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PeteF3

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  1. PeteF3
    Darryl Peterson had a cool gimmick, was an under-the-radar good promo, was an accomplished amateur wrestler, and trained in the New Japan dojo. He had all the tools to be a legitimate major star, but it never came together for him anywhere. Here, it was decided that Maxx Payne was too similar to the Undertaker, so they ramped up the cheeseball factor and stuck him in some of the worst ring attire in the history of wrestling.
  2. PeteF3
    I'm not sure what exactly the logic was behind this booking--the Gunns were taken out of the tournament by choice, not because of injury--but this is a fine match. And it's worked between four guys who want to win at any cost, which is the best kind of babyface match. Lots of nifty double-teams here, particularly from the Gunns. The gimmick was cheesy but their work is perfectly acceptable. Both of them are better than Tatanka, but not as good as Bigelow, so in the end I think I liked the Rumble match slightly better.
  3. PeteF3
    Vince apologizes for the unprofessional actions of Scott "Bam Bam" Bigelow and announces a suspension without pay. SHOOT NAMES! Another attempt at realism, though all this would be shattered when "technical problems" prevented Bam Bam's apology and they tried to turn it into a comedy skit.
  4. PeteF3
    Some okay action once we've gotten past the rapidfire entries and gotten over what an unbelievably weak roster this was (7 tag teams in a 30-man Rumble, including the Bushwhackers and Well Dunn, and the Blu Brothers who were mysteries and probably confounded people who were wondering why the same nobody got to come in twice.) Murdoch is tons of fun, throwing a dropkick and working cool shit with Shawn, Fatu, and Henry Godwinn. Shawn's near-elimination is pretty rewind-and-watch-again worthy...I dunno, I thought the finish was pretty clever, even if THREE fakeout Dusty finishes on one show is a little...well, Dusty-like.
  5. PeteF3
    I thought Tatanka sucked--out of shape, lazy, and just a bad heel all-around. Holly was just there, but wasn't a fuck-up or anything. Kid and Bam Bam were on another level. I have to disagree on the one-man show part, too. Bam Bam kept up with the Kid just as much as he did on TV, and was doing just as much to hold this match together. Kid wasn't working with a crash test dummy when he did that cool huracanrana spot, after all. All those miscommunication and timing spots could have made for a mess, but Bam Bam was in perfect position each time. This is a refreshingly southern tag layout all around with all the double-teams and distraction spots and hot tag teases--it just needed a better Ricky Morton than Holly and another heel who was stronger than Tatanka, and it'd be one of the better WWF bouts of the year. As it is, it was still pretty enjoyable with half of the participants turning in excellent performances. The big angle of course comes afterward, as Bigelow shoves down a laughing LT. This might be the first "shoot angle" the WWF ever ran, as the booth goes silent and you (at least in the original broadcast) faintly hear Lawler say, "Vince is not here, he's gone off headset" as though the situation were legitimately out of control. Then we awkwardly (by design) go to a video recap and come back to a somber apology from Vince. Kind of out-of-the-box stuff.
  6. PeteF3
    I have a few problems with this match from an agent's perspective: they ran the exact same story as Jarrett/Razor, from the knee injury to the false finish, except ramped up several notches. While the knee work makes sense in both contexts, that's the type of thing the WWF is historically very good at avoiding. That being said, on its own this match is excellent, probably a bit stronger than KOTR and I liked that match more than just about anyone else here. Bret's heeling goes from subtle to blatant, with some really clever spots like tying Diesel around the ringpost with his wrist-tape, and one of the best of Bret's many "playing possum" spots. I will say that unlike his stronger matches in '94, Diesel really felt along for the ride for this. It's definitely the Bret Show all the way, and it's one of his better performances, but it's definitely more broomstick-y than one would expect. Bret pretty much managed to undo the booking faux pas in how the new babyface ace was handled. Cheap-o finish but I don't know what else you could have booked, which is yet another strong indication that this match shouldn't have been booked to start with.
