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garretta

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Everything posted by garretta

  1. garretta
    This was a lot like the joshi matches I've been watching lately: back and forth, with neither man having the advantage for more than a few seconds at a time. But for whatever reason, it never felt like that; it was grittier, with a lot more substance to it. What a knockdown drag-out fight, with a shot at the promotion's biggest prize on the line. Each man started out trying to work a body part: Kawada's neck and Taue's arm. But it soon became apparent that neither man was going to give up, so they switched to just beating the hell out of each other while trying to avoid each other's finishers. There was definitely the feeling here that each man knew the other so well that it would be impossible for the chokeslam and stretch plum to work. When it came time, though, we saw each in its devastating glory. Taue's chokeslams looked particularly vicious, especially since he'd piledriven Kawada on the table and also DDTd him on the floor. Taue eventually passes out in the stretch plum, but never actually gives up, thus giving Kawada a decisive victory heading into his match with Misawa while keeping Taue strong for later. I liked Kawada helping Taue up at the end, whether it was foreshadowing their partnership or not. The fans popped for it too, which may have been one reason Baba ultimately decided to team them. From the way they beat the hell out of each other, I can tell that they should be an awesome team once they get together. Misawa and Kawada team in the Tag League in November and December, according to the match list, so it's going to be interesting to see how they put their upcoming title match behind them and get back in the tag team groove when the time comes.
  2. garretta
    Thanks for the info, Zenjo!
  3. garretta
    I thought this was extremely well-worked by both teams. Kyoko in particular took a hell of a pounding here, and the submissions looked brutal. I've never seen a male wrestler sit as high for the Boston crab as some of the females do. A few (including Bull in this match) actually drape their opponent's leg across their own shoulder, which looks like it can tear the top half of your body loose from the bottom half if enough pressure is applied. Speaking of brutal, what about Kyoko's giant swing? She looks like she can barely stand after she finishes applying it, so I can only imagine how it disorients her opponents. I've never seen anyone make so many revolutions with this hold (or its cousin, the airplane spin) before. Usually, if a wrestler applies it for more than a few revolutions it leads to a nearfall on him, because he's so disoriented that his victim collapses on top of him. Aja doesn't use the trashcans at all in this one, although she brings them to the ring, as we see them in the introductions. Either she's mellowing or this wasn't a big enough show to break out that spot. Bull was a little more technical here than usual too, using a lot of painful-looking leg submissions that she seldom uses otherwise. Aja and Bull are back to being rivals again after being partners in September. That's fine by me; I'm looking forward to their confrontation at Dream Rush. I wasn't aware that Akira was Bull's mew partner when she presented Bull the flowers at her celebration back in September. I wondered why it was her instead of someone like Aja.
  4. garretta
    I didn't really care for this as much as I should have, and the main reason was that there wasn't enough Bull. For some reason, Kyoko was the workhorse on that team, and although she's a fine worker from what I've seen, when the show is supposedly built around Bull Nakano, that's who I want to see. Yamada, Hotta, and Yoshida looked a lot better then you'd expect under the circumstances; not only did they score a pin on Bull, but they controlled Inoue quite a bit and even had Aja on the run a time or two. It might have been Bull's night, but her team still had to "earn" the victory in this one. I thought it was generous of her to allow herself to be pinned on her special night, ecen if it was only for one fall in a best-of-three, and the reaction of the opposing team was priceless. You'd habe thought that they each won the World title all in the same night. How in the world did they manage to limit Aja to one brief trashcan spot? I guess they didn't want Bull to be upstaged on her big night, but considering how many times she'd been laid out by Aja with cans over the years, I doubt that she would have minded. Bull wasn't very sentimental about the flowers after the match, and she didn't cry during her speech either. It fit her character perfectly, but it was still a bit jarring, since most athletes at least heave some heavy sighs on nights when they're being honored.
  5. garretta
    I'm with Pete and Eagle; a lot of the moves looked impressive, but it all ended up a blur because we weren't given a reason to care about anyone in the match. Each team got to go through their moves one after the other, but that was about it. I liked the accidental miscommunication spots between Toyota and Yamada; they'd just come off the hair match in which they'd really got at each other hard, and though they ended up friends, there was always the chance that one thing or another could set them off again. It didn't happen, but the tease was still effective. I liked Sakie bridging out of several Toyota pin attempts too. They happened in such a way that it didn't feel like move-stealing, although I think I caught a definite "What the hell?" look on Toyota's face at one point. I don't think either team was in control for more than a few seconds at a stretch. A dead-even wrestling match sounds good in theory, but never turns out well in practice; that may be why there aren't that many examples of matches like that. Sorry to hear about Debbie being hurt. She definitely looked like a chip off the old block here with some of the submissions she used. Is she Dean and Joe's legit sister, or was she just using the Malenko name?
