PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Cornette is sporting a hot pink cover on his tennis racket to go with his pink jacket. I get the effect that they're going for and he can't talk about her the way he did Baby Doll, but seeing this character fawn all over Woman is all kinds of jarring. Meanwhile Woman is sporting leather dominatrix gear and is telling Cornette that he's going to do exactly what she tells him, and that she wants Ric Flair to come out and tell her no--the subtletly to all this is staggering. I'm all for it. Ric shoots her down again but she promises to be at the Clash. -
I think he said, "I couldn't be happier, but you know..." Yeah, that was a solid, focused promo from KVE. More than I can say about Jarrett, who tried to play cool & collected and instead looked tense and rambling. Jarrett was a fine worker at this point but Lawler pretty much totally outclasses him on the mic. Lawler outclasses a lot of people, of course, but it particularly shows with young Jeff. His characterization of Kerry as a Cro-Magnon imbecile is great and almost a little too on-the-mark.
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Hogan declares Warrior's clothesline to be a "cheap shot" then stresses that it was an accident. His heart feels like it has a cancer in it as he has nightmares and visions over what the true strongest force in the universe is--and then wonders if the Warrior rides with darkness and gets his power from the sweat of the Devil's armpits, and declares that if he does, he and the "#1 Hulkamaniac upstairs" will by Gawd strike him down. Holy shit, in Hogan's universe even God acquiesces to the Hulkster. HOOOOOOOO KOOOGAN. I SPEAK TO YOU HOKE OWEGUN.
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Decent match for Superstars with lots of DDT teases that Jake was a master of. The Big Boss Man retrieves Damian and the Million Dollar Belt and the plan all coalesces on the Brother Love set--until BBM hears something about a payoff. Jake gets the bag and belt back and we have a babyface turn. I don't know what the talk was about in the sheets, but this FLOORED me when I saw it at the time.
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Zenk absurdly comes out to the Danny Elfman Batman theme. It's a strong match and not having seen the WrestleWar bout could possibly be his peak--that said, aside from the pop for the sleeperhold Zenk seemed to be a guy along for the ride. Terry Taylor was that way in the Flair matches in Mid-South and I had one of those in the top 5 on my '80s ballot, so it's not a major detriment, but this match is more proof of Zenk's basic competence than proof of a lost great worker. Flair does a great job of walking the heel line--he was always the "dirtiest player of the game," so the tights grab works regardless of the future booking plans.
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It's been a long time since I watched the NJPW '80s set. My first guess is that this isn't quite as good as the shoulder-pad match. But holy fuck is it a war. Liger sort of only has himself to blame for the post-match tantrum--as Ventura would surely point out, Liger started it with the pre-match slap and hey, it isn't Naoki's fault he's pinned him a whole bunch of times. Liger's aggression gets the best of him and Sano destroys his face with a scary combination of violence and intense focus, breaking the mask apart to make him more vulnerable and then pounding Liger into a bloody mess. All of Liger's comeback spots involve bombs or death-defying dives that are more intent on breaking Sano and doing it quickly before he falls apart again rather than highspots for the sake of highspots. Everyone has each other's moves well-scouted, but Sano goes to the well one time too many on more than one occasion, and it's those counters that ultimately doom him. He hangs on with one kickout of the Ligerbomb but he's pretty much beaten then. Liger throws the belt down in disgust during the post-match ceremony and blames it all on Sano for tearing his mask open. Crybaby. Match of the Month winner for January, as if you couldn't guess.
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I think the soullessness is attributable more to the dead crowd than anything. Okay, maybe that's on the workers, but sometimes a dead crowd in Japan is just dead, especially when the juniors are involved. This wasn't Owen busting out pretty spots for the sake of it, though a lot of them did have that aesthetic element--but they also looked like he was out to fucking hurt the guy. They did a good job of building up to the bombs-and-highspots-fest at the end with some flashes early on, and Owen was not exactly Dynamite Kid but still at least more aggressive than he was showing most of the time in this pre-King of Harts phase.
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Weird ending all-around. I mean, Eaton-hits-the-Alabama-Jam-on-covering-opponent is as standard as it gets, but the timing is all messed up from Shane having to blatantly put himself in position to Lane taking 45 minutes to cover. Before that this was fun with a classic performance by Ricky Morton doing what Ricky Morton does. Still, it was "fun," and with a sort of tepid opening there's no way I'd put this up against the higher-end WCW matches of January.
