What are you watching?

[anarchistxx]

- Angle vs Shawn had really good moments, especially the opening matwork with the short-arm scissors. But Angle can't sell anything for shit and Shawn wasn't interested. Shawn sitting in the anklelock as long as he did just went against the psychology of a move that requires a quick tapout to avoid a snap in every way. I'd probably go 3 1/2* overall.

 

Surprised you went as high as 3.5*s on this - remember having an argument with you on SC at the time because I had been marking out to fuck watching it and you hated it. 'Nobody will remember/be talking about this match in a couple of years' was your general reaction to the smark hysteria that has surrounded it at the time. To be fair you criticized the selling to fuck even back then. Saw it a few years ago and thought you were right, as it was nowhere near as exciting as I thought at the time, and had a bunch of flaws that you don't notive when you're a fifteen year old watching a 'dream match'.

 

 

 

- Cena vs JBL was a total war! Notice the crowd is totally behind Cena. Notice he's facing a real heel.

 

Not sure it was to do with JBL being a 'real heel' - more due to the fact that:

 

a. Cena was still reasonably hot with the crowds. This was before he got 'stale' with the smarks who loved his heel run, by making embarassing 'poop joke' promos and being treated as superman for the year.

 

b. JBL was despised by the demographic of fans who would later boo Cena out of the building every week. His title run was widely regarded as a boring, dismal joke, and he was seen as a serious step down from the headliners of past years. It's only in the last few years JBL has started to get cred with so called 'smart fans'. Even Cena was preferable to a guy that was perceived as a terrible worker and only on top because of his backstage politics.

 

Not seen the match for years, remember the blade job being fantastic though. I miss blood, especially now they have guys like The Shield, The Wyatt's and Daniel Bryan who could really benefit from having bloody, chaotic, arena brawls. Imagine a blowoff to the Shield/Wyatts feud with everyone exhausted, bleeding all over the place having torn each other to shreds. Would really stand out in the current product.

[Loss]

Re: Shawn vs Angle, I gave them some credit because they had the crowd and there were some moments sprinkled throughout that worked really well. I didn't care for the match much on a personal level, but I'm not going to call it outright bad just because a lot of it wasn't really my thing.

 

The Cena booing was hinted as early as No Way Out 2005, maybe sooner, when Angle guzzled him and the crowd booed Cena's comebacks. He was still getting established at this point and working with guys who were attempting to make themselves look good at his expense is what really got the booing going. Yes, he was put over these guys clean, but the matches were often worked in a way that seemed designed to make him look undeserving, like his spot was just being handed to him instead of him earning it and having a struggle. Notice he didn't get booed in the Umaga match either. There's a common denominator there.

 

Now, for Vengeance 2005:

 

- I was able to give the first Angle vs Michaels match credit for being good but not really being what I like in my wrestling. I can't do that here at all. The anklelock stuff is nauseating, not just for Shawn sitting in it so long, but for Angle going for it so often that it became repetitive and boring. These guys don't really match up well. Not a good match.

 

- Cena vs Christian vs Jericho was another type of match that isn't really my thing, but it was well-worked and I give them credit. All the annoying stuff present in three-way matches was present here (third guy laid out for long stretches, the electric chairdrop, vertical suplex combo that I really hate), but they had the crowd, cut a good pace and neither guy seemed like they were out to upstage Cena. I'd go 3 3/4* for this and call it match of the night.

 

- HHH vs Batista? Well, it was definitely a brutal match, but so much of it was centered around props that it felt cheap. The big chain and the chair wrapped in barbed wire were a bigger focus than the hate and emotion, so it was a little on the stunty side for me. Give HHH credit for putting Batista over convincingly yet again to wrap up the rivalry for good, but they were relying on the weapons as too much of a crutch for my tastes.

 

Not really anything that piqued my interest on the Great American Bash '05 lineup except Eddy vs Rey, so that's all I watched. I think it's the least of their series. Eddy spends most of the match standing at ringside talking to the all the family players in their feud. It works for furthering the plot, but I don't think it was that good of a match. Wish it had been on TV instead.

[Matt D]

You should catch the tag team turmoil that starts Backlash 05. It's not a big thing or anything but it's a good way to briefly see Regal+Tajiri and I actually think two minutes of Dean + Maven is worth seeing just because it's two guys really working their gimmick.

