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PeteF3

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  1. PeteF3
    What do I have to add besides "MOTY"? That's where this is sitting now and where it's likely to stay. Fuchi did jump out at me as having his standout performance out of any any of these Misawa Army vs. Jumbo Army matches, and Kobashi went through possibly the most agonizing FIP segment in wrestling history. Great payoff at the end, with Kawada getting payback for all those Taue cheapshots with the move that's become Taue's Achilles heel and Kawada's go-to weapon for the first half of this year. Misawa gets the pinfall but it really feels like Kawada got the victory.
  2. PeteF3
    I think those ESPN standards & practices have struck again. This is worked well but what an absurd cheapass copout finish. Jarrett managing to beat Prichard to the 4th buckle wouldn't have hurt Dr. Tom in the least. The post-match beatdown is well done but isn't really anything we haven't already seen before.
  3. PeteF3
    The closing stretch was a bit more of a mess than I recall, but this is definitely a match that sticks with you just because the feel is so different from a typical AJPW match of the era, with a long FIP segment on Hansen of all people and the stuff revolving around the missed tag.
  4. PeteF3
    I admit they were close to losing me during the long surfboardery in the middle, though part of that is trying to split attention between the NCAA tournament and the Yearbook. It was enough to make me question if this was better than their '88 match. But goddamn what a closing stretch that was. Misawa's elbow is now getting major play as a potential one-shot finish, which will pay off later in the year. It doesn't finish Jumbo off in this case but Misawa goes from being dead in the water to being in control thanks to one huracanrana and one elbow to the face. We get big moves and flash pin attempts, plus one last little gasp from Misawa that only serves to piss Jumbo off, before Tsuruta reasserts himself as the Man. Not a MOTY, I don't think, but not far off.
  5. PeteF3
    Blood, a ref bump, AND a countout?? With what's to come in the tag title match later on, it's like AJPW stepped into a booking time warp. Not a complaint, just an observation. I really like the arm work in the middle portion here, with a bunch of "near-falls" based around submissions rather than 2.9 wrestling. It's yet another out-of-the-box element for AJPW at this time and is a strong point of difference compared to their January match. Kawada is able to weather a power bomb on the floor, but a Golden Arm Bomber on the same does him in. Still not a fan of Taue's finish at this point and while I get the idea, the power bomb on the floor looked far more devastating.
  6. PeteF3
    Yeah, if this is like the 3rd or 4th best match on a card, that's one hell of a card. Kobashi picks up yet another decent-sized win.
  7. PeteF3
    I actually think the '90 match was a tad better. This had a very hot crowd by Center Stage standards but that audience was absolutely nuclear. I had less of a problem with the bullshit finish being a bullshit finish, and more with the fact that Arn is out acting as Flair's errand boy again right after declaring that he was his own man. That's pretty bad quality control on somebody's part. But the body of the match was pure gold.
  8. PeteF3
    Arn joins Barry in expressing desire to be his own man and making his own opportunities. With Sid pretty close to being gone maybe they felt the time was right to, as Arn would say later, let it be.
  9. PeteF3
    I think the proposed "Wings" tag team of Owen & Pillman could have gone places. Owen looks good here, but unspectacular, and he clearly doesn't have Pillman's fire. He's more about crisp execution, like his older brother, than the high-flying that Pillman and the announcers were hyping up.
  10. PeteF3
    Good promo even though I'm hardly in the mood to be sitting back and enjoying Ric Flair right now.
  11. PeteF3
    That guy's arms are smaller than mine--clearly not a wrestler, which makes the second-rope piledriver all the more insane. Embry has been on a major roll these past few weeks, and they've done as great a job as possible of compensating for the loss of Lawler with as many hot programs as possible. I could have done without Gilbert's Chef Boyardee line, which fit into this promo and angle about as well as Cowabunga's reaction to Gilbert hitting Lawler with the car.
  12. PeteF3
    Just when I was wondering if Eddie had walked out again, he walks out promising to have the back of the people who supported him, while swearing revenge on Eric Embry. The Texas Boys put a beatdown on Eddie for his troubles. Really good stuff to make Gilbert's turn look organic while leaving the door open for a continuation of the feuds with Jarrett and Lawler--you know Gilbert is only going to remain a babyface for so long.
  13. PeteF3
    This might be one of the great double-shot main events in Memphis arena history. This is about as intense as it gets, with a real star-making performance from Embry: his transition from begging off to assaulting Lawler in the corner with punches and headbutts is a great one, on the level of an Onita comeback. Plus he throws some pretty great clotheslines. Even shit that tends to annoy me like Lawler going all Masato Tanaka on the chairshots to the head made sense here in context. Frank Morrell takes TWO separate ref bumps and then eats a piledriver and it doesn't really feel excessive. Lawler gets choked from the outside of the cage by Tom Prichard's belt while Embry levels him with chairshots. I liked the Sportatorium cage a good deal but this blew it out of the water.
