PeteF3

You know, the frustrating thing about this is that I think there IS a kernel of a very good match waiting to be unearthed here...but those damned head-drops get in the way. Not only are they wince-inducing in the bad kind of way in a post-Benoit, post-Misawa world, but the way they're sold is so horribly inconsistent. For the first chunk of the match they serve as Randy Savage's reviving elbow--each one that hits seemingly only serves to fire the opponent up so they can make a quick comeback. Then in the middle they're tossed off without a second thought, one after the other--I don't think a single pin attempt was made after any of them. Then at the end they go back to it and Misawa Hulks Up again, knocking Kawada out with an elbow before collapsing and then going to a few head-drops of his own. I don't think a single one of those suplexes did a thing to add to the match, and none of them are treated with any consequence in their own right. I also agree with the earlier posts that going to the triangle choke was a baffling decision--one thing that continues to stand out is an observation I've made earlier: AJPW has gotten so far away from submissions that Misawa's facelock, the hold that tapped Jumbo, is applied in the first 10-ish minutes of the match and draws no reaction whatsoever. Kawada's Stretch Plum *did* get a pop, because he was still pinning guys after applying it at this point. But the triangle choke? Nothing--confusion at best, and was applied at a time when Misawa looked "out" and ripe for a pin. In New Japan that spot might have worked. Here it just sticks out like a sore thumb. It's almost the equivalent of Bret pinning Austin after a rolling elbow. Then we get the botched finish with somebody--I don't know who for sure but I'm inclined to blame Kyohei Wada for not officiating it like a shoot--blowing the last near-fall horribly. I wasn't all that invested in the match by then anyway but that completely took me out of it. (Also, forget the rule of 3's for a minute...did Kawada hit *one* power bomb here? I don't recall seeing one--I only remember him trying one and Misawa huracanrana'ing him.) All those criticisms just have me shaking my head, because the counter-wrestling spots they did were nice--I got more enjoyment out of Misawa doubling Kawada over and then dropkicking him, or Kawada's wobbly dazed sell of an elbow or kick against the ropes. They still had enough in them to tell a compelling story if they wanted, but every time things got going another damned head-drop suplex served to get in the way. I didn't even think about the booking, but I agree that in the end nothing was added to the ongoing story here. If Kawada can't pin Misawa *now* when it really counts, when is he? Looking at this feud as one match, we've reached the "self-conscious epic" stage where we're having near-falls for the sake of near-falls and the audience is in danger of being taken out of the story. Kawada's eventual victory now feels like it'll be an arbitrary booking decision rather than the culmination of a years-long story. In the end, I didn't dislike this as much as Loss, because most of the between-headdrop stuff was pretty good and the downtime wasn't one of the things that bothered me, but it sure isn't anything resembling the great matches of '92-'96.

Wow, I was lower than everyone on Kanemoto/Liger and way higher here. I thought this was spectacular and lived up to pretty much every bit of its reputation. Kanemoto immediately erases the criticisms that had started forming, as he controls this match like a pro. An overconfident, overemotional pro. Samurai puts in a great underdog performance while also leveling Kanemoto with big bombs when he gets the opportunity. Yes, there are huge moves down the stretch, but I didn't find this overindulgent at all--they keep the near-falls to a relative minimum and I found myself getting breathless down the stretch, wondering which bomb was going to put the other away. In the end, Kanemoto takes one risk too many and Samurai puts him away with a series of elaborate, ridiculous, but awesome reverse DDT variations--including paying Kanemoto back for spiking him on his head with the reverse top-rope Frankensteiner with an inverted top-rope DDT. Dave gave this 5*, which I won't as I thought Samurai has had two better matches this decade, but I thought this was an easy MOTYC and without going over every other match of his probably Koji's best singles match.

