KB8

I saw this when I was going through a bunch of episodes of RAW from '94 a few months back, and I thought Yoko was pretty great too, all google-eyed and spazzing out. I had never heard Crush doing commentary on it before, even though I thought I'd seen the segment a bunch of times in the past (must've always seen an edited version). "He's just saving himself for Wrestlemania, brudda." Semi-related (I guess); Vince would have a different guy on commentary with him on RAW practically every week in '94. One week you'd get Jim Ross, the next week you'd get Savage, a week later you'd get Crush, or IRS, or Harvey Whippleman, and one week he even had Bastion Booger.

I wrote about this earlier in the year as well, so I'll just C&P it since I can't see myself liking it any less whenever I get to re-watching it on this set. I'm assuming most people remember this for the Owen turn and subsequent "That's why I kicked your leg out of your leg" promo (I know I did), in which case everything leading up to that has been lost in the shuffle, because this was a really fucking good match. Bret and Owen controlling things at the start is good, then Bret plays face in peril and that's good, then Owen comes in and throws the Quebecers around and THAT'S good. Owen has an awesome belly-to-belly, and as soon as he got the hot tag and started whipping the Quebecers into the ropes I was hoping he'd belly-to-belly suplex someone...and sure enough he did. Then we hit the part most people probably remember (other than the post-match), with Bret taking a spill out to the floor (because Polo held the ropes open as he was running off) and coming up clutching his knee. Bret is really awesome at selling the leg from this point on (not just in this match, but in the rumble match later). The only thing he manages to put together offensively the rest of the match is a half-assed sharpshooter that lasts about 3 seconds before he crumbles in a heap again. Other than that he just sells the crap out of the injury the whole time. There's a great segment on the floor where the Quebecers mug him and Owen keeps trying to come around and protect his brother. Jacques nails him in the knee with a chair, Pierre jumps off the steps and lands with his entire body weight on the leg, and Jacques sneaks all the way around the ring while everybody else has congregated at the other side so he can whack Bret in the knee with Polo's putter. Eventually the ref' throws the match out because Bret is borderline-crippled, and that's what sets Owen off. You can sort of see where he's coming from with this. He's RIGHT THERE for the tag, but Bret has other ideas even though he can barely stand up. Little brother is ready and waiting, but big brother tries to go it alone. All you had to do was tag, Bret. All you had to do was tag. I might've kicked his leg out of his leg, too.

This was really fucking good, maybe a top 5 TV match of the year. Gets plenty of time (about 20 minutes) and everybody brings it. Marty and Kid have a bunch of neat double teams and the Quebecers keep having to stall and regroup. They tease Marty going FIP when Jacques (I think) pulls the rope down from the apron as Marty's running in, and Marty takes a really cool bump over the top. When he lands it looks like he splats his nose on the floor. When Kid comes in after this he strings off a couple great highspots. Vince's call of the somersault plancha off the top is amazing. It sounds like he swallows his tongue because his brain is overloading trying to think of a way to describe it. "GBLUGH. DID YOU SEE THAT?!" Quebecers eventually take over when Kid is up top ready to go for the kill and Pierre shoves him off. I don't recall seeing more than 5 Quebecers matches in my life, but I was shocked at how good their heat segment was here. They don't really work it in a way that allows for good hope spots, which admittedly sounds pretty counter-productive, but instead they just murder Kid with a bunch of great looking shit. Pierre's assisted top rope somersault senton looked brutal (that's one thing about them I do recall) and they absolutely kill Waltman with this Total Elimination variant where Pierre hits a running lariat as Jacques casually sweeps his legs away. I would've liked them to build to the finish a wee bit better, but that's neither here nor there. Pop for the title change is a POP and Savage hitting the ring and celebrating is why I love that crazy bastard.

Heh, I haven't watched a Samu match or even thought about him in years and years but I was able to instantly remember that "oh yeah, he did do that one a lot" He also does it in the '94 rumble and it looks insane. He really throws himself into it and I'm not sure how it didn't yank his head clean off.

Man, Butch Reed as a Horseman is basically a pro-wrestling dream scenario for me.

