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PeteF3

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  1. PeteF3
    Ah, a WCW tradition is underway...Gene Okerlund plugging hot rumors on the hotline. Flair comes out to gloat over Vader's demise and hype an elimination tag match at the Clash. "Carolina Flair" is back.
  2. PeteF3
    Hardcore angle--Paul Morton is supposed to be a surprise visitor for Ricky, but being alone in the locker room (a detail that's set up masterfully) he runs into Cornette & the Bodies, and ends up getting attacked with Drano thrown into his eyes. Cornette swears it was an accident, or so Bob Caudle tells us. This week, Mantell grills Cornette about possibly crossing the line, but Cornette doesn't care about a decrepit, bald 124-year-old man who was a big deal before electricity. Cornette only fought back because he was struck first and the State wouldn't press charges! Cornette initially takes credit for knocking Paul Morton down, but when Dr. Tom corrects him, Cornette instead takes credit for kicking him afterward! This is a riot. Now the Bodies have to wrestle the Rock 'n Rolls at Sunday Bloody Sunday, on top of an already-scheduled defense against Doug & Mike Furnas. Cornette tries to prove how Paul Morton is okay by bringing out Jimmy Del Ray in sunglasses with a cane, doing the Stevie Wonder head-sway. "Hey Tom, have you seen Paul Morton's new suit?" "No Jim, I haven't..." "NEITHER HAS HE!" This was awesome, a great way to re-ignite a feud that had been on hold.
  3. PeteF3
    Don't ask me why I keep noticing this, but...viewing Bret in a singlet here and at Survivor Series, you kind of understand why he prefers long tights. It's now pointed out that Bret and Owen will also be in the Rumble against each other--re-using undercard guys in the Rumble itself was a first, and it's practically a giant banner being dropped that said, "OUR ROSTER SUCKS NOW." Owen is just overflowing with enthusiasm, talking about what a big break is coming his way tonight after seeing Bret bring home title belt after title belt. The uber-babyface stuff is a great way of setting up the turn.
  4. PeteF3
    Bearer's Frankie Valli vocals are like nails on a chalkboard, but the setting is cool.
  5. PeteF3
    With the exception of Bret vs. Lawler, which is hard to rate as a traditional match, I liked this better than any 1993 WWF match. They added a ton of new spots that they didn't do on Raw, especially during the opening babyface shine (love that double-plancha thing with all 3 heels catching Kid only to get wiped out by Jannetty), and they teased us with a few repeat spots like Jannetty & Kid doing their tag finisher. Maybe the FIP runs a tad long, but generally and especially in the WWF I think erring a bit long on that is better than erring short. Kid's house-afire sequence is incredible, and while the cut-off is sudden it's certainly effective--between Polo crotching him on the post and eating a superplex followed by the Tower finisher, you can buy that the Kid is killed dead. Easily the best "straight" tag of January so far. This is quite the hot run for both teams.
  6. PeteF3
    You know what, if Crush would just drop the ridiculous faux-Asian accent he's attempting, he'd be just fine. He is trying very hard to put everything over, I have to give him that--and some of his absurd explanations for what's happening and attempts to stay calm are genuinely funny ("He's coming over to talk to me, brudda!"). Even Vince isn't quite buying the idea of Cornette being in Tokyo. He does a Lance Russell and basically cuts the entire promo for everyone. Yokozuna is planning to squash the casket but Undertaker pops out and Yokozuna runs away. Like heels running from Damian, big monsters running in fear from the Undertaker is a recurring theme that's really played out.
  7. PeteF3
    Man, if you could have somehow combined this match and the Clash bout, you'd have a MOTYC. That was a great spotfest and this was all about limbwork--Pillman targeting Austin's knee and Austin going after Pillman's arm. Pillman pulls the upset, which surprises me greatly (in a pleasant way). A clumsy TV edit follows and Pillman is suddenly at the mercy of Austin and Parker, and Parker tries to put the chicken mask on him before Dustin breaks things up.
  8. PeteF3
    It's post-Christmas, because all the women in the Smoky Mountains have Rudolph's hoofprints on their back and rugburns on their knees. JEEZ. Bob looks INTENSELY uncomfortable when Van Horn starts ranting about the "stupid book of fairytales" the people in SMW read every Sunday, as opposed to the Book of the Dead. I think there's another promo where Caudle legitimately loses it and goes off on him, Dave Brown-style. Van Horn gets off lines that are occasionally funny in a vacuum but saying shocking shit just to be shocking reeks of desperation and wears thin really, really quick--and that's all Mitchell has really ever had going for him.
