Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

PeteF3

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    10269

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by PeteF3

  1. PeteF3
    No fuss and no muss--Bischoff gets in absolutely zero offense, WCW finally holds off the NWO...and y'know, I even liked Savage's presence even if it was ultimately pointless and Gorgeous George served as a distraction, because with their past history it showed how huge this was that *he* was helping Ric Flair. It was rough going getting through this Yearbook because of time issues, a general malaise over the direction of late-'90s wrestling, and wrestling-viewing time that I had being devoted to modern stuff more than in the past 15 years for me. But this might be the best Yearbook-closing segment of them all. They didn't go about it the 100% right way, but by God, things are finally looking up for WCW!
  2. PeteF3
    Sounds like a perfectly reasonable Dome show main event to me. What could go wrong?
  3. PeteF3
    It's '90s cruiserweight action meeting classic southern tag wrasslin', and it works beautifully. There's some sloppiness and miscommunication in the early going that's quickly forgotten about once Rey is getting worked over, and both sides break out some pretty sick double-teams. The LWO picks up a needed win after Kidman ran through them last night. Not a #1 TV match of the year or anything but very, very good.
  4. PeteF3
    "You are someone who's going to die of a heart attack--" "IF I DIE OF A HEART ATTACK, IT'LL BE ON TOP OF YOUR GIRLFRIEND, PAL." That's probably the best line of the segment but there are others that are almost as good. But there's no reason why they couldn't have built up to having these stips at Starrcade, given that there were weeks when this feud wasn't really going anywhere until they ramped it up with the attack on Ric's family. So this is horribly hotshotted and a desperate ratings grab that won't work, but Flair is so compelling that he makes this segment great.
  5. PeteF3
    I still maintain that this was a good direction to take Raven's character, to make him out to be even more of a whiny jerk. But...I don't think they really went anywhere with it.
  6. PeteF3
    Yeah, this is really out of nowhere and not explained well at all. *Why* was Shawn holding the Corporation back? It doesn't matter, all that matters is that we got swerved. I'll make another sarcastic crack about how this is apparently building to Shawn vs. Vince and then I'll try to stop, because it's a useless thing to be complaining about now. Matches no longer matter and building to them matters even less.
  7. PeteF3
    Yeah, this was a fun twist--I guess--in the story. I mean, we're still apparently building to Henry & D'Lo...vs...PMS? Or something? But Henry is making these segments, and in another world you might actually be able to drum up some interest in Chyna vs. Jackie.
  8. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a password protected forum. Enter Password
  9. PeteF3
    Re: Repo Man, I never would have guessed it myself either, but that was one of the secrets that PWI broke for me. I have to think Piper blurting out "That's the Iron Sheik!" was intentional, or at least approved. That shit was taped after the fact--just like his proclamation of "THAT'S TONY ATLAS!", it wouldn't have made it into the final cut if Vince really didn't want it there.
  10. PeteF3
    The big difference from Rex/Smash is that they never tried to claim OMG and Akeem were two different people--they outright said the Gang had been "reborn." Sheik/Mustafa was a little weird...sometimes they acted like Mustafa was completely new, other times Vince would acknowledge him as a former WWF Champion, and sometimes it wasn't really talked about one way or the other.
  11. PeteF3
    Andre the Giant could ruin friendships in that NES game.
  12. PeteF3
    That's how I always saw it happening--Funk essentially got Piper's spot. Same "you don't deserve a title shot because you've been in Hollywood" angle, even.
  13. PeteF3
    Think that's all about the promo. The match itself is inconsequential--Douglas' opponent could have been literally anybody.
  14. PeteF3
    And this may or may not have been inspired by Anna Nicole Smith's recent marriage to 89-year old oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall.
  15. PeteF3
    I don't know anything about Skyler or Lee but that looked like a 4* match to me. The matwork was pretty darn tight, no execution problems there at all, and the guys really came across as thinking of how to get out of their various holds and counter them, and then executing what they came up with. Rather than the "I wristlock you, you reverse it" dance routines. Moves that were teased early on were paid off later, and moves that were executed early on were countered later. Little not to like from a psychology standpoint. I really didn't care for the floor stuff at all, particularly since they completely disregard any semblance of a countout, but at the beginning of the spots Skyler is working to break the count and then they do a countout near-fall tease at the end--either work the countout or don't, guys. That ends up being a fairly minor blight on the match in the end. The crowd wasn't frothing at the mouth, but they did seem to be watching the match and reacting to everything--and I'm not a guy who holds up "This is awesome" chants as a sign of the decline of western civilization, but it was refreshing to see a modern-day indy without a single chant at all. And that big lady in the blue shirt who was practically praying to the heavens when Lee was in trouble...she was doubtless flashing back to the days as a young lady in the Greensboro or Charlotte Coliseum madly cheering for Steamboat & Youngblood.
  16. PeteF3
