FLIK

Main Event is my new favorite WWE show. You get at least one long match and one shorter match but it's not a squash. I really enjoyed Ziggler vs Miz. Only problem with Main Event is the commercial breaks. It's worse than a CMLL show in that department. Haven't seen the Kofi match, has Miz ever had a better match then the one with Ziggler this week? Don't know how long it's going to last but i'm gonna attempt to start watching WWE regular again via the stuff I can find online so I can skip commercials and other crap I have no interest in like the Vickie/AJ/Cena angle.

I had (may still have) that ring. In my action figure league at some point I made Hacksaw Jim Duggan a heel and had him beat the shit out of ppl with that flag. I also pretended the Berserker was his brother and fantasy booked them like Kevin & Evad Sullivan only more evil. The ring itself was kinda crap actually in hindsight or maybe I just abused mine The freakin post always used to break so i'd have to jam a pencil or stick in the hole to keep the two parts together and the ropes would snap so I had to re-tie them a bunch.

Yeah, in wrestling there's a big diffrence between guy who's a draw & guy who can main event opposite the draw and or main event if the draw is still on the show in a high profile position.

Yeah, Inoki was my first throught for Japan as well.

Watched this yesterday Thought Show vs Sheamus was a great match & the best one on the show, didn't think it was slow or plodding at all. Wasn't planing on getting HIAC but i'm gonna track it down now just to see their first which most ppl seem to think was better. Opener was really good too, 2nd best match of the show. Outside of the messed up suplex spot I didn't think Tensai or Brodus looked bad at all & everyone else was on point. Team Ziggler vs Team Foley was good but nothing special, little too much of a by the numbers WWE big match for me. Never needed to see Del Rio hit another step up enzugiri in my life after this match. 3 Way was a lot better then I exspected. Ryback impressed me in a "he was perfectly competent" sorta way. Hopefully after he moves away from Punk they'll give him someone good enough to drag longer singles matches outta him on the house show loop with out too much smoke & mirrors. I think he actually has a lot of potential to improve as a worker but 2 min squashes won't help him much in that department. Rest of the show sucked with that hour between the first match & Show/Sheamus being horribly brutal to sit through. I'm all for giving women's wrestling time but Kaitlyn/Eve needed to be like a minute tops.

Dunno if it would be easier to have a seperate "Other Matches from 1990 worth watching" thread but for now i'll put this here. AJPW 1/20/1990 Tiger Mask II & Kenta Kobashi vs Dynamite Kid & Davey Boy Smith Comparing this to the Fantastics vs Footloose tag from earlier in the month that made the set as far as random mid card work rate tags go I like this one a lot more. Dynamite was still mobile, Davey was awesome, Misawa looked better here then he does in a lot of other matches in the early part of the yearbook & Kobashi is fine as Bulldog whiping boy. Came away really wanting to see a Tiger vs Davey Boy singles match or even just more tags with them opposite each other.

Could rattle off a lot of recomendations for Japan & England but 70's US I don't know too much about. From the little i've seen I really liked these 2 Memphis 6/11/1979 Bill Dundee vs Tony Charles AWA? 5/25/1973 - (2 out of 3 Falls) Dick The Brusier & Wahoo McDaniel vs Ernie Ladd & Superstar Graham And pre 70's but I thought this was a great match as well Chicago 6/30/1961 (NWA Title - 2 out of 3 Falls) Pat O'Connor © vs Buddy Rogers

Goodhelmet & others have put together several best of 80's sets for various territories. I'd suggest heading over to the DVDVR board and looking through the various ranking threads to get more ideas on stuff you should seek out http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/forum/4...-project-forum/

Kobashi bumped early, tottaly his fault on that one. So far in none of the matches i've seen of Misawa's this year has he looked like anything close to a future Ace. That said, he was still the more complete wrestler here. Kobashi did a lot more big moves but he'd barely been wrestling 2 years at this point so still looked really rough around the edges here.

Never saw Brodus as a long term or high up the card guy in WWE myself. Thought it was a sweet gig though cause after he gets future endevored it's the type of gimmick he'll be able to milk to death forever on indies and WWE likes to bring back every so often for nostalgia runs. Wrestler A going over Wrestler B to show how weak wrestler B is with no intention of elevating A has always been a long time WWE staple. My "favorite" example was always the time Ric Flair jobbed clean to Rico.

I need more Billy Joe in my life, Valiant...no comment A little part of me really wishes these two were a tag team.

