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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    But Macho/Crush was third on the card, way before the ladder match.
  2. PeteF3
    Looks like it's the same as Quote, but you can click on multiple posts in one thread and they'll all get quoted separately. Edit: The Edit button is there for me, too.
  3. PeteF3
    That powerslam thing was silly, but otherwise the closing stretch of this was pretty great. Flair is more motivated than he's been in a long time. Randy Anderson gets leveled by a Vader clothesline, and Flair dodges a moonsault for an apparent 3-count. But Randy Anderson wasn't actually counting, he was slapping the mat trying to crawl over. Then we tease the fans further by having Anderson raise Flair's hand as he grabs the belt, *then* the DQ decision is announced. As a standalone finish this is rather clever, but a.) it's basically a ripoff of Flair vs. Hawk from either the Bash tour or Bunkhouse Stampede, and b.) just reeks of pure Dusty booking, which is not something this company needed at ANY point, much less coming off a PPV packed to the brim with similar shit finishes. Still, it's a promising sign of things to come for Flair. Afterwards Ric gets laid out by Vader, Parker, and Austin, before Dustin Rhodes and the Shockmaster--for fuck's sake--make the save. Gene Okerlund, his first night with the company, gets a word with a fired-up Ric, who challenges the two heels to a tag match with Sid as his partner for WCWSN. This, despite the fact that Sid and Arn have already had their hotel altercation. Hence the bullshit about Sid not being allowed in the building--they actually had the audacity to have Okerlund tease that Sid was in fact there. How WCW can you get? Small sample size and everything, but parts of this show FELT like WCW when it was hot, thanks to a hot crowd and good wrestling. But it also reeked of the usual WCW bullshit at the time. Talking up of an already-departed (or at least suspended) Sid, the Shockmaster getting time during the climactic angle, and Dusty Rhodes' old fingerprints (the Dusty/Assassin feud continued to be pushed, and his pals the Nasties went over two top babyfaces, one of whom was ostensibly being pushed into a feud with Rick Rude). A tale of contradictions.
  4. PeteF3
    Awesome as hell--some psychology, TONS of hate and violence, some great bumps and awesome near-falls. Plus a screwjob finish that I liked--Parker blocking the Air Pillman came off as a legitimate bastard move rather than a cop-out fuck finish, which I liked. This match alone damn near justified the entire Blonds breakup, but I agree they could have used an even more epic rematch. Also, Austin and Col. Parker are SO not a good pair, talented as they are individually. For a few minutes, the "old" WCW was back again.
  5. PeteF3
    Holy shit, this was incredible on every level. The build-up to Kandori vs. Bull is INSANE, and I love how as part of that they incorporate a mini-story with Kandori wanting to get Bull in the ring, and Inoue taking offense at this and kickstarting a hate-filled match-up in its own right. I've never heard of Hozumi but she's great in the plucky overmatched small-fry role, and Bull and Takako both do a fine job of giving her just enough offense to look credible while still looking dominant. Kandori continues to rule, and I love how seemingly every move done to her is just one more opening to lock on the Fujiwara armbar--and what a sick armbar it is, complete with variations and modifications as the situation warrants. Then we get some astonishing near-falls and transitions (Bull clobbering Kandori with the guillotine legdrop as she's about to clamp on the cross armbreaker). I'm not sure this shouldn't be in the running for MOTYC. I may have enjoyed this just as much as the Dreamslam tag and Hokuto vs. Kandori.
  6. PeteF3
    Vince goes flying, which was CRAZY to see at the time. I'm not sure anyone does frenzied brawling better than Randy. When I get to '95 and the Flair feud it may be the thing I'm looking forward to most.
  7. PeteF3
    Whatever you want to say about Sabu, he's never dull--at least not yet. Just constant motion. If his opponent is getting into the ring, he's still a bundle of energy bouncing around and looking to the ceiling. If he's in the ring, he's diving at his legs. If he's on the floor during the match, he's looking to dive onto him. The ending was a little sudden, but the instant Sabu hit his leg on the table I knew where Funk was going, so that made sense.
  8. PeteF3
    This narrator still needs to take a long walk off a short pier.