I stumbled across this by accident a couple months ago and thought it was a lot of fun. I said this about it (I was in the midst of watching a shit load of 1994 WWF at the time): Oh, fuck! Dream match! Waltman and Marty were two of the best guys in the company in '94, and the Headshrinkers might be the best tag team. This got ten minutes and totally ruled like I hoped it would. There are some GREAT kicks in this. Waltman throws a few roundhouse kicks that look like they'd just shatter your jaw, and both Samu and Fatu rattle Jannetty's brains with side kicks. Great spot where Jannetty rams Samu's head into the steps, but Samu just shakes it off (he's Samoan and has an indestructible head) and cracks him right under the chin. Kid and Marty try and work the arm and make quick tags so Fatu just punches Kid in the nose and flattens him with a fatboy powerslam. He looked disgusted that a 70 pound girl would even try that. Marty is a really good FIP, taking a sweet inside-out bump off a Fatu clothesline (which is a cool role reversal since Fatu always loved to take that bump when he'd get clotheslined) and sells the shit out of getting choked with the tag rope. He and Samu have a nice sequence early on where they do a criss-cross spot with Marty dropping down and catching Samu with a monkey flip. When they get back up they do it again, but this time Samu drops down and tries to monkey flip Marty, except Marty is hip to it and just punches him in the face instead. Apparently Samu getting hanged in the ropes is a signature spot of his, because he does it again here. Maybe I should feel guilty about loving that spot so much since it wound up mutilating Mick Foley and turning him into a hideously deformed freak, but I'll assume the ring ropes in the WWF were more forgiving than the ones in Germany that ripped Foley's ear off. So I will continue to love that spot. Headshrinkers should've been on every show WWF ran, every week of every month in 1994 (although I think they turn face soon...that's mildly disappointing). I'm curious as to what made you guys toss this on the yearbook. I'm obviously not complaining or anything, because I really like it and think it fits right in on a project like this -- I just didn't expect to see it here. Although there's a fuck ton of cool semi-obscure matches on these yearbooks (which is maybe my favourite thing about them), so I guess I shouldn't be surprised it got put on.

Buddy's promo really is phenomenal. "I've got dozens of friends and the fun never ends...just as long as I'm buyin'." I don't think Loss is being hyperbolic in the slightest when he says this is a potential Best Promo Ever, either.

Been watching the ECW set (which is fucking incredible), and the Tajiri/Guido match from 3/24/00 really feels like one of the best sub-ten minute TV matches I've ever seen. I've watched it 3 times in the last 2 days and I fucking love it. That spot where Tajiri sits Guido in the tree of woe in the corner and stomps a chair straight in his face looked brutal. Guess I'll ask this in here -- what's the best Tajiri/Guido match? The only matches I've watched from the set so far are the ones from disc 12 (so nothing pre-2000), but there are other Tajiri/Guido matches on the set from '99. I'm pretty fucking stoked about watching them at some point.

So I've started on Will's SMW set. Just been watching bits from a couple of the extras discs so far, and am I being really hyperbolic by calling Buddy Landel an all-time great promo guy? If nothing else he's a guy that doesn't seem to get a ton of pimping as an interview, when he REALLY should. Shit, I must've been guilty of it myself. I've seen enough Buddy footage to know I like him a lot, but I never thought as highly of him as a promo until now. Not sure why...maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention.

Surely Jake Roberts? He was the guy that I thought of first. Jake in SMW was just ridiculously scummy looking (although it's not like he didn't look like a scumbag everywhere).

I prefer Hash/Sasaki to this as my working MOTY, but that's because I'm predisposed to loving shorter matches where two beefies smash the shit out of each other more than hour long matches with less clubbering and so forth. Breaking this down into 6 10 minute blocks, I thought the first and last blocks were the weakest while the four in between them were really great. They sort of have a parity theme going on until the last ten minutes where Kawada looks to pull away. Similar "strategies" by both guys at points in the middle -- both use the powerbomb, both work the leg. Kawada gives Kobashi a ton and has to chop him dead in the throat a few times to slow his momentum, which fucking ruled. Thought it started to teeter into overkill territory a bit at the end, but Kobashi knowing he's fucked and just trying to crawl around the ring to get away from Kawada, while kind of goofy, was a cool bit of selling. Loss basically covered everything already. Definite MOTYC.

Ueda and Robley are pretty much the greatest Scuzzy Looking Bastards tag team I've ever seen. Probably.

