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PeteF3

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  1. PeteF3
    Me too. In fact I'm waiting for the New Guinea Headhunters cage angle.
  2. PeteF3
    Good stuff in the locker room. I really wanted, and still want, to see Rude vs. Vader. Regardless of how badly deteriorated Rude was. What a fucking show this is. Two more guys beating the living shit out of each other. Vader juices from the eye, bumps over the guardrail, and gets heaved off the middle turnbuckle square onto his shoulder. And he still has enough to catch Boss in mid-air with a powerslam and execute the moonsault. This *did* seem AJPW-like, particularly that "kick out of one move, but not another" ending. I have to say, I think Boss was pretty justified afterward. It was Race who brought the cuffs and nightstick into the ring intending to use them. His beatdown of Race is a tad over-the-top, though. But I guess that was the point. Even with Vader's clean win, this crowd (and I) want more from this feud. Bockwinkel makes sure to explain the difference between what the Boss did and what went on in the Bunkhouse and Street Fight matches. Good work from the Commish here, as ad hoc as this is.
  3. PeteF3
    That seemed to be the beginning. As for the Buck feud proper, as I understand it, Dustin teamed with Erik Watts to reclaim Watts' Rookie of the Year trophy, which had been stolen by Tex & Shanghai. After reclaiming the trophy, Buck attacked both men and broke the trophy over Dustin's back. And goddamn, this is seriously up there with the two WM10 matches and Smothers/Candido for the best U.S. bouts of the year. As much as people enjoyed this, I may have liked it the most of anyone. Dustin begins in style by launching himself from the ramp and never lets up from there. It may be his best performance to date. Buck is mostly a punching bag, but he has great selling and a number of neat little tricks at his disposal to make up for the fact that he's not exactly Mr. Offense. This is also very well laid-out, as opposed to a mindless sprint like in the Chicago Street Fight. Everything Buck does to Dustin, Dustin pays him back with. When Heenan exclaims, "This is wrestling the way I like it!" I think he speaks for almost all of us. The only quibble I have is the finish itself, as all of a sudden Nick Patrick is a stickler for enforcing rules in a fucking Bunkhouse Match, just so Parker can slip knuckle-dusters to Buck. Why even bother distracting the ref for that?
  4. PeteF3
    I love this crowd! Can't say the same for this finish, which goes completely off the rails with Harley and Vader seemingly each waiting for the other to do something, and Rude having to badly stall. Just awful execution and I'm not sure who was at fault. Bockwinkel looks totally ineffective at ringside while all this chaos is going on around him in a supposed title match. Also telling: as soon as Randy Anderson gets creamed, EVERYONE turns and looks to the entrance way, well before Harley and Vader appear. That's been a problem for WCW for a few years now and it's only fixing to get worse.
  5. PeteF3
    I actually liked the haphazard camera work--it added to the chaotic feel of the match. They *shouldn't* know how to shoot this, and I appreciate the lack of Double Features and replays. It all adds to moments like the one mentioned above of Knobbs coming out of nowhere with a shovel. Jack suplexing the table was terrific as well. There's lots of jerking off here with all the shots to the head, but no one here has killed any family members yet so I feel a lot less guilty about it. Yes, it's just a bunch of weapons shots, but it still feels fresh in this setting and the pace is tremendous. This was something viewers of Big Two-only wrestling hadn't seen in years, if ever.
  6. PeteF3
    Odd setting for a USWA promo. Eddie will be officiating a match between Brian Christopher and Doug Gilbert, as well as wrestling Tommy Rich. He draws parallels between his feud with Doug and his New Fabulous Ones split with Rich. Interesting spin on that, making it seem like Rich was the one who betrayed him. BRILLIANT Godfather reference, especially coming off the talk about Rich's daughter. He's fired up (no pun intended), but doesn't have much to say when Corey asks if the fans can trust him.
  7. PeteF3
    I'm not sure that finish would have held up in a court of law, but the whole thing was an interesting twist on a standard USWA screwjob. They even threw in a different kind of ref bump instead of the standard "push off from a headlock" spot. Solid little studio match. I really hope some Graham promos make this set.
