PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Flair being such a cocky, laid-back motherfucker is a fun contrast to the Warrior. Flair declares that Warrior/Savage will only be a #1 contenders' match for Flair's title, then drops the big news: Savage is in negotations for Mr. Perfect to manage him at SummerSlam. Everyone involved seems awfully quick to believe Flair. Warrior actually gets to a compelling point at the end--he's willing to do anything and pay any price to win the WWF title. This is what booking looked like before triple threat matches existed, kiddies. I probably prefer this approach, and I remember the tag match against the Nasty Boys and post-match angle being a killer. -
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This felt like it lasted about 7 hours. Pogo is just so fucking awful--shitty offense and Matsunaga takes the brunt of literally every spot involving fire. Matsunaga gets his ass kicked the entire match but wins on a flash pin and Pogo sells afterward like he's just wrestled a 2-hour ironman match, I guess because they need Victor Quinones to abuse him afterward. Pogo turns babyface and brawls with the gaijin. The MegaPowers, this ain't. Still, Matsunaga was W*ING's top star and I think this was the beginning of a relationship with FMW (he had jumped at some point), so he needed to be recorded here somehow. Sadly, outside of the interpromotional stuff, the STOP THE MATSUNAGA Zero-One run in 2005 is probably the post-2000 puro product I'm most interested in seeing, if we get a Yearbook that far out.
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A satisfying babyface victory in all aspects--Lawler and Jarrett win the tag titles and Richard Lee's hair. Big "BALDY" chants as Lee despondently accepts his fate. The heels come out to the studio for an interview and OH MY GOD Lee looks exactly like late-'90s Paul Heyman. He met a voodoo lady down in Louisiana who restored his hair and is bringing in a female Moondog, Fifi, to take out...Lawler and Jarrett? Well, not sure who his target is, but Lee continues to entertain.
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Far better than the AAA match. Better spots, better structure, and more aggression from all sides. The big technico comeback when Atlantis recovers from getting crotched on the ringpost (with the referee staring right at it, but whatever) is the standout moment. Everybody here was good and everyone had a role to play. Atlantis seems to want a hair vs. mask match with Charles afterward.
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I cared for very little of this. AAA comes across very much as how the WWF would work lucha style--lots and lots and lots and LOTS of playing to the crowd, crowd-pleasing characters and pantomime-type spots in general, heels threatening to walk to the back, etc. All standby spots of your typical WWF house show opener of the time. Misterio is barely recognizable and I keep waiting for him to do something spectacular, but nope. Well, there was that moonsault to the floor--just too bad the only guy within five feet of him was his partner. Heavy Metal does some nice moves and Winners and Calo provide a few cool dives, but overall this was a mess. Incidentally, it kind of undermines Calo's hip-hop dance gimmick when Winners is busting some moves during his intro and Calo comes across more like
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This was pretty good and Taue standing up to Hansen right from the start and getting a nice run of offense was enjoyable to watch. Still, "pretty good" puts this at the least of the Triple Crown matches and the criticisms earlier in the thread are all evident: there is no way anyone could possibly be buying Taue as being on Hansen's level at this point, and Taue's offense in general is pretty wonky. It doesn't help that a lot of his offense is power-based bomb-throwing stuff that Hansen isn't really built to take and Taue doesn't have the strength to execute.
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Fujinami is still relatively hidden but he's looking better than he has in a while for the quick bursts that he's in. This is worked incredibly stiff all around, with some crazy bumps off routine moves and lots of hard hitting strikes. It's a little long considering there aren't a lot of dramatic near-falls and the story, intentional or not, of Sasaki staying in too long and not tagging when he has opportunities plays into the finish, when he gets caught in a 2-on-1 and eventually beaten down. It's going to take a lot for this year's G1 to match last year's but I'm interested in seeing what they can do.
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Yeah, Chono was working full-blown heel here. I'm not up on my NJPW history but I thought his heel turn was a few years away, but that's clearly how they were positioning him for this while Koshinaka works as a valiant underdog despite leading an ostensible heel stable. So we have that bit of weirdness and the dueling superplexes spot which was marginally better than dueling tombstones but not by much. Once we get past that bit of jerking off and get to Chono trying to open Koshinaka up, we get a hell of a match. Koshinaka gets in a great run of near-falls but once Chono kicks out of the dragon suplex, you (and Koshinaka, judging by his reaction) get the message that Shiro has no more bullets in his chamber. Chono comes back in short order with a fine sequence of each guy countering each other's hip attacks and Yakuza kicks. Shiro fights off one STF but eventually succumbs to a second one. Chono won't let go then clobbers Koshinaka on an attempted post-match handshake and most of the native roster eventually comes in to break it up. Yes, Kengo Kimura being the centerpiece of the post-match scrum was weird--it seemed he hadn't done anything since the Fujinami feud in '87. I am glad to see this Yearbook give some coverage to Heisei Ishingun.
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The slap fight at the beginning and the super-stiff headbutts were great, but I didn't think anything of the mat portions at all. I'm open-minded to matches involving guys I've never heard of but other than "Takahashi throws killer headbutts" I didn't pick up anything of note about either wrestler.
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I swear I remember reading that this angle was booked on the fly because Nitro was running short.
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Dutch is ON LOCATION from Bucksnort, Tennessee, with a guard dog and DWB's home address--an abandoned school bus. White Boy staggers out from his beauty sleep and has a morning drink that sends the dog scurrying away in a funny moment, before wiping himself on Dutch's poncho. White Boy is putting up his Smoky Mountain career against Lee's SMW title, and I think that pretty much spells out the result. Priceless segment, and the build for Fire on the Mountain has been pretty great.
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Rude leads Nikita through a pretty solid match, that turns into a backstage battle royal. Good segment and WCW is finally segueing guys from one feud into another in effective ways.
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Also Jesse refers to being "up in Antarctica," which I don't think is geographically possible. Quick and to the point promo, too bad there won't be much to this title reign. After all the great build-up last October, it's astounding what a non-factor Ron Simmons has become from his Luger loss until his upcoming title victory. I know he missed most of the rest of '91 with an injury but he really should have been a part of Sting's Squadron, probably in Nikita's spot. Obviously that's hindsight because the World title plans were presumably shelved until Watts came along in favor of one of Dusty's guys, but a lot of effective build has been undone and it will likely serve to undermine Simmons' title reign.
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