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PeteF3

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  1. 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.
  2. 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."
  3. PeteF3
    They did NOT reinforce the ring for this one. Somewhere Gorilla Monsoon sadly shakes his head.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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?
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. PeteF3
    Funny stuff and a funny contrast in tone.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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.
  18. PeteF3
    Makin' a difference through jobbing, as the old RSPW saying went.
  19. PeteF3
    This was amusing. Plus it felt like a real conversation and not a written skit. Lawler even brings up Shawn being taken off the co-hosting job for Raw.
  20. PeteF3
    Sort of junk food for the wrestling mind. There's not much of a story, but there are a lot of "wow" spots and until that unpleasantness with the SSP, they all hit. Even routine moves like Awesome's running splash are done with some oomph. I'm not sold that Hayabusa has put it together enough to be the ace of a promotion at this point, but he was also thrown into a tough spot.
  21. PeteF3
    Col. Parker is in "Japan" at the home of Kurasawa, who apparently hangs out in his garden in full ring gear. Cue cheesy gong sound effect.
  22. PeteF3
    Sitdown interview in front of a black background like this is fucking 60 Minutes. Hogan thinks about Andre the Giant all the time, talks to Jimmy for hours about him, and misses him a lot--oh GOD. You know, I agree with Loss that Hogan's delivery is actually pretty good here, but a.) as mentioned, it's exploitative as all hell, and b.) less importantly, it just makes me think of all the opportunities Hogan has had in WCW to cut a promo like this when it actually would have meant a ton more, and passed it up in favor of the usual Hulk cliches. I've never seen or really heard about this before, and it was an eye-opener. The Giant as "Andre's son" was stupid, but not exactly unprecedented in the world of wrestling. But this crosses a line that the Great Muta, Ricky Steamboat, the various Gorgeous Georges, and various fictional luchador Jrs. never did. Hands down the crassest angle of the year.
  23. PeteF3
    Confrontation between the two apparently resulting from a misunderstanding during a match between the THUGs and Headbangers. Fun stuff--even Robert Gibson drops some good lines. What a shame that this isn't going anywhere. SMW has regressed somewhat since the Cornette heel turn but still doesn't *feel* like a dying promotion yet. Ricky Morton's departure may just clinch that, though.
  24. PeteF3
    Good for Shawn for not completely shitting on all this--this is about as tolerable as babyface Shawn will ever be. Kiss and Pat Benatar weren't exactly the cutting edge of pop culture in '95 but these are better music choices than anything the Big Two were offering. Good tie-ins with the lyrics, too. Landell has spent most of 1995 being funny, and being angry...and now he delivers a promo that just gives you the chills. By the end of it, I don't see how anyone could possibly be rooting for HBK in this match.
  25. PeteF3
    I'd have bet money on a Rich heel turn, but nope, he fights on the level. Wolfie D does a somersault off the top rope with Smothers lying on a table. Instead of a Rich turn, it's Terry Gordy doing the run-in and Macklin is completely clueless as to his identity, before either figuring it out or having someone let him in on it. The action is great, but you can't help but notice that the crowd completely dies once Gordy runs in and the long heel beatdown is on. I guess they could see the finish coming. Rich wants the SMW crew back for a 4-on-4, and Doug Gilbert (!) is back out to even the sides. But the SMW team won't bite. Landell informs us that PG-13 couldn't whip milk with an outboard motor. Gordy's fairly sad to watch, but he's still trying--he was always a strong, underrated talker and he does enough to get by here. Wolfie declares that he hasn't seen Terry Gordy since he was a little boy--I don't know if that was just a throwaway line or a conscious backhanded shot. Could Wolfie D have actually been pushable in the Big Two? He bulked up over time, and even here he's bigger than I remember. I guess it depends on if he was/is as big of a scuzzball as Jamie.
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