PeteF3
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This was okay, with a hot third fall, but the first two falls didn't offer much. Muneco has a shitty rep but he's pretty fun here as the best possible babyface Doink or Bushwhacker, with a little more athletic cred than those guys. Fuerza does some great heeling and there's some good psychology surrounding the low blows and Octagon eventually paying him back. Once again Psicosis gets a submission on a major technico with the technico's own finisher, so his uber-push continues. Tirantes is now sporting a blond dye job and if the goal of that was to make him even more punch-able, then mission accomplished. -
I don't disagree, but I think the bar for "tag only" guys should be really, really high. A list of the 100 greatest pitchers is going to have some relievers on it...but not many. (And I wouldn't put Mariano Rivera in the top 20, either). I think I'll make room on my list for Kroffat, and for Ricky Morton. But as much as I liked the Can-Ams I can't see including Furnas, who was not just limited to tags but seemingly limited to tags with Dan Kroffat specifically.
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He also had more experience than Choshu. Age isn't quite a be-all and end-all but I think it's a much bigger deal there than, say, the West. I think in most of their 6-mans, Saito was intro'd after Choshu, and Japanese intros are a pretty strictly tiered (offense at being introduced before Fujinami in a tag was the angle that led to Choshu splitting off and forming his own Army, in fact.)
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Saito only worked one tour in All-Japan before going off to prison. I don't know what Patera is on about, but regardless of what happened at that Wisconsin McDonald's Saito did indeed have to serve time. It was intended for Choshu to feud with Tenryu to elevate Tenryu while Saito feuded with Jumbo. That, not the fact that he "couldn't keep up" with Choshu's style as Meltzer at least at one time reported, is why Jumbo was sort of left out in the cold for the most part during that feud.
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What good Furnas singles matches exist out there? Any at all? Kroffat has several good performances outside of the team setting. Despite being an obviously incredible physical specimen, I've never seen one out of Furnas.
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I think that was Kevin Dunn as the hapless patient coming out of Yankem's office. Yankem emerges and we get a zoom in on his bad teeth. What a completely idiotic use of a guy who should have been an instant asset or at least a useful piece.
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I snicker as Vince talks about Savio Vega leading his "countrymen." You mean, the Americans? We are spared an encore appearance of Susan St. James on color commentary.
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Jarrett's real entrance was so, so horrible--it's mind-boggling why they didn't switch themes at this point. This actually sounds like '90s country, so score one for whoever had their finger on the pulse who greenlighted this (Michael Hayes?). We would see this video again, and again, and again, and again on WWF programming for weeks on end.
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Sullivan has amassed Kamala for the Dungeon of Doom, as the Wizard rants about the rare white Bengal tiger. VADER TIME! WHAT REASON HAVE I BEEN BROUGHT, TO THIS DUNGEON, OF DOOM?? Sullivan announces the Roadkill Tour, a very cool concept that's above this material, where Vader would show up at random indy shows and trash two guys--he even made an appearance in the WMC studio, IIRC. Still, WCW is so, so horrible at this point. Even the worst of the early '90s generally had an undercard worth watching if only by accident.
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Well, aside from Kimberly being cute as a button, this was horrific. It's established that Dave is an idiot because he doesn't know what chateaubriand and some kind of exotic soup that even I--a food industry professional--can't pronounce. DDP lures Evad back out to the car with a threat about "rabbit stew," then assaults him with the help of some horrific sound effects that William Dozier wouldn't have allowed in a third-season Batman episode. A legendarily awful segment that I've never actually seen before.
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The action is whatever but inoffensive. PE sneaks in a win that settles absolutely nothing--I always heard that jobbing on your first night in was sort of a quasi-Paul E. policy. He did it a lot. Some incredibly feeble brawling after the match, before PE return to the ring to celebrate, and the ring quickly fills up with a swarm of dancing fans in a very cool scene that shows a strong point of difference with what was happening in the Big Two. Hey, was that Blue Meanie among the early party-crashers? As Gorilla Monsoon would say, "I hope they reinforced the ring for this one." Like them or not--and I sure as heck don't--PE somehow made a genuine emotional connection to the ECW fanbase. Huge "E-C-W" chant to close and I'm wondering why I haven't heard of this before--it feels like it should be one of those iconic ECW scenes like the thrown chairs or Sabu splattering on the guardrail.
