SirSmUgly
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Posts posted by SirSmUgly
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Goldberg goes for the spear, but Bret moves, and Goldberg hits the turnbuckle. Bret immediately slaps on the ring post figure 4. Bret looks like he smacked his head on the floor when the hold was broken. Bret works the injured leg, and gets a standard figure 4. Goldberg reverses the hold to force a break. They slug it out in the corner, and ref #3 gets bumped. Goldberg hits the Bret Killer superkick, and follows up with a huge spear.
As I recall, Bret indicated that Goldberg not easing him down on the ringpost figure-four spot gave him an initial concussion, and the superkick finished him off and made that concussion a career-ender.
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Maffew from Botchamania tweeted this out. Koko must've been in a bad mood:
Haha, this was fantastic! I just watched it three times in a row. I think he legit knocked that jobber out with the clothesline. The poor dude is totally sandbagging Koko for the Ghostbuster at the end, probably because he was in dreamland.
On the stiff squash scale, I give it a full five out of five Kevin Sullivans. Well played.
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Wrestlemania X-7 is full of matches that don't get nearly enough love. I'm probably in the minority, but I really liked the HHH vs Undertaker match and thought it was rock solid.
I really enjoy that match, actually. I liked the chokeslam off the stage and the false finish with the Last Ride ----> sledgehammer attack -----> two-count had me really good, I admit. Especially considering that I went in sure that the Undertaker was going to win. It's probably my second-favorite Undertaker WM match next to the also underrated casket match with Mark Henry.
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Flair was really honest in that symposium, actually. I enjoyed it. Especially how sad he is about everyone from his WM8 match being passed away now except for him.
Also, now that I am scrolling to his part again, he was so sad about putting his HOF ring in his Reid's casket, and getting choked up about Hunter giving him another one with his son's name engraved in it.
Anyway, I really enjoyed it and it didn't seem that terrible to me, and re-watching it, it still doesn't look terrible.
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So, I know these matches aren't that great by themselves, but as a kid, I had never seen the British rounds system, and they did a bastardized version between Flair and Regal on Worldwide, I believe. It was a series of matches over maybe five weeks? that was best-of-five. I thought it was so cool and different and I LOVED them.
Then years later, I was lurking here and someone mentioned Jim Breaks, so I went to watch a bunch of his matches and put two-and-two together. So now I love British World of Sport wrestling. Thanks Flair, Regal, and DVDVR
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Do people talk about that Midnights/Fantastics match in '88 where the Midnights lost the U.S Tag Team Championships? Because that is one of my favorite tag matches ever. I am probably in a minority, but I prefer Eaton/Lane to Eaton/Condrey. And man, Cornette was just so awesome as a mouthpiece. '88 Midnights might be one of my three favorite tag teams ever. Corny talking shit to JJ, Tully, and Arn during that short Midnights/Horsemen feud was the best, too.
Also, if Rude/Steamboat 30-minute Iron Man counts, that too. I guess most people think of Bret/HBK, HHH/Rock, or even Angle/Lesnar whenever they think about Iron Man matches, or at least that's what I tend to see on most message boards. Rick Rude vaulted up my list of favorite wrestlers ever. I do not contend anything about him being one of the objective greatest wrestlers ever, but subjectively, I think this guy is one of the greatest wrestlers ever.
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I think, to refer to the discussion awhile back, that WWE has the talent for a brand split, but for whatever reason, they have almost no interest in booking the midcard in a fashion other than having really awesome guys that the crowd wants to get behind trade wins for months on end until no one cares about them.
I think that the talent is there to sustain one main event feud, a tag team feud or two, and three or four midcard feuds per show. Given the chance, I think the crowd would get behind a lot of guys that aren't getting steady enough pushes right now.
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When you watch four weeks of Raw/SmackDown and then the PPV, Rock matches are awesome. Needs context to really enjoy it.Was never all that impressed with Rock as a worker.He was in the greatest WM main event ever, but I very rarely seek out old Rock matches to watch.
