Loss
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Everything posted by Loss
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20th Century Fox intro! Awesome! Usually, the matches with great mat work are 90% mat-based. The great high flying matches are mostly dives. The great brawls are mostly bloody brawling. Jif moms be warned, as this is the match for the lucha libre fan who hates to choose, and there is plenty of all three. I love how they work the matwork into the brawling context and it fits in quite well. Pirata is about as bloody as you'll ever see a wrestler, and then he loses his hair to boot. What a match! I wish we could have seen more of these two in 1990, but it is what it is. At least the match we got is a classic.
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What a worker.
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You wanted a new thread started just to say that?
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He always seemed really bland to me, even in Mid South when other people liked him. But I watched his match in the USWA title tournament against Lawler recently and really enjoyed it, and he was past his prime by that point. So I might like Slater more watching the stuff again now.
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I like how this was a crazy brawl that eventually settled down into a wrestling match, then escalated again. Ken Timbs sure can fire up a crowd. Dandy and Satanico have even more great exchanges, which eventually turns into bloody brawling. These guys are ridiculously great pro wrestlers, and singlehandedly turn this into a phenomenal trios. The others are good, but this is really cover for a Dandy/Satanico match, which I'll gladly take. Can't wait for the hair match!
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We're all going to do that from time to time. I personally don't think it's a big deal if someone tells me to fuck off in the middle of one these debates, if it's in the context of a spirited argument over something that everyone involved knows is meaningless, but we're having fun. I try not to do that because I realize not everyone sees it that way, and I want this to be a place where people enjoy posting and reading. We all have things we care about more than we should in our lives -- this being one of them for me -- and I think it's entertaining. Tone can be misread on a message board, but I'm sure lots of us get in arguments in our own lives with people that are close to us where a transcript may read a little ugly, but it's all in good fun. That's how I look at this. I don't think that's an invitation to start calling everyone an asshole or an idiot because of differing opinions on Ted DiBiase, but I also think having a thick skin is helpful. After all, we're just talking about wrestling, not anything important like where to go for dinner. As for opinions, I think my opinions are right. If I thought they were wrong, I would change them. I sometimes do think they're wrong and later change them. It doesn't mean I can't be wrong, but it does mean I'm pretty sure that my thought on something is correct, or else I wouldn't think it. I suspect deep down that everyone here is the same on that. Debating people over trivial things is one of my favorite real life things to do as well. One of my friends recently did his top 10 Prince songs, and I started berating him over the lack of non-singles. It's just what we do. The give-and-take is fun. It's why interacting on a message board beats reading and writing a column every day of the week. When you have people who enjoy a hobby as much as we do here, occasionally the gloves will come off. I see nothing wrong with that myself.
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Rotunda is an odd wrestler in that I don't think he ever quite put the pieces together, but the pieces were there for him to be a very good wrestler. I can't recall ever not being bored to tears by an IRS singles match, even though the flying clothesline might have been the best wrestling move in the WWF when he worked there. I do like things from his NWA run, mostly in 1989. He had really good TV matches with Flair, Arn and Pillman, a super-stiff one with Rick Steiner between Starrcade and Chi-Town, and I really thought he rose to the occasion to drop the TV title to Sting in a very good match. He's not someone I think about enough to really focus on all that much, but I think he was on the right track in '89. His style was well-suited for the TV title, and he would have been better in that role then than he was in 1988. I think I just said everything I could possibly ever say about the guy.
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I just had to bump this to say that after watching Hansen/Spivey vs Funks in the 1990 tag league, I have a newfound love for Terry Funk. It's not the greatest match I've ever seen, but Funk and Hansen put on a hell of a show.
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Sure. But the purpose of wrestling message boards is to talk about why we like what we like. There's no animus on my part when I'm having a spirited discussion with someone. Well, maybe a little with Flair/Bret ...
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I don't want to overly compartmentalize everything. I think the purpose of having subforums is to make the threads easier to find. But I had a few other ideas for subforums that I wanted to hear your thoughts on: * Wrestling Observer Hall of Fame -- All of the HOF discussions could go here. I like the idea of creating a new thread for each person on the ballot, and bumping it every year if the person is a return ballottee. * Philosophy 101 -- We have a lot of these types of threads. About what wrestling should be, and how it should be watched, and what works for us personally. I thought that may make an interesting subfolder, but I also don't want the main Pro Wrestling folder to become useless, and I fear it would if we did that. * Information Repository -- I like Jerry's previous suggestion of starting this subforum. However, where I struggle is in identifying which threads should go in it. Could I get some help on that? Could someone suggest all of the threads that should go there? This wouldn't be a discussion board, as much as it would be a place to archive threads that are more information-based. I know about Vince vs The World and WCW Head Bookers, but I'm sure we have a lot more that should go there.
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That we're having to debate if they were setup moves is another example of WWF announcers not doing their job to get over the wrestling moves and holds, but that's another topic.
