Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

PeteF3

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10269

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    The intertitle stuff is very WCW-like but the clips are of course gold. And yes, this is insanely counterproductive to show this as part of a loser-leaves-town build-up with Flair as the heel. "Hey, check out this awesomeness--it's going away soon!"
  2. PeteF3
    Raw footage of the aftermath of Ricky Morton getting jumped and blackjacked by the Gangstas. Jim Ross, fresh off his second WWF firing, has now officially taken over for Bob Caudle. The Gangstas crossed a line by jumping Morton coming out of a car, and he more or less says he's going to do the same thing. Good stuff, like a babyface version of Eddie Gilbert's tremendous "last laugh" promo. Meanwhile the Gangstas stand by and ya betta recognize D-Lo Brown in the background. He's holding two nightsticks in an "X" shape. A giddy New Jack declares he was home asleep, and says Morton got hurt because he was drunk in a Memphis nightclub! This is INCREDIBLY heated, especially when Jack starts quoting Malcolm X, and I'm seriously half-expecting some idiot to try to rush them out of the crowd. And now it's time for CONFRONTATION with Jim Ross, who's already shilling a hotline, bless his carny heart. Jim Cornette and Bob Armstrong are here to conduct themselves as gentlemen. Bullet Bob will once again be Commissioner of SMW, or in other words Cornette's plans for a replacement in the role fell through. Cornette demands one more chance to send Armstrong packing--and Cornette swears it will be his last challenge. Armstrong agrees if Cornette agrees to another kiss-my-foot stipulation. These two are always gold together but I kind of agree with ElP that this is more of the same. It's a show for debuts, as Cactus Jack is here, too! Cactus sees a kindred spirit in Boo Bradley. Good use of him and it'll be fun tracking Jack's moves over the next year.
  3. PeteF3
    Promising start before a standard fuck finish. The use of the football helmet is teased masterfully a few times but it never comes into play.
  4. PeteF3
    I would also like to see a Hogan-Giant-Robin Hood type moment, something that Raw is forced to go off the air in the middle of, thus sending people scrambling to the Network post-show to see what happened.
  5. PeteF3
    Really? Guys who wear masks or face paint, or are savages from distant islands or jungles, or evil foreigners who compete strictly to spite America (or wherever you're from), or glamour boys who insist on the ring being sprayed with perfume before competing....who ALL magically seem to bounce off the ropes, all of that screams real to you? Pro wrestling's always been kind of absurd, That's half the fun of it. That doesn't address JVK's point. Even the most absurd stuff was *generally* presented without irony. You didn't have JBL around to tell us that gee, Kamala looks a lot like that Sugar Bear Harris guy, or making Minnesota references when Nikita Koloff was out. You can even look at JVK's favorite, IRS--as absurd as it was, at no point was he ever portrayed as a legitimate IRS agent who was out to beat up wrestlers for not paying their taxes. Now, in the 1950's you *did* have a lot of goofball announcers like Russ Davis who would chuckle their way through the matches before Gordon Solie came along and changed the rules, so it did exist. But they were generally employees of the arena or the TV station and not directly working with the promoter, and using them even if they were harmful to the product was the cost of doing business.
  6. PeteF3
    This really needed Holly to be chicken winged as a final exclamation point, but everything else was gold.
  7. PeteF3
    Squint and you'd swear this was Rusev against Terry Gordy. I don't know if Charles was a technico at this point or is just a default babyface against the Evil Puerto Rican, but it works. This is worked more like a lucha title match than an apuestas match, and the layout is almost totally American-style with a long heel control segment punctuated by hope spots and a babyface comeback. Perez seems like a lost worker--he was never going to get any smart-fan respect working in Puerto Rico or the deathmatch promotions, and by the time he got to the big stage it was well too late, with a WWF that had no real use for him. He does have a wide array of nice crunchy offense and good heeling skills after working as a babyface earlier on. Another clever screwjob finish to end the second fall as Perez seemingly believes the referee is counting Charles out as he has him locked in a cobra clutch, when he's actually counting for Perez to break a chokehold, which leads to a DQ. Charles trying to escape the clutch again becomes the focal point of the third fall before we run through some false finishes leading to a Charles win. With the familiar layout and pace I almost think this could serve as a gateway lucha match, but lucha novices would probably be disappointed at the lack of big dives and speed, so I'm not sure what audience this would be intended for. But I liked it, and the crowd certainly ate up the nationalistic bent of all of this. There was money to be made in a rematch with Perez putting the rest of his body hair on the line. Locks of Love could have been bankrolled for the next ten years.
  8. PeteF3
    Good match with some surprising vulnerability shown by Takada. It really seemed like Sano had his number for most of this. Good look at Takada finally working against a non-monster in '94.
  9. PeteF3
    Yeah, the Piper imitation is obvious, he just imitates different aspects than Dr. Tom did. Like Piper at his best, this is a good promo in that what he says is basically irrelevant or even nonsensical, but he manages to say it in a compelling way.
  10. PeteF3
    Ah, Mr. T. Too long out of the spotlight to be relevant at this point, but not out of it long enough to qualify as a nostalgia act.
  11. PeteF3
    Hard a tough time getting into this. Nothing was technically wrong in either execution (minus a few things, but at the pace the joshi girls work that's almost an inevitability) or in psychology or in pacing or anything else. But nothing stood out and grabbed me until some hot near-falls down the stretch. In the end it all felt very Joshi-By-Numbers, and there are simply too many better and more epic joshi tags for this to really qualify as a great match by the standard. It was nice to see Takako getting to shine in the end, and her evil smile celebration was a definite highlight. But very little from this will stick with me 48 hours from now.
  12. PeteF3
    I wonder how many people simply asked their CC companies to stop payment? I can't imagine anyone being *that* dissatisfied with the Network already, to take that kind of action. But...
  13. PeteF3

