PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Good match with some neat twists down a long finishing stretch, as each guy has a counter to each other's familiar spots. Shawn sells a lot for a top guy wrestling an underneath tag guy but they make it make sense, with the fact that Jannetty knows Shawn as well as anyone.
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Sunny's demeanor change once she gets Phineas to close his eyes is awesome. She dresses down PIG publicly as the Smoking Gunns yuk it up in the background, before the beatdown is on. Henry and Hillbilly Jim make the save and Phineas gets his revenge. Man did I hate the Godwinns at the time and this is a very '80s presentation, but there's no question this is a well-executed angle right out of the Cornette playbook.
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I really liked the hard-hitting matwork of the first fall, with Wagner working like a 1970's babyface constantly going back to the headlock. It was shaping up to be a sleeper match of the year or at least a lucha match of the year, but Loss' point about dragging is well-taken. Particularly in the second fall, and in the third fall there are a ton of near-falls but it almost reaches the point of being overdone. Still, there was more good than bad here--Garza looked terrific and like a guy on the way to being a big star in Mexico and what probably should have been at least a decent-sized star in the U.S. I think he would have brought more to the table in-ring than a guy like Chavo Guerrero, Jr.
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Yeah, Casas is the clear MVP of this match, though everyone looks good. He and Dandy have an absolutely fantastic Memphis-style showdown of punch exchanges, and Casas is just an unbelievable dick all throughout. He even takes time to seek out a camera to whine into about getting fouled. Dandy is awesome too and the clear technico MVP, having that suicidal dive and throwing some awesome kicks--as versatile as Dandy is, and he may be the most versatile wrestler who ever lived, I still never really thought of him as a great striker until now. A terrific bout overall.
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If I skipped this it wasn't by design--the only matches I've done that with are the '92 Rumble (have it practically memorized), Hansen-Vader (can't watch the eye thing), the Toyota-Inoue draw, and the last part of the last Mr. Pogo 6-man. That said, I don't have any recollection of this match either way, though it's more likely I wrote up a post and it got lost in the figurative ether.
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I'm with this. He isn't actively ruining threads, it's the people constantly jumping on him who are. And maybe we should let the mods do the moderating.
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Another sort of weird thing is that even in the early '70s, some guys like Abe Ginsberg are busting out power bombs--but they're treated more as takedowns or roll-ups than deadly moves, a la the old "Greco-Roman front body drop" as Lou Thesz called it.
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Defamation requires publication, and Colt is the publisher. Without commenting on the merits of this case in particular, that's what WWE is going for. It's the same reason the National Enquirer was liable when Carol Burnett successfully sued them for libel, even though they had a separate source.
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I liked the '94 match better too, but this is the closest Nagai comes to winning one of these. He still seems overmatched, but he gets Han's attention first with an anklelock counter and then a big kick to the head that puts Han down for a 9.5 count. Han looks like the superior athlete but still has to use guts and guile to pull out a sleeper for the win. Sort of a tighter, lesser version of the UWFI/NJPW vets tag that took place a few days prior.
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Another fun Crockett-goes-to-Japan match in a series. This starts off with everyone throwing chairs at each other and descends into a total U.S. formula match. Liger is utilized perfectly in this unique setting, keeping the heels off-balance with his flashy offense before working a textbook FIP segment with Team Chono cheating their asses off while abusing him. Hashimoto gets the hot tag and that's worked right out of the South as well--eventually he gets isolated with Hiro Saito and you can guess how that ends up. Not essential but I could watch NJPW matches like this all day.
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Terrific match that shows that Fujiwara has still got it. As sour as I've been on this feud, I really do like how the NJPW guys manage to incorporate wrasslin'-style offense into this setting, at least generally. And I love how over the dragon screw is after Muto used it so effectively in the first Takada match.
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Fun scene, if a little over-the-top as Harlem Heat snag the WCW tag titles with half a dozen armed cops in the ring. Schiavone and Heenan sell this great. Schiavone invokes the history of the Independence Arena and cuts a PROMO on the Outsiders. Nitro has improved by an order of magnitude with Tony taking over for Bischoff.
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Pretty fun little TV match--Eddie's huracanrana was sloppy but it actually made sense in context, with Eddie having to resort to basically muscling the Barbarian over. Those who are anti-Zbyszko will have a lot of ammo in this one, by the way. He provides his awesome "Darwinian man..." quote but also shits over Guerrero to an excessive degree, even for a heel announcer and even after the win.
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The bait-and-switch with the referees was bullshit, as people were wishing/hoping for either a Shawn-Perfect program or even an alliance, and it ended up leading to nothing. Owen's rant about this development is absolutely spectacular--for a second, it's like Ventura and Hogan are back at it in 1989, as he complains about how the WWF officials are in Shawn's back pocket. JR even brings up Perfect's shenanigans at WrestleMania 10--perfectly logical, but those little historical nuggets being dropped in the WWF always surprise me a little. Bulldog definitely brings this down a notch--as logical as it was (and well-called as it was by JR) the head-and-chinlockery got a little old, and there are some missed spots. But he also goes along with some pretty great spots--the head scissors to the floor, the cool powerslam and Sweet Chin Music tease, murdering Shawn with a Liger bomb when Shawn went for a second huracanrana, and a great flipping bump into the turnbuckle. The ending is really wonky and possibly mistimed on somebody's part, with a very pointless Earl Hebner bump. Take those flaws out and this would get remembered as a classic, instead of just a really good match. These two were extra-motivated after the Beware of Dog disaster and they don't quite get there, but it's an admirable effort all the same. And a great post-match follows, with all the International Incident principals involved. Good crowd heat for this with Warrior drawing chants well before his appearance.
