Loss
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Everything posted by Loss
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Many wrestlers like to exaggerate the length of their matches anyway. -
The forgotten second parody of the Horsemen. We are scheduled to have a segment where Tony Schiavone mediates a discussion between Ric and David Flair, but the feed cuts out and we get another Horsemen parody with Roddy Piper also getting made fun of. Nash is dressed completely different despite just losing to Rey, giving away that this was taped earlier in the day. Disco as Gene Okerlund is quite funny, as is Virgil in a bear outfit as Mongo. Hall shows up as Piper and doesn't even have all of his hair tucked under his wig, which is also pretty hilarious. Then Hogan shows up as Flair and steals the show, stripping down to his boxers and having a screaming fit before faking the heart attack. This wasn't as mean-spirited as the last parody, or at least that's what I thought until Hogan threw in when faking the heart attack that he was losing his wind, just like Flair does every time he goes out on the town when his family wasn't around. WCW was such a disaster by this time. This has its moments, but it's a mess and doesn't further anything.
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Nash has Rey's mask on his head. Since it won't fit on his head anyway, Rey can have the mask back. Nash saw what Hall did when he watched the tape back and the NWO has always been about fair play. Rey comes out to Konnan's music and is all business and wants a piece of Nash, who is making fun of him and taking him lightly. Rey ends up getting the better of Nash for a few sequences and I have to give Nash credit for working this perfectly and selling this as a big deal. Rey ends up pinning Nash on a fluke and Nash does a great job selling the shock. This was a great segment and it doesn't make up for Rey losing his mask and it's also laughable to suggest this is some shining example of Nash's selflessness, but it's still a very good segment that set Rey up for a one-month run where he was taken seriously as a top guy. A one-month run. That's why he lost his mask. This is followed by the debut of Konnan's second music video. I will give him respect for sampling "More Bounce To The Ounce". I think WCW knew they should feature Konnan and Rey, but they didn't really have any clue where to go with it to make them actual draws.
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The Benoit match later in the year is sort of an outlier, but this is really the last great Bret Hart performance. Bret carries Booker through a 20-minute match that shows how badly WCW wasted the guy. After selling all of Booker’s early offense by rolling outside, he goes after his knee really aggressively to set up a figure four. It’s awesome anytime WCW crowds actually get a reason to get into heavyweight action by this point, and they are really hot for this one. Bret built so much sympathy on Booker that the finish really meant something. They do the Summerslam ’92 finish.
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What an amazingly stupid vignette. We're supposed to just be following around non-WCW guys Scott Steiner and Buff Bagwell all day? Anyway, all I could think watching this was steroids - lots and lots of steroids. Buff and Steiner accidentally walk into a gay bar, then have an altercation with Goldberg.
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JIP, and just the visual of this was probably enough to ensure that given the choice, your average channel flipper will stick with RAW. Vince gets a black package containing a teddy bear while doing commentary at ringside. This disturbs him enough to get up from the booth. Kane takes a pretty big bump into the announce table, although it was hardly "15 feet" like Michael Cole said. Kane wins the match while Vince agonizes over the teddy bear. Undertaker then burns the bear while Vince is despondent. Weird. We know where this is going, though - Stephanie McMahon will be debuting on TV soon.
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Despite all the years on them, these two still have an aura about them that no one else in WCW does, with the notable exception of Goldberg. Hogan eats Flair up in this match, which I question since Flair needed to get some measure of revenge with everything that happened to him in the build. It's also hurt by Hogan morphing into a cool heel playing for cheers by this point, so the crowd ends up far more on his side than they should be. He even does a sort of Hulk up, which Flair cuts off with a low blow. I kind of liked that as retaliatory since Flair is the dirtiest player in the game. Both guys end up bleeding which didn't happen too much in WCW. I was liking this match quite a bit until Torrie Wilson showed up and the angle stuff kicked in. She gets on the apron and slaps Flair a couple of times. Tony immediately says she's someone we have seen on WCW telecasts when they never once acknowledged her existence on Nitro. There's a ref bump and Hogan elbows the ref for good measure to keep him down. Hogan misses a legdrop when a guy in a ski mask shows up and tases Flair to give Hogan the win. He unmasks in the post match and reveals himself to be David Flair. Crap booking aside, the more frustrating thing is that this showed Hogan and Flair had a fantastic match in them if they'd get a chance to have it. And Flair is not even remotely presented the way he should be at this stage of his career, and a lot of this seemed designed to humiliate him.
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Last few minutes of an abysmal match, with Disco Inferno running interference for Hall at ringside. No heat. Piper has nothing. The crowd picks up a little bit when Nash runs in to help Hall win the U.S. title. Hall would have to vacate the title quickly, as he got drunk after the show and someone ran over his foot in the parking lot, sidelining him for a few months. So there you go. They make this big production of Piper handing over the title to Hall for no apparent reason. Then they brawl after the match and it gets zero heat. He manages to get past a Hall and Nash beatdown. If this isn't Roddy working his own angle, it sure feels like it.
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Last few minutes. Luger is at ringside in his cast. Hall and Nash actually give Rey some offense, and believe it or not, their bumps look excellent. Konnan and Rey have some cool double team moves and they end up really getting the crowd into this. Luger ends up interfering and attacking Konnan, leaving Rey alone with both guys. Rey has Nash pinned, but Liz distracts the ref long enough for Hall to do the Razor's Edge and roll Nash on top. I hate the finish, but they were giving and Nash is even selling Rey's attack big time in the post-match. Rey is forced to unmask after the match in one of the worst booking decisions WCW ever made, and think about the ground that covers. Rey unmasks and ... whoa, he's Bryan Alvarez!
