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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. A fall-out-of-bed excellent match. Taue looked terrific here, and it's Taue vs. Misawa that's the singles match I'm looking forward to most coming out of this. But Kikuchi got the big spotlight here, working a long-ish FIP that's as good as you'd expect before working a sprint to the finish with Ogawa and scoring the pinfall. If anything this felt like it could have gone longer--Kobashi basically disappeared after the opening portion, though he did play an important role in Kikuchi making the hot tag. Someday I'll go through 1993 AJPW TV, where I can see the full depth of each guy, which matters a lot in such discussions. But until then, Kawada and Misawa both strike me as having better years than Kobashi.
  2. Good solid match that never really got into a higher gear--nor did it overstay its welcome. Kyoko was probably the best and most enthusiastic worker in it and Hokuto the least. Not bad, but...not anywhere close to something to serve up for a Best in the World candidacy.
  3. Good takedowns by Malenko, but PWFG is really coming off as a dying promotion while UWFI and RINGS look much hotter.
  4. I thought 2000 was the high water mark for business. Where specifically are these claims that there were "no good matches" in the '99 WWF? That the year wasn't a 100% complete waste of time doesn't mean that it wasn't a bad year work-wise.
  5. Flynn threw some nice kneelifts. The camera was in focus, and in color. And that's all I have to say. Don't ever ask me to watch this again.
  6. Lizmark vs. La Parka, TripleMania I could only find a severely clipped (5 minutes or less of ring time) version that appears to have been recorded with a potato. There was enough to make me interested in seeking out more but really hard to get any kind of grasp on how the match went. A skilled clip job can make any match look like a classic but this wasn't quite it. Perro Aguayo vs. Mascara Ano 2000, TripleMania Mascara is pretty limited--he can't do much more than punch, kick, and roll people up. But damned if this isn't a Pat Patterson-level booking masterpiece. The first two falls are over quickly in that perfunctory "let's get them out of the way" manner, but the finishes are delightfully screwy. First, Aguayo is going to town on 2000 in the corner, raining punches on him, when suddenly Chocolate calls for the bell for a low blow. Very cool and out-of-nowhere finish and good use of the standard long lucha replay, as we break down whether or not Aguayo really punched him low or not. You can almost see Chocolate under the hood trying to find "indisputable evidence" whether or not to overturn the call. The ruling on the field stands, and Aguayo is down 1-0 before he has a chance to take a breath. Universo 2000 makes his presence known in the second fall than then Mascara gets greedy, clobbering Aguayo with brass knucks so blatantly than even the heel ref Chocolate has to DQ him for it. That's two falls out of the way in about 5 minutes, leaving about 20 for the rest of the match. Aguayo does a monster blade job off the knucks shot and levels Mascara with every bit of offense that he has, while Ano is just trying to keep his head above water with small packages and cheap shots from Universo. Eventually Mascara's mask is all red, and I can't tell if it's because he bladed himself or it's Aguayo's blood. Universo nails Aguayo as he bounces off the ropes, and as Chocolate goes over to reprimand him, Aguayo recovers to BLATANTLY uppercut Mascara in the nuts as the crowd loses their shit. Universo throws a fit, but Chocolate doesn't see anything and Aguayo covers for the win and the mask. The crowd loves it, and I rejoice never having to tell Universo and Mascara apart again going forward. One of the most markout-worthy finishes on any Yearbook, a perfect poetic-justice ending built across three falls. I tend to dislike the heel ref shtick in lucha because they never seem to get any comeuppance, so when they inadvertently aid the babyfaces through their own incompetence that sort of feels like a satisfying payoff. AAA would copy this sort of layout with Tirantes, Los Gringos Locos, and Blue Panther in the famous double apuestas match the next year, to similarly great results. As a match, this wasn't as good as Cien Caras' mask loss, but from a booking standpoint it's a highlight of any year. This also has Universo, who does one of the greatest jobs of a ringside second I've ever seen.
