PeteF3
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Sato = Dick Togo, if I'm interpreting wrestlingdata correctly. The unmistakable rear end is there, at least. I liked the singles match a bit better than this--stakes were higher and there was a little more substance to it. But this was a fun blend of flying, mat wrestling, and comedy. The sequence where the guys seemingly forget who their partners are, leading to Naniwa and Sasuke about to do a rowboat even though they're on opposite sides before they realize what's going on, was pretty inventive.
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Okay, am I watching the wrong matches or did Art Barr suck as a worker this whole time? He has good charisma and this was a huge, huge match--probably the biggest non-TripleMania match in Mexico for '93, as I understand it. But he blows every move he does--he has some of the worst execution for a supposedly experienced wrestler I've ever seen. I know it's a small sample size, even moreso because this match is incomplete, but this is 2-for-2 (saw When Worlds Collide years ago, will get it to it when I get to it). Both of these performances came in big settings when he'd theoretically be on his game. Anyway, Love Machine brutalizes Panther (again, in theory) with some big moves, but constantly pulls him up at two even though he looks completely beaten. He then goes to repeat the same mistake that cost him his mask, picking Panther up for a tombstone, but Perro Aguayo breaks it up. I got confused at first, but the referee gestures that he disqualified Love Machine because Aguayo technically interfered. I've bitched about lucha officiating quite a bit but only Memphis is as good at bullshit finishes that still kind of make sense and that preserve the rules the style observes. Complaints about execution aside, this was an effectively done double turn. They build sympathy for Panther down the stretch as Barr tortures him, gloating the whole way. Barr throws a hissy fit upon the result, that no one could possibly be in accord with, while at the same time one could understand that he has a legitimate gripe. That's the best kind of heel turn. His beatdown on Perro is pretty awesome. Really an excellent all-around angle with tremendous amounts of build to it.
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Some sloppy execution, but pretty hot action for the closing stretch. Lee's never going to be confused with Ric Flair but as a personality and as a worker he's practically doubled his value over these past few weeks. -
Never in Jack Tunney's career has he seen such a groundwell of support such as that received by Lex Luger. Okay. Fuji has fought against a title match on the basis of Luger's metal forearm--but he gets the shot anyway, as long as he wears a WWF-approved forearm pad. Vince asks Tunney point-blank if there are any other stipulations, and Jack says, "No, that's it." Holy fuck, Jack, talk about burying the lede. I suspected Tunney was secretly in camp with Mr. Fuji from the time he "congratulated" Yokozuna on his title win while ignoring the fireball camera, and this may clinch it. On a more serious note, I wonder if the later "one title shot only" add was not another sign of something I already suspected--that Vince had actually given up on the Luger megapush even before SummerSlam.
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This was pretty fucking great. Actually it reminded me a ton not of FMW, but of Kid vs. Lynn in the PWA. This has lots of pretty moves from two junior heavyweights, but these two never lose sight of the basics, of their character, of a babyface/heel dynamic, and of telling a basic story. This is my first time watching Delfin heel it up, and he's a lot more fun in such a setting. He kills Sasuke to death with all sorts of head spikes, and Sasuke's flying comes off as a concerted strategy more than a way of showing off. I immediately thought Sasuke was going to age as badly as early-'90s Ultimo Dragon, but he's so far ahead of him at this point that it isn't funny.
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I know nothing about Vale other than what I've seen in '92 and '93, but he seems to have all the physical tools to have been a sensation in Japan. I guess he didn't throw enough killer suplexes like Albright or Vader, but he's a big charismatic monster-looking guy who moves like somebody half his size. Big man vs. little man is possibly my favorite style of singles match--when it's done well, which is relatively easy if the two workers know what they're doing, and this is a fine shootstyle variety of it.
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It's the one thing about the style that annoys me, even if there are things about it that I admire, in that it looks like NBA or NFL replacement ref officiating--i.e., realistically bad/controversial--rather than referees being blind incompetent narcoleptics. When it works, like it did with Aguayo and Mascara Ano or at When Worlds Collide, it works great. But too many times I want the ref to stay the fuck out of the way and not in a "drawing heat" sense, in a "go away" sense, because I know there's going to be bullshit that draws attention to the ref without him getting his comeuppance (except in the aforementioned examples).
