pall over everything, as good as the work is.
  6. PeteF3
    Both Rey and Dean are very dry, but that just adds to the impact when Dean levels him with the clothesline.
  7. PeteF3
    I liked this a LOT, and I sort of groaned when I saw this was a 2/3 fall match. But this flew by. I actually didn't find this to be much of a spotfest at all--I mean, it's joshi, so it's always going to drift toward that end of the spectrum. But not having seen a ton of this "youngster vs. established pair" AJW formula before, I got way into the underdog story and the Crockett-esque shine sequences given to Kaoru & Yoshida, with them seemingly staying one step ahead of the champs due to effective double-teaming and some uncharacteristic breakdowns by their opponents. That double handspring elbow was gorgeous (both variations of them) and is a spot that the Lucha Dragons or someone need to steal. Kaoru's looked good in GAEA and she looks really good here, and Toyota turns in a relatively restrained performance on her end. I'm still not really seeing what Shimoda does to stand out that much, but she at least pulls her weight. In the end, this was still a match that was mostly about the challengers.
  8. PeteF3
    The stuff between Jun and Kawada were the best and most heated portions of the match, but the rest of this was pretty blah. I don't know what happened to the Asako who looked so good against the Can-Ams a few years ago, but here he's a startling depiction of the arrested development that AJPW's non-Jun '90s talent seemed to be stuck in--both AJPW and AJW are about to have a real problem. Ogawa's a bit better but no one's buying him as a threat to anyone of importance, and Misawa was giving a House Show Bret performance, as opposed to his other greater examples of letting his partners have the spotlight. Disappointing bout that's one of the least of the AJPW 6-mans to make a '90s Yearbook.
  9. PeteF3
    Yeah, this made me laugh just for its sheer audacity. Also because JT is so good at being put through extreme torture.
  10. PeteF3
    Excellent match as everyone has said--this is about as good of an intro to RINGS and to Han as you'll find to this point. It's got all of his cool submission work, it's got a great opponent, it's got Han throwing some strikes like a motherfucker, and it's not too long. Han's kimura suplex thing was NASTY and I don't know how Tamura didn't break his arm or tap out instantly after that, and the match kept going from there.
  11. PeteF3
    Years ago I started to make my way through all the AJPW TV, starting in '91. (I got to the first part of '93 when Benoit happened and my wrestling-watching was pretty much dead until I broke down and got started on the Yearbooks.) I was quickly getting more excited to see an interesting-looking mid-card bout with less familiar names than another 6-man, as great as those 6-mans were. Plus the Puroresu NEWWWWS segments which featured other clips never seen before. I'm sure Kobashi & Kikuchi vs. Rusher Kimura & Mighty Inoue wasn't really that good, but it was *different.* So was really random shit like the State Patrol showing up for a tour, or King Curtis Iaukea's kid throwing a net on people. So I agree with dawho entirely, and for the rest of the hour-long format era, there are quite a few fun hidden gems involving the Can-Ams, Kobashi & Ace, and Joel Deaton & Billy Black.
  12. PeteF3
    Yeah, the giggly golf announcers from the '94-'95 Carnival tapes have infected FMW, and they ruin a lot of the atmosphere here. Crazy balls-to-the-wall match with a lot of inventive spots, all executed very well. Tanaka and Awesome have good chemistry together already. Afterward we get the formation of Funk's Master Wrestlers ™, which is a neat little post-match angle though it feels like a pale NWO ripoff.
  13. PeteF3
    I'm not ashamed to admit that I've slapped myself in the side of my stomach just to test this out. Your arm does reflexively recoil backwards.
  14. PeteF3

    WrestleMania 31...

