Loss
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Austin-McMahon action figures for sale for those who purchase the Rumble. Vince says Austin is not coming back to the arena, as he seems to have gotten lost. Meanwhile, a limo on monster truck wheels is outside the building pulls up and Austin steps out. Vince slaps him in the face when he comes to the ring then bails, and Austin takes it out on the stages. Good last minute hype, and this rivalry is still the heartbeat of the WWF as everything else is getting progressively more unbearable. -
I thought this was a super match. It shocked the hell out of me. Gang could still go in 1999 and really should have gotten a run in FMW or Big Japan. Not only did he keep up with Sabu athletically, but he added some cool veteran touches to this, which made it more of an intense brawl than one for show, as often happens in ECW. He bled a gusher but also added in a healthy dose of psychology. I had no idea the Gang was this good this late.
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I've seen far worse green guys than Stasiak at this stage when it comes to cutting a promo, so I can definitely understand the WWF thinking they could mold him into something. He's helped by working with Lawler and Brian Christopher (and even Dave Brown - who helps this segment quite a bit), of course, but he's decent in his own right. Stasiak promo with clips recapping the feud to this point, starting with the Christmas fireball. Lawler is not in the studio, but is instead at Galloway Golf Course. They invite Stasiak to come out this morning, but the business owner insists on no ruckus! It turns out to be a ruse as Stasiak goes outside to find his tires slashed and Lawler attacks him with a garbage can.
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This was awesome. Kanehara makes a surprisingly great showing against Han and there are some amazing things being done here. I also love the overhead camera view because it’s really the best way to film the details behind some of these holds. This is not really a striking encounter at all. Both guys stay on the mat until the last couple of minutes, which makes Kanehara’s ability to hang with Han doubly impressive. I like whatever the hold is where he’s mounting him, along with him seeming to have the answer to Han’s usual seamless counters. Han grabs Kanehara’s ankle for dear life and won’t let go, even with Kanehara trying every counter he can out of it. Kanehara is not as graceful as Han (very few are), so a few things he does look slightly awkward, but in a way that works within the match too. Kanehara threw some really hard slaps at Han to take him off his feet. Han just casually slides into an amazing ankle/half crab position face first on the mat, which earns him a submission. Wonderful display from both guys.
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I love a good brawl, but I didn’t think the brawling here was structured enough. I didn’t like the lack of rule enforcing where everyone was always in the ring at the same time. Even in wild matches, you should be able to tell who is supposed to be the legal man, whether they are able to keep the match under control or not. It got better in the second fall but this still didn’t grab me for whatever reason.
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It's the 7/95 match between these two that usually gets talk as being the most all-action match of their series, and one that's also relatively short in duration compared to your average TC defense at the time. But they seemed to have cut a harder pace here than there. I'm really over Misawa-Kawada as a feud by this time, especially considering the anti-climatic Kawada victory at the Tokyo Dome, but this was at the level of the secondary matches in their feud for me, 7/93 and 7/95 specifically. Definitely ahead of 6/97 and 5/98. I thought they did what they could to make this fresh in going shorter and sacrificing story for spots. Normally, I wouldn't support that, but this feud was shopworn and if they were going to have another match, it was more important that it be different than technically great. Of course the Ganso Bomb finish is legendary, but the match was cooking even before that. This isn't my match of the month, as January has been loaded, but in most months it would be. The Triple Crown is bouncing around a lot more than it did at All Japan's peak, which seems like a desperate attempt to heat things up. This is the match Baba called the best he'd ever seen, right?
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It's not about othering anyone. But I think most people posting in this thread see wrestling as more enjoyable to watch when crowds allow themselves to get wrapped up in the moment. Wrestling is best when fans get so into a match and so invested in the outcome that they care who wins and who loses and react accordingly. They are rooting for someone they like and against someone they don't. Lord knows I have no problem with people watching wrestling critically, and I'd be the last person qualified to say that if for some reason I did. It's not that people are more aware now than they used to be that wrestling is fake. It's that the people involved barely bother to pretend that they mean anything they say or do anymore, which makes it harder for fans to suspend disbelief. Yes, the chants are annoying, but I feel like most of the fingerpointing should go to the wrestlers working the match and the people presenting it, because the way wrestling is presented and worked encourages that kind of emotional detachment. If a strong babyface is presented against a strong heel and the match is worked in accordance with that, set aside the real-fake issue or times changing. Even now, people will still give it the same visceral response they always have.
