Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

Jetlag

DVDVR 80s Project
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    2346

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by Jetlag

  1. Jetlag
    You'll look at these names and wonder how the hell can this match be anything more than good? Here's how. Bruiser Brody does a sit in protest before the match, having just lost a match against Bockwinkel under fishy circumstances. I wouldn't have expected Brody to act like a leftist college student protester, but Harley comes in and kicks him like a dirty hippie, so Brodie kicks the shit out of Harley. Harley is rocked before the match and Halcon gives his all to win the title. A bleeding Harley hanging on by a thread while a voluntarily unmasked Halcon was really pushing himself and wrestling like it was the match of his life was highly entertaining. Halcon busts out all this cool stuff like a beautiful arm trap suplex or punching Race's cut, while Race does his stooging and over the top selling that somehow fits him very well. I also really liked how they kept the hierarchy in tact. Without Race being banged up Halcon probably wouldn't stand a chance against the champ, and they remind you of that by how easily Race fends off Halcon at times. Race would be rocked, but then devastate Halcon with a basic knee drop and remind you who he is. Then you have that 3rd fall which was worked like a lucha title match. This is a little clunky at times and obviously not as good as the previous Race title match, but at minimum a really good, smart match that makes the most of it's resources, considering these are two limited workers.
  2. Jetlag
    This is a historic match due to Misawa unmasking but fairly dull otherwise. The unmasking is great and there is some nice chippiness and stiff blows, but the rest is just a kind of plodding match. For some reason, after Yatsu is taken out, it takes them forever to beat Fuyuki 2 on 1.
  3. Jetlag
    The first 9 minutes or so of this are just Mil eating Gino alive. Gino (who is now Gorgeous Gino) stooges like a motherfucker and Mascaras does all this nice flying and wrestling. You can say about Mil what you want, but his grappling was legit. I also really dug his slipping around on the mat to avoid Gino unmasking him. Gino gets some brief offensive bits in on Mascaras and actually puts him in peril. Gran Markus gets involved for the finish, leading to Gino taking a really nice bump into the ropes. Jose Lothario comes in and a big fight breaks out after the match. Really fun match and a good way to fuel the feud.
  4. Jetlag
    This was good solid pro wrestling that the crowd was hugely into, marred by the fact that both guys are just not quite at the skill level to go this long. Al Madril is a pretty solid babyface and has nice punches, but will do something goofy once in a while. In this case outstretching his arms as if he was Christ on the cross while Krupp had him in his claw. Another moment he tried to land on his feet to counter a monkey flip, but just awkwardly landed on his ass and went back to his leg lock. There were also some pretty long dire parts. Krupp did precisely nothing of note beside being big and scary looking.
  5. Jetlag
    This is a great match up. Brody is a mythical King Kong like force of nature, but The Spoiler is this cold, unrelenting killer. The result is lots of angry bears fighting and mask ripping. Brody is solid and actually sells a good deal for his opponent, but The Spoiler was absolutely fantastic. I imagine him vs. Andre would be epic, because he worked a tremendously smart match around Brody. Really liked how he chopped the beast to pieces and just kept increasing the pressure without mercy. He also sold Brody's fairly basic clubs and kicks in spectacular ways and had great sense of ring positioning. Brody emerging back after taking a huge beating to strangle the Spoiler with the cable was actually a great comeback and Spoiler sold it perfectly. Nice finish and this was just a really good brawl between two big scary men.
  6. Jetlag
    Umanosuke Ueda maybe?
  7. Jetlag
    Really? The booking made this interesting. Hansen blitzes Tenryu, but Tenryu can still slap Jumbo like a bitch. Tenryu is blitzed and hanging by a thread while Jumbo puts a huge beating on him. All the desperation comebacks were great: Tenryu makes use of his athleticism! A basic leglock is actually of importance! Even a half-spent Tenryu can still kick the dogshit out of Jumbo! Fun match.
  8. Jetlag
    This was another fun as hell match. Young, lanky Taue gets in some fun nifty spots on Tenryu, and Tenryu just beats his ass. Even with this being a handheld you can tell how rough Tenryu's shots are. Ideal layout where Taue upsets Tenryu early, is made to pay by Tenryu and then keeps coming back with fun surprise moves. Short and to the point.
