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| RDT PPV Reviews | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 25 2014, 01:46 AM (5,507 Views) | |
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Nov 27 2015, 06:49 PM Post #151 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF Survivor Series 1987 November 26, 1987 Richfield, OH The inaugural Survivor Series was a big middle finger to Jim Crockett and the NWA. When Crockett announced Starrcade on PPV on Thanksgiving, Vince McMahon countered with Survivor Series and didn’t allow cable companies to air both shows (you can read more in my Starrcade ‘87 review). The Survivor Series was the first non-Wrestlemania PPV (other than the Wrestling Classic) and set in motion the idea that the WWF would be offering multiple PPVs over the course of a calendar year. The WWF was still hot at this point and while near the end, we were still in the Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant feud that made Mania III a huge success. So did Crockett stand a chance? Not really. Let’s see how the first Survivor Series plays out. The Card Survivor Series Match The Honky Tonk Man, Hercules, Danny Davis, Ron Bass and Harley Race vs. Randy Savage, Jim Duggan, Jake Roberts, Ricky Steamboat and Brutus Beefcake Honky Tonk Man in a prematch promo says this is the greatest Survivor Series ever assembled. It’s the first afterall, so I mean, he’s right! I wonder if Harley was ever embarrassed to be a King in the WWF. It’s worth writing that wow is Elizabeth beautiful. Savage has turned face and got a huge reaction. No surprise he’d be champ by Mania. You know, say what you want about Beefcake (and I usually say a lot)…but he was over. We lose both Duggan and Race to a double countout. Beefcake nails Bass with the high knee and Bass is gone. This has been fun so far. Shake Rattle and Roll takes out the Barber. Good storytelling with Ventura and Gorilla explaining how Beefcake needed to make the tag but didn’t. Jake spikes Davis with a DDT and he’s gone. Danny Davis shouldn’t be going toe to toe with Jake anyway. Savage is so active outside the ring, running all over the place, going to the top rope. It really adds to the match and his character. Steamboat mocking Honky’s dance was quite a sight. Savage drops the big elbow and Hercules is gone. Team Savage wins, Sole Survivors: Savage, Roberts and Steamboat. Honky Tonk Man fights Savage for a bit before he gets beat down, and then decides to leave realizing he’s down 3-1. Fun opener that showed the Survivor Series format works for sure. Smart booking to have Honky left with all the IC Title contenders. Survivor Series Match Judy Martin, Leilani Kai, Dawn Marie (no, not that Dawn Marie), Donna Christanello and Sensational Sherri vs. The Jumping Bomb Angels, Velvet McIntyre, Rockin’ Robin and The Fabulous Moolah Sherri had recently won the Women’s title from Moolah, which is the main story here. I won’t lie, I don’t know most of these people. Marie, Christanello and the Angels are new to me. McIntyre gets Christanello out with a nice victory roll. McIntyre is pretty good, nice hurricanrana! Robin takes out Marie with a crossbody. I don’t know the names of the Angels, but one of them is awesome. The other just did a flying armdrag off the top rope! Where were these two in WWF history? Robin’s clearly not the best worker in the match. She’s botched almost anything and just botched a monkey flip. Sherri takes Robin out with a vertical suplex. McIntyre is good too. Spinning crossbody? That’s pretty cool. The Galmour Girls take out Moolah with a double clothesline. Bit of a surprise, but her chain wrestling was pretty boring anyway. McIntyre and the Jumping Bomb Angels left on one side? That’s awesome. This has been really fun so far. Small screw up with the timekeeper as he rings the bell when one of the Angels bridge to get their shoulder up. Velvet gets Sherri with a giant swing! She gets Sherri with a victory roll! I assume that was the next Women’s title feud. Crazy sunset flip. I feel bad I don’t know the Bomb Angels from each other. But they’re awesome. Electric chair drop by Kai takes out McIntyre. Once again, a great story was told as the announcers focus on how McIntyre’s back was injured. It was also great psychology as McIntyre had been getting eliminations with all of these victory rolls. Down to the Bomb Angels and the Glamour Girls. Kai is eiliminated by a crossbody. Jimmy Hart even takes a bump to the outside! Team Moolah wins, Sole Survivors: The Jumping Bomb Angels. Great clothesline for the win. Wow. I need to research more about the Jumping Bomb Angels because they are awesome. Apparently this set up a Women’s Tag Team title feud between these two teams. Anyway, great match! Maybe the best Women’s match I’ve ever seen in the US. Survivor Series Match – 10 vs. 10 Strike Force, The Young Stallions, The Fabulous Rougeaus, the Killer Bees and the British Bulldogs vs. The Dream Team, The Bolsheviks, Demolition, The Islanders and the Hart Foundation Let’s just throw all the tag teams in at once! This could be nuts. Interesting rules: if one member of the tag team gets eliminated, the other is gone too. This is a cool concept that would be cool to see today, although there isn’t enough teams for that. Zhukov gets eliminated by Santana, so the Bolsheviks are gone. I don’t really like the pacing for this one. Too many quick tags and way too many guys involved. Ax takes out Jacques when he missed a crossbody. We are at 4 teams vs. 4 teams. The Demos get DQed when Smash shoves the referee away. Strike Force get eliminated when Bret breaks up a pinfall by Santana on Anvil, then Anvil pins Santana? How weak was that? No falls for a while, and we keep getting move after move. On one hand it’s awesome, non-stop action. On the other, there’s no real story being told, it’s just move after move. Dynamite goes for a flying headbutt on Haku and hits it…but knocks himself out and Haku takes him out with a kick to take out the Bulldogs. Roma gets Greg Valentine with a top rope sunset flip to take him out. That was nice. Best move I ever saw Roma do. Down to the Harts and Islanders vs. the Bees and Young Stallions. This match really seemed like it was designed to get the Stallions over. Bret gets eliminated when Tama knocked Jumping Jim over when he holding Hart…but he rolled through and got the pin. Down to the Islanders against Bees and Stallions. Team Strike Force wins, Sole Survivors: The Killer Bees and the Young Stallions. B. Brian Blair puts on a bee mask and gets a sunset flip on Tama even though he’s the illegal man, and Jumping Jim puts on a mask as well. Sure, why not. I thought this went way too long and while it was mostly nonstop action, I could never really get into this. Still, I wouldn’t say it was bad. We get to see how ”The Million Dollar Man” Ted Dibiase celebrates Thanksgiving. He tells us money is the key to survival. He’s not wrong. We do get the hilarious moment where Dibiase tells a kid to dribble a basketball 15 times for $500, then kicks the basketball after the 14th dribble. Great stuff. Ventura mentions that he’s never seen female wrestlers do the movies the Jumping Bomb Angels did. He’s right! They were awesome. We get a Honky Tonk Man promo. For some reason we’re killing a lot of time before the main event. Survivor Series Match Hulk Hogan, Paul Orndorff, Don Muraco, Ken Patera and Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Andre the Giant, Rick Rude, One Man Gang, Butch Reed and King Kong Bundy Crazy team Hogan promo. Hogan looked like he was in a trance at the end. Huge cheers for Bigelow. Too bad he didn’t work out in his first stint. Orndorff also gets huge cheers. Him and Hogan were feuding earlier in the year. Hogan makes quick work of Reed and drop the leg for the elimination. Hogan vs. Andre time…no, Hogan tags out to Ken Patera. Way to go Hogan. Andre, great heel that he is, motions that Patera isn’t worth it and tags in Bundy. OMG lands on Patera and gets rid of him. Man Bam Bam is over. Huge cheers when Hogan tagged him in. Surprisingly Orndorff is gone after Rude rolls him up and holds the tights. Powerslam from Muraco takes out Rude. That’s a shame, Rude was the best worker here by far. Big splash from OMG takes out Muraco. Hogan and Bigelow vs. Bundy, Andre and OMG. Bigelow escapes Andre and we have Hogan vs. Andre! OMG pulls Hogan out of the ring as h was beating on Andre, but Hogan takes out both OMG and Bundy. Hogan gets counted out! This leaves Bigelow vs. Bundy, OMG and Andre. Bigelow keeps fighting and hits a slingshot press to take out Bundy! OMG misses a top rope splash (looked awful) and Bigelow gets the pin, leaving Bigelow vs. Andre. Team Andre wins, Sole Survivor: Andre the Giant. Andre hits a butterfly suplex for the win. Everything from Hogan vs. Andre to the end was pretty bad to be honest, but crowd was definitely in it which is what matters. Match also seemed designed to get Bigelow over, and while it kinda worked Bigelow (backstage) wasn’t ready for that kind of push. Hogan comes back and takes out Andre to let the crowd go home happy. Overall, this PPV was solid. I liked the first two matches a lot. The tag survivor match was quite long, but it wasn’t bad, and the main event did what it was supposed to. While the PPV meant nothing in the long run, it crushed Crockett’s NWA PPV. Somehow, the NWA show was worse quality wise than the WWF show, which was rare for that time and happened at the absolute worst time possible for the NWA. Final Grade: B |
