PeteF3
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Well, it was touch and go with the joshi greatness earlier if this would hold up as MOTY. I'm sure there's more great joshi to come but at this point, the answer is "Yes. Yes it does." There are too many great moments to recap here and most of them were touched on already. I will say that about 35 minutes in, having dismantled Kobashi's knee but being unable to put him away, and while yet another Misawa opponent is on the verge of gakking up a winning opportunity and about to give into another comeback, Taue goes back to a recent standby--popping Misawa in the eye. I think it's an even greater moment than his attack on the eye in the Carnival final, precisely because it doesn't really draw attention to itself. He doesn't need to grind a boot in the eye or drop him on the turnbuckle--one shot completely stops Misawa's momentum cold, and then it's a matter of unleashing the heavy artillery and grinding him into defeat with that. It's one of my favorite moments in any wrestling match. I don't think this is quite the Greatest Match Ever, as the best joshi tags still eclipse this. I do think it's the best AJPW match of the '90s so far--the best combination yet of super-advanced offense and sequences and psychologically deep, dramatic storytelling. -
Terrific match, probably the best RVD match period and the best Kroffat singles bout. Van Dam's somersaults and general act are still really fresh and innovative at this point, and Kroffat crafts an excellent use of them. He also adds some awesome character work, trying to provoke RVD by spitting at him and then using his ponytail on a surfboard in an awesome spot. RVD's chops and punches are pretty laughable but that's the only thing to complain about here. His flippy stuff fits the match well and he takes one of the most awesome lariats in history that pretty much wipes him out of the match, despite some great kickouts afterward. There were some terrific little bouts during Masa Fuchi's reign but this is one of the better defenses of the PWF Jr. title. I can't remember if Fuchi-Kobayashi was a title match or not, but if it's not, then it's probably the best.
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Yeah, this was overbooked, but not *too* overbooked. All the major programs got time to breathe in one segment. And the build to someone finally popping Alfonso is being done really well.
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After imitating a crashing car to the point where I'm rooting for him to keel over and die on camera if it gets him to stop, Paul E. explains that Taz doesn't need a gimmick to suplex the hell out of people. The Tazmaniac is dead--long live Taz.
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This is like those Rude-Warrior promos all over again--same promotion, same feud, different worlds.
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The terrific, realistic angle from two weeks ago makes this direction look even more idiotic.
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Fun fact: the opponent for Skip's debut that followed this? Barry Horowitz.
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Good match with a hot closing stretch. Davey Boy busts out some new offense and the rapid near-falls were all done well. This match really would have been helped with time calls, which I think they actually did for the Shawn-Kama draw at the PPV. But good for Davey and Owen for actually working accordingly to how much time was left, showing greater and greater urgency the longer the match went.
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Well, they thought we were soft in the '80s.
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According to Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George?, Fred Blassie was forced to make an on-air apology for referring to the women of LA as "pigs" and the children as "juvenile delinquents" in a promo. I don't mean to sidetrack this with a sociological discussion, but "PC" has always been around, just in different forms. The generations that lament how soft and easily offended people are today are the same ones who thought Elvis shaking his hips or Petula Clark touching Harry Belafonte's arm on television would bring about the downfall of society.
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I always liked the plain truck sound and horn theme better than the faux-blues harmonica version.
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Really strong segment to build for the Bash. This is the most intensity and emotion seen in a WCW angle since the zenith of the Rhodes-Stud Stable feud.
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Way different tone from the usual Arn interview.
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Waylon Mercy...he's here. Great gimmick that Spivey didn't have the physical tools to back up...nor was this environment conducive to really going all the way with the character anyhow.
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Cactus uses a table as a lever to fling Sandman over the ropes to the floor in an insane bump, then carves him with barbed wire wrapped around his arm. But Shane Douglas interferes and costs Cactus the match. That couldn't possibly have been Collette throwing the bucket, could it?
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Richards' scars don't compare to the mental anguish Raven suffers every day. That's some good heeling to show what a self-centered self-pitying douche Raven is, before we get some bullshit "deep" aphorisms. I get it--they're supposed to be bullshit, they just tend to be the annoying X-Pac kind rather than the heel heat kind. He closes with some words for Dreamer's new girl (and apparently an old flame of Raven's)--Luna Vachon.
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This rock and roll garbage has had a deleterious effect on our society for a number of years. Thus begins the Man Mountain Rock feud and Backlund's slide into mid-card irrelevance.
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More Pure Sports Build stuff, and pretty effective at that. Not to get patronizing but some here may not know that Dr. Andrews is a huge name in the sports medicine world--virtually every casual sports fan knows who he is.
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This is a master-of-the-obvious statement, but Arn is too good for this material and setting, and certainly too good for this particular feud. You know how it's been posited that television storytelling has become so advanced that someone from the 1970's literally wouldn't be able to comprehend what was going on in complex shows like True Detective or Community? That's how I imagine the new WCW target audience was with Arn Anderson.
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WHAT KIND OF A PRESENT IS A FIREBALL?! Cornette gloats afterward and promises to reveal more of his long-term plan next week.
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I remember John McAdam absolutely hammering this post-match angle, asking why you would book a scaffold match only for a heel to pop right back up after losing. He raises a pretty good point--fulfilling gimmick match stipulations was never a Cornette strong suit. This is the type of thing that kills the gimmick, granting that killing off scaffold matches probably shouldn't be seen as a bad thing. Snow cuts another strong promo in the locker room. Ricky rebuts in equally strong fashion.
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Fun to see this coming off the USWA segment. Randy Hales laments the lousy officiating of Mark Curtis. Kessler waving to the cameraman to "bust" the interview was a clever touch. This ends up being a 3-way cluster with the THUGs and the Gangstas.
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I share Loss' enthusiasm. This is an all-time killer promo by Lawler, hitting every right note and putting over all four guys big-time. His description of Christopher as a loudmouthed egomaniac and explaining that *all* wrestlers have to be egomaniacs to win was letter-perfect. This is the best USWA segment in probably 4 years.
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Sasuke was not highly regarded at the time of the '06 list--I don't know if it was Tiger Mask backlash hitting him or just general apathy toward the '90s juniors, or the belief that he was really just a spot monkey. So far in the '90s he's been a pretty consistent hitter of his big spots but is also underrated on the mat and has worked as a tremendous babyface, especially an underdog babyface. There's a lot of substance there that I don't think Sasuke always gets credit for.
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Lance's false modesty is done way better than Gordon Solie's.