My First Review

[Guest JMTapes]

Hey guys,

 

This is the first review of any sort I've ever done. I think I did a decent job. I'd appreciate any feedback, so let me know what you think!!

 

 

 

JM Tapes review for WWF Wrestlemania VII

 

This is my first time reviewing a tape/show of any sort. I've always wanted to get into this sort of thing because I think it would be nice to have a little variety and stray from the cynical style of most internet writers. Now, I'm not taking anything away from Scott Keith or any other reviewer. In fact, I really enjoy reading his stuff, and his is the first site I go to on Tuesdays to see him crucify the latest Raw.

I'd also just like to say that I'm not as jaded as most "smarks" and I actually enjoy some things that are for the most part universally panned. I like star ratings, and will use them whenever I see fit, but don't look for them all the time.

 

Without further adieu, let's hit it.

 

'Mania VII was originally slated to be held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, but was later switched to the smaller indoor venue, the LA Sports Arena. Depending on who you ask, it was because of the fear of snipers climbing atop the Coliseum and going to work thanks to Sgt. Slaughter (an Iraqi sympathizer) being champion, or because they had trouble selling the 100,000 or so tickets it would take to fill the place. Which one is it? I'm not really sure.

 

Live from the LA Sports Arena.

 

On the stick: Gorilla Monsoon and Jim Duggan (subbing for Bobby Heenan, who is managing in the opener and will join us later).

 

We open things up with The Rockers taking on the Barbarian & Haku. Not a bad match overall. It served its purpose in getting the crowd going. Nothing to complain about here. Jannetty hits a top-rope dropkick followed by a Michaels cross-body block to wrap it up at 10:41 officially, but the Coliseum tape (haha! haha!! I kill me!) I'm using to do this sorry ass review has it clipped to about 6:00 or so. A great opener that you don't often see these days, what with monthly PPVs and all. That's a big problem I have, because it seems that every match now has an angle behind it, and that is not always a good thing. I mean, yeah, main events need to have a purpose, but I don't give a damn if Tommy Dreamer shit in Chuck Palumbo's Corn Flakes 3 weeks ago on Sunday Night Heat and now he wants revenge in the opener at Vengeance. Not necessary at all. It's ok to have a throwaway match sometimes, so long as it is good.

 

Mean Gene Okerlund interviews Regis, Alex Trebeck, and Marla Maples. All the guys have been on Regis & Kathy....Earthquake tipped over a pizza truck..something or other...Marla is excited...Trebeck "Peanalizes" Gene. Back upstairs to....

 

Kerry Von Erich VS. Dino Bravo

 

Coliseum (oh stop that) has clipped Bravo's entrance and Von Erich enters the ring and is greeted by a Bravo clothsline. Kerry gains the upper hand for the moment, but Bravo turns things around. Near fall gets two. Side suplex puts Kerry away...no, not quite. Kerry with the claw and a Tornado punch puts this in the books at 3:11. No complaints from me.

 

Gene interviews Davey Boy and his little dog, too.

 

Warlord is in the ring and out comes Davey. Now I was never big on workrate, and as I said before, I like some of the stuff that most people think sucks, but Warlord just bores me into next Friday. Kind of a slow match. Crucifix is reversed by Warlord and we've got us a clip job...we come bacjk with WL getting the full nelson, which is easily broken by BBD. Davey gets him up for the powerslam at 4:00 or so. The PWI almanac has it at 8:00, thereby saving my sanity by 50%.

 

Sean Mooney interviews the Nasty Boys with Jimmy Hart. Just your standard "we're gonna get you" crap.

 

We go over to Mooney, whoops, it was Gene in the last segment. He interviews the Hart Foundation. yup.

 

Tag Titles. Nasty Boys VS. Hart Foundation.

