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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Well-done finish as the babyfaces win with two classic area standby killer moves, the fireball and the piledriver.
  2. PeteF3
    Crazy scene after a no-DQ match where Trash and Flash brawl into the back of the arena and then onto the streets of Louisville. Trash challenges Flash to a lumberjack match next week. Will be interested in seeing these two work a full match, if that's possible.
  3. PeteF3
    In fairness, the Phillies did in fact suck in '99. Spike comes in and gets the win before his music can even stop playing to a massive crowd reaction and a Joey Styles orgasm.
  4. PeteF3
    Okay enough but disappointing considering the caliber of talent. Far be it for me to complain about re-using a proven winning formula but I couldn't help but notice the second fall was a naked blatant recreation of the When Worlds Collide match. Same story and even the same comeback finish, with Santo in the Octagon role. I did like how Casas came back to drop Wagner on his head just like Wagner did with a potentially illegal martinete in the second fall.
  5. PeteF3
    I'm not sure how HHH coming onto Linda is supposed to make him cool. Vince was pretty over as a babyface earlier in the year, but it's going to be awhile before the crowd buys him as such again because there's little heat for this. I don't really get what this is supposed to accomplish that couldn't be done with just a straight schmozz finish, other than we need this to be a SWERVE so let's have Austin help Vince because reasons.
  6. PeteF3
    Fresh off her starmaking role as Fembot #3 in the first Austin Powers movie and having overtaken Teri Hatcher as the Internet's most downloaded woman back when being that was a thing, it's Cindy Margolis in the WWF. Cindy shows off her great acting skills when Ivory threatens her and then again when Jarrett figure-fours her. He then lays out Ivory to a pop and figure-fours her, too. Shades of gray, baby.
  7. PeteF3
    I don't see voting this at #1 but it will make the MOTYC list. Satomura's win over Aja earlier in the year was the result of a plucky underdog wrestling over her head, but here she's presented as much more dangerous in her own right, having answers for most of Aja's offense and being able to stun her with those Pele Kicks. Very "past midnight" feel to the finishing stretch but it never felt bloated. It felt like two warriors fighting until the tank was empty and then fighting some more. Aja gets her win back but had to earn every bit of it.
  8. PeteF3
    Good and fundamentally solid and better as it went along, to the point where I was biting on the near-falls and getting into the closing stretch. Despite some good matwork and one of the better, least-cooperative fish-out-of-water pinning sequences you'll see, this wasn't all that high on psychology as a lot of the body part work was blown off and came off as filling time (except for when Horiguchi couldn't follow up after hitting the Beach Break due to his knee). Horiguchi seemed farther along than Yokosuka, who came off as a generic heel when it came to his presence and mannerisms, and not the polished heel that guys like CIMA were already. Genki on the other hand got the crowd into his goofy but effective surfing spots and comebacks.
  9. PeteF3
    I think Han is great and would be fine with him as a HOFer but I don't think he can really touch the other two in terms of versatility and variety. And just being a pure RINGS guy shouldn't be a copout excuse, because I think Tamura has him beat in those categories and he was a pure shootstyle guy as well. Honestly, though, I think all 3 guys are in that "marginal HOF" category but would see Tamura as the strongest of the 3 simply because he *was* the best wrestler in the world at one point. And as someone with an anti-shootstyle bias, for him to stand out as such to me means he was very good indeed.
  10. PeteF3
    On this you're correct and I was misleading--those two '80s sets are, what, almost 10 years old at this point? The Fujiwara love has been around for that long if not longer, perhaps long enough that it's becoming more of a consensus among people in the know than revisionist. But yes, it's definitely "revisionist" in comparison to his time, where he was obviously respected as per that '87 Yearbook ranking but not considered elite. Edit: And I agree with OJ that he's a marginal candidate. On my purely hypothetical ballot, the lucha backlog is too crowded for me to really consider "maybes," and that's what Fujiwara is. My ballot would have a bunch of lucha guys and a few other token votes (Punk, Taue, Enrique Torres), plus the Non-Wrestlers.
  11. PeteF3
    Navigating those pre-computer Observers is a pain but just from looking at the '87 Observer Yearbook, Fujiwara placed #24 in the world in a survey of 30 "responding pro wrestling experts."
