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Childs

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Everything posted by Childs

  1. Childs
    Man, I just can't get into these Hayabusa main events. I don't know if I've developed a block about it or what, but they all feel the same to me. I like Gannosuke a lot, and he did some nice groundwork and selling here. But it all led up to the same old string of big moves back and forth, with no wit or intensity to the transitions.
  2. Childs
    After the paucity of lucha so far, this was a bunch of fun. As Chad said, it offered a little bit of everything--some beautiful technical wrestling in the early match-ups, fantastic dives from Santo and Niebla, Santo-Casas animosity and Blue Panther ending the match in total dick fashion. I agree it went a little slack instead of peaking in the third fall. But pair this with Ishikawa-Greco and 4/24/98 was a nifty day of wrestling.
  3. Childs
    I didn't like Greco wrestling with his dangly earring. But that was about the only thing I didn't like. Again, Greco's superior athleticism came across, with him spinning off complicated move after complicated move like they were nothing. Ishikawa did a great job of selling that Greco had him on the defensive, so his counters at the end came off as both resourceful and desperate. The ending with the enzuigiris and the octopus felt like the world's greatest Inoki tribute, which, given the timing and Ishikawa's fandom, it probably was. One of the best BattlARTS matches we've seen yet.
  4. Childs
    The word that comes to mind is bloated. I didn't watch ECW at the time, so I feel no nostalgia for it. In going through the '90s stuff, I've been struck by how many of the matches and promo segments could've benefited from a tighter focus. There were lots of good kernels--the Foley promos, the FBI, the showcases for wrestlers such as Scorpio, Mysterio and Tajiri. And Heyman certainly succeeded in creating a distinct vibe. But I dislike a lot of what ECW birthed, especially the stunt-focused brawling style. Even the stuff a lot of others like--I'm thinking of the Funk-Sabu barbed wire match--I find tedious.
  5. Childs
    This was very good as a showcase for each of the four guys but only pretty good as tag match. Greco was probably the star, showing off his incredible athletic ability with some of the coolest grappling spots you'll ever see. The Ishikawa-Ikeda interactions popped as always. It did gel as a tag match a few times, including the first double-team spot from Ikeda and Greco and at the very end. But instead of building naturally throughout, I felt like they reset when a new match-up took the stage. It was kind of like the first fall of a lucha trios in that respect.
  6. Childs
    A worthy Carny final though as Loss said, not in the top tier. Misawa came out harder than he did in their Jan. match but again, Akiyama fought him off and put him on the defensive with an exploder on the floor. Misawa came up with a great counter to a second exploder attempt, pushing off the apron with his foot and driving Akiyama into the barricade. As in other matches this year, Akiyama's control sections weren't always dynamic. But he looked damn good when stringing together big moves to set up near falls. Misawa sold the leg at some opportune moments, lending meaning to Akiyama's mid-match work. So yeah, very good match, but I have to agree that it didn't portray any real progress for Akiyama. I guess it confirmed Misawa's strength going into the Dome defense against Kawada. But it's not like his strength was really in doubt.
  7. Childs
    I really liked the way this one built from the working of holds to Kobashi selling the leg to the run of big moves at the end. Felt like the best All-Japan match of the year to this point. I didn't find the draw severely telegraphed, though I knew it was coming.
  8. Childs
    Stray thought on this week's WON: There are few things more tedious than reading Dave's analysis of Google views.
  9. Childs
    Predictable but still fun in the execution. Vince's cat-ate-the-canary expression before Stone Cold flipped the script was fantastic stuff. It's hard to overstate how great a performer Vince was in this period. Austin was on the hottest run ever and deserves the credit he's gotten, but the whole thing was a duet. In a lot of ways, Vince whipped WCW with tools he had all along but wasn't using. So yeah, competition is good.
  10. Childs
    Foley was maybe the best ever at this kind of promo. He played with his real biography brilliantly. The fans still weren't treating him as a big star however.
  11. Childs
    This was bizarre. You could almost see them accidentally running an old spot, but they included a clip of Savage's recent cage match with Hogan, so it wasn't that. They were just dumb.
  12. Childs
    This was an excellent match. RVD could be really good as a guy bumping around for a more powerful opponent. And his dives over the rail hold up as impressive spots, with the camera angle really capturing the distance he flew. Bigelow delivered an excellent performance as well--almost Vaderesque in the way he mixed being a badass with making RVD look good. The Sabu stuff didn't take away from it too much. It made sense in the context of the ongoing storyline and gave RVD a believable way to pin the big guy. This trip through the '90s has left me more anti-ECW than pro, but this was among the best U.S. matches of the year to date.
  13. Childs

