Stiva
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Fantastic brawl that feels super chaotic with some crazy shots. Hall throwing the can at the speeding car and Goldust throwing himself through the door at full speed looked wild. Feels like something you’d have got out of Smoky Mountain more than the WWF
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I didn’t think the brawling section was too bad but it definitely didn’t add too much, other than the hilarious counter to the suicide dive. When they get back in the ring and it becomes a battle of the bombs, it’s really good. Combat drops Aja with a nasty German halfway through, maybe she watched Vader/Inoki from the week previous.
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[1996-01-08-WCW-Nitro] Hulk Hogan & Randy Savage vs Ric Flair & Arn Anderson
Stiva replied to Loss's topic in January 1996
A nifty little main event tag. I really like this period of WCW and always felt that Savage in particular was always working really hard. Even Hogan, outrageously stale and lame bullshit aside, seemed to try much more around this time. And then he goes and ruins it all by no-selling Arn’s spinebuster to widespread disgust from the live crowd. -
I think that Vince McMahon probably watches these back now and still thinks they’re high comedy. This is pure, undistllled Vince McMahon, right down to the hypocritical cheap shots
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[1996-01-08-WWF-Raw] Brother Love: Ted DiBiase & The Ringmaster
Stiva replied to Loss's topic in January 1996
A flat, rambling debut in the grand scheme of things. Brother Love is an incredibly dated gimmick to be bringing out of mothballs but that’s where they were at this point, I guess. I will always love the Million Dollar belt however -
With it being September, most of the major stadiums will be used for the football season that will have just begun so the Millennium is the best choice, I think. They would have been better off trying to schedule it for July or early August if they wanted to hit England proper.
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I saw a few people bemused at the female demo rating dropping, despite there being a women's title main event. Like yeah, I don't know a lot about women but I know they're not massively keen on watching other women powerbomb each other into thumbtacks and bleed everywhere. If you want to attract women, give Jungle Boy the strap.
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I don’t mind watching Sky wrestle at all, it’s just he came off as by far the least engaging person in that entire affair and he’s holding the belt. I’d even include Spears in that now his job is to hit people with chairs and get squashed. Also, massive props to DADDY MAGIC. What a nickname that is. Also, “Pray tell, man in the mask: who is the demon waif?” made me crack up huge
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They should run that building as much as possible, the crowd was great all night. Glad we’ve finally got Rosa as champion since Britt was getting pretty stale. Hardys looked real old in there with Private Party; I think Butcher and Blade would be a better match for them at this point. Moxley/Danielson continues to be fucking great and even Luchasaurus looked half decent in the opener. I wonder if we’re getting Stadium Stampede 3 with JAS vs Kingston, Santana, Ortiz and whoever else is getting involved. Having said that, Tony Khan has his work cut out to get Scorpio Sky over. Like, at all. This crowd popped louder for a mariachi band than they did the TNT Champion. He was the least over person in his entire segment and his first title defence saw him get his head kicked in and he only retained thanks to about 4 other people. They should have went with Ethan Page. “Cleveland Jr lookin’ ass” was a total kill shot from Bowens, holy shit.
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[1996-01-05-ECW-House Party] Public Enemy vs The Gangstas
Stiva replied to Loss's topic in January 1996
I like The Gangstas tactic here; Mustafa will work the leg while New Jack tries to gouge eyes out. Much like Sabu/Richards, this is too long but there’s good stuff sprinkled in; Grunge and New Jack’s crowd brawling is spirited, New Jack is such a charismatic bastard that he’s always worth watching and the ending video is a great little sending off. Public Enemy are off to work with The Nasty Boys for, what felt like, every week -
[1996-01-05-ECW-House Party] Raven, Beulah and Tommy Dreamer
Stiva replied to Loss's topic in January 1996
Over 25 years later, this is totally ridiculous soap opera nonsense but everyone playing it so straight and acting like life-changing events were enveloping around them is what makes it hold up to a decent degree. And yeah, fuck that guy Pete mentioned. I hope a stray chair hit him when they were flying around that arena at any point. -
[1996-01-04-NJPW-Wrestling World 1996] Shinya Hashimoto vs Kazuo Yamazaki
Stiva replied to Loss's topic in January 1996
A match where one guy aggressively works the arm and the other guy responds by punching him in the throat is going to be a **1/2 affair at minimum. The hot finish puts it beyond that. Great fun -
I like the Flair/Hogan matchup and I dig this one too and I like the idea of starting your TV year off with a big match like this. Hogan has some decent leg selling at times here that is totally done by the time he’s attempting to emasculate all of the Horsemen. A ridiculous finish, thank god he went heel.
