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Graham Crackers

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Everything posted by Graham Crackers

  1. Graham Crackers
    This is a great story driven shoot style match and holds up well compared to the best matches wrestled in this style. Tamura may have been the best ace in pro wrestling in 2004. He's so good at playing it cool and showing a hint of frustration before dialing it back to playing cool. It's very subtle and in shoot style subtlety makes a big difference. Ito was fantastic as the outmatched guy who is too determined to care that he's outmatched.
  2. Graham Crackers
    For some reason I wasn't into this the first time I watched it last year. I decided to check it out again after reading the other reviews in this thread and I can't figure out what my problem was. This was insanely fun. It's a hard hitting match but they make you wait for the striking during some surprisingly well done grappling. When Takayama finally hits that first kneelift it's explosive. This follows a logical progression running from grappling, to striking, to highspots and brawling on the floor, before ending it in the ring with some big bombs. There aren't many nearfalls but Sasaki's nearfall after the Northern Lights Bomb is super effective. The length is perfect. Yeah, this will do well.
  3. Graham Crackers
    Like I said in the thread for their 2003 match, the title of this thread should say Takuma Sano, not Tahuma. Anyway, I remember liking this match but I forgot just how awesome it was. Sano is a master of working over an opponent's midsection. His savate kicks and double foot stomps are already brutal but the double foot stomp from the top rope to the floor establishes that Sano is in control early. More importantly, Misawa sells like he is in serious danger and doesn't really get a lot of offense in until much later in the match. Sano goes back and forth between striking, working over the leg, and the midsection attacks throughout the match and rathe rthan seeming scattered it looks like he has put together a multi-pronged strategy. The injury to Misawa's ribs is most important though because he goes back to that whenever it seems like he's not in control. Misawa has a characteristic long comeback but it's easy to doubt that it's becoming because we never had the back and forth section you expect to see in the early going of these matches. When he finally does make a comeback the Emerald Frosion doesn't cut it because Misawa hasn't done enough in the body of the match to put Sano away. Misawa really has to tough it out to survive and Sano comes out looking tougher than he ever has before. Again, this is a tremendous match.
  4. Graham Crackers
    This is awesome. I love both of these guys and it's nice to see them match up so well. Kanemoto wouldn't be believable fighting Takayama or Sasaki like this but Nishimura is just small enough to put Kanemoto over at the beginning of the tournament. It's smart booking because it allowed Kanemoto to look much stronger against other heavyweights as the tournament went on. Nishimura still gets to do some of the grappling I love but he also gets to show off those awesome uppercuts as well.
  5. Graham Crackers
    This match-up is usually good and parts of this iteration are fun but this suffers from the usual time limit draw problems.
  6. Graham Crackers
    My feeling about this are similar to my feelings about 3/1/2003. There are a lot of big moves down the stretch but this was a big match which called for it since it had been built up for so long. The selling was actually pretty good for the most part but the half nelson suplex vs exploder section is a bit too far for me. It's a few steps below the Misawa match but it's still good, just not as great as I used to think it is and not something I think I'll rewatch anytime soon.
  7. Graham Crackers
    Solid power vs agility match. When you watch a match like this it's obvious that while Dragon Kid understood the mechanics of what Rey Mysterio did he never had that spark of charisma that made Rey a phenomenon. This isn't bad but I find it hard to get emotionally invested in it.
  8. Graham Crackers
    Sigh, 2004. Takayama was so fucking good and KENTA looked like a future star. Takayama dominated him but gave him just enough that combined with the heart he showed got him over as an underdog babyface in this match. Every knee, kick, and elbow that Takayama throws in this match is unreal. When I'm feeling a little weltschmerz about Japanese wrestling I like to imagine the epic Takayama vs Hashimoto match we never got.
  9. Graham Crackers
    I'm not crazy about Kondo but on paper this is a good matchup for him. Unfortunately there are still some interference spots that take away from this match. The rematch is better though still not anything that'll blow you away.
  10. Graham Crackers
    I know there are some people who consider this a MOTDC and I definitely don't fault them for that. I have other NOAH matches that I prefer but there are moments in this match that are among the most incredible wrestling visuals I've ever seen. Takayama desperately resorting to punching Kobashi out in the closing minutes is PRO WRESTLING MOTHERFUCKERS just like the old DVDVR thread. Still, the body of this match doesn't grab me the way that the Honda and Ogawa title challenges do and there are some tags that I'd put over it as well. And that's just NOAH, factor in Battlarts, Muga, and pre split AJPW and you've got a pretty stacked top ten, which is where I can easily see this match resting.
