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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    SOUTH OF MARS AND NORTH OF HELL, OOH YEAH. I think Savage, despite how over-the-top he was, still managed to come off as authentic. He really did seem like a guy who was just that crazy, instead of a guy trying to act crazy. That Bruno promo is one of the greatest money babyface promos I've ever seen. It's on the same level as "That's hard times" and Eric Embry before the final showdown with PY Chu-Hi (and let me just say how proud I am that I was able to compare Bruno Sammartino with Eric Embry--but man, Eric's promo was great). In many ways Bruno is a far more ideal representation of the "American Dream" than Hogan--the quintessential turn-of-the-century immigration story. That's a lot more relatable to us grown-ups and even more relatable to the generations before us than Hogan, who came off as a guy carved from granite.
  2. PeteF3
    I'm excited to finally see some footage of Quasimodo and Le Bourreau de Bethune pop up. Quasimodo's not going to be confused with Billy Robinson, but that unique stungun move he busts out at around the 12:50 mark was a true holy-shit spot.
  3. PeteF3
    Big upset that really felt earned, as Koshinaka had Mutoh on the ropes for most of this. Mutoh looks tough and resourceful, but that power bomb off the turnbuckle was a holy shit moment and really felt like the finish. Smart move to have Mutoh escape via the ropes instead of kicking out--he really looked dead and they got a near-fall that was surprising but also made sense instead of just being a cheap excuse for a 2.9. I'm to the point now where I no longer hate Koshinaka.
  4. PeteF3
  5. PeteF3
    Gordy was practically (or literally) a full-time Japan worker at that point. Roberts was just old and frankly not of much use anymore. In fact, he had to be talked out of retirement by Gary Hart for the Von Erichs angle, years earlier. Keep in mind that he had a full career as a fake Valentine and then half of the original Hollywood Blonds all before becoming a 'bird. He did very briefly show up again in 1990 as part of the Freebirds/Southern Boys feud, but WCW wouldn't even let him work a 6-man tag, and he had to be a cornerman.
  6. PeteF3
    I'm enjoying 1995 Raven, at least. Moreso the booking than the promos, but the matches have been fine and the gimmick comes off as incredibly fresh for the era.
  7. PeteF3
    Probably the best of the ECW videos so far. I didn't know there was a proper video for "Say It Ain't So" until now--I guess "Buddy Holly" got too much of the attention.
  8. PeteF3
    I'd love to offer a review of this match, but I spent most of the body of it vainly wishing that shirtless asshole in the front row would take a bullet to the head. As a match, it was pretty whatever. There was an attempt at a greater story here, with Dean trying to destroy Eddy's ribs, but it's another match where one guy gets dominated and wins on a flash pin. So really we again learn nothing except, "These guys are evenly matched." I would credit Paul E. for having the temerity to just tell these guys to go out and wrestle, but the '80s sets and '90-'91 Yearbooks were filled with a shit ton of "Go out there and wrestle" TV and arena matches, so it's not really as revolutionary as it seems. So far the Tampa match is the best of a solid but ultimately underwhelming series.
  9. PeteF3
    I don't care what people think, that was BY FAR the most I ever cared about Perry Saturn in WWE. The Moppy thing, him being a complete idiot, the pairing with Terri Runnels. Good stuff. And I just watched the double date segment with Dean Malenko and a bad female actor. They don't have anyone in the midcard doing ANYTHING AT ALL much less anything as entertaining as that goofy crap. The payoff to all that was genius...Malenko, fed up with his date being more enamored with Perry, finally trying out a phrase just as nonsensical as what Saturn had been saying, and the date responding with a blank look and "I don't get it."
  10. PeteF3
    They did NOT reinforce the ring for this one. Somewhere Gorilla Monsoon sadly shakes his head.
  11. PeteF3
    Lawler cuts a promo while the whole frame shows the effects of an x-ray machine. Of all the lousy gimmicks to show up in the WWF these past two years, these last two vignettes may have showcased the worst considering the level of push they were expected to get.
