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The "I've just watched ..." thread


mikehoncho

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On 5/8/2020 at 1:35 PM, BomberPat said:

I'd never even heard of Mami Kitamura or Miki Handa - and judging by Cagematch, nor had anyone else, as for both of them their two WCW matches come up as the first match they had. 

For what it's worth, Miss A was better known as Dynamite Kansai, while Itsuki Yamazaki was one of the Jumping Bomb Angels, so capitalising on their brief run in the WWF a couple of years prior might explain why they were here. Yamazaki would retire later that year, though. All four women seem to have been working with JWP at the time, so I don't know if there was an attempt to cross-promote there - I'm pretty sure this was prior to the WWF/AJW relationship, so it wouldn't have been in response to that, and does all seem a bit bizarre. 

Miki Handa worked quite a few of the classic AJW events, including DreamSlam II. Didn't instantly recognize Kitamura, until I watched a clip of the video. I know her as Leo Kitamura. Don't know about their JWP connections, but both were working for LLPW in '93 / '94.

- edit -

LLPW was only formed in 1992, presumably a splinter from JWP. I think both women migrated there from JWP, along with Kandori.

Edited by KingofSports
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I'm watching old ECW TV's and various events throughout the mid 90s, having not followed in years and forgotten all of this, it's like watching something completely new and I'm able to appreciate pro wrestling again like I'm a teen, I'm finding it easier to suspend my disbelief.

Some notes so far:

- Mick Foley is an amazing promo. He comes up with so many clever lines and the character of Cactus Jack is deep.

- Shane Douglas can talk for hours about the same thing and still have shit to say, love it.

- All the angles and stories are so interesting, I can't wait to see how it all unfolds, Sandman pretending to be blinded to get to Tommy Dreamer was such a good twist.

- Nancy Sullivan is such a good heel, I wonder whatever happened to her?

- Everyone has their own unique style, personality and stand out as an individual.

- Sandman can't do even the most basic moves for shit and that's awesome. Imagine if he could perform moves as crisply and smoothly as Dean Malenko? Yeah nobody wants that from Sandman, he's absolutely perfect in his natural chaotic drunken state and I love it.

- Benoit and Malenko showed up and naturally the actual in ring wrestling picks up quite a bit but the angles remain of the highest quality.

- I love how tables are introduced, at first its just people falling to the outside through a conveniently placed table and Sabu being a mad man who just loves breaking tables. They give tables a reason to be there rather than just a fun spot.

- There's a surprising amount of kayfabe protecting subtlties, I even found myself being fooled some of the time, which got me invested in the matches more.

- The Funks vs. Public Enemy barbed wire match is the single greatest thing I have witnessed in my life, the utter mayhem of this match is something to behold. A real texas style barn burner.

 

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On 5/14/2020 at 5:11 PM, Sheffbag said:

Watching Raw from July 5 1999 and Godfather is on. I’m sure one of the ho train is Lita in silver.

Correct.

Lita makes her first WWF appearance (I think) as one of ...

This was two weeks before she made her ppv debut as Danny Doring's girlfriend at ECW Heatwave '99.

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The Great American Bash 1991!

So, just a few weeks after wrestling Ric Flair for the world title, Bobby Eaton is in a fucking scaffold match with PN News against Steve Austin and Terry Taylor. Scaffold matches have always been the stupidest gimmick match in wrestling. It's absolutely wretched as expected.

The Diamond Studdddd beat Tom Zenk in a decent match. Zenk was underrated in the jobber-to-the-stars role and still managed to stay pretty popular with it.

Ron Simmons beat Oz in a technical exhibition. The crowd don't appreciate good Greco-Roman shit.

Richard Morton beat Robert Gibson in a match that really suffered from a lack of build-up and too much leg work. This should have been way more violent and was a huge missed opportunity.

The Natural and The Young Pistols beat The Freebirds and Badstreet in an unsurprisingly fun elimination match. The Pistols and the Freebirds were the the 90s version of Kofi Kingston vs Dolph Ziggler except good.

Then there's The Yellow Dog vs Johnny B. Badd. They even reference that Dog is Brian Pillman on commentary. What was the fucking point of this? This was crap, the crowd didn't care, and Badd looked fat.

Big Josh beat Black Blood in a surprisingly enjoyable little lumberjack match. The Big Josh gimmick was crap but Matt Borne got some decent matches out of it.

