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tim

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Everything posted by tim

  1. tim

    1996 MOTY

    Updated for September.
  2. This story does come with some morbid curiosity but makes WWF look so, so bush league. Both Razor and Diesel just look ridiculous.
  3. I thought this was a fun match, very, very basic with Austin working hard bumping and showing ass to put over Jake's limited offense. Though I do agree that for this stage of Austin's push, this is a miscasting of him and he should be more of an ass kicking type heel.
  4. There was a lot of good action here -- nice dives, great run of nearfalls at the end, and cool spot with the splash-double stomp on to the outside on the table -- but it was hard for me to really get into this, just because I wasn't really familiar enough with anyone here but Toyota, to the point where it was difficult for me to keep track of who was who and really keep a grasp on the narrative of the match.
  5. Whoa! I've never seen young Takayama before. Quite a difference. Good match with a good story -- Kakihara appears to be the more skilled fighter for the first half or so of the match, but Takayama begins to impose his size advantage, and the advantage accumulates over the match with him hitting harder strikes with more weight behind them. Cool German suplex also.
  6. Simple but well done angle. Rey is pretty lame as a talker here but this does succeed in adding more interest to their match.
  7. Really good match, and I was actually really impressed with Asako, much more than with Ogawa. Asako had some cool looking punch/palm strike combos and worked a particularly good segment with Taue. I thought he was the highlight of the first half or so of the match, until the big boys picked it up and basically worked a mini home stretch of one of their big tag matches with some great energetic back and forth.
  8. Man this was awesome. The matwork was just beautiful, amazing counters and transitions one after the other. Tamura's single leg into a half crab was especially awesome. The two big stand up exchanged looks great and were really dramatic. Ending was perfect with Han sneaking in that leg hook to block Tamura rolling out and forcing a submission. Only flaw was I wasn't ready for this match to end when it did, good as the ending was.
  9. I love these kind of matches. Wild garbage-y tag match with lots of creativity, energy and something cool happening all the time. I especially loved Tanaka's big comeback against Awesome and they had a great run of nearfalls toward the end.
  10. JR's delivery is fantastic. Felt like WWF jumping on the "shoot" bandwagon and doing it well, and then the rest of the segment happened. Savio Vega randomly attacked Fake Razor as the show fades out was hilarious in how far off any mark it was.
  11. Man this is ten times more embarrassing for WWF than the worst Billionaire Ted vignette.
  12. Match was nothing but the queens line and "We Love Restholds" sign in the front row makes this a worthy addition.
  13. I always appreciate a match where the end peaks at a considerably higher point than the rest of the match, and this was that. The rest of the match was definitely good and entertaining throughout, but the match really jumps off at the end with Iizuka and Chono having a really dramatic exchange in the ring as Yamazaki and Tenzan struggle on the outside. For most of the match Yamazaki is the star, and he's really one of my favorite wrestlers of this year.
  14. Alright, let's get back on the wagon. I'm really surprised to see the reaction to this match because I thought it was great. Yeah, the crowd is really lame, but the action was fantastic. A different feel from a lot of juniors matches with some real aggression, especially from Benoit, a unique structure with Benoit on control in general with Liger getting spurts of offense here and there, and some cool spots you don't often see. Benoit was great in control and Liger's runs of offense were always great, I especially liked him reversing into a backslide and following up with the koppo kick. Ending run was great with Benoit upping the ante offensively but Liger staying in the game more and more, up to the end where after a great sequence of countering and dodging Liger hits his Shotei and follows up with three good looking Liger bombs in a row. Feels like to me their best match together.
  15. Second night of the UK title tournament is really, really high for me.
  16. Good, maybe very good, not great match. Koshinaka sure comes out looking strong. His dodging Hashimoto's kicks towards the end was cool and it's really something for Hashimoto to lose to an ass in the face.
  17. This is such an impressive match. This match is clearly very meticulously laid out, which might be a criticism sometimes, but it's totally not this time. Clearly a lot of thought and creativity went into putting this match together and they pulled it off spectacularly. Cool stuff is happening every single minute and there's a great flow and sense of escalation. Shawn has really never looked better. He looks like a true world beating champion here. Mankind's performance is incredible and he works his character so well, he looks like a guy who is outclassed by Shawn but his ability to withstand punishment and debilitation means he's always in the match and always a threat. The knee work was great and the chair-punching spot, followed by Shawn walloping both the hand and the knee with the chair was so awesome, made Mankind look like a freak who you just couldn't keep down no matter how hurt he was. This is one match where I think a countout win actually would have been satisfying if Mankind just wasn't able to get back in the ring after that table spot. The superkick off the chair was cool though, and it's not hard to just consider that the end of the match. This enters the class of my very best matches of the year along with Samurai/Otani, Williams/Taue and Williams/Ace vs. Misawa/Akiyama from June. Sumrai/Otani still reigns supreme but I'm really thinking where to rank this relative to the other two.
  18. Pillman has some choice words about the city of Philadelphia which may or may not ring true to this day. Really good promo from Austin, showing some real edge, and the idea of an Austin/Bret feud right now continues to be really appealing.
  19. I really liked Regal and Hashimoto's chemistry. I remember their 95 match being better, maybe a lot better, but I still liked this a lot. Loved Regal working the palm strikes, and his drop toehold into the Regal stretch was awesome. Good ending stretch as Hashimoto really starts to unleash the kicks.
  20. I still think Giant is a good fit in the NWO. You needed another big star other than Hogan to turn over and I think a big guy who is visually clearly a threat is a good move. You do start to get some bloat in the NWO with Syxx and this NWO Sting guy though.
  21. Good promo from Sting, a rare enough occurrence. Cool visual again with Sting's back turned to the hard camera and the commentary whispering about the implications of that. Surely these early NWO angles are the most artistically/aesthetically impressive stuff ever seen from wrestling production.
  22. Speaking of WCW coming to WWF, commentary totally ignores a good match going on in the ring to talk about an angle! Match was good and Mero is having a pretty good year from what we see on the set.
  23. I thought this was definitely a good match, and more than that a very successful match in context. No, it wasn't a violent war and the action wasn't as good as the better Wargames matches, but as far as being a big, eventful match that furthered the NWO storyline, it was very successful and still an entertaining match. Wargames feels like it should be a blow-off and this definitely isn't a blowoff, but does hook me more into wanting to see how everything plays out from here. But still, that fact, plus how fairly anti-climactic the finish is, and how long the post-match beat down is to the extent it kind of takes your mind away from the match by the time the broadcast ends, I can see thinking it's disappointing, but in as a part of the ongoing story it totally works and was fun to watch.
  24. This was a lot like Takada/Hashimoto as it's a huge match up between big names and is worked in a way that really reinforces how big a match it is. Much of the match is worked as a series of explosive exchanges in between relatively calm intervals, though they do go more all out toward the end. And those explosive exchanges are really great and the crowd goes nuts for them. Takada is good here but the star is Tenryu. Tenryu unleashes some cool ground a pound when Takada tries to take it to the mat. Although the best spot in the match might be Takada unloading with knee strikes in the corner, busting Tenryu open. Huge exchanges at the end. They really pull off the feeling of this match being a war between two colossal stars.
  25. Really well-produced angle from the shot into the dark limousine with Sting's voice, the announcers being aghast right away and then really freaking out when fake Sting comes out to attack. The one-camera shot with the rain slowly accumulating over the lens was a cool visual. I'd never really seen it before and this early NWO stuff is some of the best wrestling TV ever.
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