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Big Rob

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Everything posted by Big Rob

  1. Considering that they probably don't want Brodus to be pinned straight away, how was the ending "weak sauce"? Is it just because it wasn't a clean pin or submission?
  2. Yeah, the Heyman press conference thing was awesome. I was kind of disappointed that the "fallout" show just seems to be a repeat of a match with a promo stuck on the end, but this one at least was pretty great.
  3. I know they worked each other a couple of times on TV, but a program between Austin and William Regal would have been awesome, especially the Raw GM / King era Regal when he was briefly treated as a main event threat and was also having way better matches in that time frame than he did in, say, 2001. The promos alone would have been epic, but their styles would have meshed fantastically. By that token, Finlay and Dave Taylor as Regal lackeys would have made for some epic TV matches to build up to the inevitable PPV clashes with Regal.
  4. I think I may have seen the opener before, or at the very least watched a clip of the finish, which was somewhat ridiculous for an opening match between two midcard acts. Granted, Dogg got his foot down before hitting the piledriver, but still a pretty crazy move regardless. The match itself was kind of sloppy, Roadie didn't seem too comfortable being on the receiving end of a lot of Kid's flying moves. They also blew off a frog splash pretty quickly, and then blew off a powerbomb moments later, both of which actually looked pretty cool in fairness. The match as a whole didn't do much for me though. We go to a backstage interview with the Million Dollar Corporation hyping up the main event between Diesel and Merle from Walking Dead. Standard stuff from the villains, and then a shitty t-shirt sales pitch for a shitty t-shirt on the part of the babyfaces and some announcer that I've never seen before. The smallest size you could get the t-shirt in was Large, oh the nineties... I forgot that Savio and Razor were very briefly a tag team, they both looked pretty great here. Mabel actually looked good too, he probably gets a bad rap from that one match with Diesel but he was a fine fat boy wrestler here, nailing an awesome throw on Savio at one point which Vega absolutely flew for. Razor gets the SOS on Mo early, which looks sweet being done on such a big, dumpy guy. Was surprised to see Razor do the job, but Mabel's belly to belly looked pretty credible. Mo was clearly a bit ropey, but he sold and stooged pretty well. Roadie refers to himself as the Road Dogg during a hype for the WWF Hotline thing whilst the Kid stays silent, looking like a right gormless git. More shitty promos with the babyface lumberjacks, which seems to be a theme for the show so far. Jarrett did his song, which I believe was later revealed to be lip-synced with the Roadie doing the actual performing. I'm not really sure what they were trying to initially achieve here, since half the crowd seemed to like it because it was genuinely decent, whilst the other half still hated it because he's supposed to be a heel. HOG vs Bam Bam wasn't anything special, and had a really shitty finish. Godwin teased a slop bucket to Bigelow after the match, and then just... didn't. Weird. Either way, this wasn't good, but at least was short. Not so short that Godwin didn't feel the need to put on a really shitty chinlock half way through, but still, short enough to not completely suck. I've definitely seen Jarrett vs Michaels before, but ages ago. Unfortunately it wasn't nearly as good as the young me remember, although Michaels takes a mental bump to the floor at one point which is probably the highlight. When it's time to make the comeback, however, HBK doesn't really show any effects of the earlier beatdown and its kind of hard to get emotionally invested in it when half the match gets tossed aside like that. This probably wouldn't be the second best match on an average episode of Raw these days, but I guess back in 1995 there was less competition on WWE TV. The HBK shirt that they're shilling might the the most homo-erotic effort from the merchandising department ever. Also, poor Michael Hayes does a bit as Dok Hendrix. On to the next match, the Allied Powers had pretty swanky entrance music and cool pyro for the mid-nineties. Luger actually looks really good here, his response to getting slapped by Owen is superb. Bulldog runs through his WOS sequences with Owen which look really good, but soon has to slap on a chinlock. Yoko moves really well still despite his size, and Owen is his typically good self. I liked this more than the IC Title match, although it didn't have one moment as cool as the Michaels bump to the floor. I didn't go in to Sid vs Diesel with particularly high hopes, as lumberjack matches tend to get hampered by various shenanigans, plus it doesn't exactly sound like a good match without the stipulation. And yeah, it's pretty crap with the only notable moment being Diesel's dive over the ropes to the floor on top of the lumberjacks. It was bogged down with way too much outside interference though, and never really got going before it ended. There'd never be a pay per view main event like this any more, and the state of modern wrestling is all the better for that fact. The whole show was kinda bad, with the tag matches being the lesser of the evils, though I could definitely see people prefering the faster paced opener and IC Title match.
  5. It's Mania though, it's not as if the crowd are all going to be from California - for Raw the Californians will probably be in the minority!
