fxnj

I think she got passed this year by Sasha and Hojo. Of course while I do believe those two women are as good as Kana, it doesn't help Kana that she barely ever makes tape anymore. In a way, that was part of her mystique. I would usually have to wait half a year, if not longer, to see her big matches from her own promotion, but it was always worth it to see what new weird look she could come up with and to see her try things out no one else was doing, like wrestling long and stiff matches with men or having live music played to match the action. Between those things and her already unique wrestling style, I imagine it was similar to the feeling people got while trading tapes in the 80's and 90's. I'm happy that she's become the first joshi to work WWE in 20 years and it will definitely be cool to follow her every week, but I'm still going to miss her indy days because, again, there was nothing quite like her on the scene.

I saw that live and I agree that it was great. In fact, that was exactly the match I had in mind when I wrote in GWE thread about how grateful I am that Akiyama's body has held up well enough over the years to keep giving us those classic AJPW style tags. The stretch run between Akiyama and Shiozaki was awesome, and I loved the near fall for the wrist clutch exploder.

Interesting thoughts on that as I am finishing up with most years of the 90's and I think at this point it is only eclipsed by the 1980's as far as an overall decade I enjoy in wrestling history. Looking only at the U.S., I'd agree. 80's had territories and JCP while 2000's had the indies and Smackdown being good-great through most of the decade. 90s, though, was mostly a void for great matches beyond the big 2, and WWF and WCW both had long periods of coasting without much interesting things going on.

Comparing him to Hamada and acting surprised that he got more over is lame because they wrestled two very different styles. From what I've seen, Hamada was generally a mat wizard who would throw in a few well-built high spots, while Sayama not only built his whole offense around high spots but was doing them with far more explosiveness than anyone else, which is both very taxing on the body and requires a great deal more technical skill and athleticism to pull off. Compare the total injuries Hamada got over his entire career to what was suffered by Sayama in just his initial 2 year run and the difference is clear. It's still crazy to say he was better then Inoki in 80's NJ, though.

Disregarding Dave's opinion because you disagree is dumb. A much reason to disregard Dave's opinion is in how he justifies it. I haven't been subscribed in half a decade, but when I was I was generally very disappointed with his show reviews. All he'd really do was run through some basic play-by-play, talk about what got a pop, and then slap on a rating, as if the only thing he cared about was big moves and crowd heat. Granted, it definitely wouldn't be fair to expect the same sort of in-depth reviews from him that people do here because of all the other stuff he's doing, but if you take away all that other stuff it's unlikely many people would care about his opinion more than that of any random smark with a blog.

Old man Akiyama is such a boss. I thought he was a strong candidate already for top 10 a few years ago just based off his NOAH and pre-split AJ work, but he's really been on a great roll since winning the TC and jumping to AJ. In retrospect, the thing that led people to label him a disappointment in the fact that he didn't get a Kobashi or Misawa style ace run of crippling head drop epics may have been the best thing to happen him for how it's allowed his body to hold up amazingly well and continue to give us King's Road style epics (except without said crippling head drops) semi-regularly even this year.

I really dug his stuff with Wagner in 2009, though I haven't seen it since it happened.

Wrong match. You're thinking of 1/97, but this thread is for 10/97.

People are really underselling Taker's resume. Sure, his gimmick often did limit him early on, but when matched with a capable worker such as Bret, Hogan, or Yokozuna, he showed quite a bit of the potential that he would get the chance to use later on. Besides that, given the emphasis that's been placed on separating great performances from great matches, I'm not sure why people give him such a hard for the period when he was able to achieve a memorable aura and get over doing things that seem ridiculous on paper. Ditto with things like inferno matches and the American Badass character. I think his ability to take that would kill plenty of other guys and turn them into these great spectacles is a big reason why Vince loves him so much. Besides the streak and the obvious big matches against Brock and Batista, it should also be pointed out that he had possibly the best resume of hoss fights out there. The Festus match mentioned is worth watching, but it's far from an outlier when you consider things like the Kozlov matches, the house show stuff with Umaga, and an awesome 2006 Smackdown Mark Henry match I just watched. The guy's greatest strength to me is in how he can sell just enough to where something like a flash pin from Kozlov would seem credible while still being able project himself as superhuman.