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Nov 28 2015, 11:17 PM Post #152 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWE Summerslam 2013 August 18, 2013 Los Angeles, CA YES! YES? YES! Daniel Bryan is finally getting his moment. We’re a year and a half removed from Bryan getting kicked in the face and beaten by Sheamus in 18 seconds. Ever since then fans all over the world have chanted YES! Louder and louder for Bryan. When John Cena announced he picked Bryan to be his opponent at for Summerslam the Barclays Center came unglued (trust me, I was there). Bryan has a chance to truly break the glass ceiling and follow in the footsteps of CM Punk. It was a hot storyline and a huge win over Cena that took Punk from jobber to the stars to top level star. It could be Bryan’s turn now. It SHOULD be Bryan’s turn now. Speaking of Punk, he wasn’t happy. Punk had burnt himself out over the last year as the top guy and felt he was screwed out of the Wrestlemania 27 main event (I agree). He looked to take some time off, only to be asked to come back early (he wanted to be off till Summerslam, but he came back at Payback). Worse yet, he was upset that he had to job to Brock Lesnar because Lesnar was a part time guy. Still, Summerslam had two really hot main events here with Cena vs. Bryan and Punk vs. Lesnar. The Card The Miz is our host and he hypes out main events. Why are we hyping main events when the show already started? Not sure. Fandango comes out and the Miz mocks his dancing. Unfortunately, this was a good representation of why face Miz sucked. No idea why Fandango was out dancing though. It’s not like he had a match. We get the National Anthem too. No problem with that, but it seems like we’re wasting time early on. Ring of Fire Kane vs. Bray Wyatt The Wyatts had just debuted and of course WWE put Kane against them. The Wyatts were an exciting new addition though, especially Bray. I guess lighting someone on fire isn’t PG, so even though there is fire around the ring, the match ends by pin or submission. Oddly, Kane would be on fire next May anyway. As with all Inferno matches, the match gets a lot of easy pops because the flames expand on all the big moves. While funny at some points, the story of the match seems to be “how will Harper and Rowan get by the flames”, which sucks to be honest. Harper and Rowan find their way in and destroy Kane. Bray Wyatt pins Kane in 7:49. Sister Abigal (although it wasn’t called that yet) for the win. The whole Ring of Fire deal seemed pointless. Match wasn’t much of anything either. Harper and Rowan slam the stairs on Kane’s head in a way where there’s no chance it actually hit him. This would be the last we’d see Kane until he returned as Corporate Kane. Interestingly enough, Bray Wyatt may be one of the worst booked characters in WWE history if going by wins and losses (and how those wins were earned). I mean Kane pretty much destroyed him here. Not a good way to start the show. Even Paul Heyman can make the story of David vs. Goliath seem interesting. And it’s a revisionist history nonetheless! Cody Rhodes vs. Damien Sandow Team Rhodes Scholars broke up when Sandow stole the MITB match where Rhodes had it won, then declared Rhodes the “holder of the case”. This feud was great for both, and while Sandow was buried a few months later it allowed Rhodes to become one of the most popular stars on the roster…but he never got a big push out of it. Sandow with a great line before the match: “I’m going to send Cody back to his family of carnival acts.” He’s not wrong there. Cody Rhodes busts out a Muscle Buster. Take that Samoa Joe. JBL on commentary states that statistically Sandow will be the next World Champion due to owning the MITB briefcase. Poor Sandow. Cody Rhodes pins Damien Sandow in 6:40. Cross Rhodes for the win. Really fun and fast paced, but too short for sure. If this went double the time we would have had a great match here for sure. This should have been the opener. World Heavyweight Championship Alberto Del Rio© vs. Christian For both Wrestlemania and Summerslam in 2013, the World Heavyweight Title basically held the role of a midcard title. The World Heavyweight Title soon was merged with the WWE Title, so at least WWE was recognizing it. Anyway, the World Heavyweight Title was pretty hot in the months between Mania and Summerslam, as a red hot Dolph Ziggler cashed in MITB and won the title from Del Rio, but injuries and strange booking ruined that. Any popularity Del Rio got from his face turn in late 2013 died in the Ziggler feud, and people were sick of him as a heel. Oddly, this match is being promoted as possibly Christian’s last big match. I actually don’t know when Christian retired as that was never made clear. While Christian’s 2011 run was fun, and he was still over in 2013, it was a little too late for fans to really believe he could be a top guy with a top belt. This is when Del Rio and Ricardo Rodriguez were on the outs, which was the end of Ricardo (although there was a terrible feud with RVD involving him after this). Pretty good so far. Del Rio has controlled, but he takes a huge bump to the outside that turns the tide. Christian comes flying off the top and takes out Del Rio on the floor! Backstabber off the turnbuckles! Really fun match so far. Top rope hurricanrana from Christian! Fans really want Christian to win the title here. We get a “This is Awesome” chant and the fans are right. This is awesome. Huge pop for a spear from Christian, but he sells the injured shoulder! Alberto Del Rio retains via submission in 12:30. Del Rio takes advantage of Christian’s injury and locks in the Cross Armbreaker (and put his hand on Christian’s eyes/face to lock it in which was a great touch). Really good match. I wish it was longer! Del Rio needs more opponents like Christian these days. We get a Del Rio promo about Mexican fans needing a hero. Since we’re in LA, the fans get behind him. This was odd considering he was a heel at this point. Brie Bella vs. Natayla Basically a Total Divas commercial. We get a JBL chant which tells you how much the crowd cares here. A Michael Cole chant follows…then a Jerry chant! Brie Bella broke the Sharpshooter! There’s a spot I didn’t expect. Natayla wins via submission in 5:19. Sharpshooter wins. Fans didn’t care for this obviously. No worse than any other Diva matches. Maybe a bit long. Ryback bullies some cook in the back. There was an ill-advised heel turn. No DQ CM Punk vs. Brock Lesnar Story is this: Paul Heyman believes that the Best in the World was him and Punk, and that Punk ruined that by losing the WWE Title and losing to The Undertaker at Wrestlemania. Punk meanwhile tried to distance himself from Heyman. Heyman betrayed Punk at Money in the Bank and the next night brought out Brock Lesnar to punish Punk. Off to a great start highlighted with a suicide dive by Punk! Crowd is clearly pro-Punk here. Punk is hitting Lesnar at all angles with flying clotheslines. Great booking to allow Punk to get tons of offense in early on and not just get killed. Lesnar is now destroying Punk. He puts a piece of table on Punk and jumps on it! Then a belly to belly on the floor. Great match so far. Lesnar beats the crap out of Punk for about 5 minutes and it’s awesome. What a match. Punk comeback time…although Lesnar almost gets an F5 out of Punk high knee. That was a creative spot. Lesnar counters the Go 2 Sleep with the Kimora Lock! Great reversal! Punk counters into a Triangle Chock! Great wrestling! Lesnar counters with a running powerbomb and both men are down. What a match! Top rope elbow drop with a chair from Punk…and Brock still survives! One of the most creative counters to the F5 ever…Punk holds onto Heyman’s tie! GTS…but Heyman breaks it up! Punk nails the F5 into a DDT counter perfectly! Lesnar still kicks out! Brock Lesnar pins CM Punk in 25:17. Punk knocks Heyman out and locks him in the Vise, but Lesnar beats the living crap out of Punk with a chair and hits the F5 for the win. There was only one thing I didn’t like about this match, which was that Punk kept turning his back on Lesnar to deal with Heyman. Other than that, this is a Match of the Year contender for sure. This was CM Punk’s last great match and it’s a shame WWE decided to waste him on Curtis Axel and Ryback after this. Dolph Ziggler and Kaitlyn vs. AJ Lee and Big E. Langston Somehow Ziggler went from hottest young guy in the company to midcard fodder in the span of a few months. Worst part is Ziggler never would recover. This feud began when Ziggler broke up with AJ Lee. Really…how did Ziggler at this point of his career end up in the death slot between Lesnar-Punk and Cena-Bryan? Baffling. Crowd is dead for this obviously. Kaitlyn did have a great spear, that’s for sure and she levels AJ with it. Dolph Ziggler and Kaitlyn win when Ziggler pinned Langston in 6:45. Zig Zag wins it. Nothing really notable here. Crowd’s just waiting for the main event here. I admit Fandango interrupting Miz all night is a bit funny…but Miz disappointingly knocks him out. WWE Championship-Triple H is the Special Referee John Cena© vs. Daniel Bryan After being pretty much the most entertaining performer in WWE since Wrestlemania 28 a year and a half earlier, WWE listened and finally gave Bryan the shot. The rest of the story after Cena announced Bryan as his opponent, Vince McMahon thought Bryan had to change his look to be a major star. This was the start of the B+ player angle. Awesome monkey flip sequence early on. Cena counters the surfboard by using his strength, which I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before actually. Cena suplexes Bryan off the top of the steel steps, also an original spot. Cena’s subtly