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Jetlag

DVDVR 80s Project
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Everything posted by Jetlag

  1. Jetlag
    One of the many good little matches WoS had in the 70s. Starts as a methodical technical bout, so we get all the usual great Szakacs escapes, and then develops quite some animosity as Prince Kumali doesn't like getting chopped at all. Kumalis holds looked awesome as they were mostly strength holds to the head or arms, and that man looked like he had insane strength. Hard as iron to break. He also did a tremendous job putting over how much those chops suck to take. Szakacs use of a simple chop as a potential KO from the middle of a grappling exchange rules as we all know.
  2. Jetlag
    Classic WoS heat mongering material. Sid Cooper is pretty underrated among the WoS guys as his stuff is simple but executed to perfection. He has the mannerisms down pat, acting like a huge chicken, then acting tough and rugged, then acting fake-friendly etc. all with his hilarious voice and accent. He will also make simple holds look brutal by grinding his knee across the face, bending the shit out of a leg while slapping the other guy etc. Clive is of course an amazing athlete. This was all fun and games with Myers outwrestling Cooper and occasionally threatening to unleash his Kung Fu on him but went to the next level when Cooper shoved Myers in the ropes. This wound end up being a WoS-typical low key holy shit moment when Myers got his leg tangled in the ropes and Cooper went to town on him. Cooper was unrelenting working over that leg and his leglock work coupled with Myers selling will have you believe in the possible finish. Wonderful, simple match executed close to perfection.
  3. Jetlag
    WoS opening match! This is a pretty fun match. Mostly textbook holds and reversals, though they do get chippy at points. Man I think it was easier to create intensity in these old british matches because the ring they were using looks rough as hell. Or maybe they were just charging into those turnbuckle pads REALLY hard. Some jokes and stiff knee lifts. Riley was pretty rough around the edges here though I actually kind of liked his maybe uninentional foot first bumps. Czeslaw is just a flawless performer. His ultra tight chickenwing crossface was easily the highlight. It's all fun and games with oddly safe bumps through the ropes but they always maintain the aura of serious competition even with some laughs. It must take a lot of school to charge running through the ropes so fast and then land safely without crushing any grandmas in the audience.
  4. Jetlag
    Bread and butter Mick McManus stuff. Brawling and cheapshots galor. I liked the part where they got the ref in an armlock. Sarjeants forte is technical wizardry and while he doesn't bloom in this type of match he looks good here, pulling out lots of different headlocks to work McManus' cauliflowered ears etc. I also really liked these short knees that he threw. Crowd got really into this when Sarjeant started working Micks arm like he was gonna rip it off. Good stuff but the somewhat throwaway finish prevents this from reaching the upper tier.
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  6. Jetlag
    It's crazy to think these two had pretty much perfected the US Indy style so early in the game. This was like a distillate of their 2002 work, and while it wasn't as smartly worked as their epic match in November, it has all the cool matwork, stiffness and crazy bombdropping you can ask for. Super Dragon came across as this menacing asskicker during the opening exchanges, punishing Quance with double stomps when he attempted basic moves and kicking him hard while applying leglocks. He also hit this awesome past the turnbuckle dive. Quance is able to hold his own, countering the usual armbars and hitting a stiff dropkick. After Dragon rams into the turnbuckle (taking his signature bump where he basically suicide dives into nothing) Quance hits this shooting star press to the outside nuking both Dragon and Excalibur which is a pretty insane spot for 2002. After that that it's basically them trading big nearfulls while still maintaining a sense of competitiveness and working a few reversals/cutoffs. While there are lot of big moves it wasn't just a series of trading back and forth. Dragon once again looked great mixing up his stuff and I loved him cranking back at a basic facelock between all the powerbombs and suplexes. They also laced into eachother with hard strikes at one point. Epic finish which feels like a perfect example of how to use a crazy complicated death move like that.
  7. Jetlag
    Forget your initial feelings when you see this match up and believe me when I say: this was some wonderous pro wrestling. Lots of bullshit, but it was great bullshit. The Ogawa/Predator sections are really efficient in a "irresistable force vs. Immovable object“ way. Tom Howard looked great working his voodoo combat MMA stuff as he and Hashimotogo full Memphis meets Volk Han exhibition style. Some ref bullshit and a Gerard Gordeau run in do happen but that doesn't matter. You will be glad you watched this. Or maybe not.
  8. Jetlag
    You have to wonder whether the ZERO1 debut was the best debut card of all time. Just loaded with exciting fights. This is a Murakami match with Ohtani stepping up to the challenge, just a hurricane of wild strikes and a feel of danger. Ohtani sweeping and punting a crazy MMA fighter is way cooler than Ohtani working fighting spirit epics. Not much depth, but you know what youre getting.
