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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    The Gangstas are downright giddy at getting the Rock 'n Rolls in a Ghetto Street Fight. Seems every non-Big Two promotion is going out of their way to be "hardcore" and do stuff the WWF and WCW aren't willing to. Part of that is ECW influence, possibly, but I think it's mostly these promotions realizing that that's the easiest way to create a point of difference. Ultraviolence probably isn't the specific way to go anymore, but it'd be nice for some more modern promotions to take note. Boo is no actor, but Tammy gets the storyline over effectively enough. Boo won't get his kitty back if he doesn't obey Tammy. CONFRONTATION! Wait, where's the fine and suspension for Boo for trashing Cactus Jack the previous week? Cornette wants assurance that there won't be any more Bullets or other masked men coming in after Bob Armstrong is sent packing. Great build to Abdullah--pity it didn't go anywhere. Now it's training time! JC extolls the virtues of calisthenics and proper nutrition as Bruiser Bedlam brings him his health food--a triple-mayo burger from Wendy's. He also has some gifts for Ron Wright--milk of magnesia, Preparation H, Ex-Lax, and Geritol . Four quality promos in a row, or at least four promos that got the point across. That's SMW for you.
  2. PeteF3
    Crazy stuff from the previous week, though the use of scissors is over-the-top for my tastes. Fans throw weapons to the wrestlers and you start to wonder which city this actually is. The action is tremendous and the post-match scuffle in the locker room even better. I love Doug Gilbert clarifying to Frank Morrell that they were suspended first, *then* decking him. Bowden gets in a few licks on Randy Hales before the babyfaces make the save and the camera goes to the great photo shoot in the sky. Tremendous action to wash out the bad taste of last week's letdown (yes, I know this was two week old footage).
  3. PeteF3
    For some reason, somebody chose an instrumental version of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" as the background music for this. Dink actually makes contact--eat your heart out, Eddie Gaedel.
  4. PeteF3
    One instance where you actually buy a half-crab as a shoot finish. Good brisk little undercard match, though the near-empty arena is pretty depressing.
  5. PeteF3
    Quite a coup getting Gene Wilder to guest ring announce, in his Willy Wonka outfit. I've always wanted one of these "falls count anywhere in [x]" stips to be enforced literally--e.g., Cactus gets 2 on Sabu at the arena entrance, but Sabu *just* gets his leg outside the door to break the pin. Crazy-ass match, easily the best of the series so far. The setting is rather different from ECW Arena, lots of kids and blue-hairs there, like an old Showboat Pavilion AWA show. The reaction of the seniors is possibly the funniest part, especially Cactus unsuccesfully attemping to wrest a cane from an old man in the front row. And I can only imagine the reaction of the gamblers when they spilled into the casino, with Cactus piledriving Sabu onto a blackjack table in a spot that we sadly miss. All the spots hit here, and the finishing legdrop with the chair looked like it killed Cactus dead. One of the best indy matches of the year, easily.
  6. PeteF3
    Very good match, but maybe not the MOTY I was hoping for, knowing that Solar was in this. There was great build to the highspots and some near-falls, but the third fall finish was kind of flat, as Panther weathers a bunch of roll-ups and then casually wraps Mariachi up in the nudo lagunero for the submission.
  7. PeteF3
    Awesome match, probably the best tag for the WWF so far this year after a bevy of fantastic tag bouts in the first couple of months. Everything is so crisp here--that's what stands out, more than any super-innovative offense (save Razor doing his fallaway/blockbuster slam on his own partner, sending him flying into HBK). The execution is pitch-perfect the whole way through. Both Kid and Razor work FIP segments and Shawn does a long and awesome HIP towards the end, but overall this avoids the usual three-act WWF tag structure and throws some wrinkles into the story. This is also pretty much the birth of the "Sweet Chin Music," as Diesel's unconscious sell is a little over-the-top (though not nearly as bad as Davey Boy a month from now) but it's effective in getting over the move. Nash does about everything he can, and he's really perfected the punch-drunk staggering sell--it helps that Razor throws some great punches here.
  8. PeteF3
    For the love of God, can Evad just die in a fire already? Or at least sit his ass back in the locker room for two minutes? Sting vs. Sullivan goes nowhere before the other two Faces of Fear come out. Sting and Evad both get squashed. I can't hate any segment that ends with Evad Sullivan getting annihilated, but Butcher is pathetic. Hogan comes off as a real chump for not being there. I'd be curious to see how his pre-recorded comments went--if he actually sold shock and sadness at his "brother" turning on him, or just spouted the usual Hulk cliches.