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Last few minutes of a match that did little for me when I saw it in full. I liked the booking of Benoit and Malenko having to beat them back to back to win the titles, but not following through with that, especially when the passe Windham and Hennig are on the opposite side, is pretty bad. I do love Windham using the belt to pin Malenko. That finish is tremendous, but the match doesn't live up to it.
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Shane shows up with his wrestling boots in hand and gets a "Please don't go" chant. Shane claims that they have revolutionized wrestling and talks about his arm injury and how severe it has been. The crowd keeps interfering with their chants plus Shane Douglas is long winded anyway, so this lasts far too long. He points out that unlike some people in wrestling, he knows when he has overstayed his welcome. I think if the fans had just let Shane talk, I could have gotten way more into this moment, as he seems sincere and Francine seems genuinely touched as well. Well, I take that back when Justin Credible shows up. And then Lance Storm shows up too. He gets in an argument with Credible and Douglas interrupts them both to tell them neither one of them is The Franchise, since they seem to both think they are in line. He tells them Tommy Dreamer is actually the guy. Francine ends up eating a cane shot and Tommy Dreamer runs out but gets beaten up as well. Whatever.
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The Dudleys talk about how Public Enemy sold ECW out. They show footage backing up the Dudleys' claims. Call it a burial. They also run down their history of running off The Gangstas and The Eliminators, among other guys. I'm guessing fans were starting to cheer the Dudleys and this was an attempt to steer them back because they end up going off on the fans. New Jack ends up interrupting from the entrance with a mic in hand. What is this, the WWF? This all leads to Mustafa Saed returning to ECW and reuniting with New Jack. In a turn I could see coming from a mile away, Mustafa turns on Jack and sides with the Dudleys. Spike attempts a save and doesn't get very far. It turns out that Mustafa has been the "mysterious benefactor" coming after Denzel's Friend.
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Before the match, Stacy says she can be just as successful as anyone in wrestling and she doesn't need a man to do it because sex sells. She is still upset with Lawler and is looking for someone to provide valet services - anyone but Jerry Lawler or Sean Stasiak. Fun match, but again, I wish they'd structure the show so these matches could go 10-12 minutes.
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Lawler is out to spin his way out of what he did to Sean Stasiak's sister last week. 26 seconds is not that long. Okay then. He thinks Stacy overreacted and read too much into it. What a jerk. We get another taped promo from Terri looking down on Stacy and everyone else in the South. I never saw her in WWE or anything, but I feel like I should know who she is. She tells Lawler to look her up next time she is up North.
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Clip from the big match on 2/13 in Jonesboro. Hayes ends up handcuffed to the ring rope so the heels can beat up Brandon Baxter, but someone is able to finally unlock him and he goes to town on the heels. This match looks like fun, and Hayes can still throw a punch and pop a crowd. He's a better Jimmy Valiant than Jimmy Valiant. Michael Hayes sends in a taped promo full of awesome lines, with my favorite being "I whipped Randy Hales like he owed me money. In fact, he does owe me money!"
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Goldberg is articulate and charming. WCW had a winner here. Kevin Costner smirks the whole time, but we already know he's an asshole. Goldberg ends up putting up $100,000 for Steve Austin to face him in the ring in a desperate publicity stunt idea from Nash. The WWF ignoring it just reinforced their major league status, and that WCW had a good run, but it was nearing its end.
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This has a strong reputation and deservedly so. It is way better than it looks on paper. Benoit and Malenko are mostly carrying things but Horace and Adams are perfectly fine heels. And this all builds to a big finish with Benoit diving off the top of the cage. This feels straight out of Mid Atlantic and they build the hot tag exceptionally. I love how dead the crowd is at the beginning and how red hot they are in the final few minutes. Malenko should have been a full-time tag wrestler because he’s great at it.
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Ric Flair is out to conduct clean-up on that horrible angle on Monday night. He's in sunglasses and is all bandaged up. He downplays the angle from Monday night and faults himself for being dumb enough to think he had everything under control, which is probably the best move considering how much it flopped. He steers us back to contrast them as wrestlers, which is a more effective build. He simply knows that on his worst day, he can kick Hulk's ass. The January promo was the better one, but the emotion in this one was just right in trying to get this back on track.
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Each Yoshida match becomes more and more like women’s BattlARTS. This is an awesome match. Yagi has always been a fantastic mat wrestler, even when it wasn’t en vogue in the Joshi world, and Yoshida seems to have met her match. Akino was a capable wrestler, but she was also a rookie. This is much more Yoshida taking on a peer. We get lots of really cool amateur rides and grappling that is as good as anything happening anywhere. I almost wish they wouldn’t throw in the pro style stuff at all - even though it’s limited - just because they’re so freakin’ great on the mat. Yagi attempts a belly-to-back suplex at one point and Yoshida cinches in so strong on a headlock that she brings her to her knees. The torque Yoshida gets on the stretch plum is way more nasty looking than any application of that hold I’ve ever seen from Kawada. They manage to give the last ten minutes of this some amazing dramatic flair, which shows if they can do it, the wrestlers in the big promotions who got way too into headdropping could have done it too. This just kept getting better and better the longer it went. That finish was nuts. This should be required viewing for Joshi skeptics.
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This is a pretty solid match given time. Mankind does a good job of making Rock look like a real threat and puts him over convincingly. Not a bunch of of crazy bumps, but more of a really physical match, which is cool. Rock regains the title. Austin is awesome on commentary at ringside, making every single point that needs to be made to set up Wrestlemania. I like how he takes the Flair route of giving both guys credit for being at this level, but that he's better.
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