Loss

Shawn is in a wheelchair, which I guess was the in thing for heels to do in 1997. Shawn doesn't seem to have as much heat since Bret left and Hunter is an awful talker. Shawn and Hunter are sucking lollipops and I think this is the show where Shawn sells Shamrock's anklelock without ever spitting out the lollipop. Shawn is off in some other world. He's been so great since the turn and seems to be cooling off now. Anyway, this is where HHH turns Shawn's ankle all the way around. I think I read once that they used the gimmick boot that was built for the original WM13 finish.

November: #1 - Tsuyoshi Kohsaka vs Mikhail Ilioukhine (RINGS 11/20/97) ****3/4 #2 - Great Sasuke & Super Delphin vs Mens Teoh & Shoichi Funaki (Michinoku Pro 11/09/97) ****1/2 #3 - Great Sasuke & Super Delphin vs Mens Teoh & Shoichi Funaki (Michinoku Pro 11/02/97) ****1/4 #4 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/28/97) **** #5 - Genichiro Tenryu vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara (WAR 11/24/97) **** #6 - Daisuke Ikeda vs Alexander Otsuka (BattlARTS 11/05/97) **** #7 - Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels (WWF Survivor Series 11/09/97) ***1/2 #8 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/15/97) ***1/2 #9 - Hayabusa & Masato Tanaka vs Mr. Gannosuke & Yukihiro Kanemura (FMW 11/28/97) ***1/2 #10 - Mitsuharu Misawa & Jun Akiyama vs Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/27/97) ***1/2 #11 - Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/23/97) ***1/4 #12 - Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato vs Kaoru & Toshiyo Yamada (GAEA 11/30/97) *** #13 - Mikey Whipwreck & Spike Dudley vs Doug Furnas & Phil LaFon (ECW Elizabeth, NJ 11/01/97) #14 - Dean Malenko vs Norman Smiley (WCW Worldwide 11/23/97) #15 - Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Kenta Kobashi & Johnny Ace (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/27/97) #16 - Wolfie D vs Flash Flanagan (Music City 11/24/97) #17 - Rey Misterio Jr. vs El Dandy (WCW Saturday Night 11/29/97) #18 - Hulk Hogan vs The Giant (WCW Monday Nitro 11/24/97)

This fight is between Jerry Lawler and Tito Santana. I'd prefer an actual match between them. The Vince/JR impersonations (JR is Bruce Pritchard) are funny.

Goldust with pink hair and a gag in his mouth while Luna keeps him on a chain. Luna does all the talking. Ross and Cornette are funny selling this. "My mama just fainted in Oklahoma." In a strange way, this works.

Last few minutes. Shane Douglas is a hometown favorite and Bigelow destroys him until Douglas pulls a flash pin out of nowhere to win the ECW title back.

Last few minutes. Pretty good crowd on hand. Please end this feud. It's obvious to the audience it has nothing to do with the WWF at this point. Not much heat for this compared to the usual ECW Arena fare. I liked Dreamer countering whatever split legged thing RVD is about to do with a kick to the balls. The referee stuff is ridiculous, but watching Beulah beat up Fonzie is always fun. RVD did an amazing bouncing bump off of a piledriver. Stevie Richards shows up, which is a surprise as he was just in WCW maybe a week or two ago. I'm curious what the story was there.

Not much to say about this. Pretty good match. Ozaki has moments of brilliance in every match she is part of during this time, and this is no exception. Either Ozaki or Kudo is the best Joshi wrestler in 1997, and Kudo retired 1/3 of the way into the year, so I'll give the nod to Ozaki. There's infighting between Kaoru and Yamada, which gives Oz and Sato an opening to take the advantage. Not sure I really think much of Yamada at this point, as she seems to be past her prime. She's still fine physically, but not as much charisma as she had in the early 90s. Post-match angle with Kaoru and Yamada infighting while Oz and Sato gloat. Good stuff. No one can pour salt on a wound like Mayumi Ozaki.

It's that time of year again! I always enjoy these. ECW would not have been the same without the unauthorized use of popular songs.

Dandy is excellent at feeding and setting up Rey's spots. No reason he couldn't have been a fairly regular opponent, even if he was never going over.

