Jetlag
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Fun match. Jumbo is KO'd by a trademark graceful and deadly Misawa elbow. Poor Taue gets isolated and his leg worked over. The aspiring New Generation heroes draw big time heel heat! Jumbo wastes the little dudes with fat lariats and knees! Kawada is a stiff bastard! Lots of cool little details to love here, such as Kawada attacking Jumbo's buzzing head like a mad dog when he tries for a comeback. Taue was pretty much the focus of the match and made the most of it, doing a very good job selling and busting out the sumo pummeling and awesome Taue dive in the second half. The finish was between the secondary guys and we get a nifty guessing game on whether Misawa or Jumbo will be able to seal the match while not being the legal men. Good stuff overall, neat story, some violence, cool psychological details etc. -
This was pretty underwhelming. Which is weird because all the previous matches in this tournament where a ton of fun. Fukawa and Tanaka added almost nothing to this match. Tanaka just ran through his stuff. Did I ever mention I hate that guy? There was one cool moment when Hamada decides to get all lucha on the mat with Fukawa and Fukawa is like „fine“ and they go all IWRG. Sadly that only lasted about 30 seconds. There were also a few blown spots. Fukawa tries countering the Hama-chan cutter and both she and Ayako end up falling on their heads. Eventually Tanaka remembered he's a BattlARTS guy and lands some nasty spinkicks on the older Hamada, and the finish was a feel good moment but the rest of this was just not good.
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Ayako Hamada/Michiko Ohmukai vs. Lioness Asuka/Mariko Yoshida (Twinstar of Arsion Tag Title, 10/21/01 Tokyo) Okay, so this match. I like the Asuka/Yoshida team because it moves Yoshida into prominence. And there were lots of good exchanges between Yoshida and both Ayako and Ohmukai where she catches them in submissions and works Ayako over with punches. The Ayako/Lioness exchanges were good too, altough had kind of a funny feeling, as if Ayako was saying „Back off! I'm the ace of this company!“ and Asuka was going „But I used to be a huge star!“ and then neither would back down. I liked that, and Ayako even works some fun exchanges around Asuka's stupid table spots! The Ohmukai/Asuka section was fun too as neither has a problem trading stiff punches and kicks to the face. Then the match goes crazy! Ayako almost kills herself on a dive! Asuka gets pissed off and rampages about the place, hitting everyone with a piece of table and bloodying Ohmukai! I didn't expect the match would have an actual finish after Asuka's rampage, but it did have a finish and that was kind of great too! So yeah, I got the feeling that diehard ARSION fans hated this stuff at the time, but I liked it a lot. Good wrestling, good spectacle, blood and a satisfying ending. Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. Azumi Hyuga/Tsubasa Kuragaki (Tag League, 11/3/01 Tokyo) Hm, I guess this would've been OK if I wasn't so deathly tired of LCO at this point. LCO dominate much of the early portion of this match, so much that it almost fees like a burial of the JWP crew. Hyuga got a bloody nose, but that didn't lead to anything. Kuragaki was fun probably simply by being a fresh face. I liked how she followed a torture rack up with a big splash to the back, and her no hands headbutt ruled. Hyuga kinda runs through her shit in all these matches and this was no exception. And what do ya now, brave Tsubasa falls to generic LCO bullshit. The lack of motivation is understandable.
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[1980-01-04-AJW] Rimi 'Jaguar' Yokota vs Chino Saito
Jetlag replied to peachchaos's topic in January 1980
This is a remarkable match. It feels different from the previous rookie-ish matches from the get go as they bitch slap eachother and the crowd gets really excited. Following that it's all over the place: brawling through the crowd, hitting the mat, impact moves and flying. It's distinct in the way it builds; they get more and more uncooperative, refusing the even get rolled on their backs for pinfalls. I wouldn't call it a great match but the intensity they created was outstanding. Chino may have been the better woman as I felt she was quite good at expressing the exhaustion and toll that the match was taking. At one point, Yokota keeps reversing Chino's attempt at a boston crab, so she simple hurls her all over the ring with a giant swing. One of the best uses of that move that I've seen.Yokota was less expressive but her ring work was razor sharp as usual. -
Nothing like celebrating christmas through a big ol' BattlARTS style asskicking. This was Ikeda & junji vs. two big damn crowbars. For someone who is notorious for laying epic beatings on others, Ikeda is really good at fighting from underneath and making the opponent look like a menacing force: he sells sympathetic, makes a strong comeback and then in turn levels the other guy with stiff shots. This was one of those pro-style leaning BattlARTS matches were they don't do much matwork and just beat eachother to a pulp, which plays to the strengths of Yone and Nagai. Junji was pretty fun here, as he got basically no offense and was beaten and stretched badly. The finish has Nagai laying a series of brutal kicks on junji and finally finished him off with a huge spinkick to his mouth. He totally executed the little guy. Match probably needed a little more Ikeda to get on the high end BattlARTS side, but was still pretty fun.