  8. PeteF3
    "WHAT ABOUT ME? WHAT ABOUT OWEN?" Owen and Shawn acting all chummy comes off as weird.
  9. PeteF3
    After watching like 37 25-minute Japanese matches in a row, this is honestly like a breath of fresh air--ohhh, horrible choice of words.
  10. PeteF3
    I've always had trouble with this one--and that goes back to getting a tape of this show around 1999 or so, so it's not a "it'd be good without the dude who offed his family" thing. It's well-worked, but I never found it to be a perfect climax to an all-time great show as is its rep. It's not as good as Liger/Sasuke and definitely not as good as the CC final. I do get its appeal, though--watching North American guys that you're familiar with is a very good gateway to puroresu, juniors have always been a gateway in and of themselves, and there's also the underlying Dynamite-Tiger Mask tributes paid during this match. Regardless of how you feel about Sayama, he was a pivotal figure, and these two do just enough to get the point across without coming off as cosplaying and without overwhelming the match. Plus with Benoit there it only seems more fitting. I also love Liger (in evening wear) being so gung-ho and encouraging of the guy who just beat him. This is a very good match, but I simply can't see it placing in the top 10 for the year--it may not be in a top 10 if I had to break off and rank matches as of right now.
  11. PeteF3
    There's a strong big promotion vs. little indy undercurrent throughout this--it was there in Sasuke/Samurai as well, but Liger is even more aggressive and more cocky that this little uppity indy nobody has the chutzpah to not roll over for him. It's the juniors version of Daniel Bryan vs. Triple H, in fact. Liger tears apart Sasuke's arm, which is not treated with any longer-lasting consequence than Samurai's leg work, but is less problematic for Sasuke to pull off his big dives. I LOVE the slip at the end--a blown spot that's simply too brilliant to have been intentional. With Sasuke having just been suplexed to the floor and gotten killed by a dive, it makes perfect sense. Plus Liger does one of the greatest cover-jobs ever--his body language all throughout this match was great, from cranking in the holds to his gigantic sigh of relief when Sasuke almost pulls a win out of his ass earlier. All these long Japanese epics in a row are starting to become a slog, no matter how great the wrestling is, but this rose above all that.
  12. PeteF3
    Really not a fan at all of Sasuke completely blowing off the leg work, because the leg work was really damn good. A return to form for Samurai. Lots of great near-falls down the stretch, before Sasuke takes it with a rollup reversal--of which there were a LOT on this show, and I think it's a legitimate weakness that the juniors formula got repeated so much over the course of the night.
  13. PeteF3
    Kawada is officially "back" after threatening to outright fall behind Kobashi as the #3 native in the company, getting a badly needed major win en route to a tournament victory. And he won it in a classic. AJPW isn't really a place known for great punches or punch-based psychology, so Doc's blows here in addition to looking good really stand out in comparison to what else was going on in the company at the time, and get over his desperation to put this fucker Kawada away. Kawada plays one of the best hit-and-run strategies ever, tiring Doc out with kicks to set up submissions and eventually his big bombs. He's the guy who gets the lion's share of credit for this match layout, but Doc's selling is for once just as good as his offense. Masterful performance from both guys, and the #2 MOTY. I don't think this CC quite reached the highs or particularly the variety of the '91 G1 Climax but it's unquestionably one of the better round-robins ever put on by a wrestling company.
  14. PeteF3
    Really good 6-man--honestly I liked it about as much as any AJPW 6-man from '93. Poor Omori gets to be a punching bag again, and predictably does the job. Kobashi busts out the Orange Crush for the first time and while it looks great, you can see why Kobashi didn't really keep it around for long. It would have been better on Kenta's knees but a lot worse for everyone else on the roster.
  15. PeteF3
    Yeah, this isn't one for deep storytelling but if you want two guys beating the shit out of each other, but also looking athletically impressive while doing it, this is the match-up for you. Similar story to the '93 match with a similar finish. Count me as another one who's sick of this giggly voiceover guy (I hesitate to call him an "announcer"). Then again this is the same company that saw fit to have its flower girls do commentary on its TV.
