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Childs

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Everything posted by Childs

  1. Childs
    I enjoyed the film and am glad they got to finish it. But I agree with those who don't see much potential for an audience beyond wrestling fans. If I had to sum up the arc of their story it's: company builds a passionate cult audience by embracing the most unsettling elements of its craft, ultimately can't sustain itself because of the same people and decisions that made it a phenomenon. That's a workable arc, but to sell it to a wider audience, I think they would need to draw out three or four indelible characters who dramatize the excitement, the hopes and the human cost when it all fell apart. Instead, they went for a broad survey of people involved with ECW. Many of those people said interesting things, but the central story became muddled at times. In comparing it to the World Class doc, they didn't find any hook as ready as the Von Erich family tragedy or any character as haunting as a middle-aged Kevin Von Erich, walking through the ruins of the Sportatorium. And that film didn't find much audience outside wrestling, as far as I know. But that all sounds way too negative. They did a bunch of things well: 1) They used the arena footage to convey how wild the shows were. 2) They captured the atmosphere of mania, deceit and paranoia as the company fell apart. 3) They crafted a good mini-profile of Tony Lewis to show how much the fans cared. 4) They included a lyrical little montage at the end, showing all the key ECW performers who later died. 5) They managed a pretty convincing depiction of Paul E. without talking Paul E. Things I wasn't as hot on: 1) They overused the Extreme Reunion footage. They were smart to use some of it to show the toll ECW took on its performers and the enduring passion of the fans. But the detailed dissection of Extreme Reunion booking served no purpose. And they did nothing to put the Sabu footage in context or explain why it was meaningful. 2) They used too many talking heads. They generally did a clever job of using the journalists in lieu of a narrator. But they would have been better off letting seven or eight strong voices carry the film instead of bringing in a Missy Hyatt here or a Bruce Mitchell there or a Jerry Lynn out of leftfield. 3) The film opened weaker than it needed to with the reunion footage and too much detail about Eddie Gilbert. They would have been better off starting us right in the heart of ECW at its peak and describing the inextricability of its success and doom. Then they could have backtracked to the beginning of the story. Things I wanted to hear more about: 1) How exactly did they decide to go in the more "extreme" direction? Was that all Heyman? 2) What role did drugs play at the peak of the promotion? 3) Others have said this but what about the women and the fans' troubling embrace of violence against them? I've rambled on here. But I would encourage any wrestling fan to watch it. It's one of the better wrestling docs (I'd put it behind World Class and Wrestling with Shadows and in a different category than any of the WWE releases) and attempts to reckon with the truths of ECW in a way Rise and Fall did/could not.
  2. Childs
    I love the Vader shootstyle matches; I just don't think of them as shootstyle matches. They're Vader matches.
  3. Childs
    Really, most of the elite All-Japan guys could be in the discussion -- Misawa, Kawada, Jumbo.
  4. Childs
    Vader's right up there as an offensive wrestler. Others that come to mind: Hansen, Liger, Benoit, Kobashi, Eaton, Danielson, El Dandy, Finlay, Billy Robinson, Dick Togo.
  5. Childs
    This actually felt like less of a Tenryu-Yatsu tease than the previous tag involving those two. The match was easy to sit through, with a lot of action and hellacious shots. But it never took on the kind of identity that would make it stand out in the memory. Tenryu and Hara struggled to find the timing on their old double-team spots. Haku fit right in, as Loss noted.
  6. Childs
    I can only add to the praise for this one. The first half of this was your basic athletic guy doing stick and move vs. monster heavy hitter. They executed that part well, with Vader really laying in his shots. But the match took off in the stretch run, with some tremendous counters (Vader catching Muto mid-handspring and throwing him on his head was a highlight) and nearfalls. Muto earned a credible win without making Vader look anything less than beastly. I watched four matches from this show. Chono-Bigelow was surprisingly good. Hash-Choshu was quite a spectacle because Choshu ate a hellacious beating without ever really rallying. But the crowd gave Vader-Muto a whole different level of reaction, which was a testament to how good they were this night.
  7. Childs
    I drew a reasonable conclusion based on what you wrote. You talked about the general problem of people getting by with "pretend" work because wrestling fans have no standards. And then you used Dave as a specific example. How else would one take that? You're either trolling (a strong possibility given the overall content of your posts) or you're too stupid/devoid of communication skills to have this conversation. Regardless, I'm done. In the words of Lester Freamon, "You ain't even worth the skin off my knuckles, junior."
  8. Childs
    Don't be taking out sentences to suit your agenda. That changes nothing.
