Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

Childs

Moderators
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    5001

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Childs

  1. Childs
    I got a kick out of revisiting this segment, which I hadn't thought about in years. My favorite moments were the cutaway shots to a horrified Sean Mooney in the control center. Jake also did a good job selling his anguish, especially when he peeked in the bag. This was goofy, sure, but it was a clever way to create some interest around a feud that could've been pretty meaningless. It was more compelling, for example, than most of the build we're seeing for this year's Wrestlemania.
  2. Childs
    God, Piper was ripped by his standards. This was a basic match that nonetheless built heat on the Piper/Virgil vs. Dibiase feud. Piper came out hot, throwing hands. But even on offense, he teased the weakness of his bad knee. Ted eventually capitalized, and he and Sherri hammed it, up playing monumental assholes. Piper wouldn't submit to the figure four, so the ref did it for him, which seemed an effective way to keep Piper tough in defeat. One complaint: Ted's chair shots looked like those of a 10-year-old girl. If you're going to be a dick heel, swing that fucker like you mean it.
  3. Childs
    Tim did a great job of describing what made this a classic, so I won't elaborate too much. It has to be the shortest feeling 50-minute match in history. I had forgotten the actual finish, so I was surprised when it happened and I realized that much time had elapsed. They just did an incredible job of hitting all the key notes of the factional rivalry without any of it feeling old hat. The Kawada-Taue brawl at the beginning was a particular highlight, and this was probably Fuchi's best performance in the feud. This match epitomizes the greatness of early '90s All-Japan in a way that's distinct from the stuff produced by the Misawa-Kawada rivalry. We've talked about this in other threads, but there was a richness created by having so many interesting match-ups up and down the factions. I expected this to be my MOTY coming into the set and saw nothing to change that assumption.
  4. This post cannot be displayed because it is in a password protected forum. Enter Password
  5. Childs
    I said "a lot of the earlier-generation talk." I'm aware that you pimped their matches in various places. But I'm also quite certain that when I got up to speed on the promotion (long after the fact) I did not read a lot about Kawada-Taue being one of the great All-Japan rivalries of the decade. I'm merely saying that at this point, I think it was.
  6. Childs
    It's not a draw.
  7. Childs
    Tough to live up to the All Japan that came before it, but this was a nice little fight in its own right. They laid in the shots and did a good job building drama around the attempts to touch the turnbuckles. I prefer that a gimmick match like this represent a definitive stage in a feud. Instead, Austin's interference felt like it could have been the ending to any Jarrett-Pritchard match. Blood would've been nice as well. Nonetheless, I'm eager to see more from these guys.
  8. Childs
    Definitely the best match between these teams and a hell of a lot more focused than their 1990 stuff. You don't usually think of Hansen as a face-in-peril guy, but he did a tremendous job in that role, eating a massive beating as he bled profusely. I also loved the way they staged the ending stretch, with the ref missing Hansen's tag and Doc desperately trying to finish off Spivey as Gordy kept knocking Stan out of the ring. They even pulled back to a long shot, so the TV fewer could properly take it in. Then we suddenly teleported to WWF or WCW as a second ref appeared to tell the first ref about the missed tag. And how cool was it when Hansen, finally clear to enter, bee-lined to Doc and took him out with the lariat? This felt way different than the other big AJPW tags of the era but was better for it. The 4/18 show has to go down as one of the best we've seen on any yearbook.
  9. Childs
    I was quite surprised to find this a significantly stronger match than their 6/8/90 encounter. I guess I just like the more assertive Misawa, who rocked Jumbo with elbows to start the proceedings and then merrily slapped the shit out of him during a great mid-match exchange. They built to an awesome run of nearfalls, with Misawa staging a near-vintage comeback only to eat a brutal trio of back suplexes. Even though I knew the result, I popped for the spot where Misawa blocked Jumbo and then drilled him with a German suplex for a 2.9 count. From now on, I'll regard this and the 9/1/90 match as their masterpieces, with the 6/8/90 match a step down despite the memorable finish. This is a MOTYC, even if I expect it to be rapidly eclipsed by the 4/20 six-man.
  10. Childs
    I feel like this feud was undersold in a lot of the earlier-generation talk about '90s All-Japan, which tended to dismiss pre-1995 Taue. Here, they were able to work a great, intense match that was totally different from their January brawl. It featured more of a traditional slow build from holds to big moves. But I loved the little touches of hate, like Taue punching Kawada in the kidney to stave off his early armwork and Kawada scraping his boot across Taue's face when he had him locked on the mat. I had always thought of Kawada's interest in submissions as coming later, but he really showcased the armbar here. And as always, he landed some beautiful momentum-shifting kicks. I didn't mind the ending. I guess it was a bit abrupt after some great nearfalls, but at least they put over the potency of Taue's finisher. So yeah, Kawada-Taue almost never misfired. It should be held up as one of the promotion's great rivalries.
