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You have to give Paul E. this: he knew how to avoid burning through too many matches, too quickly. This is hyped as the first meeting between Sabu and Sandman, and I can believe it. We never even got matches that seem like they'd sell to an ECW crowd like Raven vs. Sabu or Raven vs. Taz. Sabu doesn't quite connect on the fireball but there have been worse efforts this year and worse efforts to come in '98. Good enough angle because they sold it so well and because of the Sheik-Sabu connection.

Yeah, this was fantastic, and I'm not sure this wasn't better than Santo/Casas to boot. Some terrific offense in this one as this almost turned into a lucha-meets-NJPW-juniors type bout. Psicosis dies for our pleasure on about 4 or 5 different occasions and then fucks Santo over to get the win in a very cleverly done finish, right when Psicosis looked dead and buried. This might be the best year for lucha since 1990.

What an absolutely beautiful wrestling match. It could start a discussion about how card placement fits into rating a match, as this feels very "slight"--not a lot of crowd heat, not a main event, not a match involving major stars, the announcers sort of treating it as a lighthearted undercard sampler (Dr. Morales is so engrossed that he doesn't realize that what he calls the tercera caida is actually the second fall)--perhaps too slight to be a true MOTY, if that's something you care about. But the matwork and the natural build to the big highspots are just fantastic. There's comedy, but it's not the overdone comedy spots you've seen a ton of. And it's quick and isolated, instead of serving to make the rudos look like bumbling idiots--just enough to make the tecnicos out to possibly be a little smarter. The dive train climaxing with one tecnico backdropping his partner onto the opponents who thought they'd countered the dive was great, as was Pierrotito's fantastic plancha that seemed to turn the tide in the third fall. Pretty much impossible to pick out a Man of the Match here--everyone looked terrific at everything they did.

Flair cuts a low-key, philosophical promo--this is as good as his "retirement" 14 years earlier at the hands of Race, Orton, and Slater. He has words for Hennig and Hogan, and then does a great job of putting over Benoit and imploring him to go his own way. And then does a damn good job of making McMichael into something. Flair stresses that he's not breaking up the Horsemen--just asking for a grace period. And he wraps it up by putting over the whole Havoc and Nitro card. Fantastic stuff from the Man, just as you'd expect.

No surprise that the NWO would win the survey in a longtime WWF arena.

Promising start to this series, in an area where Tenay really excelled at one point. The fans pick up on where this is going in a hurry, once he busts out the somersault senton. Really good little TV match, with Rey busting out a totally WTF double springboard to get a win. And yes, good announcing, too--not blowing the angle but not playing dumb, either. God knows how they were able to recognize Eddie but can never tell that Sting has grown 7 inches.

I...guess Bret and Bulldog were trying to get a pre-emptive strike in knowing Undertaker was the favorite to win the #1 contendership at Hell in a Cell? I dunno. Seems like an excuse to get in some extra hype for the tag match against Vader & Patriot at Badd Blood. Who knows why they didn't jump Not-Yet-DX during *their* entrance, though. Helmsley is turning into a degenerate but is still oddly doing some of his old blueblood gimmick stuff like the curtsy and bow. Rude whacks Undertaker with a briefcase in short order and UT is laid out with the superkick and bodybagged, but gets back up and gives chase to the back. Michaels is blocked from exiting by a mysterious red light and has to climb up the TitanTron instead. This stunned me when I went back through the September '97 Observers, so I'll mention it here--Michaels DID eat a pinfall in a Raw dark match a week or two before this, in a triple threat against Undertaker and Bret. He got tombstoned and then UT got distracted or pulled out by somebody or another, and Bret stole the pin.

Owen has his "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" music, which I don't remember being around this early. No soundbites, though. Owen vs. Faarooq is sort of a weird stylistic and character match-up. He then appeals to Vince's family past and implores him to make the right decision re: Steve Austin's employment status. "All these fans here--THEY don't want Austin in the World Wrestling Federation, either!" Fun little postscript follows as Austin reveals himself to be one of the riot squad guys in disguise and drops Owen with another Stunner.

Vince probably *is* in the right, as many of the great heels are--his eventual mistake will be in continuing to try to keep Austin in line, he'll take things too far. Again, as what happens with many heel turns. The chemistry between these two is already there and this is a fine, tension-filled segment.

FREDDIE BLASSIE of all people instructs Sable on her next challenge: the Headbangers. Sable walks around and apparently the Headbangers accidentally shoot each other, not that you can tell with the cheap pieces of shit they're allegedly firing. Pillman's in bed with Marlena. He's BUSHED--get it? This angle may have been redeemed had they gone through with the planned Marlena turn, but as it is it's a career lowlight to end Pillman's life.

Highlights of Faarooq's college football career, a career that coincided with the rise of Florida State into a perennial powerhouse. Bobby Bowden makes another appearance! Well-done feature to re-humanize what had been a fairly one-dimensional character in the WWF.

Helmsley is now being referred to directly as "Triple H." He offers some shooty-shoot comments but is overall still a lousy promo. His swearing is about as forced as Shane Douglas'. Helmsley sells shock and horror at being forced to wrestle Undertaker tonight, but quickly forgets about it once the Hart Foundation shows up.

