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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Yes, apparently.
- 11 replies
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- USWA
- USWA Texas
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(and 5 more)
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[1996-03-20-NJPW-Hyper Battle] Wild Pegasus vs Shinjiro Otani
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in March 1996
More of a solid and well-worked match than a classic, but Otani's punchdrunk, concussed selling after taking the rolling Germans is textbook selling (if in fact he was selling and not actually fucked up). The opening matwork was pretty blah and throwaway, which holds this back some--if you could combine the Toyota/Hasegawa matwork with this closing stretch, you'd really have something. Otani puts Benoit away with a springboard DDT that looks fantastic. -
[1996-03-20-AJW-Highest] Manami Toyota vs Sakie Hasegawa
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in March 1996
31:33, which was just way too long. Hasegawa is great at tying Manami into knots with holds (and Manami is great at getting tied up...oh man, that's not meant to be as perverted as it sounds). And there were some really great cut-offs and near-falls here, particularly Hasegawa leveling Manami with a big thrust kick off the ropes, right in the damn face. But some of Manami's worst tendencies came out here, like that admittedly cool-looking but very silly moment where she does her rolling cradle out on the arena floor. Really 2.9-ish closing stretch that dragged when it should have been building to a big climax, and on top of that Manami blows ANOTHER spot that's supposed to be the finish. I like Sakie for all the reasons Loss states but this was disappointing and a prime example of Bad Manami.- 10 replies
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If Undertaker can't wrestle this year, then he's headlining.
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Lance Wright joins us--the ECW Fan of the Week is...Gary Juster. He wins a meal cooked by Brian Pillman, who burns and spits in his food. Shane Douglas flirts with a chick from One Life to Live. "WHAT ABOUT ME? WHAT ABOUT RAVEN TAZ?" Missy and Sandman cut another BDSM-tinged promo. Damien Kane and the Headhunters growl at us. JT Smith is not clumsy--he's one smart Italiano. The Eliminators lament that Francine wasn't pregnant like Beulah when they eliminated her, because they could have "gotten two for one." Yikes. The Gangstas are coming to Atlanta. Raven sulks. The ECW backdrop falls on JT Smith's head, and he admits that while he may not be clumsy, he may be unlucky. Pillman "breaks character" to show what a nice guy he is, while stabbing himself with a fork.
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The "FTC" speaking through the WWF accuses Ted of trying to CREATE A MONOPOLY. Incredible. They're not even trying to make jokes now, as Ted cuts a full-blown heel promo right outside of A Few Good Men.
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[1996-03-18-WWF-Raw] Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels training videos
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in March 1996
Very Pure Sports Build stuff, and well done. Bret discussing Shawn's "hiatus from the little beating he took" was laugh-out-loud funny. -
[1996-03-17-WWF-MSG, NY] Bret Hart & The Undertaker vs Shawn Michaels & Diesel
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in March 1996
This was a ton of fun, in front of a super-hot (and big--14,000+ paid and 17,000 in the building) MSG crowd. The Diesel/UT brawling is actually really good for the brief moments we see it, and I actually was a fan of the unusual layout. Undertaker has a compelling program for the first time since the first go-round with Yokozuna 2+ years ago. A little bit of House Show Bret creeps in here, and for maybe the first time Shawn really does look like the hotter, superior worker of the two, as he sells Bret's stuff pretty beautifully. The UT/Shawn faceoff is GREAT, to the point where you wonder why it took another year and a half for them to finally work a singles program. Diesel, who never tagged into the match, makes a second return with a chair and clobbers UT and Bret with it to draw a DQ. Shawn is upset but forgiving...until he turns his back and Diesel clobbers him, then scampers away when UT sits up to cement his full heel turn. Diesel would later explain this by Shawn telling him his back hurt and asking him to do some chiropractic work on it--"I just did what he asked and all of a sudden, I'm the bad guy." -
[1996-03-17-NJPW-Hyper Battle] Jushin Liger vs Shinjiro Otani
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in March 1996
What a goddamned month this has been for the little folks. I liked this a ton, with the Otani story continuing at the end in magnificent fashion, after being a gutsy bastard for most of the match surviving Liger's offense. The matwork isn't Samurai-Otani levels but it's pretty awesome in its own right, and leads to a fantastic standoff where Otani's arm and Liger's leg are just dangling. I've never been crazy about the shotei as a finish but they sell it about as well as possible here, with Liger being quick to dive on top and wrap Otani up after hitting it.- 11 replies
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1990 was a rough intro to lucha trios and tags, as the first several all seemingly had a bunch of turns and angles that didn't make a great deal of sense to non-Spanish speakers (and maybe to some Spanish speakers too). The action and the booking do get better. But you'd better get used to subpar camera work.
