Loss

The Harts finally get their hands on Shawn in the locker room, but Steve Austin shows up and cleans house. Very quick segment.

Shawn makes a point of jogging in a circle around Vince while he's supposed to be sidelined with a knee injury. What an asshole. Shawn complains about the trend of wrestlers turning heel … too rich. He says he'll be the guy that comes out and sucks up to the fans and gets largely booed immediately, and finds a way to put over his NWO buddies in a little double entendre, all while Vince stands there laughing and smiling approvingly. This guy is like early 1996 Hogan, with Vince as his Bischoff. He needs a heel turn like I need air. Bret and Pillman cut in on the Titantron and Bret issues a challenge on behalf of Neidhart for tonight. Neidhart comes out immediately and we get a brawl before the Hart Foundation enters the ring and attacks. LOD finally come out to even the sides.

Pretty famous video package and interview that did a really good job humanizing Goldust as Dustin Runnels. He had to form his own identity to break out of his father's shadow. He also reveals that Marlena is his wife Terri. Some really cool childhood photos here, and this segment was a really nice piece of business. Funny that they talk about "a superstar once known for his machismo" refusing to wrestle him. He also mentions getting letters from gay people that made him see them in a new light. I forgot this segment was hyped as Goldust "coming out of the closet".

At this point, they really gave it the college try with Shamrock. This is a super feature that really makes Shamrock stand out from the pack, but they needed to follow it up with a real main event push in order for it to meet its full potential. He wasn't buried in 1997 by any means, but he was just one of many guys near the top of the card. I still like my fantasy scenario of Bill Watts learning about this guy in 1992 WCW, signing him and building around him.

Bret in the wheelchair again. Awesome. He's on quite the roll. Since he was able to so successfully destroy Steve Austin last week, this week the Hart Foundation will set their sights on Shawn Michaels. Bret is The Man.

This would have sucked if not for Tenryu. He took a hell of a beating to get it over and then made the huge comeback, which included a big cross body from the top of the cage. They just kept building and building heat on the heels and I didn't think the heels were very good. I don't really care about seeing Abdullah the Butcher in 1997. The whole act feels amazingly dated. I might even say the same for Tarzan Goto. Lots of dead weight in this match, but I think it was laid out well. It also had good heat and I think they got the most out of everyone involved.

More Raven whining. People thought Bret was a whiner, sheesh! Raven looks pretty hungover here, but I think that's the idea. He wants to find Stevie Richards and pushes Blue Meanie out of the way. Raven begs Stevie to "take me out", "end my misery" and "end my pain". Just like most Raven stuff, laid on way too thick and weird for the sake of being weird. This stuff with Raven and Stevie better have a payoff with Stevie looking good at some point.

A House of Pain remix to "Fed Up" has clips of The Eliminators mixed in. I don't really hate hip hop in 2013, but this song is so much better than the majority of the '13 stuff. This is the kind of thing only ECW could do - I don't know that the bigger promotions were under the radar enough to do videos like this which I'm guessing had no clearance at all. Cool of Heyman to put the "Courtesy of" graphic at the bottom to make it seem that way, though.

The rematch, which I also liked. I think the tone of this is really pitch perfect, as the fans seem to be into this as something more "legit" than normal, and Hashimoto does a pretty excellent job of getting Ogawa over as someone unique, tough and capable. No one will mistake the mat exchanges for the best of RINGS or anything, but this is effective work and the match feels like a big deal. No one in New Japan except Hashimoto could have pulled this feud off.

Otani and Kanemoto are the perfect guys to team with the KDX crew from Michinoku Pro. Sasuke is the biggest kingpin involved in this match, so they go after him with extra gusto, maybe taking out their frustration over their losses to Liger in recent months. Liger's involvement would have taken this to another level, but Sasuke is a perfectly good surrogate. The action is awesome, but the attitude is what makes this stand out from the pack. I love all of the heels counting along with the referee to secure the win in the first fall. This is really a hybrid of a lucha layout and New Japan/Michinoku Pro action, which makes it really unique. It follows a similar template to some of the best lucha -- strong rudo dominance in the first fall with a big technico comeback in the second fall and a toss-up at the end. Honaga is pretty broken down at this point, but I love the moments when he outheels the heels with the eye pokes and other assorted dickery. Nakajima impressed me in this one too, even though he was only in for brief spells. Really, I think everyone had a standout performance, but I wanted to especially acknowledge those guys since they are probably the two least commonly heralded people in the match. I really loved this match. It's not the best one I've ever seen or anything, but this would probably go on a short list of my favorite matches. The New Japan juniors have been a real highlight so far this year. (Kanemoto's pop-up selling of Samurai's neckbreakers annoyed the fuck out of me, so if that's the kind of thing that we will see more of in their BOSJ final next month, I probably won't like it.)

