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Zenjo

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Everything posted by Zenjo

  1. Zenjo
    Certainly overfamiliar and routine from this long standing rivalry. It was still a decent TV bout. Things were starting to heat up down the stretch before the predictable DQ finish. Sting was definitely in need of a character change at this point.
  2. Zenjo
    I've no idea if this guy is doing a parody of a deranged troll?
  3. Zenjo
    I should point out that Inoki was 52 at the time, not 60. Whatever his age he rolled back the clock and delivered the last great effort of his long career. Vader dished out quite a beating including the infamous Release German. Inoki's brains were literally scrambled after that one. The dynamic worked perfectly with the American monster heel beating down the old Japanese hero. Coming straight to this from December '93 it's noticeable what bad shape Vader is in at this point in time. In a funny way that could've helped this match as Inoki's comebacks would have looked less convincing against a peak Vader. The Rocky Mountain man also bladed. Antonio survived all of his opponents top end offense and hung on long enough to grab the submission. I would say it's as strong a match as possible considering the participants physical condition at the time. Not a great one outright. My favourite moment of the whole thing was right after Inoki had kicked out the moonsault. The camera pans to the crowd and there's an old lady who just gives a nod of approval. All was right with the world.
  4. Zenjo
    The construction was very focused and cerebral. Ohtani's arm and Samuel's leg were the limbs of choice. I dug how they kept going back to their target whilst seamlessly integrating aerial and high impact moves. It's rewarding to see body part work leading directly to the finish as well. Whilst the submission work was enjoyable it was Ohtani's amazing acting in the final couple of minutes that lit things up. A top class performance, showing such passion and charisma. Sam did a fine job of backing him up in the supporting role. It would be unfair to call it a one man show but it was mainly about Shinjiro. I wouldn't peg this as a great match, it's a level below that. The finish was certainly great, but it wasn't at that level for long enough. You need an elongated stretch so you can reach that high end level and then maintain it. Once they'd touched that peak here it was soon over. Not that I'd necessarily change how they did this as it stands out for being different. Another factor is that the best matches need two outstanding performances generally.
  5. Zenjo
    This was all sorts of fun, albeit in a weird and unusual way. It had a nice full length and kept lively throughout. The rudos delivered strong performances and Volador held his end up. I don't know why people are lumping him together with his partner here. There were some great bumps and high flying action. Volador took a brutal top rope victory roll that may have injured him at the end. Great selling if not as he did a stretcher job. The structure was highly advanced too. They strongly teased a 2-0 tecnico win and in the tercera it was 1vs2 for a while. This should've been a really good match. Then there was El Mexicano. Initially I was struck by how horrible his image was. They say that the first bite is with the eye. Well the second bite tasted just as bad as he delivered a shocking performance. Totally off the pace and blowing spots left, right and centre. There was a great moment when his opponents were looking at each other in despair at his incompetence. Whilst Mexicano certainly hurt the match I actually ended up enjoying his performance! It entered 'so bad it's good' range and there was plenty of fun to be had all around.
  6. Zenjo
    FMW like ECW is numbing because there's so much hardcore that it loses any impact. Right off the bat they went into the crowd here and did girly blade jobs. It picked up once they got into the ring and started wrestling.
  7. Zenjo
    The youngsters brought plenty of interpromotional dislike. No shortfall in intensity or stiffness. It felt like things could get out of hand if someone got caught with a particularly nasty shot, but that didn't happen. A consistent quality level throughout as they meshed quite well. I liked Nagata stepping it up as the team captain. Ohtani actually took a back seat here. I've mentioned before how in shoot style tags the momentum doesn't fully get carried forward after a man tags out.
  8. Zenjo
    A nice introduction to ECW for these two. They showed off some of their moves and did a bit more of the necessary playing to the crowd. There was a bit too much head between legs activity. I'm talking about headscissors, what else? They would go much higher next month at the Big Ass Extreme Bash.
  9. Zenjo
    I was bored within the opening couple of minutes. It felt so stale. The dead crowd didn't help matters.
  10. Zenjo
    It's Ultraman 2000 rather than the Ultraman who appeared on the 80's set. The future would not be kind. This match is what I might imagine AAA booked by Paul Heyman would be like. It's totally crazy and a complete trainwreck. Psicosis must have been out of his mind. He's a talented wrestler, there's no need to do this shit to get over.
  11. Zenjo
    I vaguely remember thinking that this was good in parts and undeserving of the hate it gets. So I watched it in full again. Sure enough Mutoh was complete shit and the whole match sucked. Lazy, unfocused, directionless matwork. Lacking any intensity or urgency. Little chemistry and a poor combining of the two styles. Mutoh hitting his finisher out of nowhere and applying a submission rather than going for the pin. This is NJ rules rather than UWFI. The bad selling at the end and the pathetic sulking because he lost the title. I'm starting to sound like Mike Lorefice here.
  12. Zenjo

