Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

PeteF3

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10287

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Some of my favorite kickouts: - Kenta Kobashi in 6/5/92 Budokan tag. First he gets creamed by Jumbo and Taue doing the "backdrop+chokeslam" double-team, done possibly for the first time. Taue goes for the pin while Jumbo guards, but Misawa manages to *still* get through Jumbo to make the save. No problem, Jumbo just tosses Misawa aside while Taue hits a dead Kobashi with a power bomb, but THAT gets only 2. Two incredibly dramatic, "that has to be it" moments, but everything is so perfectly timed and Kobashi's selling so realistic and his mini-comeback so well-done that it doesn't fall into the overstay-its-welcome trap I mentioned above. That it was Kobashi doing this in his first big AJPW title main event just added to it. - Chavo Guerrero in his Sam Houston Coliseum match against Mr. Olympia. Olympia puts a chain over his boot and levels Chavo with a dropkick, which as standard a finish as you get in Mid-South, except this time Chavo gets a shoulder up (or possibly a foot on the rope) at 2.999. This was great both because of the timing, the way Chavo kept selling the move even through the kickout, and because this type of false finish was far from standard in the early '80s territories. - Randy Savage escaping the Warrior's finish at WM7. Oh, the five elbowdrops were nice but I knew watching that once he went up a third time that it was going to be a Hulk-Up routine. This was just a normally done kickout but it was a nice token to give Savage the chance to escape the babyface finish after Warrior killed his. Also a spot not normally done in the WWF. - Jushin Liger is probably the king of the kickouts, with too many close ones to name in all of his matches, both by himself and his opponent. What Liger is particularly great at is struggling and bicycling and fighting to get out of various roll-up combinations and kicking out at the last second, both of which add weight to your standard juniors roll-up sequence. Liger "gets" the energy bar as much as anyone in wrestling ever has, which may be the single factor that sets him apart from all of his other juniors peers. - This is an odd one, but the Barbarian at the '91 Royal Rumble. Big Boss Man hits him with his finish after a run of near-falls, but at the last second Barbarian literally gets two fingertips on the bottom rope to break the count. I totally bit on that and in a way it changed how I watched wrestling--as a kid I was just concerned about who won or lost, and like a young Vince Russo the squash-o-rama nature of television didn't have me looking at the journey to the result critically. That escape in particular got me into thinking about how a match itself can be a story with ups and downs and twists, rather than just a means to an end.
  2. PeteF3
    I think the All-Japan '90s guys skirted the line the best between throwing tons of near-falls at you without (for the most part) overdoing it. "Energy bar selling," as I've referred to it in the Yearbook threads. You can imagine a video game energy bar above each wrestler's head drawing weaker and weaker throughout a match--maybe occasionally they hit a Hulk-Up/"power-up" bonus and regain some. But as the energy bar weakens, the falls get more dramatic and the winning fall carries a sense of finality to it, rather than an arbitrary move that was booked to be the finish. And yet with all this there's still room for surprise kickouts and displays of "fighting spirit" that don't just involve finisher kickouts. AJPW was good at this for a few reasons: everybody had multiple moves to put guys away with, so there was little waiting around because you knew that, say, Kawada wasn't winning until he hit at least 1 power bomb. I can't remember a '90s AJPW match that ever really overstayed its welcome in the near-fall department, which I can't say for various juniors, joshi, and modern indy/WWE main-event-style matches. They ran more finishes where a guy kicks out of one move but is then hit with another and pinned. U.S. wrestling up until the 2000s involved almost all matches ending with one finisher, a sudden counter-move, or some sort of screwjob/interference. That adds to the drama as well because they're not afraid to change with a formula to tease but not give one last comeback. And then there are the tag bouts, which add another dimension with the use of saves. What would be sure match-enders are suddenly not, because now there's a game-within-the-game of having to neutralize a guy's partner if you really want to win. That can involve either knocking the guy out, just guarding the pin attempt, or possibly my favorite and most-dramatic knocking the partner out of the ring and then hanging onto him like a maniac to keep him from re-entering. Good use of an energy-bar is what separates a match with great near-falls to the derisive "2.9 wrestling" term for me. When an energy bar is clearly depleted based on the selling, psychology, and overall story of the match and a wrestler kicks out anyway, just one excessive kickout can totally take me out of a match. I go from being emotionally invested in who's winning to, "Okay, go and run through all your near-falls, let me know when you're done," lightning-fast. It happened to me with Shawn vs. Angle at WrestleMania, and it happened to me with the widely-loved Bull vs. Masami match, and various others.
