Loss

March: #1 - Bret Hart vs Steve Austin (WWF Wrestlemania XIII 03/23/97) ****1/2 #2 - Taka Michinoku, Mens Teoh, Masayoshi Motegi, Dick Togo & Shoichi Funaki vs Great Sasuke, Super Delphin, Gran Naniwa, Gran Hamada & Masato Yakushiji (Michinoku Pro 03/16/97) ****1/4 #3 - Megumi Kudo vs Shinobu Kandori (FMW 03/14/97) **** #4 - El Hijo del Santo, Shocker, El Texano, Mr. Niebla, La Fiera, Dr. Wagner Jr. & Mascara Magica vs Negro Casas, Black Warrior, Felino, Mano Negra, El Dandy, Scorpio Jr. & Silver King (CMLL 03/18/97) **** #5 - Ultimo Dragoncito & Cicloncito Ramirez vs Damiancito El Guerrero & Pierrotito (CMLL 03/14/97) **** #6 - Owen Hart vs Davey Boy Smith (WWF Monday Night RAW 03/03/97) **** #7 - Hiroumi Yagi vs Tomoko Kuzumi (JWP 03/09/97) ***3/4 #8 - Atlantis vs Black Warrior (CMLL 03/04/97) ***3/4 #9 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW Championship Carnival 03/30/97) ***3/4 #10 - Owen Hart vs Davey Boy Smith (WWF Monday Night RAW 03/31/97) ***1/2 #11 - Jushin Liger & Wild Pegasus vs Shinjiro Otani & Tatsuhito Takaiwa (NJPW 03/08/97) ***1/2 #12 - Kenta Kobashi vs Jun Akiyama (AJPW Championship Carnival 03/30/97) ***1/2 #13 - Tarek the Great vs American Kickboxer (Gilbert Memorial 03/13/97) ***1/4 #14 - Eddy Guerrero vs Dean Malenko (WCW Uncensored 03/16/97) ***1/4 #15 - Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue vs Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW 03/01/97) *** #16 - Mini Goldust & Mascarita Sagrada vs Mini Mankind & Mini Vader (WWF Monday Night RAW 03/17/97) #17 - Legion of Doom & Ahmed Johnson vs Faarooq, Savio Vega & Crush (WWF Wrestlemania XIII 03/23/97) Final thoughts: No all time classic five-star match this month, which is a first for the year. Perish the thought! Still, there was more great wrestling in more places this month than in January or February. 1997 is trucking along, and now that the WWF is getting in an angle groove, things are just heating up.

DDP makes a point of saying he and Kimberly are proud of her Playboy appearance, not ashamed. Were they getting criticism for that at the time? Savage does another interruption from the crowd and gets a big "Macho Sucks" chant. They get a few good lines out at each other. This feud is clicking now.

Last few minutes. This is the match where Shawn and HHH were pushing hard for Bret to beat Rock clean and Bret didn't think that was necessary since Rock was on the rise. Bret has the ringpost figure four on Rocky and won't let go, which leads to Austin coming out to attack Bret. But the Hart Foundation is locked in now, so Owen and Davey Boy attack Austin.

Steve Austin makes his first post-Wrestlemania appearance, still bandaged up but holding his head high. He makes clear that despite a babyface turn, he's still Stone Cold. He gets the tone just right in this interview. He calls Bret out and in a subtle but effective change, Bret is now put in the position to respond to Austin on the Titantron without appearing before the crowd instead of the other way around. Great stuff. The WWF is on a roll now.

They were teasing Undertaker and Paul Bearer reuniting all night, but Undertaker flatly turned him down. Mankind comes behind and burns Undertaker with a fireball and hugs Paul Bearer. Would have been the highlight of the night if it wasn't followed by the Hart segment.

Very good match -- even better than I remembered -- with both guys going after each other like the tension had been building for months, which just made the post-match angle resonate all the more. Interesting booking, because it was leading to something that seemed so predictable (Owen vs Davey Boy feud with a Davey Boy face turn) and they went in an entirely different direction. Watching at the time, this made so much sense, although I didn't suspect this was the direction at all. The post-match angle, of course, is outstanding, with Bret doing another great promo, and Bret and Owen reuniting after a years-long feud to a chorus of boos, which always felt strangely poetic to me. I love Owen's facial expressions and acting here, and the total look of disgust Bret gives the crowd when Owen hugs him to reunite is amazing. Yet another classic segment, and the Hart Foundation has arrived.

Pretty great action while it lasted. I wish we could see the entire thing, as the rivalry has become bigger than either of them individually at this point, if that makes any sense at all. I don't think a draw was telegraphed through the ringwork in any way, although I also don't think they really did anything to convince us that anything other than the probable result would be a possible result.

Lots of fast action and kickouts. Kobashi's hammerlock DDT was pretty cool. Good 10 minute stretch with a hot crowd. Akiyama shows that he can hang and it's interesting to see a difference from what I'm used to at this point -- Akiyama in the Kobashi position, and Kobashi in the Kobashi opponent position.