A weird mix of Big Japan, WAR, and New Japan, on what's apparently a Big Japan show. It's pretty much useless to follow what's going on, so you just end up concentrating on the mini-matches throughout, like Tajiri fighting to survive against Gado & Jedo and randomly deciding to throw in graceful wrestling sequences while everyone else is trying to murder each other. Kodo Fuyuki is hanging out at ringside and eventually runs in and kicks the shit out of Nagasaki--wrestlers kicking ass in suits is a sight that never gets old. Once Tajiri, who's spectacular here, gets eliminated my enthusiasm sort of dies--outside of him, this is mostly old and/or fat guys stiffing each other. It's still never boring and the weird WTF-ness of it all keeps it a compelling watch. Kimura and Ishikawa are the oldest and therefore best team in this, so they come away with the win and some tag titles of some sort. I don't think this is really going to end up anywhere on my Observer Awards but I'm glad I saw it. More Tajiri, please.

Yeah, if this segment was mostly improv'ed, that actually added to the effect. Savage was terrific here, and it was really rare to see Okerlund so effectively bullied and emasculated. There's no sense of fun Okerlund-heel banter here--you really get the sense that Savage is half a second away from cleaning Mean Gene's clock. Speaking of emasculated, that's still how they're portraying J.J. Dillon, but his line about Savage hiding behind Liz was a good prompt for Randy to deck him. Savage has been sort of strangely isolated from the rest of the NWO, but for this segment that also adds to the effect.

Pretty good stuff, just unfortunate coming after the Mankind clip. It is a little more pragmatic in selling you on the DDP-Savage GAB rematch, though. DDP is already getting a head start as a professional motivator.

Mankind defines Cactus Jack in contrast to the era of dyed hair and bodybuilder physiques, before showing us how his body can be a symbol of life fulfilled--an arm scar from Tokyo, a missing ear from Germany, a head scar from Louisville, and all points between. Mankind relishes in the ability to make people sick. Foley was probably right in ranking this among the 3 best things in his career.

LOD are basically statues, though Animal shows some fire. And yet Austin and Michaels and the booking manage a way to work around that to put on maybe as good of a match involving LOD as you could hope for in 1997. Seeing Austin and Michaels work as a heel team was intriguing as hell, and they pull it off without selling out their own characters. I didn't get then and don't quite get now why it was important to keep the belts on them, and I don't think the Harts costing them a title loss would have hurt them, but champs they remain.

Cornette, Honky Tonk Man, and the Headbangers try the old Jurassic Park velociraptor gambit, but it doesn't work. It remains astounding that people--Vince, Dunn, and whoever else in the general public--saw more in Sable than in Sunny.

"Mrs. Foley's little boy" is a phrase uttered for the first, but certainly not last time.

I don't think Bret had jumped Shawn backstage just yet--the reason for the KOTR change was Bret was legitimately still not ready, at least according to the Observer (I'm not reading ahead). Shawn is at his most tolerable here because most of his aggressions are towards Austin and he's out to get the storylines over without any shooty stuff to worry about. Austin and HBK decide not to throw down backstage as they have a tag title match later with LOD, but Bret and Pillman propose that they face each other at King of the Ring. Austin agrees, then promises to take care of Pillman's crippled, raspy, hoarse-voiced ass the next night on Raw.

Good match that I'm not as high on as the others--the criticisms people had of Kanemoto in earlier bouts, which I hadn't really noticed, seemed to rear their heads here, as he seems to have trouble holding matches together as well as Liger and Otani can. He has some terrific moves but isn't as complete a worker as the best NJ juniors. This is still very good and feels really evenly matched--a lot of these upsets come off as flukes because the guy doing the job gets to control the offense for the bulk of the match. They don't work like that here--Kanemoto is on top for a healthy chunk of this and while Liger gets in some good near-falls, he spends most of this fighting from underneath.