  9. PeteF3
    Chris Cruise hypes this well enough, but we're not given much of a reason to care about any of these guys. I can only imagine what these names must have meant to your average WCW viewer, especially "Madonna's Boyfriend." No clips, no histories other than quick lip-service paid to masks and hair, no real acknowledgment of familiar names like Santana, Scorpio, and Benoit...yeah, as cool as this all was, I don't know what they were trying to accomplish with this.
  10. PeteF3
    Good few weeks to establish the Rock 'n Rolls as being capable of fighting the Gangstas as opposed to wrestling them.
  11. PeteF3
    It's the Dirty White Boy & Ron Wright against Bruiser Bedlam & Jim Cornette at Thanksgiving Thunder. This has to be Wright's first match in years if not decades, and it'd have a bit more impact if Cornette hadn't spent the past 2 years feuding with another nostalgia act in Bob Armstrong. Nonetheless, I could listen to Wright's rap all day. With the Stud Stable feud having seen its best days and the USWA sliding after a hot autumn, SMW is our last outlet left for good old-fashioned southern-fried hate. Cornette has revealed his mystery man in the match for Armstrong's commissionership: Abdullah the Butcher! A music video to "War Machine" by Kiss follows, and we get to see Abby eat a bug and bloody up Carlos Colon, as Ross narrates how Abby is too wild and dangerous for the WWF and WCW. Great little piece of business, and I would be very intrigued to see how Cornette would have gotten out of this. It's all for naught however, as Abby would end up skipping the event. I get the roster was thinning badly, but Cornette having to wrestle *and* be in a big stipulation embarrassment match on one card is overkill. CONFRONTATION with Cactus Jack and Boo Bradley, who looks startlingly like 2000-era Commissioner Foley. Candido and Tammy have upgraded Boo from a box in the alley all the way up to a doghouse with a hole in the roof, earning $6 every so often because Boo's too dumb to handle any more money. Cactus offers to show Boo another way, but Boo still wants to be Candido's friend. Tammy comes out and whispers something in Boo's ear that sets him off, and a good brawl erupts that leaves Cactus in a heap. Lance Storm is STILL kicking around--apparently he and Brian Lee are designated babyface savers because that's all they seem to do anymore. God help me...I shouldn't have liked this, but I did. Boo is a silly, tired, been-there-done-that gimmick not really played great, but is freaking Hoffman in Rain Man compared to Evad Sullivan, and the brawl was pretty good, and I admit Boo's sudden punch to Jack caught me by surprise. Glad to see a positive response to this one--I get how most people feel about "special people" angles and thought maybe there'd be auto-backlash to this one, but ultimately Boo comes off as legitimately dangerous, which helps a lot. Cornette is out and dipping into the Jerry Lawler jokebook about Ron Wright's age. I think they were setting up Abby going nuts and costing himself the match, judging by the promo here. They've sent the Bodies off and are now trying to end the Cornette-Armstrong feud once and for all, which can't help but lead you to think, "Okay...then what?"
  12. PeteF3
    This whole thing was built to really well and I was watching in earnest to see where they were going, but man was this an underwhelming payoff. They have a great set-up for Landell to get Rich in the ring with Doug out of the picture entirely. The match goes along fine and then Landell re-does an old Austin Idol trick, locking Rich in the figure four and then wrapping a belt around his legs so that it can't be broken. And then Scott Bowden runs to the back and just lets Gilbert in. WEAK. The security guards couldn't wait until the end of the show before running to grab a sandwich or wherever they're at. Landell gets beaten down with a pipe until escaping and Marlin restores order. They're going for an out-of-control chaotic feel here but it just doesn't work on the level of past Memphis melees. They went all-out to create a show-length angle and in the end it's just another quickie studio match with a cheap finish. Vince Russo would be proud.
  13. PeteF3
    Interesting series of segments here. Instead of clips, we have still photos from a chaotic locker room brawl at the MSC as the USWA has the tape for review. With an expensive camera having been damaged, all four participants are suspended from television. Scott Bowden is out several times to declare that Rich & Gilbert WILL be there, and we go out to the parking lot several times throughout the episode to see them trying to get in. Meanwhile Sid is out--at this point they were running an angle that his lackey Spellbinder was the #1 contender to the Unified championship, and was basically defending the position like it was a title in its own right to keep challengers from Sid. Sid brings in two kids to back him up--I recognize that one is Seth, a kid with Down's syndrome who appeared in an angle with Brian Lee the next year and whom Sid must have been tight with.
