cactus
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Everything posted by cactus
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With the heels working over Pillman, the first 15 minutes feels like they are slowly building up to something special, then all hell breaks loose and everyone starts brawling in the ring causing the referee to throw this one out. Jim Ross mentions that their going to need War Games to contain these guys. Looking at all the great talent involved in this, this isn't that great and feels like a ham-fisted ad for WrestleWar and the upcoming Steiner/Flair title match. ★★½ -
This is even better than I remembered. Going nearly 20 miniutes, this is essentially a showcase for the Rockers as a lot of this match feels like an extended shine segment. The Orient Express control the match in small bursts, but there isn't a traditionally long hot-tag segment that they build up to. There's plenty of innovative tag sequences, but this isn't a spotfest. I can see this being a strong WWF MOTYC. ★★★★¼
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I can totally understand why some would find the opening ten minutes dry, but I liked it. Seeing two bulls clash and trying to escape each other's headlock made for up the lack of flare with pure spectacle. It was all logical, with Jumbo trying to disable the Lariat from Hansen's arsenal. I went in expecting a brawl, but I got a neat 1970s AJPW heavyweight wrestling clinic instead. ★★★½
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Now this is a fight! The pro Kawada crowd does nothing to faze Taue as he rushes Kawada before the bell and this bombfest is underway. Taue is bloodied, but it sets him off and he goes after Kawada's leg. This doesn't feel like any other AJPW match for it's era. It feels like it would of fit right in with the Hansen/Funk AJPW brawls from a decade earlier. ★★★¾
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Brazo's stooge offence is simple yet it's the exact thing needed to fuel a guy like Santo's comeback. Santo has an ability to make all his fancy stuff work in the context of a bloody brawl. Both guys bleed buckets and the image of Santo pissing blood out through his match added a lot to this. The final fall is captivating stuff with many convincing nearfalls. ★★★★¼
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I'm in the middle with this. I thought a lot of this felt directionless, sloppy and messy, but there's good stuff to be found here. Inoue's reverse top rope elbow is a thing of brutal beauty and there's some cool spots in the finishing stretch. Aja and Nakano squaring off was the real meat of the match. They held nothing back. They attack each other with bamboo sticks and even try and cut each other's hair mid-match! ★★★
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Hokuto's arm is in a cast and Toyota sets her sights on ripping that thing off and going to town on it. Toyota isn't yet on Hokuto's level so she has to resort to going after her opponent's injuries to gain an advantage. Hokuto returns the favour by trying to put Toyota's leg in the cast. Although neither of them did anything too interesting with the limbwork, l I don't think I've seen a more vicious Toyota performance. The finishing stretch has some of those gorgeous bridging suplexes than you can expect out of any joshi match from this era. Hokuto loses when her second throws in the towel, but she never gives up, leaving room for a return match. ★★★¼
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This has a nuclear hot crowd, but the action can't live up to the crowd response. Fujinami floors Vader with a series of slaps and roof of the building feels like it's about to come off. Fujinmai shows a lot of fire despite a horrific back injury drastically slowing down his performance. After being bloodied, Vader just manages to get the win after hitting a lariat and collapsing onto Fujinami, putting over both wrestlers. Not as good as you'd expect out of these two, but still enjoyable. ★★★
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Exactly what you can expect of these two. Great punches and even greater selling! This is a wild brawl with an enraged Funk going all over the place like lunatic. Lawler chokes out Funk with some wires, but the referee shows some leniency. This has a screwy DQ finish, but I thought that it worked for a TV match. ★★★★
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You can't get more Southern than this! This is my first time seeing Eddie Gilbert and he was brilliant as the stooge heel. Young Jeff Jarrett is the heartthrob babyface and the crowd are going apeshit for him. There's dual limbwork here and it's marvellous. Gilbert adding more pressure for the Figure Four by yanking on Jeff's laces was a nice touch. The dusty finish wasn't great and poorly executed, but I can forgive that as this was a lot of fun! ★★★¾
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I've spent the last few days listening to these audiobooks. Under The Black Hat - Jim Ross: Not as great as his last book (which might be one of my favourite wrestling books), but still very worth your time. J.R's a great storyteller even if you've heard the stories before. Vince McMahon is truly an awful human being. The chapter on Jan's passing wrecked me. It's Good To Be King ...Sometimes - Jerry Lawler: The audiobook only ran for 75 minutes, so I'm going to assume this is missing some chapters than were in the book, but this was still enjoyable. He doesn't touch much on his WWE career (even the book skims past the WWE stuff), with the exception of his relationship to Miss Kitty. The way he talks about how innocent and young she looked made my skin crawl. On the other hand, I could listen to him talk about Andy Kaufman all day. Postively Unstoppable: The Art Of Owning It - Diamond Dallas Page: Part autobiography, part self-help book. It's alright, although I was more interested in hearing his road stories than the self improvement parts. Hearing him break in as a wrestler in his mid 30's was very interesting. Also, the narrator sounded a lot like George Carlin, so there's another bonus.
