Merzbow Posted January 29, 2023 Share Posted January 29, 2023 If you want something off the beaten path then you can't go wrong with Dan Severn Vs Tarzan Goto on YouTube. It's a great wild brawl that on paper maybe shouldn't work even half as well as it does. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted January 30, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted January 30, 2023 Big Van Vader vs Dustin Rhodes from Clash Of The Champions in November 1994. Bloody hell, Dustin! Belting match, I thought. Vader was Vader and back then he was a monster. Goes without saying. But Dustin looked fantastic here. He obviously wasn’t ever getting a look in when it came to the main event scene by this point with Hogan now running the show. And he wasn’t even gonna be the second top babyface with Sting around and Savage about to come in. But man, Dustin was tremendous here and the crowd were with him all the way and seemed to really buy into him when he fired up on Vader. Crazy to think he was let go just a few months after this because of that bollocks truck match thingy with ol’ Barry Smash Repo Krushchev Hole In One Darsow. Really good match though. I’d never seen it before and 94 WCW is a bit of a blind spot for me anyway. Outside of a couple of obvious matches like Hogan vs Flair at Bash At The Beach and stuff like that, generally if it wasn’t shown on ITV’s coverage of Worldwide then I haven’t seen it. 92/93 is the stuff that I started my fandom on so I made a point to track down all the PPVs and Clashes later on. But there’s so much of 94 to about 96 I missed before the NWO boom kicked off. Might have to finally get around to those 94/95 reviews soon. Got the Network for free at the minute as well because my nephew’s left his account logged in at mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members CleetusVanDamme Posted January 30, 2023 Author Paid Members Share Posted January 30, 2023 There's a lot of good shit in 94. Would be good to see the return of your reviews! 95's fucking brutal though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted February 6, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2023 After some recent JBL chat in another thread I rewatched his match vs Eddie Guerrero at Judgement Day 2004. I'm not the biggest fan of JBL but he has two strengths. 1) His Stan Hansen tribute act where he just bullies his opponent, and 2) his cowardly stooge selling. The problem is that at this time WWE didn't really have many top babyfaces who would or could sell properly for his bully offense so without that aspect his matches were often average or a bit dull. Fortunately, Eddie Guerrero is basically the perfect opponent for JBL. Small enough that he can let JBL absolutely hammer him to pieces but with so much babyface fire and toughness that JBL can credibly stooge for him too. Infamously, this match is an absolutely insane bloodbath. Full to the brim with emotion, great brawling and all time performances from both men. Definitely JBLs best match of his career and possibly Eddie's too (definitely in the top 5). Ends on a no contest but the fans aren't disappointed because the mat is literally completely covered in blood. Brilliant stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted February 6, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2023 I didn't enjoy JBL at the time, and there's a lot to either dislike or roll your eyes at looking back, but he's what they needed at the time to elevate babyfaces quickly. If you watch JBL's feud with Cena, compared to Triple H's first feud with him, they're night and day - JBL sells his arse off both verbally and physically, does everything in his power to put Cena over, and acts genuinely afraid of facing him, while Triple H consistently leans into the crowd starting to turn on Cena, to Trips being the better "technical wrestler" (at a time when that's something the wider audience seemed to want), and buries him on the mic at every opportunity, never acting like they're on the same level. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted February 6, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2023 The only guy Triple H ever really got over and put over properly in his entire career is Batista. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaitoRyo Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 3 hours ago, BomberPat said: I didn't enjoy JBL at the time, and there's a lot to either dislike or roll your eyes at looking back, but he's what they needed at the time to elevate babyfaces quickly. If you watch JBL's feud with Cena, compared to Triple H's first feud with him, they're night and day - JBL sells his arse off both verbally and physically, does everything in his power to put Cena over, and acts genuinely afraid of facing him, while Triple H consistently leans into the crowd starting to turn on Cena, to Trips being the better "technical wrestler" (at a time when that's something the wider audience seemed to want), and buries him on the mic at every opportunity, never acting like they're on the same level. Is Hunter supposed to be scared of the guy whose big move is pumping up his Reeboks? Proper baffling feud at the time. Going back to the JBL/Eddie match that @LaGooshmentioned, I absolutely love it for many of the reasons you outlined. It 'made' JBL in one night and has a genuine sense of drama and danger about it because of Guerrero's blood loss. People also talk about how WWE and SmackDown in particular were on the downswing at that point, but the match did basically help draw 19,000 to the Staples Centre at a time when attendances were way down. There was genuine heat there (even if it didn't translate to a big increase in pay-per-view buys). Also, just worth noting that one of the things that made Eddie so good during this era was how he never wrestled like a little guy. He was wrestling 'bigger' than he was and rarely did flying moves, but was utterly believable because of his intensity, technique and