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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Dig those multiple cameras, including a magical POV shot from the dash of the monster truck. Wight is unintentionally hilarious--you can't blame him but he's got a looong way to go as a performer.
  2. PeteF3
    WHY IS RIC FLAIR HELPING RANDY SAVAGE??! That was INFURIATING. I hate the electric-guitar version of Pomp & Circumstance. Savage has the decency to call out Flair for getting involved in his business. Savage is upset at Luger for cheapshotting him at WarGames, and Sting for sticking up for him! He believes that they and Jimmy Hart in cahoots with the Dungeon of Doom, and that draws out Lex. I like the contrast of Savage being a bundle of rage and Lex being too cool for school.
  3. PeteF3
    Greatest entrance in wrestling history. And...uh-oh. McMichael just dropped a Warren Zevon lyric at the end of this. Don't start getting cool and respectable on me, Mongo.
  4. PeteF3
    AMERICAN MALES. AMERICAN MALES. AMERICAN MALES. Between this and Mr. Wonderful truly this was a golden age in WCW theme music. I was more intrigued by Razor vs. Kid than the Males at the time, so I never knew until just now that there was an originally scheduled match with the Bluebloods and an impromptu challenge by Harlem Heat. Shockingly good action--Booker looks *great*, Riggs looks really good, Bagwell pulls his weight, and even Stevie freaking Ray works a few nice brick-wall spots. Shock title change follows--the WCW Tag Titles were soon to slide into irrelevance as Bischoff was never big on tag wrestling, to the company's detriment, but this was a good call that was yet another reminder that Nitro had a blink-or-you'll-miss-it atmosphere that Raw couldn't yet touch.
  5. PeteF3
    A face vs. face and heel vs. heel match on one show. Yeah, the WWF was at least attempting to pull out the stops early on in the War. Neat finish as Owen hits Mo with a drop toe hold and Yoko drops a leg, with Owen executing a unique cover as Mabel pratfalls as Yoko trips him while attempting the save. Shawn makes the first nose joke of Owen's WWF career. Two Dudes with Attitudes, baby. Camp Cornette rebuts. Jim stirs shit up by reminding us what happened the last time Shawn & Diesel were a team, and questioning if they value their friendship over their respective titles.
  6. PeteF3
    Razor has words for De Bookworm.
  7. PeteF3
    Lots of aggression here for a 1995 WWF babyface match, as they really lay into each other and Razor unleashes some pretty heavy artillery on offense. Still no hint of a turn from either guy yet--Kid gets an "out" for his cheap victory as it seems that he didn't see what happened with the Dean. Douglas gives Kid a D for Dumb afterward, with the seeming intent of trying to get into the Kid's head. Razor gets an E for Elevate, and for himself an A, and an N for No-Brainer for the result at In Your House. DEAN! The "grading" stuff is still lame, as is the fingernails on the board for heat, but Douglas is starting to put it together on promos now that the monotone has proven to be unworkable. I still maintain than in another world, this gimmick could have worked.
  8. PeteF3
    The MOST disappointing? No, that would be silly. But it seems to me that Maxx Payne should have been a better wrestler and bigger star than he was. Here's a guy who had a unique gimmick (a guitarist who could actually play), had a strong amateur background (All-American wrestler at Iowa State), and got pro wrestling training in the New Japan dojos. He could have at least had a poor man's Bam Bam Bigelow or John Tenta-like career, but he ended up not doing much of anything and never developing into much of a worker. Part of it was on him, part of it was not sticking around in Japan and coming back to the U.S. at a time when being a good worker got you less far than almost any other time in history. And speaking of Bam Bam Bigelow...
  9. PeteF3
    Both years ended with main event title pushes of WWF relics from a prior decade who couldn't handle the fact that the world around them had changed and snapped as a result.
  10. PeteF3
    Sullivan's promo isn't actually terrible, but then you see the team that he's talking about and you get the weird visual of him being electrified against the WarGames cage, and...yeah. Then TBS Guy narrates a hilariously overwrought video, with overblown classical music and shots of the Hogan team in military garb, like an ersatz A-Team or something. Hogan says "DTA" then talks up how together his team is--okay. Jimmy Hart in a tank top and camo is a sad, sad sight. Finish of the match--God help me, but I think the "YES! NO!" undecided submission from the Zodiac was a clever touch. Not much heat for the Hogan-Sullivan confrontation. Giant comes in and chokes Hogan out from behind in a pretty blatant recreation of the Andre-Hogan SNME attack. He then does the Zeus neck snap, and this is a pretty underwhelming beatdown.