  11. Childs
    I agree with Loss that this was a step up from their excellent match the year before. Flair liked to work hard and obviously got jazzed for Pillman, who wanted to go shot-for-shot with him. Pillman, in turn, put over the standard Flair attack like a million bucks. It is a shame that they never got to work a big match on a Clash or PPV, because they were gold against each other.
  12. Childs
    I didn't have strong feelings about this, but as an athletic showcase to prime the palate for a great top of the card, it was quite good.
  13. Childs
    This feud keeps on delivering. These guys just looked good against each other, even doing basic stuff. And when they moved into nonsense, like the ref bump, they carried that off as well. This match-up has been my happiest surprise of the yearbook.
  14. Childs
    WCW always found a way to deliver good TV matches, even when the big picture of the promotion was kind of a mess. Flair-Morton gave us the goods as always, and Windham was back to being one of the best workers in the world in '91 after a largely undistinguished '90. I have no idea what I was supposed to take away from the ending brawl.
  15. Childs
    I hate Octagon, so I enjoyed watching Satanico kick the shit out of him. I did not enjoy watching Octagon steal two consecutive falls, though I guess it worked okay as a little story about Satanico going too far.
  16. Childs
    I didn't mind the promo cutting. In-match shit talking was part of the style down there -- just as it is in many intense athletic contests. The punch exchanges were as good as expected. Embry's attack on Lawler's neck looked great. I was primed for Lawler's comeback. That said, I agree with Loss that the cage was superfluous and ultimately distracting because it reminded me of the violence I wasn't seeing.
  17. Childs
    Not much to add. This match carried an engaging intensity that would mark the whole Windham-Pillman feud. Pillman was on fire at this point -- best stretch of his career.
  18. Childs
    One of the cool things about '91 is that Jumbo had just as interesting a rivalry with the No. 2 guy in the enemy faction as with No. 1. You don't see that often, but it added a real depth to everything. This was an excellent match. It will be interesting to compare it with the more lauded Triple Crown match from October.
  19. Childs
    Here's a link to the Sports Illustrated story about it if you haven't seen: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/art...91281/index.htm. Kram was a brilliant writer, but as I recall, he took a pretty condescending attitude toward Inoki.
  20. Childs
    John, I agree that Dave should've known better than to use this performance as an argument against Jumbo. MJH, you're being hyperbolic in the other direction. You've watched enough All-Japan to know that Jumbo wrestled differently when he was trying to make a lower-ranked guy shine. He delivered a perfectly sensible performance here and gave Mick some rope. But the speed with which he wrapped up the match suggested that he was not putting him over as any kind of threat. And that's fine; honestly it's a match that has received too much attention because Dave misappropriated it for a dumb argument.
  21. Childs
    I did not like this nearly as much as Loss and did not think it was one of Hogan's strongest performances from Japan. I liked some of the big spectacle stuff, like the double press slams of Hogan and Tenryu. And I'll never complain about double juice. But I never, for a second, got sucked into the drama of the match. Hogan and Tenryu didn't trust the Warriors to sell (rightly, I'm sure.) But their peril never felt particularly perilous. Loss had me excited for this, so it was actually a pretty big disappointment
  22. Childs
    I'm usually on the positive side with shootstyle matches and especially Sano shootstyle matches, but this struck me as just OK. They were terrific athletes, obviously, and they did some neat stuff. I just didn't get any sense of one guy asserting a particular style or of them having to dig particularly deep. It was a good match that failed to meet my high expectations.
  23. Childs
    I have never loved this match quite as much as its biggest fans, but that's not a fault of the performance. I just can't completely get past being irritated by Warrior. On the other hand, this is always a reminder of how much I loved Savage, just the way he moved around the ring. They certainly nailed all the big beats. Savage's five elbows were such a great choice for a huge match on a huge stage. And even Warrior's moments of self-doubt worked with the arc of his character. Sherri gave a great performance, and the Elizabeth stuff delivered one of the great second endings in wrestling history. This was actually a fascinating Wrestlemania between the lower-card highlights, this peak of WWF melodrama and the jingoistic semi-misfire that was the main event.
  24. Childs
    I can't imagine them doing any better with a tough gimmick, and those kinds of matches are always fun/memorable.
  25. Childs
    I had never seen this before for whatever reason, but it has to be one of the best Wrestlemania openers. It wasn't quite as good as Rockers vs. POP from the previous year. As Loss said, it was more of a babyface selling performance by the Rockers and didn't give them quite as many opportunities to show off their offense. But they were a hell of a team in this period, and Haku and Barbarian were always believable asskickers.
×
×
  • Create New...