character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members BomberPat Posted February 6, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2023 1 hour ago, SaitoRyo said: Is Hunter supposed to be scared of the guy whose big move is pumping up his Reeboks? No, but he also shouldn't be actively undermining the guy that he knows he's getting booked to lose to, because it helps no one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaitoRyo Posted February 6, 2023 Share Posted February 6, 2023 (edited) 23 minutes ago, BomberPat said: No, but he also shouldn't be actively undermining the guy that he knows he's getting booked to lose to, because it helps no one. I was being facetious as I believe that was an actual line from one of his promos in the build to WrestleMania 22! Edited February 6, 2023 by SaitoRyo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members LaGoosh Posted February 6, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2023 Yep it definitely was. Triple H leaning into the "You can't wrestle" chants was so bad as it basically gave those chants credibility and they stuck around for ages. Triple H always had a tendency to make up and coming babyfaces look like shit by pointing out their "weaknesses". How does saying Cena's a shit wrestler or Punk's a "skinny fat ass" sell any tickets or PPVs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Chris B Posted February 6, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2023 I think the idea behind it was to have it be that Hunter underestimated him, or that Cena overcame an opponent who's supposedly stronger than he was in some ways. Like, logically, I don't know that it's the worst thing - I think the attempt was genuinely to try and get people to dislike HHH over it, rather than bury Cena. But it was exactly the wrong time and place for it, so it just made both of them come off worse. Wasn't HHH also beginning to go tweener/babyface as well? Which just continued it being a terrible idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members mim731 Posted February 6, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted February 6, 2023 1 hour ago, Chris B said: Wasn't HHH also beginning to go tweener/babyface as well? Which just continued it being a terrible idea. He did the crotch chop in the match, which was the first time in ages (as did Shawn earlier that night) and they were planting the seeds for the DX reunion around then, so I think you're right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperBacon Posted February 10, 2023 Share Posted February 10, 2023 (edited) Summerslam 1991. Starts with Vince screaming at us about "nuptials to NAAAAPAAAAALM" and just gets better from there. Cuts to an off his tits Piper, and within seconds the rabid crowd are screaming RODDY RODDY RODDY. They are bang up for it, and Vlad is there obviously. A fantastic gimmick in the Mountie-Boss Man match, and Perfect-Hart isn't bad is it? No wonder when I saw this tape aged 6 I was hooked. Everyone is jacked to the gills and looks amazing. It's mesmerising. Bring back coke and roids is what I'm saying.  Edited February 10, 2023 by SuperBacon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted February 11, 2023 Share Posted February 11, 2023 To be fair, in terms of just the night and working the crowd they had (ignoring the longterm for a moment) I think HHH did a better job than HBK a year later. Plus, in terms of storytelling, it's the more interesting story. HHH, the ultimate arsehole who everyone hated just a year or so ago, openly mocking a wrestler for being inferior and having the whole crowd side with him against a man they'd previously rallied behind, submitting to that 'inferior' wrestler. Cena's whole run is a lot better if you ignore the logic that the fans should be behind the babyface. He's just a guy who "never gives up." More than any other babyface at that time, he faces not just his opponents but a fanbase that thinks he's shit and doesn't deserve to be where he is. I'm not sure that WWE knew they were telling that story, or that the fans knew their part in it, but pretty sure Cena and a few others did. There's an amazing story in there, it's just not edited well. Also, on the Eddie wrestling bugger than he was, Eddie was fucking jacked to the gills in that period. Same with Benoit. Reminds me of that time a fan phoned into Meltzer and said about wrestlers on steroids getting pushed over the likes of Eddie and Benoit. No judgement on either of them for it (plenty of judgement on Benoit for other reasons), because I'm sure they felt like they did what they needed to, but they clearly did what they could to make sure they weren't small guys anymore. In hindsight they're terrifying to look at. JBL's a weird one. His heel run felt pretty old school and surprisingly humble. For a guy who's reportedly an arsehole (although again, at the time we were criticising him for things that we didn't criticise the likes of Benoit or Japanese wrestling for) he always seemed like he knew his place on the roster even as champion. Sure, his match with Undertaker was pretty awful but plenty of wrestlers have had awful matches with Undertaker, and he more than carried his end in matches with Eddie, Cena and Rey. He's a better heel during that period than people give him credit for. But that's pretty much par the course for that period. Batista was a fucking incredible babyface in that period and that's largely been forgotten about.  Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members wandshogun09 Posted March 12, 2023 Paid Members Share Posted March 12, 2023 Watching the 6 man tag from the Clash Of The Champions in June 93. Sting, Bulldog and Dustin vs Vader, Sid and Rude. Nothing special as a match, bit disappointing actually and a typically WCW unsatisfactory ending. But this bit of boxing prep for Rude with Sid as the ‘pad man’ made me smile… Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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