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PeteF3

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  1. PeteF3
    Smothers suffered a conveniently timed knee injury at the hands of DWB and Brian Lee, coincidentally aligning with an All-Japan tour. Smothers when he gets back will get a title match with Brian Lee, with the Dirty White Boy locked in a cage at ringside.
  2. PeteF3
    Rich, in a bathroom, points out that Jerry Jarrett quit wrestling when Tommy Rich showed up and took away all of his girls. Good promo even if the setting is a little forced. Jeff Jarrett rebuts before quickly being jumped by Tommy (Thomas) Rich. Long beatdown follows while Bert Prentice rants to Corey Macklin.
  3. PeteF3
    Lawler has obtained two victories over Bret Hart in two days. Lawler rubs it in Vince's face--hey, a win's a win, even a reverse-decision DQ with a stretcher job. Vince is aghast that he's been accused of having something to do with Giant Gonzalez's interference last Sunday. SURPRAHS, SURPRAHS, SURPRAHS! If anyone can drag something good out of Gonzalez, Lawler is the man.
  4. PeteF3
    Why are we getting Borga vignettes now when he's already debuted? I don't know why I'm filled with Python references today but Borga is dressed like the Gumbies--I expect him to put a handkerchief on his head and smash two bricks together. I guiltily confess to somewhat liking Borga back in the day, even though he's an objectively terrible wrestler and the idea of a Finn as a foreign menace is comical on its surface.
  5. PeteF3
    SUMMERSLAM WAS THE GREATEST THRILL, HONOR, AND PRIVILEGE OF LEX LUGER'S ATHLETIC CAREER and ohbythewayYokozuna'sstillthechampion and LUGER HASN'T LOST ANYTHING. "Somehow, deep in my soul, I know I will someday be World Wrestling Federation champion, just as soon as I can land a rematch with my good buddy Mr. Perfect officiating it." Kevin noting Luger's awkward chuckling response is letter-perfect. Lex's big grin at the end reeks of doth protesting too much, too. I don't mean to keep beating a dead horse, but the only thing keeping this from being as nauseating as the Sgt. Slaughter "I Want My Country Back" stuff is that it's less exploitative. It's still every bit as manipulative and insulting to the intelligence of anyone who had been paying attention to the company for more than 3 months--i.e., the very fans they were trying to cater to with things like long 2/3 fall TV matches and house show title changes.
  6. PeteF3
    Doc has stepped up in a huge way with Gordy suddenly out of the picture. What a week this has been for him. This isn't up with the very best Misawa singles matches of '93 but it's a hell of an addition to Doc's career even if it isn't the best Doc match of the week. I don't have much else to say...Doc had some way cool takedowns in the early going and the backdrop suplex looked nasty without being a full-blown head spike like the ones Kobashi took.
  7. PeteF3
    DiBiase tries hard but he does sort of stick out here. The match isn't bad, but seems very short for a tag title match (it barely goes 15 minutes). Hansen & DiBiase regain the belts they never really lost to begin with. I can see DiBiase's POV here The only thing left that he could conceivably do in the WWF was lose his money and turn babyface. With no bodyguard and no manager anymore and the Money Inc./Steiners feud more or less played out, DiBiase really looked to be spinning his wheels. I also imagine the days of the WWF comping him a limo and five-star hotel room at every stop were long past. There was more money in a fresher setting in AJPW at this point than getting $300 payoffs in White Plains, NY.
  8. PeteF3
    Stan Hansen & Tito Santana vs. Don Muraco & Shane Douglas! Wow, is that ever a match-up of odd couples. Gilbert is here again making a nuisance of himself, but wins Sulli over with a bottle of Crown Royal. Gilbert blithers, and blithers, and blithers. He occasionally drifts toward the topic of actual wrestling matches, but this is as bad of an egofuck as any overindulgent NWO promo. Then some more annoying bullshit involving a phone and Gilbert going on a date with 6 women or something. Oh, it's the families of Gordon, Artese, and Sulli--hilarious. I want one of those Monty Python 16-ton weights to drop on Gilbert at this point.
  9. PeteF3
    Good promo from Hansen. Finally we're going somewhere with this Gilbert stuff.
