PeteF3
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Sting vs. Arn Anderson, WCW Saturday Night 4/22/95 This is from the first round of the U.S. title tournament. I didn't think much of most of the action here, but they won me over by the end. Sting did a lot of punch-kickery but he also targeted Arn's leg, which paid off in a big way later. Arn had some great counters here--a spinebuster out of nowhere, the "wind up a punch and DDT the guy when he ducks" spot that I love so dearly, and catching Sting with a back elbow when he attempted one too many Stinger splashes. Hot closing stretch in general, leading to a clean submission victory thanks to Sting's earlier work on the leg.
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[1995-04-22-WCW-Saturday Night] Diamond Dallas Page vignette
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in April 1995
More of DDP trying too hard. What else is new. -
That's barely a coffin, just a bunch of wood put together by a local shop class. I'm half-serious when I wonder why they didn't arrange for a coffin to be brought down with the Undertaker so they could use that. I admire the effort and the idea, but the execution wasn't all there. Snow has some good lines but is also awkward at times.
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Rich's voice is getting more gravelly by the week. He issues a 1-on-2 challenge to Bill Dundee & Brian Christopher. Christopher is about to join Dundee in answering when he's leveled by powder from Doug Gilbert, leaving Dundee alone as the heels go after his arm. Hey, a new over-the-ring-area camera angle from WMC. PG-13 eventually make the save.
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[1995-04-21-AAA-Sin Limite] Rey Misterio Jr vs Juventud Guerrera
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in April 1995
I thought this was pretty good, and a fun change of pace for a lucha title match as they really go balls-out here with no conceit of trying to prove who's the superior mat wrestler. That plays to both guys' strengths. Each guy busts out a joshi-style suplex to win their respective fall, then Rey levels Juvy with a spectacular springboard dive over the guardrail, leading to a double countout. Weak finish. Good sort of gateway for lucha novices, though I don't see this as a strong lucha match for the year either. -
Good stuff, but the '94 bout is definitely more memorable. After getting KO'd then, Takada has to take a more thinking man's approach, keeping his distance and hitting leg kicks before he can think about stuff like the cross armbreaker. Vader still has the advantage almost every time Takada gets close, but the power bomb doesn't put him away this time. Agreed that Takada got up way too early. Vader makes us forget that by charging across the ring and leveling him, and then busting out some new submissions. Good way to get Vader over and to get Takada over by forcing Vader to go out of his comfort zone. They tease a submission, but Takada comes back to KO Vader with a series of kicks. A worthy final match in the trilogy, but not the MOTYC that '94 was. Lou Thesz says that all the judges think Takada won--thanks for that insight, Lou.
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The all-time classic is Paul Bearer and Undertaker hyping the Headlock on Hunger. Because even though they love death, in Somalia, TOO MANY people are dying, and they're not cool with that.
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Stan Hansen, Kenta Kobashi, & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Johnny Ace, & Takao Omori, 4/15/95 Omori is wearing the single ghastliest set of trunks I have ever, ever seen. That includes Jay Strongbow's '70s-couch-cushion pattern. They can barely be described as anything besides "psychedelic leopardskin." Or psychedelic sponge. This is a solid 6-man tag that's hurt by a meandering opening half. It picks up when Kobashi gets caught in the ropes and Kawada starts taking his knee apart, but the Kobashi-in-peril segment doesn't last too long and we quickly go to the hot tag and big 6-man bomb-throwing after that. Fun closing stretch but this isn't at the levels of the classic 6-mans of '91-'93. Omori seems to be in a state of arrested development since showing up in '94, as he still doesn't offer much besides the ability to take a beating. And the teams are more haphazard than the clearer alliances of the Jumbo's Army/Super Generation Army days. That said, it's still fun seeing fresh blood and fresh teams in this setting.
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The next "unpredictable" thing I see Brody do will be the first. That is if you don't count the World Class matches where he actually sells.
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I love that O'Connor match. None of the opening work with holds bothered me at all. Wrong thread for it but Pat seems like he should be a top 25 guy. Hard to evaluate the Golden Age folks because footage is so limited, but '50s Pat looks better than Thesz and '70s Pat was still tearing it up.
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Influence was a huge part of Kid's candidacy. However you feel about the matches, the Tiger Mask series get credit for setting the template for the acclaimed junior style to come in both Japan and the U.S. Actually influence probably would apply to Benoit as well. If I'm missing something, I'm missing something, but I can't see Hase at that influential level.
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Benoit was still a main event guy, and IIRC Raw ratings were higher when he was champ than when Orton was. I have to agree--I really don't think he gets in without those token runs. Is Hase the most purely work-driven HOFer? He had one IWGP title shot in his career and a quick turnaround with the NWA title when it meant something in Japan and nothing in the U.S. I don't think his drawing power is as strong as Benoit's, and as much of a fan as I am I don't think he was a deserving inductee.
