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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    There are people ready to graduate college who have no personal recollection of Lawler before he was in the WWF, much less how incredible this development really was at the time.
  2. PeteF3
    Rude was working hurt here, missing a bunch of house shows (presumably WCW paid him anyway) as well as Starrcade, and it showed. He doesn't do much at all and Simmons is not a guy to carry somebody in that condition. Naturally Sting and Vader work circles around them, though Vader has a good little sequence with Simmons as well when Ron gets the hot tag. Neat ending, as Rude hits a still-illegal kneedrop off the top to Simmons' throat to set up a Rude Awakening for the upset pinfall. I know Watts was all about having his top babyfaces do jobs but this is probably a major sign that Simmons as World Champion was not long for this world.
  3. PeteF3
    Cornette does not want to get into the ring for a 3-on-2 handicap match, because he's petrified of hurting the Rock 'n Roll Express. He's also incensed about the Bodies being signed to defend their tag titles against the Stud Stable, but Jim feels he can call that match off now that they no longer have the belts. But Fuller & Golden are eager to have a #1 contenders bout. Lane does a great job of being a duplicitous, passive-aggressive asskisser, congratulating the Studs for their "small time local" success as opposed to the Bodies' national exposure. Funny stuff. Dutch's association with the Stud Stable is spelled out for the first time on this Yearbook. Not much more entertaining than six heels all gladhanding each other and talking up sportsmanship.
  4. PeteF3
    This concept could have been submitted for McMahon's approval during the insane Lex Express push and Vince would have said, "Get the fuck outta here."
  5. PeteF3
    Great point about the use of Koko--he calls out Lawler, but praises Jarrett. And, hey, he's a WWF employee still--he's just being a company man. Then he gives Prentice & Samples the brush-off when they come out. A great back-and-forth follows that Memphis does better than everybody. Ware stands up for himself quite well against a guy who's capable of smothering you if you can't keep up on the stick.
  6. PeteF3
    Check out Super WrestleMania, available for the FIRST TIME EVER on Genesis! Don't pay too close attention to the character on the apron! (It's the Warrior). A rundown of Bret's title defenses that's effective at both putting over Bret's hard work as well as how weak the WWF roster was once you get past Flair and Razor. Flair cuts a promo from a restaurant, and for once in a WWF setting Flair gets to be low-key, and he's as great as you'd expect. Flair going for the direct cheap heat on Saskatoon was out of character but I found it amusing. Stuff from Mr. Perfect's introductory vignettes from '88 follows. For a guy who's gimmick is doing things "perfectly," his basketball shooting technique is laughable.
  7. PeteF3
    For me this was like watching the '80s Other Japan set all over again. That's not a good thing.
  8. PeteF3
    This is sort of an anticlimax before it even starts. The Super Generation Army #2 man just pinned Dr. Death, are we really expecting either one of them to do a job here? I know this isn't a true "final" but it seems like they didn't want to change up the booking too much after Jumbo went down, because a Generation Army/MVC "final" seems to be the only logical option. The match itself is still quite good and Akiyama acquits himself amazingly well considering his talent level. Having Taue level Misawa with the nodowa and then the nodowa/backdrop double-team was a great way to get Jun some credible hot near-falls on Misawa, but of course we get the inevitable (and correct) result.
  9. PeteF3
    Crazy match, with Hotta standing out. Not that she was necessarily the best worker but she was clearly positioned in the Jumbo role as the #1 woman, and the match centered around that as well as the veteran-youngster dynamic that was clear even to a joshi noob such as myself. The near-falls are awesome and the finish is pretty awesomely decisive. Bring on more of these interpromotional matches, both for the men and women.
  10. PeteF3
    Decent match that got better down the stretch. They were clearly working "lighter" than usual as they built a usual '90s AJPW match without ever really going to the big bombs, aside from Doc's powerslam off the turnbuckles. The MVCs still have a propensity to lay around while working on top. HUGE surprise finish with Kawada pinning Doc for what has to be his biggest victory to date. Fun to see these guys starting to get elevated more rapidly now that Jumbo is gone.
  11. PeteF3
    A clever twist on the ether finish but I'm still not crazy about all these screwy interference-laden finishes, particularly in a barbed wire cage where Cornette really shouldn't be involved at all. One of the biggest creative flaws Cornette had in SMW was his propensity to kill off pretty much every gimmick or stipulation match he booked.
  12. PeteF3
    No way it's ****1/2 but I'd easily put this up against any Moondogs match from this year. And it's the best Smoky Mountain match of the year, hands down. Great chaotic action and some cool payback stuff involving the table. Cornette's involved a lot, yes, but he comes off as a guy picking his spots and being overmatched when he's not doing that, rather than a Shane McMahon wrestling cosplayer type.
