PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Gorilla being Gorilla--why bother putting over the new heel's finishing move, when you can just dismiss the chance of it ever working on Hogan and that it's a waste of time to even try? Monsoon's refusal, starting around Ventura's departure, to ever, EVER give the heels credit for anything is absolutely his most infuriating aspect. -
Believe it or not, the "undefeated at WM" factoid was dropped at WM11, against Bundy. Obviously it was just an aside and not a major part of the match.
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Nice to see another AJPW 6-man, but from the work to the atmosphere this is a ways off from the early-'90s classics. It's still really good, and solid and well-worked, and it gets better as it goes along, But it's just a nice solid match. The guy who really surprised me here was Ogawa--he was spunky and full of fire and energy and got in a lot of offense and all-in-all looked like he really belonged. This is probably the best performance of his on any Yearbook so far.
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For me personally, this is what made ECW a must-follow. Moreso than the NWA title stuff, which even at the time just came off as indie promoter squabbling. This was truly compelling stuff. The execution isn't exactly perfect, watching it now, but it's well-done--especially once we get backstage. GABE SAPOLSKY files a report from the hospital and I seriously had to mute the TV when Styles started talking about eyelids and such. Eye injuries are just too much for me. All in all a good piece of business that had a lot of the so-called smartest fans in wrestling completely fooled.
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There wasn't much to this, though seeing in advance that this was Hara's retirement match explained things a little. I believe that's Dragon Master/Kendo Nagasaki interfering, and it's a convenient excuse for Tenryu and Hara to go through their old double-team spots together, albeit not very well. Kind of dippy to us, but I can understand why they did it. ("So why not have Tenryu and Hara team up and make Hara's retirement match a tag?" There is a very good answer to that question that will have to wait for another time.)
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Andre is indeed 700 pounds, but Hogan sticks to a plausible "94,000" attendance number. Flair then fails to defeat Dave Sullivan, and gets bitched out some more by Hogan. The masked man attempts to help, but Beefcake(!) fights him off (?!). Did they still expect Mr. Perfect at this point? Kevin Sullivan does not approve of all this. Not on this clip but I always loved his grilling of Hogan after the match: "I have just one thing to ask you--WHO IN THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?" Anyway, Flair is out for an interview and Evad is out to interrupt AGAIN. Why can't this fucker mind his own business for once? The big issue here is that Evad would have beaten Flair with the help of his magic slippers if Sherri hadn't interfered. What a way to build Flair for the biggest PPV match in company history. Flair is actually pretty good as an exasperated parent/teacher, but before he has a chance to mercifully break Evad's leg, Hogan is out. Hogan offers to team with Evad against Flair and a partner if...Flair agrees to put HIS career on the line at Havoc. Flair is on board immediately. WHAT THE FUCK?? What the hell is possibly in this for Flair? Yeah, this is awful on almost all counts. I still want to know what kind of "in" the goddamned Equalizer had to get this level of TV time, killing off the heat of all kinds of valuable heel assets. Even the pushes of Duggan, Honky Tonk, et al are way more understandable. Oh, Flair and T were spotted together in Chicago. Smell the intrigue. In 1996 they probably would have pulled the trigger and actually done a T heel turn.
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I never even thought about that but video games are almost a perfect analogy. And that led to a huge debate on Roger Ebert's old blog (when he said that video games weren't and couldn't be art) that had some great discussion but also made my eyes glaze over at points.
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A contrast between Savage the composer and Steamboat the jazz musician.
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Isn't Ricky Steamboat the pre-dominant, kayfabe-era example of the wrestler as an artist? This is a guy who audibled a 20-minute house show match with Haku just because he felt stifled, and is generally down on his WM3 match with Randy Savage because of the pre-planned and choreographed nature of the bout, despite it being a match that earned him more money than he may have ever seen in his life. And yet, you hardly hear a bad word about him from anybody else in wrestling--I could be wrong, but I've never heard any peer of his dismiss Steamboat as a "mark," the way I've heard it tossed at guys like Tommy Dreamer. And he clearly made good money from the business and does so to this day. Maybe he's an outlier but he's an example of a guy who struck the balance between art and commerce.
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I've always envisioned Ole as sort of a demented football coach/gym teacher, the kind you see in bad teen movies, but about ten times scarier. That still comes through here. This is my first time seeing Bryant and he actually has a tremendous look--big and he looks like he'd kill you just to see if his joints are still healthy. They're after Tracy Smothers over something that happened between them in college.
