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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    There have seemingly been as many Black Tigers as there have been Tiger Masks, and also a "Masked Tiger" in Michinoku Pro.
  2. PeteF3
    Pretty historic match, but not actually good. Konnan finishes off the first fall with one of the weakest-looking rollups ever, which is only exacerbated by the slomo replay. Caras takes advantage of a Jake the Snake distraction to open the second fall and wins that in short order. Another match that illustrates why it's sometimes completely pointless to have 2/3 fall matches. Jake is apparently upset with Caras for not properly following up when he has Konnan down and attacks him. Konnan selflessly makes the save for Caras, but in the process of brawling with Jake he gets counted out. Konnan's career is over--Match of the Year! Match of the Decade candidate! Yeah, this was a mess, but kind of a fun mess. Jake was as good as ever acting as ringside nuisance and clobbering everyone, including Mascarita Sagrada. This crowd is legitimately stunned and horrified at the result.
  3. PeteF3
    Yes, that was him. Shawn goes for the ultra-cheap heat right off the bat, referring to NYC as the armpit of the nation and making a March on Washington crack about two fans. That gets the crowd on his case big-time. Heenan: "They're chanting SHAWN IS GREAT!" God, nobody can make a save like the Brain. We get footage from WM9 of Shawn jumping Mr. Perfect in the back as Perfect was attempting to confront Lex Luger. Shawn mixes up Grover and Oscar in regards to which one lives in a trash can, and Mr. Perfect comes out to correct him. Good enough segment--Shawn is now officially a natural douche, a role that would stick with him the rest of his life.
  4. PeteF3
    If Ted DiBiase is on the high end of the introductory vignette spectrum, and Kona Crush is on the low end, then this...is certainly somewhere in-between.
  5. PeteF3
    For a guy with the rep of a perennial underachiever, Bam Bam has been in quite the groove in 1992 and '93. Bigelow goes all out on Bret's back and busts out his double underhook backbreaker among other fun offense. This is pretty much a clone of KOTR '93, with a lot of the same spots like Bigelow countering the back suplex and Sharpshooter, and the finish is the same. This was good, solid stuff--the kind that made those '92-'94 Coliseum Videos fun.
  6. PeteF3
    Angle of the Year so far...for now, of course. The opening is really great, with Cactus pulling out all sorts of stops to inflict pain on Vader, and the ending is spectacularly well-done. Tony and Jesse sell this great, and from what I've been told this is actually a shortened version of what went on in the theater. They even went to the trouble of forcing the fans to stay put so as not to impede the ambulance. The last several minutes, once Jesse leaves, are completely silent--no commentary at all, just a fadeout to the copyright notice as the ambulance pulls away. Yes, it was an over-the-top bump for Foley, but as I said, it was meant to actually ACCOMPLISH something, which is to humanize him. I'd say it succeeded, and it was that human element that made Foley such an endearing figure at the end of the decade, as opposed to some generic CZW mutant.
  7. PeteF3
    Foley's recount of this angle in his book is one of the high points. In WCW fashion, they went from not wanting to air the match at all, to censoring it and then asking Foley to make himself look like he did afterward for the next episode's taping, resulting in Foley having to drive to Center Stage while punching himself and rubbing his nose and eyebrows with sandpaper. Yes, that sounds like Foley wankery, but I think ultimately he was doing it for the right cause--at least from a wrestling/business standpoint. Jack talks of how his family felt seeing him come out of the hospital, and promises this will be the last time for him in the ring with Vader. Vader may want to destroy him, but Jack's been trying to do the same thing for his whole life and hasn't succeeded. This was all very effective at finally getting sympathy on Cactus--which was a problem for the first few months of his babyface run--while still making him out to be dangerous and creepy.
  8. PeteF3
    Tammy Fytch, of the famous New England Fytches, is a Wellesley College student going into wrestling because "big men who aren't too bright amuse me." After becoming a manager, Fytch promises to get into announcing and promoting, and thinks Bob Armstrong won't be around for long. Her personal life is SMH-worthy to say the least, but I really, really like this gimmick and already like Tammy's energy and chemistry with Caudle, even if she doesn't have the camera system down pat yet. I'm just going to enjoy this run. Whatever issues one may have with his political rants, Cornette has always had a much better handle on current events and the real world than almost any other promoter, and it especially shows in Smoky Mountain. This gimmick could probably even be brought back, but Tammy comes off as a real person here whereas a WWE revival would just be a cartoony, schoolmarm rehash of RTC-era Ivory.