heeling it up here, which only adds to the story that Bryan is the underdog. We get some rolling German Suplexes, but Cena again uses his strength to get out of it. Bryan begins to bust out the moveset with a front choke. While I thought the match did get a bit slow, it’s really picking up here. Bryan superplexs Cena off the top rope, but hooks his legs so he doesn’t crash to the mat, which is brilliant. Flying headbutt follows up! Cena kicks out. Cena hits his flying legdrop on a standing Bryan. That was awesome. Another example of Cena’s strength, as Bryan goes for a top rope hurricanrana but Cena just blocks it and jumps down…then locks Bryan in the STF. Good storyline with Cena’s strength vs. Bryan’s wrestling here. AWESOME clothesline from Cena that Bryan sells by spinning in the air. Wow! Bryan goes for his top rope flip again, but Cena catches him for a AA…but Bryan counters that into a DDT! Daniel Bryan wins the title by pin in 26:55. Bryan nails a flying dropkick (Shining Wizard) to win the title. Crowd was a little surprised there as this was the first time Bryan used it, but the fans are happy enough. Cena puts Bryan over clean. Another great match tonight…it would be match of the night probably any other PPV except this one because of Lesnar-Punk. Cena and Bryan shake hands and really Bryan couldn’t have been more put over. During the celebration…MITB holder Randy Orton shows up…and referee HHH suddenly turns on Bryan! HHH pedigrees Bryan, and Orton cashes in! Randy Orton wins the WWE Title by pin in :08. Pin is academic and Orton wins the title to close the show. We had two or three great matches (depending on how you feel about Del Rio-Christian) and another really good one in Rhodes vs. Sandow. All the main events hit their marks for sure. There were some tough parts too…the Diva’s match was meh, Kane vs. Wyatt was meh and Ziggler was wasted. And then there’s this, despite how great the main events were nothing changed in WWE. In fact, historically this card practically meant nothing. WWE almost didn’t give Bryan his run on top…somehow we almost got Orton vs. Batista at Wrestlemania until the fans forced their hand. Despite the fact that Bryan had crazy momentum here they let Orton win their feud and moved Bryan down to a feud with the Wyatts. Punk feuded with Ryback and Axel, Heyman’s guys, which honestly was a huge step down from where Punk was. Lesnar should have been Punk’s end boss and instead Punk was just there to put Lesnar over. Unfortunately, that didn’t matter either since Lesnar’s feud with HHH killed his star power a bit…and Lesnar had to cheat in this one anyway (Lesnar would have to break Taker’s streak to get that star power back). Del Rio-Christian meant nothing as Del Rio dropped the World Title to Cena a couple months later, leading to Cena vs. Orton again. The only thing that seemed to matter was that HHH turned heel. What a waste. Still a great show. Too bad WWE failed to capitalize. Final Grade: A- |
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Jan 14 2016, 11:12 PM Post #153 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image 1997 WWF Royal Rumble January 19, 1997 San Antonio, TX Let’s be clear, the WWF was in trouble. While things seemed bad in the latter half of 1996 ratings wise, it only got worse when Bret Hart returned to the WWF. It wasn’t Bret’s fault as he instantly became an entertaining top guy on the show once again. The issue was ratings didn’t jump the way Vince McMahon expected them to with Bret’s return. WCW was still kicking the WWF’s ass in the ratings. Vince began changing things up at Survivor Series. Stone Cold Steve Austin looked like he had some potential after a great match with Bret at Survivor Series and was seemingly in line for a push. Also, Sycho Sid had won the WWF Title from Shawn Michaels at the same show. Sycho Sid will always have an interesting place in pro wrestling history. On one hand he was a big star who main evented two Wrestlemanias (with Hulk Hogan and Undertaker no less) and a Starrcade. He had a monster look and sometimes had really good promo skills (and sometimes not). But the fact of the matter is he often never drew big money as a top guy. His run in the WWF in ’92 didn’t help the company. Same for his run in ’95. We just talked about how WWF was in trouble with him on top in ’96-’97. His WCW runs didn’t help either as he didn’t draw in ’93 and did nothing to help WCW in 1999 and 2000. The truth is Sid was probably a little too late for his time. Had he became a big star in the late 80s, he could have drawn huge money with Hogan. 1992 was too late. Shawn Michaels had also been a questionable draw, although I blame how he was booked in 1996. Fans wanted the cocky, arrogant Shawn of ’94-’95. Not the good guy who had his old trainer in his corner. Shawn helped turn the company around big time in 1997 when he turned heel. It’s a shame his back went out before he could really enjoy it. Nonetheless, this Rumble on paper could have been huge. Vince had apparently decided that the WWF could still sell out a huge stadium (which they didn’t, they had to paper it big time) with a Royal Rumble match and hometown Shawn’s return title match against Sid. Would this spark the turn around the WWF needed in 1997? The Card One thing I’ll always remember in 1997 are the black and white promos. A lot of those were awesome, especially Summerslam ‘97’s. I don’t necessarily care for the “Shawn Michaels” has grown up story either. Aren’t you saying he wasn’t a man before Survivor Series then? Intercontinental Championship Goldust vs. Hunter Hearst Helmsley© Storyline here is that HHH made a pass at Marlena, which led to a face turn that honestly ended the peak of Goldust. Such an awesome heel became a lukewarm babyface. (Interestingly, the opposite happened with Mankind). I totally forgot about Mr. Hughes coming back here as HHH’s butler. That didn’t last long. Goldust just slams the steps on HHH’s back. I know the steel steps is usually a questionable object in regards to DQs…but that should be a DQ. The psychology of the match seems to revolve around using the steel steps, which is odd. Also what’s not working in this match is the contrast in styles. As a face Goldust is just wrestling a too slow paced of a style and it’s leading to a boring match. We get a mid-match interview with some country singer. The heck? HHH retains by pin in 16:50. Hughes slides in the IC Title and distracts the ref, but Marlena gets onto the apron. HHH kisses Marlena, but Goldust gets the IC belt and nails HHH. Hughes pulls HHH out of potential pin, then distracts the ref again. Goldust shoves a cigar in his eye…but then gets Pedigreed for the HHH win. Really boring 17 minutes here. Hughes wouldn’t last much longer either as Chyna would debut soon. Ahmed Johnson vs. Faarooq In another situation that killed the overness of someone who was hot in 1996, Ahmed Johnson got his kidney attacked by Faarooq. This was Ahmed’s comeback. Faarooq already went through a gimmick change while Ahmed was out (from Spartacus to leader of the Nation of Domination). We get a brawl for a few minutes with Faarooq taking control and focusing on the kidney. Faarooq flying off the top into an Ahmed Johnson powerslam was an unexpectedly good spot. Ahmed Johnson wins by DQ in 8:48.. Ahmed gets the upper hand and the Nation runs in for the DQ. Other than the powerslam, this was pretty bad. The aftermath is pretty cool though as Ahmed Pearl River Plunges a random Nation member through a table. Still, this feud pretty much ruined Ahmed Johnson’s career. He would never get out of it, battling them all throughout 1997 (and joining once), then leaving the WWF in February ’98. The Undertaker vs. Vader The story here mostly revolves around Jim Cornette as he was on the verge of losing Vader as a client. Undertaker had also Tombstoned Cornette. This is one of those matches that doesn’t make a lot of logical sense. Why would Taker and Vader go at it right before the Royal Rumble? It’s not like there’s a title on the line or anything, and they’re both in. JR mentions Undertaker hasn’t done well at the Royal Rumble since his first one in 1993. Pretty sure he was in the 1991 and 1992 ones. He’s also only 1-2 at the Rumble in singles matches and one of those losses was by DQ. Vader being surprised that Undertaker sat up from a few early knock downs is stupid. Undertaker throws a Rocker Dropper out there which is pretty awesome. Match really slows down when Vader takes control. We get some restholds. Vader off the turnbuckles and Undertaker powerslams him mid jump! Wow! Tops the spot from the Ahmed-Faarooq match. Undertaker sits-up from a Vader Powerbomb. Thing’s never been the same since Hogan got up from it. Paul Bearer shows up as Undertaker chokeslams Vader. Undertaker tries some crazy jump off the stairs onto Vader and the railing, but Bearer moves Vader. Vader pins Undertaker in 13:19. Bearer nails Taker in the head with the urn and Vader drops the Vader Bomb for the win. Finish really seemed messy once Bearer showed up and the crowd surprisingly wasn’t really into it. Vader needed to win too after the problem with Shawn at Summerslam and never getting a big win after that. Match overall was okay, but they’d have a much better match at the Canadian Stampede six months later. Bearer leaves with Vader, and Undertaker chokeslams a referee. The British Bulldog is going to win the Rumble because “HE’S BIZARRE!” Always makes me laugh. Hector Garza, Perro Aguayo and Canek vs. Jerry Estrada, Heavy Metal and Fuerza Guerrera This was done to draw tickets in San Antonio since it was so close to