PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Yep, WCW couldn't have put anything like this together in a million years. Even if they had the creative chops, they didn't have the technical expertise to execute the vision. The WWF takes advantage of an unopposed night to put together a LOOONG video package detailing almost all of Michaels' singles career and getting him over as a guy who won't stay down even if you shoot him point-blank. -
Neat little angle with the Outlaws finally getting some comeuppance at the hands of Jack & Charlie. This was actually a Tuesday episode of Raw, for those keeping track, airing on St. Patrick's Day due to USA showing a mini-series on Monday night.
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Just bad and not only is the luster completely off Sting, it's off Hogan, too. Everything that was fresh and cool about him a year to a year and a half ago is now about as tiresome as his Hulkamania act was in the first half of '96. There's NO heat to this and the big crowd reactions are due entirely to Savage and his comebacks. Maybe it's because no one can fucking see what's going on, but the work sucks also. The Disciple gets involved, because of course he does. Sting repels from the ceiling and I honestly thought it was another fake Sting, then Savage drops him with a piledriver and spits at Hogan and leaves. Everyone has already explained how stupid this is. Sting is back to his old dumb self and the match layout is pretty much another testament to Hogan's egomania. Hey, has anyone seen or heard from Bret Hart lately? WCW is just wasting *everybody* on the roster at this point except for the guys like Jericho who are practically booking themselves. Meanwhile, WrestleMania has hot matches settling major feuds all up and down the card. Even the feud between Sable and Luna has more fan interest than almost any program WCW is offering us.
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Good to see Mark Curtis back again, however briefly. Sadly he really just looks bad and emaciated here, though he still takes a ref bump like a champ as best he can, which is kind of shocking. Sting levels Dusty which is kind of an interesting sight, en route to a victory. Pretty routine but the crowd was into it. Per Dave, the WCW creative brass *did* want to do MegaPowers (Monster Maniacs?) vs. Outsiders, but You-Know-Who overruled that.
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Well, you can't accuse this one of being boring. There are some spots that are kind of eye-rolling, especially ones that were overdone afterward like the triple sleeper. But they seemed fresh and new at the time, and they did a really good job of generally avoiding the "two guys trade spots while one guy rests" pitfall of many multi-man matches like this. The one sequence where DDP is out is set up pretty logically as part of a running thread where it's teased that Raven and Benoit are aligned, which adds a bit of a psychological thread to the brawling. I'm pretty positive that Benoit was Raven's best opponent--maybe not a hot take, but he actually makes Raven look like a hard worker and a guy on his level as a talent. The big climactic move doesn't quite hit but it's a convincing enough finish. I had no idea what to expect going in but this was a lot of fun.
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Okerlund and the whole post-match scene makes very little sense, since there was no putting over of any kind of Malenko losing streak, nor was it put over that Jericho was overmatched and had no chance. With Schiavone openly wondering, "What's this about?" as Okerlund heads into the ring it really feels like a Mean Gene heel turn. "Now you are a bona fide LOSER." Finishing stretch is okay enough, I guess, but little more than that. Okerlund complains that Malenko didn't answer any questions, even though he did answer the one question he asked.
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I actually really hate that UWF triple-title-change episode. The Gordy forfeiture is just so weird and nonsensical that I don't even care what the real story is anymore, whether it was a legit injury or Watts trying to put the Freebirds in their place or what. Having Gang wrestle another match later on just makes things worse. And Leroy Brown and Bill Irwin are like the ultimate who-gives-a-fuck tag champions.
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Why IS it "Super Delfin," exactly? Seems like Super Dolphin is way more accurate.
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I take it this is the Bill Dundee heel turn ep, with a tag team split, an impromptu Southern title change, Lawler losing out on a chance to wrestle Ric Flair, and Lawler hijacking another shot at Dundee by threatening to trash his car with a baseball bat. Yes, this is definitely up there.