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Yeah, not much of a match, but it told what needed to be told and went exactly as long as it should have. Then of course Austin cuts the promo of his life afterward. They're not there yet, but the WWF is finally starting to click with characters that feel and act like believable, if exaggerated, people with real issues at stake.
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I didn't know they were still doing "Coliseum Video exclusives" at this point, as Ahmed receives a champagne shower. The BUSHWHACKERS are there. It's absolutely mind-blowing that the Bushwhackers and Loose Cannon Brian Pillman were not only on the same roster, they even participated in an angle where Pillman hit one of them with his crutch. Talk about a collision of eras. Pillman is out and back to his old self. They're trying to reshape him from a Loose Cannon to a Ticking Time Bomb . He has a few choice words about Milwaukee and Wisconsin. Pillman makes a lot of promises about when he finally competes that of course don't really come true. He and Austin have a mini-staredown in the aisle in a cool subtle moment.
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When was that interview? Are we sure that's what Ahmed actually said? With Ahmed you don't know if he's talking about the finish or giving a thesis on the deeper meanings of Finnegan's Wake or something. Owen isn't impressed by Ahmed's victory, as he trenchantly points out that he was beaten and only revived by Goldust's mouth-to-mouth.
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This was one of the first instances of the WWF allowing chairs and big garbage-style bumps in the opening match of a feud rather than a blow-off. It doesn't make for a great match, but it makes for a unique one at the time. Mankind shocks the world with a somewhat clean victory. Owen Hart immediately calls shenanigans--I don't know if they had the Bearer turn 100% planned yet but they were certainly testing the waters for it.
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I'm not normally Dave Meltzer or Frank Jewett, but let's just go back and count... - Double Indian deathlock by Azteca (holds count as offense). - Wakigatame armbar takedown by Satanico - Clothesline by Cruz - Weird double wristlock/double leglock pinning combo by Charles, where he and Cruz work near-falls and counterholds out of it - Knuckle lock takedown into more counterholds and pin attempts - Monkey flip by Cruz, with Charles taking a big bump for it - Dandy trying to throw a clothesline, a back elbow, and a spin kick that all miss in quick succession before Atlantis levels him with a clothesline - Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker by Atlantis - Dropkick by Azteca, in a well-timed spot to show that the technicos were smarter than the rudos as Satanico had turned his back to jaw at the crowd. (- There sure are a ton of takedowns, but they throw in a whole lot of variations to them, and they're punctuated with character work, especially when Charles is in.) - A monkey flip and tilt-a-whirl backbreaker by Cruz, with Charles doing more over-the-top stooging bumps. - Dandy gets thrown over Atlantis' head and turns it into a dropkick on Azteca in mid-air, at the conclusion of a bunch of complex heel miscommunication spots. - Electric chair slam by Charles as part of the rudo first fall--they were mostly outclassed, but Dandy hitting that dropkick turned out to be a lucky break for them. - Satanico opens up the second fall with a phony handshake and knee to the lower abdomen, which is sold as though it might be a low blow. Basic lucha heel psychology. - Dandy does a sensational athletic counter of Cruz's monkey flip, then eats a knee and takes a great bump that makes it look like a Hansen lariat. Guys are starting to counter moves that worked earlier in the match. - Then they start varying the armdrags, with Azteca cleverly bouncing off the ropes in mid-air to reverse the move, a major turning point in the fall. - Leaping headbutt and victory roll by Azteca, a leaping reverse dive off the top by Atlantis, and a power bomb by Cruz--three pretty high-end convincing finishers for the technicos. - Clothesline by Satanico, tilt-a-whirl backbreaker by Cruz - Awesome-looking punches by Charles, and a payback one by Atlantis, before Charles cuts him off with a clothsline. - Atlantis fakes Charles out with a flying head scissor attempt, but uses a bulldog-faceslam type move instead. - Dropkick by Azteca, headbutt by Dandy before missing an Eddy Guerrero-style slingshot somersault senton. - Charles takes a huge back body drop bump over the top rope to the floor--Randy Savage would be proud. - Azteca winds up for a dive but gets leveled by a Dandy clothesline, in a clever tease and cut-off spot. - Dandy with a great dive of his own, followed by a bullet tope by Azteca, and then a clever finish playing off the previous rudo cut-off spot, as Atlantis cuts off the dive train and catches Satanico in his trademark backbreaker to win the fall. That's a hell of a lot more offense than your average Shawn Michaels match. The character work is mostly done by the heels, while the technicos are generally generic white-meat babyfaces, but when the rudos are this strong character-wise that works. Uncle Elmer can probably do a million arm drags in a match, but let's see him or anybody else match these guys for speed and quickness in doing them *and* while not blowing any spots and keeping some psychology to it, both in terms of learned counters and in taking the audience for a ride with ups and downs throughout a match.
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