PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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I don't know how many **** classics it produced but the Flair feud, once Angelo got attacked, was one of the few truly emotionally intense feuds WCW had during the Hulkamania Era. It was instantly a breath of fresh air in an unbelievably sterile promotion. I so don't want to derail the disucssion, but getting fans emotionally invested in a match is a part of wrestling and I think that has to count for something. -
Right now, as I'm sitting in mid-'95 in my Yearbook-viewing Mikey is my favorite ECW worker, and I strongly think he'll end up being ECW's best "homegrown" product. Terrific bumper and seller, naturally, but the timing of when to get in his offense has been superb as well. I don't know if it's enough to get him in the list, as he is sort of a one-note poor man's Kikuchi, but he and Richards are the two guys I perk up the most when an ECW segment comes along.
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Tugboat was attacked at the end of the (I think) 7/17 Superstars during a squash by Bravo and Earthquake, took two Earthquake splashes, and was stretchered out, knocking him out of SummerSlam. I just felt that segment should have been on the Yearbook--it was a rare booking detour by the WWF at the time, it was a weird bit of circumstances that no one really knows the full story behind (did Tugboat piss somebody off? Was the gimmick just not working? etc.), and on top of that it was the last appearance for Jesse Ventura until coming back for SummerSlam '99. Something for any potential errata set, I think.
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Well, it was touch and go with the joshi greatness earlier if this would hold up as MOTY. I'm sure there's more great joshi to come but at this point, the answer is "Yes. Yes it does." There are too many great moments to recap here and most of them were touched on already. I will say that about 35 minutes in, having dismantled Kobashi's knee but being unable to put him away, and while yet another Misawa opponent is on the verge of gakking up a winning opportunity and about to give into another comeback, Taue goes back to a recent standby--popping Misawa in the eye. I think it's an even greater moment than his attack on the eye in the Carnival final, precisely because it doesn't really draw attention to itself. He doesn't need to grind a boot in the eye or drop him on the turnbuckle--one shot completely stops Misawa's momentum cold, and then it's a matter of unleashing the heavy artillery and grinding him into defeat with that. It's one of my favorite moments in any wrestling match. I don't think this is quite the Greatest Match Ever, as the best joshi tags still eclipse this. I do think it's the best AJPW match of the '90s so far--the best combination yet of super-advanced offense and sequences and psychologically deep, dramatic storytelling.
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Terrific match, probably the best RVD match period and the best Kroffat singles bout. Van Dam's somersaults and general act are still really fresh and innovative at this point, and Kroffat crafts an excellent use of them. He also adds some awesome character work, trying to provoke RVD by spitting at him and then using his ponytail on a surfboard in an awesome spot. RVD's chops and punches are pretty laughable but that's the only thing to complain about here. His flippy stuff fits the match well and he takes one of the most awesome lariats in history that pretty much wipes him out of the match, despite some great kickouts afterward. There were some terrific little bouts during Masa Fuchi's reign but this is one of the better defenses of the PWF Jr. title. I can't remember if Fuchi-Kobayashi was a title match or not, but if it's not, then it's probably the best.
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Good match with a hot closing stretch. Davey Boy busts out some new offense and the rapid near-falls were all done well. This match really would have been helped with time calls, which I think they actually did for the Shawn-Kama draw at the PPV. But good for Davey and Owen for actually working accordingly to how much time was left, showing greater and greater urgency the longer the match went.
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Well, they thought we were soft in the '80s.
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According to Whatever Happened to Gorgeous George?, Fred Blassie was forced to make an on-air apology for referring to the women of LA as "pigs" and the children as "juvenile delinquents" in a promo. I don't mean to sidetrack this with a sociological discussion, but "PC" has always been around, just in different forms. The generations that lament how soft and easily offended people are today are the same ones who thought Elvis shaking his hips or Petula Clark touching Harry Belafonte's arm on television would bring about the downfall of society.
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Richards' scars don't compare to the mental anguish Raven suffers every day. That's some good heeling to show what a self-centered self-pitying douche Raven is, before we get some bullshit "deep" aphorisms. I get it--they're supposed to be bullshit, they just tend to be the annoying X-Pac kind rather than the heel heat kind. He closes with some words for Dreamer's new girl (and apparently an old flame of Raven's)--Luna Vachon.
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This rock and roll garbage has had a deleterious effect on our society for a number of years. Thus begins the Man Mountain Rock feud and Backlund's slide into mid-card irrelevance.
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More Pure Sports Build stuff, and pretty effective at that. Not to get patronizing but some here may not know that Dr. Andrews is a huge name in the sports medicine world--virtually every casual sports fan knows who he is.
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This is a master-of-the-obvious statement, but Arn is too good for this material and setting, and certainly too good for this particular feud. You know how it's been posited that television storytelling has become so advanced that someone from the 1970's literally wouldn't be able to comprehend what was going on in complex shows like True Detective or Community? That's how I imagine the new WCW target audience was with Arn Anderson.
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I remember John McAdam absolutely hammering this post-match angle, asking why you would book a scaffold match only for a heel to pop right back up after losing. He raises a pretty good point--fulfilling gimmick match stipulations was never a Cornette strong suit. This is the type of thing that kills the gimmick, granting that killing off scaffold matches probably shouldn't be seen as a bad thing. Snow cuts another strong promo in the locker room. Ricky rebuts in equally strong fashion.
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Fun to see this coming off the USWA segment. Randy Hales laments the lousy officiating of Mark Curtis. Kessler waving to the cameraman to "bust" the interview was a clever touch. This ends up being a 3-way cluster with the THUGs and the Gangstas.