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The swan song of the Funks in All Japan. Terry bumps all over the place like a madman. I love him yelling "Goddamn you" at Hansen when Hansen keeps stiffing him. His performance alone is enough to make this really good. I have to give Funk credit, as he's the only guy I can recall who has made Japanese fans pop for bumps. Japanese fans tend to focus more on offense as a rule, so it's cool to see Funk get that kind of reaction. So Terry is awesome. Hansen is awesome. Spivey isn't really awesome, but he's fine and doesn't bring this down or anything. Dory ... is Dory ... off in his own world with the style he's working, bringing no real personality or urgency to his work. After he takes the fall, I think he's trying to sell disappointment over losing. Instead, I got more the sense of someone who accidentally spilled a glass of water.
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Pretty epic and memorable. This seemed like it should have taken place in FMW, as it feels like an Onita match in some ways. Aja trying in vain to no sell Bull's best shots and not being able to do so was pretty cool, and I liked how everyone had such a vested interest in their side winning, tossing weapons over the cage and trying to interfere. The spectacle surrounding the ring was almost as fun as the match itself. The match turned awfully violent because they were both so desperate. This worked for me. I don't think it's in the upper echelon of Joshi matches I've watched, but it's not far behind. I enjoyed it immensely. Great finish, with Bull doing the legendary legdrop from the top of the cage.
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I didn't really love this match, but I did think it was a cool morality play about how team work makes the dream work. I imagine some bizarro universe where corporations shows Joshi matches during executive retreats and new hire orientation to make whatever points they want to make. Chigusa vs Dump would a metaphor of the dangers of bullying and harassment in the workplace. Hokuto vs Kandori could be the heroic tale of someone who didn't call in sick, even though she was legitimately sick, because she wanted to complete a project that was consistent with her own pre-defined objectives. Thunderqueen would be about thinking locally and acting globally. Dream Rush would be about persevering to beat outside competition. Kong/Hotta could be "Stop using your carpal tunnel as an excuse to get out of doing work. Aja Kong could be doing this to your hand." So there are lots of possibilities. So that was the story. FLIK nailed the story. But I don't know about the telling of the story. If team work is going to beat two individuals who aren't on the same page every time out, why were Kyoko and Toyota able to secure the first fall? In some ways, that ruined this whole match for me, because their peril seemed silly after that. Had this been a one-fall match, they would have won and all would have been fine, so what's the point in continuing to play up their hostility when it hasn't really cost them anything? The match is well-worked and everything, but it didn't really feel special.
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This audience absolutely LOVES Kendo. It's comparable to the post-WM response for Daniel Bryan. It's been fun to see how over he has been in all the Hamada's UWF footage. He was a charismatic guy that really seemed to thrive on the crowd reaction. He's a guy that was completely off my radar that is now on it thanks to this yearbook. This is a really fun match, with guys who have been reliable in 1990. Watching Super Porky take bumps is a blast. This match didn't really show me anything new. Ultimo had his sequences that looked great, but he pulled them out in every single match. You'd think he would have adapted better to the patterned WWE style. But it was good all the same.
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Thanks FLIK. Of those matches, which are the absolute musts? I'm curious what you think are the best of the matches listed too. That's always fun to read.
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Agreed.
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Brian Hildebrand, who is supposedly Funk's doctor, cuts a promo on Lawler before the match. Lawler accuses him of being a proctologist. In the medical community, is them fightin' words? I liked Lawler/Gilbert better because the issue was more centered between Lawler and Gilbert, but this isn't terribly far behind. I wish there was a Funk/Gilbert match from the next day just to give us a full round robin comparison. Lawler gets tired of Hildebrand's interference and gives him a piledriver. Lawler/Gilbert was a great wrestling match, while the theatrics of this make it more of a great full-scale production. A bandaged Eddie Gilbert and Brian Hildebrand play a bigger part in this than I wanted them to, but there are individual parts of this that are better than Lawler/Gilbert, especially Funk's crazy chair-throwing reaction to Lawler's series of punches. Funk feeds Lawler at least a half-dozen great crowd-pleasing spots, and he has everyone in the building pretty engaged in this match. I give him lots of credit for that. But this feels less like a wrestling match, and more like The Terry Funk Show, which is why I like Lawler/Gilbert better. Gilbert runs in for the DQ and they are doubleteaming Lawler until Cactus Jack makes the save. I'd love to see a tag match with these four. So glad to have seen both of these matches.
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Jim Ross and Bob Caudle have a gift for Teddy Long. They start by recapping the Flair/Long confrontation from last week. There's a video earlier in the week of Long checking out the limo and Flair's yacht, which is named MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, which Long promises to rename THE SOUL MACHINE, and promises to tour it with Oprah Winfrey, Arsenio Hall and James Brown, since Ole Anderson is incapable of booking anything involving black people without race baiting. Long puts Doom's entrance music on the stereo and tours the boat, despite being told he can't get on. Really funny. He's a riot. Back at Center Stage, Long offers to take Bob Caudle on the boat after he wins it. As if Caudle would ever accept that invitation. Long refuses to open the gift, making him the smartest person in the promotion, but leaving us yearbook watchers without a payoff.
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Pillman does a limp wrist to make fun of Rip Rogers and a "faggot" chant eventually gets momentum. Nice. This may be the best short TV match I've ever seen. They work really stiff and cut a fast pace. I love Rogers SCREAMING for a time out. The chops in this one are cringe-inducing. Rogers does an awesome, Savage-style double axehandle to the floor and Pillman does a nice dive of his own -- picture an Asai moonsault without the moonsault part. Pillman wins a great match.