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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Beulah introduces us all to her Box. I liked the shots of Raven, Beulah, and Tommy all striking the crucifix pose--they should have found a way to incorporate the old guy on the cross from the video into that sequence.
  2. PeteF3
    Agreed on the cage match--I gave it a watch on the Network and it was an abomination. Albany, GA is Flair country, so the crowd goes nuts for every chop he unleashes. Flair is eventually overwhelmed after kicking the shit out of the heels for awhile, and finally Sting decides that Flair is on the up-and-up (ha!) and comes out. Super-hot tag and Sting goes as nuts as Flair did, throwing Arn and Pillman all over the place before knocking them out to the floor for a countout win. Hot match.
  3. PeteF3
    "Now everyone knows the Evil within Hulk Hogan is real!" I admire the effort to inject some new life into the Hulk character, at least.
  4. PeteF3
    Awesome, awesome match. These guys go balls to the wall but offer a nice dose of psychology with the work over Eddie's bad arm, and Eddie countering Benoit when he tries certain moves a second time. One of the better TV matches of the year. You watch this with a combination of major excitement for WCW's immediate future, and a twinge of sadness in knowing what's to come for the company (and yes, the other stuff). Bischoff and Heenan raving about these guys being the future of the business sounds great, but you have to shake your head at Eric not being able to listen to himself.
  5. PeteF3
    The heat machine is out in full force for this one. This match isn't bad, and Lawler's shenanigans involving changing the lock and tossing Yankem a key are rather clever and probably pitched by Lawler himself given how Memphis-y it is. But the Yankem gimmick is such a dead end and impossible to take seriously. Bret wins this decisively and this more or less finally ends the Bret-Lawler program, barring another tag match or two to come.
  6. PeteF3
    Even the ring announcer has a "Definition..." spiel for the word "Dean" as part of the intro now. A report of the Shawn Michaels/Marine nightclub incident is not enough to overcome the almighty power of WWF punnery. Michaels can't even sell a fucking REAL INJURY without John Cena-ing his way into yukking it up.
  7. PeteF3
    WHO IS AHMED JOHNSON? He was a scary-looking motherfucker who could move at one point, and frankly that could have been enough for him to overcome the speech impediments had he not had an injury track record that would make Derrick Rose blush.
  8. PeteF3
    SNME lives. How could anyone possibly expect this crap to compete with what Nitro was offering?
  9. PeteF3
    Oh God, I love All-Japan and I love these two teams, but enough of the fucking hour draws already. I get that all of them had to be included and this match in particular, but the draw for All-Japan is turning into a crutch, or a test of manhood, rather than a booking tactic. The first 40 minutes are so are effective as a series of mini-matches: shine for the babyfaces, then Misawa getting taken out on the floor and Kobashi having to go it alone, then a Taue-in-peril sequence, then Kobashi and his hurt arm...but it seemed like they ran out of things to do after that and this limps along to the finish. Technically well-done, and objectively speaking probably a **** affair, but don't ever ask me to watch this again or put it on any kind of Best of '95 much less a Best of Decade list.
  10. PeteF3
    Arn thinks Flair & Sting may, on paper, be the greatest team ever put together. On paper. This is a rare Okerlund interview with some actual back-and-forth between Mean Gene and his subjects.
  11. PeteF3
    Flair is out on a Saturday morning wrestling show in a suit and shades, and all of a sudden it feels like 1990 again. Sting still won't be Flair's partner, but Flair brings out an army (well, 4 of them) of Little Stingers. This wins Sting over, though he's still suspicious and promises to wreak vengeance upon Flair if this is a Swerve.
  12. PeteF3
    Cornette and the Bodies are incensed that Robert Gibson will be officiating an upcoming street fight between the Bodies and the THUGs. Prichard rattles off a bunch of Lawler-esque one-liners about the looks and intelligence of Tony and Tracy. The THUGs are out for a brawl, trying to take off Prichard's presumably orthopedic/loaded boot.
  13. PeteF3
    Landell sounds a little closer to Dusty Rhodes than Tommy Rich, but he gets the standard Rich catchphrases down. I do wish he'd used a line he used in an earlier promo about how Rich keeps harping on being World Champion "for about 10 minutes."
  14. PeteF3
    Good to hear from the Dirty White Boy again. He gives the same explanation that Tracy Smothers did when the DWB turned babyface...which the DWB even acknowledges! Fantastic.
  15. PeteF3
    Am I the only one curious/obsessive/sad enough to randomly Google some of these old phone numbers and even names that crop up? This number still belongs to a vaguely quack-ish vitamins/supplements company.
  16. PeteF3
    This has done probably more for *my* wrestling-viewing than it has for Loss. And like Loss it's come at the expense of most everything else, including modern New Japan, the '80s lucha set, and other stuff I'd really like to see. I wouldn't trade it for anything (wrestling-related...you know what I mean) though. Before firing up the 1990 set my lucha knowledge was limited to When Worlds Collide and stuff I'd read on luchawiki and elsewhere, and my joshi knowledge was similar. Now I've seen almost all the major stuff from the first half of the '90s and can actually talk intelligently about both topics. I'm excited that I'm not even halfway through yet--sometimes I wish I was still reacting to things at the same time as everyone else, but I'd still rather have waited and started from the top.