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A houseshow match. Some very good stiff action early on where they mix up the shots. Lots of vicious spinkicks and elbows. Even Kobashi threw martial arts kicks which is just weird. Kikuchi ends up FIP and getting military pressed to the floor because KIKUCHI IS A LOON. Crowd gets going behind Kikuchi good, and anytime Misawa gets in he's a total house of fire. Misawa is only in for about 30 second periods but he is working like a motherfucker. Talk about knowing how to carry yourself like a star. He barely gave a damn about Kikuchi though. Well, he'd master the "win the match while dragging a weak partner" formula later. This is another decent little AJPW match to add to the list.
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This got 20 MINUTES and was worked like a big match. It seems to be from an M-Pro show, but I'll let it count as best of ARSION. The early guy vs. Guy sections were pretty filler and resthold-y. The girl vs. Girl sections were good as in „two wrestlers who have fought eachother a bunch doing their stuff“. For some reason, the guys gave the girls a ton of offense and stooging a bunch. Maybe they were trying to be gentlemen. Yagi did a mix of spaced out lucha armdrags, judo throws and armbars which was cool. Asari did her usual athletic stuff and looked quite good. The finishing stretch was built around guy vs. Girl and then girl vs. Girl sections and pretty fun. This took a bit to get going but for this type of lucharesu action I'd say it got going good.
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I uploaded a Fugofugo match from Yume Factory which is his best match that I've seen (in a trainwrecky way).
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Pretty fun BattlARTS spotboy match. Kinda veered into trained monkey show at times, Minoru Tanaka was even slapping his thigh, but Hidaka & Fujita were pretty fun to check out here. It has fallen into complete obscurity, but once upon a time Minoru Fujita was a talented little dude who had all the ultra choice moves. His La Casita into Calf Slicer and Terry Funk rolling cradle into the same hold were really post modern and steal-worthy. He does some good legwork on Mochizuki (who of course doesn't bother to sell) then some fun finishing sequences ensue.
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They said that edit sharing will be available on PS4. The only question will be whether it will be possible to share edits between PS4 and PC. So, less than 1 week after EA release, they already released an update adding a new move and fixing nearly all the bugs. Spike is really bringing the workrate now.
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This was the longest singles match on this show. And it was pretty much a DVDVR dream match, as they pack all their ultra choice swank junior moves into a well worked basic opening match, and doing a really good job at it. Just the way they set up the big dive by teasing a Hidaka dive, then following it up with Saito's headstand scissor to the outside and finally leading into the big suicide dive makes me think these two are better at this stuff than any current non-mexican junior. Maybe it's because I've developed a burning hatred for stupid over the top junior wrestling, but this type of well worked basic wrestling leading into well timed, graceful rollups and submissions without any inane flips'n'headdrops bullshit is really endearing to me. Saito gets a nice nearfall with a great looking bridging butterfly suplex and yeah this match is the logical consequence to 70s junior matches. Lovely bout, altough I may be overrating it slightly.
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This was a fun match between a low ranked BattlARTS guy and an indy nobody. Nothing BattlARTS here as it's just a technician vs. Flyer match. They do some fun mat based arm work early on, junji has really fun ways to spin into armbars. Azteca impresses me by being shockingly decent, able to go on the mat, selling his arm, taking a really nice whiplash bump for a Junji flying clothesline, taking a nasty kick to the gut and doing a fine job at imitating a graceful luchador in some of the sequences here. Perfectly good down to earth junior match, having matches like this is the reason why BattlARTS was such a fun quirky fed.