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Paul and Eddie make inside jokes and there's more making fun of the Philly sports teams. And then this goes on and on AND ON AND IT'S LIKE FIVE FUCKING MINUTES OF BLITHERING ABOUT PIZZA. Yeah, is any of this building to anything? This segment in particular may be the moment Hot Stuff jumped the shark.
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After Razor turns down Money Inc.'s offer of hard labor, DiBiase demands to face the 1-2-3 Kid so he can do what Razor couldn't. Kind of an anticlimactic babyface turn, something the fans had been clamoring for for months. Razor got a huge pop for his entrance but his promo could have gone better, as could the brawl.
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It was definitely this match that was PWI MOTY--I distinctly remember them bringing up the instant replay finish. It's also really, really not far off from the WWF MOTY so far. I wanted to put all my sentimental support behind Jannetty/Doink but I have to admit it's really close. These two start off wrestling like the old-style Rockers against each other before getting into some pretty great near-falls, cutting a very quick pace the whole way as one would expect. Michaels is noticeably getting out of shape and I still don't much like his work on top--it's telling that he has no move to put Jannetty away after he spills to the floor--but this is still his best performance of the year, and Jannetty continues to be out of this world. There's no question that he's in a cluster with Bret and Doink as the best guys in the company. Michaels wins clean, and the Jannetty singles push was pretty much stone dead at this point. Kind of too bad because I think he had something to offer as an upper-mid-card babyface, but he was also great at making lunks like Mr. Hughes and Ludvig Borga look decent and also never seemed to escape his "other Rocker" persona.
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La Parka vs. Lizmark, TripleMania '93, Take Two The one-fall stip threw me, twice over--once at the false finish and again after the restart. This still built well from matwork to lots and lots and LOTS of near-falls, probably the most of any lucha match I've seen. Also countout teases for near-falls. All the bailouts gave this a very disjointed feel, but it did make the counts more meaningful. Speaking of which, the story here is another officiating controversy, and again it's done in an ambiguous, real-sports bad-officiating way rather than just a plain blind referee. Gotta say that having this on the same card as Aguayo/Mascara is overkill, even by lucha standards where the heel refs are part of the show. La Parka gets every benefit of the doubt on every close two-count and at least one near-COR, though replays seem to support the referee. He then ties up Lizmark and gets a three-count, with Lizmark not getting the same benefit. Replays again seem to support the referee, and Dr. Morales and Arturo Rivera sound like they're one step away from coming to blows themselves in the booth. But after a LONG delay, long arguments, and a conference with the Box y Lucha commission, apparently the match is restarted and we pick up where we left off. The turning point is Parka taking a horrific bump into the corner post, and it's pretty much downhill from there, as Lizmark locks on a shootstyle side mount submission. This was good, and a really coming-of-age performance for La Parka, but as I said--disjointed. The match was building up a ton of momentum and I'm not opposed to the idea of the restart, but the absurd length of time it took (it must have been close to 5 or 6 minutes, or more) stopped things dead in their tracks. And the officiating controversy didn't pay off as spectacularly as it did with Perro and Mascara Ano, though Lizmark deciding to go with a submission after not making any headway with pins was a clever touch. One for a La Parka comp, no question, but overall not quite as fun as the mask match on the same card.
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I'm following the WONs as we go, and I haven't come across it yet. Dave was as confused and weirded out about that NWA title finish as we all were.
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More phoniness and desperation from Vince and the WWF.
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Fuchi! It's been too long. He picks up right where we saw him last, twisting Akiyama into knots. Kawada and Fuchi seem to be making up submissions on the fly at some point, with some downright lucha-esque submissions on Jun. Then Kawada clobbers Misawa from behind after he makes a save, and after selling on the outside as only he can do, Misawa barges back in and the war is on! Forearms and kicks all over the place, Misawa going crazy shoving Kyohei Wada and his own partner, and eventually the partners basically have to break things up. Misawa does most of his big moves on Fuchi, but Akiyama scores the pin in what has to be the biggest win of his short career. Slow and basic start, but still compelling because of the intensity of the holds, building to a good finish in a match that continues to establish Misawa and Kawada as genuine hated rivals.