    Goldberg vs. Lesnar might have been a healthier and more far-reaching match than we all thought at the time.
  17. PeteF3
    Vince's smug, understated "Oh hell yeah" is the perfect capper to a perfect montage.
  18. PeteF3
    Road Dogg must defend his newly won Hardcore title against Mankind. Commissioner Michaels is going to be fired tonight in what seems like a pretty hasty babyface turn. Vince is back to his smoldering over-the-top persona that he was doing too much of in the fall.
  19. PeteF3
    Yeah, this was pretty good action and a good comic-book-splash-panel type of match--for the most part. One of the better Nash in WCW matches for sure, thanks mostly to Goldberg as this might be the first and only time he outright carries a match. The ending...ugh. Beating Goldberg at all was a mistake, but I'm 100% convinced that if you do decide to end the Streak, you have to end it legitimately and not through bullshit. Kevin Sullivan agreed with me and knowing the directive that Goldberg was to lose, proposed a finish where he'd go for the spear and knock himself out against the turnbuckle. But instead, we got a finish lifted from a mid-card Mountie match from 1992.
  20. PeteF3
    Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. Bischoff should not have been able to successfully fake a knee injury, should not have been able to get the advantage at all without interference or a weapon or something, and should not have won this at all, much less with one knuck shot. Let Flair have one kickout, please. Flair shouldn't have bladed, either, or if he did it should have been off NWO interference and not just Bischoff kicking him or ramming him into the guardrail. There was some decent work here in-between the problematic match layout, but in the end it's pretty much an egofuck for Bischoff and a cheap set-up to try to score viewers for Nitro. I get that Hennig's apparently been gone for a bit, but why are we acting like it's some gigantic SWERVE that he's helping Bischoff?
  21. PeteF3
    Well, I don't think that's going to happen, Scott.
  22. PeteF3
    Holy shit, this is a slept-upon pair of matches that ended up blowing me away. The triple threat is a lot of fun as they throw in a lot of ambitious and complicated spots that all hit, and avoid most of the 3-way cliches. No triple sleepers, triple suplexes, or guys being out of commission for minutes on end where the match devolves into a series of quickfire singles matches. Rey's Asai moonsault and Kidman's shooting star plancha are the highlights, but there are a lot of nice other touches like Kidman doing a tornado bulldog on Juventud while also dropkicking Misterio--stuff that utilizes the 3-way format without coming off as contrived. The finish is clever, with a bit of bullshit but with Kidman coming off as crafty and resourceful in victory. The Eddy match may be even better, since if you're never big into 3-ways at all and thought the action there may have been contrived or spotty, this tells a much more coherent story. Eddy is fresher, and smarter, and bigger, and Kidman actually wrestles in a way that puts this story over instead of a way to just get all of his shit in. He gets plenty of shit in, but there are lots of moments where all he can do is punch, stomp, and flail away at Eddy. It's the type of thing that Kenny Omega would probably never even think of doing, but that Kidman pulls off well. It's like that point Parv raised about guys whose entire movesets are finishers--I've made the point with Kidman a few times that he's still very good at executing very basic moves. Anyway, Kidman guts out another win with another finish that's satisfying with just a hint of gaga to it. Crotching Eddy on the top rope while also knocking him into Juventud was a nice way to set up a brutal SSP finish. I almost have to evaluate these matches as one since they're so tied in with each other. As a complete package I'd say this is the #2 domestic MOTY behind Austin-Dude Love, and it's a pretty close call on that front as well. Between the go-home Nitro and the opening here, you might think WCW was still on fire as a company.
  23. PeteF3
    Joshi MOTY? It's a shit year for AJW and joshi in general, but quite possibly. Everyone here had a role to play and they all played it well, and the match was laid out in accordance with those roles. Kong as the monster, Ozaki as the sneaky opportunist, Satomura as face in peril, and Yamada as the game but ultimately overmatched veteran. There was some uncharacteristic sloppiness down the stretch which will hurt this a bit, but nothing to get too worked up about and nothing that wasn't nicely covered for. Lioness Asuka shows up afterward and turns on Nagayo and joins up with Aja and Ozaki. Well, I didn't like Asuka's match from this set in the slightest, but maybe in GAEA in '99 she'll be better.
  24. PeteF3
    Sort of their usual match on fast-forward, nothing but spots. But hey, the spots hit and the finish is pretty brutal on slomo. I don't get the finish at all and Taz's post-match interview with Steven Prazak creates more questions than it answers. If the answer is Taz wants to give up the FTW title to focus on Shane's belt, why not just come out and say that? It's like Kevin Sullivan booked this.
  25. PeteF3
    Jazz makes her debut, and Chastity is rather clumsily written out of the promotion as Credible wallops her with the cane and he and Jazz beat her down. Bob Artese gets destroyed as well, just for the hell of it, or out of desperation. Take your pick. Terry Funk as Justin Credible's new mentor isn't really a role that suits him at all and I don't think it really works with the crowd either. I hope this "Dreamer can't bear to hit Terry" stuff doesn't last forever, but knowing ECW there'll be about 6 or 7 more angles where he hesitates before punching him and ends up getting beaten down.
×
×
  • Create New...