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soup23

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Everything posted by soup23

  1. soup23
    Good match but forgettable is about where I land as well. Kanemura is one of my favorites in the deathmatch scene and I thought he excelled here in trying to put over the size of Awesome after he worked him over for the first portion of the match. Awesome wasn't as reckless as he will be at certain points in the next few years but still struck me as someone with just raw size here as far as actual psychology to put everything together. ***
  2. soup23
    I am a sucker for "Come Out and Play" as a song but yeah the match didn't look like it was any great shakes and Sandman is just a bad worker all around. Raven's promo beforehand was decent enough I guess but not a head turner. ECW in 1996 is a pretty weird year where a lot of stuff didn't land for me personally. I enjoyed the 1997 output much more.
  3. soup23
    Eric got pelted with all sorts of stuff as he came to the ring. Three segments for Piper on Nitro and they ran the spectrum of introspective to him fending off the NWO in chaotic fashion. THe ending scene with him with the chair was well done. I dug this Nitro a lot for the big takeaway stuff heading into Starrcade.
  4. soup23
    This was neat as well with Flair and Piper being chummy and you got a genuine sense of companionship from both of them. Flair laying out that he is willing to help only for Piper to rebuke that he has to do it on his own was well built too as well. I am really digging the build to Hogan vs Piper and they are making it seem like a huge deal with Piper carrying the heavy lifting so far.
  5. soup23
    Piper is usually not my favorite especially WCW era Piper but he struck a good balance here of unhinged and presented as someone crazy enough to take down Hogan and the NWO syndicate. That made the segment really effective and him utilizing the Charlotte hometown touches only emphasized the build.
  6. soup23
    A decent promo but even though WWF has made strides in 96 coming from a really uninteresting promotion to one with potential, they do seem to sputter in December here like most every years. The feud with Sid feels like a placeholder in a way.
  7. soup23
    Awesome, I was just listening to some old shows this week hoping for the return
  8. soup23
    I thought this was pretty ho hum but maybe the distance from when I watched the earlier multi mans and this one helped it overall. The finishing stretch involving Delphin and Naniwa was awesome. Delphin is really starting to become of my most underappreciated wrestlers in history as I think some just look at the gimmick as goofy and dismiss his skills overall. He is someone that honestly would be knocking on the door for me for consideration if I did the GWE right now. Kaientai DX was fun as usual bullying around the face brigade especially Mens Teioh in this match. **** (7.9)
  9. soup23
    This felt like a big moment and I was happy to see Kyoko dominate most of the match but Manami was pretty spot here and a couple of her big botches in the big moments took me out of the match. The final moments with the huge reversals and big spots on the top rope was well done and built up. A good spotfest but one where I was hoping for a genre changing event and it didn't come even though Kyoko was overcome by emotion and it felt like a big moment to her personally. That is sort of the representation of joshi as a whole in 1996. the pieces are there of the golden area but the glue has deteriorated leaving an uneven structure base. ***
  10. soup23
    There may have been a fun match within this but the man on women violence holds up so poorly that a lot of the segment overall has to be taken with a grain of salt. I agree with what Pete says about Styles double standard. The fan run in was interesting to see that Douglas did have a big effect on people. Dreamer looks like a goof at the finish and I feel Douglas was pretty justified in his actions. **1/2
  11. soup23
    A match I have been conflicted with over the years. It landed more for me this time mainly due to Dandy's performance. The blood just dripping from his greasy hair along with santo's attack is some gritty stuff that shows the stakes overall. The crowd reaction is one of those weird occasions where they sort of go into business for themselves and reading this thread about what Dandy says post match gains some interesting insight. Overall, this has to be the best day of wrestling in history as far as top matches and at the least, Dandy vs Santo is one of the more interesting segments in lucha for the entire decade of the 1990's. ****3/4
  12. soup23
    This was nice to see Caprice so early and him and Jacobs did some spotty work but this was mainly used as a high octane showcase for two good athletes and then angle advancement. Nothing wrong with that but nothing memorable either. *1/2
  13. soup23
    Yeah, a lot of six mans and tags but great progression as you see Kobashi debut the purple gear and get pissed off putting cocky Akiyama down a peg and then Jun having to come back by getting his lieutenant Takayama and Omori up against Kobashi.
