Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

Childs

Moderators
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    5015

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Childs

  1. Childs
    I agree with everything you guys have said about this being a quintessential Flair match and maybe the last gasp for the version a lot of us grew up watching. But I do want to give Luger some props. For a guy who faced a lot of criticism over the years about his lack of passion for wrestling, he worked his ass off here. He went 30+ minutes, took some crazy bumps, sold when appropriate (thought him blowing off the arm work fit the story) and gave the crowd really expressive bursts of energy when the match called for them. Flair might have carried him in the sense that Luger didn't have enough stuff to fill that much time. But Luger was a game dance partner. I also enjoyed the Sting melodrama at the end, even if it might have been smarter to just put the belt on Lex.
  2. Childs
    If I was going to show a new fan the perfect evocation of the Midnights/R'n'R rivalry, I'd probably pick this match. Tight but not short, lots of great spots, classic face-in-peril segment by Morton, well-done Cornette shenanigans. This had it all. It didn't feel as BIG as the Flair-Luger main event, but I probably enjoyed it more.
  3. Childs
    There was a moment near the end of this that epitomized why Takada pisses me off. He was rocking Fujiwara with kicks, and Fujiwara put them over with some great staggering around selling. So what did Takada do? He dropped down into one of his limp-noodle leg locks. Seriously, fuck that guy. This was an excellent performance by Fujiwara and a mostly lousy one by Takada (though I dug his receipt headbutt).
  4. Childs
    As someone who came to puro relatively late, maybe 2005 or so, I have to agree with OJ. I read a lot of stuff as I worked my way into that world, and though I saw some appreciation for Choshu's series with Fujinami and for his All-Japan run, I did not get the overall impression he was regarded as an elite worker. That's not to say he wasn't regarded that way in 1987. But his reputation seemed to have stagnated compared to those of some contemporaries. So for me, watching all of the footage for the NJ and AJ DVDVR sets, there was an element of "Holy shit, this guy was great." I'm not sure Gehrig is a good baseball comparison. He never stopped being the consensus choice as the top first baseman in MLB history. But think about someone like Lefty Grove. Sure, he was always regarded as great, an easy HOF guy. But until Bill James came along and presented his career in a new light, he wasn't widely discussed as a candidate for greatest pitcher ever. James certainly didn't "discover" Lefty Grove, but he kicked off an era of looking at him in a new light.
  5. Childs
    I'm as cynical about politicians as the next person, but that's ridiculous Victator, unless you're going for some sort of abstract argument that they're part of a system that's evil to the core.
  6. Childs
    You didn't vote for Cena, Kris? Was that just a matter of figuring he'd get in anyway and apportioning your votes to those who needed them more?
  7. Childs
    No matter how much money you have, you have to give people some reason to vote for you. Linda's claim to fame is building a business that she didn't really build and that she's afraid to talk about. She had literally nothing to offer other than her ability to buy television ads without raising money. I'm amazed that people here think Vince's sins are anywhere within the normal range for an American political candidate. He's a sleezy death merchant whose television program is a 20-year advertisement for extremely troubling views about race, gender, health, etc. I agree that the CT political reporters didn't do the best job of digging on Linda, but I think the coverage would have ramped to a whole different level with Vince as a candidate.
  8. Childs
    Good lord, Vince would never have a prayer. They'd hang him with all the stuff they hanged her with x 10, even if he is more charismatic and more competent.
  9. Childs
    I respect your opinion, so when I disagree with you, it seems worth noting.
  10. Childs
    I actually don't think they would have had a better match sans eye injury. This was a hell of a fight and exactly what I'd want from this pairing. You had the crazy stiff shots from beginning to end. You had them rampaging around ringside like uncaged zoo animals. You had Vader unleashing a nasty attack on Stan's ribs and Stan selling it like a pro. You had Vader hitting that awesome dropkick as a counter to the lariat. I agree with Loss that the match is more remembered than it would have been without the eye injury. But the freak-show image has served to flatten our collective memory of the whole thing, and that strikes me as a disservice. It was my MOTN, which is saying a hell of a lot given the Choshu-Tenryu tag and the unexpectedly excellent AWA title match.
  11. Childs
    Cool discovery. This was not just a neat toss-off between two guys who have gained esteem in our little circle. It was an excellent match that built from nicely contested matwork all the way through some great near falls at the end. I loved Saito's expressiveness as a babyface, which really seemed to pull the crowd into the match. Then I got even more fired up by Zbyszko's series of punches near the end. Loss called this a short match, but it actually felt longer and more epic than I expected. Those who grew to love Saito on the NJ and AWA sets should seek this out.
  12. Childs
