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I honestly didn't see it coming at the time, but it's clear from the moment Vince appears on-camera where they're going with all this. He's looking out for the fans, but doing it in a disingenuous manner designed to maximize boos or cheers, depending on what he says. Loss' qualms about Austin giving the ref the Stunner last night are satisfied here, or at least they should be, as Vince brings that up as another Stone Cold transgression. Vince blames the second referee for counting Rocky down when the first ref was about to disqualify him--thus, Vince is DEMANDING that Austin defend the IC title against Rock once again. Austin is out to rebut, and JR compares him to Latrell Sprewell. This is early in the run and a lot of the familiar beats aren't there yet (Vince announces the match without saying "...in this very ring"), but seeing two fantastic foils--possibly the best since Dusty & Flair--playing off of each other is so great to see after a year and a half where heeling seems to be all about being too cool for school and working against your opponent rather than with him.

I enjoyed seeing both teams invent new ways to put opponents in holds so their partner could level them with dropkicks, and Liger's general dickishness. After Takaiwa & Kanemoto get absolutely brutalized for 10 minutes in near-squash fashion I thought their comeback and victory came a little too easily, though on the other hand it's hard to argue with Samurai not being able to continue after taking three power bombs and a moonsault. Enjoyable but ultimately inconsequential.

This was pretty awesome in its speed and ferocity and I really didn't notice any sloppiness--certainly there are many "smoother" UWF matches that are about 1/100th as exciting. Finish is sudden but had a definite "holy shit, he's dead" vibe to it.

Exactly. The "Fappening" and the Erin Andrews incident were both news (and actual legitimate news at that)--that doesn't mean that Gawker, the Huffington Post, or anybody else can actually show the video.

Owen's return is the big story here, but having watched this for the very first time it already feels like he's being downplayed, as he runs away through the crowd and Shawn and Hunter still get to celebrate in the ring as the show goes off the air. Owen's beatdown is very good and realistic-looking, with some Lawler/Snowman-esque going after Shawn's eyes, and if they were going to go with a copout DQ finish to start with, then this show really should have ended on a cliffhanger with the beatdown ongoing.

Rock refers to himself as the "People's Champ" in the pre-match promo, perhaps for the first time. Austin takes a few very safe bumps but this is a match clearly designed to cover for him. Rock does one People's Elbow and attempts another, to NO reaction. Very much a preview of the WWF main event style to come in 1998 and '99. Enjoyable but too brief to really be called a good match.

D-X as a PPV feels comparable to KOTR '94, but not as good. Just a very, very WEIRD vibe throughout--not bad, necessarily, but weird. Like a company in complete turmoil. And yes, it did one of the worst buyrates in company history, so few people saw this. Dustin's delivery is great but the joke sort of peters out really quickly. Luna agrees with me and drags Goldust away before he can finish.

This is a lame and hollow attempt at recreating Superstar Steve Austin. I just said this a few posts ago but between Shane Douglas, the NWO, DX, and now Stevie, ENOUGH OF THE FUCKING GIGGLING HEELS ALREADY. Also, this *may* have had more effect if the puppets at N2R weren't tripping all over themselves to welcome Stevie back even as he was laying out their hero and helping Team WWF.

Another one who liked this more than the '91 match. Some gorgeous technical wrestling on display here, especially Blue Panther's unique scissored takedowns and Atlantis working both an abdominal stretch and various kinds of armbars at the same time. Atlantis feels like he's really overcome long odds to take the win in 2 straight--the build-up to the Atlantida maybe isn't the greatest and I agree that I could have watched this go a good while longer, so maybe not a true MOTYC, but it's another standout match in a terrific year for lucha. This felt like a lucha version of Bockwinkel/Robinson from 1980 Japan with how vicious the matwork seemed at times. While AJPW seems to be sort of losing the plot, AAA and EMLL both seem to be going "back to basics" after a few years of ECW-ized brawls. It's refreshing to see as pure wrestling gets more and more de-emphasized in the Big Two.

