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dawho5

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  3. dawho5
    I'm a guy who likes match structure, I'll admit that. I don't, however, think that any match has to carry a certain kind of structure to be good. I think it's a great idea to have terms to define parts of said structure, because it simplifies the discussion of it. It only becomes problematic when you demand a certain structure. For instance, in the 2000s project, the Nishimura vs. Fujinami match has this incredible structure that is really, really tight and not one wrestling move or transition seems wasted. There's no waste at all, everything has a purpose. I love that match. But then, I love the Akiyama vs. Shibata match from WrestleOne too. The structure of that seems to be pretty simple. Akiyama gets busted open hardway by a stiff Shibata kick to the forehead and gets royally pissed. The rest of the match they just beat the everloving shit out of each other and throw in some nearfalls to make it look like a wrestling match. Still entertaining, but it doesn't exactly have what you would call a classic match structure. Then you could go to the really good AKIRA vs. Kanemoto match from 03 I think where they do the juniors opening, then the athletic juniors stuff back and forth, then one or the other decides to go after the leg dickishly. And the other figures it's better to fight fire with fire and they have this incredible battle of trying to get a leg submission to take on the other guy with little else happening during the finishing run. It's got a structure, but it's certainly not a common one. It is still good ring psychology and highly entertaining to watch. That's a bit off topic there, just trying to illustrate that it's not necessarily becoming dogmatic by having terms to describe certain parts of a match. And yeah, that WWE jargon really turned me off a lot. I know it's important to put your promotion over so people buy into your brand, but I think they take it way too far.
  4. dawho5
    I used to use "control segment" a lot. Then I moved away from it for some reason and started going with FIP (even when there wasn't a true face involved) or heat segment. Don't know why I did that, maybe the term started bothering me even though I was the one using it.
  5. dawho5
    Sixty minutes with lots of filler. Nakajima takes a 3 count when he's not supposed to (KENTA German around 10 minutes before the actual finish). Some of it was worthwhile, but it was given at least 20 minutes too much.
  6. dawho5
    I agree with SS for early 2000s, but he seems to have some idea of building a match slowly to a fever pitch by the end as the decade wears on, where KENTA starts at a million miles per hour and only slows down during heat segments. I will say that anytime Marufuji resorts to kicks I have to ignore the fact that every one of them looks like crap because he got in the habit of slapping his leg to make it seem loud and big. And one thing I noticed in my NOAH watchings is RIkio seems to really have weak strikes as the match wears on and he gets tired. He'll half-ass those and any kind of rope-running or running into a rail or corner. Morishima at the very least has the cardio to keep moving with speed throughout the match even if his clubberins look pretty weak.
  7. dawho5
    Starts off good with KENTA vs. Nakajima. Kobashi and Sasaki have one of their awful pissing contests that go nowhere. Then they hit each other's big head drop (half nelson and northern lights bomb) on each other. That was kinda cool. Each junior gets a heat segment, KENTA's going a bit longer. Kobashi and Sasaki chop each other while the juniors counter finishers into rollups and try to toll the other up before time limit. Draw. Match wasn't too bad, but a lot of this Kobashi vs. Sasaki nonsense goes too far. Juniors are the highlight here, but it's not enough to get a vote. Also, a little too much no-selling towards the end.
  8. dawho5
    This is a really good grappling match. Greco is clearly the quicker of the two and he has counters every time Ishikawa gets aggressive and shoots in on him. Once Ishikawa is in trouble, he seems to have trouble escaping as Greco always seems a step ahead. Greco also likes to use bodyscissors style moves in an attempt to take away Ishikawa's breathing. Ishikawa switches it up and lets Greco be the aggressor, which leads to a few successes for Ishikawa. He gets a little overconfident and forgets how he got to Greco and shoots right in off a rope break, which leads to more problems for Ishikawa. Ishikawa tries to even things up with a suplex as he is clearly the bigger and stronger of the two. Greco scrambles right back into grappling with a clearly winded Ishikawa. Ishikawa smartly goes back to counter wrestling and it works, getting him some very nice submissions that Greco narrowly escapes. Ishikawa continues with the advantage and momentum, but can he make the comeback before the slippery Greco finds the hold that Ishikawa can't escape? This should probably be above 75, but very likely not in the top 50.
