Loss

Offense -> Hesitation -> Struggle -> Flared Tempers is pretty much the layout. Weirdly, there's a ref bump, then Hashimoto locks in a cross armbreaker and the ref isn't there. He finally gets back into things in time for Yamazaki to submit. I really enjoyed this.

July: #1 - Yoshiko Tamura vs Toshie Uematsu (GAEA 07/19/97) ***** #2 - El Hijo del Santo vs Felino (CMLL 07/04/97) ****1/2 #3 - El Hijo del Santo vs Felino (CMLL 07/25/97) ****1/4 #4 - Kiyoshi Tamura vs Bitsadze Tariel (RINGS 07/22/97) **** #5 - Bret Hart, Owen Hart, Davey Boy Smith, Jim Neidhart & Brian Pillman vs Steve Austin, Goldust, Ken Shamrock & Legion of Doom (WWF Canadian Stampede 07/06/97) **** #6 - Genichiro Tenryu vs Yoji Anjo (WAR 07/06/97) ***1/2 #7 - Juventud Guerrera, Hector Garza & Lizmark Jr. vs Psicosis, La Parka & Villano IV (WCW Bash at the Beach 07/13/97) ***1/2 #8 - Glacier & Ernest Miller vs Wrath & Mortis (WCW Bash at the Beach 07/13/97) ***1/4 #9 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Akira Taue (AJPW 07/25/97) ***1/4 #10 - Hulk Hogan & Dennis Rodman vs Lex Luger & The Giant (WCW Bash at the Beach 07/13/97) *** #11 - Toshiyo Yamada vs Kaoru (GAEA 07/21/97) *** #12 - Ric Flair & Chris Benoit vs Scott Hall & Kevin Nash (WCW Monday Nitro 07/22/97) *** #13 - Taka Michinoku vs Great Sasuke (WWF Monday Night RAW 07/07/97) *** #14 - Taka Michinoku vs Great Sasuke (WWF Canadian Stampede 07/06/97) #15 - Steve Austin vs Hunter Hearst Helmsley (WWF Monday Night RAW 07/07/97) #16 - Masato Tanaka, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Koji Nakagawa vs W*ING Kanemura, Hideki Hosaka & Hido (W*ING 07/13/97) #17 - Chris Jericho vs Alex Wright (WCW Monday Nitro 07/28/97) #18 - Gedo & Jado vs Yoshihiro Taijiri & Ryuji Yamakawa (BJPW 07/31/97) #19 - Bret Hart, Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith vs Steve Austin, Undertaker & Dude Love (WWF Monday Night RAW 07/21/97) #20 - Genichiro Tenryu vs Tarzan Goto (WAR 07/06/97) #21 - Steve Austin & Dude Love vs Owen Hart & Davey Boy Smith (WWF Monday Night RAW 07/21/97) 1997 has really been an excellent combination of good wrestling and angles.

This is a 60-minute draw, of which we get about 15 minutes of highlights. It's a pretty good match, but I think watching these guys for an hour would be tough if this is any indication. Maybe in a better building it would work? I'm not sure.

Last few minutes. Scott pulls off a top rope Frankensteiner. Hall and Nash end up jumping the Steiners from behind and the crowd pelts the ring with garbage in a great beatdown. The Giant ends up making the save and clears the ring. Giant wants Nash to get in the ring. They are about to get it on when the show goes off the air. We close out with a replay of Giant giving Nash a chokeslam earlier in the night.

Flair wants Curt Hennig in the Horsemen and asks him to come out. Hennig denies this, but Flair says he's just laying low because he doesn't want his wife wondering why he's running around all night with the Nature Boy.

This was around the time Alex Wright was rapidly improving as a worker. He's already picking up on some heel veteran details, which is pretty cool, and mixing that in with the athletic stuff he can do. These two complement each other surprisingly well. Fun match. Wright wins the cruiserweight title.

Last few minutes. Shawn is doing commentary. Bret is squashing the guy for most of this. He covers Patriot after a ref bump, but the ref isn't there to make the count. Shawn distracts Bret long enough for Patriot to roll up Bret and score a huge upset.

They are in Pittsburgh and Bret gets out his famous enema line. Vince has JR deliver the news that his match against Undertaker at Summerslam will still happen, but one week from tonight, there will be a new WWF Commissioner named who will reevaluate the entire situation. Bret says when he said he would never wrestle in the U.S. again, it was a mere figure of speech, not something he meant literally. "It was a figure of speech" is such a Vince Russo thing that he loved to use. He points out that Shawn can screw him at Summerslam and he still gets screwed while Shawn spends ten years at home looking for his smile. Bret has some crazy heat here. This whole summer has had the loudest and most emotionally invested crowds in WWF history.

Lawler's heeling on the crowd during the Sandman intro is so grating and awesome. Dreamer and Sandman come out with no partner and Rick Rude grabs a mic at the announce booth and says he'll be the partner for Dreamer and Sandman. The crowd is majorly excited, and in a way, I am too, even though I'm fairly sure what's coming. Rude ends up turning and even throws Beulah into the cage. Good angle, but I would like to see Lawler get some comeuppance in the ECW Arena at some point.