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Austin challenging Vince and giving him a title shot on Raw. From a drama standpoint that made you want to see where this was going next, sustaining itself for an entire show, it's hard to beat. It loses a bit in retrospect because a.) the idea of Vince wrestling was completely mindblowing at the time, not so much now, and b.) while you knew this wasn't going to climax with a straight-up match, the ending with Dude Love didn't make a great deal of sense then or now. Still, for an hour and 57 minutes it was brilliantly produced television--from the "is this really going to happen?" vibe after Austin issues his challenge, to Vince being egged on by Patterson and Brisco, to Vince finally accepting, to Ross flipping his shit and selling the angle terrifically as a disaster in the making, to the stalling at the end with Vince's "warmups," Shane trying to stop the match, and Vince forcing Austin to tie his hand behind his back. A perfect blend of Russoian Crash TV with old-school territory bullshit. It's hard to imagine a more *important* episode of Raw either, seeing as it broke Nitro's winning streak when just a few months earlier it seemed like such a thing would never happen again. It also came at the best possible time for the WWF, as Nitro immediately went through its annual 4 weeks of being moved around/pre-empted by the NBA playoffs, allowing the WWF to build momentum off this show unopposed for a month. Other contenders: the episode that made the early run of Raw into a must-watch show, at least for a little while--the double-shot shock booking of the Kid pinning Razor Ramon *and* Marty Jannetty making a surprise return to challenge for and win the IC title from Shawn Michaels. The Raw from the night after Revenge of the 'Taker with Austin challenging Bret Hart to a street fight, crippling him with a chair, and then hijacking the ambulance to do more damage, then taking it a step *further* by ending with the return of Brian Pillman to attack Austin. The backstage attack on Nitro that El-P mentioned, with WCW doing the ballsy move of deliberately sabotaging its own show with shitty make-up matches like Giant vs. Randy Savage turning into Giant vs. Greg Valentine, just to get over how much chaos the NWO had created and trying to make the fallout as realistic as possible instead of contrived booking involving a "surprise" main event. Looking at less overbooked/soap opera-ish episodes, various Crockett matches that took up an entire hour of syndie TV: Flair-Windham for the NWA title being the most notable, but also terrific matches between Ronnie Garvin & Tully Blanchard, and the Rock 'n Roll Express debuting in the company by winning the tag titles from the Russians. I also want to give a shout-out to the 2/7/87 episode of Superstars. You don't normally think of syndicated WWF shows as bastions of great individual episodes of TV, but on one show you have the official announcement of the site of Wrestlemania 3, the official heel turn of Andre the Giant on Piper's Pit, Danny Davis fucking over the British Bulldogs to give the tag titles to the Hart Foundation, and even the in-ring debut of Outback Jack. I doubt there was any episode of any weekly WWF show more loaded with major developments than that one until the aforementioned Kid/Jannetty Raw.
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Re: Styles...Lord knows I'm not the one to go back and check but it seems his TNA work is being better received now than it was in '06 when a lot of people were still dismissing him as a spot monkey. El-P sounds pretty high on him in the running TNA thread and he's not the only one praising his work in that era.
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Probably closest to Chad on this. This did feel bloated and 2.9-ish, and I was ready to write this off completely, but some of those near-falls off the elbow smashes were pretty darn great and fooled me, and it was enough to get me invested into the match. I'm not sure if I like this match-up stylistically--Hayabusa is talented but this makes multiple singles matches where he's failed to get me emotionally invested in who wins and loses. I love Tanaka to death, but I think both guys might come across better with a strong heel opponent like Gannosuke, Kanemura, or Awesome. Against each other, the match feels more like an athletic exhibition. And the finish is pretty darn arbitrary--I don't know why Hayabusa had to go with the Falcon Arrow again when it seemed like he consciously left some big moves in his holster, which would make sense in a match like this so you could bust out something like the Stardust Press to finally put Tanaka down. All the points in the world for effort and the NJPW Juniors-style layout didn't bother me in and of itself, but this needed to be either trimmed down OR just totally balls-to-the-wall by the end, with tables, chairs, or massive highspots instead of guys just trading elbows and suplexes.
