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PeteF3

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  1. 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...
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. PeteF3
    Weird is right. I did like Austin's 180 turn when he dropped the Steve-a-mania act.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. PeteF3
    Hogan compares himself to Imelda Marcos(!) in what has to be the oddest analogy ever made in the history of wrestling promos.
  18. 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?
  19. PeteF3
    Disappointing match, with some staggeringly unnecessary bullshit involving Doug Gilbert. This is a "Boyz n the Hood Street Fight" with Gilbert enforcing the rules and threatening disqualifications and blatantly favoring the babyfaces. Gilbert fucking over the heels would have had more impact if he'd genuinely made a good-faith effort to officiate this and only did it to retaliate against Smothers' interference. Or, if this was supposed to be a case of the USWA purposely stacking the deck against the "invaders" like WCW should have done with the NWO, then that element of the story needed to be pushed harder.
  20. PeteF3
    What looks to be a standard Memphis finish--ref bumped, Brandon Baxter tosses Armstrong a chain--is broken up when COREY MACKLIN breaks the pin and goes to town on Armstrong. Armstrong and Baxter, who makes Jimmy Hart look like Scott Steiner, are about to a number on Corey, but Lawler makes the save and Macklin runs Baxter off. Damned if Macklin doesn't throw a nice-looking punch.
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  22. PeteF3
    The banner behind Cactus still says "Eastern" on it. I guess PE's spraypaint wore off. "How many of you dialed up the Dynamite Kid and said, 'Thanks for the dives onto the concrete floor! Sorry you don't have a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out, but thanks for the memories'?" This should feel exploitative, but it really doesn't--he would of course continue the stunts for years to come, but I think Mick had to be coming from a real place here. Plus invoking Gilbert's name for heat after his death would have been seen by Eddie as a compliment. Cactus invites Dreamer into the fold with him and Raven.
  23. PeteF3
    SHAKY-CAM. Good video otherwise. These clips are also our first look at Francine, who seemed to debut by drawing Beulah into a brawl in the audience.
  24. PeteF3
    Mentioned already, but there was genuine intrigue over what the result of this match would be, which wasn't the case for any of Hulk's WCW matches before. Vader's gone AWOL, brother! Hogan points out that the DOD didn't put their hands on Lex, but Sting immediately takes up Lex's side. Oh, Sting. Savage would rather go 4-on-3 than team with Luger, and makes a strong argument. The bickering gets so bad that even Jimmy Hart gets dragged into it. This was something pretty new in the face of what the WWF had been doing for its whole existence, with all babyfaces being friends all the time. Scott Keith is Scott Keith and all, but his proposal that WCW run the MegaPowers vs. Luger & Sting on PPV, at Starrcade or elsewhere, is a very good one that would have drawn big money.
  25. PeteF3
    It's superficial, but yeah, with the new set WCW instantly feels hotter than it has in years. Check out the "WCW" sign where the first "W" flips into an "E." Cute. Flair calls out Arn for being at home with the wife and kids and not running with the Horsemen, and Flair suddenly sounds like a jilted ex-lover. This image is not helped by Luger's appearance, which causes Flair to go all Bobby Heenan-unveiling-the-Narcissist in fawning over him. Luger just says that Flair hasn't changed, and...leaves. Okay then. Snark aside, Flair was fun, and I get why Bischoff & Sullivan felt the need to cram a "hook" into every last segment, even if they didn't lead anywhere. Bad for the business in the long haul, but probably necessary at this point.
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