Mexico. I get Vince is trying to keep up with WCW here, but this wasn’t even close. Aguayo pins Metal in 10:56. Double foot stomp and an elbow wins. Aguayo barely even hits the stomp. This was awful and the crowd didn’t care one bit (and I think pop at the end because they’re glad it’s over). Just a bunch of moves for 10 minutes and not exciting ones at that. Even Vince sounded bored. Royal Rumble I think the smart money was on Bret Hart here. Finkel tell s us 60K people are in the house. Only about 40K paid though. Crush is #1 and Ahmed Johnson is #2 to continue the Nation-Ahmed rivalry. So the clock and music isn’t working, so the Fake Razor Ramon is #3. Ahmed gets rid of him quickly. What a horrible gimmick that was. Faarooq comes down and Ahmed jumps over the top rope and eliminated himself. #4 is Phineas Godwinn. Stone Cold is #5 and gets a bit of a pop. While he was getting higher up the card, he wasn’t anything resembling a favorite. PIG gets rid of Crush…but he also gets a Stunner and Austin’s alone. #6 is Bart Gunn. Bart botches a rocker dropper…and Austin gets rid of him quickly. Austin does some push-ups to get some heat. Jake “The Snake” is next at #7! Jake dominates Austin, but when he goes for the DDT Austin dumps him. Great start for Stone Cold as The British Bulldog makes his way down at #8. Bulldog kicks Austin’s ass and ends his dominance. #9 is Pierroth from AAA. There are a few Mexican stars in this one. The Sultan is #10. He’d run Stone Cold down nearly three years later! #11 is Mil Mascaras. He gets a bit of a pop. He already blows a belly to belly from the Sultan. For the record I hate Mascaras after reading about him in Mick Foley’s book. You see a lot of Mascaras’ selfish tendencies in this Rumble alone. #12 is HHH. Bulldog takes out the Sultan. #13 is Owen Hart. He eliminates his teammate Bulldog which was the start of an angle that never really went off when the Hart Foundation came together. #14 is Goldust and he tries to go for HHH…but Austin cuts him off. Mascaras pulls Austin’s ears from his head…which is unique I guess. #15 is Cibernetico, another AAA star. #16 is Marc Mero. Cibernetico gets eliminated off-screen by Mascaras I think. Mascaras then takes out Pierroth too. Mascaras, showing he doesn’t even need to job in the Rumble, goes to the top rope and dives onto Pierroth on the floor, eliminating himself. Can’t say I’m surprised. Fans boo too, as Mascaras was a legend somehow. Goldust takes out HHH, revenge for earlier. Latin Lover is #17. With one superkick he is already the best Mexican in this thing. Owen takes out Goldust. Not surprised HHH and Goldust got short runs considering they wrestled earlier. Faarooq is #18 and he takes out the Latin Lover. Ahmed Johnson runs in and chases Faarooq off over the top rope. Huge pop for that too! Owen tries to get Mero out…and Austin dumps them both! Austin’s alone again as Savio Vega comes in. Austin gets beat up…but again gets an elimination anyway as he takes out Vega! Austin is all alone again. Double J Jesse James is #20. Austin makes quick work of him and he’s gone. One of the greatest moments in Rumble history here: #21 is Bret Hart and the look on Austin’s face is an absolute classic. Fans have finally gotten into it and Bret and Austin go at it! Another great moment. Jerry Lawler is #22…and he starts a sentence, gets knocked over the top rope by Bret…then finishes the sentence! Great stuff. Fake Diesel is #23. JR still tries to put him over, although as not as badly as he tried at Survivor Series. Terry Funk is #24 and he jumps the gun. It’s interesting to see where these four men would be by the end of the year. Funk spent most of ’97 as ECW World Champion, Bret was in WCW, Austin was just about to become the biggest star in the WWF and Diesel would be Kane. Funk with an awful piledriver on Bret. To add to the interesting people in the Rumble…#25 is Rocky Maivia. Of course, he would become 1b. to Austin in biggest WWF star within a couple years. Mankind comes in at #26. Just loads of potential here with two legends Hart and Funk. I like how Funk and Mankind go at it. This seemed like a nod to smarks looking back at it. #27 is Flash Funk. Here’s another gimmick that just didn’t make it. #28 is Vader. No surprise with the late number. Taker hasn’t even come out yet. Henry Godwinn is #29. Undertaker is #30 and the lights even go out for his entrance. Taker levels Vader and again the crowd gets into it. Vader fall away slams Flash over the top for a pretty great elimination. Lawler on commentary is great. He’s nearly euphoric as Rocky nearly gets Bret Hart out. Undertaker takes out Godwinn. That leaves Mankind, Taker, Bret, Austin, Rocky, Vader, Diesel and Terry Funk. Quite the mix of legends and future stars here. Mankind Mandible Claws Rocky out. Stone Cold Steve Austin wins in 50:29. Mankind gets rid of Funk and Taker boots Mankind off the apron. Funk and Mankind go at it on the outside and Bret eliminates Austin to a huge pop. Refs don’t see it…and Austin comes back in and takes out Vader and Taker. Bret takes out Diesel and Austin dumps Bret to win in what may be one of the best Royal Rumble finishes ever. Bret is irate (2nd time a top babyface attacks a referee tonight) and asks Vince what he’s going to do about it, which is a bit of a worked-shoot as Vince was still seen as the commentator here. This would fit perfectly with Bret’s rivalry with Austin and upcoming heel turn. Bret Hart was on fire in 1997 all the way through Summerslam and this was no exception. The match itself was good but not great. The beginning was pretty slow, but Austin’s presence really made for a good Rumble. His story of not only being the guy who came in at #5 to win at the end but also the guy who’ll do anything to win was a great one. Sometimes the action around Austin was pretty slow, especially in the middle. But everything from Austin taking out Owen and Mero to the end was pretty good. I thought King of the Ring ’96 was a star making performance from Austin. This was a star confirming performance. Crowd popped too when Austin won. WWF Championship Sycho Sid© vs. Shawn Michaels Sid beat Shawn for the title at Survivor Series. Of course, this is where Shawn “grew up” by tending to Jose Lothario as opposed to trying to win the title. Still don’t like that storyline. Shawn was allegedly sick as a dog for this as well. We start off pretty fast but it doesn’t take long for Sid to take over and slow things down with a barehug and a chinlock. Shawn’s comeback is pretty great. Awesome bodyslam on Sid. Sid powerbombs HBK on the outside. While it didn’t look great, it still did the job. Jose and Pete Lothario try to attack Sid and Sid grabs both by the throat. For some reason Shawn has gotten up quickly from the powerbomb so Sid has to let go. Ref bump and Sid gets a chokeslam. HBK is out…but there’s no count of course. Interesting spot to do there. In a great piece of symmetry from their Survivor Series match, HBK nails Sid with a TV camera twice. Shawn Michaels regains the title at 13:49. Superkick finishes Sid off. Decent main event that was pretty slow, but picked up at the end. The finish was brilliant. I did like their Survivor Series match better though. Randomly, Bret Hart gave Shawn a lot of credit for this match, saying he did such an awesome job against Sid and a better job than he ever could. This is the only time I really buy the Jose Lothario deal too, since this is HBK’s hometown. The 1997 Royal Rumble PPV is a show that’s greater than the sum of its parts. None of the short-term plans went off at all. Bret was supposed to get the title shot back at the February PPV and face Shawn at Wrestlemania. Of course, Shawn would vacate the title instead with the infamous “Lost My Smile” promo. Bret would win the title for a night, then Sid would win it so he could face Undertaker at Mania and Bret could continue his feud with Austin. Shawn would come back in May and his problems with Bret led to the Montreal Screwjob. Yet, Shawn’s victory, Austin’s rise and Bret’s hint at a heel turn (even if it wasn’t even decided yet) all were major storylines that went off well. Austin’s star confirming performance was absolutely fantastic. Also, interestingly the 1997 Royal Rumble provides a snapshot of current stars and future stars, as well as guys who really couldn’t get to the next level. It saw established guys like Bret and Undertaker. It saw future stars like Austin, Rock, HHH and Kane. It saw guys who unfortunately never could get over the hump in one way or another with Vader, Ahmed Johnson and Marc Mero. It saw legends like Terry Funk and Jake The Snake. Yeah, it’s not a great Rumble…but it definitely worked. Now only if the undercard was any good. Final Grade: B |