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Not bad action, not great. Vader's moonsault was one of the most mindblowing things people had ever seen, and Sting's running diving save over the ropes was a cool follow-up. Davey Boy shortly afterward gets a crucifix pin on Vader, nicely setting up their Clash rematch. Vader worked this match with a herniated disc in his back, and from what he does here that's possibly a more amazing feat than Windham in the NWA title match.
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No heat here for anything, until Flair gets the figure four locked in. The action we see is actually pretty good, considering Windham was working on one leg, and I liked his desperate attempts to fight off the figure four. Flair eventually puts it on, and then the finish that I still have no clue what to make of. Very Flair-by-numbers victory promo. Flair by numbers is still good, but man oh man does he need something to focus on at this point.
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Some good stuff here, but this match was probably ten minutes longer than it needed to be. Roma is pretty much a charismatic black hole in this role, so there are long stretches without much heat except when the Blonds are jawing with the fans or Arn is in. Paul could be good as a cocky heel or as an underdog, but a babyface Horseman didn't suit him at all. The Blonds are very good at what they do but are mostly reduced to classic heel stooging spots--much easier on Flyin' Brian's body, I'm sure, but the big epic tag and high-flying spots from earlier in the year are disappearing. The Steiners and Money Inc. actually put on a tighter and more compelling and interesting TV bout than what we got here. The finish was a swerve, as Schiavone subtly alludes to when he talks about how the Blonds surprised "more people than we even know," referring to the upcoming developments given away at Disney--but that was about the only new thing under the sun here.
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Ah, here it is: the first--and for many to come only--Yearbook match I saw live. Not a terrible match but not really good either. Hughes has gone totally WWF-style and other than those armdrags we don't see any of Hughes the big fat bump machine, and his offense isn't anything special either. This is totally made by Marty bumping off him and throwing high-flying moves at him, essentially wrestling a brick wall. That superkick was ghastly--more impactful than just about any version Shawn ever did except maybe the time he killed a flying Shelton Benjamin. This was during a stretch of long feature bouts on both Superstars and Challenge--there was a 6-man at this same taping that even got the "we're out of time!" treatment and was finished the next week. I still suspect that Ross' fingerprints were all over this stuff.
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Really cool match between two of the most fun-to-watch guys in shootstyle. Loved Kazuo blocking an Anjoh kick, then kicking him in the kneecap to double him over before bringing his foot up into his face. Anjoh gets up from that but is pretty much the walking dead and is put away not long after.
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Holy crap, this is one of the most non-WWF matches seen in ages. There are TWO ad breaks, neither of which came with anyone outside or coming to or leaving the ring. There is some actual, honest-to-God matwork. It's one of the most energetic IRS performances ever--there's a lot of snap to his offense, he really works the chinlock like a motherfucker, and he even vaults into the ring at one point when tagged, just because. I also love how Money Inc. work this as total '70s NWA World Champion heels. Most of the heat in the early going is based simply on IRS going to the ropes or the outside to escape holds or break Scott's momentum. It pays off when he uses it to enzuigiri Scott, and then pays off again for the babyfaces when Scott drags IRS from the outside of the ring back in by his tie and busts out the Randy Savage "leap to the floor and clothesline the opponent on the rope" move in a great sequence. (I just wish that Randy had acknowledged it on commentary, or that Bobby Heenan were calling this so he could exclaim, "He's got him by his tongue!") Anyway, the early heeling is incredibly subtle, to get over that Money Inc. is at least ostensibly interested in wrestling on the level. Only when that doesn't work do they turn to more overt tactics like choking and double-teaming and attacking behind the referee's back. Great little psychological build to two guys cheating because they feel they have to rather than because that's what the Heel Wrestling 101 textbook tells them to do. DiBiase and IRS also have enough cache and ring smarts--not to mention old age and an inability to take most of the big requisite Steiner bumps--to reign Rick & Scott in and keep this close to a wrestling match instead of a suplex-fest. The heel control segments all focus on Scott Steiner's neck, so that even the requisite heel chinlocks fit in with the context of the match--it also helps that IRS and Ted really, really crank those holds in. DiBiase despite his advanced age acquits himself very well physically, going up for Rick's trademark powerslam spot and taking a KING-SIZED Frankensteiner. Interesting to hear Vince note DiBiase's "bad neck"--not only is that bizarrely eerie foreshadowing but it was not WWF SOP at all to discuss heel injuries, lest any sympathy be generated for them. Ted is out, but IRS whacks Scott with the briefcase and DiBiase scores an upset pin. BUT, Joey Marella pays Earl Hebner back for saving his bacon in the KOTR finals and helps him reverse the decision. Tacky finish but it did lead to a rematch the following week, so I approve. I could write a lot more about this match--oddly enough, it seems, because this isn't a worldwide MOTYC or a North American tag MOTYC, nor do I think I'd rank it ahead of Jannetty vs. Doink as far as the WWF goes. But it's a hell of a match by any standard, WWF or otherwise, and the guys here who love match structure I think would really love this. As would JerryVonKramer--his two boys deliver a very strong performance.
