PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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I REALLY liked this--it takes the March MSG tag and improves on it. Pretty much balls-to-the-wall action throughout starting with Shawn's terrific plancha, with Shawn and Mankind in particular working with great velocity and Goldust and Undertaker bringing their working boots, too. I love Goldust's drop-down-and-uppercut-the-opponent move, a great little transition spot. He's finally coming into his own as a heel worker. Double-FIP structure--yes, the Undertaker actually works a heat segment in a tag match. Not too long, which is the right move, though it's pretty well-done considering that's so not his ideal role. Michaels works some pretty nicely complicated sequences with both guys--at one point he's in the tree of woe and flips out of an attempted Mankind diving strike to the top turnbuckle, dives off and gets caught in the Mandible Claw, then gets out of it by running Mankind into Goldust on the apron. Also a VERY cute finish where Shawn uses Goldust's own tricks against him. This was a treat. -
Interestingly, this opens the same way that Dustin-Vader Clash match did, with Dustin in the Vader role spitting on Shawn in the corner and then eating a spear and a flurry of punches. Shawn in particular works pretty balls-out here, taking some trademark bumps, while Goldust gets to show some uncharacteristic aggressiveness. This is short on shtick and stalling on long on Dustin beating the fuck out of Shawn, with some punches that look awesome even from the stands, and also focusing on HBK's back. There aren't a ton of super high-end ladder spots, but they do use it effectively and in some creative ways, particularly Goldust dropping Shawn with a bulldog across it, and the finish where Shawn uses the ladder as a springboard to flip out of the Curtain Call and hit the superkick. The cameraman has to stop the tape a bunch of times down the stretch to preserve the battery so we miss a transition or two, but I agree with Gregor that with a little more time this easily could have fit onto a PPV of the time period. Good effort and maybe the first truly good Goldust match in the WWF.
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Austin's already starting to set himself apart: Owen Hart, doing commentary, had just interfered in a Mero/Bulldog match prior. Austin warns him that if he does it again, he'll whip his ass after he's done with Bret! Interesting times for Bret, as Ross and Owen hammer that this could be his last WWF match, and I think the uncertainty was still there. Austin's familiar in-ring mannerisms are coming into shape, as we get the Thesz press-and-punches and a few other Stone Cold touches, but he still works like an old-school heel, constantly bailing out, offering fake handshakes, walking out and jawing with fans, etc. The whole match is very '70s-style and deliberate, as they stick to the mat for the first portion before moving to a quicker pace. Nothing blowaway, but a VERY well-structured and well-built match with a nice finish. Very interesting proto-look at this feud and anyone who watched this at the time had to be excited at the prospect of a long PPV match between these two.
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Not a good match, with Vader being treated as just another guy, even with the relatively clean victory. Cornette and Lothario aren't even used well in a non-wrestler sense. All the talk of Michaels' killer schedule brings to mind the talk of the "intense pressure" the Ultimate Warrior was facing from Slaughter and Randy Savage in early 1991.
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Man oh man, as unpleasant as Ross is, '90s Monsoon is even moreso, so it did my heart good to see Ross completely light into Gorilla, who finally had to deal with someone who could give it right back to him. Shades of JR having to deal with Jesse in 1992. Oh, yeah, and this is stupid, of course. I guess it was effective in a court of law, and in the long run it would pay off, but that doesn't make for entertaining television.
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Jarrett smashing Ahmed with the gold record was cool, at least. Ooh, SECRET REHEARSAL TAPES. Fascinating. Yes, this is a monumentally dumb and incredibly petty angle. This reveal MAY have worked when Jarrett & Roadie were active parts of the roster, just because they were an effective heel tandem getting split up and not because it's a brilliant plot twist.
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Jake looks terrible, but his timing and ability to control a crowd--and draw the "D-D-T" chant--are still top-notch. They work some good near-falls out of this, and Austin even gets the honor of getting out of a pin attempt after the DDT (with a foot on the rope, not a kickout, but it's something). Lawler spits a swig of Jack Daniels at Jake and that leaves him open for the Stunner. Pretty effective little match that got over 4 or 5 different storylines and future matches.
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I liked this a LOT, and I sort of groaned when I saw this was a 2/3 fall match. But this flew by. I actually didn't find this to be much of a spotfest at all--I mean, it's joshi, so it's always going to drift toward that end of the spectrum. But not having seen a ton of this "youngster vs. established pair" AJW formula before, I got way into the underdog story and the Crockett-esque shine sequences given to Kaoru & Yoshida, with them seemingly staying one step ahead of the champs due to effective double-teaming and some uncharacteristic breakdowns by their opponents. That double handspring elbow was gorgeous (both variations of them) and is a spot that the Lucha Dragons or someone need to steal. Kaoru's looked good in GAEA and she looks really good here, and Toyota turns in a relatively restrained performance on her end. I'm still not really seeing what Shimoda does to stand out that much, but she at least pulls her weight. In the end, this was still a match that was mostly about the challengers.
