Zero Hour 2005 Feedback!

[Hoff 0]

Not to step on Patty's junk, but I'm not feeling the Northstar love here. I liked him as a character, but as a commentator, he's just a glittering Caboose.

 

Were it me, I'd go with Cole, Tazz, and Alfdogg. My initial thought was to replace Cole with Matthews, but I lik Matthews as an in the field kinda guy. Tazz I think has come a long way as a color guy, and hs moved from being a Brooklyn cliche to a funny guy who knows how to call a match. Alf would be good in the Mike Tenay "sort-or-an-analyst-sort-of-a-babyface" commentator role.

 

I dunno, probably not going to be a popular idea, but it's what I thought of.

[NYU 0]

I like the idea of having a full-on heel announcer. None of those three would really be an actual heel.

 

I actually have no driving interest in changing the announcers at this point. But that's just my opinion.

[Patty O'Green 0]

Not to step on Patty's junk, but I'm not feeling the Northstar love here.  I liked him as a character, but as a commentator, he's just a glittering Caboose.

Whoever you pick for the heel role, unless they’re an actual real life wrestling personality with very distinct character traits, is going to be written as just another Caboose.

 

I don't really see the pressing need to overhaul the announcers, anyway.

Edited March 2, 2005 by Patty O'Green

[Guest Failed Mascot]

How can you people resist using this picture week in and week out?

 

[Hoff 0]

Not to step on Patty's junk, but I'm not feeling the Northstar love here.  I liked him as a character, but as a commentator, he's just a glittering Caboose.

Whoever you pick for the heel role, unless they’re an actual real life wrestling personality with very distinct character traits, is going to be written as just another Caboose.

No, Northstar would be worse somehow.

 

.....

[NYU 0]

We're getting away from the topic at hand here:

 

Zero Hour feedback!

 

I, of course, will be putting it up tomorrow -- but everyone else should do it now.

[Zack Malibu 0]

The announce team needs to remain as is for now, at least until post-AM. Then we can make changes.

 

Northstar had his throat crushed last time he was around, so by now he probably sounds like Brian Pillman. Awesome.

 

And if we are replacing the commentators, Caboose needs to stay, as it's his way of staying "in the scene" so that he can return to writing at will, instead of randomly disappearing/reappearing all the time.

[Patty O'Green 0]

Mascot Pmed telling me to finish my feedback, or at least to feedback the X Title match and the Cal/Dude match, so I did just that.

 

KC’s done a good job with the X title despite the fact that the pool of opponents he can pull from is more shallow then my personality. Without moving into fighting tag team wrestlers, I think Rodez has beaten almost all eligible fighters. Anyway the actual title match was nicely fast paced. Or maybe I just read fast. Probably a bit of both. There was something else I was going to write but I forgot what it was.

 

Cal/Dude:

 

I thought the DQ ending was the actual end to the whole match! I’m so gullible. I thought it would have been flipped flopped, where Calvin gave the No-Dq “rematch” instead of Dude doing the right thing. But that’s okay. The Dude doing a plancha is pretty wild! Every good fed needs a fat boy high flyer. Although, I guess I shouldn’t expect to see Dude doing anymore of those moves. I liked the reference to Jose Canseco’s autobiography. Cute! Fun match. When Popick was formatting the show he had it slated for the opener. Useless bit of info for you.

 

No, Northstar would be worse somehow.

 

Please explain.

[Tony149 0]

Just finish reading Dude-Calvin. Really enjoyed it. Gary Michael Cappetta was used for the intros, even taking a few bumps. That's something I didn't notice Sunday, but I like it as I'm a mark for Cappetta. Truth be told, when I skimmed the match Sunday I thought the real finish was a DQ but as I kept skimming I saw that the match was restarted. Boring tidbit, I know. I thought talk the Dude's high flying ability during the match worked because it sends a message to all the other wrestlers showing the Dude can fly if he sees fit. His entrance would look good in real life too.

 

As for the announce situation, if we ever did change it it'd probably become Cole and Caboose. The President is right, any changes would be made after AM IV. Although I don't think anybody would of gone for a change right now anyway.

[Mystery Eskimo 0]

Perhaps we could keep Cole & Caboose and have a different special guest commentator each show, might make things a bit more interesting.

[Hoff 0]

I like it in theory, but it might be hard to find a good guest commentator every week.

[NYU 0]

Well, it's time to get this feedback thread back on track. With his review, Frigid has inspired me to be completely honest -- at least this week. Yes....it's the return of my "The Good and The Bad" feedback.

 

Opening Segment with the Disciples of Chaos

The Good: Nice, harmless promo to start off the show. Added some humor, which is appreciated. And Warren Peace finally said "Bam Baby that's what I like" where it's actually appropriate!

