PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Both men make comparisons of Dory Jr. to Norman the Lunatic, which is completely unprecedented and yet both men sound like they make sense. I still don't quite get the underlying cause of the Sullivan/Norman feud, which I suspect is due to Sullivan booking his own angles. And I came out of this anticipating a Sullivan vs. Dory Jr. feud which I don't really think was the goal. That said, I dig Sullivan as a suited, calm, rational guy who happens to be pure evil rather than a cartoonish Gamemaster. I hope there are further Sullivan interviews where he wears a suit and extolls the virtues of Phil Collins and Huey Lewis & the News so that we can continue seeing this dynamic. -
Love the Fanfare for the Common Man flourish at the beginning of Flair's usual entrance. Also love the Flair vs. Cornette dynamic--for two guys who were JCP/WCW mainstays it's amazing how little they ever got a chance to interact. Eaton takes an absurd bump getting thrown off the ring apron into the barricade, which arguably tops the two floor bumps he takes during Flair's comeback. Really great focused work on Flair's throat and neck when Eaton is in control and an awesome fiery comeback by Flair, with a few teases and cut-offs, with a great one being Flair catching the kneedrop off the top which allows him to go to work to set up the figure four. Flair basically wrestles clean until the very end when he gets a chance to use Cornette's racket. It's not quite as great as Bockwinkel in the late '80s in terms of being a crafty cheating babyface outsmarting the heels at their own game, but the dynamic of Cornette and the Midnights meeting someone who can fight just as dirty as them is still there. Good stuff--if this match had run on the Clash of the Champions instead of the match we got it'd be remembered as a classic.
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Macho played it to the hilt but I thought the King act pretty much screamed mid-card, based on both past history of the gimmick and Savage's feud with Rhodes which felt like it lasted for 6 years without going anywhere. I know that was SOP for the WWF main event heels for the entire run of the promotion up until the Monday Night Wars, but it doesn't make it any less of a waste.
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The birth of Sting: All-Too Trusting Dumbass. Flair and Ole put him over, and Arn does the same while also hyping the Clash main event. I still don't agree with the decision to turn Flair back to a heel, but this was still shaping up to be a promising angle until Sting's injury blew it all to hell.
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Also Bill evidently needs to prompt Scott like a dog trainee--"say thanks to your fans." Flair declares the PWI Wrestler of the Year to be the greatest award in wrestling next to the World's Heavyweight title. That's how to put the mags (which account for free advertising for your given promotion) over.
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The Steiners don't bother me, but this Buckeye fan finds it pretty sickening and disheartening to see Ric in a University of Michigan t-shirt.
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Sort of a transparent attempt to re-do the George Steele/Elizabeth dynamic, if Elizabeth were evil. Would there be a kayfabe reason for Sullivan to be defending Woman's honor at this point?
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Fantastic shaggy-dog story from Lawler that manages to be equally offensive to blacks and Hispanics. Actually the payoff to the outhouse story I found funnier than Cobra's real name. I do appreciate the fact that Cobra and Marlin are able to talk their way out of the no-DQ challenge without actually coming off as cowards.
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Gary, equal opportunitist for pre- and post-natal murder, also chides Dusty for not Benoit-ing his kid when he had the chance. I can't believe how long and in how many areas Dustin did his Dusty imitation before finally deciding or being told to talk like a normal human being, which was a step that did wonders for him.
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Fuji puts over the Barbarian and Warlord's strength and...intelligence. That's a different tack. We all miss managers as they once were, and one specific aspect I missed was multiple guys under management who didn't have to be specifically connected. Bravo and Honky Tonk had little to do with one another, they just happened to have the same employer.
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Nothing quite says glamour and fashion like a trenchcoat and fedora--I guess they didn't want to blow the budget on something that was going to get cut up. Rick also, sensibly, seems to be deliberately embellishing his francophone-ness. This isn't quite as despicable of an act on Beefcake's part as destroying Ron Bass' beloved whip Betsy. Any object that carries a name is automatically more precious than something that doesn't.
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Well, I can only be slightly more insightful about joshi than I can about lucha, but this kicked ass. Hotta is the greatest seller of a sleeperhold ever, if she wasn't legitimately loopy. It is that go-go-go style that's hard to get used to after so much '80s viewing, but every transition made sense, there was great psych to the choke sleeper as a killer move and all four girls wanting to pay back the others by using it, and everything was executed well (save Hokuto's piledriver that almost saw her tear her own groin). Akira definitely was positioned as the strongest of the bunch, getting the winning fall, getting to no-sell some stuff, and being the only one not to work an "in peril" segment of any real length.
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This had some pretty fun moments--the reversing tombstones, the stereo planchas, the fight on the floor, and Fulton's awesome punches--and a pretty hot finishing stretch. All that said, this was kind of formless, with some bizarre awkward moments like whatever the hell Rogers was going for when he somersaulted off the top. He worked an in-peril segment that was getting pretty hot until a few punches to the gut broke it all up. A mostly-dead crowd didn't really help either.
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Incredible to see how far Eddy has come along at this point. For me he has the TV squash vs. Terry Funk and then a giant dead zone until his When Worlds Collide match. Here he's pretty much outclassing his brother from both a work and charisma standpoint. This was a little closer to a traditional southern U.S. tag, at least in structure, with the rudos jumping Santo & Demon before the bell and laying waste to them through the first fall until Demon manages to tag in Santo after a double-team lands him in his own corner. Again Santo & Opponent (Eddy in this case) outclass everyone else in the match. Demon looks fine, especially throwing slaps, but some of his other stuff is hit-or-miss, particularly the clothesline spots and the holds. Mando looked great in his two matches on the AWA set but he definitely was a smothering bastard there. No issues with that here but he does seem to be working a step slow, taking some awkwardly delayed bumps at times. His attempts at phony handshakes don't quite carry the panache that Eddy's do, either. We get a little preview of the Eddy heel turn on Santo, Mando playing the role of Art Barr attacking Santo's partner while wearing a silver mask. Ah, the days before TitanTrons and portable cameras where Santo couldn't just say, "Look, dude, it was a misunderstanding. Here, take a look..."