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The Phantoms and Fantasia in particular just scream "Jerry Lawler gimmick." The Eliminators do a job for Doug Gilbert & Sid, looking absolutely nothing like the "most innovative tag team of the '90s" or whatever Paul Heyman was able to pass them off as. They just look like two clumsy oafs. "POW-ER BOMB" chants from the studio. See how simple it is to get a big move over if you sell it properly? Scott Bowden eats fire from Jerry Lawler, which I question the wisdom of giving away on television.
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Yes, the USWA is starting to get hot again. Very strong, angry promo from Doug, who's done his own low-scale Steve Williams and stepped it up in the absence of his partner. I'm repeating myself, but really like how they've built the power bomb up as a deadly maneuver. Memphis, outside of the universally feared piledriver, was generally not a "finisher" territory--they just weren't a big part of the area psychology, so as basic as this stuff is, it's effective because it seems fresh for the promotion. And in a stretcher match they get over that one power bomb will be enough to put the opponent out. Rich is out later and cuts a not-quite-as-outstanding but still really good promo of his own. The USWA Heavyweight title (as opposed to the Unified World title--God, I hate this name change) is up for grabs in a tournament and he's got Jerry Lawler in the first round. Rich buries Buddy Landell, rattles off everything he's accomplished in wrestling, and promises to take Lawler out. Basic but effective. Scott Bowden is 0-for-2 in attempting to get some face time, in a funny little recurring gag.
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Good match with a few oft-repeated images, like Sabu splattering the guardrail and repeatedly whacking Jack with a bottle, with Jack IIRC basically insisting that Sabu keep going until the damn thing actually broke. Score one for the use of gimmicked weapons in wrestling after watching that. I could have done without Paul E. and 911 entirely and I think they're actively holding Sabu back at this point. (The dirty truth is that since the Dangerous Alliance, the only protege that Paul E. has ever helped has been Lesnar, but that's for another time and place.) ECW is finally coalescing into a memorable, compelling product. This holds up as good today and you can see how crazy it would have come across 20 years ago.
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Well, this was something, all right. The entrances brought to mind the scene in Ace Ventura, where Ace uses a little portable fan to move a boat about 6 feet. I agree about Pogo here--this went from being fun to uncomfortable really quickly when he starts trying to disembowel guys with a fucking scythe. Somehow guys taking bumps into an exploding pool is more believable than that. This is more of a spectacle than a good match but there is some good work here--some guys are throwing some wicked suplexes and the builds to the eliminations are all done well. There's even some attempts at psychology surrounding Pogo's fireball. Pogo was his usual shit self but the other five worked hard, and Onita's selling (if you want to call it that) is as good as ever. Not a high-end FMW match but probably something everyone should see once. You can't say Onita has ever lacked ambition.
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The WWF went into a big cost-cutting mode when they started falling behind on fiscal projections later in the year. They laid off some front office folks, streamlined the road schedule, and added an extra PPV to create more revenue. I don't think the idea of Tuesday in Texas being a "test" for weekly or semi-weekly PPVs, which I've seen in lots of places, has any merit.
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He did jobs to the Warrior, too. Pretty dumb (and incidentally doesn't *that* match sound like a total train wreck).
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I know it's not 1992, but if you're going to talk about Vader as a draw in the US then you can't ignore the Hogan feud, which despite some horrendous booking did very strong PPV numbers, over a period of months. That was clearly a match a lot of people really, really wanted to see.
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Sherri comes out dressed as...a furry. Um, not that I'm overly familiar with the subculture. But that's what she fucking looks like. These promos would be more effective if Flair had the real belt, and the "Real World Champion" shtick is so played out at this point. I want Evad Sullivan to die in a fire at this point. Flair is pretty wonderfully, dickishly condescending to him, though. This sets up a Ric Flair/Dave Sullivan match, which is just what the world has been waiting for. Kevin doesn't like this development any more than I do. Pushes for Beefcake, Avalanche, et al were one thing...but who the hell did Dave Sullivan know to get all this main event face time?
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This is the type of segment they needed to run at Fall Brawl to make the match. Flair warns us that once he beats and retires Hogan, he'll be the hardest athlete in sports to deal with! This is tightly edited and really well-done as a piece of production as much as it was as a wrestling promo.
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Next to the Adams/Austin "come as you are" match, this is perhaps the finest football-helmet-psychology-centered match ever seen in wrestling. It's basically Lawler trying to unmask Gilbert and Gilbert and Bowden using subterfuge and a football helmet to maintain an advantage, before the standard run-in DQ. Lawler is left laying and Gilbert remains masked.