  14. PeteF3
    Highlights can of course be misleading but this might be the single best arena match of either of the first two '90s yearbooks. Great action, great false finishes, and a great actual finish, leading to a great post-match attack. One of the best USWA Memphis segments of the year.
  15. PeteF3
    Lots of amusing things in the arena clip, from Bruno wrestling in regulation gear to JC Ice needing the ropes to pin him, to Bill's spanking of JC getting censored, to Jamie's tantrum. Dundee cuts a more low-key promo than usual, running down the people he's run out of Memphis who associated with JC and targetting Steve Austin next. Jamie is out to make amends but it's a setup for a Texas Hangmen attack. Kind of a predictable angle but well-done for what it was.
  16. PeteF3
    IRS threatens to tighten any tax loophole RIGHT AROUND YOUR NECK. One thing this and the Mountie segments are missing is motivation. So he's a mountie and a tax collector--what are they doing wrestling, then? Later preview segments would get better at that aspect regardless of how absurd the gimmick was.
  17. PeteF3
    Another great, wholesome attempted-murder angle (plus one without the "attempted") in a running series in 1991 WWF. I didn't quite like all the heat being placed on the road agents for not being able to get the casket open, but everything else was great--and they do strongly get over the inability of someone to breathe in there. Warrior and Bearer even cut pretty good promos on each other. I really like how Bearer never backs down even as the Warrior is grabbing and threatening him--that makes Bearer look like a legitimate scary bastard and it makes storyline sense because he knows he's got the Undertaker backing him up. Great, great visual once the casket is open, with the Warrior unconscious and the inside torn to pieces. That's a pretty existentially horrifying image seared into the brains of all those Little Warriors and may be the single moment that makes this segment so memorable.
  18. PeteF3
    Now Tojo gets handcuffed to Bill Dundee while Jarrett wrestles. Someone explain to Michael St. John what "turnabout is fair play" means. Tojo has been really great in this episode, incidentally. Solid match, with a re-do of the Flair/Fujinami finish almost to the letter. Multiple ref bumps in one show just exacerbates what a lazy booking trope this was becoming. Neighbors and Falk get into it after the match and the title is held up again.
  19. PeteF3
    So somehow the Texas title got held up after last week's cage match--controversy or just Lawler vacating it after proving his point? Embry is pretty solid in control but this goes awfully long. The mic spots aren't bothering me but the constant ref bumps and chains are. Tony Falk takes one of the worst ref bumps ever here, which doesn't help. World Class and USWA-Texas have always been clever with screwjobs but it's starting to get lazy at this point. Would be a good to very good match if five minutes or so were pruned away.
  20. PeteF3
    Well, I liked Octagon's sudden flurry of offense--though victory came awfully easily for a guy who got his ass kicked the entire match. I get that Octagon was probably CMLL's biggest singles star at the time but is he anything more than a one-match wonder from a sheer working quality standpoint?
  21. PeteF3
    As good as Luger has been and as well as Nikita's return was done I really can't get worked up over seeing these two in the ring. Nikita bends the (new? old?) U.S. title over the ringpost. Maybe we should have had Spivey do that and THEN bring out the new title belt, but what do I know.
  22. PeteF3
    Flair and Missy are enjoying themselves way too much. Cute segment.
  23. PeteF3
    I admit--I genuinely love the converted-PAL film effect we get with these UK classic shows. This was fun up until the goofy overbooked Dustyriffic ending. Somehow El Gigante is legally tagged into the match and actually executes a passable, heated sequence with Flair and Windham until Sid hits the ring. Crowd was chanting "WE WANT STING" as soon as Morton was isolated, so naturally this means that Big Josh makes the save.
  24. PeteF3
    Pillman with one of the singles performances of his life and we get a singles glimpse of the Windham of old. Fantastic TV match, one of the best WCW has had in months. The post-match was just as good.
  25. PeteF3
    This is actually a new building that the USWA moved into until around September. They had gotten into disputes with the MSC, who had raised their charges for security, raised the weekly rent, added a $2 parking fee, and almost tripled the ticket surcharges. And was actively courting WCW to run 7-8 shows a year, to boot. Not sure what specifically led to the reconciliation but with the new Pyramid opening and siphoning off Memphis State basketball and other major events, the MSC would soon be left without any regular tenants at all. The Pipkin Building only seated 2500 so the USWA is in a bit of damage control trying to justify why the smaller low-rent facility is good for YOU, the viewer. And free parking, too! Wait, now they're hyping a Lawler/Embry cage match? When exactly is this guy's vacation going to START? Highlights of what appears to be another fantastic match between Embry and Lawler that I'd really love to see in full.
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