I was ready to sniff at this, but okay, Kanemura working hurt changes things. Nowhere near the best of the FMW death matches, as it seems like that blaring siren hurt the crowd heat and even if it was conceivable that the match could end before the explosion, I sure wasn't thinking of that. The explosion itself is pretty impressive, though.

This was enjoyable, and I look forward to seeing more of these two. I get what's being said about it taking excessively long to set up tables, and that's a criticism I've made in past Yearbook matches, but intentional or not I thought the final table spot set-up worked here: Awesome takes too long, and his big power bomb from the ring to the table backfires on him in a major way. So they had a bit of psychology to go along with the big bombs, all of which showed some awesome execution. And a simple and well-done finish, too.

Good match that's a bit hard to follow at times due to the bad VQ--luckily all four guys are distinctive-looking enough to mitigate the problem somewhat. Not only do we have the novelty of Kobashi showing up in FMW, we have a rare glimpse of him really wrestling and carrying himself like an ace. He's by far the #1 guy in the match and for once he wrestles like it. Granted, we can't see if he does any of his crying spots, but every time he's in, it feels like a huge momentum shift with Hayabusa and Shinzaki having to fight and to double-team just to stay even--they come across as underdogs even though Mossman is the glorified rookie and bottom man on the totem pole. We get the inevitable result but not without a few curveballs that have you believing that Kenta might just do the J-O-B but still being firmly established as the top dog. Also, thank God the other matches on this show apparently aren't like this.

Notable for New Jack's dive out of the balcony. This certainly didn't wear out its welcome. Styles was actually full of useful tidbits here, noting each team's number of tag title reigns and pointing out that the Dudleys were the only team with wins over both the Gangstas and Eliminators.

A fantastic match and another MOTYC--one that seems to build on their January bout with Tamura being more of a peer than a guy who was gutsy but overmatched. There are so many cool little moments on the mat here--what stood out to me were some truly agonizing "near-misses" as it appears both guys are just milliseconds away from locking in a deciding submission only to either lose the hold or be countered. Han also actually shows some character work here, such as trying to dismiss his knockdowns to the referee as slips. Tamura hasn't slowed down a bit--he's the Best in the World for this year, hands down. While I understand it, I find it a bit of a pity that he never did wrasslin' because I think he'd have been spectacular working pro-style.

Fun little match that sort of stays "little," though I did get into the closing stretch and Liger absolutely annihilates Wagner for a suitable ending. The sort of weird mishmashed teams makes for a fun viewing experience but it's also not as smooth and breathtaking as the Michinoku Pro tags where everybody knows everything about how everybody else works.

Maybe they expected Barr to get over because he actually did.

The HBK push *is* out of control, but there's nothing for me to do but sit back and get used to it, because it's only going to get worse from here.

Yes, definitely Helmsley's best career match to this point. A lot of the usual Cactus falls-count-anywhere spots make their return, including the pinfall reversals on the floor which I'll always love. Great pace and they go to lots of different places and never resort to comedy--this is a hate-filled street fight all the way. A terrific finish that looks great, and I like the visual of Chyna frantically diving to break the count but being a few seconds too late. The WWF really went all-out for the first Garden Raw and it paid off in multiple ways.

Pillman just can't do anything anymore--just sad to watch. This was a neat little mini-angle, though, with Owen and Pillman going through the motions of a match a la Chris Candido and the Dark Secret in SMW, but some subterfuge by Marlena leads to both men losing their temper and going all-out. Goldust runs in for the DQ, but since he slugged Owen to get to Pillman, Owen wins. Owen acts like he's already won the IC title and we get a great camera straight-on camera angle of Austin appearing out of nowhere in the background to level him. It's gearshift angle time! The NYPD is out to arrest Austin for violating the restraining order, but McMahon manages to call them off so he can talk some sense into Austin himself. Austin acquiesces and agrees to "work within the system"--right before a boot to the gut and the biggest Stunner of them all. There was great build to this and it was a great idea to save this for the first MSG Raw. THIS is how you manufacture an "MSG moment"--show great Garden clips of the past and follow it up with a monumental segment that works organically, without beating us over the head with slogans like they do every WrestleMania. Watching this, it's hard to believe that Vince had to be talked into going heel after Survivor Series--it's like there's no other path to go besides Austin winning the title at WrestleMania and kicking this to another level.

Vince makes the announcement that HIAC will be a #1 contenders match, and emphasizes that the bottom of the ring will be inspected to prevent anyone from coming from underneath. Shawn cuts a fantastically obnoxious and whiny promo about why he has to go through UT to get a title shot considering he's already won every title.

I liked this more than anyone else--it's not one of Hogan's higher-end heel promos, but it works, just like the Piper one did. I've been bitching more than anyone about political bullshit overwhelming the product in this time period, but Hogan talking about Flair on the shelf served to set up his plans for Piper in the cage and how Piper will be joining him, so I think it actually worked here.

After a show's worth of hype the big announcement is Luger will wrestle Hall with Larry Z as the official ref. Meh. But I'm fine with the Hall-Zbyszko angle. Piper *does* cut a pretty good promo, and he even looks better than he has in previous months. The Brigham Young line was good and Piper does an effective job of getting over the brutality of cage matches. I still don't want to see this main event but in context, it's working.