PeteF3
Members
-
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by PeteF3
-
What the hell happened in the crowd here? I get the criticisms of DiBiase's work and the chairshots here, but there had to be more to the story than that. The crowd looked actively distracted by something without making any noise--I honestly wonder if a fan didn't have a heart attack or some sort of medical emergency. It was something non-match-related, I'm almost positive. The match is kind of a mess at times, with DiBiase being late to pick up on Piper trying to feed him his bad knee, throwing weak chairshots, and then ramming the wrong knee into the post. Piper's selling was top-notch, however. DiBiase busts out the old figure four for probably the first time in his WWF career and gets a UTC victory out of it. Piper gets his heat back afterward and strips Sherri, but that's about as decisively as you'll ever see Piper get beaten in the WWF, which was a treat to see. I enjoyed this okay, actually. Like I said, I think there was some outside factor here that took the crowd out of it. It wasn't a primo DiBiase performance but MSG crowds have popped a lot more for a lot less in the past. -
Sting and El Ji-gon-tee against Flair and Windham in a cage. I think even Gigante could be covered well in such a match.
-
-
What do I have to add besides "MOTY"? That's where this is sitting now and where it's likely to stay. Fuchi did jump out at me as having his standout performance out of any any of these Misawa Army vs. Jumbo Army matches, and Kobashi went through possibly the most agonizing FIP segment in wrestling history. Great payoff at the end, with Kawada getting payback for all those Taue cheapshots with the move that's become Taue's Achilles heel and Kawada's go-to weapon for the first half of this year. Misawa gets the pinfall but it really feels like Kawada got the victory.
-
I think those ESPN standards & practices have struck again. This is worked well but what an absurd cheapass copout finish. Jarrett managing to beat Prichard to the 4th buckle wouldn't have hurt Dr. Tom in the least. The post-match beatdown is well done but isn't really anything we haven't already seen before.
-
-
I admit they were close to losing me during the long surfboardery in the middle, though part of that is trying to split attention between the NCAA tournament and the Yearbook. It was enough to make me question if this was better than their '88 match. But goddamn what a closing stretch that was. Misawa's elbow is now getting major play as a potential one-shot finish, which will pay off later in the year. It doesn't finish Jumbo off in this case but Misawa goes from being dead in the water to being in control thanks to one huracanrana and one elbow to the face. We get big moves and flash pin attempts, plus one last little gasp from Misawa that only serves to piss Jumbo off, before Tsuruta reasserts himself as the Man. Not a MOTY, I don't think, but not far off.
-
Blood, a ref bump, AND a countout?? With what's to come in the tag title match later on, it's like AJPW stepped into a booking time warp. Not a complaint, just an observation. I really like the arm work in the middle portion here, with a bunch of "near-falls" based around submissions rather than 2.9 wrestling. It's yet another out-of-the-box element for AJPW at this time and is a strong point of difference compared to their January match. Kawada is able to weather a power bomb on the floor, but a Golden Arm Bomber on the same does him in. Still not a fan of Taue's finish at this point and while I get the idea, the power bomb on the floor looked far more devastating.
-
-
I actually think the '90 match was a tad better. This had a very hot crowd by Center Stage standards but that audience was absolutely nuclear. I had less of a problem with the bullshit finish being a bullshit finish, and more with the fact that Arn is out acting as Flair's errand boy again right after declaring that he was his own man. That's pretty bad quality control on somebody's part. But the body of the match was pure gold.
-
-
I think the proposed "Wings" tag team of Owen & Pillman could have gone places. Owen looks good here, but unspectacular, and he clearly doesn't have Pillman's fire. He's more about crisp execution, like his older brother, than the high-flying that Pillman and the announcers were hyping up.
-
Good promo even though I'm hardly in the mood to be sitting back and enjoying Ric Flair right now.