  14. soup23
    Lawler is on the phone and says he will be in the studio. The three way spots and portion here was better than I thought. Of the workers in MPPW, these along with Slash are probably the best overall. Bulldog is not an athletic specimen but has decent charisma and power moves. Finish from Steel off top rope didn't look great but he picks up the win. *1/2 We come back from break and discover that Lawler and a bunch of folks have arrived. Khan, Koko and Charlie are at the door. The door gets wedged open and we have chaos with Lawler and the entire MCW crew coming out. Kevin Kelly comes out and invades commentary. This is pretty awesome as a beatdown. The Dupps, Tracy, American Dragon etc are all out there and beating down the MPPW crew. Lawler is talking to Dundee and Dundee gives up where Baxter is. Lawler hears that Baxter is in his old dressing room and he is pissed. Baxter is under the table hiding and Lawler laughs at that. Dave putting this off as them being invaded by the WWF is hilarious in one way but does raise the credibility of MPPW overall. Seven returns back and joins the beatdown along with Kevin Kelly. Lawler gets on the announcer mic and says they brought them on themselves. Brown and Corey are flabbergasted saying this isn't the way to go about doing business. Kelly wants to tear down the banners and call this the house that MCW built. Corey yells to go to break and is PISSED. With MCW celebrating at the parking lot, the MPPW wrestlers come out and try to regroup. The fans seem to be pro MCW. Baxter says he will be at the Shelby County building tonight. Baxter says that Spellbinder needs to come out and back up the MPPW guys. Spellbinder comes out and Baxter says he doesn't like him or want him to be his friend. Spellbinder says he agrees but he will back up the MPPW guys. Memphis on their last legs throws up a hail mary and has an awesome angle brewing here.
  15. soup23
    Baxter and Slash promo to start out with Baxter gloating about throwing Lawler out last week. Slash has a pretty awesome promo saying the only people Lawler could bring was the son of his or the wife of his and he will slap both of them. The crowd chants Wolfie and Slash reiterates that he doesn't go by that name anymore. This is the final of the tournament and the winner gets a motorcycle. Brickhouse gives a fired up promo saying he is going to take a few suckers out and then calls him Wolfie D. Decent enough match with Slash brawling and throwing Brickhouse around before Brickhouse picks up the fluke win and then gloats on the motorcycle. Brown and Corey do good hypothesizing that Lawler was in Slash and Baxter's head. *
  16. soup23
    I'm loving the Kobashi vs Akiyama feud right now so much, it is going to be tough for Toshiaki even though I know some stuff like the 12/14 tag was MOTDC last time I watched. All three have had tremendous years in 2000. Kawada's is kind of a slow burn for me that gets much better after the split but he also has some sneaky stuff like those No Fear tags in the first half.
  17. soup23
    We start with the roster in a conference room where Lawler describes what happened last week and rallies the troops. Smothers is fired up and says he hates channel 5 and just wants to beat someone up. Lawler says as soon as they are done today, they hop in their cars and head over to the station. This is a fun angle and a good way of merging the promotions. Match starts with Tracy saying if he hears Tracy sucks, he is going to slap everybody. They are outside in a parking lot somewhere. Overall this was a really impressive match and Kwik's best of the year. Tracy was shit talking throughout but he played a great heel in getting his comeuppance and he complimented Kwik's energy and offense. As we inch toward the end of the year, Tracy is another person that really is going to have to get some top 100 wrestler thought from me as I think his character work has been tremendous and he has filled a great role within MCW Memphis. **3/4
  18. soup23
    This won't make you forget about the Carny 94 final but it is a fun match with about 5 out of 12 minutes clipped. Williams is at least aware of his limitations and takes a much more calculated approach to his matches in 2000 and allowing for his taped up ribs and other vulnerabilities to be worked over. As a tournament match, this also worked as Kawada had to get past a big gatekeeper type that had lost a step on his road to the finals. I think I can find a spot for Dr. Death on my top 100 workers of 2000 and Kawada is building up his case for a top 10 finish towards the end stretch of the year. *** (6)
  19. soup23