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Jan 20 2016, 01:51 AM Post #154 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image Guilty as Charged ‘99 January 10, 1999 Kissimmee, FL There are two last hopes for ECW at this point: Taz and Rob Van Dam. Guilty as Charged ’99 is Taz’s shot at the top title. After teasing this title match for about 18 months (back when Taz beat Douglas for the TV title in 1997) we’re finally getting the payoff. There’s not much else to say. As I’ve written for two PPVs in a row there’s nothing special about ECW anymore. It doesn’t have the best storylines, the best angles and definitely not the best matches. The best hardcore matches are in the WWF with Stone Cold and Mankind. The best wrestling is in WCW with the Cruisers, Benoit, Malenko and Guerrero. But that’s no excuse for ECW. All they have to do is put on consistently good shows. November to Remember was really bad and there was no reason for it. ECW has shown me two good PPVs since they began running PPVs. Otherwise it’s been mediocre to really bad. 1999 could be the year ECW comes together if Paul Heyman plays his cards right and busts out some decent shows. He definitely has the talent to do so, even if some of them are leaving (like Bam Bam Bigelow). The Card Paul Heyman tells us right at the outset that Masato Tanaka is not coming in as previously advertised and Jerry Lynn is still injured. I do like that he does this, but I mean people already bought the show, no? The FBI vs. Danny Doring and Roadkill The FBI has Big Sal and Big Guido at this point. While the FBI matches usually aren’t good, I do get a good kick out of Tracy Smothers and Little Guido doing the FBI gimmick. A random guy in the crowd busts out a camera and Danny Doring poses for him on cue. I’m a bit of a Doring fan and wished he and Roadkill had an ECW ’06 run. For some reason the Chair Swingin’ Freaks, Balls Mahoney and Axl Rotten, come out mid Doring strut and this turns into a Three Way Dance. Axl Rotten calls this match in the ring a homosexual dance party. Gay jokes were par for the course in 1999 as the crowd erupts. Guido impales himself on the guardrail when he misses a dive. Match really picked up when Rotten and Mahoney came in. Joey Styles says Axl Rotten is the most underrated wrestler in professional wrestling. Hyperbole Joey. Hyperbole. Mahoney flies off the top rope into a crowd of wrestlers. Didn’t expect that there and it got a great reaction. “You love sheep!” Quite the chant towards Roadkill there. Doring with a front Russian Legsweep. Probably the best one I’ve seen. A hell of a lot better than Jeff Jarrett’s. Double Fisherman’s Suplex by the FBI takes out Doring. Nice move. Sick belly to back suplex by Mahoney on Guido! Really liking this. The Chair Swingin’ Freaks win by double pin in 10:43. Nutcraker Suite and Aerial Skullcrusher gets the win. Really fun brawl here and a good start to the show. Axl and Mahoney take out Big Guido and Big Sal too. Yikes, we’re still doing this Terry Funk heel deal on Tommy Dreamer. Promo is interesting at least, about a jackass kicking his dad in the nuts and the dad got revenge. Funk’s upset that Tommy picked Jake Roberts at November to Remember as his mystery partner. I don’t remember a match to conclude this though. Super Crazy vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri This was when Tajiri was sane, had no beard and didn’t wear the Great Muta pants. Joey Styles points out that Crazy wrestled in the WWF before…but doesn’t mention the same for Tajiri (who wrestled there a little bit in 1997 as well). Fast paced start that leads to a Tornado DDT from Crazy! Tajiri works on the knees with his kicks. Great psychology here as the idea is if Crazy’s knees are out, he can’t fly around. And Joey Styles says this too. It’s nice when the announcer’s tell the story of the match. Tajiri’s Asai Moonsault has always been awesome. Super Crazy just shows total disregard for his body and hits a suicide somersault plancha to the outside. He follows that with a moonsault off the guardrail. Everything is crisp from both men. Great surfboard into a dragon sleeper spot from Crazy! Corkscrew tope from Crazy. Great high flying spots everywhere in this one. Sky Twister Press misses from Crazy! Wow! Tajiri wins by pin in 11:37. Dragon Suplex gets the win. Spotfests can be awesome and this was a prime example of that. Sure the psychology early on was forgotten, but who really cares here. Really fun and really good. If ECW just got some more talent they could have rivaled WCW’s Cruiserweight Division. Unfortunately we’d just get these two and Little Guido for the next few years…although Tajiri’s gimmick change would get a short main event run in the summer. John Kronus comes out. Judge Jeff Jones comes out (the judge deal is a new gimmick) and he’s here to get revenge on Kronus. Jeff Jones was a referee that Kronus beat up. Admittedly, this is a cool payoff early on to this. John Kronus vs. Sid Vicious Sid is a pretty good surprise here, a hell of a lot better than Mabel two months ago. Two seconds in and Sid chokeslams Kronus over the top rope through a table. Sid pins Kronus in 1:31. Some chair shots and a Powerbomb wins it for Sid. Bringing in Sid as an ass kicker who chokeslams and powerbombs people would be awesome. Leave it to Heyman to book Sid better than the WWF and WCW did and would. Of course, as soon as one of the Big Two saw that Sid had something in the tank he didn’t stay in ECW much longer. He was in WCW by the summer. By the way, ECW fans would spend all their time mocking the Sids and Hogan’s of the world, but Sid shows up in an ECW ring and he gets one of the biggest reactions in the history of the promotion. Can’t help but laugh at that one. We see what happened at November to Remember ’98. I don’t like that they are already building up Sabu as a title contender even though we haven’t done Douglas vs. Taz yet. Apparently Taz broke Sabu’s neck as revenge for stealing the pin on Douglas at November to Remember. Then Taz let Sabu pin him to win the FTW Title, making the point that he only wants the ECW World Championship at this point. The Dudley Boyz have made an “unscheduled” appearance. Open challenge is made. Of course, New Jack answers. The Dudley Boyz vs. New Jack and Spike Dudley When I was younger I enjoyed these New Jack brawls, but looking at them now this has to be the worst aged thing in the entire promotion. It’s just New Jack and Spike hitting the Dudleys with random weapons and that’s it. There’s nothing of substance in these things. Bubba throws Spike into the crowd and Spike bodysurfs for a little bit. This is always a cool spot, although it was cooler when Bam Bam did it to Spike. Bubba throws Spike into the crowd again. Aren’t ECW quite lucky fans never got hurt in these spots? Joey had to throw in some dick jokes for Big Dick Dudley. 3D on the ramp is totally botched. New Jack’s whole torso landed on Bubba. The Dudley Boyz pin Spike in 10:01. 3D for the win. A really messy brawl that was a lot less fun than the opener. Not much else to say about this…but New Jack would be attacking the Dudleys all the way through the end of the Dudleys tenure in ECW. Dudleys beat the hell out of New Jack at the end. Joey Styles tells us we’ll get a replacement for Masato Tanaka in the upcoming ECW TV Title match. We get some RVD highlights to hype us up for that. ECW TV Championship Rob Van Dam© vs. Lance Storm Storm gets some mic time first. Still a bit wooden, but not too bad at all. Storm says he’s not the whole F’N show, just the best damn part of it. I like that line. RVD goes for a springboard moonsault, but Storm dropkicks him off the top rope and he goes flying into the guardrail. Unfortunately, the crowd is more interested in chanting things at Tammy Lynn Bytch. As RVD crawls back to the ring after getting hit with a reverse DDT on the floor, he has a whole conversation with the camera/crowd. It’s perfect for the RVD character too. Second surfboard of the night! Referee eats a Van Daminator! Storm hits a superkick into the chair into RVD’s face…but the ref is out afterall… Rob Van Dam pins Lance Storm in 18:50. Great wrestling sequence ends with RVD hitting a bridging German Suplex for the win. I really like that being the finish as sometimes it’s pretty cool to see something that’s merely a good move and not a finisher end the match (you never see this today). While it was a bit sloppy, I enjoyed this for the most part. Great athleticism from both guys and I really liked how cocky RVD was in this one too. Stairway to Hell Match Tommy Dreamer vs. Justin Credible I’m sorry but Nicole Bass doesn’t need to be here. What was the point? The WWF didn’t learn from this either. Some back and forth brawling with some spots using the ladder. Nothing great but nothing bad either. Nice flip from Justin Credible after hitting the ladder. Say what you want about Credible, but he did try. Jazz, who I think is making her debut here, actually suplexes Dreamer. Justin uses a ladder to dump Dreamer through a table, which I find to be a creative if not unnecessary spot. Dreamer hits a Diamond Cutter off the middle of the ladders. While the first half of this was merely okay, this did pick up. Justin Credible pins Tommy Dreamer in 18:45. Ok, this finish sucks and ruins the entire point of the match. Dreamer gets the Singapore Cane and hits Credible with a DDT. After he fails to tie Credible up in the ropes, he goes to hit Credible with the Cane for the big finish. Only Terry Funk shows up and nails Dreamer in the head with a garbage can. Credible hits Dreamer once with the cane then hits That’s Incredible for the win. Despite the whole point of the match being getting the cane (which is a lame weapon here even if it fits the story. At least Sandman-Sabu got barbed wire in theirs), the guy who gets it never uses it and the weapon itself is used once. While the match did pick up, I wouldn’t call it good or anything. This was merely okay and a bit long with a bullshit finish. Funk beats down Dreamer for good measure. I did not like this Terry Funk heel turn…and once again I don’t think this ever paid off with a match either. Quick Taz promo that’s nothing new (Beat Me if you can…). Douglas has a promo too where he randomly calls out Sid and tells him its easier up north or down south to win the World Title…then botches the Immoveable object vs. irresistible force line (he says indestructible force). Not the best promo from either man. ECW World