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PeteF3

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  1. PeteF3
    Potential, REALISTIC choices for the Scorpion in my mind... Realistic means the Warrior is out. That leaves only one reasonable person from Sting's past who remotely fits the clues, and that's Eddie Gilbert. Considering he was a mid-card/JTTS guy for WCW before leaving, that would probably be an immediate anticlimax, especially if they continue to drag this out until Starrcade. That said, an earlier reveal with Gilbert being given a chance to cut loose on the mic could have saved this, as Eddie could sell any storyline. However, the other big negative in addition to Eddie's prior placement on the card is that Gilbert being thrust into a main event role would probably rub a lot of other people in the company the wrong way--and it was a matter of when, not if, Eddie got into a disagreement with Evil Jim Herd or somebody and wanted out again. So the other option is to pretend all those clues never happened, which with Flair is exactly what they did. Other people who were theoretically available or would be soon: - Terry Funk. Could have pulled it off, but you run the risk of rehashing a main event run with more of the same. Funk's run was great but I don't know if WCW fans were clamoring for more of him. - The Great Muta. I suspect more fans at the time would have wanted to see him back than Funk. - Rick Steamboat. My pet pick and one whose shock value would have been through the roof. I've never quite believed the idea that "fans wouldn't want to boo Ricky." Someone forgot to tell the '89 WCW audience that. And I think a worker as masterful as Steamboat was could have worked heel. I like the idea of Steamboat as a forgotten World Champion, vengeful that this upstart Sting was stealing the spotlight that should have belonged to him. - Dusty Rhodes. No way on earth would Dusty have agreed to turn heel at this point, and he couldn't step into the ring on anything more than a limited basis. But there's something appealing about Dusty playing the same role as Steamboat, cutting bitter promos in a Col. Kurtz/Kasper Gutman-style setting and sending a wave of heels after Sting. Honestly, the idea of Hansen basically taking over the gimmick is probably the best realistic one that I've heard. Stan really should have had that Havoc main event over Sid.
  2. PeteF3
    Without Boyd, we wouldn't get such penetrating insights like that he understands why they call him the Barbarian, or why they call him the Nightmare.
  3. PeteF3
    Hitchcock. Also immediately, definitively recognizable on sight, which I couldn't have done for any of the others until I was at least a teenager, and still couldn't right now for Hughes.
  4. PeteF3
    For the record, that's Kuniaki Kobayashi in there for Raging Staff, not Ohara. Anyway, this isn't at the level of the best NJPW/WAR matches but it's another fun as hell war among the mid-carders. Super Strong Machine has apparently defected to Team WAR and Raging Staff makes him pay for it, big time. Crowd is totally behind NJPW despite this being a WAR card, which I suppose isn't much of a sign for WAR's long term future. Saito always seems to end up in there with Hara, so two stiff fuckers can freely beat the shit out of each other. A well-timed thrown chair at Kitahara knocks him off the turnbuckle and allows Koshinaka to pick up the win (even if he seems to let go of the power bomb at 2). This continues to be the Feud of the Year, and maybe the most fun pro wrestling you'll ever see.
  5. PeteF3
    Hmm, have I ever seen Kandori before? ::does Yearbook forum search:: No. But it's an interpromotional match and that means a fucking war. And I have enough of the background to pick up on the message put across in the early going when Kandori tries to take Hokuto's arm, as they seem to deliberately call back to Hokuto's broken leg. I'm glad I've watched the joshi that I have going in, because it makes this one stand out more--this is essentially a longer '90s version of Magnum vs. Tully, in the primal way both women try to murder the other and the way each one sells fatigue and blood loss. Kandori reversing the tombstone and hitting Hokuto with one on the table was insane, and the moment was enhanced by the shot of the hole in the table. We go from war to something resembling a wrestling match towards the end, with two back-to-back awesome near-falls when Hokuto hits the Northern Lights Bomb, only for Kandori to kick out and hit her with her own move in response, for another hot kickout. Eventually we go back to warring as Hokuto just punches Kandori's lights out, which works because the opening portion showed us that Akira was capable of putting her down with just punches. I don't know if I loved this as much as the two big 1992 matches--the 2/3 falls tag and Liger-Samurai--but this is easily the 1993 MOTY to this point.
