PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Typical Douglas promo in that there's a good kernel of an idea, done in an overly verbose way. This is better and tighter than many others, though. I like the idea of Shane thinking he's justified in shaking the halo because he finds it "hardcore," and using the ECW crowd's own language and desires against them. -
This is a well-done angle and you KNOW it's serious business when Savage is speaking low-key. That said, this is yet another "Savage walks off the set" ending when I really think this could have been improved if Savage had run to the ring and punked out Benoit. God knows the guy could have gone over *somebody* at some point between May and his title match, and it wouldn't have hurt for him to "send a message." Plus it would have been less over the top than Savage setting out to kill Hulk. The stuff with Hogan firing the 3 NInjas director and replacing him with the Giant is terrific, by the way. Who else noticed the shoot comment that Savage directed toward Bischoff? "We both know business is fragile"--Savage's contract was due to expire (and may well have expired, with Havoc being a final obligation) and was widely believed to have wanted out of the company while all this was going on.
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I like Sting's not-Crow look and his facials as the NWO are speaking (Hall points out that "nobody knows cheap imitations better than us"), but one big problem I always had with the Crow Sting is that he couldn't incorporate the gimmick into his promos. Granted, he didn't have to speak as much, but when he did, the same old Surfer Sting came out. Good move not having him talk for another year and a half.
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Yeah, I think they made a good-faith effort to get Perfect to get into the ring here, but they just couldn't make it worth his while to waive his insurance policy. So we get a lame bait-and-switch instead. That said, I think the idea of a Perfect-HHH alliance is a good one that could have gone places, and I remember the online community exploding with speculation that Perfect would be forming a junior Horsemen stable with Shawn Michaels. Not to be, obviously.
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I agree Dandy was better, but I thought Warrior (my first time seeing him, I think) more than pulled his weight. He showed great velocity when throwing himself at Dandy either with clotheslines or with moonsaults, and I loved his taking apart of Dandy's arm and wish there was more of it. He had a great finishing move at the end, too. They get the first two falls out of the way quickly, with a controversial ending to the second fall that may well have been a blown spot for all I know, but it worked either way. That leads to a long, epic third fall that basically rises and builds and recedes and then builds again, like a one-fall match. Dandy is still one of the better workers on the planet even if the exposure just isn't there. Overall I still think the Casas-Fiera match I watched the other day was better as far as non-Yearbook gems from '96, but this is definitely a treat and probably the #2 lucha MOTY. Edit: Whoops, this is on the Yearbook after all, listed as 11/2.
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Sometimes I wonder if it was actual greed on Vince's part and sometimes I wonder if he and everyone else involved were so in their bubbles that they really didn't see what they were doing as exploitative. Many of them probably couldn't tell the difference between this and the evil Germans and sneaky Japs that populated wrestling in the 1950's. (Of course you didn't see any Vietnamese heels in the '60s and '70s...)
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The whole instant replay debate has been mercifully excised from history--to my knowledge it's never seen a release anywhere, even on the Network. As far as I know the only other guys involved were the Bushwhackers. I'm about 90% sure that Roseanne & Tom Arnold were announced for this show at one point--doing what, I'm not sure.
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Bret supposedly refused to tear up WCW's contract offer on camera, and instead gives a respectful acknowledgment of his negotiations with them. At least somebody attempted to take the high road in this war. Vince does a great job of selling relief when Bret announces he's going to be with the WWF "forever" (HA!)--like he really didn't know what Bret was going to say beforehand. We even get a few traces of WHINY BRET here, as he points out that Shawn Michaels will never be as tough or as smart as him, drawing a verbal rebuke from Vince. Another great, real-sounding promo from Bret.
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Having never seen this before, I found this quite good and maybe the Undertaker's career performance to this point. He busts out all kinds of new shit, like the Lucha Undertaker dive off the turnbuckle, and busting out a small package on the burial plot which was pretty awesome. Mankind takes one absolutely sick backwards bump into the barricade but mostly tones down the masturbatory Foley bullshit. The constant going from the ring to the grave and back was a little contrived, but you do have to make story concessions to please the live audience sometimes. They do manage to work some credible "near falls" with the burying before Undertaker finally gets the win. Earl Hebner and Mike Chioda end up taking two of the biggest bumps of the night after the match. Executioner debuts with a great shovel shot and then UT gets buried, which even with a bunch of other heels helping out goes on way too long, though the closing image is an effective one. On a side note, seeing the old-school Coliseum Video column logo here was jarring, since I so closely associate it with the '80s.
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Eh, at least the JR stuff stopped around when Perfect came out. Nice subtle foreshadowing of what was to come, as Perfect "accidentally" helps give HHH the advantage by getting into it with Austin (they'd had a previous blow-up on Superstars). I don't get HHH passing up the Pedigree to chase after Perfect, though, considering the endgame of this angle. But anyway, this is a nice match that overcomes the weird heel-heel dynamic and a crowd that didn't quite know what to make of it, as Austin hadn't quite engineered his cult following yet.