  3. PeteF3
    I'm not going to go to bat for him as the Great Lost Manager but I think Humperdink is a guy who suffers from lack of footage. Florida is where he really made his name and we really just have bits and pieces to see now. That said, as much as I like that angle with Solie, in the end I have to admit it's more of a great Solie performance (he sells the serious-journalist bit really well) with a Humperdink cameo than a truly great Humperdink angle.
  4. PeteF3
    Flair has gone from a legend on the last ride to an over-the-top screaming cartoon character.
  5. PeteF3
    Flair has Sherri helping him, but Hogan has JImmy Hart, Shaq, Foreman, *and* Mr. T, and probably others. Who's more scared? We're a long, long, long, long, LONG way from Spring Stampede.
  6. PeteF3
    Pushing a big monster like Sid as a typical lawyering Memphis heel may be counterproductive, but he takes to this role like a duck to water. A reluctant Eddie Marlin is left with no choice but to award the title to Sid. This hits all the right notes. Sid is good here, Lance and Marlin are fantastic. Incredibly enough, Vicious is a bigger shot in the arm for this promotion than Eddie Gilbert's last return.
  7. PeteF3
    They resurrect an angle from 1977, 17 years later, as Mickey Poole is back for revenge after Lawler cost him his hair. This is well-done, but imagine something like the WWF of this time building a main event angle around something Arnold Skaaland did pre-expansion. That would be crazy. This is a heated promo from Rich, incidentally. He suckers Lawler into the ring so he can get laid out by a brown-haired Sid Vicious. Lawler sells the "throttle slam" like death. Kind of different booking, as Memphis has never been a big "finisher" territory, outside of the piledriver.
  8. PeteF3
    With WWF production values having gone into the toilet, it's a credit that they were able to convincingly portray Brian Lee as the genuine article. Underfaker is prevented from returning to Paul Bearer by the lure of DiBiase's money, so apparently Bearer can now regain contact with *his* Undertaker now. Yeah, makes total sense to me. DiBiase cuts a promo from...a restroom. Coming off last week's promo from a standard office cubicle, they're not exactly going out of their way to show DiBiase as a paragon of opulence.
  9. PeteF3
    With all due respect to Ryan Braun, Sandy Koufax, and Hank Greenberg..."Abe Schwartz" is one of the least-authentic ballplayer or athlete names possible. And that's only about #97 on the list of things wrong with this gimmick.
  10. PeteF3
    Memorable spot, with Bret coming off as relatable but not as a pandering twit either.
  11. PeteF3
    Savage crashes the school dance at Hickory High School. This is about as '90s as it gets.
  12. PeteF3
    Definitely the best trios match of 1994 and I'm not sure it's not the best lucha match overall so far. This was outstanding, and I love how the pairings made for three separate styles for the first fall: some killer technical skills from Santo and Panther, Rey and Psicosis flying and bumping all over the place, and Fuerza and Octagon working some basic holds around shtick. Rey works a fine FIP segment in the second fall--he really is a complete wrestler already, and not just a spot machine. Santo then completely takes this over, taking a shitkicking in his own right before coming back to kick some righteous ass on all three rudos. Even Octagon and Fuerza step things up, as Octagon levels Fuerza with some of the quickest and most violent arm drags in history. Santo gets most of the big spots down the stretch but it's Rey who scores the pin for his team after absolutely killing Psicosis with a Frankensteiner.