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Oh good, more ranting from Shane Douglas. He says he'll stay in ECW if Gordon gets on his knees and asks him. Tod fires him instead. Douglas decks Gordon who takes some pretty intense punishment for a little non-wrestler. Douglas dispenses with Jim Molineaux, Dino Sendoff, and Donn E. Allen, but the fans' chants for 911 are answered. Douglas is chokeslammed out of ECW, and not a moment too early.
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Another clusterfuck, but a fun one. The Pitbulls turn babyface, the Dudleys (Li'l Snot and Dudley Dudley at this point) align with Raven, and more brawling with Tommy & Luna.
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Tod Gordon wants to make an example out of Bill Alfonso by having him officiate the Taipei Death Match. Axl gets in one punch on Ian's head, and Alfonso inspects a trickle of blood and orders the match stopped. More brilliance. Oh, here are Public Enemy and the Gangstas, and that draws Alfonso's attention and allows Gordon to sneak in and re-start the bout. BOO. I really, really wish they had the balls to go through with the match stoppage, because the heat for Fonzie's announcement was incredible. Instead we get some sub-Mr. Pogo barbarism and for all the talk of EXTREME and how they're the opposite of the circuses in the Big Two, Paul E. is exposed as pretty much the same sackless charlatan Vince and Bischoff were at this point.
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I have to say I'm totally still into this feud. I'm a sucker for any program that slowly draws more and more people into it, as this one has done with Richards, Beulah, Luna, and still more to come. Good action and easily the best use of a newspaper receptacle in a wrestling match that you'll ever see.
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Hey Shane, IF YOU HAVE A GODDAMNED *POINT*, GET TO IT. Also take a drink every time Shane says "piece of shit." Flair's a piece of shit, the ECW Arena's a piece of shit, the fans are pieces of shit...find a new epithet already. Clearly Vince Russo has been falsely implicated all these years--he didn't invent 20-minute show-opening promos, Shane Douglas did. This is fucking interminable and the "best friends with Cactus" Domenic DeNucci bullshit that no one cares about gets dredged up again. This Cactus-Shane thing is the slowest goddamned burn in the history of wrestling. And a lot of ranting about journalism for some reason. For once in my life, I'm squarely on the side of the smartass attention-seeking smark fans. I fully approve of the "We Want Flair" chants and whooing. Woman comes out and attempts to entice Shane into joining her AGAIN. How the hell many times can these two people fake each other out? Crowd chants "Shane's got a woody." Joey's idiotic mugging to the camera is back again, too, just to make sure that outside of the fans and Woman's outfit this bit has absolutely no redeeming qualities. Shane tries to sucker Woman into slapping him a second time as an excuse for attacking her, but Sandman makes the save and then Cactus Jack makes the save in an apparent attempt to stand up for the rights of woman-abusers. Presumably he's got a Ray Rice jersey underneath the familiar flannel shirt. God, this is seriously one of the worst interviews and worst segments of the year. Dave Sullivan is obnoxious and the Dungeon of Doom laughable and Diesel annoying, but at least they're relatively fucking concise.
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Hales is so awkward, but almost endearingly so, like a longtime fan living the dream. Hales is "registered as a dangerous weapon" by the FBI, or so he says. I'd pay money to see Randy Hales do the "Impossible Is Nothing" viral video resume.