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This was a 10 minute match and pretty much a highlight reel of their stuff. Meaning Ishikawa looks like a superstar on the mat, and Usuda attempts to turn him into a vegetable with rotten kicks and headbutts. Despite the short length and both guys being familiar I was impressed by how well worked and elaborate their exchanges were, and even while being very familiar with both workers I bit on a few of the submission nearfalls. Nifty little bout.
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[1996-08-05-NJPW-J*Crown] Ultimo Dragon vs Shinjiro Otani
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in August 1996
This was a really excellent wrestling contest. Yeah, Ohtani is so over the top it's hard not to love him, but the main selling point for me was the really good, super simple work in the opening. Just sweet tight holds and takedowns worked with a purpose. Of course Ohtani adds something to his grinding basic armlock by being a smug prick, but the baseline is that he was also doing some really great elbow popping grinding arm work there. Ultimo was right there, laying in stiff kicks and stepping on Ohtani's face, and not an inch behind in execution. The knee to the balls was a great move aswell and the moment where Ohtani finally manages to make that damn Dragon's flashiness backfire to him is a hit too. The finishing stretch is not on the same level as the body of the match, but Ohtani never loses you with his overrunning faces and music video like enthusiastic body language. Both characters played great together here. -
So far Tarzan Goto matches anywhere have yet to disappoint. The dude always does the same thing, fucking dudes up, but builds really effective southern tag structure around. I just watched the 1998 Indy World show. It's the only show available from this fed. Phil reviewed the main event for his Fujiwara project. I didn't think it was a GREAT match but a great find for sure. Really fun stuff, Ryuma Go was a maniac. Then there was a Tarzan Goto vs. Kaientai 6 man tag which I liked even better, I can't believe the DVDVR crew used to hate Goto. There also was junior tag spotfest featuring all your sleaze kings TAKA, Orihara and Asian Cougar spottin and runnin. Great show, I'm having way more fun watching these indy cards full of sleazy heavyweights and insane juniors than I've had watching current wrestling the last couple years.
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This was a really fun trios where guys mostly run in to do fun shit. Itakura likes to throw stiff kicks, but ends up taking a big beating and ends up suplexed into a bunch of chairs. Fujiwara was mostly slapping the taste out of people's mouths and Nakano, for a UWF guy, mostly focussed on bringing hurty looking strikes, at one point raining punches to the back of Itakura's head from back mount. Go was off the chain here and acted like a crazy motherfucker you wouldn't want to confront, ramming into people with headbutts like a madman. Yatsu and Okamura were decent enough but mostly this was a showcase for the fun stuff the Fujiwara/Nakano/Go dream team could do.
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Big badass brawl pitting Goto against Kaientai (who are all in WWF gear and have Yamaguchi-San with them), but mainly Goto against Togo. I loved the opening, which has Goto attacking Yamaguchi only to be hit by big Togo diving senton. Then chaos ensues and Togo is recklessly flying into chairs. Easily one of the better „opening brawling“ segments I can remember from a match in Korakuen Hall. Togo ends up busted open and has his cut worked over. Togo gives a really great performance here, and Goto and Aoyagi are great working the cut (Azteca is decent too).Goto uses foreign objects, while Aoyagi throws punches and kicks at Togo's face. Goto is so great here as a grotesque lumbering psycho destroying the little dudes, and Aoyagi working exchanges with Kaientai and laying into them with kicks is all kinds of fun too. It gets to the point where Goto gets ready to carve people up with a broken beer bottle and you wonder how Kaientai are gonna get out of this alive. I actually loved the sports entertainment twist right before the finish too as it resulted in a badass character moment from Aoyagi. Match probably needed a big dive train or something, but as it was it was a spectacular fight.
