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Zenjo

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  1. Zenjo
    This is probably beyond words but I'll attempt to do this masterpiece some justice. Back in 1991 was my first ever taste of American wrestling as I got a tape of Summerslam 1989. That event was main evented by the Greek God Zeus, so he will always have a special place in my heart. At the time I had no idea how awesome he was. I mean the guy has a Z on the side of his head FFS! Within seconds I was marking out hard for him here. Obviously this is a match that looks terrible on paper. I went in hoping that it would fit in the catagory of 'so bad it's good'. It was way too bad for that. It kept getting worse and worse before going off the scale of all known badness and somehow ending up as an anti-classic. I must have been laughing non-stop for the 2nd half of it. There were a couple of times I had to pause it as I'd fallen off my chair and was quite literally ROTFLMAO. It was absolute gold. There was 12m of action and it felt like about 30. One of the wrestlers couldn't physically bump so didn't. The other had never been taught how to bump so didn't. The entire match was conducted standing with The Human Wrecking Machine mainly on offence. His moveset was choke, clubbing blow, head butt, bear hug and lariat. I was disappointed that he'd forgotten the neck snap of death. It wasn't just the extreme repetitiveness of the offence, but the way he used it. Once he'd selected a move from 1-5 he just did it immediately, irrespective of ring positioning or match flow. I know the guy was an actor, but it was almost like he hadn't even watched wrestling before. There was absolutely no psychology, pacing or any of that nonsense. Abby was Abby. No opponent actually works with him, they simply exist in his world for a short time. Time has no meaning or effect on him. The background to all this insanity was a bunch of bemused Puerta Ricans who spent the whole time pelting the ring with rubbish. Just in case it couldn't get any more surreal.
  2. Zenjo
    I went in wondering if this would live up to the rewatch. After all Toyota was a work in progress in 1990. But she's also a one woman snowflake machine and Hokuto is a goddess so I probably enjoyed it even more than the last time. Very hot start and they've immediately got me hooked. They do a great job of playing off the JGP with Toyota working over the injured leg. She used some interesting offence, with nice variety and technique. From next year onwards she had a more recognisable moveset, but here was more unpredictable. It's interesting to see and no bad thing here. In the long term movesets are always better when they become familiar as this helps the wrestler establish an identity and rapport with the fans. If not you end up with bad indy workers who do loads of different moves every night and wonder why nobody gives a shit. But anyway back onto the match and I was loving how Hokuto was modifying her offense to compensate for the leg injury. Excellent selling early. I would've preferred more later on but I'm probably more tolerant than most about this. Exciting 2.9ers down the stretch and it ends on a high note. Super match as they show the chemistry and abilities that would lead them to more MOTYC in future.
  3. Zenjo
    Like Flik said this happened because the referee was Toyota's regular tag partner and perhaps a little biased! It came off really well. A satisfying match with everyone working hard. Decent action but not as smooth or refined as in years to come. Interesting story with the beginnings of the Toyota vs Kyoko feud, which would run on and off for most of the decade.
  4. Zenjo
    Who were they? I've never heard of them. This would have been better with a shot of the Animals locked up in a cage with the animals.
  5. Zenjo
    And the winner of the Gooker award 1990 goes to...
  6. Zenjo
    I'm not sure who this was more embarassing for.
  7. Zenjo
    They gave the African tribal native a go, but it wasn't racist enough so they came back with Kamala. Vince desparately trying to justify this rubbish whist Piper shits all over it is funny stuff.
  8. Zenjo
    Am I the only one who thought this was funny?
  9. Zenjo
    Jungle Jack win the tag titles. Clipped up with 10m shown so I wasn't expecting as good as we got. What made the cut was plenty of fun with the finish particularly exciting. And there was even some blood too. It's great new footage being made available 20 years after the event.
  10. Zenjo
    When you've seen Aja use the urakan as a high power move / finisher for so many years it kills all belief here when she hits the move 22 successive times and it does hardly any damage. I could never get into this match after that, and I've tried multiple times.
  11. Zenjo
    A real war. Brutally stiff with no end of pain dished out. Wild and crazy action with plenty of biting, blood and Singapore Cane usage. The status dynamic was very strong. Grizzly stepped it up well in the #4 role, although her personality was dwarfed by the others. Impressive Bison performance but her moveset deficiencies arose at times. Then you had the two big guns kicking ass. This felt like the beginnings of a great feud rather than a blowoff. Really good match but I wouldn't say a MOTYC. The closing minutes it was starting to lose its direction a little.
