Loss
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Everything posted by Loss
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I remember going to Nitros live where the ring announcer would hype up the crowd by telling them they could be on TV. We could probably trace a lot of this back to the time when promoters stopped dimming the house lights. -
I am just asking a question about the difference in their styles.
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Without having seen the match Bill is talking about, I remember the PWG crowd really getting into Danielson/Low-Ki in 2008, which I think is a very underrated, mat-based match. Is Gulak/Thatcher/Busick-style matwork a different type of matwork than Danielson and Ki were doing?
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Public Enemy music plays as Joey Styles does an incredibly annoying markout. It's so over the top that it's obvious we aren't getting P.E., and it turns out to just be The Dudleys mocking them. Bubba Ray has a great sense of humor. Then Styles goes in the other direction and says, "Ok, Public Enemy isn't coming", which makes it obvious they are. Jeez this guy sucks. So heavy-handed and cute. Finally, PE does come out and does a number on the Dudleys to a big pop. This would be so much better if Styles would just SHUT UP.
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I mostly remember Saturn for blurting out the word "Snausages" and saying "You're welcome".
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The match doesn't last long before there's a ref distraction and Baldo hits the ring to attack Lawler. Stasiak gets a pin. I wish Power Pro matches would run longer, but I guess the bigger story is that Stacy now has to be Stasiak's valet. Stasiak tries clipping Stacy's hair anyway, but they go after Lawler instead. He doesn't get much of a shave job, but Baldo does take a few locks.
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Randy Hales - who has improved in front of the camera - doesn't like Bruce Pritchard and wants Dave Brown to throw him out of the Power Pro studio. Brown won't do it so Hales says he's going to do it, but it's just a ruse to get Baldo, Grimes and Stasiak to attack Pritchard from behind. They are about to piledrive him on the floor when Lawler and friends make the save.
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Clips of Lawler vs Stasiak and Lawler vs Baldo from I think Mid South Coliseum. Stacy burns Stasiak with a fireball to give Lawler the win in the first match, and Baldo beats Lawler to win the Power Pro title at the end of the night. Lawler comes out for an interview unhappy about losing the title. He recaps what happened at the show and blames Stasiak for Baldo winning the title. He wants Stasiak in the ring today once and for all. Stasiak refuses to come out but does his promo from the locker room. Lawler counters Stasiak saying he's it by saying he left off two letters - an "s" and an "h". Lawler wants to put up $5000, but Stasiak refuses the match because he doesn't need the money. So Lawler ups the ante by putting up his hair. That's not good enough for Stasiak - he wants Stacy's hair on the line, but Lawler says no. Finally, Stasiak wants Stacy on the line, but he doesn't want her as his girlfriend, but as a "trial" for a couple of weeks. Lawler won't go for that, saying Stacy is not a possession and it's not his place, but Stacy agrees to it. Haha, Lawler with the reverse psychology, as he doesn't even hesitate as soon as she says go for it.
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Crowds can be however they want. But most of the time, crowds are "good" because the wrestlers are "good". Crowds are "bad" because the wrestlers are "bad". There are always exceptions, but fans are typically responsive to what they get. If they aren't, it's usually because the wrestlers aren't that good at what they do.
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I suspect the Southern indy guys you are referencing, without knowing who they are, are doing derivative imitation old school wrestling like Adam Pearce instead of something that seems contemporary. I'm not advocating that indy workers start complaining about hair pulling and asking for time-outs, and I'm not even really advocating them making wrestling like it used to be. But I would like to see more of a premium on making people like and dislike wrestlers because of their personalities, and that can absolutely be done without sacrificing the level of action or athleticism. I also think it's the role of the wrestler to set the mood of the building, and if it's not to their liking, change it through their actions in the ring. That's the mark of a great worker. Great wrestlers are usually able to dictate the atmosphere instead of having it dictated to them. Predisposition plays a role, but it's not everything by any means. I realize fans won't be jumping the rails to get at the bad guys anytime soon, but I still think fans will boo assholes no matter how good they are in the ring, just like they will be sympathetic to great selling performances.
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Again, my problem isn't the chants, it's working and catering to the chants. If that stopped, the chanting may still happen, but it wouldn't be as prevalent.
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Last few minutes. I don't know how Hall and Nash tossing Rey around helps him at all. The NWO run in after Konnan makes the hot tag. No fear from the announcers during the NWO beatdown. The NWO has become an institution, and when it's an institution, it's gone way, way too long. Hall and Nash sing "Whipping Post" while the NWO holds Rey and Hogan whips him with his belt. There was no Hogan-Rey feud on the horizon. I wish they'd keep the focus on Rey-Luger, but Lex is in the background during all of this.
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The Rock interrupts an Oddities intro. He has words for HHH, which set up a match later in the evening where Chyna turned on HHH. Meanwhile, Mankind attacks the security guards and takes the $100,000 and heads to the ring. He gives the money to fans and Rock gets off the great line that $100,000 is enough money for The Rock to buy five new shirts. He reveals how he was screwed the night before with clips to support it. I wondered briefly if this was necessary but they probably made the right call in making it very clear. They end up announcing there will be an Empty Arena match between the two on Halftime Heat.
