PeteF3
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Everything posted by PeteF3
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One of the all-time high points of Raw, and even for a hot company this feels like the hottest it's been in months. Austin is back to being *dangerous* again, like he was in 1997. There's no hell yeahs, no turnbuckle posing, no pandering...just a straight-up asskicker who doesn't care. And then we get a gear shift as Vince decides to go back on his word to Undertaker and Kane and force them to fight for the title at Judgment Day with Austin as referee, then also throws them into a handicap tag match tonight for good measure. Everyone in this segment is absolutely awesome, but it might be Vince's best performance since his initial heel run in May. I love how he sells the Austin beating all the way through his second promo.
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In a vacuum this could actually be defended as a hell of an angle and a strong way to set up Bret vs. Sting for Starrcade, but It Was a Setup All Along is so, so, SO tired, across both promotions. And this setup is particularly ridiculous because why would Bret and Hogan be costing themselves matches just to create a ruse for a month later? This pretty much leaves the Wolfpack as the same ineffective ninny babyfaces that WCW was in 1996 and ends them as a major babyface faction.
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You could also fantasy book the lead-up to Goldberg's title win...hell, *that* could have come at Starrcade and you have all of 1999 to run with Goldberg on top with fresh main event opponents. So far this looks like a good elevation for Jericho and has you wanting to see these two one-on-one. So far.
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Hogan declares he has "Wood's War Bonnet" on tonight! I would pay a full Yearbook's price to see Hogan come out with a black and white fist helmet. Hogan cuts a vaguely shootish promo that would have been the talk of wrestling had he cut it in '96 but here just feels old hat. Calling himself "Wood" is one thing but the way Hogan absolutely pounds the term into the ground trying to get it over is truly LOLworthy. By the end he's even ripping off Val Venis. Larry Z is about as amusing as he's ever been. First he recites a typical Hogan promo before it even starts and for whatever reason I laughed at his response line, "What was that, the Boyz in the Hood say he's Ed Wood?"
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Eh, in 2001 in another environment you could chalk it up to the rules committee making changes. That's how I justify the Brain Busters winning the tag titles in a 2/3 falls match with a first-fall DQ after the Bulldogs didn't. As for this, they craft some decent spots here but there isn't much heat and despite the finish I don't think anyone seriously went in expecting a title change.
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The beginning lost me, as things were slow and there were some really eye-rolling spots like the triple abdominal stretch. Plus this really would have been better off had the door been locked and this had been climb-out only. I concentrated on the Indians game for awhile and came back and this got a lot better--I didn't notice a turning point, but they smartly had Mankind & Shamrock work over the Rock 2-on-1 to build sympathy on the newly turned babyface, and the crowd slowly gets more and more into things. The big spots down the stretch are much better, especially the double People's Elbow.
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Thomas Edward Gilbert, Jr...yeah, thanks for that info, Joey. Can the powers-that-be in ECW decide if their fans are knuckle-dragging morons or the smartest fans in the room, please? Joey finally provides an interesting tidbit as Dreamer blithers, pointing out that this story broke on ecwwrestling.com, back when news breaking on a website and then being acknowledged on TV later was still sort of novel. Jack Victory, fat as ever, comes out and accuses Tommy Dreamer of being a kissass. He uses a bunch of f-bombs so you can tell he's serious. Dreamer responds with a long string of bleeps himself. A bald Rod Price makes the save and Paul E. has resorted to turning his hardcore pet promotion into a rehash of early-'90s Global. Can't wait for the debuts of Sweet Daddy Falcone and Scott Putski to fill the Sandman's void. Justin Credible does a Sandman imitation and pounds Dreamer into oblivion with his new Singapore cane gimmick. Funny how like 35 cane shots don't carry an iota as much effect as Sandman doing ten of them to Dreamer a few years ago.
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Lawler spins a yarn, detailing the history of his feud with Andy Kaufman and then this supposed dust-up on-set with Jim Carrey. Apparently Carrey took his method-acting a bit too far and, upset over not being allowed to take the suplex and piledriver himself, spit at Lawler and precipitated a pull-apart on the set which became a national news story. A work all the way, but Lawler makes this compelling.
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I'm pretty sure AJ Styles did a brainbuster a few weeks ago, which surprised me even more.
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Benoit actually gets in some clever lines but they fly over the crowd's heads. McMichael's much more blunt and to-the-point promo about hunting Eric down in his house gets over better. Definitely a holding pattern of a segment with the main foil off in Japan, but Flair and Arn in a holding pattern is still pretty enjoyable.
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Ross and Lawler were filming their parts for Man on the Moon. Cornette is doing yeoman's work trying to carry Shane all the way through this broadcast, and he mostly succeeds in getting the storylines over while Shane just cheerleads obnoxiously. This has a lot of 3-way cliches like the triple sleeper and one guy lying comatose on the floor, but the action down the stretch heats up, with Shamrock and Rock working really well together--as you'd think considering how often they've wrestled each other all year. No finish and presumably no #1 contender for next week--not that it will end up mattering anyway.
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Oh, it's Elizabeth--is she still with the promotion? Anyway, this segment is another winner and it's awesome to see Flair control a somewhat non-WCW city crowd like this. This is a US company doing a Japanese-style angle and actually doing it right--lots of people knew about the underlying story here and the ones that didn't could easily fill in the blanks themselves. Flair was off TV for 6 months and it was presumably Bischoff's fault--all you need to know.
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