6/4/90 - Manami Toyota, Mika Takahashi & Kaoru Maeda vs Aja Kong, Bison Kimura & Grizzly Iwamoto They switched things up and brought over an AJW ref to handle things, nothing against Yamaguchi but that's def a wise move. You can tell the girls had really started to get over with the new audiance at this piont as the crowds hyped for this one. Funnily enough it's the Gokumonto heels that are the one's who have the biggest cheering squad too with Aja especially being crazy over. In a funny bit they chant her name in tune with every offensive move she hits or when the ref counts a pinfall for her like the ECW fans chanted Shaw for Hack Myers. Hilarious stuff I really can't do justice describing. On the opposite end, the crowd doesn't dislike Honey Wings DX either, they'd ohh, ahh and applaud when they'd do a big move or cool spot but they're not as into them as they are their opponents. Match itself follows the previous pattern of the heels kicking all kinds of ass and the faces having to bravely fight back. All 6 really busted ass in this one and near the end Toyota & Kaoru are getting big chants as well after making their comeback. Near fall exchange is really good down the stretch and ends with Aja & Toyota going at it. After escaping a suplex attempt Aja backfist Toyota and puts her down with a huge german suplex of her own to win. This wouldn't crack my top 10 for AJW in 1990 but i'd say this is def somewhear in the top 20. Great great match with a hot crowd, nothing not to love about this.

Just watched the full version of this. I'd have called it one of the best matches of the year just based off the first 15 mins or which is primarilly just a big surly slugfest, the great angle at the end just pushes it over the top. Brilliant stuff Tenryu accidently nailing Hansen twice, getting his leg destroyed forever making you beg for the hot tag then Tenryu quiting just before he was about to be saved causing Hansen to snap. Only thing that would have made this better would have been if Tenryu's buddies like Kawada & Fuyuki had shown a little more concern. When Hansen starts going off on Tenryu they just kinda look on like it was no big deal "oh thear goes Stan again, sigh, guess we better pull him off". Also wish MVC would have gotten to celebrate a bit more after winning the tag titles instead of being pushed to the background the second the match was over.

Watched this this mourning and i'd absolutely recomend it. In a year with some really great cage matches this one really holds it's own as one of the best I thought, just an awesome war of a match no pun intended. Tenryu doing a cross body off the top of the cage should get it on the set alone 5/5/97 is the date. I'd also recomend the Goto vs Tenryu singles match from 7/6/97. More of a spectacle then a pure match but as a blow off to the feud it works well. Goto plays evil monster destroying everything around him including the ref who bleeds a gusher, Tenryu fires back and quite decisively beats Goto's ass in revenge. Haven't seen but looking through the Quebrada tape list I see this listed for the 6/6/97 show which might be worth looking into as well. Super Handicap Match: Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya & Masatomo Takei (company president, Tenryu's brother in law) vs. Tarzan Goto & Ryo Miyake.

Meh, I like Aja more as well but I think you're way under selling Bull. Wait until you get through 90 & 91 then see if you change your mind as she goes through one of the all time great title runs anywhear in wrestling ever.

Heh, what's funny is i've had Tigerpride on ignore for like 2 months now so I never actually read any of his post unless they get quoted by others. He took to harrasing me via PM for a while too until I figured out you can block ppl from sending you those as well. I'm way way too old to possibly give a fuck beyond that so I just move on about my business otherwise

Eh Tammy's a long term substance abuser with serious mental issues who did poor quality nude photo shoots for a shady website run by Missy Hyatt & whores herself out for shoot videos produced by a dude who got caught on tape going to a stangers house to try & fuck an underage boy. She used to fuck Shawn Michaels & has been arrested multiple times for domestic violence against a no name indy geek. Chyna's a long term substance abuser with serious mental issues who did Playboy photo shoots & & whores herself out for gang bang vids for a top adult movie company. She used to fuck HHH & has been arrested for domestic violence against X-Pac. It's a close call thear

I haven't followed this either, but WTF ? So apparently they also did a new one just after she got out of rehab too