The Bad: Eh, not much. Didn't really understand why there had to be a car crash outside the arena for the purpose of the segment. But then again, I don't understand lots of things. And with the promise of wreaking havoc, they should have done a little more during the night than have K.U.R.T. sting Popick in the ass.

 

Alix/Terry Interview

The Good: I love Alix. It's about time I said it. She is probably THE best interview in the entire federation, and I always genuinely look forward to hearing the stuff that comes out of her mouth. The Ghost of Calvin Coolidge? Classic. As is somehow relating Arn Anderson to Sting, the singer. Very entertaining.

The Bad: Again, not much. Krista's speech went entirely over my head as well, but I'm sure that's what Patty was going for anyway. Could have set up the AngleMania stuff a little more, but I suppose that's what the month of March is for anyway. Nice stuff.

 

The Love Doctors vs. Hell's Hitmen

The Good: I actually love the idea of the Love Doctors getting so cocky that they wind up getting destroyed by Hell's Hitmen. If I'm being completely honest, I just have trouble seeing the Love Doctors as actual tough tag team competition. Good attempts were made the past two months to shed them from their jobber identities and give them an actual personality, but I simply can't consider them as among the elite teams of the OAOAST -- even considering the fact they just held the HIYAH Tag Titles. So, for me, the story of this match made perfect sense.

The Bad: Would have devoted a little more time to the match. Made the squash a little more defined. It seemed more time was spent on the KISS entrance, and the subsequent beating of KISS, rather than on the match itself. Hell's Hitmen should have tortured the Doctors a little more, rather than ending it in a couple of sentences. But I do see what you were going for here anyway.

 

The Original Elite Segment

The Good: Did a nice job of setting up the Zack Malibu vs. Josie match later on in the night. I liked the touch of Dan Black mentioning that he had the power once more, and how he desired it once again. Also good to see the mention of Zack's past misfortune with fighting ladies. Andy Kaufman, he ain't.

The Bad: Not necessarily bad, but it was a little odd seeing T.O.E. being best friends all of a sudden. It seemed the past few weeks were devoted to brewing hostility between the members, but they were suddenly all unified. Plus Zack Malibu actually being calm and happy? WTF?!

 

Popick Segment

The Good: Everything seemed to be spelled right.

The Bad: Hoff hit it right on the head. Popick's segments never actually seem to go anywhere. There's always some mystery, some cryptic hints -- and then nothing ever really comes from it. Perhaps I missed it, but I didn't even notice what the present for Josie was. Was it the interference during her match? If so, no hint was ever given to truly lead us to that. Also, I don't like the idea of Popick immediately telling the HeldDown GM that he's the boss. No one even understands the powers Popick has in the first place, which makes it all the worse that he's making Josie look less effective.

 

The Saints & Jim Cornette vs. The New New Midnight Express & Holly-Wood

The Good: All-around nice match with some good action. Liked Ned tagging in Holly by kissing her on the lips. The confrontation between Cornette and Holly made the match for me. Silly, but still impactful. Really hot ending sequence too, with simply all hell breaking loose, if I could use an overused cliche. I was also pretty shocked to see Cornette turn on the Saints at the end. I really didn't see that coming, but it makes the events of the last few months make sense (i.e. The real Midnight Express interfering in their match last month)

The Bad: I actually felt the commentary started to take away a little from this match. Dramatic points would be building up during it and, instead of hyping those points, the announcers would be trying comedy bits. I've always found the silly dialogue works near the beginning of the match, while the serious hyped-up commentary is more suitable for the end. But the match itself, again, was still very well done.

 

Black T Interview

The Good: Nice, intense interview from Black T to set up the match with GPX later in the night. I liked the historic look back with the other Black T/GPX matches, just to give everyone a view of where exactly these two teams stand. Tony and Dan talking about how much the tag titles meant for themselves truly set-up the finals of this tournament as something extremely important -- which is all you could really ask for with a hypeup promo.

The Bad: No Jivin JR. Bastards.

 

GPX Interview

The Good: Gene Okerlund saying "Oh, I am down with it, my pimps" is just gold. Entertaining promo for the Global Party Xchange, which they almost always seem to deliver with anyway.

The Bad: Actually seemed to minimize the impact of the Tag Title match later on. Black T seemed so passionate and so intent on capturing these Tag Titles, and GPX treated as if it was an afterthought. I know they have the capacity to be intense once in a while, and I think this probably should have been one of those times.

 

Drek Stone/Josie Segment

The Good: Since Hoff wrote it, I felt it would be nice to comment. We both agreed that Hoff should be able to come out last for the Heavyweight Title match later on, so we thought this would be the best way to actually make it sound logical. And, in my opinion, it was. Very well-written segment that continued to highlight the hostility between Drek Stone and Josie. And I didn't think Drek telling Josie he wanted Zack to beat her senseless was really overkill, as much as it was Drek simply being a dick. Which is his attitude in a nutshell.