  6. garretta
    Magnum brings up a great point: Why didn't Rock 'n' Roll have a second to counteract Corny? They knew this was basically going to be a handicap match, that Corny would get involved so heavily that he'd almost be a legal participant, so why not have Smothers or Ronnie Garvin or even Tim Horner in their corner? The stationary camera used for most of this made to kind of hard to follow, though we did get a nice closeup of Ricky tied to the ropes. As for why the ring attendant got involved, he was the closest person to the action at that moment. By the time one of the wrestlers would have gotten there, Ricky would have been (or at least should have been) half-dead, if not more. Corny's involvement didn't bother me here; it was a no-rules match, and that's what the hell no rules means. As I said above, the fault was with the stupid babyfaces for not bringing a second of their own, preferably armed. There wasn't a whole lot of time or room for Les and Dutch to shine on commentary, but they did the best they could. I thought Dutch put over the chaotic nature of the match expertly by telling the audience that he and Les were standing, despite a request by an anonymous SMW official that they sit, because they didn't want the match to end up in their laps. Sure enough, Ricky got fired out onto the broadcast table about a minute later. I know we're supposed to expect weapons aplenty in matches like this, but the plastic bag on Gibson was too much. It should only be used by madmen like Terry Funk or Kevin Sullivan, and even then only rarely. Remember, Corny, those things can legitimately kill people. I liked that Stan led the prematch promo for the Bodies; they continue to separate themselves from the MX by being their own people with their own thoughts, at least occasionally. Ricky does the talking for Rock 'n' Roll as normal and says nothing really special. One question: Why do interviewers almost always talk to Robert first when they know that Ricky's always been the spokesman? Four title changes in four days is simply too many, at least to be acknowledged on TV. You can definitely tell which promotion Corny grew up watching, but I doubt that even Lawler ever went through four separately recognized title changes in as many days (as opposed to dropping the belt to the same guy at almost every stop on the loop so the fans could see the title change hands). Pick a champion and stay with them for a while, Corny.
  7. garretta
    For the record, Funk recorded seven falls, Gilbert five. This was fine once the cameraman decided to follow the action instead of running laps all over the building. I wouldn't call this a classic of any sort, but it's loads better than most matches booked into high school gyms, in 1992 or any other year. These two certainly worked hard for their audience, and the audience (at least some) got really involved with the match; you can hear warnings every once in a while for certain people to get back to their seats. I liked picking up some of the wrestlers' interactions with the ref, like Eddie screaming "He's breaking my leg!" when Terry has him caught in the spinning toehold, or Terry checking to see when the ref can begin counting after a fall. We can also catch the ref vainly trying to enforce at least some rules so the bout doesn't turn into a complete riot. I also loved seeing Eddie tumble all the way down the steps after one pinfall. Talk about a difficult bump (or five)! Who are the two poor souls which Eddie massacres? One jumps on his back in the ring, the other is the one whom he brands with Terry's branding iron. They must be local indy guys, because I don't recognize either of them. The one thing I really wish is that Memphis had followed up on the hype that this match was going to determine Lawler's next number one contender. We're about due for a Memphis run from the Funker, and another chapter in the immortal Funk/Lawler feud beats the hell out of watching Lawler dominate a feud with a couple of hometown nobodies like Mike Samples and Mike Miller, or even someone like Koko B.Ware, much as I like him. (Actually, I think the next time we see Terry, he'll be on the other side of Tennessee, working for Corny as one of his many mercenaries during his feud with Bob Armstrong in SMW.)
