Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

dawho5

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    4960

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Everything posted by dawho5

  1. dawho5
    I never got to see much Honda after he stopped headbutting people over and over. This is something I have to remedy. Honestly this match wouldn't have been out of place in Battlarts at all. Honda getting the better of it early until Ikeda finally scores a small victory on the ground. Ikeda's pride is put to rest now and he goes to his bread & butter, kicking Honda over and over. The only part I don't care for are the lariat nosells. Dammit I hate those.
  2. dawho5
    This here was way, way, way, way better than any of those 4 names could ever make you think it would be. Early match is tepid and not a lot going on. Then the gaijin start to take apart Kojima and the fans are just waiting for the tag to Tenzan. Tenzan comes in looking like he's gonna clean this mess up, but wait. Double heat and the Tenzan segment lasts longer. Kojima takes the tag and IS a house on fire, but he ends up running into trouble again. The gaijin are worn down enough that Kojima can get a tag in to Tenzan, who is not near as good at the fiery babyface comeback as Kojima. They work around that and put together a really good ending. Barton/Steele play the role of dominating gaijin superbly here and Kojima, while not great as a singles wrestler, is really, really good as the guy taking the hot tag. In that situation his fired-up, spotty offense really works. Top 30 more than likely.
  3. dawho5
    I didn't care for this match much. Mutoh and Nagata both ignored the massive amount of work done to the legs midmatch right after it happened. Mutoh nosold an exploder 98 to do a delayed sell after a SW? Really, the wrist clutch variation and you're popping right up? Yeah, I don't see this making it past 75 if it makes it at all.
  4. dawho5
    I would disagree that it is a cop-out. I think that standards do change as far as what the structure and psychology of a good match are. For one thing you can go back to really old (1950s-1970s) matches and see that it didn't matter what somebody was working bodypart-wise. Just that they were weakening their opponent for the eventual coup-de-grace. The whole point of that psychology was getting your opponent to the point where they were worn down enough, and if you did enough damage overall you had achieved that goal. Whereas now, we want to see somebody work the leg if they are going to finish with a figure four. So yes, standards change. As far as the idea of pioneers being judged for how cutting edge their work was at the time I agree. There needs to be some sense of "they made the stuff ten years later possible" involved. I'm sure it's easy looking back to call it dated and point out all the flaws. But I think you have to compare it to other work that was being done at the time to get a good idea of what else was going on. And the whole modern/in the past argument that some people will put forward with emphasis on one side, I don't get. I like what I like, not because of what time period it came from or promotion or wrestler. And that bias comes out a lot when I write about wrestling. But don't think for one second if I watched a match from 2013/14 that I truly enjoyed I would immediately knock it down for when it happened. I would guess most here are like that as well. What I think it comes down to is you have to watch enough of the wrestling in that style/from that promotion to really get a feel for the quality of the individual matches within their context. Every promotion has very unique aspects to it during certain time periods that will work their way into 99% of the matches. So it makes things a lot more difficult going forward to watch, say, a 1990s match from All Japan or two and immediately say how it compares to the other thousands of matches that came out of the promotion while they wrestled that style (coming from personal experience). And I think it's something that we'll all find as we go along that it takes more than just watching the highly pimped stuff from X promotion during the Y era. And I think it's important to keep an open mind remembering that wrestling has evolved and will keep evolving. So when you go back or forward, look at it as it's own animal that is either closely or distantly related to the one you're used to. And if it doesn't strike your fancy, stay away from that promotion at that time and look elsewhere. Find something that appeals to your tastes. Because as much as we'd all love to be fair and balanced in judging different wrestling styles, none of us are. We have stuff we like and stuff that drives us nuts. That's the beauty of having all the different wrestling styles that continually fuse themselves into more hybrid versions of past styles. If you like this stuff in any way you'll find something you want to watch. Seems like I rambled a bit towards the end, but it was all driving towards the one point I want to make. I think the one true standard in any wrestling match is how entertaining it is to the viewer. Everything else is up to you, the viewer to make your choice about.
