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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Bagwell & Scorp are now under the tutelage of Teddy Long, the first of many undercard babyfaces to come. The ring is supposedly mic'd, but you don't hear much more than you do in a normal TV match. Okay but not overwhelming action, and Long actually makes himself useful, preventing Missy Hyatt from interfering and leading to an upset for the tag belts.
  2. PeteF3
    "One of these days, before you die, you MAY be asked out on a date, by a man." That got a legit LOL from me--it's funnier with Tammy saying it in her perky condescending way than in text form.
  3. PeteF3
    Wright is coming off as a guy legitimately losing his memory, while Tammy and Lee make fun of him while he's rambling and not answering Bob's question. What a gloriously shitty thing for two heels to do. This is a pretty brilliant way to generate sympathy for such a longtime heel manager, helped by DWB's enraged promo.
  4. PeteF3
    Not a bad brawl--or even a bad promo from Ron (or Don).
  5. PeteF3
    I thought this took awhile to get going, and post-2000 puro has soured me on the long chop battles that I'm sure were really cool and novel when this first took place. The holds are worked really well, though--especially the Boston crab. Down the stretch this gets a whole lot better, and Kobashi really comes off as a gritty tough guy rather than the plucky young underdog role he's been in for most of his career. Hansen and Doc were bases for his flashy offense--more or less. Here he's just straight up slapping Kawada in the face and transitioning to offense because of it. Unfortunately he's not quite there yet, and after a gallant effort and a couple more comebacks than I actually expected, Kawada puts him out with the Stretch Plum and then pins him. Agreed with Kevin that it's too bad AJPW got away from submissions, because they used them really well in 1991-92. Seemingly everyone had a hold that could legitimately take people out--even Kobashi, who'll never be confused with Dean Malenko, had a backbreaker that he put a few undercarders away with.
  6. PeteF3
    I think one or both of those intro tracks is a karaoke version of "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul, and I'm not completely kidding. Kopylev throws some absolutely sick knee strikes here. The rest was like watching Volk Han in slow motion. Really, REALLY tried to keep paying attention to this and just couldn't. It did at least go to a finish, when I was dreading a time limit draw.
  7. PeteF3
    Han is ridiculous. If there's one flaw in this it's that there are like 8 times where he's CLEARLY got Naruse completely helpless, and the only reason the match isn't over right then and there is because it's a work. His takedowns and holds are incredible but I was also a big fan of Naruse getting in a shot to the gut for a sudden knockdown. I'm not always comfortable using wrasslin' terminology like "hope spot" in talking about shootstyle, but that was a great one. Han and Vader are the best squash match workers of 1993.
  8. PeteF3
    What the fuck was that?
  9. PeteF3
    Crush is back, with a new look, and a new manager. Crush's thick fake Hawaiian accent and PRO WRESTLING SHOUTING gets in the way, but Heenan does a great job of carrying him through the interview. Crush calls Savage out for not having his back against Yokozuna--he has a point, but he doesn't point out that the guy who interfered against him is the guy in the ring with him right now. Sort of like Dick Murdoch being upset about Dusty Rhodes teaming with that pinko commie Nikita Koloff, and getting revenge by teaming with pinko commie Ivan Koloff. Savage climbs into the ring and cuts a scorched-earth promo on Crush and Mr. Fuji, but leaves the door open for a reconciliation. Crush and Savage shake hands and leave together, only for Crush to level Savage with a clothesline in the aisle and drop him across the guardrail. Crush beats him down and makes sure to hold Savage's face up to the camera so we can see the blood coming out of his mouth. Probably an accident, but part of me wonders if Savage wasn't nuts enough to deliberately bite his own tongue on the bump just to sell that. Yokozuna adds an exclamation point with a banzai drop, and this was a terrific piece of business all around. "Shake hands and then turn anyway" is one of the oldest heel trick books in wrestling, but they milked it really nicely here, dragging this to the point where you might think Crush was staying babyface after all.
  10. PeteF3
    I thought the lumberjacks were pretty distracting for the most part, though it placed nicely into the finish. There's a certain psychology I think you need to maintain with lumberjack matches, and this sort of broke it--you need to have the guys do their job first to establish the ground rules, THEN you have the heels attack or have a brawl break out or what have you. After that this stayed mostly in the ring, and it was good--but kind of disappointing. With workers of this caliber going this long you can't help but expect at least a North American MOTYC, and this wasn't it. Lots of repeated spots here and they did lose focus.
  11. PeteF3
    You'd think Vader would be pretty pissed at the "one and only World championship" line.
  12. PeteF3
    That had me until Sunny's horrible acting screamed "work."
  13. PeteF3
    This patronizing announcer continues to make the bile rise in my throat, though I suppose with videos like this it'd be hard to blame him.
