PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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Boy, Liz, don't bother to keep a straight and face and put over the stips or anything. Luger is still playing to the crowd as a babyface just as Nash has been, which is quite the contrast from his performance on tape. Heenan drops a quick reference to old-tyme Jack Pfefer women's star Yulie Brynner--Bobby is obviously increasingly out of touch at this time but it made *me* snicker. -
Lex and Liz make goo-goo eyes at each other and are being set up as an on-camera couple. Luger fits in well in this environment--Liz, not so much, as her dialogue recital is pretty wooden albeit not Nitro Girl-caliber. There are interesting parallels between Goldberg's entry into the business and Luger's, that a promotion that's more on the ball could have possibly drawn upon for this (apparent) feud.
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Well, the other issue is, Bischoff keeps finding ways to outsmart Flair in the end, which is kind of backwards. When Vince is booked to look foolish, he goes all-in, 100%. Bischoff seems to be trying to want to be a cool heel still. That said, La Parka's presence here was ROTFL-worthy and made it all worth it.
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Well, it's 2 years later, but let the record show that Vince refers to the fans and arena "in Arizona" a few times, when they cut back to Kelly & Shane. Yeah, a lot of fun, and deliberately more lighthearted after the torture porn that was the I Quit Match. Not really something that falls within the realm of a traditional star rating, but fun and creative--final camera angle notwithstanding. Vince calls this and is weirdly sort of half-Mr. McMahon and half 1995-era Vince, which is jarring and at times hilarious. "That's not real liquor, by the way--real liquor has never touched the Rock's lips!" Into Pro Wrestling Mostly territory for a second...interestingly, aside from the Puppy Bowl, there's not much halftime counterprogramming left. After the Wardrobe Malfunction incident of '04, halftime started to get notice again. Then after a few too many years of old guys, bottoming out with what was left of the Who, the NFL and Super Bowl turned to getting the biggest stars in music to perform. Now, I'm not sure there's a lot you could do that would work as a ratings draw--wrestling or otherwise. The gimmick worked with In Living Color because that came at a time when the halftime show if not the game itself was usually completely embarrassing. Then Michael Jackson put a stop to it for a few years, then it started back up again with Celebrity Deathmatch and then this. But after a few years of it being a fad, the idea seems to be extinct.
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This was an admirable effort and I don't want to shit too much on a match with 6 students in it, but MAN does this go completely off the rails at about the 2/3 mark. The opening is about as good as any '90s juniors 6-man you care to see. There are a few sloppy spots as you'd expect, and Crazy Max isn't quite Kaientai when they're not in the ring with 3 veterans like they were for our first glimpse at them a few weeks ago. Still, Shiima still does so many little things that are terrific and there are some great ideas for spots here even if they're not always executed 100%. SAITO offers some terrific matwork and innovative holds that had me itching for more. Hoo boy...then we get to the portion where Shiima is down 2-on-1. Aside from being laid out rather backwards as Shiima suddenly starts working like a sympathetic underdog babyface, Dragon almost murders him with an ugly, UGLY 450 that splits his lip open and pretty clearly concusses him, and the next few moments where Shiima is clearly out of it and Dragon and Magnum are trying to stall/cover for it are intensely uncomfortable to watch. I wasn't far removed from that feeling watching the I Quit Match, saying in my head, JUST GO HOME ALREADY--END THE MATCH. At least he cheats to eliminate Dragon. Shiima manages to recover somewhat but the match doesn't, as the final portion of this feels like it's wrestled in slow motion in comparison to the first part and it's not "epic selling" either--these guys were just gassed and/or out of ideas. Shiima hits the Iconoclasm but takes about 7 minutes to climb to the turnbuckle in a really contrived set-up for Tokyo to get up and crotch him, and Tokyo finishes with a shooting star press that's almost as ugly as the 450. Again, a very admirable effort from 6 guys who are still wrestling beyond their years, but the flaws in this were gaping and impossible for me to ignore. To my own surprise, coming off that MPro match, for the most part the babyfaces outworked the heels.