    Current WWE

    PeteF3 replied to Smack2k's topic in WWE

    How ironic. Bischoff went with the term "cruiserweight" because precisely the same thing had happened with "light heavyweight" and "junior heavyweight," at least in the U.S.
  14. PeteF3
    Plato is then suspended or loses a retirement match, and is replaced by the mysterious masked Shadow. ... I'll show myself out.
  15. PeteF3
    Shocking. There's still a Sporting News??!
  16. PeteF3
    The story as I understand it is that Piper was supposed to hesitate just slightly before making the save, adding a bit of tension to the potential Piper/Flair split without overdoing it. For whatever reason, either Piper was given bad instruction, misunderstood the instruction, or just missed a cue and he stayed put for way longer than he was supposed to.
  17. PeteF3
    Gangstas music video interspersed with on-location promos from the NEW SMW Tag Team Champions. New Jack and Mustafa return to the 'hood to show off their newfound swag, while gloating about how things have changed--now they get to be seen AND heard. Al Sharpton personally phoned them with congratulations! Lots of shots of guys brandishing nightsticks, open containers, and a guy smoking a joint. Nice to see an almost-jovial New Jack in a new kind of setting, even if this really isn't any different from the WWF portraying all of Japan as heels, as El-P alludes to. Bob Armstrong and the Rock 'n Rolls follow to explain what's up. The Gangstas enlisted a civil rights lawyer and threatened a racial discrimination suit unless the original Tennessee Valley Fair result was allowed to stand, and SMW had to either award them the tag belts or face bankruptcy. Morton goes for the, "Pointing out racism makes YOU the real racist!" card but otherwise cuts a fine promo, basically vowing to leave wrestling if they can't regain the belts. Robert Gibson stands nearby. Ole and Bryant continue to talk over each other while threatening Tracy Smothers. I don't know if Bryant's heart was really in the business or if Ole eventually talked him out of it, or if he simply had no actual in-ring talent once the bell rang. But from these very short promos he certainly seems to have lots of promise. Of course this shtick isn't exactly conducive to getting a job in the Big Two or even ECW in their contemporary environments. New Jack and Mustafa are out in the studio and Robert Gibson is actually getting some face time (???) as New Jack cuts a promo directed at him. Nice to see Robert acknowledged for once.
  18. PeteF3
    This is just about every Memphis cliche thrown into a blender and put into a three-minute smoothie. Belt whippings, run-ins, interference, foreign objects, and chains. Then Lawler gets in one roll-up to take Gilbert's mask. I guess they were running short on time. Gilbert obliges with the match stips and sells horrific embarrassment despite sporting a crew-cut by this point. Lawler is double-teamed afterward and I was REALLY expecting a Buddy Landell run-in after Rich's promo earlier, but PG-13 do it instead. Memphis is possibly at its hottest, at least artistically, since the Moondogs were at their peak. This was a terrific episode of television.
  19. PeteF3
    Dave apparently has a special-needs child, so I can see that word hitting close to home. Though I'm pretty sure it was being bandied about on Memphis TV years earlier. Anyway, every segment here was very strong. Doug Gilbert cuts another good promo gloating over his stretcher match victory over Brian Christopher, thanks to two Sid power bombs. Then Tommy Rich gloats over his newly won USWA Heavyweight title, while also dismissing Buddy Landell. Then highlights of the week before, with the aforementioned Bowden interview and a run-in by Randy Hales. Goddamned if these two skinny guys didn't put on a damn realistic brawl. I mean, it's not quite Lawler/Snowman or Gilbert/Jarrett, but it's one of the studio brawls since 1990 that have come closest to evoking that out-of-control feeling. Then the stuff with Sid and Humongous, which is amusing for us even if I'm sure no one in the studio actually picked up on it. How the FUCK am I actually really, really enjoying Sid in this setting? I feel like my whole world is turning upside down. Sid is legitimately awesome working these rinky-dink Memphis angles and he's easily the most appropriate giant monster champion Memphis has seen, among many. We finally get a money Lawler promo for the first time in what seems like forever, as he actually sells us on Sid vs. some big random guy in a hockey mask as a legitimate World title main event.