[Phil Schneider]

 

4. Funk's Last Stand, Steel Cage Match for the ECW TV Title: Superfly Jimmy Snuka vs. Terry Funk - Escape the cage rules. Snuka was never a great worker or even a good hand, but he had some career highlights, for sure. Seeing Superfly enter a cage just brings back great pro wrestling nostalgia. Sadly, at this point in his career, ain't no way in hell Jimmy Snuka is doing a splash off the top of the cage. So, almost a bit of false advertising based on nostalgia there. However, Terry Funk can turn a shit-stain into gold bullion. The punches, the selling, the hate. It's all here in prime Funk form and he does his absolute best to put this whole thing over, and entertains in the process of winning the TV title. Post-match, Funk starts throwing chairs around the building, as he's pissed he didn't actually pin Snuka to win the belt. ***

Didn't Snuka do the cage dive during one of those terrible Russo Nitro's?

 

[Phil Schneider]

Mexicools v. Blue World Order is worth watching just for the weirdness of Juventud and Blue Meanie wrestling on a WWE PPV in 2005

[BruiserBrody]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/nwa-bunkhouse-stampede-88/#.UxiCYoUm-So
Bunkhouse Stampede 88

How does a PPV with The Four Horsemen, Dusty Rhodes, The Midnight Express, The Road Warriors, Nikita Koloff, Lex Luger, Barry Windham manage to be a big bore? Even a steel cage battle royal can't save this debacle.
After covering the PPV, I offer some fantasy booking ideas to improve this mess.

[victory]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/nwa-bunkhouse-stampede-88/#.UxiCYoUm-So

Bunkhouse Stampede 88

 

How does a PPV with The Four Horsemen, Dusty Rhodes, The Midnight Express, The Road Warriors, Nikita Koloff, Lex Luger, Barry Windham manage to be a big bore? Even a steel cage battle royal can't save this debacle.

After covering the PPV, I offer some fantasy booking ideas to improve this mess.

I tortured myself with watching that as well last week. That cage concept just doesn't work.

[efrim]

Watching this Raw replay of the WCW simulcast episode. Can say with confidence that I was most surprised by the XFL commercial.

[goc]

Just watched the first episode of Memphis TV from 1986 (unfortunately not the actual Memphis feed) and it's fun seeing Dundee & Mantel gloat about Lawler being gone. But the introduction of Big Red Reese as the first challenger to Dundee was VERY weak. I don't have any numbers or anything, but I remember reading that attendance really dropped off for the 2 months that Lawler was gone in the beginning of 1986, and staring off with challengers like Big Red Reese certainly couldn't have helped.

 

I wonder if they knew the Fabulous Ones were going to be leaving when they planned for Lawler to lose a Losers Leaves Town match? They shouldn't have been surprised at a drop in attendance losing Lawler & The Fabs at the same time

[goc]

I loved the Fantastics when I watched the Mid-South set. I actually think I liked their matches more than the RNR Express stuff. But in Memphis they feel like really bad Fabulous Ones ripoffs. I guess they wanted to try and get a hot babyface team going with The Fabs leaving but they should have told them not to do the gimmick with the vests and bow-ties in the Memphis territory. I don't think know if that's why they didn't draw, but they didn't. I'm looking through the results I see by the middle of February they were drawing less than 1500 in Memphis with The Fantastics as tag champs and Austin Idol challenging Dundee for the Southern title.

 

All that said, I thought the Fantastics doing the old "win a date" contest was good, just because it gave Buddy Landel a chance to come out and steal the idea and declare he was going to run his own contest to win a date with The Nature Boy. Buddy was so good, it's a shame he couldn't get it together and have a sustained run somewhere.

 

And just as an aside, the weirdest thing I've seen them book so far is Pat Rose come out and talk about how his partner Tom Pritchard and his girlfriend Sherri Martel ran off together as a way to explain them leaving the territory. And then Pat Rose just floats around randomly teaming with other people and losing all the time. It just seemed odd to have the guy cut that promo before pretty much turning him into another Tony Falk.

[Exposer]

Watched the 12/22/91 MSG on the Network last night. There was nothing too compelling about it. Hogan-Flair was the best match but was only fun. I had a blast watching it, but it's not a match I'd call "good." The rest of the card was totally average. Tito-Kato, Kerry-Berserker, Virgil-Skinner, Duggan-Barb, Bret-Mountie, Bossman-I.R.S., and Rockers-Nasties. Tito-Kato was a perfectly fine opener. Kerry-Berserker was a fun two minutes of stiff clubbering with a shitty finish, and Rockers-Nasties was a basic Rockers tag with the added build of dissension between Shawn and Marty. The rest of the stuff was passable but not any good. Hogan, Flair, Duggan, Bret, and Bossman got the loudest reactions. Overall, it was an interesting but fun viewing. Hogan-Flair really garnered great heat during that period.