This match was, in most cases, praised as being very good, the Nasties' best match etc. Personally, I'd give it about **, nothing more. Wasn't all that good, wasn't bad. Nasties use Jimmy's helmet to deck Neidhart (can't have Bret look bad with his singles push coming up) to grab the belts at 12:10. Next. Oh, one more thing. Mac Culkin is given a good 5 seconds of airtime during the Foundation's entrance. Neither Gorilla nor Bobby says one word eluding to who he is, or what he's been doing recently. What, you ask? Eh, just starred in the biggest movie of 1990, as well as one of the top-grossing movies of all-time. But hey, do you think they saw Home Alone? I knew you'd see it my way.

 

Clips of the Jake Roberts/Martel feud. Remember how I've been saying I march to the beat of a different drum? Well, I loved this whole debacle for some reason. For those of you who are unfamiliar, here's a little background. Martel showed up one week on the Brother Love show when Jake was the guest. He started spraying Damien (the snake) with Arrogance (his cologne). Jake objected, and found himself getting blasted in the eye with the stuff, thereby "blinding" him. He wore white contacts and everything. Well, ol' Jake couldn't see, so he'd run in during Martel matches and attack the wrong guy etc. Yeah, it sucked, but I loved it. This led to the upcoming match, which is universally panned by most. Before we go up to the ring, Jake delivers a 10 second promo that says more than most 20 minute ones say these days. "The blind leading the blind.....even a fool knows that a man only has 5 senses. But a snake, he has 6. We always do it better...in the dark." Wow.

 

Blindfold Match: Jake Roberts VS. Martel. Both are wearing hoods, which were obviously see-through, as later revealed by Jake in his shoot interview. After about 4 days of feeling around the ring, Roberts hits a DDT for the pin. DUD, but I loved the events leading up to it.

 

Nasty Boys celebrate with Marla Maples.

 

Alfred Hayes narrates the FanFest type deal that took place that weekend. Good stuff, actually. FanFests today are too played up and you end up seeing clips of it so many times that by the time they show it on the PPV, you feel like punching someone. But in this case, it was cool.

 

Jimmy Snuka VS. Undertaker

 

Jimmy's last WM, Taker's first. Match is nothing special, maybe 3/4* The interesting thing, though, is that by pinning Snuka with a Tombstone at 4:20, Taker unofficially claims the "Phenom" moniker that he would keep until his pointless biker repackaging sometime in 2000. Short enough not to bore me. No complaints.

 

Events laeding up to the Savage/Warrior retirment match. Basically, Warrior wouldn't give Savage a title shot when he had the belt, so he helped Slaughter win it at Rumble '91. Warrior wants revenge, yadda yadda. Match is an excellent one, with Warrior getting the win after about 23,356 elbow drops from Savage. Savage is "retired" and re-unites with Liz at the end. **** Match was originally 20:48, but I believe CV clipped it down slightly.

 

Gene interviews Savage & Liz. Clips of the reunion from moments ago Back up to the ring...

 

Demolition VS. Tenyru/Kitao. Demos entrance is clipped, which pretty much means they will not be winning this professional wrestling bout. Decent enough match, as Demolition is pretty much squashed. This was I believe their last televised match as a team. Smash went on to do some jobs at MSG and in dark matches. Crush was taken off TV to be re-tooled. 3/4*

 

Gene with the Boss Man. Standard "law, order , and justice" shtick.

 

Mooney with Perfect and Bobby Heenan...

 

And off we go with the IC Title match. Perfect, to me, is the classic example of an IC champ, along with Bret. In those days, the IC champ was second in line behind the WWF champion. There were no Alberts or Tests hlding the belt. As for the match: I really don't know other peoples' opinions, but I didn't think the match was very entertaining. Bossman wouldn't have made the greatest champion anyway. Andre hits Perfect with the belt, and it appears the BBM has it in the bag. Barbarian and Haku run in to draw the DQ. We wrap things up with Heenan's henchmen being bitchslapped by Andre. Bossman and Andre seem to form an alliance here, but Andre was byeond finished as a wrestler. He was actually advertised for Rumble '91, but never appeared.

 

Mooney with "the Alliance."

 

We join Greg Valentine VS. Earthwuake with both guys in the ring. That's Coliseum for ya. Pretty decent match, actually. Hammer appears to have it won and is greeted with the Earthquake for the pin. I don't know why, but I like little worthless matches like this. *

 

LOD is interviewed by a horrified Sean Mooney.