  12. PeteF3
    Shane, you're a legitimate teacher. Learn the difference between upper case letters and lower case. And yes, these are awful. "Terrible Twosome"--man oh man, feel the intensity. I used to think '94 was the worst year in WWF history and it may have been the worst from a money standpoint, but the dip in quality in 1995 is absolutely astounding--way worse than I remember. National wrestling was never, ever in worse shape--at least to this point.
  13. PeteF3
    Good action, booking flaws aside, but the post-match angle is weak sauce. They couldn't dream anything else up but to re-do Bash at the Beach practically to the letter?
  14. PeteF3
    Tommy Dreamer, Cactus Jack, & The Pitbulls vs. Raven, Stevie Richards, Big Dick Dudley, & Dudley Dudley - ECW Wrestlepalooza 8/5/95 Styles made mention of the events here in the 6-man later on, so I figured I'd better watch what we have of it. Match is clipped, but we get lots of Richards and Dudley Dudley stooging and getting destroyed, and Big Dick working as a no-selling monster. Cactus gets his licks in on everyone else, but keeps tagging out when he has a chance to hit Raven. This is pretty much just the highspots, but the spots are pretty good and Dreamer, from what we see, works an effective enough FIP. As all 8 are brawling, Dreamer drops Raven with a piledriver on a chair and strikes a crucifix pose to celebrate, only for Cactus to drop him with a double arm DDT on the chair, throw Raven on top, and give the heels another win. Even the ECW smark crowd is shocked and aghast at this development--Paul E. would later compare the crowd reaction to Koloff beating Bruno. I wouldn't go that far, and Paul would of course be involved in an even bigger Koloff/Bruno moment decades later, but this was nonetheless a very effective twist in the feud leading to some stuff that I can't wait to revisit.
  15. PeteF3
    I think the Steiners worked some of the Florida cards together. I guess ECW wasn't paying for Mick's food bills, because he looks as skinny as he has since the Cactus Jack Manson days. He sure sticks out like a sore thumb here. Eddy and 2 Cold work a fantastic sequence together that has the crowd going nuts for Eddy by the end of it. The Steiners work well in this setting, since they're all about big crowd-pleasing bombs. Rick busts out an incredible bulldog *off* the top turnbuckle on Scorpio (both guys on top). Then we get Cactus vs. Eddy which is a fun little "This match-up actually happened" bit. Once again somebody attempts to hit a top-rope huracanrana off their partner's shoulders and once again it's blown--people need to just give up trying that. It sort of effectively plays into the finish though as Malenko quickly counters and steals a pin. More wrestling junk food, but this was all fun.
  16. PeteF3
    Funny stuff and a funny contrast in tone.
  17. PeteF3
    Landell comes out to "Gimme Back My Bullets" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, which is one of the most badass entrance themes not to be widely used by a thousand other guys, and so, so perfect for the story Landell is telling. This was good, and I only had so much hope for HBK in this setting. He came through fine, and the ending was well-done enough, as Cornette violates Landell's directive not to interfere and it ends up costing Budro the match. It also felt like a SMW match and not a WWF formula match, so it was refreshing to see Shawn work in that setting.
  18. PeteF3
    SMW successfully turns Ricky Morton heel in his absence, if the television hadn't accomplished that already. The result is a big pop when Bullet Bob announces the termination of Morton's contract. The stuff about the girlfriends was a shoot, was the theft of Smothers' tag title belt a shoot as well? Is Morton off comparing notes with the Snowman somewhere? Cornette is out and sickened over the lovefest going on in the ring, and points out that we still need a tag title match, and offers up two members of the Militia. The THUGs readily agree. "Frankenstein" hits, and the Bodies are out to a HUGE pop. As Plan Bs go, this is a damned good one. The match itself is...fine. Like the previous bout it starts slowly and gets better as it goes along. This time they throw a double-FIP at us, I guess because it's AWA Tribute Night. It gets better once they start getting heat on Smothers, and the babyface comeback is pulled off well. Dirty White Boy sets what has to be a new record for ramming a guy's head into the turnbuckle--he must get up to 30 or so on poor Dr. Tom. That's not enough, as they then backdrop him into a table and Smothers piledrives him through it! Unfortunately they should have pinned Prichard when they had the chance, as Cornette pulls out the ol' ether and smothers DWB with it to give Del Ray the pin and the Bodies the tag titles. Good match with some sense of "we've seen this before," maybe even a lot of sense of it. I did like the build to the ether, as the Bodies looked truly dead when Cornette pulled it out, so it seemed like a last-ditch hail mary pass rather than, "Let's cheat cuz the finish sez so." Still, the desperation of using ether could be seen as a metaphor for the desperation in bringing the Bodies back to support a dying company...or something.
