PeteF3
Members
-
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by PeteF3
-
If nothing else, Dave *cannot* be having conversations about issues this heavy in the world of Twitter. Any semblance of nuance goes out the window in this environment. -
Hercules definitely did the Jobbers Tour. What's forgotten now is that the team with Roma started *before* they both turned heel. Then there's this result from the 6/17/90 Challenge: The Honkytonk Man & Greg Valentine (w/ Jimmy Hart) defeated Hillbilly Jim & Randy Fox at the 3-minute mark when Valentine pinned Fox following a double back suplex; during the bout, Rhythm & Blues and Jimmy Hart cut an insert promo on the Bushwhackers Jim's a surprising name to be doing that duty--he did plenty of jobs later in his WWF career but was still kind of a made man in the company. Some more stuff on the Tito/Virgil combination: - The Virgil/DiBiase thing continued into 1994 until Virgil was finally done with the company. His last program was a feud with Nikolai Volkoff, as he ran in to save the 1-2-3 Kid from a post-match attack by Volkoff and DiBiase and was out to try to "free" Nikolai from DiBiase's grasp. - I was not in Huntington that night, but I was at the Challenge taping in Columbus the night before. It had these feature bouts, many of which were repeated the next night: - Rick & Scott Steiner winning the WWF tag titles from Money Inc. (this was the opener--quite an improvement over King/Doll over Matador/Virgil) - Randy Savage over Doink by reverse decision (Coliseum Video) - Ted DiBiase over Bart Gunn (All-American exclusive) - Lex Luger over Owen Hart (Mania exclusive) - Undertaker over Giant Gonzalez by DQ - Yokozuna over Duggan - Bam Bam Bigelow & the Headshrinkers over Tatanka & the Smoking Gunns (Challenge) - Mr. Hughes over Marty Jannetty (Challenge) - Hogan & Beefcake over Money Inc. with Sgt. Slaughter as the guest referee - A Men on a Mission squash, which I believe was their in-ring debut--they were definitely brand-new ... - And the biggest dream match of them all, a match that only aired on TSN in Canada: Tito Santana DEFEATED Virgil. Both men worked babyface and shook hands afterward. Minds were blown on that night, I can assure you. By this point the WWF was actively sprinkling feature bouts in-between the endless parade of squashes at TV tapings, both for Coliseum Video and just for the live audience, to keep crowds active. In addition they were running more feature bouts than ever before for syndie TV, something that I believe may have been the work of Jim Ross (the 6-man I listed here actually got the "we're out of time!" treatment on TV and was continued the following week). Rex King & Steve Doll were very close to becoming Well Dunn at this point--their match the next night may have been either a tryout or them actively finalizing their gimmick, depending on when they actually signed. Still, losing to Well Dunn wasn't much an improvement, as they were probably sub-Bolsheviks on the all-time heel tag team totem pole.
-
Keith's version of history is slowly starting to fix itself, I think, with his recent penchant for recapping old Observers on his site. He's still useful for little tidbits now and again, like these two recent ones: - The first Clash show drew 521 responses for the thumbs-up/thumbs-down poll, and Keith expressed amazement that Dave's subscriber count would be so low, as if 100% of his readership not only watched the show but called or mailed in an opinion. - Dr. James Andrews was given the nickname "Tape it up and play through it," when any sports fan knows that name is synonymous with "season-ending surgery."
-
KOTR '96 had a strong main event and a memorable UT-Mankind match--not as memorable as future matches perhaps, but something that stood out as different for the time with a holy-shit finish. It was a perfectly acceptable show at worst, and Mero-Austin stood out as high-quality in that context. The blame for any "disappointment" in character isn't entirely off of Mero, who had been so openly adamant about dropping the Badd gimmick and preferring to wrestle under his real name.
-
Right after I piss and moan about both of the Big Two not treating matches like matches, we get this--a satisfying World title match with a good layout, hard work, and a clean finish. DDP does some work over Goldberg's head, which nicely sets up both spots where Goldberg hurts himself attempting the spear and then not being able to execute the Jackhammer at first. Yes, this is probably Goldberg's best match--the Sting match was on its way to getting there before the dumb finish, while this was satisfying all the way through.
-
Yeah, both promotions but especially WCW are starting to fail at the most basic level of selling pro wrestling: What would happen if Wrestler X faced Wrestler Y and who would win? That shit's just completely academic at this point as the thought of booking a big match without a shit-ton of ref bumps and run-ins and angles and swerves is almost completely out the window. This was bad, but fireball disaster aside, I was honestly expecting worse. That could be because I took the opportunity to watch some MNF in the background even though I don't give a shit about the Eagles or the Bears. No one in the crowd gives a fuck about Horace's swerve, that's for sure.
