PeteF3
-
Posts
10269 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Everything posted by PeteF3
-
Dammit Kevin, I wanted to make an Alexandra York quip. Pillman must have been watching tapes from Memphis, as he plays mind games to start with a foreign object, which is worked absolutely beautifully. I love that it never actually gets used. Pillman was like Gaylord Perry at work on the pitcher's mound--the batter THINKING he was doctoring the ball accomplished just as much as actually scuffing it. Bagwell plays some mind games of his own by mocking the Blonds' "roll camera" taunt. Damned if Buff isn't really good taking the FIP beatdown here. More work with the towel, and are the Blonds ever coming into their own as a heel tandem. They do about 3 or 4 heel tag staples and execute them perfectly with their own personal spin on them. I loved them attempting to shoosh the crowd before "shaking hands," as Jesse put it, on the abdominal stretch. With two minutes of airtime left, Buff gets a great escape and hot tag and Scorpio goes nuts, a la Rick Rude at the end of the Ironman Match, trying desperately to get pins on Flyin' Brian. Time expires and this was a whale of a match. When Loss called it the U.S. Tag of the Year I thought it was an overexaggeration, but looking back I can't really find anything that one could definitively argue as better. I think I'm still partial to either the Clash tag or the tag title change, but this has been a hell of a run for the Blonds, and another strong performance from Bagwell & Scorpio also. The only thing I didn't get was Austin walking away from the corner and Pillman getting into a shouting match with him. Either something got cut during the commercial break or they're already teasing a break-up, which is absolutely flabbergasting if that's the case.
-
Is there any non-Memphis gimmick more suitable for Memphis than Papa Shango? I'd say not. He and Flamingo make a pretty hilariously mismatched couple. Holy crap, these two are beating the shit out of each other. No Memphis heel stall bullshit here, at least that we see. Shango shrugs off a fireball and uses his own bit of fire, from a skull, then follows it up with a bulldog to take the Unified World title (for the second time! Wonder if that tidbit ever got acknowledged). Goddamned if I don't want to see this in full. These clips are legitimately awesome-looking and this has to be by far the best Charles Wright match ever. These two were spirited as all hell--intensity, a quick pace, and MOVEZ, some of whom I've never seen done by either guy. Lawler was fantastic here but this didn't come off as broomsticky by any means.
-
Vader really doesn't come off as a shooter at all, but man alive was this a massacre. Nakano gets a few token hope spots in but it's mostly Vader just brutalizing him with slaps and a powerslam(!). After the first knockdown Vader comes barreling at him again as soon as he gets up, plowing through both Nakano and the referee! Vader bulldozes through all 15 of Nakano's points in a cozy 3:35. Molten crowd for this--I and educated MMA/shoot aficionados may not buy Vader as a shooter but they sure did.
-
Tamura's desperation escapes were terrific, and it paid off nicely with a big comeback victory. But goddamn was a lot of this really fucking boring. I know I've got the anti-shootstyle bias going but I love Sano to death, which made this all the more disappointing because it was his performance specifically that held this back.
-
SHOOT THIS RING ANNOUNCER. Jesus, he makes Billy Martin at WrestleMania sound good. Naturally we're subjected to a 45-minute soliloquy when all this could have been perfectly explained by Terry Funk talking to a horse's ass. The teasing and build to the bumps into the wire are all awesome, especially Terry's drunken selling as Onita is raining headbutts on him. This is really sloppy at points, but it's hard to imagine it being any other way. The 5-minute siren had me wanting to tear my hair out at points, but I'm always a sucker for Terry slapping on the spinning toe hold in the most bizarre environments, whether it's a riverbank or an exploding barbed wire ring. Onita pulls out a win and then power bombs Funk into oblivion after the bell, as we hit the 1 minute mark and things get really crazy. Funk is half-dead and convulsing as Onita finally gets out of the ring with about 20 seconds to go, and then decides to dive back in, unsuccessfully revive Funk, and then cover him when the explosions go off. I don't know if the crowd really went dead silent there or if they got muted for the post-produced music, but it was a way cool cinematic effect either way. I don't need to watch 30 of these matches per Yearbook like they're AJPW, but the spectacle is certainly worth watching every so often.