  9. PeteF3
    So the Bullet-Murdoch match did end in bullshit--Murdoch won, but Bullet fulfilled his obligation to "take his mask off," only to have another mask on underneath. Repeated failure to adhere to match stipulations and the consequences of gimmick bouts in general was one major failing of Cornette as a booker. The apparently vacant SMW commissionership is about to be settled--I guess this the time when they were planning to have Bill Watts take the role, but instead they're creating an opening to put Bob Armstrong back in the spot. Probably just as well, to be honest. Cornette is bringing back Terry Funk to take on the Bullet--with Armstrong's commissionership up vs. whatever Cornette and his mole on the Board of Directors want. Bullet must unmask and show his face (emphasized by Cornette) and leave SMW and kiss Cornette's feet. I do like the touch of bringing back Funk, the man who sent Armstrong out of SMW to start with. Cornette was great here as usual, full of fire but also getting off some funny lines including a direct shot at WCW.
  10. PeteF3
    Gorilla makes sure to inform us that HE wasn't surprised by Kid & Jannetty winning the tag belts--THAT WASN'T HOW YOU CAME OFF DURING THE HEADSHRINKERS MATCH, MONSOON. *cough* Bret is nonplussed by this development but Owen is pouty. I like that Owen is more disappointed than angry and shouting about this--sets up a split between the two without telegraphing it. Hype for a tag title rematch this coming Monday, in a non-televised house show at The Omni Madison Square Garden. This is definitely very non-WWF booking, with quick title turnarounds and singles wrestlers holding tag belts and rematch clauses and lip service paid to house shows, reminiscent of the house show switches from the previous June.
  11. PeteF3
    And this feud, shortly before its apparent conclusion, starts to come full circle, as it began with the WAR guys fighting with Koshinaka's faction. Shiro should not be allowed to work any match besides a heated bloody brawl. He gets busted open with a chair before the bell rings and has to fight to survive from there. He gets in a few good near-falls, especially that bridging cradle that the crowd seemed PISSED about when the referee ruled two, but Tenryu decisively puts him away.
  12. PeteF3
    By the end I was hoping for the two smarky filmers to have died in a car fire on the way home. Also that's one small, flimsy-looking ladder. The match it self is very good, and by WWF house show standards it's excellent. Shawn bumps his ass off, natch, but there's some psych and build to the use of the ladder, as well as payback spots when Razor goes back on offense. We see some stuff that we'd see later and other spots that they'd junk. Better match and a more interesting look at the proto-ladder concept than Shawn/Bret.
  13. PeteF3
    Everyone else has said what needs to be said about Gorilla. I don't like Stan Lane as an announcer at all, but he actually did a decent job of calling things and trying to give the talent some outs while Gorilla was shitting on them (like, Owen didn't capitalize on Scott's knee because it was the opposite side of the ring area and he didn't see the injury). I liked this better than the Dome match actually, and it's laid out and worked much closer to a Japan tag than a WWF one--some more-advanced-than-usual mat wrestling exchanges building to big bombs, and the saves and partner interference all felt very Japan-like. Wrestled clean but with all four guys going all-out to cripple the others, the best kind of babyface match. This is a terrific performance from Owen specifically, as there's tremendous snap to all of his moves and he takes the Steiners' most advanced offense like a champ. What a hot run of tag matches the WWF is on--not something you could say very often in history until fairly recently.
  14. PeteF3
    God, Gorilla is such a putz. "I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY DIDN'T JUST LET THE MATCH CONTINUE, STAN!" This from the guy who whines about how every infraction "is an automatic disqualification in my book!" Anyway, the match is really fun and the Headshrinkers, somehow, are miles away from what the SSTs were doing a few years prior. Some great bumps by all four guys and yes, Afa's interference is awesome--his Samoan Drop looked like it killed the Kid dead. I don't know where the dual commentaries come from but Polo completely marks out when that was hit, which was endearing and felt more real than anything Lane or Gorilla have ever said.
  15. PeteF3

