PeteF3
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Not much to say here. Just two hosses beating each other up. This was better than their early '90s stuff, and the dynamic was switched. Hash is no longer the young lion--now Choshu is the oldster who's still trying to hang.
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Holy hell, I could watched these eight guys go at it for 2 hours. Ohtani is one of the most graceful pure athletes I think I've ever seen in wrestling, or maybe anywhere. We get to see Sasuke work heel, and the New Japan guys work Michinoku Pro comedy spots. We see one of the greatest dive trains ever in terms of combining sheer athletic grace with high impact pain. This was a total blast and if anything it was too short. -
This isn't as slickly put together as a WWF or even a Memphis music video, but the choice of song works--it's instantly cooler and more "with it" than any other promotion in the country. That said, you can pretty obviously see that they put in the absolute bare minimum amount of actual, in-ring wrestling content for it to qualify as a wrestling video. Hiding weaknesses is a Paul E. specialty and in this case the weaknesses cover everything that happens once the bell rings.
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The infamous spitting comes in the post-match. Effective but very short.
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Very good promo, with Bret hyping up a family member in his corner to deal with Shawn Michaels. Always loved that angle.
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The greatest day in the history of professional wrestling. "Great" meaning large or immense--we use it in the pejorative sense. Hart makes a nuisance of himself and Okerlund actually asks for Hogan's "official John Henry" on the contract. Hogan cuts a promo on Flair and about arm-wrestling Ted Turner. Yeah, kind of a far cry from Trump Plaza breaking apart and Donald Trump throwing away his earthly possessions to ride on the back of the Hulkster on the crazy scale. This is legitimately a game-changing move for WCW, as it indirectly leads to Nitro which leads to the most exciting period of wrestling in my lifetime. But man oh man, does this reek of phoniness and a short-term changing of the guard that isn't for the better. The sad thing is, WWE's competitors (such as they are) haven't really learned a thing in 20 fucking years.
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Music video with a weird, distracting strobe effect set to Chris Benoit's music. Blink and you'll miss Glen Jacobs taking a Stinger Splash. Some weird editing choices in terms of commentary snippets and a Vader moonsault that's bizarrely dropped in at the end. Sting was never a great promo so this is middle-of-the-road for him. I appreciate the nod to history and the first Clash.
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I think there's a disconnect between the dates and which Flair promo is which, but okay, I'll go with the thread I haven't posted in yet. Flair is interviewed by Schiavone here, and he's trying to reign himself in after his tantrum last week. That lasts for about 30 seconds before he's worked up again, this time about Sting calling himself the "Franchise." Have to side with Ric on that one. "WHO'S...HULK...HOGAN?!" Flair offers to smack around Stallone and Mr. T before begging Hogan to appear at the Clash.
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Traylor's size is the first thing that jumped out at me, too. He absolutely dwarfs everyone else in sight. Apparently the directive came down for Traylor and the Guardian Angels to cut more wrestling-style promos.
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We see footage of the Dirty White Girl being immobilized and spineboarded while Jake gleefully narrates. Kimberly did the DWB a favor by taking the fall for him! DWB wonders if his dog and his wife and look at him the same way, and is out to avenge his family name. This is building to a great payoff, but sadly it's not going to come.
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Steve & Scott are back in the fold, and they'll be taking on the Funks. I'm not sure the Armstrongs have any claim for being a more famous family but I'm genuinely interested in seeing this match.
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These upcoming piledriver matches are "unsanctioned"...but the tag titles are still at sake. Zuhh?? Goddamn, Cornette, don't do shit like this just after I've made a post defending your booking as more logical than Memphis. Morton gets in some good lines on Lee & Candido before calling out Tammy Fytch. Robert Gibson sneaks up behind her and pours...dirt, but it's called manure over her. Tammy sells this great and Bob does an even better job, though this isn't really one of the great humiliation angles.
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Pretty decent action but Memphis seems to be out of surprises. After some of the most innovative booking in the world in 1990, a lot of their standard finishes and screwjobs and attacks just seem staid. Hell, even Antonio Pena tends to be doing Memphis better than Memphis. Smoky Mountain offers up cleaner, more logical booking and ECW has passed it in terms of in-ring craziness. It also seems way early for the freshly turned Scott Bowden to be eating fire.
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This is a very thinking-man's UWFI bout. The matwork isn't exactly dynamic, but I got the strategies of both guys. It makes sense for Albright to just lay across Takada as much as he could, as the very act of being ridden by Albright would be tiring. Takada had to stay upright, keep his distance, and strike. We had a traditional southern shootstyle tag earlier on the card--this is a shootstyle studio main event. There are also great teases throughout of Albright's big full nelson suplex, but in the end it's Takada's strategy that pays off, as just like with Steve Nelson, Albright simply can't counter Takada's kicks. I liked this a lot, even the slow beginning, because they told the story so well. The slow opening never felt meandering or pointless, in the way that a lot of shootstyle "feeling out" processes do to me.
