soup23

This ventured from the out of control, sprawling brawl into a shoddy production unintense cold one. The strikes and blood was there but no substance for me which was disappointing. Crazy how much Perro Jr. looks like his papi every time I see him.

Extremely quick start with LCO taking the first fall with two Death Valley Drivers from Mita securing the win. Second has tons of great stuff including the leg work on Mita, a nasty piledriver on a table, and stiff strikes all around. Second fall finish was a nice touch with the big move from Watanabe and another brutal kick from Maekawa sealing it for them. Third fall basically results in Maekawa getting killed and trying to hang on including her being cut open in a weird area. I really love how LCO amp up the violence with weapons in a cerebral way. They end up winning the match with another DVD and a tiger suples from Mima. One of the sleeper matches of the year for me and great stuff overall.

Hotta's arm work here looked well especially the armbreaker from the top rope. It really felt like she had to lock it on at the end in order for it to be successful. Not a bad swan song at this point for Kyoko leaving the company and it feels like AJW resetting with Kong and her leaving.

I am not as burnt out on this match yet as Charles, therefore I dug it a good deal and thought it hit the sweet spot time wise. I also liked all of the counters they had to each other due to their familiarity with each other. The spinning back fist seqence and reversals was especially well done.

Thanks for compiling the list Cheapshot!

Page was a great FIP around this time with his cutoff spots making it that much more rewarding when he finally tags Luger in. The crowd goes ape for the giant vs. Nash showdown and this show makes WCW feel really alive and kicking even without Hogan being featured.

Implying that Nash has been kicking back the adult beverages as he really lets loose saying that WCW makes him vomit and calling JJ a jackass.

Week four and JJ and Gene are still dumbfounded. Sting comes out to a nuclear reaction and holds up a sign making it clear he wants Hulk. I remembered the building being electric this night but man is this crowd hot.

Really just these two guys coming out to kill a segment and not say too much of note. Still amazing that it is relatively entertaining.

good little action match with the crowd including an 11 year old Chad going nuts. These were the best seats I have ever had at a major wrestling show as we were setting third row to the far right of the camera. Eddy is a heel where he belongs.

I liked Norton smoking the sparkling cigar. Seems kind of odd they are throwing their birthday party now. The age joke on Flair was funny .

Fun match seeing the genesis of DX, all of these feuds intertwine, and knowing the later history of all of these individuals. Shawn and HHH worked pretty good as a team and Shawn has fit right in as the scummy heel giving hellacious chair shots and giving the blowjob gesture to the front row.

Great video and interview with Austin making him look like a huge star that was incredibly gutsy but that he also has some down to earth qualities to him.

Cool segment of Goldust/Terri with Dakota on the Atlantic City beach. Bret gives a promo talking about Vader. Not exactly top flight challengers for Bret after winning the belt.

Ahmed get shitcanned once and for all. Rocky Sucks chants are abound and he gives his first full promo and not a bad effort at that. I have liked the Nation around this time but the Gang Wars stuff really brought them down.

Feels odd to me to hear Rude's old music in WWF at this time. Rude does the ol Atlantic City spiel from Wrestlemania 5. This promo was really weird with all the insurance talk and the crowd died pretty quickly.

Don't recall if the match is any good so may be interested in a rewatch. Forgot that this was elimination so I wonder why they had Funk drop the belt to Sabu and not just to Douglas in the first place. The ending here felt very anticlimatic and ECW trying to do too much mitigating the title win for Douglas. I have really liked ECW for the most part but I hated everything in the ending here even though Saturn was gutsy to do that with his injuries.

I thought it was great too and mixed up the garbage style of ECW brawls with violence. The run-ins still felt fresh here to me and it felt like a feel good victory for Tommy. The strap pull down sequence was really fun to watch and Joey missed Tommy pulling his strap down. Lawler has been great in this role and had a very successful 1997 as a result.

Pre match was great in this. Gertner has aged so well and is so slimey. "You are so fat, if I told you to haul ass, it would take two trips" Fun southern style match with the Dudley's using their numbers advantage. I especially liked Wolfie's dive to the outside and the arm wringer spot that Loss mentioned. This does look very different from an ECW show but the crowd seemed pretty hot to me, just miked kind of odd.

King goes over the whole WWF roster giving him well wishes. I liked how he brought up the past feud with Hart but they stood for the common goal of the WWF.

Need to watch the real hyped 1996 matches again but right now this is competing with the 2/4/94 match as my favorite M-Pro match of all time. Hotly contested action and Kaientai still looking like a dominant faction. The crowd was into this and Oriental impressed me the most in this match as he hit everything cleanly and had some especially inspired sections with Togo. A load of fun overall.

I really liked the ending knockout of this match and this match also felt it relied more on the rope breaks than previous RINGS matches on the set. Cool look at someone I am really unfamiliar with (haseman).

Syxx is not a terrible offer by JJ but the bit at the end with him looking befuddled again was dumb as shit and this for sure should have been the last of these as even Tony on commentary was yelling that it was Hogan that Sting wanted.

Basic Wolfpak promo with a mixture of boos and cheers. They are still going at the Steiners and it looks like this feud has to continue. Those belts look very dinky compared to the Outsiders.

Fantastic match with wild out of control spots and Shawn showing his heel tendencies. This feels like a real hidden gem in Raw's history and the chemistry between these two continue to be exceptional. The elbow drop on the table, the backdrop on the table, and Foley getting his head bounced against the ring post were all sick spots. The genesis of DX emerges as Rick Rude is the insurance policy Shawn was talking about and HHH/Chyna are there for the proceedings as well. Taker comes out to confront Shawn but he gets stunted by a stern message from Paul Bearer and flames from Kane as we go off the air.