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The stuff between Jun and Kawada were the best and most heated portions of the match, but the rest of this was pretty blah. I don't know what happened to the Asako who looked so good against the Can-Ams a few years ago, but here he's a startling depiction of the arrested development that AJPW's non-Jun '90s talent seemed to be stuck in--both AJPW and AJW are about to have a real problem. Ogawa's a bit better but no one's buying him as a threat to anyone of importance, and Misawa was giving a House Show Bret performance, as opposed to his other greater examples of letting his partners have the spotlight. Disappointing bout that's one of the least of the AJPW 6-mans to make a '90s Yearbook.
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Excellent match as everyone has said--this is about as good of an intro to RINGS and to Han as you'll find to this point. It's got all of his cool submission work, it's got a great opponent, it's got Han throwing some strikes like a motherfucker, and it's not too long. Han's kimura suplex thing was NASTY and I don't know how Tamura didn't break his arm or tap out instantly after that, and the match kept going from there.
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Years ago I started to make my way through all the AJPW TV, starting in '91. (I got to the first part of '93 when Benoit happened and my wrestling-watching was pretty much dead until I broke down and got started on the Yearbooks.) I was quickly getting more excited to see an interesting-looking mid-card bout with less familiar names than another 6-man, as great as those 6-mans were. Plus the Puroresu NEWWWWS segments which featured other clips never seen before. I'm sure Kobashi & Kikuchi vs. Rusher Kimura & Mighty Inoue wasn't really that good, but it was *different.* So was really random shit like the State Patrol showing up for a tour, or King Curtis Iaukea's kid throwing a net on people. So I agree with dawho entirely, and for the rest of the hour-long format era, there are quite a few fun hidden gems involving the Can-Ams, Kobashi & Ace, and Joel Deaton & Billy Black.
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Yeah, the giggly golf announcers from the '94-'95 Carnival tapes have infected FMW, and they ruin a lot of the atmosphere here. Crazy balls-to-the-wall match with a lot of inventive spots, all executed very well. Tanaka and Awesome have good chemistry together already. Afterward we get the formation of Funk's Master Wrestlers , which is a neat little post-match angle though it feels like a pale NWO ripoff.
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This is a poor comparison. The correct comparison would be a movie that went along traditional lines 98 percent of the way and did so in sensational fashion, then ended in a way that had nothing to do with the 98 percent. Monty Python and the Holy Grail, then.
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I remember watching this live as a fledgling smart fan (we'd just gotten the old Prodigy service in our house with a Wrestling section in the Sports BB). I gave 2 Cold no chance going in, knowing the endgame was Windham vs. Flair, but during his last flurry I seriously thought they were going to swerve us and change the title.
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Savage goes nuts on Greg Valentine with a chair and gets disqualified--did Savage win one match between January and his joining the NWO 14 months later? The NWO pulverize him again afterward, with Nash whipping him with a Slim Jim and Hogan doing something about Savage's bald spot. Bischoff in reaction to that: "What does HE see when he looks in a mirror??!" Afterward they head to the broadcast booth and have some fun antagonizing Bischoff. "Vincent" debuts as NWO Head of Security--he's good forcing Bischoff to stay seated, but yeah, this is starting to look bloated. The NWO t-shirt is now for sale. The level of detail WCW put into this was amazing: the mailing address isn't Atlanta, it's a PO Box in Warwick, Rhode Island. NWO souvenirs at live events were sold at their own booth, with handwritten price signs and no fancy displays, like bootleggers had set up shop in the arena. Operators at the 800-number would answer "New World Order" and thank buyers for supporting the group at the end of the call. Great stuff that the WWF never really could have done, and certainly didn't do when it had the NWO. The NWO spent the rest of the hour destroying random people, with Giant continuing to show off his comedic chops as the ring announcer. The Outsiders destroy High Voltage in a "tournament" match to earn a shot at Harlem Heat's tag titles. There are glimpses of the NWO getting out of control, but this was an effective way to cover for a half-missing roster for an hour.
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Yeah, this is supposed to be a shine for Jericho but what you come away thinking is, "Man, Mike Enos is charismatically challenged but is otherwise pretty fucking awesome." He unleashes a veritable shitload of cool offense, and keeps this pretty psychologically sound with some great focused work on Jericho's back. Jericho's win is rather sudden, but he did counter a move that Enos successfully pulled off earlier, so some points for that. Inconsequential though it may be, this is one of the better non-Yearbook TV bouts of the year.
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JR's promo is tremendous, but as would happen in 1999 it only serves to babyface him further because--hell, what's he wrong about? Then Rick Bogner comes out doing a truly terrible Razor Ramon act, and from here they never really seem to want to pull the trigger of aligning Ross as a manager for the two impostors. So we have a dumb idea that's also badly executed.
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I've heard conflicting stories about Mero. Some sources listed his real name as "Marc Merowitz," but he was using the Mero name in his Golden Glove boxing days. In any event, he was a legitimate evangelical Christian at this point--part of his reasons for wanting out of WCW were because he wasn't comfortable with the Little Richard stuff and didn't want to be associated with a woman who wasn't his wife. Yeah, seems a bit over-the-top for me, too. Anyway, we get the closing act and it's pretty good here. IIRC Mero winning this was a somewhat late audible as there were plans for Ahmed to come back and go after Faarooq for the title he never lost. But this was the right decision. I didn't pick up on it at the time but JR's petulant little "what about me?" as Mero is thanking everybody is a nice bit of foreshadowing for what's to come later tonight.
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