    I had never seen this and had a blast watching it. It certainly wasn't a deep match, but it fit the setting perfectly, with guys flying all over the ring and Tenryu and Choshu just blasting each other. I thought Misawa was fine, though it's amazing how much more presence he carried just a few months later. It's a shame we never got a full-on AJ vs. NJ program during the '80s or '90s.
  13. Childs
    The crowd for this was flat-out nuts. The match itself was good for something that appeared down the card and featured teams of mismatched rank. Kimura got in some really stiff shots, and the crowd went apeshit when Kido got Jumbo in the arm bar. It was about as competitive as it should have been and worth including for the atmosphere alone.
  14. Childs
    They went for a very different dynamic than in most of their matches, with Fujiwara actually landing more meaningful strikes and Maeda ultimately outworking him on the mat. I always mark out for Fujiwara's driving shootstyle headbutts, and they were on excellent display here. The finish, with Fujiwara seeming to pull out a desperation leg submission only to fall into the choke, was nifty. It left the live crowd flat but on tape, it was nifty. This is one of my favorite match-ups in wrestling, and I have to admit I find it a little more stirring when Maeda is stalking Fujiwara with kicks and Fujiwara is rolling away from the blows James-Toney-style as he probes for a submission opening. So, good as this was, it fell short of their peak.
  15. Childs
    This stuff does a nice job of setting up the coming transition, though, which as Loss and Will have said, is the theme of 1990.
  16. Childs
    Not a criticism at all, because it's not a classic match by any means, but I was curious why you guys only took the finish of this one.
  17. Childs
    More proof that these guys were gold against one another, though there was something very strange about watching a Ron Garvin match with Tony Schiavone announcing in the WWF. Anyway, I loved the combination of assbeating and carny nonsense involving the leg braces. It felt more like a standout match from the territories than something from McMahonland. Thank God Monsoon wasn't announcing. He would have been an insufferable scold about the attempted pins in a submission match.
  18. Childs
    I know that was a talking point during the '80s All-Japan watching, but I'm not sure I ever agreed. I watched pretty much every Footloose match on tape during the nominating process. Fuyuki was better in certain matches. But Kawada always had better offense, and he was damn good as Tenryu's partner in some pretty big matches. He just didn't look very good here.
  19. Childs
    I actually didn't find the Tenryu/Jumbo stuff that memorable and thought it was a lousy performance for Kawada (by the standard he established in '88-'89, not judging him against his peak.) But again, surly Tenryu made the match. He almost felt like a character melting down at this stage, with his insistence on trying to bust up Takagi's face and his desire to fight everyone at ringside. Seemed only appropriate that his lack of control cost his team any shot at winning.
  20. Childs
    This was a touch disappointing, probably because I'm a fan of both guys. It was a solid match, with Sawyer getting to do a lot of his signature stuff. But it would have been better if Arn had gotten in more of a comeback before the interference.
  21. Childs
    Unlike Pete, I'm a fan of UWF style. But I agree that this match encompassed a lot of the worst of it. I didn't mind the pauses and restarts for rope breaks and knockdowns. I did mind the numerous sections of listless matwork, a common problem for Takada and an occasional problem for Maeda. The groundwork in Yamazaki/Anjoh, for example, reached a whole different level of intensity. The Takada/Maeda match-up worked best when they went to war standing, as they did on 11/10/88. I did like the finish, with Takada taking Maeda's ankle in a neat way and Maeda really selling his desperation to get out before tapping. I also liked Takada's little celebration, putting over how big a deal it was to beat the ace.
  22. Childs
    It didn't get dropped, but it's in deep freeze because no one who has the footage is terribly enthusiastic about going through it.
  23. Childs
    People love to talk about the greatest anything. There are tons of books, columns, discussion threads, etc. attempting to establish canon in film, pop music and any other kind of art. And yes, it's a particular obsession in sports coverage. If I wanted to inflame my newspaper's readers beyond reckoning, all I'd have to do is write a blog post saying Johnny Unitas wasn't one of the five greatest quarterbacks ever or that Cal Ripken was right when he said Adrian Beltre was a better third baseman than Brooks Robinson. People eat that shit up, so why should it be any different with wrestling?
  24. Childs
    This really was excellent. The Rockers looked so sharp with all of their clever teamwork spots to the point where they felt like favorites to win. The match wasn't at the level of their best AWA stuff against Rose and Somers, but as a one-team performance, it was as good as I've seen them look. At first, I thought Shawn went down a little easily after the Fuji interference. But I changed my mind. A match like that should feel like a tightrope walk for the smaller team, with any slip representing potential disaster.
  25. Childs
    This is the kind of match I'd show to a Tenryu skeptic. He made a whatever tag interesting just by being a great son of a bitch.
×
×
  • Create New...