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soup23

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Everything posted by soup23

  1. soup23
    As we talked about on WTBBP, the Van Hammer push was really brief shutting Meltz up when the company saw the same things he was. Dylan was discussing the misuse of Cesaro at least a year ago when he was building him up as wrestler of the year. This isn't some flavor of the week narrative that has just surfaced up.
  2. soup23
    This sums up a lot of ECW in a nutshell to me. Decent spots, some trying of "elevation" for Stevie and ultimately no emotional connection on my part leaving me to feel mundane about it. Joey is screaming Oh My God and I don't care as nothing was as visceral as the German Vader gave, Paul E is out to attack the meanie for some reason. Blah. (**)
  3. soup23
    Parv, I think you really are fixated too much so on this fan WWE wants and who frequents this board. We are all here as wrestling fans to some sort of degree. Whether or not WWE should be catering to the "smart" fan or not, there is not any reason that we shouldn't be major fans of the current product. In other forms of entertainment and hobbie endeavours, I can't recall a group that glorifies more on the past and maligns the present as wrestling fans to. This is a failure of Vince for being the biggest player in town more than anyone else. The elevation of the talent and going all the way just hasn't been there on a consistent basis. Giving Bryan the win at WM 30 was a great moment but did it erase the previous 6 months of stuff where he was outsmarted by HHH/Orton and relegated to the Wyatt feud? Cesaro is an even more glaring example. Think about a guy that early in the calendar year started creeping into the main event picture and having good performances while carrying a secondary title. This person had some catchy catchphrase and a move that was getting over with the crowd. Many people believed he was in a group holding back his true potential. WM showcased this individual where coming out of the show, they were the 3-4 biggest thing talked about. My above scenerio could be applied to Cesaro in 2014 or The Rock in 1998. Now, the aftermath of how they handled The Rock really helped shape him as a star. Maybe Cesaro wouldn't become as transcendent as The Rock but they have to start strapping the rocket to some of these guys and giving a clear elevation to them like you saw for HHH and The Rock in 1998. No one was exactly saying that Rock in 1997 and Austin in 1993 would be two of the biggest stars of all time in the business.
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  5. soup23
    I find it funny that you compared it to the Andre tag as those two matches are honestly in my bottom two. Something about Chicana being the foil or Satanico in the Andre match don't sit well with me. I still think the Andre tag is the only match on the set that I wouldn't call good so far but something about the Chicana vs. Mascaras match left me cold besides those two mixing it up.
  6. soup23
    Beulah is pregnant and its Tommy's. I couldn't get much into this and Tommy essentially garbage beats Raven. I will try to remain positive on ECW in 1996 but yeah, usually not my thing.
  7. soup23
    ROH has had its best year this year than in a long time. They have seen increased attendance and I think the product has gotten a lot better. I have seen strides in Cole's work and enjoy watching him and the Kingdom become a heel stable. AJ has been great in the legends role having great matches with Hero, very good match with Sydal and getting a lot out of Hanson. The fresh talent like ACH and Hanson has been given chances and delivered when asked to. I really think ROH has done a lot in this year to reaffirm itself as the top indy in the country overall.
  8. soup23
    Finish looked hot and this was a hell of a show overall from quality as well as historical significance. Muto walking to the back was haunting and Koshinaka and Hashimoto have some heated words with Takada to set up the future.
  9. soup23
    Only my second time ever watching this. Having just watched the 99 Dome show feel so inconsequential, this certainly feels huge and has a great aura to it with the Inoki entrance. The slap and way the crowd gets deafly quiet is amazing. Inoki getting this type of beating at 52 is still impressive to watch and this is one of the better performances of his historic but inconsistent career. Inoki's comeback was good and Vader comes back bloody. I really liked how the match ebbed and flowed where each person got some extended bouts of beatdowns but Vader got more time on top to put himself over and to play into the natural narrative of the match.. Finish was fun with Inoki getting a swift comeback, the super slam, and locking in a nasty armbreaker that allows him to get the win but the feeling that Vader more got caught than beaten. Great stuff. (****)
  10. soup23
    10 minutes of awesomenss and these guys had a good little feud with each other. Yamazaki really torques on the arm and Hash stays away from that for the remainder of the match. His comeback was succinct and brutal ending with a single Brainbuster. The simplicity of this match was endearing and they accomplished exactly what they set out to do. (***1/2)
  11. soup23
    I have no problem giving the big FU to the dome crowd for junior matches so that didn't bother me here. What did was the fact that Liger didn't do nearly as good a job selling his limbs as he does at other times. Kanemoto as a spunky junior is a little unnerving too as he got much better when he ramped up the douchebag tendencies. A good match but not really the great one I was hoping for and overall I am ready to chalk this feud overall as secondary to Liger vs. Otani. (***1/4)
  12. soup23
    This announce team is um.... not good. Weird to hear Mongo talk to in the pre Horseman fans about Flair. I think this was the only Nitro held in Atlanta that I didn't attend live. I have always been pretty high on these two and their chemistry and this was a fine tv match with all the big spots hit and a neat dynamic of Flair getting a big amount of vocal support from the crowd. Hart runs out at the end and Bischoff is outraged. Big schmozz breaks out at the finish with the DOD and Horseman coming in. Brutus is yelling some nonsense. Macho is out to help out Hogan. Yeah. (**1/4)
  13. soup23
    This wasn't offensive but not needed either. A couple of funny spoofs but this went on for way too long and lost its appeal very quickly.