And April (pretty fuggin' great month, btw): 1. Nobuhiko Takada vs. Shinya Hashimoto (NJ 4/29/96) 2. Shawn Michaels vs. Diesel (No Holds Barred) (PPV 4/28/96) 3. Steve Williams vs. Akira Taue (AJ 4/20/96) 4. Jushin Liger, El Samurai & Gran Hamada vs. Shinjiro Ohtani, Koji Kanemoto & Taka Michinoku (NJ 4/5/96) 5. Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Johnny Ace & Gary Albright (AJ 4/20/96) 6. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (NJ 4/29/96) 7. Too Cold Scorpio v. Sabu (ECW 4/19/96) 8. Steven Regal vs. Belfast Bruiser (Parking Lot Brawl) (Nitro 4/29/96) 9. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto (RINGS 4/26/96) 10. Sabu vs. Mikey Whipwreck (ECW 4/13/96) 11. Great Muta vs. Jinsei Shinzaki (NJ 4/29/96) 12. Sabu vs. Rob Van Dam (ECW 4/20/96) 13. Bubba Dudley v. Too Cold Scorpio (ECW 4/12/96) 14. El Hijo Del Santo vs. Felino (CMLL 4/5/96) 15. Atlantis & Lizmark, El Hijo del Santo vs. El Felino, Bestia Salvaje & El Satanico (CMLL 4/19/96) 16. Jerry Lawler vs. Jeff Jarrett (USWA 4/20/96) 17. Aja Kong & Mima Shimoda vs. Manami Toyota & Kaoru Ito (AJW 4/9/96) 18. Jushin Liger vs. Great Sasuke (NJ 4/29/96) 19. Dynamite Kansai & Takako Inoue vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Kyoko Inoue (JWP 4/20/96) 20. Steven Regal vs. Belfast Bruiser (WCWSN 4/27/96) 21. Sting & Lex Luger vs. Ric Flair & The Giant (Nitro 4/22/96) 22. Shane Douglas vs. Raven (ECW 4/20/96) 23. Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Psicosis (WAR 4/19/96) 24. Ric Flair vs. The Giant (Nitro 4/29/96) The top 6 there are all in my working top 20 right now, with Takada/Hashimoto and Shawn/Diesel being my working #1 and #2 respectively. I don't know if I'd say Shawn/Diesel is "technically better" (or something) than Williams/Taue or even the All Japan six-man, but every time I watch it I like it a little more, when every time I expect to like it less. Hash/Takada is pretty much the perfect Dome main event. Just an incredible sub-15 minute match. I don't particularly like Takada in most situations, but he has an undeniable aura that adds a lot to an already big time situation. Takada rifling off kicks to Hash's chest and shoulder and Hashimoto responding by blasting him right in the liver was amazing. That spot where Takada is throwing big kicks to Hashimoto's head, shoving him back a bit to create some distance to throw the big home run kick only for Hash to duck and hit a sweep kick right to the knee...man, that is probably my favourite spot on the entire yearbook. Tenryu/Fujinami is a Hell of a way to introduce Tenryu into things for the year. Awesome sub-10 minute match. April is also the month that had me really turning the corner on ECW, and particularly Sabu. I'm not a huge Sabu fan, but he went from a guy that I only really cared to watch when he was working opposite Scorpio to a guy I actively looked forward to seeing no matter who he was against. He's in three matches from April and I liked all of them. Thought the Scorp match was a step below their Cyberslam match, but that one is just outside my working top 5 for the year, so it's a high bar. I even really liked the Van Dam match to an extent, and I don't have much desire to watch RVD at all these days. Scorp has also looked like one of the best guys in the US so far. Basically, the April '96 footage really sold me on Will's ECW set, which I went ahead and bought last night. It was something I always intended to pick up at some point, but it wasn't anything I was in any hurry to get to. Now I'm pretty excited about diving into way more ECW. That was definitely not the case a month or two ago. Just another reason why these yearbooks are so good.

Just watched this again, and it's still as awesome as I remembered. Cornette is just out of this world great. Vince's face when he first calls Shawn a pervert was tremendous. I wouldn't have been able to keep a straight face through that whole Cornette rant. Looks like Shawn was about to crack up at a few points as well.