Fair enough, but you could say that for a lot of guys.
I don't remember many matches where Rock elevated a lesser talent or had a great match with a shitty worker. Most of his solid matches (Austin, HHH, Taker, Benoit) was with a better worker than he was. Hell, I would say Mick Foley was the better worker in their series of matches. You could say he was better than Jericho and Shamrock in their feuds, but even that's not indisputable.
Bret got a good match out of a pirate, Shawn gave Sid his best match and Eddie made JBL look like a fucking monster. Rocky wasn't that kind of worker.
Bite your tongue; Carl Oulette is an awesome wrestler.
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So WWE officials told Bryan not to come to the town hall meeting and he listened to them?
Hasn't everyone been griping about Bryan walking into no-lose situations and looking dumb as a result?
There is a middle ground.
Beer truckmilk truckNaked Juice truck driven into the arena, contents sprayed on HHH and Orton as they flounder around in the ring looking like doofuses is that middle ground that I think people want to see. I think. I could be characterizing some of the complaints incorrectly. -
Thinking of bad day-job gimmicks that would work in 2013, we might just need a welder character that comes in as a heel and mocks college-educated wrestlers for wasting money on a business or Humanities degree while they went straight into a blue-collar career at 60K a year, starting.
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The Mountie and Boss Man.
They were both arrogant police authority figures who routinely overstepped his bounds by using non-lethal weaponry to subdue people that were no longer a threat. They were often over-aggressive and really seemed like bullies that got into their jobs to hurt defenseless
jobberscitizens.This is clearly a prescient critique of the relationship between authority figures and citizens that should be applauded.
Also, Duke Droese should have been a heel. We need to recycle, not fill limited landfill space with more of our garbage.
Heel Doink was the best out of the "every wrestler needs a side job" era.I didn't ask for a list of working class gimmicks, I asked which ones were the best. C'mon people, give me some reasons why you think those gimmicks were awesome. We're talking about wrestlers whose gimmick revolved around a specific occupation that could be described as working class or proletarian.
*Bill Simmons mode* NO ONE DENIES THIS!I always understood heel Doink as a character that wasn't a clown as a job, but that was a sicko that got his jollies from dressing up as a clown, scaring kids, and pulling the various stumps of jobber-folk until they popped right out of their sockets.
I feel like Big Josh is a better example of a Matt Borne working-class character.
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Believe it was the Summerslam special. It showed clips of Hogan, Savage, Bret and Piper.
Thank you very much. I might try to look for it some more just to see how 1997 Vince's VOs talk about all these guys that have left for WCW and made Nitro such a hot show.
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I was reading some old DDT Digest reviews and one of them mentioned a WWF special called "WWF: The Way We Were" that was airing after RAW on 7/14/97. I did a cursory look up on the old YouTubes and on Daily Motion, but to no avail. Does anyone remember this special and if so, would you mind letting me know if you think that it is worth trying to more actively track down?
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Writing from an academic standpoint about wrestling is fantastic and gives an enjoyable added texture to why certain things in our fair sport become popular. Wrestling is pretty much a reflection of the power fantasies of the fans, and those change based on social, economic, and political issues, like concern about foreign powers invading America, the economic elite cheating their way into the champion over more honest and hard-working people, or some dude getting jealous eyes and stealing your girl so you have to elbowsmash the shit out of him.
The problem with The Masked Man is that he sees himself as Roland Barthes, but he writes more like Barthes after a severe brain hemorrhage.
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The return of Hollywood Batista as a roadblock for Bryan would be amazing.
I read this as "The Return of Hollywood Blondes" for some reason, and I was all prepared to get behind Zombie Brian Pillman vs. Daniel Bryan.
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Dolph is the Kerri Russell of pro wrestling.
In that case, what would be Dolph's match equivalent of "Running Wilde," a surprisingly delightful show that could not possibly live up to fan expectations?
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This is such a TNA personnel move that it's almost mean to point it out.Am I the only one who thinks the older girl is a dead ringer for RVD?Also, 46-year-old Riddick Bowe wants to get into wrestling.