-
Dear God, this is the worst ring announcer of all-time. He sounds like a Japanese version of the Pimply Faced Teen from The Simpsons. That aside, this was an improvement over DreamSlam--a match that I liked, but almost 100% because of Toyota and Yamada, who put on a performance of a lifetime trying to drag Team FMW to something great and almost succeeding. Here the FMW girls pull their weight and are treated more as equals--even Combat looks good here! She's also utilized really well, coming off as a true monster and only sort of like somebody cosplaying as Aja Kong, especially towards the end when she's making saves. And we also get Toyota's incredible backflip bump off a Combat lariat again. Truly Toyota is the Johnny Rich to Combat's Sid Vicious. The FMW makes a spirited comeback when it looks like Kudo is about dead, thanks to Combat and some timely double-teams, and Kudo picks up a huge pinfall on Toyota. An excellent bout in a unique atmosphere. -
Oh God, the horse's rear end actually getting an "Eddie Gilbert" caption absolutely slayed me. This was quick, to the point, and awesome.
-
Yes, this was the "WWF title is like a Honda, the IWGP title is a Rolls-Royce" match. Somehow the historical significance of this was completely lost on me until now, and I feel like it deserves more attention. This is the WWF Champion working a show involving WCW's top babyface--that was an absolutely unthinkable occurrence until Hulk and Sting were booked and actually appeared. To say nothing of '90s Hogan and Fujiwara sharing a bill. Hogan's delivered more inspired Japan performances, and this is pretty much a shit show from Muta. He shows no real interest in selling anything and takes up too much time doing stupid crap like laying on the ramp and crawling under the ring for no real reason. He only shows a bit of fire when he's on offense. Hogan did come to work, but Muta's back on my shitlist after his great '91. This was an inexcusable performance.
-
Yeah, Hase was only halfway into the hold and then tapped (or the referee just called for the bell). Two abrupt finishes in two matches. Before that, this was really good, and more or less lived up to its promise--I think this is my first time seeing Hase work against the shootstyle guys and he's naturally a great fit. But we get a few Hase trademarks like the giant swing, before he does an inexplicable Ultimate Warrior rope-shake and gets a big grin on his face. Fujiwara attempts to top him by doing a great little celebratory jog when he levels him with his headbutts.
-
Hey Chad and Parv, if you stumble across this: I found the answer to your "Did Sting ever carry anyone?" question. Oh, this is certainly a fine selling performance from Norton, who shockingly takes on the role of overmatched sympathetic babyface here as Sting pounds him to a bloody pulp. He does a great, great "loss of blood" sell as he just flails away at Sting, who's able to duck his blows easily. Sting just levels him with everything he can, though Norton can't bump around as well as Vader so no cool power moves. Then all of a sudden Sting calls for the ring doctor, who examines Norton's cut and quickly stops the match. Norton creams Mr. Takahashi and one of the young boys with an awesome clothesline while Sting just walks off. I know Norton was often weird about doing jobs around this time but that did not seem like a planned finish at all. His cut was sick, but not Hase or Muta sick. But up until the wonky finish I was really digging this, more than anyone else here it seems. Give this a big spirited Norton comeback and a real finish and it'd be a sleeper top 20 MOTYC candidate.
-
This was terrific, a real give-and-take struggle with Hokuto going all-out as a sympathetic babyface. Great blend of mat wrestling building to an incredible somersault dive by Hokuto into the bigger moves.
-
This wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good and it was filled with so many unnecessary elements that have already been touched on. And again there's more "let's not break a nail" WWF house show work through most of this, especially during the opening which is about as loose as any match you'll see on these Yearbooks. Actually this was on its way to being terrible, but a fairly hot closing stretch was enough to launch it into mediocrity for me. Perfect outworked Shawn here, for what that's worth. He provided a bit of fun work on Shawn's leg and was carrying things toward the end as well. Even Shawn's normally reliable Sweet Chin Music looked bad.
-
Even though Dustin has "his" U.S. title this feud seems like a step down for Rude, who was a legit World title contender a few months prior. This is still great--Rude is as good of a heel as ever and Dustin doing a tope to get after Rude was markout-worthy.
