Loss

Kobashi has his right leg taped up and Kawada and Taue target it methodically. The work is solid and the last 10 minutes of nearfalls bring it up a notch. Good basic wrestling match with a hot finishing stretch. Ace pins Taue to set up their match in 10 days.

There's footage of him pinning Shawn Michaels too. He hooked the tights and it was surreal.

Good read. I know this isn't really the place for it, but I want to know as a side conversation what your take is on Iggy Pop's The Idiot. I love that album and was just curious your thoughts.

If you want to go in without any preconceptions, you may want to look at the matchlists and ignore the comments. Just a thought.

Headline match on the first PRIDE show which I was told we should include for historical significance related to pro wrestling. I was too annoyed by the English speaking announcer saying the word "Hickson" repeatedly to keep watching. EDIT: I'm told that's the Portuguese pronunciation of his name. Still, I don't really care about MMA.

Sunny is here! And Victor Quinones is Taka's manager! Sunny is the most traveled wrestling personality of 1997 -- WWF, ECW, USWA and now Michinoku Pro. Part of me wants to say this reminds of Eddy vs Rey from Smackdown in 2005 -- two guys more known for their highspots getting more time than usual to deliver a match, and going for a more basic approach with more psychology and playing to the crowd. There isn't as much flash here as there usually is when these two lock up, but I think the match improves for it. Taka is a great heel and even steals the ringpost sharpshooter spot from Bret. The problem with this is that there's no heat. It's awesomely worked, but the crowd just doesn't take to it. I suspect that Taka was trying to demonstrate his grasp of American style psychology. I loved it, but the crowd didn't really connect with it. Cool to see Taka and Sasuke go over a half hour.

Interesting. I knew Hogan didn't think Sting was in shape, but I didn't think that talk started until the day of the show.

Good match in this series, even if it is quite a few steps down from their better outings of the year. Super Delphin shows off his newly roided body and looks ridiculous. Funaki wears face paint and cornrolls for some reason. This lacks heat and falls off the tracks at times, I think because it's a little too long with a few too many nearfalls.

Last few minutes of a really good match that will on the Errata in full. It might be Hennig's only really good match in WCW. Post-match, Hennig attacks Beniot and the rest of the NWO runs in to help him finish the job. RIC FLAIR makes his triumphant return, fighting through the NWO guys that came out, and chases Hennig away from the ring. Hennig runs out of the building into the street! Flair returns to the ring to cut the only real promo he's had the chance to give us all year, and it's a doozy. Flair cuts what has to be a therapeutic promo about how no matter what anyone tries to do to him, he's still here and he's still The Man. Cool to see him get one segment set up properly and where he's given time and focus. There's no way they weren't planning a Hogan vs Flair match at this point. They had to be, but I guess plans changed. I really want to see WONs around this time.

Mike Tenay gives us the history of lucha libre. This is really cool, and I'm sure Dave helped put the story together. Great photos and cool information.

Gene interviews Roddy, I suppose responding to a promo earlier in the evening where Scott Hall said he has beaten Piper in the past. Piper says he's tired of the lying and orders Hall and Nash to defend the tag titles next week or they will be stripped, injuries be damned. He also sets up a Texas Death Match (calling it Piper Rules and with it eventually being billed as a Las Vegas Death Match) for Halloween Havoc between Savage and Page. Hogan and Bischoff - both looking very angry - interrupt. Hogan is dead serious and has no sunglasses on and does a really great promo, telling Piper he's spent the last 15 years in Hogan's shadow and that he can't be the icon because Hulk is still around. Hogan says he's going to prove to Piper's wife and kids that he's the only icon, end Piper's career and make an honest man out of Piper because he's going to send him home. Bischoff cheapshots Piper in the knee and Hogan beats the crap out of Piper. Piper makes a comeback and beats them both up and it's not great action, but this is a great segment that does an awesome job hyping Havoc.

Savage attacks DDP just as he's about to finish off Disco Inferno. He's about to piledrive DDP on concrete but Piper makes the save. Savage is distracted and DDP gives him a Diamond Cutter on the concrete. Hogan and the NWO come out to scream for an ambulance. Savage is stretchered out. Crowd loves this. Hot segment.

Mike Tenay shows pictures of Goldberg playing for the Falcons and we get clips of the match with Hugh Morrus.

WCW just puts an on-screen graphic up to recognize Pillman's death, but I don't think there was any mention of it on the air.

