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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    One thing that absolutely cannot be denied: the man is what he says he is.
  2. PeteF3
    Well, somebody obviously rented Willard (the original) or saw it in a hotel room. They decided to rip off the Undertaker, but Nate evidently couldn't decide if he wanted to be a Paul Bearer wannabe or a Brother Love wannabe, so he splits the difference and acts like a rat-loving amalgamation of both.
  3. PeteF3
    Spirit of America represents the good ol' US of A by picking up trash. In-between heckling from Eric Embry he exhorts all of us to come out on a Saturday and Sunday to see how fun trash pick-up can be. Because nothing is more patriotic than court-appointed community service--come to think of it, that could have been one of the penances Sgt. Slaughter could have paid instead of going sightseeing. Embry unloads a trash can out of spite. Spirit tells us that Embry is the kind of trash he's here to clean up, and the sadness in his eyes is palpable. WCW wishes their marketing failures could be this spectacular.
  4. PeteF3
    Has Vince viewed any interview segment in the history of the company as anything less than "most interesting"? Hogan is quickly weirded out upon entering the set and seeing his personalized casket. Nothing inside that except a Hulk poster, but before he can check the stand-up casket, here's Ric Flair out for a face-to-face confrontation. Regardless of what one might think of Hulk's mic skills, it's incredibly, incredibly difficult for any other performer to overshadow him in a segment, but Ric shows himself to be the Man here. Everything he says resonates and Hogan's response, even accounting that it's delivered with Undertaker sneaking up behind him, comes off as inconsequential. The WWF can be shameless and manipulative as can be seen in the previous Slaughter segment, but this illustrates what they do better than any other promotion you can imagine. Just an abundance of great images: Flair and Hogan face-to-face, UT coming from behind and the crowd screaming, Flair holding up both titles, Undertaker facing two men with chairs and standing tall, Undertaker yanking on Hogan's crucifix necklace and then dropping it like it's acid, and the cross laying on Hogan's prone body.
  5. PeteF3
    "The people must speak for themselves," says Slaughter SECONDS before calling the students to attention and they respond like Pavlovian automatons. That bit of hilarious irony does not come close to making up for these segments. The kids mob Slaughter and this is as sickeningly pandering as any wrestling segment I've ever seen. Like I've said, they could have pulled off a Slaughter babyface turn, but he had to show some genuine penance--take a fireball from Adnan, or sacrifice himself to take a chairshot meant for Jim Duggan, or something. Taking a month-long break to visit a bunch of monuments doesn't cut it.
  6. PeteF3
    Yep, my first exact thought was "This was a USWA-TX special." There is some good work here, from Morton's offense to Taylor's trash talking, to the abject fear of all three of the York Foundation at being separated from their precious computer. Even York makes herself useful at ringside, constantly badgering ring crew member Gordon Nelson for the key. Still, it's a waste to run a cage match on a syndie B-show and there's no heat for it at all. A somewhat disappointing end, if that's what it is, to this series and to the York Foundation in general. They take the loss but lay out the babyfaces afterward and only then does the cage truly come into play as a weapon.
  7. PeteF3
    Another great showcase performance from Hansen, as his relentless assault really forces Misawa and Kawada out of their comfort zone and they have to fight for their lives. And Spivey actually pulls his weight here, too. This is the best organized-chaos All-Japan brawl since the Kawada/Taue 1/15 match, with Misawa getting in what comes across as a fluke 3-count with what's normally a mid-range move. This is another hollow-feeling victory for a tag team in Japan, a point that Hansen makes physically after the match. But needless to say it's a far, far better match than the joshi bout.