  19. PeteF3
    There's definitely an Undertaker-Isaac Yankem match as well--Raw actually tried to pass that off as a main event and the result was the worst defeat at the hands of Nitro the show had suffered to that point, maybe even the worst overall.
  20. PeteF3
    Very slow to start--not *bad*, but slow, and we saw signs of impatience from the crowd. But it was all according to plan, as they go about 26 minutes without wearing things out. Jannetty is honestly about as limited offensively as Shawn Michaels, but I think he's smarter at transitions and counters--he has about a million ways to incorporate arm drags and sunset flips in various forms throughout a match that keep them looking fresh. This was easily better than Eddy/Dean, as the build-up to the big moves and learned psychology added a bit more to the parity storyline. And it was probably better than HBK/Jarrett in terms of working an epic match in a southern setting. I don't think it's quite the best SMW match, but it might be the best non-gimmick singles match.
  21. PeteF3
    One of the better ECW segments of the year. Mikey unloads with everything he has but slips off the turnbuckle and loses. I love that Sandman doesn't even actually cover him, he just falls forward and happens to land on top of Mikey, much the same way that Whipwreck first won the TV title. Woman is fantastic in the post-match, dangerous and sexy at the same time. I definitely feel bad drooling over her now, but...well...I'm not going to lie through online wrestling reviews, either. And the use of Alfonso was genius again as well.
  22. PeteF3
    I liked this the best of the series so far, but all of Loss' points are spot-on. This is Heyman as Mr. Burns: baseball coach, shouting, "You, Strawberry! Hit a home run!" There's no story or direction to any of these matches besides, "These two are evenly matched." That's fine as a baseline, but the match or the series has to go somewhere. Compare and contrast to something like Robinson vs. Bockwinkel in 1980 All-Japan, which also brought the "parity" storyline but realized that that's part 1 of a story, not *the* story. The contrast in personalities between Billy and Nick was brought out more, and as the match went on you had a pivotal turning point when Robinson hurt his knee doing his backbreaker, allowing them to focus on something else. Here...well, it's less of a spotfest than a Sabu match or the Hayabusa/Awesome match we just saw, since these guys are better at transitions and matwork and little things in general. But all in all it's basically a technical spotfest. Styles brings up that we're in Deano's hometown and this is his last shot at the TV title, but none of that comes through in the match either. Some heeling by Eddy or a sense of desperation from Malenko would have been welcomed. Also this match is another one hurt by the editing, and this time it's really annoying constantly going to the same smarky signs in the front row. Eddy's hammerlock into a spinning crucifix-style pin was absolutely gorgeous, by the way. I don't know why I've never seen that spot before or since.
  23. PeteF3
    Mikey won some sort of battle royal to earn a shot at the Sandman, but got jumped and caned before the match. So now he wants another shot at Sandman in a Singapore caning match and will take ten lashes if he loses. To prove that he can be just as big of a scumbag as Sandman, he tries to smoke a cigarette. That goes as well for him as it did the time that George Costanza tried to take up smoking to get out of his wedding.
  24. PeteF3
    The overly slow talking is really what kills this. That and I don't know how referring to Bigelow as a "beast" is supposed to draw heat.
  25. PeteF3
    Makin' a difference through jobbing, as the old RSPW saying went.
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