  11. Graham Crackers
    So unsurprisingly Marufuji does lots of goofy shit and it does take away from the match but everything else is so good that I can't complain too much. Misawa gives these juniors a lot but it's also nice to see Misawa kicking ass. He and Ogawa make for good rudos. KENTA, as usual, is better when outranked or outweighed so he puts in a good fight in this match. I even thought the finish was well executed.
  12. Graham Crackers
    This is a very fun NOAH tag. Akiyama and Hashi are a great team and Rikio turns in one of his better performances. This isn't top tier stuff but it's something that could easily fill a spot in the bottom quarter of my top 100.
  13. Graham Crackers
    This match is disappointing. It just feels inorganic, like they were going though the motions. It lacks the heat that Liger's earlier NOAH matches had.
  14. Graham Crackers
    Yes, this match is so fucking fun! Lovable dumpy loser Izumida gets a little help from his friends and his opponents bump and sell for him like crazy. This is a great character driven NOAH 6 man tag.
  15. Graham Crackers
    I love this match and it has a good shot at my top twenty and if I'm in the right mood I could consider it for the top ten. If it helps anybody I want to note that Hashimoto was still selling that shoulder injury at the end of the year. I liked the finish. Maybe it would have been cool to see these guys trade big nearfalls but I think it's cool that what we got instead was a match based around wrestlers targeting one another's injuries.
  16. Graham Crackers
    I feel like NOAH ran a bunch of these tags with regular partners going up against each other in 2004. It feels like that's where the booking started to get less focused. This is a good 6 man and the novelty of guys wrestling their partners is pat of that but there were better 6 man tags later in the year. Unfortunately my favorite NOAH 6 man from 2004 wasn't nominated (the one from February with Sano and Taue teaming against Kobashi).
  17. Graham Crackers
    Probably my second favorite Kobashi title match. Ogawa is a little creep and you want him to get killed but Ogawa is crafty. Of course he's only prolonging his life as his doom has been sealed. Kobashi finally catches him and draws blood. Everybody wins except for Ogawa obviously. This is like wrestling 101.
  18. Graham Crackers
    This has some fun moments but it's not a very compelling whole. It's nice to see Ricky Marvin though.
  19. Graham Crackers
    This is more competitive than the 2002 iteration though I use the word competitive liberally. Like I said in that thread, Hashimoto's offense is brutal and Tanaka is great at eating brutal offense so I dig this. If the Hashimoto vs Kanemura deathmatch was closer to the length of this match or if we had these two in wrestle a deathmatch it probably would have been the best deathmatch of the decade.
  20. Graham Crackers
    After the Kikuchi vs Liger feud ended NOAH junior tags were only good when they involved Ricky Marvin. Unfortunately this match is before Marvin had become a regular. This match is just way too bloated for me.
  21. Graham Crackers
    I thought this was one of the worst matches of Kobashi's reign. At this point in Kobashi's career the quality of his singles matches depended on the quality of his opponents and Nagata really didn't bring anything to the table. Other opponents bought strategies or used interesting transitions to make you believe that they could stand up to Kobashi but Nagata just threw more bombs. Yawn.
  22. Graham Crackers
    These reflect my feelings pretty nicely. If I wanted to watch a match with crazy spots I'd rather watch that Burning/Marufuji vs Sternness match from 8/23/2003.
  23. Graham Crackers
    So I hate Marufuji. On paper the inclusion of Marufuji in a matchup I typically like (Burning vs Sternness) would fill me with dread. But I've seen this match and I think it's actually better than most of the Burning vs Sternness matches. Marufuji actually helps the match because I love the section when they beat the crap out of him. Overall the atmosphere of this match is wild and it has a great pace. This is a lock for my ballot.
  24. Graham Crackers
    This is one of Akiyama's greatest performances. His fingerprints are visible all over this epic main event. He takes the biggest bumps and his selling is incredible. He's obviously been brought in to give the rub to Tenzan and he did such a great job that the fist time I saw this I wanted watch more Tenzan (which lead to disappointment).
  25. Graham Crackers
    This is solid but unspectacular. Tenzan is over huge but this is nothing more than setup for the fantastic match they had in the finals.
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