- 13 replies
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"Man Kind" the Mutilator is in Memphis! His ear is Lawler's future. "Something STRANGE there," intones Lance Russell.
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*wakes up* Hey, it's 2015, so is this match over yet? Christ. Ultraman looks better than he did in the January match, but for the love of Christ...he goes through two tables (one of which is on fire), takes a somersault legdrop off the top with a chair, AND a tombstone, and kicks out of all three of those and more. And the run-ins were okay in the first match but here it's just overkill and more of the same, just with crazier stunts. Eventually both guys kick each other in the groin, and I guess Psicosis gets up first or something. jdw's review lists this at 24:09, but it felt more like 4 hours.
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I liked the ECW match better too, but that may have been the atmosphere, instead of one hard camera and overdubbed post-produced commentary overshadowing the crowd. Also, this match is going to suffer in coming right after two MOTYCs that also featured a ton of high flying. Finish is overbooked to hell with run-ins from Halloween, Los Bandilleros, a bunch of guys dressed as X-Men, and Konnan, but the clusterfucky brawl is pretty fun with Konnan picking off every rudo with a swing of the baseball bat (in trying to think of a major league slugger to compare Konnan to, the color guy offers up Tony Armas, which was amusing to me). The referee being knocked into a coma off a Halloween DDT is a little absurd, but we got an actual finish after all the bullshit and the crowd seemed to improve.
- 12 replies
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They seem to be teasing a Shiryu turn in this very match--he kicks Naniwa in the groin at one point, sparking a disagreement with Sasuke and a near-walkout. Anyway, if there's a theme to the first couple weeks of March '96, it seems to be "back to basics." We got a heavily matwork-intensive JWP match, a big lucha clusterfuck with more matwork than flying, and this--each guy pairs off and they work holds instead of going into high-flying or shtick. I get that there's lots of build to flying in Japanese juniors wrestling, but the matwork seemed longer and more intense here than in most Michinoku Pro bouts. Then we get some intrigue with Shiryu, a nice FIP segment on Tiger Mask, some incredible dives including Shiryu's incredible somersault topes, and some incredible reversals and near-falls. Delfin continually trying to drop bombs on Shiryu only for him to flip out or counter every time was an amazing sequence. Then the tight camera shots really add to the closing stretch, as guys are flying in from off-screen to make last-second saves. One last dive train later and Tiger Mask puts Taka away with the tiger suplex. This was fucking spectacular and the lucha elimination match has a very short run as #2 running MOTY, I'm afraid. Maybe the only thing holding this back from the #1 spot is TM's FIP segment ended just a little too cleanly, with TM channelling Sayama by popping back up and no-selling most of his beating when it was time to go back on offense. I enjoyed the spotfesty opener at Wrestle Kingdom 9, but even if the action was a bit more advanced, it couldn't compare to this in terms of combining amazing athletecism with great character work.
