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
    Savage, of course. Strictly speaking Koko B. Ware and Honky Tonk Man debuted in the latter half of '86.
  2. PeteF3
    Country Boy was actually written by Doc Pomus, who's a pretty legendary early rock and roll songwriter (seems like he wrote practically half of Elvis' catalogue). Rebroadcast rights are probably just too expensive. I think Jimmy has said that he's willing to let WWE use his wrestling songs for free if they want. "Real American" hasn't gotten changed yet.
  3. PeteF3
    Darnielle was a regular at the Olympic Auditorium as a kid, and Chavo was his favorite wrestler. He's also written odes to Ox Baker and Greg Valentine. Brand new Mountain Goats: "The Legend of Chavo Guerrero." Upcoming album is called Beat the Champ, who knows just how all-encompassing the wrestling theme is going to be.
  4. PeteF3
    Not only is this a severely familiar rerun of an angle they did with Jeff Jarrett and Bob Holly the year before, I don't get why you do this kind of turnaround 2 weeks before a PPV with a fairly major IC title defense. They couldn't at least find a way to get the Warrior involved here? Vega looked really good here, at least.
  5. PeteF3
    Fuck any fan who would have preferred Sable to this.
  6. PeteF3
    Great fiery promo by Cornette, though I do wish Vader, severely underrated talker that he is, was allowed to cut loose on the mic in this role instead of just grunting and spouting his catchphrase.
  7. PeteF3
    This is "shootfight rules" with some judo sensei guy as referee. Tod Gordon comes out with Jericho and handcuffs himself to Alfonso. The match is nothing, just a backdrop to the angle--Jericho is SO out of his element here, but Taz acquits himself nicely with the requisite killer suplexes and a really cool bow & arrow hold. The entourage from Taz's "dojo" is at ringside, and his training partner levels outside ref Jim Molineaux and swipes his key, freeing Alfonso while the judo ref weakly sells an accidental shot to the eye. Alfonso clobbers Jericho with a chair and Taz locks on the Tazmission and the ref calls for the bell without bothering to check for the submission. Gordon is in to try to pry Taz off Jericho as the ref questions Alfonso about the chair in the ring...then he levels the Commish with the chair and chokes him out himself! Alfonso drops a big wad of cash in the referee's hand and he and Team Taz walk out victorious. Alfonso has peaked as a personality, I think, but this was more fun stuff from him.
  8. PeteF3
    This was a lot of fun, with Mikey doing a good job of holding this together. Lots of spots but a lot of them are rather cleverly set-up, with less contrivance than you might expect. The double-bluff with the table on the guardrail was well-done, with Mikey first avoiding being sent through the table and then sending Sabu crashing through it later on. Sabu looks completely fucked after springboarding over the guardrail through a table, but manages to somehow hold it together to execute a rather complicated finish.
  9. PeteF3
    Buh Buh: "I can outdance your Black ass any day of the week!" This goes to show you how far commitment to character and good vs. evil in storytelling can take you in wrestling, in front of any audience. This is a crowd more smarkier than Smarkyton and yet they're still getting behind Buh Buh Ray in sympathetic support and getting on 2 Cold's case for abusing him, especially when he jumps him during Buh Buh Ray's attempted breakdance. Sign Guy is a pretty effective ringside second, too, in a thankless role as babyface manager and a silent manager at that.
  10. PeteF3
    Shawn dispatches of Lawler and calls Diesel in the ring from the announcer's desk. The fight's even at first, but Mr. Perfect gets up to distract Shawn and toss Diesel the belt, and Raw ends with Shawn laid out. I liked Perfect keeping an eye on Diesel's watch. Part 3 of one of the most heel-dominated episodes of Raw to date. In one episode we had Yokozuna getting his leg broken, the British Bulldog destroying Ahmed Johnson after an arm-wrestling contest, and Diesel laying out HBK.