  6. PeteF3
    39.5 rotations on the giant swing. Yes, I went back and counted. This was really quickly paced without feeling overwhelming, as the multitude of near-falls were based around rollups and takedowns more than big moves. If anything I was prepared for this to go a little longer than it did. Excellent match, though. Ozaki, like Liger and the lucha Ninja Turtles, amazes me by being able to wrestle so smoothly in that outfit.
  7. PeteF3
    Not to keep harping on this but I don't like Bret wearing his ring gear to a contract signing (Yokozuna's different because real sumo wrestlers are in that kind of gear pretty much all the time). It's hard to explain but Hart getting pulverized while in a suit would have made this segment come off as much more chaotic, though it's a strong angle anyhow. They make a big deal about Bret standing up after taking the Banzai Drop. I wonder how much the rights fees cost to use "Respect," if the WWF even bothered with that. Awesome little tie-ins to the lyrics--Bret kissing the belt when Aretha talks about kisses sweeter than honey, and then clotheslining Ted DiBiase while she sings "...so is my money."
  8. PeteF3
    The cameras seem to be consciously trying to hide the Blonds' beltless waists, then out come Steamboat & Douglas with their tag titles. I get that Worldwide was syndicated and had varied air times, but come on. Pretty abbreviated match, as they go almost immediately to the FIP segment and almost immediately after that start teasing the hot tag cutoffs. Too short for the amount of talent and heatedness of the issues involved.
  9. PeteF3
    Payne is either in a wind tunnel or stuck his finger inside one of his amps before the cameras rolled.
  10. PeteF3
    Nothing to add, but the finish was indeed great.
  11. PeteF3
    Sullivan is basically immune from Bob Armstrong's fines, as his followers keep coming up with the money to cover for them. Brilliant. Armstrong segues into the 3-way, 9-man elimination Smoky Mountain Showdown at Bluegrass Brawl. Arn promises pain, and brings the Stud Stable into things. "The life you save, may be your own."
  12. PeteF3
    This particular psychiatric evaluation will be performed by Dr. Dutch Mantell, in an empty dark arena with both men holding flashlights in front of their faces. The idea is a low-rent Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal: Brian Lee rolls a die, with each result corresponding to a different gimmick match. Clever stuff, with all the matches described by Sullivan, who ends it by describing the Lee's Choice stipulation by repeatedly screaming, "WHAT KIND OF CHOICE DOES HE HAVE?! WHAT KIND OF CHOICE DOES HE HAVE?!" Back-to-back examples of two guys used way better in Smoky Mountain than they ever were in the Big Two.
  13. PeteF3
    Anthony cuts a promo from "Central Park," with a peacemaker to frighten off any potential muggers. Great southern-fried promo--any promo hyping a gimmick match by making use of the gimmick itself is automatically good.
  14. PeteF3
    Fuck the Douglas hate. I don't like him either but he's been better than solid in all of these, and he was very good as Ricky Morton here. Steamboat and Douglas provided some cool double-teams and good offense in general, while the Blonds did some fun cheating while also coming off as tough asskickers, bringing more to the table than just Memphis stall-o-rama. The use of the towel was pretty ingenious and Pillman was a fucking beast working the crowd from the apron--he's finally come into his own as a heel. Steamboat at one point gets clotheslined off the apron by Pillman and takes what appears to be an absolutely hellacious bump to the floor--Cactus Jack-worthy, even if we didn't see him hit. Really hot finish with some twists in the tag formula, before Austin whacks Steamboat with a title belt and the championship goes to the Blonds. I don't know if it was as good as the Clash but I was getting way into this, not remembering if this was the title change or not.
