PeteF3
Members
-
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by PeteF3
-
Jesse with a shout-out to his daughter, whose favorite wrestler is apparently Davey Boy. Quite the comedown for Smith, going from challenging Vader to wrestling for the TV Title. Good stylistic match-up, though. Jesse really seems to enjoy watching this stuff--based on a call of an old squash match of his and the fact that he invokes his name every time Regal does the rolling senton, I think he's quite the Edouard Carpentier mark as well. The opening matwork exchanges are awesome and the rest of the match isn't quite as good, but Regal does provide some fun, positively Han-esque new holds--I loved him applying a grounded full nelson and then using his own legs to tie up Davey Boy's feet. Davey makes a really fun comeback in the last minute with two really hot near-falls. Davey busts out a piledriver as a desperation finisher attempt, but the bell rings at 2. Really good match--maybe even better than the Steamboat TV bouts. This year has been quite the resurgence for Davey. Unintentionally funny exchange... GMC: "Ten minutes gone by, there are five minutes remaining." Schiavone: "DO YOU MIND?! I'm trying to do a broadcast here!" He was actually talking to Sir William, but for a few seconds it seemed like some under-the-surface Schiavone/Cappetta heat coming to light. -
-
Cactus talks of the time he rode a bike with no brakes into a barbed wire fence--and liked it so much he clipped a piece and kept it under his pillow. Some chilling imagery from Jack as he describes the various matches on the wheel as "his closest friends." Harley Race comes out to rebut and gets leveled with a double arm DDT on the floor! TO BE CONTINUED AT HALLOWEEN HAVOC. Yeah, I'm guessing this was originally going to be a mini-movie before that concept got axed. Speaking of concepts getting axed, I never understood why the Spin the Wheel gimmick couldn't have been an annual thing for Havoc. They really couldn't have incorporated the wheel into Hogan/Flair?
-
Bagwell & Scorp are now under the tutelage of Teddy Long, the first of many undercard babyfaces to come. The ring is supposedly mic'd, but you don't hear much more than you do in a normal TV match. Okay but not overwhelming action, and Long actually makes himself useful, preventing Missy Hyatt from interfering and leading to an upset for the tag belts.
-
-
Wright is coming off as a guy legitimately losing his memory, while Tammy and Lee make fun of him while he's rambling and not answering Bob's question. What a gloriously shitty thing for two heels to do. This is a pretty brilliant way to generate sympathy for such a longtime heel manager, helped by DWB's enraged promo.
-
-
I thought this took awhile to get going, and post-2000 puro has soured me on the long chop battles that I'm sure were really cool and novel when this first took place. The holds are worked really well, though--especially the Boston crab. Down the stretch this gets a whole lot better, and Kobashi really comes off as a gritty tough guy rather than the plucky young underdog role he's been in for most of his career. Hansen and Doc were bases for his flashy offense--more or less. Here he's just straight up slapping Kawada in the face and transitioning to offense because of it. Unfortunately he's not quite there yet, and after a gallant effort and a couple more comebacks than I actually expected, Kawada puts him out with the Stretch Plum and then pins him. Agreed with Kevin that it's too bad AJPW got away from submissions, because they used them really well in 1991-92. Seemingly everyone had a hold that could legitimately take people out--even Kobashi, who'll never be confused with Dean Malenko, had a backbreaker that he put a few undercarders away with.
-
I think one or both of those intro tracks is a karaoke version of "Straight Up" by Paula Abdul, and I'm not completely kidding. Kopylev throws some absolutely sick knee strikes here. The rest was like watching Volk Han in slow motion. Really, REALLY tried to keep paying attention to this and just couldn't. It did at least go to a finish, when I was dreading a time limit draw.
-
Han is ridiculous. If there's one flaw in this it's that there are like 8 times where he's CLEARLY got Naruse completely helpless, and the only reason the match isn't over right then and there is because it's a work. His takedowns and holds are incredible but I was also a big fan of Naruse getting in a shot to the gut for a sudden knockdown. I'm not always comfortable using wrasslin' terminology like "hope spot" in talking about shootstyle, but that was a great one. Han and Vader are the best squash match workers of 1993.