OJ has a post in his blog that I've linked a few people to: Those first two paragraphs might not necessarily explain all of the luchaisms in lucha trios matches, but I'd already enjoyed enough lucha before I read that post at the time. Wasn't as big a lucha fan then as I am now, but reading that review made it really "click," and I've enjoyed watching lucha since that point more than I ever had before.

Yeah, Reed seems like one of the most clear no-brainers that have been brought up to me.

How much house show Lawler is floating about from '93, anyway? I know there's that Tito match that's also from MSG where he has the crowd totally eating out of his palm by the end of it (Phil talks about it on Segunda Caida, I'm sure). I'd happily sit and watch Jerry rile WWF house show crowds up all day.

Of all of those, I'm pretty sure the only one I've seen is Hokuto/Yamada from 5/3/93 (taken from the thread in the '93 section): So yeah, I enjoyed, and Hokuto has indeed been someone I've enjoyed quite a bit going through the '93 yearbook. I'll try and watch at least one of the other ones there tonight.

I couldn't make out a lot of what he was saying at the start, but yeah, they were just all over him here. At one point I'm pretty sure someone in the crowd tries to throw something at him. Pretty much a total Lawler show, but not because Savage is bad or anything -- like you said, Vince has more or less given up on him at this point and has stuck him in the "afterthought" category.

While I understand and more or less agree with the un-bolded part, the bolded part isn't really accurate at all. I mean, I'm not speaking for Will here, because I don't really know where he stands on it, but I talk to enough other wrestling fans that don't particularly like joshi to know that it's not because they dislike Japanese wrestling in general, and it's sure as shit not because they have some kind of psychosexual hang-up about women performing the manly art of professional wrestling. It's a stylistic issue with me, not a gender issue (and I know it's the same for a lot of the people that don't much like joshi). A lot of it is so go-go-go with transitions and momentum swings coming so often that I get taken out of it. That's not just limited to Manami Toyota. Shit, it's not just limited to joshi, either -- I get taken out of it when guys are wrestling like that as well. There are matches where they're running through so much stuff that the things they're doing before it are more or less rendered meaningless. That's obviously not always the case, but most of the joshi I've been watching on the '96 yearbook recently has definitely fallen into that category. Loss posted a Debbie Malenko quote (or paraphrased something she said, I don't remember exactly) in one of the yearbook threads that highlights the kind of allowances you have to make with a lot of joshi. I understand why people like the style and that they accept those allowances. I can accept them as well, and I know what I'm gonna get most of the time, but it doesn't mean I'll like it any more. I would distinguish between not caring for a genre in general and writing it off completely. I have the same issues with joshi as a whole, but I still think Aja Kong is awesome. By the same token, the New Japan juniors don't do much for me, but I still like Jushin Liger. I'm actually more or less the same on the New Japan juniors. And if there's anybody in joshi I tend to enjoy no matter what, it's Aja. I also get the sense I'm with Loss in that I tend to like Hotta way more than Jerome.

I was actually going to say I'd be down for a list when you posed this to Will, so yeah, that would be pretty good.

While I understand and more or less agree with the un-bolded part, the bolded part isn't really accurate at all. I mean, I'm not speaking for Will here, because I don't really know where he stands on it, but I talk to enough other wrestling fans that don't particularly like joshi to know that it's not because they dislike Japanese wrestling in general, and it's sure as shit not because they have some kind of psychosexual hang-up about women performing the manly art of professional wrestling. It's a stylistic issue with me, not a gender issue (and I know it's the same for a lot of the people that don't much like joshi). A lot of it is so go-go-go with transitions and momentum swings coming so often that I get taken out of it. That's not just limited to Manami Toyota. Shit, it's not just limited to joshi, either -- I get taken out of it when guys are wrestling like that as well. There are matches where they're running through so much stuff that the things they're doing before it are more or less rendered meaningless. That's obviously not always the case, but most of the joshi I've been watching on the '96 yearbook recently has definitely fallen into that category. Loss posted a Debbie Malenko quote (or paraphrased something she said, I don't remember exactly) in one of the yearbook threads that highlights the kind of allowances you have to make with a lot of joshi. I understand why people like the style and that they accept those allowances. I can accept them as well, and I know what I'm gonna get most of the time, but it doesn't mean I'll like it any more.