  9. Jetlag
    I miss BattlARTS. The style is such that even two undercard workers can just come out like this and have a very good little match. Some very good shootstyle mat exchanges here. Super Rider is the more complete fighter and dominates early, including catching Junji with a brutal kick during a leglock exchange. Junji would get a lucky armbar but get stretched again soon after. Junji however is able to hang on and beat down Rider with some good looking NWA TV squash offense... nice headbutt to the shoulder, knee drops etc. Really liked Riders subsequent low kicks. Nifty finish.
  10. Jetlag
    These WAR revival in AJPW Tenryu performance are always a highlight when it comes to 2000s puro. No dumb shit, just a lot of fire and disdain at play. Miyamoto wants to stand up to his much tubbier, bigger opponents and as a result gets his nose busted and kicked in the face a bunch. Bully Tenryu is always great, but Miyamoto looked seriously good here aswell. His selling was pretty nuanced – I mean he was probably legit taking a lot of pain, but he even made glancing individual blows look really hurty. His comebacks looked good, and he was able to pull off a parkour spot that actually looked cool. Kea is someone who just never reaches greatness, but he was energetic and always there to put a thudding kick on Tenryu when it counted. Tenryus facial expressions and selling were out of this world as usual, anytime he took a blow that knocked him off balance he would look like a teacher in a high school comedy that just got pie faced. Tenryu casually strolling over to teach Kea a lesson while Araya and Miyamoto were fighting is why he's special. I found it almost comical how cooled down Araya was compared to everyone else here like this was just another tuesday. He looked good raking Miyamotos bloody nose a bunch and taking a massive bump on a german suplex for a fat aging guy.
  11. Jetlag
    If it wasn't for the constant no selling this would have been a close to great match. Plenty of struggle and I kind of liked Mutohs „I'm held together with glue and rubber band so I gotta be extra careful not to blow out my knees“ selling. Still seeing guys constantly jump up after receiving moves makes me zone out of a match fast.
  12. Jetlag
    Tenryu carries a mediocre worker to a good match, also water is wet. This was entertaining all the way, lots of fun Tenryu punches, kicks, tubby old man highspots and dick behaviour, but the match didn't have much depth. Kojima simply isn't convincing in trying to take it to Tenryu. His comebacks weren't great and he really needed to just bring a little more than he did. Tho his fighting spirit into Flair flop feels like an excellent comedy spot. Another positive is that the match was short and never dragged.
  13. Jetlag
    Tanaka disrespects the belt, and Hashimoto makes an example of him. This is among the greatest squash matches of all time, as Hashimoto looks like an unstoppable killing machine, and Tanaka looks like the gutsiest dude on earth for surviving. Tanaka is „deathmatch tough“ so you buy him surviving all the punishing blows and maybe decking Hashimoto with a potatoe of his own. Him being unable to hold on to a sleeper simply because he took a beating to every part of his body was pretty great aswell. Still this was all about Hashimoto destroying a poor fella. He may be the best ever at utilizing a basic karate chop to look like a badass.
  14. Jetlag
    This was a fun match but it was more like two pros having a solid match on a small show rather than something outstanding. I was hoping for some violence, but lazy heel Ishii was in full swing here, and Hidaka is the first to land a stiff shot when he caught Ishii with a surprise leg kick that was probably the one great moment of the match. I liked a lot of this as both guys have nice offense without being predictable and the finishing stretch was cool with Ishii making use of the WAR special and Hidaka working his leg over.
  15. Jetlag
    Not as epic as their match 2 weeks later but still tightly worked, smart professional wrestling. It was a pretty different match from their later match which shows these guys aren't one trick ponies. Once again the match had lots of cool matwork. Quance dominated more here and looked good doing that but obviously it wasn't as exciting as Super Dragon crushing a dude. The match was a 20 minute ironman and they do a nice job going 20 minutes without a fall. In total it feels like a setup for the postmatch angle altough not in a bad way.
  16. Jetlag
    Another good match between these two. Man the folks going to this garage got to see a lot of great wrestling. This had a bit more traditional layout with Quance dominating early on the mat and hitting armdrags before Dragon takes out his legs with nasty dropkicks to the knee. Quance looked good again working snug nelson holds and leg trips on the ground. His limping leg selling was also pretty good. Super Dragon did a nice job saving 1 or 2 sloppy moments of his technico opponent, smacked him around while applying leglocks and hit a brutal double stomp to the leg. This did not have as many nearfalls as their other matches which is probably a good thing. Instead of your-turn-my-turn stuff Quance tried to comeback and failed, then Dragon finished him off catching a rollup attempt and hitting a Dragon Suplex into a Psycho Driver for the badass finish.
