PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Future Global announcer Craig Johnson has taken over for Lowrance (apparently after an unsuccessful bid to bring back Bill Mercer) and Percy Pringle is now the color man. I don't think I've ever seen Tessa before. But she's solidly hotter than Jeannie. Tatum does his usual stooge-and-cry spots and seems to blame Tessa for Dundee ever gaining the advantage, and orders her to stay in one spot in the corner. Later Tessa refuses to give up her purse and it almost costs Tatum a win. After Tony Falk gets bumped, Tatum manages to wrest the purse from her and knock Dundee out with it to keep his Southern title as Tessa flees for the locker room. Anxious to see where this storyline goes. Tatum physically accosting Tessa looked legitimately uncomfortable, like a real domestic incident. Not a criticism (yet), just an observation. -
Holy. Shit. Kid is apparently 18 years old here. I was going in expecting to see an interesting time capsule and an early '90s-style indy spotfest. And yeah, these are clearly guys who have studied their Japanese juniors and maybe their lucha. But this is a fucking FIGHT from the opening bell. The dives are the work of two guys who hate each other and are willing to sacrifice themselves to hurt the other one, instead of the work of guys trying to make things look pretty. The match layout is fantastic--I dunno if these guys worked this out beforehand Savage-style or if they called it in the ring, but Kid may have missed his calling as a Pat Patterson type in either case. No my turn/your turn shit--the heel Kid takes things to the hardcore level first and has some great cut-offs when Lynn appears to spring back on offense. We get moves countered when attempted a second time later in the match, some hot near falls, and a great finish with Lynn coming up with a counter to Kid's previous countermove, not to mention a bulldog that looks like it absolutely killed the Kid. Kid goes nuts after the match and brutalizes Lynn with a chair and then pours beer on him for good measure. This is everything a stereotypical indy spotfest today is not. The moves all made sense, the transitions all made sense, everything was EXECUTED superbly which is doubly amazing considering both guys' experience. There are definitely traces of modern indy 2.9 wrestling, but this is very much an old-style territory match in just about every way except that the moves are more advanced. Yeah, this is absolutely a legit MOTYC.
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This is the "George Washington hairdo" portion of Flair's career I've heard tell so much about. Flair promises to make Pillman an example as he returns to his hometown and also calls out Larry Zbyszko. I believe this was to lead to a unification match or at least a champion vs. champion match until Jim Herd decided that he didn't want to acknowledge another World title on WCW programming.
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So apparently this feud begins with Bad News getting a rubber snake and continues with Jake out to defend the honor of Mean Gene Okerlund. Enthralling. I think one big problem is Bad News was always positioned very strongly even when up against Savage and Hogan as a guy who wasn't afraid of anything and didn't back down from anybody, and then they shoot their wad right off the bat by showing him practically having a coronary at the sight of a snake. Why not milk the "is he or isn't he afraid?" factor a little more and pay it off later? This is a good promo by Jake but I don't recall this feud getting appreciably better. Thankfully Jake would have a much more compelling storyline to come after this.
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"I AM THE MAN! MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT! I AM THE MAN! GET DOWN YO' KNEES WHEN YOU SEE ME COMIN'. I AM THE MAN! GIVE ME THE RESPECT THAT I NEED!" Holy fuck, Atlas almost has me getting down on my knees. He was probably a horrible worker at this point, but Atlas has been the breakout star of this set for the promos alone--more than Billy Travis and more than Steve Austin. I figured all the Atlas stuff would be for irony purposes like almost every other ICW contribution, but these are legit fantastic and--bears repeating--what a fucking waste Saba Simba was. I'm sincerely glad that Tony got a nice payday out of it, but it'd have been nice to get a nice payday and make an actual contribution to the national scene as well.
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"Wait a minute, Bobby, what does Rick Rude have to do with this??" Jesus Christ, Mooney, have you been paying attention for the past 4+ weeks? Warrior cuts probably his most lucid promo of this Yearbook, relatively speaking, and he at least keeps things short (I can't really say "to the point" because that implies that there is one).
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Weird that the Harts are still high-fiving the fans after such a blatantly heel interview, especially with Jesse praising them. Quick sprint with some particularly good use of the typical Anvil spots, all of which look absolutely deadly when the Rockers are selling for them. Demolition tries to act as lumberjacks when people get thrown from the ring and that breaks down into a 3-way brawl. Have to agree with Jesse that they pretty much ruined things. This is also a testament to how absurdly stacked the tag roster in particular and the full roster in general were in favor of the babyfaces--you had all 3 of these teams and the heel side was basically the Orient Express and Rhythm & Blues. Somebody had to be turned.