  9. Jetlag
    I think Race is merely good and can be kind of a slug, but there's no limits to what Terry Funk in the 70s could do. His aggressive, rough and yet innovative matwork in the first fall was just brilliant pro wrestling. Constantly stepping on and twisting Race's face, while still wringing the hell out of his arm. Funk both on offense and defense always kept the match focussed and building, and altough they kind of lost track in the last third of the 1st fall, they get back to it nicely when Funk takes a huge bump to the outside. This of course leads to a bunch of drama centered around Funk's back, which Race does a nice job going after. The work around the arm/back here is so nice that I'm almost a little sour that it ended up being an afterthought, but I'm not complaining about a match this good. Quick, heated 2nd fall leads to the blood drenched epic 3rd centered around Terry's Spinning Toe Hold. Terry came across like the most determined motherfucker on the planet and the punches were great. He also flat kicked Race in the face at one point. Race is mostly fine throughout this but the part I most dug was him repeatedly headbutting a blood Terry while laid out helplessly on his bad leg. This match had impossible hype behind it. I didn't think it was a GOAT contender or something that told anything new but still a great title match that had all the trademarks. Great matwork, drama, blood, build, anything you want. The best Race match I've ever seen and another to add to the Funk resume. He looked even better in the Jumbo match.
  10. Jetlag
    This was such a fun pro wrestling spectacle. Technical classics aside, you gotta have something like this once in a while to spice things up. Aside from the nonsensical rules they did very well. Boesch talks about Koloff having talked about burying the american wrestlers and bringing a red shovel to the ring which sounds fantastic. Dusty is so electric and Koloff is cool too. The early going with the standing exchanges built around Dusty's elbows and the falls for psychological effect was fun and the second half with the double blood was really good. You get Dusty throwing punch combos, and just when I wanted to complain that he wasn't in peril enough for the match to be dramatic Koloff bashed him in the face with the boot. Dusty's really good at selling blood and drama and Koloff bashing his head into the casket was great. Then there's that great finish. Extremely entertaining match.
  11. Jetlag
    This is such a funny match to watch considering what they'd do later. They wrestle like a bunch of X-Division chumps and people laugh at their blown spots. Kobashi does some legwork, to which Misawa of course comes back by landing some kicks and then a dive where he sprints across the ring. Pretty slow in parts and really just an average junior match, but I did get a kick out of Kobashi busting out the Calf Slicer.
  12. Jetlag
    This is an awesome, heated 6 minute eruption where they waffle the shit out of eachother nonstop. Continues from the previous tag - Isao hasn't forgotten, so he goes at Tenryu like crazy. Tenryu, accordingly, treats Takagi like a piece of shit again. Tenryu's selling was utterly brilliant here, as it was between being pained and annoyed by the little punk. Quite possibly the greatest Arashi has looked in a match.
  13. Jetlag
    This was a match to showcase the frenzy of Tenryu. Kawada kicks hard and has strong execution, but doesn't have the same contempt and madness down yet. Tenryu assaulting Takagi and repeatedly kicking him in the face was something else. And the Jumbo/Tenryu sections are just cool as hell because it's these bears just erupting and working fast, intricate sequences and clobbering the fuck out of eachother. That Kawada and Jumbo still deliver a strong finishing sequences while Tenryu is out there getting into bloody fights with the whole world says it all.
  14. Jetlag
    This is such a drastic improvement from the July match. It keeps the high end move selection and intensity and upgrades with great selling and brutality. Liger comes in with the goofy shoulder protection pads and Sano goes at them immediately. Panic mode for Liger from the start and from then it's all fantastic desperation selling from him for the rest of the match. Essentially his arm becomes useless, so he has to try different things, but Sano blocks the big Liger highspots, so Liger switches to a simpler tactic and just repeatedly drives the point of his boots into Sano's bloody face. The sections were Liger is trying to kick and piledrive Sano into a coma are indescribably great. Sano also has great comebacks with perfectly timed submissions to the arm. Finish plays off a previous match. Great match, can't remember seeing a better Liger performance.
