PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Obviously this will come up again later in the year, but eyes and eye afflictions and eye injuries FREAK ME THE FUCK OUT. It took me 17 years to muster up the courage to even put a contact lens in. I've avoided seeing this match for almost as long and that continues here. I simply cannot and will not watch.
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As for why Takano was there...if ever there was an "I'm here to do the job" spot, Takano was it. This has the same heat the previous match had, but the revival of the Tenryu/Choshu war adds a whole new layer to this whereas the previous match was basically an exhibition (even by pro graps standards). Takano wrestles like a guy who's in over his head, in that he has to go balls-to-the-wall just to keep up with the much more decorated opponents, and he does that with gusto, laying in some great kicks to go along with some hard-hitting high flying moves. This goes into a Texas Tornado match with all four guys in the ring for a LONG time trading moves, with Choshu and Tenryu going to war in the ring while Misawa and Takano trade dives to the floor. Eventually Misawa wipes both juniors out on a dive but manages to beat the count back in. Excellent bout--all four guys looked good but Takano put in a performance worthy of getting to save face at the end in avoiding a pinfall.
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This is definitely a match made by the crowd, as they're nuts for everybody but with a preference for Team NJPW and further preference for Kido. The pops that he gets when he gets Jumbo in the wakigatame are probably the loudest he's ever gotten. Jumbo also doing a Jumbo Killer of his own was a nice touch. That said, Kido especially was not afraid to sit his ass in a chinlock for awhile and there was very little sense that the AJPW side was in grave danger, especially with Jumbo being in the armbar for so long that he almost killed the move. I'm assuming interpromotional politics necessitated booking a match of this type. It was fun, but you really wish they could have run something closer to a dream match, like a Jumbo vs. Fujinami (though I think he was hurt at this time).
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Yeah, this was fucking AWESOME--maybe even the second-best MOTY to this point behind Liger/Sano. How was this match completely slept upon (to my knowledge) until now? Zbyszko kicking out of *two* Saito suplexes and then getting in another run of offense of his own gave this a downright AJPW feel. The very closing stretch had that feel too, with one suplex not putting him away but the second being enough. Also I can't say enough about Saito's little running-man dances to pump the crowd up. Worth watching just to see Saito working as a gladhanding babyface but the match holds up, too.
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Ross goes into quasi-Owen Voice mode. Sting suffered "somewhat" of a knee injury Tuesday--yeah. The Horsemen capitalized and injured him away from the ring. Thanks to Flair actually promising an attack away from the ring at the Clash, this doesn't quite reek of as much of a CYA job as "Dusty attacked Ronnie Garvin in a hotel parking lot and put him out of wrestling," or "Lenny Lane lost the Cruiserweight title to Psicosis in Bumblefuck, Colorado."
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Gorky Park evidently was a semi-big deal at the time, which makes their appearance here all the more random and ridiculous. This must have been one of those "bogus Soviet rock bands to make fun of" that Wayne & Garth lamented the disappearance of after the fall of Communism. Vladimir Putin would approve of this message.
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God bless Fujiwara for continuing to work the iron head gimmick. This is so much more flowing and organic and focused than the Takada match it isn't funny, with Maeda again fighting from underneath as Fujiwara seems to have an answer for his kicks, constantly getting him into anklelocks and leg scissors and Maeda has to fight his way back to his feet. Maeda gets in a sleeper once and gets it in again a second time when Fujiwara leans a little too far back in a leg grapevine, and that gets the chokeout. Fujiwara took a nasty shot that I missed, but we get the image of him spitting out blood as he's going out. These guys had an NJPW match that I think finished in the top 15-20 that I thought was overrated as fuck, but this was pretty good.
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FWIW, Hart absolutely rips Meltzer in his book for the Muta-as-babyface story and calls it an "asinine myth." I do think Hart was upset about Kabuki working babyface in World Class. The match is basically a mess that's just a backdrop to the Sting/Flair angle. Sawyer's flight from the top is notable as is the huge pop Muta gets, but it's all chaos and not particularly organized chaos at that. The babyfaces then have to pretend to be "holding Sting back" while keeping him from collapsing, and obviously it'd be impossible to tell at that moment just how badly he was fucked up. I have no love for Jim Herd but seeing where this is going makes me wish he'd fulfilled his desire to pull a Bischoff and get Turner to organize a talent raid on the best WWF workers and give WCW a weekly live show. Ted DiBiase along with Tully as a rival Horsemen clan? Bret Hart on one side or another? Yes please. Instead Sting, Flair, and Luger will all see their careers go off the rails.
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Norman takes a not quite Cactus Jack-sized but moderately impressive bump in the aisleway. Falls-count-anywhere matches date back to the '70s, but they always kept things around ringside and usually ended in the ring anyway--a necessary consequence of wrestling being catered to live events instead of television. Things had changed by 1990 and Sullivan (who mostly booked himself in the NWA and I'm assuming booked this) could recognize that, as this is probably the first FCA match designed for television with the brawl going outside of the ring area. A pretty revolutionary companion piece to the Cactus Jack match. Sullivan doing a drunken stumble out of the bathroom is pretty funny, especially for someone who can often match Ole no-sell for no-sell.
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Austin is pretty raw at this point but his potential is there, and he even starts to sound like Stunning Steve when he cuts the first post-match promo telling Adams and the fans that he doesn't need them. Pringle and Terrence Garvin sound almost exactly alike, which is jolting. Pringle's voice is not cut out for play-by-play.
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I love that they feel the need to impose subtitles for the Samoan Savage that say "HA! HA! HA! HA!" Actually for a Savage, his promo in English sounds like it could come from Conan O'Brien doing his old-timey boxer James "The Gentleman Master" Corcoran shtick--"I'll put corn in his muffin! I'll crimson his face! I'll butter his bean and serve it to him cold I will! Then I'll deliver a blow to the mouth area, the blood from which will issue most copiously!" They were making a pretty blatant attempt to give the Clashes an SNME vibe with the pre-taped promos and sketches. It didn't always work, but it does here.