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PeteF3

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Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    Okay action but it looks like a far cry from their Nitro match. I don't have a problem with Bret's run-in but the Steiners beatdown is absurd, though it ranks way down on the list of infuriating things to happen on this show--even if you just limit it to stuff involving Rick Steiner.
  2. PeteF3
    BY WHAT AUTHORITY CAN BISCHOFF REVERSE THIS DECISION?? Good Lord this is horrible, and once again, fuck St. Louis for cheering Bischoff like this. Of course as usual no one clued in the announcers so they don't know what exactly to sell--Schiavone manages to pick up on Flair clearly submitting, but fucking TENAY says he didn't hear it. Incredible--even if they *weren't* told you'd think Tenay could figure out how wrestling (or improv) works and go along with it. *None* of the announcers have any idea how to sell the post-match, and why should they?
  3. PeteF3
    I don't know if I liked this as much as Sleeze but I'm definitely not sorry I checked it out. George is very game but Robinson actually looks like an honest-to-God wrestler in there. All the Flair tribute spots are there, of course, but Robinson executes the basics at least as well as Jim Cornette did. I think I'd pay to see Robinson work a match against Mark Curtis.
  4. PeteF3
    Monumentally dumb on all levels. Crowd is so dead to start that we can hear everything Nick Patrick says. Then they actually get behind Rick and bark for him and cheer for his victory. I always hated St. Louis' phony-baloney "best fans in baseball" gimmick and now we have definitive proof that the idea that Sam Muchnick catered to the smartest and most sophisticated wrestling fans in the country was also bullshit. This is the beginning of Rick Steiner being possibly the worst worker in the world and one of my least-favorite ever.
  5. PeteF3
    Good closing stretch but I'll take Sleeze's word for it regarding the match in full. Rey looks ridiculous in overalls.
  6. PeteF3
    On a disappointing note, Steiners-Money Inc. must not be in the vault or lost, because they have the dark match main event from that taping (MegaManiacs vs. Money Inc. with Slaughter as the guest ref) but not the title change that opened it.
  7. PeteF3
    Here it is! I'm most excited to see Duane Gill & Barry Hardy's match as "The Toxic Turtles." Other matches of note include Bret vs. Davey Boy from 6/30/92, Hogan vs. Flair from 11/91 (not the Dayton match, unfortunately), a test run of the WM7 blindfold match from January, Flair vs. Piper, a Piper's Pit with the Brooklyn Brawler from 1992 when there were plans to bring that back, and tryout/dark matches for Brian Adams (in '89), Chris Chavis as "War Eagle," the aforementioned Turtles, and the Tazmaniac. I'm sold.
  8. PeteF3
    I knew as soon as Taz started smiling that Jeff Jones was going to get it, but that doesn't make this segment any less fun. Taz storms the ring as TV taping preparations are still ongoing, and gets asked to leave by the future Bilvis Wesley. Taz lays him out and does a little ventriloquism act with his body. Taz is definitely an asshole babyface but he's a self-aware, unapologetic one, which puts him closer to Austin territory than Rock's bullying character.
  9. PeteF3
    Sorry, but ECW already had a Stevie Richards. I know Corino can be a good loudmouthed heel, so give us that instead of this cowardly crybaby act. As Bill Watts' philosophy went when utilizing Buddy Landell--tough guys who *can* fight but choose not to draw more heat than out-and-out ineffectual coward wimps. The shooty-shoot bullshit talk to open the promo put me in a sour mood to start with, and the only highlight here was Corino lamenting that his doctors "could only remove one appendix at a time."
  10. PeteF3
    Dawn *isn't* Beulah--to the promotion's detriment as she doesn't really work as a foil for Francine the way Beulah could.
  11. PeteF3
    Hayes still has something in the tank, at least in this kind of setting. Why they couldn't find a way to disguise Kulka's interference is beyond me. As it is, Hayes was kind of asking for it.
  12. PeteF3
    Kind of a choke job by Team No Respect on home turf here, jumping out to a 5-3 lead but falling in the end. I'd put this in the "good but not great" category--even very good but not great. As a tribute to the classic '80s NJPW elimination matches, complete with face-saving rules, it works. Ishikawa ramping up the Inoki tribute act full-bore works too, even though it's weird to see Team No Respect in against another group doing the disrespectful punk heel gimmick. I'm afraid the match I visualized in my head upon seeing the participants overshadowed the final result, as I was hoping for a more NJPW-vs.-UWF(I)-esque conflict of styles and philosophies, and instead we mostly got the BattlArts guys working pure pro-style. The Matsunaga match from last year showed that deathmatch vs. shootstyle could actually work, but I don't think they fully committed enough to the wacky-mismatch concept, at least for my tastes. The Gannosuke-Ikeda showdown is the best part of the match (aside from Ishikawa's opening) and the result is an eyebrow-raiser, so it's memorable in that regard.
  13. PeteF3
    Well, no complaints about my first real glimpse at Osaka Pro so far, as this is hard-hitting and intense, possibly moreso than your average MPro or Toryumon 6-man tag, if only because of Togo's presence pushing and elevating everyone around him. Six guys beat the shit out of each other for 10-12 minutes, but with a nicely defined face-heel structure and a feelgood, payback spot-oriented finish.
  14. PeteF3
    Not sure if it's better or worse than the previous bout but it's certainly more focused, as Yagi lasers in on Yoshida's arm and Mariko has to fight just to stay alive. Really good drama down the stretch with Yagi getting a big submission win--either that or a big sudden KO blow from Yoshida seemed to be the only realistic results.