  7. PeteF3
    Pretty good match that got better as it went along. Stalling was a staple of WWF PPV openers at the time, so it was to be expected here. And Jarrett pointing to his head will never not be entertaining. There isn't much advanced offense for the first part of this but both guys take some pretty hellacious bumps to the floor. The second half gets better and the moves get bigger, and we get a very cool near-fall involving Razor's back superplex that gets reversed and reversed again, Jumbo/Misawa-style. Jarrett wins clean, which seems to blindside the crowd who I don't think gave Jarrett much of a chance going into this. Basic match, but a psychologically sound one. And basics matter.
  8. PeteF3
    "Jimmy Hart my man, you squeaky little mouse..." What a friend Hulk is. Jimmy isn't as squeaky as Johnny Grunge, at least. Savage doesn't do anything except recite the names of the people involved in the main event. I'm happy for him that he was wrestling again, but Savage is already being wasted in this role. Hogan and Savage are the only things in WCW--nothing like coming out in the open and saying it. This is so, so, SO dated. Even Diesel and his '70s TV references seem more with the times.
  9. PeteF3
    Oh my God. Curls on top, straight hair in the back down past the shoulders. Still, with Pillman having been in total limbo for a full 12 months it's good to see him back doing something...anything. Pillman talks about his football career, complete with footage from Miami game action and Bengals practice. Then talk about his throat operations, a mere 4 and a half years after the right time to drop that little nugget. More talk about the Blonds split, which should NOT be talked about at this point. I'm a fan of invoking history both recent and past, but the Blonds needed to be dead and buried at this point. Pillman plugs the "hottest show on TV today," Baywatch! Maybe the next-hottest after Thunder in Paradise. Not all of this makes a great deal of sense, to put it mildly, but as I said I'm happy that they have any plans at all for Pillman. And yeah, the new Cruiserweight title was teased FOREVER, between TV hype and talk in the sheets, though the fact that it went even this far back surprises me.
  10. PeteF3
    Fun to see two great personalities like this finally getting a chance to go back and forth. New Jack promises to take out ALL of the Armstrongs--Brad, Steve, Scott, Sleepy, and Dopey!
  11. PeteF3
    Cornette skirts the line between making some decent points (or would be decent in a shoot setting and not said by a guy who's profiting more from white vs. black tensions than the guy he's feuding with) and ramping the Uncomfortability Meter up to 11. He's not a fan of Al Sharpton, or of reparations for slavery, apparently. And the attempt to justify some whites just plain not liking blacks is probably the most eyebrow-raising statement of all. The wrestling promo portion of this is much better. Note that this was clearly a WWF TV setting--in the Observer Meltzer remarked how shocked the backstage people were at the content of this promo. For an employee only exposed to New Generation WWF this stuff would certainly be quite the jolt.
  12. PeteF3
    Boo will go into Super Saturday Night Fever wearing the same tights that Cactus Jack lost his teeth and then his ear in. Good luck with that.
  13. PeteF3
    PG-13 destroy Scott Bowden with a bunch of slick double-teams, and they continue to bust out the offense against Rich & Gilbert. Gilbert is sporting a ridiculous orange-blond dye job. Gilbert uses TWO chains to steal a win, and the fall of the USWA must have brought about the demise of Builders Square and Home Quarters stores in Memphis and elsewhere. To have all these shenanigans with chains on one show is absolutely absurd. Hell, Bowden had the football helmet with him--at least change it up some. Wolfie and JC looked great, though, both in the ring and at the studio. They don't have any more title shots at Rich & Gilbert, but they will get them in a Hospital Elimination Match (wrestlers are eliminated only through first-blood rules) with no Scott Bowden at ringside.
  14. PeteF3
    Great segment, as one would expect with these two. The image of Dundee wrestling Sid is so hilarious that I hope to God that it actually happened. They seem to be teasing a Dundee heel turn, but not going all the way with it just yet--you expect Lawler is telling the truth that Dundee introduced the chain, but they're careful to leave some ambiguity and the possibility open that Dundee's actually in the right. Contrary to the popular perception of the Superstar in Memphis, we're 5 years into the '90s and aside from his WCW hiatus Dundee has been a babyface the entire time.
