PeteF3
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Raven goes all-out to try to get Gordy over--Gordy didn't exactly need the help from a reaction standpoint, as the crowd goes nuts as soon as they realize what's up. Richards and Nova trying to pry apart Gordy's Asiatic spike was fun, and after additional run-ins from Brian Lee and Dreamer (Gordy power bombing Lee gets a huge pop), Raven ekes out another win. Afterward, after failing to get Sandman's attention earlier by bringing out Peaches as his new whore, Raven brings out Tyler Fullington and *that* has an effect on Sandman. Bluedust joins us afterward as a capstone and Beulah DDTs him a fun spot.
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"Shootfight rules," which means a win comes by KO or submission. I've seen worse shootstyle matches and worse wrasslin' performances by real fighters, though this is awfully short and Varelans doesn't really know how to pull his strikes so that they look effective without being effective, if that makes sense. Varelans probably could have gone places in wrestling if he wanted to. Shortly into the match, Saturn decks him with a missile dropkick as Alfonso distracts the referee, and Taz chokes him out soon afterward. I get that concessions had to be made to Varelans but this is twice now that Taz has had to use chicanery to win his own "style" of match, which I don't get. He's being put over as an unstoppable machine, not a cheating bitch heel, but that's how he wins. Taz gloats about fucking the fans again--"that wasn't a shoot, that wasn't shit."
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Shockingly good match that threatens to go off the rails at various points, but never quite does. The only real blown spot is the tombstone reversal and they cover that pretty seamlessly. Jericho, who was never exactly the Excellence of Execution, manages to hit every spot he tries. The finish looked great. Douglas uses Francine as a human shield and causes her to eat a clothesline from Pitbull 2, which is a pretty spectacularly dickish thing to do even by ECW standards.
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Everyone was awesome here except Hales, who almost killed the segment and I actually believed he was starting a heel turn at points. He's no Eddie Marlin--he's a substitute teacher in over his head who jumps up and down demanding respect from his students instead of earning it.
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All the Toyota talk is fairly fascinating. I'm like OJ in that I'm somewhere in-between on her. And the point that Toyota could be infuriating but probably wouldn't reach the highs that she did if she worked any other way is well-taken. That said, I've been pretty sour on 1996 AJW and the wheel-spinning is palpable. Shimoda taking Yamada's place as Toyota's tag partner seems to be the only real major "elevation" of a star to take place from 1990 until this moment. They're a little higher up on the cards, and Bull and Kimura and Hokuto are gone, but otherwise it's the same core group of people, working an unsustainable style. Even AJPW, for all their criticism, seems to have had a better track record in developing future talent. Who has debuted for AJW in the '90s who compares to Tamon Honda or Satoru Asako, much less a guy like Akiyama? The match? Well, actually, I thought the first two falls were awesome, Toyota botch notwithstanding. I should probably be annoyed by the joshi trend of having one of the first two falls of a multi-fall match end very quickly, but they always find a way to make it work. Double Inoue do some great work in the second fall in targeting Toyota's back, and we again see Kyoko murdering Toyota with a lariat. I was ready to mark this up as a lost Top-10 MOTYC contender, but the third fall bogged down. It wasn't *bad*, but it did tend to meander. They didn't overdo the near-falls but I didn't quite buy into any story that was told--a big, miraculous Toyota comeback would have been a nice way to go but it didn't seem like they were even going for that. We end up with a good match with a more engaged-than-usual '96 AJW crowd, but that's as high as I'll go. Shimoda looks pretty, but so far I can't remember a single really memorable performance of hers. She just seems to be there, as opposed to Yamada who was far more memorable and was a fun contrast to Toyota's style. -
Raven and Stevie are at a playground, and Raven browbeats him for his bad taste in Raven's women: Beulah and Kimona both left him, so he asked for the sluttiest BLEEEEEEP Richards could find. But Divine Brown wasn't disgusting or experienced enough. Richards has the answer: BLUEDUST. More Adult Swim-style comedy for stoners, though Bluedust suddenly shifting gears into a Dusty impersonation was pretty funny. D-Von Dudley abuses Sign Guy. Tommy Dreamer hypes a weapons match with Brian Lee. Shane Douglas rants. The Gangstas threaten the Eliminators--New Jack sounds like he needs a lozenge. The Eliminators rebut. The Samoan Gangsta Party makes an appearance. D-Von yells some more until he gets the answer he wants. Paul Varelans unconvincingly threatens Taz. Richards and Meanie have fun with a garden hose in a scene even more disturbing than Bluedust on the playground. D-Von turns his attention to Dances With Dudley. Raven promises to show Sandman and the world how much pain he has to offer. Paul E. talks about Sabu. Sandman pays/drinks another tribute--this one to Dick Murdoch. This felt a little fresher than the other recent Pulp Fictions, with a few new faces.