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I wasn't nearly as high on that Roadies match, but it does feature the absolute BEST performance of a spot I despise--the pop-up dueling piledrivers. Terry hits Hawk with one and Hawk no-sells--no surprise, that's a standard Hawk spot. Then Hawk drops Terry with one, and Terry attempts to do the same thing. He pops up, but is CLEARLY quivering in agony and only vainly attempting to put on the air of having shrugged it off. It's a fabulous bit from Terry, and Dory calmly tagging himself in to save Terry from himself pretty much encapsulated the Funks dynamic at its best. Yes, I'm gushing about Terry in a Dory thread, what's it to you?
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Yes, I forgot about that one. I also like the SNME Savage match (the second one from '92), but the Dustin bout is the best post-heel turn Jake match.
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The two best Jake matches I've seen are the Steamboat match from the Boston Garden and the Flair match from Mid-South. And the Steamboat match is decidedly a "Jake match," with pretty awesome psychology at work. The heel-heel Savage SNME bout is really fun as well.
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I'm going to vote for Dory, too. I think the Funks are a top-5 all-time team and he's had the "overrated" tag for so long that he's become underrated. At the very least I would put Dory on my list as a mere strategic pick, since I don't think he'll get a lot of love from many others. Dory was the MVP of the '75 Open League in All-Japan, a tournament that also had Jumbo, Destroyer, Baba, Harley Race, Dick Murdoch, and Horst Hoffman--plus older stalwarts with high reps like Mr. Wrestling and Don Leo Jonathan and Pat O'Connor. He had the best match of the tour with Horst which was pure wrestling, the best Baron Von Raschke match I've seen, the remains of what looks like a terrific bomb-throwing match with Jumbo, and a fun bloody brawl with Abdullah.
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One of the more noticeable pops I ever heard on Nitro was Benoit taking some guy down in the crossface during some random match. Part of it was the surprise of hearing it, but that crowd went NUTS. Sadly I couldn't tell you when it was or even who he was wrestling. But he was connecting then. He connected when wrestling Kevin Sullivan for sure. I think I would have to put Benoit on the list somewhere, but I'm not going to struggle too hard with it. Probably in the 25-30 range, whereas 10 years ago he'd be in the top 5 if not top 3. His flaws are far more apparent now and the emotional attachment is gone.
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I was born in '82 and watched wrestling for pretty much literally my whole life, becoming a fan like my dad. I can honestly say I consumed far, far more wrestling from '96-'00 than I did in the '80s, yes. Now between then you had the Dark Ages, and there's no question that period was worse. Actually early '90s WWF I found far worse at the time, which is what led to me becoming a full-fledged WCW viewer. But I still kept tabs on things, thanks to discovering the Apter mags in '91 and discussion on Prodigy in early '93, opening up a whole new world even as the business was decaying.
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I do think there was something that separated the negative reaction for Taue from the negative reactions to Jumbo and Fuchi and Ogawa, though. Jumbo got booed for heel tactics, too--but he didn't get booed for everything he did. That only happened to Taue (for awhile) and to Fuyuki. I couldn't tell you what that something was, but Taue was far less popular than his stablemates.
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I think Bam Bam has had the underachiever label for so long that he's become underrated. He was more than capable as Vader's tag partner in New Japan and had a very good, consistent run in general from 1992 until the moment the referee's hand hit 3 at WM11. Not that this would be enough for me to vote for him, I don't think. As Dylan alluded to, the GREAT matches aren't there, just a lot of good ones, with the ones coming closest to great being New Japan tags with 3 other good workers. As far as big fat guys I'd put him behind the Big Boss Man, at least. I do think he was better than One Man Gang or Tenta, though.
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I want to see more of the Heenan that we saw against Buck Zumhoffe, working on top and dropping offensive bombs. Bobby actually looked like a complete wrestler from what we saw of that match.
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I agree. I'm never going to go out of my way to seek out Benoit gems, but I can at least watch his matches now. And I get more enjoyment (to a degree) when I see Benoit doing character work than doing STRONG STYLEtm stuff. He's a guy that Heyman and his booking actually made better in ECW.
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No, these people genuinely and viscerally disliked Taue. Jumbo would always get cheers during his intro, and as you mentioned for the "OH!" Taue would get booed just for standing there being announced. Only other guy, native or otherwise, to get a similar reaction around this time was Fuyuki, for whatever reason. Jumbo & co. would generally get booed for their tactics, and sometimes crowds would turn on Misawa & friends for reciprocating. Taue was definitely getting booed just for who he was. I don't recall when it died off, but I'm pretty sure the negative reactions slowed down before Jumbo went out (barring things like dropping Kikuchi on the ropes or breaking up holds from the outside).
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And I'm not even saying Taue is a "no," per se. Though I will say that there's no way I could fit him on my ballot this year if I had one. I guess I'm trying to take as balanced a view of the guy as I can.
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This sounds dangerously close to the position posited by some people--either implied or explicit--that subjectivity with regard to the Observer HOF is inherently "bad." ("You can't deny Big Daddy's place in the Hall because you don't like his workrate--that's subjective!" Near-verbatim quote from a discussion I had on Classics some years ago). If that's the case, then we should dispense with voting and balloting altogether. Whoever meets the pre-chosen criteria gets in, whoever doesn't doesn't.