The Bad: Felt Drek Stone should have complained about the mistreatment a little more. He seemed to accept it readily, which doesn't exactly fit his character of being the "mistreated champion." But this is only a minor complaint in a segment that was very good.

 

Tha Puerto Rican vs. Panther

The Good: Some very nice action here, with the intensity continuing to bubble throughout the entire contest. By going through such extremes to beat each other, you could tell TPR and Panther dislike each other with a passion that very few can match. If the intention of this contest was to set up a bloody gimmick match at AngleMania, I think it was handled rather well. Some of the near-falls here was also very exciting, and at one point, I just didn't know who was going to pull this one out.

The Bad: Suffered from too-long-itis. Considering this match is probably only going to lead to another match at AngleMania, it didn't need to be nearly this long. Now, you have the problem of trying to top it at Mania. And if you blow your load now having the guys kick out of each other finishing moves, stealing each other's moves -- what exactly is left? And while the riot idea may have sounded good in theory, it isn't logical for it to happen in the middle of the show. Like others said, what sense does it make now for the incident to not be mentioned the rest of the night? While it did further establish the uncontrollable hatred between TPR and Panther, to me, it just seemed a little hokey.

 

Leon Rodez Interview

The Good: Like many of the interviews at Zero Hour, it did a very good job of hyping up the match to come later on. I always like when a guy brings up his history with another wrestler, since it just seems to give the match a personal edge. Rodez did that by mentioning he once had no problems with Stevens but, unfortunately, things have taken a turn for the worse. And insinuating that Stevens is gay is good psychology on Rodez's part to incite frustration on his opponent before the match -- if that's what he was going for, of course.

The Bad: The Pussies?! The Adult Film Oscars already exists. Get with the program, KC!

 

Black T vs. Global Party XChange

The Good: Classic style tag-team match between, arguably, the two best teams in the Tag Team division. There was nothing too fancy here -- just smashmouth tag action between two teams that have a rivalry built up already. I did like how GPX were somewhat portrayed as the underdogs during the match. Good, but not quite to the level of Black T, which is why they were getting picked apart as easily as they were. Yet, in the end, they managed to actually outsmart Tony & Dan to pick up the win. The story here was intelligent and simply made the match, which is not just something anyone can do. Oh yeah, and Coach chopping himself for the "WOOOO"s was cute too.

The Bad: I appreciate bad comedy bits as much as anybody, but some of the commentary during the match seemed somewhat forced -- specifically the Cole/Nerdly stuff at the beginning. And I didn't really get why the bell was rang to end the match the first time, if it turned out Static was going to kick out. It just didn't seem to have an effect on the actual ending of the match, which is why I don't understand the reason for it being there. It wasn't so much bad as it was just odd.

 

The Mad Cappa vs. Axel

The Good: The Crystal heel turn was handled incredibly well at the end of the match. I knew it was going to be happening for weeks, and even I was surprised at exactly how she did it at the end. Giving Cappa a win no one expected him to get was one thing, but to lowblow Axel the way she did signified that she is definitely making the transition to coldhearted bitch. Nicely done. The match itself was fine too. More technical than I had expected, but when you have a story of two men simply trying to prove which one of them is better, it works.

The Bad: Man, don't steal Family Guy gags directly! At least when I did the Hick-A-Doo-La bit, it ended with throwing Stephen Joseph into the ocean. To an extent, after re-reading the match, I'm going to have to agree with Frigid that Cappa did not get too much offense in. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it really made him look weak, but a slightly better showing for him wouldn't have hurt.

 

Zack Malibu vs. Josie

The Good: Very, very entertaining match. Rather than worry about being overly technical, Zack Malibu's matches are simply always FUN. This one was no exception, being a complete breeze to read through. I liked the wild nature of the match too, with all six people involved just attacking each other whenever the opportunity presented itself. It gave the contest a tense, urgent feeling to it, which was completely appropriate for a match with such high stakes on the line. The return of Ken Baker at the end was just awesome as well.

The Bad: Eh....I just thought the match was a little too short. With the action so intense, and the story simply so fun, I kinda wished that the contest would have been a little longer. But with that complaint aside, I liked everything else.

 

K.U.R.T. Segment

The Good: Always nice to see Popick stung in the ass. Harmless fun from the Disciples of Chaos once again.

The Bad: Stephen Popick is the Italian Champion?! OMG! I FORGOT ABOUT THAT!