  14. PeteF3
    Oh goody, Daryl Van Horn is with us. The Bodies run, hide, and stooge for Arnold the Pitbull, who looks and acts suitably vicious. More intimidating than Matilda, at least. Arnold is actually chained into the corner in the ring, which has to violate some Commission ordinance of some sort, even in Kentucky. Another fun match, a lot like SummerSlam with some of the same spots, but it seems to go longer--and the Bodies get to show off more. Scott accidentally levels Mark Curtis with a clothesline before hitting Del Ray with the Frankensteiner, but Cornette whacks him with the tennis racket and puts Del Ray on top. Curtis recovers and is about to count a cheap pin, but pulls up at 2.9 when he sees the tennis racket laying in the ring! He doesn't stop the match, though, until Rick takes the racket and goes nuts with it, having not learned a damned thing from their tag title loss. Cool to see the Bodies go over here, regardless of the circumstances. They even get some heat afterward with a quick beatdown on Rick before Arnold makes the save. That makes for two babyface cornermen hyped in advance whose charges nonetheless lose anyway. Cornette and the Bodies act like this was the easiest victory in history. This nicely sets up the Bodies as SMW and WWF tag title contenders again. Cornette hypes another new tag team in his employ, since the Bruise Brothers didn't do the job correctly. Then Caudle hypes ANOTHER mystery team, who wants to wrestle the Bodies on TV with an SMW tag title shot on the line. Two mystery teams at once is a tad excessive.
  15. PeteF3
    Really fun match, from the clips that we see. Working with Tracey Smothers every night will do wonders for anybody--this has to be the run of Brian Lee's career. Finish is a clusterfuck, but a fun clusterfuck rather than one with 37 run-ins, and it ends with Lee retaining the title again. That should just about do it for Smothers as a challenger--and now the Dirty White Boy wants a title shot. Tammy is taking care of Ron Wright, but that hip replacement money seems to be going to new dresses and Rolexes instead. Are they going for an Anna Nicole Smith thing here with Tammy and Wright?
  16. PeteF3
    Random guys showing up for syndie matches, but for Superstars and not Worldwide--this really is a Bizarro World. Fun little match, though.
  17. PeteF3
    Well, that was different.
  18. PeteF3
    Tatanka being so buddy-buddy with Luger at this time never really made sense to me. I guess in retrospect his selling out should have been obvious.
  19. PeteF3
    One of the best Rockers matches in the history of Japan. Seriously, Liger and Benoit work the opening shine right out of their playbook. Then it's time for Liger to pay, and he does, big-time. But he gets a few kickouts and Benoit makes a few timely saves, and the crowd gets more jazzed with each one. Liger still looks about dead, though, and Hash is constantly there to keep Benoit at bay. So at this point I'm thinking, "If only Liger could come back and make the hot tag so Benoit could get in a run before the inevitable finish, this will be a darkhorse top 10 MOTYC candidate." Then Liger turns an attempted Samoan drop into a crucifix and GETS THE PIN??! Holy living fuck, one of the biggest shock results of any Yearbook match so far. Really, really fun--I don't know if it can finish in the top 10 in good conscience but this was a true feel-good match all the way (Benoit is pretty minimized here, by the way, for anyone interested in checking this out but not interested in watching him wrestle). 20 minutes that just flew by.
  20. PeteF3
    Twice as long as any match on the first Pancrase show, but almost completely dominated by Shamrock. I wonder if this was one of those "carry a guy to a longer match" type works. Takahashi's best offensive move was getting choked out while in the ropes, which earned Shamrock a yellow card.
  21. PeteF3
    That's impossible. No one can give more than 100%. By definition that is the most anyone can give. Yeah, Dreamer ain't exactly hardcore just yet.
  22. PeteF3
    Fun little bout. Six maniacs stiffing each other and JT taking some loony bumps, including a Marty Jannetty-style spin-out bump off a clothesline on the concrete floor. Even Muraco as sort of a poor man's grumpy Tenryu was kind of fun even though he's near 300 pounds at this point. I too loved Paul E. talking about Muraco "focusing on a body part" as he's hitting Funk with repeated low blows. Snuka accidentally powders him and JT Smith rolls him up for the big upset pin.
  23. PeteF3
    I thought this was a hell of a match. Real good work around Razor's back to set up Martel's Boston crab (a story well told by Heenan and Vince), sparking a good comeback from Razor. Also some nice hot near-falls down the stretch before Razor decisively puts this away. If anything Razor would be pigeonholed in this role for the next two years, but it's a good spot for him right now. I can't think of too many really good Model matches--Rick seemed to start phoning it in once he turned heel. So leaving aside the blindfold match as an "N/A" I think this may rank at the top.
  24. PeteF3
    It occurs to me that I don't think I've ever seen Fujinami or Kido in a true hate-filled brawl (if Fujinami had one on the '80s set feel free to not bother reminding me). Well, now I have. This was filled with all kinds of hate, between Tenryu being a dick and the NJPW team doing lots of double teams and "cutting the ring in half." Kido doing the wakigatame on Tenryu as he was on the turnbuckle was a highlight. This was building into something really special but it kind of petered out into a substandard finish, as Kido is rather easily put away by Tenryu.
  25. PeteF3
    Lots of historical nuggets here--Rude brings up his opening night victory over Sting, his being stripped of the U.S. title, and then points out that Vader got to keep his belt despite being injured for longer. Rude's basically not wrong about anything he says, which is awesome. Great return to the Up Close format.
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