The tear gas line is from the 5/5/90 episode of USWA-Texas, when Jeannie pepper sprays Chris Adams. No recollection about the religious fundamentalism line and am baffled as to its context--maybe something he said to Akbar. My favorite non-ironic Lowrance call is from the Gordy/Roberts vs. Von Erichs Badstreet Match of 1988, pleading for Kevin to be okay after Gordy has piledriven him and is sitting on the mat, cackling with glee. One of the indelible images from my wrestling childhood--I didn't watch much World Class as a kid but I did happen to see that on ESPN one afternoon.

Right, one of Tenryu's other beefs was being asked to team with Wajima, so that was part of the turn.

AND NOW THAT FAT SLOB IS CHOKING JEFF JARRETT.

I still think Marc Lowrance is in the next tier down from the all-time greats. He wasn't a guy you turned to if you wanted a breakdown of the pressure points of a figure four, but few people have been better at getting over heel atrocities. Lowrance *made* Embry-era World Class/USWA--Embry himself was the only guy more important in making that run as ridiculously fun as it was. I'd be curious as to what El-P thinks of him as he makes his way through WCCW.

"Same as it ever was" was precisely the problem, since the consensus at the time and as it appeared watching the Yearbook was that WCW Flair was stale as month-old bread and could have used a change of scenery (or a babyface turn), and there was some naive hope that the WWF would provide it. "This is how Vince always did things" doesn't really fly either, considering what a huge left turn in booking philosophy is coming for the WWF in just a couple months' time.

This was definitely Gilbert working entirely on his own.

No idea why the Dudleys came out, other than to set up a contrived series of run-ins. Rude is having too much fun being filthy--"Big Dick is choking Balls!" Sandman is a guy who seems to have totally lost direction since his feud with Raven was blown off. This ends with Stevie knocking out Terry Funk with the Stevie Kick and doing the Big Stevie Cool pose over him.

Richards regales us with the story of hitching a ride to Madison Square Garden the Philadelphia Civic Center and seeing Jimmy Snuka dive off a cage the Midnight Express win the tag titles from Arn & Tully and being inspired to be a wrestler. Sorry--just kind of funny to see this in proximity with the Mankind interview. The BWO--Da Blue Guy, Hollywood Nova, and Thomas "Inchworm" Rodman--follow up, and they're not happy about Stevie abandoning them. I like Stevie's promo and don't even mind the glasses, but they still seem to be half-assing this transformation. The Raven split was drawn out to ridiculousness and now even though he's seemingly no longer a member, Richards is still wearing BWO colors.

Dutch Mantell is feuding with GYPSY JOE now?? And talking about Raw? And aligned with ECW?! "Weird" barely begins to even describe this episode.

Fake Diesel and Fake Razor are now feuding--not exactly the MegaPowers exploding. McMEMPHIS!! Vince carefully explains to the USWA fanbase what an "ingrate" is, and explains how a "complete bum" who can't wrestle but can do impressions was made into something by the World Wrestling Federation, only to turn his back...for the USWA, of all things. Vince is much more animated here than in 1993. Razor and Diesel end up brawling.

Billy Joe still throws a wicked punch. And he's still sporting his ridiculous one-legged tights from 1989. He and future WCW cup-of-coffee-holder Luther Biggs do a number on Christopher with an electric guitar in the WMC parking lot.

Razor cuts a Spanish-tinged promo on Billy Joe Travis. Pretty bad and I don't know why we're bothering to continue with this gimmick charade, unless like with Jacobs they were just killing time until or if they could come up with something better.

Yeah, sadly Lawler and Lance are starting to feel and sound really out-of-touch here--Dreamer's name being dropped draws a noticeable pop from the studio crowd, too. This is an interesting addition to the Lawler-ECW feud with Lawler taking a different tone than what he was doing in the WWF, but I don't think this is going to do much for the USWA. Lawler also takes time to gloat about ECW's role model taking a shotgun to his head--stay classy, Jerry.

Hot closing stretch and a mega-pop for the title change from a crowd that was subdued to start. But I have a feeling that if this whole match were that good, they wouldn't slash it from 28:40 down to 5 minutes.