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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Rotunda was already gone by this point (Taylor aligned himself with York on this show). More standout WCW quality control.
  2. PeteF3
    Hiro Matsuda is introduced as a New Japan representative as we get hype for the Tokyo Dome show. El Gigante, too--yay. I wonder what a ranking of the frequency of Flair's color schemes would look like. His gold number here has to be his most rarely-seen outfit. I'm talking about everything except the match because holy shit is this a snoozefest. Flair bails a million times to stall in not that interesting fashion, and Scott is pensive himself. If someone wants to criticize Ric with a "Flair by numbers" formula then this is a match to point to. Gary Cappetta may as well be in another city because his time calls have absolutely no bearing on what the wrestlers are actually doing. No Jim, Flair was not "saved by the bell," either. The Scott Keith-perpetuated idea that Steiner was going to be handed the title tonight is completely laughable if you actually watch the match. He was nowhere near as ready for such a push as the Warrior was.
  3. PeteF3
    Rhubarb Jones gets the biggest intro of his life, and they bring in some arm-wrestling champion to officiate this. Fantastic. Big pop for Missy removing the jacket, and Dusty puts it perfectly: "He had a couple of things on his mahnd bethahds ahm-wrasslin'!" Funny payoff to a funny little undercard angle.
  4. PeteF3
    This is well-done on the part of both Schiavone and Hansen of making this match seem like a big deal. I guess we can say that the NJ/WCW alliance is in full force.
  5. PeteF3
    Another green screen promo that probably isn't warranted. Dusty REALLY IS home again, cutting a strong promo in support of the troops and President Bush. That's how you acknowledge world events on a wrestling program.
  6. PeteF3
    Dusty is home again. Big heat for the finish of this, as Sting is left alone against Doom when Dan Spivey puts a beatdown on Luger outside the ring, but a miscommunication spot by Doom eventually leads to a DQ. Copout finish but the strong run of Doom continues, and yeah, this pending break-up seems way premature.
  7. PeteF3
    Love is hilarious here in his most overt religious satire yet, as he establishes himself as an early champion of the Make-a-Wish Foundation, granting Brother Paul's wish to see and walk. Who knows what the fuck the point of all this was, but I guess this was relegated to Prime Time for a reason.
  8. PeteF3
    This would have been fine if not contrasted with what was going on in the WWF main event scene. They were already backing off on references to Iraq and the implication of Hussein actually being in cahoots with Slaughter at this point, I believe.
  9. PeteF3
    Tsuruta's teased Hulk-Up, cut-off, then actual Hulk-Up as Kawada is wailing away on him is one of the major highlights here. Amazing that one angry facial expression was able to draw such a crowd reaction. Kawada is shoved into accidentally clotheslining Misawa off the apron, leaving him more or less alone against Jumbo and Taue. He's about to pull a miracle powerbomb finish when Jumbo lariats him in the back of the head--irony! Taue uses a powerbomb of his own to pick up a needed victory. Your usual great AJ 6-man that puts Kawada on another level for the body of the match and Taue on the same level for getting the pinfall on him.
  10. PeteF3
    This is one of the greatest pieces of production business WCW ever did and I'm convinced someone had this promo in mind when they started doing the NWO vignettes. The black and white and camera-cuts and handheld camera are all there. Arn talks of spitting the silver spoon out of the Horsemen's mouth and invokes America's fear of gang warfare, while Windham talks of how the '80s were about lies and deceit and the '90s will be about truth. I hesitate to call any wrestling promo "deep" but this might be the closest match for that description.
  11. PeteF3
    Paul E. invokes Martin Luther King, Jr. in the name of that most oppressed of all peoples: the white American male. I'd pay money to see Dutch recite this promo on Raw. Missy bench-presses to melodramatic music that suddenly gets cut off.
  12. PeteF3
    The dreaded security concerns. No, that's not a jab at the WWF. I'm not sure if CNN Center was actually thought to be a target or if someone realized that in the midst of a war it needed to be utilized for other things. Steiner cuts an awful, blithering, marble-mouthed promo. Flair is Flair and is awesome.