  9. PeteF3
    Boy, could Bret have made that "knock me out when I cough" signal any more obvious? That brunch attack results in an official investigation from Jack Tunney's office, and we're let in on the metal plate and screws in his forearm as a result of the motorcycle accident. Because it's part of his anatomy, there's nothing Tunney's office can do about it! There have been remarks on the old-school booking of 1993 WWF, and this definitely has the feel of a southern wrasslin' angle, a la the Infernos' "orthopedic boot." Luger with his ridiculously poofy hair cuts a fun little smug promo about how life isn't fair. He looks like he's been on a three-day bender, not very Narcissistic at all. I don't know of many on PWO who consider Mean Gene to be a vital, integral part of their wrestling programming--I don't. But the quality dropoff of these Update segments from Okerlund to Gorilla is palpable.
  10. PeteF3
    Billy Joe Travis is back once again, a babyface backing Jeff Jarrett. Christopher's punches and offense look pretty good. This is a nice studio match when Simply Divine--Rex King & Steve Doll in their full Well Dunn get-up--attack Jarrett and Travis. The USWA is officially beginning to look like WWF Developmental, with Simply Divine and Jarrett soon to be making their way up North.
  11. PeteF3
    Lawler ribs Macklin over his pronunciation of Keiser, Arkansas then utilizes Dave Brown's meteorological expertise to determine if his softball game will be able to be played. Lawler promises to confront that "sea hag" Sensational Sherri if she shows up today.
  12. PeteF3
    Basically a Han showcase with a few token Nagai hope spots. Always fun to watch Han improvise like a jazz musician but I don't think this would be one of his high-end performances.
  13. PeteF3
    Slow start, but the pace picked up considerably at the end with a lot of fun double-teams and attempted double-teams and counters.
  14. PeteF3
    If I have the story right, "Garvin loses a retirement match and comes back to torment the winner as a referee" was something that was planned with Arn or Tully at some point and never came off. With Garvin floundering in the WWF, he was given the chance to take a release, get jobbed out, or pitch something--so he had that angle in his back pocket and saw a kindred spirit in Valentine who was also phasing down.
  15. PeteF3
    I can't believe Stu Saks is still with the magazine.
  16. PeteF3
    I'm not there yet, and I've got lots more to view. But right now I'm pretty close to fucking hating Ultimo Dragon, and at the very least I'm fairly sure he had no clue how to put together a match himself. I can take or leave Toryumon/T2P/Dragon's Gate and all that, but from what I've seen that detail seems to have seeped into his students in a major way. Dragon's matches on the Yearbooks are never about, "What's he going to do this time?" It always seems to be, "How is Liger, Casas, Eddy, or whoever going to drag something decent out of this guy?"
  17. PeteF3
    Funk is about to interview who I think is Hunter Q. Robbins III when he's clobbered by Eddie Gilbert with a chair. Funk returns the favor during a Gilbert interview later. Things would get crazier than this, but the hardcore element to ECW was pretty much pushed from the start.
  18. PeteF3
    Believe it or not I think this is Bret's first appearance on Raw. Footage from the WrestleMania brunch of Lex Luger knocking Bret out. Then he calls out Yokozuna and Hulk Hogan--yeah, between that, the "people's champion" talk, and the talk of Bret going after the title again, I think that's all fairly solid evidence that a Hogan/Bret match was in the cards. Bret drops his trademark catchphrase, which may well be another first--I don't recall that popping up regularly for another year or more.
  19. PeteF3
    A little disappointing and awfully one-sided in favor of Savage, as Lawler is mostly content to lie around and get beaten on. I still think Savage vs. Bret had way more legs as a WrestleMania main event than what we got, but that's without the benefit of knowing what Vince and Hogan's plans were regarding the Heavyweight title. How can a match not sanctioned by either the WWF or USWA have the Unified title on the line? Anyway, Sherri climbs the cage and interferes for a cheap DQ but does a great beatdown on Lawler afterward, until she accidentally clocks Randy and gets stripped to her underwear, complete with almost fully exposed boob, in the process of escaping the cage.
  20. PeteF3
    We get quick highlights of a Windham/Arn confrontation from Saturday Night, which I guess solidifies Arn's face turn on a national level. What a stiff, hard-nosed struggle of a match--every move feels like it's earned and this is as gritty as hell. Bill Watts would have loved it. Both guys tear apart the other's arm and Windham has to resort to eye rakes and punches, and it feels like something he has to do to keep the title rather than something he has to do because he's the heel. As brilliant as he was as His Lordship, some more babyface Regal would have been nice to see. It would have been interesting to see Regal vs. Benoit at this point, for instance, or Regal vs. Austin or Rude. Regardless this is probably the #3 or 4 WCW MOTY to this point, on the level of the best early-year tag bouts and just behind Vader/Sting and Benoit/Scorpio.
