dawho5

But the feuds are what bring in the fans, Parv. Will is just looking to put asses in the seats.

Any parts of the match that were great were mostly Lassartesse, so I can see that. He's like the French Ric Flair or something the way he struts around the ring. Also, the few times he didn't were very telling. For what it's worth, I'm in no way unhappy that I watched the match. Just there are some inconsistencies and things I wasn't sure about, and I didn't know whether to chalk them up to mistakes made in the ring or idiosyncracies of the style.

Allary vs. de Lassartesse was great. Allary is (if I'm right) the darker haired, shorter guy. Lassartesse is the strutting, tall, blond heel. And man is hre great at it. Even just walking around the ring he's got this "I'm so much better than you" strut going. He takes great shortcuts, rushing Allary off of rope breaks, pushing the ref out of the way after dropping a knee or stomping (it looks like the ref gives a count here after one attack to a grounded pponent, to give the a chance to get back up). Allary is pretty good at the fiery babyface comeback, but I wish he'd do more than uppercuts and elbows some of the time. The ref is god damn great when it comes to keeping Lassartesse in line. He gets physically involved a few times, at one point putting a submission hold on the big man to enforce the rules. Lassartesse starts working over the throat near the end and hits the diving knee drop he crashed and burned on earlier for the ten count. Some of the selling seems a bit off, but this is the first French match I've seen so I don't know if that's normal or not.

I think the lazy Misawa stuff came more as his body started to break down, at least in the sense that it was really obvious. He had different matches with Kobashi, Kawada and Taue throughout the 90s and worked a little differently for each of the big gaijin. But my feeling is that by the time he reached NOAH there were only a few matches he really got away from the Misawa formula. Don't know if the physical toll that had been taken on him was the deciding factor, but it certainly seemed to me that his willingness to deviate from his standard match was less frequent as time went on. Not that it produced terrible matches all the time.

Also Matt, don't forget the massive differences in the head shaving. The first one is Dump forcibly shaving Chigusa's head while Chigusa's friends can do nothing. But when Dump loses, she leaves, comes back of her own volition and has her friends shave her head. It's like some kind of twisted "even when you in, you lose" kind of deal.

Kawada had it in him to put on good to great matches at the time, but a lot of the traits that really define him hadn't come out in his wrestling yet. I don't think any of them are polished in 1990, but Kobashi's energy and spunk in that time period made him a great sympathetic babyface. Kawada just didn't have the same charisma Kobashi did, his was more that aura of violence that came later on. Young Kawada was pretty much a juniors style wrestler where Kobashi was more of an all-around guy with a weakness in his striking.

Early Kobashi is easily my favorite Kobashi. Up until 95 he's absolutely incredible in everything for me. Kawada takes a while longer to put it all together, but once 92-93 hits I'm more into him than Kobashi usually. That being said, 1993 Kenta Kobashi is probably a top 5 pick easy for me.

I also have a nomination. Tenryu/Fuchi vs. Kawada/Arai 6/30/01. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEA_2MfRMu4 Short, to the point, and it hits three guys in the project.

Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr vs. The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher 9/19/78 I could see arguments for Dory, Terry or the Sheik as MVP after watching. The Funks work a great babyface vengeance, with Dory really bringing a lot of fire late and post-match. The Sheik's early match stalling and heeling is excellent and sets the table for the rest of the match well. I still like the Viedor vs. Davies match better, but this was definitely a great watch. Mayumi Ozaki vs. Hiromi Yagi 3/3/96 There's parts of this I really like and parts I don't. Ozaki's selling of the ribs and Yagi's continued coming back to them is really good. The late transitions are too similar (burst of energy when the other goes up top) or too obvious (Yagi's 5th time off the ropes to kick Ozaki and guess what, she gets it caught) for me. Ozaki hitting big powerbombs during her early offense is a bit over the top. The dueling strategies of Ozaki (big bombs to wear down Yagi quickly) and Yagi (keep putting on holds and find a way to get to the ribs) was interesting even if I don't enjoy Ozaki's way of doing things. I thought the first arm submission Yagi put on should have been somebody's finisher at some point. Ozaki's arm was bending in a very unnatural way for a few moments there. Ozaki's spinny sleepers were interesting and pretty damn brutal. The whole is less than the parts when you put it all together though.

I thought Loss wanted a pony. How did that morph into lasers? Also, why is Loss the only one on the board with lasers? That's highly unfair right there.

