PeteF3
Members
-
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by PeteF3
-
Funk tells Joey Styles to shut up and then chokes him out with a string. Interview of the Week! Interview of the Year! INTERVIEW OF THE DECADE! Styles abuse aside, this is legitimately one of the great promos of the year--Funk is just spine-chilling, treating Styles as if he's Paul E. and coming off as a psychotic, evil bastard while also subtly building fan support at the same time. ECW is solidifying as a promotion made up almost entirely of heels, just some heels with popularity and some without. King Kong Bundy was in ECW??! How was I never aware of this? -
Hey, Vader refers to himself as "The Man They Call Vader." I love those little anachronistic historical tidbits. Sid gets laid out before the match at the hands of Vader and the Colossal Kongs, which is quite the serendipitous booking decision to write him out now that that's necessary. Ventura even speculates that his career is over. Ha, Arn is the one helping Sid to the back. For about 20 minutes, this is possibly the WCW TV match of the year, or at minimum the best TV bout since Watts left. But that FIP segment on Arn just goes on...and on...and on. I actually think Arn was a GREAT face in peril--it's just that this match is dragged out to the point where I'm not sure if Ricky Morton could keep it compelling. As a result, they lose the crowd and even to a degree lose the announcers. Speaking of which, more subtle burial of Sid on commentary, as both guys point out various reasons why Flair lucked out by having Arn as his partner instead. So, yeah, Arn is in peril for about 15 minutes it seems--and though there are some great cut-offs and the match is all action until everyone gasses out and the crowd is out of breath, this was just too much for its own good. It's too bad, because with time shaved off and a real ending this would be one of the premier North American bouts of the year. Having said that, there was a lot of awesomeness here--the first 20 minutes are a total fucking war, with joshi-like pacing and a more amped-up version of the Tenryu/Hara match ,but with a bigger setting with more personal grudges. WCW is slowly but surely starting to look like a semi-hot promotion again, strictly in terms of product quality if not business. They're sort of stumbling bass-ackwards into it with Sid's sudden departure, but if you favor results over process there is more and more to like.
-
-
Good angle, well-executed by everyone involved. Smothers walks off from the commentary booth rather than get involved, because he doesn't like either guy! Storyline continuity, I love it! It's not like it's that complicated--Cornette wasn't booking anything that a dirt-poor East Tennessee redneck couldn't comprehend, so I don't get why the Big Two generally tended to shy away from it.
-
-
These aren't the same without Gene O. I also don't get the industrial crane graphic motif for a show in Boston. With current WWE events being what they are, the phrase "excusively on pay-per-view" jumps out at me now--it occurs to me that's not a phrase we're apt to hear again for awhile. We mercifully miss out on Undertaker's promo with an American flag inside his coat. I know it was a hot feud, but it's pretty audacious to hype a Survivor Series match with five non-WWE guys, three of whom are anonymous dudes in masks, as part of a "double main event." It really showed how stretched the roster was at this point. Bret cuts a promo with a shoehorned Family Feud reference, which is an understandable but odd element to an otherwise strong piece. Cornette gets promo time to hype the SMW tag match! Pettingill goes over the Survivor Series rules, which was another annual tradition that I miss.
-
Goddamned if Lawler doesn't successfully push a comedy undercard match against babyface Doink as being the blood struggle of the century. That's why for all my criticisms of him as a heel, overall he's still a master on the mic. He suspects that this Doink is actually Bret Hart in disguise.
-
Yeah, I definitely didn't see this as a spotfest. It's fast-paced but not suffocatingly so, even when Toyota's in there, as her role is basically to be a punching bag for Aja & Sakie and to make dramatic saves. Akira looks dead to rights towards the end of this, but manages to counter Aja's water wheel thingy off the turnbuckle into a power bomb for an upset pin--so much of an upset that Hokuto seems too stunned herself to even celebrate. "Low top 10 tag" sounds about right for this, it was a hell of a match but not a major MOTY candidate.
-
You'll see some filthy, filthy mats during lucha matches in Monterey, but holy shit, this one is a new level. I wouldn't take bumps on that thing in a full hazmat suit. This is a stiff, gritty, underground-type fight befitting of its setting--just two tough old bastards beating the shit out of each other. If you're looking for heavy psychology or meaningful transitions, look somewhere else--but this was a fun fight to watch.
-
As we found out on Where the Big Boys Play, the Slam-o-Meter made it as far as Capital Combat, where it made its first and possibly last appearance. Ross' open disdain for the concept was palpable.
-
But Macho/Crush was third on the card, way before the ladder match.
-
Looks like it's the same as Quote, but you can click on multiple posts in one thread and they'll all get quoted separately. Edit: The Edit button is there for me, too.
-
That powerslam thing was silly, but otherwise the closing stretch of this was pretty great. Flair is more motivated than he's been in a long time. Randy Anderson gets leveled by a Vader clothesline, and Flair dodges a moonsault for an apparent 3-count. But Randy Anderson wasn't actually counting, he was slapping the mat trying to crawl over. Then we tease the fans further by having Anderson raise Flair's hand as he grabs the belt, *then* the DQ decision is announced. As a standalone finish this is rather clever, but a.) it's basically a ripoff of Flair vs. Hawk from either the Bash tour or Bunkhouse Stampede, and b.) just reeks of pure Dusty booking, which is not something this company needed at ANY point, much less coming off a PPV packed to the brim with similar shit finishes. Still, it's a promising sign of things to come for Flair. Afterwards Ric gets laid out by Vader, Parker, and Austin, before Dustin Rhodes and the Shockmaster--for fuck's sake--make the save. Gene Okerlund, his first night with the company, gets a word with a fired-up Ric, who challenges the two heels to a tag match with Sid as his partner for WCWSN. This, despite the fact that Sid and Arn have already had their hotel altercation. Hence the bullshit about Sid not being allowed in the building--they actually had the audacity to have Okerlund tease that Sid was in fact there. How WCW can you get? Small sample size and everything, but parts of this show FELT like WCW when it was hot, thanks to a hot crowd and good wrestling. But it also reeked of the usual WCW bullshit at the time. Talking up of an already-departed (or at least suspended) Sid, the Shockmaster getting time during the climactic angle, and Dusty Rhodes' old fingerprints (the Dusty/Assassin feud continued to be pushed, and his pals the Nasties went over two top babyfaces, one of whom was ostensibly being pushed into a feud with Rick Rude). A tale of contradictions.