    Current WWE

    Childs replied to Smack2k's topic in WWE

    Regardless of who's winning next month, they goofed by not treating the beating as something out of the ordinary. Cena didn't have to look like he'd been in a car wreck. But he could've at least seemed shaken and in search of some kind of reboot. I just hate that they had the guts to do something striking in a big match and then squandered it by going so mundane. It feels creatively bankrupt.
  14. Childs

    Current WWE

    Childs replied to Smack2k's topic in WWE

    Dogshit. Took them eight days to murder my excitement coming out of Summerslam.
  15. Childs
    Haven't read it yet, but I was excited when I saw they did it.
  16. Childs
    This struck me as one of the stronger promos of HHH's career. The way he addressed the camera directly in putting HBK behind and beneath him was really effective, immediately making him a bigger figure than he'd ever seemed based on his performance record. The X-Pac stuff was fine, not a bad way to give DX some new flavor and throw shots at WCW. But HHH's opening was the real hook. This made me take him seriously at the time, after I'd long regarded him as a goof.
  17. Childs
    Poor Faarooq. Take any random selection of people, and I'm pretty sure they'd follow the Rock over him. Life ain't fair.
  18. Childs
    It is funny that Austin became such a huge babyface star, because his character really was the kind of unreasonable prick most of us would hate in actual life. He was so wrapped up with his own narrative that he couldn't recognize any context in which he might tone it down. We usually roll our eyes and mock people like that. I know the going theory held that people loved living vicariously through him as he released his working man's id on the boss. Maybe it was that or maybe he was just a charismatic fucker who popped off the screen. I'm not sure. But it's something to see, even 16 years later.
  19. Childs
    I don't have a good answer for why punches don't (always) bug me in the same way. At lease a really good fake punch looks better than a good fake armbar? it's a reach, but it's something..... As for the dissonance - are you an MMA fan at all? I'm a massive MMA fan and train BJJ, so maybe I'm just a little more sensitive to bad technique than some? I am but not a hardcore. I was more into it a few years back. I certainly don't know enough to be a stickler about technique, but again, I think I just view shoot style submission work as a whole different animal. I mean, Volk Han was arguably the greatest ever at it, and though he had legit training, a lot of his RINGS moves were just as carny as a shooting star splash.
  20. Childs
    But ideally, they'd give us all of the above, right? That's kind of how they sold it originally--you get all the PPVs, new specials plus this treasure trove. At this point, I go weeks at a time without watching the network. Almost all the excitement I felt at launch is gone. But I enjoy getting all the PPVs, and that's enough to keep me hooked.
  21. Childs
    You make a reasoned point. I just don't see how an armbreaker is profoundly different than a punch in that respect. Plenty of people have the same problem with shoot style, so I'm not shitting on that perspective. It's just interesting because it never created any dissonance for me that way (though I did find shoot style a little dry before I picked up the rhythm of it and saw some of the truly great matches).
  22. Childs
    Ultimate guilty pleasure might be my current enjoyment of Chris Benoit's work from 1998.
  23. Childs
    I find it odd/interesting that people get hung up on the MMA thing when watching shootstyle, because save for a few RINGS matches, it's just as obviously worked as any other pro wrestling. I see it similarly to Loss -- just another style of fake combat. And really, there's even a lot of variation within shootstyle (see OJ's hatred of UWF-i, which I enjoy in a totally different way than RINGS). Anyhow, I get that it just doesn't click for a lot of people, much as Dragon Gate or Chikara don't click for me. But I'm a little more thrown by the "I'd rather just watch the real thing" response. Getting back to the thread, my guilty displeasure is Terry Gordy. Great talent, often a great tag wrestler but most of his singles work doesn't do it for me at an all-time-great level (Khan match in World Class excluded but come on, KHAN was involved!). Smokey Mountain is another one. I feel like I should love it because I was an old Crockett fan, but I could never muster much interest. Struggling a little more to think of a guilty pleasure, though I feel like I'm out on a limb in not loathing Randy Orton.
  24. Childs
    This served its purpose, with Akiyama standing up to Kawada perhaps better than he ever had in a singles match. But something felt a little off, especially in the early going. The timing wasn't up to Kawada's normally impeccable standards. Though it got better as they went on, I'd still put this below the Kawada-Misawa from three nights later. I did love Akiyama tossing on the stretch plum. That was badass.
  25. Childs
    Yes, their rivalry felt tired. But shit, I can count on one hand the matches from the first quarter of 1998 that were better than this. I give them credit for always dialing up the effort, even in these 30-minute Carny draws that had become a mini-tradition. I never don't want to see Kawada cutting off a Misawa attack with a perfectly timed counter kick. It's like "Die Hard" on late-night cable or apple pie a la mode. I'm curious how I'll react to their Dome match, which I haven't seen in ages. But yeah, this was a welcome return to basics after their messy Triple Crown match the previous year.
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