[Loss]

I guess that 12/21 is actually 11/30. Hogan vs Flair was on both shows, but Bret faced DiBiase in a 20-minute draw on the December show.

[Tim Cooke]

Sunk adobe on to Jarrett at the 1/10/00 Nitro, which concussed Jarrett and further threw Souled Out card into chaos

[goodhelmet]

Sunk adobe?

[PeteF3]

I figured it out--"Sunk adobe" = "Snuka dove."

[victory]

Sunk adobe?

Rumored tag team partner of Saba Simba that didn't happen.

[Blazer]

Autocorrect rules.

 

Working on the old WWF Coliseum Video collection now. Rewatching all of the old shows. I have see most of these but had a chance last night to watch Wrestlling's Country Boys for the first time. Terrible wrestling, but some fun interviews and TNT stuff I had never seen. Little surprised it didn't include Hillbilly Jim saving Hogan from the haircut by Patera and Studd, which I have never seen re-aired after the original showing.

[goc]

Been around the world a little bit today, started off this morning watching some early 80s Memphis with Jerry Lawler vs. Joe LeDuc with 10 Lashes for Lawler or Jimmy Hart on the line. Also a lot of promos from Lawler and The First Family.

 

Then I watched some Portland from the 70s (not sure exactly when) but I watched a 6 man tag between Sheepherders & Rose vs. Ron Bass, Piper & Red Bastien. Also watched Buddy Rose wins his first Pacific Northwest Title from Stan Stasiak and saw a lot of promos between Rose and Piper who as far as I can tell have not had a singles match yet. I liked this stuff but Stasiak was not that good so watching him do long 2 out of 3 fall matches wasn't the best scenario.

 

Then I watched some early 80s Puerto Rico (I think 1983) with the TV show I watched hyping a big cage match between Ox Baker and The Invader. Lots of American guys there like Ox Baker, Buddy Landel and Terry Gibbs as tag champs, JJ Dillion wrestling Pedro Morales, Ron Sexton, Frank Dusek. I liked this episode a lot and thought the announcer Rickin Sanchez was a real pro doing those on the spot translations for the Americans' interviews.

[Blazer]

Terry Gibbs actually held gold? No kidding. Wow.

[goc]

Just watched the first four episodes of Continental Championship Wrestling from 1986. It was ok, but definitely not as good as the Southeastern from 1981 I watched a couple months ago. It was actually kind of confusing to follow, I'm not sure if the dates were wrong on the files I have or what, but it seemed like a guy would lose his title and the next week have it on TV again with no explanation. I saw Norvell Austin beat Adrian Street twice for the Southeastern title, with no explanation for how Street ever got it back.

 

Bob Armstrong is fun doing The Bullet gimmick, and is so bad at keeping "the secret" talking about "my son, I mean Bob Armstrong's son coming out to help me." But watching him do goofy dances at ringside before beating up on some jobber was worth watching. Other than that, there isn't much here I was real interested in. Norvell Austin feuding with Adrian Street over the Southeastern Title and The Rich Cousins in what seemed to be a never ending feud with The Nightmares over the tag titles weren't doing anything for me. Definitely not as good as Saito/Condrey/Rose vs. The Armstrong Family or even Jimmy Golden vs. Tennessee Stud Ron Fuller.

[goc]

My Continental footage has big gaps so I just watched a week near the end of June and it was much better. There was a real fun match between Roy Lee Welch and Tim Horner with Roy Lee Welch apparently having faked a knee injury in a match the previous week and spending a lot of the early minutes protesting his innocence and asking for a handshake from Horner. Of course he eventually blasted Horner with a punch instead of giving him a clean break and then won the match with a handful of Horner's tights. Honestly, one of my favorite matches is the "newly turned/in the process of turning heel pretends to want a fair match against a babyface before inevitably cheating" so this was right up my alley.

 

Then Jerry Stubbs is doing a Mr. Perfect gimmick where he offers $1,000 to anyone who can last 10 minutes with him, and apparently $10,000 to anyone who can beat him and/or last 30 minutes with him but I'm not sure on that part. Anyway, Frankie Lancaster barely survives the 10 minutes then rolls outside the celebrate and grab the money, even though the match isn't over and Stubbs' Continental Title is still on the line. So Stubbs goes out and kicks his ass. Stubbs hits him with a chair and when Frankie goes under the ring to do his blade job Stubbs tosses the chair after him. This ends with Stubbs killing him with a brainbuster on the concrete floor and Brad Armstrong running out to make the save, if you could call it that after the guy's already suffered a 5 minute beatdown ending with a brainbuster on the floor.

