PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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The opening video package is pure Springer and is the most entertaining part about this, though Dustin sure gives it the old college try himself. This...yeah, is what it is. It had greater effect when seeing boobs required real effort, especially for the Attitude Era's target audience. Sable's voice is still like nails on a chalkboard. -
I don't know of this match having any kind of rep at all outside of this thread, but this was *awesome.* The hatred was there, the stiffness was there, there was some wrasslin' stuff that was well-incorporated...I can see complaints about the screwjob, but they went about it creatively and they *did* sort of book themselves into a corner. You can't book Owen to tap Shamrock legitimately and the Hart family probably wasn't going to let the WWF into their home just so Owen can do a job. This ostensibly sets up a Shamrock-Severn feud that I don't think ever really comes about due to Russo's ADHD. In any case, this was terrific. It was short, but the way these two were going it couldn't have realistically lasted much longer. Agreed on Lawler's horrible giggling commentary, though.
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Too much walking around for my taste too, but Honma carries this to something pretty darn good with his selling, bumping, and overall flair for the dramatic. Shadow WX is basically a slightly more athletic Pogo who takes and takes and takes without giving much, but to his credit he's the first one to bump into the barbed wire board. Honma is a total masochist but he manages to make the stuff with the barbed wire look like it's "big" and important, instead of just a way to get off on bleeding. If this took place in the ECW Arena people would be hyping it up as a Match of the Year.
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A good studio match with some absolutely vicious punch battles between Travis and Dundee. I could watch Travis throw uppercuts all day. Brandon Baxter, working a weird martial arts gimmick and looking sort of like a karate version of Justin Credible, runs in along with a German guy named Heinrich Franz Keller. Big brawl and a quickie Lawler promo to end the show. These heels are all serviceable in their own way but this is definitely a thinner roster than even the '90s USWA had.
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Lawler does his damnedest to try to make something out of this. I don't know if he succeeded as Silva looks only marginally better than Giant Gonzalez. He's at least capable of executing some power moves. Afterward we get run-ins from Randy Hales, Bulldog Raines, Billy Joe Travis, and Stacy. A *lot* of imitation WWF spots, including a crotch chop from Hales and a Chyna-style low blow from Stacy. Hales eats a bunch of piledrivers. He's awkward as hell obviously, but I admit the sight of him ripping his shirt off in a blind rage exposing his toothpick arms is a funny sight.
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This just kept going and going and going for me, and while I understand these guys are all young the sloppiness and lousy fundamentals ended up taking me out of the match. They had a sense of a story structure here, to their credit, and ended things at the right time with the big table spot to a big pop. It probably says more about me than about OMEGA that I'd rather watch 500 matches involving those Anderson clones from the earlier indy match than another match of these four. Edit: Venom takes time after the match to address JEFFREY NERO HARDY. Ha! The endless mic spots both before and after the match further killed my mood, though.
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I'm going to be the downer on this and recite jdw from his old AJPW '90s Pimping post: it's a good match, even borderline great, but nowhere near an AJPW Top 20 of the '90s list. My main problem was there was a *lot* of problematic stuff that would really take center stage in NOAH, like an overreliance on apron spots and the "take a move and then pop up and hit a move of your own and then sell" shit that will never, ever appeal to me. I did appreciate Akiyama cutting off one of those attempted sequences by dropkicking Kobashi right in the knee as he was ready to pop up again. It does continue the story of Jun doing anything to win, as he focuses in on Kobashi's bad knee whereas Kobashi's other major opponents left it alone. This could make the MOTY list just because it's a weak year for great matches but it's hardly breathing down the spot for #1.
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Are there any missing Raws besides the first Raw Bowl (and the most recent ones)? Maybe some of the non-Monday episodes, but even a lot of those are up now.