  14. soup23
    This was a good bit of fun to me. THey went all out on the concept and set up some good crowd pleasing spots to get over the rules like Yoko and Owen going at it and Yoko trying to call time out. WWF has never been the most subtle company in the world getting over their storytelling but this match seemed like a good hybrid of the bleakness and zanyness of 1995 and the hope that 1996 would start to bring. (**1/2)
  15. soup23
    Big weekend coming up with ROH doing a traditional PPV on Sunday night and Chikara having their season finale on ippv on Saturday. I will say for all their faults at times, Chikara does have some great production and the music and presentation of the TOmorrow Never Dies report has me contemplating getting that card. Seems pretty loaded with every match having pretty serious implications plus I am a sucker for Devastation Inc. The ROH PPV to me looks fairly status quo although the main event could go either way as I think ROH has certainly realized that Elgin should have never won the belt in the first place so we will see if they recircle back to Cole or keep building someone else to conquer Brisco.
  16. soup23
    Well this was a load of fun and a good match. I was glad to hear the announcers talk about the lineage of the tag titles as it has been a mess and afterthought in the past year. FInlay and Taylor are great bruisers dishing out nasty punishment to the willing and Disorderly Conduct was more than wiling. Glad to have this on the footage I watched. (***)
  17. soup23
    Christopher and Stasiak break the gifts Lawler was giving out. What assholes. That starts this match and the action is furious and Dundee and Lawler work well as a team this time for the few minutes it lasts before we get the run in by a very young Albert and Vic Grimes. Why is this random cage in the studio? This seems pretty contrived from Stasiak and Christophers part and just never worked. (*1/2)
  18. soup23
    Lawler wont bring Stacy to the ring due to the volatile nature of Stasiak not being able to light a fireball. We get a tag team match tonight with Lawler teaming with Dundee. Boy, I am all for the Christmas spirit but this is the fourth PPW show with Christmas overtones. PPW feels like the family that doesn't take down their tree until March.
  19. soup23
    Nagashima was relentless in this match. I was shocked to see at the finish that this went 17 minutes as it felt a lot longer and more draining and I mean that in a good way in regards to this match. Satomura was able to weather the storm of everything that Nagashima threw at her and picked up the win. Really good start to the GAEA year. (***3/4)
  20. soup23
    I don't understand how "goofy" helps anyone here given what they were going for. Chasity and Sandman are on the scene but I really hated this and the way it was presented. Fuck Raven.
  21. soup23
    Agree with most of your thoughts although I might give the Dr. Wagner match another shot as I was similar to the Espanto vs. Santo match as you and also liked but didn't love the Wagner match but found a lot more to like the second time through. Probably still only a top 40 contender but really great stuff. The more I mull it over, the more I want Perro vs. Chicana to be my #1 at this point.
  22. soup23
    What the fuck is Hogan wearing? LWO gets beat and buried and Nash makes fun of Konnan (huh?). Nash is incredibly annoying here pandering to the crowd. Hogan feels like a second banana which just doesn't really work. I do think the psychology of him doing this to protect his spot is again fascinating from an outsider perspective. Hogan is savvy despite all of his faults. I liked Hogan calling out Goldberg for having security and Falcons watching his back. The B&W B-listers come out led by Giant who I honestly thought was gone by now. Hennig is still wearing a suit and is not long for this group. Giant vs. Nash is made for Monday and I guess that is the big send off for The Giant. Pretty poor segment after the spirited Flair stuff.
  23. soup23
    Man, Flair really tried his damndest to make sense of the nonsense from Monday. Flair has a great line about the history of the sport and brings things to a meta level talking about Nash reflecting ten years later about laying down for Hogan. Flair has words for the other Wolfpac members including Luger which felt really close to how he truly felt. Bischoff is to report to Flair's office by 8:00 AM for them to figure out a plan. Flair lists the world champions and god bless him from adding Garvin in that list. Flair in late 1998 and early 1999 is honestly having one of the best promo runs of his career which says something.
  24. soup23
    Great match and it may not being entirely memorable shows how great All Japan in the 1990's was. I loved the focused attack on Kobashi and he sold his ass off. I thought Taue in particular looked spirited here since at this point he was starting to be on the decline as far as relevance and probably was behind Akiyama. Akiyama and Kobashi continue to gel as a team and look good picking up a big win over the most established All Japan team of the 1990's. We are off to a great start in January 1999. (****)
  25. soup23
    in the wake of Japanese and US wrestling for that matter moving towards higher impact move and faster sequences and work overall, a traditionally thought of garbage promotion gives us this gem that integrates all facets of NWA title matches from yesteryear. The opening matwork could be easily glossed over if fiddling on your phone or surfing the web as it isn't flashy or incredibly intricate. However, there is a ton of added minutia and extra torque to almost everything being performed making it captivating to me. Oya gets thrown threw chairs on the outside in the only garbage spot of the match. He comes back bloodied but doesn't perform like the wounded animal usually does in a wrestling match just trying to hang on. Instead, he takes the lion's share of the rest of the match. The final portion built to some great nearfalls and had executed moves and submissions with added emphasis. A great match overall. (****1/4)
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