  8. garretta
    I liked this one fine, but it would have been easier to care about if there had been more star power. Tenryu's a huge name for the WAR side, and Kosh simply isn't on his level for New Japan. That situation seems like it's changing in short order, though, as Choshu has made a verbal agreement to take on Tenryu at the next Tokyo Dome spectacular. That's more like it! The only thing that would have made it even better would have been Inoki getting physically involved somehow when he came to the ring afterward. The crowd seemed to be into this fairly well, even when the midcarders for both sides are in. Come to think of it, putting Kimura in with that group isn't fair, as he was a pretty big name in the eighties for NJPW who no doubt helped to sell at least a few tickets. Did Aoyagi have a karate gimmick of some kind? There has to be a reason why he wrestled the first half of this match in a gi. The match itself wasn't too bad, but it wasn't anything particularly memorable either. It was more of a preview of coming attractions, and it served its purpose well. Can't wait to see more of this feud in '93!
  9. garretta
    The blood was the story of this match, of course. This has to be the sickest bladejob I've ever seen from anyone, period. It's not often that blood is literally dripping on the cancas like it was here. And yet, Muta somehow manages to beat Hase clean and retain his title. This is a wild one before Muta gets split open as well. It's almost like Hase scouted Keiji Muto and knows to expect craziness when he decides to wear the Muta paint, so when he sees the paint is on prior to the bout, he decides to beat Muta to the punch in order to save his life. He's much more aggressive than I remember him in most of his other matches, and even begins the rulebreaking with scraping his boot across Muta's face, which conveniently removes the paint and sets up the bloodbath. Then Muta finds the spike underneath the ring and all hell breaks loose. I like how each guy is so exhausted that their needles are stuck on "suplex" toward the very end. These guys are so burnt out and beaten up that they can only think to execute one move, which of course isn't enough to put wither one of them away. I think that the only other move we saw after that was Muta's second attempted moonsault, which of course got him the win. Nice to see Chono make a belt-for-belt challenge with the NWA World title; it effectively sets up the Muta-Chono bout from three days earlier, which I have yet to watch.
  10. garretta
    I thought that this was very good. I have no idea what the rest of you thought was so sloppy about it; these four brought their best for sure, and each nearfall really felt important with the honor of the respective promotions at stake. I'd love to see more Kanemoto and Orihara. These two really impressed me, and would have stolen the show if they hadn't been in with veterans like Liger and Dragon. Hopefully we see more of them representing their respective sides in the '93 Yearbook. The fans were a bit slow to respond to this at first, but were on their feet at the end even though the WAR ream got the win. WAR's off to a flying start so far in this interpromotional feud, as they've taken both matches so far this year with one more (which is actually the November six-man that introduces the feud on this set) to go. I'm sort of surprised to see them booked so strong early on in New Japan; then again, most "invading" promotions are booked like monsters at the start of a feud like this. Just ask the NWO. I noticed the announcer wearing the Harvard sweatshirt too. What happened, was hos University of Tokyo sweatshirt late coming back from the cleaners?
  11. garretta
    This wasn't bad, and it was nice to see Heenan as an integral part of an angle for what may be the last time in the WWF. But Flair was screaming so loudly it was hard to understand him, and Hall isn't the promo I thought he'd be from his vignettes. It's fine to talk slowly, but not only does he talk too slowly, but he doesn't say much of note except "oozing machismo". As catchphrases go, "the bad guy" was a thousand times better. Who in their right mind would want to ooze anything? Bret wasn't bad, but I can see where using technical wrestling skill as a talking point wouldn't thrill too many people. I'm surprised he didn't use "the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be" as a tagline; we first saw it used in the WWF Slam video. The brawl was all right for a podium pull-apart, and it's nice to see Curt fully involved physically again. Bret/Curt-Flair/Hall would probably have happened at some point if Flair hadn't been leaving soon, and it would have been a good house show main event series. The commentary during the brawl was brutal, though: Vince yelling "WHAT IS GOING ON?" when he can see what's going on right in front of him was bad enough, but Lawler saying that Flair and Hall taught Bret and Curt a lesson when they (Flair and Hall) were clearly driven off the platform was too much. He's going to be one of those delusional heel commentators for whom no babyface can ever do right, and that type does nothing but drive me crazy, and not in a good way either. The Bret feud had better be worth it in the ring, because otherwise I'll be firmly in the "Lawler should have stayed in Memphis full-time" camp.
