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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Similar story to the 6/7 match but I still liked that one a bit better--Ace had a good performance in that one, too. Misawa does another great job of letting Akiyama shine and basically coming in to make saves or swing momentum, and Doc does much the same with his partner. The result has everyone looking good.
  2. PeteF3
    Well, this has already been broken down, analyzed, dissected, reassembled, and had all those things done to it again. But aside from the opening awkwardness with Mongo and the closing awkwardness with Giant's promo (that final "I sat at the table...." remark was unintentionally hilarious) this was an incredible segment. They get Luger & Sting out of the building, and after a long clusterfuck of a match the NWO get higher ground and pick off everyone on both teams, before the Giant makes his presence felt. I'm fine with this turn even if Davey Boy (or Waltman if they could have gotten him early) would have been a better option. The post-match chaos is a pretty incredible scene, in front of a traditional wrestling crowd that gives the NWO the heel heat they deserve instead of seeing them as "cool."
  3. PeteF3
    Fun interview, and I loved the callback to the old Right Guard ad at the end.
  4. PeteF3
    First part of this was just a lot of fumbling around on the mat, but this got better as it went along. Tanaka looked fantastic, throwing tremendous energy into his bumps and providing some great-looking offense. Really good finish, too, that ends at just the right time after the heels get eliminated.
  5. PeteF3
    Austin pays lip service to his Intercontinental Title tournament bout with Marc Mero, and then moves onto the meat of this promo: a challenge to Bret Hart. He even throws threats toward Brian Pillman for having the audacity to cut him off. Austin is immediately head and shoulders above almost everyone else in the company as a promo, it's no wonder he turned into a babyface. Even Pillman, who spent the entire first half of the year trying to be above it all and too cool for school, looks weak and ineffective by comparison.
  6. PeteF3
    Wolfie D discusses accusations Jamie Dundee made about Wolfie and a woman, or something. Jamie comes out and talks about Wolfie abusing his 88-year old grandmother, and that earns a physical rebuke. I wasn't aware there was now a USWA Television Title. Pretty strong studio match which naturally involves Bill Dundee. He, Samantha, and the woman come back out and distract Wolfie, allowing Jamie to cold cock him with a chain and take the title. Jesse James Armstrong and his fabulous hospital scrubs are in to make the save.
  7. PeteF3
    Great match in front of a finally-hot crowd. This is SO not a joshi-style match at all--it deliberately starts slow and deliberate, and builds into a war of attrition rather than a 100-mph-spotfest, with strong chop-down-the-tree psychology and character work on Kyoko's part. She's SO easy to root for, and the disappointment when she finally goes down is palpable. Probably the best women's match of 1996.
  8. PeteF3
    JT Smith and Little Guido train under the Rocky statue. Taz calls out Tommy Dreamer, Sabu, and Dr. Death. Brian Lee cuts the same promo he's cut for the last 2 months. Dreamer and Beulah rebut. JT Smith wants to invade YOUR town--Guido isn't as eager. D-Von threatens the cameraman with a chair. Buh Buh Ray manages to sound threatening while still holding onto the remains of the stuttering gimmick. The Dudleyz are slowly morphing into legitimate threats. Guido abuses the Rocky statue. 2 Cold Scorpio talks about nothing in particular. The Gangstas show off the ECW Tag Title belts. D-Von delivers his catchphrase. Big Dick Dudley grunts. Damien Kane and Lady Alexandra...they're still around?? Gary Wolfe wants to break Shane Douglas' neck. Shane and Francine gloat some more. Doug Furnas manages to make his way through an interview selecting Dan Kroffat as his partner. RVD responds with his dream partner...Sabu. Until the last segment this was a pretty lame edition of Pulp Fiction, with a lot of repeated stuff (more than usual) and guys talking about themselves without actually hyping anything specific.
  9. PeteF3
    DiBiase's last flirtation with relevance. I don't see how anyone could seriously have bought him as a Horseman at this point, though that would have been pretty kickass a few years earlier.
  10. PeteF3
    Raven's wrestling on one leg, so this is piled with even more bullshit than usual. The 2-on-1 stuff is terrible and this only gets marginally better after that, though I will say that Pitbull 2 works hard and looks pretty good--I'd say the Pitbulls are the surprise workers of mid-'90s ECW so far. He even gets to pin Raven. Underwhelming post-match angle too, though it's hard to blame Tyler. Overall this just went on, and on, and on.
  11. PeteF3
    Enjoyable, but this dragged really badly when they were fighting in the crowd and there's some sloppiness down the stretch. That tombstone looked GHASTLY--like Owen Hart/Steve Austin bad, but luckily RVD seems okay. It's good to see Furnas actually put on a half-decent singles match, since Kroffat gets the bulk of the credit for their tag work and has a number of good singles bouts of his own.