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Big pop for Flair, big boos for Hogan. Horsemen Country, baby. Gene sets the Bash at the Beach main event.
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Fun on all levels: Savage's pre-match promo ("I saw a female psychiatrist, she said I was OCD--ONE COOL DUDE, OOH YEAH") to his chase of Bobby, the Brain busting out the cowardly heel manager tactics one last time, Flair's entrance, the pre-match mic spots, the brawl at the VIP table, Liz slapping Macho in the face, Savage hitting the elbow while flying through the three ladies trying to protect Flair--nothing not to love here. McMichael actually looks like a genuine badass dressed in all black and sunglasses and laying out Savage with a stiff briefcase shot to the head.
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JJ showed up a few times when they needed the brigade of suits. He was one of the guys trying to get Nailz out of the ring in his debut, and was in on the Rick Rude/Roddy Piper Brother Love attack. This is probably the only time his name was outright mentioned on TV, though. Pillman plays this straight--if I remember right, he *did* go off after this and the transcript was posted on the old WWF AOL board, but nothing on TV.
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This was heatless, but it was also the last Raw in the taping cycle and I'm not sure if the return of Hulk Hogan could have woken that crowd up. It's a good, technically-minded match with Mero acquitting himself well, though. I was hoping this would be Austin's star-making commentary performance where he obliquely made fun of the Lex Express, but that must come at some other point.
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Nice to see this for a guy who was, in all honesty, a WWF footnote.
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This was okay, but it was basically Eddy methodically punishing Sasuke before Sasuke pulls out a flash win with that familiar Rey Misterio finish. This felt a little more organic, at least, as Sasuke had already kicked out of a conventional BT Bomb forcing Tiger to try a more souped-up version, which backfired. This felt a lot like Malenko/Rey and Regal/Sting, but not as good as either. Sasuke has fallen off judging by his Yearbook performances, and maybe that was inevitable.
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Liger wrestles like he's an outsider in Michinoku Pro--maybe appearing in the Budokan in what was essentially enemy territory had that effect on him. The result is never much in doubt, unlike the first match we saw on the card, but it's a fine match that features Liger doing some primo arm work (boy is THAT a running theme these two days). I especially liked his cutting Togo off by hitting a missile dropkick to the arm.
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[1990-08-27-WWF-Summerslam] Rick Rude vs Ultimate Warrior (Cage)
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in August 1990
Monsoon was having toes amputated due to diabetes. You'll see Vince calling the action on Challenge in at least one upcoming segment. -
Pretty good match, with a few great spots and a few instances of both guys overreaching their limits. TAKA looked overall terrific--Delfin was game but not on the same level, and this may have had a few kickouts too many. Still worth seeing.
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Quite the incredible follow-up to the shock heel turn. Schiavone is so disgusted he unleashes a "Jesus!" at the slow first responders.
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I remember reading the match results online and almost falling out of my chair. I was SO pre-emptively disgusted that Flair and Arn were going to have to put over two football players, the idea of them winning, much less McMichael of all people turning heel, wasn't even the slightest possibility. Hell, I read about Bischoff eating a power bomb through a table even before Nash's debut, but no one saw this comng. Mongo was never a good worker but I could never really hate him, because this is one of my favorite heel turns of all-time. Even before ordering the replay, just reading the rundown of this card made it absolutely clear that WCW was truly the new #1.
