PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Yeah, that didn't seem like the planned finish, but it did add an air of realism to a style that still can't help but resemble wrasslin' in terms of building up to a dramatic ending. I also loved the spot where Kohsaka countered a kimura by wrapping his leg around Han's and basically suplexing himself just to get into a better position on the mat. This is a good match that I can't really call great in good conscience, though I do think Loss would like it more if he viewed it again today. -
Flair's challenging for the IWGP title for what may be the only time--the second of two "this actually happened" matches on the same July 17 card. And like the first match, there isn't much to this besides the novelty of seeing these two together. Flair busts out every cheap-heel move he can in this setting, and Hash does do a great over-the-top sell of an eye poke (as does the announcer: "THUMB! THUMB! HASHIMOTO BULAINDO!"). Lots of Hash doing the Sting no-sell of Flair chops, too. Both guys try hard but the ending is too sudden and Flair is simply too past it to consistently make it in a Japan setting now.
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Savage comes in limping, having done a clean submission job to Ric Flair the previous night in the same arena. Unfortunately for such a weird novelty of a match-up, this is every 1996 Savage match you've ever seen--Randy gets the crap kicked out of him, hits three offensive moves the whole match, and wins with the elbow. To his credit, Savage takes the Liger Bomb, fisherman buster, and Shotei like a pro. But the match is fairly empty, with Liger logically targeting Savage's bad wheel but completely going away from it in the second half of the match. Not a waste of time because of the "yeah, this actually happened" factor but not really much of a match.
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This is Tamura's second match in RINGS, but Peeters, a Dutch kickboxer, is the guy who steals the show. He's just a tornado of actiivity during stand-up, constantly throwing spin kicks and spinning backfists at Tamura from a distance, while also catching him with some awesome-looking belly-to-belly suplexes. But every time they go to the mat Tamura seems to get the advantage, which is eventually what nets him the victory. On top of his great offense, Peeters does some terrific selling, somehow putting over Tamura's holds while still coming off as arrogant and full of himself. He's eclipsed Dick Vrij for the best character work in RINGS.
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Not-bad action between Lex and Bubba, but that's not the story here. Hogan delivers another classic interview that's great for all the reasons already mentioned--shooting without breaking kayfabe, turning every negative about Babyface Hogan into a positive, and using the past negative reactions to him as justification for it all. Hulk ties this back into business, challenging the Giant for the WCW title at Hog Wild. Incidentally Bischoff attempts to cover for the lack of babyface saves, pointing out how far away the locker rooms are in the MGM set-up. One thing Dave pointed out in the mid-'96 WONs is how the Outsiders always came off as babyfaces, standing up to huge throngs of the WCW locker room.
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Well, by gum, I mostly really liked this. Not as much as the Double Dog Collar Match, but I would probably put it ahead of Scorpio/Douglas. It certainly isn't perfect--it is overlong, and overbooked, and Jericho is a weak spot with a few really horribly blown or mistimed spots. But I liked Douglas as a ratfuck heel tagging out at the first sign of trouble and manipulating everybody else, I liked his offense which was a surprise as I usually find him stiff and with way too much daylight, and I liked Scorpio. Having Francine turn heel AND immediately blowing the payoff by having her eat a Superbomb was absurd and probably a sign that Paul E.'s booking was starting to lose its fastball. And yeah, the belly-to-belly is a pretty middling finisher considering what else the promotion offers up, but at least they sold it as sort of a flash pin/roll-up type pin with Douglas cradling Pitbull up tightly. There are other marathon matches on these Yearbooks that I've liked a whole lot less than this. This is probably a top-5-worthy ECW match and one I'm glad I finally saw.
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Raven and Richards discuss the upcoming double match at ECW Arena--Raven against Dreamer in a cage at the same time Richards faces Sandman at the Eagle's Nest, but Richards is wrestling for Raven's ECW title in a clever booking method so as not to make that match a foregone conclusion. Stevie faces eternal damnation if he loses Raven's belt. Bluedust and Miss Patricia do stuff. Terry Gordy and Tommy Dreamer do the same. Raven would like to feel the pain of dying twice, like Terry Gordy. Dreamer threatens to oblige him. 2 Cold wants his TV title back. Pitbull is apologetic for clobbering Francine. Shane Douglas shows off his stitches and hypes the upcoming four corners match. There's a rhythm to these Pulp Fiction segments, and Douglas being Douglas, this promo lasts three times as long as it needs to. "IT'S A SHOOT NOW." Oh, fuck off, Shane. Chris Jericho cuts a white-meat babyface promo about the TV title--you do have to like how they're putting over its importance here. Stevie Richards excitedly tells Tod Gordon about a new wrestler he's bringing into ECW: Sir Meanie of the BlueMeanieBloods. The Samoan Gangsta Party mumble something about the Gangstas. Meanie's dress-up games continue as now he's in an Army outfit as Richards ineffectively holds his doll hostage, before Gordon puts an end to the fun. The Gangstas rebut the Samoans. Richards presents Gordon with Bluedust. Richards closes things out by getting serious, though Stevie being Stevie he quotes the Goo Goo Dolls instead of a band ECW fans might respect. Tyler now has a real father while Peaches tells us she's been waiting 2 years to get back at Sandman before closing the show with a Raven crucifix pose. A stronger Pulp Fiction segment than we've seen in awhile, as this got a number of programs over and gave us some comedy, too.
