PeteF3
Members
-
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by PeteF3
-
I think, the 3rd time around, these two finally hit it out of the park. Oh, the first match was excellent and the second almost as good, but I think this is the best and most complete of the three. Once Bret counters the first Jackknife, this hits another gear with some creative spots and surprising intensity for the WWF environment of the time. Weapons even get involved, and Bret takes two pretty insane bumps down the stretch, one from the missed plancha and one into the table--really one of the better table spots in history because there was no contrived set-up. It was just dropped on you out of nowhere. Diesel played the sympathetic hesitancy note absolutely letter-perfect here, in setting up the finish. And of course the post-match is great too, as Diesel lays waste to the entire refereeing corps and gives Bret two Jackknifes, a pretty holy-shit moment at the end of a match full of them. I don't think this is the WWF MOTY--the ladder match still holds that title--but this still a real feather in the cap for both guys. -
-
-
How often do you see a WWF match involving 8 guys where none of them suck? Not many, at least before the HHH Era. Hakushi notably gets a monster reaction for everything he does, which of course the WWF did absolutely nothing with. He really looks great here, though. This match has some of the most advanced offense the WWF had seen to this point, climaxing with Jannetty's big power bomb off the top rope. I also loved Skip doing the top-rope Frankensteiner, popping up in triumph, then doing the Greg Valentine pratfall on his face. Fun match with a great crowd, much like the hot pro-Marty crowd from Raw.
-
Yes, Cactus' adolescent-girl-at-her-first-One-Direction concert homemade shirt was spectacular. The match falls under the entertaining crap label for me, though it does go too long. Dreamer beats the shit out of Raven, but Funk steals the pinfall as Dreamer is tied up with Cactus, so still no official pinfall for Dreamer on Raven.
-
Austin's kind of whiny, even by his ECW standards, in the pre-match. I still loved him responding to the Hogan chants with a big boot and a legdrop, though. It's amazing how much Stone Cold there is in this incarnation, which goes to show what a hideous misfire the Ringmaster was. Good all-action sprint, with some tremendous fiery comebacks by Mikey after getting the bejesus beaten out of him.
-
I know ECW is way down on your radar level but you'd love Bill Alfonso, Parv.
-
Bill Alfonso vs. Tod Gordon, November 2 Remember '95 Beulah is supposed to guest ref, but when she yells at Alfonso for jumping Gordon on the floor, Bill levels her with a clothesline and takes her out of the match. This is clipped, but the action we see is so much better than it has any right to be that it's absurd. In some ways this is more impressive than Stevie vs. Luna, though maybe not as good as Cornette working against Mark Curtis. Fonzie is such a little shit that the heat is through the roof--the "WE WANT BLOOD" chant for once fits perfectly into the story of the match. Tod rams Alfonso into a chair outside and Fonzie fulfills our wish--"ALFONSO'S BUSTED OPEN! ALFONSO'S BUSTED OPEN! THE COMMISH DID IT!" There's even a well-built-to payback spot with Gordon uppercuting Alfonso in the nuts, just as Bill did to him earlier. He knocks Bill out with a frying pan, but with no referee, Taz (who guest refed earlier in the night) has to come out to make the count. One, two...and Taz clobbers Gordon and gives the victory to Bill. Taz gets on the mic and I have to deal with ECW's usual sound quality combined with the usual DailyMotion sound quality. That and every other word is getting bleeped. Taz calls out the ECW fans for their concern over Tommy Dreamer, Terry Funk, and Sabu for their various injuries in the past year. "WHAT ABOUT ME?" I think this refers to the neck problems Taz had been having at this time. Taz points out that his father isn't a "fat kike lawyer" (!!!--got bleeped, but I'm pretty sure that's what he said) so he doesn't have the luxury of being able to live comfortably if he can't work. The only guy who worked to put food on Taz's table and money in his pocket was Alfonso. Not one of the absolute best Alfonso segments of the year, but another very good one. Taz has done very little since Sabu departed and is about to begin the run of his career, so that's pretty exciting.
-
This was good and I understand what they were going for, but yeah, this is excessive in its amount of falls, even if Styles attempts to cover for it by speculating that Rey was playing possum to buy recovery time. Still, Rey doing the huracanrana off the eagle's nest was a pretty balls-out way to finish this and a moment that would be in the TV intro for a long while. Rey kicks Jason's ass after the match when Jason insists on managing him, and gets double-teamed by the Eliminators. 911 makes the save and demonstrates why he should never, ever attempt anything except chokeslamming people. I do like the idea of pairing Rey and 911 up, at least in theory.
-
Yeah, the Sabu-ECW negotiations seemed to be a soap opera in and of themselves, with it looking for awhile like Sabu was going to work for Dennis Coraluzzo. Sabu had basically been drummed out of both New Japan and WCW at this point, partially because he didn't want to wrestle as a junior heavyweight. In any event, Sabu is finally home, and the trained seals who were chanting "FUCK SABU" a few months ago couldn't be happier.
-
This is the first "demonstration" in the history of wrestling that doesn't feature the wrestler refusing to break the hold. Dean shows us the Texas cloverleaf and the segment ends. "I'm the Man of a Thousand Holds--and that was just one." At the current rate, this series would literally be ending right about this week.
