El-P
Members
-
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by El-P
-
Didn't he show up on WCW TV B-shows later in the decade ? -
I have no idea. Way too long ago. I just remember that I was a total newbie on japanese wrestling and that one of the name that jumped to my eyes as being talked as a GOAT worker was Jumbo, along with Liger, Misawa & Kawada. I knew Liger from NJ on Eurosport, the three others I had no idea who they were. Agreed. The PWFG shows especially would be put on tapes along other japanese indy stuff and it would be very scattered. I don't remember either. Plenty of Tiger Mask and Sabu comp around at that time. Yes. In a way I don't enjoy being a wrestling fan today because none of the current wrestling interests me, but in another way it's terrific to be a wrestling fan today thanks to the availability and ways to pass the footage around.
-
Understood. I checked out Da Meltz ratings for the show, and it's all over the place. Vader vs Cactus gets ****3/4 (ridiculous), Flair vs Rude gets ***1/4 (not even a good match) and Nasties vs Scorp/Bagwell gets ***1/2 (*good* match but I would go no further). Meanwhile, Regal vs Bulldog gets **3/4. Hum, what ?
-
The Summer of 1993 solidifies SMW as probably the best TV product of the year in the US, despite (or thanks to ?) the old-school format. The big summer show was the best major card of the year, with an excellent Wargames like cage match and the awesome Cornette vs Armstrong showdown. Brian Lee turned from boring and dull babyface to cool heel with Tammy Fytch at his side, and you can see her get really good really fast. His work still isn't exactly stellar, but his bumping big man style heel suits him much better. DWB not collecting the bounty on Tracy Smother moves thing organically toward the babyface turn. I'm loving every minute of Candido vs Tim Horner (I'm a sucker for redneck butterface Horner and his bad promos, he's campy but he's genuine, and he's such a crisp worker), including Dennis Corraluzo making a cameo as the WWA president. Cornette's post injury promos are priceless, and the Heavenly Bodies with Del Ray are more fun in the ring than with Lane. The only thing I don't like about the product at that time are the Bruise Brothers, even the Rock'n Roll can't make them watchable. Bobby Blaze is a nice little worker in the babyface Barry Horowitz role too.
-
When I came to the scene in early 1998, Jumbo was already talked about as a GOAT I remember. On Lawler, yeah most probably, but tons of Fujiwara footage has been available for ages. Again, the UWF (1 & 2), PFWG and 80's NJ tapes from the big UWF vs NJ matches were already around 14 years ago, I remember seeing Fuji's name all over Mike Lorefice's tape list back then.
-
-
This is worst than their previous one. Rude is totally going on smokes and mirrors at this point, in his case he's overselling in the long run (selling a leg like nobody's business well too long after anyone would after a simple figure-4 spot), repeating pin attempts when there is no point really, and using basic moves only. And he barely bumps anymore. Kinda sad to watch. His tights are the best part of the match, just classic Rude. Fifi is looking great, but she oughta be the most useless valet ever as she doesn't get anything to do or say, ever. Flair works an autopilot here while he worked super hard the other time around, and the finish is bad. Yeah, Terry Taylor was wasted, I don't get the point at all. Not a good match, bad ending.
-
I don't like the Texas Death Match gimmick at all anyway, it always kills the flow of a match and unless you are a godlike babyface like Onita who can play Rocky to perfection, it never works. Plus here they really don't use the gimmick well at all, not doing any dramatic 10 counts. The work is fine and brutal, but they had much better matches on Saturday Nights. The ending is brutal and stupid. The booking of the three big singles matches on this show was pretty bad. (On a side note, I don't get why this made the set when the excellent Orndorff vs Steamboat, which was the best match on the card and nearly a WCW MOTYC didn't.)
-
-
-
-
It's not that Tony & Jesse weren't interested, they were using special mics to make the TV audience hear clearly what was happening inside the ring, the interactions between the wrestlers, referees and managers, so the commentary had to be reduced to the minimal. Decent match, but man the Nasties aren't getting their stock up with me thus far. Really sloppy and boring and offense. With them and Harlem Heat showing up as the big two heel teams on the tag ranks, the tag team division's future really looks ugly.