  11. PeteF3
    Agreed with El-P on the "freshness" of the spots here even if they weren't actually fresh. And Flair throwing a wrinkle into the middle of the Flair Flip formula was genius, with a great bump by Arn over the top rope. Even though Anderson got a few bits of control mixed in afterward, that felt like a real turning point in the match, and Flair following up with an axhandle to the floor was icing on the cake. The finish is a little weak, but...well, it did have a nice pull-the-rug-out twist feeling to it and made you want to see where the hell this was going. And, as mentioned, it's always good to see Pillman doing something again. The GAB Savage match was better as far as Flair matches go, but this showed that he still had something. Loved seeing the entire crowd rise when Arn got Ric in the small package off the second figure four attempt. One thing that can't be ignored is that this was a perfect location and perfect audience for this type of match to take place in.
  12. PeteF3
    I could be wrong, but I think it was going to be very similar, except they'd pull the trigger on the Steph heel turn then and there instead of going through the roofie-Vegas setup.
  13. PeteF3
    This was done because Russo had just walked out on the company without disclosing his plans for the wedding, which was scheduled for either that coming Monday or the next week. So they booked this to write Stephanie out for a couple of weeks and buy themselves some time to come up with something.
  14. PeteF3
    Back to the discs as opposed to the Network. I remember from watching this show live that this match felt about 9 years long. We join in with Stevie Ray working possibly the lamest house-afire sequence in the history of tag wrestling. Parker and Sherri practically consummate their relationship in Ring 2, while the Nasty Boys--for some reason--interfere and cost Buck & Slater the tag belts. Sherri is definitely an upgrade over Miss Sylvia.
  15. PeteF3
    Sweet merciful fuck, I was prepared to snark on this and I got...a perfectly decent match???! Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this holds up compared to the opener, but this is one of the first standout in-ring performances by DDP, and it's pretty meticulously laid out. DDP also works for about 6 here--an early headbutt goes awry and Page staggers around the ring, falls out to the floor, stumbles over the guardrail, gets back up, and walks into the ringpost. All because of Renegade's apparently hard head. You have to admire that kind of dedication to your craft (are you listening, Chigusa?). He also offers some neat counters and cut-offs like hitting a DDT out of a hiptoss attempt. And Renegade, unbelievably, gets through a 10-minute match without fucking anything up. He even shows off what little good offense that he knows. I don't want to fawn too much over this, but this is a point in favor of laying things out in advance if that's what's best. DDP's gift for mapping out matches and his willingness to do anything to get a spot over could make for a good match with almost literally anyone, it seems.
  16. PeteF3
    If I were as upset as Orndorff was, I wouldn't appreciate the camera watching me. "Gary Spivey? Of the Psychic...Companions Network?" Poor Paul could barely remember his line. I'm ashamed to admit that I distinctly remember Ol' Brillo-head from when the Prevue Channel used to run almost nothing but psychic hotline ads in-between movie trailers. Spivey leads Orndorff through a Stuart Smalley affirmation routine, and by the end Orndorff IS Mr. Wonderful.
  17. PeteF3
    Slow-paced match for the most part, and I tend to agree with Sleeze that some of the submissions looked out of place. Schiavone and Heenan were both pretty good for this, but this could have used somebody who could get over the holds, not that that person existed in North America at this time. The closing stretch is good, with a clever near-fall off the Tutti Frutti punch that leads to the Air Pillman, but neither guy can put the other away in regulation. Then the re-start, and this is where this match earns its rep. Total Japan-style layout with bombs all over the place and near-falls. It helps that both guys have multiple finishers at this point that can be bought as near-falls. (Despite Schiavone's amazement at seeing it, Pillman was actually using the Octagon Special to win squashes at this point.) I don't know if I agree about this lacking aggression--no, they don't lay things in as heavily as in Japan, but Pillman in particular works very aggressively and heelishly, and eventually Badd fights back with the awesome slam off the turnbuckle into the guardrail. I also loved the velocity of the final closing stretch, with how aggressively they were hitting the ropes and launching into each other for the finish. Pillman was very clearly holding this together, but Badd's big moves looked great. Maybe the last great match of Pillman's career, and definitely the high watermark for Mero.
