Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

PeteF3

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10287

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    We should be fair and point out that we had a Hispanic man dominating the IC title scene in the years prior to this. (Yes, that was sarcasm.) Cornette was constantly wanting to put Tammy with black guys in SMW. When she debuted and was going around looking for proteges, that was supposed to lead to the introduction of Tony Atlas. Then later he wanted to put her with the Gangstas, which she (sensibly) refused to do. I can't say that I'm grossly offended by this booking move even if I probably should be--the far worse Flair/JYD stuff is right there, after all--but it does feel about 20 years out of date as a heat tactic in 1996.
  2. PeteF3
    I don't know if this is the better match than the Samurai bout, but this might be the greatest performance of Otani's life, and one of the better ones I've ever seen, period. Dragon has morphed into at least an inoffensive worker, but this was still a match almost completely made by Shinjiro. From his early la majistral escapes, to the timing of his kickout when Dragon actually gets him in the move, to his offense, to his awesome selling and frustration every time Dragon makes an escape. Otani is pretty easily the #1 worker in the world at this point, and he puts on a second MOTYC in what's one of the most impressive and highest-end carry-jobs in history. I don't want to sell Ultimo too short, as he hits all of his spots and I don't think a match this good can be entirely the work of one guy, but he couldn't help but be overshadowed.
  3. PeteF3
    I actually liked this match the best of the three. No 2.9 wrestling and the "near falls" they did do were actually well-executed. Sabu is full train wreck worker by this point, but I do admire how he always sets up the table between the apron and guardrail, then makes you wait and wait and wait for one of a various number of payoffs. He *did* put some thought into some aspects of his matches, at least. This has a lot of cringeworthy spots and some inventive ones, too--the payoff in this case was RVD countering a springboard into a fisherman buster through the table.
  4. PeteF3
    Much better than the Sabu match, as the matwork is more dynamic and better-executed. There's still moments of meandering from both and sloppiness mostly from Jericho, but Scorpio holds this together. I actually would have preferred more of the mat stuff to the high spots as they were busting out some wacky lucha-esque submissions for a little bit.
  5. PeteF3
    Very casual atmosphere here to a degree not typically seen in wrestling promos to this point, so it's no wonder why these are so well-remembered--these guys all have a point to get across, but it feels like 3 guys bullshitting around.
  6. PeteF3
    E-C-W! E-C-W! Gilbert's "number 11" punch on Rich is awesome and Rich is still a great heel seller. Eventually Jarrett manages to handcuff Christopher to the ropes and that leads to a long beatdown on Gilbert courtesy of Double J, Rich, Frank Morrell, and Tony Falk. Falk is about as low-rent, dumpy, and trashy-looking of a wrestler as you can get, particularly by 1996.
  7. PeteF3
    "For some reason"...heh. Fun angle that, as usual, has me wondering what people walking or driving down the street have to think--or if it's just second nature at this point. "Oh, the WMC action spilled out in the parking lot again."
  8. PeteF3
    Other than the good work on the hand, Koshinaka was pretty useless here. I'm fine with him leaving the hand-work in the holster until he was in big trouble and needed to do it, but it was his only good contribution to the match. He's still a shitty seller and everything else here--and this was a perfectly decent match--was due to Yamazaki.
  9. PeteF3
    I don't think Johnston's doing the NXT themes anyway. That said, I'm almost ashamed at how much I really like Bayley's themes--both of them.
  10. PeteF3
    Too long and meandering to really be good. I actually kind of appreciated the low-key opening stuff, but it takes too long for them to get going and the build is off. Sabu isn't exactly Mr. Smooth but Jericho is even looser and sloppier here, a criticism that would stick with him his entire career. The closing stretch is good and fast-paced and there were things to like in-between, but this needed to be tightened up.
  11. PeteF3
    The previous bout was all about little things--now we have two of the best "big moment" workers in the history of wrestling. The previous matches in this series tended to be about the young dog Hashimoto trying to take down Choshu--he was but the learner, now he's the master and Choshu is older, slower, less in shape, and in general just barely hanging on. The match is compelling on its surface from that point and the selling of both guys adds to it. There's not much to this other than kicks and lariats, but few people in wrestling have ever gotten more out of less. Dramatic match with another surprise finish.
  12. PeteF3
    Great match all about the little things--Yamazaki being a superior mat worker full of deadly submissions, and Muto resorting to stomping on his hand to gain advantages. Yamazaki withstanding the dragon screw->moonsault->figure four combo was a shocker, as that really seemed to be the finish. Then once again he pulls a submission out of his ass for an upset victory. Muto walking out was a little weird but his actual selling while in the cross armbreaker was gold.
  13. PeteF3
    I didn't notice the breathing at all, and this thread actually had me seeking it out. God, that sounds weird. Anyway, this was a little bit emptier than the FMW match but was still fun, with some cool back-and-forth exchanges and a spunky little performance from the overmatched Kojima. Finish is logical and realistic but it sort of peters out.
  14. PeteF3
    Tanaka isn't THAT good, but damned if he wouldn't look out of place in an AJPW setting the way he works here. This was really fundamentally sound on top of the big bombs, which surprises me even if I'm not sure that it should--if that makes sense. There's some good big vs. little psychology, some heel work by Kanemura, and good underdog selling by Tanaka, who keeps W*ING off guard with some cool roll-ups and reversals, not to mention the big rolling elbows. Really fun match, probably the best I've seen out of Kanemura. Let the record show, years later, that Michinoku's opponent was Hayato Nanjo.
  15. PeteF3
    136 minutes may well be right. 1 is not a long show at all.
  16. PeteF3