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What struck me most about this was actually in the previous segment where Vince rattles off “Nacho Man” and “Huckster” which such pride in his voice. This was nothing, really but with Vince so invested, it was always going to turn sour
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You can’t say they half-cooked this thing as they go all the way and even put together a fun opener to boot. I bet that, somewhere, JR was furious that he wasn’t involved.
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Shitty news all in all. For all the reputation of the nWo not working hard at all, you rewatch it and you definitely can’t levy that at Scott Hall. The 6-man at Slamboree 97 is a prime example, I’d say. I’m glad that he got to pull around a bit in later years and do things like the HOF and those random shots on Raw. I hope someone, somewhere, does a nWo inspired survey on wrestling TV this week.
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I loved Jericho and Rey’s feud throughout 2009 on Smackdown. On a show that was consistently good just about all year, that was the standout.
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Run Briscoes vs FTR in ROH. Maybe they won’t notice
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Ah man, I guess there’s a lesson in there to not overanalyse the old pro wrestling. If that’s the case, long may the Moxley/Bryan/Regal violent triangle continue
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I loved how Regal spent a good few minutes praising Bryan and spent about 15 seconds on Moxley. We can all see where this is going
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Weird show that felt oddly thrown together in parts, at least with the in-ring parts of it anyway. The World Title match and PAC/Yuta seemed to come from nowhere. As for Sky winning, I’m glad AEW is throwing more curveball title changes into the mix but man, Scorpio Sky feels ice-cold compared to so many other workers. And I’m not sure this is a one and done thing as Wardlow will probably be screwed by MJF next week and, as a whole, they’ve been trying to recapture the momentum that Scorpio had on the first few Dynamites for a good two years now. Baker as champ is beyond stale now too, it’s time for Thunder Rosa, Mercedes, Shida and Deeb to carry shit for a while. Still, we have William Regal leading Mox and Bryan, all is well. I’m strangely excited for the Hardys run tbh. FTR, Bucks, Private Party and Darby/Sting all feel like they could be good match-ups.
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Also, special props for Isiah Cassidy, who is sneakily one of my favourite guys in the company. I want Cassidy vs Sting on Dynamite
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Fucking great show with Britt/Rosa being the only real dud, I thought. Baker is in danger of being overshadowed by Cargill at this point, what a star she is. I loved what they did with the Buy-In this time around and basically made it a mini-Rampage, complete with HOOK squash and hot main event. But, the main show just had everything you could ever want; The Dog Collar match, WILLIAM FUCKING REGAL, Sting as AEWs Terry Funk, Kingston winning the big one, Jungle Boy just casually unleashing about 5 different lunatic spots, Jade Cargill as a Mortal Kombat ninja, Wardlow turning face, Keith Lee throwing a man into the sky, Hangman Page getting a good main event out of Adam Cole and Swerve Strickland being the coolest fucker alive. And now we have Jeff Hardy on the way, complete with ROH becoming AEW-adjacent and the Mox/Bryan tag team is a reality. The sky is the limit with this company, it really is.
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I don’t mind Redbeard coming in because, to some degree, it makes sense that they’d find a big fucker to counteract Brody King. And I’m assuming that’s how the finish is going to go
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I would absolutely wear the Exploding Barbed Wire Death Match shirt but importing their shirts to the UK seems like a headache