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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    A fantastic brawl with Austin taking two absolutely insane bumps: the dive to nowhere on the floor and the missed tackle against the post, with Austin smacking it so hard his helmet flies off. Somehow they book a DQ finish in a no-DQ/no-countout match when Percy Pringle runs in and helps engineer a 2-on-1 on Adams. The psychology surrounding the football gear is actually quite clever which puts this an additional notch or two above the usual garbage brawl.
  2. PeteF3
    I really hate how they can't have a proper set or even a background for the Louisville Slugger. Just one of those details that makes the WWF look so much more professional.
  3. PeteF3
    Yep. Definitely Rayo and definitely a horse.
  4. PeteF3
    Same promo as SNME, with fewer animal puns and more screaming.
  5. PeteF3
    We finally get around to mentioning the SummerSlam co-main event. Rude promises to leap off the cage onto the Warrior. Warrior looks like a reject from White Lion as he rebuts. He's evidently taken diversity training as he's no longer abusing the "normal" Sean Mooney.
  6. PeteF3
    They have bears in Africa? Lord Alfred and "Jim" encounter Koko B. Ware searching for a mate for Frankie, Damian (with Jake using the opportunity to cut a promo on Bad News), the Bushwhackers walking with the Nairobi Express (an underrated tag team if there ever was one), the "anthropoid" Jimmy Snuka running around, and some unfriendly natives--Slick & Akeem. Hayes has to bail Jim out at every stop in their search for the mouth of the Yanghtze River. Hayes is pretty great and Gene is pretty shamelessly bold in pratfalling around like an idiot.
  7. PeteF3
    They have bears in Africa? Lord Alfred and "Jim" encounter Koko B. Ware searching for a mate for Frankie, Damian (with Jake using the opportunity to cut a promo on Bad News), the Bushwhackers walking with the Nairobi Express (an underrated tag team if there ever was one), the "anthropoid" Jimmy Snuka running around, and some unfriendly natives--Slick & Akeem. Hayes has to bail Jim out at every stop in their search for the mouth of the Yanghtze River. Hayes is pretty great and Gene is pretty shamelessly bold in pratfalling around like an idiot.
  8. PeteF3
    The crowd is absolutely jacked for this. Even with WWF TV being sound-sweetened beyond death you can tell visually that the reactions here are genuine. No, there isn't much beyond the false finishes and the referee switch, but those are some pretty great false finishes and some great fiery comebacks from Tito. Heenan is absolutely outstanding here--he has a camera trained on him for most of the match and makes the most of it. His little signal to Perfect to switch from a chinlock to a chokehold was a great bit of subtle managing.
  9. PeteF3
    This was a disappointment especially in light of the POP match earlier, which may not be totally fair. Crush blows a lot of things, even his normally reliable tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, while Smash doesn't offer a lot besides ax-handlery. Ax as the outside man is honestly the best worker of the team. The Rockers themselves are fine but I can't call this one of their standout performances, either. I do like the finish which is maybe a bit Memphis heel-ish for what are supposed to be big bruising tough guys, but gets the advantage of having three men over. Ax's interference is protested by both the Harts and LOD, to no avail. Also, "A LOVE TAP??!" Vince's incredulous reaction cracked me up. Highlight of the match, hands down.
  10. PeteF3
    I'm guessing they got a shiny new merchandise catalog, at least. Unique setting to this, with Vince doing a rare-for-the-time in-ring interview and Ventura alone on commentary. It's not quite as good, but Hogan hits a lot of the same notes as he did n his comeback speech and he's still more low-key than usual. Earthquake and Bravo try to corner Hogan, but Tugboat comes to help get them to back off.
  11. PeteF3
    More animal analogies in the green-screen promos. As forced as some of this was it actually forces the Warrior into focusing on-point. And it's better than having Okerlund involved. There's a whole lot about this feud that I don't get at all. There's a cage match already signed for SummerSlam that isn't mentioned once. The WWF was always about what was happening NOW--6 months ago may as well have been ancient history. Yet the entire basis of this feud was, "Rude beat the Warrior a year and a half ago." All of those training vignettes aren't mentioned either in any way, even by Ventura--I guess THAT'S ancient history, then. Rude is pretty decisively beaten even if it's by a countout and we get Heenan getting beaten up, too. Joey Marella doesn't call for a bell even after clearly seeing Heenan interfere twice. Not to mention an idiotic spot with Marella lifting the Warrior's leg three times on the sleeper. Now, all that aside--and it's a lot of "all that"--Rude was great here. Rude going into a boxing stance and just pummeling the Warrior with punches may be the best spot of any match in this series, and it's a damn good series as far as ringwork goes. I love how they keep building and building on the "block the Rude Awakening" spot. At WrestleMania, Warrior turned it into a clothesline. At SummerSlam, Rude ducked the clothesline and caught Warrior in a sleeper. Here, Rude uses a thrust kick and immediately hits the neckbreaker anyway. This is also another good Warrior performance by his standards, as his selling and bumping are actually pretty good.