  12. garretta
    A lor of the stuff I was going to talk about has already been brought up, but one thing that hasn't is Tenryu's ring positioning. He knows where he is every second, even while Kosh is destroying his arm early in the match or putting him down for nearfall after nearfall. He's always close enough to the ropes to force a break, and it adds to the match because the crowd is shown that this isn't going to be easy for Kosh; he's in there with a true veteran who knows what he's doing in there every minute. That's one reason why Kosh's nearfalls got such big pops. I thought Kosh's armwork was excellent, and the cut on his head literally came out of nowhere, but it affected the match. Tenryu knew exactly how to work on it. The fans could leave the arena thinking that if only Kosh hadn't been weakened by the vut, he might have prevailed after all. From the action we saw outside the ring it seemed like the NJPW/WAR feud got really hot really quickly. I haven't seen the November six-man yet, but now I'm really looking forward to it!
  13. garretta
    This match was the finals of NJPW's equivalent to the Real World Tag League. Both teams really brought their A game; Hase and Sasaki looked much better than they did the previous month against the Steiners. In the end, though, the size and power of Choshu and Hash were just too much. Nice use of the sleeper as a weardown move by Hase and Sasaki, though it bugs me when a wrestler has a guy almost out from a sleeper (as in, the arm's already dropped twice) and then lets the hold go. It seems to happen mostly in Japan for whatever reason, and this match has a prime example, as Hash's arm drops twice from a Hase sleeper, but Hase releases the hold and tags out before the ref can even check Hash's arm a third time. Does anyone know why a spot like this is used? It seems a bot weird to do a tournament like this when your top team (the Steiners) is unavailable due to commitments back in the States. I just looked this up on Wikipedia, and the best they could do for a purely gaijin team was Jim "The Anvil" Neidhart and Tom Zenk, who got completely shut out.
  14. garretta
    Good point, Phil!
  15. garretta
    I'm honestly not sure what most of you saw, because this looked like as close to a squash of a native team as is permitted in NJPW. Sasake looked good in places, but Hase did nothing after the first minute or two, and everything he and Sasake tried went for naught. They got a few token pin attempts during the finishing run, but other than that this was all Steiners. They haven't looked this good stateside in quite a while. Interesting to see Rick use the tilt-a-whirl backbreaker early on; I thought that was one of Scotty's exclusive moves. Scotty's Frankensteiners do look a bit sloppy. Either the muscles in his legs are getting too big to allow him to execute the move properly or he simply doesn't care if one of his opponents gets hurt when they take the move. I notice that Hase and Sasake are teaming again in October, and I hope they look better in that match than they did in this one.
  16. garretta
    This was surprisingly even at first, but eventually Maeda's superior striking and kicking told the tale. Han looked like he knocked himself down trying for a kick one, and the last kick that led to the TKO was a thing of beauty by Maeda which Han also sold beautifully. What was the article of clothing Han took off in the middle of the match? I thought at first that it was a kneepad, but it wasn't, as he had both kneepads on a minute or so later. With all of the ankle and leg-based submissions these guys use, it has to be murder on their legs, just like regular pro wrestling bumps are tough on other guys' necks and backs,
  17. garretta
    Once I realized I wouldn't see any scoring on screen, my interest dropped to nothing. I'm a Southern wrasslin' fan who watched this because it happened to be on a disc I paid for. I'm not a shootstyle expert, nor do I ever plan to be one. These two could have been having the greatest match ever, but I wanted to see who was scoring points. If they don't give enough of a damn to show me that, I don't give enough of a damn to try and figure out who looked prettier rolling around on the mat. Period.
  18. garretta
    Nagai was able to tie up Sousserov for most of this, though I was impressed by Sousserov's takedowns. If he'd gone puro, I could see him being marketed as a master of the suplex, kind of like the Iron Sheik was. In the end, Nagai puts the Russian away once and for all with a devastating high kick. RINGS accidentally (or not) gave the finish away by not putting the score on the screen after Nagai hot the winning kick. It'll be interesting to see going forward if that was just a one-time thing or if it was standard operating procedure.
  19. garretta
    Vince didn't want JJ working with Flair because he thought it would remind too many fans of the Horsemen, whom he didn't create. I agree about Curt too, at least at first. They eventually became quite good together, but Curt's original purpose was to give Flair someone at ringside other than Heenan (who didn't want any part of traveling with him because he was so wild on the road, and was busy in the booth at tapings) and to give Curt something to do besides collect a fat insurance check due to his bad back. Interestingly, they tried Jimmy Hart as Flair's manager during his house show run with Hogan so that Hogan would have someone to beat up after the matches. Talk about a terrible fit!
