PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Jake is as chilling as usual, expanding on the difference between the snake in the bag and the real dangerous snake. Savage responds and is more intense than even his usual standards. Bearer's falsetto is getting higher and higher and I feel the annoyance factor is going to rise with it. Still another strong promo from these two, who are on quite a hot interview streak of their own. -
So, Missy being the Ugly Dog-Face's manager is supposed to be forgotten history now? This isn't hype for the Clash, it's hype for Luger/Rick rematches which were going around the horn at house shows. One could question the wisdom of booking that match but Sting was occupied, Simmons and Windham were hurt, it'd seem weird to stick Steamboat in there that quickly, and Scott may or may not have been ready for singles main events. Oh, Missy does get around to acknowledging her past managerial stint. All (most) is forgiven. Missy kind of plays her role well but yes, they need to decide if she's a babyface or a heel already.
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Holy shit, it's rare footage of the Gravedigger! Working in Mexico! Aw, fuck, it's just Los Infernales coming out to the same music. This is even more disappointing than Dragon Master not being Dustin Rhodes' partner at the Clash. Dandy has to shoulder the burden for the first two falls, looking as great as he ever did in 1990 and not missing a beat with Satanico. Konnan looks bad and Rayo...I've seen two Rayo matches in my life, the Cien Caras mask match and a match against Steel, and both were really good. This is a chance to finally see why people were so annoyed with him. He shows some fire but Infernales bumping and stooging for his dance moves and phantom punches was just about the height of lameness. However, the rudos and Dandy are so good and the opening brawl so heated that the match holds up into the third fall, when Konnan and Rayo step up their games. Konnan participates in some nice double-teams and even shows some good flying skills, Rayo hits a cool dive, and Dandy and Satanico get a little one-on-one mini-match. Big controversy at the finish as Satanico uppercuts Dandy in the groin and locks in a nudo. One ref wants to call a DQ but the ersatz Gran Davis ref calls a submission. A long quarrel results and it appears the decision is eventually overturned. That can't be the end of things. I mean, it's not like I needed to be sold on another Dandy/Satanico match, but this match did it for even the most ardent skeptic should one exist.
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Misawa's gone from having a busted shoulder to a busted nose to a busted eye. He had one messed-up second half of the year, storyline or not. All four guys cut an incredible pace through this that never drags once, which is very tough to do in a 30-minute RWTL draw. Taue targets Kawada's ribs (a STOMACH CLAW makes an appearance in a '90s All-Japan match, which is all kinds of awesome) while both men work over Misawa's eye in as dickish a manner as possible. It also leads to some great counters like Jumbo eye gouging Misawa to get out of the facelock. One thing that I'd say about 1989-92 All-Japan crowds is that they're very prone to booing tactics that they don't like, like saves and dirty fighting like the eye work. They're not nearly as quick to boo wrestlers themselves--Jumbo can get booed for mercilessly brutalizing Kikuchi but one "OH!" and the crowd is back to responding favorably. Most of their antipathy was reserved for Fuyuki in '89 and Taue in these two years, for whatever reason.
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The only way that can be topped is with a Bob Brown-suke vs. Harley Race poster.
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Barber Shop-era Brutus Beefcake's mullet is as ghastly and ugly as Young's perm is spectacular. He gets my vote for the worst.
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Holy crap, I thought this was INCREDIBLE. Flair psychotically gloats over the fate of all of the Little Hulksters, their parents who are wondering what's going to happen next, takes a shot at Jack Tunney about how the video-distorting is what led to this, and declares that the WWF title will be buried with the corpse of Hulkamania, leaving only the Real World Title. This is the "outsider" Flair I've been wanting to see, a legitimate threat capable of sending an entire company into upheaval--it's Ric at the most evil that he's been on these two Yearbooks. One of the best interviews of the year.
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A true "holy shit" moment, in what we'd soon learn was another Hail Mary pass to sell us on another PPV six days later. I recall the full match being pretty awful but the closing stretch is okay, even if the timing of Flair's interference is off. Heenan goes off on one of his best rants ever. The WWF feels like a promotion that's completely plunged into darkness and chaos, to a degree unseen in a major promotion and wouldn't be seen again until the rise of the NWO.
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"You're trying to cast me as the Original Sinner. Well, I spoke to God this morning, and He said He doesn't like YOU." Jake really is incredible. That line is pilfered from Ozzy Osbourne but Roberts was a master at swiping lyrics or lines of poetry and incorporating them organically into promos, providing twisted logic for why he does what he does. Savage has been reinstated so he can get a match at Jake...Tuesday in Texas, in what was truly a bullshit bait-and-switch tactic.
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I don't get why the WWF needed Repo Man *and* IRS characters at the same time. We do get Repo's catchphrase that I've always loved. "What's mine is mine...and what's yours is mine, too!" I doubt there's a single good Repo match in existence but Darsow can't be accused of not getting into the gimmick.
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And the Dangerous Alliance is fully formed. A clever touch to have Arn & Zbyszko join the group because they sought legal advice in the wake of their controversial tag title loss. To get back at WCW for swapping out Windham for Steamboat on the Enforcers, "BattleStars '91" will see the Dangerous Alliance do a switch of their own: Zbyszko is out of the tag title match, tag specialist Bobby Eaton is in. Rhodes and Steamboat are not impressed. A brawl is teased, but the babyfaces walk away without incident. There had to be more full-team DA interviews, right? There's the "Paulie Awards" angle and a promo that saw Paul E. introduce everyone before screaming last rites in Latin that I remember, that I could have sworn had all the members involved.