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I don't want to plug my own posts, but in the '97 Yearbook threads I also observed how much tangible influence Cornette had over the product--even as he was being further marginalized and shock value was taking greater precedence over wrestling. The Goldust-Vader feud is just one example: underneath the whacko Artist stuff you had an angle about a cowardly heel faking injuries to avoid taking on a badass babyface. Cornette was also the one who insisted on Undertaker and Kane being kept apart until WrestleMania. Russo wanted Undertaker to immediately fight back by attacking Kane like a week after his debut.
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Yawn. Taz's monologue and FTW belt don't mean anything because ECW has nothing to rebel against anymore. If they wanted to be rebellious in mid-1998 they should have gone to an ROH-style Pure Sports Build model. (I know Heyman claims he was about to do that had ECW survived but that seems like a pretty post-facto explanation to me). Taz and Bigelow have an okay-ish match of sorts, but it wasn't so good that it made you want to shell out money to see it again on PPV. Storm & Candido lay out Taz afterward, but use Rolling Thunder and then mock Sabu & RVD's trademark taunts, bringing those two out. Sabu then wants at Taz, but Alfonso calls him off and it seems that an uneasy alliance is being formed.
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'Taker apparently walked out of the building rather than face Kane & Mankind, so Vince swapped Austin in for him, just because he could. Pretty straightforward stuff here, and fairly predictable at that. I'll sure as hell take it over the stuff we got with Kaientai and Sable, though. Fully Loaded seems like a pretty minor PPV but the long build to SummerSlam is in full force.
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This was a fun TV match given quite a bit of time for the era and some real thought put into it--Rock doesn't exactly zero in on X-Pac's bad neck but he does just enough for JR to get the psychology over, and the false finishes are all well-done. After D'Lo upset HHH to win the European title (and his sheer joy at being Champion of Europe is fantastic), you could definitely buy that they'd even things out by changing the IC title as well. Instead Jim Korderas for some reason disqualifies X-Pac for HHH's interference even though he wasn't the official of record. Chyna beats him up afterward. The girl in the audience looked like a plant to me, considering the camera found her before HHH did.
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Jackie calls out "Sal" and asks how many pounds she can lose in 6 days. Oh, I guess it was "sow." Lawler is starting to get unbearable reacting to this. Sable comes out wearing a tablecloth which is promptly ripped off. These last two segments were objectively effective but man, this is not the high-quality side of the Crash TV era. Edge lays out Mero for no discernible reason.
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"I think we've had all the Japanese culture tonight that we can stand!" JR hasn't changed much since the time he wondered if there were any nice-looking Orientals. I'm pretty sure there won't be a single Val feud that I'll like until the awesome hate-filled one with Rikishi.
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Undertaker committed one of his gravest sins ever last week: he HURT MR. McMAHON'S FEELINGS. I am personally aghast. This went on a little long and is sort of an ominous forebear of opening Raw segments to come, but Vince is Vince and his act and gimmick are still fresh. And we get a nice payoff for Vince's long soliloquy as Undertaker lays out his entire inner circle and storms off, never saying a word.
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Sting is wrestling in black trousers which is almost as bad of a look as the red Crow paint. Meanwhile Hall continuing to wear red and black because they can't be bothered to get him new ring attire is chalked up as "mind games." Sartorial critiques aside, the action here isn't bad and a very loud crowd helps. Finish is lame as all get-out, though, as Bret Hart distracts Sting and leaves him open to the Outsider's Edge. Note how the commentators don't particularly treat this title change as any kind of pivotal moment--the original goals of the NWO simply don't matter anymore and as Loss has said, they're just another stable.
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Just a monumentally dumb direction to go, after an angle the previous week that legitimately had people buzzing. This is at least our second phony babyface turn that ends with Rick getting attacked, and this stupidity wouldn't stop WCW from trying to repeat this over and over and OVER. The Steiner vs. Steiner issue, which may have been a big deal once upon a time, is pretty much dead by this point. Injuries derailed the turn as soon as it happened, and I'm not sure if fans really wanted to see this match even in 1993-94.