  15. PeteF3
    Stalljob special with Christopher whining, cheating, and stooging. Lawler's about to pick up the victory when he's attacked by MO AND MABEL--but here they're Nelson and Bobby, the Harlem Knights. Mabel does a second-rope splash, which is a pretty impressive spot. He had the look and athletic skills to be a legitimate sensation, but he was sunk by a.) being dangerous as all hell to his opponents, b.) a dumb WWF gimmick with one of the worst ring names ever, and c.) the death of the territory system where he could have been a traveling attraction.
  16. PeteF3
    Pure WWF style promo for Memphis television. Michaels makes sure to chew his gum as loudly as possible just to take this over the top.
  17. PeteF3
    Legitimately good promo from Duggan, manufacturing an All-American 2x4 from All-American wood, so he can take it to Yokazuma. I don't get all the bitching about jobbing out Steve Austin to this guy--with the fire and love for his country he showed here in this comeback, the United States championship was the only logical conclusion to the story.
  18. PeteF3
    "ARE YOU READY...FOR THE SURVIVOR SERIES!" Wait, what?? Loved Papa Shango getting a featured spot in the opening portion, because sparkles or something. There are odd choices throughout as to which wrestlers to feature. I guess they figured Boss Man would be back.
  19. PeteF3
    The elbow is now officially marked as a Death Move, which makes this finish a lot less anticlimactic one than the Hansen title change. Note Fukuzawa invoking the names of Hansen and Gordy when Misawa hits it. Anyway, this wasn't quite as good as 10/92 but a very fun match, with the two really working as adversaries even if the split hadn't been finalized yet. Kawada was put over well in defeat--Misawa hitting the tiger driver in the first minute came off as a desperation move, and he got one last comeback when he first looked left for dead.
  20. PeteF3
    I thought this was the least of the heavyweight interpromotional matches, but still fun. Loved Team NJPW suckering Tenryu in at the start, resulting in Fujinami blindsiding him and leveling him with a big flurry of his trademark offense. After that I thought Fujinami dragged this down a lot when he was in, but the teases for the dragon suplex were good and the heat of course was tremendous. Holy shit, Ishikawa pins Fujinami! They teased us with that once with Choshu having to make the save, then doubled back and tricked us again by paying off the tease in the same match. I don't know if that explains it well, but it was really cleverly done. There's probably a lot more that can be written about how the promotions in Japan have treated interpromotional matches and stars as compared to the U.S. Stan Hansen jumped ship in the middle of a full-blown promotional war, and he was treated like the bombshell that he was instead of having to take weeks to "learn the All-Japan style" and know his place in the locker room. It's even more striking with this feud--WAR is a minor league outfit all the way, yet they've been allowed to show more in these few months than WCW did during the entire Invasion.
  21. PeteF3

    DISC 1

    PeteF3 replied to soup23's topic in 1980s Lucha

    I'm a little Yearbooked out, so I'm going to switch gears for awhile and play catch-up. I watched match 1 several weeks ago and 2-4 just now. Some of these comments may be useless without the context of the '80s DVDVR threads, but oh well. Satoru Sayama y Gran Hamada vs. Perro Aguayo y Babe Face (4/13/80) Good start that seems very "traditional" pro wrestling-style as opposed to lucha, which makes for a good gateway with new/inexperienced lucha watchers. Hamada shows some great fire here in-between some dazzling sequences, and this is centered on a developing feud with Aguayo. Babe and Sayama look good too but this is Hamada and Aguayo's match. Finish could be seen as cheap but it was a great, great low blow, and seemed like a natural conclusion to the escalating violence throughout the match. 7/10 Andre the Giant y Cien Caras vs. Alfonso Dantes, Herodes, y Sangre Chicana (1981) Match went too long for my tastes, but there were some fun Andre spots here even if they were fairly standard ones. It's cool to see what a truly worldwide sensation Andre was in the '80s, since he did these shots in Mexico and Europe that other top stars didn't. This also has the bizarre (to me, at least) sight of Cien Caras working babyface. His calling was clearly that of an asskicking heel, but that was certainly novel while it lasted. I don't foresee this escaping the bottom 25. Maybe bottom 10 if the rest of the set is strong enough. 