PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Jericho may be trying too hard at times, but he almost has to. To get noticed as a WCW mid-carder you kind of had to do it kicking and screaming. Here he does that quite literally, until Malenko shuts him up. -
More fun between these two, with Stevie Ray now making his presence felt. He doesn't get directly involved, but he does serve as a distraction to Benoit that sets up Booker's win. Booker blocking the application of the crossface with his arm was cool and he's really starting to put it together as a worker. We'll see if it continues to hold up.
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Yeah, this was pretty terrible on all levels. Gertner has some good lines on paper but he kills them with his overly slow delivery. A big clusterfuck of a finish with Jeff Jones and Jim Molineaux doing more wrestling spots and Gertner showing that he should absolutely positively not be getting physically involved in matches. You know how we pointed out that the Over the Edge main event was overbooked but not *too* much overbooked? This is like Russo without the Filter. Eventually the babyfaces get handcuffed, and Beulah again tries to save Tommy Dreamer and that ends the same way it always does. How ironic--in the past I've said ECW was way too reliant on going to the "beat up Beulah for heat" well and gotten on Styles' case for his dramatic hushed voice every time it happens even though it's happened 500 times. Now we're actually getting an angle where Beulah breaks her neck and is being written out of the promotion, and it's touched upon for like 5 seconds before New Jack comes out and she's forgotten about. At least they sold the dramatic injury well by having New Jack run out, throw his weapons around the medical emergency scene, and do comedy spots with the guitar. A grotesquely overweight Jack Victory "sneaks" into the ring in plain sight and Styles laughably puts over his punch as having Ivan Drago-like power. Styles loses his mind on commentary despite the thoroughly routine beatdown we just saw. Really one of the worst ECW segments of the year.
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New Japan can't even air the FUCKING FINALS in its entirety? Goddamn, fuck them. That said I'm with dawho on this--that false finish with Kanemoto getting his foot on the rope took me out of the match, and then the second Wagner Driver *and* super crucifix bomb not putting Koji away took me out of it further. At that point, it was firmly established that Wagner Could Not Beat Kanemoto even if he shot him with a bazooka, so the "will he or won't he come back?" suspense factor was totally gone. Kanemoto was winning and everything else was window-dressing. I get why this was so loved because the backlash against 2.9 wrestling hadn't really begun when this match took place, but this was way overindulgent and Wagner's dominance felt more like a political game rather than a way to build for a gutsy Kanemoto comeback, the climax of which came way too easily. Despite the heated crowd and a few hot near-falls this ended up being a colossal disappointment.
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I love Vince regressing to his old Commentator Voice but still acting as a heel, especially when Mankind makes his entrance and again during the post-match: "This guy is impressing me! This is a guy who could make his family proud!" Austin vs. Kane is immediately a hot main event since the two have never interacted in Kane's 6 months with the company. The talk about the number of main eventers in the WWF compared to WCW brings to mind the adage of how if you have two starting quarterbacks, you really have none. There's diminishing returns if you have 15 main event guys and none of them have any real focus.
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This isn't a *terrible* promo from UT but I'm not sure I'd call it good--the material and motivation are fine but I don't think Undertaker is quite cut out for these pseudo-shoot promos just yet, as his delivery is much more stilted than the other main eventers of this era. I'm amused by the idea that Bret Hart was incapable of beating Giant Gonzalez, necessitating Undertaker to do it. This is all Russoriffic, yes, but I don't mind the material yet--it's still Filtered Russo. Vince is out again and browbeats Undertaker, which is awesome to watch just because it's so rare. Even DX never got this kind of verbal heat on him.
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Yes, this was amazing--two great performances and almost unbearable-tension throughout. Is Foley going to pop Vince? Will Vince have Foley attacked? This was threatening to descend into chaos even before McMahon enticed Foley to use the chair on him, then takes a left turn when Vince brings up Foley's family and financial situation. The Dude is fired and Vince rubs it in his face.
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Childs nails it. I'd have Sting reveal the red and black t-shirt, then turn around do the exact same thing to Nash, Savage, and Luger. He takes off that shirt and walks off on his own, leaving both NWOs laying. Sting bodyslamming the Giant is cool and this gets over huge, but it completely kills Sting stone dead. Sting has a dumb smile on his face and Konnan has to teach him how to dance to the Wolfpack theme and this is all very lame in retrospect.
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::flipping through law book:: "Where's the section on WCW title belts?" Jericho is starting to remind me in a weird way of Mick Foley in 1995--it's like he "gets" where wrestling is going more than anybody else and is deserving of a bigger stage to show off what he can do. This is more wink-and-nod-to-the-smart-fans stuff like the Over the Edge ring intros, and neither time do they beat you over the head with it like would happen with Russo in WCW. While the WWF has never been more meritocratic, WCW has never been less so.
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Chavo is now beginning his gimmick of having been driven crazy by being subjugated by Eddie. These guys have to be booking their own angles or there has to be a guy like Terry Taylor who's only concern is the mid-card, because it's so much better-booked than the main event scene right now.