-
I spent most of the '90 and '91 Yearbooks bitching about how the Louisville Slugger and Danger Zone didn't have proper sets, so I guess I can't complain too much about how this set feels like it's money down the toilet. Flair is energetic here but I simply don't think an interviewer role suits him. That legendary WCW production comes through again--Flair introduces Vader like he's a surprise guest even though TBS Guy spilled the beans during his intro. Vader talks of his School of Pain, and attendees like Sting, Ron Simmons, Joe Thurman, Cactus Jack, and Nikita Koloff, and has words for the "British Chihuahua." Flair's constant exhortations to "relax, relax" are getting on my nerves--this feels less like Flair than anything he did in the WWF, honestly.
-
The set-up for Rage in the Cage, and maybe some house show 6-man tags involving Lee, continues.
-
I'm not going to spoil anything either, but this word-association game is a brilliant use of the comedy rule of threes. Sullivan has split with the Nightstalker and vows revenge on his pupil--this is presumably a wrap-up program for Mr. Clarke as Adam Bomb is not far away.
-
Tammy rather condescendingly offers to be Brian Lee's manager, if he just signs a contract. Bob Armstrong cuts things off. Lee blows her off, but Fytch declares that he's simply insecure about his masculinity. Fytch is really coming into this role quickly.
-
This is a little too close to the tar-and-feathering for my liking, but still a good angle that's ahead of its time. Smothers is gonna light White Boy up like a sympathy orchestra...wait, what?
-
Easily the best Memphis studio match since at least the Lawler/Dundee Southern title switch, maybe the best ever as an isolated match without the big killer angle surrounding it. About 7 million near-falls, with the heel and babyface locker rooms emptying to watch and cheer. I like how early they started bringing people out, but didn't go for the predictable fuck finish--the ersatz lumberjacks stayed uninvolved until the end. It was kind of lame that after taking an axhandle to the floor, a big legdrop off the top, and other hot moves, that Jarrett went down to a simple trip, but you knew you weren't going to have ten guys surround a Memphis ring and not descend into a brawl. This edges out Kid vs. Sabu as the best non-Big Two U.S. match of the year, just because it was something unexpectedly epic.
-
This is the second emergency room visit for Sherri in a month. No Luna Vachon running in to attack her this time.
-
This starts slow and I'm actually wondering if Casas is either phoning it in or babying Jericho through the opening, but Chris acquits himself well the rest of the match. He's no lucha matwork whiz but he keeps up his end during the big 6-man clusters and throws in some good dives. Felino delivers possibly the most energetic wrestling performance I have ever seen--even his pre-match stretching is practically a gymnastics routine, and he throws himself into every move and bump he takes. Even plunging to the floor when trying to hop to the top rope, which definitely looked intentional. He and Ramirez match up really well together. In addition to Jericho, and possibly Ciclon as well, this was our first Yearbook look at Oro--and I can't help but feel a little sad. For his experience level he had all the makings of a huge star. This was fun, with star-making performances from the Casas brothers.
-
[1993-04-30-CMLL] Ultimo Dragoncito & Orito vs Felinito & Ultratumbita
PeteF3 replied to Loss's topic in April 1993
So are Ultratumbita and Espectrito the same guy, or just the same gimmick on two different guys? Some great dives here, but not much of a compelling storyline, and a rather flat finish. -
Hasn't Bockwinkel spoken well of Lawler? Maybe not to a GOAT level of praise, but AFAIK he's always spoken highly of his trips to Memphis.
-
Or at least have Sting confront the fake in the ring, with Windham selling shock or even doing a pratfall and allowing Sting to take him out before turning his attention to Sid. As it was actually executed, the crowd's confusion is palpable--they clearly bought the initial finish straight-up. Question from someone who hasn't seen them since their initial airing: are any of the Sting/Giant matches any good?
-
Keith's name isn't invoked by itself as much as it was, his format and tone tends to be used in the vast majority of show reviews I ever read: - Live from Anytown, USA. - Your hosts are Gordon Solie & Don West. - We open with a video package... - Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. The Great Khali. Rote match play-by-play followed by a few token thoughts and a star rating. Standard Keith-ian jokes sprinkled in. **1/2. Even if it's two or three times removed from the source, the style is unmistakable and it's still out there. And I agree that there's a tendency to rate matches before even watching them, just based on who the participants are.