Last few minutes. New Jack does a big dive from the top of the cage that pops the crowd big time. The Dudleys are good enough at this point that they seem ready for a bigger stage. The Gangstas win the tag titles.

Doug Gilbert gets questions asking if he's still in the wrestling business. He talks about how Eddie's passing affected him and that even when he showed up in the past, he wasn't all there. He says Brian Christopher called him when he was in Tokyo recently and told him it's time for him to put some things in the past and move forward with his life. Really good heartfelt promo.

Lawler is out to talk about his new WWF action figure. He traded an action figure for a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. Only Lawler could segue that into ECW talk. JC Ice interrupts to read a letter from Tommy Dreamer. Russell chastising JC about the foul language in the letter is hilarious.

Misawa countering the nodowa from the apron was a holy shit spot that could have easily been fatal if it had gone wrong. Good Lord. It was a great spot, but scared the shit out of me. I thought there were too many highspots on the floor in this match, to the point that they raised the bar where the good stuff they did in the ring didn't get the pop it sometimes deserved. There are definitely chinks in the armor of the style at this point. This had its moments and was a good match overall, but it's not something I have any desire to revisit. If the All Japan style was still progressing in 1991 (the last yearbook I watched), then it's regressing here. And that's put a little stench on even the good matches unfortunately. Taue's performance was also much more interesting than Misawa's "lay around and get beat up" act. If I did have any desire to re-watch this in the future, I'd love to watch it back to back with Misawa's 2/93 defense because Taue's improvement would be pretty evident.

Last few minutes. Crowd is pretty hot for this. Doc pins Kobashi, which surprises me this late in the game, to give Williams and Albright the double tag titles.

The previous match between these two was more of a sportsman's display of mat wrestling. This was not that. It wasn't a brawl, but it was an all-action match with more animosity. Some gorgeous high flying in this one, and also a real sense of hate and competition. I really love this feud. This seems like a match that should be on a lucha primer comp. I think this could have gotten over on a Japanese tour or a WCW show just the same. Santo absolutely has a WOTY case, and we haven't even gotten to his most acclaimed match of the year yet. Two mid-range MOTYCs in the same month that are worked in different ways is pretty impressive. Casas ends up hitting the ring and attacking Santo, giving Santo a rather dubious win by DQ and setting up their match in September I presume. Then we get a crazy post-match brawl. The non-finish takes this down just a tad but this was a great, great match.

Good tag match. Hall and Nash continue to impress in 1997, and Flair and Benoit make an excellent team. Flair works FIP for most of this. Benoit's hot tag and the clean pinfall are tremendous! Syxx attacks Flair after the match with the buzzkill to set up their match. Mongo makes the save and the Steiners want to face the Outsiders down as the show goes off the air.

Rey is out on crutches and has declined surgery. He has a torn ligament. Rey seems a little nervous cutting a promo, but Rey obviously doesn't need to be a great promo to be effective as a babyface. He just needs to seem sincere, and he does. Konnan kicks his crutches away before other Psicosis, La Parka and the Villanos make the save. Lucha guys vs NWO seems like a weird missed opportunity in some ways, even if the lucha guys got squashed.

Luger hits the ring and calls Hogan out! Hogan is out and the fans REALLY want to see them lock up, but Hogan is cutting a great promo instead. He calls Lex a Hollywood wannabe and tells him he's going to make him wait until Sturgis. Luger is ready to confront him but Hogan bails. Very short, but very good.

JJ Dillon has an important announcement about Raven. Well, that feels like an oxymoron. They want to sign Raven's WCW contract. Stevie Richards is immediately out to claim that he too has signed with WCW. Stevie is great here, and it's weird that his WCW run was so short and not notable. Stevie apparently put together the deal for Raven, but Raven goes into a long poem before tearing up the contract. Stevie calls him on it and Raven slugs him.

Flair's shirt is a rare faux pas from a guy who's normally immaculately dressed. Flair is ready to announce the fourth Horseman, but Syxx comes out. Syxx tells him there is no fourth Horseman and that the whole idea is a thing of the past. Flair cuts him off and teases walking away before punching Syxx in the face. Chris Benoit is also out to back Flair up, and Syxx says this wouldn't happen if Hall and Nash were here, setting up the main event for the night.

Hogan does his best interview of the year, kicking back on the mat next to Bischoff and for the first time, really getting serious and explaining why he's The Man. This is awesome, and the feud with Lex Luger is in full swing. Hogan says game on -- he's ready to get Lex in the ring and break him in half.

Another fantastic RINGS match. Interesting clash in styles between these two, as Tariel prefers to throw strikes while Tamura would rather keep this on the mat. Love Tariel's rabbit punches and rough-around-the-edges style contrasted by Tamura's technique and finesse. Tariel's style is a little more basic than you normally get in RINGS, but it's no less effective. In fact, that difference between the two is what makes this match click. Tamura earned that win. This is the best wrestling promotion out there in 1997.

No it's about the Wade Keller/DDP thing.

Yes, there was already a PWO Radio that is basically a podcast on F4W board drama. So we came up with this name instead.

In the brave new world of texting, SMH (shakin' my head) is a fairly common abbreviation, but come to think of it, most of my friends who type that are Southern. So I don't know.