3.7/10 Centurion Negro vs. Gran Hamada Okay, I liked this a ton. Along with the big NJPW multi-man tags and well-done big vs. little matches, I think lucha title bouts are now my favorite type of wrestling match. Centurion Negro becomes the first of what I'm sure will be multiple guys who will go from "who?" to "this guy's fucking awesome" by the time the set's done. He looks like a great mat wrestler here and he sets up Hamada's flying spots beautifully while throwing in some highspots of his own. Some really good close near-falls close out the third fall before Hamada takes the UWA Middleweight title. This is easily the best of the first 3 matches. 8.4/10 Canek vs. Don Corleone I'm middle of the pack on this. It did drag and Canek's offense wasn't that good, and that delayed turnbuckle bump was indeed comical. But Corleone's work looked good, both working holds, unleashing big moves, and selling Canek's weak-ass offense. Even Canek's tope didn't seem all that painful. I liked Canek quite a bit in New Japan--he and Blackman were about the only two Mexicans to get a good match out of Tiger Mask, and he had some killer bouts with Fujinami that I hope the next bout lives up to. I didn't hate him in this as much as Will did, but he didn't give a performance befitting of a Heavyweight champion here. And as much as I liked Corleone here, he looked better in the NJPW match against Fujinami. 6.1/10
  22. PeteF3
    Cindy Crawford! Leslie Neilsen! Susan Lucci! Eli Wallach! Sean Mooney! "When it comes to helping kids, no superstar has a bigger appetite than Hulk Hogan!" Hulk then CUTS A PROMO on children's leukemia. His biggest body part is his HEART. Which is just as big in every other WWF superstar. Yeah, on some level this is a nice effort but on another level this is pretty blatant pandering and ego-stroking. Brian Knobbs informs us that despite being as Nasty as they wanna be, smoking makes you not cool and a jerk. Some more incredibly generic "just say no" messages follow. A still shot of Vince has a caption acknowledging him as the WWF's CEO, which is probably a first for actual WWF television. SMILES ON FACES. I'm completely serious when I say that if I'd been a terminally ill child, my "Make-a-Wish" would have been to make a TV appearance with a babyface and have it used as a set-up for a dastardly heel act. Actually it would have been less like a "wish" and more like a demand. There had to be other young wrestling fans who felt the same way. The Andre video is a million times better. Lots of familiar images--blocking out Alfred Hayes' entire face with his hand, holding four women up, pouring champagne over Hogan, and of course choking Bob Uecker. Was the WWF Hall of Fame something initially cooked up to pay tribute to Andre or was it something in the works already?
  23. PeteF3
    Kind of an interesting story with Malenko constantly going to the anklelock, and his screaming "GET UP!" at Liger was amusing in hindsight considering Dean's subsequent persona. But this is definitely not going to finish high on a list of All-Time IWGP Jr. Title matches.
  24. PeteF3
    It didn't, which is too bad. Jim Cornette's sell of that is terrific, and he drops a priceless line before taking the hood off, about how the rednecks in the audience were probably used to seeing people walking around in white sheets! Arn proceeded to call out Eaton for abandoning him while he was hurt in favor of the Bodies, while acknowledging that he didn't like Ricky & Robert either. Here, Arn lays it down regarding the previous attack on Kanemura, which is awesome. Arn's heart is on vacation, and he's here to do to Cornette & the Bodies what they've been doing to everyone else, and it may mean repeating what happened with Kanemura. Standard killer promo from Anderson. Ricky and Robert stand nearby.
  25. PeteF3
    Really, uncomfortably sick. Not as good of a presentation as the butchering of Brian Lee, but they actually work a semi-match out of it with Kanemura even getting a comeback. Sullivan pulls a spike out of nowhere in a really well-done spot and goes to town on Kanemura's arm, after already busting him open to start. The big red "X" makes an appearance! Nightstalker is at ringside cutting people off with a chair, until Brian Lee takes him out and rescues Mr. Yamaguchi. Caudle & Dutch are excellent here, by the way, letting us in on the story of Victor Quinones talking about banning Sullivan from Japan and Mexico, hence Sullivan's attack.
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