I've always loved the reaction of the woman in the front row to the finish, where she bursts out crying as Misawa hits the TD 91 and then desperately screams for Kobashi to kick out. Match is worth watching just for that. I don't really see this as a "mirrors" match at all. In fact, I think there's a pretty clear speed vs power dynamic here, with Kobashi generally slowing down the pace while in control to work on Misawa's neck to set up for power moves while Misawa fights back with high flying and absolutely vicious elbow strikes. That said, it certainly does lean towards bomb throwing and lacks the storytelling depth of the 1/97 match. As a bomb throwing match, though, I do think it is wrestled in the best possible way with both guys making it clear from the beginning that they're not fucking around and Misawa, in particular, hitting knockout blows every time he gets the chance to throughout the match. Stretch run also has some really cool psychology with the battle between Kobashi's chops to Misawa's battle damaged neck and Misawa's hard elbow shots. Still, though definitely great, I'd have this solidly behind 1/97 and, even if it's not that popular here, the 6/97 Kawada match for having a similar bomb throwing format with Kawada's disrespect and frustration. I've always thought it was interesting, though, that this still win MOTY in both AJPW's own year end review and the Tokyo Sports awards. I can only guess that it was simply a more high profile with it occurring at the Budokan for the 25th anniversary show. If it makes sense, I see this as more a perfect AJPW 25th anniversary match than a perfect 3rd Misawa/Kobashi match. The bomb throwing structure and mutual respect really allowed both guys to highlight their own unique style and that of the promotion as a whole, whilst also making it clear how Kobashi had been elevated to Misawa's level and giving something accessible to the folks who might not regularly watch. In that respect, there could have been no better post-match than to have the fans chanting the promotion's name as both guys laid on the mat with neither looking like the clear winner.

That's a big-time Kawada carry job. Kobashi might as well had been lead around by the nose in the match. Plus, that finish "killed the territory" after Kawada's huge win a month earlier.No way was that a carry job. Kawada was awesome on offense, sure, but Kobashi gave him the perfect underdog foil to work with. In particular, what really puts the much over the top for me is how Kobashi gives the best glassy eyed concussion selling I've ever seen for Kawada's kicks throughout the match.

To me, this match isn't about all-time great offense so much as it is about all-time great selling. Kobashi was pretty much 1 defense from becoming the de facto ace, so Misawa's first big run of offense, I think, is actually a great way of selling his respect for Kobashi and that he wants to assert himself as still The Man. It's an interesting counterpoint to the 10/95 match that had Kobashi as the one trying to prove himself through throwing out the bombs early. 10/95 also saw Kobashi lose due to being unable to capitalize on said early run of offense and control the match for long periods, but here we see how he has learned from that as takes a page out boxing's playbook by working over Misawa's mid-section with the purpose of slowing him down later in the match. We also see some nice cut-off spots from Kobashi, again selling that he understands the importance of control. Kobashi actually comes across as the smarter and the more focused of the two, as when it's Misawa's turn to control the match again he just goes back to his usual hard elbow strikes, and pays dearly for it when he hits the guard rail and Kobashi takes advantage. Kobashi's arm work looks brutal and the submission attempts come at the perfect time of the match in terms of being late enough for the crowd to seriously buy them as potential finishes but still early enough to leave room for the real stretch run. They're also a great way of showing Kobashi's growth with him following up on a big suplex with an arm bar because he knows not only that it's still too early to pin Misawa but that working on the arm is his best chance at maintaining that important control of the match. Misawa's selling on his comeback of not just the arm but his general exhaustion from the earlier body work is seriously amazing stuff and some of the best selling I've ever seen. Him being unable to hold Kobashi down for a tiger driver beyond a 1 due to his arm, him botching a German suplex again due to his arm, and him struggling to climb the ring post just might be my 3 favorite moments of the match overall. To add to what Loss hit on, Kobashi's undoing seems to have been that he was a little too zealous to maintain control and keep Misawa down, and that was what led to those unnecessary risks. Not only is there the powerbomb-hurricanrana counter mentioned, but the fluke injury that turned the tide of the match happened when Kobashi foolishly went for the lariat a second time after it got countered on his first attempt. Even in those last few minutes surrounding the TD '91, on this viewing I actually felt like Kobashi was never really out of the match given that Misawa had to struggle to hit it while Kobashi still had energy left afterwards to attempt some weak lariats on a Misawa who could barely stand. It's just that zealousness led to him basically feeding himself into a TS '85, and that standing up immediately afterwards gave Misawa the perfect opening to knock him out with a running elbow. Incredible match overall. An absolutely beautiful story told through breathtaking brutality and selling. I've seen it several times a year since my first viewing around 5 years ago and I still notice new things or come up with different interpretations on every rewatch. By the end of this viewing, I thought I had seen the best match ever, but I've also felt that way at points about several of their other matches. At least I have this solidly pegged as the best singles series ever, even as my mind keeps changing on what their true masterpiece is.

