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| Topic Started: Feb 25 2014, 01:46 AM (5,509 Views) | |
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Jan 23 2015, 02:48 AM Post #136 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image 1992 WWF Royal Rumble January 19, 1992 Albany, NY The more things change, the more they stay the same. 1991 was an interesting year for the WWF. They lost a major top star in The Ultimate Warrior, but created two others in Sid Justice and The Undertaker. They also signed the biggest non-WWF name in professional wrestling: Ric Flair. That’s what makes this Royal Rumble so interesting. The WWF could have went in a number of directions here. Recapping This Tuesday In Texas, Hulk Hogan regained the WWF Title from The Undertaker…only there were murky circumstances regarding the finish. Jack Tunney held the WWF Title up…and made it the prize of the 1992 Royal Rumble match. There are five conceivable winners, three that were likely and two that were less likely. They each represented a different direction for the WWF. They were: Hogan: It would be the “status quo”. Hogan winning here would have gotten a big pop, but Hulk’s star had been fading ever so slightly at this point. It would only get worse with all the steroid issues surrounding him. Sid: Considered to be the next Hogan and had clearly been on Hogan’s side back at Summerslam where he was a ref. Flair: Other than Savage, Flair would be the first “wrestling” WWF Champion in the Vince Jr. era. A showdown with Hogan would be assured for Mania though (of course, that’s not what happened). It would also give a huge sense of legitimacy to WCW. And the two who had a chance, but not a great one. Undertaker: Basically the transitional champion to lead to this situation. His gimmick was crazy over though, and he could have been the top heel at Mania. He’s already established as a main eventer (and would be forever) because of his win over Hogan for the title at Survivor Series. I’m sure there was a scenario out there that could have had Taker vs. Sid for the title five years earlier than it actually happened. Randy Savage: The face route that isn’t Sid or Hogan, but he should be facing Jake at Mania (which he didn’t, but that would be the logic). Let’s see which way the WWF went. The Card Vince’s announcement of who is in the Rumble is hilarious. The Orient Express vs. The New Foundation The New Foundation is Owen and Neidhart. I have no idea what the point of making them look ridiculous was. When they teamed up in 1994 they were a lot more badass since they dressed just like the original Foundation. The Express is Pat Tanaka and Kaito…who is really Paul Diamond. Owen was always really good. Frankensteiner was nice. Owen becomes the face in peril. He was great at that too. Pat Tanaka screws up an Owen bulldog by falling too quickly. Awesome suicide dive from Owen! The New Foundation win when Owen pinned Tanaka in 17:18. Rocket Launcher for the win. Good match that seemed a bit long, but it’s Owen, so no problem there. Anvil and Owen played the opening match babyface role well, I just don’t get why they had to wear Doink’s pajama paints. Story about Bret Hart defending the IC title against The Mountie despite a 104 degree fever. This would be the Mania VIII set-up for Bret and Piper. Piper is Bret’s replacement here. Amazing Piper promo. He points out that he’s here to win two titles. How crazy would have that been? Intercontinental Championship: The Mountie© vs. Roddy Piper There’s not much to say here, it’s a bad match but Piper as the crowd in the palm of his hand. Roddy Piper wins the title when the Mountie passes out in 5:22. Crowd reaction here is nuts. Piper puts the Mountie to sleep and that does it. Except for a bulldog, all of Piper’s offense was punches and the sleeper. But who cares really? The Bushwackers vs. The Beverly Brothers I don’t know who the Bushwacker manager, Jameson is, but he sounds ridiculous and he’s eating his tie. I hear this is an infamous match, so I’m curious to see what happens here. The Genius recites a poem about Jameson. I have a bad feeling about all of this. A lot of wasted time early on. A lot of the Bushwackers swinging their arms and licking each other and stuff. The Genius slapping Jameson is the highlight of the match. Jameson is insufferable as he complains to Butch. The Beverly Brothers win when Blake pinned Butch in 14:56. Illegal double axehandle off the top for the win. It wasn’t even entertainingly horrible, it was just horrible. The match had no heat whatsoever and nothing of significance takes place at all. The finish was out of nowhere too. Jameson gets his revenge on the Genius by kicking him in the shin at the end. Just horrible everywhere. World Tag Team Championship The Legion of Doom© vs. The Natural Disasters I can’t help but feel like this should have been a Wrestlemania match or something. Earthquake, Hawk and Animal were all huge names, and Typhoon was a big deal cause of Quake. Match is mostly Hawk as the face in peril. Seems weird seeing LOD be dominated in 1992. The Natural Disasters win by countout in 9:24. All four men end up on the outside, but Typhoon gets back into the ring. LOD just didn’t care at this point did they? Or at least Hawk didn’t. Second terrible match in a row here. Unsurprisingly, LOD dropped the belts on a house show shortly afterwards. We get a ton of interviews. Shawn Michaels seemed surprisingly good on the mic pretty quickly. He had JUST turned on Jannetty at this point. The 1992 Royal Rumble The British Bulldog draws #1 and Ted Dibiase didn’t bribe anyone at this point as he draws #2. The Bulldog gets rid of Dibiase really quickly. Bobby Heenan basically goes ballistic on the air as Ric Flair draws #3. Bulldog whips him too. Jerry Sags is #4. Bulldog wastes to time getting rid of him too. #5 is Haku. He sides with Flair at first, but then he turns on Flair. “It’s not fair to Flair!” Bulldog dumps Haku as HBK comes out as #6. Huge boos for HBK. Flair and HBK go at it 17 years before Flair’s last WWF match. Flair, HBK and the Bulldog is an interesting trio in there considering all the interactions HBK would have with both over the years. El Matador is #7. He too goes after Flair. The Barbarian is #8. HBK was already doing the near eliminations all over the place thing. The Texas Tornado: Kerry Von Erich is #9. Of course he goes after Flair. There is good history there. Repo Man is #10. Greg Valentine is #11. He was in the Rumble for 44 minutes in 1991. #12 is Nikolai Volkoff. Crowd is growing restless…but it’ll pick up soon. Big pop as Valentine locks Flair in the Figure Four. Repo Man takes out Volkoff. #13 is the Bossman. Nice pop and he of course attacks Flair. Valentine is gone thanks to the Repo Man. Repo Man is gone due to Flair. Flair gets rid of the British Bulldog. Von Erich also goes out due to Flair. #14 is Hercules but the Bossman takes him out in a minute. Hercules takes out Barbarian, and Bossman takes out Hercules. Bossman hilariously eliminates himself with a missed flying body block. #15 is Piper, and the crowd goes nuts. Flair tries to beg off. Piper kicks Flair’s ass for the whole two minutes before #16, Jake The Snake comes in. Jake tells Piper to continue what he’s doing, then immediately attacks him from behind. Jake was awesome. I can’t get over Heenan’s commentary. Amazing. Jim Duggan is #17. Huge reaction for him as he goes for Flair. IRS is #18. Superfly Jimmy Snuka is #19. This was near the end of the Superfly. #20 is The Undertaker. This was actually bad luck for Taker. Tunney allowed Taker and Hogan to have a number between 20 and 30, and he drew 20. Heenan: “Death takes a holiday!” Snuka jobs to Taker again! #21 is Randy Savage and he wants Jake. Undertaker cuts Savage off. Taker getting involved in Jake-Savage was weird as it seemed Jake had a hold on Taker…until Taker turned face. Savage throws Jake, then jumps over the top rope to continue attacking. Savage gets to stay though…for some reason. He must be winning!!! #22 is The Beserker. I feel like he never gets enough Wrestlecrap credit. #23 is Virgil. He goes right after IRS. I miss those long standing rivalries that would surface in the Rumble. #24 is Col. Mustafa. Always thought it was weird that the Iron Sheik would change names and all. Monsoon randomly uses Rick Martel’s name when talking about Flair. Odd. #25 is Martel. I assume Monsoon just got confused. Here comes Hogan at #26! He surprisingly takes out Undertaker early. Beserker goes next. Duggan and Virgil take one another out. #27 is Skinner. I guess #27 wasn’t lucky yet. Flair sets the longevity record. It would stand I believe until Benoit. #28 is Sgt. Slaughter. All the heat died with Slaughter after the heel turn. No one would care about Slaughter again until he become commissioner in 1997. Piper and Martel take out Skinner. #29 is Sid. He doesn’t really do anything though, which I find odd. #30 is the Warlord. Ah, the days where #30 wasn’t guaranteed to be a big star. Sid sends Slaughter out. About time Sid did something. Piper eliminates IRS by his tie. That was awesome. Sid and Hogan dump the Warlord. Piper, Hogan, Savage, Flair, Sid and Martel. Sid gets rid of Piper and Martel. Lame ending for Piper. Flair nails Sid in the back, which causes Sid to shove Savage out. Down to three. Ric Flair wins the WWF Championship in 1:02:02. Sid dumps Hogan to HUGE cheers. Hogan grabs Sid’s arm, and Flair dumps Sid to win the title. Heenan goes nuts. This was one of the first signs of the fans turning on Hogan here. Flair leaves while Sid and Hogan argue. We get some Sid chants too…although some feint Hogan ones are audible. Flair cuts an awesome interview as the new WWF Champion. He also takes a big shot at WCW by saying this is the only world title that matters. Anyway this Rumble is basically an hour long Flair match. It’s the 2nd greatest Rumble of all time in my opinion. All the big stars were in there. A lot of the stories played out as well. There were great moments with Piper and Flair, and Hogan and Sid. The opener was solid and Piper winning the IC title was a cool moment. The show went downhill fast after that. But the amazing 1992 Royal Rumble made up for it. There was a lot of history here as well. Nevermind it being Flair’s 1st WWF Title win, but also this was a big match that showed the WWF needed to get past Hulkamania. Vince wouldn’t learn for another 18 months though. It’s the Rumble that matters, right? I just wish those tag matches weren’t so bad. Final Grade: A- |
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Feb 5 2015, 08:51 PM Post #137 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWE Tables, Ladders and Chairs 2012 December 16, 2012 Brooklyn, NY Change is coming. Ever since the ”Summer of Punk” last year, WWE has focused on bringing in new and popular talent that also happen to be popular on the internet as well. For the first time, it looks as if WWE is listening to the “IWC” and the “smarks”. Daniel Bryan, the former Bryan Danielson, is a former World Champion at this point. CM Punk is the reigning WWE Champion and has been for the past 13 months. Antonio Cesaro, the former Claudio Castagnoli, is at the US/IC title level. The Shield, who debuted a month prior in the main event, have one “WWE type” in Roman Reigns, but two IWC types as well in Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins (Jon Moxley and Tyler Black). Perhaps most importantly for this show is Dolph Ziggler, in the main event here against John Cena. Rest assured though, those old school WWE type talents are still around. Ryback went from squashing jobbers to fighting CM Punk for the title. Sheamus held the World title for most of the year. Kane is still ticking in a fun tag team with Bryan. But the point is there is tons of talent and for once, the IWC, the smarks, are seeing things their way. And to be honest, their way looks pretty damn awesome. The Card Tables Match: #1 Contender to the World Tag Team Championship Team Rhodes Scholars vs. Rey Mysterio and Sin Cara This was the last gasp attempt to get Sin Cara over, which was to team with Mysterio. I don’t remember if both men have to go through tables here, but I am assuming that’s the case. Sandow and Cody run down the crowd. If you are watching on the Network, the crowd shot at the 6:18 mark would feature me in the middle. Yeah, I’m the goof in the black shirt. Awesome twisting armdrag for Sin Cara. Moves like that was what go Mistico over in the first place. Innovative move here. Cody traps Sin Cara’s leg between the steel steps and the ringpost, then drives a table into the steps. Team Rhodes Scholars win in 9:30. Sin Cara goes for a springboard, but Cody Rhodes runs in and pushes him off the top rope and Cara goes flying into the table. Awesome finish and a great opener to start the PPV. Right team went over too. This might have been the original Sin Cara’s best match in the WWE. He just never got it going. Sandow and Rhodes didn’t beat the tag champs for the belts though. Nice Shield promo. It’s on glitch old security camera footage, which is a nice touch. It’s also a great promo, as they run down Ryback, Daniel Bryan and Kane. Interesting comment about Ryback being reckless and such, I wonder if that was a semi-shoot there. United States Championship Antonio Cesaro© vs. R-Truth Cesaro had the remixed Malenko music here…which to be honest I think he should bring back. R-Truth does a crazy man comeback. I do like that WWE never ignored his transition to a crazy man in 2011 when he turned heel. Cesaro pins R-Truth in 6:39. Neutralizer (which I never really liked as a finisher) gets the win. Back and forth standard match here. Good for what it was. Cesaro cuts a post match promo, pointing out that the fans booing the US Champ is like the fans booing the US. Shame he’d basically be in the same spot, if not lower, two years later. Ziggler promo. He thinks John Cena is getting preferential treatment. He wonders why Cena gets a shot at MITB when he lost his MITB earlier in the year…and he has nothing on the line. Yeah…that’s a good point actually. Miz TV. 3Mb are his guests, and they end up arguing with the Spanish announcers. That draws out Ricardo Rodriguez, and 3MB threaten him. Alberto Del Rio basically turns face in making the save. A very effective reason to turn, as it’s been shown that the only person Del Rio really cared about was Ricardo. It would pay off until the Mania feud where Jack Swagger’s involvement killed any heat Del Rio had. Two other things to point out from this: Miz is a pretty terrible face. And 3MB were awesome. While Drew McIntyre should have probably done better, I would have never guessed Jinder Mahal would work out in any way. Intercontinental Championship Kofi Kingston© vs. Wade Barrett Kofi was beyond stale at this point. He had been doing the same thing for 4 years at this point. As a result, Barrett was getting huge cheers. Amazing side slam by Barrett, but it was really Kofi’s selling by swinging around that made it awesome. Kofi Kingston retains the title by pin in 8:39. A close Trouble in Paradise wins it for Kingston. Pretty disappointing result, although Barrett would win the title soon enough anyway. Match was solid. That’s never been the problem with Kingston afterall. A pretty good start to this PPV so far. We get CM Punk in his own personal skybox! Promo time! It’s a brilliant promo. Punk states that his 392 day world title reign is just the beginning. Shame that wasn’t true. Tables, Ladders and Chairs The Shield vs. Ryback, Kane and Daniel Bryan This came about as this was to be Punk vs. Ryback for the WWE Title, but as Punk explained, Ryback injured him two weeks ago and he couldn’t compete. This would be the Shield’s first WWE match. Action packed from the start. Ryback gets some boos, some cheers and some Goldberg chants. The beauty of the Shield: everything they did gelled like they were a team. They save one another. They control the ring together. All that stuff. It’s why they ended up being so effective. Reigns gets propped up against a ladder and receives a dropkick from Daniel Bryan. Imagine how WWE fans would feel about that now! Ryback had the advantage a bit…but the Shield has taken over. Triple powerbomb through the Spanish announcer’s table to Ryback! Bryan nearly gets decapitated by a table side that was propped on the top rope. Ouch! Double superplex off the table that was on the top rope! Kane makes the save! They try to superplex Kane, but Kane just shoves Rollins off the top to the floor! Chokeslam to Ambrose on an open chair! My god! Reigns spears Kane through the barricade. It’s just awesome spot after awesome spot here. Curb Stomp to Bryan on an open chair! I don’t think that was Rollins’ finish yet though. Ryback is back! The Shield get the advantage on Ryback too, and beat him down the entry way. They get Ryback on a table and Rollins climbs a 15 footer. Ryback comes to though and catches Rollins…and sends him flying though a stack of tables! The Shield win when Roman Reigns pinned Daniel Bryan in 22:46. Roman Reigns hits a top rope powerbomb through a table on Bryan, and Ryback can’t get back in time to make the save. Just wow. Incredible match, incredible debut for the Shield. My 2012 Match of the Year. An action packed 22 minutes for sure. Ryback and The Shield looked great. Diva’s Championship Eve© vs. Naomi Naomi won a pre-show battle royal for this title shot. Kaitlyn and Eve had been feuding, and Eve cost Kaitlyn the battle royal earlier. Eve retains by pin in 3:07. Spinning neck breaker wins the match for Eve. Better in some ways than the standard Divas match as Naomi did some flippy fake outs, although she also botched a jump to the top rope and a leg lariat in the corner. It was still passable. Chairs Match: World Championship Big Show© vs. Sheamus This was a pretty awesome heel run for the Big Show, and to be honest I wasn’t expecting it at this point. At Survivor Series, Sheamus hit Big Show with 30 chair shots, setting up this match. Slow start, but crowd wakes up when Sheamus begins to beat the crap out of Big Show with a chair…then slams him! Vader Bomb from the Big Show with a chair on top of Sheamus. Wouldn’t that hurt Show more? Sheamus his White Noise on two open chairs on Big Show! Ouch. Sick move. Big Show retains by pin in 14:17. Big Show gets a giant sized chair and the chairshot wins it. Silly, but I think that’s a good creative finish actually. Match wasn’t too bad either, even if it was a bit slow. Definitely was the end of the Sheamus run as an elite-top guy though. Big Show would continue his effective heel run and put over ADR huge on Smackdown…in a match that should have been at Mania. AJ Lee is apologizing to John Cena for screwing something up. The Barclay’s Center is dying for an AJ heel turn with Dolph winning tonight for sure. 3 Man Band vs. Alberto Del Rio, The Miz and ? This match was set-up earlier. Miz announces The Brooklyn Brawler as the surprise partner. I mean, it’s fun because we’re in Brooklyn and he gets a good pop. Del Rio with an awesome suicide dive out of nowhere to McIntyre. Del Rio, Miz and the Brawler win when Jiner Mahal submitted in 3:24. “Brooklyn” Crab for the win. Just a fun cool down match before the main event. MITB Briefcase on the Line: Ladder Match Dolph Ziggler (MITB) vs. John Cena Storyline here: AJ Lee was the General Manager of RAW, but resigned because of allegations of an affair with John Cena. Even in traditional terms no idea why Cena would be the face here. Ziggler and his girlfriend, GM Supervisor Vickie Guerrero were trying to put the screws to Cena. Vince McMahon got Vickie to make Cena vs. Ziggler in a MITB Ladder match (way to give up Dolph there Vickie). So here we are. Ziggler just looks like a superstar here. Cena slightly messes up a monkey flip. Of course the fans are all over him for that. Ziggler locks Cena in a sleeper, but Cena carries Ziggler up the ladder. Unfortunately for both, Cena passes out, and both go flying off and crash through a table. Cool spot. Ziggler climbs the ladder…but Cena ends up pressing the ladder AND Ziggler over his head. Ziggler escapes. Another really cool spot there. One of the worst looking hurricanranas I’ve seen into a table by Cena. Somehow it worked though. Vickie Guerrero comes out with a chair…but AJ takes out her using all Cena moves, including a Five Knuckle Shuffle. Dolph Ziggler wins in 23:16. Cena climbs the ladder…but AJ turns and pushes the ladder down! Ziggler runs in with a superkick to finish off Cena. AJ flashes a crazy smile, then skips off as Ziggler wins to a huge reaction. Great main event here with the right result. Ziggler looks like a real superstar here and SURELY WWE would capitalize on him in 2013. Of course, that didn’t actually happen. Cena actually got his win back on RAW that luckily no one remembers. Ziggler put on a great show in the Rumble, but Cena won that. Big E. Langston got involved in the AJ/Ziggler pairing, and at first was just the muscle. After Ziggler cashed in MITB and won the World Heavyweight Title, the crowd was solidly behind him. Then it all went downhill with an ill-fated double turn with him and Del Rio, then Big E. turned on him as well. That feud went nowhere, and suddenly Ziggler was back in the US Title scene. It was really a shame. Had Ziggler cashed in on new WWE Champ Cena, he’d be cemented today as a top guy (assuming he didn’t lose, of course). The Ziggler story kind of defines this show overall. TLC 2012, without considering anything else, is a great show. Everything was pretty good, and the big matches were great. But long term…nothing other than the Shield mattered. Ziggler went back to midcard status after a pseudo-top run. Sheamus has been trending downward ever since. They didn’t know what to do with Ryback past the next few months, and an ill-fated heel turn followed. Again, only the Shield really kept going and became big stars. Big, big stars. Final Grade: A- |