90-95% of what Kobashi does is anywhere from good to absolutely brilliant to me. It's that 5-10% that works my last nerve and seems to wipe all the good stuff out when I'm watching. I've said it before privately, but Kobashi is a huge blind spot for me in something like this. Because there's stuff he does that I can't get past even if I know he's an incredible worker otherwise. So if I come across as overly negative on the guy, I apologize. It's just for whatever reason a lot of his negative qualities hit me just the right way where I forget the many more positives he brings to the table.

I think that part of the problem is that there are accusations being thrown around about the board when no actual opinions on wrestling or wrestlers are presented. Generally people who post here expect you to have your own opinion and be willing to express it, regardless of what they may think of it. Yes, maybe some of the people are dismissive about certain wrestlers or criticism of others. But they will be dismissive of you if you lack the confidence or commitment to your own opinions that is required to express them in a forum like this. So don't be afraid, just write what you think/feel about wrestling and all will work itself out. Also, keep PWO the same. It's great as is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acb3ZFdGF3I This. Misawa/Kawada are still teaming and young, which is certainly an interesting part of the watch. But this is Hansen's match all the way. The really great stuff starts when Hansen comes in and starts stomping on Kawada's head while Spivey has him in a Boston crab. He gets chased out by the ref, but Hansen decides that it's time to up the ante instead. What follows is some of the best character work Hansen ever does.

Thirded.

Pierroth Jr vs. Mogur (1/12/90) Really good match. Pierroth's cheating can't win him the first fall, as Mogur really ups the ante with a big powerbomb for the 3. Pierroth heels it up by continuously rolling into and out of the ring to buy himself time. Mogur is working the back of the head/neck, which Pierroth is selling so well. Pierroth catches Mogur with a backwards headbutt to the groin while trapped in a neck figure 4. That leads to the inevitable win for Pierroth in fall 2 and now it's Mogur's turn to take a powder. But he's back in after just one time to the floor and the ending is a nice sequence of counters, some of them really gritty elbows and knees to break up submission holds. Liked this match a lot. Steve Veidor vs. Gwyn Davies (5/26/76) This is absolutely incredible. Davies as the heel is tremendous, picking his spots perfectly to sneak in the cheating and piss off the crowd. Viedor is perfectly good in his role, but it's Davies who makes this match great. I love how he gets increasingly pissed off when Viedor makes his comebacks and finds ways to get nastier. This is the kind of wrestling that is right up my alley. Bull Nakano vs. Devil Masami (04-18-1993) Early is pretty good back and forth. Masami getting a bunch of big-seeming nearfalls right after the floor brawling seemed wrong. Nakano working over Masami on the comeback was the best part of the match. Nearfalls at the end were really excessive and overdone. Least favorite match of the 3.

I've organized my thoughts on this a bit more, so here goes. You see a definite difference in matches where Kobashi is working against Taue/Kawada and matches involving anyone else. In fact, you see a big difference between Kawada/Taue matches and Kobashi/Misawa/Akiyama matches as the 90s go on. In the continuing effort to top themselves, they chose distinct directions. Yes, there is variance within the two methods for sure. Kawada and Taue certainly had some different ways of going about things. As did Kobashi, Misawa and Akiyama. But the big split for me is the frequency of the big bombs and how they were used. Kawada/Taue had an approach that involved a lot of emphasis on the work between the big nearfalls and making those nearfalls count as much as they possibly could. Misawa/Akiyama/Kobashi placed more emphasis on the bombs themselves (very often to keep the crowd popping) and I think this applies especially to Kobashi. He fell in love with the response that all the big moves and nearfalls got. There is one match I highlighted where this becomes very clear. He hits some kind of neckbreaker variation, gets no pop at all on the nearfall and immediately does the same thing again so the crowd does pop. And I think this tendency of Kobashi's is curbed by Taue and Kawada, but his buddies Akiyama and Misawa choose to go along with it. And it produces those wonderful finishing runs where you see big suplex -> nearfall -> laying around to sell accumulated damage over and over again, which gets worse as they get to NOAH. And the reason that I hold this against Kobashi so much is because there is so much that he does that I absolutely love. Kobashi working over a guy's ribs is a tremendous thing. Kobashi working as face-in-peril is so very incredible. Kobashi working 40 minutes of intense, gritty mat-based stuff with Kawada in the 1/19/95 match is absolutely amazing. When Kobashi decides to work a headlock, surfboard or knucklelock sequence it's always gold. But he very often reverts to "look at all the cool shit I can do" mode to get pops from the crowd and it really pisses me off when I think of all the other things he could be doing.