I can't think of anyone in pro wrestling who would have been a big deal in the mid-00s that wouldn't be now. I think it says something for the longevity of pro wrestling stardom compared to MMA stardom. Of course, that wasn't always the case if you compare the mid-80s to the early 90s, or the mid-90s to the early 00s, so it could just be reflective of pro wrestling being more stagnant than it used to be.

I really think there are so, so many booking possibilities at this point in time for WCW that would have been better than what they ended up doing. But it's one of my favorite things to talk about -- how to handle Sting being out, booking of Ric Flair and his turn, booking of Lex Luger and his turn, what to do with Tully, etc. Lots of moving parts during that time that could have created something magical and simply didn't. Looking forward to listening to this show over the weekend.

I also don't think the wrestlers were overpaid. If anything, wrestlers are usually underpaid and should probably still make a lot more than they do. Yes, the salaries were a drain when they started collapsing, but I think more than the amount of the contracts, what hurt them was Bischoff not really having a long-term view. He assumed that anyone who was ever a star would always be a star of equal value, and most of WCW's top wrestlers saw their worth plummet by 1999 or so.

It was this one.

Taz with another great promo. I don't know what the issue is. Either Paul Heyman is a genius for producing all these guys to seem far better than they really are, or the big promotions had no idea what they had. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Funk pushes the "We Did It Our Way" line again and cuts another great promo. Really good year for Funk so far.

Rude is now with the Pit Bulls. They still haven't really explained why he's wearing a mask to begin with.

The story here is that because of the Uncensored win, the NWO can now challenge for a WCW title anytime they want, so Savage decided to challenge for Prince Iaukea's TV title. The NWO surrounds the ring for this one. Savage pulls Iaukea up after the big elbow, and DDP comes through the crowd and starts fighting off the NWO by himself before Nash catches him and the NWO lays him out while Savage directs traffic. Hogan wasn't here, and I think in some ways it was good for Savage to get a segment with him as the centerpiece of something. Bischoff practices his kicks on DDP as the crowd screams for Sting.

The Horsemen on horses. I hated that WCW pay-per-view commercials so often had nothing to do with what was on the pay-per-view, sometimes hyping something else entirely.

Bret does one of the best interviews of all time, recapping the previous year's events and explaining his heel turn in convincing fashion. It's long, but it's worth every minute. It's official - Bret Hart is a babyface all over the world just as much as ever, but he's now a heel in the United States. Shawn Michaels comes out and I think in some ways ruins this by shooting on Bret for not dropping the title to him without putting up a stink at Wrestlemania XII and calling him a mark. I love when Shawn says he never got bent out of shape about fans booing him and the single guy screaming "YOU ARE A LIAR!", which is sort of true after a few temper tantrums directed toward ringside fans who were heckling him in the previous year. The tension between the two is definitely there and that's the big point, but Bret is working an angle first and foremost and Shawn is venting first and foremost. Anyway, this ends with Shawn telling Bret he's willing to fight if he wants, but Bret ends up jumping Shawn from behind. Great segment, with Bret's portion being an all-time classic heel promo.

Joined in progress. Lots of dissension between Owen and Davey Boy still being teased, with the team working as de facto babyfaces. Owen drops an F-bomb (which the censors miss by a second or so) and they end up coming to blows in a super fun brawl. A match is made between the two of them for next week.

Pretty bad main event, but yeah, it isn't as bad as I remembered. Undertaker tries to make something out of this. Bret interferes liberally and it benefits Undertaker, who tombstones Sid and wins the title.

Before the match starts, Bret Hart is out to cut a whiny promo just to seal his heel turn in case there was any doubt. Bret shoots on Shawn's "pussyfoot injury" while Shawn shoots on Bret being resentful of not being in the main event. Sid finally has enough of this and powerbombs him to a big pop.

Kind of an ECW lite precursor to the WWF hardcore division that would come under Russo. I'm not really a fan of this match, but this was pretty novel at the time. Animal not being able to piledrive Faarooq on the table was a bit sad.

Legendary match, and deservedly so, not just for launching Austin's meteoric rise, but also for the outstanding performance of Bret Hart. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that they actually told the story of this double turn through the action in the ring, which is pretty impressive and shows the storytelling power of pro wrestling. Vince and production helped it along, but the crowd was not giving Austin an electric reaction early on, despite Vince's attempts to sell it that way. I think what worked here is that no matter how much of a shitkicking he took, Steve Austin was still Steve Austin -- still had the same attitude and still went after Bret with the same intensity. It's an interesting contrast to the frustration changing Bret's attitude. The images of Austin blood soaked and trying to power out of the sharpshooter are iconic -- perhaps the most memorable visual of the era.

Sabu speaks! He calls out Taz. Bill Alfonso is out and get in his face and slaps him. Sabu punches him in retaliation and Alfonso even takes a bump through a table!

Joel Gertner introduces new tag champs the Dudley Boys. Pretty cool, Bubba Ray just plays "Taps" on his harmonica. These guys are really getting their personas down at this point, if they weren't there already.