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Feb 6 2015, 03:16 AM Post #138 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF In Your House 5: Seasons Beatings December 17, 1995 Hershey, Pennsylvania The War is under way. With WCW breathing down their throats, the WWF looked to change course. Diesel dropped the WWF Champion to Bret Hart, with the ultimate plan to get the belt to Shawn Michaels. A solid plan, but it wouldn’t remotely be enough. The WWF also looked to end some experiments here. King Mabel’s reign of terror looked to be just about over here. Gimmicks like Dean Douglas were also on its last legs. The WWF looked to be trying to go with edgier characters, such as Sycho Sid and Goldust. Really, right now the WWF is just trying to get to Wrestlemania. The Card The opening promo hypes up the Bret vs. Bulldog title match, still pointing out how, never in a 1 v. 1 match, had Bret ever beaten the Bulldog. Of course, they call back to Summerslam ’92. 1-2-3 Kid and Sycho Sid vs. Razor Ramon and Marty Jannetty The Kid recently joined the Million Dollar Corporation after turning on Razor Ramon in a match against Sid. Marty Jannetty’s comeback has kinda been considered a big deal, so I guess he fits as a partner here. Sid did cost Jannetty a Survivor Series match against the Kid last month as well. Goldust is at ringside and he obviously has his eye on Razor. Good storytelling early on, as Jannetty tries to get Razor in there against the Kid, but the Kid keeps running away. We get sidetracked by a mid-match Goldust promo, to which he seems to be attracted to Razor Ramon. Unfortunately the match went downhill…no one seems to care about Jannetty. All the heat is with Ramon. Razor Ramon and Marty Jannetty win when Ramon pins Sid in 12:20. Ramon hits a second rope bulldog for the win. Fun start, but match cooled off when Jannetty was the face in peril. Still, a good enough opener. The ring announcer tries to set up the next match, but Jerry Lawler stops him. It looked like the ring announcer messed up, as he was announcing Buddy Landell, who had to be introduced by Dean Douglas anyway. Lawler announces that Jeff Jarrett is back! He’d be back for like 8 weeks. Lawler presents a Gold Album to him. Jarrett also enters the Royal Rumble…which I feel like he wasn’t in for some reason. What a waste of PPV space this is. Jarrett joins the commentary team. Dean Douglas is hurt, but no worries, his pupil will take over for this match. Ahmed Johnson vs. Buddy Landell Landell is the homeless man’s Flair here. This is an inside joke of course, since Douglas hates Flair. So Landell is Douglas’ student here. Landell even uses Flair’s old WWF music. Ahmed Johnson made a splash at Survivor Series by bodyslamming Yokozuna. What was wrong with an Ahmed vs. Yoko match here? Ahmed Johnson pins Buddy Landell in 0:45. Pearl River Plunge in 40 seconds. Not sure what this was supposed to accomplish, but sure why not. I think this is the last of Dean Douglas. Lawler and Jarrett mock Ahmed, then Lawler tries to interview him. This sets up Jarrett vs. Ahmed for the future when Jarrett smashes the gold CD over Ahmed’s head. Ahmed does make his comeback and goes after Jarrett. Razor Ramon interview. He’s defending the IC title against Yoko on RAW He receives the telegram from Goldust here, which seems like some sort of poem. Hogpen Match Henry O. Godwinn vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley Hillbilly Jim is your referee! I think to win you have to dump your opponent in the pigpen. Henry tries to slop Hunter, but Hunter moves and Henry gets an official. I mean, if you ignore the gimmick this isn’t too bad. HHH with a great counter to the Slop Drop…he holds the guardrail and HOG crashes to the floor. HOG would get him a few minutes later though. HHH wins in 8:58. Henry runs at HHH, and HHH backdrops him over into the pen for the win. Jim and Henry would get HHH in the pen anyway. Whatever to all of this. Its amazing HHH survived all of this get to the very top four years later. HHH would feud with Duke “The Dumpster” Droese next, so things weren’t really looking up. Diesel vs. Owen Hart Diesle had begun turning, but he still was on Shawn Michaels’ side, and Owen had taken him out a few weeks prior. So, he’s out for revenge. This is a weird match as they cram in a 12 minute match in 5 minutes total. Owen Hart wins by DQ in 4:34. Poor Owen gets destroyed and Jackknife Powerbombed. Diesel puts his foot on the chest, but takes it back at 2. He then shoves the referee to draw the DQ, then hits a 2nd Jackknife. This was to add edge to Diesel, who would be a heel soon enough. Poor Owen really didn’t need to get killed that way, did he though? Ted Dibiase introduces us to Xanta Claus, the future Balls Mahoney. It’s almost like we could have had another match in there somewhere. Anyway Savio Vega gets involved and gets beat down by Xanta before making a comeback. Whatever. Casket Match The Undertaker vs. King Mabel The conclusion of the Mabel-Taker storyline. During Mabel’s reign of terror he broke Taker’s face with a legdrop. He also (horrifically) beat him at King of the Ring ’95. Taker came back with the Phantom of the Opera mask at Survivor Series and ripped through Mabel’s team before Mabel ran. So here we are. Yes, that is Jeff Hardy struggling to carry Mabel. I have no idea why, but this match has a special place in my heart. It’s such a stereotypical early 90s Undertaker match, and really the last one. Here’s the match. Mabel is shocked Taker rises up a couple of times. Mabel hits a fat guy move (belly to belly, splash) and Taker is done. They fail to close the lid on the casket. Taker comes back and destroys Mabel and wins. Undertaker wins in 6:11. He gets the urn back too. There were a couple of more appearances, but for all intents and purposes this was the end of the King Mabel experiment. And what a failure it was. Taker afterwards calls for the WWF Title. Well it’s about time. 1995 was a real waste for the Undertaker. His PPV opponents were IRS, King Kong Bundy, Mabel and Kama. Yikes. WWF Championship Bret Hart© vs. The British Bulldog The only way that they can push the Bulldog as a realistic threat here is to continually refer to Summerslam ’92. Early on the Bulldog knocks down Earl Hebner, then helps him up. That’s not really playing a good heel there Davey. Bret Hart had a crazy good piledriver. Awesome superplex counter from the Bulldog as he crotches Bret on the top rope, then comes down with a top rope stomp! Bulldog sends Bret into the steps, and Bret “accidentally” bleeds. Bret admitted he did this purposely to make this match mean more. The WWF had a no blood policy at the time. You can hear Vince is clearly taken about on commentary. Vince points out how we don’t need any close-ups as well. Bow and Arrow from the Bulldog…and Bret almost turns that into the Sharpshooter. Bret always found creative Sharpshooter spots. Bret with the odd Vader Bomb type move on the outside, which is caught by the Bulldog. Running Powerslam on the floor! The floor Running Powerslam is oddly no selled. But whatever, this match is picking up! Bret Hart retains by pin in 21:09. Bret rolls the Bulldog up in La Majastral, and gets the win. Chris Jericho taught Bret that for this finish! Anyway, great main event that at least made something out of this show. The blood sure as hell helped as well. We get one more In Your House extra, as we get a staredown between Diesel and The Undertaker after Taker is declared the #1 Contender for Bret’s title. Total nothing show here, but at least it was building for the future. Ramon vs. Goldust was set-up. Diesel vs. Taker was set-up. Bret and the Bulldog had a great main event. That’s enough for a C at least. Can’t give it more because well, hogpen matches, Buddy Landell and King Mabel can’t really be half your show here. And Diesel really didn’t need to squash Owen Hart. Final Grade: C |
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Feb 8 2015, 05:06 AM Post #139 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF No Way Out 2001 February 25, 2001 Las Vegas, NV AKA: The Final Ass Kicking. This would be the last WWF PPV to take place while WCW was still alive. No Way Out was the final PPV spot before what is shaping up to be the biggest Wrestlemania of them all. As I wrote in my Royal Rumble 2001 background…the WWF was rolling. But admittedly, there were subtle signs that things may not be going as smoothly as they were say, 12-18 months ago. For one, some star making attempts hadn’t went well. Rikishi’s heel turn had just about fizzled out at this point. Billy Gunn was pretty much given up on after Armageddon 2000. Eddie Guerrero was having personal problems. Even Chyna went from the WWF’s version of Wonder Woman to someone who’s ego may have been getting way too big. She wouldn’t last much longer (of course, who knows how much the HHH-Stephanie deal played a part in that). Then again, this is nitpicking. Kurt Angle was doing just fine afterall. Also, it seems that the WWF may have been running out of ideas. The Armageddon Hell in a Cell back in December was a cool concept on paper (and was a very good match), but it also hurt the aura of the Hell in a Cell itself. The post-Wrestlemania scene is probably going to have a lot of familiar faces in it (which it ultimately did), and at some point that’s not just going to draw huge. When I get to those PPVs I’ll write about that. Lastly, and something I did address in the Rumble ’01 review, ratings were down during Austin’s comeback. While they got back in the 5.0 range during Rumble time, we’re still a bit under 5 in February. That’s about a 16% decrease from the same time the year before. And that’s WITHOUT Austin. Still, the WWF was rolling and rolling strongly at this point. There’s nothing to be alarmed about… Yet. The Card WWF Hardcore Division Raven© vs. Big Show This was an odd period for the Big Show, where he came back at the Rumble…but was immediately regulated to midcard status after being a main eventer his whole career. Also, the WWF brought in Raven, but still held on to the 24/7 Hardcore model for the title. It was kind of a waste since well, this is Raven we’re talking about here. In a forgotten angle, Raven’s ninja (Tori) attacks Show, but she doesn’t help. Crash Holly as a popcorn vendor gets involved…then Steve Blackman and Hardcore Holly get involved as well. It’s 24/7! Billy Gunn runs in and he gets a pin on Raven for the title! Raven gets his title back. Big Show pins Raven in 4:20. Big Show gets a chokeslam. He gets the pin. Billy Gunn keeps trying, but Big Show fights him off. It’s a fun start to the show at least. Kevin Kelly talks to an arriving Kurt Angle. Angle says he’s ready. Lillian Garcia asks Eddie Guerrero and Chris Benoit how they will co-exist. Well, they are going against one another so…that’s not really necessary is it? At least JR points that out. Fatal Four Way Match: Intercontinental Championship Chris Jericho© vs. Eddie Guerrero vs. X-Pac vs. Chris Benoit A lot of stories here. Jericho sidelined X-Pac for a few months in their cage match at No Mercy. Jericho also sidelined Guerrero according to the Guerrero interview we just had. Benoit and Guerrero are part of the reformed Radicalz. Lastly, Jericho beat Benoit for the IC title at the Rumble in a great ladder match. Radicalz do work together early on, but seeds of doubt are planted when Benoit tries to go for the win when Guerrero went up top for a Frog Splash. Something else weird. Jericho is the only face here…but X-Pac took a lot of the Radicalz beating early on. Guerrero and Benoit come to blows! Beautiful hurricanrana by Guerrero to Benoit. We get a few minutes of some Benoit-Jericho greatness. Jericho gets everyone in the Walls…until Justin Credible provides a distraction for X-Pac. X Marks the Spot (double superkick) by X-Factor to Benoit! Guerrero breaks up a Benoit Crossface with a flip over neckbreaker. Wow! Chris Jericho retains when he pins X-Pac in 12:17. Roll-up with a bridge for the win. Wow, match really picked up in the 2nd half and was pretty good the whole way. One of the more entertaining four way matches you’ll ever see. Vince McMahon tells William Regal that he’s confident he’ll do the right thing for the Stephanie McMahon vs. Trish Stratus match. Regal doesn’t have a damn clue what to do. Regal’s hilarious. Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley vs. Trish Stratus After Vince asked Linda for a divorce, Linda went into a catatonic state. Stephanie planned to be the dominant female in the WWF, but with Vince’s affair with Trish, she feels threatened. This actually started a bit earlier when HHH took on Kurt Angle at the Rumble, and Trish managed Angle. One of the biggest shockers here: Trish and Stephanie BRAWL. No catfight here, just a flat out brawl. Stephanie jumps off the barricade with a clothesline to Trish. What? Trish with a hangman’s sleeper in the corner. This is crazy good. Stephanie powerbombs Trish out of a hurricanrana attempt. I mean just wow. Regal is here after a double KO. Will he do the right thing? He puts Trish on Stephanie! Regal changes his mind as the ref counts and puts Steph’s foot on the rope! SMH wins by pin in 8:29. Trish yells at Regal…and gets a neckbreaker for her troubles. Stephanie gets the pin. Did Regal do the right thing? Anyway…that’s one of the greatest women’s matches in WWF/E history right there. No exaggeration. I assume this spawned Trish actually becoming a wrestler later in 2001. Just wow. And no…REGAL WAS WRONG. Vince chews him out. Three Stages of Hell Stone Cold Steve Austin vs. Triple H This feud really began back at Summerslam ’99 when HHH took Austin out after their three way with Mankind. They feuded a bit for the rest of the year…but then Austin was run over. After the failed idea that Rikishi was the driver, HHH was revealed to be his accomplice. Austin dropped HHH from a crane in a limo (another one of those shortsighted ideas that showed the WWF was running out of ideas), but HHH returned in like a month and cost Austin the WWF Title. Austin cost HHH the WWF Title at the Royal Rumble. HHH tried to screw Austin over at the Rumble…but Austin somehow won anyway. Vince wanted to protect the big money match, so he had Austin and HHH sign no contact waivers. If Austin violated it he would lose his Mania match. If HHH violated it, he was suspended for six months. In an AWESOME heel moment, HHH pretended to sign it, then beat the hell out of Austin. THEN he signed the contract (Austin did already). Austin gave Stephanie a stunner, which was a pretty sick response. HHH went after JR of course. Just an amazingly built feud here. First Fall: Straight Wrestling Match. Second Fall: Street Fight. Third Fall: Cage Match. There’s the assumption that HHH was a lock to win the first fall, but Austin was a lock to win the 2nd. This line of thinking played out beautifully here. Austin is outright WHIPPING HHH early on. HHH finally gets control and works on the neck. Smart, since Austin was out with a neck injury twice in his career, specifically from the hit and run. Huge pop for a HHH Figure Four. Fans are really into this. HHH comes off the top, but Austin catches him with a boot and the Stunner. Austin wins fall one. My only nitpick is that it was a little too short at about 12 minutes. But it was an awesome 12 minutes for sure. Just non-stop action. Austin tosses HHH out of the ring for fall #2! Well look at that, Austin did the whole Mania X7 chair shot deal to HHH first in this match. Austin is destroying HHH here. Austin brings Barbie into the mix. Barbie is a barbed wire 2X4. HHH gets control of it though and takes out Austin with it. And now we have blood. Austin backdrops HHH from once announce desk through the other! A holy shit bump if I ever saw one. Also a nice touch of psychology right before that as well. HHH was going for the Pedigree, but tended to the arm first. Austin worked on the arm in the first fall. HHH gets two neckbreakers on a chair and a back suplex as well on the same chair. All focusing on the neck. ANOTHER great HHH bump, this time he gets backdropped over the top from a Pegidree attempt! I mean god damn what a match. Damn what a chair shot by Austin. HHH brings in the ultimate equalizer…the sledgehammer! Austin goes for a stunner, but HHH shoves off and takes Austin out with the sledgehammer! Pedigree gets the pin. Awesome finish to the 2nd fall! Brilliant booking too, which I’ll get into. Third fall coming up. All the weapons are still in the ring for the cage too! The violence continues! Austin eats cage twice, then gets Barbie to the heat. Austin comes back with another chairshot! Now HHH gets a face full of Barbie. Austin survives a Pedigree. Catapult into the cage by Austin! Anything can finish at this point! HHH survives a Stunner! Triple H wins 2-1 when he pinned Austin in 39:26. One of my favorite finishes ever. HHH gets the sledgehammer, and Austin gets Barbie. Both men hit one another at the same time…but Austin falls down first and HHH lands on him for the pin. Let’s talk about all the awesome booking points of this match here. First, Austin winning the first fall and HHH winning the second fall was smart in itself. This is because it furthered HHH’s run as a top tier guy. Even though HHH had been on top in 2000 and even proved himself brawl wise in his feud with Foley…he could arguably still be perceived as a tier lower than someone like Stone Cold. Austin putting over HHH in the 2nd fall ended that perception. The finish itself was brilliant, as it can be seen as practically a draw for Austin, not hurting him one bit…but also putting over HHH as a top guy. This should have led to a further feud after Wrestlemania and not been the blow off. What the WWF did instead was one of the dumbest booking decisions in history and one of the reasons they lost so much steam. Even if Austin still turns heel, your top tier babyface is RIGHT THERE in HHH. The crowd even told us this on the RAW after Mania with the huge reaction HHH got when he was out to save Rock from Austin. Instead, all the work this match did for HHH got undone when he suddenly played second fiddle to Austin in the Two Man Power Trip. Damn shame. This booking is actually an offshoot of Bret-Owen, where Owen got the win first, and thus was the clear #1 Contender when Bret won the title. That doesn’t change the fact that…and it’s close with TLC II…but that this is my 2001 Match of the Year. It’s just incredible. Austin gets a stunner in for good measure. If Jerry Lawler wins, The Kat gets naked, if Steven Richards wins, The Kat joins the Right To Censor Jerry Lawler vs. Steven Richards Here is your cool down match. Tazz is out here to replace Lawler on commentary. What a thirteen months for him. The RTC-Kat storyline should be pretty clear. Richards using his own version of the Ho Train avalanche is pretty brilliant. Steven Richards pins Jerry Lawler in 5:32. Richards holds Lawler for no reason other for Kat to accidentally hit him with Ivory’s Women’s title. Terrible finish that made no sense. Match was bad too, Richards’s timing was clearly off. We wouldn’t get the payoff either. WWF fired Kat basically as soon as she got to the back. Lawler, Kat’s real life then husband, quit in protest as well. This is the last time we’d see Lawler until after the InVasion. World Tag Team Championship: Three Way Tables Match The Dudley Boyz© vs. Edge and Christian vs. Undertaker and Kane An odd match that really got thrown together at the last minute, at least the Taker and Kane part. The Dudleyz won the tag belts from E and C at the Rumble. Undertaker is oddly wearing tights that resemble his Ministry look. Bubba busts his ass sliding on a chair. Good thing that was after some sick chair shots. This has been two different matches so far. The Dudleyz beating up E and C, and Taker and Kane beating up E and C. Now Taker and Kane beat up the Dudleyz. Taker and Kane destroy everyone with chokeslams and the win seems academic…although it isn’t… Because Rikishi and Haku are out here to stop Taker and Kane from winning. The Dudley Boyz retain in 12:04. 