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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Mostly smoke and mirrors here--southern comedy spots, Arn interference, Dusty as Last Stampede-era Watts--but fun. Unfortunately the timing issues of Clashes past rear their ugly heads, as they work two FIP segments that are insanely rushed and barely even qualify as segments. The post-match is fantastic, however, as they re-do the Big Bubba magic with Meng, who plays his role perfectly. The beatdown loses a bit of effect considering how hard they've pushed the Hogan incident all show, but it's still an awesome scene to continue the feud.
  2. PeteF3
    Dig that rhyming of "back" with "back" in the opening verse. For what it is, this is...not a terrible production at all. It's a total waste and HTM would add nothing to this promotion, but it's better than the Van Hammer videos.
  3. PeteF3
    There was some strong work here and a pretty balls-out closing stretch, but this was very my-turn/your-turn-y almost all the way throughout. Steamboat is almost heroic down the stretch here--you can plainly see the injury when he awkwardly falls backward off the turnbuckle and hits his tailbone, but he gamely works through it and does some tremendous sequences, even as he's obviously slowed and in pain. Of course the match suffers through coverage--the work is hard in the open but they're clearly working not to do anything of super-importance so we can focus on Hogan's ambulance ride, and the Blacktop Bully is dropped in on us just to muddle things further. All in all, this was not a great match, but it was a worthy way for Steamboat's career to draw to its premature conclusion and a worthy way for Austin's long title reign to be stopped.
  4. PeteF3
    HUMAN UNDERSTANDING LOVING KINDNESS The Most Awesome Force in WCW History is undone by a pipe to the back of the knee. Hogan and Okerlund are both absolutely horrible here. One last Tonya & Nancy reference on this Yearbook, but that story was absolutely stone dead by this point. Okerlund gives a hilariously overwrought soliloquy about how a grand and glorious night has turned into wrestling fans' worst nightmares. I guess irony can be pretty ironic sometimes. "THIS IS ABSOLUTELY A SHAM." Well, Gene's right about that. Thirty guys in suits are immediately out to check on Hogan, and Okerlund's there to helpfully browbeat the medical staff, yet Sting doesn't get the same treatment when the same thing happens to him on another Clash. Bischoff, who has lots of ambulance-riding-with-top-babyfaces experience, follows Hogan to a hospital (their words). I'm ashamed to admit I really bought into all the masked man stuff at the time this was airing, and I was excited for the WCW debut of either Mr. Perfect or a heel Ultimate Warrior. That's surely what they had to be building toward, right?
  5. PeteF3
    Agreed on the by-the-numbers nature of the opening. Nothing bad, some of it quite good. But nothing worth going out of your way to see. Aja's elimination was a cute way of furthering the feud with Kansai while playing off ThunderQueen, but I didn't feel like it was really earned. I bought the insta-KO quickie finish when Kansai ate the Uraken, but this felt like, "Well, here's where I sell a random kick for a ten-count." And while I'm not asking for Aja to get a concussion or anything, I need a better-looking kick than that from a person noted for kicking the snot out of people for that to be a one-shot knockout. Anyway, misgivings over the execution aside, the 2-on-1 allows this to pick up with much more urgency. Still, this didn't match Queendom for "epicness" because of the wonky stips--both tags are about trying to overcome impossible odds, but here it rings a little more shallow because regardless of the end result you *know* Kansai/Hotta aren't sweeping this 2-0. At Queendom there was doubt over what would happen next all the way through until the final 3-count. Here, the conclusion of the second fall is foregone and it's only a matter of how they get there. Now, all the miscommunications didn't bother me--they were executed well and in a handicap situation it's the only believable way for Hokuto to sustain any offense or for a partner not to make a save. The closing stretch is quite good and this is another fine Hokuto performance, with enough near-falls to keep you guessing but not enough to suffocate things and cross a point of no return like in the previous bout. But this would have been better off as a straight tag. In fact, and not to review another match that didn't actually take place, it may have been far more compelling if they'd dumped the elimination concept but eliminated Aja anyway. She's not "officially" out, she just does a Terry Funk and acts dead on the floor or even does a stretcher job. That leaves the question of whether Hokuto can overcome the 2-on-1 a little more open, with a result that either makes perfect kayfabe sense (if Kansai/Hotta win) or is another feather in Hokuto's cap (if she wins) depending on how you want to go from there.