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Flair announces that there will be a tournament starting tonight to crown new WCW World Tag Team Champions with the finals happening at SuperBrawl. Ugh, this tournament - the one where we never got brackets and the NWO kept sabotaging the first round matches. Flair then turns his attention to Hogan and cuts an incredible, money-drawing promo. "Hogan, make no mistake, when I was in Garden City, Kansas, wrestling Rufus R. Jones for an hour, you were in Madison Square Garden for all the money! I know it, the world knows it. The difference is I was the World Champion, and you were a man on fourth before intermission beating the crowd to get a cold beer, pal. I was putting in time. I was with Race, Brisco, Funk, Kiniski, Sting, Luger ... I was with the boys that had to walk the real aisle. You, my friend, were carrying Dolly Parton to the Oscars - God Bless You. You were making movies with Stallone. You became a bigger than life commodity, and for that, I give you your due. As for being a wrestler, you can't now and never could carry my jockstrap, pal." He says SuperBrawl is about the two of them really establishing once and for all who the world champ really is. He asks Hogan to look around the dressing room and asks him if he thinks Jericho grew up wanting to be like Flair, or like Hogan. He also asks him if he thinks Chavo grew up wanting to go upside down into the turnbuckle or cup his ear. This is Hogan's fame versus Flair's reputation. He tells Hogan not to train for a cosmetic appearance, but to train to wrestle the hardest match of his life against the Dirtiest Player In The Game. This just hit every note brilliantly. One of the all-time great Flair promos. No wonder that show drew such a massive buyrate.
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Chyna asks Mark Henry to come out and tell the truth, and his mom is at ringside. Henry admits they did nothing, but BEGS Chyna not to reveal everything. Chyna won't let him off that easy, and shows video of Chyna's transgender friend Sammy putting the moves on Henry before finding a penis and puking in the toilet. Chyna apologizes to Henry's mom for doing this in front of her, but says he had it coming. Then she low blows Henry to close this out. I could write volumes about the racism and transphobia and sexism and everything else in this segment, and maybe one day I will. Henry's mom ends up grabbing him by the ear and taking him to the proverbial woodshed.
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Hair vs Presidency. If Bischoff loses he gets his head shaved. If he wins he gets the Presidency back. I remember being worried watching this that they were hitting the reset button on the Flair angle since the Fingerpoke of Doom failed to give them a ratings war win. I think WCW tends to do non-wrestler matches that don't involve Jay Leno or Karl Malone really well and this has a decent amount of heat. David hits Bischoff with a roll of coins and KOs him, and Bischoff gets his head shaved, revealing lots and lots of gray hair. I will give them credit for showing up Bischoff while putting more heat on the Wolfpac each week, because it was a nice way to keep things in balance. At least for now. This isn't quite the moment Tony sells it as, but they try hard to make it one. It probably should have gotten at least a week of build-up with more promos, and Bischoff should have had an NWO corner guy while Ric was in David's corner.
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Gene conducts a sit-down interview with Rey. He says he didn't feel like the time was right to take the red, white and green shirt off. That makes no sense considering the pre-Starrcade nature of the LWO storyline. They also talk about the mask's importance, and Rey tells Lex to bring it on. Good to see Rey in the top mix, and Luger is a good choice for a heavyweight opponent.
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"Please don't stop" is a little too kinky for a wrestling show. You kind of expect "Fuck me harder" to be the next chant in that progression.
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Last few minutes. Disco Inferno interferes in an attempt to help Hall win. Hall gets the taser as a result but isn't able to zap Goldberg. Goldberg, who's bleeding, ends up hitting Hall with some great looking kicks. Goldberg is still over, but not at quite the same level he was a month ago. The finish gets dragged out too much as Goldberg stands there stalling forever for some reason. He throws the taser in the air and spears him in a great spot, then jackhammers him. Hall gets tasered and wins the match, but Bigelow immediately runs out to attack him. That finish could have been way better executed but it seems decently conceived enough. Hall starts tasering both guys post-match because Goldberg has to look bad at the end of shows now I guess.
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So the ARSION style is more reminiscent of BattlARTS than it is a shoot-style fed because there are still plenty of pro-style elements mixed in. In fact, it’s probably even more pro-style than BattlARTS, but there remains a heavy mat focus and it’s awesome to watch these two rip it up. Especially Mariko Yoshida, who did a total reinvention around this time as a more grounded worker. She does some amazing things in this match - I wish I knew the names of the holds so I could do them justice in describing this match. Akino is more of an aerial wrestler and keeps trying to take the fight vertical, but can’t keep it that way very long. At times, this felt like more of an exhibition for Yoshida than a competitive match, especially when she covered Akino so casually for the pin at the end, but this was still an excellent match that did a great job of getting over a very different approach for the time.