  9. PeteF3
    Parker has a court injunction prohibiting "Psycho Sid" (as he calls him) from coming within 50 feet of him. Meanwhile, Flyin' Brian earned his nickname because he can't hit any harder than a fruit fly. Austin cuts a better promo, running down and putting over Pillman at the same time. Steve does his best to save this angle, but the Blonds deserved a better climax more befitting of their Hollywood image.
  10. PeteF3
    Cornette accuses the Bruise Brothers of "not knowing their place" and being "uppity." Using racialist terminology in reference to two white bikers billed from South Dakota with SS tattoos is bizarre yet strangely interesting.
  11. PeteF3
    This one starts as good as the others but doesn't really go anywhere before ending suddenly.
  12. PeteF3
    I haven't been impressed with Barr either but this was his best performance. He's given up trying to be as fluid and graceful as his peers and is concentrating on the moves he does well, and on being a colossal prick. This is probably the peak, to this point, of AAA as a Mexican Sports Entertainment style. There is some good wrestling here but the company as a whole is definitely more about the personalities than it is about skill vs. skill. Just as in Titanland, that style can be compelling with the right workers and hard to watch otherwise--here it basically works. It's also structured very much like a straight American tag, at least for the first two falls. There are heel switch-offs and double-teams behind the referee's back, and lots and lots of payback spots and finisher-stealing. Each fall gets a lot of time, which stands out among the other lucha bouts on this set, and the third fall gets the most of all. That's when this really starts to meander, and Octagon is sort of taking up Barr's slack when it comes to blowing spots. He's the worst thing about this match and he's heavily involved in some cringeworthy moments, but on the whole he doesn't drag it down too much. I kept waiting and waiting for Tirantes to play a role in the finish, but after some early shenanigans he officiates this straight and the technicos surprise me with a clean victory. I don't think this is the lucha MOTY but it certainly belongs in the conversation. Edit: Oops, there's some controversy after all--replays indicate Barr may have had his shoulder up when Octagon was pinning him. But the ruling on the field stands as called.
  13. PeteF3
    Why isn't this talked about more, exactly? NJPW tag matches just getting lost in the shuffle behind the juniors and AJPW? This is great, and the crowd is phenomenal--really up there with the Sapporo crowd on 5/25/92. You have four guys here all capable of pinning the other--at times during 1993 I think Choshu (and whoever took over for him when he was hurt--I think it was Fujinami) has gotten too cute for his own good with regard to upset finishes, but matches like this are where that philosophy really shines. All action but never overwhelming action--the "high spurt" Choshu style of tag wrestling done to pretty much perfection.
  14. PeteF3
    Madusa and Sherri calmly challenge each other while sitting in chairs in a hotel hallway. I don't know what the fuck Madusa is talking about but Sherri is so not the person to be talking about casting couches and not "respecting the world of women's professional wrestling" or whatever. Sherri takes the mic and sounds completely hammered. Even if the promos themselves were good, which they obviously don't even come close to being, they'd be undermined by the woman who's not talking just sitting there stone-faced and not reacting to anything. Straight out of Jerry Springer, without the energy. Madusa accuses Sherri of talking up her SECTIONAL CREDENTIALS. Bleeps are HARDCORE.
  15. PeteF3
    Not a match, but the Assassin once attacked Dusty Rhodes during a gift exchange ceremony while wearing a silver mask and passing himself off as El Santo. This must have been 1980 or '81.
  16. PeteF3
    Plus, he's not trying to get over at expense of the wrestlers--he's getting over at the expense of Cornette but also getting Cornette over at the same time. I don't think it's much of a stretch for anyone, familiar or not with Patrick's background, to buy that he could take Cornette out if he wanted.
  17. PeteF3
    This kind of thing probably had more appeal in a pre-Internet age (more or less), when it took desire, time, and effort to try to track down these bootleg-esque videos from shady dealers--atrocities like the Faces of Death series, the R. Budd Dwyer suicide, or the Star Wars Holiday Special. At some point Jado and Nakamaki turn on their partners and this turns into either a match involving separate teams or a four-way. Fucking psychotic finish as Kanemura is power bombed into fire and the match is immediately called. Can't say there wasn't truth in advertising here. Other highlights, if you want to call them that, involved somebody swinging a torch like a baseball bat and Kanemura lighting his elbow pad on fire and clotheslining Gedo with it.