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Awesome stuff, with Tamura really having you believing at points. But every time Vader touches him, he pays for it. Once again Vader bulldozes through Tamura's 15 points and scores a TKO win, but he really had to earn this one.
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A fucking face-in-peril, hot tag, house-afire sequence in UWFI! This is the best UWFI tag that I've seen, with good strategy being shown by the Americans in working over Saku's leg, and a recurring story of Nelson not having any answer or defense for the low kicks. Also some incredible "near-falls"--this is really about the most traditional pro wrasslin' layout you'll ever see in a UWFI ring. Lydick & Nelson going all gloating ugly-American in their celebration was cool, too.
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I wouldn't say this is the deepest match ever, and in that regard it pales in comparison to the top AJPW 6-mans. But this was fun, and the New vs. Old was a bit of a different dynamic than AJPW tended to offer. Match ends suddenly and while Hase pinning Choshu is quite the shocker, I'm starting to be over all these big NJPW upsets. Liger pinning Chono, Chono doing a singles job to Tatsutoshi Goto earlier in '94, and now this...none of these really seem to be accomplishing anything for the winner. I think there's a happy medium to be had between AJPW's conservative style and NJPW's anything-can-happen method.
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Decent promo, but take a drink every time 2 Cold says "that's right." You'll go blind. Still, it's absurd how badly WCW missed the boat on this guy.
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This match sort of sells itself.
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PE drive a golf cart into the Double Cross Ranch. I don't know what they're going to accomplish by stealing horses, but they end up taking a llama(!). The reference to the departed Jimmy Jack Funk was legitimately amusing, but yes, Rocco and Grunge's voices are like nails on a chalkboard.
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Wow. This was, quite simply, a war. Great work by both guys to get over the stakes--Ramirez is clobbered before the bell which typically signifies a quick rudo victory, but he comes back to get a win. Cruz weathers a storm in the second fall to make his own comeback, and gets a clean submission with a cool spinning hangman hold to take Ramirez's hair. Ramirez throws in some great athletic moves including a gorgeous huracanrana, and the dives are among the most high-impact you'll ever see. Done with bullet speed and huge bumps into the ringside seats. Other than Cruz's pre-match attack and doing a fake low blow, the rudo/technico divide is pretty nonexistent--this is just two guys beating the fuck out of each other going all-out to win. One of the best lucha matches of the year.
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"THAT'S NOT ROWDY RODDY PIPER!" Yeah, Lawler's intro was right out of the Howard Finkle-at-WrestleMania-5 playbook. This would have been funnier with either one of the Prichards, or Lawler doing a full-on Brother Love and interviewing himself. This kid isn't bad, though, even if he sounds more New England than Canada. Lawler and the guy make some SO not 1994-PG-WWF jokes about what's under Piper's skirt and where he got his earring from. There's some good stuff to come from the WWF, but after the company was pumping so much good stuff in '93, we're firmly into the UN-BE-LIEVABLE New Generation Era, and a lot of this I suspect is going to be a tough watch. A skit like this isn't a bad way to add to a feud, but this stuff is going to make up ENTIRE feuds now. Compare and contrast with Terry Funk interviewing "Rick Flaire," which made up like 1/100th of the Funk/Flair feud as opposed to being the primary focus (not to mention this segment lacked a babyface coming out to take up Piper's side and leading to an awesome brawl--can't have too much excitement on one show).
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This is pretty admirable and the video is well put together, but I don't think any company was quite ready at this point to translate this into something that works in a wrestling context.
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Good angry promo from Ric. He's upset with Gene for calling Hogan's official arrival the "greatest day since I've joined WCW," which the Starrcade build really adds to in a cool way. Flair tells Hogan he's nothing until he's wrestled Austin, Arn, Sting, etc. Oh, if only. I'm amused by the idea of Hogan arriving as a young newcomer having to work his way up from beating Buddy Lee Parker to beating Steven Regal to getting a shot at Flair.
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DWB goes the opposite route of Randy Savage, playing it low-key and simmering. Just when you think Jake is about to be the most screwed wrestler alive, DWB sort of trails off, as if he's doubting himself. Outstanding character work. Meanwhile Jake continues to be an unabashed asshole before going into a sort of stock promo that he's used before. Not that that matters, because a stock Jake promo is still awesome.