    Other 1993 worth watching

    Zenjo replied to Loss's topic in 1993

    She would do commentary on the TV shows sometimes. After her comeback she would wrestle a series matches for JWP over the next couple of years before GAEA got up and running. It's amazing how strong most of those matches were considering her inactivity. She was upset at being forced to retire in 1989 when the mandatory retirement age was still in effect. Clearly Chigusa had a lot more to give. In terms of singles it stayed a theoretical idea unfortunately. Over the year and a half there were many interpromotional shows. After the Tokyo Dome show it just became appearances from a few outside wrestlers rather than whole events. Ultimately AJW had the most booking power and that could be seen in the long run. They didn't necessarily need outside help at the time but rightly saw it as an opportunity to help business. Before 1992 relations with the original JWP were non-existent. When they split into 2 new companies in JWP and LLPW that helped things along too. It's Dreamslam I that was the bigger card and the most talked about show. It was in Yokohama drawing 16,500. Dreamslam II was in Osaka and drew 6,500.
  13. Zenjo

    Lucha Thoughts

    Zenjo replied to tim's topic in 1980s Lucha

    I haven't watched the AWA set but I can confidently say it's more enjoyable with more great matches. No need to wait to jump into the Lucha set. It's not wall to wall great matches by any means. There are huge amounts of unavailable shows from the 80's, so it's nowhere close to being a top 100 televised lucha matches of the decade. I think there's a nice balance of stuff. Plus you only have to rank 100 matches rather than 150.
  14. Zenjo
    If you want the best example of this style go and watch one of Shawn Michaels Royal Rumble wins.
  15. Zenjo
    My DVD's are largely kept in sealable transparent plastic bags and strewn over two houses. The storage is generally a bit of a mess, but I do have a 'to watch' box for easy access. I'm very organised at knowing what I'm going to watch in the near future so can sort it out in advance. I could tell you most of the stuff I'm going to view over the next 3 years! I have hundreds of pages of hand written notes on matches. Only the reviews that I put on this site have so far made it onto computer. All my ratings of matches go on word or excel files, along with plenty of other wrestling data. Like Loss I have a goal of producing a best of the 90's list. I don't know how long it will be yet but have decided on a minimum rating. It's the standard where I'm confident all but the absolute best house show matches wouldn't reach. I've listed all the Y***B*** matches and a longlist of everything else in my collection that could potentially make the grade. So now I know all the things I currently have to watch, and after viewing a match it simply gets given a rating and moved from one list to another.
  16. Zenjo
    This was watchable enough but had numerous problems. It went too long and had a dead crowd. I don't get why they had Kyoko here. She wasn't feuding with either of the opponents and her vs Takako in the ring was particularly uninspiring. The main storyline was setting up Oz vs Takako in singles, which they did a good job of. Their exchanges were the best parts. I totally agree about the overkill down the stretch. Kicking out of finishers had started to become the norm, and was indicative of the Joshi style evolving in the wrong direction.
  17. Zenjo
    Neck compression moves in general. Legit headbutts where they don't use the hand.
  18. Zenjo
    The GAEA debut show was notable for the debuts of 6 initial trainees. Amazingly 5 of them made it. Unfortunately rookie production soon went from amesome to minimal. 12 of the 16 GAEA trueborns would debut in the first 2 years of the company. A new rookie in the 7 years after that was so rare they made documentaries about both of them. So for the main event they had to borrow heavily from JWP, who'd have never loaned them their top stars if they could see the future. It was as strong a match on an opening show as I can recall. They metaphorically brought the house down and literally were dismantling the ring. The crowd were hot throughout it's 1/2 hour duration and so was most of the wrestling. Devil was doing the Super Heel gimmick but hadn't figured out how to suck yet. The rivalries were really strong, Chiggy vs Oz most of all. Great action in the ring early on. I was initially unsure when they started introducing the hardcore element but that ended up ruling too. Both faces bled and were Dog Collared in chains. It was wild and exciting. Ozaki was the star performer and she was rewarded with an upset win over Nagayo.
  19. Zenjo