 

LOD VS. Sour and Gory. I'm not even gonna bother with this one. LOD finishes with a Doomsday Device before I can type much else. A WM record (aside from the S.D Jones squash) at that time, I think.

 

We cut right to DiBiase VS. Virgil. Piper is in Virgil's corner. Match wasn't bad. DiBiase beats the piss out of Virgil for a few minutes. He takes a shot at Piper, who is on crutches. He eventually gets counted out, and slaps on the Million Dollar Dream on Virg'. Piper comes in to his aid, only to be cut down by Sherri, Ted;s new squeeze. Here would be the famous "get up" speech from Virgil to Piper. Good stuff.

 

Mr. Mooney shows us the events leading up to Hogan/Slaughter. I don't really care for this whole ordeal, so we'll end it there.

 

This was my first review, and I'd appreciate feedback. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks!

[Guest CanadianChris]

I think if you're going to review something, review the whole damn thing. Hogan/Slaughter was actually a passable match, and you totally glossed over the best match on the card. On the ass scale, I give it half.

[Guest nWoScorpion]

**3/4-*** is what i'd give Hogan/Slaughter (and I did i think)

 

Even Scott Keith ... wait, thats a bad idea, he DOES skip matches sometimes.

 

Ok...I skipped a match or two before, so I cant argue

[Guest Retro Rob]

If you are planning on rating matches, why only do certain ones and skip others?

[Guest JMTapes]

Thanks to everybody.

 

1)I glossed over the Warrior/Savage match because I couldn't be bothered to watch it. Just because it is praised by nearly everyone doesn't mean everyone likes it. And I'll be honest, the match did very little for me.

2)I don't give star ratings to all the matches, because I find that it is too difficult to rate certain matches. For instance, what is the difference between a 1 1/2* and a 1 1/4* match? Maybe a lot, but I'm not seeing it. Therefore, if a match is phenominal, it's easy, and if a match sucks, it's easy.

 

Come to think of it, I should have prefaced the thing by by explaining my style. I wanted to get something new out there because I'm just so sick of:

 

so and so VS. so and so:

blah blah blah blah DUD

 

so and so VS. so and so:

blah blah blah blah ***

 

so and so VS. so and so:

blah blah blah blah ****3/4

 

Meanwhile, blah blah blah

 

so and so VS. so and so:

blah blah blah blah 1/2*

 

Ya feel me, playa? Again, thanks guys.

[Guest Retro Rob]

Come to think of it, I should have prefaced the thing by by explaining my style. I wanted to get something new out there because I'm just so sick of:

 

so and so VS. so and so:

blah blah blah blah DUD

 

so and so VS. so and so:

blah blah blah blah ***

 

so and so VS. so and so:

blah blah blah blah ****3/4

 

Meanwhile, blah blah blah

 

so and so VS. so and so:

blah blah blah blah 1/2*

 

Ya feel me, playa? Again, thanks guys.

Although the format may look the same if. If you write PBP and a star rating FOLLOWED by a few setences of your opinion on the match, your review will already be unique.

 

For instance, I don't like when someone does PBP, rates something ***1/4, says "Good Match" and leaves it as that. Add a little something afterwards and you got yourself a review.

[Guest CanadianChris]

Thing is, a REVIEW of the show should tell the viewer, at the very least, what went on in the entire show. If I want to know whether or not to watch WrestleMania VII, for example, I can't get it from your review, because two of the most important matches are left, for all intents and purposes, completely untouched. Reading that you don't care about Slaughter/Hogan enough to review it doesn't help me make up my mind one way or the other about whether I should care about Slaughter/Hogan enough to get the tape.

[Guest Jubuki]

If you write PBP and a star rating FOLLOWED by a few setences of your opinion on the match, your review will already be unique.

 

*giggle* Why? Because the 'opinion' comes after the snowflakes instead of before? Get real. Doing it this way means you're doing the exact same thing every other shitty, half-assed recapper (and I stress recapper - that's what doing by-rote PBP with 'a few sentences' of insight makes you) on the Net does. Just what everyone needs.

