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Graham Crackers

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Everything posted by Graham Crackers

  1. Graham Crackers
    This was a wild scene but only a few of these girls were decent brawlers. Takahashi and Nakanishi in particular just don't do it for me. Escape the cage is a weird stipulation for a team match but I felt like it worked better here than it has in other matches like this as the attempts to block escape from the outside were more violent and reckless. I didn't hate this but I've seen much better joshi from 2000.
  2. Graham Crackers
    Okay, so maybe some classic Kawada leg selling could have made this the GOAT. Or maybe they should have just left that stretch out altogether. Could have, should have, would have, etc. The leg selling doesn't bother me too much as the leg stuff only lasted a couple of minutes but I can see why it gets to some people. It makes it obvious that the legwork was just there to fill time and I'd rather they just stick to the important bullet points. The rest of this match though! It's exactly what you want from Kawada vs Tenryu. This is violent, gritty stuff. One of the best All Japan matches of the decade and a match that will probably stay in my top 20.
  3. Graham Crackers
    In a decade of overwrought dream matches this is one of the few that holds up. It's more New Japan than All Japan and that works for me because I'd rather not deal with Sasaki kicking out of a million suplexes and powerbombs in an attempt to work a "king's road" match. The lariat contest works for me because that's pure Choshu, someone who influenced both wrestlers. Not the MOTY but a match that'll easily make my ballot and probably do pretty well.
  4. Graham Crackers
    I'm not sure if any of the 2000 NOAH will make my top 100 but this match along with the December Kobashi vs Akiyama match and the August tag are contenders (there's also a December 2000 Misawa vs Vader match that's super simple and I really like but isn't nominated). This is notable because combined with the same matchup that occurred 10 days earlier this is the first time it really felt like NOAH. 6 different characters with distinct personalities are matched up against each other. That's true of many classic All Japan 6 mans but for a few years there NOAH had a bigger cast of characters that actually felt important. That's different from Jumbo an lower ranked guys vs Tenryu and lower ranked guys. Takayama had already begun to put everything together but in NOAH he was treated like he was a real threat to the established main eventers. Kikuchi was relevant again, now as a surly vet. Shiga became notable for his use of speed, technique, and leverage to hold his own against bigger opponents. Rikio was an energetic young superheavyweight back then too. This is a fun match and it's mostly because of those four and how Akiyama and Kobashi interact with them. Future NOAH 6 and 8 man tags would do it better but this still holds up as a lot of fun.
  5. Graham Crackers
    Solid NJPW junior tag from when the baseline for NJPW juniors wasn't as low. Makabe as the strong youngster added an interesting dynamic that makes this match stand out but it isn't spectacular enough to make a top 100.
  6. Graham Crackers
    Fuchi is fun and the crowd reaction is awesome but 2000s Chono isn't a pretty sight. It's funny that the old man is the least broken down of the two. The Kawada vs Fuchi match is a much better singles match from the early 2000s Fuchi resurgence.
  7. Graham Crackers
    It's weird how many of these Toryumon matches rely so heavily on outside interference but at this point it was still kind of novel. They hadn't gone so overboard as to make me hate every bit of interference like I did in the Dragon Kid vs Darkness Dragon match. It may not sink the match completely but I still think it's way too much. It made me sad when watching matches for this project that SUWA, while still good, was not as awesome as I remember him being. At least in NOAH he didn't have to rely this much on his stablemates. Like ditch was saying, Dragon Kid does have some neat spots but he lacks that special underdog charisma that made Rey so special. Mechanically he does a lot of things the same way but his timing isn't as good and his selling isn't as believable. This is fun but it isn't exactly good.
  8. Graham Crackers
    This is an AJPW main event by numbers though it gets extra points for actually trying to get the submissions over and the booking having more direction than AJPW had earlier in the year. The chest compressions after the guillotine choke were lame.
  9. Graham Crackers
    I loved NOAH once and while watching stuff for this project it has been easy to see why. Their run from 2001-2004 is some of my favorite wrestling ever and even though I think think they lost a lot of direction after that there were still many hints at the NOAH I once knew for the next few years. This match lays the foundation for that period but we aren't there yet. Yes, the match is fun and it's nice to see them actually following up on the elevation of Akiyama but it never really enters the next gear. To be perfectly honest, what made NOAH great wasn't these guys wrestling each other. It was the varied cast of characters that they would be interacting with over the next few years.
  10. Graham Crackers
    Akiyama vs Misawa felt like an important match. It felt like the changing of the guard. Kobashi vs Takayama felt important because it felt so competitive and made Takayama look like he belonged on top for the first time. Unfortunately that kind of emotion was missing in every other match I saw from the first half of the year. Then comes this match right after the split. This match gives us Hansen vs Tenryu, former tag partners and rivals who haven't wrestled each other in more than a decade. Well, they seem to hate each other now and that's good for us. This match also has Kawada and Mossman attempting to exert themselves as the top dog and next big thing respectively. The new AJPW looks to be full of promise here. Instead this is more like the last time All Japan would look like All Japan as it's identity was about to enter a seemingly constant state of flux. There were a few great AJPW matches after this but we never got another match like Misawa vs Akiyama or even like this one.
  11. Graham Crackers
    I'm not wild about Takaiwa but his team with Ohtani has had a few tags I've really liked. They actually make for a pretty good bruiser tag team. Kanemoto and Minoru can definitely hold their own in a fight and that's just what most of this match is. The finishing stretch is more of a big moves and nearfalls kind of affair and a well paced one at that. It feels like a rarity to get a junior tag like this with a compelling beginning and middle to compliment the neat finishing stretch at the end.