  10. PeteF3
    This is probably the most famous early '90s AJPW match that I've never seen before. I know it's divisive, which is why I'm looking forward to it, Doc's presence be damned. This is also an ad hoc #1 contenders match for the next Budokan show TC match, as original challenger Terry Gordy has had his OD and is now done as a meaningful full-time worker. This is a total war throughout and in some ways is more effective at setting up Kobashi as a genuine main event/Triple Crown guy than the Hansen match, even though this is more back-and-forth for most of it. Kobashi has almost always wrestled the early '90s as a perpetual plucky underdog who pushes his opponents before falling in the end, but here he simply comes across as Doc's peer and equal. Just as tough, almost as strong, and more agile and versatile. Just not as experienced. Both guys clearly set out to put on a memorable match to try and get past the circumstances of what happened to Gordy, and on that they succeeded wonderfully. I think the ending could have been done better, but it hasn't bothered me nearly as much as various other matches on these sets where the near-falls piled up to the point of absurdity. Kobashi popping up from the 2nd backdrop driver in a total daze and trying to make a tag was unconventional, but I have to ultimately determine that it worked. Sometimes you're just so messed up that you don't even realize you're supposed to be out of it and act accordingly--like Choshu's almost-nonplussed reaction to having his orbital bone broken by Maeda. I dunno...I think I'm gonna have to side with Dave on this one. I thought this was more compelling than the Hansen match--in some ways, Kobashi got so much offense in that, that it almost telegraphed the Hansen comeback. This had more twists and turns to it, and even though Doc isn't as high up on the chain as Hansen, it still would have been a huge win for Kenta. I've been as hard on Doc as a worker as anyone, so fanboyism here, but I have this in the running as a strong MOTY candidate.
  11. PeteF3
    I think this may be the same guy who sang the Randy/Liz "Together" song. Yet more desperate phoniness on the part of the WWF. It wasn't enough that the Narcissist got whitewashed from history, now Luger doing yet another chokejob gets glossed over, too. Hope you continue spiking attendance by working non-title matches with Ludvig Borga, Lex.
  12. PeteF3
    Certainly heated--this was a really loud crowd almost all night. For all the attempts at turning the Narcissist into a humble everyman, we get Luger heroically cheating by taking off his forearm pad and cold-cocking Yokozuna with his forearm. In the end, it's all simply Hogan's "I can do anything cuz I'm the babyface" act all over again, except I don't think Hogan would be stupid enough to beat up managers while his one and only chance at winning the title lies unconscious on the arena floor. Of course Luger and McMahon don't seem to notice or care that the title doesn't change hands, and they and the other babyfaces treat this like a Super Bowl victory while Heenan vainly attempts to bring some sanity to the proceedings. I've gone on and on about how much I hated this push at the time, and I'll try to wrap up the Cool Story Bro Memory Lane act. But before I do...I was so pissed off at the phony attempt at this Luger mega-push, and yet I felt even MORE ripped off when after all of this, they still don't have the guts to pull the trigger and put the belt on him. I really, truly could have accepted Luger as triumphant babyface champ at that point, but when they swerved us with the countout finish I didn't give a shit where they went with it next, I simply felt like the previous two months were entirely a waste of time. It still feels that way--the WWF was booking to a devoted hardcore audience, because that was pretty much all they had left. And that devoted hardcore audience already knew of Luger's reputation as a title match choker. Now he was definitively established as the Buffalo Bills of wrestling. Attendance spikes and TV ratings going up...whatever. Someone's free to correct me but I don't recall Hulk Hogan coming in and having to spend 6 months "chasing" the Iron Sheik before winning the title, nor do I believe Bruno Sammartino had to deal with months of bullshit finishes while chasing Stan Stasiak. Rethinking and altering your booking philosophy is admirable--necessary, even, at this point. But giving a new babyface the biggest push in company history and not pulling the trigger ASAP was simply too much for most WWF fans to handle. If you want to tie a rocket to the guy, don't "save it for the right time"--fucking do it. Seems most of the time the "right time" doesn't ever come to pass. EDIT: As I was typing all that up during the celebration...Vince with the quote of the night: "YOKOZUNA'S THE WINNER!" That will get the WON award for Freudian Slip of the Year.