  6. Not read through the entire thread so I dunno if anyone else would concur, but Wyatt/Cena and Lesnar/Taker were really good on re-watch as opposed to seeing it live in the arena, when I was quite far in to the cheap seats (well, cheap-ish) and trying to not look at the big screen as much as possible. Wyatt vs Cena was the better of the two, but I really dug both, and given my improved opinion of those two matches, I'm starting to think that this is my favourite Mania of all time. Would have to watch X7 again, but XXX was pretty damn awesome.
  7. That would probably backfire, since any casuals would pop instantly for Hogan's music and then react negatively to someone who isn't the Hulkster coming out.
  8. Trish and Lita were on another level of hotness here, both polar opposites in terms of character as well which made them a great fit for each other. Albert circa 2000 seems like a bad person to work a complicated knocklelock sequence with. That little episode seems to provide the theme for the match, which is mostly really sloppy, but the crowd is hot enough and there's a fair bit of drama to keep it interesting. The guys in crowd are super in to the idea of Lita vs Trish, and the girls love them some Jeff. Matt throws some great punches, even back in 2000. Big pop for Taz, this crowd seems pretty great. Considering it was Taz's return match, Al Snow got a lot in on him, and looked better a lot of the time. There wasn't much to this, pretty much just a sprint through a bunch of moves, albeit some cool looking ones including Taz's sweet head and arm suplex. Al had some nice looking punches, but I'd have prefered a squash. Being used to WWE in 2014, it's mental to see old footage with guys casually beating up girls. This was mostly a bunch of moves again, but Eddie and Perry do it way better than Al and Taz. Highlight had to be Saturn somehow managing to clothesline Chyna through the Spanish announce table. In fairness, the finishing run was pretty exciting but Saturn has little to no charisma to get the crowd in to it. Bradshaw cuts a pretty great pro-Texas promo on Edge and Christian, namedropping the Von Erichs, Dick Murdoch and the Freebirds amongst others. This was really fun for a short match, since going back and watching a bunch of pre-JBL stuff I'm getting to think that Bradshaw was actually pretty damn good the whole time. Had they won the belts here, the crowd would have gone mental, but we just get a lame DQ finish. Decent match though, Simmons wasn't much but he was kept to the bare minimum. The E&C promo referencing JFK was mental, that would never even be suggested as an idea now. Rikishi vs Val Venis was the best match on the show so far, Val pinballed himself into the cage a bunch early which looked pretty great. Rikishi did his somewhat trademark somersault off of a clothesline, which seems a little ridiculous but always look really impressive. Not as impressive as him walking along the top of the cage and then jumping off the top, but still pretty awesome. Lita's run-in was some nice closure from earlier in the night too. I really dug Undertaker vs Angle, the vignettes throughout the night were so much fun and Angle was so much better in my eyes during 2000 than he was in his latter years. His legwork was pretty basic, but consistant and Taker sold well for him throughout. The finish was a little anticlimatic as I thought Angle would counter the second chokeslame attempt but it just kind of ended there. Still, this was lots of fun and made me want to dig up some more old Angle stuff, both matches and goofy vignettes/promos. I really liked Triple H vs Chris Jericho, although it may have gone on a few minutes too long. This was only the second Last Man Standing match in WWE history, and so it was more about selling and emotion rather than tons of big bumps leading to 9 count. HHH was really mobile, his quad injury the next year clearly fucked him up something fierce as he was bumping way more for Jericho here than he would do as a heel just a couple of years on. It's a laboured point by now,but still pretty shocking in retrospect to see that amount of blood in a WWE match, or indeed any match. Jericho put on a pretty awesome babyface performance, and I like that the finish wasn't one of either guys main moves, but it still worked as the perfect killshot. Looked pretty brutal for Jericho to take too. Main event is a pretty good match, but very much of it's time - I really don't see them running a big title match on a pay per view with this much outside interference any more. Foley coming down was kind of a buzzkill, since Benoit winning the title was kind of a big deal and the DQ finish was actually done really well I thought - sometimes it's pretty obvious what they're going for when a company tries a finish like this, but the crowd bought in to it hook, line and sinker. Having only seen his comeback matches recently, I'd forgotten how fast and athletic Rocky was. People's Elbow still sucks though, no matter when the footage is from. I liked a show a bunch, although it wasn't as greast as I remember it being from my repeated borrows of the VHS from the library back in the day. Triple H vs Chris Jericho was easily the best match, and I definitely came out of the show with a new appreciation for early Kurt Angle. Cage match rocked as well, and it was nice to see most of the mid card matches being over with the crowd whereas I can't imagine anyone giving a shit about the 2014 equivalent of Al Snow vs Taz.
  9. The loud "bullshit" chant in the opener shows it probably wasn't great if you were watching at the time either! I watched Bulldogs vs Dream Team and it was ok, but nothing special. I have watched the Funks tag before and remember really enjoying it, so I'll have to check that out tonight.