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Oh, dear God...it's going to be awhile before I can comment on these matches without embarrassing myself out of lucha ignorance. Well, that's what the yearbooks are designed to correct. Casas and Santo are definitely a level above everyone else in the match in terms of work, particularly against each other but also when involved with anyone else. Actually the second-best spot of the match is Casas and Hamada throwing some pretty nasty strikes at each other. The best is is a true holy-shit moment when Santo does a somersault off the top onto Blue Panther and then seamlessly bounces up into a past-the-ringpost dive onto Casas on the floor (feel free to not bother telling me if this is something Santo does in every 6-man). Hamada is channeling Kantaro Hoshino through part of this, and not just because of the powder-blue trunks. He absolutely kills...I think it was Guerrera with a wind-up headbutt. Fuerza brings some shtick amidst all the fast-paced matwork. He suckers the young rookie Asai in with a clean handshake and hug, and that's enough to pull the wool over the eyes of Santo later on. Good wrestling-related start.
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Most are lost on me but among the few that are easily identifiyable that you didn't mention, Giant Haystaks, Finlay & Steve Wright are all over this thing. God only knows who the car-riding/hitchhiking chicks are. The first singing face we see is that of Colonel Brody, the guy Ed Wiskowski nicked the DeBeers gimmick from. I don't know the gangster-looking guys with him or the vaguely Asian bald man (who isn't PN News, who comes later). Tony St. Clair is seen prominently. Isn't the hairy guy in the centurion outfit Salvatore Bellomo? The guy in the multicolored tights doing all the kip-ups out of an armbar is Steven Wright, though I don't know if he was doing any of the lip-syncing. I think one of the guys in the white doing all the snap mare/reversals is Mile Zrno, but I couldn't make out his opponent. I hope this song as well as "Young, Strong, & Healthy" show up as menu music.
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Well, this was where I had to head first. It's hard for me to be objective about this one--as I said in the 1990 hype thread, seeing this match on ESPN was the first time I knew Lawler or Jarrett as anything other than names in Apter mags, and it was my first chance to see wrestling truly distinct from the WWF, NWA (as I knew Crockett to be called), or AWA. It was the first time I'd seen something really basic like a chain being visibly passed back and forth, and a new-to-me Dusty finish. I wouldn't see Lawler again until he showed in the WWF and I subsequently ordered some tapes from RF to see Vince & co. work heel. But seeing what was up in Memphis through PWI and such was now a priority for me. Cool story bro material out of the way, this isn't a perfect match. It's been mentioned that a "World" champion like Lawler probably shouldn't be constantly using foreign objects just to maintain an advantage. But the opening stallfest actually does have Lawler demonstrating some skills in actually outsmarting the babyface Jarrett, which was nice to see. The punches are all Lawler punches, and I'd forgotten about Lawler's use of the Von Erich claw just to be a dick. Jarrett's comeback is pretty awesome--Jeff's stuff is fairly basic but Lawler bumps huge for it. There's a big tease that Tony Falk will re-reverse the decision, but Lawler & Gossett take both of them out before it can happen. Bill Dundee temporarily evens the odds before Terry Garvin and a new-look Dirty White Boys (Alex Porteau, I believe, replacing Denton) put a beatdown on everyone. Honestly the heel beatdown isn't all that thrilling, though a rowdy fan certainly thought so, and Ronnie P. Gossett executing a big splash was another moment that stuck with me. Marc Lowrance, who I really came to enjoy as the '80s WCCW set wore on and especially during the Embry/Devastation Inc. feud, is a month or so away from entering priesthood and sometimes sounds like he's crossing the days off the calendar. That said, his sort of resigned irritation with Lawler's antics and the end result of the match is amusing, and he did provide a great classic Lowrance call, "AND NOW THAT FAT SLOB IS CHOKING OUT JEFF JARRETT!" This probably doesn't hold up to the very best post-'80s Memphis stuff, but it was something I was really glad to see after being a match seemingly lost to history.
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I read this one sentence for about five minutes before I could figure out the proper meaning of "juiced up." "It's Tommy Rich, he's ALWAYS juiced up..."
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I like Mulligan just fine on the Crockett films. Active as a heel, even jumping off the top turnbuckle, and as a babyface was a really good proto-Boss Man in that he was able to project vulnerability and sympathy despite being towering. Babyface Mulligan vs. Heel Paul Jones absolutely should not have worked at all. It wasn't a great match, but it did work. There's also a really awesome, bloody Mulligan vs. Rusher Kimura match on one of the IWE sets. He did fall off a cliff work-wise as the '80s dawned. He looked okay in his one match on the AWA '80s set but that's about his peak. Always a good interview, though.
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The USA Network had coverage of U.S. Open tennis, which pre-empted Raw or moved it to another night.
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What other things have you corrected him on? I barely even remember. I mean, it's happened a few times--I read something here and pop over there, but it's not particularly often. The only time I've emailed him directly was years ago when he somehow declared that Tim Horner was the son of Atlanta Brave Bob Horner (who was all of about 2 years older), but there's no way he'd connect this screen name with that old email address.
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I feel privileged and honored that Keith sees me as some sort of hypercorrective thorn in his side.
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I would assume Bravo was in the PWHOF: The Canadians book hence his exclusion here.