- (Cage Match) Bull Nakano vs Aja Kong Just based on my initial few viewings of this I allready had this on my list of the greatest matches i've ever seen. That was before i'd seen very much of the Aja/Bull feud and only a small amount of 90-92 AJW in general. Watching it again now I had an even greater appreciation for it. The over all work is still unbelievably great but now I got a lot more of the little things that were going on and dug how they played off their earlier cage match. Since that one had a screwy finish with Gedo, it makes sense why this one is escape only and has no ref. In the previous match Aja cut open Bull's leg really bad so here Bull puts it over huge when she goes after it again and as retaliation she stabs Aja in the arm with a pair of scissors which is an aspect i'd never thought of before, originally just thinking she did it just to be a bitch. Also never got why Aja jumps her at the start and cuts a chunk of Bull's hair off till I realised they were setting up for the hair vs hair tag next Jan. The other thing I dug a lot more was watching what was going on outside of the cage with each girls seconds. While Aja vs Bull was always the main focus, the feud itself was a lot more then just that as it was about Jungle Jack vs Gokumon-to in general. Got a big kick out of watching how hard Bison & Madusa were fighting it out with Kyoko & Bat ringside and how hard they were trying to help their friends inside the cage, tossing in weapons, Madusa & Bison going nuts and trying to scale the cage once Bull cut Aja's arm open, Kyoko & Bat doing the same when Aja had Bull in serious trouble at times too. Really cool stuff, matches like these are why I love wrestling.

- (3WA Tag Titles - 2 out of 3 Falls - Special Ref Yoshiyo Yamada) Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami © vs Manami Toyota & Kyoko Inoue This is the match my opinion has changed the most of after re-watching. Originally I thought this was just an ok - decent match but this time around I got a lot more out of it and found it to be really good. It's not a work rate, blow away, movez type of match. Not to say that there isn't a lot of great action but the thing that puts this over the top is the story of the match. Yamada was out injured thus unable to team with Toyota so instead she's made ref and Kyoko Inoue is booked to team with Toyota. Even back then the 2 were rivals so we've got whacky mis matched tag parters, something way way over played in main stream US wrestling but rarely ever done in AJW or Japanese wrestlng in general. Things go well for the new pairing early on, Marine Wolves prove to be a better unit, doing a lot of team work and mostly dominating the 1st round but Kyoko & Toyota are still good enough wrestlers that they can come out on top so long as they coexist. With a little help from Yamada "mistakenly" not seeing Hokuto get her shoulder up at the count of 3 Kyoko gets the pin on her. Funny moment as even she wasn't sure it was really 3 and acted all surprised when Yamada gave it to her. 2nd round things look to continue but it goes bad quickly as Kyoko decideds to bring a chair in and accidenly nails Toyota causing her to lose. Shit breaks down after as Toyota decideds she in fact does not enjoy getting smacked in the head by heavy metal things and her & Kyoko get into a fight with people having to rush in to break it up. The soldier on for the 3rd fall which sees Toyota getting beat down by The Wolves for quite a while before finally making the big tag to Inoue. Soon after things go bad again though as Hokuto & Suzuka prove to also be a smarter pair and after getting Kyoko again attack Toyota on accident Hokuto gets her win back, pinning her with the NLB. Post match Toyota gets on the mic, talks shit and says her & Yamada want their shot. Course, a month later Jungle Jack won the titles so moot point.

- (Cage Match - Special Ref Bulldog KT) Aja Kong vs Bull Nakano The version I have is from the original TV broadcast not the AJW Classics episode that came out earlier this year. Sadly for some reason this is the only match from that tv ep that exist today and whatever earlier stuff that aired on the same episode got cut off/no one taped/isn't in circulation. They do air a highlight package at the end of the show showing briefe clips of what else took place on this show and among other things this card also had a lost Kyoko vs Toyota singles match, ending with Toyota going over with the rolling cradle in 18+ so f u to whoever forgot to set their VCR to record the rest of this show 20 years ago. I think Aja agrees as she infact has "Fuck U" shaved into the side of her head...yup. Much like the Madusa match a couple months ago, they have Aja & her opponent do a face to face pre match promo and shockingly, it again breaks down into a crazy brawl backstage. Madusa actually seconds Aja here so I guess the post match hug during their street fight is what formed their alliance. Would have been interesting to see whear her as a member of Jungle Jack had played out long term had she not bounced in 91 to go to WCW. Match itself is worked a little diffrently then your usual AJW cage match and thinking about it, as far as I can tell this may infact be the 1st cage match AJW ever did. To start with, this one has a ref and not just any ref no, Bulldog Fucking KT who would be better known today as Gedo who'd been in wrestling like 1 year at this point. Why in the blue ass hell he of all people is the ref for this match I have no clue. He ends up playing a big part in the match though. He won't let either wrestler use weapons which is obviously weird since it's a freakin cage match and so he's always taking them from them and getting in their face for it. Last man standing rules are also in effect so you can win via some other means then escape which doesn't even play a factor until the end. Intense hatred rite straight off the bat as they get to beatin the crap out of each other. Bull gets the early advantage but it doesn't last long and they go back and forth for a while. They alternate between brawling and trying to wear each other down with holds and power stuff and I thought they pulled off the mix well. Things get interesting when Aja decides to go after Bulls leg and goes nuts attacking it with a trash can. She opens up a pretty fair sized gash on Bulls leg and once Aja smells blood she goes to work on that for a while and while Bull tries to fight back but never fully regains control. Along the way I should mention that Gedo bets whacked a few times by both for his troubles of trying to enforce rules in this cage match and he ends up a bloody mess as well. For the finish he also ends up playing a big part as after Aja nails Bull a few more times in the leg she goes to escape and though Bull manages to get back to her feet, Gedo is standing near the ropes fully in the way preventing Bull from getting thear in time and allowing Aja to get the win. Bull cries foul post match leading to screaming & yelling and all hell breaking loose post match with them brawling some more and having to be sperated. For what this was designed to do I thought this did a perfect job. No whear close to their more famous cage match a few months later but it was great as a set up for the re-match and just as a stand alone still really damn good.