3D to Christian through a table. Good match, but we didn’t need to see Taker and Kane bury the tag division. It was necessary though, since Taker was slated to face HHH at Mania (although, was the original plan Taker and Kane vs. Rikishi and Haku…and perhaps Austin vs. Rock vs. HHH? Probably not). Really just a placeholder to get to TLC II at Mania for sure though. WWF Championship Kurt Angle© vs. The Rock Really obvious who’s winning here, but that’s okay. Angle beat Rock back at No Mercy to win the title in the first place. Rock beat Big Show for this title shot. Kurt Angle established the Ankle Lock as a finisher in this feud with the Rock. Angle and Rock with a great start. I like Rock’s exaggerated Russian Leg Sweep. JR sells the Ankle Lock like death. What a great finish that turned out to be for Angle. You can tell they are working at an accelerated pace due to them running short on time. As a result they just do everything faster without resting. Sometimes the psychology doesn’t work…but it’s working here for sure. Reminds me of the Summerslam ’02 main. For some reason The Big Show has decided to come out here midway to chokeslam the ref, Angle and The Rock. This didn’t lead to anything though, as Show was in the Hardcore division for the next couple months. Anyway, back to our four star match. Crazy intensity from Angle when he traps Rock in the Ankle Lock. “Give it up before I break your fucking ankle!” Angle shockingly survives a People’s Elbow. Angle still looked like a million bucks here. Huge bullshit chant too. Great false finish with Angle sending Rock into an unprotected corner…and an Angle Slam. I think the finish gets screwed up here. Rock Bottom gets two, and Earl Hebner doesn’t count three despite the fact it looks like Angle doesn’t move. Weird too, considering Rock would just hit another Rock Bottom. The Rock wins the title by pin in 16:53. That Rock Bottom wins it, which makes me wonder why they just didn’t go with the first one since Angle didn’t kick out. Nonetheless, this was a great match, obvious finish aside. Angle’s first title reign put him in that main event category. It’s amazing to look at the difference between Angle’s 1st reign and Jericho’s Undisputed reign a year later. Angle was booked strongly all reign and looked like a star afterwards. Jericho was booked like a chump mostly and struggled afterwards. Anyway, this show owns. Can’t give it the full A+ as there’s a little too much lack of direction with some guys. I mean what the hell Big Show? Taker and Kane being in the tag title match and being attacked by Rikishi and Haku is another example. But those are nitpicks. The show was great. Angle vs. Rock? Great. Austin vs. HHH? Incredible. Even Stephanie vs. Trish was great considering expecations. The WWF might have been nearing the end of its peak, but damn what a peak it was. Final Grade: A |
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Apr 11 2015, 09:13 PM Post #140 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF Wrestlemania X7 April 1, 2001 Houston, TX It’s over. Good bye WCW. It was a good run and you put on a great effort, but the WWF has won. When the last Monday Nitro basically became a commercial for Wrestlemania X7 it was over for good. The WWF set one of the truly great stacked PPV cards of all time for Wrestlemania X7. They were fortunate as unlike last year, no top guys were injured. Last year the WWF was missing The Undertaker and Stone Cold. For Mania X7, they have both. The WWF also did an effective job making new stars, evident by Kurt Angle and Chris Benoit’s run in the latter half of 2000. The WWF owns the wrestling world now. Things can only get better from now on, right? (Hindsight says…ha!) Let’s talk a little bit about Stone Cold. Is he as popular as he once was? Is he on the way down? Is he stale? Why are ratings not as strong? Why didn’t his comeback lead to another big ratings streak? All great questions. At the end of Wrestlemania we’ll see how Vince answered them. The Card Houston Astrodome is packed. This is also the first Wrestlemania promo where I really felt the epicness of the event. Limp Bizkit’s “My Way” was a perfect fit for this event. Paul Heyman, replacing the temporarily departed Jerry Lawler here, says ECW about three minutes into the broadcast. I chuckled. Intercontinental Championship Chris Jericho© vs. William Regal It was an interesting time for Jericho. After spending last summer as nearly a top guy, Jericho found himself back in the midcard…at least for now. Regal was still a relative newcomer, debuting in September. But, we are also at the beginning of perhaps Regal’s best work, as he was clean at this point and a great heel as the Commissioner. This was the feud that had Jericho peeing in Regal’s tea. A legendary moment if there ever was one. This also had Jericho running in on Regal when he was dressed as Doink. Fast start, probably because they know they only have about 8 minutes for this. Jericho almost overshoots Regal on a flying bodypress to the outside. Would have been a bad start to Mania there. Double underhook suplex on Jericho from the top. Nice move from our Commissioner! Regal’s STF makes me wonder how WWE ever thought John Cena could pull it off. Chris Jericho retains by pin in 7:08. Lionsault out of nowhere gets the win. Crowd even seemed surprised. They tried to jam a 15 minute match into an 8 minute match, and while it wasn’t a bad match, it was nothing special and a bit disappointing. Shane McMahon arrives in a WCW limo! Bradshaw explains just how important this match in Texas is by going over historical events that took place in the Astrodome. Six man tag is next. The APA and Tazz vs. The Right to Censor I don’t recall how Tazz got involved, but the APA and RTC didn’t get along for obvious reasons. Weird botch when Tazz gets whipped into the ropes and just falls into them and rockets back. Quite strange there. The APA and Tazz when Bradshaw pinned the Goodfather in 3:52. Clothesline From Hell wins it. Just a way to get the guys on the card and to pop the crowd early on. This would be the end of the RTC (well, Undertaker would end them for good a week later) and virtually the end of Val Venis, Goodfather, Steven Richards and Bull Buchanan. None of these four would ever regain the popularity they had before. Trish Stratus rolls Linda McMahon into the Astrodome, and Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley says she’s late. I kinda forgot about the whole Linda in a catatonic state thing. Hardcore Championship Raven© vs. Big Show vs. Kane While a step down for both Kane and Big Show, Kane it seemed to work for while it just seemed like something for Big Show to do. Show would be stuck in mid and even lower card hell until Survivor Series 2002. Big Show never even gets to the ring as we’re fighting in the crowd now. Raven pops up out of nowhere to attack Kane. The story of this match will be Show and Kane going at it, and Raven attacking out of nowhere. Kane tries to throw Raven through a wall. Ouch. Smartest move of the match: Big Show locks himself, Raven and the ref in a cage with Kane out. Kane rips the door off its hinges anyway. Raven gets thrown through a window by Kane. Crowd responded to that for sure. Show and Kane actually go through a wall this time. Raven attacks. One thing I didn’t like about this match: Raven basically no sells being thrown through a window. Raven nearly gets run over by a golf cart. I hope he got a good paycheck for this match. Kane wins the title by pinning Big Show in 9:17. Big Show presses Raven over his head to throw him off the stage, but Kane boots him and they both go flying off. Kane follows with a flying legdrop and wins the title. Garbage wrestling, but it was well done garbage wrestling. This is one of my favorite Hardcore title matches in the history of WWE. Shame they went back to 24/7 soon afterwards. Paul Heyman also somehow makes Raven look like a million bucks on commentary, which is a bonus. Kurt Angle angrily watches over his tapping out to Benoit. Edge and Christian joke around, but Angle’s serious. Alliances like Angle, Edge and Christian are just things you don’t see in wrestling anymore. They aren’t a team, but they work together and are friends. European Championship Test© vs. Eddie Guerrero No one cared about Test at this point. He had just come off the T and A run, which got Trish over more than anyone else. Unfortunately, Guerrero was on his way down too. Personal problems had been catching up with Guerrero and he wouldn’t last much longer. Perry Saturn seconds Guerrero and has a ridiculous hat on. It would only get more ridiculous for Saturn as 2001 went on. Test actually gets a decent pop. Maybe he was cared about here and I didn’t remember. Test gets his foot caught in the ropes. I don’t think it was intentional. Guerrero gets him out. Ref definitely saw Saturn interfere there. Eddie Guerrero wins the title by pin in 8:30. Test has it won with a big boot, but Dean Malenko pulls him off. Guerrero hits Test with the European title for the win. Match wasn’t bad, it really looked like Eddie Guerrero was doing just about everything to make it good. Test would get a strong push in 2001, but by 2002 it was pretty much over for him as a top guy. Guerrero would fall apart…but then get his life together in 2002 and go on a great three year run. Still, in the long term this match meant nothing. Mick Foley is the king of the cheap pop. Chris Benoit vs. Kurt Angle There wasn’t much of a story here, it basically spawned from Angle being shut out of the world title picture and Benoit and Jericho’s feud running its course. Most recent storyline between them: Benoit made Angle tap out on RAW. Angle runs down Texas. Brilliant mic work. We get a straight wrestling match to start. It’s an interesting way to start as 2001 didn’t have a lot of that. Predictably, Angle takes the first liberty. Amazing how the can make a punch a heel move, but here it is. This whole match is the prototype from their amazing Royal Rumble 2003 match. The biggest difference? The fans didn’t truly trust Benoit as a good guy yet. Angle taps to the Crossface! But there’s no referee. That guarantees this program would continue (and it would be great). Kurt Angle pins Chris Benoit in 14:04. Angle gets a crucifix pin after a sequence, and holds the tights for the win. Finish makes sense to continue the feud, but it was a pretty cheap win for Wrestlemania (next year would be worse). This is a very good match, but they would have better. Kamala has invaded Regal’s office! Great stuff. Great line from Heyman. JR: “Why aren’t you in the gimmick battle royal?” Heyman: “What, you want me to bring my telephone in the ring?” Benoit attacks Angle post-match, and Angle taps out again! Women’s Championship Ivory© vs. Chyna This is the ending of the Chyna broke her neck angle. Considering Chyna is considered equal to the men, there’s not a chance in hell Ivory wins. Chyna wins the title by pin in 2:38. Chyna begins the burial of the division here. Shame she went crazy, as she was still mega over. Chyna finished with a Gorilla Press Slam, which I wonder was a reference to Warrior going over HHH at Mania XII (or a shot at HHH). Street Fight: Mick Foley is the Referee Mr. McMahon vs. Shane McMahon Vince foreshadows his alliance with Stone Cold in a quick interview with Cole. I always wondered how Shane got away with being a momma’s boy without being booed for it. This was also the famous feud where Shane showed up on Nitro and stole WCW. Shane absolutely destroys Vince…until Stephanie pulls Vince off a table than Shane was flying towards. That’s all it takes for Trish Stratus to wheel down the comatose Linda McMahon! Trish turns on Vince! Trish beats up on Stephanie afterwards. Trish chases Stephanie away, and Vince takes Foley out with a chair (including a chair shot to the back of the head, which Foley wasn’t expecting). Vince rolls the comatose Linda into the ring. Of course Linda awakens and kicks Vince right in the jewels. Shane McMahon pinned Mr. McMahon in 14:12. Shane-Terminator (ECW’s gone a month and already we’re stealing moves) puts an explanation mark on a very entertaining street fight. Sure, it’s not really the best “match”, but it was fun all the way. Also, if you’re into the McMahon storylines, you would have loved all of this, as I did. This is already a pretty great show…and we’re only half way through! World Tag Team Championship: Tables, Ladders and Chairs The Dudley Boyz© vs. Edge and Christian vs. The Hardy Boyz At No Mercy ’99, Edge and Christian along with the Hardyz changed the Ladder Match game with their tag team ladder match. At Wrestlemania 2000, the Dudleyz were added. Summerslam was the first official TLC match. All these matches were amazing and stole the show. There had also been lesser known matches in-between, such as a Tables match with the Dudleyz and Hardyz at the 2000 Royal Rumble, for example. It doesn’t take long for E and C to introduce the ladder and take out the Hardyz! Something you don’t see in a lot of multi-man ladder matches anymore: build up. We get some minor knockdowns off the ladder early on here. The Hardyz bring it to the next level by doing their legdrop/splash combo onto Christian off a pair of ladders. The Dudleyz build a table fort on the outside…back when we may have not realized they would be involved in the finish. Spike Dudley runs in and hits a Dudley Dawg on Edge off a ladder, then hits Christian with one from the ring to the floor. Here comes Rhyno! GORE GORE GORE! Now Lita’s here! She stops Edge from getting the belts. Lita breaks a chair over Spike’s head…but then gets the 3D! Jeff Hardy relives his moment from last year with another 20 Foot Swanton Bomb through a table on the floor! I believe the hanging off the belts spot was invented here. Jeff Hardy almost hopsteps ladder to ladder to ladder, but the ladder gives. Still ridiculous. Jeff Hardy in another famous spot, he ends up hanging off the belts…and Edge spears him off a ladder! Crazy. Just crazy. Rhyno comes in and sends Matt and Bubba through the table fort create earlier off a ladder. Edge and Christian win the title in 15:47. After that, Rhyno helped Christian up the ladder to get the belts. In my opinion, this is still the greatest multi-man ladder match in history. Innovative spots, crazy bumps, excellent use of Rhyno, Lita and Spike. Just crazy. 2001 is where WWE would oversaturate the ladder match though. Hell, they gave away a TLC on Smackdown two months later (that was also insane). It’s a shame this match meant nothing in regards to the titles though. The Hardyz were supposed to win, but it was switched when it was decided Undertaker and Kane were getting the belts for Backlash, so heels needed to win. Still. Amazing. Gimmick Battle Royal I won’t get into all the gimmicks, but Doink gets a huge pop. And of course the Gobbledy Gooker. Hillbilly Jim did as well. The Iron Sheik wins in 3:07. Sheik last gets rid of Sgt. Slaughter. Slaughter with a post-match attack. It was horrible, but that’s the point. It was just a fun battle royal with all the old timers. Bobby Heenan seemed like he had more fun on commentary than he had in years. The Undertaker vs. Triple H The story was simple. HHH beat Austin at No Way Out and pointed out how he beat everyone that there is to beat. Undertaker told HHH he “ain’t ever beat me”. HHH Motorhead Live entrance is pretty awesome. JR brings up that Taker is 8-0 at Mania at this point. Probably the earliest mention of the Streak, other than a 4-0 mention at Mania XI. This match had no waiting out period. Taker and HHH are just beating the hell out of each other right away. Well, Taker is at least. It only takes about five minutes, but we have a sledgehammer! The referee is bumped and Taker gets a chokeslam…but the ref only makes a 2 count. Taker then beats up the ref…and the brawl all over the arena is on! They end up fighting in the tech/computer area, which is something you don’t see every day. It leads to some awesome visuals, especially when HHH hits Taker with the chair. It feels like a real fight with spectators surrounding them. Speaking of cool visuals, Taker chokeslams HHH off the tech area, which is like a 10 foot drop (although a replay shows the soft landing for HHH). It looked like Taker dropped HHH off the face of the earth. The moment HHH is up in Taker’s grasp is awesome. Taker comes flying off with an elbow drop for good measure! We get a Tombstone, which had just become special…but the ref is still gone (way for there to be no 2nd ref!) In perhaps the forgotten great near Streak-stopper, Taker lifts HHH for the Last Ride, but HHH brings the sledgehammer with him and just whacks Taker in the head with it. I was amazed when I was younger that didn’t finish it. Undertaker pins HHH in 18:57. HHH makes the mistake of corner punching Taker, as that leads to the Last Ride and 9-0. Just a great knock down drag out brawl. Easily the best Undertaker match of the early American Bad Ass era, at least until Mania X8. We still have the main event left! WWF Championship The Rock© vs Stone Cold Steve Austin Of course, the promo video for this may be the best over. (Limp Bizkit’s “My Way”). Austin gets a huge pop and The Rock gets booed for the 1st time as a top babyface…although it wouldn’t be the last time. Again, no wait period! Austin and Rock tear right into one another! Kind of a funny moment, but Rock is on the announce table trying to get back to his feet, and the table just falls apart. In all seriousness, this is an amazing brawl. Rock explodes out of the corner and nails Austin with a clothesline and the crowd boos the shit out of him. It’s Austin’s crowd in his home state! There’s something brilliant about having a bloodied Austin trapped in a Sharpshooter at Wrestlemania. Another amazing idea: Austin busting out the Million Dollar Dream! And JR explains why it’s a big deal! Here comes Vince! Rock gets the People’s Elbow, but Vince pulls the Rock off. Some fans boo, realizing what’s about to happen. It becomes official once Austin asks McMahon for a chair. Stone Cold wins the title by pin in 28:07. In another genius finish, The Rock, who was getting booed out of the building earlier, gets some big cheers as he survives Austin’s onslaught. Austin pounds The Rock with a chair some 16 or 17 times and gets the pin. Austin and Vince shake hands, which basically marked the end of the Attitude Era and the last boom period in professional wrestling. Great great match. Arguably Austin’s last great match, although I like the Mania XIX match too. This was the perfect match: two of the biggest wrestling stars of all time at the top of their games. It wasn’t like Hogan-Andre because Andre wasn’t in his prime. It wasn’t like Hogan-Warrior because Warrior wasn’t a sure thing and it was treated like Hogan was passing the torch. It was two guys at the very top of wrestling going toe to toe at the height of wrestling’s popularity at the WWF’s biggest event of the year. And yet, that’s what makes the ending such a disappointment. Wrestlemania X7 is perfect with the hometown hero completing his comeback and winning the WWF Title. Instead, we got a shocking heel turn that no one wanted. No doubt, Austin was a great heel, but he was a once in a lifetime babyface. The WWF hasn’t reached the level they were at here since. The real Stone Cold was gone, as Austin devolved into a (still entertaining) comedy heel with a serious side to him. Austin wrote in his book about how he thought about just calling an audible when he saw the crowd reaction, realizing that Stone Cold still had the potential to be an elite top face. The finish also showed stubbornness, as Vince had to know he had to change plans after acquiring WCW. Look, if you have any issues with this show, pro wrestling is not for you. I once thought Wrestlemania XX was the superior show, but really, it’s not. This is perfection, sans the ending. It’ll have to go with 99.9% then. Hands down, the greatest professional wrestling PPV ever. Final Grade: A+ |