 

Bob Armstrong is feuding with The Flame still but now he is "El Fuego" I like Bob Armstrong but this seems like the Bullet gimmick would have had a shorter shelf life than the length of time it ran for, especially with all the guys like The Flame and Mr Wrestling II coming in to take the mask.

 

Adrian Street is still here, now feuding with "Wildcat" Wendell Cooley. Street debuts a hilarious music video of his own original song "Something Very Strange about a Cowboy" which I loved. Found it here if anyone wants to see it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNBOWLP7rrk

 

Then a Wendell Cooley match has Wendell Cooley coming out...in a Wildcat Jacket!

 

[goc]

I'm kind of disappointed there's been no posts in this thread since my last one. I mean I bring you guys an Adrian Street music video and a picture of a guy whose jacket includes a hood with a Wildcat face and I don't even know if anyone is reading this stuff.

 

Watched another week of Continental. Show started with Gordon Solie & Wendell Cooley showing video of how Cooley lost to Adrian Street in a non title match. Linda jabs him in the eyes for the finish which Gordon calls wonderfully with "Something happened." Then Adrian Street steals the Southeastern title. Cooley is not very good on the mic as he demands Street return his belt. At the very end of the show he does get the title back, however Street has replaced the black leather strap with a pink one. Cooley is not amused. But he still can't cut a good promo about it.

 

Then we get The Bullet vs. El Fuego and they do pretty much nothing, but a fun nothing, for about 4 minutes before someone else in a mask runs in to attack The Bullet. And as far as I can tell that's all he is "some guy in a mask." Bullet brawls with that guy while El Fuego runs off (well he ain't running nowhere he's over 300 lbs) to the locker room. Then El Fuego comes back and BLASTS Bullet with a fireball. Now, I've seen some fireballs watching Memphis wrestling with Jerry Lawler and Eddie Gilbert, and some of those have looked pretty good. But this is on another level. I don't know what Jody Hamilton did that made his so much better but the guy threw a hell of a fireball. I didn't mention it about the last show, but there was a clip of him throwing a fireball from that episode and it was also really good looking.

 

So anyway, Bullet gets hit by the fireball but he barely even sells the damn thing as he's up on his feet and fine about a minute later after Steve Armstrong makes the save with a chair. Come on Bob, I want to like you but you're killing me here.

 

Jerry Stubbs cuts a good promo about how he beat the crap out of Frankie Lancaster last week and now he's looking for revenge on Brad Armstrong for "saving" him. I still dispute that, by the way. Brad Armstrong & Jerry Stubbs have a good match for the Continental title. The finish has the ref get bumped and Frankie Lancaster comes out to wake him up. Stubbs gets distracted by it and Armstrong rolls him up to win the title. Then Stubbs attacks Lancaster before Brad makes an ACTUAL save this time.

 

Tim Horner has a match against some guy while Roy Lee Welch does commentary. I continue to love this storyline. Roy Lee Welch does a great job putting over the storyline. Welch was the U.S. Junior Champion before suffering (I think) a legit knee injury. All I know is his injury was announced sometime in the shows I watched in January and he just made his return in June. Anyway, he's pissed that Tim Horner gets a shot at the World Junior Champion Denny Brown when he never beat Welch for the U.S. Junior Title. Welch lets us know that, obviously, anything Horner does in this match he can do better.

 

Main event is Jimmy Golden & Robert Fuller beating Steve Armstrong & Tommy Rich for the tag titles. Didn't do much for me but I did enjoy Fuller & Golden's promo afterwards.

 

[Exposer]