-
That guy's arms are smaller than mine--clearly not a wrestler, which makes the second-rope piledriver all the more insane. Embry has been on a major roll these past few weeks, and they've done as great a job as possible of compensating for the loss of Lawler with as many hot programs as possible. I could have done without Gilbert's Chef Boyardee line, which fit into this promo and angle about as well as Cowabunga's reaction to Gilbert hitting Lawler with the car.
-
Just when I was wondering if Eddie had walked out again, he walks out promising to have the back of the people who supported him, while swearing revenge on Eric Embry. The Texas Boys put a beatdown on Eddie for his troubles. Really good stuff to make Gilbert's turn look organic while leaving the door open for a continuation of the feuds with Jarrett and Lawler--you know Gilbert is only going to remain a babyface for so long.
-
This might be one of the great double-shot main events in Memphis arena history. This is about as intense as it gets, with a real star-making performance from Embry: his transition from begging off to assaulting Lawler in the corner with punches and headbutts is a great one, on the level of an Onita comeback. Plus he throws some pretty great clotheslines. Even shit that tends to annoy me like Lawler going all Masato Tanaka on the chairshots to the head made sense here in context. Frank Morrell takes TWO separate ref bumps and then eats a piledriver and it doesn't really feel excessive. Lawler gets choked from the outside of the cage by Tom Prichard's belt while Embry levels him with chairshots. I liked the Sportatorium cage a good deal but this blew it out of the water.
-
Highlights can of course be misleading but this might be the single best arena match of either of the first two '90s yearbooks. Great action, great false finishes, and a great actual finish, leading to a great post-match attack. One of the best USWA Memphis segments of the year.
-
Lots of amusing things in the arena clip, from Bruno wrestling in regulation gear to JC Ice needing the ropes to pin him, to Bill's spanking of JC getting censored, to Jamie's tantrum. Dundee cuts a more low-key promo than usual, running down the people he's run out of Memphis who associated with JC and targetting Steve Austin next. Jamie is out to make amends but it's a setup for a Texas Hangmen attack. Kind of a predictable angle but well-done for what it was.
-
IRS threatens to tighten any tax loophole RIGHT AROUND YOUR NECK. One thing this and the Mountie segments are missing is motivation. So he's a mountie and a tax collector--what are they doing wrestling, then? Later preview segments would get better at that aspect regardless of how absurd the gimmick was.
-
Another great, wholesome attempted-murder angle (plus one without the "attempted") in a running series in 1991 WWF. I didn't quite like all the heat being placed on the road agents for not being able to get the casket open, but everything else was great--and they do strongly get over the inability of someone to breathe in there. Warrior and Bearer even cut pretty good promos on each other. I really like how Bearer never backs down even as the Warrior is grabbing and threatening him--that makes Bearer look like a legitimate scary bastard and it makes storyline sense because he knows he's got the Undertaker backing him up. Great, great visual once the casket is open, with the Warrior unconscious and the inside torn to pieces. That's a pretty existentially horrifying image seared into the brains of all those Little Warriors and may be the single moment that makes this segment so memorable.
-
Now Tojo gets handcuffed to Bill Dundee while Jarrett wrestles. Someone explain to Michael St. John what "turnabout is fair play" means. Tojo has been really great in this episode, incidentally. Solid match, with a re-do of the Flair/Fujinami finish almost to the letter. Multiple ref bumps in one show just exacerbates what a lazy booking trope this was becoming. Neighbors and Falk get into it after the match and the title is held up again.
-
So somehow the Texas title got held up after last week's cage match--controversy or just Lawler vacating it after proving his point? Embry is pretty solid in control but this goes awfully long. The mic spots aren't bothering me but the constant ref bumps and chains are. Tony Falk takes one of the worst ref bumps ever here, which doesn't help. World Class and USWA-Texas have always been clever with screwjobs but it's starting to get lazy at this point. Would be a good to very good match if five minutes or so were pruned away.
-
Well, I liked Octagon's sudden flurry of offense--though victory came awfully easily for a guy who got his ass kicked the entire match. I get that Octagon was probably CMLL's biggest singles star at the time but is he anything more than a one-match wonder from a sheer working quality standpoint?
-
-