"Looking into get into pro wrestling partners. Contact my manager [email protected] if u can help. I want to be first heavyweight boxing champions and heavyweight wrestling champion. I have trained hard with those bumps."
Yep. One "We know who THAT is!" later, and Ortiz and Rampage are turning on the Main Event Mafia to form a new stable called the R.A.F. ("Real-Ass Fighters") that cuts shoot promos on how they have actually been in actual fights unlike the rest of the TNA roster.
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Bill Simmons is an idiot. Like they would need to create a new weight class to contain his stupidity. How did this guy get into a position that anyone values his opinion?
Aw, I enjoy Bill Simmons. I get why people wouldn't enjoy him, but he is pretty entertaining when it comes to basketball and football. I would enjoy him more if I didn't have to skip three-fourths of his columns because they are about the NBA.
Simmons is more of an '80s WWF cartoon character wrestling fan, so that explains his "Bret Hart is boring" stance, I think
He also said, in the same column, that he would like MitB to be the fourth PPV to make up the Big Four over Survivor Series. Personally, I prefer Elimination Chamber to MitB by miles, but I don't even think there is a traditional Big Four anymore, really. There is everything along the Road to WrestleMania and SummerSlam as far as what gets promoted like it is special.
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Owen was really over doing the Sole Survivor thing. He should have at the very least had that title match at IYH: Degeneration X with Michaels instead of having it on RAW. I get that Michaels probably refused to work much with him, but the crowd was popping big for Owen at the time.
Speaking of which, what about Ken Shamrock?
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He blew his knee out later in 98, and the heel turn in '99 was confusing, somewhat pointless, and didn't take off. He eventually got over it, and got over in a big way.
Post tearing his quad in 2001, he's been significantly less consistently good, but 2000-2001 he was damn good in the ring, Dylan's list aside.
I remembered the knee injury, but you know what? I forgot about the heel turn, and now that I consider it, I think we can point to the confusing turn on DX and joining of the Corporation as a big de-railer. That and Austin not putting him over clean at Summerslam '99.
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As I recall, while HHH had sustained pushes except for during the MSG-incident punishment, he was WAAAAAAY over for most of it, too. Around Summerslam '98, he was clearly a future World Champ.
I think what happened, as I recall correctly, is that people took a lot of time to buy him as champion by the time he got to the main event scene for good in '99. It took a lot of pushes and ultimately the Cactus Jack series to get him over. Even then, though, I don't know how much people ever bought him as the heel ace. It probably does not help that his Race/Flair hybrid character that he likes to portray as an ace is a number of steps below either of those guys' actual work.
This is probably dumb, but watching HHH in, say, 2003-2004, I always feel like he reminds me that I could instead be watching 1987 Ric Flair and it would be pretty much what he is doing except far more entertaining.
Anyway, I cannot remember if something happened to throw him off track between Summerslam in 1998 and Summerslam in 1999, but my remembrance is that he was a surefire world champ in '98 after that ladder match judging by crowd reaction, but a year later people weren't fully behind him and it took some convincing booking to get him there.
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That strongman spot with Cesaro countering the tornado DDT into the uppercut was SO COOL.
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Somebody is posting old mid- and late-80s AWA shows and old Global shows as well as all the WCW Nitros and PPVs from 1995 forward over on Daily Motion.
I have discovered the awesomeness of Rick Martel, AWA Champion. I think I was into AWA maybe in '87/'88 as a very young child when it was on ESPN because I had AWA figurines of the Midnight Rockers, Nick Bockwinkel, and Larry Zbyszko, but I do not remember any of this Rick Martel stuff.
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I don't know how people generally feel about ICP around here, but I actually enjoy them lots of the time. They are decent garbagey/high-spotty type workers and they always at least try really hard. They aren't bad, man.