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Hey... this is another kind of match you don't see that much anymore. They nuke eachother with highspots nonstop, fuck all rhyme or reason, but the match stays short enough to not piss you off. The first 2 minutes of the match have 5 Michinoku Drivers – with TAKA eating 3 of them in a row and laughing about it a minute later. If you can get over that kind of idiocy, there was some fun to be had here. Cougar and Palomino bring the highspots, Cougar hits about half a dozen guillotine legdrop variations, and Palomino has nice height on a standing huracanrana and a great tope. TAKA and Orihara add some character work – meaning middle fingers and low blows. Taka also flops his dive and ricochets into a bunch of teenage girls. The most important thing is that this didn't overstay it's welcome and didn't do a bloated, tryhard finishing run.
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Yeah, and he even offers downloads! Pretty cool for eurofolks like me who wish to dodge shipping costs. Thoughts on all 3 discs: 1 - the commercial tape: the Takaiwa vs. Shoda (Masada) rookie squash is fun and violent. Everything else is great. This is a keeper for sure. 2 - the 1998 show: I loved this show because every match was a fun, inventive grappling heavy 10 minute match between two young guys/girls and the main event was a hidden gem. 3 - the 1999 show: this is the least of the 3 shows but still fun to watch. Satomura/Kato, the Aoyagi match and the main event were the best matches. Also Kurashima almost killed his opponent in the opener with 2 ganso bombs.
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Fun signature Aoyagi match, meaning karateka vs. pro wrestler rounds match.Okumura isn't terribly exciting, but decent enough as a wrestler going for takedowns and submissions and willing to stand there and trade shots with Aoyagi. Actually thought this was an Aoyagi carryjob, as he obviously brings all the really fun offense, and did a neat job selling. Aoyagi was getting the better of Okumura, but the younger guy seemed to be cracking the old guy down due to youth. Also, for a guy who you think of as bringing the very real shots, Aoyagi had some really fun pro stylized kicks and punches, such as a really slick axe kick he threw after evading a takedown, or a diving kick off the 2nd rope. His punch to the throat was obviously the highlight. Match was pretty short at only 9 minutes and didn't have an outstanding finish but it was still really cool to see what Aoyagi could do against such a generic guy.
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This was a decent attempt at a main event fromtwo inexperienced guys. Masada kept getting the better of Fujisaki on the mat, so Fujisaki started cracking him with headbutts, bloodying him and drilling him with brutal backdrop suplex moves. Masada was busting out lucha moves here, including a gory special from the ground which was pretty choice. Other than that they weren't good enough to keep the matwork as interesting as it was in previous MUGA matches, and the match ended rather abruptly. Fun match.
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More MUGA joshi. This was more MUGAish than the other Meiko-in-MUGA match, as they focused even more on holds and working them. Almost every move lead to another hold, and holds would lead different variations. Really well done stuff as these two knew how to add variation. I really liked Kato's side headlock into a rope walking bulldog, and she was rocking all the Cobra Twist variations too. Meiko did a nice job zoning in on both the arm and leg, and the finish had some pretty nasty headdropping moves before a desperation submission. Nice stuff and it's always cool to see the GAEA girls show what they are capable of in a clean singles match.
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Another decent grappling match, altough they ran out of ideas. Match should've gone 8 or 7 minutes and would've been good, at 11 minutes it felt slightly bloated. I was surprised that Kotsubo didn't stink it up, he kept things moving, had a really nice stiff punch combo and won the match with a olympic leg screw into ankle hold that was pretty boss.
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He got a big run of singles matches and title matches for his retirement run. Virus also has certainly been privileged compared most other guys on the CMLL roster, getting more long title matches than almost anyone else on the roster in the last couple of years.
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Fujisaki is a rare creature, so it's double awesome to see him pop up in MUGA. This is mostly amateur style grappling with Fujisaki having a tough battle against the bigger Kurashima. Kurashima, for a nobody who never did anything in his career had absolutely badass throws, including one where Fujisaki goes for a crucifix hold and just gets flattened into the mat. Fujisaki retaliates with his awesome JYD headbutt and an absolutely deadly Steve Williams backdrop where he drops Kurashima on his face. Kurashima may have been knocked loopy, or maybe it was the reason why he remained a nobody for the next 20 years, but he seemed to be struggling to keep it together during the last couple minutes. Another quality undercard bout.