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"No Chance In Hell", the Royal Rumble theme song, is officially Vince's theme now. Vince celebrates that he's going to Wrestlemania. Vince announces Rock will also collect the $100,000 bounty in cash as a thank you for his help. Vince will hand pick Rock's opponent for Wrestlemania, and Austin will never get a WWF title shot again. Austin interrupts via Titantron - live from San Antonio - and assures Vince that he's going to Wrestlemania to face the champ. Vince says he must be chewing on some loco weed. They pan out and it looks like Austin is at Shawn Michaels' house. I thought Shawn didn't have any jurisdiction over Austin. Austin is not at his best in this segment - he seems tired and depressed. Shawn cites the WWF rulebook, which says that if the Royal Rumble winner opts not to go to Wrestlemania, the runner-up gets all of those rights and privileges. Who does he think he is, Chris Jericho? So Austin is now facing the champ at Mania. Austin ends up putting his WM title shot because he wants to get his hands on Vince so bad. He wants a match - Austin vs McMahon - at the pay-per-view in a cage match. Austin is pretty bad here. Not sure what's up. Is he drunk? Vince ends up taking him up on it and the match is set. Austin closes out by guaranteeing that he will beat Vince's ass.
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The infamous "Who are you to doubt El Dandy?" promo. Bret has no storyline at all, but he really tries to make something somehow out of the Booker T match he's scheduled for tonight. (It was okay, but they had a much better match the next month.) Gene buries the cruisers here. THIS IS A GROIN PULL THE LIKES OF WHICH YOU'VE NEVER SEEN.
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WCW is so bush league making their wrestlers carry the ladder out to the ring and set it up during their intro instead of having a crew member do it. Hall and Disco made something out of it, but come on. We see a few other bush league production things - Disco’s ejection not getting the pop it should because of where it happens relative to the ring and the announcers pointing out that they don’t have any more ladders around if something happens to this one. In spite of all of that, I thought this was pretty good, definitely Hall’s best singles match in WCW. Hall takes some of the Michaels spots from WMX, riding the ladder from the corner on to Bigelow and dropkicking the ladder at one point when Bigelow is about to win. Bigelow does a diving headbutt from the middle steps on to Hall and Hall also drops an elbow. I liked that they really framed this more around the brutality and the element of danger than the daredevil spots, even though there were some good spots in that vein. Surprised there wasn’t more heat for this, as it was really good. Really dumb finish as it was never really clear what was required to win the match and all the run-ins at the end felt piled on. Plus, they were heating up Goldberg-Hall again even though it was just blown off on pay-per-view. Still, WCW didn’t have very many ladder matches and this was definitely something that stood out from the pack.
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Stevie Ray rallies the B-team troops and promises to smooth things over with the A-team in a series of terribly constructed vignettes where we can barely hear them since they are near a tarmac. It looks like they are about to finally kick the B-teamers out, but instead, the B-teamers are eating each other alive. So Nash felt the NWO should be more elite and took booking efforts in that direction but was afraid to go all the way. Curt Hennig ends up kicked out, but remains a heel upon leaving the group and ends up teaming with the equally heatless Barry Windham. WCW should have made a faction of second generation wrestlers that had been turned to the point no one cared about them. I'm not even sure why the vignettes continued after they kicked Hennig out. Everyone is talking at the same time and there seems to be no storyline purpose. WCW wasn't sophisticated enough to produce these things.
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This week, Eric Bischoff is put to work selling merchandise at the souvenir stand. Bischoff is wearing a backwards hat and a wig to hide his head shaving. Bischoff makes a stink about it, so Flair wants him selling merch in the crowd. We see fans complaining about Bischoff not providing proper change. "You got purple hair for crying out loud. You can't count." Dillinger resolves it and Bischoff promises him he'll be investigated.
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Russo managed to take a pretty foolproof concept and ruin it through overbooking this time around. I realize this crowd didn't need to see Austin and Vince brawling for an hour and if Vince was going to go into the match, they needed to keep him away from every other wrestler in the match. But they booked themselves into a corner and probably should have found a different way to set up Austin vs McMahon at St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
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Rock's pre-match promo is delivered with great enthusiasm, but is nothing at all but strung-together catchphrases. This match is really good at times, more so than I remembered. I like the intensity, even though I hate lots of other stuff about it. I guess Rock getting babyfaced was unavoidable by this time, but they definitely did things that would make him get cheered over Foley here. I remember also thinking less of Rock at the time since Foley was the one who took all the big bumps, but I don't see it that way this time. The chairshots are the big thing this is remembered for, and it definitely went too far. The electrified bump Foley took was something I wish they'd avoided since it wasn't even the finish. In fact, the finish was an obvious screwjob playing a tape of what Mankind said earlier in the evening in his Heat interview, and that makes you wonder why the Corporation didn't just play that the very first time Rock held the mic to his face. The answer is "so they could have a complete match, of course", which means it was a bad idea for a screwjob. A better screwjob would have been "The Rock quits" since he can only speak in third person with the finish being disputed because The Rock never said "I". I liked Rock's intensity and thought the opening minutes, which were more basic, was much better than the overdone stuff as the match climaxed. And "Stop the damn match" means something coming from Jim Ross, but the insincere Michael Cole saying it is embarrassing. So I'd call this a disappointing match overall, despite both guys working hard and Rock showing in some ways that he was coming along as a worker.