  13. PeteF3
    Trying not to step on the board rules here, but search on the world's most popular video-sharing site for Gordon Solie interviewing Humperdink & Muraco, and you'll find the angle I referred to. It turns into a hot segment and a pretty compelling piece of television.
  14. PeteF3
    So glad to see this back! Thoughts as I go... - Any plans to review the Dome PPV show? With the title match drama in the main event, I think it'd be an interesting show to touch on. - Jimmy Jack Funk = Jesse Barr, who was another Portland product. - I think the WWF wanted exclusivity on the Meadowlands, the way they did on MSG, which is why they pulled out (which can't have been for long). - The Lisa Olson/Patriots locker room incident was a HUGE deal, one of those stories like Donald Sterling today that transcended sports. Almost killed football in Boston entirely. - Dittos on the uselessness of 6-man belts, of any kind. Even in Texas. Was any World Class fan seriously thinking, "Well, Hayes and Gordy betraying Kerry and costing him his rightful World title was one thing, but now that the SIX-MAN TITLES are involved..." - When I think of Georgia's #1 guy, I personally think of the Mr. Wrestlings. Tommy Rich also, but in terms of "building the Omni" (which opened in 1972) I think of I and II. - OT, but hasn't Jeremy Clarkson gotten into hot water before? My familiarity with him comes from QI moreso than Top Gear, but I know he's a polarizing figure. That's sort of what happened to Sterling--not just the remarks, but the known pattern of them going back to various discrimination lawsuits. - Yamazaki was a Bomb Angel, but I don't think Meiko Satamura was. Noriyo Tateno was the name of the other one and I don't think they're the same person. I don't know much more about joshi than what I've seen on the Yearbooks but I have no clue who Miki Handa is, or whether or not I've seen her. - Isn't asking for El Gigante to do something a "be careful what you wish for" type situation? - I love, love, love the contrast in reactions to Hansen/Vader between JR and Dusty. JR sounded legit pissed, I agree, and Dusty is acting like it's the most fun he's ever had. - I haven't seen them in awhile, but as far as singles matches go I think the only Spivey bouts worth mentioning outside of WrestleWar is the 6/5/89 match with Sting, and a match with Kawada in...I can't remember, but I think it's the spring of '91. Having a really good match with '90s Kawada is less impressive than it sounds, and the Sting match is good especially considering it's Sting in an unfamiliar-at-the-time Japan setting, but the Luger bout has an argument for being better than both. - Grizzly Smith is indeed the guy at the U.S. title presentation. - I'm sure the WarGames finish was booked. The "improvisation" thing is Scott Keith baloney, I'm pretty sure. - I think Humperdink's best run was in Florida, where he was a major heel manager. There's a killer angle that I don't know is on Youtube anymore or not, involving Gordon Solie and a secret workout. I can't seem to find it, but I'll keep looking. The House of Humperdink stuff in Florida and Mid-Atlantic is well-regarded by fans of that era. - Oh, here's the ad hoc production meeting about the Supershows. I agree that the other Supershows (as well as Kollision in Korea, outside of the crowd size and rather insane backstory) aren't all that vital. The first one is worth watching.
  15. PeteF3
    Both cagematch.net and wrestlingdata.com have all-time rosters that can be filtered down to an individual month. Some guys will slip through--I don't consider most random, one-time TV job guys to be "on the roster," and outfits that ran interpromotional cards will always have some people who don't really belong. But they're better than solie.org's, as they're based strictly on the results available. No guesswork.
  16. PeteF3
    This is pretty well-produced. Backlund is still quiet and respectful, but takes a backhanded shot at Arnold Skaaland for costing him the title. Bret's had quite a bit on his plate this month.