  9. Childs
    I didn't defend the quality of his writing, and if you read through the thread, you'll notice numerous instances of me criticizing the sloppy presentation in the WON. I have no problem with anyone criticizing the specific stuff Dave produces. But Andrews took it several steps beyond that by suggesting that Dave is "pretending" to be a journalist. I think that's insulting and demonstrates a poor understanding of the field in which I happen to work. It's common for major publications to stomach sloppy writing from reporters who mitigate that flaw with deep knowledge of their beats or great ability to produce scoops. The difference between those publications and the WON is that they have editors who are charged with cleaning up the raw copy from said reporters. Is the lack of decent editing a flaw in the WON? Absolutely. Does it wipe out Dave's value as a reporter and reduce him to the level of an amateur blogger? You yourself have said that you value his content, so I guess not. Dave has worked for highly regarded publications over the years, from The National to Yahoo! Sports. So the suggestion that the "real world" would view him as a joke is, on its surface, incorrect. Actually you've come to your own wrong conclusion there. If you re-read my post I was talking about people (and different fields, to boot) in general before I mentioned Dave not exactly being a candidate for TIME magazine work. Here is what you wrote: "the common thread is people hang around the wrestling business and pretend they do things people do for a living... and fans don't second guess it. There are people who probably think Dave is no different from the editor of TIME." You jumped from a line about people around the wrestling business pretending they do real jobs to a line about fans misperceiving Dave as equivalent to the editor of Time. The reader's natural conclusion is to think you're lumping Dave in with the people who are pretending. If you can't see that, you're a moron.
  10. Childs
    I didn't defend the quality of his writing, and if you read through the thread, you'll notice numerous instances of me criticizing the sloppy presentation in the WON. I have no problem with anyone criticizing the specific stuff Dave produces. But Andrews took it several steps beyond that by suggesting that Dave is "pretending" to be a journalist. I think that's insulting and demonstrates a poor understanding of the field in which I happen to work. It's common for major publications to stomach sloppy writing from reporters who mitigate that flaw with deep knowledge of their beats or great ability to produce scoops. The difference between those publications and the WON is that they have editors who are charged with cleaning up the raw copy from said reporters. Is the lack of decent editing a flaw in the WON? Absolutely. Does it wipe out Dave's value as a reporter and reduce him to the level of an amateur blogger? You yourself have said that you value his content, so I guess not. Dave has worked for highly regarded publications over the years, from The National to Yahoo! Sports. So the suggestion that the "real world" would view him as a joke is, on its surface, incorrect.
  11. Childs
    This was a perfect match in the context of the tournament, because both guys came away looking great, and it set up real suspense for their match two nights later. I guess it was clear that they were going long from the early work, but none of it felt boring, and by the middle of the match, they conveyed plenty of urgency. They did an excellent job selling fatigue and also dialing up the nastiness in the last 10 minutes. And the crowd hung on every moment when they did their handful of big nearfalls at the end. I don't know if Chono had the potential to be as good as Kobashi or Misawa. He wasn't as dynamic athletically as either, even pre-injury. And I've never seen him express anything as dramatic as Misawa's grace under duress or Kobashi's raw desire or Hashimoto's ferocity when challenged. But he did have excellent timing and a strong connection with the crowd, so maybe there's something I'm not seeing.
  12. Childs
    It's actually sort of bizarre to suggest that movies exist to get you to do something. There are some advocacy films, of course, and some gigantic movies that exist in significant part as ads for product. But I assume most directors are hoping to tell a good story and, if they're lucky, make a little money.
  13. Childs
    Do you like the fact that he essentially kept the same look as a heel? I thought he should have gone for a more corporate look, at first. But I've come around to thinking he was even schmuckier, in a way, to keep his mullet and R'n'R garb.
  14. Childs
    Don't have a lot to add on this one. Strong work from both guys, as you'd expect. Unsatisfying finish, though it would have been fine if they had gone somewhere with an Eaton-and-Gibson-against-Morton feud.
  15. Childs
    This one felt rushed. I liked where they were going, with Muto starting the match at 100 mph and Fujinami slowing him down by working the knee. But the transition from Fujinami attacking to Muto chasing the fall happened awfully quickly, without as much selling as I would have liked. The crowd gave Muto a huge pop, so I guess they still achieved their goal in building for the Muto-Chono final. In an aside, I know Tim Cooke mentioned this in another thread, but I'll just reiterate that this was a heck of a tournament, even outside the matches that made the set. I'm not all the way through it, but Choshu and Bigelow had a good match, and Scott Norton was the surprise of the tourney, with a solid outing against Muto and a hugely crowd-pleasing match against Vader. If you're a New Japan fan and haven't seen this stuff, it's worth the effort.