    Great Kabuki

    PeteF3 replied to Grimmas's topic in Nominees

    Very underrated as the fiery veteran in late '80s AJPW, and underrated as a babyface in World Class. That said, his earlier heel work leaves me cold, as objectively successful as the gimmick was. A testament to how far Gary Hart can carry somebody but I can't really see voting for him.
  17. PeteF3
    Per the '91 Observers, there *was* a proposal for a heel Piper to headline WM7 against either Hogan or the Warrior, before they decided to go with Sarge. That said, I think a lot of this is Piper just being a free spirit.
  18. PeteF3
    Satomura is now both dressing and wrestling like a Yamada clone--still good, but I preferred her the first time I saw her when she was all about funky armbars. Actually Kato adopts a lot of those spots in her own right--she looks great here. This is wrestled at a joshi pace but with more old-school moves, especially from Nagayo whose offense centers around basic kicks, piledrivers, and sleepers, while Yamada & Satomura run through a bunch of old Crockett tag finishers. Kato gets trapped alone with Yamada and that ends how you'd expect, but I definitely want to see more of her.
  19. PeteF3
    Well, this is the performance of KAORU's career so far from what I've seen--she works not one but two LOOONG face-in-peril segments. This is also worked almost as a captain's match, with Ozaki spending most of this match on the apron directing traffic while her two henchwomen do her dirty work, and KAORU doing much of the same on the rare opportunities she has to tag out. This really turns when Ozaki drops KAORU with a Liger bomb through a table, and KAORU gets busted open and brutalized by double-teams from Sato and Amano. Her team gets a good run of their own off the hot tag, but KAORU finds herself getting beaten down again. She gets in a few hope spots, but Nagashima, who notably hadn't done much of anything the entire match, suddenly makes the save for her opponents. KAORU finally goes down soon after that--yeah, I already know enough to know that Nagashima isn't the trustworthy type. She walks out rather than stick around to check on her partner, though she doesn't seem to be a part of Oz's group just yet, though she's certainly a fit for it. There were some awkward spots here but this was still a very good match to establish Oz Academy as a force.
  20. PeteF3
    Yes, welcome to the best angle WCW ever executed. It's useless to recite all the neat touches they got right here because they've been gone over, but the match really *is* good until it stops in its tracks. The biggest thing about this is WCW intentionally sabotaged their own second hour just to get this angle over. The main event of Giant vs. Arn Anderson turned into the Giant squashing Greg Valentine--they deliberately put on a shit show to get over the chaos the company had been thrown into by the Outsiders. This is some of the ballsiest, most daring booking of all-time, and proof of just how bulletproof Nitro was as their winning streak had already started. Even with the card being ruined, they threw in just enough "hooks"--who's the 4th man? Where did Savage go? Will anyone be coming back?--to keep viewers wanting to see if anything more would happen.
  21. PeteF3
    They kept showing this even though Badd was long gone from the company (hence the black bar over his face) and Luger & Hart weren't together anymore. "Oh, WCW" never did quite go away, even as Nitro was now just about bulletproof.
  22. PeteF3
    Hard to believe this signing ended up working out after all.
  23. PeteF3
    I actually thought Hall was the best of the 3 here, though all of them have something to offer. Next a "short film" that I have absolutely no recollection of, as the Outsiders jump Sting in the parking lot and slam the trunk down on him. I'm not sure this was ever actually shown on Nitro, though I could be wrong.
  24. PeteF3
    In previous Yearbooks I remarked that Kobashi-Taue was the one Four Corners singles match-up that, despite some very good showdowns, didn't seem to have that "definitive" match. Well, we've found it. Or I have, at least. The struggles over the chokeslam attempts are terrific and I love how Kobashi manages to transition back to offense when his back is up against the wall--first with a daring legdrop to the floor and then with a tornado DDT. He really seems to overcome long odds--I was *thinking* Kobashi was the champ going into the 1/97 match but I couldn't remember for sure, so I was left in suspense as to whether this was his big title victory and if it was, just how the hell he was going to get there as Taue was pounding the shit out of him. But he does make that comeback and we get our second 6-year build-up paid off in the same show. This could finish in the top 10-15 MOTY list.
  25. PeteF3
    A little on the disappointing side--the first half of this was wrestled in slow motion, and not in a subtle '70s-style way. There were just stretches of neither guy doing much of anything, without even any cool work from Fuchi taking apart one of Kikuchi's limbs. The drama down the stretch is better, and this pays off a VERY long-running storyline and rivalry that stretches back 6 years, but it's clear that Kikuchi has lost several steps since his peak.
×
×
  • Create New...