    CMLL is back baby. For the first time since the big August show, there is a lot of juice being ingested into the product and things are progressing. This is a Relevos match where the competitors don't really mess around with the pretense of not liking their partner. Even their regular pairings like Santo/Casas have quite a past so it isn't a stretch for them to be opposite each other here. That really helped the intensity of the match overall. Santo was a loon doing no less than three huge dives including a top con hilo onto Scorpio where he slides into the front row of chairs. Him and Scorpio were the focal point of the match and we had mask ripping and posting leading to Scorp being a bloody mess. Finish worked really well as Santo blocks a foul and then takes his own mask off but hands it to Scorpio so they get DQ'd. A clever finish done well here and hopefully leads to some more matches down the line. All four here are old enough to not have the pretense before the CMLL crowd of being a clean cut tecnico so they went out and beat the shit out of each other to my enjoyment. **** (7.9)
  20. soup23
    Tarzan Boy was born to be a rudo. He delivers easily his strongest performance of the year being a selfish prick that only cares about himself throughout the match. Shocker is great being right there with him as the devil on his shoulder inviting him to the darkside of rudoism. Overall, this was note perfect with Atlantis and Niebla being attacked by all three rudos and Tarzan just standing on the apron half looking for a tag. Once he gets in, he holds the ropes open and Atlantis spills to the outside. The sequences between Shocker and Boy in the ring are impressive as you can feel the appreciation that Boy is gaining for Shocker. Tarzan gets the pin and is happy about himself. His trunks say 69 so you know TB is a douche now. Bestia and Shocker go in for the hug on the apron and TB is receptive so this is the turn and was done so well. ***1/2 (7.1)
  21. soup23
    This match makes me appreciate Tajiri's 2000 more. Super Crazy just isn't that good of a worker. Him and Oriental seem around the same level in that they are carryable and have some good ideas but can't be relied upon to put together a satisfactory match themselves. That is sort of a shame as for once in AAA in 2000, the bullshit and over wrenching referee stuff was held to a minimum. Oriental picks up the win and his first major career title. **1/4
  22. soup23
    Reyes is someone that never impressed me in singles competition or really all that much in tag competition so I was dubious going into the match here. The opening mat work was pretty sloppy but they were cutting a good pace and the crowd was into Ricky with loud chants from him. Reyes was on top for a vast majority of this match and his offense reigned from impressive to eye rolling. It is kind of par the course for the indie talent in 2000 although I do think as a whole we see more promise here than the counterparts in IWA-MS and CZW such as Ric Blade, Suicide Kid, American Kickboxer, etc. 2000 has really showed a gulf from what will become the indie stars looking fairly good IMO (Dragon, Punk, Hero, Styles) to the lower levels that didn’t show up much past 2002. This match does serve as a good middle ground as neither of these guys were ever stars but both had established indie careers and would be relied upon to produce quality matches over the next decade. As a match, this is just merely ok with Kaz getting the win with the lifting reverse DDT but as an overall arc on where the depth of indie talent is in 2000 especially in the so cal scene, it was enlightening. **1/2
  23. soup23
    A good sit down interview with Rock and JR where he helps clarify some things Rikishi says on Monday and reiterates that he had nothing to do with running over Stone Cold. This is the yearly put Val in a tv main event spot. He does well on these select occasions simply by being a unique option that is competent enough to have an ok match. Kurt/Steph are at ringside and try to run interference allowing Val to win but Rock is able to overcome the odds and gain the victory. Show ends with Steph/Kurt on top after a beatdown. **1/4
  24. soup23
    Steph announcers herself as being permanently in Kurt's corner. Nice bit when Kurt comes to the ring and goes for a hug but Steph offers a handshake. Kane still feels motivated but his character is really slipping as he is right back to mr. face here going after Angle and especially Steph to a big reaction from the crowd. Overall this was a fine match and Angle matches up well as a Kane opponent. Angle picks up the win after kane was occupied with Steph allowing himself to be rolled up. This puts over the tandem as a big threat for Rock at No Mercy. *3/4
  25. soup23
    This HHH face run kind of reminds me of the Rock's face run during the autumn of 1998. I do think Rock got organically over more but the crowd is pretty hot for HHH even beyond the canned heat you hear here. This match and feud overall with Benoit has been personal and intense. I liked bringing Road Dogg and Saturn into the mix and this is the best that Saturn has looked this year with a nice looking missed moonsault. Terri gets involved which allows Steph an opening to say after the match that she could have prevented that if she would have been there. **
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