  5. dawho5
    This was not a great wrestling match. It was lots and lots of fun with really great work from all four, but it was not a great match. The opening segment was kind of weak with some of the matwork going nowhere. Fuchi transitioning everything to a neck hold on Araya was good. Kawada and Fuchi fighting over every positional change was also good, but the arm stuff needed to go. Araya running straight into a big Tenryu right hand starts the good stuff. He's bloodied up and Tenryu is smart enough to tag in Fuchi, who concentrates all of his offense on the bloody eye. Araya gets the tag to Kawada after a short in-peril segment and Fuchi starts selling a Kawada beating like a champ. Not to be outdone, Kawada sells the Fuchi comeback punch and Tenryu beating like a champ. Araya gets another face-in-peril segment, this one a bit longer and takes a big Tenryu beating. Kawada hits a massive punch on Tenryu. Araya goes on offense big time for revenge on Fuchi, but makes the mistake of hitting Tenryu on the apron. Tenryu cuts him off with another punch when he goes for the finish, so Kawada takes care of Tenryu and Fuchi to set Araya up for the win. Really solid stuff. Give me an extra 5-10 minutes for those Araya in peril segments and this is top 20 easy.
  6. dawho5
    This was a mostly fun spotfest. Crazy Max triple teams are so worn out for me by now that seeing them in this just makes me unhappy. There's more to do than that in this match, save it for the regular matches. Magnum Tokyo gets real sloppy near the end. Otherwise, lots of fun spots and zaniness. It may make my ballot.
  7. dawho5
    I thought their 2/27/00 match was far, far better. Misawa comes out a lot more aggressive here and Akiyama..goes to the left arm inexplicably for a bit. That was completely wasted time. Akiyama's big early offense comes after a calf branding from the apron to the rail, and he focuses on the neck of Misawa. Misawa comes back with elbows and Akiyama engages him in an elbow contest for some reason. Really, after that early beating from elbows he's just gonna volunteer to take more elbows without at least trying to move or hit a jump knee or anything? The ramp shenanigans are really starting to make me wish they had never started going with entrance ramps in puroresu. It's just another distraction from the actual wrestling match if you ask me. Finish is well done, but again, their match a year and a half earlier was far, far better and more meaningful. Probably won't make my ballot as the 2/27/00 match is my working #1. Edit: I think the main thing I dislike about this match is that it felt like it was Misawa's match all the way through until Akiyama hit the exploder 98. If you're going to have a passing of the torch, it can't feel like the old guard (here Misawa) got one-upped at the wrong time and lost after dominating the match. It worked for Misawa vs. taue in 96 because we were never supposed to think that Taue was the new ace. We just had to believe he could beat Misawa given the right circumstances. For this match, if they wanted Akiyama to truly be the new ace, they had to make it Akiyama's match and a definite win for him.
  8. dawho5
    This match fucking rocked. I loved the simplicity of the work as well as the slow build to not many nearfalls at all. Tenryu gets rocked early and never quite recovers. He chips away at whatever Mutoh leaves him, hitting a few big, BIG spots along the way until he hits the low dropkick. The second low dropkick was possibly the best , "FUCK YOU!" move I've ever seen in terms of how it was built to and executed. You wouldn't think something so simple could qualify, but it's the spot of 2001 in the 4 or 5 matches I've watched from that year. Tenryu works over Mutoh's leg for a bit and we hit the finishing stretch. After Mutoh recovers from the legwork (which makes sense given match length and the amount of time Tenryu spent on it) enough, he starts to mount his comeback. Tenryu can't quite stay away from getting cracked right in that same spot on his skull and it is his eventual downfall. The level of work here is absolutely incredible. Tenryu is the perfect candidate for long, long legwork because he's not really all that much of an athletic wrestler in terms of what he does. He sells the leg really well here also. Mutoh's offense looks great in this match, everything seems to happen when and where it ought to. The SWs need some work on looking impactful, but that's a small complaint. As is each of them briefly going to an arm early. I get the Tenryu armwork right after the initial shining wizard, just to buy himself some time. But the Mutoh attempt at a Kimura is out of place. It's gonna be in my top 20 or 30 I am thinking.
  9. dawho5
    I was wondering as I watched if Kawada was supposed to nosell the leg work as some kind of "I'm better than showing that kind of stuff hurts." Then I stopped caring about that and wondered why Kojima was noselling lariats. Then Kawada nosold a lariat. Early on was good despite Kojima's complete lack of any sort of impact on the shoulderblock or dropkicks. Kawada beating on Kojima was fine if he didn't have the leg worked over. Kojima's late match offense is well-executed anyway. Not a big Kojima fan especially if this is one of his "good" matches.
  10. dawho5
    This is similar to their 96 Triple Crown match in a lot of ways. It's all about Taue knowing Misawa's strengths and doing his best to stay away from them while playing to his own. This time Misawa comes away with the 3, but he takes Misawa to his limits within 15 minutes. Taue is definitely looking old, but the ring smarts make this a damn good match. It'll probably be right around the 50 range.