  12. Zenjo
    It's by far the worst year of the 90's for available footage and memorable matches. If you took the 20 years from 1983-2002 I'd say 1990 is the weakest year. It was a year of rebuilding AJW which they did an amazing job of, and things start getting good next year. This cage match was clipped a fair bit and disrupting the flow didn't help. Wild and chaotic fighting. It was very messy, but entertaining in it's unpredictability. Plenty of weapon usage as Aja kept hitting Bull's theigh with a severed trash can. And a heavily involved Gedo as ref. All over the shop but it did a good job of furthering the feud.
  13. Zenjo
    Fantastic 80's atmosphere with the schoolgirls boundless enthusiasm and chanting. Minami was really popular despite her long hair. When it comes to schoolgirl support it's hard to overstate the importance of a butch haircut. The action was also akin to the previous era, more unstructured and a bit rough around the edges. Plenty of fun though as the teamates worked well together, particularly the Marine Wolves. I liked how the wrestler who had just dropped the fall was dominated afterwards and put in danger of losing another one. The quality level was consistant with a good climax. 'We Fire Jets'
  14. Zenjo
    I loved the duelling fan chants. Girls for Hotta, guys for Toyota. First half was really good with a super blitz start and then ManToy being stretched. Is there anyone better at being stretched? I was wondering how on earth I hadn't thought this was a good match first time around. Then I remembered as the 2nd half fell to pieces. It lost all cohesion and neither wrestler had any control of the match. They had absolutely no idea what move was coming next towards the end and it was a mess. These two would have some teriffic matches in later years but this wasn't one of them.
  15. Zenjo
    Hokuto was so upset about not being able to continue I half have to wonder if she was booked to win the tournament. Toyota winning it was a shock result at the time. I remember during the 2007 G1 Climax semi final where Shinsuke Nakamura got legit ko'd in a match he'd almost certainly been about to win. No idea about what would have happened in the final that year. He'd have to wait 4 more years to win the G1. Hokuoto would have to wait 3 more years to win the JGP.
  16. Zenjo
    Only 9m but they fitted a lot in. A straightforward strength vs speed dynamic. Toyota was nowhere near ready for the title. It got really sloppy and wasn't a particularly good match.
  17. Zenjo
    I have no idea what 'Dream Orca' means and probably never will. The class of '85 vs the class of '87 and there was a status gap, but not an unbridgable one. Compared to later years it was unrefined at times. They did their best to make up for it with passion and enthusiasm. The Orca in particular displayed great toukon, and brought an energy to proceedings. Mita ended up with a bloody nose. The key move was the sleeper hold which nearly brought victory to both sides. I found this different and refreshing. Hokuto and Hotta went over fairly convincingly at the end. Plus we have schoolgirls still. Hot-Ta Yu-Mi-Ko! And just in case you wanted to know Yamada won the annual new years road race with Kaoru Ito as runner up.
  18. Zenjo
    Yatsu was still around although his body had retired. An off night for Kawada, I've never seen him miss so many kicks. The other two continued their rivalry in this low key outing and made it acceptable.
  19. Zenjo
    He should have come to the ring riding a horse each night. Nobody cares about health and safety in Mexico.
  20. Zenjo
    I fucking know it's AWA from 1990! You don't need to put the caption up every 2 minutes as a reminder.
  21. Zenjo
    I'd almost forgotten how horrible the blue cage was. I know wrestling viewing is about suspending disbelief but come on. The match itself was rushed, messy and unsatisfactory.
  22. Zenjo
    Once and for all ending the myth about wrestlers all being meatheads. It's just the majority, not all. Goofy fun here.
  23. Zenjo
    The only reasons I'm not going wild for this is because it was short and ultimately had no meaning beyond the night. But there sure was some amazing action. The speed and fluency of the moves were unreal. Fantastic skill levels from some masters of the craft. It's so cruel to keep it so short and tantalise me like that. Had they kept going at the same level it had higher end potential, which is incredible for a trios.
  24. Zenjo
    Thanks once again to everyone who put together the 1980's sets because I never used to like Choshu beforehand and thought he was really overated. Now I'm such a huge mark for the guy and understand why the Japanese fans were so crazy about this true legend of the ring. This contest was high-spurt heaven and like a prototype for an ideal Choshu match. 12m of tightly paced action with two bulls refusing to take a backwards step. Vader size was overwhelming early on but then Rikki came back by viciously attacking the bad eye. Vader dished out so much pain in his career it was only to be expected he's get a fair amount back in return. Plenty of stiff shots and hot actioin. The crowd almost exploded as the lariats were raining in at the end. The right arm took a pounding, but not as much as Vader's head! A thriller that was all you could want from the match format.
  25. Zenjo
    Benoit's first and in fact last IWGP Junior title win, so an important stopping point in his progression. The Canadians inexperience showed at times, although it was generally good quality. Liger pulled it all together nicely down the stretch.
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