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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Just out of curiosity, not as a "gotcha" question, what was your reaction to Montreal--whether watching it or hearing about it for the first time?
  2. PeteF3
    Not to be too overdramatic, but with Okerlund and now especially Heenan's departure--on top of all the other horrible shit happening to the company--the WWF has felt like its completely lost its soul. I've been critical of Lawler's commentary but with him *and* Heenan gone, not to mention JR soon to follow, the announcing situation is going to be a total mess for the next few months. And Bobby won't ever quite be the same, either.
  3. PeteF3
    This is one of the best mid-'90s WCW cruiserweight matches ever to air on Raw. Lots of staples of that style like Michaels dropkicking the Kid out of mid-air. Only thing missing was the "double cross body block" spot. Really hot ending and post-match, as Michaels is killing the Kid with Razor's Edges before Ramon comes out to rescue him. Razor is about to give Shawn what-for when he's knocked out by Diesel, and eats two Razor's Edges on the floor himself. Very timidly done, but I was amazed Michaels was able to get him up in that move at all. Shawn is "back" after spending much of the late summer and fall overweight--here he finally had an opponent he could dominate and bully and build sympathy on, and show off a little more offense than his usual standards. This results in a match probably as good or better than the Jannetty MOTY. As good as the post-match was, that faux-dramatic close-up of Razor's fallen toothpick was pretty groanworthy. Like something the modern "arty" WWE direction team would attempt.
  4. PeteF3
    This picks up right where Dreamslam left off, with Kandori and Hokuto teasing a double-KO with punches and Hokuto juicing hardway. Hokuto was able to gut out a victory then, but this time for most of the match Kandori simply has an answer for just about everything she tries. Hokuto even throws a hail mary pass by Northern Lights bombing her on the floor, but it doesn't seem to get her anywhere. Then she makes the mistake of getting into a boxing match, and Ms. AJW does the job in the main event of her own promotion's show.
  5. PeteF3
    I think I'll have to go back to DreamSlam II again, because for right now I have this one slightly ahead of that--which means it's probably the #2 MOTY. The heat isn't there at first, but it wasn't really there at all for Kong/Kudo, and they are certainly into it by the end. This is near-fall heavy to a crazy degree but for whatever reason they never got overwhelming and ridiculous like they have in some other joshi matches--I think it's because pin saves were utilized so well and the transitions and counters, while many, all tended to make sense. Ozaki even kicks out of the JOCS, which may be a first. The JWP girls attempt the same double-Splash Mountain finish that won them the tag titles to begin with, but Toyota counters that--there are several great payback spots and little historical touches like that throughout the match that I appreciated. Eventually Toyota puts Ozaki away with basically an inverted version of the JOCS, bringing the tag belts back home.
  6. PeteF3
    That fucking ref bump...God, I seriously, without any hyperbole think that was one of the worst spots of the year. I get it was probably politically motivated for Kudo to get a visual fall given the interpromotional nature of the match, but it was SUCH a lame goddamn way to try to shoehorn extra drama into a match that was going perfectly well on its own. I thought it was absurd to expect that Aja would have gone down that easily after one big move under normal circumstances, so the whole thing felt completely false and artificial. There have been some great examples of American-style match booking being used internationally, but this year it's almost always been confined to AAA. Here they needed to leave the American-style bullshit to the guys who still do it the best. The rest of this was better. Kudo is insanely overmatched--you can practically see it in her eyes during the intros--but carries out an effective strategy trying to take out Aja's arm, but it isn't quite effective enough. The hope spots after that fucking ref bump are really good, particularly that sunset flip power bomb off the top when Aja's going for one of her standard finishers. Even after Kudo appears to be completely out cold from that last uraken, Aja quickly dives on top and holds on for dear life, which is a cool way to put Kudo over even in the midst of a dominant victory.
  7. PeteF3
    Is this the match listed on the disc as 12/5? No thread for that and I haven't posted in this one, so... With this being a title match and the controversy involving interference in their previous bout, I was hoping for something worked more like a "traditional" lucha title bout, instead of Metal working Memphis heel shtick for a lot of this, begging off and asking for timeouts. There is some good work over the leg by both guys, but most of this is Metal simply covering up. On top of that, we get a LAME double-pin finish. I really don't need to see this feud continue--blow it the fuck off already.
  8. PeteF3
    That came later--IRS served Tatanka papers for a "gift tax" on the headdress, and when Tatanka tore them up, IRS retaliated by attacking Tatanka during a match and trashing the headdress. He even beat up fat decrepit Jay Strongbow.