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Apr 19 2015, 04:02 AM Post #141 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image Heatwave ‘98 August 2, 1998 Dayton, OH There’s nothing special about ECW anymore. Okay, that’s not exactly true, but with WWF Attitude changing the landscape of wrestling suddenly ECW looks bush-league. If anyone randomly caught ECW at 2 AM or whenever they were on, they would probably think it was a WWF rip off show. While it wasn’t their worst year, or even a bad year, 1998 was the year ECW lost its unique place in wrestling and ultimately the year where ECW stopped changing the business and just purely survived. It didn’t help that quality wise, ECW was lacking. While still having many great performers, a terrible PPV back in May was something ECW could ill-afford. I assume Paul Heyman knew it too, because new talent was brought in for Heatwave ’98. There’s no random Bam Bam Bigelow vs. New Jack match here (what was Paul E. thinking with that one?) ECW still could survive at this point, it just needed to show it could put on a show at the level of the big leagues. The Card The Hara Arena looks pretty big for an ECW arena, which is a pretty good look. ECW World Champion Shane Douglas is hurt, so he’s doing color commentary with Joey. Douglas being hurt for most of 1998 was another strange dynamic. The 1998 Triple H look in yellow isn’t doing Douglas any favors. We get an f-bomb from Douglas right away. He hypes up the Taz vs. Bigelow rematch. Taz of course was chasing Douglas at this point. Joey gets his face rubbed on Francine’s chest. Sure why not. Justin Credible vs. Jerry Lynn Jerry Lynn had put over Justin Credible for the better part of 1997 and most of 1998. I always felt the Credible-Lynn series did a good job elevating both guys to bigger things: Credible to the ECW main event and Lynn to the RVD feud. Joey hypes this as the rubber match to this feud, which means while Credible won all the house shows, Lynn and Credible must have split the big show matches. Credible has an interesting group with him: Chasity, Nicole Bass and Jason. Slight timing error for Lynn, but Lynn makes up for it with a nice twisting crossbody. It’s hard not to notice how many ripoff characters we have here. Credible is a poor man’s X-Pac, Bass is a poor man’s Chyna and Jason is a poor man’s Buff Bagwell…and maybe a stretch but Chasity is a poor man’s Luna Vachon. This match is pretty good so far though. A very good back and forth. Pretty nice Bossman Slam from Credible. Hurricanrana from the top rope through a table on the floor by Jerry Lynn? Nice! Credible’s band of freaks gets owned by Lynn when they saved Credible. Bass gets a low blow and a chair shot, and Chasity gets Tombstoned. Justin Credible pins Jerry Lynn in 14:36. That’s Incredible Piledriver from the top rope ends Jerry Lynn for the pin. Great finish to a very good opener. Heatwave is off to a great start. I think Lynn carried things here…but Credible did hold up his end of the bargain, and that’s all you need. They also sell the finish like death for Lynn too, as they should, it being a tombstone off the top and all. We must have skipped something on the Network because we go straight to the next match. Chris Candido vs. Lance Storm A well booked feud here. Storm tried to join the Triple Threat, but was double crossed by Candido. The only thing that really kept Storm and Candido from destroying one another was the fact they were tag team champions. They lost those belts (well, Candido and replacement partner Douglas) to RVD and Sabu. So now all that’s left is for them to go one on one. Tammy Lynn Sytch is here with Candido too. Remember, at Living Dangerously Storm thought it was a good idea for Sytch to be his mystery partner. So that plays into this too. I assume Sytch had been fired from the WWF at this point. Storm’s non-extreme style was perfect for him as a heel later. Chris Candido has to be up there with most underrated wrestlers ever. Suplex on Candido to the floor from the apron just looks like it hurts bad with the concrete floor in play. Chris Candido pinned Lance Storm in 11:00. Sytch provocatively shoves Storm on the top rope and crotches him. Ref gets involved and accidentally pulls Sytch’s top off, which gets a big reaction. Blonde Bombshell finishes Storm, which is an awesome finish. Another really good match here. Apparently The Dudley Boys and Jack Victory beat the crap out of New Jack in the parking lot earlier. That should tell you how that match is ending later. Mike Awesome vs. Masato Tanaka AKA: the match that proved Paul E. needed to go into a new direction and did so. RVD sneezing ”Hakushi” for some reason was hilarious to me when referring to Jinsei Shinzaki for some reason. If seeing these two stiff the hell out of one another is what you want, this match is for you. Tanaka no sells a release German where he landed on his head. Tanaka always seemed to do stuff like that and truthfully I never got it. When someone the size of Mike Awesome does a springboard axehandle smash into the crowd, it’s hard not to be impressed, even if the landing wasn’t the great. Tanaka no sells some chair shots. Again, I never really got it. It’s also quite cringe worthy today. Tanaka drops Awesome right on his head through a table on the concrete floor from the ring. Sometimes I’m amazed I loved this stuff once. To me now it’s just scary. Masato Tanaka pins Mike Awesome in 11:49. Tornado DDT on two chairs wins it. Very good brawl and the match of the night so far. I can’t stand Tanaka’s no-selling (it’s part of his character, not something he does maliciously) and Awesome seems to half-ass any moves that doesn’t involve killing his opponent (like clotheslines, big boots), but everything else was stiff as hell and it made a very good match. 3/3 for Heatwave so far! This was the future of ECW, believe it or not. Taz was money on the mic in ECW and I’m surprised that didn’t translate to the WWF. ECW World Tag Team Championship Rob Van Dam and Sabu© vs. Jinsei Shinzaki and Hayabusa Heyman brought in Tanaka, Awesome, Shinzaki and Hayabusa to draw for Heatwave (Well Tanaka and Awesome were there earlier) after the disaster that was Wrestlepalooza. And it worked, this match has a huge match feel for it and I’m surprised it didn’t main event. Real sloppy start from RVD and Hayabusa. Two early botches, one off a roll up and the other off a springboard clothesline by Hayabusa. There are some really smart spots in this one too. RVD with a cocky backflip to dropkick when Hayabusa was trapped in the Camel Clutch…but when he played to the crowd Shinzaki took him out with a springboard dropkick of his own. Beautiful Asai Moonsault from Hayabusa! Bow and Arrow by RVD on Shinzaki…then Sabu comes off the top with a chair! Awesome twisting splash from RVD! The camera angle made it seem like he flew out of nowhere! Perfect 450 from Hayabusa! Van Daminator when Hayabusa was straddled on the top rope. Funny enough, Hayabusa no sells it. RVD and Sabu when Sabu pinned Shinzaki pin at 20:51. It gets messy at the end, but Sabu and RVD drive Shinzaki and Hayabusa through a table and get the win. Sabu shoves RVD away for the pin, which a great little nod to their story. I know a lot don’t like this match because it boils down to such a spotfest…but it’s a damn fun spotfest and I loved most of it. I’d say it’s a great match, but it was quite sloppy at many points and some of the spots don’t quite hit the mark. But fun is fun. FTW World Championship Taz© vs. Bam Bam Bigelow The FTW World Title is the title Taz said meant he was the real World Champ because he couldn’t get to Douglas. In Taz’s big monster push, Bigelow was the only man to beat him…at Living Dangerously when he put Taz through the ring. Bigelow is Douglas’ right hand. I’m surprised this isn’t main eventing either. We’re told that this is Falls Count Anywhere, which kinda gives away the finish. Taz just no sells an immediately hard powerbomb from Bigelow which is whatever to me. That’s not a move that should be no sold. We’re already brawling on the outside and Taz gets a kick that knocks Bigelow off the ramp into the crowd, which seems pretty dangerous for the fans. This has been 70% in the crowd. This was the wrong way to go about this match. Taz with a tornado DDT through the rampway, and this time I think it’s overdone. It was just done to go one step further from the finish at Living Dangerously. Taz wins by submission in 13:21. Bigelow emerges from the hole…but so does Taz! Taz locks in the Tazmission and Bigelow seemingly reaches for the ropes, which is considered a tap out. Uh…even that was pretty terrible, since it seemed clear he was reaching for the ropes. I thought this match absolutely sucked. This should have been Taz suplexing Bigelow around the ring for 10 minutes and choking him out clean. And what’s the deal with two straight Bigelow matches on PPV that did a tour of the arena? Why are we wasting Bam Bam Bigelow here? Dudleyville Streetfight Bubba Ray, D-Von and Big Dick Dudley vs. Tommy Dreamer, The Sandman and Spike Dudley I loved the feud. The Dudleyz hit Beulah McGillicutty with 3D when Tommy Dreamer was handcuffed to the ropes. Beulah never came back. To say I bought the hatred Dreamer had for the Dudleys would be an understatement. We get about 20 minutes of Bubba Ray and Joel Gertner promos/intros, followed by the Sandman, Spike and Dreamer’s entrance. I’m sorry, but that was a huge waste of time there. Surprisingly good wrestling sequence with D-Von and Dreamer that doesn’t make any sense within the context of the story, but I’ll take it. We actually get a bit of a wrestling match for the first half of this. Bubba throwing around Spike is always fun. Once the Sandman got in there, all wrestling ended. It’s now a pier six. Spike Dudley comes off a huge ladder in the ring and flies into many on the floor! Cool moment for Spike! Somersault senton by the Sandman on the ladder. Some interesting ladder spots for 1998, messy as they are. Bubba hits his own 2nd rope senton with Dreamer under a ladder. Bubba was huge then! Somehow we get Judge Jeff Jones piledriving a blow up doll to mock Beulah. Dreamer spikes him for that. Dreamer, Sandman and Spike win when Dreamer pins Bubba Ray in 14:26. DDT on a ladder gets it done. Jack Victory shows up and takes out Dreamer…and here comes New Jack of course! The Dudleys get the crap kicked out of them to end the show. Anyway, it’s just garbage wrestling, but I had no problem with any of this. An ugly old fashioned street fight where Tommy Dreamer got his revenge and some Dudleys got beat up. That’s ECW in a nutshell, isn’t it? There’s also a really cool visual at the end with Jack, Spike, Dreamer and Sandman all on ladders with their hands raised. ECW needed a good PPV badly, and they delivered. The next step, Douglas vs. Taz, was set up. Dreamer can move on now (not sure if he does though), RVD and Sabu teased their eventually break-up. Credible and Lynn helped one another. Awesome and Tanaka injected some much needed new blood. This is easily the best ECW PPV so far. I can’t put it in the A range, Bigelow vs. Taz was a mess and the time between that and the Dudleyville Street fight was absolutely wasted, killing the flow the show had. Why not give Candido and Storm a little more time? But it was close and the right step for ECW. Final Grade: B+ |
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Jun 13 2015, 01:51 AM Post #142 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF King of the Ring ‘93 June 13, 1993 Dayton, OH The New Generation was hit with Hulkamania brother! Hulk Hogan had “retired” at the conclusion of Wrestlemania VIII. After a top feud of Ric Flair vs. Randy Savage, Vince McMahon had Flair drop the World Title to Bret Hart. While Bret was a new face on top of the card, he had been an excellent IC and Tag Champion over the years. There weren’t any heels built for Bret to face off with, but Bret still carried the top title with pride and his match quality night in and night out proved he was worthy of being the Champion. Who knows why the decision at Wrestlemania IX was made to have Bret drop the title to Yokozuna who then immediately dropped it to a returning Hogan. The crowd was hot for the finish, sure, but long term that was one of the worst the WWF had ever made. Unless of course, we were getting Hogan vs. Bret at Summerslam ’93. But first we’re getting Hogan vs. Yoko II. Bret will have to carry the PPV match quality wise…while Hogan has to “draw the money”, brother. The Card This is being billed as the first King of the Ring, but there were previous non-televised KOTRs before. King of the Ring Qualifier: Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon This is a rematch from the ’93 Royal Rumble. Ramon had just began his program with The 1-2-3 Kid, which would lead to a face turn. Razor was such a cool character. Really could have been a top guy in pretty much any era. Razor definitely has heat…huge “1-2-3” chants. Pretty awesome false finish where Bret tries for a backslide out of a Razor’s Edge, but then flips over Razor by using the turnbuckles and rolls Razor into a small package. Bret Hart wins via pin in 10:25. Razor goes for a belly to back suplex off the top, but Bret turns in midair and lands on Razor for the 1-2-3. Good match that made Razor look really strong as he went toe to toe with Bret. Interesting to see a Bret match where he doesn’t go for the legs at all. Man, I can’t believe they were building toward a Mr. Hughes vs. Undertaker program. I mean how dreadful does that sound? King of the Ring Qualifier: Mr. Perfect vs. Mr. Hughes This was Mr. Perfect’s short WWF comeback, but it wouldn’t last and he’d retire again shortly. He would be back in 1997 of course. The role of selling for the monster is something Perfect was a master of…but this isn’t pretty to watch. Ha. Bret gets asked who he would wrestle between these two. I mean, you think he laughed like hell before or after he answered Mr. Perfect? Hughes crotches the 2nd rope and he sells it like he’s taking a shit. I think I’ve had enough. Mr. Perfect wins in 6:02 by DQ. Hughes takes the urn and whacks Perfect for the DQ. I mean whatever really. This match can be best described as Mr. Perfect wrestling himself. But even then, it was better than it had any right to be. And we get Perfect vs. Bret II. Mr. Fuji and Yokozuna interview. Trying to save face about Wrestlemania IX here. I don’t remember Yoko ever cutting English speaking promos though, so that was something. King of the Ring Qualifier: Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan One of the last WWF matches of Duggan’s early WWF run. He’d show up in WCW when Hogan did. Match is built around whether or not Duggan can slam Bigelow or not. A small story is better than none I guess. Duggan gets the slam…but the end would be near for him. Bigelow wins via pin in 4:59. Duggan misses the 3 Point Stance clothesline, and Bigelow comes off the top with the headbutt to advance. Interestingly, if I were watching this without knowing the results I would have assumed Luger was coming from the other side of the bracket against Bret, but Luger vs Bigelow would be heel vs. heel, so either Tatanka was going over or something screwy was happening. King of the Ring Qualifier: Tatanka vs. Lex Luger Luger was still the Narcissist here (with awesome music). I assume if Bret were still champion and Hogan wasn’t around, Luger would be winning this tournament to face Bret at Summerslam. Interestingly, both Luger and Tatanka were undefeated, so something had to give here. Refs make Luger cover the metal plate in his arm with an elbow pad…which doesn’t make any sense, but it works. This hasn’t been too bad. Luger still gave a shit at this point it seemed. Only real complaint here: announcer’s pretty much give away the finish bringing up the time limit constantly. Draw: Time Limit: Other complaint: Luger and Tatanka don’t really gain a sense of urgency as time ticks away. Luger gets big cheers asking for five more minutes. I wonder if Vince had the idea of turning him face at this point. Luger then whacks Tatanka without the elbowpad! Match was a solid back and forth affair. They would have much worse matches later for sure. Anyway, this draw puts Bam Bam in the finals. King of the Ring Semi-Finals: Bret Hart vs. Mr. Perfect First, Bret and Perfect have a hilarious promo, which includes Bret saying Stu Hart beat Larry Hennig, and Perfect responding with “your dad never beat my dad”. The commentators tell the story about Razor stomping on Bret’s hand in their earlier match. According to Bret’s book, this was to allow Bret to use three different finishes and give him an excuse not to use the Sharpshooter. So far this match has been ahead of its time. Hard, crisp moves that remind me a bit of the Angle vs. Benoit series. Ridiculously stiff European uppercut from Bret late in the match. What a match this has been. Great psychology! Bret goes for the Sharpshooter and Perfect grabs Bret’s damaged hand! Vertical suplex sends both men to the outside, which was a unique spot for sure. Bret Hart wins via pin in 18:56. Perfect puts Bret in a Small Package…but Bret