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Bobby has already been unveiled as a member of the Dangerous Alliance on another program, forcing Schiavone to call this after the fact and inform us of what's going to happen. It appears that the Alliance is just Eaton, Rude, and Madusa at this point. They tell an effective enough story here and the work is all good, but there's no heat--I'm guessing this was taped before any TV viewer in attendance was compelled to care about this as anything other than a random syndie tag. Eaton does the same indignant tag-and-then-drag-partner-over-the-top-rope turn that Windham did on Luger three and a half years earlier, and is back where he truly belongs.
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Gary Young's perm has been unmatched by anyone in wrestling history if not human history.
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That tag match is one I'd never heard of before. There's an absolutely incredible moment where Arn has Garvin trapped in a body scissors and Garvin is trying to stand up out of it, and he absolutely levels Arn with one of the greatest forearm punches ever, like it crushed Arn's head against the mat. Crockett's call of the finish was spectacular too, and shows that he really did get what needed to be put over: "GARVIN JUST KNOCKED RIC FLAIR, THE WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION, OUT! COLD!" Too short and one-sided to be called a great tag match but definitely one of the most fun and heated sub-10-minute matches ever.
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Jake cuts another fantastic promo goading Savage into the ring. It is pretty silly that referees so stridently attempt to prevent Savage from entering the ring but don't do anything once Jake starts beating him down. That said, once the cobra is out and biting, they do a good job of getting across that in-ring help for Savage is impossible, particularly with Jake beating up medics and threatening everyone else with the snake. Savage sells this incredibly as even through the canned "MACHO" chants this crowd is obviously horrified. Whether or not the resulting feud bombed, this segment was the perfect blend of hardcore, edgey booking with the WWF's slick production values--which with the shaky cameras and chaotic atmosphere don't come off as TOO slick.
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Mustafa, Skinner, Bully, and Berzerker--has there been a worse team in Survivor Series history? Do the two teams in the Smoking Gunn vs. Smoking Gunn match of '96 count if they were just on the Free-For-All? Between getting pushed as a quasi-lackey for the Undertaker and teaming up with the likes of the Warlord and Mountie, Flair already feels like one of the guys (teaming with Ted just seems like the natural order, though). Mr. Perfect is his new executive consultant.
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As good as she was used throughout her WWF stint and as over as she was, I generally think Liz is a horrible performer. She got over by proxy from Randy, by looking good, and being a one-of-a-kind presence simply by virtue of being a petite good-looking woman. That said, she's tolerable in measured, pre-taped settings like this.
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I knew this match had a rep, but holy fucking shit. Cactus is lightyears away from where he was in 1990, throwing some good strikes and having all manner of clever spots and transitions. I particularly loved Cactus dodging the Stinger Splash, Sting putting on the brakes and trying to dive at Jack from the turnbuckle, and Jack catching him and giving him a stungun. Counters to counters--always mark-worthy. Sting takes a great deal of punishment himself, but dodges a chairshot and hits a great dropkick to Jack on the apron. Absolutely brutal Nestea Plunge follows with Jack's head missing the floor mats. Jack is out, possibly legitimately, and Sting locks on the scorpion for the UTC victory. Ending is sort of the usual self-mutilating Foley bullshit but at the same time Jack looked nigh-unstoppable during the match, so it comes off as the only way to put Jack down. WCW Match of the Year. Yes, I said it, I liked this better than WarGames. The only negatives were a.) Jim Ross commentating like this great match was getting in the way of all the things he had to plug, and b.) the lack of continuity with this being taped before the Clash, with Sting carrying the U.S. title belt and showing no signs of any knee injury.
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Ah, the best of both lucha worlds: this is for some championship of some sort, so we get a trios match worked as a lucha title match. That means lots of cool matwork in the opening fall, and we slowly progress to dives--but at no point does this ever stray from two teams trying to Win the Match. Big heat for the Infernales beating down all three Brazos to end the second fall, even after it was already won. Some great near-falls in the tercera caida with some great mat-based reversals. MS-1 and El Brazo eliminate each other as MS-1 attempts a way cool leg submission/cradle thingy but pins himself as well in the process, and Morgan reverses a victory roll to score the win and titles (presumably) for Los Infernales. Five of the six guys here looked great while Porky was more on the okayish side by comparison--jury's still out but he may be the one Brazo who's better suited for comedy than straight-up wrestling, though he did get in his dive to the floor that always gets the crowd going.
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Okay, I liked this too but I have to break on one aspect: the punching in the corner with Oro's butt bumping against Charles was cute in concept, but the execution spoiled it for me. That aside, it was a blast watching the Brazos do their usual act but as total babyfaces--you feel like they've earned the cheers and the chants that they've worked and suffered so hard to achieve over the course of these Yearbooks. Porky absolutely crushes all three opponents with a top-rope splash to decisively win the second fall, and the rudos' communication falls apart in the third. The rudos ducking an attempted Brazo tope, only for the Brazo to slap Charles in the head causing him to turn on his partners was a much better heel stooge spot.
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Real good match and a nice novelty in the stream of Super Generation vs. Jumbo's Army tags. Misawa actually takes a Jumbo-esque role here when in with Kikuchi, sort of casually dismissing his attempted offense and forearming him to death. He doesn't channel Jumbo completely but it's still a neat role change for Mitsuharu. Kobashi and Kikuchi rarely appear ready to pull off an upset but they get a lot of kickouts to get them over as never-say-die underdogs.
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I think Akiyama vs. Omori from the '00 Carnival needs to be on there for the novelty factor...and it's not like it's gonna eat up a ton of space.
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