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This felt like a bigger ripoff than the Austin-Kane non-match, in all honesty. At least when the WWF has been baiting and switching lately, they've attempted to provide a super-hot angle designed to make you forget that you didn't get the match you wanted. Sting flying back up into the rafters has been played out, just like every other show-closing angle WCW has run since the fall. The hook-up this time seemed extra awkward and the NWO really looked like idiots just standing there. And why can't we get some new music for Savage already?
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Just like the La Parka angle, they cleverly cover up any possibility of a guy being exposed while doing the entrance--here, Lenny Jericho jumps Malenko in the aisle. Lane does an adequate enough job of passing for Jericho and has everyone fooled, and does a good imitation of the arrogant-cover pose. He taps to the Cloverleaf in short order, but Malenko's apparent title win is cut short as he's leveled from behind by Jericho, who even pops Lane just because he can. A fun angle and Jericho is easily the best and freshest part of the entire WCW roster.
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Bam Bam cuts a good promo as the Taz Killer. Joey Styles has some troubles with the camera. Bill Alfonso declares that next week's TV will be all about Sabu--evidently they're teasing a Sabu-New Jack feud. RVD blows off a Sabu high-five in a funny moment. Joey Styles complains about Lance Wright. Jerome Young is no studio Gangsta. Francine isn't impressed by Al Snow, while Shane Douglas continues to stew. Head talk has ruined Shane and Francine's love life. Douglas screams over how little he's bothered by Al Snow and his fans.
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Dig this main event. Mercifully Austin ends this as soon as it begins, but Michaels is here after all! Austin gets dropped with another superkick, but we go off the air before we see what he does with a steel chair. Good closing angle that took *me* in about 18 years later.
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This is one of the greatest match builds in the history of wrestling. It really goes back to the fall with how they consciously kept Austin and DX apart. Whoever mapped this promo out for Tyson did an excellent job--"You think *I've* had it fair in my life? ... Fair is winning."
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Austin was an asshole, but it almost seemed by design, since even Ross and Kelly were calling him out for his behavior. And while it's not a major focus of the segment, Austin states toward the end that he thinks Vince set him up and knew that Michaels & Tyson were in cahoots--which may or may not be true, but if it is, then he has a lot more reason to be pissed off. Austin closes it out with a strong promo hyping WM14 and also threatening Triple H. A good promise of what's to come--it's becoming more and more clear that Vince does not want Austin to be the WWF Champion, a position that would be outright stated in the coming weeks.
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What is with Shawn not wanting to work taped Raws all of a sudden? Michaels gloats over the DX acquisition of Mike Tyson as well as his big superkick on Austin the previous week.
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And whose bright idea was it to have the Giant as FIP? It's not dumb to work over the neck injury but it goes on for awhile with nothing much of interest happening. Despite Tony's best attempts at selling the historical significance of this, all the moving parts that Loss mentioned sort of take the crowd out of this and the whole ends up being less than the sum. The Disciple lays out Savage with the Apocalypse--ooh yeah, feel that burn at a low-level WWF tag team--and Hogan gets the pin.
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Hogan points out that it was Savage's choice to bring his EX-wife into the locker room to be one of the boys, and she DID the boys. Big "ooooh" from the crowd for that one. I still don't much care about seeing this match-up again but you can't fault the effort on this promo, which is full of fire and hate and venom.
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Interesting traveling-NWA-champion style match for ECW but I didn't much care for this, and the crowd's constant chants toward Francine pissed me off mightily and served as a really bad distraction. If they can't be engaged, why should I be? Badly set-up finish as well. From Douglas' promo it's clear that they're building toward Douglas vs. Snow for the next PPV.
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There were other FBI matches in '97 that I liked better than this, but this was a lot of fun. Candido and Storm had a fun shtick that was actually fresh at the time, and they don't overdo it. They confine most of the petty bickering to before the match and a few key spots during, but still gel as a team. Dissension is teased afterward between Smothers and Rich.
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