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"This man can only be compared to such legendary Canadians as Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, and the great Anne Murray." "We've laughed with him! We've cried with him! But through it all he made our lives worth living. He's given us hope, love, understanding, and and the will to say YES I CAN." Ross: "You'd think he was introducing Frank Sinatra for gosh sakes!" The full ring intros are some of the most brilliant creative writing the WWF has ever done--again, a bit of self-deprecation and winking to the audience that the company just isn't capable of anymore. Once again, there's an undercurrent of, "We know we got our asses kicked for 88 weeks, and it's because these idiots are running the show." Austin's not just fighting against the Man, he's fighting on behalf of WWF fans against a rival company, too. Trying to compare this with something like the high-end RINGS or BattlArts matches as MOTY candidates go is difficult if not foolhardy. But this is definitely the match I've enjoyed the most in 1998 for the same reasons everybody else has. Austin "overcomes the odds" and it actually seems like he's done that, not overcome odds in a phony, contrived type of way the manner that Cena often did or was accused of doing. Austin's comebacks are incredible and this is a terrific crowd, into almost every spot they do--even the low-key stuff before the booking gaga really takes center stage. All of this was so fresh and new at the time, I don't know if a newer viewer would have quite the appreciation for this as we do. But even compared to the '99 stuff, the booking and changing match stips isn't overdone, and Austin's eventual comeback and win is carried out in as logical a manner as possible. One of the true heights of Vince Russo, Filtered.
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That was a KOTR montage. One of them showed Mabel's coronation with the similar title, "What were we thinking??" Vader whiffs on a moonsault and takes a tombstone and we finally find out after all these years that Vader is Leon White. Bearer wearing the mask is kind of funny at least. Vader has his existential crisis after the match--JR does his damnedest to try to put Vader over as being noble in defeat but it was straight to JTTS-ville after this for the next few months before mercifully getting out of his contract.
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"You know King, some people say Mero looks like Little Richard...I never thought that." Once again Mero shows himself to be utterly without shame, and it's glorious to watch. He suckers Sable into a phony pinfall and then reverses it into a pin himself, and then jumps up and celebrates like he won the Royal Rumble.
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They even worked the finish like a flash pin, with Booker bicycling like crazy and just barely being put down for 3 in the German suplex. Much more urgency in this one due to the shortened nature of the match--maybe that will add some heat to the early near-falls in subsequent matches now that we know this could end at almost any time. For whatever reason I wasn't expecting this series to hold up, but it does so far.
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Jim Molineaux bodyslamming all three members of the FBI was a little much, but otherwise the match was fun. Nova made for a good babyface, we got some cool offense from Smothers as well as some primo, at times over-the-top stooging, and even Meanie was kind of fun doing big fat high-flying offense off the hot tag. His pants almost come off but that sort of fits his character anyway.
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That was a hell of a lot of build-up for...that. At least Cena and the guys Vader bulldozed got some hope spots in. Tariel doesn't seem THAT bad to me but he's no Tamura, that's for sure.
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I was having flashbacks to Joe vs. Balor at the last Takeover with all the blood check stoppages. Not totally sure what that or the ending was about, since this match was clearly a work--it almost seemed to me like Han instinctively tapped the mat while in a wristlock and the referee interpreted it as a proper tapout. Anyway, the countering and counters-to-counters on the mat, first with the cross armbreaker by Han and then the dueling cross armbreakers and sleepers by both guys are just gorgeous and incredibly dramatic. Han also throws in his standard get-shot-in-the-stomach sell for a dramatic early near-KO and there's some pretty fun stand-up in addition to the requisite matwork. This was a pretty good and suspenseful match that sort of breaks an axel at the ending.
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Why are we acting like it's a given that Sting has to choose one NWO or the other? Why can't we at least give lip service to the possibility that he'll stay with WCW? Do I need to keep freaking harping on how lame this makes WCW look as a company and a brand? I don't want to turn into Darren fucking Rovell talking about brand power but god dammit, it's like my hand is being forced. Bret going off on Nash and leaving him temporarily speechless was really cool, though.
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I'm going to break from the pack and say that I liked the Nitro match a bit better, if only because the outcome was up in the air and this was a little bit more likely that Booker was evening the series. His comeback is nice and drawn-out, however, and the Spinaroonie is so much cooler and more effective as a spontaneous Hulk-Up moment rather than a contrived, stop-the-match-in-its-tracks spot with a pet name. Still a very different dynamic if only for the crowd, which is loudly pro-Booker and anti-Benoit.
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The Wolfpack have their new entrance theme, and it's not bad, though I'm sure I'll get tired of it. My favorite footnote to this ill-fated gimmick is that MLB star Jason Giambi used this as his walk-up music right up to the end of his career, which wasn't until 2014. The music lasted with Giambi longer than WCW did as a corporate promotion. Tony, Lee, and Bobby still aren't sure how to put over this Luger...turn? In any case the Pack are total gladhanding babyfaces whether the announcers want to admit it or not. I'm also not sure if Abject Shock is the way to sell this development with Luger, since in ancient times of 1995-96 we established him as an opportunist not to be trusted. But then I'm putting more thought into this than the WCW brass. Luger's in the Wolfpack to be a player, which just makes WCW come off even more lame. This is enough to make you see the logic behind the burial of WCW by the WWF. Luger closes us out with the lamest "too SWEEEET" in history.