-
Agreed on Dusty, and Schiavone has made little effort to familiarize himself with the new revolutionizing moves he's talking about here. Even the hype for the Dean Malenko video to come, designed specifically to teach us new names, is shit on by Dusty--"my vocabulary's full!" Tony is barely one step above "what a maneuver!" levels--there's a fine balance between that and going all Joey Styles on us, but Tony and Dusty are too far to the lower extreme. The match itself is terrific. They don't have to worry about losing viewers to Raw so they get a chance to slow things up a bit and work more holds, punctuating them with the occasional big move. I don't know if it was intentional, but I thought it was cool how both guys lost their footing and almost fell off the top turnbuckle right before the finish. Makes the double-KO just a little more plausible. Meltzer and fans were moaning about how WCW had no intention of these guys actually getting over (the first Eddy/Dean match on Nitro took a backseat to backstage cameras showing an arriving Hogan, something that sent the Internet fans into a frenzy) but in some ways, it's almost better for everyone that WCW just told them, "go out and do your stuff for ten minutes."
-
Yes. He had runs with Bruno in the late '60s and one with Pedro in '72.
-
-
Norton worked a one-off house show in '94 or early '95, doing a job for Bob Holly of all things. I don't know if it counts, but Garvin did a podium interview in late '92 as part of a TV taping tryout, with the possibility of him taking a job as a TV talking head or some other sort of non-wrestling personality. It's possible they looked at him for the slot taken by Jerry Lawler.
-
Well, eventually that's exactly what he did.
-
Even if we take evilclown's interpretation at face value, there's a difference between being a hypocrite and being a sociopath.
-
I thought Malenko was Jewish.
-
Johnny B. Badd has assaulted Orndorff from behind, resulting in his mirror breaking. Orndorff is distraught over the upcoming seven years of bad luck, but Brillo-head sorts him out through the power of a pre-taped vignette. Orndorff receives a new mirror and finds a penny on the floor. Once again...the HELL?? Late 1995 WCW is filled with more bizarre vignettes than I've ever seen in my life.
-
-
-
This storyline made no sense whatsoever--Bobby Heenan sells "half" of WCW Pro--a show he doesn't even host, not that that should enable him to sell it anyway--to Sonny Onoo as part of a calculated Japanese takeover of WCW. I think the hysteria over Japanese business interests taking over the U.S. economy was a few years out of date by this point, but whatever. Chris Cruise also breaks the news that Kensuke Sasaki has beaten Sting for the U.S. title. Onoo on commentary will have you SCREAMING for the dulcet subtlety of Steve McMichael. He even says, "So sorry!" at one point--there are 1940's cartoons with more dignified portrayals of the Japanese than this. Houston unleashes a bridging knucklelock suplex, an Asai moonsault, and a Northern Lights suplex on the floor before Liger murders him with a fisherman buster. Fun squash. Cruise: "This is perhaps the most difficult thing I've ever done in my life." Preach it, Crispy. Onoo: "Your SHORT life." The HELL??
-
-
-
Cactus cuts a scorched-earth promo on Tommy Dreamer and the ECW fans, in the ring this time. He would love to be at home watching Movies for Guys Who Like Movies on TBS, but he's got a higher purpose. And he'd love to slap the shit out of Dreamer, but that'd bring the ECW fans too much enjoyment. Instead, he promises to give them the most boring match they've ever dreamed of. Tommy Dreamer rebuts in a pre-tape interspersed with his ring intro. Dreamer tries to goad Cactus into fighting him, but Jack responds only with clean breaks and headlocks. Joey Styles is a lot better now than he was in '93 but I still really hate how he telegraphs things--every time Styles says something is about to happen, you can bet your bottom dollar that the precise opposite will instead. Eventually Cactus starts hammering him, and I think this is what Foley talked about in his first book, trying to bust Dreamer's eyebrow open and only succeeding in getting Dreamer to say to him, "Please stop hitting me." Eventually Cactus suffers a crippling injury to his hand, and since he's vowed never to put his body at risk again, he asks that the match be declared a no contest. "Thank you for coming, drive home safe, and let's support the Turner family tomorrow night!" Jim Molineaux won't declare a no-contest, so Cactus settles for taking a countout. Terry Funk tries to goad him back--"YOUR OLD LADY'S A WHORE! DEWEY'S A WHORE!" It works, and Cactus gets creamed by Dreamer, including a rather cleverly done spot where Dreamer enzuigiris him with a chair wrapped around his foot. Sounds horribly contrived but they made it work. Then Cactus gets into it with Funk. Then Richards gets involved. Then Raven again. Then Raven urges Cactus to use a chair, but Jack hesitates and Dreamer gets his own chair to use on Jack for the win. There are some neat ideas here, but this goes on and on and on. Cactus is still bouncing from anti-hardcore to hardcore and back again without any real rhyme or reason over the course of the match, and I don't get why. The Dreamer cut-ins were generally pretty bad, but unlike the rest of this segment they actually got better as they went along.