PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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More greatness from Savage. YOU WILL LEARN CHARACTER, AND YOU WILL LEARN HOW TO LOSE AT WRESTLEMANIA VII. Warrior makes a prescient prediction of how the finish to the match will go. Good stuff from Martel and Jake--I can't believe it took this long to get to "Snake Eyes" as a theme for the match. Okerlund would love to have the opportunity to harmonize with Willie Nelson--is that what they were calling it on the streets in '91? I'm about sick to death of shirtless Regis Philbin. Clearly way too many matches on this card, the effects of which would show greatly.
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Funk has 97-year old Bulldog Brower as his cornerman. He gets in the faces of the ringside fans but has support from Vladimir. This is a pretty crazy set-up that would never be done today or even in 1991 in any sort of controlled environment. Come to think of it, I think Memphis actually ran this type of match AND gave the fans leather straps, at one point. Despite Funk's efforts this is one anti-Lawler crowd. Funk actually takes swings at and shoves around the lumberjacks who try to toss him back into the ring. Eventually Funk accidentally slugs the ref and the match descends into chaos. Brower's trash talk as he beats on Lawler is pretty amusing. I have nothing to say about the match itself but this was quite a compelling, one-of-a-kind spectacle. Great visual at the end, as Funk wanders through a pile of broken bodies on the floor like fallen soldiers in the burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind, with Lawler threatening to throw a chair at him.
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Maybe there's a higher plan, but...why would Team Texas blatantly instigate Gilbert into getting involved in their tag match? Why not force Jarrett into a 2-on-1? So there are issues with this build, but Gilbert is so awesome here that it doesn't matter too much. As great as Gilbert the heel was, Gilbert the tweener might be even better.
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What did Jarrett expect, really? Great promos from Lawler and Gilbert, who still have no love lost for each other despite Gilbert being an ostensible babyface in the Texas vs. Tennessee feud.
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Gilbert as the babyface-with-an-edge is great. He almost gets the pin by countering Embry's chain with brass knucks of his own, but with Frank Morrell bumped, Tojo slips Embry...something. I thought it was a screwdriver or a grill lighter, but whatever it is puts Gilbert down for the 3. Embry & Prichard are incensed that they're not in a round-robin tournament to get a title shot at the Unified World title, so they take their frustrations out on Jeff Jarrett. Jarrett declares the Unified World title is meaningless as long as Embry and Prichard are around, and pulls himself out of the tournament in order to get a tag match with Embry & Prichard. Neither Lawler nor Gilbert are willing to give up the tournament to be Jarrett's partner. Tension is still high between Gilbert and the babyfaces.
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Okerlund way overstates the despicability of Slaughter torching the Hulk poster--more indication that they really, really wanted that to be a U.S. flag. A much more fun angle follows as Sarge beats up Dale Wolfe after a squash and then beats down a medic for good measure. Slaughter may as well have dumped a million gallons of oil on all his Little Hulksters, brother! I'm liking Slaughter's performances, even the distasteful ones, but Hogan is absolutely coming off as phony and jingoistic. If anything, Sarge is downplaying the Iraqi allegiance and Hogan is doing his best to keep it in the forefront. So who's being distasteful?
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The definite highlight was Embry and Jarrett's microphone battle leading to an awesome roll-around fisticuff brawl, not far behind Lawler/Snowman and Jarrett/Gilbert as far as those go. Dundee pins Young in a basic but really cool-looking finish, and Young is blamed for it afterward by Embry and Yamamoto. After a shove to the mat, Embry pretends to calm things down and then cheapshots Young from behind. The beatdown is on, but after getting rammed into Tojo's briefcase, Young does a Hulk-Up and makes a comeback before Steve Austin runs in to help Embry out. Young makes for an incredibly unlikely babyface but I like where this is going.
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I thought this started a little slow for it to be ahead of Jarrett/Gilbert as far as Memphis-Texas MOTY, but it finished very strong. Good near-falls and a really fun twist on the cliched foreign object finish, with Prichard slipping a plate over his boot and cold-cocking Jarrett with an enzuigiri instead of using a chain.
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There wasn't much to this. Hard to get into Combat as a monster in the face of seeing work from Bull Nakano and Aja Kong and when all I can think of when seeing her is "Butch Japanese Cyndi Lauper." She's not terrible but there's no charisma or panache to her performance at all--it's all "this is where I scream, this is where I use a chain, this is where I hold my throat in pain" as though she's working off of crib notes. Kudo provides a few near falls and this is bland and inoffensive but not really an auspicious Yearbook debut for either woman.
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This is really a straight-up wrestling match that happens to have a lot of blood and a filthy mat. Other than a little chair flurry near the beginning, it's all in the ring and it's all about Onita weathering Goto's offense and trying to come back, which he does. Probably a top 2-3 MOTY at this point.
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I didn't think this was bad but I do think this was pretty underwhelming, and agree that things were far better when the natives were on offense. The takeout of Misawa should make for major drama, but it simply doesn't because Williams and Gordy continue to sort of go through the motions even when they have Kawada down 2-on-1, and the "can Kawada pull off the miracle?" excitement just isn't there.
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It wasn't skipping out, specifically--it was the knowledge that he skipped out and that the whole family was dead. If something had happened to Nancy & Daniel that required Benoit to either stay home or fly home, it wouldn't have taken him out, too.
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I'll say off the bat that I had work that day until 11pm and by the time I got home the full story was out. So personally, I had absolutely no period where I knew the whole family was dead but didn't know the cause. That being said...it was already known that Benoit had backed out of the Night of Champions PPV because of a "family emergency." To me advance notice like that would rule out carbon monoxide. It would have taken out Nancy & Daniel, maybe, but it wouldn't account for Chris.
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Kamala vs. Hogan, MSG 1/19/87. No-DQ match. Probably his best WWF effort. Different time period and all but the '87 Kamala was a bit closer to the territory Kamala--an outsider not quite comprehending of our society rather than the '92 version who even as a heel is portrayed as retarded in the literal sense of the term. This is not a match but a good look at how Watts was able to use him as an actual force and not a comedy gimmick.
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