reverses into his own and wins! Amazing match, possibly the 1993 Match of the Year. Very similar to technical matches a decade later. Hogan interview. The last in his WWF career for some nine years. WWF Championship Hulk Hogan© vs. Yokozuna Whatever you think of Hogan’s drawing power at this point, the live crowd was still pretty hot for him. This is the rematch from Wrestlemania IX. Match starts off really slowly, with Yokozuna just beating on Hogan. Hogan goes for the slam! But doesn’t get there. Hogan no-selling a belly to belly isn’t exactly putting Yokozuna over here… Yoko surviving the big legdrop though…that definitely is putting Yokozuna over. Yokozuna wins the WWF Title by pin in 13:08. Hogan calls for a slam after Yoko kicks out of the legdrop…but is distracted by a camera man. The camera blows up in Hogan’s face, and Yoko hits a big legdrop of his own to finish off Hulkamania in the WWF until Hogan returned at No Way Out 2002. Match is awful. Maybe it flew for 1986, but in 1993 Bret had shown the main event style was headed in another direction. He also didn’t put over Yokozuna clean either. I mean an exploding camera? Interestinly, Undertaker would do the whole surviving Yokozuna’s splashes and such better in 1994, although those matches had other problems. Crowd was very pro-Hogan for what it’s worth, which isn’t much at this point. Yoko lands a Banzai Drop on Hogan to finish him for good. We get an interview with the IC Champ Shawn Michaels. He names his new bodyguard Diesel here. Money Inc. and The Headshrinkers vs. The Smokin’ Gunns and The Steiner Bros. Seems like a thrown together match just to include the tag division. The Gunns and Steiners win when Billy Gunn pinned Ted Dibiase in 6:49. Dibiase takes out Billy with the Million Dollar Dream, then cockily let’s go. Billy rolls him up for the win, which is a pretty lame finish. Probably done to get the Gunns over as Dibiase’s career was coming to a close anyway. Yokozuna victory celebration! WWF Intercontinental Championship Shawn Michaels© vs. Crush This was near the end of Crush’s good guy run. I never saw Crush as a money drawing top face, but some thought he should have gotten the run instead of Luger. I would disagree though. Match started off okay with Crush hitting HBK with power moves and HBK selling them to death. Match terrible slows down though when Diesel rams Crush into the post and HBK then locked in a headlock. Killed the match. Shawn Michaels retains by pin in 11:14. Two Doinks show up and distract Crush, and HBK gets a superkick to the back of the head for the pin. A contender for HBK’s worst PPV match post-Rockers to be honest. King of the Ring Finals: Bret Hart vs. Bam Bam Bigelow The beginning of the match can be described as Bam Bam viciously kicks Bret Hart’s ass. The middle of this match can be described as Bam Bam viciously kicks Bret Hart’s ass. Luna Vachon gets a chair shot in, and Bigelow finishes Bret with the flying headbutt! A second referee comes in to say the match continues because of Luna’s interference. Weird moment there, as I mean, should Hogan have gotten a 2nd chance earlier then? Bigelow STILL kicks Bret’s ass, and to be honest it’s pretty awesome. Bret makes his comeback and we get a great back and forth. Bret Hart wins King of the Ring via pin in 18:11. Bret gets the victory roll for the win. A tremendous big man vs. little man match. Shockingly, there was no Bigelow vs. Hart program afterwards (makes sense with the screwjob finish in the middle), but Bigelow went nowhere after this. Don’t you think Taker vs. Bigelow makes more sense than Hughes vs. Taker? Come on now. Jerry Lawler attacks Bret during Bret’s coronation, legit injuring Bret’s ribs. Lawler even throws the throne chair at him. Great heel stuff from Lawler as the PPV ends. There’s a some great (Bret-Perfect) and a bunch of good (Bret everywhere else). There’s some historical significance here too with Hogan’s last WWF PPV for nine years and Diesel’s PPV debut. There’s a lot of bad too, showing that the WWF just didn’t have a deep talent roster at this point (Mr. Hughes?!) or didn’t know what to do with such talent (The Steiners or even Doink here). Luger vs. Tatanka was okay, but the rest of the non-Bret matches just weren’t good. But Bret Hart showed that World title belt or not, he was the MVP of the WWF at this time. Soon Vince would have no choice than to put the strap on him. Final Grade: B- |
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Jul 24 2015, 01:31 AM Post #143 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWE Summerslam 2008 August 17, 2008 Indianapolis, IN 2008 was shaping up to be a very good year. Everyone just seemed to be hitting their stride. Triple H had been a solid top face. Edge an amazing heel. Everything didn’t feel booked around John Cena for the first time in years…which also worked wonders for Cena. Chris Jericho and JBL, both coming off huge layoffs and rough comebacks, had gotten back into stride and were entertaining top guys again. Undertaker somehow became one of the best, if not the best worker in the whole promotion. Jeff Hardy was being groomed for the top, although he made some mistakes along the way. CM Punk surprisingly was at the top, at least kind of as he was the World Champion although in the middle of the pack still. Even someone like Mark Henry was suddenly realizing his potential with his strong run as ECW World Champ. A lot of awesome stuff was happening…and it built up to a pretty good looking Summerslam. Could WWE keep a good year going? The Card We get a promo of the big main event, which is the presumed blow off of the pretty awesome Edge vs. Undertaker feud. Jeff Hardy vs. MVP This was still part of Hardy’s “punishment” after getting a wellness strike before Wrestlemania 24 and losing out on his shot at winning MITB. He would get past this and be on top soon enough though. It’s astonishing to me that MVP didn’t work out in WWE. He was one of the most entertaining heels in the whole promotion at this point. There are huge “MVP” chants, which is surprising as Hardy was one of the most popular stars in WWE at the time. MVP pins Jeff Hardy in 10:21. Shelton Benjamin appears at ringside and Hardy takes him out, but that distraction leads to Hardy missing a Swanton and MVP hitting the Drive-By for the win. I pretty surprising result, as Hardy would be on the fast track to the World Title shortly after this. Really good match. Santino and Beth Phoenix interview by Maria. Santino just recently dumped Maria for Beth. Santino really found his way as a comedy heel here. WWE Intercontinental and Women’s Championship Match Kofi Kingston (IC Champ) and Mickie James (Women’s Champ) vs. Santino and Beth Phoenix Until the New Day run, I swear Kofi was the same exact character for six years. Michael Cole says that RAW GM Mike Adamle made this “Adamle Original” match. That was one awful part of 2008, GM Mike Adamle. Santino takes a monkey flip from Mickie, and even that’s hilarious. Santino jumps in Beth’s arms to avoid a Kofi dive. Just great stuff. The Mickie vs. Beth stuff is awesome. Beautiful hurricanrana. Tornado DDT from Mickie to Santino! Beth Phoenix and Santino win the titles when Beth pinned Mickie in 5:45. Glam Slam wins it. Great for what it was. Depending on how you felt about the IC Title this was either a travesty or awesome. Since the US Title seemed to be the serious title (Benjamin was the Champ at this point I believe) this was more than fine. Shawn Michaels makes his way out the ring to announce his retirement with his wife Rebecca. HBK was slammed into the Jeri-Tron 5000 by Chris Jericho, which is one of the best heel turns ever done in my opinion. This led to an eye injury that led to HBK’s retirement here. At least until Chris Jericho shows up. Jericho, who had begun doing the whole suit and tie thing and, as amazing as Edge was at this point, was the best heel in the business. Jericho demands that HBK admit that Jericho is the reason he is retiring. HBK fires back that Jericho needs to live with the fact that he’s not Shawn Michaels. Jericho goes for a punch…and decks Rebecca. Jericho is in shock, as is HBK. After reading Jericho’s 3rd book, it turns out Jericho accidentally decked her for real. While horrifying, it added so much to this segment and the entire segment is pretty incredible. While I don’t like how he won it, there is no surprise in the fact that Jericho was given the World Title shortly after this. This continued a pretty amazing feud (although I actually don’t like their Unforigiven match) which led to a fantastic ladder match at No Mercy ’08. ECW World Championship Mark Henry© vs. Matt Hardy Mark Henry owned here at this was the peak of Matt Hardy’s popularity. Neither would actually maintain it, although Henry would return to form in 2011. Matt Hardy wins by DQ in 0:31. Must have been short on time. Tony Atlas pulling out Matt to cause a DQ though just further shit on what the ECW Brand was though. Sadly, something similar would happen with the ECW World Title next year too. World Heavyweight Championship CM Punk© vs. JBL Punk had won the title from Edge using MITB, and JBL felt he was an undeserving champ. Punk probably wasn’t ready for the World Title yet, and as described on his documentary, this was a really a midcard feud with the World Title involved, although JBL and Punk were both pretty good at this point. Just a fun big man vs. little man match here. Feels like an IC Title Match though. CM Punk retains by pin in 11:09. GTS gets the win. A little short, but very good. It was a solid, clean victory for Champ Punk and one of the better JBL matches. Just a shame it was stuck in the midcard. WWE Championship Triple H© vs. The Great Khali I thought it was pretty weird for Khali to get one more shot at the top here. This would be the last time though, as Khali became the comedic “Punjanbi Playboy” in October and never gave up that role. HHH does his best here. Khali dominates with nerve holds and his chops and such, and HHH makes the most out of it, selling for Khali, making him look like a million bucks. HHH retains the title in 9:18 by pin. Probably Khali’s 2nd best match. Give HHH tons of credit, it’s good considering who his opponent is. This was the end of any main event run for Khali, who soon became a comical babyface. John Cena vs. Batista The story is that this came from a miscommunication from a Tag Match, but that was a set-up for the obvious “dream match” scenario. The promo video really pushes the whole idea of Batista and Cena being the top guys in the company and finally colliding. Interestingly though, this isn’t the main event. I think this was because Batista wasn’t really at his peak here and had been cast aside on Smackdown. Peak Batista is from 2005 through mid 2007, then again in early 2010. Batista using the Figure Four is a nice touch with Flair’s retirement back at Mania. I like that Batista is busting out moves we don’t normally see from him. A Figure Four before, and now a variation of a rear naked choke. Awesome counter: Cena goes for his top rope legdrop on a bent over opponent, only Batista turns it into a Batista Bomb. And it’s not even the finish! Batista pinned John Cena in 13:44. The 2nd Batista Bomb wins it cleanly. Not a surprising finish as Batista was the one that needed a little re-establishing, and a clean win over Cena was the perfect solution. Both of these guys also showed great chemistry that would be seen again a couple years later. I don’t think anyone was expecting a great match here, but that’s what they got. Hell in a Cell The Undertaker vs. Edge If Jericho vs. HBK wasn’t your 2008 Feud of the Year, then this was. Taker and Edge had brilliant matches at Wrestlemania, Backlash and a classic at One Night Stand. Edge won that last won for the title that “retired” the Undertaker…but a vengeful Vickie Guerrero brought The Undertaker back. I will say the Edge-Vickie marriage was just something that didn’t really work, but Edge was so good it pretty much didn’t matter. There was also a brilliant segment in the lead-up where Edge beat up Mick Foley in Foley’s last great WWE segment. Some real creative stuff early on using the ring steps. Snake eyes from Taker, then an Edge dropkick and spear with Taker sitting next to the steps. This is a flat out a great brawl. Bonus points for Edge invoking what he did to Mick Foley before dropping an elbow with a chair off a ladder onto Taker. A big surprise…Edge spears Taker through the Cell! I believe this was the first time in six years that the Hell in a Cell participants went outside the Cell. In a ridiculously dangerous spot, Edge jumps off one table and spears Taker through the other one. Just sick. In a brilliant callback, Edge whacks Taker with a TV camera. He did the same at Survivor Series ’07. The brawl keeps on and eventually Taker gets the upperhand and puts an epic beatdown on Edge. Poor Edge gets whacked with the camera, goes flying through the tables and Is the recipient of a vicious con-chair-to. Talk about a feud ender. The Undertaker pinned Edge in 26:40. Tombstone finished it off. Really a TLC match in a Hell in a Cell match…but it was a great match nonetheless and the last great Cell match until Wrestlemania XXVIII. It was weird at the time that there was no blood or anything…but really it was just a sign of the times as blood would become a thing of the past. A great ending to a great feud. As long as we ignore the hokey post-match beat down where Taker chokeslams Edge through the ring and then lights the hole on fire. We can just ignore that if that’s okay (don’t worry, Edge would show up three months later at Survivor Series and win the World Title). This is a pretty awesome show all around. Everything except the short ECW World Title match basically hit. CM Punk showed he can be a great World Champion (not that WWE let him run with it or anything…we’d have to wait a year for that), HHH showed he can actually get a good match out of the Great Khali, the two main events were great AND we got that whole HBK-Jericho segment. This is as close to an A+ as you can get without getting one…but it feels like it just comes short. This might have not been the best Taker-Edge match or even Cena-Batista match…and historically, Punk got nowhere. Still a great show though. Final Grade: A |
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Aug 14 2015, 12:54 AM Post #144 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF Summerslam ‘99 August 22, 1999 Minneapolis, MN There’s an argument to be made that right here, at this point, we were at the highest level the WWF would ever be. RAW Ratings were out of orbit. PPV buys were huge. The WWF was beating down WCW Nitro so badly Eric Bischoff was weeks away from losing his job. Vince McMahon was only a couple of months away from the WWF going public. Some argued that Stone Cold Steve Austin was a level above what Hulk Hogan was in the 80s. Other WWF stars began to transcend wrestling. The Rock was climbing fast toward megastar status. Mick Foley wrote a New York Times Best Seller. To say the WWF was riding high here was an understatement. But there were some cracks in the armor as well. Stone Cold’s body had slowly begun to betray him. The Undertaker’s knees were going out on him. Foley’s body was pretty much at the point of done. Would Summerslam ’99 be a continuation of the dominance the WWF had shown over the last year and a half…or would the wheels begin to fall off here? The Card We go over a year and a half of The McMahons screwing Stone Cold to explain why Jesse Ventura is our referee tonight. Ventura and Triple H go face to face right away in the back. Ventura lays down the law, and HHH says he’ll break every rule. We get some Y2J after that with ”Harold” Finkel. Jericho was hilarious in his early WWF days. Intercontinental Championship and European Championship D’Lo Brown (Both Champs) vs. Jeff Jarrett Jarrett comes out with Debra and wow at Debra. Jarrett gets awesome heat when he sends Debra to the back...and then D’Lo brings her back out! I don’t want to spoil it here, but there’s some really smart booking going on. JR on commentary brings up that Jarrett doesn’t want to win by countout when D’Lo was on the outside…just as Debra was looking to help D’Lo up. The crowd is super hot for D’Lo. Huge reaction on the running powerbomb. Jeff Jarrett pins D’Lo Brown to win both titles in 7:28. Debra and Jarrett distract the ref…allowing Mark Henry to run in and betray D’Lo with a guitar shot. Jarrett gets the win…and it turns out Debra, Jarrett and Henry were all on the same page! Jarrett would hand the European title to Henry. Fun opener with a good story and a great crowd! Strange how both men wouldn’t have much of a WWF career left. Jarrett would bolt for WCW in two months…D’Lo sadly accidentally paralyzed Droz, and was never the same. Michael Cole interviews a wooden Edge and Christian. Of course, both would end up being great on the mic. Tag Team Turmoil The winner of this would become the #1 Contender to the Tag Team Title. Edge and Christian begin against The New Brood…Matt and Jeff Hardy. Something the Attitude Era did was create stars. Matt and Jeff were outright jobbers until 1999. Fun start, although the match so far is a bit slow considering the four men in the ring. Screw the start. Edge spears Jeff Hardy by jumping off the barricade just as Jeff was jumping off the other side. What? Matt comes off the top to the outside with a moonsault for good measure. Christian pins Matt to eliminate the Hardys…and Mideon and Viscera are next. Can’t we just have the Hardys again? We last saw Viscera at Summerslam when he was Mabel and in the WWF Title match. Crazy how much changed in four years. I always thought Vis’s spin kick was awesome. Viscera accidentally avalanches Mideon, then Edge and Christian double dropkick Vis out. Spear to Mideon, and Edge gets the pin. Prince Albert and Droz are next. Not much here…Edge gets the Downward Spiral for the win. Acolytes, the favorites, are next. The Hollys come out early, and Bradshaw takes out Christian with the Clothesline From Hell and we get a heel vs. heel finale. What a disappointing finish. I like both teams, but running it with one face team (E and C) means they needed to get to the end. The Acolytes win when Faarooq pinned Hardcore Holly in 17:27. The Hollys argue and that leads to the spinebuster. This was fun with Edge and Christian…but after that who really cared? I’m pretty sure the whole Al Snow think jumped the shark when he started talking to other things other than Head. Road Dogg here…but it’s Y2J time! Jericho was crazy over. The crowd goes nuts for the countdown. Jericho wrote in Undisputed that this was his first great segment…and he’s 100% right. Jericho’s absolutely awesome here. This would lead to Jericho’s WWF debut match at Smackdown…which was a bit of a let down (as was Jericho up to Survivor Series). Hardcore Championship Big Bossman© vs. Al Snow One of the most creative starts to a match…Al Snow jumps up on the set and dives onto Bossman as soon as he goes through the curtain. Nice! Road Dogg does an on the scene commentary that’s more annoying than not to be honest. Bossman just grabs a random guy’s crutch to hit Al Snow. That’s a great heel move. Match goes all the way across the street into a bar. Have to say, this is pretty fun. Maybe I just haven’t seen one of these in a while. Al Snow pins Bossman to win the title in 7:25. Bossman takes a shot a Road Dogg and Road Dogg responds with a nightstick shot to Bossman to let Snow win the title. For some reason The Blue Meanie and Stevie Richards attack Snow. Hell if I remember why. Women’s Championship Ivory© vs. Tori I think Tori’s pretty bad as a wrestler, so I don’t have high hopes here. Eat your heart out Cesaro…Ivory with a big swing! Ivory retains by pin