  15. Jetlag
    Their first match. Kind of an introduction of the style they came up with, meaning they hit aaaaaall their death moves, reckless dives in rapid succession. Starts out with some fast matwork and hints at aggression including Liger pummeling Sano on the ground, but quickly turns into a pure move exhibition. They would go on to have better and more intelligent matches in the future, but there's still plenty of death and drama to be seen here.
  16. Jetlag
    This was such a fun action packed match. Young, somewhat athletic, scrappy Tenryu is spectacular. Everything he did was brutally violent and he went at Jumbo and Misawa like a madman. The whole match was pretty violent and alway tipping there - you'd have somewhat regular sections and then somebody would get stomped in the face or dish out a painful looking kick to the tendon. Jumbo also brought the pain here and he is really fun when he is booting somebody in the face or making use of the kneecrusher. The little guys were fine and the match never lost steam. Great introduction to 90s AJPW with the hierarchies, impulsive layout, teamwork and counter-moves inplace that make the style what it is with an extra bit of hatred and chippiness to make it even better.
  17. Jetlag
    Abe Ginsberg wrestles half this bout wearing a leather helmet. Seriously one of the strangest gimmicks I've seen. This is one of the funnest WoS matches. These are two burly heavyweights doing all these cool takedowns and matwork. Not only that, but you get a neat story. Walton keeps talking about how Ginsberg likes to break the rules, even attacking Walton, but Ginsberg wrestles a clean match, shows off his skills doing all these cool tricks and eventually takes off his helmet. In a way it feels like an in-match face turn from Abe which helps make this bout special. And then they forearm the snot out of eachother anyways! Strange to watch considering this is the only WoS bout of Abe on tape (that we have), but it's an example of how much character and story you can put into a seemingly throwaway technical bout on TV. Walton does a great job aswell. This is in a way The Abe Ginsberg show altough Pete Curry ain't too shabby either.
  18. Jetlag
    This was a dope match. Just the kind of random World of Sport bout you can turn on and get lost in. Jon Cortez was so great at crafting these throwaway matches as intense struggles. Pete LaPaque is a cool, chubby rudo, but this is all about Cortez who is such a graceful, awesome wrestler. Starts of with some slick grappling, then great arm work from LaPaque, Walton talking endlessly about how to tell wrestlers apart, and then lots of niggle and head to head wrestling with plenty of neat spots. One might complain about the kind of flat endings but don't forget this was just an undercard bout to the bigger Saint/Grey match later. As such it was real good.
  19. Jetlag
    Johnny Saint is the World Champion here. Steve Grey has beaten him the year before, can he do it again? Something I love about old european wrestling: the weight classes that protected these lighter guys. This is an utterly incredible match. Easily the best Johnny Saint match ever. Part of why the match is great is the high speed, super athletic, tricked out technical stuff they do, but how they build it into an intense contest is magnificient. This is not the smiling, funny Johnny Saint who does jokes and tricks, it's Johnny Saint as the focussed, skillful champ against the most determined guy in the world. Walton puts over how impressive it is that Grey can even throw Johnny. They also map out the action beautifully, with some spots teased early on that get played off later, repeated sequences leading into transitions etc. Always with the focus on the challenger trying to topple the champ. Then you also have all these insane fast and intricate rope running exchanges. Another thing I like about this bout is that it's not nice. It's an all technical match with no strikes, but they were punishing eachother here. Each hold or takedown would be really wrenched in, Grey was constantly trying to snap Johnny's wrist. Grey would also claw his hand in Saint's face, Saint would smash his shoulder into the mat, elbow on the face when trying a pin, etc. I also really liked the use of the arm wringer bump or missed dropkick, these simple bumps look great in World of Sport and were timed perfectly. Grey is a crazy good babyface. He is great at putting over how fierce the bout is and how he was pushing himself to the limit to beat Saint. His selling was fantastic: He would slump over exhausted but then get up, or get Saint in a basic hold so he could regenerate his injured leg. Saint was less expressive but perfect for his role. All time great match. May be a serious GOAT contender even. But that's up to how much one can enjoy this kind of face vs. face technical match. For what it is I can't recall many instances where it's been done better.