    Punk Walks Out of WWE

    PeteF3 replied to Strummer's topic in WWE

    And here I figured the post-WrestleMania Raw would begin with AJ getting out of bed and seeing Punk in the shower...
  16. PeteF3
    The commercial break cues seemed really off to me. I think there was supposed to be a break when the Quebecers had their "time out" (the standard WWF spot, then as now) and not during the false finish--and there was another random break in the middle of things later on. Fun match, lots of stalling from the Quebecers early on but when they finally isolate the Kid they absolutely pulverize him. Jannetty and Kid come back for the win to a huge reaction, and I loved Randy Savage leaping into the ring to celebrate with them. He's not always the best commentator, but I would like to have seen him be around to do the same for the Usos on Monday.
  17. PeteF3
    I had trouble getting into this at first--the synch stuff wasn't working with me, and there were a *lot* of spots that doubtless sounded better on paper than in actual execution (e.g., Dynamite doing the Kyoko Inoue reverse-elbow thing off the top onto two people, and barely making contact with either). It all just seemed very haphazard. When this really picked up was when Team Oz started isolating Chigusa and working her to death--I love it when strategery pays off, as it mostly did here. The smaller, less experienced team having to use the numbers game and ring smarts to keep their heads above water. We get a big dash of saves after that before Plum is leveled with a second-rope power bomb for the pin. Everyone looked really good here. I loved Devil just chucking people all over the place, I loved Plum's spunk and tenacity (and yes, very Toyota-like even if she's more about holds than flying), Dynamite kicked ass, and Oz was a champ on the apron as well as taking a beating. I don't think this will end up in a Year-End Top 10 simply because it took awhile to get going, but it will be hard to displace as Match of the Month at the very least.
  18. PeteF3
    Kyohei Wada would sometimes appear to bounce straight up in the air when the mat was impacted with a huge move, then come down horizontally in perfect position to make a count. I admire Tommy Young or any other referee (Mid-South was good at this) who really throw themselves into their bumps in order to make it as reckless and catastrophic as possible. One complaint I have about Memphis is how lazy and uncreative they are with their ref bumps--doubly noticeable because of how frequent they are. Every time, it's the same "headlock-push-off-collide-with-ref" bit and most of the time, especially once Jerry Calhoun left, it didn't even look that good.
  19. PeteF3
    Gene was distracting but he was also asking some legitimately good questions and having a real back-and-forth with Flair--I thought it was a strong overall performance, considering his job was normally to hold a mic and make smartass responses once the heel had left. Flair looks like hell--a big nasty shiner over his left eye and he's having trouble talking thanks to Vader whacking him in the chops.
  20. PeteF3
    Good-looking action. DWB is justifiably renowned for his promos and his southern brawling, but as this video shows there was quite a lot of offensive shit he could roll out, too.
  21. PeteF3
    Big callback to last year's Kobashi/Hansen. Kawada rather casually murders Kobashi with a backdrop driver and we get a borderline-uncomfortable shoot angle or shoot situation. Even Fuchi, whose heart is as black as the ace of spades, has an "Oh, shit, Toshiaki...oh SHIT" reaction as Kobashi feebly rolls to the outside. Another quasi-stoppage, though this one a little more efficient and less over-the-top than Tenryu dying at the hands of Inoki. That leaves Misawa to fend for himself for awhile and he's quickly targeted at a shoulder or chest injury until Kobashi can recover. Kobashi is wobbly all the way through, to the point where you wonder why Misawa would tag him in at all, but comes back to moonsault and then legdrop Fuchi for a victory--essentially Kenta had to make a comeback against himself while his aging junior heavyweight opponent wasn't doing anything to him. Fun, unique story, and it's always great to see Fuchi pop up again in a big role, even if it's obvious that he's doing the job. We've reached the point in AJPW where I've only seen the big, major matches and not even all of those--and the ones I've seen, it's been long enough ago that I may as well not have. Great start, and sometimes it's the "little," mid-card-type or semi-main event matches out of All-Japan that I enjoy watching the most.
  22. PeteF3
    Pretty good considering what a hodgepodge group of guys this is. Love watching Tenryu work against juniors he normally never associates with. Mutoh is in a situation where every expectation would have him dogging it--a non-televised indy show with his team doing the job--but he works hard and brings lots of energy. Tenryu absolutely creams Samurai with a lariat just as Sammy gets in a hot tag, and the end comes soon after. Kitahara gets a moment in the sun by dragon suplexing his way to victory.
  23. PeteF3
    Too little seen to properly evaluate as a match. I actually thought Hogan looked more jarringly skinny at the KOTR.
  24. PeteF3

    Other 1994 worth watching

    PeteF3 replied to jdw's topic in 1994

    Riki Choshu vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara - 1/4/94 Somebody got a haircut! In addition to that big news, this is Choshu's return from a nasty injury. I don't think he was 100% yet but I guess he didn't want to miss the big Dome show (or lose any power with a prolonged absence...) This isn't a high-end match in the rivalry, nor was it consequential enough to go on a Yearbook when so much other, bigger stuff from this show made it. But it's a fun stiff-fest between two guys who know how to get the most out of the least. At the very least you have the compelling contrast of Choshu's lariat vs. Fujiwara's finisher which is basically an ideal counter to the Lariat. Finish is something I feel like I've seen between these two before, with Choshu just repeatedly Lariating Fujiwara until he drops.
  25. PeteF3
    Interesting match when viewed full. Inoki stuns me by working this basically as the heel, being the first to throw closed fists and then the big moment when he won't break the choke sleeper with Tenryu on the ropes. Tiger Hattori gives him what-for and Inoki responds by slugging him. Inoki could give Hogan lessons in being an entitled little shit. Meanwhile Tenryu is out cold. This is almost comically overdone, as Tenryu is unmoving for close to 3 minutes from being sleepered for about 10 seconds, and the guy should have had permanent brain damage even in a pro wrestling context. Hattori grants him enough time to wake up, because of the illegal nature of the hold, which he eventually does. Inoki again refuses to break when he applies a cross armbreaker in the ropes, and the Dome crowd BOOS him. Holy shit, I've never seen a reaction to Inoki like that before. Boo-tista, indeed. Tenryu comes back again and while this doesn't really look like a shoot in the UWFI sense, the stiff lock-ups and rough strikes carry the air of something on the verge of breaking down totally. Tenryu catches Inoki with a power bomb for the win and there's almost no audible reaction from the Dome crowd--despite their distaste for Inoki's tactics this seemed like an Ivan-beats-Bruno stunner to them. Tenryu is now one of the only wrestlers--and the only Japanese--to get pinfalls over both Baba and Inoki. Historically significant and well worth watching just to see Inoki work heel if nothing else. I wouldn't really call it a good match, though.
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