  13. PeteF3
    Probably the best WWF segment of the year, since this is the type of match(es) that utterly defies a conventional star rating. This may be the best heel Lawler performance I've ever seen--his usual cheating tactics really come off as a desperate bid to survive rather than doing rote chicken shit stuff out of the Memphis Heel Wrestling Textbook. Plus said chicken shit stuff really feels fresh in a WWF setting. The set-up and initial angle is so Memphis that I suspect Lawler must have pitched it all himself. They really lay in some of the bucket and crutch shots here, giving this a distinctly non-WWF vibe. And the post-match is great, with the ring filling up with panicked officials trying to get Bret to break the hold. Bret gets a form of revenge but Lawler ultimately gets to have his hand raised, a good way to give a partial payoff while leaving the feud open to continue.
  14. PeteF3
    The problem with these two is they were both, at this point, defined by huge bumps and not a ton of offense. So that's a problem, because neither guy really plays to the other's strengths. Also these two simply don't seem to be on the same page for much of this, which is harder to explain considering how often they'd wrestled on house shows. There's a token attempt at psychology here with Michaels focusing on Perfect's bad back, but Vince and Heenan fail to pick up on his history and Perfect's selling isn't anything special. The big Diesel push is officially underway, as he cold cocks Perfect after the match with a punch--a gimmick that wouldn't last. Perfect really got eviscerated on PPV throughout 1993.
  15. PeteF3
    As an Ohio State fan I could listen to Heenan rag on the University of Michigan all day long. This was a fantastic blend of the Steiners' bomb-throwing and Southern tag wrasslin'. The Bodies are so versatile it's absurd--they can take all the Steiners offense, they can match them big move for big move, and they know how to stooge and how to properly structure a crowd-pleasing tag match. Some really great transitions here, like Del Ray baseball sliding under Scott allowing Dr. Tom to bulldog him--and Scott's comeback that starts when he counters Del Ray's crucifix spin DDT move. The crowd was going to be hot no matter what considering the hometown boys involved, but the Bodies despite not at ALL fitting the WWF Look of the time (or any other time) actually made you think they were going to steal the belts at certain points. They deserved to go farther in the company than they did, but this ended up being their peak.
  16. PeteF3
    Bret is having too much fun playing Memphis chickenshit heel. Lawler comes back and scores the pin thanks to blown interference from Giant Gonzalez. Okay, in a promotion that featured the Hart Brothers aligned with Bert Prentice and Paul Neighbors aligning with Vince McMahon, the team of Bret Hart & Giant Gonzalez may stand out as the weirdest duo of them all.
  17. PeteF3
    Thank God for that. Flair has come off as such a spineless wimp in this setting, constantly asskissing his babyface guests and being browbeaten by the heels. In a stunning reversal, Flair actually wants to talk about wrestling on this show. What do you know--this segment actually seems like it's been thought out by somebody, with both guys getting a chance to talk. And since both guys are good enough to follow direction without coming off as reading a teleprompter, it kinda works. Even some continuity from the last segment. And Rude doesn't seem far off from a real-life sexual predator pro athlete, either. Fifi gives Rude a slap when he forces himself on her, and when Flair tries to wrap things up Rude clobbers him with the NWA belt and drops him with the Rude Awakening. Rude figures out that Fifi will go with him if he gets Flair's title. No one is going to confuse this with Ole and Dusty in the cage, or with Lawler and the Snowman in the WMC studio, as far as Angles of the Decade go. But I'll be damned if this wasn't perfectly effective. Rude finally comes off as a big deal again after a stifling feud over a U.S. title that sat vacant for what felt like 9 years.
  18. PeteF3
    The Heavenly Bodies vainly attempt to comfort Cornette with stuffed animals and cold ice, to no avail. Cornette cuts a promo with gauze filling his mouth, where he announces that he's filed an injunction preventing Bob Armstrong from being reinstated as commissioner. The stipulation: Armstrong has to accept two challenges of Cornette's, with the commissionership on the line. The next commissioner will either be Bob Armstrong or Jim Cornette! And the second match carries a loser-leaves-town stip that I'm sure they're going to bullshit their way out of. Match #2 will be kept secret, but Armstrong's first opponent will be Terry Funk. Terry Funk cuts a Zodiac-esque promo with lightning and space effects. Funk accuses Armstrong of MURDER--attempting to kill professional wrestling! Funk rambles, but that just adds to his character--he just looks legitimately unhinged. I'LL SEE YOU PUKES IN KNOCKSVILLE. Armstrong is one of the greatest babyface interviews ever. I'd give anything for a full-fledged Jerry Lawler/Bob Armstrong feud.