  11. dawho5
    Very slow start. Crowd isn't into a lot of early Takayama nearfalls and it makes sense. Misawa decides to fix that and start the finishing run by attacking Takayama's leg to weaken the kicks/knees. This may seem trivial but it is HUGE. Misawa very rarely attacks a limb. He throws lots of elbows until he can tigerdriver/suplex an opponent. When he attacks limbs, it means he's feeling the damage and wants to contain it. Up until that point it was standard Misawa vs. way lesser opponent match number whatever. Watch your Akiyama vs. Misawa pre-2000 to see what those look like. So Takayama tries a few kicks and doesn't like how that's working on the leg and switches to big Germans. A busted open Misawa counters by going after the arms, further putting Takayama over as a threat. Misawa's nearfalls are interrupted by a big Takayama tiger suplex for a nearfall. Takayama does the most invisible kickout ever on a Misawa running elbow that makes me love him so much. Misawa busts out the emerald frosion or however you spell it for the win. Really great match with Misawa doing a little work to put over Takayama instead of just handing him big suplexes and head drops before he finishes him.
  12. dawho5
    This match was holy shit kinds of awesome. Until right before the end when Murahama completely nosells the leg and kicks out at 1 after a high kick he ran into. But besides that, this match was so fucking awesome. The early parts were easily the best worked shootstyle juniors match you could ask for. The Tanaka heat segment was so very, very incredible. Especially the selling of the armbar on the way to the ropes. Then when Tanaka puts on the leg submission (you know the one I mean), Murahama is freaking out trying to make the ropes and keeps getting pulled back by Tanaka. Man, if this isn't the juniors match of the decade there's some really good stuff coming up. This should make top 30 for sure.
  13. dawho5
    I thought that Akiyama and Hashimoto had the best exchange outside of the Four Pillars + Akiyama I've ever seen. They mixed up what they threw and had all the intensity you could ask for. Akiyama throwing on a Nagata lock with Nagata doing a DDT into a front choke shortly after was fun. Misawa vs. Hash was not as intense as the earlier tag in NOAH. Nagata wasting time with useless early match armwork hurts this a lot. Pretty weak finish after a short Misawa heat segment. Then hash decides he's gonna get a piece of that dickweed Akiyama. Somehow Naoya Ogawa decides that's his moment to come out and challenge Misawa, who starts elbowing him on the apron and they have to be separated. I guess somebody had been watching their WWE at the time.
  14. dawho5
    I would say anything that adds a lot more risk to the wrestler taking the move is unacceptable. Safety has to come first.
  15. dawho5
    I really liked Kawada working over the neck early. Mutoh's strikes are pretty weak, but they actually worked that into the story of the match which is nice. The early matwork avoids a lot of the filler stuff and targets things that come in later. Mutoh working the leg and arm at the same time was a little odd but it worked. Kawada deciding to lariat Mutoh just to say "your armwork was useless" is pretty nice. Wish there had been a bit more leg selling on kawada's part after he had it worked over. Kawada made the SW's look as good as possible, I'd say it's gonna be in the 30-50 range somewhere.
  16. dawho5
    I really liked Ogawa having to prove himself early to both Hash and Otsuka. Then the later vertical suplex on Hashimoto was epic given the struggle it took to get even that. Misawa vs. Hashimoto was all kinds of awesome. This will make my ballot somewhere most likely.
  17. dawho5
    So the early build is nice, then Kobashi does a half nelson roughly 15 minutes into a 35+ minute match. Because those head drop suplexes are nice turnaround spots, not necessarily big nearfalls. And then the match continues to unravel for me as Kobashi uses a sleeper suplex to turn things around later and follows it with a ramp half nelson. Lets review. Akiyama has been dropped on his head twice in the ring and one on the ramp. He's fucking dead. Match is over. But that's not how it works. Finishing sequence is similar to the last big Misawa/Kobashi singles match where they just cycle through their big stuff until Kobashi hits the burning hammer. Exchanges were all top notch. Early stuff was great, with Akiyama playing the dangerous underdog role really well and pouncing on any mistake he can. Even after the first half nelson this worked, but then we got to the way overdone part and I stopped caring. May make the bottom half of my ballot. Depends how bad things get by late 2000s.