Not sure what someone who wasn't as invested in the promotion might think, but after following NOAH through its depressing years of financial turmoil and Kobashi through his sad 2011-2012 comeback, watching him pull out one last performance in front of a sold out Budokan for his retirement tag was a ***** MOTY to me. For one night, all was well in a decaying promotion.

Even on the shitty black and white version I watched on YouTube, Taker/Lesnar was an easy MOTYC. Really had the feel of a stiff war between two monsters akin to Hansen/Andre, with the added bonus of Undertaker bringing his insanely underrated old man selling and building very well off his Wrestlemania story. I loved the announcers selling it as him having nothing left to prove and returning to his 90's persona of just killing guys because he felt like it and not caring about wins or losses. The screwy finish just went along with that. Also, given that this was supposed to be a renewed Undertaker it seems common sense to me to have him survive what finished him at Wrestlemania to drive that point home. But it's a WWE main event, so people love to find things to bitch about no matter what.

English bachelor's degree here and I was taught that it's impossible to ignore context when talking about anything because the meaning behind the language of a text (or the wrestling moves in a wrestling match) is ultimately a direct product of context. Even when people claim to be looking at something "out of context," they're really just looking at it in a different context than it was intended to be viewed in. So it makes no sense to me to say that you rate matches while ignoring context.

This was such an awesome match. An alternate translation of the tournament name would be King Road Tournament, which would be a pretty fitting name for the style of this match. Back when I was going through 90's AJPW on Ditch's site, I watched this one obscure 6-man from 1995 where Kawada accidentally chokes Misawa out legit and they just do their best to work the match around that, but I always had this curiosity in the back of my mind afterwards as to what a match would be like if it was deliberately worked around such a spot. This match finally answered that. The selling of the initial choke out is perfect to the point where I wondered if it was a shoot until the rest of the match clued me in. I don't agree at all that Shiozaki's selling was lacking and actually thought he was great at depicting confusion and desperation throughout the match. Suwama did look great as well, though, not only wrestling a smart and focused match built around the sleeper but also incorporating flashes of bull-like aggression to cut Shiozaki off and giving us hints at the arrogance that would eventually lead to his undoing. Him running full speed into a hard lariat was the perfect way to begin Shiozaki's comeback and there was a nice sense of urgency with him going for the big moves right out of the gate. I actually thought the stretch run was great for capturing the intense strike exchanges and bomb trading you would expect from a King's Road match while leaving room for rematch to build off of. A common complaint I've seen from people about matches that ape 90's AJ is that they only copy the head drops while forgetting the psychology to them, but this match is a very good showcase of how Akiyama's AJ goes in the opposite direction by having guys wrestle a safer style that mostly stays away from the things that left the 4 kings immobile in order to highlight the structure and psychology elements that truly make King's Road my favorite style. Overall, a great example of why I think modern AJ is the best current promotion and hopefully we can look forward to many more years of matches like this.