  16. PeteF3
    Good opening with a great closing stretch. These two know each other inside and out--that was the story of the '93 Carny match but here that's illustrated by the timing they have on their sequences and counters. These are two guys clearly on the same page, but they still make it look authentic instead of choreographed. I love how Kawada's enzuilariato is a constant recurring element in this match-up, either as a finish or a major transition move.
  17. PeteF3
    We're a ways off, and the people who follow college football the closest really don't have any idea how it will all ultimately play out. That said, the only thing established right now is that Northwestern football players are considered by the NLRB to be employees of the university, and the precedence set--again, for right now- applies to private universities. Obviously public schools would be the next domino to fall after that, but they fall under state laws rather than federal and schools that are in right-to-work states may see players have a tougher time trying to go that route. The NCAA is more fragmented than any professional league--unionization is almost going to have to be achieved on a school-by-school or at best conference-by-conference basis, unlike the more unified NFLPA, MLBPA, etc.
  18. PeteF3
    This was veering dangerously close to 1991-92 levels of Doc to me. I really liked the start, though, with Doc getting greedy about zeroing in on Hansen's ribs and immediately paying for it. Hansen had wrestled so much on the defensive lately that it felt like a refreshing swerve to have him start out "hot." I definitely dug the 1990 match more than this. These two seem to be better off going at it in a balls-out sprint than at the more methodical pace we've seen here in and in tag bouts.
  19. PeteF3
    They're already hyping up the Lawler vs. Piper feud that's come about 10 years too late.
  20. PeteF3
    Man, am I getting tired of this overdubbed home video synth music for every damn wrestler's entrance. So, jdw or whoever else happens to see this: how did Misawa's injury affect the booking of the Carnival? Meltzer in the '94 Observers seemed to think he would have been the winner, and that Baba would then have to do something "special" like have Kobashi go over Hansen in the finals. My own thought (even though I bitched about him doing two jobs in '93) is that having the TC ace winner win the Carnival is redundant, and that Kawada should have/would have won it anyway. He was in far, far greater need of a signature win at this point in time. Not saying he needed to go over Misawa, just book an extra draw for the champ and have your Kawada/Doc match to wrap things up as what actually happened. Is it at least possible that Kobashi's win was "moved up" to add a little something special to the tour, though? This is assuming Misawa's injury was legit. I tend to believe it was because voluntarily taking him out doesn't sound like what's Best for Business ™, but it ended up being a pretty serendipitous injury from a booking standpoint. Anyway, yeah, this was very good as a change of pace in the rivalry--and a hell of a good match if Misawa was really too hurt to work the Carnival proper. Some of it is sort of fall-out-of-bed-ish, with some standard Misawa/Kawada sequences and counters like Misawa escaping from back body drops, but they throw in some wrinkles like Kawada having an answer for his feint-dive-through-the-ropes spot. This has been a good Carnival when it comes to throwing some different "styles" of matches at us by AJPW standards.
  21. PeteF3
    Yeah, any thoughts that Hansen "peaked" on 7/29 are pretty much bullshit--he's still had it in every match I've seen this year. This is spectacular, with Hansen as the wounded underdog quasi-babyface. I wish Taue could have worked some holds in here, but that's never been his forte. He's along for the ride instead, but does a good job of following direction, at least. That said, his victory really doesn't seem to be as important as it should have been. It's not entirely fair, but compare the crowd reaction between this and Kobashi's win.
  22. PeteF3
    I liked this, though not as much as the other Akiyama matches in the Carnival. I didn't mind Kobashi giving up so much--in a real-life sense this had the classic "trap game" written all over it after the euphoric rush of the big win over Hansen, so it makes sense for Kobashi to be "down" somewhat, and it continues the story of Akiyama's ascent.
