PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Jericho loses a match to Steve McMichael, who doesn't blow anything in the short time we see. When we come back from commercial, Jericho quickly switches from berating the live crowd to disingenuously apologizing to us, the viewers. His mood shifts again when Rey Jr. comes out for his Cruiserweight title match, and Jericho pretty much cements the heel turn by apologizing again, then clobbering Rey from the back and Lion Taming him for about a minute. Juventud fucks up a springboard entrance to the amusement of the crowd, and capitalizes on the injured Rey with a quick win. A waste of a promising match but well-done, in that the heat is on Jericho for ruining it rather than the company as would be the case later. -
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My first remark was going to be about Okerlund doing this interview. I think this is the first time we've seen that happen since he interviewed the Outsiders way back in the Disney Nitro days, before Hogan's turn. It works okay here because Gene's playing the investigative reporter ambushing them outside the limo instead of doing it as a formatted segment. Savage appears to be on the outs with the NWO, or at least with Nash, after he snapped last week and Nash had to deck him.
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I didn't think much of this at all, and thought it was markedly inferior to the Bigelow/RVD match. I will say that it's miles ahead of November 2 Remember and does do an effective enough job of washing the bad taste of that disaster out of everybody's mouths. For one thing, I don't get the psychology behind a Stairway to Hell Match--just as with ref bumps, what's the point of putting a weapon out of reach when weapons are all over the place in every ECW match? A lot of the spots I praised in years previous are starting to seem passe, like setting up tables outside the ring for bumps to come later. There are some impressive bumps here, but this is *way* more highspot-rest-setup-highspot-rest than the previous match was accused of being, and the spots are still hit-or-miss. Ending makes no sense--I guess Sandman was supposed to dodge the Arabian Facebuster, but he doesn't, gets hit with it, then recovers first and wins with one shot of the Singapore cane. You can't accuse these guys of not working hard but this whole style is reaching a point of diminishing returns. There are better ECW gorefests, better matches with Sabu, better matches with Sandman, and better ECW spotfests than this.
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Well, the ending was a mess, but I thought the stuff leading up to it was surprisingly good and not even particularly spotfesty by RVD/ECW standards, thanks to Bam Bam doing a nice job of holding this together as best he can and working as a base. Heel RVD vs. babyface Bam Bam shouldn't work at all, but that dynamic allows RVD to play a lot of hit-and-run with his offense and makes his high-flying look rather logical since he has to continually strike from a distance. Still, there's lots of stalling on RVD's part and zoning out in general. After a really badly mistimed ref bump this goes off the rails, with Sunny doing a pointless run-in, Francine wearing whatever she was wearing, and Shane Douglas continuing a program that I can't imagine many people care about.
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Another vote here for Solar. As best I can tell I've lost him and Kroffat over the past couple of days, in addition to the others I mentioned.
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She has been the best joshi worker of the last decade... but yeah my best joshi worker ever is only top 15. I like Asuka but being the best joshi worker of the last decade is like people talking up Dave Concepcion as a Baseball HOFer because he was the best shortstop of the '70s. It's not been a peak period for joshi and the '70s wasn't a peak period for shortstops--that distinction isn't as impressive as it sounds.
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My brother is a gay hipster artiste who lives in New York, isn't named Mike, and would sooner slit his own throat than watch anything sports- or wrestling-related. This is not to say that he's NOT, I'm just saying it's unlikely, is all.
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I was sort of dreading this when I realized it wasn't one of them "finish only" bouts, and the pre-match is pretty whatever. All of Credible's heat comes from Jason and Nicole Bass making out with each other--and people accuse Raven of leeching off other people?? But as it turns out, the match isn't bad--in fact it's damn good. Credible takes some great bumps before going to work on Sasuke's bad knee, and Sasuke sells like a champ and gets in a few near-miracle comeback attempts before missing a Stardust Press and getting dropped with That's Incredible for his second defeat. Credible and Jason go after the knee further and then go after Sasuke's match. Gran Hamada saves the mask but eats a That's Incredible of his own. You can't fault Heyman for giving it the old college try with Credible, who's a talented worker but has maybe the least amount of star power of any pushed wrestler in a major company in history. He tries, but basically every single thing he does is done by somebody else better. His and Jason's working of the crowd brings to mind DX and the stuff with the chair and the leg is just too reminiscent of Austin, intentional or not. And the ring attire and overall look is just bush-league. He looks like a backyard wrestler even if he has infinitely more talent, not a future company champion.