  7. Genichiro Tenryu & Takashi Ishikawa vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Hiroshi Hase, 2/14/93 This is definitely up there with any other NJPW/WAR bout you'd care to name--from work, pace, heat, and drama standpoints. Tenryu and Hase absolutely beat the shit out of each other and Fujinami is pretty feisty himself. Meanwhile Ishikawa works most of this like a '70s style babyface until the end, when he's put in the unusual position of savior, as the NJPW team isolates Tenryu and absolutely brutalizes the shit out of him. Tenryu gets leveled with double-teams and most of Hase's big moves and I really thought he was going down. It takes two Ishikawa saves and every effort to neutralize Fujinami for Tenryu to land a power bomb to escape with a win. One of the most breathless finishing stretches of any match this year, right now sitting as a top 10 bout.
  8. For me, Misawa tagging in, Hulking Up through Kawada's kicks, and then getting the better of a super-intense slap exchange is the moment where he really established himself as the Ace. That one little moment, moreso than beating Hansen either time. It was that awesome. The whole match was awesome--Kawada & Taue are finally in their own as a working tag team and Kobashi repeats his performance from last June as the gutsiest bastard ever in teaming with Misawa. Two great near-falls that had me fooled: Kobashi eats a choke slam off the turnbuckles (!) but Misawa makes a perfectly-timed last-second save. Then Kobashi eats a power bomb but kicks out, and then actually teases a comeback before Taue subdues him and he goes down to a second. All kinds of great mirror spots throughout this, to establish these teams as evenly matched and Kobashi approaching the level of the other TC contenders. An excellent coming-out party for everyone involved, as 3 of the 4 guys are in brand-new roles (Taue just keeps on keeping on). Probably the #2 or 3 MOTY. As we approach the halfway point, I'd have this, the Dream Rush rematch, and Sting/Vader all clustered near the top with maybe some other things kicking around too that aren't coming to mind. Time enough to revisit that at the end of the set, though.
  9. Kid was watching Raw at his "grampa & grandma's"--please. Razor's offer has doubled, but Kid is still fearful of what could happen to him. The build to the rematch was done really, really well.
  10. I'm at the point where hearing that saxophone music makes me want to cry. I have become an emo hipster version of Pavlov's dog. Flair and Arn are in workout gear and there's some chick on a stepboard. Sting is Flair's guest, also in workout gear. In the most astonishing development in the history of wrestling, Sting is actually WARY OF FLAIR at first, bringing up their past. Flair just kisses up in response and pleads with Sting to lighten up, because that's all behind them. Sting explains why he wears facepaint--it's to support kids who may not be the same as everyone else. Well, that's admirable, I guess--Sting beat the Be a Star campaign by a good 18 years. Oh God, kids are out to get autographs. Little Stingers for Sting, girls for Flair--that about sums things up, I guess. This is unwatchable, even by the low standards set by this segment. Among many things to hate about this show is what a fucking spineless, asskissing pussy Flair has turned into. And Jerome's right--Sting pays about two seconds' lipservice to Vader, Rude, and Sid, but otherwise not a single sliver of attention is paid to any ongoing program. This, like the Lost in Cleveland skits and a lot of backstage shit today, is the work of some writer or writing committee trying to justify their own position.
  11. Ricky & Robert are once again SMW Tag Team Champions, and in the process they've eliminated Stan Lane. Cornette is bringing a new mystery team to take care of them (but don't get excited--it's Ron & Don Harris). Tammy Fytch (Dutch: "Her name is Fytch, with an L") comes out to make them an offer--obviously the Rock 'n Rolls don't know much about business. Rock and roll is out, and rap is in! Dutch points out that Hillary Clinton took a nobody to the White House. Ricky responds with the Wayne Campbell "we're not worthy!" and the R'nRs take a hike.
  12. Armstrong still has trouble breathing but is otherwise working hard for a comeback.
  13. Jennifer lets us in on Lawler's massive Coca-Cola memorabilia collection. Was this aspect ever touched on when Lawler was feuding with CM Punk? It should have been. Jennifer's phoniness notwithstanding, Lawler's artwork is legitimately impressive.