  13. PeteF3
    The overreliance on screwy finishes in SMW is at hand here. I also wasn't a fan of only having one referee in a tornado-style falls-count-anywhere match. These are the little details that Bill Watts would have been all over. And after that sterling backstage promo from Cornette it's a little disappointing to see the match types all changed around. Does that ten-fall Texas Death Match exist anywhere?
  14. PeteF3
    Quite a bit of good action to fill out a 4-and-a-half minute video, considering they haven't been in Smoky Mountain for all that long.
  15. PeteF3
    Sullivan paraphrases Pogo in calling out Bob Armstrong for shaking hands with his enemy the Mongolian Stomper. Yes, this is the absolute best that Sullivan has been since his Devil-worshipping Florida heyday, and will probably hold up as his artistic high point going forward as well.
  16. PeteF3
    Heated promo from Ric & Razor in an unusual setting for the WWF at the time. Slick is at a pulpit with some stained glass green-screened behind him. Hadn't he been Rev. Slick for most of the year at this point? They're talking up his "new attitude" again and how he's "back." The usage of Slick would just get classier and classier from this point forward.
  17. PeteF3
    Decent opening, hot finish, shitty middle. Shawn is very good at transitions and cut-offs but, as would be the case for the rest of his career, so-so at best when in control. There are some clever spots here and some good near-falls before a surprisingly clean finish, but overall this isn't a high point for either guy.
  18. PeteF3
    Well, it's certainly no lucha MOTYC but I thought this was pretty fucking awesome, about on par with Fiera vs. Tiger Mask and better than any other Fiera appearance in the early '90s. Dandy is such a terrific sympathetic babyface because God knows he wasn't a master of enough styles already, and I completely bought the Northern Lights suplex as a big comeback move to even the falls. Yet another Dandy hair match ends in controversy, as Fiera tries to steal a win with the ropes, but Dandy counters and grabs the ropes himself. This time there's no Atlantis to plead anybody's case, so the decision stands. Start of a rudo turn for Dandy or just a typical poetic-justice finish for the heel? I guess we'll find out in '93.
  19. PeteF3
    Dr. Death turned heel and joined the Varsity Club via a locker room promo from Japan.
  20. PeteF3
    It'd have to be something that cost a ton of money and failed right out the gate. ...and did huge damage to the business as a whole (when OJ talks about auteurs being to blame for their own Hollywood demise, this movie served as the breaking point). That's why I'm tempted to go with '87 Crockett over SWS, which was sort off in its own isolated world and ended up being a blessing in disguise for All-Japan, despite being a money pit.
  21. PeteF3
    Who or what is the Heaven's Gate of wrestling? Post-UWF buyout Crockett?
  22. PeteF3
    Russo actually has four ideas. Shoots, misogyny, swerves, and blatantly lifting shit from TV and movies: Natural Born Killers for Flair/Crowbar/Daffney, Saturday Night Live for Kwee Wee, and this Daffney/Crowbar/lookalike thing I only vaguely remember, but from the description here it was clearly lifted letter-for-letter from an episode of Frasier.
  23. PeteF3
    Loss summed up perfectly why they had to slow things down and work basic here--I had eerily similar thoughts as I was watching. It greatly stands out in contrast to what was going on in AJPW in the early '90s but it would have seemed even more incongruous to go balls-to-the-wall only when Baba was on the apron and slow things down otherwise. I think AJPW was better off for when matches could still be worked this way instead of requiring every big match to be a bomb-throwing fest. But, oh, we do get a bit of that down the stretch, as the stuff with Kawada trying to put Kobashi away was great fun. I admit I got taken in a bit by the result, as I had this pegged as a draw despite Kobashi being the obvious sacrificial lamb here. I still think I liked the '93 match better, but it's not a fair comparison since I don't think that exists in full and we got some opening matwork here that verges on the slow side.
  24. PeteF3
    Kim Chee makes a rare speaking appearance in a little Coliseum Video cameo with Wippleman and Kamala. Michaels' interview is stronger than Bret's, which surprises me quite a bit. Not one of Bret's better efforts on the stick. There's nothing technically wrong with this match at all, but man is it dull at points. This is pretty much the American equivalent to the Hansen/Misawa title change. And the main issue is that Shawn just isn't compelling working on top, an issue that would plague him for the rest of his career. So we get a lot of chinlock- and facelockery, none of which is worked all that well. I do give them credit for never losing the crowd--no one was seen filing out of the Coliseum and there were "LET'S GO BRET" chants towards the end. The WWF fans that remained were apparently buying this guy as a Heavyweight champion. And there were some downright excellent transitions and cut-offs, like Shawn cutting Bret off with the superkick and Bret taking a cool-looking bump getting tangled in the ropes. Since a number of these were Bret trademarks like slamming chest-first into the turnbuckle, I attribute most of these to him. This turned into a decent match but it didn't live up to expectations.
  25. PeteF3
    Hey now--Kong vs. Hotta where Kong tears up Hotta's hand was the second puro match I ever saw, way back in 1995, and I thought it was awesome. I was never a "hater."
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