  17. Jetlag
    Really fun indy tag. I liked the opening exchanges, lucharesu armdrags and nice fireman carry takeovers, and Quance & Frantz sticking to working a basic hammerlock control segment while the crowd amused themselves heckling Disco Machine was a nice change of pace. They also hit some great flip dives. Super Dragon was obviously the best guy in the match as he was crushing dudes anytime he stepped in the ring. B-Boy was fine hitting random big moves and he had one pretty great dropkick and submission nearfall. They go pretty overboard for the finishing run and I thought Frantzs comeback looked too easy but there were also plenty of crushing big moves such as a pretty great Doomsday Device variation with Super Dragon hitting a UFO to the back of the guys head. Also lots of guys flying into the ring to break up pinfalls.
  18. Jetlag
    Borderline great match well worth powering through the absolutely awful commentary. They worked a slightly more intricate version of their usual match here, adding some especially cool counters and cut offs to the mix. The main reason the work between these two guys ages well is that instead of building to thigh slapping flying knee strikes or Go 2 Sleep variations they add stiff kicks to the chest and nasty turnbuckle bumps to the mix. Note how violent something like Kis hair pulling toss felt not to mention the headbutts. Could've gone longer but I guess that's a good thing.
  19. Jetlag
    Okay now, seems like Sakata was really getting it at this point. Sato has looked solid all year doing shootstyle matwork, but he wasn't really capable of creating great moments on his own. Here there were a number of great, well timed moments, most of them involving Sakata almost KO'ing Sato. Every movement counted here. Most importantly, Sakata looked like he was ready to snap this pasty nerd in half.
  20. Jetlag
    Rutten has been quite the consistent worker in NJPW. His strikes are so crazy that you buy him just caving in Nakanishis face any second. Rutten has such an aura that anytime Nakanishi can get a move in on him is impressive. There are a few spots that they pull off much better than you'd think, and Rutten gets thrown around. Nakanishis selling in the last couple seconds was shockingly good, not something I thought he had in him. Also loved him trying to power out of the flying armbar a split second after getting caught.
  21. Jetlag
    @NintendoLogic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT23HUwYNHE
  22. Jetlag
    I finally got to watch the Sabre/Strong match I was given. Pretty fun match, altough it's jarring how Sabre does the same couple spots and holds in this match as 3 years later. He's like Flair in there making all kinds of different opponents put the same holds on him. Strong is someone I like and nothing more as too often he is basically playing mini Dean Malenko. His vicious stomps are great, but there's not enough of them, plus he doesn't show any charisma.
  23. Jetlag
    Stiff, uncooperative shootstyle pro wrestling. Apparently this was Yokois first match ever and he looked good right from the get go. Whenever Sato & Sai got too uppity he would start throwing punches. I also loved how he kept blocking Sais irish whip attempts and, once he had Sai prone, ran the ropes himself and blasted him with a huge dropkick. Sakata is at his best when he acts like a dick and there was plenty of that here. I also liked how he acted like he was a class above all these greenhorns. There were some brutal saves in this match aswell. Sai took a big beating, getting bloodied by a Sakata spin kick and punched in the face by Yokoi. Sato & Sai were effective underdogs here, never getting in too much offense, and when they got something it would hit with a thud.
  24. Jetlag
    Hernandez is next on the list of Big Massive Gaijins for Hashimoto to destroy. Hernandez didn't do any of the cool amateur moves that he did when he fought Koichiru Kimura 2 years before this. This had one or two neat moments and of course Hashimoto annihilating a fool but was basically just a sub 5 minute squash. Altough it was decidedly cool to see Hashimoto not play nice guy trying to carry some dullard for once and just taking it home.
  25. Jetlag
    BattlARTS vs. ZERO1 feud continues. And this was a real good match! I mean, that shouldn't come as a surprise, but I was expecting something fishy to happen here. But nope, they get to do their thing for 15+ minutes. Plenty of hate, stiff shots and neat moments, of course. There was lots of back and forth, altough nothing egregious. I guess this was the Z1 guys giving a shot at working a BattlARTS style rhythm. No shootstyle matwork besides a few counters, but lots of nice snug work. Tanaka was pretty efficient working with the BattlARTS dudes and Ohtani kept the crowd into it with his charisma.
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