  11. PeteF3
    Warrior manages to blow up before an interview. He is over, though, no doubt about that. Goldust is out before Warrior can ramble too much, and MAN, you always forget just how big a dude Dustin is. "Warriors, come out to play!" The Warriors, 1979." Goldust invites Warrior to play a superhero game and climb on Superman's back so they can fly off into the sunset together, and Warrior's all "queering don't make the world work" and drops him with a clothesline.
  12. PeteF3
    Vader drops a Vaderbomb on Yokozuna's leg, breaking it. Part 1 of one of the most heel-dominated Raws ever to this point.
  13. PeteF3
    This has almost the same finish as the Santo-Felino match! My favorite line was Lawler to the jobber: "What's that? YOU drive a '73 Ford Pinto? You idiot!"
  14. PeteF3
    Really glad to see the perpetually underappreciated and underused Felino in a big title match setting, getting to cut loose. That said, this is a pretty disjointed match. It's good, but it almost would have been better at one long fall rather than split up. Felino has good-looking offense and good mat skills, but the transitions here were a little wonky and "easy" for my liking.
  15. PeteF3
    Really good match that contrasts nicely with the more standard Michinoku Pro 6-mans. I only wish Hamada had done more, but he was the one guy who stayed anonymous through this. TAKA gets tortured by the Horsemen side, but Liger gets paid back with his knee getting destroyed, only for the Horsemen team to pay *that* back by taking apart Otani's bad shoulder. But the rudo side seems more cohesive and has more saves in their holster, and TAKA gets an upset pin on Samurai.
  16. PeteF3
    We got treated to the SLAM-O-METER at Capital Combat, after the night's slammingest match, Mark Callous vs. Johnny Ace.
  17. PeteF3
    Looking back on it now I'm amazed that Razor Ramon was able to keep his edge (heh heh) upon turning babyface. It *could* be done.
  18. PeteF3
    The latter. Wait till you see some of the jokers Snowman has to defend against once the Lawler feud ends.
  19. PeteF3
    Before we begin, Bomber Hikari reads a statement and then Sonoko Kato is back out, in hysterics, screaming at everyone. Chigusa is out and I think she basically tells her to shut her yap. The more angle-based GAEA is going to be one steep learning curve, I can tell. To the match, and in the early going Kato is out *again*, and she's quickly sent away by both women. She continues to make a nuisance of herself throughout the match. Looking past that, this has a stronger face-heel divide than your average joshi match--Michiko is still a poor woman's Takako Inoue but she shows a little more personality than she did in the 6-woman tag. Chikayo makes for a pretty good spunky babyface with a lot of hit-and-run offense, though this is basically an extended squash with Kato breaking things up. The interference spots reached tedium with me really fast, particularly since every run-in ended with Michiko kicking Kato's ass. This might be something else to have to get used to. GAEA style seems somewhere between JWP and AJW--they cut an AJW-like pace but the moves are a lot more basic. It is refreshing to see TV-style joshi, with the ladies going for 10-15 minutes instead of epics (acknowledging the inherent selection bias in a project like the Yearbook, which is going to naturally focus on the big matches).
  20. PeteF3
    Nothing to say about this--just some good quick action before a time limit draw. As mid-card-ish as it gets. Or...wait, now it restarts. In the second fall (??) Uematsu does some really good, vicious work over Kato's taped-up shoulder, then when she locks on the cross armbreaker the bell rings again. And we restart again, and I have no idea what the fuck is going on. I guess this is a match with rounds. Uematsu gets in another flurry, the bell rings one last time and that's it. The rules took me out of the match, but Uematsu was really spirited and fun, throwing all kinds of cool roll-ups along with the submissions, and breaking down emotionally when she can't put Kato away at the end. Kato...well, she was there. I feel like I'm back watching the 1990 Yearbook, having to be re-introduced to joshi all over again, with all the new faces GAEA is featuring.
