tim
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Everything posted by tim
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Great angle and a real ramp up in intensity in an eye-opening way. This storyline was a sort of vague, slow burning thing each week and this immediately kicked it up to another level. Everything is all very expected in terms of drawing out the angle -- Bischoff can't tell them who they're facing, we have to wait until Nitro -- but they're not taking it and Hall blasts Bischoff and Nash puts him through a table. It's sort of an old, negative talking point that WCW used PPVs to build to Nitro, but this sure makes me want to tune in to Nitro to see the aftermath.
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The opening is really awesome with Sting opening with a hot run of offense and Regal fighting back with some beautiful strikes. Regal then takes control for almost the whole rest of the match, and it does lose some steam although Regal is always someone who can keep it entertaining while beating on a guy. Sting's final comeback pounding Regal to the mat from the corner was cool. This was a good match, though I wouldn't go much further than that in praise. Did make Regal look good.
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Such a memorable match. Awesome novelty and an all time great commentary job. The brawling was fine but they really did bring the intensity. This felt like a fight, not a contrived gimmicky thing. Tons of fun all around.
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Really interesting and significant match. Hard to argue this wasn't an effective introduction of Rey since he did go on to incredible success and was very over. Maybe I'd have started the match giving the crowd more a taste of the extent of Rey's abilities up-front, but the way they worked this really succeeded. You got some flashes of Rey's athleticism at the beginning, but a real flurry of it was saved for the end after Dean spent a lot of time in control. And the crowd really does react big to Rey's offense. This is a really effective match with a well-executed story that makes it feel like a legit strategic competition. I do come out of this feeling like they have a better match in them.
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Alright, a rare good 1996 joshi match! Ozaki and Kansai were the big names but I really thought Motoya and Amano were the stars of this match. Both turned in really spirited performances. They brawl to start and Ozaki attacks Kansai's leg, a theme that dominates the rest of the match. Ozaki and Amano just zero in on that leg and direct almost all their offense against Kansai on it; Amano is especially vulture-like going after the leg and it's great. Kansai becomes increasingly debilitated leaving Motoya to take lots of damage. Kansai is briefly able to overcome and fire off some big offense. Ending is awesome -- Amano scores a Fujiwara armbar on Motoya coming off the top rope and really wrenches back on it while Ozaki have Kansai restrained on the outside. But Motoya gets to the ropes and on her way back to her feet catching Amano in a roll-up for the win. Awesome ending to a great match.
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This angle rules, one of the best of the year. Really clever and Lawler knocks it out of the park; Lance is really great selling it too. He has such appreciation for Lawler's trick. Wolfie's exasperation at clearly being out-thought is also great. Fantastic segment.
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Hashimoto asks for Yamazaki right away but they wait a good while before getting him in the match, which did help build anticipation. Hirata and Iizuka sort of carry the match in terms of delivering competitive action. Hashimoto and Yamazki's exchanges are awesome but they're totally, totally one sided -- Hashimoto destroys Yamazaki, just gruesome assaults. The very little mileage Yamazaki and Iizuka get in terms of offense against Hashimoto is focusing on his knee, but even that is mostly irrelevant; Hashimoto just kills them both. And it's awesome. Hashimoto takes care of Iizuka leaving Hirata to try to finish off Yamazaki; he gets some nearfalls and it looks like it's clearly over -- but Yamazaki turns a bridging suplex into an armbar and Hirata has to tap out! Ha! The crowd loves the finish and starts chanting for Yamazaki. I definitely want to see more of this feud.
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1996 is a great year for NJ juniors. Started off with solid but not really exceptional matwork, but man did it take off once they kicked the match up a gear. They just had really great chemistry and the match-up felt fresh and interesting. Awesome ending with Eddy hitting his super brainbuster after having teased it, coming off of Liger unloading offense and it feeling like he was going to go down at any moment.
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The Vandaminator looked like it killed Mikey here.
