PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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This looked like it was on its way to being another crazy brawl judging by the opening flurry, with Taue doing a great job of laying waste to Kawada before the bell. We don't get that, as the action sort of dies down from there. It's a good match, but they've had better and it didn't quite live up to the initial promise. The finishing stretch is one of my favorites of any AJPW singles match so far, though. Kawada countering the Golden Arm Bomber into a Fujiwara armbar into a Taue lariat was just a fantastic sequence, and Kawada kicking out of the subsequent Arm Bomber just icing on the cake. Taue's more familiar nodowa is starting to take some prominence.
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Hah--all those knocks on Honaga are legitimate and also exactly why I find this feud so compelling. There's no rational reason why Liger shouldn't mop the floor with the guy, but Honaga seems to just have his number every time out. On top of that, even if Honaga isn't a great worker, he's definitely different. My favorite Cobra match during the '80s NJPW viewing was against Don Arakawa, who was also a scuzzy juniors heel (complete with interfering manager). I'm a sucker for New Japan juniors who work as Memphis-style heels just for the cognitive dissonance it can create.nitive dissonance it can create.
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Amusing pre-match moment as Hebner holds up the IC belt for about half a second, before evidently realizing that this should be non-title. This is really fun, with some crazy bumps from Shawn, natch, and he busts out a really cool counter by turning a back suplex or atomic drop into a victory roll. Full credit to Piper for being able to keep up with this. Also a really clever finish, with Bret trying to even things out and accidentally leading to Piper getting DQ'd. Michaels gets a visual pin and a victory over Piper--that's pretty rarefied air and has to be a sign that the WWF was very high on him as a single.
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Yes, Bischoff is no Mean Gene. I miss Solie on these. Nikita cuts a promo with Jim Ross asking "you know who you are" for a sitdown and talk regarding his return to WCW. Z-Man pins Greg Valentine with Valentine's standard go-for-the-figure-four-and-get-small-packaged finish. This combined with Bagwell's PPV victory over Terry Taylor leads to a U.S. tag title match. Bischoff pours it on a bit thick but that's effective enough build-up for a championship that's completely lost all meaning. Rick Steiner explains why he and his brother don't have a manager to combat the Dangerous Alliance.
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Good match with an even better post-match. Steamboat takes out both Arn and Paul E. and Rude tries to whack him with a chair. Nick Patrick prevents that but Rude chokes out Steamboat with his karate belt. Rude is about to deliver a Rude Awakening with the belt, which would have been an awesome spot, but Steamboat flips out of it and pays Rude back by choking and HANGING(!) him. That's Steamboat at his nastiest. Huge reactions for all of this, as Steamboat manages to fight off all 3 guys by himself. Rude/Steamboat is going to make a dark horse run for Feud of the Year contention, at least as far as the Big Two go.
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Oh, I think a look at proto-Holly was worth it. He literally didn't do anything in SMW besides work squashes and cut promos, though.
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Crazy setting with jobbers that the Moondogs have brutalized acting as lumberjacks. They're armed with chairs and get a few licks in, but otherwise fare about as well as they did on television. The fight is another awesome one, with about the only criticism being that Richard Lee is probably pushed too hard as being able to stand up to Lawler and Jarrett on his own. I did like him going nuts with the powder, though. He blinds Lawler, Jarrett, both referees, and the surviving lumberjacks before Jimmy Valiant runs in to pour the rest of the bag on his head and take out the Moondogs with it.
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DWB has beaten Embry to a bloody pulp and taken out both referees. Eventually the other mid-card babyfaces try to restrain him, but when Embry fires back Eddie Marlin decides to restart the match. The fight continues with lumberjacks around the ring and eventually Christopher & Falk draw everyone else in for a crazy battle royal. These two had a Moondogs-level, MOTY-quality brawl in them, I'd suspect.
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I was reading along with the '91 Observers while watching the Yearbook, and Dave mentioned that the Japan Big Two had a policy of not poaching talent from the existing indy promotions, and that guys who took tours with W*ING and FMW and the like risked not being able to get booked with a bigger company. Maybe it was some sort of response to SWS and it dried up when that closed up shop.
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What a bizarre setting this is. Flair recites talking points similar to the past two weeks, and then produces the scarf that Liz was wearing in the photo with her two favorite studs. The camera pans backwards through the empty auditorium as Flair melts down in the background in a funny (and similarly bizarre) visual.
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This was the main event of the final MSG Network card (except for the one-shot in 1997), so there's a bit of significance there as well. Heated match, with some odd sights like Sid vs. Piper and Flair conferring with Wippleman. Sid rather incongruously takes Piper to the mat just so he can set up his kip-up spot. Piper works a pretty good and effective FIP segment, and I liked the spot where Hogan tried to come into the ring, only for Piper to make a break for it into the corner, with no Hogan to tag. Would be a good set-up for an angle in another world. I liked this more than I expected, actually. Once the long stalling got out of the way we got a pretty well-laid-out match that's a worthy Hogan farewell to the building that launched his stardom.
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Black is one of the greatest wastes of talent in wrestling history. Dude looked like a World Class mid-carder but wrestled like a Japanese junior heavyweight. He and Deaton were all kinds of awesome in All-Japan, just overshadowed by the rest of the insanely deep tag division and then by Black wigging out like he always seemed to do. This full match with Ace & Kobashi is really, really good and probably their peak.
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Brian Christopher makes his Yearbook debut as a pushed heel after developing in undercard tag teams. Christopher makes fun of Valiant's looks and out comes a ghastly looking Jimmy Valiant, who has changed considerably since his last big run in the area. Valiant lays one on Brian Christopher, who angrily declares that he "doesn't hang out with WWF wrestlers!" Valiant almost outs Christopher by talking of changing his diapers as a kid--he's changed the diapers of half the people in the room, too! What a weirdo fetishist this guy was. Christopher seems to be won over by Valiant's offer to be friends, but slugs him when he gets the chance. Valiant is very, very difficult to look at.
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Sounds like something that came up between the taping and the voiceovers, as the "farewell match" talk only comes from Vince and Perfect in the booth. Afterward Vince clumsily wonders why Okerlund didn't broach the issue. Hogan actually deigns to talk about something else, as he brings up the angle earlier where Sid broke Virgil's nose against an exposed turnbuckle, and cuts a pretty decent heated promo vowing to punish Sid at WrestleMania.
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There's so much stalling here that it makes Lawler vs. Embry look like an AJW main event, but it's a different type of stalling than the usual Sportatorium bullshit. The GWF was just crawling with evil authority figures and crooked referees, so yes, this definitely continues the late-'90s-style booking. I think this led to a 6-man with Esposito and James Beard on opposite teams, which would be another booking staple we'd see in the future.
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The mat work was a little long, but it was well done and befitting of a match between two guys who are still allies at this point. This gets hot towards the end with Kenta getting a huge kickout by escaping the power bomb, only to tap a few minutes later to the Stretch Plum. I'm going to miss these submission finishes when they're gone from AJPW, and I think the style was a little worse off without them.