I finished Royal Rumble 1997 today. I'm going to watch every PPV from 97 including WCW and ECW. I'll do a compare/contrast kind of thing for each month. Overall, this PPV was okay. The presentation and production was outstanding. The Shawn-Sid match felt huge. From a match quality standpoint, this show wasn't great. HHH-Goldust was good. I liked that they mixed in some brawling. Dustin worked hard here and even took his missed cross body bump. HHH sold his leg well but can't control a match at all. The finish was typical manager distractions leading to the heel victory. Ahmed-Faarooq was bad but not terrible. I liked Faarooq attacking Ahmed's kidney, but Ron Simmons wasn't any good in WWF at this point. I loved Ahmed giving the Nation member the PRP through the French announce table. The Rougeaus's were appalled. Taker-Vader was a decent big man match. They threw some bombs and Taker brought out some agility. Paul Bearer got involved and cost Taker the match. The AAA six-man was awkward. It didn't fit into what was going on at all. I understand what WWF was trying to do, but it wasn't executed very well. However, Perro Aguayo is still fun to watch even in 1997. The Rumble match was the average one this time around. The best moments were Ahmed assaulting Faarooq with the 2X4 and Austin-Bret. Bret's post-match fit was great. More importantly, Mil Mascaras likely could have stayed in the match. He never actually went over the top. He stepped through the ropes, and then went up top to hit the dive on Pierroth. He should have showed up the next night on Raw and protested. It should have been the Final Five with Mascaras as the fifth guy. Shawn-Sid was a good match and the best of the night. I loved the callback spots from Survivor Series and the feud such as the powerbomb on the floor and the use of the camera. There were a couple of really good false finishes that really worked as well. And Sid worked competently here and didn't look bad at all. The post-match celebration was long. I'm convinced Shawn "Losing his smile" had been planned for awhile (Please intervene if this is actually true). Austin eliminating Taker, Vader, and Bret doesn't seem like a coincidence today. It seemed to set-up the Final Four main event. Finally, I liked this PPV mostly because the production was awesome. The match quality was average, but I expect WWF to improve in that department come Spring time.

[BruiserBrody]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/nwa-great-american-bash-88/#.Ux8AFoUm-So

The NWA puts on a solid night of action with the first major bout between Lex Luger and Ric Flair. Friendship explodes as Dusty Rhodes clashes with Barry Windham. The Fantastics and The Midnight Express try and steal the show with another great exhibition in tag team excellence. A 10 man tag man triple decker cage match is a spectacle if nothing else. And the event kicks off with Sting and Nikita Koloff battling the Horsemen in a battle of attrition.

[goc]

Watched the first Continental TV show in July. Show starts with former champs Tommy Rich and Steve Armstrong having a long squash match against The Invader and my new favorite jobber name, Snake Brown.

Then we get a promo from Frankie Lancaster swearing revenge on Jerry Stubbs for giving him the brainbuster on the floor. He's stumbling all over himself in this promo. Continental has a lot of good promo guys, but they are almost exclusively all on the heel side. 50 year old Bullet Bob Armstrong is the only babyface who can talk. And maybe Tommy Rich but I really haven't been interested in any of his stuff so far. All the young Armstrongs, Brad, Steve, Scott, Wendell Cooley, Tim Horner, Frankie Lancaster, none of the young babyfaces can cut a promo.

Tim Horner defends the U.S. Junior Title against Roy Lee Welch. Welch grabs the mic before the match and asks Tim Horner if he's SURE this is a title match, going back to their non title match 2 weeks ago where he swore before the match that Horner told him it would be a title match. Horner hits a cross body on Welch and the momentum and Welch uses the momentum to roll on top of Horner and they wind up landing with Welch's feet on the ropes for the pin. The ref counts 3 but saw Welch's feet on the ropes and call it off, but Welch has already grabbed the title from the announcer's table and is celebrating in the ring. Horner then comes from behind and rolls him up for the pin. I'm already anticipating Welch's promo next week about the injustice of it all. Roy Lee Welch then beats him down with the Junior Title after the match and leaves with the belt. That crossbody into the pin with Welch's feet on the ropes looked really good, and I totally thought that was going to be the finish.

We get an Adrian Street/Wendell Cooley match and I can not express to you how disappointed I am that they seem to have already retired that Wildcat jacket. Now he's coming out in a Cowboy hat with "If Heaven Ain't a Lot Like Texas" as his entrance music. Adrian Street's "Imagine What I Could Do To You" is a real underrated wrestling entrance theme. Street looks like he doesn't know what to do during his entrance without Linda there. Street wins the match when Linda shows up at the end to trip Cooley on a suplex allowing Street to fall on top and pin him. I love Street's character but I've never seen him have a memorable match.

Cooley & Street cut promos afterwards to build up a match in Columbus with Linda handcuffed to Cooley's brother. Cooley says he doesn't have the pink belt because it's "under recontruction" and for some reason I was thoroughly amused by Street's line about Cooley "Ever since I put a dress on him he's been acting just like a female dog."

The show ends with Roy Lee Welch saying he thought he won the match and that's why he left with the belt, but as soon as he was told that Tim Horner actually won he went to return the belt to him. But it was missing! There's a thief running around, someone went into his dressing room and stole the belt. I really love Roy Lee Welch in this feud. Tim Horner comes out and attacks Welch and the show ends with them brawling and Gordon calling for someone to come break it up.