  18. PeteF3
    WCW was just papering these TV tapings to death in a desperate effort to look major league on television, which would explain the lack of heat. Flair works really hard, busting out a top-rope chop to the floor and being really energetic on offense. His offensive flurries are the best part of the match. Honestly, Sid tries too--he's just incapable of putting three or more moves together without pausing to stare at the crowd or bail out. Easily the best parts of this are Sid selling for Flair's big chops--not often that Sid's selling carries a match, but here it is. Unfortunately the segments with Sid on top feel like they last about 6 years. I'm all bearhugged out at this point, even if they worked two-counts out of it. Fuck finish as Sid reverses the figure four, but Col. Parker is already in the ring kicking away at Flair, giving him a DQ win and title shot at Vader for the Clash. Sid cements his babyface turn after the match by giving the Colonel a chokeslam as they go off the air. WCW would have been really, really babyface-heavy if that had amounted to anything. They gave it the old college try here but I can't say this was a good match.
  19. PeteF3
    So, Pillman's heel turn and babyface turn both occur in anticlimactic fashion. This was ridiculously abrupt, but it was better than the initial heel turn because of a pretty decent promo from Col. Parker about racehorse metaphors, and a really cool double-team effort from him and Austin.
  20. PeteF3
    Who was hired and fired more often, Marty Jannetty in the WWF or Chris Cruise in WCW? Another montage of wrestlers explaining the Lethal Lottery and BattleBowl, but since this is the Bischoff Era we get stupid stock horror music underneath it. Once again everyone is in Pure Sports Build...except Johnny B. Badd, camping it up bigger than ever.
  21. PeteF3
    This was pretty freaking creepy.
  22. PeteF3
    The Million Dollar Man gimmick barely worked in some of the industrial basements Raw was being taped in--it works even less in a high school gym. Dr. Mark Curtis isn't the most inspiring manager for him, either. There is some okay work here but overall it's not much of a match, and the finish is rather cheap. Funk going nuts on Curtis afterward is the most fun part.
  23. PeteF3
    Kyoko Inoue vs. Shinobu Kandori, 8/5 Kandori's entire persona is that of someone in a huge hurry who's stuck in a line at Subway behind a person taking 5 minutes to decide what type of cheese they want--just a perpetual grump. It makes for a great contrast with the eternally bubbly Kyoko. This is a marvelously well-built match, with Inoue really working outside of her comfort zone. There are some fantastic reversals and counters, like a more intense version of the Kawada/Taue CC match. After a few heart-rendering near-falls, we got a finish that I actually really liked, and was built to just as well as the rest of the match. Some of the most dramatic rope escapes you'll ever see, which sets up the winning submission pretty spectacularly. Kandori may have been involved in the two best joshi singles matches of the year. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue, 9/5 Had a lot more trouble getting into this. It's a fine performance from Hokuto but it felt like she was wrestling for four here. Minami is possibly the least charismatic wrestler in the history of joshi if not all of Japan, and Hotta and Inoue were mostly uninspiring until the end when we got to Hotta murdering Hokuto with bombs. I'm about to commit heresy, but I think I'm already over the "Hokuto suffers a crippling injury and fights through it" story--regardless of how entrenched it is in real life. I'm starting to prefer matches like the Saito one where she's the woman in charge and wrestles accordingly.
  24. PeteF3
    You haven't seen a true spotlight hog until you've seen David Manning.
  25. PeteF3
    Cornette is bringing in the Moondogs to take out the Rock 'n Roll Express--the matches will be unsanctioned because Smoky Mountain refuses to license the Dogs. Then he calls out the Bruise Brothers, and Cornette continues to be an expert at angles and promos that strike a nerve in his audience, discussing management & labor with regard to the Bruise Brothers failing to do their jobs properly. Prichard and Del Ray are hilarious doing a mock-drunk act when Cornette talks about sending the Bruise (Booze?) Brothers back to their old biker bar. Lee and Fytch are proud of themselves for what they did to Ron Wright. Lee makes the mistake of daring the White Boy to come out and earns a chair shot to the head. White Boy is SEETHING--when Anthony is speaking quietly, you know some heavy shit is going down. His line about being the old Bucksnort, Tennessee Dirty White Boy gets a HUGE reaction. SMW is hot up and down the card right now.
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