  9. dawho5
    This was an alright match. Morishima has some really huge offense, including the world's biggest running plancha. The story seems to be playing off of Morishima's inability to really come up with believable ways that he could put Misawa away. It's not excessive during the finishing run, but one thing really bothers me. Morishima uses lariats all match because that's his one weapon that can do a whole lot to Misawa. Problem is, he uses it four times as a nearfall too. I know Morishima has other things he could plug in there to build to his big backdrop (which he does with...backdrops). A bit too much repetition at the end. Morishima doesn't seem to have grown much in the two years between these matches at all.
  10. dawho5
    I thought they could have just had Kobashi go, say, 40 with Kawada at the time and it would have put him over. You have to remember thatat that point Kobashi was still well below Kawada in the pecking order. It seemed almost like a slap in the face to Kawada to not put Kobashi away. I think that most of the problems I have with 2000s puro are based on match length. If they cut the majority of the "big" matches down to 15-20 minutes instead of 25-30, they could eliminate a lot of the excess nearfalls, noselling, one counts, strike exchanges, etc.
  11. dawho5
    I do like when the NOAH matches surprise me. Takayama has been treated like a warm body in these tags he's been in for NOAH the last few years. In this he is a force of nature again. He is the equalizer to Kobashi, and that matchup is the engine that drives this match. They are dead even throughout in a very entertaining way. Sano is half worthless half okay. Aoki is mostly just there. I really hate how most of the time when Honda shows up he is just there to put over somebody who doesn't have the ring smarts or the skill he has, but in this match he gets to shine a little on his own. He is so very wasted in NOAH. I really wish he'd gone to Battlarts or Futen or even NJPW. As much as I hate to say it, his style would actually have fit far better there than NOAH. Even Steven match until we get to the KENTA heat segment. As always, it's good, sometimes despite Sano's worst efforts. Kobashi gets the hot tag and...has to really work to make anything stick because Takayama is back to 2000-2002 form, and that right there is why this match is good. When Kobashi has to work instead of just rolling over everyone with chops, it's entertaining. Finishing sequence is actually really well-worked, with the exception of Aoki and KENTA flying all over the ring in a completely out of place section of it, no he-should-be-dead kickouts like most NOAH tags. This will probably be somewhere in the 65-80 range.
  12. dawho5
    This was just a brawl for the first 15 or so minutes. No structure, just the NJPW guys kicking the crap out of the Zero One team. Z1 gets their comebacks, but nothing too long. Finishing sequence keeps the chaos rolling along and it works since the rest of the match didn't have any real story besides the "invaders vs. home team" thing. They work a nice rope break on the ankle lock. Both Hidaka and Taguchi survive more big offense than they should. Overall just a fun invasion-style brawl.
  13. dawho5
    30 minute time limit means this won't be overlong. Nakajima does well enough with his heat segment, selling the beating pretty good. Only problem is, by the time it starts we have established that any strikes he throws that aren't kicks have no effect on Akiyama & Rikio. So the exact moment of the big comeback is pretty easy to spot. Same problem happens during the finishing run. Sasaki does fine as the hot tag, but some miscommunication during his run of not-quite-finisher spots with Akiyama doesn't do the match any favors. Nakajima gets tagged back in to have his moment in the sun, hits a nice German and goes back to being the heavyweights' toy again. Finish is fine, too many lariats, too many obvious strike exchanges with Nakajima, but perfectly good match otherwise. They don't overdo the nearfalls or kill any one guy too much. Just there's enough not right that it probably won't get a vote.
  14. dawho5
    25 minutes of spot fu. Well, early on KAGETORA gets tied up in lucharesu knots by Oyanagei, but that's just technical spot fu in the grand scheme of things.
  15. dawho5
    It was 40 minutes. I watched all of it. Not voting for it.