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One of those matches that defies a star rating but that everyone should probably see once, just because it's so different. I loved Muta's misadventures trying to set up the table on end outside the ring, before deciding "fuck it" and just chucking it at Liger. This is a total sportz-entertainment match with New Japan-level work and layout, and somehow it all works even if sounds silly when described.
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I'm closer to Tim on this, though I think I liked this more than their first draw. I liked both matches, actually, and yet I'd rather go to the dentist than watch either one of them again. Kawada hitting the backdrop driver in the opening minute or two kept this from being too excessively telegraphed as it immediately put Kobashi on the defensive, where he works best. He does do a great job of taking apart Kawada's knee, and we all know Toshiaki knows how to sell that, too. This is more of a match to admire than to love, as they had a good idea for what they wanted to do and how to enhance each guy's strengths over the course of an hour--it just didn't quite come together.
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I dunno, I think I'm okay with Cactus being a martyr and saving the Vader loss for Starrcade. I do highly, highly disagree with the cheap-shit way they had Vader win, which helped nobody. Either make Vader look like a truly unstoppable killer, or do the HHH/Jericho "Vader beats the count by 1 second" finish, or have Cactus Jack repeatedly get up until he finally can't. Any of those options would have been better than a Taser to the leg.
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Not to complain about things no one can control, 5 years after the fact, but this is one of the bigger misses of the '96 Yearbook and one ECW segment that absolutely should have been on, at the expense of one of the more superfluous Pulp Fictions or something. Shane bumps around like a pinball before dropping Pit Bull with a swinging neckbreaker and a piledriver, as Francine implores him to "break his neck just like you did to Gary!" Francine as a trashy Jersey shore bitch is more fun than I remembered. Pit Bull gets his hands on her and makes her beg before dropping her with a powerslam...which may have had some impact if she hadn't eaten a fucking Superbomb the same day she turned on them. Douglas blinds Pit Bull with powder and he does one of the most comically bad sell jobs of blindness you'll ever see, before getting dropped with the single-arm DDT and strangled with the dog collar. The match itself is pretty much nothing, but of course that's not the story. With the referee having been taken out by the blinded #2, a haloed Gary Wolfe at ringside takes it upon himself to try to stop Douglas' assault. Douglas responds by grabbing him by the protective halo, shaking it, and throwing him to the mat. Everyone in the ECW Arena who had been sitting down suddenly vaults to their feet and there's a palpable hush and state of disbelief over the crowd, who can't even think of a clever chant in response. Tod Gordon, Paul E., the referees, the undercarders, and Joey Styles immediately hit the ring and somebody even hops the barricade, prompting a response from the security guard we've all seen. Douglas is escorted out of the arena, possibly for his own legitimate safety. In a clever touch, the Eliminators and Taz are seen backstage and they actually approve of Douglas' actions--a nice little add-on to keep this from being too excessively shooty-shoot. Joel Gertner has the audacity to bother announcing that Douglas is still the champion, earning him a punch from Tod Gordon and another fun chaotic scene. After that breaks up, Gertner tries the announcement AGAIN, and this time it's Paul E. who tackles him. We go off air with the shot of an ambulance heading away from the Arena. One of the best ECW segments since Fonzie at his peak, or the Sandman blindness angle. Like the Sandman angle this played upon real emotions and the belief that what this crowd was seeing was real--the Wolfe injury was 100% shoot and the crowd all knew it. The only thing they didn't know was what he was still wearing the halo even though he only needed it for 6 weeks. It sort of pales in comparison to the work Hollywood Hogan is doing, but Douglas at long last is developing into the type of killer heel befitting his reputation among hardcores, instead of an annoyance only good for overlong promos.
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Yeah, the Liz stuff makes more sense now, but I don't think Bischoff or Schiavone were ever able to spell out what was happening for the viewers--probably because of that trademark lack of quality control. For once, we needed Vince around to drive the storyline into our heads. The Nasty Boys make the mistake of wearing NWO colors before their contracts are finalized, which leads to them getting punked out and pretty much ended as a relevant force in wrestling. Hogan is SUCH a despicable creep here, playing on his past with Savage and basically promising to bone Liz.
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As usual, Liz is about ten million times better in a pre-taped format than a live setting. Good angle but they were really starting to play with fire with live audiences at this point, sometimes neglecting them entirely in favor of the TV audience, particularly since they didn't have a video wall yet. I guess it didn't matter at the time.
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"WHAT A WAY TO CELEBRATE COLUMBUS DAY!" was almost as laughable as the "biggest match in Raw history" blather. This is a mess--Austin and Shawn are working hard, but more attention is paid to the Vader/Cornette interview (with a great talker in Vader once again not saying anything), the Sid interview, Kelly and Ross talking about the Cardinals/Braves NLCS in a "this isn't four weeks in the can, really!" moment, the quick Vader run-in, Razor and Diesel (???) watching from the aisle...absolutely nothing is given time to breathe here, and Austin and Vader look pretty weak and ineffective in the post-match.
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