Moving this to Publications and Podcasts.

April: #1 - Yuki Ishikawa vs Daisuke Ikeda (BattlARTS 04/15/97) ***** #2 - El Hijo del Santo, Felino, Black Warrior, Silver King, Dr. Wagner Jr., Satanico, Kevin Quinn & Scorpio Jr. vs Ultimo Dragon, Atlantis, Negro Casas, El Dandy, Shocker, Mascara Magica, La Fiera & Brazo de Oro (CMLL 04/18/97) ****3/4 #3 - Yoshihisa Yammamoto vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka (RINGS 04/04/97) ****1/2 #4 - Dynamite Kansai vs Hikari Fukuoka (JWP 04/08/97) ****1/4 #5 - Megumi Kudo, Shinobu Kandori, Michiko Omukai & Kaori Nakayama vs Shark Tsuchiya, Eagle Sawai, Sayori Okino & Miss Mongol (LLPW 04/07/97) ****1/4 #6 - Bret Hart vs Steve Austin (WWF Revenge of the Taker 04/20/97) ****1/4 #7 - Toshiaki Kawada vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 04/19/97) **** #8 - Megumi Kudo vs Mayumi Ozaki (FMW 04/18/97) **** #9 - Akira Hokuto vs Kaoru (GAEA 04/12/97) ***3/4 #10 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 04/19/97) ***1/2 #11 - Taka Michinoku, Mens Teoh & Dick Togo vs Great Sasuke, Gran Naniwa & Masato Yakushiji (ECW Barely Legal 04/13/97) ***1/2 #12 - Sabu vs Taz (ECW Barely Legal 04/13/97) ***1/4 #13 - Rey Misterio Jr vs Syxx (WCW Monday Nitro 04/21/97) ***1/4 #14 - Atsushi Onita, Masato Tanaka & W*ING Kanemura vs Cactus Jack, The Gladiator & Terry Funk (FMW 04/29/97) ***1/4 #15 - Shinya Hashimoto vs Naoya Ogawa (NJPW Battle Formation 04/12/97) *** #16 - Hayabusa vs Mr. Gannosuke (FMW 04/29/97) *** #17 - Randy Savage vs Diamond Dallas Page (WCW Spring Stampede 04/06/97) #18 - Manny Fernandez vs Robert Thompson (APW 04/19/97) #19 - Dean Malenko vs Bobby Eaton (WCW Pro 04/27/97) Overall thoughts: Easily the best month of the year so far, and one I don't expect to be topped for in-ring. Ishikawa/Ikeda completely snuck up on me, but I'm convinced it's one of the best matches I've ever seen. The Carnival matches were definitely good, but I was expecting more. Terry Funk continues to do something interesting and worth watching every time he shows up somewhere.

Just the finish. Whoa, a fireball. It's been a really strong retirement tour for Kudo and I'm going to miss her.

You'd expect lots of fun with these six, and the brawling is pretty wild (Funk burns Onita with a branding iron and spits fire at Onita in a memorable visual) but it all seems weirdly lethargic. Maybe it's the crowd. A match like this really needs a ton of heat and this didn't have it. I also wouldn't say Foley was dogging it, but he was saving his best for the WWF at this point. I love Onita blocking Funk's barbed wire baseball batshot with the board. It felt like demented fencing. These guys work hard and put on a good show (especially Funk with his "You motherfucker!" taunting) but even though the finishing stretched salvaged this, it just isn't as exciting as it should be since they aren't getting the reaction they deserve. The wrestling exchanges get the biggest pops in this match. Whether that means the FMW crowd was ready for a shift or not I guess we'll find out.

I love Hayabusa's entrance music and want an mp3 of it! Pretty cool match. I could see Gannosuke as a foreign heel in an 80s territory, coming in for a brief house show run with Dusty Rhodes. I didn't care for the early stages of this, as I think these guys are good enough to just work a straight up wrestling match without the weapons shots and keep my interest. But that's what the match eventually came, and that's when it become solid. This match does represent one of my favorite things about FMW -- even with all the garbage wrestling, the psychology here is more American-style than in any Japanese promotion and maybe even more than a lot of ECW. Big post-match angle, as Hayabusa does some type of tear-filled promo after the match while Gannosuke sulks over his loss. He offers a handshake and Gannosuke teases it before attacking him and ripping off his mask. He's about to set Hayabusa on fire (!!) when Jinsei Shinzaki makes the save and Gannosuke bails, but grabs a house mic on the way out to vow that this isn't over. Good match and I loved the angle. They keep playing that awesome Hayabusa theme, which adds so much to the moment.