  6. PeteF3
    I was thinking all of you were out of your minds, but as the match went on, and on, and on, I started to come around. I actually liked the opening matwork--it's not exactly dynamic, but it's a different sort of opening for joshi. And Toyota being put into holds is almost always compelling because of how flexible and therefore sympathetic she is. And Kyoko has some pretty funky ways to tie you in knots. She also hits all of her big moves, like the springboard back forearm thing, great. Then we go balls-out with some insane spots, like Toyota doing a Taka Michinoku springboard plancha and Kyoko killing Toyota with a powerslam off the top. Even the transitions are pretty good--as this is an epic near-fall-fest without coming off as too my-turn/your-turn. Toyota even kicks out of the JOCS, which was a shocker and the first time I've ever seen that. But...that's probably about where the match peaked. After that come about 5 or 6 more instances of the girls kicking out of finishers, and Toyota gets sloppier and sloppier. Not only does she slip off the ropes, but she tries an inverted form of the JOCS that she used on Ozaki in one of their tags and the whole move falls apart. Then her horrible back springboard that Kyoko kind-of-sort-of covers but really kills the momentum of a match that was already starting to wear out its welcome to begin with. After each girl has completely killed the other with more finishers than you can count, Toyota puts Inoue away with...a sunset flip. Okay. But really, by that point, anything short of either woman pulling out a bazooka was going to be an anticlimax--there was simply nothing else they could do the other. I thought I was seeing a sleeper MOTYC for a lot of this, but this was just too "epic" for its own good. I liked this a lot more than anyone else here and it's a truly magnificent all-around performance from Kyoko. Her ridiculous tanlines notwithstanding, her offense and her selling as well as the timing on her kickouts were all superb. Until they said "fuck it" and just started chucking everything at the wall, she did a fantastic job of reigning Manami in and putting on a great match.
  7. PeteF3
    Big hype for all the NWA World title tournaments as well as the ECW Tag Title match, before philosophizing on the modern state of wrestling. Good promo that sort of stumbles to the finish--like anyone really thought 911 was walking out with the title.
  8. PeteF3
    What a bizarre way to show the result of a match. It's supposed to sound like Styles is calling the match "live" but it sounds like radio play-by-play and is clearly after-the-fact. I guess this is the birth of the "hardcore" Tommy Dreamer, suspenders notwithstanding. With a pseudo-"ironic," I guess, musical selection to boot. Woman reviving Sandman with a cigarette is cute. Woman is so ridiculously hot at this point that she makes even the cliched sexy-woman-with-a-cigarette image work. Woman eggs Sandman on afterward to take Dreamer out.
  9. PeteF3
    Well, this is fine, it's four years before we all read the story in Have a Nice Day. More shots at WCW.
  10. PeteF3
    This whole feud seems lost in time--it truly is the last gasp for southern-fried wrasslin' on a national level. Dustin cuts possibly the promo of his life to this point--HELL'S COMIN', AND I'M COMIN' WITH HIM. Badass.
  11. PeteF3
    Jericho's gotten better on the stick, and actually sounds semi-sincere. Lance can't remember if Jericho is his brother or his partner, and is going to wrestle singles for the next 6-8 weeks. And with that, the Thrillseekers come to an anticlimactic end. Two whitebread Canadians seem like they would have been just as natural enemies for the Gangstas as the southern redneck rock 'n rollers.
  12. PeteF3
    New Jack's thoughts on the Knoxville NAACP: "To hell with them homegrown monkeys!" Then New Jack and Mustafa feast on some watermelon and fried chicken to represent how the SMW fans want them to be. Holy Mary, mother of God. There goes the neighborhood 'cause there's a new Negro in town, indeed. Somehow I think Cornette is an even bolder booker than Paul E. this year.
  13. PeteF3
    Christopher is SOO channelling Lawler here. He's about to explain to us the nature of his torn MCL when he's surrounded by Bowden's group of heels. Gilbert takes a mighty McCarver-esque baseball bat swing with the crutch to Christopher's bad knee and the beatdown is on before the Moondogs make the save. Man, those guys really have lost their edge without Richard Lee. A seething Eddie Marlin suspends Doug Gilbert. Going from "hair on the line for the next 5 matches" to "banned from the USWA" in the span of 1 TV show seems a little rushed, but that's nothing new for Memphis.
  14. PeteF3
    Yeah, I saw that Landell turn coming too. Great southern-fried promo from all involved, though. Rich, Gilbert, and Landell are AGHAST at having to wrestle a 6-man tag against the Moondogs--"We're WRASSLERS, Dave Brown!"