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Dueling promos for Capital Combat, which are much shorter and to the point than Hogan and the Warrior.
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Lawler goads Jordan into putting his #1 contendership on the line, and Jordan being a total spineless dumbass agrees to it. The match goes predictably with Jordan blading off chain shots. Valiant comes back after the match and for some reason Calhoun and Marlin are more concerned with holding Valiant back instead of Lawler brutalizing Jordan in the ring. Honestly...as awesome as the opening segment was this got a big "whatever" from me. Lawler was good but his constantly making every babyface look like a complete idiot is starting to wear thin just as it did with Triple H in '02 and '03. Every time he shows ass he immediately gets more and greater payback on someone else, whether it's Chris Champion or Ben Jordan. I'm no big fan of Jimmy Valiant's but it is refreshing to see a babyface capable of coming across as being an actual peer to Lawler and who won't let Lawler's comments get to him, and Valiant fills that role nicely.
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Jordan has a title shot presumably by virtue of his win the previous week, yet they never mention that part, which doesn't do much to help Jordan's case against being a joke challenger. The crowd has solidly backed Lawler by this point--I know it's Memphis but not only is Lawler as entertaining as he is, but he's been all over television doing interviews, segments, and commentary throughout and eventually fans anywhere are going to see his side of things. This is sort of pushing things into egofuck territory to allow Lawler to masturbate on the mic instead of accomplishing anything to get anybody or any program over. Lawler finally switches gears to talking up the New York Mauler and points out that he wears a mask. Then "The Boy from New York City" hits and a spazzed out guy with long white hair and a beard stuffed under a mask comes out. Now Lawler is stuck in a title match that he bragged about having, with no way to DQ himself or get counted out to save the title. Lawler is able to more or less stall out the ten minute time limit in between getting beaten up, but then realizes that the new sudden-death rules are in effect. The OT period is FUCKING AWESOME, even though the actual match was FF material. The rules are a bit goofy but the teases here are absolutely epic, especially by Lawler though Valiant provides a few near-falls (see what I did there) of his own. Valiant puts his head down for a backdrop but moves away when Lawler tries to kick him, and that sends Lawler flying and sends the Unified belt back to Valiant. For my complaints about Lawler in the first part of this segment, Lawler's stooging to put over Valiant and the new rules more than made up for it.
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Yes, Brother Love as manager of the Undertaker for an extended time, into the Hogan feud, would have been interesting. We'll see how it goes later in the year but it gave Love a chance to be a semi-serious hellfire-and-brimstone character instead of the goofball he usually was. I was expecting Earthquake to come out right here, but I guess that's still to come as they were pushing a Hogan/Earthquake house show series at this point.
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Good Lord, I'm not sure if this is as weak of an excuse for a feud as Chris Jericho spilling coffee on Kane, but it's not far behind. A paranoid Bad News Brown, after declaring that he fears no one, is scared to death by a birthday gift of a rubber snake. He takes his frustrations out on Okerlund. Jake tries to sell this, as does Bad News, but two guys with characters this strong and unique and as good on the mic as they were are deserving of a better program background than this.
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Very unique, creative match--sort of Texas Death meets Survivor Series. Four on four, and when one man is pinned the winners of the fall can pick any one opponent and get a 4-on-1 for a full minute. If the wrestler can't answer the bell afterward, the match ends. Seems like it'd make far more sense to just have the loser of the fall have to face the 1-on-4 situation, but the big sell here is the babyfaces getting to pick Ronnie P. Gossett.
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Really hot opening with Michaels absolutely murdering DiBiase with a dropkick. Ted is sort of standard when he's in control but Michaels does take some tremendous bumps, and we go back and forth a few times instead of the usual shine+heat+comeback WWF formula match. Jannetty and Virgil both get involved and it's a double-DQ. Remember when the WWF wasn't obsessed with jobbing guys out in their hometowns?
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Great rapidfire hammerlock reversals to start before Santana goes nuts on Perfect's leg. I love how Santana has kept the figure four in his holster for all of these years and how it can loom over any match where he cares to break out leg work. Bobby Heenan comes down for an unexpected distraction but Perfect gets a clean victory to become 1/2 of the WWF Tag Team Champions. I think the SNME match will be better but this was very good for Superstars.
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Yeah, Nick Patrick with the best part of the match. A Jimmy Jam DDT puts Gibson down and gives the Midnights the victory. This isn't quite as spectacular (aside from that one spot) as the other matches involving these teams but the basics are executed so well that it doesn't matter. I'd just like to add that Lance Russell & Teddy Long is a rather bizarre commentary team that could be a disaster but their chemistry is actually pretty good.