  12. PeteF3
    Alfred Hayes in safari gear and Ventura is dressed like Skinner. They really milk the animal kingdom puns for all they're worth. This is pretty much Jesse's swan song for this yearbook--two weeks later he'd be gone.
  13. PeteF3
    Holy fuck, you weren't kidding about Rice. In the Lynn match he's working a Raven/Jackyl-style prophet gimmick and coming out to the Doors "The End," which is an awesome out-of-the-box entrance theme about the last thing I expected to see ever.
  14. PeteF3
    Good stuff from Malenko being pushed as a hot young babyface star, which hardly fits him but credit for trying. The tricked-out quasi-shootstyle matwork is sort of beyond Rice's capabilities, but he gives it a go even though he doesn't pull everything off.
  15. PeteF3
    Jim Backlund is already going the "Gigolo" gimmick, looking like a scuzzy indy cruiser version of the Undertaker. Fun little match though it's kind of one-sided in favor of Rogers. Backlund misses a big top-rope legdrop and gets caught in a German suplex for the pin.
  16. PeteF3
    Quasi-NWO-style angle here as Tommy Rich interrupts a Sting/JYD promo to say, "They got Luger." Luger is out with his shirt torn up and carrying a club. And that's it. Luger is moving around pretty well for someone who allegedly got attacked.
  17. PeteF3
    I have no clue what the "Dustin" picture is supposed to be about. Was this a signing that fell through? Anyway, Arn announces that in addition to Flair, Sid Vicious will also be gunning for Sting's title, and asserts that anyone hospitalized in the future will not be the fault of the Horsemen, but Sting.
  18. PeteF3
    This is easily, even in clip form, the Memphis MOTY, and could easily be a low-level MOTYC or better in full. Crazy start with baseball bats going everywhere, and an incredibly tense finish that gets over the babyfaces as decisive winners, keeps the heels looking strong, and doesn't make you feel ripped off about the stips. The post-match brawl actually has its own control segments and transitions and all of that, as Tessa is again prevented from stripping the DWG but this time the babyfaces counter what looks like another long beatdown when they regain the baseball bats. Poor Tom Burton eats a baseball bat from Anthony after having been repeatedly piledriven and having fire thrown at him. The heels get the numbers advantage again until Jeff Jarrett makes the save. Now this week it's another Texas Death Match, but this one with tornado/bunkhouse rules. Tom Burton will be shackled to a ringpost with both valets handcuffed to each hand, presumably as some sort of make-good for all the abuse he's had to suffer as the DWB designated whipping boy. Lawler talks about all this and the heels consider coming out again, but are wary of another surprise Dundee appearance and leave Lawler be. The heels are still paranoid about Dundee lurking about and Burton actually checks to see if he's hiding in Dave Brown's coat. Gilbert accuses a photographer who sullied the good looks of Eddie Gilbert by making him share film stock with Jerry Lawler, so Anthony throws coffee at him and Gilbert takes his camera. Gilbert says he's been asked why he gave up a six-figure salary with Turner to return to Memphis: he wants Jerry Lawler to pass the torch to him the way Jackie Fargo passed the torch to the King. Another great, long Memphis segment that's barely digestible. However, at some point the Kimberly/Tessa thing needs to come to a conclusion. The T&A part of this angle is far less compelling than everything else. It seems they're more or less promising that the DWG's getting nekkid this week much like Sting promised a legitimate conclusion at the Bash, so hopefully that's the case.