- 14 replies
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- Michinoku Pro
- March 16
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I'm going to stick with Samurai vs. Otani as my running MOTY, but this is an easy 2nd place. Non-stop action, terrific matwork, good flying, and even some brawling, too. Plus they ran through 7 eliminations in about 20 minutes with all of them making "sense" and not feeling like a Survivor Series rush-job. Santo taking a pin was kind of a surprise, but it was set up well with him eating a low blow from Felino ("ESTE ES UNA FELONIA!" screams Dr. Morales), who basically sacrifices himself to a DQ so that Wagner can finish the job.
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[1996-03-11-WCW-Nitro] Road Warriors vs Rick & Scott Steiner
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in March 1996
This was a true holy-shit moment. Now, a few years earlier, a team that hadn't been on American TV in 2+ years suddenly returning would likely not have gotten any reaction at all. But one thing about the Monday Night Wars is they brought back a lot of lapsed fans from the '80s, who appreciated and liked seeing the stars of their fandom turn up. We saw it with Jake the Snake getting a monster ovation at the Royal Rumble and we see it here. Both these teams have lost a step or nine from when this was a true Dream Match, but this was surprisingly enjoyable nevertheless. Really fun to see the Roadies get tossed around. Finish is a little clusterfucky but the Roadies get a cheap win thanks to Animal using a spiked gauntlet on Rick.- 14 replies
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- WCW
- Monday Nitro
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Not as good as their previous TV bouts. Eddy does take an absolute shitkicking here, taking all kinds of stiff Benoit chops and other big bombs from him. This is also notable for being perhaps the first occurrence of Benoit's rolling German suplexes. Guerrero blocks a superplex attempt and catches Benoit with the frog splash to get a surprise win for the second week in a row. Not a bad match but I liked the more back-and-forth nature of the Nitro match.
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Here's something you don't see every day: a joshi match that's worked entirely on the mat. Oh, there are two instances of brawling outside the ring, but other than that this is 20:40 of pure matwork. Oz comes in selling a rib injury, which gives Yagi an opening and a focus for just about everything she does. She's otherwise overmatched, but every time she hits or puts a hold on the ribs, Oz crumples. The matwork is really, really damned good, with all the holds being well-worked and a good variety while still maintaining a psychological focus. And with the deliberate pace and all the camera close-ups this really feels like a 1983 Florida studio match in a JWP setting. And they build up to a satisfying climax with almost no near-falls. Overall this is too "slight" of a match to really be a Yearbook entry, particularly in a loaded year, but it's well worth watching for its uniqueness.
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Assuming Leveque did the job it would also hardly be above WCW to show an old match of his, once it was known he was WWF-bound.
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Two guys hold up banners shilling a Pillman 900 line, then Flyin' Brian himself gets into a confrontation with security. Bischoff leaves the booth to get him escorted out. Yep, hard to get excited over this now. At least Paul E. had a vision of where he wanted to take things. I don't think Bischoff and Sullivan did.
- 8 replies
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- WCW
- Monday Nitro
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These are better when they're actually attacking what's wrong with the competing promotion rather than being used as part of some petty corporate "feud" that only one side gives a shit about. 1-900-LYING-BALDY...very clever.
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[1996-03-11-WWF-Raw] Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels training videos
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in March 1996
Shawn introduces us to Jose Lothario. Bret rebuts--Shawn reminds him of a tennis ball bouncing around the ring, but doesn't have many effective moves besides the kick. Bret would fit right in at PWO, lucha-bashing aside. -
This is a pretty lucid, focused, and fiery promo by Piper. Good segment that improves upon the Diamond Mike-Pink Assassin dynamic thanks to the talent involved.
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[1996-03-09-WCW-Saturday Night] Lex Luger vs Johnny B. Badd
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in March 1996
DDP, having lost all of his money in putting it up to get more title shots at Badd, costs Johnny the TV title with a diamond cutter on the arena floor. And that's it for Badd in WCW. He had a truly amazing run considering he debuted at the same time as PN News and Arachniman. Badd cuts one of the most fiery promos of his career afterward, but it would be for naught. Good for him for cashing out, though.- 3 replies
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- WCW
- Saturday Night
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