  20. PeteF3
    We open with a semi-blasphemous but clever little spot with Razor Ramon in confessional. Meanwhile, somehow the Major League Baseball strike has extended into Little League games--don't ask me to explain the logic behind that one. One Federation still believes in making dreams come true--their season never ends! We NEVER go on strike! This message brought to you by John Kasich & Scott Walker. Backlund corrects Shawn on how to properly refer to him, both with the honorific and without the use of the word "former." Backlund was ostracized from wrestling for ten years, despite never losing the title. I like Backlund cutting promos on Shawn & Backlund, before moving his attention back to Bret. Backlund is getting more and more into this gimmick, talking of rebuilding a modern Utopia like he's a more demented Ra's al Ghul. What the hell was up with Diesel's eyebrows?
  21. PeteF3
    Tenta rocking the Natural Disasters gear--now that's cool. Yamazaki seems like he's in the Kikuchi/Ogawa role--well, he is, but as the match goes I start to wonder more and more if he's there to be a sacrificial lamb or if they're playing a trick on us. The opening is spectacular, with the crowd frothing at the mouth for Vader and Albright to lock horns and Tenta having none of that. Vader and Tenta even give each other a pre-match hug to the added annoyance of the crowd, like they're the fuckin' Fabulous Rougeaus or Cornette and the Midnights or something. There's also some great perspective shots here that show just how massive Tenta really is. I mean, we all knew he was big, but he absolutely dwarfs Vader and Albright, which gives him an added dimension. He's not exactly a mat whiz, but he knows enough to get by, and he's a fine brick wall for Yamazaki to play off of, plus he has his trademark belly-to-belly and powerslam that he can roll out. Kazuo unloading on Vader is one of several early highlights and is the first point that I start wondering who's actually doing the job. They milk the Vader/Albright confrontation for as long as possible, and it lives up to the hype. Gary throwing Vader around is pretty spectacular, and Gary having the advantage on the mat is what eventually nets him the upset submission victory. Really fun match, and a standout performance by Albright although everyone looks good.
  22. PeteF3
    Ugh. This had a 20-minute time limit that felt like 60. The stand-up portions were great, full of fire and guys busting out enzuigiris and Takayama even does a dropkick. But the matwork dragged bad, and moreover nothing ever seemed to HAPPEN. I get that you're not going to get focused body-part-psychology in a shootstyle match, but no one seemed to be in a different position or state by the end of this than they were at the beginning. And at some point you could call the "guy grabs a hold, but oh, he's too close to the ropes" spots before they even began. If ever there was a time to book a double-KO in UWFI after a balls-to-the-wall sprint, this was it.
  23. PeteF3
    Gorilla being Gorilla--why bother putting over the new heel's finishing move, when you can just dismiss the chance of it ever working on Hogan and that it's a waste of time to even try? Monsoon's refusal, starting around Ventura's departure, to ever, EVER give the heels credit for anything is absolutely his most infuriating aspect.
  24. PeteF3
    Believe it or not, the "undefeated at WM" factoid was dropped at WM11, against Bundy. Obviously it was just an aside and not a major part of the match.
  25. PeteF3
    I definitely remember from watching at the time that they were building a Backlund-Savage feud. Without bothering to check I think Savage's last match in the WWF was in a tag bout with Bret on a European tour.
×
×
  • Create New...