  23. PeteF3
    Yeah, nothing much to add here. Wrestling has been on fire during the spring of '94. Kobashi wrestles a gutsy match but also a smart one, and the rib injury is the perfect booking move for this match since it gives Kenta realistic openings and naturally sets up the big moonsault. Kobashi earns a monumental singles win but what a ride to get there. To the point where I was second-guessing if this was really Kenta's big win or not--"Wait, is this a draw here and the win comes later? Oh, fuck, WESTERN LARIATO!", and so on. They even tease us one last time by having Hansen escape sure death on the first moonsault. And there's a terrific moment on the follow-up where for a split second it appears that Hansen is going to roll out of the way, but he can't escape in time. A three-count and now Kobashi, at least for the moment, truly comes across as the #2 native in the company.
  24. PeteF3

    Other 1994 worth watching

    PeteF3 replied to jdw's topic in 1994

    Jun Akiyama vs. Steve Williams, Champion Carnival, 4/10 Holy SHIT. Doc is just absurd at this point--it's one thing to start putting on great matches with the Four Corners, but to have a match THIS good and THIS well-worked with Jun (who's still not a Corner, despite his tremendous rookie credentials), after where Doc was just a couple years ago, would have been beyond my comprehension. This opens with some of the best matwork seen in an All-Japan ring in years--I daresay I'd put it up against almost any '80s Project match outside of Robinson vs. Bockwinkel. Then we progress, and it's another star-making performance from Jun in defeat, but this may be the most star-making of all. Some great hope spots and comebacks from Jun here, set up perfectly by Doc. I particularly liked Jun taking a page from Williams' book and ramming his back into the turnbuckle before hitting the Northern Lights. Williams fails to put Jun away with the Stampede and then Jun counters the Doctor Bomb, leaving Doc no choice but to bust out the backdrop driver for a tough, tough win. Williams is making a strong Wrestler of the Year push, and he's still got a lot of big matches to go! I enjoyed this as much as almost any match I've seen so far on this Yearbook--it was THAT good. And a very different style of match by '90s All-Japan standards. Easily the best of Jun's career to this point--he deserves to get a pin over somebody before the year is out. Riki Choshu & Genichiro Tenryu vs. Keiji Muto & Masahiro Chono, 4/4 Outside of the Dome show and the Hash/Tenryu match it's been a quiet first quarter for New Japan. Choshu & Tenryu as partners is just weird. And we must be in the Sportatorium, as Tenryu WORKS THE STICK in the middle of the match, inciting Muto with something before dumping water on him just because he can. Muto bails and Chono decides to take on both opponents with a chair as equalizer. That doesn't last long, as Tenryu & Choshu are working better together as former enemies in the early going than Hokuto & Kandori did. Things take another left turn as MUTA emerges from the locker room. He destroys Tenryu on the apron but can't seem to tag in legally, as the opponents more or less keep Chono isolated in the ring. Muta eventually has enough and nails both guys with the mists and somehow Choshu pins an apparently comatose Chono anyway. Muta lays waste to everything that moves afterward, misting the opponents about 37 times each and beating the shit out of Tenryu with a stretcher from under the ring. This match pretty much defies a traditional star rating but it was entertaining bullshit.
  25. PeteF3
    The face-to-face interview is AWESOME. Flair is such a cocky prick but the great thing is that he backs up everything he says, 100%. Shades of gray again. Steamboat to his credit holds his own--he's acquitted himself very nicely here when going by his past history, he could have let Flair suffocate him. Later in the show, Steamboat has taken up Ric's invitation and Ric comes out...in a suit. Somewhere Vince McMahon is blowing a gasket. Flair is not going to put a robe on to wrestle the likes of THAT, so he gives Schiavone the chance to hold something that's worth his entire house in one hand (until Heenan pockets the Rolex in a laugh-out-loud moment). Flair takes this guy down and figure fours him in 10 seconds, then trash talks toward Steamboat while continuing to apply the hold. Steamboat is about ready to get physical, but the suits keep them apart, even after Flair slaps Steamboat across the face! Two terrific segments. Flair's turn has been carried out in such a refreshingly organic manner, I no longer care whether or not he "should" have stayed babyface.
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