-
Awesome as hell--some psychology, TONS of hate and violence, some great bumps and awesome near-falls. Plus a screwjob finish that I liked--Parker blocking the Air Pillman came off as a legitimate bastard move rather than a cop-out fuck finish, which I liked. This match alone damn near justified the entire Blonds breakup, but I agree they could have used an even more epic rematch. Also, Austin and Col. Parker are SO not a good pair, talented as they are individually. For a few minutes, the "old" WCW was back again.
-
Holy shit, this was incredible on every level. The build-up to Kandori vs. Bull is INSANE, and I love how as part of that they incorporate a mini-story with Kandori wanting to get Bull in the ring, and Inoue taking offense at this and kickstarting a hate-filled match-up in its own right. I've never heard of Hozumi but she's great in the plucky overmatched small-fry role, and Bull and Takako both do a fine job of giving her just enough offense to look credible while still looking dominant. Kandori continues to rule, and I love how seemingly every move done to her is just one more opening to lock on the Fujiwara armbar--and what a sick armbar it is, complete with variations and modifications as the situation warrants. Then we get some astonishing near-falls and transitions (Bull clobbering Kandori with the guillotine legdrop as she's about to clamp on the cross armbreaker). I'm not sure this shouldn't be in the running for MOTYC. I may have enjoyed this just as much as the Dreamslam tag and Hokuto vs. Kandori.
-
-
Whatever you want to say about Sabu, he's never dull--at least not yet. Just constant motion. If his opponent is getting into the ring, he's still a bundle of energy bouncing around and looking to the ceiling. If he's in the ring, he's diving at his legs. If he's on the floor during the match, he's looking to dive onto him. The ending was a little sudden, but the instant Sabu hit his leg on the table I knew where Funk was going, so that made sense.
-
-
Parker has a court injunction prohibiting "Psycho Sid" (as he calls him) from coming within 50 feet of him. Meanwhile, Flyin' Brian earned his nickname because he can't hit any harder than a fruit fly. Austin cuts a better promo, running down and putting over Pillman at the same time. Steve does his best to save this angle, but the Blonds deserved a better climax more befitting of their Hollywood image.
-
-
-
I haven't been impressed with Barr either but this was his best performance. He's given up trying to be as fluid and graceful as his peers and is concentrating on the moves he does well, and on being a colossal prick. This is probably the peak, to this point, of AAA as a Mexican Sports Entertainment style. There is some good wrestling here but the company as a whole is definitely more about the personalities than it is about skill vs. skill. Just as in Titanland, that style can be compelling with the right workers and hard to watch otherwise--here it basically works. It's also structured very much like a straight American tag, at least for the first two falls. There are heel switch-offs and double-teams behind the referee's back, and lots and lots of payback spots and finisher-stealing. Each fall gets a lot of time, which stands out among the other lucha bouts on this set, and the third fall gets the most of all. That's when this really starts to meander, and Octagon is sort of taking up Barr's slack when it comes to blowing spots. He's the worst thing about this match and he's heavily involved in some cringeworthy moments, but on the whole he doesn't drag it down too much. I kept waiting and waiting for Tirantes to play a role in the finish, but after some early shenanigans he officiates this straight and the technicos surprise me with a clean victory. I don't think this is the lucha MOTY but it certainly belongs in the conversation. Edit: Oops, there's some controversy after all--replays indicate Barr may have had his shoulder up when Octagon was pinning him. But the ruling on the field stands as called.
-
Why isn't this talked about more, exactly? NJPW tag matches just getting lost in the shuffle behind the juniors and AJPW? This is great, and the crowd is phenomenal--really up there with the Sapporo crowd on 5/25/92. You have four guys here all capable of pinning the other--at times during 1993 I think Choshu (and whoever took over for him when he was hurt--I think it was Fujinami) has gotten too cute for his own good with regard to upset finishes, but matches like this are where that philosophy really shines. All action but never overwhelming action--the "high spurt" Choshu style of tag wrestling done to pretty much perfection.
-
Madusa and Sherri calmly challenge each other while sitting in chairs in a hotel hallway. I don't know what the fuck Madusa is talking about but Sherri is so not the person to be talking about casting couches and not "respecting the world of women's professional wrestling" or whatever. Sherri takes the mic and sounds completely hammered. Even if the promos themselves were good, which they obviously don't even come close to being, they'd be undermined by the woman who's not talking just sitting there stone-faced and not reacting to anything. Straight out of Jerry Springer, without the energy. Madusa accuses Sherri of talking up her SECTIONAL CREDENTIALS. Bleeps are HARDCORE.
-
Not a match, but the Assassin once attacked Dusty Rhodes during a gift exchange ceremony while wearing a silver mask and passing himself off as El Santo. This must have been 1980 or '81.