 

Leon Rodez vs. Chris Stevens

The Good: Just an overall exciting match. Loved the fast pace here, and it signified to me exactly what the X-Title is all about. Nice jab with Stevens using the spinebuster, and the Minnesota crowd booing him loudly as a result. I was surprised to see Stevens tap at the end, but it was one of those pleasant surprises. Rodez looked impressive for getting such a win, but it didn't make Stevens look weak either. Even the commentary here was really clicking. Very, very enjoyable.

The Bad: Jeez....hardly any bad in here at all. If I were to nitpick, I'd say that maybe Rodez applying the Chick Magnet near the end seemed to somewhat come out of nowhere. His leg was too hurt to apply it the first time, but once Stevens kicked out of the pinfall, Rodez somehow managed to lock it in anyway. Except for that minor aspect though, everything else was great.

 

Prince Killings Promo

The Good: Very interesting promo for a very intriguing character. It actually made me intrigued to see his debut already.

The Bad: Perhaps a little too long for what it was setting up. Certain descriptions could have been removed, just to make the promo a little more streamlined. But still very good.

 

Calvin Szechstein vs. The 70s Dude

The Good: Excellent match. It really did so much to help boost The 70s Dude credibility thus far. I liked his fighting spirit in not accepting a cheap DQ, but instead wanting to have a No-Holds-Barred match instead. It made him seem like more of an honorable threat instead of a joke. Loved some of the crazy spots here -- Dude benchpressing Cappetta onto Calvin and doing the Hustle afterwards, Dude's Tornado DDT off the guardrail, the pimp cane as a weapon, etc. In the end, Calvin actually looked stronger for overcoming everything Dude threw at him, and still pulling out the win. This match played both characters to a tee. Calvin as the wily veteran that can take some damage but still get the pin, while Dude was the cocky newcomer that showed he actually could carry it out in the ring if he needs to. Such a fun match.

The Bad: Chuck needs to write more matches! With the ability to write stuff like this, he doesn't produce matches nearly enough. And like Frigid said, some of the moves weren't in character for the Dude, specifically that plancha. But considering you didn't know too much about his character anyway, it can be overlooked.

 

Drek Stone vs. Hoff

The Good: EVERYTHING~! AMAZING MATCH!!

The Bad: NOTHING!! COMPLETELY PERFECT!!

 

And there we go. Took me about as long as I thought it would. With everything back on track now...

 

LEAVE MORE FEEDBACK ON DREK/HOFF!!

[Guest cosbywasmurdered]

Popick Segment

The Good: Everything seemed to be spelled right.

--------

 

the force is strong in this one.

[Guest cosbywasmurdered]

Oh feedback?

 

I loooooved the Hoff/Drek match. I haven't followed things as closely as I once did but I've really enjoyed Hoff;s character and his streak of awesome Zero Hour matches goes to...well two. Drek's entertaining as well.

 

Original elite/black t stuff was also fun.

 

I skipped over Popick's stuff.

 

Dude/Calvin was awesome, I'm a dude mark.

 

the match by ms3tmark was...long. A for effort!

 

the rest was good/above good

[Guest Failed Mascot]

I demand more CWM feedback for now on.

[Tony149 0]

In retrospect, PR-Panther should of opened the show and then fill time by keep the K.U.R.T. skit where it's at and following it up with a couple of promos, etc.

 

Now onto the match pitting the 2005 Angle Award-winning Best Writer Drek Stone and BW nominee Hoff. I thought the opening squence with Hoff continuing to knock Stone off his feet with right hands was a great way to jack the fans up. I know it got me into it. With the way this fued has been built, I could totally see fans eating it up in real life. Stone kicking Hoff while he was down and shouting obscenities reminded me of when Kurt Angle had The Rock in the Anklelock at NWO 2001 and went nuts trying to force Rocky to quit. The Abdominal Stretch? Now, there's a move you rarely see nowadays. I liked how it was set up by having Drek ram the ring steps into Hoff's ribs earlier in the bout. If only he had grind the forearm into the ribs or drove the fingers into the ribcage. Dusty Rhodes announce cameo! Fitting considering the Dusty finish that would come later. My only complainant is that I would have liked to of seen actual referees instead of generic Ref #1 & 2, you know? When Joise restarted the match, did it occur to perhaps bring in a new referee considering the controversy between the two ref's previously involved? With the DQ finish I could understand not wanting to have another referee involved in some controversy. Other than that, usual great effort from Stone and Hoff. I would of liked to have seen a clear winner, but there's so much riding on AM that it would be hard to pick one guy over another. I do wonder what this means for AM. Will Axel vs. Stone turn into a Triple Threat match? 3-Way Dance? Triangle match? Or stay one on one? It makes the main event at AngleMania a bit more unpredictable because if Hoff isn't put into the AM ME then he could await the winner, and if Axel wins his first major feud could be against Crystal. So many ways. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

BTW, congrats to all the Angle Award winners.