Championship Shane Douglas© vs. Taz This had a real big match feel to it. This really was about 16, 17 months in the making. Early on Taz hits a belly to belly and Douglas rolls to the outside. For some reason, the ref starts a count like he’s going to count Douglas out. I’m sure that was going to be the ECW PPV main event finish. They fight all over the arena now, but to be fair that’s pretty boring. This whole thing has been pretty boring so far. We get our first exciting moment where Taz hits an overhead belly to belly over a railing onto a platform. Other than that, this has been awful so far. Taz finally gets a Taz-plex through a table in the ring. After the two count we get Sabu’s music. Sabu runs n and takes out both guys. Sabu botches his springboard dive to the outside and turns it into a moonsault…but he only gets Taz and Douglas sells it anyway. Sabu drives Douglas through a table! Taz is next as Sabu drives him through a table too! Douglas calls for the Triple Threat…even though the group had been disbanded as Bam Bam Bigelow left the company. Chris Candido and Tammy Lynn Sytch show up though and Tammy and Francine have a cat fight in the middle of this World Title match. Candido turns on Douglas as well, knocking him down with a punch. Taz wins the title when Douglas passed out in 22:15. With Douglas calling out to Candido, Taz locks in the Taz-mission and Douglas passes out. This was absolutely terrible and an embarrassing main event. The most action packed part of the match involved Sabu. The crowd segment was boring and took up nearly half the match. We had a silly run in with Tammy and Candido. Taz didn’t even get a good win as Douglas had been beaten up by both Sabu and Candido. Absolutely terrible. Why couldn’t this just have been Taz beating the crap out of Douglas for 10 minutes? Why all the stupid stuff? The focus was barely on Taz! The show wasn’t too bad overall, but an atrocious main event ruined that. Shane Douglas had been quite a letdown as champion in big match main events, citing back to the match with Al Snow and the six man back in November. The world title main events would get better throughout 1999 for sure. I’ll give some credit for the solid undercard. But ECW still showed to be in a lot of trouble Final Grade: C |
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Feb 1 2016, 01:28 AM Post #155 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF In Your House 3: The Triple Header September 24, 1995 Saginaw, MI This is the first WWF PPV event after WCW Nitro had debuted. While the WWF finally had some competition, it wasn’t as if WCW was destroying them right off the bat. WCW began the war at about even ground with the WWF but Vince McMahon hadn’t gotten desperate yet. Still, the WWF had to be reeling when Lex Luger showed up on Nitro. With a couple of In Your House PPVs left before Survivor Series, the WWF had to make sure to put on an interesting product in order to not allow WCW to take an early lead. To be fair the main event here is intriguing with the three big WWF belts on the line in one match (an idea copied at Backlash 2001). Is there any chance in hell Yokozuna or Owen Hart would walk out of Saginaw the WWF Champion? Well no…but let’s see what happens anyway. The Card Savio Vega vs. Waylon Mercy Vega had started to get a push as Razor Ramon’s friend while Mercy was a nearly finished Dan Spivey. Mercy gets the early advantage and slams Savio on the floor. Vince says he’s undefeated so far. It looks like Spivey can’t really move. He hits Savio with a stun gun but it looked like his knee gave out. Doc Hendrix tells us Owen Hart isn’t here for the main event. Vega with one of the stranger pinfall attempts I’ve ever seen. It was like a slow reverse Russian Legsweep. Brainbuster from Mercy that looked a bit dangerous. Again, you can tell Mercy physically was near his end. Savio Vega pins Waylon Mercy in 7:06. Vega hits the flying spin kick for the upset victory. This was probably done because Mercy was close to retiring. It’s a shame that Dan Spivey was near retirement here as the Mercy character was pretty cool and is a really early prototype of what you see with Bray Wyatt. Match wasn’t good though. Jim Cornette and Gorilla Monsoon argue backstage over whether the Triple Header is still on because Owen isn’t here. Monsoon says it’s on. Henry Godwinn vs. Sycho Sid The build-up seems to be that Sid went crazy after Godwinn slopped him. Godwinn also slopped Ted Dibiase but Sid powerbombed him on the floor as a result. Godwinn’s dominating Sid early on. He suplexes Sid into the ring but hurts his own back. At least there’s some psychology here since he’s selling the back injury from being powerbombed on the floor. Godwinn eventually makes a comeback and Slop Drops Sid. How low did Sid fall down the totem pole to nearly be beaten by Henry Godwinn? Sid pins Henry Godwinn in 7:23. Dibiase trips Godwinn and Sid legdrops him. Powerbomb and its over. It had a good first minute and a boring last six minutes. Bam Bam Bigelow runs in on Sid (didn’t realize that was still a feud) and Kama comes in to take out Bigelow. Dibiase gets slopped anyway. Rough start to the PPV here. Still talking about Owen not being here and if the match will still go down. Monsoon allows Cornette to pick a different partner if Owen doesn’t make it. British Bulldog vs. Bam Bam Bigelow Amazing what happened to Bam Bam’s career after Wrestlemania XI. He turned face, teamed with Diesel, got frustrated with the Kliq backstage and was looking to get out by the summer. The commentary completely focuses on the Bulldog, a surefire sign that the Bulldog was on his way up and Bam Bam’s just foddler here. Gotta like the Bulldog obviously rolling into place for Bam Bam. Bulldog kicks out of Bigelow’s flying headbutt as well. Nice enzugiri from Bigelow. Bulldog sells it with a full flip too. The British Bulldog pins Bigelow in 12:00. Powerslam (not the standard running one though) finishes off Bigelow. This was a solid back and forth match that had some slow parts. Still, good enough and an improvement over the first two matches. Of course the Bulldog was going over here to prepare him for the Undertaker on RAW the next night. Razor Ramon vs. Dean Douglas Bob Backlund introduces Douglas. That could have been a great combo. Douglas introduces Ramon, weird as that is. Douglas finally gets control after slamming Razor into the steps. All the school puns do get annoying at some point. Razor looks absolutely bored in a camel clutch. Jeez. Douglas throws Razor into the referee, surprisingly this isn’t a DQ. Dean Douglas pins Razor Ramon in 14:53. Ramon nails a Razor’s Edge and pins Douglas. 1-2-3 Kid runs in and counts three. Ramon thinks he’s won but then sees the Kid and shoves him out. Douglas rolls Razor up (botched as well) and gets the win. I actually like the idea of the finish and it kind of worked. The match was pretty boring though. Douglas has a boring moveset overall and just doesn’t do anything interesting. Kid and Ramon nearly come to blows afterwards. Bret Hart vs. Jean-Pierre Lafitte The angle here was Lafitte stole Bret Hart’s ring jacket. Rough year storyline wise for Bret Hart. I don’t even know when this happened as I watched the RAWs between Summerslam and this PPV and I don’t recall this happening. Lafitte is dominating and this is pretty good so far. Bret Hart really knows how to make his opponent with his selling. Bret backdrops Lafitte over the top rope but he lands on his feet, drags Bret out and slams him into the steps! Great spot. Top rope legdrop from Lafitte but Bret kicks out. Lafitte with a pretty good taunt too. Bret moves out of the way of the Cannonball. Crowd is really into this. They should be, this is a very good match. Lafitte with a somersault plancha to the outside…but he MISSES as Bret moves out of the way. Wow! Surprisingly, Lafitte blocks the elbow in Bret’s Five Moves of Doom. Bret tries a crucifix pin, but Lafitte counters by putting Bret on his shoulders and hits a rolling Samoan Drop like move (I don’t know what it’s called). Really cool nonetheless. So many great reversals. Bret goes for the bulldog…but Laffite shoves him right into the turnbuckles! Bret crotches himself into the ropes after a missed tackle. Laffite then misses a top rope splash! Bret Hart wins by submission in 16:37.. Bret sneakily locks in the Sharpshooter for the win. Great match and this becomes the 2nd In Your House out of three that Bret saves. To be far Laffite was good here too. Too bad his attitude didn’t allow him to last much longer. It looked like Bret was trying to make a point about being the best wrestler in the WWF at the time. Point taken. Cornette picks the Bulldog. What a surprise… WWF, IC and Tag Team Championship Diesel (WC) and Shawn Michaels (IC) vs. The British Bulldog and Yokozuna (TTC) This obviously has screwjob written all over it with the Bulldog/Owen switch. If I were watching at the time I could have easily told you what the finish would be. Shawn mocks Yokozuna by doing the whole sumo routine and Yoko gets him with an elbow to the face. I thought that was hilarious. Bulldog fails to get Diesel up for the big vertical suplex…but he impressively gets him up on a 2nd try. Decent Bulldog-HBK match breaks out until Yokozuna comes in and just nerve holds HBK down. We were getting close to Yokozuna not being able to do much in the ring due to his size. Diesel and Shawn Michaels win the Tag Title when Diesel pinned Owen Hart in 15:42. HBK superkicks Yokozuna to the outside. Bulldog slams Diesel, but HBK goes flying off the top rope with an elbow drop to take him out. Owen Hart runs down but Diesel dodges the flying dropkick. Jackknife Powerbomb gets the win. This was a bullshit finish as on RAW the titles were returned to Owen and Yokozuna because Owen wasn’t legally in the match. The WWF promoted this big Triple Header and then came up with a way for none of the title change. Pinning a guy not in the match? Come on now. At least the match was decent thanks to the Bulldog and HBK. Really only one good (very good) match here which was Bret-Lafitte. While Bulldog-Bigelow wasn’t bad and the main event was decent despite a terrible finish everything else is pretty forgettable. I maybe could bump this a little if the main event had a good finish. Things would only get worse for the WWF I’m afraid. Final Grade: C |