  15. PeteF3
    Doug freaks out about this latest stipulation, but Marlin shuts him up by ordering WMC to go to break! It's amazing how good Marlin is at maintaining his dignity as an authority figure in the wacky, chaotic world of the USWA.
  16. PeteF3
    Not that it really changes your point but there is David Kapoor.
  17. PeteF3
    So Joey was barely 24 when he officiated the main event at WrestleMania 3. Marella was a much better referee than Earl Hebner, the type of ref you don't notice in a good way. Classy segment.
  18. PeteF3
    Empty arena interview with the cage set up. Strong, intense interview from Owen.
  19. PeteF3
    Okay, so this is announced as parejas incredibles, hence the funky teams--I've got that part. Then Satanico and Caras team up to beat down Aguayo while Konnan stands on the apron. Then Konnan slugs Aguayo. And that pisses off Satanico for some reason and *they* go at it--well, they technically are opponents. Konnan works over Satanico and works "rough," choking him against the ropes and spitting at Pepe Casas for trying to break that up. Then Aguayo and Konnan go at it, with Satanico getting more licks in on Aguayo. Crowd boos Konnan. So this is the Konnan heel turn but damned if I have any clue what's really supposed to be happening. Aguayo was the one acting like a whiny, pouty bitch from the start, not wanting to enter the ring. He and Bret Hart need to join a Selfish Tag Partners group therapy session. This turns into a sort of Dusty-Ole cage situation with Aguayo getting beaten down by everyone else. Until Caras makes the save (??) and gets attacked by Los Payasos (?!). Oh wait, they're Eddy, Art, and Black Cat. Well, that was cool, and the rudos laying waste to the technicos as people try to make the save is very territories-meets-NWO. The other rudos then debate whether to help, and soon Fuerza, Psicosis, and the whole gang is in, which is a cool way of getting Los Gringos Locos over as total outsiders. Looks like the When Worlds Collide build is in full force.
  20. PeteF3
    No point system in play here, enabling these guys to go all-out with as many knockdowns, counts, and rope breaks as they want. Pretty epic fight in front of an absolutely nuclear crowd, probably the crowd of the year. Great teases of the cross armbreaker that Takada never quite gets to apply, having to stick to stand-up kicks to inflict his damage. But it's not enough, as Vader power bombs him through the canvas and while that probably should have been the actual finish, it at least serves as the de facto end for Takada. Lou Thesz awards Vader his original world title belt--ironic, as I'm pretty sure Thesz ended up disassociating himself from UWFI because of this result.
  21. PeteF3
    Funk compares the Public Enemy's "'hood" to Vietnam, where a cousin of his lost two legs--yeah, score a debate point for Terry on that one. Cactus feels offended at being left out of PE's promos. "TERRY FUNK *LIKES ME* AND HE DID THIS!" while showing off a shiner above his eye.
  22. PeteF3
    I don't get the finish either, but this might have been the best free-TV match of the year for the WWF. Not as balls-to-the-wall as KOTR but maybe more psychologically sound, between Owen's work over the back and the use of his enzuigiri. They also throw in an insane spot where Kid gets suplexed to the floor, with Owen going down with him. Good beatdown afterward, too--Owen, ever the heel, makes sure to yank on the ropes while he has the Sharpshooter applied. I approve.
  23. PeteF3
    ANOTHER chair-throwing scene--I didn't know there were two. This one is quicker and bigger than the first one. It's a pretty insane sight, and Rocco getting up and heaving chairs into the crowd is just as crazy/stupid.
  24. PeteF3
    Gaylord is so untrustworthy on the stick that he has to have a local doctor cut a promo for him. I wonder if Sid vs. Gaylord was better or worse than Gaylord vs. Snowman. Sid describes some "retarded" Memphian and Dave Brown, amazingly, doesn't freak out. The inevitable Lawler/Sid clash is being built to really well.
  25. PeteF3
    Christopher has to find a partner he's never teamed with before to face Doug Gilbert & Tommy Rich. They don't try to hide Budro's past--Christopher recruited him because he wanted somebody nasty. Landell actually sells this match on $30 for a fan belt and actually comes across as believable while doing it. Goddamn, Landell needed to be hired by the WWE years and years ago to teach the boys how to sell any, and I mean ANY, issue. That shampoo endorsement contract match between Booker and Edge could have been the Feud of the Century.
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