in 4:11. Some weird finish with a flying sitting drop. Ivory tries to disrobe Tori, but Luna makes the save. Lion’s Den Match Ken Shamrock vs. Steve Blackman While I didn’t realize it then, Shamrock being this far down the card should have been a sign that he wasn’t long for the WWF (this was actually his last PPV match). The Lion’s Den is a UFC style octagon. I don’t really like the idea of this match. A No DQ match would have been fine. Ken Shamrock wins by KO in 9:05. A few Kendo Stick shots take Blackman out and the ref counts him out. I didn’t really like this at all. I don’t even remember what else Blackman did until “Head Cheese” in early 2000. If Shamrock was leaving, he should have put Blackman over. ”Love Her or Leave Her” Shane McMahon vs. Test Is Test wins, Shane stays out of Test and Stephanie McMahon’s relationship. If Shane wins, Test and Steph break up. No option for “Steph marries HHH instead though”. Test opens by taking Shane down with tons of aggression. Where was that during the rest of Test’s career? The Mean Street Posse get their own couch in the crowd! This matters because Test tosses Shane into all three of them which was a pretty funny spot. Did Shane just bust out a Sky Twist Press? Holy hell! I believe this was the debut of the flying Shane elbow off the top through the Announcer’s Desk…and it’s pretty awesome. A perfect hit. Patterson and Brisco come out and own the Posse. Brisco with an awesome street sign shot! Test pins Shane McMahon in 12:14. I would have bet money after this one that Test was set for multiple World Titles in his future. Somehow…this was the peak of Test. He only went downhill from here. In retrospect, Shane’s “richest backyard wrestler” shtick probably carried this. Nonetheless, this match was really good. In a lame twist, Shane would ignore this stipulation on Smackdown. World Tag Team Championship Kane and X-Pac© vs. Big Show and Undertaker I never really got into the whole Taker controlling Big Show deal when Show chokeslammed Taker through the ring once, but whatever. I did enjoy the Kane-X-Pac tag team though, if just for Kane’s character development. It gave him something past being Undertaker’s brother…even though it didn’t completely work and ultimately weakened Kane’s character. At least they took a chance and tried. Lawler with a great line: “I’ll never forgive that idiot X-Pac for taking this monster and making him a human being.” Not a bad point there. Kane debuts the “road” jersey here, which is a look he should have went with for the rest of his career honestly. I think it was obvious at the time that Taker and Show were winning…and I think having the Acolytes win earlier was supposed to give fans the idea Kane and Pac were winning. One of the bigger surprises of the match is Kane playing face in peril. Match is surprisingly working since we have Big Show, Kane and 1999 Undertaker in here. Undertaker just turned X-Pac into a wishbone. Ouch. Undertaker and Big Show win the title in 12:00. Big Show actually gets the chokeslam, but Show does a one foot on the chest cover and Taker is livid when Pac kicks out. Taker shows him how it’s done with a Tombstone. So much better than it had any right to be. Multiple stories worked out here concurrently. X-Pac forced a tag late to try to prove he could hang with the three monsters. Undertaker continues to “teach” the Big Show. Well done all around. Kiss My Ass Match The Rock vs. Billy Gunn Billy Gunn brings a”full-sized” lady for the Rock to kiss on the ass when he loses. Rock is megaover, of course. The first half of this is pretty dull. Some fighting down the ramp but nothing really inspiring going on. It does pick up back in the ring, especially with a nice neckbreaker counter from Gunn. Pretty good set-up for the Fameasser…but the match goes downhill after that. Gunn brings in the woman, but Rock counters and Gunn’s face goes in her ass. Great. The Rock pins Gunn in 10:11. Rock Bottom, People’s Elbow. That goodness that’s over. Match was getting kinda good too. Gunn would be back in the midcard with the Outlaws in a few weeks (and was a good guy for some reason again right after this). WWF Championship – Jesse Ventura is the Special Referee Stone Cold Steve Austin© vs. Triple H vs. Mankind There was a pretty convoluted story to even get to this point that had Chyna as the #1 Contender. Less said the better. I don’t even know storyline wise why Mankind was added either, although backstage there were two possible reasons (I’ll get into that later). According to the video, Mankind won it from Chyna. Works I guess. HHH and Mankind then did the pinning one another at the same time deal (which a variation was used for Summerslam 2000 as well) to get our triple threat. In case anyone was wondering, Stone Cold was still the most over man in wrestling by far. His pop is nuts. THe early Austin-Mankind partnership is a nice flashback to their tag title run two years prior. The story begins…HHH whacks Austin in the knee with a chair. Mick Foley, nutcase that he is, decides to bust out his somersault crack smash off the apron…and he misses. Jeez Mick. Ventura refuses to count for HHH after HHH uses a chair. Ventura’s a great ref here. As a bonus, Ventura tosses a middling Shane McMahon, and adds the quote “that was for your old man you bastard!” Mankind wins the title when he pinned Austin in 16:24. HHH gets the Pedigree, but Mankind knocks him away and hits a Double Arm DDT on Austin for the shocking win! HHH proceeds to destroy Austin’s leg with a steel chair. For all intents and purposes, the HHH Era began right here…and the Stone Cold Era as we knew it was over. Match was really fun all in all. Mankind’s title win is the result of either one or both of these scenarios: Austin didn’t want to job to HHH and/or Ventura wanted to raise the hand of a face at the end. I believe it’s the latter, especially since Austin goes down to HHH at No Mercy ’99 (and No Way Out 2001). HHH would beat Mankind for the title the very next night. A really up and down PPV, but I definitely enjoyed the ups. I liked the opener. I liked most of the tag turmoil. Jericho was fun. The Hardcore Title match was fun. Test vs. Shane was very good as was the main event. I didn’t care for Shamrock-Blackman or Rock-Gunn though. Historically, somehow this PPV is forgotten. It’s crazy because again, this is basically where the HHH Era begins and the Austin Era ends. Sure, Austin would still be in the main event until Survivor Series, and his 2000 comeback was entertaining, but Summerslam 1999 was the end of Stone Cold as THE MAN. From each point forward you could either argue The Rock (who’s late surge stole him many Most Popular Wrestler of the Year Awards) or HHH as the man. Overall, this was still enjoyable. Final Grade: B |
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Sep 6 2015, 06:04 PM Post #145 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WCW Fall Brawl ‘95 September 17, 1995 Asheville, NC The War is on! WCW Nitro had launched two weeks prior to this show and had surprised everyone by being competitive in the ratings with WWF Raw. WCW hit the WWF right where it hurt when they stole Lex Luger away and he made a surprise appearance on the first Nitro. The WWF, with taped shows already in the can, couldn’t do anything to stop WCW early on. WCW also had the first PPV since the Monday Night Wars started, and here it is. The main event here is a bit questionable…we have the four big faces (Sting, Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage and Lex Luger) against a heel group without remotely the star power to match the face team (The Dungeon of Doom) so you know who’s winning here. Should WCW just went for the kill right away with Luger and Sting vs. Hogan and Savage? We’ll never know. Still, a good PPV here and the WWF would really be in trouble. Could WCW pull it off? The Card #1 Contender for the United States Championship Flyin’ Brian vs. Johnny B. Badd Badd looks exactly like he would a year later as “Wildman” Marc Mero when he was the IC Champ, red outfit and all. Hilarious first moment. Badd tries to throw a Frisbee into the crowd, but accidentally hits the ringpost and it goes nowhere, getting a noticeable groan from the crowd. Michael Buffer is announcing the opener. How confusing. Pretty slow start here. Most notable moment in the first five minutes was a double dropkick. Beautiful bridge trap by Pillman for a two count. About eight minutes in Pillman starts to bring out the heel stuff. I expect this to pick up now. Great variation of the surfboard from Badd. So far this is the best Mero match I’ve ever seen. Buffer says five minutes remaining…so we know where this is going. Thing really pick up at this point though. Badd starts to fly with a plancha onto the floor! Pillman takes out Badd with an awesome dropkick as Badd comes off the top! Only two for that. The big moves are coming! Powerbomb from Badd gets two, Tombstone from Pillman also gets two! Badd counters the Tornado DDT from the top! Ugh. Badd goes into a hold, which doesn’t make sense at this point. There’s only two minutes left! We get to the time limit, but the referee declares that there has to be a winner considering they need a #1 contender…so overtime! Great elevation on a top rope sunset flip from Badd. I woulda bought that as a 1995 finish for sure. Top rope hurricanrana…but Pillman still kicks out. Pillman hits the Tornado DDT this time…but Badd survives! Great idea for OT not to last a mere 2 minutes or something. Badd throws Pillman off the top rope onto the guardrail! Ouch! Pillman hits a suicide dive through the ropes and gets a lot of distance. Announcers claim Pillman didn’t really hit it, which is a shame because it looked awesome. Johnny B. Badd pins Flyin’ Brian in 29:17. Double crossbody, and despite Pillman landing on top they make it seem like Badd got the best of it and he makes the cover for the win. Pretty disappointing finish considering everything else. I thought this was a great 20 minute match masquerading as a 30 minute match, but that doesn’t change that it was very good overall. Interestingly, both Badd and Pillman would be gone from WCW within six months. Easily the best Badd match I’ve ever seen. Ric Flair on the mic and he really knows how to sell something special. He talks about the broken families he and Arn Anderson had went through and you can’t help but feel the damaged friendship between them. Sgt. Craig Pittman vs. Cobra I have no idea what this feud is about. Looks like a military vs. military thing or something. Some random soldier comes down to distract Cobra as Pittman comes from the ceiling. Pittman chokes him out with his ammo belt. Craig Pittman makes Cobra submit in 1:22. Code Red armbreaker for the win. At least this was short. Why was this on the PPV anyway? What was the point? We get a video of Mr. Wonderful angrily doubting himself in the back. Some psychic tries to talk to him and get him back on track. Uh…Orndorff retired shortly after this. I don’t blame him, this was awful. WCW Television Championship The Renegade© vs. Diamond Dallas Page The Renegade is an Ultimate Warrior ripoff. Pretty funny how far DDP would come in the next 18 months. He looks ridiculous here. DDP runs into the ring post by himself then takes a bump over the guardrail. That was strange for sure. This was a time that Page and Kimberly weren’t getting along because Page treated her like crap. Page does manage to get all the heat here with no help at all from the Renegade. Renegade’s comeback was pretty decent actually. Diamond Dallas Page wins the title by pin in 8:07. Maxx Muscle holds Renegade’s foot, and DDP hits a pretty bad Diamond Cutter for the win. Nothing really to say here, although this could have been a lot worse. WCW World Tag Team Championship Bunkhouse Buck and Dick Slater© vs. Harlem Heat The real point of this feud is that there’s some strange relationship deal with Sherri and Col. Robert Parker, which sounds awful just typing it. Bobby Heenan reciting a poem is the highlight so far. Otherwise, we’ve just had a few minutes of punching and kicking so far. The crowd is dead quiet here. Terrible atomic drop from Slater. Booker gets trapped in there and we get one of the most boring heat segments I’ve ever seen in a major tag team match. Were Slater and Buck just going through the motions here? In the 2nd ring Sherri starts crawling toward Parker and they start making out… Harlem Heat win the title when Booker pins Buck in 16:49. The Nasty Boys come out and take out Buck with a boot shot to the heat for Harlem Heat’s win. Parker would move onto co-manage Harlem Heat with Sherri…but they’d lose the belts to The American Males the next night. Anyway, this was awful. Seventeen minutes of just about nothing. Ric Flair vs. Arn Anderson Flair and Double A had been as close as brothers, but things began to go wrong thanks to Vader. The story pushes that Flair hasn’t been the same for a year since he lost the World title to Hogan. Anderson wanted to see Flair be the best again. Flair blamed Anderson for not helping him at crucial spots. I love Double A’s demeanor throughout the opening sequence. Just straight out seriousness with the occasional mocking of Flair. Smart booking decision to have Anderson dominate the early going. If there was anyone who thought Anderson wasn’t on Flair’s level, this would be showing them otherwise. Commentators do a great job explaining why Anderson’s armbars hurt so much. That’s something that’s just missed in today’s wrestling. Flair takes total control. Once again, the commentary is great, and now its question about whether or not Double A can hang with Flair. You really want Anderson to pull this one out. Anderson blocks the Figure Four by holding Flair’s leg when he tried to come down with it. Can’t say I’ve seen that one before. Crowd erupts when Anderson reverses the Figure Four. Hell, crowd goes nuts for each false finish here. Arn Anderson pins Ric Flair in 22:37. Brian Pillman climbs onto the apron when Flair has Anderson down and kicks Flair in the head. Double A drops Flair with a DDT and gets the upset. Crowd ultimately was mixed on the finish (I think they were into the match…but this is still Flair country…nevermind that it wasn’t clean). All of this would lead to the reunion of the Horsemen, although I don’t remember how it played out. War Games Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Lex Luger and Sting vs. Kamala, The Shark, The Zodiac and Meng If the Hulkamaniacs win, Hogan gets five minutes with The Taskmaster. This was a cartoonish feud that didn’t really jive with the rest of what WCW was doing at this point. Kevin Sullivan’s pre-match promo/video is just laughable. A side story to this is the debut of The Giant, who was being promoted as Andre’s son. This has to be one of the most unbalanced multi-man tag team matches in wrestling history. There’s literally no way the Dungeon of Doom can win no matter how much the “can the good guys trust one another” story is shoved down our throats. The Hulkamaniacs are in camouflage and have an American flag. Uh…is Kevin Sullivan not from the US or something? Dungeon of Goom. Really Hogan? Beefcake looks ridiculous, even for him, as the Zodiac. We start off with Sting and the Shark. Entertaining start, with Sting diving over both top ropes and taking out the Shark. No idea if this was planned, but the Shark tries the same over both top ropes dive that Sting did earlier, but gets caught up on the ropes. I like John Tenta, but he shouldn’t be trying anything like that for sure. Not a bad opening period. Of course the heels win the coin toss and here comes the Zodiac. Things have slowed down since the Zodiac got in. Randy Savage comes in to save Sting from an uninspiring two on one beat down. Kamala is next and this has just turned into a sloppy brawl. Luger comes and evens the odds are again. Only decent part so far has been Sting-Shark and even that wasn’t that great. Luger and Savage accidentally hit another and go at it…at least something interesting happens. Here comes Meng. Luger sells a kick from Meng that doesn’t even remotely hit. Hogan comes in and throws powder in everyone’s eyes. And he’s the top good guy! Zodiac oversells some Hogan punches. That was embarrassing. The Hulkamaniacs win when Hogan makes Zodiac submit in 18:47. We get a terrible Camel Clutch (called a reverse chinlock) for the win. It’s not like Sting and Luger have finishers that are submission holds afterall. Hogan didn’t take one move, it was all offense and that was it for the Dungeon of Doom. Absolutely horrible all around here with a shit finish. Second worst War Games in the history of the match (’98 is worse for sure). Hogan then beats up Sullivan for a while, before the Giant comes in and chokes Hogan and injures his neck. Even in getting beat down, Hogan doesn’t take a bump. What an embarrassment. Two really good matches but a whole lot of garbage inbetween. WCW needed to move past this Dungeon of Doom thing, but really wouldn’t until mid-96 when Scott Hall showed up. A least the Nitros have been good so far. Final Grade: C |
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| Baldwin | Sep 6 2015, 06:52 PM Post #146 |
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6x EBL Champion
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Wrestling in 1995 is about as bad as it gets. |