  20. garretta
    This wasn't the highest-scoring match in the world, but I liked it anyway. Everything was a battle, and there was constant action because of the many reversals and counter-reversals. They lagged a little bit toward the end, but most shootstyle matches have a ton more downtime than this one did. I loved Tamura's escape from the sleeper, and he floated right into the armbar for the win. This was a treat to watch.
  21. garretta
    What we saw here was nice, but the point of an eight-man battle royal escapes me. As I've said before, the Lethal Lottery should have been its own pay-per-view, a sort of bizarre world Crockett Cup, with the teams battling tournament-style for the prize. Good action between Dustin and Barry, and Jesse turned out to be right: Dustin was so consumed with beating the hell out of Barry that it ended up costing him the match. I'll be interested to see exactly what Muta's win leads to, since he didn't have a full-time stateside run that I know of at any point in '93. If they have to do this again next year, get it away from Starrcade. A title match, a Lethal Lottery tag match, and Battlebowl involving the same wrestlers on the same card is simply overkill. Dumb spot of the match (that we saw): Barry trying to come off the top tope twice. Didn't Mulligan teach him anything about how to survive in battle royals? Yes, he hit the superplex, but he's damn lucky Dustin wanted to punish him enough to slam him into the ring instead of knocking him out.
  22. garretta
    Thanks for the info and link. I'll have to check it out soon!
  23. garretta
    This is what I always thought shootstyle was: a race to outscore your opponent and get the win. You'd be surprised hoe few shootstyle bouts are worked like this, which is why the style is boring and confusing to a lot of traditional wrestling fans. I always thought knockdowns, whether by strike or takedown, were worth one point, but one of Kanehara's suplexes at the end gets two. Is that a rule change or could they have just been looking to get the match over with faster for some reason? I'm still not experienced enough in the style to call this the best shootstyle match I've ever seen, but it was definitely one of the ones I enjoyed the most.
  24. garretta
    Other than the double knockdown of Ashford-Smith (a third rope break equals one knockdown, plus he stayed down long enough for the ref to start a ten count) and a flurry or two near the end, this was deadly dull to me. Ishikawa knocking Ashford-Smith into the corner, then charging right at him with a flying knee was the only real energy I saw here despite the close score. Not one I want to see again.
  25. garretta
    I loved this setup. Corny's on fire, scoring with line after line, and Stan finally pulls his weight, talking up Corny's "physical fitness" hilariously. Of course, nothing can top the man himself, with his diet of Twinkies and chocolate-covered fudge Oreos (no doubt washed down with Sprite). Dr. Tom takes the cake, though, with "IcoPro is dynamite!" Was Corny thinking of an alliance with Vince this soon, or was this just a throwaway line? Stupidity, they name is Ricky Morton. Come on, Ricky, after eight years you can't tell when Corny's setting you up? You mean to tell me you didn't see that towel he was carrying? If you did, what did you think was in it, chopsticks? I hate angles where faces have to be so obviously stupid in order for them to work. Why should I as a fan cheer for someone who's so easily taken advantage of? Wouldn't I be better off cheering for the ones who took advantage, even if they are sleazebags? I forgot to talk about Corny tearing up the telephone book. I get what they were going for, but there really is a trick to it from what I've heard, and it's not necessarily as easy as it looks. even for really strong people. Of course, we didn't need to know that for the purposes of this angle. The match was pretty good for something that was supposedly unscheduled; it started out a hot brawl and cooled down into a regular match, which for these teams is still great. The finish was sort of new for this type of angle, in that while Corny's racquet came into play, it wasn't used as a weapon as it usually is in these types of situations. You still have the question of what Fuller and Golden really meant to do, but there hasn't been any bloodshed, accidental or otherwise, between the two teams, so no one's clearly right or wrong. I'm sure we'll hear more about this situation in the new year. Kyle doesn't get involved as often as Bossman used to when he was Corny's bodyguard. In fact, this may be the first time I've seen him up on the apron during a match. Dutch was great here; he put both teams over as legitimately tough and skilled, but still came across as rooting against Ricky and Robert, which is what you expect from a friend of the Studs. At this point, Rock 'n' Roll losing the belts is the goal of both the Studs and the Bodies, regardless of which team actually wins them, but you know that won't last for long.
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