Hansen's range is incredibly underrated. His series vs. Kobashi is great for how much he is willing to give Kobashi (think 7/29/93 and the 94 CC match) for large portions of the match. Speaking of the 94 Champion Carnival, watch the Kobashi, Taue and Williams matches in order to see a guy who is usually working monster gaijin do this incredible job of working from underneath because of the injured ribs. His 2/28/93 match with Kawada was possibly the best back and forth pure brawl I've ever seen not involving some kind of hate-filled feud. And during this match Hansen does the best sell of the stretch plum EVER. The Misawa matches are great for a few reasons. For one, in the 93 match, Hansen does this incredible reversal and works on the injured arm of Misawa (which also plays well off of being KOed by an elbow in a previous match) only to lose to a rolling elbow. It's like this complete turnaround of the way the natives used to work over Hansen's arm in the late 80s and Hansen would lariat them for the win anyway. The elbow almost-KO shot nearfall was a nice touch too. I think Hansen cemented Misawa as the ace just as much as Jumbo did in 92-93. The 99 RWTL is Hansen as one of the most over sympathetic babyfaces ever. It was meant to be his last run and the Taue/Hansen team is faced with Burning in the finals. Really incredible heat for this match and another completely different performance from Hansen. Hansen is one of the guys who is responsible for putting over the major players of 90s AJPW. What was really great for me is he treated each of them differently as far as how he wrestled them and what he gave them. I forget which matches, but there are a few where he has Misawa-style long comebacks with short bursts of brawling offense to stay in it while weathering the storm as well.

It wasn't just DVDVR as far as resentment for his title run. His match vs. Takayama on 9/7/02 had Takayama destroying Ogawa early while making fun of him for being the title holder. I get that was part of Takayama's thing at the time, but the crowd didn't seem to mind much. Great match though. Some more from the 2000s - vs. Kobashi 11/1/04 - Superstar Sleaze caught that I hadn't watched this and I was glad he mentioned it with Misawa vs. KENTAfuji 4/25/04 - easily one of the better matches either KENTA or Marufuji has been involved with with Kotaro Suzuki & Tenryu vs. Sasaki/Morishima/Nakajima - Tenryu and Ogawa make this match, Ogawa vs. Morishima is so damn great in a way that you just don't see in Japan very often

I wonder if Parv is one of those SF guys who can do those ridiculous long combos that do 1/4 life and pounces on even the slightest openings to do so. Never put that amount of time into SF games, but that was really impressive stuff to see even if it sucked being on the other end.

I treat this as a more case-by-case deal as wrestlers go. Dragon Kid is easily one of the most spectacular and influential high fliers I've ever seen once he goes into his arsenal of flips and fancy stuff. But he can't do shit otherwise and that brings him way, way down for me. Vader is pretty one-dimensional when you get right down to it, and his act is really similar everywhere he goes. He's a big bully who beats people up and then squashes them like bugs with his body weight, but still bumps around at times. I think he's fucking great. A lot of it probably comes down to how a one-dimensional wrestler can fit that dimension into matches with multiple opponents. If they can make it work it's a positive. If not they need to find some new ways of getting things done.

I always love watching Fuerza. He really gets his role as a rudo and seems willing to go to almost any length to play it. Also, the spinebuster/ballshot/did he do a ballshot? stuff is gold every time I see it.

That was one of the matches that spawned 90s AJPW style. I don't have my notes handy, but it may be THE match that did just that. They had a few at least good singles matches in that period. My guess is that is the one though.

It's coming across to me as rovert trying to find reasons not to do the project or back up his opinions. My question is this. Until you've reviewed matches for and started a bunch of threads for more modern guys that you like, how do you know? I've reviewed more than 3 Tanahashi matches that I know of during the 2000s and I know there are more than 3 in his microscope thread. I'm fairly certain that you could find 3 match reviews for every major NJPW guy just based on this year's G1. Which by the way got more than it's share of support around here if I'm not completely wrong. Basically what I'm saying is that you should review some matches if need be and nominate people who you think deserve a look. My feeling is that people will at least go back a few years and youtube things just to see if there is something there worth seeing. Yes, there will probably be negative responses. I get down on Kobashi a lot and read how that goes in his nomination thread. And I will absolutely look at some things again when I go through 90s AJPW again. You can't take that as "nobody here is giving my ideas a chance" though. If a few are dismissive of your views and direct about it, too bad for them. They don't make your experience here (or they don't have to), that's up to you.

I enjoyed his tag team with Tajiri in 99 a lot. Two of the best ever guys to spend any amount of time in ECW working as a tag team? Yes, please. I liked how they varied their double teams as well, not just sticking to the same ones but throwing a bunch of variations on the same beginning over 3 or 4 matches. More teams need to do that.