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I daresay this smoked Dean vs. Rey--in fact, this made me really want to see Regal vs. Rey and Sting vs. Malenko, since Regal combined Dean's mat skills and arm work with a much stronger character more willing to engage the crowd, and Sting's charisma could have carried Dean's drier work. I though this was absolutely terrific, with Sting making Regal look like a killer for most of this as he was willing to get all kinds of tied up in knots. I guess the comeback and win came a *little* quickly, but the way Sting went for the scorpion almost came off as a desperation move to end things quickly that happened to work, rather than an arbitrarily pre-planned finish.
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This might be the high watermark for Dusty as announcer. "THERE IS A WOMAN IN THE MEN'S JOHN HERE IN BALT-A-MOH! ... SHE SAID, 'I GOT TO GET SOME RELIEF, BABY!' ... GO 'CROSS THE HALL, SEE WHAT THE UTHA WUN LOOKS LIKE!" He's having the time of his life. Certainly this was more crowd-pleasing than the Cruiserweight match, and it may well be the WCW high watermark for Benoit as well. Listen to that pop for the win and tell me he couldn't connect with an audience. And then Arn's "save" that turns into a further beatdown almost blows the roof off the place. A million billion stars indeed.
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I'm still not as enamored with this as everyone else--the work is good to great and maybe it's a **** level match in a vacuum, but I still didn't come away convinced that this was the right match to work at this exact point. Even a quick showcase of Rey offense at the start could have improved the mood considerably, instead of Dean more or less guzzling him from the start.. That all said, the Cruiserweight title has bounced back from a mess of a tournament and guys like Brad Armstrong being pushed as contenders, as all 3 announcers rattle off all the foreign talent gunning for the belt. Tenay is easy to make fun of now but he was DESPERATELY needed at this point, just to identify moves that were invented after 1989. WCW is starting to put together a smart blend of intense, star-driven drama at the top of the cards and high workrate underneath, meshing all kinds of working and booking styles together.
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This was *really* good while it lasted, but even at 17 minutes this felt like it ended just as it got going. Yeah, I'm criticizing a joshi match for not being long enough--go figure. There's a whole lot of kicking going on here--that's Yamada's game of course, but Nagayo and Satomura aren't afraid to kick some motherfuckers' teeth in, either. And Satomura continues to show off all the different ways she can apply armbars. And there's something infectious about the way she flails her arms whenever she runs across the ring. Numao basically was an overmatched junior partner who pulled a rollup and win at the end, which would have had more impact with better build.
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Most of these matches are JIP for TV, so you don't get any feeling out process and a full view of the match--just a really fun closing stretch. That stretch is marred by some truly ridiculously cooperative-looking and awkward spots, but I'll chalk some of that up to what I presume is a relative lack of experience. But it's all-action and there are some really well-done moves here, even though they're basic by joshi standards. They manage to make swinging neckbreakers and elbow drops look like key transition moves. The hosses--Kurenai, Futagami, and Hikari are actually a lot better off working scientifically than in trying to use stiffness or power moves. I don't know what that says about them or the match, but I found it interesting. I also liked Nagashima a lot more here than the first time I saw her, as she works like a spunky babyface rather than a poor-woman's Ozaki. Midori puts Sato away with an absolutely gorgeous German suplex. If this were out in full and the first chunk was as good as this, this would definitely be the best GAEA match I've seen in '96.
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Ugh. There are conflicting reports out there, then. He didn't LOOK mid-30s, but of course Buzz Sawyer died at 33 and looked 53.
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I doubt Brooks was ever a particularly good worker but I will note that he was about 50 by then.
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Really good stuff here, as Oz and Kansai sort of move to the background and let the junior team members shine. Of course having said that, Kansai's buggered leg is the overarching story of the match. This is a JWP-style matwork-based match worked at an AJW pace, if that makes sense. Poor Montoya practically gets her arm ripped out of joint, but pulls a sunset flip out of her rear end to score a (controversial) 3-count. I think you've got a strong argument that your shoulder was in fact up, Reiko.