  15. PeteF3
    Michaels accuses Bret of having "changed." He brings up Bret's beard, which was grown for Lonesome Dove but certainly came off as evidence of a possible heel turn. Did we just retcon the Shawn/Diesel split for this segment? All of a sudden Shawn thinks Diesel is going to squash Bret, which sort of goes against the past 2 months of television. Shawn finally corrects himself and hopes that Bret and Diesel both destroy each other at the Rumble. Bret finally yanks the mic from Shawn and gets to the point at hand, which is hyping a PPV title match.
  16. PeteF3
    I don't have much to add about this, but I don't quite think Kawada was dominant enough for my liking. I get the relatively last-minute changing of the booking and the work and counters and mirror spots are all really great, but at times this felt like Kawada as traveling heel world champion being pushed to the limit by a challenger, when I think he would have been better off establishing himself as the dominant force. Kobashi still could have gotten over by taking all of Kawada's shots and repeatedly kicking out. That said, Kobashi's crawling around the ring in a desperate attempt to stay away from Kawada after being repeatedly Germaned was pretty great selling, and is now something I wish John Cena had tried last night. This is probably a 3rd straight AJPW Triple Crown match whose reach exceeded its grasp, but it was still much better than the two fall matches and the circumstances behind it were more understandable.
  17. PeteF3
    Dave did TV reports for AJPW, NJPW, and AJW that covered the whole show. I don't know to what extent the readers themselves were viewing everything as a whole, but those shows were being traded in full and Dave was watching just about everything and talking about it. I have to disagree on the merits of AJPW television. I went through the entire '91 and '92 seasons and had lots of fun picking up on the little running stories throughout the year, keeping track of who was close to getting wins over whom and enjoying the moments of triumph when a Kawada or Kobashi broke through with a big win. That was some of the easiest binge-watching I've ever done, and I had just started '93 when the Benoit thing happened and the whole project got shelved. I would have voted for Choshu as Booker of the Year for at least '90 and '91, but I can see the argument for Baba.
  18. PeteF3
    As far as "classic Gorilla" ruining a match--the pre-eminent example is the Savage/Tito no-DQ match from MSG. Even though Finkle announces plain as day that "there will be NO DISQUALIFICATIONS WHATSOEVER," Gorilla spends the entire match harping about the officiating. By the time Savage decks the referee and uses a chair, he's frothing at the mouth demanding that Savage be disqualified. It's enough that I can't even watch the match, and it's a shame because the work is fantastic. I will say that an announcer, like a manager, does have to get himself over to some extent--a good announcer has to have credibility and I certainly won't say that Gorilla was lacking in that department. And to attain credibility you do have to put yourself over to a degree. Look at Michael Cole to see what happens if your lead announcer doesn't have any.
  19. PeteF3
    The '92-'94 stuff is what's freshest in my mind, because that's the stuff I'm watching. ::shrug:: Of what I can remember... I already talked about Owen Hart in 1994 earlier. It doesn't sound like much but it was such a stupid and obviously counterproductive thing to say. Loss did a fantastic recap of Monsoon's performance in the Harts/Steiners match that you can find in the January '94 Yearbook thread. It wasn't good, and you can't use the excuse that he wasn't calling enough of a big-time match. He tended to shit on the heels to Ed Whalen-esque proportions, particularly Ric Flair. About the only time he ever actually put Flair over was during the '92 Rumble, because Flair's performance dragged him into doing so kicking and screaming. Otherwise, he would only talk about how inevitable it was that Flair was going to lose the title or how his figure four wasn't going to work on Piper or Hogan the way it worked on some TV jobber. Yes, it was Monsoon's job to be a babyface. Yes, it was his job to antagonize Heenan. But he just said tons of shit that I can't imagine McMahon saying. And even if it was past his prime (and the WWF's prime for that matter) it still happened and it still counts.