  19. PeteF3
    1.) New Japan. Best variety of matches and probably the first set to actually end on a high note until AJPW came along. 2.) Mid-South. Probably #1 in terms of depth. NJPW had several matches that I (and others) hated. Mid-South had about two matches for the whole set where I thought, "That wasn't that good." I was convinced that McAdam's old website header about Mid-South being the Best Wrestling There Ever Was, was true (since he was clearly going by U.S. promotions only). 3.) All-Japan. Agreed about fewer surprises, and less variety as well. It did end with the strongest year, which helps. May also have been deeper than NJPW even if the peak wasn't quite as high. Really 1-3 are in a major cluster and really I could see arguments for any of them being the "best" set and some of it depends on how I feel on a particular day. 4-6 are much the same way. 4.) AWA. Some bias here because it's the set I viewed most recently, but this edges out the other two territory sets by virtue of variety and surprises. I mean, John Studd and Jesse Ventura actually turning in good performances? Col. DeBeers being decent even if I wasn't nearly as gaga over him as the committee? Even as the promotion was dying I got a kick out of all the random names who would show up for 1 TV taping and then vanish. A lot of the '88-'89 stuff was a real chore, admittedly, and the booking lagged pretty far behind the other territories even if the action held up way better than its reputation. 5.) World Class. Never really had a deep roster even at its peak so there was a lot of repetition when you plow through about 8 years of material in a few weeks. I also failed to really get sold on Kevin Von Erich as a superworker even though I liked plenty of his matches. Next to Mid-South it had some of the most creative finishes of its day and the Embry run from '89 was a revelation. 6.) Memphis. Again, 4-6 could conceivably be in any order. There really weren't a lot of studio matches that I was that high on and many of the arena bouts were clipped. The high-end stuff was equal to anything else in the U.S. but I don't think it could match the other sets in terms of depth. 7.) WWF. Remains to be seen if the re-do ranks higher but there are a lot of things about the style that I'm just not crazy about. This also had other issues that the Will sets didn't have: no order to the matches, matches on the set in hacked-to-death clip form when full(er) matches were available, a less-organized nominating process, basically no WWE 24/7, etc. etc. etc. 8.) Other Japan. 'Nuff said. I needed the novelty stuff (the JPW matches, the Brits showing up in UWF) to make it through.
  20. PeteF3
    An extension to power bombing Kidman: headlocking Riki Choshu. At least a headlock is a basic hold that everyone knows rather than people who never did power bombs suddenly deciding it'd be neat to try with Kidman, but it doesn't make it a transition I'm any less sick of seeing.
  21. PeteF3
    This is spectacular. Slaughter contrasts the smell of napalm in the morning with the disgusting smell of pinko commies, pinko commie supporters, Nikolai Volkoff, and peace. What we need is the SMELL OF WAR.
  22. PeteF3
    Well-said, Jimmy. Demolition and the LOD are in conflict as to who's impersonating whom. Fairly standard LOD promo. I'm okay with them appearing on Brother Love--no way was the WWF capable of being out of the box enough to do anything different--but there's definitely something wrong about the LOD talking about their "good friends" the Hart Foundation and Vince gushing about how they must be taking their Hulk Hogan vitamins. Unfortunately every babyface had to be a glad-handing one, which really doesn't suit Hawk or Animal at all.
  23. PeteF3
    There was actually some build to this, as Herc & Roma had been working as an undercard tag team for a few weeks. Now they have Slick, a great team name, and as we'll see a killer tag finisher. I don't see any reason why an honest push couldn't have gotten them to the tag titles, but the Nasty Boys ended up falling into the WWF's lap.
  24. PeteF3
    We start with Vince & Jesse making reference to the expensive gifts that Sapphire is receiving. In retrospect I should have seen where that was going from a mile away. As I alluded to in the Arsenio thread, this Rude/Warrior booking makes no sense at all. They've scheduled an SNME title match AND a Cage match for SummerSlam? Would it have killed them to run a hot angle on NBC and get to the Cage Match from there? I guess they wanted both main events to be announced at the same time, but that really fucked up the timing of this feud. Rude isn't up to his usual standards here, but Heenan is great, almost out-preaching Brother Love.
  25. PeteF3
    I have to admit this is the first thread in which I've seen a lot of love for the 8/92 match. It has a unique finish that gets the elbow over as a killer and is a pivotal moment, but I didn't think much of the match. I agree with Loss that the 3/92 match is much better. Anyway, not much to say about this but the ending stretch was very good from what we saw, though it is disappointing if the match was really all about armwork. The 3/92 match was the same layout but Hansen's Lariat had a much greater air of desperation about it, like Hansen was sacrificing his own arm to get the home run swing. This is a little more routine.
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