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Robert Fuller: Emo Pioneer. The Tennessee Stud pours his heart out for his dear departed Sylvia (and he can legit play the guitar a bit, which is a treat) and the reaction from the heartless fans in attendance is really pretty sickening. Jerry Lawler gives some sage advice about just letting her go, and I think off-mic he added something to the effect of, "Whatever you do, don't spend the last half of your autobiography talking about her after she's gone." The Sylvia Star Search '90 is on! Col. Parker could have redeemed the whole stupid Sherri/Madusa angle with something like this.
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Incredible, crazy match and post-match. I can see the argument that this veers into Kurt Angle territory as Travis takes a DDT on the table, a piledriver on the floor, and a tombstone in the ring all in the span of about two seconds. By all rights he should have been in a coma. Still, this is worked as a feud blowoff and Jarrett's big revenge, and he doesn't disappoint in that regard. Great heel beatdown afterward with a Kerry Von Erich run-in and the post-match actually has more momentum shifts, transitions, and false finishes than the match itself. That wasn't a cheap-shit cardboard guitar they were swinging around, either.
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Frenetically paced match in front of insane crowd that's equally awesome and frustrating, as it highlights (as if we needed more reminders and indicators) what a dumb move the Horsemen turn was. Flair vs. Buzz seems like one of those quasi-dream matches that I'm not sure ever happened one-on-one. They're going all-out to make the Mad Dog Splash into a killer move, and it's working.
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A weird, sort of low-rent venue I've never seen before and the lack of lighting combine with the chaotic frenzy of the match to make for something that looks like a high-end Japanese indy more than All-Japan. Mighty is in peril while everyone else brawls around ringside until he manages to ward off a Kawada attack and fire a leaping headbutt at Tenryu on the apron, pretty much knocking him cold. And Tenryu gets counted out! Tenryu loses it after the match and chairs and tables are thrown all over the place. I don't know if this was a punishment for Tenryu or an attempt at duplicating the awesome Umanosuke Ueda/Akira Maeda moment from the NJPW/UWF elimination tag a few years earlier, or what, but that was a pleasantly unexpected result especially by AJPW standards. This seemed like a '70s match for the promotion (in terms of atmosphere at least) complete with a non-pinfall finish, that makes for a fun little anachronism in the increasingly conservative world of All-Japan.
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Piper does some fun stuff at the beginning. I mean, it's basic small packages and stuff but Piper wrestling on the level isn't really what you expect of him. He only ramps up the usual Piper punch-and-kick-fest after Sherri gets involved one too many times. Savage with a pretty epic airplane spin and then he plummets to the floor--I was kind of hoping he'd take his backwards turnbuckle climb all the way and leap off to nowhere. We get the birth of the Attitude Era after the match as the camera gratuitously zooms in on Sherri's exposed rear end after she takes a bump off Piper in the post-match.
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We start with a footnote moment here in the little Hogan vs. Snuka exchange. That might be the only "match" the two ever had against each other. It also sticks out how meticulously this was booked to set up a babyface-babyface main event match without turning either guy heel, between Warrior saving Hogan from elimination and then coming back to only hit Rude and Barbarian when he gets eliminated himself. I don't think there was ever anything to the idea of Perfect winning besides made-up Scott Keith horseshit--once Warrior goes out the result is pretty much a foregone conclusion. Hogan works a whole lot with Rude here for a guy supposedly "afraid" to work with him, by the way.
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This is a really awesome blend of stiffness the southern wrestling way, and WWF-style sportz entertainment. The dueling shinguards gimmick is goofy as all get-out but dammit, I like it anyway. The internal logic states that Valentine's brace makes the figure four more painful and that Garvin's blocks it, and as long as they stick to internal logic that makes sense within its own universe, then it's all good, even if it doesn't make sense in the real world. The pin attempts are pretty Sledgehammer of Plot-worthy in that WWF style, but the early attempts are explained away as instinct and the later ones like the small package on the figure four are done more as escapes and counters than the guys forgetting the rules. Crowd was sort of bored early on, and Garvin was always a fish out of water in McMahonland, but all the hard shots won them over eventually. A big (albeit temporary) rejuvenation for Greg Valentine as a worker and a testament to how great Garvin was. I won't lie. When I was eight I hated this match and I hated Garvin. And he does sometimes come across as the world's most badass goofball. Now I more or less see hard evidence of how stupid I think 8-year old kids are.