  19. PeteF3
    Lawler cuts a scorched-earth promo on New York City and Vince McMahon, then responds to Vince's challenge regarding fan refunds and the cage match with Bret. Dave Brown is positively aghast. Lawler promises to beat Bret on both Sunday and Monday night--score one for Lawler on that!
  20. PeteF3
    God, Vince is such a natural. Yeah, it's a "duh" statement in light of Mr. McMahon, but Vince had clearly wanted to do this for awhile. This Sunday (because of SummerSlam on Monday), Lawler meets Bret in a cage. Vince laughs over Lawler's empty-hearted promise to refund the MSC's money if he didn't hospitalize Paul Neighbors, and then dares Lawler to make the same promise if he can't defeat Bret in the cage on Sunday. I seriously wonder how many people in Memphis immediately became Bret fans upon the announcement of this stip.
  21. PeteF3
    Vince in the role he was born to play. McMahon in this setting is still almost too weird for words--in 1993 it was like...I dunno, UWFI doing a crossover show with W*ING or something. There was that much cognitive dissonance. Vince & Paul Neighbors is almost a weirder duo than Bret Hart & Bert Prentice. Vince & Pat team up to do a number on the King! Crazy shit, even through today's eyes. Unfortunately Paul Neighbors isn't quite Jim Cornette as a wrestler, so he doesn't capitalize for very long. You can't fault him for lack of energy, though.
  22. PeteF3
    Hard to even describe all this. Konnan apparently eliminates Caras in a few minutes thanks to a timely assist from Jake, and then all hell breaks loose. Los Gringos Locos are apparently aligned with Jake, and they go after Caras and double-team him outside. Konnan saves, and he and Caras have a bit of a MegaPowers moment. Konnan escorts Caras to the back, which allows Roberts to press slam Mascarita Sagrada on the floor (!). Loved DDP digging his boot into Sagrada's throat afterward--what a fucking scumbag heel move. Antonio Pena comes out to browbeat Jake and gets a drink thrown in his face. Perro Aguayo tries to make the save but gets laid out, then Konnan makes the real save. We get a surprisingly decent brawl for a bit once the match proper resumes, but it's a hugely anticlimactic finish as Jake hits Konnan low and gets DQ'd. For all the crazy shit that had gone down and for as creative as AAA has been with regard to finishes, they could have done better than that. Jake unleashes the cobra afterward, which sadly doesn't really go anywhere. This was enjoyable, sometimes in spite of itself, but really petered out badly at the end.
  23. PeteF3
    Eddy Guerrero has now turned heel in a career-altering event--Love Machine used the same "attack a guy while wearing the Santo mask and make him think Santo turned on him" trick that opened up the '90 Yearbook. Love Machine with his do-rag to hide his haircut and general mannerisms could pass for a third member of PG-13--he reminds me of every douchebag jock I knew in high school. Good look for him. I've had my fill of these post-produced announcers yukking it up all the way through the matches, by the way. It's more annoying than usual in this match because this is work that really depends on hearing the crowd response--you can tell they're loud, but it loses something with people talking over the noise in a studio after the fact. Lots and lots of effective playing to the crowd here before we get to business: Los Gringos Locos continuing to torture Blue Panther. Same story as before, with the heels continuing to pull him up during pin attempts. I loved Fuerza very casually stepping in front of the referee just as he was about to count three and blocking the ref's hand with his leg--that was smooth as hell. Same story leads to the same finish, as Barr murders Panther with a martinete and gets disqualified. Good, chaotic table-setter of a match--everyone looked pretty good here and Eddy looked spectacular. The heel turn definitely seems to be a positive turning point for his career.
  24. PeteF3
    Could you elaborate? My criticism of Bret/Owen is that it's overlong and boring as fuck with lots of laying around and falling off cages. I can understand criticisms of WM3, but "overlong" and "boring" are not ones that come to mind.
  25. PeteF3
    Man, I was not feeling this at all. Estrada, as Zenjo noted, looked completely fucking wasted. Everything he did was either a complete no-sell or an absurd over-the-top bump, with seemingly no in-between. There was some good high-flying from the technicos, especially Volador's amazing Asai moonsault, but structurally this was pretty much a mess. Tirantes fucks over the technicos again in a clever finish, though you do wonder what the point is of the other referee in some of these cases.
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