PeteF3
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He was already in his 40's when he put the mask on, which will make him hard to evaluate because that WAS the twilight of his career. Hard to extrapolate precisely how good he was in the '60s with no footage.
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This was regularly done on TV up until part of '93, I'd say. I thought it was actually one of the flower girls who appeared in the ring, but maybe it was a celebrity. Of course now despite a bunch of early-'90s TV being on Youtube I can't actually find an example of it, even though it seemed to be every week when I was going through the TV seasons years ago. It was for the full match, though.
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In 1996 I was just some dude with a Prodigy account and rumors were swirling like crazy that Hogan was the 3rd man. The build-up was long enough that *everybody* and their brother was rumored for that spot, and it was always one of those "Believe it when you see it" things. But it didn't exactly come out of nowhere.
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OJ, do you know what the hell was up with the early-'90s AJPW trend of having flower girls on commentary? Sometimes on a separate track with either Fukuzawa or Wakabayashi while the other did separate, live commentary that was barely audible underneath? Were they trying to cater to a female demographic or something?
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I get Childs' logic and I've said similar things in the past about other segments...but I think there was very little danger of this crowd suddenly turning on the Undertaker because Kane tombstoned a disgraced old ballplayer.
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Flair earlier in the show: "I took your WIFE in '92, and I took your father at Slamboree!" Awesome. I love that Flair and WCW didn't ignore that there was a prior history here. Savage while putting over how badly he wants Flair, deigns to put Alex Wright over as well and mentions that he has a wrestling father, too (explaining why he cost him against Flair in the U.S. title tournament). Hey Hulk, taking notes? That little interview spot probably did more for Wright than any dance video. Holy crap, this blew me the fuck away. Savage is a tornado start with--even his axhandle to the floor is done with extra velocity and zip to it. This is just a total personal war all throughout. Flair, for the first time since the Regal series, really works a match outside of his comfort zone. He gets a Flair Flip in and some begging off early, but this is a more vicious Flair than we've seen in awhile, stepping up his game in the intensity department the way Savage upped his. He even pulls out Jumbo Tsuruta's kneebreaker onto the guardrail! And later he adds doing a forward flip off the turnbuckles while holding Savage's leg, hyperextending it. Both men take some incredible bumps on the floor and into the guardrail. Savage pulls out the ringbell in a classic callback spot, but doesn't get a chance to use it. And a well-done finish as Flair clobbers Savage with the cane to finally get a significant win. I liked the combination of Flair & Perfect more than Loss, but this match is helped IMMENSELY by the fact that Flair is alone. Here he does cheat, of course, but this is a Flair having to get by on determination and guile rather than cheap help from a ringside second--it's a screwjob win, but Flair comes off as legitimately dangerous in his own right regardless. Just fantastic action with a great story on top of the intense brawling. This is your U.S. MOTY right now. (Of note: Flair wins this match while wearing the red trunks.)
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Schiavone's disgust with Renegade is absolutely palpable, to a degree that I'm not sure Tony approached even during the Russo Era(s), and this a solidly pro-Arn crowd. Arn guides Renegade through the most bare-bones basic match layout you'll ever see and despite being incompetent, Renegade manages to get through without fucking anything up too badly. Naturally this crowd still pops for the title change. That's Dayton for you. Everything wrong with Big Two wrestling in 1995 is summed up in one match. Renegade was a better athlete and probably a better worker than Van Hammer. He was just given a gimmick that was death and a monster push he was nowhere close to ready for.
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#2 MOTY to this point. There, I said it. This is the most fun you'll have watching wrestling of any match on this Yearbook (as always, the "so far" qualifier applies). Pentagon may not do much, as Loss says, but he's such a goddamned prick that you want to see get his ass kicked that it doesn't matter. He's one of the better heels of the year so far, because of the way he can control a match just by sneak attacks or by begging off. La Parka is establishing himself as the year's best babyface--we all know he's charismatic as hell, but he can also throw the rudos around with some high-end bombs and he makes for a shockingly sympathetic babyface. He's reached the Dustin/Boss Man Zone of being able to project vulnerability despite being so much bigger than most of his rudo opponents. Misterio is a guy I'm still not sold on as being able to put together a classic singles match at this point in his career, but in this setting he's terrific. Panther sadly gets lost in the shuffle here--he's fine, but there's not much opportunity for him to tear it up on the mat as this is go-go-go all the way. The technico comeback in the third fall is one of the most stirring babyface comebacks you'll ever see and it has the crowd going nuts. It climaxes with Santo wrapping a chair around Psicosis' head (a payback spot from earlier) and ramming the chair into the post. The rudos make a comeback of their own after that, but it all ends with Pentagon finally being hoisted by his own petard, showing off and allowing Rey to sneak in with a springboard into a victory roll to secure the victory. My one nitpick is that the third fall kind of dies when the rudos are beating down Santo. That 4-on-1 is sadly a little half-assed. It's quickly forgotten about when the technicos come back, and I harp on it only because this would seriously give 6/95 a run for its money if it really looked more like Santo was about to die. This is still as good as any multi-man lucha match of the first half of the decade. -
Munequito was the breakout star of this. You expect Sagrada and Espectrito to be awesome but I thought Munequito was the best technico in the match. Which is high praise, not a slight on anyone else. In fact I'd rate this as the best and most fun lucha match of 1995 so far.