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Rip has a stipulation added that no pinfalls count within the first five minutes, but Brian goes for pins and the referee counts them anyways. They also brawl outside the ring for what felt like minutes and the referee refused to start counting them out. Dodgy officiating aside, Brian's quick pace keep me entertained and I quite like Pillman faking out Rip before hitting a sunset flip to get the win. Dumb stipulation, solid wrestling. ★★¼
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Inoue''s a complete monster, and doesn't take it easy on the much smaller Takahashi, as she folds her up like a pretzel with nasty holds. Takahashi's first comeback attempt is barrage of strikes which doesn't get her far, as she's thrown right back into a Inoue submission. Once you start to figure out this is going to the time limit, you can tell that a lot of the holds were there to eat up time, but this is still a fine match regardless with an intense last few minutes as Takahashi tries to claw at a victory before the time runs up. ★★★½
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Hokuto rushes Nakano at the start and lays out her much larger opponent with some crisp suplexes. I like the quick start, but seeing Hokuto controlling Nakano didn't sit well with me as seeing a babyface control a monster heel like that just isn't that compelling to me under any circumstances. Thankfully, it's not long until they're throwing bombs again. From the stiff dropkicks to the some hideous backdrop drivers, this is violent stuff. I didn't mind the interference as the referee at least refused to go for the count. After Nakano wins, they leave the door open for a rematch. ★★★¾
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Hansen's performance is exactly what you can expect from him by this point. He's full of piss and vinegar, and whilst his offence isn't pretty, it looks stiff and effective. Kobashi is still young, but he's no young lion. He slaps Hansen at the start the crowd go into a frenzy. Hansen is ENRAGED by this and starts wailing a chair at Kobashi. This is all about super rookie Kobashi trying to prove he can hang with the top guys. Kobashi gets a false finish from a moonsault and the commentators lose their shit. Despite not knowing what they were saying, the emotion in their voice really put over how big of a deal Kobashi winning would be. Hansen gets the win, but he puts over Kobashi in the process. Fantastic stuff. ★★★★
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Back when I was a young lad, Sky Sports used to air old WCW/WWF shows under the WWE Vintage Collection name. I remember seeing a show with the Patriots on and even at 10 years old, I remember thinking they were one of the cheesiest things I've seen in wrestling and it gave me the misconception that all WCW was always like this pre-Monday Night Wars. Tracy Smothers is a guy who I know has a reputation as being good and you can see his value in a throwaway TV match. He stalls around, bickers with the referee and gets the crowd all riled up. Not only did the the Patriots have a gimmick that was the drizzling shits, they were also awful workers as well. Especially Chip, who shows zero emotion an ability to work up the crowd for a hot tag as the Young Pistols do their best to take out his leg. This is a total carryjob, and whilst it wasn't memorable, it made me want to check out more of Tracy Smothers' work. ★★
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The drip of Eddy Guerrero as he's walking down to the ring is unmatched. He never lets down as he's working down Rey. He's cool as fuck and he wants you to know about. Eddy is always entertaining while he's keep Mysterio down. He lands the most perfect tilt a whirl backbreaker I've ever seen. Rey finds his openings in short bursts. He's not as powerful as Eddy, but he's a lot quicker, so he gets himself out of trouble by finding a way to land a hurricanrana no matter what situation he finds himself in. These guys are at the top of their game, and their intensity and athleticism are top tier. ★★★★½
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These guys have knocked it out the park with season 2 so far. The Brawl For All episode almost made the actual tournament look compelling. I didn't mind the Russo and Cornette conflict. I find it baffling why they didn't do anything with Bart Gunn once the tournament was over. I'm sure he would of never been a top guy, but that win did wonders for his reputation after years of being the worst member of the Smoking Gunns.
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Fun match, but that was an underwhelming title win.
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I know it's a redundant point now, but Drew kicking out of the F5 at one would be a bigger moment if they had a crowd to pop for it.
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I love how Titus was shocked, yet the commentators no sell everything.