  14. PeteF3
    This is actually really fun and briskly paced, and the insane heat helps, right up until Hogan is rammed into the masked man's pipe. Then the stupidity of Flair & Sherri handcuffing T so that he can't count is exposed and the match goes off the rails: Hogan shrugs off the pipe, gives a half-hearted Hulk-Up, and then abuses Sherri about 3 or 4 more times than is necessary (not even counting the times he's beaten her up before this). Hogan beats Flair into oblivion of course, and Flair is immediately shunted to the back and forgotten about. I agree--Flair was so big and so important to the company and so legendary that if there ever was a time to waver from WWF-style booking, this was it. Hell, the WWF itself gave Savage *two* send-offs. Instead, it's a set-up for the Three Faces of Fear. Sting's rescue is actually pretty hot and it's nice to see him back in the main event angles, but man, coming off the Flair feud and everyone really wanting to see Vader in the role, Beefcake is about the biggest #1 heel letdown in history. WCW is officially Hogan Championship Wrestling, and there's no relief in sight for another 12 months, and really not for another 19 or so until the NWO forms.
  15. PeteF3
    Not one of the higher-end matches for Arn or Dustin, but a good solid well-worked bout nevertheless. Lots of really neat counters and counters to counters here, like Arn countering the body scissors and avoiding the foot-to-the-face move on the axhandle, as well as Dustin using the ropes to block the DDT. Dustin gets sort of a fluky rollup pin and gets creamed after the match, so evidently they were planning to keep going with this.
  16. PeteF3
    You cannot slander or libel the dead. There is absolutely no need for any "likely" or "allegedly" qualifier, at all.
  17. PeteF3
    Brother Bruti's going to be watching all the exits, brother! Good-sounding plan. Hogan finally shows some fire and hate, though he does shit on Flair a little too much for my liking. Not a top-tier Hogan promo but a better one than we've generally seen in WCW. Clips from the countdown episode of Main Event, with Bischoff being the insincere starfucking ninny he usually is. Hogan cuts an old-school-style promo on a set behind a cage set-up, which is always a welcome sight with me.
  18. PeteF3
    Flair gets some great action clips and killer interview clips. Hulk gets still photos of Thunder in Paradise and Mr. Nanny. That pretty much says it all. They do finally make an attempt to add some gravity to this stipulation, but too little too late. Hulk talks about "touching base" with his family (I think of "touching base" as a quick check-in to clarify something, not exactly a heartwarming exemplar, but whatever) and his upbringing, without actually ever talking about the match in anything other than quick lip service.
  19. PeteF3
    Bedlam is a big, slow lummox but White Boy carries him to something watchable, at least from the clips we see. Ron Wright clobbers Bedlam with a blackjack in a well-done finish and DWB scores the pin, forcing Bedlam and Cornette to take 5 lashes apiece. Bedlam is handcuffed and takes his five whips, but they stupidly only have one pair of handcuffs and you can see where this is going as soon as Bedlam as freed. The angle is terrific, though, as DWB ends up cuffed and Ron Wright gets laid out and whipped. DWB and Wright cut incensed promos promising hellfire and brimstone and I half-expect Wright to crawl through my monitor and give me what-for, he's that worked up. Somehow Cornette has compelled me to care about seeing another Bruiser Bedlam match, even if he's pretty ancillary to everything that took place.
  20. PeteF3
    Morton makes good on his promise to strike back outside of the arena. "Security footage" of a cafeteria-looking place, at a full 24 frames per second with sound. My multibillion dollar employer doesn't have cameras like that. Even in casual conversation every other word out of New Jack's mouth is "Y'understand?" Morton comes in and creams New Jack with a trash can and the fight is on! Awesome action and a cool payoff to last week's assault. Morton follows with another sterling promo, pointing out the Gangstas still haven't beaten the Rock 'n Rolls--he demands a Ghetto Street Fight and then outs New Jack & Mustafa as being from Tupelo, Mississippi!