  20. Jetlag
    This was another awesome piece of french greatness and completely different from the previous Cesca/Cantanzarro match. I'm assuming the "Peruvians" are mexicans or Peru is the next forgotten pool of wrestling greatness that we need to unearth. This was like 60s Michinoku Pro. The Peruvians are bump freaks, just incredible as they launch themselves all over the ring and over the ropes for the french guy's offense. I think they took about a dozen different variations of over the top rope bumps in this one, my favourite being the skinnier launching himself over the rope, doing a backflip and tying himself up Andre style, all super fast, just incredible. When they are not bumping all over the place they are working over the faces with nasty punches and knees, including several of the top rope which was wild for a 60s match. Match wasn't as technical as the stuff we saw before but there was still plenty of cool shit such as a really beautiful backslide reversal. Cesca is kind of nondescript, but Chemoul is super athletic and charismatic. At random points they just decided to paste the heels with punches. The finish may have been a botch, just brutal looking as Cesca decides to do a flying headbutt and their heads collide at full speed knocking the peruvian out square. It didn't build to an epic finish but it was still a hell of a show.
  21. Jetlag
    ZION Tournament 1999 First Round Matches Michiko Ohmukai vs. Rie Tamada (8/22) Short match that they clip. Still get the gist of it – mostly Ohmukai kicking the dogshit out of Tamada. The action was fun, but pretty inconsequential. I don't mind these spotty matches because they are kept short. Hiromi Yagi vs. Aja Kong (8/22) About 40 seconds of a 5 minute match shown. This actually annoyed me as what was shown looked quite good. They worked a sprint with a few unique spots. Aja wins with a fucking Magistral Cradle and the mistreatment of Hiromi Yagi continues. Mima Shimoda vs. Yumi Fukawa (8/22) This matchup was interesting due to the previous LCO vs. Fukawa/Tamada tag being so different. However, it didn't have the same allure going for it as Fukawa pretty easily controlled Shimoda most of the match with her flash armbars. They still manage to build some drama for the finish. Solid bout. Mikiko Futagami vs. Rie Tamada (8/22) They show Tamada, Yagi and Fukawa pulling straws and Rie gets another shot in the tournament. This was another clipped sprint. Futagami chokes Tamada out. Kind of pointless.
  22. Jetlag
    This was mostly hold-for-hold wrestling so of course it was impossibly cool. You kind of forget that outside of all the flipping around and piledrivers on the floor, Dynamite Kid could really go on the mat. And Mr. Wrestling lived up to his name. This was DK before all the roids, and he was this skinny long haired punk, who was fast on the mat, but could also get aggressive and go nuts with the dropkicks. The announcer rightly points out the dynamic is DK is a snotty brat and Mr. Wrestling is the old school class act teaching this rascal some manners, including a funny spot where he slapped him like the uppity little shit he was. There is some niggle with guys being aggressively shoved to the outside, and it actually plays into the finish which was sneaky and cool. Really fun match.
  23. Jetlag
    Hahaha! Forget about this being the best Warrior match or something. This was like the best WWE style main event ever. Essentially they worked it like a joshi match without any holds. Just BAM! BAM! BAM! impact moves and drama the whole time. Savage was a lunatic. You gotta give the Warrior some credit too, as he always kept moving forward at Savage, was never lost, and got over the fact that Savage put him in serious danger (in his own Warrior-ish way). The confusing interferences and character acting from Savage was gold too.
  24. Jetlag
    This was extremely goofy pro wrestling. They did a nice job doing a bloodbath, especially dug Slaughter's selling performance, and milking great reactions, excellent timing - but in essence it's still a match built around booth guys tipping their boots into the canvas. Some of the brawling was also kind of pedestrian - lots of unimportant punches, eye rakes, too many transitions. Good for a cartoon match, but I couldn't get into it much.
  25. Jetlag
    Watching Billy Goelz is quickly becoming a ticket to awesome match of the day. This was all friendly grappling, not a single punch being thrown, and you can see it must have been pretty state of the art for 1958, with even some british influenced spots on display. Russ points out there are about 7 holds in wrestling, but my god what you can do with these holds. Fantastic arm work here. Nichols also looked real good, but Goelz had the more outstanding selling. I sense these 20 minute draws were a staple of the time and Goelz executed them like a total pro.
×
×
  • Create New...