Looks like the sequence of things got randomly mixed up, as this is the ending of RAW that randomly had a Nitro thrown in the middle. Owen runs in for the DQ and attacks Undertaker. It's not right to say Austin made the save. He was just going after the Harts. He grabs the WWF title and starts posing with it in the ring and Undertaker has a problem with that. Austin responds with a kick and a stunner then mugs for the crowd. Undertaker sits up in a great moment and chokeslams Austin. It was about time they got around to hyping this match at least a little. On the way to the back, Austin sees Bret sitting there in his wheelchair. It looks like Austin is going to finish him off when JIM NEIDHART shows up out of nowhere and attacks Austin. The Hart Foundation is at full strength. Bret ends up hitting Austin with his crutch to knock him off the entrance ramp then has this great smirk on his face to close things out.

Yeah, Flair is off his game here, but that was a GREAT line. "I've had the world title more times than you've had pieces of ass, pal!" The NWO never come out. Instead, the ring fills with papers everywhere that say "Tradition Bites - NWO For Life". I do love Flair saying "You drew the house? Come on down and face it" as a response to Hall earlier. They do this weird thing with Piper here where he stands still and doesn't help Flair during the brawl and they never follow up on it. The Flair/Syxx brawl is awesome, and Ric should have embraced working with him more than he did. Syxx seemed genuinely excited about doing the program and Flair wanted to work with a bigger name.

Savage is good in this, but yeah, he was never a good fit for the NWO. He knows DDP's name now.

The NWO take over the broadcast booth. Scott Hall is back from rehab, and they have new shirts -- same nWo logo, with "4 Life" added right below. Hall has fun heeling on Flair and Piper in front of this Norfolk crowd. Nash insists that at Slamboree, they get 75% of the gate. Nash keeps throwing in a "Hollywood, we miss you" line at the end of his segments, which I'm thinking might be an inside joke.

Flair and Piper cut a promo at the announce booth. Flair is in Piper's shadow at this point, which is weird to see, but he looks like a total idiot here so it's not out of place.

Austin enters through the crowd - still with the axehandle - and this time with a wheelchair to sit in. He challenges Bret Hart to a wheelchair match. "You talk about my people? I look in the mirror every single day and see my people." Austin has a few words for Undertaker before Bret interrupts on the Titantron and promises him he'll be riding in the same ambulance that Bret did last week before the night is over.

Last few minutes. Funny to see a Rock Bottom happen with ZERO POP. Owen is carrying this, which is pretty obvious. I love that pinning combo. Owen is the new IC champ. Owen's victory lap with Bret in the wheelchair is glorious.

Bret Hart comes out in a wheelchair in a visual I always LOVED for such a bitter heel. I'm fairly sure even though they said Bret's surgery was Wednesday, it was just a few hours before this show. I may be wrong on that. He cuts one of the better promos of his career, calling himself a real hero for years and responding to what happened to him at the hands of Steve Austin last week. "Don't you just hate how I keep talkin' about how I'm the best? Well, now you know how the rest of the world feels about the United States of America!" "Go ahead and chant your USA … my mother's American." So much quotable stuff in this one.

Brian Pillman does a big promo full of religious overtones, even kneeling for a prayer and calling for the demise of Steve Austin. This was semi-controversial at the time if I remember right, but I thought it was great. I don't know if it's confirmation bias, but this reeks of Vince Russo scripting. Austin interrupts him on the Titantron to a huge pop with the crowd chanting his name. It's fun to track his crowd reaction. Last week was a pivotal week in his rise to the top. He finally comes before the crowd to face down Pillman. He gets huge cheers. It turns out it was a trap for Owen and Davey Boy to attack him, but Austin figures that out and takes off. A smart babyface! Pillman asks Owen and Davey Boy to join him in prayer after Austin takes off. Owen's shrieking voice is great! Austin finally grabs an axehandle and chases them out of the ring. Great segment … again. "Give your soul to the Lord or somebody, 'cause your ass is mine!"

What do you know, Bobby Eaton had a little left in the tank! I don't think he had another big run left in him, but he was probably too good to just be doing all jobs all the time. By B-show standards, this was a lot of fun. Eaton tries to wrestle Malenko, can't and starts throwing punches before they go into a fairly hot nearfall sequence (for a Disney audience). Good stuff.