PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Crash TV baby. Why put over one angle that no one cares about when you can put over two? -
It's not a DQ, the match layout or direction was so incompetent that it pretty much completely missed Hogan pinning Bigelow. Randy Savage--is he still with the promotion??--is in Hogan's locker room, and we get a convenient camera angle from inside to show Sting's puzzled and disappointed reaction.
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Well, at least this went farther than Larry Zbyszko and Baby Doll's pictures of Dusty Rhodes, but the reveal is somewhat underwhelming. I guess that's by design, but the Hummer angle has been pushed and then dropped and then pushed again so many times, with Nash having turned and Savage gone in the meantime, that the mystery is pretty dead. DDP rounds out the cast.
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I love Berlyn's look and--lighting aside--the presentation, with his entire entourage, and his gimmick of knowing how to speak English but refusing. I also cracked up at Mean Gene getting a patdown (Bobby: "They should have done this years ago!" Tony: "This has never happened to Okerlund...in the ring"). I like the idea of the translator but she doesn't really do as good of a job as Lana of coming off as foreign. It's easy heat, but it's effective on this night. Still, Buff Bagwell is an underwhelming first choice of a feud considering the amount of effort they put into this. I didn't remember the ridiculous lighting but it's as bad on the Network as it is on the Yearbook, so it was some sort of conscious choice.
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Rumors flying that Neville walked out before Raw started and asked for his release. Dave doesn't know if the story is true but did confirm that it was supposed to be him vs. Enzo last night and not Kalisto.
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More like a month later when Stephanie turned. That's when I rationalized it at the time. I didn't think she was actually drugged. And it's sports entertainment, baby.
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That was my rationalization as well--the drugging was fake and part of the longer-term cover-up.
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Good Lord, Nakanishi almost broke his neck doing that double-spear. Nakanishi flaps his arms a lot like a less muscular and less talented Lex Luger, but the crowd is admittedly into him and into this match even if the work is mediocre. For a big stadium show this does not feel like a "casual" audience.
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Supposedly Paul E. actually had big plans for Uganda, but he was in an out quickly. Taz does a good job of explaining the point of difference between him and the rest of ECW. He doesn't need weapons, because his hands are his weapons. We get handy visual aids showing all the Big Two guys that Taz has choked out.
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I know it's the premier episode but it's pretty creatively bankrupt to have guys literally introduce themselves on camera. Cyrus does some sub-Al Snow-level insidery bullshit while Dawn Marie entertains in her desperation to be on-camera. Aldo talks to us in a SCARY WRESTLING VOICE. One of many, many things that are going to sink the Impact Players as top heels is that they don't have Dawn's willingness or ability to look foolish. That's a compliment to Dawn.
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Aldo Montoya is just a few months away from accomplishing what Mick Foley and Steve Austin never could. Does that say more about Foley and Austin or more about ECW in general and at this point in particular?
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Well put-together package. This intro is probably over 90 seconds long--an eternity by modern TV standards and even TV of the day was shifting away from that, but for an introductory episode it works well.
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That outfit is very befitting of a commissioner, Shawn. I literally don't remember Shawn even appearing for a followup to this on Raw. He's literally gone until Judgment Day, where he's a babyface again.
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Oh, I guess that's why they didn't have Stephanie answer on Raw--they needed to give us a hook for Smackdown. Test gets laid out by the MSP and of course the stipulation of SummerSlam doesn't really mean anything. Mankind makes the save, I guess out of solidarity with his old Union buddy? Or revenge on Shane for costing him the title. We sort of convolutedly get into a Shane-Mankind match and this whole thing sort of shows why Russo would have felt the addition of Smackdown would have overworked him to death. Not to get too into Cornette-land here, but...maybe if you just booked a *wrestling* show, Vince, you'd have less to actually write.
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Finally an FMW match that lives up to the hype. Hayabusa is still like the greatest possible Johnny B. Badd in that he'll seemingly always need a fundamentally strong opponent to really have a classic, but Gannosuke comes through with a really great combination of pacing, matwork, and gradual build to the big bombs. The post-match angle is great just because of how long they milk it--like a reverse of the Mark Henry retirement fakeout. Hayabusa gets a ten-bell salute for the retirement of the name, a tear-filled speech, *then* the big attack.