soup23

Glad we got to see Sabus jump from the R I couldnt believe my eyes with how competitive this was. It was almost like LOD decided to prove they could sell to lesser opponents given their reputation. Crowd was rabid for them early on and kind of maligned by the end. Headbangers have been put in some interesting positions so far in 1997.

As if the ECW invasion wasn't enough we get the debut of Shamrock and a closeup of Green Latern Fan in the crowd. Shamrock insults the King as says he doesn't know him.

Shit like this is just lost right now in wrestling. I could give a shit about the Eliminators but I was electrified by them entering the ring with Paul E as their hype man. I also like Lawler being the main antagonist in these segments. Paul E, King, and Vince is quite the announce team. I love how Paul challenges King to say who the BWO is ripping off. Raven joins us in the aisleway. Lawler endears himself to me even more by ripping on Joey Styles Short snippet from Golddust as a ton of shit is happening. Match was some good back and forth and Stevie picks up the win. The ton of this show has been created.

Finish was weirdly toned here as Mark Curtis didnt do a great job of stating that he saw Hogan's legs under the ropes. Camera angle of course didn't help. Savage turning to the NWO feels weak as at best he is #4 on the pecking order. Really one thing that is unique about this time is that Macho, HOgan, and Piper have all been great in their roles and have such a rich history, but it does seem like a sense of been there done that really leaving the door cracked open for the WWF to come back.

Crowd comes alive when Nash powerbombs The Giant which went off without a hitch. Lumberjack Luger comes back with a great hot tag wailing on everyone. He racks Nash in another great spot and Nash gives up. In some regards, the NWO was of course booked strong, but in the big PPV matches, Hall and Nash have looked fairly week as Giant was more than holding his own 2 on 1 here before the belt and Syxx turned the momentum.

I must say the Cow Palace may be my most maligned building as it never seems to have good heat. Action was not very inspiring here and there is something about Bobby AND Dusty on commentary that doesn't jive. Finish was pretty contrived with the momentum spot finishing in Malenko getting hit with the belt. Syxx wins the cruiserweight title which I am interested to see if people think is beneath him. I am conflicted myself.

Post match angle didn't make it Flik, wanna fill us in? I made a big discovery during this match, Ozaki is a crazy, psychotic bitch. Her shear delight at biting the cut of Chigusa was harrowing. She had great facial expressions throughout this match. I liked this match overall as everything had a gravity to what they were doing. Still I felt that they really went out to have a crazy, great brawl and match and just barely missed the mark. The wadrobe malfunction happened at the worst possible time and took me out of the match a little bit for the finishing stretch. Glad that Ozaki got the win as she gave a much better performance in this match to me.

For the back half of the 90's and early part of the 2000's, one of the most interesting themes will be the plight of the indies. This is the perfect starter to that. I remember these guys being hyped in PWI along with Mr. Oh La La. Cheetah hits a huge dive which his manager Albano cant be bothered to even watch. Match had good heat but not a lot to it. I hated the slipping on a banana peel finish that allowed Darling to pick up the win.

Raven and Lee are beating up everyone until sandman and his son, Tyler (wearing a BWO shirt) make the save. Sandman drinks a beer before entering and he cleans house. Raven is getting beat up and pinned as much as champion as Del Rio is now. Sandman's whole family dynamic is weird throughout ECW.

Could have sworn I commented on this? Anyway, The sioundbytes when they see Andersons family is great. "what is this family feud?" The laugh that Nash gives when Bisch tells Andersons daughter he is still fired is also glorious. NWO at their dick best.

Douglas continues to be my least favorite person in ECW currently even more than Raven since he has done some decent stuff. Both again I don't think are great choices to anchor the heel side of things. Candido's animated promo went all over the place. Taz comes in and clears RVD drawing Sabu out as they have a staredown but don't touch. This was good stuff continuing their feud.

Meanie and Togo is a tag team I can get behind.

Sasuke in a suit looks dapper. Its the #1 company of the USA vs. #1 company of Japan according to Sasuke.

This started off so well with Raven saying that Dreamer had never beaten him. Then we get into therapy time with Raven. This is brutal stuff especially from the heel champion of a company.

This was really surreal watching this play out. Scorpio vs. Owen sounds like a cool match on paper.