  9. PeteF3
    The best use of the drop-down spot is in tag matches--the guy running the ropes has the option of either getting tripped or committing to jumping, leaving himself defenseless for a dropkick/elbow/clothesline from the dropper's partner.
  10. PeteF3
    I actually thought Vader looked overmatched for a lot of this, particularly during the stand-up portions--he's fun in this setting, but he's still so not a shootstyle guy. He acquits himself as well as he can, though. I'm sure Thesz was dying inside seeing Vader challenge for his belt in this environment.
  11. PeteF3
    There was a little too much laying around for my liking--Berkovich pretty much sucked, actually, and was only good for cheap-shotting guys on the ropes like a UWFI Memphis heel. I enjoyed watching the Soviets in '89 NJPW and I was looking forward to watching four big beefy guys suplex the shit out of each other and there wasn't as much of that as I'd hoped. Still, the visceral hate on display here was something dramatically different from standard shootstyle and it was enough to make this memorable.
  12. PeteF3
    Is this the commentary debut of Stan Lane? Sounds like him. I have absolutely NO recollection of Reo Rogers--or of the Wizard, Bruce Prichard's other persona from a few months later. And I was watching '93 WWF fairly religiously. This is the most blatant yet of about 37 WWF potshots at Dusty Rhodes. We would have been better off with Brother Love back. Shawn Michaels declares that he follows no man and no rules. Doesn't ask us, "You think you can tell us what to wear? You think that you're better?" at least not yet. Words for the impostor Intercontinental champion Razor Ramon. Razor's music then kicks up magically--God, this segment is ahead of its time in more ways than one. Effective segment, with Shawn being a class A jerk.
  13. PeteF3
    Jarrett's improved tremendously on the mic but this gimmick has always been underwhelming.
  14. PeteF3
    Owen is in total heel mode now. Bret is more low-key.
  15. PeteF3
    And with the final match for the promotion of the year, this I...well, not strongly, but am fairly sure...is the '93 MOTY. It's in a fight with the Dream Rush tag rematch, Hokuto/Kandori, and Doc/Kobashi (yeah, I said it). And maybe it's sticking out because it's the freshest. But this felt like not only the best-worked match of the year, but the most historically significant. Kobashi earns his biggest victory to date, even if it came as a result of he and Misawa double-teaming Kawada into oblivion. Kenta establishes himself as the year's best worker here--I do think he may have gotten shortchanged by the Yearbook but the RWTL combined with his widespread reputation has put him over the top. A perfect segue into 1994 All-Japan.
  16. PeteF3
    So, Kawada's working with a bad wheel, both in real life and in storyline. Taue is forced to carry the work load, and here he decides to do that by going up to Bubba before the match and saying, "Just fucking punch me in the mouth as hard as you fucking can." And the Boss Man obliges--holy shit, does he oblige. He absolutely murders Taue with strikes here--this is the best BBM performance yet, and he's really a vicious animal working Taue over and Kawada to a lesser degree. He also throws in some classic weeble-wobble selling--I love his stagger-around-on-one-foot sell of big strikes. For such a big dude, Boss Man really did have some incredible body control. I have no clue if he could have kept adapting, or become a legitimate TC contender as a single, but this tour was certainly promising. Anyway, this is pretty much awesome on all levels--Doc works hard though I honestly thought Boss Man was more exciting, and this is a standout performance by Taue who's stepped up really nicely when he's had to.
  17. PeteF3
    The crowd was mostly quiet and respectful for the first big Baba/Hansen tag, but here they're way into it. I don't care about airdates or how widespread results were--I prefer to think of the fans seeing Baba & Hansen take the Holy Demon Army to the limit with Baba in position to win at the bell, and realizing that the Old Guys are for real. That raises the stakes for this match. Baba's strikes are what they are and he can't bump like the other AJPW guys, but damned if he doesn't attempt everything that he's capable of--offensively and defensively. Seeing Kobashi and Misawa execute even their mid-level moves, much less the Kobashi moonsault, is a big deal just because it's Baba. Kobashi works a tremendous FIP segment but the Misawa/Hansen interactions are another highlight. Not really a true MOTY but definitely one of the most fun matches of the year to watch.