  12. PeteF3
    I don't really know how that can be answered besides, "He had more great singles matches than all of those guys combined." Edit: Expanding a bit, here's a breakdown of how Fujiwara did in the Other Japan '80s DVDVR voting. Looking at the results of where his matches placed, he was far and away considered the best worker on that set. Again, not the final word, but strong evidence that this isn't just a random few people who really like him. The people who watched the matches perceived him as not only the best worker of the group but comfortably so. He was also in a 3-way tie for highest-voted wrestler on the New Japan '80s set. (Clarifying, the votes were for matches, not wrestlers--this is a breakdown of how each wrestlers' match placed). Being even with Fujinami is hardly a HOF-level work detriment. Kengo is there too and he was one of the names you listed, but I would argue that Kengo benefited pretty highly from selection bias. His great matches are top-of-the-line great but he was far more likely to look mediocre than either Tatsumi or Yoshiaki and those matches didn't make the set. Bottom line, the Fujiwara worker love isn't exactly new or revisionist. It comes from how well his matches performed in front of a sizable-by-IWC-message-board-standards voting bloc.
  13. PeteF3
    Then there's a fundamental disagreement here, because his entire argument is predicated on quality of work. Even as someone who doesn't really like the first two UWFs I think he's far and away the best of the UWF workers working both in that promotion and out of it, and I'm not alone in that opinion. The GWE poll held on this board is hardly the last word on this or any other subject but Fujiwara finished about 30 spots ahead of Hiroshi Hase, who was elected to the HOF based almost entirely on ring work only. He finished 20 spots ahead of Volk Han who has a sizable pro-HOF contingent. I'm agnostic on the Fujiwara-as-HOF case since I don't really much care to discuss shootstyle. But until Tamura hit his stride in the late '90s he was the best and most complete worker in that style and no one else (not Maeda, not Takada) is really even in his class. (And the next great Haku singles match I see will be the first.)
  14. PeteF3
    Yeah, Austin-Bulldog was definitely the original plan. They were feuding on TV and everything. I'm sure in an ideal world it would have been Pillman but he wasn't anywhere near ready and really wasn't anywhere on TV between the gun angle and his return the night after Revenge of the 'Taker.
  15. PeteF3
    Austin was going to wrestle Bulldog.
  16. PeteF3
    Well...I think the decision was made before then, because at one point Shawn was supposed to drop the title back to Sid on Thursday Raw Thursday and then job *again* to Bret, which is really what caused him to lose his smile.
  17. PeteF3
    ...which were US Open weeks, incidentally. Raw ran from 11-1, only going up against Nitro on the west coast.
  18. PeteF3
    Is "viral meningitis" eligible for Best Booker in WON award balloting?
  19. PeteF3
    I really don't get why DDP is aligned with Sting and Luger. This feels like one of the biggest tag matches that WCW can possibly put on, but the whole feels a lot less than the sum of its parts, especially after the hot opening segment.
  20. PeteF3
    Benoit "wins" the TV title even though Rick kicks out at 2.9 like a WWWF undercard heel, then gets his heat back afterward. This fucking company...one step forward, and a step back.
  21. PeteF3
    Goldberg needed to be put back in the World title picture sooner than later but there are worse uses of him that we've seen recently.
  22. PeteF3
    It wasn't going to turn WCW around, but this was still an awesome segment. Great heat for the cheapshot and beatdown on Flair, and damned if even with all the old guys in there, WCW somehow feels fresh again. I laughed out loud at Sting and Luger weaseling out of the match backstage, especially Sting breaking down the hypocrisy of Hogan's "say prayers and kick your ass" catchphrase.
  23. PeteF3
    Vince coming back makes total sense and doesn't feel cheap, then or now. Everyone is great here, including Ross who has one of his best calls of the year. Austin pisses away the WWF title but it's done in a way where you can't really blame him, as he pays back HHH for what he did to him at SummerSlam. I can get behind this HHH, a champion of ability and cunning but also one who stooges and sells for his babyface opponent as necessary.
  24. PeteF3
    Hughes looks a lot different having dropped 100 pounds or more. He had debuted as "Gotch Gracie" tonight, a supposed MMA master that Jericho defeated to prove he could take Shamrock.
  25. PeteF3
    Not a bad segment but not much that's original to it either.
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