El Gigante beat One Man Gang. The former was obviously shite and just didn't get wrestling at all but, in all honesty, I've seen worse. Still bad though.

The next three matches are baffling. Nikita Koloff went over Sting in a chain match with a terrible ending and a result that made no sense at all. Very boring as well.

Luger vs Barry Windham for the world title suffered from the crowd wanting Flair and from a strange atmosphere around it. But the ending was rushed and Harley Race and Mr Hughes' involvement was pointless. Still a decent match but nowhere near as good as it should be.

Then the real main event of Rick Steiner (and not Missy Hyatt) vs Arn Anderson and Paul Heyman. Obviously fucked up by Scott's injury and Hyatt being carried out but this is arguably the most pointless main event ever.

Oh well, Fall Brawl next!

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Double post be damned, I whizzed through Fall Brawl after all.

Starts off with a battle royal for no good reason at all. The usual unwatchable mess that these always are but El Gigante got a MASSIVE reception when he won. That was the thing about this guy - people wanted him to succeed, perhaps because they sensed that he was so enthusiastic about doing it.

Brian Pillman is 'BACK'! He beat B(r)ad(Armstrong)street in an obviously superb match to move to the final of the light-heavyweight title tournament. This was bloody superb.

Sting then beat Johnny B. Badd. What a fucking mess this was from start to finish. Neither of them sold anything or seemed in position for anything, then got distracted when another present came out for Sting. Cactus Jack came out and attacked Sting although things were reversed later on when Sting returned the favour. But this wasn't good.

WCW dug up Mike Graham for a match against Ricky Morton in the other light-heavyweight semi. Both got jobber entrances so I guess we know who's winning the final. Morton looked absolutely lost and like he couldn't be arsed at all in singles. Graham tried his best but this was a dud.

The Freebirds then dragged The Patriots to a good match. I would have preferred a 2,979,009th match against The Young Pistols though. Jimmy Garvin's given up on dyeing his beard.

Ron Simmons ran through the Diamond Stud, with just one 'd' this time. Ron was on this one lots with various promos and videos about him before *that* contract signing where Luger suggests he might want to become his driver. Mr Hughes told him to say it though, so it can't be racist, right?!

Van Hammer debuted and pasted Terry Taylor. The best part of this was after the match, Hammer is arseing about in the ring and Bill Alfonso is stood at ringside audibly shouting at him to get out of the ring. Brilliant.

Steve Austin retained the TV title against the Z-Man in a really good match. Weirdly didn't end when Austin hit the Stun Gun though, but who cares, it was a shit finisher.

Then Arn and Larry won the vacant tag titles, beating Rick Steiner and fucking Bill Kazmaier. The Enforcers beat up the latter earlier in the night so he could barely do anything. Match went five minutes, the crowd didn't care, but Arn cut a fantastic promo after the match which made it all worthwhile.

The usual Clash of the Champions mixed bag.

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2 hours ago, RancidPunx said:

Any decent WCW PPV’s or shows from 91-92 that might have flown under the radar.

 

 

Clash 18 from the start from Jan 92 has 5 really enjoyable matches. On paper it doesn't seem that appetizing but is a fun show.

Vader & Mr Hughes vs The Steiners

Pillman & Bagwell vs Smothers & Taylor

6 man tag

Sting & Steamboat vs Austin & Rude 

And of course

Cactus Jack vs Van Hammer in a nodq which is undeniably Van Hammers greatest ever match. 

 

The show doesn't get much love and there are a couple of duds and I think it being a couple days after the 92 Rumble means it is overlooked. Easily a top 5 clash.

 

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I second Clash 18. Worth a watch. But you can’t just put ‘6 man tag’ like that. Not when it features Windham, Rhodes & Simmons vs Anderson, Eaton & Zbyszko. 

@RancidPunx I’d highly recommend the Clash from November 92 as well, whichever number that was. The Windham & Rhodes vs Steamboat & Douglas main event is class plus there’s a good Sting vs Rude match and the Johnny B Badd vs Scotty Flamingo ‘boxing match’ which I only bring up because you have to see Kevin Nash’s ridiculous backstage promo as Vinnie Vegas before the match. They’ve even got a fake Don King. 

I went through all the WCW PPVs and Clashes from 92-93 in this thread if you go back a few pages. Might be worth a look for ideas. 