  16. Childs
    I have always liked this match-up, and this was another good one between them. As Loss said, they weren't really equals at this point, so they didn't work it that way. Fujinami blitzed Vader at the bell but after that, he settled into taking a major ass beating. They did a standout job with the comeback teases. And then Fujinami hooked the backslide, which felt like an upset but not a ridiculous one given the work building up to it. They did everything they needed to do and nothing more.
  17. Childs
    It's hard for me to call this one of the best matches of the year when there's so much we can't see because it's a handheld. But it holds up as a wild-yet-well-put-together match. Gilbert's selling and character work were excellent, with his promo serving as the perfect stitching between the stretcher and cage matches. The non-finish finish irritated me after all that.
  18. Childs
    I wouldn't say Choshu dominated the match until the finish. We got plenty of Chono kicking him. It just wasn't that interesting. I wasn't into the first half of the match, but they did build to something compelling. Choshu helped get Chono over as a guy who could compete with the best, which was the point. I liked that Chono didn't win in a fluky way; it felt like a bigger deal for him to submit Choshu.
  19. Childs
    What the fuck are you talking about? I criticize Dave's sloppiness as much as the next person but to say that he "pretends" to do what he does is just asinine. He has worked exceptionally hard to build a small business and become the leading reporter in his field, and regardless of the flaws, he's still working his ass off 30 years in. I'm a writer at a large metro newspaper, and I would never say that he's "pretending." Have some fucking respect.
  20. Childs
    Muto and Chono were impressive, channeling their inner Rockers. And I've always thought Vader and Bam Bam made an excellent super heavyweight team. They could've been good together just as easily in the U.S. The NJ tag division cranked out a bunch of good matches in this period, and what's cool, from a yearbook standpoint, is that they weren't all the same. I still love All Japan, but between the '80s projects and the yearbooks, I've become just as big a fan of New Japan.
  21. Childs
    I'm horrified that this thread has again risen from the grave anew, but I do like the phrase "Five Shits of Doom" as applied to Flair. Made me smile.
  22. Childs
    This was the most "serious" Brazos trio on the yearbook to date and featured a lot of excellent wrestling. But as Loss said, it didn't quite hit the climax you'd want. I'm actually not sure I'd rank it above some of their more comedic matches. They were fucking great at comedy. I'd surely rewatch that Popitekus match before this one.
  23. Childs
    I definitely didn't hit the 6-man-fatigue point with this one. I always love it when Kikuchi pops in. And again, one of the great strengths of these matches was that Jumbo had intense and distinctive exchanges with all of the guys from the other side. This one is a great case study of that, because he almost had mini-matches with each opponent. As Loss suggested, Jumbo's rivalry with Kawada seemed to gain intensity throughout the year, leading to their Triple Crown match. But then we had the rarity of the top guys squaring off at the finish, setting the table for Misawa's big moment on 9/4. I agree that this was mostly a placeholder match. It was just a damn entertaining one that kept those plates spinning. On another note, was 1991 Jumbo's best year? It definitely wasn't his athletic peak or the year that featured his best match. But he was consistently great working up and down Team Misawa and across the singles, tags and six-mans. I'd say '91 or '89, but I think of '89 more as Tenryu's year.
  24. Childs
    I had previously thought the Sano-Shamrock match was better, but that might have been because Shamrock's performance was such a surprise. I preferred this one on second viewing. They brought such speed and intensity to the early mat exchanges. Suzuki, especially, attacked with incredible vigor. Sano was a great seller in a shoot context; he really conveyed the feeling of weathering a storm. Phil touched on a lot of the best spots. I loved the way they took the match down to second gear every so often, only for Suzuki to unleash another wild attack. One of his suplex nearfalls in the last few minutes was just sublime. And the draw didn't feel like a cheat because both guys seemed so desperate to win. It's hard to keep the tension alive for 30 minutes in this style, but they did it. One of the best shootstyle matches ever.
  25. Childs
    This match was bland and directionless until the closing stretch, with lots of holds from Gordy and Doc that neither passed the time compellingly nor led to much. The end sequence, with Miracle Violence trying to destroy Misawa's leg while keeping a feisty Kawada out of the ring, was more heated and focused. But even then, they made some strange decisions that threw off the rhythm of the match. I think we still have the best match between these teams ahead in the RWTL. But this was one of the worst All-Japan matches on the set (still needed to be included because of the title change.)
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