[Guest JMTapes]

Thing is, a REVIEW of the show should tell the viewer, at the very least, what went on in the entire show. If I want to know whether or not to watch WrestleMania VII, for example, I can't get it from your review, because two of the most important matches are left, for all intents and purposes, completely untouched. Reading that you don't care about Slaughter/Hogan enough to review it doesn't help me make up my mind one way or the other about whether I should care about Slaughter/Hogan enough to get the tape.

Point taken. Thanks. -JM

[Guest Retro Rob]

If you write PBP and a star rating FOLLOWED by a few setences of your opinion on the match, your review will already be unique.

 

*giggle* Why? Because the 'opinion' comes after the snowflakes instead of before? Get real. Doing it this way means you're doing the exact same thing every other shitty, half-assed recapper (and I stress recapper - that's what doing by-rote PBP with 'a few sentences' of insight makes you) on the Net does. Just what everyone needs.

There is a difference between an explanation as to why you assigned a match a particular rating and just leaving it at "**1/2 OK match".

 

By unique, I didn't mean the style. I meant whatever point the person was trying to prove.

 

As for the semantics of it, does it really matter which word is used? It is what it is. Call it whatever you want.

[Guest Jubuki]

Sure, there's a difference in what you're seeing - about 15 words, give or take. The difference in what I'm seeing is the line between "saying something worth reading" and "saying something worth ignoring." I wonder if that's something you've ever thought about.

 

And it isn't what it is. And it isn't semantics. If you review a movie, do you go through every bit of the plot, moment for moment, and give away the movie? Or do you do that for a book? Or a CD? Or a concert? Or a seminar?

 

Or do you give thoughts about what it's trying to do, what it says to you about the people creating it, and what impression it left?

[Guest Retro Rob]

Sure, there's a difference in what you're seeing - about 15 words, give or take.  The difference in what I'm seeing is the line between "saying something worth reading" and "saying something worth ignoring."  I wonder if that's something you've ever thought about.

 

I agree with you on that. There is difference between saying something worth reading and saying something just for the sake of saying something. Whether or not an explanation is worth reading comes down to who is writing it.

 

And it isn't what it is.  And it isn't semantics.  If you review a movie, do you go through every bit of the plot, moment for moment, and give away the movie?  Or do you do that for a book?  Or a CD?  Or a concert?  Or a seminar? 

 

Or do you give thoughts about what it's trying to do, what it says to you about the people creating it, and what impression it left?

 

1. A recap is simply a re-telling of events without taking a particular stance on the said event. For instance, a recap is just someone who does PBP and says exactly what went down without offering their opinions on anything.

 

2. A review is criticizing or praising something whether it be a movie, DVD, CD, concert, book, etc. I agree that when reviewing a movie, the reviewer generally only gives a brief synopsis of the plot and doesn't reveal the conclusion. They also add what they took out of the film and it's pluses and minuses.

 

Now if I were to review a wrestling show and same way a film critic reviews a movie, nothing would be accomplished. If you blow over PBP no one knows exactly what went down. Believe it or not, people who never saw a show are sometimes interested in reading PBP. Generally a brief overview of a match is substantial. BUT you can't leave it with an open ending. You have to reveal the conclusion of the match, otherwise there is little point in reading about the show if you have yet to see it. So, going by your definition this hypothetical column is not a review because to much time is spent on the actual in-ring action. ALTHOUGH, if I were to spend a couple of paragraphs criticizing and/or praising the show it isn't really a recap since those are more often than not opinion free. So it is not a review, but not a recap. Thus, unless you have a better term for it, I say either one works fine. (Don't even bring the word "rant" into this discussion. That's another can of worms. )

[Guest Jubuki]

There are dozens of ways to dance around the ending without specifically saying what happens. It's not at all necessary to give away the finish - not that it matters much in the days of Q&D results around every corner of every shithole copy-and-paste news site. If you don't think it's possible, you really need to broaden your sphere of influence.