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Halloween Havoc '91

I never actually knew Chamber of Horrors was first match on! I'm assuming there was a technical reason for this. I mean, look, it's really stupid and all over the place but I've seen worse and at least Abdullah the Butcher sold for the electric chair.

Big Josh and PN News beat The Creatures. Can you imagine if AEW or WWE tried pulling this sort of shit these days? I'm assuming one of the creatures was Brad Armstrong, he usually got roped in for stuff like this.

Bobby Eaton then dragged Terry Taylor to the match of his career, winning and getting one of loudest pops of the night. Then he did a pretty funny promo with Missy Hyatt too. What a guy.

Johnny B. Badd beat Jimmy Jam Garvin in a confusing match where the Freebirds were behaving like babyfaces and Badd seemed to be turning that way too. Actually not a bad match though!

Then the match of the night as Steve Austin went to a time limit draw with Dustin Rhodes for the TV title. What an absolutely fantastic match this was. The crowd was brilliant the whole way through. One of the best matches I've seen from any era for absolutely ages. Austin hit a left-handed clothesline at one point that Rhodes must still be shaking from.

Oz decided to change up his usual catch-as-catch-can style for something a little more high flying but paid the price as Bill Kazmaier cheated to win to deafening boos. World's Strongest Twat, more like.

Van Hammer then squashed Doug Somers, who looked like he had a right mood on and seemed determined to sabotage Van Hammer's win. Pointless and shit.

Richard Morton finally produced a singles match of note but probably only because Flyin' Brian was up against him, for the Light-Heavyweight title. A cracking match even if the ending was a bit abrupt. Jim Ross said that Pillman was an over-achiever about 654 times in this match.

'The Halloween Phantom' squashed The Z-Man... but wait, it's Rick Rude! to the surprise of nobody. Lovely to have him back though.

The Enforcers retained the tag titles against The Patriots in a pretty good match. Zbyszko's stroppy facial expressions always make me laugh, he was brilliantly miserable.

Then Luger retained the world title against Ron Simmons with a 2-1 falls win - and a clean one. This result was always baffling on a scale not topped until TNA didn't have Bobby Roode beat Kurt Angle. A really good match but the result and final fall were bloody perplexing.

A good strong event though with one classic, and three more not that far off.

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9 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Halloween Havoc '91

I never actually knew Chamber of Horrors was first match on! I'm assuming there was a technical reason for this. I mean, look, it's really stupid and all over the place but I've seen worse and at least Abdullah the Butcher sold for the electric chair.

I've never thought this was that bad. It's stupid and it was probably insulting to their hardcore audience at the time but it's not dull, has good workers in it and doesn't go in forever. I first saw it in VHS as a teen and didn't bat much of an eyelid really.

Enjoyable write up again.

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I'm watching back through Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends on Netflix, and on the wrestling episode one of the guys in the AIWF goes by the name of Jim Bowen. Keeps calling WCW "The WCW" as well. Some nice cameos. Piper, Alex Wright, Buddy Lee Parker, Pez Whatley, Palumbo, Hard Body Harrison. Kwee Wee, Elix Skipper, Johnny The Bull. Sarge is a bit of a dick with him down the Power Plant. 

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21 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

Big Josh and PN News beat The Creatures. Can you imagine if AEW or WWE tried pulling this sort of shit these days? I'm assuming one of the creatures was Brad Armstrong, he usually got roped in for stuff like this.

Just looked this up, it was Joey Maggs and Johnny Rich.

I’ll have to give Eaton vs Taylor a look. I’ve only ever seen the VHS version of this show and that match was cut out. As a kid I never got why there was a bit backstage with a sweaty Eaton holding a pumpkin because he wasn’t wrestling on the tape.

I remember that Austin vs Rhodes match though and it’s quality. Their few matches in 93 weren’t bad but I was always underwhelmed by them, probably because this Havoc match in 91 set the bar for my expectations. 

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15 minutes ago, wandshogun09 said:

I remember that Austin vs Rhodes match though and it’s quality. Their few matches in 93 weren’t bad but I was always underwhelmed by them, probably because this Havoc match in 91 set the bar for my expectations. 

I don't remember their other matches but anything would do well to top this. Crowd is absolutely white hot as well, which helps it.

Edited by Devon Malcolm
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58 minutes ago, Devon Malcolm said:

I don't remember their other matches but anything would do well to top this. Crowd is absolutely white hot as well, which helps it.

They are both great. Think the 93 match just edges it though.

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