  12. Graham Crackers
    I always dig these matches but right now I couldn't tell you what my favorite match between them is. This one is pretty compact and like all of their matches features tons of awesome brutal offense. The structure leaves something to be desired as most of this feels like they are taking turns on offense outside of the finishing stretch where Satomura is just surviving the onslaught. A longer heat section before that, perhaps with an interesting transition could have really pushed this over the top. The finish is pretty fucking great though with Satomura getting one last hope spot when she ties up Kong's arms in the crucifix before Kong drops her and finishes her with the bare knuckle backfist. I'm sure I'll have at least one of these on my ballot but I'm not sure if this one is it.
  13. Graham Crackers
    These two have such awesome chemistry together. Even when they are in tags opposite each other that aren't building to anything you can feel the heat. This isn't quite as good as their GHC title match but it's still really good. Takayama is a beast, as always, and he does a pretty convincing job of kicking Kobashi's ass. One of the things that's so great about Takayama, especially in this match, is that for such a badass he's pretty good at selling that he is desperately trying to stay in the match when the tables get turned. The finishing stretch is awesome with Takayama throwing punches and Kobashi returning the favor with punches and backfists. That spot is even more exciting here than it is in the Tenryu vs Sasaki match because this match escalates in a way that really sucks you in.
  14. Graham Crackers
    Omori bores me to tears. Always. Kobashi beating him up is cool but I prefer the short and sweet beating he received from Hashimoto in NOAH.
  15. Graham Crackers
    Yawn. This isn't bad but the difference between the best Kobashi vs Misawa matches and this is pretty stark. Honestly, I think Kobashi and Misawa had maybe three great matches against each other and the rest are either boring or feature both guys sliding into their worst habits. This is on the boring slide as even though Kobashi is showing off his offense and Misawa is taking a beating it never gets to the next level. Standard 2000 AJPW match.
  16. Graham Crackers
    This is a shorter sprinty version of their match. It's good and entertaining but what makes their rivalry great is it's scope. I'd take this over a few of their late 90s matches but I don't think it's as good as their 2005 match, let alone their all time classics.
  17. Graham Crackers
    I'm not a big fan of the Vader vs Kobashi series and this probably isn't even the best of those matches. This isn't as smart as their Champions Carnival match from a year earlier. I felt like the injured eye in that match made for a more compelling subplot than the injured ribs in this one. I just feel like I've seen Kobashi survive many other asskickings and this didn't feel like one of the more compelling ones.
  18. Graham Crackers
    I watched this a million years ago on a Kanemura comp (I think). I was watching it with a friend and at the time we were really excited about our recent discovery of Kanemura who we thought was the best Japanese deathmatch worker of all time. I remember that we both marked out when he mimed the blowjob and masturbation with the light tube and for years my friend and I joked that it was the greatest light tube spot of all time. It's still pretty funny and this is a fun match. Not something I can see making my ballot or even a MOTY list though.
  19. Graham Crackers
    These two have a better match in 2003 but this one is still fun. Kanemoto really came into his own in the last decade, which is a shame because he didn't have the kind of competition that was conducive to having tons of great matches. The leg selling gets blown off at the end and it really sticks out but this is short enough where that isn't completely frustrating. Of course, this doesn't feel like a top 100 match anyway.
  20. Graham Crackers
    Good match but it's more like a fun TV match than the epic that Kawada vs Vader looks like on paper.
  21. Graham Crackers
    This is a wild match and I wanted to like it so much more than I did. This felt similar to Honma vs Yamakawa and was definitely better as it didn't suffer from the same listlessness in the middle. KAORU is at her most compelling when Aja Kong is mauling her in this match. I liked some of her reckless offense too but it got repetitive and by the end this match just ended up feeling bloated. It felt much longer than it actually was.
  22. Graham Crackers
    I thought this was a pretty good juniors match. Cool athleticism and a good pace without any egregious no-selling. I think the length works in this match's favor. This is definitely preferable to the 30 minute junior singles matches that dominated the latter portion of the decade and make for one of the biggest flaws in Minoru's body of work. It's only the third best nominated match of the first month of the decade so if it does make my top 100 it probably isn't getting out of the 90s.
  23. Graham Crackers
    I watched this maybe a year ago. I can't remember. In fact, I can't remember much about this at all. Like a lot of the 2000 AJPW matches that came before the split this is just kind of there.
  24. Graham Crackers
    This is a Tenryu singles match and is good for all the reasons one enjoys those. Sasaki is an uneven worker but he has cool offense so it's fun to see him plugged into Tenryu's match. Tenryu is great at putting over this kind of power worker because he's not afraid to let them win a strike exchange. The layout is simple which also works to Sasaki's advantage. Might end up somewhere in the bottom quarter of my ballot.
  25. Graham Crackers
    My favorite NJPW heavyweight tag of the 2000s and it's no coincidence that it's part of the last great NJPW angle. Ogawa vs Hashimoto is a matchup I can always get into. They do simple stuff and milk their charisma but stylistically it's still very New Japan with the nods to MMA and great strikes. Murakami and Iizuka are welcome additions as well. Murakami has such natural heel charisma. He probably has one of the most punchable faces I've ever seen. It's interesting to see Iizuka a little over ten years removed from his role as an underdog in those great 1989 tags. He's still an underdog but he gets to show more of his amateur skills and in the process looks like a real badass. It's a shame he never lived up to the potential he showed here. It's also a shame that the 4/7 Hashimoto vs Ogawa match wasn't nominated for this project. It's the only NJPW match from this decade that feels like a MOTDC, at least from where I'm standing.
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