  13. PeteF3
    Hot post-match angle from the MSC. Keirn whacks Lawler and does a tremendous little jig before doing the same to cornerman Jeff Jarrett. Lawler kicks out and makes a comeback, but Dundee goes nuts with the racket and gets the babyfaces DQ'd. Dundee gets the Pillman treatment with the racket to the throat after the match and then gets hanged in the ropes while the Fabs and Cornette triple-team Lawler. Jarrett, after getting picked off with the racket a few times, finally recovers to make the save. Dundee accuses Cornette of pulling the strings for the Fabs to do all the dancing. Jackie Fargo is invoked, which will become important. Cornette and the Fabs are sending in a pre-tape so as to avoid assault from the fat cornbred women on live television. Sadly, taking out Dundee isn't worth any money to Terry Funk, so this coming Monday it'll be bounty money vs. the tag titles. Keirn's promo is almost as good as Cornette's. Lawler and Jarrett are out to take the tag titles, and then Lawler promises to get nasty after the match when he can't be disqualified. More great stuff from Memphis. This promotion has lost 1990's Heel of the Year and hasn't missed a beat.
  14. PeteF3
    Terrence Garvin has given Bruno a makeover--Uptown Bruno is now dressed in a tux and a top hat. Lawler makes a Woolworth's crack just to remind us what year this is. Hey, a Scott Bowden sighting! Epic stallorama from Garvin, constantly diving to the floor and complaining about Lawler's closed fists. Garvin comes back with a chain and a piledriver, but Lawler gets somebody to throw him a pair of scissors and that sends Garvin flying out of the studio. As fun as you can get with Terrence Garvin involved, and a testament for working smart bullshit over working hard.
  15. PeteF3
    Crowd goes into a noticeable hush when Taue gets spiked headfirst into the mat. Nasty as fuck. I've watched the entire 1991 TV run for All-Japan but I had no recollection of this match at all, to the point where I had to ask after the fact when the TD '91 occurred. I'm sure the match was by no means bad but that doesn't quite speak for the match as a whole.
  16. PeteF3
    There was some surprisingly nasty offense here, including clothesline and punch flurries from Embry, who even attempts a dropkick at one point. Having gone back to the dyed blond hair Embry is possibly the sleaziest-looking babyface in history--he makes Buck Robley look like modern-day WWE material. Young gets a foreign object from Akbar and conks Embry to steal a win and advance in the Texas State title tournament.
  17. PeteF3
    You and me both. But the problem is EVERY WRESTLER IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE does it. Don't get me started on guys who think that headlocking a standing Riki Choshu is a good idea.
  18. PeteF3
    Okay... Peter, 30, from Columbus, Ohio. My father was a longtime wrestling fan so I was exposed to it right from the start. My first wrestling memory would either be the Piper/Snuka coconut attack (which was pretty scary to a two-year old) or the Jesse Ventura/Ivan Putski arm wrestling match--whichever came first. This all came with the rise of WWF nationalism and the Rock 'n Wrestling Era, and in hindsight I regret not coming along a few years earlier when Columbus was part of the Georgia Championship Wrestling circuit. As it was, as a child I was fully in favor of the glitz and showmanship of the WWF over the "bad wrestling," which was just about everything else. Still, knowledge of a wrestling world beyond the WWF crept in. I liked the AWA action figures as much or more than my extensive WWF LJN collection, so I had passing knowledge of what was going on there. Certain guys still drew my attention--Flair, the Road Warriors, Abdullah the Butcher. I plowed through books my dad had like George Napolitano's Pictorial History of Wrestling and Roberta Morgan's Main Event, so I had knowledge of a pre-Hogan WWF world of guys like Backlund and Billy Graham. My fandom start waning in 1989--after Hogan thoroughly vanquished Savage at WrestleMania 5 I found little reason to invest more time in the WWF, and Zeus was not enough to bring me back. Then we got the Warrior/Hogan build to WrestleMania--I ordered WM because it was WM but truthfully my thoughts in the Yearbook threads are very much the same as what I was thinking watching the buildup promos at the time. This general souring on the WWF came at a time when I got hooked on the Apter magazines, and suddenly I was reading about some of the craziest shit I'd ever heard of: a dude named Jerry Lawler who wins and loses his belt every other week and throws FIRE(??). The Moondogs wreaking havoc on the city of Memphis and throwing battery acid into people's eyes? Everyone talking about what this Bill Watts guy was doing to WCW? I was becoming a Memphis fan without even seeing their product and becoming a WCW watcher the more old WWF favorites like Steamboat and Rude turned up on its programming. This type of urban-legend wrestling would continue to fascinate me through the rise of ECW in the mid-to-late '90s. I continued to stick with the WWF more or less out