    PeteF3 replied to goodhelmet's topic in WWE

    This is a poor comparison. The correct comparison would be a movie that went along traditional lines 98 percent of the way and did so in sensational fashion, then ended in a way that had nothing to do with the 98 percent. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, then.
  15. PeteF3
    I remember watching this live as a fledgling smart fan (we'd just gotten the old Prodigy service in our house with a Wrestling section in the Sports BB). I gave 2 Cold no chance going in, knowing the endgame was Windham vs. Flair, but during his last flurry I seriously thought they were going to swerve us and change the title.
  16. PeteF3
    Savage goes nuts on Greg Valentine with a chair and gets disqualified--did Savage win one match between January and his joining the NWO 14 months later? The NWO pulverize him again afterward, with Nash whipping him with a Slim Jim and Hogan doing something about Savage's bald spot. Bischoff in reaction to that: "What does HE see when he looks in a mirror??!" Afterward they head to the broadcast booth and have some fun antagonizing Bischoff. "Vincent" debuts as NWO Head of Security--he's good forcing Bischoff to stay seated, but yeah, this is starting to look bloated. The NWO t-shirt is now for sale. The level of detail WCW put into this was amazing: the mailing address isn't Atlanta, it's a PO Box in Warwick, Rhode Island. NWO souvenirs at live events were sold at their own booth, with handwritten price signs and no fancy displays, like bootleggers had set up shop in the arena. Operators at the 800-number would answer "New World Order" and thank buyers for supporting the group at the end of the call. Great stuff that the WWF never really could have done, and certainly didn't do when it had the NWO. The NWO spent the rest of the hour destroying random people, with Giant continuing to show off his comedic chops as the ring announcer. The Outsiders destroy High Voltage in a "tournament" match to earn a shot at Harlem Heat's tag titles. There are glimpses of the NWO getting out of control, but this was an effective way to cover for a half-missing roster for an hour.
  17. PeteF3
    Yeah, this is supposed to be a shine for Jericho but what you come away thinking is, "Man, Mike Enos is charismatically challenged but is otherwise pretty fucking awesome." He unleashes a veritable shitload of cool offense, and keeps this pretty psychologically sound with some great focused work on Jericho's back. Jericho's win is rather sudden, but he did counter a move that Enos successfully pulled off earlier, so some points for that. Inconsequential though it may be, this is one of the better non-Yearbook TV bouts of the year.
  18. PeteF3
    The NWO aim to capitalize on the WCW roster being in Japan...except Randy Savage. Macho cuts his best promo of this feud--he pulled himself out of Japan to stand on guard on Nitro, while also declaring that Elizabeth isn't coming back to him in this lifetime or the next.
  19. PeteF3
    JR's promo is tremendous, but as would happen in 1999 it only serves to babyface him further because--hell, what's he wrong about? Then Rick Bogner comes out doing a truly terrible Razor Ramon act, and from here they never really seem to want to pull the trigger of aligning Ross as a manager for the two impostors. So we have a dumb idea that's also badly executed.
  20. PeteF3
    Hey, it's only 14 months too late to pay this angle off. Because two impostors on one show weren't enough.
  21. PeteF3
    I've heard conflicting stories about Mero. Some sources listed his real name as "Marc Merowitz," but he was using the Mero name in his Golden Glove boxing days. In any event, he was a legitimate evangelical Christian at this point--part of his reasons for wanting out of WCW were because he wasn't comfortable with the Little Richard stuff and didn't want to be associated with a woman who wasn't his wife. Yeah, seems a bit over-the-top for me, too. Anyway, we get the closing act and it's pretty good here. IIRC Mero winning this was a somewhat late audible as there were plans for Ahmed to come back and go after Faarooq for the title he never lost. But this was the right decision. I didn't pick up on it at the time but JR's petulant little "what about me?" as Mero is thanking everybody is a nice bit of foreshadowing for what's to come later tonight.
  22. PeteF3
    Pretty good, but hampered by a slow start in front of a crowd that remained comatose. To their credit, the audience was pretty rocking towards the end and Iizuka's fiery comeback was terrific.
  23. PeteF3
    Dead crowd--I wonder if this was sort of like Sting in '90 in that fans never really got a chance to miss Liger so his return wasn't seen as a huge deal. Of course these are wholly different scenarios, a long knee injury vs. a miraculous recovery from brain surgery, but still. There are some well-done spots, but this is another match showing Benoit's major bugaboo during his career, which was a lack of passion. Maybe "passion" isn't the right word, but a lot of this feels very cold and mechanical.
  24. PeteF3
    Loved Hash daring Koshinaka to take a shot at his seemingly-healed knee. They had a very interesting way of setting up the finish, as Hash takes the butt-butt and falls backward into the ropes and sells like he's knocked out. In fact he does it so convincingly that Koshinaka falls down and starts selling a knee injury--either Hash was legitimately knocked loopy or they crafted this to flagrantly make it look like he was shoot injured and Kosh was buying time. Not sure which is correct or if I'm just reading too much into things. Hard match to rate as it seemed like an extension of the G-1--part of a larger story--rather than a match in its own right. It was another gasp-out-loud finish, though.
  25. PeteF3
    You know what...this time around, to my own amazement, the DQ finish didn't really bother me. Actually the biggest problem is Vader was late hitting the ring (though not to a Papa Shango degree, thankfully). The false finish, of Shawn doing an Air Sabu and kicking the chair into Mankind's face, is a great one on its own. But the lack of official pinfall keeps Mankind strong, as they were going to have to sell the next IYH PPV with Mankind-UT instead of a WWF title match. So I get it. It's not 100% ideal, but I get it. And the post-match chaos is fun, with a bunch of twists and turns in its own right. I'm almost sorry to admit that I marked out for Undertaker appearing in the casket--that totally caught me off-guard even though I knew UT had to show up at some point. Well, we have one more big one to go, but this is definitely the WWF Match of the Year and the "best WWF match ever", at least through '96, is definitely a plausible label. I think if pressed I'd still go with the WM7 career-ending match, but this is in a fight for the top 3-5. It's amazing how on the same page these guys were, and how well they feed each other for each spot. I guess that shouldn't be too big of a surprise with two pros, but with HBK's selfish reputation and the fact that this is the first time I think they ever worked each other, it's still noticeable how smoothly they run through each transition. This is basically the HBK-Diesel GFBH template ramped up to 11, with even more intensity, better psychology, and more twists and surprises. Even the shoot undertones from that earlier match remain, with the neat "worked botch" that manages to work on both a smart-fan and casual-fan level. Also, I always love it when Foley busts out the mat skillz, like his body scissors and that weird amateur-style pin attempt. Just a spectacular combination of '90s hardcore action with some WWF-style character work. This is a legit top-ten MOTYC on a worldwide level, something the WWF hasn't seen in some time.
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