  21. PeteF3
    Tommy Dreamer and a Rangers goalie team up to punk out that abominable New York Islanders Gorton's Fisherman mascot--Dreamer just became NYC's favorite wrestler. Dr. Mark Allen, who I think would show up again, talks about Raven's foot, setting up an old-school orthopedic boot angle. Taz calls out Brian Pillman, something I have no recollection of. The Pitbulls speak and this time they've added threats to the Gangstas and Sandman/Scorpio to their weekly promo on the Eliminators. Sandman ogles Missy's tits...oh, nope, it was a beercan. Dr. Allen interacts with the Meanie in a funny scene. Some guy from ABC cuts a promo on the Headhunters for hurting DW Dudley. JT Smith sings "Fly Me to the Moon" again, with some altered lyrics. The Eliminators hit New Jack with Total Elimination while he's sandwiched between tables. Shane Douglas wants Raven's title.
  22. PeteF3
    This is a pretty good closing stretch, but the post-match is what makes this, of course. Mankind drops an elbow from the apron, with the WWF getting a picture-perfect camera angle, then several false finishes as officials drag Mankind away and Mankind repeatedly jumps back on Undertaker when it looks like the beatdown is finished. No sit-ups, no zombie comebacks...this is about as effectively as UT had ever put somebody over one-on-one to this point.
  23. PeteF3
    "The Leader of the NEW WWF Generation," take 3. No way *this* one can fail. Very Great American Bash '90 celebratory interview where the former champ gets put over the most, though Shawn cutting Vince off--"I'm the champ, I ain't done talking! I've been waiting 11 years for this!"--was amusing.
  24. PeteF3
    Oh, answering my own question, I guess the narrator is Josh Matthews or someone. Presumably it was originally Pettingill and there was music they had to remove and his voice went with it. At times I wonder if this wouldn't have been better off if they'd worked a straight 60-minute draw, and then gone to overtime. There are various problems with that (with regard to promoting the show with only 6 matches, or starting the match at 8:30pm or so). This match isn't an all-time technical classic, but it's been kicked around so much in retrospect that I don't think it can really qualify as "overrated" anymore either. It's just a good, solid match, that probably comes off better because it's so anomalous in a WWF setting: the Pure Sports Build stuff, right up to Earl Hebner going over the rules, the oddball spots involving the referee and timekeeper, the new offense, Vince skirting the line between '90s Carnival Barker and 1970's broadcaster--it's definitely something different from this company. The opening matwork is only okay and tends to drag, but Bret nicely keeps his focus on Shawn's back even if he blows off the work Shawn did on his arm. And I have to credit Shawn for busting out some new moves here--a good stiff clothesline, a Perfect-Plex, and a Doctor Bomb, among others--in-between some suicidal bumps. He really could have been a better offensive wrestler than he tended to be. This isn't really a match to go back and revisit over and over, but I'd like to see it remembered as a good, strong effort rather than an overrated failed epic.
  25. PeteF3
    Who is this narrating the pre-match package? I was stunned by how good, well-thought-out, and well-worked this was, and how much I enjoyed it. The Backlot stuff is some of the stiffest and most intense brawling the WWF has seen in a match in ages, with some awesome punches thrown by both guys. And either Piper is a total loon or they did some terrific camera and editing work when he (or a stuntman) got nailed by the gold Cadillac. Compare to how WCW would have handled this, at any point in history, and it's night and day. The attention to detail and production values are still a huge advantage for the WWF. Then after a few matches and some OJ footage we head to the ring, and this is actually pretty psychologically sound: not only does Goldust work over Piper's knee, but the homoerotic stuff is actually sewn into the match very effectively. We get one of the first gay payback spots in wrestling history before Piper strips Goldust down to his Marv Albert lingerie and sends him retreating. If I kept track of star ratings this would be in the ***1/2 range. Goldust put it together as a worker earlier than I thought.
×
×
  • Create New...