  14. It's pretty amazing, and ridiculous, how much better Gordy is in these settings than he is working tag slogs with Doc. Great performance from Kenta with Gordy being a strong anchor for him to work spots off of, with Kenta having to make two comebacks to get what has to be his biggest singles win to date. Gordy had just pinned Misawa in the Carnival, so he was still being positioned as a Big Deal.
  15. Hot Stuff has gone from the Gilbert Wrestling Federation to Eddie's Championship Wrestling. Tod Gordon stands up to him, and he's no Eddie Marlin even if I get that they're already trying different things with this promotion. Funk does a great job of praising Philly wrestling fans without coming off as a shameless asskisser. Don Muraco aligned with Eddie and Paul E. sounds really weird.
  16. Razor has harsh words for that cock-a-roach, the Stick-Mang, and offers him $2500 for a rematch. Bret Hart comes out, and he and Vince openly wonder how Razor can beat Bret if he can't beat the Kid. The "1-2-3" chants are now in full force, and Bobby moans about how everybody in every arena is going to do the same thing. Heenan was always brilliant at that "put something over while complaining about it" audience mind-control.
  17. I thought Perfect's victory over the second Doink came a little easy, but this was well-worked and surprisingly vicious before that. Perfect, even if he's weak offensively, sure knows how to work over a leg and Doink responds by tearing apart Perfect's arm like he's an Anderson, even tossing in the hammerlock bodyslam. Heenan's stumbling justifications after the match are really funny, from insisting there's only one Doink to "he beat the wrong Doink!" to "it was wrong for him to beat Doink!" Crush is as useless as ever during his run-in.
  18. Slow burn here, but when this got going, it really got going. Great work over Fujinami's arm and Tatsumi showed more intensity here than he has in years. The other highlights--Tenryu's killer enzuigiri, his sell of Hash's payback kick, and Fujinami having to adjust his dragon sleeper--have already been touched on. Not one of the high-end matches of this feud but a high-quality addition. Tenryu vs. Hash has been one of the best builds of any match on any Yearbook.
  19. My brother did the same thing! IIRC the show was on the channel that eventually became the Family Channel and aired weekday mornings when we were at school Add me to the list--it was the Family Channel by the time I was watching it. And of course now I wish I'd kept and converted the tapes since a DVD release seems all but hopeless in the near future. It's almost scary how into old things I was (in the same timeframe that Will talks about): - Watched as much Nick at Nite as I did Nickelodeon, and it should be noted that Nick itself was still almost entirely second-hand material--minus the game shows--until the early '90s. My dad was obsessed with the old '50s Superman as I was with Batman, so I saw most episodes of that also. - Most music I listened to was oldies radio, or my Dad's record collection which consisted of the same material. Never was a big MTV watcher. - I actually did have access to old '50s wrestling, thanks to some commercially available tapes my father had. And some '70s-era wrestling books which had title histories. Between that and seeing the various History of WWF Championship Coliseum Videos I knew way more about the Backlund/Graham/Bruno era than was healthy for a child of my age. - I watched almost no first-run '80s primetime TV, nor did anyone else in my family. My mother watched Cheers and I absorbed a little of that at the time. That stood as about the only exception to penetrate my household until the rise of The Simpsons, Seinfeld, and to a lesser degree Frasier and Home Improvement. - Sports? Ohio State was at or near its lowest point in the late '80s and the Browns and Bengals were breaking hearts all over the state. And the less said about the Indians... Meanwhile I was consuming these books written in the late '70s for every NFL team that my school library carried. I could name most of the 1968 Jets lineup but I probably didn't know who Ken O'Brien was. I wasn't totally sheltered, but my modern-day knowledge was mostly limited to quarterbacks, Browns and Bengals skill players, and whoever had Starting Lineup figures made of them. - Movies...like Will, it was down to a case-by-case basis. That said, most of my childhood movie love was directed towards Disney, Don Bluth, and the Godzilla franchise. More old shit. I'm not the guy to ask about what younger folk are exposed to these days. That said, my gut instinct tells me that the Internet does in fact make exposure easier rather than harder. They have access to just about any piece of music and many TV shows and movies that they want, rather than be subject to the whim of a TV schedule. They just need an incentive to view it, and that can still come accidentally through a Tweet or a shared link, just as it did through channel-surfing back in the day.