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The shot of Wildfire bursting onto the camera screaming his head off makes for a hilarious juxtaposition with the stiff and soft-spoken Severn. Rich USED to be a Southerner, but lost all ties with the South when the North stomped them. Is Rich actually a Highlander, or a relative of Kenneth the Page? Oh, I see Loss basically asked the same thing. Cornette now has enlisted Al Snow & Unabomb in his Militia. Yeah, basically the entire heel roster being aligned with JC is a little too much. Snow has turned into a perfectly good heel promo but Cornette's control freak nature seemingly won't leave well enough alone. Cornette hypes a match between Snow & Unabomb and the Rock 'n Rolls where one partner is handcuffed to a post with keys on a pole above the ring, and whoever retrieves the key from the pole can unlock their partner to make the match 2-on-1. Neat stip that has me sold. Oh, there's a loser-leaves-town stip for the Rock 'n Rolls, which sort of gives the result away. Snow cuts another good, obnoxious promo. Buddy cuts a promo on his upcoming title defense against Brad Armstrong--winner not only gets the SMW title, they get a shot at the Intercontinental title. He and Cornette get in a few shots at Vince McMahon!
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Severn has got the old ten-pounds-of-gold NWA belt, and Chip Kessler also plugs an upcoming UFC fight against Ken Shamrock in...Casper, Wyoming. UFC has come quite a long way. Severn has one of the worst voices ever when it comes to trying to cut a wrasslin' style promo, so the Pure Sports Build stuff suits him. Shots of UFC on Smoky Mountain TV is not something I ever expected to see. Kessler actually comes off as having a clue what he's talking about here. There are shots of Al Snow in Severn's corner in some of the UFC clips, which would be fun if it was mentioned on TV at this point.
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This is like that Tennessee/Texas feud all over again, where the promos could easily swing toward the heel or babyface side depending on which audience hears it. Mark Curtis is confused and saddened at the suggestion that he has somehow wronged Randy Hales. The Rock 'n Rolls will get a rematch with PG-13 with two referees. PG-13 rebut. Right now this still a USWA vs. "NWA" feud rather than a SMW feud.
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Terrific sprint with everyone looking good (well, Asako's just kinda there). Honda with his headbutt-centric offense is pretty fun, and the back-and-forth between Misawa and Taue is one of the longest, most dizzying arrays of moves and countermoves you'll ever see. It's not ***** or even a major MOTYC if only for the clipjob, but you can easily see why Meltzer would have gone nuts for it.
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Neither of these two people gave me a single solitary reason to care about them or if they won or lost, so with all the kickouts at the end, this was nothing more than a match that felt like it went on for about 6 years. The work wasn't *bad* and I admire the attempts to build up to the big offensive bombs, but in the end it was horrifically overindulgent for the level of star power these guys projected.
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Really good match, but I think I liked Big Egg Universe better. This was certainly different form--Toyota is still full of energy, but Kong keeps her grounded and intently focuses on her back. There's also a lot of really clever counters, counters to counters, and new wrinkles being thrown with the constant battles on the top turnbuckle. Every time Kong goes up, she either busts out a new way to hurt Manami or Toyota figures out a new way to counter it. That leads to some tremendous near-falls before Kong puts her away. Dynamite "Owen Hart" Kansai has a staredown with Kong afterward during her title celebration. It's definitely an agreeable point that both these title changes meant less than they should have.
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The craziest thing about that segment is that they intentionally, literally turfed the entire second hour of the show just to put the angle over. The planned main event of Giant vs. Savage turned into the Giant vs. Greg Valentine. High Voltage was subbing for the American Males or somebody. There was no contrived "surprise" replacements--half the night's roster was wiped out and WCW simply had to make do with who was left, resulting in an hour of JTTS squashes. And they comfortably won the night anyway. That kind of commitment to getting an attack over would never have occurred to the WWF, at any time.
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I'll never vote for the Warrior, as my views are like Parv's to a slightly lesser degree (I can appreciate a good Warrior match and performance--and his destruction of the Honky Tonk Man remains one of the happiest moments of my fandom). That said, guys like him should probably be put out in the open, so to speak, so there can be an attempt at a fair discussion. I don't think every worker on the planet needs a thread, but for certain guys it might be nice to rationally express why we're not ranking them. It's a similar principle to Warrior being put on the WON HOF ballot. I hardly think he's deserving, but it's probably even more unfair to refuse to put him on the ballot and engage in a discussion about him at all, polarizing though he may be.