  18. dawho5
    This has oh so much going for it. One thing I noticed early was that Iizuka or Nagata vs. Fuchi on the mat is odd because both the NJPW guys work a faster pace than he does there. It doesn't work incredibly well, but it can be overlooked. Iizuka in peril is fucking gold. Fuchi is incredible as the Japanese Ric Flair. Only a bit more aggressively dickish. Iizuka, by some stroke of genius (not sure if it was booked this way or somebody came up with it on the fly, but it worked so very well) turns things around in a completely unexpected way. Kawada tags in, but Iizuka starts hitting elbows on both. Instead of focusing on Kawada, Iizuka puts a sleeper on Fuchi and holds onto it until Kawada knocks him out of it. Kawada has to go check on Fuchi, who is pretty essential to him winning the match. This gives Iizuka time to tag. Kawada ignoring the leg during the finishing run loses some points for me. The NJPW guys working over the leg was very good, especially the Iizuka sweet revenge on Kawada. I don't like strike exchanges involving NJPW guys. There's no variance or thought put into it, just two dudes hitting each other. Awesome match, this has to be top 20.
  19. dawho5
    As 6 mans go, this was pretty stellar. Most of your 6-man matches don't really do much besides set things up (unless you're in Mexico, MPro or Toryumon), so that's all they really needed to do. Murahama vs. Tanaka was all kinds of fun. Delfin getting cocky after outsmarting Makabe on a few moves then running into a spear was pretty nice. The dive train on Liger and subsequent face-in-peril segment was really good. Liger knocking Delfin out of the shotei pin was basically a fun way of saying, "If anybody gets a 3 off of that it's gonna be me." Tsubasa's confusion kills finishing run a bit, but match will probably still be lower half of the ballot for me.
  20. dawho5
    This turns out to be a fun shootstyle match. Murakami shines when he's striking or showing his athleticism on the outside. Otherwise he comes off as a guy who is trying real hard to look like a heel instead of just being a heel. Ishikawa is great in the role of grappler, struggling through the strikes to get where he wants to be. I think this will make my ballot, can't say where just yet.
  21. dawho5
    I wanted to love this match so much. Both guys in it are personal favorites and they do so many things right here. Complaints first. The leg heat segment was, I think, misplaced. They took a match where Tenryu the former mentor was absorbing all of Kawada's best strikes and making his former protégé pay in spades, and then had Tenryu decide to attack the leg to weaken it. I get the idea that he is "wrestling smart", but I think within the narrative of the match it actually makes Tenryu seem the weaker of the two since he has to resort to that. Most of the time in All Japan matches, Misawa was the guy taking the bodypart work rather than giving it out. When he did, it was always seen as him starting to really feel what was coming at him and need to do something about it. So if it was going to have a place in this match, Kawada should have had his big offensive run, hit the stretch plum (huge victory for him and excellently done), the backdrops and kicked Tenryu off the apron, THEN when Tenryu gets back on offense he works the leg over as he just got blasted with some big stuff and needs to slow Kawada down. The no-selling of lariats by not going down is pretty off to me. But there was so much more that was good about this match. Kawada's strike sequences going progressively longer and leading to bigger things at the end was great. Tenryu's offense was pretty spectacular with the exception of a blown abisegiri. The kick off the apron was so very...it's the spot of 2000 so far. Kawada having to struggle mightily to even put on a stretch plum or hit a backdrop was so very worth it when he did. This was right up next to great without reaching it.
  22. dawho5
    Match was good enough, put Akiyama (and the front choke) over as dangerous and made sure we all knew he was now a prick. Kobashi did some of his usual stuff that I'm gonna not write about.
  23. dawho5
    This was working for me up until the 1 count off the stretch plum. The lariat contest strikes me as pretty ridiculous. The finish is good, but I've seen it cap off far better wrestling matches. It's not that I'm missing the subtext there, just the way they did it seemed off to me. Then again, maybe with more Sasaki matches I'll warm up to the guy and have a rewatch. Edit: After the Kawada/Fuchi tag against NJPW, this match takes a dive for me. Nagata was fighting just as hard for NJPW and bothered to fall down and do a late kcikout for a Kawada lariat and stretch plum. Big match =/= you don't nned to sell the other guys' big moves. Kawada/Tenryu suffers from the same problem in a more minor way.
  24. dawho5
    RF I can tell you from sparring that yes, sometimes when you throw something really light and effortlessly, it comes out really hard. It's one of those things that takes your expectations of how fighting works and makes you question the reality of it a bit. The more "stiff" something is in a muscular sense, the less it hurts if somebody knows how to throw it. Also, the higher pitched sounds of impact mean less penetration. So all those big, high pitched cracks are indications of surface hits. A dull thud hurts way, way, way more.
  25. dawho5
    Really dug the finishing run with Makabe getting the big comeback bid with his spears and Germans. Crowd really wanted him to get the pin on Minoru with that northern lights, but it wasn't happening. The leg work was well done in a way that made you think that Makabe was going to tap while Liger was taken care of. Crowd made it better by being so damn into it. I'd say it's a well-worked juniors match that ends up somewhere in the lower half.
×
×
  • Create New...