Dirty Dutch on commentary for this one. I really liked the piledriver spot we get from Lawler in the early going. Him and Christopher have good chemistry as partners. Wolfie still selling the neck after five minutes was amazing. PG-13 are by far the best statesdie tag we have seen so far in 1997. They do a good job doing a compact heat segment on Christopher. Lawler's hot tag with him pulling down the strap and them pinballing off was great. Was good to see my boy Billy Joe Travis pop up. I still really dig these long studio matches USWA is pulling off in 1997.

I kind of like building a card for each year for instance 1990 I would do this as my show: 1. Midnight Express vs. Southern Boys (GAB 7/7/90) 2. Lightning Kid vs. Jerry Lynn (PWA April 1990) 3. Riki Choshu, Kantaro Hoshino, Kuniaki Kobayashi, Kensuke Sasaki & Shiro Koshinaka vs. Higo Hamaguchi, Super Strong Machine, Tarzan Goto, Hiro Saito & Masanobu Kurisu (NJPW 6/26/90) 4. Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Nobuhiko Takada (UWF 10/25/90) 5. Aja Kong vs. Bull Nakano (Cage Match) (AJW 11/14/90) INTERMISSION 6. Rockers vs. Powers of Pain (MSG 1/15/90) 7. Hulk Hogan vs. Stan Hansen (WWF/AJPW 4/13/90) 8. Ric Flair vs. Lex Luger (Wrestle War 2/25/90) 9. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (AJPW 6/8/90) 10. El Dandy vs. El Satanico (Hair vs. Hair) (EMLL 12/14/90)

Honestly was pretty disappointed in this. Good match is as far as I will go. I am a fan of stalling and a bigger fan than most of Larry Z but this match wouldn't fucking start. When it did we got some good wrestling but it felt to abrupt. I did love the second caida with Rey having Santo reeling but he makes one big mistake that santo makes him pay with. Santo opening the third fall the same way as Rey in the second was also a nice touch. The third fall finishing stretch is good and Santo winning gets a huge pop but Rey being on top for so long in this match derailed it for me. Rey was obviously amazingly talented athletically around this time but I still think he needs someone to fill in the lines of the matches he is in especially with him on top. I think Santo's execution was good here but the story and layout of the match had too many peaks and valleys overall for it to be one of the better matches of the year in my eyes.

Heavy Metal looked awful. Luckily he was gone in around 3 minutes. i enjoyed Octagon literally flying out his shoe on the outside. Garza vs. Latin Lover as the final may be the prettiest match in wrestling history. I don't know if it was all the hair flying around or what but I had trouble telling these two apart. The action didn't help as we get way too much back and forth for my tastes. I think this may showcase where 1997 AAA was at but if this is a representation, the promotion was lacking.

Cool that Sting looked like he had enough and was about to escalate the issue until Savage convinces him otherwise. Hulk did a good job of quickly wrapping up his promo once they ran short on time.

Sweet debut. Looking forward to this oft not talked about era of "New York" I enjoyed the mixing of the rap/ wrestling tie in interspersed throughout the show. I agree with Sorrow that James has a Corolla type voice. I am going to have to pull out that Backlund vs. Valentine hour draw. Probably been around 3 years since I last saw it but I thought it was a classic as of last watch. I was not too surprised about the criticisms on Backlund just knowing Parv's wrestling tastes. I think he did have a ton of personality but understand how the howdy doody type character may not play as well either a. in the modern era where "grey-slanted" characters are preferred and b. to a non US individual. I can see Parv getting more into maybe Backlund's stuff with Muraco but I am interested to see his journey as these shows will be filled with tons of Bob. Keep it going.

Thanks Joe, sounds like Ishii vs. Okada is the only thing I will seek out.

Take some of the Warrior vs. Hogan promos from the buildup to WM 6 and add Alcatraz as a setting. Thats what you get here. I have no fucking idea what Hot Rod said even though I was captivated by it. I loved that he ends the promo with him doing pushups.

This seemed like it wanted to again take a memphis trope and amp it up. I will say the editing job on the footage is well produced as we get a closeup of Ricks face right before the car flips.

If you could just give us some cliff notes Joe on the matches to seek out once you watch that would be greatly appreciated.