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God, even Monsoon is practically creaming himself over the Bodyslam Heard 'Round the World. Monsoon follows this up by gushing about this Great Land of Ours and Luger's trip across it, hoping to flood the offices of Jack Tunney with cards, faxes, and telegrams demanding a title shot. I'm really going to try to as objective as possible regarding this push as I live through it again, but for the first couple of weeks it is every bit as excruciating to watch as it was on first blush. This guy was a Narcissist cheapshotting people with a metal forearm ONE MONTH AGO, you fucking imbeciles. It made me want to tear my hair out then and the same thing is happening now. At least Hogan had spent some years away after his WWF heel run before returning as a conquering hero.
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Four grumpy bastards beating the shit out of each other--everything I love out of this feud. Not that I'm tired of it or anything, but one has to admit that the heat and the action had slowed a bit from its awesome origins at the end of '92, so Chono is indeed a breath of fresh air. This is the best Fujinami has looked since the '80s ended, and his hail mary tope to take out Tenryu was one of the highlights of the match, as was clobbering an unsuspecting Hara with the knee as he backed away from a Yakuza kick. Great finish and finishing stretch all around.
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Crush just doesn't have enough to make this particularly good, but it is a strong dominating performance from Yokozuna, who squashes Crush in somewhat clean fashion (with a minor assist from Fuji). They did a great job of getting Yokozuna over as an angry monster as a result of the Stars & Stripes Challenge, and he levels Crush with three more Banzai Splashes after the match and wipes out Tatanka and the jobber brigade as well. Randy Savage is contractually prevented from getting physically involved, and doesn't pull Crush away until he already is out and requires a stretcher. Vince is already verbally fellatting the New All-American Lex Luger, and I'm stunned they made a bunch of references to Crush's home state without invoking Pearl Harbor. Heenan was terrific in laying all of this at the feet of Lex, however. Some of his very best work since Flair's departure. ISTR he even went into a quasi-shoot rant later in the show accusing McMahon of treating his wrestlers like meat.
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I know it's New Year's Eve, but this year it's just another night before work again in the morning. Yearbook time it is! Not really a great match, but they cut a quick pace with almost nothing in the way of stalling. Hawk does some no-sell shit but he also is pretty energetic here, moreso than he was for most of his WWF run. Also, it's not every day you get to see Hawk do a top-rope clothesline to a blow-up doll. Fairly clean finish to boot. Dennis Coraluzzo takes a beating after the match and Gilbert throws a tantrum on the mic. Does this make Hawk the new King of Philadelphia?
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I guess all those concerns about exposing a pregnant Collette to Cleveland weren't really that important. Bang Bang has made Cactus move and--oh, for fuck's sake, forget it. The homeless guy doesn't look any different, except he wears a dress shirt and tie now. Cactus has now become some sort of Phil Connors-esque inspirational guiding light for his whole territory. Seems like he's contributing more to society through this than he is through wrestling. Foley is practically catatonic throughout all of this, which stands out considering how good of an actor he normally is. Normally I'm of the, "Fuck you, do you're paid to do" mentality--be it acting or wrestling--but in this case I can't blame him a bit. Meanwhile Catherine White is obviously prepping for a big community theater audition.