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Well, this was hardly the Match of the Year or anything but I liked this well enough. It was nice to get a look at a good mid-card lucha feud. The Tirantes shit I agree was unnecessary, and I wish he'd decide to be either a full-blown rudo referee or a subtle rudo referee instead of this passive-aggressive shit. This is paced well and has a fairly American layout, so I can see some novices liking it. Marabunta does a nasty blade job and they unleash some okay bombs. Nothing off the charts but a perfectly solid respectable match.
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This is grittier and more intensely mat-oriented than I remember the '93 match being, but these two are still awesome together. I think the Han match was a bit better but this is probably the #2 UWFI match of the year. Sano's counters and hiptosses into the finishing cross armbreaker was just a gorgeous master class of wrestling.
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Ah, our first Yearbook glimpse at the full-blown Sandman entrance. ECW's also upgraded their house mic so we've been able to actually understand what guys are saying. Okay match if you're into that sort of thing, but far behind the other, better garbage matches to take place this year. The ending is brilliant, though, as with every use of Alfonso so far.
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Styles pretty much telegraphed a Beulah win the way he went on and on about how Luna was going to tear her apart. Good enough explanation for Dreamer not being there to start with, having been taken out earlier by Vampire Warrior. The finger-breaking stuff was torture-porn shit but the rest of the angle was a hot one.
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Gordon and Alfonso trade barbs and have a pull-apart. Nothing extraordinary but huge, HUGE heat for this. The Alfonso gimmick is genius. I did like Styles' line about how Alfonso had driven a man who runs children's charities to swear over a PA.
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What I wouldn't have given for a Bob Backlund-Curtis Iaukea Straight Shootin' DVD.
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Pretty sure this is another headline-grab angle by Cornette--several civilian militias were in the news at the time including the actions of one prominent militia member, Timothy McVeigh. Considering the OKC bombing was about a month prior to this, it makes this probably even more tasteless than the Gangstas push. Aside from that it's a good promo by Cornette and Landell and I do think a reinvention was necessary even if I wouldn't quite go this route.
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I don't get this. This tape recorder supposedly has evidence of something or other, that Ricky and Robert were "right" about.
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Eddie Marlin is choking up as he introduces Eddie Gilbert as 1995's first inductee into whatever Hall of Fame this is. Phil Hickerson is out and is actually fairly well-dressed, looking exactly like disgraced Kansas football coach Mark Mangino. Jos LeDuc is next, making what has to be one of his final public appearances. Jackie Fargo is of course the last entrant and gets a speech.
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Yeah, Han is full of great holds and is an underrated striker, but his selling is really what makes this. Great build to the armbar finish too--that suplex by the arm was absolutely sick and I don't know how Yamamoto didn't dislocate his shoulder and elbow at the same time. That he comes back to knock Han down immediately afterward puts him over huge, even in defeat. My inherent bias against the style will probably preclude me from ever voting for a RINGS or UWFI or PWFG match as a true MOTY, but at worst this will probably be the shootstyle match of the year.
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Yeah, even by the standards of Mexican TV this has some of the shoddiest camera work you'll ever see, with the aforementioned replay snafus and excessive crowd shots even for a lucha broadcast. I actually really liked the start, though it would look better if Juventud pulled the belt up at the last minute to hit Rey with it. This is paced well with some great moves, but there were a lot of spots that looked really, REALLY choreographed and at times this verged more on being a dance routine than a wrestling match.
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Basically a ten-minute closing stretch, and a good one, though I never really felt Tenzan had a chance of winning the title, even in the wacky world of NJPW booking.
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Cactus hypes a barbed wire match with Sandman for the ECW title, and delivers his fall-out-of-bed good promo.
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Yeah, I couldn't believe I was looking at Dan Spivey when I first saw these. Once again, he shows that this character was too ahead of its time. Actually he was probably too high-concept for the Attitude Era too, but at least he'd theoretically be allowed to cut loose and cripple and maim people.
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Another fun match in this feud and another feather in the cap for Chono's resurgent year, though Tenzan and Hirata certainly pull their weight. Chono's blind fouls are awesome, and they even make sure to distract Tiger Hattori so that he can plausibly get away with it. Hirata is taken out--twice. As soon as he's about to crawl back onto the apron, Hiro Saito casually yanks him back to the floor, just because he can. They throw two curveballs at us, first by having senior member Hash as the FIP and then by not having Hash get the hot tag at all--eventually the numbers overwhelm him and he's double-teamed into defeat. It's not that well-represented on the Yearbooks, but yeah. This is quite the improvement over the Hellraisers and Jurassic Powers (Scott Norton & Hercules...yecch) feuding over the tag belts.
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Awesome stuff, on the level of PG-13's guest shot in SMW. Next to the GAB '91 match, this is the second-best performance of Robert Gibson's life. His smarmy, disgusted facials after pounding on his opponent are awesome, and he finally feels once again like Morton's equal rather than his lapdog filling out a role. The story is the Rock 'n Rolls are having to resort to heeling because it's the only way they can hold back their younger and more popular opponents, a story put over perfectly by Lance Russell. Aundrea--is that the same lady who tried to get at Al Snow?--makes for a pretty darn good valet. Even referee Bill Rush is fantastic here--he is by a mile the best ref the Memphis territory has seen since Jerry Calhoun's departure. He's in position for every distraction spot, and for once the USWA books a referee to be competent as he stops a count when he sees powder all over Wolfie D's face. A hubcap to the back of Ricky Morton's head nets the win for PG-13, but they pay for it afterward as Aundrea spraypaints yellow across their back. The Rock 'n Rolls were more ahead of their time than you'd think! Probably the best complete USWA match since the Moondogs' heyday, or the Jarrett-Christopher television bout.