  12. PeteF3
    Definitely the best RINGS match to this point, as Loss said it really felt like a competitive match than guys just noodling around on the mat, with both guys having to improvise their way through various submissions. Han pulls a win out of his ass when he looks completely done for, a very well-done finish that also adds to this. I don't know if my anti-shoot bias will ever have me place such a match in my MOTY list but this comes as close as anything since the big Takada matches.
  13. PeteF3
    Pitbull Gary Wolfe shows off his halo, courtesy of a blown DDT by Shane Douglas. Shane and Francine gloat in the back of a limo. Brian Lee calls out Tommy Dreamer. A bug-eyed Terry Gordy responds. Taz threatens Steve Williams. The Dudleyz threaten D-Von. Kiss tries to hitch a ride to the show--when a car passes them by, Richards drops Schiavone's famous Bash at the Beach line. Meanie tries to get people's attention by showing off some leg. And it works! New Jack gets jumped during the Pulp Fiction segment AGAIN. I guess that SMW security force were the victim of budget cuts.
  14. PeteF3
    "What's the Denver Post doing in Rome?" This is just two guys bullshitting, but this type of promo really hadn't been done before this. Nash Outdated Reference count: Spartacus and Mr. Ed.
  15. PeteF3
    Terrific segment as everyone has said--everyone is fantastic here. Well, Benoit's just sort of there, but he does his job well enough. Arn is spectacular, and it's too bad that the WCW team didn't really seem to do anything monumental in the match itself after the fire-and-brimstone-inspired promo we got here.
  16. PeteF3
    Another thing that ruined WWF Lex was the total and sudden 180 his character did. You can debut him as a heel if you want, but you can't go from Narcissist to All-American in one week.
  17. PeteF3
    Hey, I liked 1991 Schiavone! I just didn't care for Ross that year, but Schiavone carried him really effectively.
  18. PeteF3
    I think there's a distinct possibility that that Main Event Arn/Taylor match was a repeat of one of the syndie bouts.
  19. PeteF3
    But Dean works in this setting, because here he's an undersized guy trying to fight from underneath, giving this match a "hook" that goes beyond just being a mat-based spotfest. In fact he looks outclassed on the mat here, as Regal ties him in knots and throws him all over the ring, and Dean has to sneak out a victory. Really fun match--I'm not exactly a Dean fanboy myself but I could watch him and Regal wrestle for an hour.
  20. PeteF3
    "The Stalker..." Half-Skinner, half-Mike-Boyette-in-Memphis-as-Apocalypse. This is better than most gimmicks to have debuted in 1994 and '95 but still far from a good use of Windham.
  21. PeteF3
    Heartbreak: By Calvin Klein.
  22. PeteF3
    Yeah, this was well-done (and a fine interview by Mankind explaining his motivation for going after the title) but it was way too early to do this. There's no reason why they couldn't have saved this for Mind Games. Hell, maybe it would have taken some of the sting out of the DQ finish.
  23. PeteF3
    That blown spot was a very, very minor flaw exacerbated by Michaels' temper tantrum--otherwise, they covered for it very well. This was a REALLY good match with some annoying booking. They gave Vader three false finishes (if you count the visual fall off the power bomb) in an effort to keep him strong for rematches, since presumably he was still expected to take the belt at Survivor Series. Makes sense, but it seemed like too much. All that aside, the work here from both guys is fantastic--this is the closest WWF Vader has come to looking like his old killer self, as he destroys Shawn with some great clotheslines and other cut-off spots. Michaels' bumping is great as well--of course we all know he's a great bumper, but here the bumps really come across as putting over Vader's offense instead of HBK falling into his usual self-indulgent "look at me!" shtick. Not a GREAT match, but it could have been if they'd just gone 20-25 minutes straight. And this could well be Vader's high point in the WWF as a worker.
  24. PeteF3
    I don't think many people could get that good of a view of the big screen. It wasn't a late-'90s style TitanTron. They did react to the big spots, though, and I don't think it was canned. Yeah, this was enjoyable. Not really something with a lot of re-watch value, but it felt gritty and dirty and lowdown, in a way that the WWF rarely was. Mankind as per custom takes some truly loony bumps, and UT gets a nasty cut on his elbow that led to a staph infection--a very good reason not to do this type of match too often. Bearer turns heel as we all know. It's not nearly as impactful as the Hogan turn, but hey--they milked that relationship for 5 and a half years before pulling the trigger on a split. Afterward a Gregorian chant strikes up and some monks carry Undertaker out, in a segment that was almost forgotten about the very next night.
  25. PeteF3
    Liger's little shimmy brings to mind Mr. Wrestling Ii--maybe the first time that comparison has ever been made. Really fun match that's not at the level of the truly great MPro matches, but shows just how strong an "average" match of this type could be. This could well have gone longer--Hamada didn't really get a chance to do much.
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