donsem43
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Everything posted by donsem43
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This is a rematch from Takeover: London plus Asuka's last match leading up to her title match vs. Bayley at Takeover: Dallas. The opening part of this match quickly reestablishes the Bugs Bunny/Yosemite Sam rivalry between the two with Emma trying to outsmart Asuka but the reverse ends up happening. Emma does eventually gain control and starts to work over Asuka with a variety of holds. Unfortunately, this does take some steam out of the match as Emma doesn't really mix in anything flashy to get a reaction out of the crowd. They do pick it up for the finish though with Emma actually hanging in there with Asuka during a strike exchange, but she ends up costing herself the win when she argues with the ref after he caught Emma with her feet on the ropes during a rollup. One of the better WWE/NXT women's matches of the year so far. ***3/4
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So they finished up posting the last Korakuen Hall show. Unfortunately, they only used the one ringside camera for the show. This hurt the main event tag match as when the action was split up the camera only focused on one side of it completely missing the other. Hopefully they can workout something to add at least another camera or share footage with Samurai TV. The post match promos were the best part of the show. In about ten minutes they summed up the individual storylines for the three big stars, announced three main event matches (Io vs. Alpha Female, Thunder Rock vs. Hiroyo/Kagetsu, and Hojo vs. Hiroyo,) and promoted the next show at Korakuen. Something the WWE struggles to do with all of the hours of TV that they have in a week.
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This is a typical, but fun, 'Big vs. Small' match. Io works it as a mix of '90 Manami Toyota and '00 Rey Mysterio, she use a lot of her big high-spots for offense but also does a lot of juking to keep her bigger opponent off balance. Like the tag title match from the previous show, Viper's offense looks squishy again with Io doing some big bumping and selling to really put it over. Nothing too special about this match, but still highly entertaining. ***1/2
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Match Link This is Santana first defense of the 'White Belt' (wow that's weird to write) in Japan since she won it from Io Shirai late last year. Starts off with a catty strike exchange which leads to Hojo hitting a spear on Garrett. Santana uses a really good transition to get back in control and starts working over Hojo arm. The lead up to the finish has some great back-and-forth with probably the best setup to the usually contrived looking corner doublestomp. The finish itself was weak because they reuse the same finish, a rolling sunset flip, that Santana used to beat Io. Still, a fairly entertaining match despite the finish. ***1/2
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Outrageous real-life heeling it up
donsem43 replied to JerryvonKramer's topic in Pro Wrestling Mostly
For F1, Michael Schumacher was readily compared to Darth Vader. NASCAR is full of heels. One of its biggest problems is that there are too many heels and not really any strong babyfaces, (Dale Jr. just doesn't win enough.) -
It also shows how little effort Vince puts into the debuts of new talent on the main roster. If he has issues with someone like Tyler Breeze he should have pointed them out while he was in NXT, not wait till after he's been on TV for a few weeks already.
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Match Link Since this is a High Speed title match, these two get off to a quick start with a series of awesome looking exchanges. Evie eventual gets control and starts to work over Iwatani's back, which leads to some great selling from Mayu. When she gets back on offense she hits a double stomp to Evie's back, but can't follow up because she's selling the landing of the move. The finishing run has some pretty good kick exchanges. Evie's running croner kicks looked great and Iwatani caps it off with a nasty buzzsaw kick to setup her dragon suplex for the win. Could have gone a bit longer but this was the first of 3 title matches on this show so it's no surprise this was short. Stardom really needs to bring Evie back because she just fits the style that they work so well. ****1/4
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Match Link This is a 'Survivor Series' style tag with battle royal over-the-top eliminations as well. The World team gets off to a good start by being the more in sync team, which was surprising. They actually put over Viper strong as she pretty much takes out all of the Stardom women on her own, pinning Kyouga to get the first elimination. In the middle portion of the match they do a good job of giving the lower ranked women a chance to work some competitive sequences before getting eliminated. There is even some nice top rope teases before both Hojo and Santana get eliminated at the same time. Just a really fun match from start to finish, which is just what you want out of this type of match. ****
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In the press conference for the show they announced that it was no-time limit, so I had a feeling that they were going to go around 30 minutes as that's the standard time limit for Stardom title matches. I imagine they were trying to protect Hojo in having them work that long so that it looked like it would have been a draw under normal circumstances.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efiCL-ZrQ_U This is a rematch of their match from last March for the then vacant World of Stardom Title. These two don't waste time going as they go right at each other right at the bell exchanging nasty strikes and holds. The middle portion of the match is really well done with focused offense from both women as well as some solid transitions to keep the action going back and forth. The match does go a bit long, (and that with some slight editing done to the TV version) as your left kind of waiting for them to pick it up toward the end. The finish itself leans away from the main part of the match as it turns into more a standard pro wrestling finish which is something they didn't really work earlier on. Still, this highly entertaining even while it overextends itself a bit. *** 3/4
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The start and finish to the tag main was really fun. The opening sequence with Gable and Gotch was fantastic with Gotch trying a bunch of different thing to try and catch Gable but Gable is just too quick to get caught. The finish was just a lot of crazy stuff happening all over the place.