  21. PeteF3
    The Phantoms take the USWA tag belts from PG-13 in Louisville with some help from a third Phantom. Damned if the highlights of Sid-Undertaker don't hint at a completely solid match. The MSC crowd looks bigger than it has in years. Copout finish involving a Spellbinder run-in.
  22. PeteF3
    I'm astonished and more than a little ashamed at how much I'm digging Sid here. He gloats about getting past Lawler, Tatanka, and the Undertaker and now has to face...Mabel. I like USWA Sid but I don't like him enough to want to see *that.* I assume this run was all about Sid keeping his name out there, work from around home, and also wanting to prove that he could be a "good soldier." And in the end it paid off for him. I love his justifications that his beatdowns are the fault of people like Lance, Marlin, and Hales. Doug Gilbert refuses to believe the announcement that Brian Christopher is coming back. Speaking of coming back, it's Buddy Landell again, and Rich has words for him. Wildfire expounds upon what he believes a "Nature Boy" to be, which is a really funny and possibly true bit. Scott Bowden adds that while Landell was running around pretending to be Ric Flair, Rich was kicking the real thing's rear end in the Omni. Another good set of interviews. Bowden is hit or miss with me--sometimes funny (the interview where he produces an issue of PWI showing him in the USWA Top 10 is spectacular), sometimes clowns it up too much for my liking, but that was a good, quick serious promo. A suited Buddy Landell is out next, admitting that he didn't look good in his black tank top and biker pants, then compares Rich to David Koresh! 1994 is truly the Year of Topical References. I question if Landell ever made $200,000 or owned a Rolls-Royce, but he talks of how he threw most of it away. Rich comes out and they exchange a few nice zingers before Landell is double-teamed by Rich & Gilbert. This turns into Gilbert vs. Moondog Rex in an official match, which doesn't last long before descending into chaos. Landell may be a bit of an asskisser but this seemed like a cool foreshadowing of the feud he and Rich would have in SMW next year.
  23. PeteF3
    Well, I'm the high vote on this it seems. This isn't a MOTY but I thought it was a hell of a match. The middle portion did drag a bit, but not as bad as the TC bout just before, and the opening and closing portions were stronger. I don't get the complaints about Takako not being aggressive enough. Dragging portions aside, she clobbers Manami before the bell and finds all sorts of innovative ways to abuse her, with a few moves that need to be stolen today: the chokeslam/backbreaker (perfect finisher for Reigns or one of the Wyatts), and picking Toyota up in a tombstone and repeatedly kneeing her in the face before doing the move, both of which were awesome. Also, accounting that the Masa Chono heel turn was around this time, she's the first puro worker since possibly Jumbo at his Kikuchi-abusing, Misawa-eye-gouging peak who's willing to come across as a thoroughly contemptible human being and not just grumpy and over-aggressive. Good near-falls toward the end that don't wear out their welcome and are all well-executed, and good build to the JOCS. No real issues here.
  24. PeteF3
    Hoo boy, the Doc of old was resurfacing here, and Kawada for a large chunk of this wasn't much better. I actually did like the first part of this, but the middle dragged really badly, starting from Doc's bump outside the ring. His knee injury there should have been treated as a dramatic turning point, but it wasn't at all, with Kawada standing in the middle of the ring with his thumb up his ass instead of rushing in to capitalize. It made it look like a legit injury that threw both guys off their game, rather than the opening Kawada needed. And for awhile, the injury seemed to come and go based on what it was convenient to move the match along. This picked up at the finish, and they regained the crowd in a big way. But there was still a lot of downtime between moves. Overall not a terrible match but a gravely disappointing one from the guys who were in the running (and may still be considering the state of wrestling) for Wrestler of the Year and Most Outstanding Wrestler. The historic nature of the win would be the only reason to include this on a Kawada comp because it sure isn't one of his standout performances.
  25. PeteF3
    Fantastic bout, with some spectacular moves but also some hate and fire and velocity behind those moves. Maybe not a psychological masterpiece but Ohtani makes for a tremendous FIP, Eddy an even better bastard heel, and the execution is pretty spot-on. Oh, until that finish, when Ohtani and Benoit attempt a move so ridiculous (a jumping huracanrana from the turnbuckle off Eddy being held on Benoit's shoulders) that it was better left on the drawing board. Ohtani quickly puts Eddy away later with a dragon suplex. Loads of fun and an indication that the NJPW juniors will be just fine with Liger on the DL at this point.
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