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Oct 11 2015, 04:26 PM Post #147 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWE Hell in a Cell 2009 October 4, 2009 Newark, NJ In 2009 WWE decided to brand their PPVs after match titles. As a result, No Way Out became Elimination Chamber, No Mercy became Hell in a Cell and Armageddon became TLC. Unfortunately, and especially in the Hell in a Cell case, this forced WWE to use these match types at these respective events. Instead of organically having a feud that led to a Hell in a Cell match, fans would expect a feud that began in August or September to have a Hell in a Cell match in October. Also, this ruled out having Hell in a Cell matches at any other point in time, taking away a potentially exciting twist for feuds that take place during any other part of the year. (This led to tons of excitement when HHH-Taker at Mania XXVIII became a Cell match, since it was absolutely unexpected). The other issue with this was that WWE had become PG. Now, WWE had become PG about 15 months earlier and Edge and Undertaker had a great Hell in a Cell match anyway, so all hope wasn’t lost. The idea of three HIAC matches on one show had fans salivating at the possibilities of what could happen. The Card World Heavyweight Championship: Hell in a Cell CM Punk© vs. The Undertaker We had another Montreal Screwjob at Breaking Point, where Teddy Long turned heel and called for the bell when Punk had Taker in the Anaconda Vise. Taker captured Teddy and this forced Teddy to make Punk vs Taker at Hell in a Cell (first point to make about the PPV title…of course we knew this was happening already because the next PPV was Hell in a Cell). So here we are. This is a surprising opener for sure. Being there live this was the match I was most looking forward to. I was really getting into Punk’s character here…and the Undertaker is the Undertaker. Match starts fun enough with Taker throwing Punk into the cage. Taker shoves Punk off the ring apron into the cage. Again, really fun start. Suicide dive from Punk into Taker and the cage! Legit shocked at a Punk chair shot to the head to Undertaker. When were headshots banned? I forgot. The Undertaker pins CM Punk to win the title in 10:24. We get a really fun back and forth for five minutes…then Taker finishes Punk. Man, this was a really fun match that just gets cut off. Give this 6-7 more minutes and you potentially have a classic. Despite the good match, it’s still pretty disappointing in the name of Hell in a Cell. At least at the time it was. Intercontinental Championship John Morrison © vs. Dolph Ziggler At the time Morrison seemingly looked like the future while Ziggler was just a midcard guy. Funny how that’d change over the next two years. Ziggler starts with some solid mat wrestling, which is something he should do more of honestly. Match has mostly been Ziggler, but it’s turning into a fun back and forth. John Morrison retains by pin in 15:41. Starship Pain for the win. Really good match here, but I have to question this going five minutes longer than the opening World Title match. Match did tell a good story in regards to Ziggler getting close but not close enough. I don’t remember what the led to though. Mysterio and Batista interview. Does a great job with Mysterio referencing his past with Chris Jericho and even hints a little bit about Batista’s future heel turn. Diva’s Championship Mickie James © vs. Alicia Fox Michael Cole mentions…with no hint of irony…that many are shocked Fox is the #1 contender this early in her career. I love Alicia now, but she was awful back then. This is pretty solid to start, although sometime you can tell Fox’s timing is off (like when she takes the neckbreaker). Mickie James retains by pin in 5:20. Mickie hits a Tornado DDT that Alicia doesn’t take correctly, and while it looks devastating you have to fear for Alicia there. Anyway, this didn’t seem bad at all, but it was pretty boring and the crowd was dead for it. World Tag Team Championship Chris Jericho and Big Show© vs. Batista and Rey Mysterio It should be noted that Chris Jericho pretty much saved rescued the tag division in the latter half of 2009. He also helped a floundering Big Show, who despite being in a World Title match at Mania and a feud with Cena, had been regulated to fighting Kofi Kingston and Evan Bourne before Jericho’s 1st partner, Edge got injured. With these four top guys contending for the tag belts, it really feels like the Tag belts matter. Big Show is just killing Rey and it’s awesome. Brutal slap that sends Mysterio to the floor! Jericho and Show’s beatdown of Mysterio is fantastic. What a good match so far. Tornado DDT from Rey to Big Show! Wow! Great sequence where Big Show gets 619ed, then Jericho gets dumped on him. Show catches him, but Batista takes them both down. Big Show and Jericho retain when Show pinned Rey in 13:41. Rey goes for a springboard, but Show punches him right in the face as he comes down to win it. KO Punch was just getting established here, but it was working for sure. Awesome match. Jericho, Show, Batista and Rey just have awesome chemistry together. It was the perfect finish too, Big Show pinning Rey doesn’t hurt Rey and further established Big Show. WWE Championship: Hell in a Cell John Cena© vs. Randy Orton Orton beat Cena at Summerslam, but Cena got Orton in an “I Quit” match at Breaking Point. Rubber Match time. Shocked this isn’t the main event. I think that’s a problem too. Either Punk-Taker or Cena-Orton should be main eventing this. Cena and Orton also went to the top of the Cell on RAW. It was good build for sure. Here’s the problem with this match. There’s nothing here that’s done to really use Hell in a Cell. It’s just a regular match inside the Cell. I mean what’s the point? Randy Orton pins John Cena to win the title in 21:24. Orton traps Cena in the ropes and chokes him out…and then finishes with the Punt to regain the title. I liked the finish and Orton’s mannerisms were spot on. He really became an awesome heel in 2008-2009. I still am quite disappointed in the match though. R-Truth vs. Drew McIntyre McIntyre is new, and there’s a respect problem between the two. R-Truth has a pretty good promo before the match. McIntyre still had generic rock music here too. That didn’t help him at all. No be honest, no one cares. Boring chant breaks out. McIntyre would never make it as a high level guy either…although he definitely had the potential for sure. Drew McIntyre pins R-Truth in 4:38. Future Shock DDT. If this was designed for the crowd to take a break after Orton-Cena, it succeeded. Orton tells Dibiase and Rhodes that once you enter Hell in a Cell, you don’t just walk out. I’d take him more seriously if he actually used the Cell in the match. United States Championship Kofi Kingston© vs. Jack Swagger vs. The Miz Miz hilariously runs down Newark. What the heck happened to him? He was so good on the mic. Miz and Swagger double team Kofi for most of it, but Miz betrays him. Crowd is dead for this too. We get some fun three-way spots at least. Kofi’s putting a show on out there. Kofi Kingston retains when he pinned Miz in 7:53. Swagger hits Miz with the Swagger Bomb, but Kofi knocks him out with Trouble in Paradise. I enjoyed this for the most part, but again, crowd really wasn’t into it and seemed burned out. Hell in a Cell: Legacy vs. DX For all that’s said about HHH and HBK holding people down and whatnot, they made Legacy look like stars throughout this feud. Great booking decision here: Legacy attacks DX during their entrance. Great brawl to start outside of the ring. Legacy take out Triple H, then slam the cage door on Michaels’ knee. Again, brilliant booking in this one. In more brilliant booking, Legacy traps HBK in the Cell and lock HHH out! Legacy proceeds to beat the living crap out of Shawn in the Cell with HHH trying to find ways to get in. A Million Dollar Dream and a Figure Four around the ringpost at the same time is a pretty awesome double submission. HHH makes his way back in. DX now trap Dibiase outside of the Cell. Poor Cody. DX win when HBK pins Rhodes in 18:02. Cody gets a Sweet Chin Sledgehammer, and it’s over. Fantastic booking. I remember being disappointed when I first saw this, but I really don’t know why. This was fun and different, and actually used the HIAC in a unique way. Also, Legacy controlled most of the match, and even in losing looked like future stars. Of course, only Cody would take advantage of that. Hell in a Cell is an interesting show that promises one thing, but you get something totally different. Sure Taker vs. Punk and Orton vs. Cena were good, but given expectations both fell short. The main event at least did something totally different. The second half of the card also falls off a cliff, as the US Title match and McIntyre-Truth just kills the crowd. IC Title match was fun and Tag Title match stole the show. Sadly, CM Punk would get pushed down the card for some reason after this (well, after Survivor Series), but everything else storyline wise would progress nicely. It’s a fine show, but I just can’t get past the expectations of what three Hell in a Cell matches were supposed to be. This was the beginning of WWE watering down its ultimate feud ender. Final Grade: B- |
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Oct 31 2015, 12:45 AM Post #148 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF InVasion July 22, 2001 Cleveland, OH When Vince McMahon bought WCW it was obvious wrestling was going to change forever. Fans hoped that it would be in a good way. Afterall, the WWF had been doing amazing business for years behind Vince’s booking and the year 2000 alone received critical acclaim in the ring (compared to ’98 and ’99, where despite the great business there was some horrible wrestling out there). Now it’s not Vince’s fault that he couldn’t get all of the big players in WCW. Because of the outlandish deals with Ted Turner, there was no Sting, no Goldberg, etc. The biggest names the WWF received were Booker T and Diamond Dallas Page. To be honest, with the WWF hype machine behind each of them both could have been major players and the disappointment of no top WCW guys could have been at least lessened. And while the WWF completely missed with Page with the whole stalker of Undertaker’s wife angle, the WWF actually did a really good job with Booker T for the most part. Booker came in at King of the Ring 2001, dropped Stone Cold on his head through a table (which probably was a big reason he didn’t get the super push, as he legitimately hurt Austin here) and actually looked like a big deal. He was clearly the wrestling leader of this pack. The only thing that went wrong really was that match against Buff Bagwell that was pretty awful. Why they couldn’t just put Booker against someone like Chris Jericho or Kurt Angle early on is a mystery to me. We really needed to have “authentic” WCW guys? The failure of the Booker-Bagwell match changed the angle big time, but it should be pointed out that Booker T was the leader of this Alliance team heading into the PPV. When ECW entered the picture, it seemed really cool for one night until we realized these were all WWF guys sans Rob Van Dam and Tommy Dreamer. For the record, as underrated as Rhyno was at the time, it should have come as no surprise that Rob Van Dam would be crazy over. RVD in the main could have helped. Nonetheless, when Stephanie McMahon was introduced as owner of ECW…well, it should have been obvious that this angle just wasn’t going to be what we were all hoping for. Still, InVasion posted one of the biggest buyrates in WWF history, so despite the mess of booking, WWF vs. WCW and ECW was the main draw here. So let’s see how it goes. The Card Lance Storm and Mike Awesome vs. Edge and Christian One of the issues with the InVasion: some guys turning when their role was working out so well. Not sure, it looked like an Edge face turn was in the works, but we loved Edge and Christian as a heel team. Christian nearly kills himself early on by not getting enough height jumping over the top rope onto Storm and Awesome. One reason J.R. is amazing on commentary: he sees the botch and after explaining how important InVasion is, explains that Edge and Christian have pre-match jitters. Just really smart. If there was ever someone who had all the physical tools but who’s mic skills held him back, it was Mike Awesome. His frog splash was just incredible. Christian really works as a face-in-peril. Edge and Christian win when Edge pinned Awesome in 10:10. Awesome went for an Awesome Bomb on Edge, but Christian speared him and Edge landed on top for the win. Good opener for sure. During the match, Michael Cole and J.R. really put over this match as one of the most important ever due to it being the opener for the InVasion. The effort is great. Problem is, as we’ll see later, those words were very overblown and made Cole and J.R. look stupid. Pretty funny promo with Vince and William Regal as Vince wants Regal to be like the Americans during the Revolutionary War. Not only is it funny on the surface because Regal is British, but it’s also funny because the idea that the WWF is the underdog here is ridiculous. Nick Patrick vs. Earl Hebner Mick Foley is the Special Guest Referee Vince had access to so much talent now that we needed referees to wrestle. Great. In all those wrestling magazines, how many “dream WWF vs. WCW card” articles had Patrick vs. Hebner on there? We get an referee brawl on the outside! Foley throws the WCW referees out. Earl Hebner pins Nick Patrick in 2:50. Patrick argues with Foley, allowing Hebner to tackle him for the three. This was awful but at least short. What was Vince thinking here?! 2-0 WWF. Foley blasts Patrick afterward and gets Mr. Socko on him. Tough Enough commercial! Weird that the first one was 14 years ago. Ugh, stalker DDP was so awful. Sara (Taker’s wife) calls Taker Mark when talking to Debra. That was pretty unexpected. The APA vs. Sean O’Haire and Chuck Palumbo WWF vs. WCW Tag Champs here. I do like how the APA were like the midcard leaders on-screen. O’Haire and Palumbo were only the tag champs in WCW as WCW was finally trying to use their younger talent. They definitely had potential though. Fun fact: Faarooq is a former WCW World Champion. I thought that could have been a fun little turn during the InVasion storyline. The APA win when Bradshaw pins Chuck Palumbo in 7:17. Clothesline From Hell takes out Palumbo after Palumbo “hit” Faarooq with a superkick. This was okay I guess. I do think the wrong team won, but then again the WWF never went with Palumbo and O’Haire. 3-0 WWF, which seems ridiculous at this point. Billy Kidman vs. X-Pac Kidman was the WCW Cruiserweight Champion and X-Pac was the WWF Lightheavyweight Champion. X-Pac is booed out of the building. And you know, that’s a good example of the WWF NOT changing someone’s alignment just because they’re team WWF. Not that they could at this point anyway. It should be pointed out that it was a really good idea for the WWF to put the WCW Cruiserweight Title on Kidman. I considered Kidman to be in the top tier of WCW Cruiserweights, and in fact he was the last guy to get to that point in 1998. Weird dynamic here as I think the fans want to cheer for Kidman…but can’t quite bring themselves to do it because he’s a WCW guy. Another weird dynamic: X-Pac’s trying to wrestle a riskier, high flying style but can’t quite do it (he had stopped after his neck injury in the mid 90s). It really makes for a mess of a match unfortunately. Billy Kidman pins X-Pac in 7:12. Kidman hits the Shooting Star Press and the fans pop. And rightfully so, that move is awesome. So much for not cheering Kidman. Give X-Pac credit too, he let Kidman kickout of an X-Factor and jobbed to Kidman’s best move. Still not a good match though. 3-1 WWF! The Alliance is on board! DDP quote: “Debra is sweet but she’s no Sara.” Yeah, like we don’t know DDP is married to Kimberly. Come on now. Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler feel disappointed for the fans that they’ll have to settle for seeing Trish and Lita in their panties. I mean, it’s win-win either way, but I do agree Torrie and Stacy are hotter. William Regal vs. Raven Before watching this I could predict that this would be a huge clash of styles. And that’s exactly what we get. Face Regal wasn’t really working either. The timing for everything is just off. A clothesline from Raven is timed incorrectly. A bulldog from Raven, same thing. It’s not actively bad, but it is noticeable. Crowd is completely quiet as well. Raven pins Regal in 6:34. Tazz runs in and hits a T-Bone Suplex to Regal…and Raven hits a sloppy Evenflow DDT for the win. 3-2 WCW. Big Show, Billy Gunn and Albert vs. Sean Stasiak, Kanyon and Hugh Morrus I know the WWF was quite low on Big Show at this point, but Show on the WCW team would have made a lot of sense and helped the star power issue. Nice Meat chants for Stasiak. Morrus, Stasiak and Kanyon win when Morrus pins Gunn in 4:23. Match can be described this way: WWF guys destroy WCW guys, WCW gets a cheap win. What a joke. Also, the Big Show destroys the WCW guys after the match too. Real waste of Kanyon here too. But we’re tied! Oh, sorry, WCW/ECW is up 4-3 now. Apparently Chavo Guerrero Jr’s victory over Scotty 2 Hotty counts. Way to ignore than when the WWF was up 3-0. Tazz vs. Tajiri Tazz is ECW, Tajiri is WWF. Isn’t it crazy how just two years prior this was an ECW PPV World Title Match? By the way, I would have put Tajiri in X-Pac’s spot here. Tajiri pins Tazz in 5:44. Tajiri gets the Green Mist and kicks Tazz in the face for the win. Fun little match here where Tajiri took a lot of Tazz’s offense. Too bad it wasn’t longer. 4-4. RVD takes Matt Hardy out with a chair right in Jeff Hardy’s face. Pretty awesome segment. Hardcore Holly berates a WCW fan at WWF New York. Also a funny segment. WWF Hardcore Championship Jeff Hardy© vs. Rob Van Dam Really…the first match on this card that really makes of sense. RVD vs. Jeff Hardy in a battle of the daredevils. I wish after RVD just took Matt Hardy out that Jeff ran down to take out RVD. HUGE RVD chants. A really creative start, including Jeff legdropping RVD in a way where RVD ends up crunched like an accordion. With all the hotdogging he’s doing, I can’t help but think RVD would have made for an awesome WWF heel. Of course, he’d be cheered, but who cares! Seeing RVD in the WWF for the “first” time was crazy. All these crazy moves that worked in ECW…worked in the WWF too! For example…a moonsault off the barricade in the crowd. This was true for Tajiri as well, but it really got RVD over big time. Spinning heel kick off the apron onto a hanging Jeff Hardy on the barricade. Years later people would complain it was the same old shit with RVD, but in 2001 on a global stage: holy shit. Jeff Hardy with a sunset flip powerbomb from the ring onto the floor! RVD just gets slammed on the floor. Sick spot. In one of my favorite spots ever, Jeff beats RVD down with a chair, leading RVD to beg from his knees for Jeff to stop. In a split second, RVD hops to his feet and hits the Van Daminator and sends off flying off the stage. Just wow. RVD takes a DDT and a German Suplex and sells it the only way RVD can. Great stuff here. RVD pins Jeff Hardy to win the title in 12:24. Jeff misses the Swanton…and RVD hits the Five Star Frog Splash for the win. A really fun spotfest that seemed revolutionary at the time. Great match. The first (and ultimately, only) match on this supercard that really felt it belonged. 5-4 WCW/ECW! Bra and Panties Match Trish Stratus and Lita vs. Torrie Wilson and Stacy Keibler In the funniest moment of the entire event Mick Foley comes out to referee. That was pretty good. There’s a pretty good story surrounding this: Torrie and Stacy tried to seduce the Hardyz. Lita and Trish win in 5:03. There’s actually some decent fighting in this, although clearly that’s not the purpose. Fun of course. Oh and we’re tied! The Inaugural Brawl Team Alliance (Booker T, Diamond Dallas Page, Rhyno and the Dudley Boyz) vs. Team WWF (Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Undertaker, Kane, Kurt Angle and Chris Jericho) One of the big selling points of this match was that the old Stone Cold was coming to InVasion. After being a cowardly heel for four months, Austin’s return to being a bad ass was nothing short of amazing. Just listen to that crowd reaction on RAW. It’s crazy. Honestly, if you told me that really sold the show instead of the actual InVasion I actually might agree. Obviously Austin’s pop is amazing, but Angle gets a big one too. One positive of the InVasion: Kurt Angle getting to that next level. I can’t help but think that this InVasion could have worked with DDP as the top heel. He’s getting great reactions and he’s a huge name of course. The match is about 20 minutes of back and forth and while it isn’t bad it is pretty boring overall. Crowd is really into it though. The match takes a strange turn to get to the finish. Kurt Angle is your Team WWF member in peril, but oddly he’d never make the hot tag as Undertaker just runs in to attack Page. A huge ten man brawl breaks out from that. Stone Cold hurt his knee! Oh no! Also, everyone else gets taken out somehow. Angle suddenly begins to kick serious ass and the crowd is electric for him. Team Alliance wins when Booker T pinned Kurt Angle in 29:30. Angle has Booker T locked in the Ankle Lock and tapping, but Stone Cold comes in and hits Angle with a Stunner and turns on the WWF. Booker gets the pin, but it’s Austin who celebrates with Shane, Stephanie and Heyman. Man what a stupid decision that turned out to be for the storyline and Austin’s career (although it helped make Kurt Angle). Match was good I suppose, but it seemed a bit boring at times and the finish sucked. The angle really could have worked if they went with Booker vs. Rock and Page vs. Austin, but Page apparently pissed too many people off, including Undertaker and it never worked out for him. Booker did go on to fight Rock but after getting beat twice he dropped to the midcard. As for Austin, this was his last chance to regain that babyface level only he and Hogan (and I guess Rock) ever reached, only it was thrown away with this re-turn. When Austin turns face again in December the crowd reaction for him isn’t the same as it once was. As for this show, I feel like only one match really delivered and that was RVD vs. Jeff Hardy. Yes the opener was good and the Bra and Panties Match was fun, but everything else really left you disappointed. What a shame. Final Grade: C |