  18. PeteF3
    We join in with Ozaki already bloodied to hell. Good brawl but nowhere near the Kansai matches, because Nagayo sandbags Ozaki for practically every move she tries. Show some fucking pride in your work, Chigusa. Or some guts. But hey, she's the boss so if she doesn't want to take bumps I guess she can't be forced. The ending is suitably brutal, as Nagayo hits the Super Freak off a table to win by KO. Ozaki worked hard but Nagayo was a pile of shit here, and I can't help but notice she's had a lot more bad performances on these sets than good ones.
  19. PeteF3
    Akira Hokuto, Etsuko Mita, & Mima Shimoda vs. Mariko Yoshida, Reggie Bennett, & Kaoru Ito, AJW 6/27/95 Dave gave this ****1/4 and it looks like a good opportunity to see what the mid-card AJW types were doing, in a semifinal of a major show. Shimoda is wearing the skimpiest attire in the history of women's wrestling--Attitude Era divas would look at and say, "cover yourself up some." Not a complaint, just an observation. This is all-action and pretty spotfesty, but it's a very good showcase for LCO, who pretty much dominate this from bell to bell. Every time the opponents start to gain an advantage, even after burying Hokuto under a pile of chairs outside the ring and busting her open, they're almost immediately cut off. A little overrated by Dave considering this was basically a 15-minute squash, but LCO sure look impressive, doing some Michinoku Pro-style triple team spots and running a pretty intricate dive train sequence. Hokuto hits one of the great Northern Lights bombs of her career, spiking Yoshida into the mat for the pin. Other than a few isolated nice moves--Kaoru does an Asai-style dive to the floor and Reggie has a good big fat flying splash--LCO's opponents didn't get the chance to show much.
  20. PeteF3

    Rick Martel

    PeteF3 replied to Grimmas's topic in Nominees

    Short as it is, the Hansen brawl at Comiskey Park into the dugouts was pretty fucking awesome.
  21. PeteF3
    Weird is right. I did like Austin's 180 turn when he dropped the Steve-a-mania act.
  22. PeteF3
    "Psicosis with a modified tiger bomb, of sorts." Uh, yeah, Joey, I think in wrestling parlance that's known as a "power bomb." Anyway, that aside, Styles' snarky comments are actually pretty amusing here. This is the fall-out-of-bed good match between the two, though Rey uses a chair to block a Psicosis tope in an effective crowd-pleasing spot, then performs a death-defying springboard into the second row after Psicosis had tried to dodge an earlier dive attempt. Historically I always thought these guys were at their best at Bash at the Beach. We'll see when I get there if that's actually the case.
  23. PeteF3
    There's a metric shit-ton of stuff to absorb here, to the point where it's useless to try to recap it all. I wasn't quite feeling the "*****, best ECW match ever" love at first...but even though I knew this was the night the Alfonso/chokeslam tease was paid off, by the end I was practically marking in my chair. Big Dick Dudley hits Dreamer with a chokeslam as Alfonso rightfully waves off his pin on Raven, since Dreamer wasn't a legal participant, and Fonzie quickly and awkwardly declares the chokeslam legal after the fact. Cue "Frankenstein," in one of the best-timed entrances in wrestling history. 911 finally does Alfonso in to a monster reaction, maybe the best fan reaction to anything all year. For once, ECW's smartest-guys-in-the-room fans allowed themselves to viscerally get involved in a story and a payoff, and we're all better off for it. Then they stack Raven and Stevie into a double-superbomb which was a cool way to decisively finish this one off. And goddammit, somehow they got me emotionally involved in the potential breakup of two anonymous roid boys, thanks to throwing every long odd in the book at them, from the Dudleys to Raven's ether to Alfonso. This is a match that practically defies a traditional star rating, but I have no problem holding it up as the high watermark for ECW as a promotion and a brand. It's to the ECW style--whatever that is--what Savage/Warrior at WM7 is to the WWF or what 6/3/94 is to All-Japan or what the Super J-Cup is to '90s junior wrestling.
  24. PeteF3
    Hogan compares himself to Imelda Marcos(!) in what has to be the oddest analogy ever made in the history of wrestling promos.
  25. PeteF3
    TBS Voiceover Guy narrates a history of the Flair/Arn split. Pretty good stuff, and I agree this could have gone longer. I never quite got what the endgame of this was supposed to accomplish--was the whole feud a work just to reunite the Horsemen, or did Flair and Arn secretly reconcile later? Was any of that ever explained?
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