-
Really fun video indeed. I never realized Hogan had slammed Andre that many times before Pontiac.
-
I found the previous week match better than this one. Watching shitload of Steamboat, I was slightly annoyed at times by how weak his "martial art" stuff looks, and always found too bad that he kept using this stuff as times went on. Of course he's such a great worker overall that it's like Tenryu's enzuigiri, we accept it was what it is. But in a match against Vader it was exposed more than usual, although Vader did a good job selling it. To me the match kinda lost its focus at times, and Vader looked odly fatigued, as Ventura would point out. Cool finish as far as screwjobs go, good use of the gimmick. Good match, but a bit disapointing to me considering the two Vader vs Steamboat matches I've seen before.
-
-
-
The Val Venis vs Dustin Runnels/Goldust feud is the perfect exemple of how nonsensical everything was back then, with a complete ignorance on how to define a heel and a face that people are supposed to care for. Russo said it best in his "Guest Booker" interview : "Heel or face ? I don't care, as long as I get ratings." The Val Venis character as a whole was really embarrassing.
-
Loss just described me at age 17 Between this stuff and the Nova joke the other day, you're so dating yourselves people. (I loved my 56k modem. It was so quick and smooth)
-
"When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea. Thank you very much". Greatest Cantona promo ever. (and I'm not even a football (aka soccer) fan)
-
Harlem Heat all over WCW TV as soon as they debut. The depressing thing is that Stevie Ray was already one of the worst worker ever to get a long push and you know he won't ever improve, and Booket T was a complete wasted motion worker already, and not as decent as he would become later (I say decent because I don't see the argument for Booker becoming a really good worker ever).Who had a hard-on for these guys in the office ? I guess Bischoff since he was already in power at that time I believe.
-
Holy shit. Erik Watts in 92 wouldn't have done worse (excuse my references, I'm living in a wrestling time warp). So, they ended Ryback's streak via screwjob in a HITC ? Where's Scott Hall and his tazer when you need it ?
-
This is tremendous. I love the set-up of Cornette's promo. Goes long, but damn Cornette can talk, and he's a lot more subdued here due to his physical state, which is a nice touch, Cornette gets in a specific mood and never get hyperactive here. Terry just looks totally insane here. And Armstrong does yet another great babyface promo, and you gotta enjoy the genuine looking reactions from Caudle to the idea that Cornette might become the commisionner. SMW was ridiculously good promo-wise, seriously some of the best stuff week-to-week that I've seen.
-
Great post. As someone who follows from a distance, didn't Ryback get the title shot @ HITC because Cena got legit injured or something ?
-
Agreed. another thing, that Jesse Ventura talked about in his shoot interview, is how he hates the modern setting of two guys facing each other in the ring (or one at the top of the ramp) arguing back and forth. I totally agree, it's so systematic and boring, and there's no teasing for a physical confrontation because they are always together in the same place aruguing back and forth and making bad jokes like a bunch of geeks on a wrestling messageboard. I'm amazed at how well the South Park wrestling episode nailed it. These aren't wrestling promos, it's "acting", or it's supposed to be at least. Sure, there was a bunch of goofy vignettes with "acting" in the 80's, but the current WWE is basically based on "acting", and the best exemple I can think of are the ridiculous Shawn Michaels matches again Flair "Sorry, I love you" and the HHH vs Taker match from last year, which as the apex of the concept of a wrestling match as a WWE movie. And I find it unbearable. When you go back and compare that to the Jerry Lawler vs Bret Hart match at Summerslam, which was also based on an angle and a long Lawler promo involving the Hart family at ringside, these are two totally different beasts. One is contrived overscripted acted self-epic conscious match, the other one is classic wrestling promo + screwjob (Doink) + heated brawl + post-match angle. One was god awful and laughable to me, the other remains one of the greatest moment of 90's WWF.
-
1999 in WWF barely had any good wrestling at all. It's not exactly like people forgetting about midget matches on Zenjo cards that had three ****+ matches on top or comedy matches on AJ Budokan openers. The Attitude Era was a shitty period for wrestling. The early MNW was great, but when it switched to "Attitude", it was unbearable. At the same time Nash was killing WCW and ECW got really boring. Turned me off US wrestling.