- Aja Kong & Bison Kimura vs Bull Nakano & Grizzly Yamato Everything I want out of wrestling & so much more. If I still gave out star ratings this would get 5. Legit one of the greatest matches i've ever seen. At it's best, great wrestling matches allways garner 1 of 2 responses from me. Either i'm jumping up & down going "fuck yeah, whoo, this is amazing" or i'm sitting thear deathly silent, intensely concentrating, not wanting to blink and miss 1 second. This match falls into the latter category. I couldn't turn away by the end, just staring with my mouth 1/2 open in disbeliefe at how damn fuckin great this was. This wasn't just good in your standard "oh they did a b & c, I like all those things, toss in a blender & mix for yummy goodness" sorta way. This was special, they did a through z then invented a 27th & 28th letter because they're just that good. Everyone was so perfect playing their roles, especially Bull as the unstopable dominant monster. Watching Bull just stand thear as Aja & Bison tried with all their heart to beat the shit out of her with Kendo sticks and Bull just had this "come on, is THAT all you've got" look on her face is one of those iconically cool moments in wrestling that you know you'll never ever forget.

- Manami Toyota vs Akira Hokuto Even better version of the match they had a few months later. Actually this may be the best singles between them i've seen period. Starts off super hot and then switches gears as this time Hokuto, the imortal mummy goddess goes in with a bad leg that Toyota goes to town on and the selling & drama that results is just off the charts. There was such an awesome air of desperation to everything they did as well, with it feeling like it was a true war to get any move in on the other, no one wanting to get caught in any hold w/o a fight and every big move being treated like it could be the end. A true joy to watch. I made the comment on the Yamada/Toyota match that it never seemed like they were going to a draw because they'd often work a little bit of a slower paced, long matwork section in most all their matches, here it's the opposite, this never appeared like they were going the distance either but it was because it was just non stop action the whole way through with never a dull moment.

- (3WA Title) Bull Nakano © vs Manami Toyota A total power vs speed match. At the begining none of Toyota's attacks work. She runs at Bull, eats a lariat, runs at Bull, gets tossed asside like garbage, runs at Bull, gets slamed down. She tries a new strategy of trying to take it to the mat but that doesn't work so well either as Bull stretches her to hell instead. Like at the JGP last month the crowd is again split but this time it's around 70/30 in favor of Toyota so whenever a Bull chant breaks out it's quickly drowned by the larger Manami cheer squad. Toyota makes her come back and goes back to spazzing out like a mad woman, this time to more success. She's able to hit a lot of fast moving dives and other attacks and escapes a lot of Bull's power stuff either moving out of the way to hit a move of her own or countering into a roll up or cradle for a near fall. Crowds going nuts at this stage hoping for a title change but as is often when people try & play the speed game with Bull it ends badly because eventually she will catch you and all it takes is one monster lariat or flying leg drop or in case of the finish a nasty looking power bomb droping Toyota on her head for the win. Entire match only goes like 9 minutes but it's one of the best sub 10 matches i've ever seen and a damn great match period. Proving it's not always how much time you get but what you do with it that counts.

Heh, she actually did put out a weight loss book about 10 or so years back. She started dieting down not too soon after she first disapeared from wrestling. Here's an old clip from 2 or 3 years ago of her making a cameo on a weight loss show helping Dump Matsumoto drop some weight