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Hahahaha, everyone's beaten me to my obligatory "Joey Styles ruins everything by telegraphing it" spiel. This actually would have been a really good segment without him. Buh Buh Ray's Grunge impression just consists of him talking in a really high voice, but it's still funny. He also gets off some great below-the-belt lines--"I don't see the ugly old rat I used to fuck around here anymore," and a crack about Rocco's age. Then Buh Buh cuts a good serious promo that sounds exactly like something Paul Heyman would come up with to explain an unplanned absence. To the live audience, this was probably an effective swerve. To us, the TV viewer, it loses a lot from the commentary.
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This was something quite short of "fundamentally solid"--there's some sloppiness and some awkward transitions and some more Big Two cosplaying (Matt doing the Scott Hall "ooh I'm scared" move as well as a crotch chop). But man, if you're not into this by the end, I'm not sure if you have a pulse. This is like a rinky-dink version of the Kobashi/Kikuchi-Can-Ams tag with the hometown factor and the megapops down the stretch, and when the big spots do hit, they look great. Even the ref bump finish is carried out well and this builds to a logical and crowd-pleasing finish, rather than a 2.9-fest. I'm no 2000s-'10s indy expert but I definitely haven't seen anything that's this satisfying--another match that's more than the sum of its parts, and maybe a dark-horse pic for US MOTY.
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Shamrock and Boss Man had been given saltpeter before the bout which supposedly would make them immune from Debra's advances, but not immunity from Koko B. Ware running in dressed as the Blue Blazer and walloping Shamrock with the guitar, to give Owen & Jarrett the tag titles, an angle and finish lifted from the famous Fabulous Kangaroos-Miller Brothers match of 1957.
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Ah, Super Bowl halftime...a history in its own right. The phenomenon had rebounded after being a long-running joke a few years before this when they landed Michael Jackson, but had slid back into irrelevance and would stay there until the wardrobe malfunction of 2004. The door was back open, after In Living Color had pioneered the idea, of counterprogramming, and the WWF was the perfect company and audience to try it with. This is another long and drawn-out segment after we got one to open the show, but at least these segments are advancing the story in major ways.
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Yes, Austin was clearly sloshed here, and it showed. Have to say that as far as Russo gaga goes, this is all kind of logical and forward-thinking in its own way. Vince probably should have known his own rulebook better, but what the hell--it's not any different than Ted DiBiase not realizing that selling the WWF title was impossible. Austin stumbles his way through the end of this, but the end result--Austin vs. Vince in a cage--sells itself.
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Bret was nursing a legit groin injury at this point, but the main reason he was inactive is that WCW had told him they didn't have anything for him to do. Yes, really. This of course is a legendary promo and I've even already commented on it, but the 1993-like backstage setting looks weird in the Monday Night Wars era and makes this look more like an episode of WCWSN than Nitro.
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I didn't have a problem with Hall carrying the ladder out--it was an impromptu challenge match, after all. Not an all-timer of a ladder match, but I might have liked it more than Eddy vs. Syxx. Hall clearly lays this out and draws upon WM10 for inspiration as a lot of the same spots are there. Still, a dumb finish that doesn't satisfy anything (even though Goldberg does get a monster pop for the double spear, which is a spot that will never not get over) except to put heat on SCOTT NORTON.
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Gee, who do you think Stevie's trying to rip off with the look and all the talk of his "$500 shirt"? The Wolfpac arrive on a private jet and make noise about "trimming the fat," but the only fat that gets trimmed is Curt Hennig. Vincent, Adams, Horace, Norton, and Stevie remain. Then the group arrives in a box and we get an entire segment revolving around Stevie Ray's choice of attire. Fascinating.
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A fun show as usual...as for how far to go, I think the departure of the Radicals would be a good stopping point. I can only speak for me but it seemed like that was the moment where there was truly no return and that WCW was forever consigned to #2. Realistically they'd probably already reached that point, but that felt like the death knell. Anything else is just playing out the string, and whatever noteworthy moments came after that seem to be well-covered by the RuView episodes. '99 is certainly a depressing year, but maybe until the Russo jump you could burn off 2 or 3 months at a time, like in the early shows, and concentrate more on the bigger stories.