  8. PeteF3
    Sloppy as all get-out, with nothing really mattering all that much in terms of any story being told. There were certainly some nifty double-team moves never seen before, even if a few were better-looking on the drawing board than in execution. Totally agree on the hollowness of the victory--by all rights, Inoue was dead save for a few (blown and late) pin saves. Their finisher was certainly quite finisher-worthy, at least. Pity Hokuto's shoulder was clearly up. Joshi is clearly a "big picture" style, for the most part, and thinking about the little details too much--no rules to speak of, refereeing and counting that doesn't come close to resembling even an illusion of actual officiating--will only make your head hurt. There must have been 3 or 4 separate occasions where a team clearly got a fall and the match ended on what clearly was not a fall. MLB umpires could take note.
  9. PeteF3
    Not recalling the passage from the book, I guess there was a miscommunication towards the end where it looked like Flair called for a rolling reverse cradle and it didn't come, and Flair got sent over the ropes quickly afterward. It was covered very well by both men, in any case. This is Flair-by-numbers but in the WWF that's a refreshing sight--even in an odd role as Intercontinental title challenger, it may well be the closest WWF equivalent to Flair as the traveling champ. You could take this match and run it in Stampede in 1984, just swapping out Perfect for JR Foley or someone to set up future grudge matches.
  10. PeteF3
    Even in 1991 Miss York had the technical foresight to keep her wrestler data on a VPN rather than risk damage on one internal hard drive. That or the laptop is a mere security blanket or placebo. I put way too much thought into this--I think I'm to the York Foundation gimmick what JVK is to IRS. Except IRS never had a performance as good as any of the six guys in this match--including Josh, and including Zenk. The YF provides some good offense and there's some nice fired-up babyface responses, especially from Dustin. Good finish as Rich is accidentally tagged with the computer by Taylor, but Josh checks on him rather than covers him, and Taylor gets another swing and Rich capitalizes for the pin. Rich gets busted open, which in and of itself is far from unusual but in 1991 I feel like we should be documenting all instances of blood on Big Two programming. There's actually a lot more of it than I remember.
  11. PeteF3
    Good stiff-fest, but this still comes off as Tenryu slumming it, even against his old partner. His staying would have changed things in all sorts of ways but all these matches really do is make me want to see Tenryu work Misawa or Kawada in a competitive match. It does have me looking forward to the Hogan match, though. Other than Tenryu heaving that giant trophy the post-match attack is about 1/50 as cool or intense as your typical Memphis beatdown.
  12. PeteF3
    Luger does project "arrogant douchebag" very well, and the impromptu match is fairly hot. Rick takes out Luger, Hughes, and Race in successive fashion before forcing the referee into counting a pin. An interview with Ross follows as Rick displays the value of a University of Michigan education. As a way to quickly thrust Rick into an unlikely title match this was good for what it was, but Rick seems less prepared for a World title match than Scott was earlier in the year.
  13. PeteF3
    Good interview from Lawler making some sense out of a few disparate angles, none of which are all that heated on their own. First they tease a Unified title encounter between Lawler and Jarrett, which sounds promising. Then Lawler talks about his art skills and ties it into Billy Joe Travis' "Super Team," consisting of Jeff Gaylord and "this other goof." They'll be facing Lawler & Dundee Monday night. More community bulletin board material closes things out.
  14. PeteF3
    Really classic WCW syndie feel to this one, complete with a backstage promo from Embry, some good time given to the match, and an actual finish. Prichard is in the middle of a good comeback when he's tripped by Tony Falk, and that allows Embry to get in a DDT to regain the Southern belt. They make a big deal about how this is each man's ticket to the #1 contendership for the Unified World title, so maybe this is FINALLY setting up a big Lawler/Embry showdown. However, the name-dropping of Kamala in the pre-match promo has me a little pessimistic.
  15. PeteF3
    Neidhart had just taken a submission loss to Ric Flair and is being helped to the back. He gets in the Beverly Brothers' way, so they take out his knee further. This knocked Neidhart out of Survivor Series and allowed them put Sgt. Slaughter in, and I would assume also served to set up the New Foundation.
  16. PeteF3
    I'd like a month off of work to visit various historical sites like Sarge is getting.