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All time great juniors match. This is like, a classic 90s juniors structure and every aspect of it was done as good as possible, with some extra character thrown in with the chinlocks. And man, even more than having them locked on tight, the way Benoit grabbed Eddy in those chinlocks looked like an offensive move itself. The early matwork was very tight and very good. Eddy's selling of the headlocks was awesome, and subtle at times in a good way. Really great home stretch and cool ending with Eddy pulling off two super moves to get the win.
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Damn good juniors action, trading big moves and all very well done. Cool ending.
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Warrior still gets a huge pop. Fun segment, though Warrior looks totally ridiculous with that hat.
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The famous adjective thing doesn't take anything away from this great segment. They keep building the intrigue here every week. Nash cuts a great promo. I like how it doesn't seem like this has bled over into any of the other major angles, feels like WCW is just being totally blindsided by something.
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Good match which is mostly the faces taking it to the heels. Kind of lame no-finish but the group attack on the Giant and him withstanding it and freaking out was pretty awesome.
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What we see of the Giant/Norton match is pretty fun. WCW is going pretty strong right now even without the NWO angle. I wonder how things would have turned out without it.
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This is one of those WON match of the years that looks strange, because it just didn't end up in the canon of great matches of the 90s. But watching it, it's definitely a match that could win a MOTY award and deserves to be mentioned among the great AJPW matches. It's an epic, hard fought tag title match that never lets up. They're definitely continuing with the clear theme of the Akiyama/Misawa team being Misawa's relative superiority. Akiyama is awesome in this match, as he has been in most of his performances on this set. He's able to string together hot runs of offense, he feels like he has something to prove and wrestles frantically; but his more experienced opponents always catch up with him, and it's always down to Misawa to save him from defeat. Akiyama gets hit with a huge back drop driver, and Misawa has to come in and roll him out of the ring to buy him some time (a really, really awesome spot -- Misawa had just taken a lot of damage himself so didn't even tag himself in, just needed to buy time). There's a point where Doc and Ace have just hit both guys with huge moves and it feels like they HAVE to have this thing wrapped up, and it's only Misawa's superhuman recovery from a German suplex that keeps them in the match. It's Misawa who strategically takes out Williams at the end and keeps him out to let Akiyama get the win. Akiyama brings a lot of raw talent, but Misawa is truly carrying the team. This match had some nasty head drops but I don't think it was excessive (from a thematic point of view at least); each really big move felt really significant. I don't think there were too many kick outs either. This was all around a really, really great match that told a clear story very well while delivering incredible action all the way through.
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Eddy looked awesome in this match, busting out some cool matwork in the beginning and doing a great job working over Otani's leg. I do wish Otani put more into selling the leg, as it was such a prominent theme in the match. Otani is my pick for wrestler of the year so far too. He's still great here, and they do a good job building toward the big springboard dropkick that sets up the finish. Very good juniors match.
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Very good angle. It's still all rather cryptic, more questions than answers, not taking over the show yet and seems to be confined to a couple, relatively short segments; at least that's what we see on the set. They're definitely hitting it out of the park with introducing this angle. Some major is coming but you really don't know what, and to what extent as a viewer.
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Goldust feels a step above everything else going on in the big two in terms of pushing the envelope. Has there ever been such a gap between one major act and everyone else in this sense? At this point you would think he'd be a major star for years to come. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen.
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Whoa! Hell of a bump.
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WWE these days do the lighting gimmick where certain guys do promos often enough, and it's almost always very, very lame. But it works here. Good promo. The Mankind/Undertaker feud is a good one, I'm anticipating the matches.
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Decent match, a bit long and not nearly as tight as the last tag. La Parka was a fun addition though, and Psi/Rey's segment at the end was definitely more than just a replay of their usual routine, they did some great work to finish up.
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This was a really good match. They do some pretty good matwork in the beginning, working a nice little segment around a headscissors. They don't wait too long to get to the meat of the match though, and most of it is just fast-paced juniors action throwing out big moves and a couple nice dives. Great match to put on for the crowd.
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Now this is a spotfest. All action and everything looks great. The Rey/Psi exchanges were exceptionally good, everything came off just about perfectly and the crowd was super into it. Ultimo is awesome in this match too. Psicosis is awesome selling for the faces, and Heavy Metal is adequate. Nice ending.