  21. PeteF3
    I've made no secret of my preference of that deliberate joshi pace and JWP in particular, and I still think the closing stretch here went too long. In fact, having forgotten about the "60m" graphic at the beginning, I thought they were SCREAMING time limit draw, and I confess that that took me out of the match completely. After about the 47th two-count, I thought "there's nothing more these two can do to each other" and was just counting the minutes until the bell rang. Kawada and Taue had just put on a clinic in how to work a time limit draw that had elements of suspense building to a surprise finish, and this wasn't it. In fact it was closer to that fucking interminable Toyota/Kong draw where the moves eventually lost all meaning. Then Bull dropped the somersault legdrop and got the 3-count, but it was too little and too late to undo how I was feeling down the closing stretch. I don't want to shit on this, because the pacing was good, and the selling and moves were all well-done and they did a good job of transitioning from stiff matwork to weapons and brawling and back and forth again. But this definitely needed ten minutes shaved off of it to even come close to MOTY contention. It wasn't nearly as bad as that Toyota/Kong match which I absolutely hated, and it's almost an insult to even bring that up as a comparison. But at best it reminded me of the first Shawn vs. Angle match which got GOAT or Greatest WrestleMania Match of All-Time consideration from some people, and simply had too much of a good thing in terms of false finishes for me to see it that way. It's too bad, because I could really have gotten behind a joshi match based on submission holds and rollups for credible near-falls. In some ways this is more of a match to be admired than loved.
  22. PeteF3
    Interesting perspectives here, with some comments coming before anyone had seen those Lynn/Kid matches. This is definitely closer to that end of the spectrum than an ROH-style spotfest, even with Sabu's presence. There is some sloppy stuff because hey, Sabu--Sabu going for the top-rope Frankensteiner and Kid spiking him with an attempted power bomb was a true holy shit moment. Kid makes a comeback with some tremendous dives and we get a bullshit finish with Sabu yanking the referee in front of a Kid dropkick. Kid was tremendous here as he was all throughout '90 and '91, lending some classic babyface shine-heat-comeback structure here in-between Sabu's spots, which still stand out as pretty crazy. As with the Lynn/Kid bouts, these are two guys who know how to hurt their opponent with stuff that happens to look spectacular, instead of doing stuff consciously designed to look spectacular. Honestly, I'm not sure there's a wrestler I'm more looking forward to seeing in the mid-to-late '90s than Sabu. Not because I think he's an all-time great or that he'll be in the running for any Most Outstanding Wrestler honors--but I do think he's a fascinating worker and his Hostile City Showdown match with RVD is a match I credit with converting me into a workrate geek (yes, I'm almost afraid to look at that match now). I've barely seen him since the mid-'90s, and now that I've come all the way around again into a "working smart, not hard" mentality, I'm particularly anxious to see how he holds up. I have to say this was an auspicious first look.
  23. PeteF3
    I fucking hate watching these matches with Ventura edited out. I was hoping to find an uncensored version with Jesse on commentary online, but no luck (I used to have a videotape of it, so it's out there). I'm not normally impressed by matches that just consist of one guy taking legit shots, but there's a bit more to that here. Cactus catching Vader in an avalanche and bodyslamming him was a cool spot, and Cactus' comebacks in general have more pep to them because of the beating we see him take. Yes, part of this is Foley jacking off, but at least it's still somewhat serving a larger purpose in telling the story.
  24. PeteF3
    Somehow I knew Cornette's talk of embarrassing the Rock 'n Rolls was going to lead to a tar and feathering. I feel vindicated, though Ricky sure does come across as dumb walking directly into Cornette's trap. Lots of talk about one of these teams leaving Smoky Mountain Wrestling, which I assume means that Stan Lane is not long for the in-ring wrestling world. Morton's promo is awesome, with some tremendously effective use of swear words.
  25. PeteF3
    One of the best WWF syndie matches of the Yearbooks, maybe the best. Nothing that will change the world but an effective sprint with some cool offense and bumping. Shame about the ending--I'm about 99% sure that was a legitimate knee injury, or an exacerbation of an existing knee injury, and we got robbed of one last Owen comeback.
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