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Nov 7 2015, 04:28 PM Post #149 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image November to Remember ‘98 November 1, 1998 New Orleans, LA There’s nothing special about ECW anymore. I wrote that last time but it’s truer than ever at this point. Unfortunately for ECW, the WWF has mastered the extreme style and ECW just doesn’t have the talent to keep up. ECW did have enough talent to run good shows though, evident by their last PPV Heatwave ’98. It was easily the best PPV in company history. The momentum from the Taz vs. Shane Douglas feud and the budding popularity of Rob Van Dam has kept ECW afloat. November to Remember is the Wrestlemania of ECW. Can Paul E. deliver a Wrestlemania-type show? The Card New Jack beats the crap out of Jack Victory in a parking lot. I never really liked New Jack outside of hid feuds with the Dudleys. New Jack gets taken away, I guess he won’t be on the show tonight. Another good venue choice. The Lakefront Arena looks bigger than the standard ECW arena. Terry Funk shows up with a graduation cap on. A good surprise so far. Funk for some reason turns heel by running down Paul E. and Tommy Dreamer. What a bad way to start. I mean what the hell? He’s apparently angry no one invited him to the show. This sucks. Super Nova and the Blue Meanie vs. Roadkill and Danny Doring Doring and Roadkill don’t even get an entrance. Terry Funk wanders back out here and he’s still bitching. Who thought this was a good idea. Honestly? Nova and Meanie have a move called the “Super Duper Double Looper”. How about that. For some reason Terry Funk gets on the apron and slaps Meanie, and Meanie lets him have it. Funk legdrops himself through a table. WHAT IS GOING ON?! The Blue Meanie and Super Nova win when Meanie pinned Doring in 10:54. Really fun finish where Nova hits a Frog Splash, Meanie hits the Meaniesault, then they hit the Blue Light Special (DDT/Inverted Powerbomb) for the win. Fun little match here that got a bit screwed up from the Funk thing. Speaking of Funk, he’s back and he takes out Meanie and Nova. Just ugh. Paul E. comes out and gets Terry away from ringside. Tracy Smothers vs. Tommy Rogers Chris Chetti is with Rogers and Ulf Hermann is with Smothers. So this will probably be a tag. Smothers looks really old for some reason. This didn’t turn into a tag but since Ulf kept getting involved, Chetti fights him on the outside. There’s a pin where Rogers’ shoulder is CLEARLY off the mat. What the hell is this? Tommy Rogers pins Tracy Smothers in 7:51. Tamikaze for the win. Joey Styles makes it a point to explain that the move is the most imitated move in professional wrestling, which is a shot at the WWF’s Christian as it is the same as the Unprettier. Anyway, this was boring and really sloppy. The Full Blooded Italians tease a break-up, but then Tommy Rogers get attacked. Suddenly Mabel of all people with a FBI shirt comes out. Huh? Mabel and Hermann beat the crap out of Chetti before Spike Dudley shows up. Dudley takes both out with Acid Drops, and a ref counts the pin. I guess the fans reacted to Spike. By the way, if this is the Wrestlemania of ECW, the promotion should have just given up at this point. Lance Storm vs. Jerry Lynn Mikey Whipwreck and Tammy Lynn Sytch are our referees. Part of the story here is that Sytch and Storm’s valet Tammy Lynn Bytch hate one another. Bytch is the future Dawn Marie of course. Great wrestling sequence to start. Sytch fast counts Storm of course. We get a really fast paced solid match…until the gimmick gets involved… So Bytch and Sytch go at it, to which Sytch strips Bytch. Whipwreck tries to get Bytch out and eventually hits her with a Whippersnapper (which she accidentally no sells, ha!). Then Whipwreck Whippersnaps Lynn, but Storm low blows Whipwreck and shoves him out. Sytch then makes the slowest count in the world for Storm so Lynn can kick out. What a way to screw up a good match. Lance Storm pins Jerry Lynn in 16:48. The overbooking gets worse. Sytch nails Storm with a Whippersnapper. Whipwreck nails Sytch with a botched Whippersnapper (as Styles says it, it’s because he must have thought she low blowed him earlier). Lynn rolls up Storm, but Mikey reverses it and fast counts Lynn out so Storm can win. What a mess. It was good before all of that. And now more Terry Funk. I love Funk, but he’s been horribly misused here. He says he’s gone forever and he’s sorry for making an ass out of himself. ECW World Tag Team Championship The Dudley Boys© vs. Masato Tanaka and Balls Mahoney Axl Rotten is hurt, which is why we have Tanaka. Masato Tanaka hits a nice plancha off of Balls’ back. Balls heads to the top…then botches the spot by falling off. Mahoney needs to stick to just crawling and fighting. Bubba Ray Dudley is doing planchas now. Cool I guess. We get a huge chair showdown, to which Mahoney and Tanaka no sell some chair shots. The Dudleys telegraph the reversal as well and take Roaring Elbows into the chairs into their faces (which looks terrible). Referee Jeff Jones though fakes an injury and doesn’t count the Dudleys out. More overbooked garbage. Tanaka survives 3D. Shame that spot is wasted here. D-Von actually botches getting a table into the ring as he brings a wire with it. That was hilarious. Tanaka and Mahoney win the title in 15:01 via double pin.RVD and Sabu come in and drive the Dudleys through a pair of tables. Man these finishes are a mess. Match was drawn out and bad. Another run-in finish. Just not good all around. Masato Tanaka is pretty much wasted here. They would hold the belts for like a week I believe. For some reason we get the battle of the Triple Threat promo video a little early, as we have one more match before it. To be fair, Six Man Tag or not, the main event does feel like a big deal. Justin Credible and Jack Victory vs. Tommy Dreamer and a Mystery Partner And that mystery is Jake Roberts. In 1998. Yikes. Jake didn’t even try with his attire. He looks like he’s about to go golfing or something. We get a decent Dreamer vs. Credible match, then for some reason Credible tags in Jason. Jason isn’t a participant in this match. Rod Price and One Man Gang run-in! What’s a match on this PPV without some kind of bullshit run in now? Here we go with New Jack…we get John Kronus too. Usually clusterfuck commences. Kronus hits the 450 Splash…and the ref was about to count Credible out there. The refs don’t even know what’s going on. I wonder if Jake looked at all this and wondered what the hell happened to his career. Mr. Wright flips in and botches the landing. Jake takes him out anyway. Now we have Nicole Bass in there. Jake drops her with a DDT. Tommy Dreamer and Jake Roberts win when both pin Credible in 12:26. Jake drops Credible with a DDT on the ladder for the finish. What a mess. What a damn mess. That’s all there is to say really. God it’s Terry Funk again. He’s mad Dreamer picked Jake Roberts and not him. Awful. Dreamer turns his back on Funk and Funk lays him out. This absolutely sucks. RVD really wasn’t that bad of a promo guy in ECW. Taz, Sabu and Rob Van Dam vs. Shane Douglas, Bam Bam Bigelow and Chris Candido The main part of this story is Taz’s 15 month chase of the ECW World Title held by Douglas. Douglas has been hurt for months and is somehow still the champ. As a side note, RVD, Sabu and Taz have all had their problems. This definitely was the top three faces against the top heel faction. As I said before, if it delivers it will be a worthy main event. The Dudleys attack RVD and Sabu on the ramp. I can’t take this anymore. At least it made sense since RVD and Sabu attacked them earlier. For some reason, Sabu spends the entire match as the face in peril. I have a few issues with this. One, this is a waste of Sabu. We don’t wait for Sabu in the main event to get beat down by three heels in a wrestling manner. Two, Taz is the one who has the real issue with the Triple Threat and the heat should be on him. RVD makes the tag I think (so much for the hot Taz tag), but then after some brawling Sabu’s getting beat down again. For some reason Chris Candido puts Taz through a table on the outside but we don’t see it. There are tons of botches here too. Sabu misses a slingshot legdrop that’s supposed to hit. RVD whips Douglas into the corner and Douglas expects to be hit with something and instead RVD attacks Bigelow. There’s a weird rolling spot where Douglas turns before RVD. Tons of bad stuff. The crowd is dead for when Taz finally gets Douglas in the ring, and then RVD steals the crowd with a flip into the crowd. Sabu, Rob Van Dam and Taz win when Sabu pinned Douglas in 12:57. Even the finish is botched. Taz locks Douglas in the Taz-Mission, but Sabu comes off the top with the Arabian Facecrusher (and really only hits Taz). He pins Douglas for the win. What a bad main event. Nothing clicked and it was full of botches. The booking set up Taz vs. Sabu in the future, but we haven’t even done Taz vs. Douglas yet. Which by the way, the crowd seems sick of Douglas overall at this point. That’s the flagship PPV for ECW? Yikes. The Terry Funk stuff was embarrassing. Jake Roberts looked like he didn’t really care to be there. Mabel? Storm vs. Lynn and the opener is just enough to get me away from F. Barely. Final Grade: D |
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Nov 27 2015, 04:16 AM Post #150 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image NWA/WCW Starrcade 1987 November 26, 1987 Chicago, IL The NWA was in trouble at this point, mostly because of Jim Crockett’s heavy spending. The NWA looked to compete with Vince McMahon’s WWF and to do that, decided to finally get on Pay-Per-View. This was the first PPV for the NWA, and there were three huge issues that would eventually deem Starrcade ’87 to be a failure. Issue #1: They abandoned Greensboro. Ric Flair wrote in his book about how Southern fans, especially in Greensboro, felt betrayed as Starrcade had been held in Greensboro every year. Crocket wanted the NWA to seem “big time”, which is why he wanted to hold the show in a big city like Chicago. Unfortunately, as Flair pointed out, the NWA came off as bush league as they weren’t even in the main arena. Issue #2: Crockett wanted Flair to win the title at Starrcade. There were no top babyfaces that wanted to win the title from Flair and be that lame duck champion, leading to midcarder Ronnie Garvin getting the victory. While Flair was easily the biggest name that hadn’t graced a WWF ring in North American professional wrestling, Garvin was still a no body. Issue #3: Vince McMahon pretty much squashed Starrcade before it even happened. At first, Vince decided to create Survivor Series and run it opposite of Starrcade. Obviously, Crockett didn’t want to do that, so he pushed the show up to the afternoon, thinking if fans watched both shows, they’d come to the conclusion the NWA show was better. Good plan, but Vince wasn’t having that either. McMahon told the cable companies if they aired Starrcade, not only would they not be allowed to air Survivor Series, they wouldn’t be allowed to air next year’s Wrestlemania. Cable companies obviously didn’t want to take that risk…Wrestlemania III was a huge money maker…which resulted in only five companies carrying Starrcade. Starrcade was dead in the water. Did Crockett at least put on a good show? Well, let’s see. The Card Sting and the Fabulous Freebirds vs. Rick Steiner, Eddie Gilbert and Larry Zbyszko At least the crowd is really into this. It’s odd seeing Sting as a midcard act, although it wouldn’t be long until he was on top. It’s amazing what kind of shape Steiner is in in 1987. Sting already steals the show with some great high flying stuff. Crowd is super hot for Sting. It makes sense that Chicago would be hot for the Freebirds too. The announcer makes it a point to tell us that 7 minutes have expired so far. Unfortunately, that means it’s likely we’re getting a time limit draw. I know hindsight is 20/20, but watching this I would have guessed that Sting would become a huge star. Easily. Sigh. This is definitely going toward a time limit draw. Time Limit Draw in 15:00. Referee pulls up before the bell even rings. Really disappointing finish to the first match here. It seemed like Sting going over Larry Zbyszko made the most sense. Otherwise, the match was fun and the crowd was really into it. Missy Hyatt nearly forgets her line. UWF World Championship Steve Williams © vs. Barry Windham The UWF had invaded the NWA not too long ago, but this was at the tail end of that. We get some mat wrestling after a fast start and the fans quickly turn against the match. Seems kind of unfair. In one of the funniest spots I’ve seen in a while, Dr. Death tries a leapfrog and Windham doesn’t go low enough and heasbutts Williams in the groin. I sense that wasn’t intentional. This whole “good sportsmanship” deal with Windham really isn’t helping. Bad booking there. Windham goes flying out of the ring and slams into a ringside table. First exciting spot in the match. Steve Williams retains by pin in 6:50. Dr. Death gets a cradle for the win. I’m guessing Williams got hurt? Nonetheless, match sucked, and the fans let them know. I have read that the UWF title wasn’t long for the world after this one. Skywalkers Match The Rock’N’Roll Express vs. The Midnight Express A young Big Bubba Rogers and Jim Cornette are on the side of the Midnight Express. A Skywalkers match is a Scaffold match. Usually, these are awful. Big Bubba beats the crap out of Ricky Morton right away, and the Midnight Express have a two on one against Robert Gibson up top. Morton comes back and takes out Bubba with Cornette’s tennis racket, then evens the odds up top. Smart way to get the crowd into this. This isn’t that bad, but there’s only so much that can be done up on top of a scaffold. There’s just a lot of punching and choking and beating down on one another with the racket. Stan Lane takes the first bump from under the scaffold. That had to be horrible for his knees. The Rock’N’Roll Express win in 10:23. Eaton goes flying down afterwards. I mean, it was what it was, but it was good for a Scaffold match. Doesn’t seem like the best way to use the Rock’N’Roll Express though. Crowd was into it, so there’s that. Big Bubba goes up there and faces off with Ricky Morton. Morton takes a shot then runs away. Just an unnecessarily dangerous gimmick match. For some reason, Jimmy Garvin basically hypes up the rest of the card in his promo. A Steve Williams promo follows and it’s not good. UWF TV Title vs. NWA TV Title Terry Taylor (UWF TV Champion) vs. Nikita Koloff (NWA TV Champion) More from that UWF vs. NWA feud. Odd that this took place after the UWF World Title match. Eddie Gilbert is at ringside for Taylor. First five minutes focuses on how intimidating and strong Nikita is. That’s fine, but it’s not that exciting. Watching Taylor here, my impression is that he’s a homeless man’s Flair. Although that’s really Buddy Landell’s role. Nikita misses the Sickle and suddenly Taylor is in control. The Sickle is a running clothesline I believe, and Koloff slammed into the corner. Taylor basically uses every heel move in the book to keep the advantage. Even a Figure Four with Gilbert’s assistance! See, he is the homeless man’s Flair. Koloff unifies the titles in 18:58. Koloff gets his hands on Gilbert, and Taylor accidentally knocks him off the apron. Koloff nails the Sickle and wins. Match was a bit too long as we didn’t need Koloff to dominate the first 10 minutes. Match definitely picked up when Taylor took control. Not bad overall, but Starrcade really needs a show stealer at this point. NWA World Tag Team Championship Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard© vs. The Road Warriors Hawk and Animal are the hometown team here, and the crowd is hot for them. The Road Warriors are dominating early on and it’s pretty awesome. Blanchard comes off the top and Animal catches him perfectly with a slam. Wow. The Horsemen finally get control when Hawk tries to press Blanchard but Anderson chop blocks him. There’s a similar story here as the last match, only this one is better. Blanchard really beats down on Hawk’s knee as the Horsemen have found the hole in the Road Warrior armor. Referee Tommy Young goes flying out of the ring, which was a sick bump. Doomsday Device! The Road Warriors seemingly win the title as Earl Hebner makes the three count…but… Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard retain by DQ in 13:27. Turns out Tommy Young saw Hawk toss Arn Anderson over the top rope (which was worthy of a DQ back then), and the Dusty Finish rears its ugly head. The Road Warriors winning the tag belts in their hometown on the biggest show of the year must have made way too much sense eh? Still, we had a good match here, which is something that was desperately needed. Starrcade ’87 really needs to be carried by its main events. We get a Nikita Koloff interview that I think is in Russian. Although I hear the words great wrestler. Man that was terrible. Steel Cage Match: NWA United States Championship vs. Career Lex Luger© vs. Dusty Rhodes Luger was a member of the Horsemen here, although that wouldn’t last much longer. Eh, it’s not really a career threatening match, if he loses Dusty couldn’t wrestle for 90 days. That doesn’t seem that bad and I don’t know why it’s being hyped like Dusty’s career would be over. Strange. This has started off really slow, highlighted by Luger hilariously missing an elbow drop. Dusty gets busted open (and obviously blades) after one shot into the cage. Ugliest dropkick ever from Dusty. Ugly DDT at the 15 minute mark. Dusty Rhodes wins the title in 16:28. Luger goes to pick up a chair thrown into the ring by J.J. Dillion, only he stands there for a second so Dusty can DDT him on it. Luger was pretty awful at this point obviously. Half of this match was in an armbar. The blood was unearned and the cage was barely used. I don’t even know why Dillon knocked out the key keeper since he threw the chair over the cage anyway. This was pretty bad, but the crowd popped huge for Dusty. Steel Cage Match: NWA World Championship Ronnie Garvin© vs. Ric Flair Garvin gets booed out of the building during his intro. He looks weird with the big gold belt. There’s a huge Garvin sucks chant as well. Just like it made sense for Chicago to love the Freebirds, Chicago loves Ric Flair. Gotta give Flair credit, he’s basically letting Garvin beat the crap out of him. Two really cool near-falls near the end here, with Flair cheating to win (but Tommy Young catching him) and Garvin nearly stealing it with a roll-up. Ric Flair wins the title in 17:38. Flair slams Garvin into the post of the cage and gets the pin. Really underwhelming finish. The fans pop huge for Flair. Really, Garvin never had a chance here. Match was decent but nothing special and it wasn’t the amazing main event Starrcade ’87 needed. Crockett sold not too long after this. He just didn’t have the funds to compete where Ted Turner did. Many stars on this show left for the WWF over the course of the next year (Terry Taylor, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Big Bubba and Garvin come to mind immediately) as the NWA played 2nd fiddle for a while. Starrcade ’87 never had a chance from the beginning, but the card itself didn’t help either. There’s no excuse for an average show with weak finishes, especially when everything is on the line. Final Grade: C |
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4:45 AM Jul 11