  17. PeteF3
    I like the '88 match a great deal. This wasn't nearly as good--the first ten minutes are pretty much a waste and has the feel of a time limit draw, but they did sprinkle in some really great stuff afterward. I loved Backlund getting pissed and eating one too many Takada kicks, taking him down, and absolutely forearm-ing the shit out of him. He also threw some nice suplexes. I could be reading more into the finish than I should, but when Backlund hit the German it looked like he was bridging for a pro-wrestling-style pin attempt, which is what allowed Takada to counter into the kimura. If that was intentional it was really clever. Other than a few kicks Takada didn't have a lot to offer in this.
  18. PeteF3
    Man did UWFI have some bizarrely random foreigners. I keep expecting to see Bob Cook get signed by the company for his boxing skills. He seems to have a clue what he's doing, but that's about it. Point is taken about tag shootstyle--it seems the most enjoyable matches inevitably involve Vader and/or Albright or the NJPW guys. The same was true of the UWF, which needed the Brits as a change of pace. That said, Tamura works a pretty good FIP segment and his little exchange of near-submissions with Boss is a turning point where this match gets pretty good.
  19. PeteF3
    Rick definitely shows some of his asshole tendencies here, but part of it also comes across as just plain heeling, like his taunting of Hase in the midst of his brutalization of Muto. Muto takes at least two absolutely insane bumps, though it's hard to tell which of Muto or Steiner is more reckless--there's the belly-to-belly on the floor where it looks like Muto's head clips the guardrail, and the Vader-on-Inoki-level German suplex. Norton throws in a few good power spots and cut-offs but is still Scott Norton and there's just so much excitement that he can bring to the table. All that said, I got sucked into this by the end, as Rick in particular really did come off as an asshole bully who didn't seem like he could be stopped, and it really looked like they were going to methodically pound Muto into defeat just as Choshu did. So when Muto counters the powerslam and gets another hot tag, and Hase almost immediately gets cut off in a very well-done spot, and then counters the Steinerline in an even better spot, and then gets the PIN(!!) on Rick...yeah, they earned that big pop. I don't know if Rick attempting the same finishing stretch as Choshu did was intentional or not but it comes off as pretty great storytelling either way. Hase looks great and it's hard to envision Muto getting unseated as WOTY at this point.
  20. PeteF3
    Choshu sort of methodically chops Hashimoto down at the end. I liked that he saw Hash's standard spinning heel kick counter coming, but I was expecting another Hashimoto comeback that never came. This was certainly a big, heated match but a dull opening keeps this from being a great one.
  21. PeteF3
    Tendoo? Tenju? "Fondue"--ha. "You no comprende, amigo-san?" Heenan's comments are cheap as all fuck but still funny. Heenan points out that the 56,000 people in the Egg Dome gave Hogan & Tenryu a standing ovation, but you couldn't tell. "SWS" is mentioned--well then, there it is: the first mention since expansion of another organization by name, beating Smoky Mountain Wrestling by nearly two solid years. Heenan gets his cup of rice dumped on his head. Tenryu must have been thrilled to fly halfway around the world for this. He probably got a nice tax write-off out of it, if nothing else.
  22. PeteF3
    Fun little match all around. The York Foundation's transition onto offense on Dustin is some classic heeling, as is Rich attempting to make nice with and then double-cross Big Josh (continuity!). Morton and Rich in particular are absolute masters, considering how much money they'd made as babyfaces.
  23. PeteF3
    When was it decided that Hogan would go on hiatus after WM8? I wonder to what extent that affected the booking--better to rush Flair/Hogan than to risk not being able to book it at all.
  24. PeteF3
    Maybe if Sarge wants his country back he should consider seeing a therapist, getting some self-help books, and reaching out to his old military cohorts instead of walking around reciting tour guide spiels. I can't believe there was actually some promise in this angle at one point.
  25. PeteF3
    This is about as early-'90s as any commercial could possibly get.
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