-
Billy Silverman takes the most ill-positioned ref bump in the history of wrestling, sprawled out in the dead middle of the ring and constantly getting away of almost every spot the two guys try. Doing that superplex across his legs was just batshit crazy. Bret wins and now has new music which through some miracle is actually worse than his old theme. I had no recollection of this happening or Sting's disappearance at all, which shows just how effective WCW was at putting this angle over.
-
Having this ultra-serious video package end with TBS Guy saying, "At Snicker's Halloween Havoc..." kind of undermines their point. As does Nash *so* not treating this like a battle between two former friends. I have no idea what the ending was supposed to be about. The announcers gamely attempt to sell Nash barely able to get Hall up for the Jackknife without keeling over as a great feat of strength.
-
Rick PINS THE GIANT down 2-on-1 in a handicap match so Giant is officially counting the days until he's gone, I guess. Rick is now the WCW Tag Team Champions, by himself. This whole set-up is goofy and nonsensical, but damned if the crowd isn't into it. This is the most over Rick has been since he was facing off against the Varsity Club. Both Steiners were fucked by injuries at this point so I get overbooking this and loading it up with gaga, and I admit I found it fun to see Scott going up for and taking all of Rick's trademark offense. And I say that as someone with no interest in this feud or seeing these two wrestle each other. Of course there's some Oh, WCW moments like the bell ringing when Bagwell interferes, and it's kind of hilarious that Bagwell, while manipulating the referee, still has the integrity to honor Rick's kickouts. This all definitely falls under the label of "entertaining crap."
-
Decent studio action with a distraction-rollup finish. The angle afterward is cool, with Baxter taking advantage of Randy Hales guaranteeing he'd put Stacy in a Dumpster all throughout the show, by going out to hide in the Dumpster himself to make the save. Everyone heads out to the parking lot for a brawl, and we get an accidental punch from Lawler delivered to Dundee, triggering a separate confrontation. Brandon Baxter promises to confront Randy Hales at the house show tonight.
-
-
-
A match for historical purposes to be sure, as Kobashi debuts the Burning Hammer, and boy does that closing bump not age well. I will give AJPW and NOAH credit for protecting the move and making sure it was only unleashed (at least after this) in major situations and sold accordingly. Is this the first time *on tape* that we've seen Kobashi pin Misawa? It happened before this in a CC but it went untelevised and unrecorded as far as we know.
-
Oh, good, I thought I'd had a stroke or something wondering how I missed a fall. This was really good and maybe that missing fall could qualify for status in the "Holy Grail" thread among a million other lucha matches, since there didn't seem to be anything perfunctory about this--the two falls we got were both really long with a lot of near-falls, which isn't always the case in lucha. A really good classic lucha title match between two guys I don't really know.
-
-
-
-
Pretty sure the latter part was exactly it. The all-time worst example of this kind of reaction is the infamous Kidman-Malenko match at Souled Out '00, where Dean forgets the rules and bails out of the ring, costing himself the match. Kidman's visible reaction is one of annoyance and frustration--hello, you won and the announcers are trying to put over how you caught a huge fucking break. ACT like it.
-
I admit that lucha news often causes my eyes to glaze over--not just listening to it here, but reading it in Observers myself, just because seemingly every week the story was "These 37 guys all jumped from CMLL to AAA," then another 20 guys are thinking of jumping back but might not, and then it repeats the opposite direction the next week.
-
-
-
We hear Austin's voice over the phone...yeah, exposition about the camera aside, we're full into Russo's "making movies and telling stories" approach. These two have good chemistry, of course, but it comes off way too much like a torture-porn horror movie with Austin as the antagonist. This just gets weirder and weirder and creepier and creepier when Vince is forced to squeal like a pig and Austin threatens to recreate the hobbling scene from Misery. Yeah, a certain somebody is drawing on his video-store past. Eventually some actual goddamn DEVELOPMENT happens as Austin agrees to let Vince go if Kane beats the Undertaker tonight.
-
Godfather comes out to collect his payment from a former ho, because as we all know, hos pay pimps for life. Your babyface, ladies and gentlemen! Singh is incensed as he wanted an amateur for this deep-throat stunt, not a professional. "If I were Tiger Ali Singh, I'd hop back in my taxi and get outta here!" Your babyface announcer, ladies and gentlemen!
-
The Stooges all simultaneously decide to go get coffee together, leaving Vince alone--until Mankind shows up as security, along with Sheriff Socko (complete with badge). Socko is already the second most-over babyface on the roster behind Stone Cold. Mankind's attempts to bond with Vince over a game of Twister don't go well.
-