of habit and a few odd angles that I really got into, like the Backlund heel turn. But 1994 and '95 were lean, lean years. I'd seen my first Japanese wrestling at a gathering of fans in 1994 (Hansen vs. Misawa...don't know the date, just that Misawa went over and Hansen worked over his elbow with a briefcase at one point) but wasn't hooked in by it yet. The Monday Night Wars finally made wrestling a must-watch again, and that's where I spent almost every Monday night for the next 4 years until I went off to college. It was then that wrestling ceased to be a must-watch and outside of a few brief flings, it's remained that way. I follow what's happening and will check out the stuff that's pimped, but I generally agree with Parv that the WWE presentation is so formulaic and stilted that I find it hard to sit through it for any appreciable length of time, regardless of the actual wrestling talent level which I'm sure objectively blows the 1989-90 product out of the water. Post-college finally gave me the opportunity to start buying shit online and I was finally watching this talked-about Japanese (and later, British) stuff for myself. I'm now at the point where I honestly don't need a strong weekly show anymore, as there's simply too much good shit that's new to me even if it's far from new. That includes 99% of the lucha that's ever been recorded, most of the joshi that's ever been recorded, and the territorial finds on these Yearbooks and '80s sets. I'll be set for a good long while. Favorite matches: - Hart vs. Austin, I Quit - Andre the Giant vs. Killer Khan, 4/1/82 - Flair vs. Steamboat + post-match attack, Music City Showdown - Jumbo vs. Tenryu, 6/5/89 - Billy Robinson vs. Giant Baba, 1976 Favorite wrestlers: Flair, Jumbo, Austin, Billy Robinson, Terry Funk, Stan Hansen, Bobby Eaton, Mitsuharu Misawa.
  19. PeteF3
    Just barely in, but big props to Jason for bringing up the Sting/Sheik Persian clubs segment. I thought that was a brilliant subversion of a cliched angle.
  20. PeteF3
    Holy shit, it's Tessa! Tatum is back to being a CHANGED MAN. That is one empty-looking Sportatorium. Neat arm work here from both guys. Tatum levels Dundee with a great shot to the nose and a wicked superkick, but gets suckered to the apron by Tessa for a hug, allowing Dundee to get a quick roll-up for the pin. The heat and intensity had long since disintegrated but this may actually have been the best-worked match of the feud.
  21. PeteF3
    I liked Michael Wallstreet making a cameo just to high-five his longtime pal Windham.
  22. PeteF3
    The non-finish makes sense to me. Ross puts it perfectly afterward, saying that these eight men can only be contained by the WarGames. That's what you need to establish with a match like this. Anyway, this is a good match with Pillman managing to stand out even among the other eight guys, though everyone looks good here--even Sid, who actually takes some fine bumps for the Steiners. Ross mentions that the Clash will take place in the CNN Center atrium, which sadly did not come off--I'd really like to see what the atmosphere would have been for that.
  23. PeteF3
    Boy, Sting sure sounds broken up over losing his title. Actually from listening to this you wouldn't even know that Flair beat him for the belt, just that he regained it. Hype for an 8-man tag match between the two WarGames teams.
  24. PeteF3
    This is a little more believable misogyny than the later Madusa feud which covered most of the same ground. Paul E. is aghast that women have invaded the last great American male domain--the workplace! I would suspect and fear that promos like this may have babyfaced Paul E. to the traditional wrestling fanbase.
  25. PeteF3
    "The Macho King wasn't hurt!" Well...okay, whatever. Right after Tugboat's entrance we get Monsoon & Piper gushing over Shane Douglas, which is pretty funny now. I'm glad we got a snapshot of his forgotten run at this time. When I got the Rumble Anthology I remember distinctly liking this the least of the pre-'00s Rumbles. Martel and Valentine turned in great performances but you also had guys like Tito and Herc lasting forever too, and the problem was none of those four guys had a prayer of actually winning it, so it all seemed for naught. Tugboat gets big boos for going after Hogan and there's a big pop when Hogan eliminates him. Heenan's epic towel toss when Perfect gets eliminated is another highlight. Davey Boy tosses Martel and that gets a big reaction. The fact that Gorilla apparently never, ever bothered to learn the names of the Nasty Boys is on full display here. Decent enough closing stretch, with a false finish of sorts, that functions as the blowoff to the Hogan/Earthquake feud. 'Quake attempting a pin is still ridiculous. Why not have Hogan dodge an Earthquake splash or something? The eliminating clothesline is pretty weak, too. Still, this all did its job. Hogan winning was the only realistic result, at least once the title changed hands. Piper and Gorilla gush about the troops in the Middle East making Slaughter & Saddam surrender, just to sour everything.
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