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Stasiak is back at Lawler's house trying to get in again. This is getting old. Lawler blindsides him with a garbage can and they brawl in the backyard. Cool to see Lawler give Stasiak a bodyslam on the leafy grass. Brian Christopher ends up coming out of Stasiak's trunk and attacking Lawler and this turns into a great beatdown. I guess they're trying to do something different, but we've seen enough of Lawler's house lately. Stasiak starts a fire with all the leaves and they tease a major burn job on Lawler. Stacy tries to intervene. Out of nowhere, Bill Dundee pulls up in a Lincoln Towncar and chases them away with a rake. Okay, that made it all worthwhile.
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This was slower paced than you might expect it to be, but it was a great tag match - slow and stiff, really giving everything time to get over. Shinzaki is face in peril for a big chunk of this and does a great job selling and even gets busted open. I didn’t really like the Hayabusa/Shinzaki matches from ’97 that got so much praise, but I loved this both because of the work and also because it was a nice look at the undercard of All Japan at the time, which is something that became more and more rare as the decade drew to a close. Hayabusa really knows how to work his highspots into a match as opposed to just tossing them out where they mean nothing. I wasn’t sure if this would actually get hot in the closing few minutes because that wasn’t really how this was worked, but it did. I liked that they didn’t just shit on everything they did in the 20 minutes before they decided to start taking it home - it was a well-paced home stretch with lots of selling mixed in with the big moves and pin attempts. Honda’s sloooowww dead-lift German at the finish actually gave me chills. From what I’ve seen anyway, this is the best match the FMW guys had in Japan.
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I thought this was very good. They worked hard and hit everything cleanly. It was also the prototype for the indy matches in the coming decade. I didn't think it was great, but compared to most indy wrestling happening at the time that I've seen, it was a five star classic. They were professional and worked a match that got the people in the building excited and made sense, so in that sense it was a definite success. Their inexperience shows at times, mainly in that they seem like they are going through a dance rehearsal and never really change facial expressions. But the wrestling exchanges at least *look* very good and that's a plus. I wish this would have been how they worked on Nitro in 2001 instead of that terrible match they did.
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Kakihara seems to be having fun working a pro style. I only really know him from UWFI. His kicks look awesome in this setting, and he’s really good at working a crowd. Great transition when Ogawa ducks a high kick in front of the ring post and fucks up his ankle. Ogawa jumps on it right away. Ogawa is great at working over an ankle. I love the ring post thing he did where he was pulling on his kickpads, and I also like that they chose this as a direction because it’s the biggest thing Ogawa can do to neutralize Kakihara. It also gets Ogawa over as a slimy opportunist, which is a great role for him. The heel hook on Ogawa was a great moment. The finishing stretch of near falls is incredibly dramatic and Ogawa starts sneaking in eye pokes and knee cheapshots between the pin attempts to make it even better. Kakihara tries a mid-air cross armbreaker to counter what I think was an Ogawa superplex attempt in an amazing spot. This is probably going to end up as one of my 500 matches in the e-book because of Ogawa’s great performance. This is just greatgreatgreat.
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Speaking of Southern tags, Delphin and Naniwa are pulling out every trick in the book here - accidentally running into each other, elbow dropping each other by accident, eye poking, low blowing, asking for a time out to regroup and otherwise cheating like crazy. The match as a whole didn't live up to the early promise based on the heel tactics, but it was still a very good match. I think they did a little too many highspots on the floor, and I am not really a fan of the AJW thing where the babyface team messes up and hits each other. I think of that as more of a heel spot. But they did a lot right in terms of comedy and pacing, and Yakushiji is the ideal sympathy babyface you want against a team trying to act like the Midnight Express. Hoshikawa and Yakushiji have some really good double team spots as well. I enjoyed a good rollup finish every once in a while too.
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This was one of my favorite BattlARTS matches ever almost immediately. Ikeda is the guy who stole the show for me as a great heel, staying on Otsuka when he goes out of the ring and pushing the ropes back each time Otsuka is close to reaching them in an attempt to force a hold break. I also like how he gouges Ishikawa's face and constantly runs interference when either guy on the other team suggests they might make a comeback. He's all about making this match a zero sum game, at least at the beginning. This is as about as much of a Southern tag as can exist in this style, and it even has a double heat! They rely on their matwork, but this is a pro-style match all the way, and I love it for that. Otsuka's selling is excellent, and he's good at getting out of nowhere counters when all hope seems lost. They're definitely selling the story that Ikeda is the superior wrestler to both Ishikawa and Otsuka here (or at least the more aggressive one), and they worked this match in a way to build up singles matches with those two where maybe they come back with a new attitude. Otsuka and Ishikawa manage a strong comeback and Yone ends up getting a dose of the medicine his partner dished out down the stretch. Ikeda actually gets in the ring and doesn't help Yone but gets in his face and screams at him to get up. Super dramatic finish with a very earned victory for Ishikawa/Otsuka. A bonafide, top-tier MOTYC.