  10. Going back to Mr T, it's a shame that his match with Piper at Mania 2 is as bad as it is. I'm about half wag through the show and so far the whole event has been pretty fucking awful.
  11. I'm trying to watch as many of the WrestleManias as possible before 30, there's so much I haven't seen. Starting with the first, I actually thought it was a pretty damn good show although it really doesn't get much talk in terms of the better Manias. Granted, there's no real long or great matches, but it's a really easy show to watch - perfect for a new fanbase. The only really bad match was Andre vs Studd, and I was actually surprised by how good Beefcake vs Sammartino was, shmoz finish aside. David's strikes were a little pony, but I really dug Beefcake's elbow smashes in the corner, and in general he seemed really competent here. Tito vs Executioner and Steamboat vs Matt Borne were really fun short matches too. Leilani Kai vs Wendy Richter was a bit rough and scrappy in some of the execution, but it was actually pretty decent with some genuinely good near falls towards the end. The main event is a pretty damn good match, although the two referee deal and the managers constantly interfering towards the end makes it a little messy. That aside, I really enjoyed it and thought Mr T did really well for a non-worker. The couple of times he was struggling to get in to the ring to help out Hogan, he put on a better effort than most actual wrestlers would do these days, he really looked like he actually gave a shit and really wanted to help out his buddy. The heels were typically great, Orndorff taking big bumps for T's headbutts was a lot of fun in particular.
  12. Watching that Best of Smackdown too, Lance Storm vs Mark Henry was really good for a short TV match. Weird seeing Henry do the World's Strongest Slam (out of a military press, no less) and it not be a finish or even a near fall.
  13. Cheers for the backstory, MADCAP, much appreciated. Yeah, sounds like the LOD finish was really shitty for business at the time, but watching it for the first time with zero context it didn't hurt my enjoyment of it much.
  14. That's a pretty WAR-esque trios team on the heels side for the opening match. JR bullshits about the near-sold out crowd, unless they haven't all made it to their seats yet. Everyone here looked good, but I was a big fan of Larry throughout. Sting showed lots of fire too, and sold during his heat section really well. Finish was a shittily done draw, but the action was pretty great. Shame that the crowd kind of died after Hayes locked in the sleeper, that last minute really let down a cracking match. Windham vs Williams sounds pretty awesome on paper, but there wasn't a ton to this. That being said, some douches in the crowd chant "boring" in the first minute or so which wasn't really called for. I assume this was the beginning of an angle between the two as a result of the match story and finish, perhaps this was the wrong town to try and pull it off as the crowd kind of shit all over it. I liked what action we did get, so I'd definitely sit down to watch a proper rematch. How have I not seen the scaffold match before? Probably because it's a scaffold match, and they're almost always a pile of shit. This one really isn't an exception, though Eaton tries really hard to put on a good performance. Odd psychology at the finish with two babys against the one heel, but by that point nothing could save this, or indeed do it much more harm. I'm sure there are worse scaffold matches due to worse wrestlers being involved, but two of the greatest tag teams of the 80s really couldn't do shit to make this worth a view. Steve Williams does a bad promo, then we go to a bad match between Terry Taylor and Nikita Koloff. Just blah, Nikita sits in an armbar for ages and it doesn't get a lot better when Taylor gets his small amount of heat in. Crowd dug it though, so I guess you just had to be there. Terry shouting "you're partial" to Earl Hebner (who's proper shit, incidentally) did get a chuckle out of me, and he also got in a tasty looking inverted atomic drop. Weird to see that move here, and a regular one earlier in the show both being treated like credible moves, happens so rarely these days which is a shame. I really liked the Road Warriors against the Horsemen, and whilst it had a kind of shitty 80s finish, it didn't really bother me too much. The Horsemen were pretty much the perfect team to work the LOD, Tully bumped around for them whilst Arn provided the minutiae with his awesome facial selling and reactions. Him getting the tag, only to realise that Animal was actually fresh and ready to go, was magic. I loved the press slam in to the bearhug, I'm kind of surprised nobody's nicked that since, at least to my knowledge. Maybe they will now. Hawk sold fantastically during the heat section for a Road Warrior in the 1980s, which really helped the match. I did notice during this match that the video skipped ahead about 5 seconds twice - didn't really make too much of an issue but annoying nonetheless. Dusty and Luger had a fun match, Lex is much better than many people would have you believe, at least back in the late 80s. Dusty is pretty great when he gets back on offense, and the crowd eat it up every single time. Could have done with him selling more during his big comeback, but the match didn't go too much longer after that anyway so it wasn't a big issue. Really liked the finish, although it would have worked better if JJ could have got the lock on the cage to work. Loud "Garvin sucks" chant early on in the match with Flair - I like Garvin so screw that portion of the Chicago crowd. He really worked like a rough, street fighter type here - lots of wicked chops and good intensity, This was easily the best match on the show, sure it was mostly a prolonged beatdown of Flair by Ron Garvin, but it was a pretty kingly one so I'm perfectly fine with that. Ric still got his heat in, working the leg for the inevitable figure four. The match was definitely more interesting when it was Garvin throwning some beastly chops at Flair, rather than the usual leg work, but it's not like the match was let down by the heat section. The end stretch was really good, I totally dug the slight knock to Tommy Young that lead to a really good near fall off of the KO punch. The sunset flip spot that called back to their earlier match was great too, as was the actual finish. I thought I'd watched part of this show before, but as it turns out it was all new to me. Not the best event by any stretch, but I got a lot out of the main event, and the opener was pretty exciting. The tag title match was the other real standout, I could probably have lived with just seeing those three matches but I'm glad I took the time to watch the whole event. Really digging this project with the advent of the WWE Network - this is the first time I've been able to participate as I've not really had the chance to watch an extra three hour show in the previous few weeks, but I'm definitely going to try and be a regular.