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Feb 29 2016, 02:10 AM Post #156 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF Wrestlemania March 31, 1985 New York, NY Wrestlemania is the most important wrestling card in North American wrestling history. Shown on closed-circuit, Wrestlemania was Vince McMahon’s big chance. As the legend goes, if Wrestlemania was a success, the WWF could skyrocket financially and change wrestling forever. If it had failed Vince could be nearly wiped out financially and wrestling would never be the same again. Those were the stakes (exaggerated or not, I do think pro wrestling wouldn’t be remotely the same had Mania failed). But Vince’s plan was pretty good. He had the most popular wrestler in the world in the main event in Hulk Hogan. Probably the #2 heel in the world was also in that match (Roddy Piper). The show also was full of celebrities. Mr. T, Cyndy Lauper, Libarace, they all came to Wrestlemania. Anyway, a successful show makes the WWF, a poor one ruins them. Let’s see how it turned out. The Card Mean Gene sings the National Anthem. Strange that there wasn’t a celebrity for this. Lord Alfred Hayes sounds quite nervous. Mene Gene then interviews Tito Santana and The Executioner. Executioner’s mask looks ridiculous. Tito Santana vs. The Executioner Not much to say here, but crowd is into Tito for sure. Santana makes the Executioner submit in 4:50. Figure Four wins it, the story being Santana’s calling out Greg Valentine. Executioner was undefeated before Santana won here…the first streak that ended at Wrestlemania! Lord Alfred Hayes must have just had a bad night. King Kong Bundy vs. SD Jones Well, this is a record WWE continually looks to break at many Manias. I think they did it at 24. Bundy pins Jones in 0:24. Avalanche and splash for the win. No five count though. The Fink says the match was nine seconds long…which it wasn’t. Matt Borne vs. Ricky Steamboat “Maniac” Matt Borne? Could have been cool to actually say he went under that name when he became Doink years later. Some nice suplexes from Borne, but this has mostly been all Steamboat. Steamboat pins Borne in 4:38. Steamboat pits a flying body press for the win. Alright match, seemed to be a showcase for Steamboat. David Sammartino vs. Brutus Beefcake Crowd ERUPTS when Bruno Sammartino is announced as he seconds David. Speaking of which, wouldn’t Bruno vs. Hogan have been a legendary match? I wonder why that never happened. Bruno definitely wrestled later in the 80s. Longest match of the night so far, but also quite boring. Double DQ in 11:44. Johnny Valiant slams David on the outside, and Bruno kicks his ass. The crowd once again erupts when Bruno kicks ass. Double DQ. Not sure why that went 11 minutes if that was the finish, but the image of Bruno owning is a Wrestlemania moment that definitely doesn’t get enough credit. That was awesome. Intercontinental Championship Greg Valentine© vs. Junkyard Dog JYD has entrance music and that also wakes the crowd up. Valentine nails his manager, Jimmy Hart, the crowd goes bananas once again. Despite the quality of the matches there is great heat here. That’s 1985 for you. Valentine pins JYD with the feet on the ropes…but Santana comes down to explain what happened to the referee. This leads to… JYD wins by countout in 6:55. Weird finish for sure, but at least it furthered the Santana vs. JYD feud. World Tag Team Championship U.S. Express© vs. Nikolai Volkoff and The Iron Sheik The Express is Mike Rotundo and Barry Windham. Like Borne, it’s crazy how Rotundo and Windham would appear at future Wrestlemanias. Rotundo would become IRS, Windham would be at Mania 13 as Blackjack Windham. The Iron Sheik and Volkoff win the titles at 6:55. Sheik uses Freddy Blasse’s cane to hit Windham and Volkoff gets the pin. Heels win in the first title change at Wrestlemania, who woulda thunk it? $15,000 Bodyslam Challenge Big John Studd vs. Andre the Giant Also, if Andre were to lose here, he would retire. Big reaction for Andre of course. Pretty sure even at the time there was no way Studd was winning this. Really slow match here. This was past Andre’s prime obviously. Andre wins in 5:54. Slam comes out of nowhere but the crowd goes crazy for it. Heenan steals the money. Women’s Championship Leilani Kai© vs. Wendi Richter We obviously don’t get “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” on the Network. Like everything else on the show, this really isn’t anything to write home about. Richter wins the title by pin in 6:12. Botched finish where Richter’s supposed to roll through a flying bodypress but fails. Eventually she gets over and gets the pin. It’s the moment that counts though, and the crowd popped huge for Richter. Interestingly, Richter would get legit double crossed by Vince and the Fabulous Moolah soon afterwards. There’s various rumors about why this happened. The most accepted story is that Vince didn’t want to pay her as much as she wanted (she was arguably the #2 face in the promotion at one point), and possibly even Hogan felt threatened about her. Time for Celebritymania! Billy Martin! Libarace! Hulk Hogan and Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff Muhammad Ali is your special referee, which is pretty bad ass in itself. Funny story here: Pat Patterson suggested he be a second referee to make sure Ali was okay out there. Patterson would admit he would just find excuses to get on the Mania card for the payday. Piper gets a live bagpipe entrance. Makes you wonder what Ric Flair could have gotten as an entrance had he been a part of this. Oddly, this feels like the rich man’s version of the Dennis Rodman matches in WCW. Mr. T does a good job early on slamming Piper. Craziness ensues with Jimmy Snuka nearly coming off the top rope. While it’s mostly been a standard tag match, Mr. T definitely did a great job. Hogan and Mr. T win when Hogan pinned Orndorff in 13:24. Bob Orton comes off the top and misses Hogan, nailing Orndorff with the cast. Hogan pins him for the win. Good match, best of the night for sure. This definitely was what the WWF needed, the biggest match doing well. This would continue the Piper-Mr. T feud and start Orndorff’s turn. Hogan, T and Snuka celebrate to end the first Wrestlemania. Technically this show sucks. There’s not a good match until the main event, and even that wouldn’t be on most people’s top 50 Mania matches. But it worked in 1985. Actually, that’s an understatement. Over a million people went to closed circuit locations to watch it. And the WWF was off and running as a result. The WWF wouldn’t quite get the Mania formula right at Mania II (which I already reviewed and it didn’t do well), but they’d get it figured out soon enough. Again, the show sucks…but that’s not what mattered here. Final Grade: A- |
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Mar 4 2016, 03:17 AM Post #157 |
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Tyler
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Posted Image WWF Wrestlemania III March 29, 1987 Detroit, MI While the first Wrestlemania was a huge success, the second one was a bit of a disappointment. Vince McMahon looked to expand the Wrestlemania idea by having it split between three venues didn’t completely work, and the main events were a bit lackluster. Vince McMahon had a solution to this though…the biggest main event you could put together in 1987: Hulk Hogan vs. Andre the Giant. Oh, and instead of three venues Mania III will be in the 94,000 seat Pontiac Silverdome. An insane idea for sure. But why couldn’t the WWF pack the Silverdome to the rafters? This is perhaps the golden era of professional wrestling. Vince McMahon had been riding this wrestling boom super high and there looked to be no end in sight. Hulkamania was running wild…and going against the “undefeated” Andre the Giant just seemed like printing money. Could Mania III fix the issues of Mania II? The Card I know it really isn’t 93,000 people, but those long viewed shots are incredible. Aretha Frankin with the iconic “America the Beautiful”. Even in the opening moments you had a sense that this may have been the biggest professional wrestling card ever. The Can-Am Connection vs. Bob Orton and Don Muraco The Connection is Rick Martel and Tom Zenk. The Connection win when Martel pinned Muraco in 5:37. Crossbody for the win. Fun opener that got the crowd into it as Zenk and Martel were popular. Billy Jack Haynes vs. Hercules Build-up involves Haynes offering Hercules to lock him in the Full Nelson, but Hercules taking him out instead. It’s Chris Masters 18 years early. Haynes survives the Full Nelson and locks Hercules in one of his own! Double Countout in 7:44. Haynes has the Full Nelson locked in, but Hercules is able to roll to the outside and takes Haynes with him. Haynes locks in the hold again and both men are counted out. Hated the