-
-
Crush is back, with a new look, and a new manager. Crush's thick fake Hawaiian accent and PRO WRESTLING SHOUTING gets in the way, but Heenan does a great job of carrying him through the interview. Crush calls Savage out for not having his back against Yokozuna--he has a point, but he doesn't point out that the guy who interfered against him is the guy in the ring with him right now. Sort of like Dick Murdoch being upset about Dusty Rhodes teaming with that pinko commie Nikita Koloff, and getting revenge by teaming with pinko commie Ivan Koloff. Savage climbs into the ring and cuts a scorched-earth promo on Crush and Mr. Fuji, but leaves the door open for a reconciliation. Crush and Savage shake hands and leave together, only for Crush to level Savage with a clothesline in the aisle and drop him across the guardrail. Crush beats him down and makes sure to hold Savage's face up to the camera so we can see the blood coming out of his mouth. Probably an accident, but part of me wonders if Savage wasn't nuts enough to deliberately bite his own tongue on the bump just to sell that. Yokozuna adds an exclamation point with a banzai drop, and this was a terrific piece of business all around. "Shake hands and then turn anyway" is one of the oldest heel trick books in wrestling, but they milked it really nicely here, dragging this to the point where you might think Crush was staying babyface after all.
-
I thought the lumberjacks were pretty distracting for the most part, though it placed nicely into the finish. There's a certain psychology I think you need to maintain with lumberjack matches, and this sort of broke it--you need to have the guys do their job first to establish the ground rules, THEN you have the heels attack or have a brawl break out or what have you. After that this stayed mostly in the ring, and it was good--but kind of disappointing. With workers of this caliber going this long you can't help but expect at least a North American MOTYC, and this wasn't it. Lots of repeated spots here and they did lose focus.
-
-
That had me until Sunny's horrible acting screamed "work."
-
-
Oh goody, Daryl Van Horn is with us. The Bodies run, hide, and stooge for Arnold the Pitbull, who looks and acts suitably vicious. More intimidating than Matilda, at least. Arnold is actually chained into the corner in the ring, which has to violate some Commission ordinance of some sort, even in Kentucky. Another fun match, a lot like SummerSlam with some of the same spots, but it seems to go longer--and the Bodies get to show off more. Scott accidentally levels Mark Curtis with a clothesline before hitting Del Ray with the Frankensteiner, but Cornette whacks him with the tennis racket and puts Del Ray on top. Curtis recovers and is about to count a cheap pin, but pulls up at 2.9 when he sees the tennis racket laying in the ring! He doesn't stop the match, though, until Rick takes the racket and goes nuts with it, having not learned a damned thing from their tag title loss. Cool to see the Bodies go over here, regardless of the circumstances. They even get some heat afterward with a quick beatdown on Rick before Arnold makes the save. That makes for two babyface cornermen hyped in advance whose charges nonetheless lose anyway. Cornette and the Bodies act like this was the easiest victory in history. This nicely sets up the Bodies as SMW and WWF tag title contenders again. Cornette hypes another new tag team in his employ, since the Bruise Brothers didn't do the job correctly. Then Caudle hypes ANOTHER mystery team, who wants to wrestle the Bodies on TV with an SMW tag title shot on the line. Two mystery teams at once is a tad excessive.
-
Really fun match, from the clips that we see. Working with Tracey Smothers every night will do wonders for anybody--this has to be the run of Brian Lee's career. Finish is a clusterfuck, but a fun clusterfuck rather than one with 37 run-ins, and it ends with Lee retaining the title again. That should just about do it for Smothers as a challenger--and now the Dirty White Boy wants a title shot. Tammy is taking care of Ron Wright, but that hip replacement money seems to be going to new dresses and Rolexes instead. Are they going for an Anna Nicole Smith thing here with Tammy and Wright?
-
-
-
-
One of the best Rockers matches in the history of Japan. Seriously, Liger and Benoit work the opening shine right out of their playbook. Then it's time for Liger to pay, and he does, big-time. But he gets a few kickouts and Benoit makes a few timely saves, and the crowd gets more jazzed with each one. Liger still looks about dead, though, and Hash is constantly there to keep Benoit at bay. So at this point I'm thinking, "If only Liger could come back and make the hot tag so Benoit could get in a run before the inevitable finish, this will be a darkhorse top 10 MOTYC candidate." Then Liger turns an attempted Samoan drop into a crucifix and GETS THE PIN??! Holy living fuck, one of the biggest shock results of any Yearbook match so far. Really, really fun--I don't know if it can finish in the top 10 in good conscience but this was a true feel-good match all the way (Benoit is pretty minimized here, by the way, for anyone interested in checking this out but not interested in watching him wrestle). 20 minutes that just flew by.
-
-
-
Fun little bout. Six maniacs stiffing each other and JT taking some loony bumps, including a Marty Jannetty-style spin-out bump off a clothesline on the concrete floor. Even Muraco as sort of a poor man's grumpy Tenryu was kind of fun even though he's near 300 pounds at this point. I too loved Paul E. talking about Muraco "focusing on a body part" as he's hitting Funk with repeated low blows. Snuka accidentally powders him and JT Smith rolls him up for the big upset pin.