  15. Pretty great opening tag match again this week, that catch by Cesaro on Goldust that lead to the backbreaker was insane. Dude is mega strong. I skipped the divas match this time round as life is simply just too short, and I had the rematch of Satanico and El Dandy to see yet. Titus and Big Show had a fun few minutes, nothing special but they did a good job with their limited time. Main event promo was good, Undertaker still looks bad ass even at this age and I'm digging his new beard.
  16. Opening tag team match was shit hot, just a really good midcard tag team match. The heels especially have got really good lately, Axel's ring work is a couple of notches above where he was during his IC title run, and Ryback has his character absolutely nailed, I love his jacked up meathead shtick. Had this gone a little longer I'm sure I'd be comfortable calling it one of the best tags of the year, as it stands it was still really good. Divas title was fun, and went really long - I saw them do a near 15 minute match live in Manchester a few months ago so I guess they trust these two to bring the goods. Nattie's shite sharpshooter aside, it was a good match although not particularly notable. AJ got a nice punch in at one point, and did transition in to the Black Widow really impressively on the first attempt. Worth a watch, and the in ring introductions made this seem special. Speaking of which, more in ring introductions for the main event as Dean Ambrose defends against Mark Henry is a pretty great match. I loved the hell out of Ambrose's leg work, particularly the punches to the back of the knee from the second rope. Looked great, nobody does anything quite like that and Henry sold them like a pro. In fact, his selling was impeccable during the whole match - I don't know why it always kinda surprises me when a guy his size is an awesome seller, but it still really impresses me. I love that he's put over as so strong that him kicking out at one point was pretty much a hope spot. The slam off the ropes was marvelous as well, they did it so quickly and Henry immediately sold pain again afterwards that it just came across as a really credible transition. Rollins and Reigns were superb on the outside as well, all three of the Shield are so good at working even when they're not in the ring. They'd have made this seem fun even if the work inside the ring hadn't been as great as it was, but they were just the icing or a really tasty cake here. Oh, and I just remembered Ambrose's double knee drop off of the steps to Henry's back, that rocked. I bet he loves working Menry. So yeah, pretty great episode of Main Event this week. Combine that with the great and lengthy Kane/Bryan match that opened last week's show and I really hope this is the start of a turnaround for the show which had been getting a little forgettable at times over the last six months or so.
  17. Agreed. Plus, as far away as he has removed himself from the Kruger gimmick, it seems odd that he kept two of his main moves ( his clothesline finish and the spinebuster).
  18. Reads like a typo and that Sandow took the powerbomb.
  19. They really have been doing this for the last few months. JBL has been referenced often as the general manager, and they've noted Big E as a former NXT champion. They never did that with OVW or Deep South.
  20. Most videos, besides the live stream, don't seem to be loading in my laptop. When/if they do, there's no bar to skip ahead, pause, etc - anyone else experiencing this? It's working fine on my iphone.
  21. I'd like some of the unaired (at least unaired on Classics On Demand) house shows from the 70s and 80s that got filmed for the local markets. MSG ones in particular, but Boston Gardens and Philly Spectrum shows would be great too.
  22. Really fun episode of Superstars this week, liked the eight man tag a lot and Sandow was working a slightly different style to reflect his new personality which made for a fresher seeming matchup between him and Kofi. Nothing amazing, but both matches are worth the collective 15 minutes of your time.
  23. The neutraliser on Henry sounds like a pretty awesome spot, looking forward to seeing that tag. Whole show looks pretty decent really, with a huge angle (Batista turn) for the perceived B Show. They'll probably redo it on Raw.
  24. Another ace six man tag this week, I'll be gutted when the Shield eventually splits up as they've provided some amazing in-ring content for the last year or so.
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