Excellent match that just got better as it went along. It didn't seem like they were going for an "epic" like last year, and of course the match wasn't as good--but damned if they didn't have me marking out by the end. This builds slowly by design, with the first psychological hook being Jun's bad back and then a second hook brought on by Misawa being taken out and knocked to the floor, as seems to happen so often in these Tag League finals. Misawa countering the powerbomb/chokeslam at the end was a spectacular hope spot, one of the best I've ever seen, as it caught me totally by surprised. By this point I was flashing back to Kobashi's first Budokan main event, when I was actively getting emotionally involved--TAG OUT, JUN, TAG MISAWA, DAMMIT. Jun survives some heartstopping near-falls, some with Misawa's help, but that final hot tag never comes. This was a sort-of rare AJPW tag match where anybody could conceivably have pinned anybody else, and that kept me guessing the whole way through. Don't know if this will make the MOTYC list or not but AJPW manages to close out the year on a positive note.

Who says Hogan's sex life is "legit news"?

Haha, Dave gave this a DUD rating and called it the worst Kawada singles match he'd ever seen.

UWFI actually banned closed-fist punches to the head, so this has a different dynamic from the start when these two dudes just start whaling on each other. Each guy also only has 5 points instead of 15, which adds to the sense of urgency throughout this. I still like Tamura better as a worker but this was a hell of a war, with some great "near-falls" and nifty hold escapes to go along with the awesome stand-up. I daresay this is the best Kingdom match I've viewed from this year!

DDP is to late '97 what Savage was to late '96. Yawn-inducing all the way. I get the idea of Hogan sending a message to deal with all the Sting masks, but if they were going to do that then the previous week should have ended with WCW standing tall to bring some balance to all this.

The GRANNY! A staple of old-timey wrestling makes one of its last appearances, and it's as glorious as ever. I bet that Knoxville lady was around giving Ron & Don Wright what-for when Hogan was still playing bass in local Florida dive bars.

Boy, what a hot main event to try and stem the tide against Nitro. We finally go off the air on a positive note for once, but yeah, that final closeup of Shawn shows what he's really doing.

Yeah, the wheelchair thing is old now. Especially considering Goldust was doing this shit the previous week. Shawn still can't help but take shots at Bret. He's gone, get the fuck over it already. HHH giggles about how dumb Neidhart is, which is easy enough when you have bookers in your back pocket who book him that way. Shawn sounds like he's on Quaaludes. Another laugh-free segment courtesy of DX.

Great way to follow up that previous segment! There's that whiplash effect again...

Yeah, this was...something. In a weird way you have to admire Dustin for committing to this.

Good pop to end some horrible action. "BAM BAM BIGELOW IS GOING TO RID ECW OF THE FRANCHISE"--oh, shut the fuck up, Joey. The reaction at the end can't be denied but it's a little too late for Shane to be trying to play sympathetic babyface since his character has had not one ounce of sympathy the previous 4 years. Compare and contrast to Bret Hart at Canadian Stampede and Ric Flair at Starrcade '93.

This was pretty terrible, though that piledriver was indeed great. I don't care about Furnas & LaFon at this point, which pains me after having gone through the late '80s and '90s with them. The shitheads in the crowd are too busy marking out over Stevie's return, even though he's a heel, to bother providing any actual heat. Beulah gets laid out--again, and Joey Styles does the Owen Voice--again. Joey Styles telegraphs literally everything--again. Dreamer gets buried under the WWF flag--again, and this is sold as the Darkest Day in ECW History--again. Do you think *maybe* Paul E. was running out of ideas at this point?

Pretty good stuff here, though there were higher-end GAEA matches in '96. Even though we've only gotten bits and pieces of the promotion in '97 it's hard not to see Oz Academy as being overpushed to the same level of the NWO and DX against stupid and ineffective babyfaces.

Pretty much the entire video, with ECW action swapped in for the Axl/Stephanie Seymour wedding stuff. All the main matches for N2R get some effective hype. The slomo close-up shows that Sabu clearly got more of that fireball than Sandman did.

Good little TV match, with Dandy providing some fine cut-offs in addition to setting up for Rey's offense. Hennig vs. DDP seems like quite a big main event for late-'90s WCWSN.

Kanemura does the greatest 360 lariat bump in history--it's more like a 780 bump and it makes total sense for a fatso like him to be doing it (unlike Rikishi doing it off a standard clothesline) when you see the velocity that he and Tanaka are going at. A fun balls-to-the-wall sprint with a few twists and turns and some neat offense from everyone involved, especially the heel double teams complete with mocking of Shinzaki's Buddhist prayer rituals. Kanemura in particular would be an interesting guy to see in AJPW for a one-off tour, since he's got a broad heel personality but also really knows how to work a traditional match.