  20. Unlikely. The TV movie did well, but the re-launched series died a death even quicker than the one in the early 80s. There was nostalgia for one-offs. Not true popularity to sustain a show. I think Loss was talking about syndie reruns. I don't have any hard data but I've heard the same thing--the show wasn't any kind of ratings monster in first-run, but had a resurgence in repeats, just like Star Trek though obviously to a lesser degree.
  21. Phil's summation of this show was perfect. On top of the other production and advertising issues, Bulldog comes out to a version of "Rule Britannia" that sounds like it was captured by holding a tape recorder up to a radio speaker. Hey, it took a couple of weeks, but we've gotten around to mentioning Cactus Jack risking his life for us. This is a poor man's Sting vs. Vader, but Davey Boy offers up some tremendous, awe-inspiring power spots. Lifting Vader up into the electric chair was markout-worthy. This may be his strongest (hah) individual performance in years. Davey Boy hits the same corner-powerslam spot he hit on Saturday Night, but Race breaks the count and a desperate Vader clobbers Smith with a chair to draw a DQ. I actually liked that finish in the context of the feud and thought it was built up to well, but yeah...in the face of the other ripoff bullshit surrounding this show this may not have been the right time for that. Good match in isolation, though.
  22. I don't even know what the Dos Hombres story was (besides "Shane Douglas left"). Schiavone doesn't even try to sell that these guys are anyone else besides Steamboat & Douglas, so what the fuck is the point of even having a mask angle? (I know, I know, "Shane Douglas left"). The Omni is so not into this. Steamboat finally wakes the crowd up with a spectacular dive off the top of the cage. Zenk's conspiracy theories about jobbing aside, I'd want to unmask and clarify my identity before doing that move, too. Incredibly the Blonds kick out of that, and we get a neat spot where the bell rings and while Atkins is busy waving that off, Steamboat gets a visual pin on Pillman. Maybe it was just a typical WCW production gaffe but it worked perfectly in the context of the match. Z-Douglas gets whipped into a Stungun and the Blonds escape with the belts again. This was looking horribly disappointing but a hot finish partially saved it, bringing it all the way up to relatively disappointing instead.
  23. I don't know specifically how to improve upon the execution here, but ultimately I think this was too much, too soon. Not to excuse the crowd, but this type of long, understated ceremony hadn't really been done--especially incorporating pre-WCW and non-WCW elements like Verne and Thesz. And running multiple legends matches on top of this was overkill. And of course the Horsemen segment did its best to piss off the crowd before the ceremony even started. Wrestling II gets a nice reaction, complete with "II! II!" chants. Solie tells us the story that I've always loved, of Wrestling II refusing a White House invite once he was made aware that he could not wear his mask.
  24. Jesus Christ, they couldn't even be bothered to edit the intro--"THE ORIGINAL FOUR HORSEMEN!" Crowd starts shitting on this the instant Flair mentions "a little bad news." I'm surprised they even bothered to mention Blanchard at all, instead of trying to scrub him from existence. The idea that Barry Windham was supposedly responsible for Tully no-showing is ludicrous. And instead, of course, we get Paul Roma. Crowd doesn't boo so much as loudly, LOUDLY groan. "I don't think these people realize the THOUSANDS of wrestlers you had to choose from!" Oh, come on. That said, despite Roma being a douchebag, he was set up to fail here. Just about anyone would have failed, much less a WWF undercarder. Another indescribable segment and sadly things are going to get worse for WCW before they get better.
  25. Scorpio absolutely kills Benoit (ooh, bad choice of words) with the Tumbleweed legdrop, landing full-force on his head. Hard to watch that now. But everything up to this was very good. Bagwell has turned into a perfectly serviceable worker, and as the perennial FIP of the team he plays his role well. Benoit & Eaton should have gone farther than they did, and I wish some of Eaton's ring smarts had rubbed off on Benoit a little more. Eaton could take any insane bump you'd care to describe but he also knew how to work shtick, heeling, and comedy...things that Benoit never really picked up on, which in retrospect was to his detriment.
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