  17. PeteF3
    I saw that match years ago with the exact same expectations going in as Matt, with the exact same reaction coming out. One of the biggest train wrecks involving top-level, veteran workers in the history of wrestling.
  18. PeteF3
    Cactus talks of the show of force he promised to show Tommy Dreamer, and then lets us in on his relaxation technique: tuning his TV to the soothing family entertainment of TBS. Cactus has seen a Jewish kid from Buffalo become a black man from Macon, a kid from New Hampshire become a Frenchman, and Mikey Whipwreck be unable to have a ten-word conversation. This goes on a little long but it's an interesting combination of humor and scariness on Jack's part.
  19. PeteF3
    ***** Match of the Decade. Cactus even yanks the tights on the winning cradle, just because he can. Then he doesn't want to continue the beatdown after the match, but Raven makes him do it anyway. Dreamer runs in and makes his point with a Cactus elbow on the concrete, but has to stick around and do his fans-bring-the-weapons shtick. He gets cut off by Raven quickly. I've liked a lot of this feud but this was a pretty underwhelming post-match angle, with Dreamer really looking like an idiot and Jack undermining everything he worked for during the match itself.
  20. PeteF3
    "We're gonna put the U.S. title on ya, we're gonna go here, and then you're the #1 contender, so you're gonna get this World title shot, WELL, ALL THAT SHIT NEVER HAPPENED." My favorite line from this. Yeah, it's kayfabe-shattering to the core, but this is the one environment and the one point in time where that sort of thing could work. And Austin talking himself up as the "biggest potential superstar in wrestling" comes off as remarkably prescient now.
  21. PeteF3
    Ah, the debut of the Darkest Timeline Hulk. A frosty reception for Hogan, but it's the first time he's actually sold or shown vulnerability in his entire WCW stint, so points for that, I guess. Hogan tells Okerlund and Hart to keep their mouths shut--oh, what a mature response from our hero. Hogan promises to rip his neck brace off and beat the Giant just like he beat his "father." Okerlund breaks the news that a restraining order has banned the Giant from the Rosemont Horizon. Hulk accuses a certain New York promoter's ego of getting "bigger than the wrestling business" and is "dying, choking on his own ego"--oh, the irony. Shaving the Hulk's moustache = spraypainting the Washington Monument or burning the American flag, brother. Cut to the Giant trying to barge into the arena with the monster truck. Zodiac sticking out of the top of the truck is a funny visual. This is where the one weakness of the Nitro set comes into play--no video wall. Hulk takes off for outside.
  22. PeteF3
    Really good match, with Shawn making for a great FIP. He sells really well without this devolving into a self-indulgent Shawn Show. Diesel gets the hot tag, but falls victim to the Bulldog soon after for the first pinfall loss by a reigning WWF Champion in probably 20 years at this point. Then Mabel and Dean Douglas run in and the babyfaces are all destroyed. Classic Bill Watts angle that gave you some hope for his ill-fated stint in charge.
  23. PeteF3
    Takada and Mutoh sit around on the mat with their thumbs up their asses for awhile, occasionally throwing kicks. Finally a few suplexes pop the crowd, and the turning point comes when Mutoh hits a dragon screw, buggering Takada's leg and setting up a figure four. Takada fights his way to the ropes once, but Mutoh no-sells an enzuigiri and locks him in another one, and in the ultimate indignity Takada has to tap out to a "fake" wrestling hold. AWFUL. Mutoh was in the midst of his best year since 1991 and in one match threw almost every bit of that goodwill out the window with a performance that was both clueless and totally phoned in. Meanwhile Takada finally demonstrates to me, personally, for the first time why so many other people in this community don't like him. This is an absolute dog performance by him as well--Mutoh misses a moonsault and Takada's best follow-up is to sit there picking his nose. His kicks looked uncharacteristically weak and he really didn't do anything at all until it came time to sell the leg at the end. Now, Lord knows 1995 has seen plenty other crap. And this match is certainly heated and the first battle over the figure four, at least, is well-done. But this was every bit as bad as the crap booking of the WCW Invasion, with a finish that's both badly done and something expressly designed by Choshu to stick it to UWFI. After how well WAR was generally booked in '93 and '94, that's not easily forgivable and is one of the first signs that Choshu may truly be losing his booking fastball, booking more for personal spite than for selling tickets. Well, the invasion wasn't sunk after this, as we know, and it ended up being a major influence on one of the pivotal American angles of the '90s. But that's no thanks to this shit show, which is not the year's worst match but with the possible exception of the Hogan-Vader strap match is the worst-worked big match involving big time top-quality workers.
  24. PeteF3
    Cool to see this. PG-13 returned the favor and had a return match against the Gunns on Raw. The Gunns are managed by Downtown Bruno in a weird visual. Tekno Team 2000 run in for the finish, dressed in jeans rather than usual futuristic attire. They sucked, but I do remember them getting an incessant amount of coverage in the sheets and WWF Hotline throughout their developmental process, only for them to be saddled with a go-nowhere gimmick and disappear after about 2 months.
  25. PeteF3
    Oh, what a contrast to the Foley segment we just saw. Shawn is such a shitty babyface promo and Vince is so awful with him. Shawn implies that he was a victim of statutory rape by one of his teachers. The Dean comes out and says little of note. Shawn makes fun of Douglas for using big words even though he didn't use any.
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