  16. dawho5
    This match is easily Tanahashi's best as ace so far. His match against Fujita outclasses everything I've seen of him as an ace, but that's beside the point. There are a few things that work for this match that a lot of his NJPW matches just don't have. For one, the refereeing is even. Wada starts by saying "break", counts and then gets physically involved if he has to. For both wrestlers. I can't tell you how much this elevates him above that dumbfuck with the red shoes in NJPW. Secondly, the wrestlers involved seemed to be booked as even. This makes Tanahashi's abandoning of the legwork for a portion of the match not stand out so much. Especially against Nagata it seemed like the only way he could do damage, so abandoning it in favor of his nearfall offense seemed stupid. Here it seemed more like a natural progression. Suwama looked like he was taking damage from the non-leg stuff, so it doesn't feel like such a disconnect. And last, but definitely not least. The finishing run was well-worked, fit with the rest of the match and didn't go overboard. Moves were teased or done and then sold after so there was no cover. Suwama re-bangs up the knee by bringing the knees up on the frog splash, which is I think a nice use of the leg work by Tanahashi. It kills the counter to his finisher a la Kawada working the arm so that when people blocked the gamengiri it gave him time to still get back on offense. Tanahashi has recently added to that by working a Texas cloverleaf as a finisher/nearfall and does that here. Suwama hits some big nearfalls and seems like he's ready to put Tanahashi away with the powerbomb, can he do it or will Tanahashi be able to finish him off after wearing him down? The strike exchanges, a slight lull right at the beginning of the nearfall sequence and some less-than-crisp striking by both work against this, but the structure and lack of going too far put it somewhere around 50 for me.
  17. dawho5
    Mostly a juniors exhibition style match. Hulk, a DG guy, surprisingly supplies the majority of the structure by playing a really good face-in-peril. The hardway bloody nose from KENTA's kicks helps this out for sure. KENTA and SHINGO have some kind of heat between them or KENTA is just being a dick to the "big man" on the other team. Can't tell. Finish has SHINGO kicking out of some big KENTA offense before going down to the GTS and a head kick. SHINGO comes off looking really good from this match, so I have to think that's what it was about mainly.
  18. dawho5
    No, the one you were talking about. Really, the Candy Okutsu one.
  19. dawho5
    So early match is again perfectly good. Could do with more selling of the leg by Goto, a lot more, during his offense but that's the one strike against it. On a side not, what the fuck is with the NJPW head ref? Is he supposed to be a heel ref? Or is it just a bad attempt by NJPW to have American style ref problems in their matches? He very rarely physically interjects himself when it's a heel, but boy, once a face gets fired up and throws down on a heel, we better get control of this thing. The finishing sequence actually features some leg work by Tanahashi, which is still nosold. Tanahashi again dies several times on bumps and kicks out. Then comes back instantly without selling any of the damage when he gets a counter in. Finish actually plays off of the legwork, but a lot of bullshit in between kills it.
  20. dawho5
    Juniors spotfest. Taka has become someone who I both love and hate to watch. His offense is really simplified, but he tends to get into these WWE-esque finisher counering sequences that drag the match down for me. And he tends to repeat the same 5 spots in the longer matches I've seen him in during the late 2000s early 10s. Not sure Ibushi should be using the phoenix splash as a nearfall. That's not exactly two count material if you ask me.
  21. dawho5
    Right away you get the sense that this is a big night for Kobashi. Some reading tells me that it's his first match back after recovering from cancer. That Kobashi is one tough dude. And the match...holy crap is it great. They go back to the more All Japan style of doing things rather than the NOAH way for the majority of the match. And the few instances where it isn't that way get set right pretty quickly. Kobashi works this absolutely tremendous heat segment. Kobashi getting beaten up and showing vulnerability (read here: not screaming, no-selling and killing everything in sight with chops) is so fucking great. Kobashi makes his comeback, then they go into the finishing run with not a lot of falls and a lot of fighting over who gets to hit their big moves. WOOOOO! Kobashi looks to be doing well and cruising towards the win, but he ends up on the wrong end of some offense from both Misawa and Akiyama after Akiyama surprises him with an exploder to counter a lariat. Takayama makes the BIG SAVE and hands Misawa to Kobashi on a silver platter. Lariat! Akiyama barely makes the save! Misawa does a big nosell, but it's not too bad because it's a half nelson and those are worthless by now anyway. Kobashi kicks out of an emerald frosion, so Misawa gets some help from Akiyama to hit one from the top and put Kobashi away. If NOAH would have just stuck to matches like these, the 2000s would have been a much happier time for me. I can definitely see this above top 30.