Last few minutes. Shawn walks out as Shawn throws crotch chops left and right and picks his nose with the Canadian flag. Owen and Neidhart are out to even the sides. Jim Ross subtly buries Bret on commentary, pointing out that his critics say he is "too predictable". Shawn superkicks Bret after a distraction from Chyna and Hunter wins by countout.

After milking this for ratings all night, Vince interviews -- on live television -- the wife of a wrestler who died two days earlier. She confirms that Brian had a heart attack. Vince acknowledges the rumors that Brian overdosed on pain pills. They zoom in on her crying as Vince asks about Brian's children and Vince asks her how as a single parent she's going to support her five children. If this wasn't most disgusting promotional tactic of 1997, it should have been, even though I acknowledge that the competition is tough in this particular year. Melanie closes by saying that Pillman lived and died for wrestling, and that she hopes no one else has to die. This is closed out with a video narrated by Jim Ross. A bitter dose of reality during the height of wrestling fandom. Oh well, back to business, right?

Vince conducts the interview, which is fun. Austin has not even been to a doctor, you jackass. He will only sign the waiver that allows him to be reinstated if he gets a match with Owen Hart in a match. Vince tells him he has his word and Austin is too smart for that. He wants it in writing that he gets Owen first. Faarooq interrupts via Titantron and cuts the mother of all promos on Austin -- holy shit. Good Lord, just listen to that. "It ain't a race thing. It ain't a colored thing. It's a me kickin' your ass thing!" -- Austin in response Great segment, but I do think Vince was still the guy in the right at this point in the feud.

Jim Cornette speaks the truth in his first great segment. He shoots on Kevin Nash, Scott Hall, Syxx and Eric Bischoff while singing the praises of Ric Flair and Arn Anderson. As great as this is, Bischoff was right that it just played into WCW storylines at the time.

Michael Cole is here to interview Shawn, HHH and Chyna and gets a wedgie for his troubles. Shawn declares himself the only and only ICON in the WWF and takes a shot at WCW for throwing the word around loosely and asks the people in the truck to show footage of him last night. But they end up showing the curtain call footage from MSG and then decide to get on Vince's case about it. This goes through the commercial break and is a giant ego wank before the Hart Foundation finally interrupts. Bret is obviously not comfortable with the subject matter here, as he's talked about before, and Shawn and Hunter are undercutting every single line he has. Bret points out that he makes more money than everyone in the ring combined and he's the champ, and until he wins the gold, he's not the Showstopper. Bret doesn't want the crowd cheering him, but they are anyway, and who can blame him? Bret claims he ran Diesel and Razor out of town, which gets a big laugh out of Shawn and Hunter. Shawn debuts the "two words -- suck it" line, tells Bret he is merely support on his pay-per-view events and the Clique owns this business. Shawn is the most vile heel in WWE history. Just to put the cap on this segment, Vince teases an interview later in the show with Melanie Pillman.

Vince announces to the live crowd that Brian Pillman was found dead in his hotel room in Bloomington, MN. I don't see DX out there, so I guess they were still maintaining some sense of kayfabe, which sucks. This is the start of an unfortunate trend, and what's sad is the close-ups on guys that would eventually meet the same fate.

Talk about it here.

It's been years since I've seen this, but I thought this still held up as a really great match. Shawn's exaggerated bumping really works well in this setting because it's satisfying to the crowd who wants to finally see him get some measure of comeuppance. This was a fantastic match, even with the horror movie finish debuting Kane that people often complain about. Shawn takes the awesome cage bump and does one of the most impressive blade jobs (both in hiding that he's blading in plain sight and also being covered in red) that I've ever seen. Give me a break, 1997.

Last few minutes. Sabu takes a big beating and Sandman doesn't look horrible. Sabu finally throws a fireball at Sandman. It's funny how all the weapons shots are standard fare, but THAT'S enough to stop the match. I guess it's consistent mythology, which I've talked about before, but it still stands out. Good angle though. I always love a good fireball.

1997 is relentless in match quality. It would appear that Santo is only a heel in CMLL while still a babyface everywhere else in Mexico. I think I like this match far better than previous matches between these two because Psicosis has matured as a wrestler and heels it up in a big way. Some really nice matwork early on and nearfalls in the end. Psicosis is really great at feeding Santo's offense. The low blow and pin finishing sequence was awesome. Lucha handhelds are in some ways preferable to television (especially when the camera work is this good) because it's easier to hear the crowd.

Money promo.