  18. PeteF3
    At the time (well...not by this point, but in the early part of the month) Bret-Lawler was doing relatively hot house show business while Luger-Borga was a disaster. The Lex push was effectively dead before the Rumble, though I don't doubt they did some crowd-testing at the event anyway, because why not. The Superstar of the Year trophy looks almost exactly like a half-sized version of the WM4 battle royal trophy. If Bad News Brown comes out and smashes Bret's award, this will be the greatest piece of continuity in the history of wrestling. Luger cuts a lame pro-sports-locker-room-style bag-o'-cliches promo before introducing Bret, who gets a noticeably larger pop. On an objective level, shouldn't the winner of this have been Yokozuna? Whoa, Bret acknowledges his wife and four kids--even after Luger's family showed up on-camera at Survivor Series, that was unexpected.
  19. PeteF3
    The least embarrassing of the bunch, so far.
  20. PeteF3
    Yeah, they decided on a site to host the show 1 month in advance. The set for this is cheap and horrible, though Okerlund is still Okerlund and shilling to the best of his ability. They couldn't even spring for a damned podium. Flair shows up and gives Vader a contract. Vader isn't impressed with Flair's credentials, until Race shows him the clause stating that if Ric doesn't win, he retires. Vader rattles off the injuries sustained by Sting, Ron Simmons, Joe Thurman, Nikita, and Cactus Jack (still "with no memory"...Jesus Christ, the feud's over and they still can't get the story right). Setting aside, Flair and Vader are terrific. Flair closes by reminding Harley about "A Flair for the Gold" ten years earlier.
  21. PeteF3
    Decent action with a run-in finish. The post-match is where this shines, and the standoff between Smothers and the DWB is great.
  22. PeteF3
    Tom Nunnery comes out, presumably unsolicited with timing that can only be described as "fortuitous," to bloviate about all the charity work Jerry Lawler has done! I can only assume he'll be up for a Michael Landon Award in 1994. THE STORY'S MADE UP, SO LET'S MOVE ON. LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE KING! Jesus, this wasn't desperate or anything--at least the WWF was able to layer some subtlety over their pandering (not much, but more than there is here). And then this gets WORSE. This could only get creepier if we saw footage of Jerry Lawler hanging out at the Penn State campus, and I'm not just saying this to mine for tasteless humor. OK, so what was the final story with this? Lawler did it but got off basically scot free? A Ben Roethlisberger situation, where Lawler & co. paid the girl to go away? A Mike Tyson/Desiree Washington situation, where Lawler may have actually been truly innocent in this particular case but was guilty of enough other similar (or worse) shit that things stayed karmically aligned?
  23. PeteF3
    And it looks like Dubba J's turning heel on his way out of the territory. Now that he's the Unified champion he can't concern himself with tag title defenses. Christopher's only option is to either forfeit the rest of the titles or go it alone, so he goes it alone. Well, if Christopher wasn't firmly entrenched as a babyface before, this oughta do it. Really fun match follows with the crowd backing Christopher all the way, but a foreign object to the back fo the head nets PG-13 the tag titles. Dave Brown is about to uncover this controversy and the object in Wolfie D's pocket, when out come Mike Anthony & Jeff Gaylord. Gaylord has improved tremendously since we last saw him, as he's able to spit out an entire sentence without fucking it up. PG-13 beg off defending the belts, but will do it if Anthony puts up his hair. Good stuff--the best non-WWF USWA stuff we've seen this year, in fact. The USWA hasn't had a tag team anchor since the end of the big Moondogs feud, and now they do.
  24. PeteF3
    Monsoon announces a tournament for the new WWF Women's Championship--I can never remember if this actually took place in Memphis as Gorilla said or not (prowrestlinghistory says it was just a final). I found an answer to that Bret/Owen screen shot question somewhere, either Cawthon's old board or on KFM: Owen vs. Lawler was taped for the same Survivor Series Showdown, and it ended with Bret running into save Owen when Lawler had him tied in the ropes, and that got Owen upset. Obviously it never made it to air. Gorilla tries to browbeat Owen while Owen tries to talk low-key. His request not to be called "the brother of the Hitman" sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Monsoon talking into a phone seems like an unnecessary visual, too. This is played beautifully by Owen, coming off as a whiner and passive-aggressive at the same time he's raising reasonable points in a realistic way.
  25. PeteF3
    Holy shit, I thought that was Cheryl. Yeah, this is incredible--probably the lucha MOTY. Morgan in particular provides a great blend of brawling, mat work, and high flying and incorporates all three styles organically, depending on the situation, instead of coming off as haphazard. This is worked as heel vs. heel, and is a standout example of how that style of match can work. Great to see the standouts of the early '90s turning up again late in the game on this set.
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