  22. dawho5
    So again, they have a great opening part of the match. This time they skip the Nagata beating and go straight to Tanahashi outwitting Nagata by suckering him into giving up his leg on the apron. And Tanahashi does really good work on the leg. Nagata comes back and progressively stops selling the leg, which works. Mainly because Tanhashi forgets about it until there are about 5 minutes left in the match. I can't imagine why since he's eating a bunch of kicks to set up big nearfalls. Nagata hits so many big nearfalls it gets past the point of ridiculous. He hits a super belly to belly after a super exploder that gets 2. Then comes the brainbuster. Then the exploder 98 that gets...ONE. Then his backdrop finisher that just looks sick here gets a big nearfall. So basically, Tanahashi takes Misawa-level punishment and is fine to keep going. Then he finally has motivation to attack the leg, which works into the finish. I hate how the conventions that developed take good 15-20 minute opening segments and trash the match just so we can have big nearfall sequences.
  23. dawho5
    First 20 minutes of this match were about as perfect as a juniors wrestling match can get. Nakajima was attacking the arm, Kondo had hit one big move on the outside to mess up Nakajima's collarbone/neck. They play off of this for a long time, going back and forth and teasing momentum changes hitting the spot they have weakened. Then we get to the nearfalls. Kondo's second nearfall is a Razor's edge dropped into a piledriver. Something was said about a lack of overkill, but that's not what I saw given the last sentence. There's ten minutes left in the match and Nakajima ought to be in a hospital after that. Anyway, Nakajima leaves the arm alone for a while and just goes into his big finishing offense. Kondo finally starts going for the lariat and eats kicks to the arm that...sort of slow him down a little. I'm not saying that the finishing run was badly worked, because it was not. I'm saying it was completely out of place given the first 20 minutes and like most 10+ minute finishing runs in the 2000s it was overdone. Perhaps not to the level of a lot of it, but enough that I'm not voting for this match given the other major flaw.
  24. dawho5
    The beginnings of this were great. Brawling around the ring with lots of hate and venom, great way to start a match. Things start to fall apart with the dragging around by the head, but I'm willing to let it pass. The ref grabs a chair when Nagata is going to use it on Makabe after kicking it into his face. Makabe uses this to turn the tides and grabs the chair. Makabe hits Nagata with the chair 4 times while the ref is nowhere to be found. Did he get lost? There are ways to set this kind of thing up better, especially given how Japanese referees are viewed. Then during the heat segment, makabe clearly has a chain wrapped around his arm and is going to hit Nagata with it. Ref sees this, but oh my, one of Makabe's buddies is on the apron. This again undermines the NJPW head ref in a big and incredibly bad way. I know that this kind of stuff was pretty common in American wrestling. But you look at referees like Joe Higuchi and Kyohei Wada and this kind of shit would not have flown on their watch. They would be in there shoving that heel around with no regard for whether or not they got hit by whatever illegal object they were holding. Then Nagata gets his big comeback and the ref...physically pulls him off of Makabe in the corner. Once again, what the FUCK? Ref saves some face by not counting a few foreign object-assisted finisher type things, but the damage has been done in my book. Finish goes too long for the condition these guys are in by a long way. I really wanted to like this because it had a Southern brawl feel to it that you don't get a lot in japan. Only problem with that is a lot of the big heel moments were inadvertently or not ref-assisted, which is really out of place in this setting. Find a better way to do those and this is a great match.
  25. dawho5
    I went in expecting a lot of big spots with no particular focus on any kind of psychology and...Marufuji surprised me by wrestling an incredibly basic match. Ishimori and Ibushi seem like they are the reasons this match is here, to showcase their athleticism and ability to hang with Marufuji and KENTA. Both are incredibly athletic and have all kinds of really impressive flippy stuff. KENTA seems to be developing some idea that he needs to have a thought process going in the ring here also. I've started going into these looking at them as athletic exhibitions rather than wrestling matches. When things that resemble good pro wrestling come up I get pleasantly surprised. Oh, I also thought it was a really impressive go 2 sleep by KENTA for how he got to it. That little dude has some strength to lift a guy his weight like that.
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