  15. PeteF3
    I don't know if I'd call it the best ever as it's sort of an appetizer for (what I hope is) a promising final, but it's a hell of a rush for ten minutes of matwork. We have the Yearbook debut of Yoshida's Spider Twist, possibly the coolest submission hold ever, and a game Fukawa who always seems to have a cross armbreaker in her pocket to give Yoshida fits.
  16. PeteF3
    I'm really, really lost as to the criticism of Hogan's selling at KOTR. Why book a fireball finish if he's *not* supposed to sell the eyes? Ross put over the eye injuries afterward, though admittedly it's somewhat talked over by Heenan and Savage. There's lots of interesting stuff going on in that match but I don't have any issue with Hogan selling (Bix also pointed out that the fire "didn't even hit him in the eyes," but in kayfabe it did). Edit: I'm 99% sure the photographer was Wippleman.
  17. PeteF3
    So was Catherine White's identity 100% confirmed? I remember Dave reporting her as being Kathy Gagne one week, but then a few weeks later walking that back without actually saying who she really was. That was me buying L'Age D'Or...at 50 bucks for a book in a language I don't speak it's admittedly a rather pricey lark, but I'm hoping there's some good info in there and that it's a bit more organized than Bob Plantin's massive but messy ALPRA site.
  18. PeteF3
    Even the worst segments of Raw displayed just how far ahead of WCW the company had gotten. In addition to the good brawl here, it can't be overstated how important it was that Ross was back on commentary. Cole could have made these segments unwatchable, but with Ross selling them to the fullest extent they ranged from good to merely eye-rolling at worst.
  19. PeteF3
    Well, if it's any consolation, that was probably a gimmicked bat. But yeah, the fact that even a gimmicked bat is broken over somebody's head and it's not an angle designed to write somebody off TV for six months is a disturbing trend. Heel Sable is even less tolerable than regular Sable. We get a big clusterfuck and then a hookup with Debra and Val, that I have no memory of. Babyfaces? Heels? Besides Sable, I guess, you won't find any here.
  20. PeteF3
    They really had something going here with babyface Vince, but decided to hit the reset button instead in a few weeks. The "LOSER!" chant at the end was great, coming after Shane's opening promo.
  21. PeteF3
    The best thing about the Corporate Ministry is the organ/"No Chance in Hell" mash-up entrance music. Shane cuts an okay enough promo railing against the loser fans who live paycheck to paycheck and drown their sorrows in vodka, but it comes off as a little tryhard and desperate. But hey, it worked. Shane needs to be more of a loudmouthed jerk with less trying to be GRRR EVIL. A bunch of ex-Corporation members forming their own group isn't bad on its own, but Mankind, Shamrock, Show, and Test are as mismatched and ill-fitting together as the early Wolfpac.
  22. PeteF3
    George vs. Robinson was supposed to be for Savage's reinstatement if George won, but that was rendered moot last week when Piper reinstated Savage anyway. George is certainly pleasing to the eye but this is a pretty funny video in light of Bischoff's proclamations that WCW wasn't going to stoop to the WWF's level in terms of sex and swearing.
  23. PeteF3
    I don't know why or how, but Asya actually looks kind of attractive in this particular setting. And that's all I've got to say about that. Triple-A rambles at Kevin Nash while a Norman the Lunatic lookalike annoys the production truck. Torrie Wilson's back, after it had been reported that Nash had gotten her shitcanned. Now *she's* caring about *David's* well-being. Storytelling! Oh goody, it's the start of the David Flair "George Gulas by design" push. He gets to wrestle tonight with Charles Robinson as the referee. David displays his boundless energy and charisma here as he monosylabically responds to Ric's encouragement. Ric waits for David to leave before telling Arn and Charles that he's wrestling Meng. Roddy Piper makes a thoroughly unwelcome return and is justly ignored in his constant asking of where the President's room is. He finds it and levels Flair with a trash can. Piper beating up a cop is so fucking ridiculous. Ric wants Scott Steiner to beat up Nash, and Steiner's eager to oblige. Uh, did we miss something? Steiner settles for beating up Buff. They actually *did* split up a few weeks ago in a segment the Yearbook (justifiably) skipped. Boy, have we taken a wrong turn since last week. It's pretty easy to see now how much worse this was for WCW's ratings than the Fingerpoke. The Fingerpoke was one failed attempt at an "epic" angle--this is jus a repeated embarrassment of one of their only remaining certifiable ratings draws, week after week after week.
  24. PeteF3
    I don't know who any of the Vipers are besides Psicosis and keeping track of which Vato Loco is which is a fool's errand, but I'm not sorry I saw this. The big payback spot where Los Vipers all used chairs to block dives by Los Vatos Locos was a highlight, as was of course Enigma getting strung up upside-down and handcuffed, allowing Los Vipers to win a 4-on-3 to win the first (only?) fall. Sangre Chicana and Cibernetico precipitate a crazy post-match brawl. Not one for the end-of-year awards but a lot better than some of the other bullshit ECW-inspired lucha in the late '90s.
  25. PeteF3
    They lost the titles by countout, to Rose & Somers, but the match aired on TV. The announcers didn't even attempt to explain why the titles changed, they treated it like it was a matter of routine. (Well, it was in Memphis, and outside the U.S. and Canada, but in the AWA...)
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