Very good tag match on the wave of Hayabusa performing in the tag league. It has the FMW flavor with occasional weapon shots, but for the most part, they stick to wrestling basics, which is cool. Gannosuke and Kanemura make a pretty solid heel team. You can see the All Japan influence creeping into this style, as they do a lot of dramatic saves around the nearfalls toward the end. It's like All Japan as done by FMW, which means it has a slightly different tone, but the style is changing to a more traditional wrestling style in some ways.

People suck.

That is definitely comforting. I bet no one is copying the Nitro Girls at the club so nyah.

Why Gary Hart? On the strength of his run as a booker, as a manager or both? I've never really heard his case discussed, so I am curious. In general, I wish there was more discussion of the non-wrestler candidates.

My purpose was to compare a match that got rave reviews that year to one that didn't.

Arn Anderson (wrestler) lost to Johnny B. Badd (boxer) at Uncensored '95, and PWI wrote an article subtly criticizing WCW booking for making boxing look better than wrestling.

Things go awry for Misawa and Akiyama in a hurry, as Kawada and Taue attack quickly and even put Akiyama through a ringside table. Then they isolate Misawa, who takes a beating for the first several minutes. Akiyama tags in and tries a fiery comeback but is still hurt from the table bump and can't sustain momentum for very long -- his back goes out when he tries an exploder. This puts a bullseye on his injury, which Kawada and Taue pick up on and work over like clockwork. There are some terrific moments of assholery here. Taue does his release belly-to-back suplex and Akiyama tries to roll outside to buy time, but Taue stops him. In another fun moment, Kawada toys with Akiyama by letting him get inches away from tagging then blocking him from doing so. In the end, they manage to neutralize Misawa and Kawada pins Akiyama after an extended stretch plum. This is the most fun I've had watching All Japan since the Misawa vs Kobashi match in January.

It is possible this is 11/27? We only get about 8 minutes of this match. Good match, but nothing you haven't seen many times before.

Misawa will tolerate the ropewalking from Shinzaki. I liked Kawada and Taue's approach to that better I think. I don't know if I had expectations too high or what, but I really didn't get into this much. The last few minutes of this are really great though, as Misawa and Akiyama convince the building that they're about to see an upset. But the match is in slow motion until those last five minutes. I wish I could have put this match in front of the crowd for the Kawada/Taue match. They had to work much harder to get them over here, whereas the other crowd was ready to explode for Team FMW.

Flash is now the heel and Wolfie the babyface. He hypes a noose on a pole match between the two. It's not a pre-match promo. It's just an extra clip. Match only goes about 7 minutes. Sadly not a hidden gem, even though I think it had the potential to eventually get there and what we get is okay. Cool find nonetheless. We'll see these two a few more times in 1997-1998 running the gimmick match gauntlet so I'm hoping for a longer match at some point. The referee is Jason Jarrett. Who is Jason Jarrett?

Good to see Wolfie D and hear talk about some of the USWA guys on commentary, but don't blink. Flash Flanagan runs in after about two minutes of action and they brawl to set up the next match.

Giant is wearing a cast on his hand and otherwise looks out of it. Bischoff and Rude invade the broadcast booth and swat the announcers away. This is a pretty solid match with Hogan working over Giant's bum hand. Hogan actually worked hard and looked decent here and the match would have been better had Giant not been so terrible. Was he wrestling drunk? The super tall Sting is back with his baseball bat to attack Giant's hand and it's Kevin Nash again?? No way! Lethargic beatdown and a dummy Sting falls from the ceiling and Nash beats him under the ring. Does any segment end during this time with the NWO or DX getting their comeuppance? Even one? All the heel victories on both shows are getting old.

We get a clip from a Nitro party. These people aren't even watching the show!

Talk about it here.

Larry Zbyszko still has his challenge for Scott Hall and wants him to come out. The NWO music starts and flyers drop from the ceiling before Eric Bischoff comes out instead and reinforces the line that Larry can't even beat Bischoff. Zbyszko challenges him to come into the ring, and Bischoff finally agrees to a match. Not as hot as last week's segment, but still good.

Slightly JIP. Shawn is calling spots really loudly, probably because he's pissed off about something. Anyway, Jim Neidhart interferes repeatedly to show his loyalty to DX. They treat Vader like a total joke here. As they are celebrating with Neidhart after the match, Chyna low blows him from behind and they attack him. I remembered them spraypainting WCW on his back, but I guess they didn't. That sure shows Bret. This was a bad RAW.