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After such a hot match, the action after Nitro goes off the air is just awful, awful, awful. Everyone's timing is off, things are executed clumsily, the announcers keep missing things (like Hollywood using a foreign object)...just a disaster. We get a good WCW vs. NWO brawl to end things, because why show Bret in a war with the NWO and a major chaotic brawl on live TV when you can show taped footage of it 10 days later? Dillon calls out Hogan and Sting and announces that...the title is held up. Sting responds with his first speech in almost 2 and a half years and man, what a mess. Did I mention that it was time to start splitting the NWO apart and go with Sting vs. Bret? Did I? I think I'll do it again, just in case.
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Sort of a repeat of the Nitro segment, with the most compelling figure in wrestling in 1997 once again being a crashing bore and Flair rescuing the segment as only Flair can. I mentioned that 1998 audiences were all about catchphrases instead of promos and that's all Bret is really offering.
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Guess you had to have a title change of some sort on the debut show. The Cruiserweight belt has bounced around quite a bit since Havoc.
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Another upset loss for Hall that doesn't do a whole lot for his opponent, but this time Hall actually stays down instead of getting his heat back immediately afterward.
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Larry's not nearly as over here as he is with Nitro crowds, for whatever reason. Zbyszko's learned, long-winded promos aren't really a fit for what 1998 wrestling audiences are looking for, which is cheap pops and catchphrases. That's to the audience's detriment, not Larry's, but facts is facts. He gets in a number of good lines here--Scott Hall could be World Champion, but instead he's got a first-class seat on the ship of fools headed straight for Larryland.
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This is the promo we probably should have gotten anywhere from 6-12 months ago. It's a good one--I just don't think it's going to lead to anything.
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A split in the NWO was due by this point, but yes, they're hedging their bets too much. Hogan's creative control was always going to be an issue no matter what, but in an ideal world he easily could have been occupied by a MegaPowers vs. Outsiders feud for a good six months, while we get the theoretical ultimate dream rivalry between Sting and Bret, co-headlining shows.
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After literal years of badgering from the higher-ups, and obfuscation and delays from Bischoff & co., TBS finally has their live wrestling show. With such a promising and daring premise of having a "brand split" now out the window, WCW goes into this with pretty much no plan whatsoever.
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Really fun match--I always appreciate any match that manages to go from garbage brawling to back-and-forth technical (-ish) wrestling and make it make sense. Usually matches logically go the other way around. Gannosuke destroys Tanaka's arm and you get the sense that he did just enough to nullify some of the damage of Tanaka's rolling elbows at the end. Tanaka is one of the masters of the last-second kickout and he has some doozies here, but Gannosuke counters one last rolling elbow with the awesome Gannosuke Clutch to steal the win and whatever title this was for. Really good match with a rewind-and-watch-again-worthy finish.
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I don't remember where Parv had Dory ranked, so I can't say for sure that he's the high vote. But hey, I've got an avatar now for the first time ever. Much like the Elvis stamp I went with the younger fresher version of Clive.
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Whoo-hoo! An avatar (to come later) for me!
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Only my second fallen soldier, as Dos Caras drops.
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I lied--I do have one guy gone, in Steve Veidor. No high votes though, and I'm not sure I'll get any until #1.
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Gentleman Jim Holliday mostly managed in Florida where he acted as a frontman for J.J. Dillon. Presumably that's where the Gang photo comes from. He also gets on-air credit for Ray Candy and Leroy Brown dumping their "slave names" and becoming the Zambuie Express. He briefly turned up in Knoxville when Flair & Mulligan owned the promotion, and in World Class in '87. Brother of longtime Georgia jobber Mike Fever. I know I have some people who won't finish in the top 100 but I'm still waiting for somebody of mine to show up as well, and I may be waiting as long as Parv and Grimmas.
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Heenan literally worked a full-time house show schedule in the AWA, wrestling on almost every show he appeared on in addition to managing at least one other match.
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As ever I have no idea who's who between Masashi Aoyagi and Mitsuya Nagai.