  20. PeteF3
    If Monsoon had never broadcast with anyone besides Jesse and Bobby (or the occasional Johnny Polo), that would be meaningful. But he did. Lots of times, especially once Jesse and Heenan were both gone. Usually to the show's detriment.
  21. PeteF3
    Monsoon in the '90s became a total shit show, especially after the Brain left but it was becoming a problem before. Whatever insights he offered in the '80s were totally gone--all he did was shit on the heels, banter with Heenan, and recite from his now-standard Book of Cliches ("Holy mackerel, it's pandemonium, you can cut the electricity with a knife," etc. etc. etc.) And no, Monsoon doesn't get a pass for not putting over the heels just because he was a babyface and the WWF was a comic book cartoon company. Monsoon's big retort to Owen Hart upon winning KOTR was "YOU GOT LUCKY!" when he beat Bret at WM10, a monumentally dumb thing to say for your #1 heel. Monsoon's stint on Raw as sub for Vince was such a rousing success that McMahon had to bring back Jim Ross to cover for the both of them. When Vince came back after his neck surgery, the narrative had gone from Owen being "lucky" to a guy who beat Bret Hart on Bret's very best day. Which one sells you more on a pay-per-view rematch? The issues with Gorilla go back further than that, but he was definitely more tolerable in the '80s. Still, at some point it would have been nice for him to do something besides sniff about how he's never seen anyone lose to a side headlock or armbar, and instead explain why one would utilize such a hold regardless (wear the opponent down, set him up for something else, etc.) That was rarely a tactic he took, because the focus in his mind was on how smart he was and not on the wrestlers.
  22. PeteF3
    There were other things working against the Dog angle. - They took a sex symbol with female fan appeal and covered him in a mask and a bodysuit, which was stupid and counterproductive regardless of what the planned endgame was. - There was absolutely NO weight given at all to the loser-leaves-town stip. It was matter-of-factly announced for the Clash and in that rushed, overbooked show was given about 4 minutes of ring time with no lip service given to the consequences of the result. With the way Ross had called Pillman's matches over the past 2 years, gushing about what a gutsy underdog he was as both a football player and a wrestler, Ross should have been wailing and gnashing his teeth over what a tragic and premature ending it was for the promising career of Flyin' Brian. Instead, the ostensible end of Pillman's career is nothing more than a segue to a Great American Bash report. It was so, so obvious that the LLT stip was nothing more than a blatant plot device to set up this mask angle--and since WCW had nothing left at this point but the hardcore fanbase who knew where this was going, they had to be less obvious than that. (Of course, if you go too far in the other direction, everyone's probably expecting Pillman to turn up in the WWF). - Keeping the same music for the Dog was dumb as well. Again, it was a clear broadcast by WCW that "This is just an angle, no need to get too emotionally involved here." - If you think the music is nitpicking, fine. But please explain how anyone can take the Dog seriously when he comes with Gary Cappetta enthusiastically introducing him as being "from the KENNEL CLUB!" - Windham had made a comment calling Pillman a "dirty yellow dog" in an earlier promo, but the name was still nonsensical. When Windham donned the mask in Florida, it was a response to his humiliation at the hands of Ron Bass, who had repeatedly labeled him with the epithet and then after a match put a saddle on him and "rode" him around the ring. Windham felt he had to don the mask and take on a new attitude as a way to redeem his shame--the mask took on a powerful figurative as well as literal disguise. Pillman, again, donned the mask because The Booking Said So, something that WCW's hamfisted presentation made obvious.
  23. PeteF3
    Brody had a pinfall loss to Jumbo in '88, but that was after the Abby match.
  24. PeteF3
    Doubtful. By the time Jesse showed up Lance was working almost exclusively on the Hotline.
  25. PeteF3
    I'm sure Bobby sat in at the podium in Georgia at some point or another while he was managing there. As I recall reading he always called Solie "Norman," "Morton," or anything besides his actual name (worked name, but you know what I mean). What I've always wondered about is if Solie & Ventura ever called anything together.
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