Kawada/Kobashi/Kikuchi vs Baba/Dory/Andre https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_APdDNJDA Really cool match I hadn't heard of before with the old guys trying out the epic Jumbo/Misawa six man formula and making it work pretty well. Andre is nearly immobile at this point but it's still awesome to see him just for the novelty of watching him work with the young guys. Also has fun commentary. I can't seem to find this on any TV listings and Ditch doesn't have it so I wonder if it's newly discovered.

Full match is up on Dailymotion and, though it's been too long since I saw the edited version to be able to say exactly what's new, it is as an awesome match in its complete form. The match starts really hot with both guys unloading on each other, but the full match shows them doing a great job both maintaining the heat and slowly turning the pace down for the stretch run as the toll of the match catches up to both guys. Between that, Hansen's stiff punches, and Kobashi's knockdown selling, the match takes on a similar feel to a heavyweight boxing fight. Down the stretch, you really get the sense that both guys had a puncher's chance at ending the match any moment. Hansen's performance is, as mentioned, amazing, especially considering both his age and mileage by this point. I don't think he plays the role of the old gunslinger so much as that of a cagey veteran eager to test Kobashi to see if he has what it takes to hold the triple crown. He does upstage Kobashi a bit, but in the sense that you can tell he really wanted to get Kobashi over as a credible champ. Between bringing his classic stiffness and playing lots of great mind games before, during, and the match (love them circling each other during the intros), he truly manages to recapture and build off of the grittiness of their prior matches. Despite being 46, Hansen's performance gives the sense that Kobashi's victory was due to him simply having progressed into the better wrestler, as opposed to age having caught up to Hansen.

I don't see what's so hard to understand about the "no sell" sequence in Ibushi/Shibata. There clearly was selling going on, it just involved both guys doing their best to fight through the damage until it caught up to them. It basically did serve as the match's near fall segment, except both guys were so evenly matched and had so little in the tank they just chose to lay out everything they had instead of resting and giving up the advantage. I have no idea how you could watch and get the impression that the moves weren't supposed to hurt.

People have been predicting NOAH's impending doom since Misawa's death 6 years ago. No, they're not in their golden age but they've actually done a really good job of handling that by cutting down costs and building themselves a solid second-tier promotion roster.

Let's not forget about his horrible year long 2012 reign that drew like shit and was full of dull matches. I don't see how you could blame his failure on lack of opportunity. If anything the dude was way over pushed and the promotion's insistence on using him as the ace just led to KENTA and Marufuji getting their quality heavyweight main event runs way later than they deserved.

Taker killing himself on the dive is the main reason the WM25 match is great. This was during the period when he was still viewed as invincible, so the shock from watching it live and legit wondering if he might have seriously injured himself was incredible. The timing of the spot was also perfect, capping off the tension-building first half of the match and bridging into the finishing stretch. It created a sense that anything could happen, which carried over into every near fall afterwards and gave the match a sense of drama that few matches following its "self-conscious epic" formula achieve.

I agree with you on the importance of those little things and I'd also add camera work to that list. Like Tim was saying, some handhelds can give matches a really cool feel entirely different from what you get with formal TV production. On the other end, I would also say the WWE camera guys are actually really underappreciated in how they cover up sloppiness and always get just the right angles to reinforce the story trying to be told in the ring.

Solution: Just watch the stuff that gets pimped and the PPVs.

What was hokey about the TV spot? Ambrose put Wyatt through hell but was a little too crazy and took too many risks, which left him open for Wyatt to take advantage. Pretty much summarizes the story they were telling for the rest of the match.