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Match Link This is the return match for the controversial Yoshiko as she had been away from wrestling since the incident with Act Yasukawa last year. I liked the story that the match told. It was more about Yoshiko having to prove herself in order to move on with her life/career rather than trying to play off the past. Takahashi controls the early going of the match in such a way that it makes Yoshiko's comebacks seems earned. Finish does come a bit out of nowhere which was a bit of a jolt but didn't take away much from what they had built up to at that point. ***3/4
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Dark Angel is probably better than any the other women mentioned in this thread, but I didn't nominate her because I never dug deep into her work in Mexico. During her run in Shimmer she was clearly the best worker there at that time.
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Absolutely. I was going to make a comparison of Kana with Hotta/Kansai but why bother if people read it then think, "He just likes her more because she has nice tits!"
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To me, both of these tie into a issue with Hotta's attitude in her approach to who she was working with. The '93 GP Finals is a clear example of this, in the semi-final against Harley Saito Hotta doesn't make any of effort to make any of Saito's offense come off as dangerous to her. At the finish Saito is throwing out a variety of suplexes for near falls to which Hotta sells them like they were simple rollups. Compare that to her performance in the final and there is a noticeable difference. She just has this high-school like quality as to when she deems her opponent worthy of her putting in any effort. No matter how many quality performances that I watch from her that belief is always going to eat away at my opinion of her. As to the Plum match, I cited it as an example of what I just stated. I should have given a better explanation as I didn't intend for it to come off as "This is the match that killed Plum Mariko!" In terms of being unique, I don't think that wrong, I just think that quite a few of her peers where more unique and certainly more memorable ways. Hotta's gimmick wasn't all that different from several similar gimmicks in men's promotions from around that time.
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You'll want to check out her match with Megumi Yabushita from the Arsion 5th Anniversary show. They establish early on that Yabushita has the advantage on the mat so that forces Yoshida to change up her typical strategy. With Bull also I do think that she was a bit of a victim of timing career wise because by the time that she was on top she all of the stars above her had left. So while she was in her prime she had work with opponents that were still developing as workers but still managed to do a great job with what she had to work with.
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It might be because I watched a few of his matches back to back but his offense became monotonous at a point. It just becomes "Well what type of suplex is he going to do and how far is going to through him." He doesn't put much, if any, reason or build into what he's doing he just starts doing it cause it's Suplex City time. He's a good entertaining wrestler but this is what keeps me from seeing him as great.
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The wrestling business is crazy and terrible, but it seems to me like all business is kind of crazy and terrible. This is true with pretty much any corporate structured company. After tonight, this whole thing is starting to look more like a Stalin-like political purge with Raw being the weekly show trial.
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Match Link Really fun vets vs. rookies match. Neat dynamic with the rookies as Watanabe is 15 but has close to two years experience while Kyouna is 24 but just debuted last November. Momo isn't the flashiest or most charismatic worker but she shows enough pluckiness in her work to get the crowd behind her. Jungle has a nice power moveset and amazing ring presence for someone with such little experience. Thunder Rock do a terrific job of setting up the rookies as underdogs then putting them over just enough to make you think that they have a chance at winning. Fun touch at the finish as Io hits a Hojo-style elbow for the win to lead up to their upcoming title match. *** 3/4
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One of my current personal favourites. Works a fairly traditional joshi style but adds a nasty level of violence. Might not have the enough high-end matches to make my list but decided to nominate her just in case.
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To me, the kick to the head after the camel clutch is where it starts. Plum messes up a few spots after that and immediately puts her hands up to her head. I've seen enough Plum Mariko to know that she's not that good at selling so there's something wrong. That doesn't stop Hotta from going after her head repeatedly. If your wondering why El-P would constantly dump on her all the time it's because of performances like this. Now, she has had great matches but when you watch a large enough sampling of her it comes off as mainly having to have the proper motivation more than anything. Personally, that makes her kind of Inoki/Hogan like and neither of those two are anywhere close to my list. Also, I'm really like stiff work. I love BattlArts/Futen and Arisa Nakajima is one of my favourite current workers. Nakajima will absolutely drill people but not in a reckless, uncaring way that Hotta would. Just the way that Hotta does it just rubs me the wrong way.
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Had Brock on the bubble for my list so I watched his more recent stuff and now he's off. Basically a more mobile, slightly better selling version of Taz during his ECW Title run. Really needs someone like Cena or Reigns to bump and sell for him to give his stuff any real contextual meaning.
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Seen way too many sandbag performances from her to even think of considering her. Hotta's pretty much useless after '96. Plus unprofessional bullshit like the Plum Mariko match on the ThunderQueen undercard. Honestly, go and try to watch that match with current knowledge of head injurys and how Plum died, you won't make it through it.
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Starting with this week's show (3/12/16) they are doing a two camera mix. Plus they have added English subtitles to the promos.