finish, match told a good story though. Hercules levels Haynes with a steel chain afterwards, busting him open. Hillbilly Jim, Haiti Kid and Little Beaver vs. King Kong Bundy, Lord Littlebrook and Little Tokyo Littlebrook, Tokyo, Beaver and Kid are all midget wrestlers. The real issue was with Jim and Bundy. Quite a drop off from Mania II for Bundy. Rules state big guys fight big guys and little guys fight little guys. Beaver actually elbows Bundy. This leads to a funny sequence where Beaver drops kicks Bundy before running to tag in Jim. Beaver keeps attacking Bundy, who’s had enough. Jim, Beaver and Kid win by DQ in 3:25. Bundy slams Beaver and drops an elbow on him for the DQ. Jesse Ventura makes a good point that Beaver kept attacking Bundy and shouldn’t have been DQed. The midgets all turn on Bundy too. This was more of a comedy match. Junkyard Dog vs. Harley Race If JYD loses, he has to bow to Race, if he wins he gets the wear the crown. I don’t really know the details backstage I guess, but Harley Race seemed absolutely wasted in the WWF. Harley Race pinned Junkyard Dog in 4:22. Belly to belly wins it. JYD bows to Race…then attacks him with a chair and wears the robe himself. Some good guy. Of course the crowd cheers him too. Ventura again makes a great point that JYD was wrong to do that to Race. Also, in the internet era JYD would have been booed out of the building for that. The Rougeau Brothers vs. Greg Valentine and Brutus Beefcake Really great double team move midway in when Beefcake holds Jacques over his head and Valentine comes down with a forearm. Beefcake ends it with a backbreaker. We get some Bobby Heenan on commentary which is great. He’s 2-0 because the double countout was a win in his book! Beefcake accidentally nails Valentine, leading too… Valentine and Beefcake win in 4:03. Raymond has Valentine beat, but Dino Bravo breaks up the pin when coming off the top rope for Valentine to steal the win. Afterwards Bravo celebrates with Valentine and leave Beefcake in the ring, which turns Beefcake. Odd choice to have the Rougeaus lose here if they were gonna break up Valentine and Beefcake. Hair vs. Hair Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis The build-up to this seems incredible. Piper was retiring, but he had been attacked by Adonis and took a flower pot to the face. Piper destroying the Flower Shop set is incredible as well. It took an hour, but we finally have a big match to make this feel like Wrestlemania. Piper starts off by whipping Adonis with a belt. Adonis gets revenge though. Already the intensity of this match sets it apart from the rest of the card. Piper throws Jimmy Hart at Adonis and that sets him over the top rope. Entertaining stuff so far. I like how Adonis’ sleeper is called “Good Night Irene”. Roddy Piper wins when Adonis passed out in 6:33. Adonis has Piper beat it seems, but releases Good Night Irene too early. While celebrating, Brutus Beefcake comes down and helps revive Piper. Piper gets the sleeper for the win. Beefcake cuts Adonis’ hair as revenge for an earlier situation where Adonis cut Beefcake’s hair. This led to Beefcake being called “the Barber”. Maybe not the best match, but it was fun and told a good story. When the character are over, matches become better automatically. Piper’s retirement wouldn’t last of course. Adonis left the WWF shortly after this. It is beginning to get dark in the Silverdome which really helps the atmosphere. Danny Davis and the Hart Foundation vs. The British Bulldogs and Tito Santana Big heat for Davis as he’s was a heel ref that got “banned”. He gets in a few kicks everytime he’s tagged in and immediately tags out. Good stuff. Davis tries a slingshot and the Dynamite Kid gets his knees up, allowing Tito to come in and attack Davis. Davey Boy Smith gets an awesome Tombstone on Davis. Wow! The Harts and Davis win when Davis pinned Davey Boy in 8:54. Big brawl erupts, but Davis gets the megaphone and takes out Davey for the win. Good, fun match. Davis gets huge heat. This was kind of a last hurrah for the Bulldogs, as Dynamite Kid had hurt his back a few months prior and was never the same worker again. Butch Reed vs. Koko B. Ware This is Reed’s PPV debut. Reed pins Ware in 3:40. Reed reverses a crossbody and holds the tights for the win. Slick attacks Ware, but Tito Santana evens the odds and helps Ware fend off Reed and Slick. Not much to say about this one really. All these short matches are hurting the card for sure. Intercontinental Championship Randy Savage© vs. Ricky Steamboat George “The Animal” Steele is in Steamboat’s corner, and of course Miss Elizabeth is in Savage’s. Hot start with two perfect armdrags from Steamboat and a tree slam. So far everything Steamboat and Savage have done has been intense and crisp. In North American Steamboat was arguably the best worker in the world at this point, and Savage had to be top 10 at worst. Savage knees Steamboat in the back and sends him into the crowd. In 1987! Savage comes off the top with an axhandle smash to Steamboat on the floor. Steamboat backdrops Savage over the top rope and onto the floor. Savage goes over the top rope amazingly as well! Steamboat jumps over the ref and takes Savage out with a flying karate chop! Two count only as Savage gets the ropes…but the crowd popped huge there! Tons of near falls on Savage…and again they fool the crowd! Great irish whip reversal takes out the referee. Big elbow from Savage! But still no referee. Ricky Steamboat wins the title by pin in 14:35. Savage grabs the ring bell, but Steele grabs it from him. Savage attacks Steele then grabs the ring bell again, but Steele pushes Savage off the top rope. A dazed Savage tries to slam Steamboat, but he rolls through and gets the pin and the title. The first great Wrestlemania match, and for a while it was the best Wrestlemania match of all time (some would say it still is, and some would say it’s the greatest match of all time). The story is tremendous, the in-ring action is tremendous and the match itself serves as the prototype to great matches of the future (up until about 1998). This match also showed that Savage could both be main event level guys, although Steamboat wouldn’t reach that level in the WWF. Both men were World Champions a couple years from this match as Savage was World Champion at the next Wrestlemania and Steamboat would win the NWA World Title from Ric Flair in 1989. Honky Tonk Man vs. Jake “The Snake” Roberts Jake has Alice Cooper in his corner. Cool spot on the outside where Jake gets slammed into the post and sells it so well he ends up crashing into the railing. Honky Tonk Man pins Jake in 7:04. Jake goes for the DDT, but Jimmy Hart holds onto Jake’s leg which stops him. Honky then rolls Jake up and holds the ropes for the pin. Not a bad match by any means. Alice Cooper and Jake get Jimmy Hart at the end and allow Damien, Jake’s snake, to get him. The Killer Bees vs. Nikolai Volkoff and the Iron Sheik Jim Duggan prevents Volkoff from singing the Russian National Anthem. Sheik and Volkoff win by DQ in 5:48. Duggan whacks Sheik with the 2x4 for the DQ. Ventura complained about Duggan being on the outside the entire time and it turned out he was right. Match was fine. Duggan starts a USA chant which somehow offsets the fact that he ruined the match. Ah well. WWF Championship Hulk Hogan© vs. Andre the Giant Arguably the biggest match in professional wrestling history at this point. Hogan, the invincible superman against Andre, the undefeated 8th Wonder of the World. Andre turned heel when he was given a smaller trophy than Hogan for being undefeated for 20 years. This was the Dream Match at the time. There’s some perfect about Bob Uecker’s introduction of Andre the Giant. To this day nothing for me matches Hogan and Andre’s initial staredown in terms of intensity and big match feel. Hogan goes for the slam..but Andre falls on him! He gets a two count only. For as bad match quality wise this match is, the beginning isn’t too bad. Andre just tosses Hogan around like he’s nothing, which was a perfect way to book this match considering Hogan never went through anything like that before. Other than a small offensive from Hogan, this has been all Andre. Once again, its smart booking because you have no idea if Hogan could come back from this. I couldn’t help but laugh that Hogan goes for a piledriver on the floor to Andre. Like that was going to happen. Hogan slams Andre! Hogan retains the title in 12:02. Legdrop wins. Easily the greatest smoke and mirrors match ever as the match itself was pretty bad (although it definitely could have been worse), but it doesn’t matter one bit. Historically this match was the perfect example of hype and being able to deliver despite obvious limitations. The feud would remain hot and continue through 1988, where Andre would win the title on the first Saturday Night’s Main Event. Hogan slamming Andre is still arguably the biggest moment in Wrestlemania history. We had one of the most historic matches in wrestling history with Andre vs. Hogan, one of the greatest matches in wrestling history with Steamboat vs. Savage, and a few good matches (Harts/Davis-Bulldogs/Santana, Piper-Adonis). I can’t give it the perfect A+ because there was a lot of short stuff that wasn’t good, but this definitely was a great Wrestlemania. This was the peak of the golden age of professional wrestling. While 1987 and even 1988 would remain strong for the WWF, things would go downhill after that. But as of Mania III, Hulkamania was still running as wild as ever. Final Grade: A |
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4:45 AM Jul 11