  17. PeteF3
    Pretty crazy spectacle that skirts the line between shoot and work, it seems. Vrij is such a bastard--even if he's not truly a great wrestler, he's such a dynamic personality that simply isn't seen out of anyone else working shootstyle. Amidst the post-match chaos is a guy who looks to be about 6'6" and 135 pounds who looks astoundingly like Weird Al Yankovic, which is rather distracting and funny.
  18. PeteF3
    Well, this was quite the war. Kandori's game is all about intense fighting close-up so this type of match suits her well. We start off hot with Bull ducking a clothesline and almost decapitating herself on the chain in the process. I don't know if that part was even intentional, but there's lots of clever use of the chain and the stips amidst the gritty, bloody fighting. Both girls apply submission holds using both the outside of the ring and the chain as aids. All matches with falls-count-anywhere rules should have standard wrestling spots used outside the ring. Also some really great swings of momentum down the stretch before Bull basically brutalizes Kandori into defeat by hitting moves with the chain wrapped around her. This is a top 5-7 MOTY as things stand now and blows away just about anything from ECW. This is the joshi successor to the Magnum/Tully I Quit match.
  19. PeteF3
    This was whatever. Styles attempts to put over the fact that Dory Funk Jr., a man who hasn't changed his facial expression since 1974, is "visibly upset." Dreamer gets a quick pinfall on "The Hopeless Hoodie," and gets attacked by Shane Douglas afterward. They have a laughably bad brawl and for some reason *this* of all things empties out the entire locker room, and I can only guess it's to spare the rest of us the sight of these two trading feather punches. 911 and Mr. Hughes have a confrontation that sets up the most horrifying possible match since Jeff Gaylord vs. the Snowman. Sabu and Shane finally come out to add some fire to all this.
  20. PeteF3
    Sandman comes out to "Big Shot" by Billy Joel, which is pretty jarring. He and Woman cut a shitty nonsensical pre-match promo. Mikey takes some sick bumps and I admit I liked Sandman spiting the ECW fans by not using a chair when given the chance. That's commitment to heeling. Cairo clobbers Sandman with a cane behind the referee's back, and when the ref turns around he just sees him whacking Mikey, so it's another DQ win for the TV champ. This served its purpose, I guess. I know the ins and outs of presenting this style still need to be hammered out, but Styles needs to fucking decide if he wants to be a smartass smark announcer or a righteous babyface.
  21. PeteF3
    Paul E. addresses the state of the business and sums up ECW in one succinct promo. "...even if we have to OJ Simpson your ass!" had to have been quite the "wow" comment for 1994. We just weren't used to hearing casual swearing on our wrestling programming. This rung about 500 times more true and believable than all the WWF "New Generation" bleating.
  22. PeteF3
    In retrospect, I think they'd have been better off just doing a straight Lex turn at this point. The Tatanka turn was a nice swerve (even if most people I talked to at the time saw it was coming) but he was a shitty heel whereas a rejuvenated Luger could have had something to offer.
  23. PeteF3
    Mercifully the Monsoon-as-lead-announcer experiment only lasted one PPV and TV taping. Jim Ross makes his triumphant return, at the best possible time. Bret's facing a smaller and more sympathetic guy for the first time in years, so he busts out some new forms of offense to build on that--uppercutting the Kid to death in the corner, the Samoan drop for the false finish, and cranking in a chinlock. I don't have much else to add--the roles were played pretty much perfectly, the match is great and is probably the best Raw match of the year if not the best Raw match ever to this point.
  24. PeteF3
    The stalling was a little much but the 40-60 minute stuff was pretty terrific. They definitely made you wait for that first fall, and despite the stalling I kind of liked that, as you had some neat false finishes before Bret finally goes up 1-0. The downside is they pretty much used up all of their near-fall spots in regulation. Once overtime starts this gets into just trading holds back and forth, making the stretch run a real anticlimax when it should have been the most balls-out portion. I liked the Flair match better but I will say this went from background noise to something to really pay attention to as the match went on.
  25. PeteF3
    I actually think part of his settlement with Debra is that neither one's *allowed* to address it.
×
×
  • Create New...