PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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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. -
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.
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As much as I love both of these guys I didn't need to watch them go for 25+ minutes, so good call to clip this. The closing stretch is good--Hansen busts out a dangerous backdroppah to put Misawa on the brink, but he kicks out. Then Hansen kicks out of the Elbow of Death that put him down before. They trade moves and Misawa gets in a pretty weak crucifix to regain the Triple Crown. I like the idea of a flash pin and a flash pin off the Lariat at that, but that was not executed well. Hansen goes nuts after the match, slapping Misawa and lariating every young boy that gets in his way.
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Cactus tells a story of neighborhood kids robbing his home run balls, and his father's advice to "take it to right field" instead. But that's too easy for Cactus Jack, just like his style of wrestling. Foley tells the story of the locker room in Columbus when Ric Flair informed him that he'd be in a wheelchair by the time he was 30 and no one was going to care. Now he's a week away from his 30th birthday, with a wife and kids--and there are a lot of people hoping to be correct about his fate. With one week to go, Cactus could go in, dance around the ring, and sail into retirement having proven everybody wrong. But that would be like taking the ball to right field. I didn't mean to practically transcribe the promo, and I don't mean to make this post all melodramatic and '90s smark fan-like, but it's an amazing and intensely personal piece of work. A shoot promo in the absolute greatest sense of the term. We know now that Cactus really would have been better off taking it easier and retiring sooner, but at this time he was a symbol for all that the Big Two was not, but at the same time all that it *could* have been if they wanted. Much of Foley's influence on wrestling was not positive, but I think we're all better for the fact that eventually the WWF and WCW followed his lead. Not just in terms of being "extreme" but in terms of bringing out raw emotions like this--that part more than the chairs, dives, and thumbtacks is Foley's best legacy. (That, and bringing about a sea change in terms of wrestling literature still being felt today.)
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Diesel and Shawn reunite--this was still done too early, but the layoff did help. Just like in 1990, the WWF heel-babyface balance is completely out of whack.
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Bob's first talking point actually sounds pretty reasonable. I love how each successive bullet point results in a closer camera angle. Segment of the decade.
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Holy shit, I was a regular viewer at this point and I have NO recollection of this. This is an AWESOME segment, that brings to mind the Bret-Vince-Patriot confrontation a couple of years from now. This had a similar out-of-control feeling coming off a great promo from Bret where he absolutely eviscerates Lawler but also himself for losing and letting his family down. He even gets bleeped! Bret tries to bully Lawler into granting him a rematch, with Bret agreeing to anything Lawler wants. No answer, as suits and officials have to try to pry Bret away. How the hell could any fan think Diesel and Shawn constantly yukking it up was more entertaining than this? This is the rawest and most emotional thing the WWF has done in months, maybe literal years. Crazy that the Big Two, knee-deep in kiddie land, suddenly come up with legitimately heated angles one after the other. Even Lawler toned down the cartoonishness and was good here--he didn't look cowardly, just confused and intensely uncomfortable.
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Such a dumb, unimaginative, by-the-numbers finish. Sadly I think this is the only time Savage and Vader ever faced off. Bischoff is such a tool of an announcer. The post-match angle is good, though, and finally sets up a personal issue with major hate involved in the increasingly sterile Big Two. Savage as the nutcase hero is always worth watching and finally, finally provides something to look forward to with WCW.
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Match 307 in a series of 695 (and possibly ongoing today). Mercifully clipped to the finish, which is actually pretty well-done. Knobbs returns from a rib injury to get the hot tag, takes out all 3 members of Harlem Heat with Sherri taking a crazy bump to the floor, and the Nasties win the tag titles.