I am about two-and-a-half years behind this thread in my WCW re-viewing, but man, I am not looking forward to crazy misogynist Randy Savage. He's my favorite wrestler of all-time, and I just hated to see a broken down Savage resort to pushing women around to get heat. I mean, he always had that streak to his character, but it's just too much for me in 1999. Just unenjoyable to watch in all facets.
HHH in 2000
in WWE PROGRAMMING
Posted
OK, I thought that this was interesting, and I'm going to try a review. I don't think I quite know what I like and don't like about matches completely, so hopefully it doesn't turn into too much of a discovery thing and it isn't totally uninteresting.
Triple H [c] vs. Rikishi - Smackdown 1/4/00
I'm not a HHH fan or a hater, really. I find his Flair/Race hybrid tribute act to be crappy compared to just watching Flair or Race, and he never held my interest as the ace heel of the promotion, but there are times when he really has a much better performance than his average. I remember this match as one of those performances, and I remember LOVING it when it first aired. I haven't seen it in a handful of years, however, so looking it again should be interesting.
HHH sells Rikishi's name being drawn as his opponent fantastically before the match starts. The dumbfounded, pissed-off look on his face as he glares at Howard Finkel for screwing up the rigged drawing is wonderful.
HHH jumps Rikishi at the bell and beats him down in the corner, showing pretty good urgency and cementing the idea that Rikishi needs to be taken out quickly or HHH might be in for a world of hurt. They go outside and Kish ragdolls HHH, who sells pretty nicely. Loved the legdrop on the floor from Kish. It just looks brutal for some reason.
This part of the match early where they are outside the ring is pretty good, actually, as it just turns into a fight-for-your life brawl and they use the ring steps effectively. They go back inside and a couple reversals lead to a HHH knee to the face and a brief control section of the match which is highlighted by that signature spinning clothesline bump Rikishi always does. Kish gets control right back, however, and does a nice fat man splash in the corner and a Samoan drop that the crowd pops for. Rikishi has such awesome offense. Love his belly-to-belly and of course the Rikishi Driver. The crowd (and I) are going wild for Rikishi's offense. Banzai Drop gets two, and the crowd goes nuts. This is where 2.9s work, where a challenger with awesome offense that can credibly beat anyone gets soooo close to winning off of his big moves.
They follow with a Rikishi Driver -----> Pedigree ----> back bodydrop sequence that gets a big pop. Nothing special, but man, the crowd really loves Big Kish. HHH, by the way, is awesome at selling offense when he wants to be. He is bouncing around nicely for Rikishi's offense. He also does a good job of juuuuuust barely getting the shoulder up after Kish connects with a superkick.
Now here's what I like. Stephanie interferes by sliding a chair into the ring and then running interference. HHH's chair shot to the head only gets two, though. I almost forgot myself a bit and popped like the crowd did when Kish kicked out. I remember thinking the chair shot was the end when I first watched this match in '00 too, so it was a pretty effective spot. HHH just gives up and blasts Kish in the face with a belt shot, getting DQed; then, he lays out Kish with chair shots, but Rikishi gets up almost immediately and chases HHH out of the ring.
OK, so some of my big criticisms about HHH in general are these things:
I think this list helps to explain why I enjoyed this particular HHH match. This match was a sub-ten minute match, so it didn't have the overlong HHH control segment. Honestly, HHH selling every move from Kish like it just knocked him out dead was perfect. His facial expressions were also great at conveying that Kish was a serious threat, both before and during the match. The mixture of fear and hatred on his face as Kish kept coming after him post-DQ worked for me.
Basically, HHH taking Rikishi's offense and just hanging onto his belt through chicken-shittery was perfect. Rikishi looked like a world-beater and HHH got to play up being the Cerebral Assassin by realizing when it was time to just get out of dodge with the title. I don't love it as much as I did in context back in 2000, but it is a really smartly-worked match to me. There are very few 1-on-1 HHH matches that I would ever watch more than once, but I wonder if the ones that I would watch just cut out the long HHH control segments and feature good facial selling from Trips. I'll have to check that theory out sometime.