    This was like night and day with the rest of AJW's 1996 output pre August. Everyone was really motivated and the crowd were into it too. Wrestlers want new challenges and this match provided them. It was refreshing to see the top stars facing off against the youngsters in Fukawa, Asari and Maekawa. Underdog Yumi got a bloody nose, but it's her first memorable match so had to be worth it. Chapparita was really good here, delivering the ever exciting Skytwister. Such an awesome move because she never did it the same way twice and could land any way imaginable. '96 would end up being the best year of her career as Yoshida put her over big time in a couple of later matches. Normally I'm not a big fan of the Captains Fall format as it's like a poor mans elimination match. It worked well here though with unpredictability the name of the game. The fresh matchups, the 5vs4 teams, Captain Kyoko taking lots of damage and being in danger. I never knew who was going to be eliminated next or who was going to win it. There was 28m of non-stop action with a consistently high quality level. The time flew by. Some great near falls that were spaced out well. It wasn't a case of early eliminations coming easy and then late eliminations being hard as is often the case. Takako vs Yoshida was the highlight. An excellent one-off idea.
  20. Zenjo
    So is the end objective here to just have your top 500 matches of the 90's listed? Or to rank them from 1 to 500? Or maybe just split them into tiers and then rank the top 100 perhaps? There's not going to be any difference in quality between #363 and #368 for example. Any particular reason why you chose 500?
  21. Zenjo
    So much had been and gone. A decade after launching Starrcade Ric Flair was back in the main event fighting for the World Title. Harley Race was there to remind him of 1983 as he took a few cheapshots on the outside. Ric's career was nominally on the line, and there was a great hometown crowd to cheer him on. The challenger came in with a game plan to take it long and wear Vader down. To do that he'd have to pay a heavy physical price. The maskadon was soon dominant and bringing the pain. The short comebacks were well timed and effective. The pivotal moment came when Vader hit a sloppy lariat and inflicted some dental damage to the Nature Boy. The response wasn't immediate, but later on Flair thought 'fuck this' and started punching Vader in the mouth. The brutality kept escalating and it was the stiffest Flair match I've ever seen. Back and forth they went with such wild and unpredictable action. Flair was totally immersed in the heat of the battle and the fans were right there with him. A thrilling conclusion and a very special moment when he captures the gold. It was a remarkable babyface performance from someone better known as a heel. He was fighting for his life against a monsterous opponent. For all his thousands of matches this felt like it was the only one that mattered at this moment. He could taste the blood, he could feel the pain. He didn't have to fake anything. It was real emotion. It's so rare that I got totally lost in a match the way I did here. And this is something I've seen multiple times before. I was living through Ric Flair and could feel the emotions he was going through. That's what makes it a great match.
  22. Zenjo
    This was JIP already but would've been optimal if they'd have joined it 20m in. The good stuff was in the final 3rd. Of course if they'd have gone 15m in the first place then it could've been much better. But I know Giant Baba didn't do (whisper it quietly) J-O-B-S.
  23. Zenjo
    Even during the introductions there was quite an atmosphere, the fans knew something special was coming. Taue and Misawa both produced strong performances in the supporting roles, allowing the Kawada vs Kobashi rivalry to be the main story. Early on Dangerous K was holding his own yet favouring the injured knee. That became the inevitable focus. His selling was a thing of beauty as he kept on fighting back through the pain. Plenty of drama and near falls. I would say that I never felt like it was over until the final move. That ending was incredible as a dead-weight Kawada was annihilated with vicious headdrops. Kobashi had finally scored his big win, but the night belonged to Tosh. His performance was out of this world. Great match, and the 3rd AJ classic of '93 after 2/28 and 7/29.
  24. Zenjo
    Beforehand the referee was imploring the American duo to wrestle in the appropriate technical manner. Which they actually did surprisingly enough, albeit with a little sneaky rudo activity. I've underrated Love Machine in the past, he was fantastic here. Barr wasn't a great technician, but he held his own and his facials were awesome. As a performer he had a lot of charm. With Santo and Eddy in the mix there was also strong action provided. Octagon was generally fine, but there usually seem to be a few flaky moments when he goes off the boil in matches. It was a long bout but the time flew by and I enjoyed it. Really good stuff here.
  25. Zenjo
    You had the promotions top 4 native heavyweights fighting here. Top 4 in terms of performance that is Mr Fujinami. In that regard it's easy to make comparisons between this and the RWTL final. That would be doing this a disservice because it was an excellent match on a global scale. The way they were going through the first half I thought it was going to be a head-down VG level workrater. Yet it developed into a full-on advanced stretch. One man would go for the win whilst the other would try and prevent the other opponent breaking up the pinfall. It flowed back and forth before a very exciting finish. Everyone performed at a high level, there were no weak links in this one. If I had to rank them I'd say Hash>Hase>Mutoh>Chono at this point in time. This was Strong Style par excellence, and about as good as it could've been.
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