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Great chaotic scene as the Outsiders emerge from a limo and try to confront Sting and Arn, who put their match on hold to stand guard. But Arn is still Arn and attempts to cheap-shot Sting during the confrontation, but Sting's ready for that. Sting cuts the promo of his life afterward, drawing on things Hulk said in the early days of Nitro as well as throwing a few quasi-shoot references to Hogan's movie and travel accommodations. Savage's promo isn't nearly as good--it's amusing in its own right but the tone is completely off as compared to Sting and the general downcast mood of Nitro the entire night.
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Really good sprint but I don't agree that "everything" hit cleanly, as there were at least 3 really awkward spots--though to their credit, they did cover for all of them well. With them sprinting for TV purposes, Dean doesn't get as much of a chance to ground Misterio, and also gives Rey an opening from the start to flash some of his stuff before taking over. Not really as good as GAB, but again--booking and card placement and all that matter, and this was an improvement in that regard. The Cruiserweight division has finally arrived.
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Post-produced angle since they obviously couldn't get a live crowd for this. Shawn and Ahmed unveil Sycho Sid as their replacement. Not a downgrade by any means, but yeah, the taping of Raw for weeks at a time was never more glaringly flawed in this new business environment than it was here.
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They had taped a Warrior run-in or angle for the 7/15 Raw to follow up on this, but obviously it never aired. Warrior gives Owen a lot here, but when he makes his comeback he looks clumsy and tepid even by his low standards. Somehow he's deteriorated further from 1992. Surprisingly low on heat, too. Cornette, Vader and Bulldog beat the crap out of him to end this with a very good heel beatdown. I can't totally fault WWF for giving it another go-round with the Warrior--the Monday Night War had brought back a lot of lapsed fans and it wasn't inconceivable that they could have gotten the Jake Roberts lightning to strike twice but on a bigger scale. But the odds were probably against this working out from the start.
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Very nationalistic crowd to start with, with a big "ME-XI-CO" chant, but Casas eventually seems to turn the crowd against him as this goes on. I hesitate to keep beating the phrase "meat and potatoes" to death and use it for any match in 1996 where a limb gets worked for 3 consecutive seconds, but that's the phrase that comes to mind here. Until the finishes, the first 2 falls are entirely mat-based and the third is about half matwork and a quarter apiece flying and shtick. There's not much overly advanced here but Casas continues to be a master worker--every time he gets near Tiger Mask in Sasuke's corner he pratfalls, framing TM for tripping or hitting him, and then takes the opportunity to low blow Sasuke or commit some other rudo act. That nets him the second fall and gains him an advantage in the third. Sasuke does his big spots well and holds his own in working holds, but he is showing a pretty consistent tendency to completely blow off the limb work so he can get his flying spots in, and it's as bad as ever here. This is still a very good match overall, sort of a lesser man's Malenko vs. Rey in terms of high-end technical stuff, but more smartly booked.
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Very southern tag layout here, just with more advanced moves. Sasuke & Delfin make for terrific underneath babyfaces to go along with the flashy offense, and Kaientai of course make for great evil opponents. I suspect the Shield and their opponents may have studied these matches as there are a lot of similar spots. Sasuke takes a crazy kneebreaker off a stage through a table that effectively removes him from the match, but Delfin is able to keep you guessing almost until the end whether or not he can pull off a 1-on-3 miracle. Another super-fun match from MPro combining high-end '90s offense with terrific character work.
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There's not much I can say about this--and I tired of the "Who's side is he on?" debate a long time ago. Everything about that line has been said and no one's mind is changing. The match is better than I remembered, but how can you even remember the match itself for anything other than the ending? Heat is through the roof throughout, and climaxes with Hogan's fateful legdrop. Hogan follows up with one of the promos of his career, as he takes every bit of trademark Hogan self-aggrandizement, and frustration over the past 2 years of hostile crowds, and purposely turns it up to 11. For the first time in 6 years, Hulk is interesting again.
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This was really good and dare I say it, did more to get Malenko over than the Rey match the previous month. It's not as overall good as that match, but this made for a really fun story based around the huge contrast in personalities, with Dean being outright insulted at having to share the ring with this goof and showing his aggression as a result. Disco does some great bumping and selling while Dean is beating the shit out of him and times his hope spots well. Maybe the high watermark for Disco's in-ring career.
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They really should have swapped cruiserweight matches between the two Bashes--run Rey vs. Psicosis at GAB and Rey vs. Dean here. This is an outstanding intro for both Rey and Psicosis--they've had better matches against each other but this has plenty of spots that get both men over huge and plenty of *new* spots at that, with about 3 or 4 new huracanrana variations by Rey not seen before.
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Another "perspectives" thing--some of the stuff Loss jumps on is stuff that I'm sure he'd be used to watching from the start of the decade. Hell, Bull Nakano did a far more egregious no-sell of those kendo stick shots in 1990 which was a spot that a lot of other people loved but I hated--and that criticism comes up here, for a spot that didn't really bother me in this case. There are other issues with joshi far more prevalent than things like that. Anyway, I thought this was awesome, a real throwback to the JWP stuff of 1990-91 that I loved. Kansai is utterly dominant, but they at least carry that psychology throughout the match with Suzuki being a weak link and Fukuoka/Kaoru only getting in occasional hope spots when Kansai is in. But effective hope spots they are--Fukuoka's somersault dropkick was awesome and Kaoru gets a good near-fall by countering the Splash Mountain. Cutie still works lighter than a typical WWE Diva but she's sort of inherited Hasegawa's role as joshi's premiere person-in-peril. Kaoru & Fukuoka kept me in suspense as to what the final result would be throughout even though they looked overmatched for most of this, which is pretty much the quintessential definition of a good wrestling match. I'm with Zenjo--this was a joy.