GOTNW

I liked the opening between Taue and Kawada and how Kawada made Taue struggle over trivial stuff like irish whipping him and reversing a headlock. I find the body of the match not particularly interesting, some nice moments of violence when Kawada was beating on Akiyama but the match seemed to lack direction when that wasn't the case. They seemed to be building up to a Kawada/Taue showdown with Taue breaking up so many of his pin attempts and the crowd pop when we got that match up again but it ended up being very disappointing. It was pretty shocking how many moments of miscommunication there were here, you wouldn't expect an All Japan match to have like 10 botches but this one did, most of them starring Taue. Speaking of him-I think some of the All Japan revision may favour him simply due to the role he played. Kawada getting up after a taking a move without even selling it for a little bit on more than one occasion was weird. You could excuse it when he did it against Akiyama due to the difference in the pecking order but he did it against Taue too. Finish wasn't overly dramatic but I did like the match once all hell broke loose. ***

After a rewatch this is a serious best All Japan match ever candidate for me. For example I'd easily have it over the 9.6.1995. tag and Jumbo/Tenryu 1989. It was structured and worked pretty much flawlessly. Miasawa's early dominance was something to behold-I'm not one to praise the sheer speed one moves at, but watching Misawa go is magical. Akiyama couldn't touch him. I LOVE the overhead camera and here it significantly added to my viewing experience-you could FEEL Akiyama's frustration as Misawa was mauling him with elbows in the corner. Akiyama's first opening came off a Misawa crossbody he countered by smashing his head into the mat. Misawa sells the neck and thus sets the narrative for the match and we go into the first Misawa FIP segment. Misawa's neck selling is absolutely sublime-he walked the line of clueing in everyone he was hurt and not going overboard about as perfectly as one could. Akiyama's attacks are all vicious and directed towards the neck. There's no wasted movement in this match. Not ONE move that doesn't make sense in the context and that doesn't advance their narrative. It's not there. I watched this match many years ago but was uncertain how to rate it, I wasn't certain how to feel about Akiyama's heat segment in particular. This time I think it's pretty clear it was crucial for the match to work as well as it did. If Akiyama just hits a million DDTs and Neckbreakers or whatever when he gets Misawa in the ring the match doesn't work to the extent it did. It gave the crowd a little break, allowed Akiyama to continue his limbwork and gave Misawa a way to make a believable comeback. Misawa's offence is of course breathtaking-and Akiyama Dropkicking him off the top rope was about as perfect of a way to transition into Misawa's second FIP segment as there was. It's something about Akiyama's character I've talked about before-he won't overwhelm others in strike exchanges and dick measuring contests (at least not Misawa/Kobashi/Kawada). He has to think up gameplans and bide his time and take advantage of every opportunity he can. Akiyama's neckwork in the first Misawa FIP section was pretty brutal on its own but it escalates even further here culminating with the disgusting Gotch Style Tombstone that Misawa reacts to with an all time great sell. Of course-since this is a big Misawa match-his comeback comes into play eventually. And boy is it awesome here. He busts out an awesome corner kick neither me nor the commentator ever remember seeing and just stiffs Akiyama on everything he does, including a nose breaking knee drop. There is struggle over all the big moves as there should be-but Misawa is just unstoppable here. And Akiyama starts feeling like an underdog yet again despite putting Misawa through so much. Until.......until one of the best sequences I remember seeing in wrestling-EVER. If you think there's no room for no selling in pro wrestling you're flat out wrong, and I'm not talking about it in something minor either. This match is a perfect example how special no-selling can be when done right. When Misawa blasts Akiyama with that Rolling Elbow you're 100% convinced Akiyama he's done-but then he just wills himself to throw himself at Misawa and hits him with an Exploder and by god you won'tever see a man running portray frustration and aggression like it did here. And then Misawa gets back up. Because of course he does. Maybe Akiyama can't win after all. An elbo-no? Another quick Exploder? Maybe he can do it after all! And then Misawa tries to get up, and I think ok, this is just getting absurd, is he superhuman or what? And they both fall down. I get he watched All Japan when he was a teenager but I wish Sekimoto and his friends wached this sequence over and over again and thought about why it worked. It's about as powerful of a momentum shift as there is. *****

I'm not entirely sure why I'm continuing to watch Jeff Hardy's TNA matches. I've already reached a conclusion on how he was as a worker at the time and it's probably not going to change. Maybe I should stop. This was fine. Jeff Hardy was my favourite wrestler when I was 12 and Raven was in that spot when I was 13. MVP was before any of them and inbetween were The Rock and Jericho. Then I discovered puro through my new favourite KENTA and eventually I stopped having a favourite wrestler. As far as this match goes. Some good, some bad. I liked Raven avoiding Hardy's chairshots but literally the next spot had him stand there while Jeff set up his chair jumping. Then Raven avoided Hardy's chair jump spot which I liked but-urgh-why not just avoid it on the first try. You don't have to get all your shit in. This had enough violence in it to keep me interested throughout the whole thing but also some eye-rolling stuff like them doing a top rope-nothing (trust me it looks like exactly it sounds), the ref helping Raven set up tables, a blade job that went on forever etc. I liked the dramatic shots of the women in the crowd turning away, now that I think about it they could've been plants but I don't think TNA would be capable of using plants in such an efficent manner, more likely they had them chant for Kevin Nash or whomever old they signed at the time. **1/2

This ruled! The four way setting fits this type of match much better as you can have wrestlers continue to fight while others set up spots. Sabu's presence helped this a lot, he was the best worker in here, here was a spot where Jeff used him to jump onto Abyss and then offered Sabu to use him to jump onto Abyss as well and Sabu just stomped him and it was the best, the amount of disgusting bumps and insane dives delivered as you'd expect but I also liked how they used weapons to transition and as cut-offs. Jeff Hardy continues to jump off high things and it gets REALLY preposterous here. Finish ruled as well, Rhino hits a Piledriver off the top rope and gets the win but Sabu throws himself at him to break it up only to do so a split second too late. ***1/2

Here we go again! I actually liked the opening quite a bit, them brawling outside the arena was surprisingly fun, probably because I'd much rather watch them slam each other onto walls than exchange weak punches. Jeff Hardy most certainly jumped of a high place. Match seemed to flow really well until the dreaded obvious setting up of spots began. Lots of things I disliked there: Hardy going for a Twist Of Fate with a different arm to set up a counter, Abyss running the ropes one more time so he could be in position for Hardy to kick him in the balls (I did like that as a counter even if they did give it away), pretty much any time Hardy sets up a chair when he could do the same move he does without jumping on it and it would look better and be more efficient. Aaaaaaaaand doing the Twist Of Fate stunner-style when you're trying to smash someone's face into a ladder is also stupid. I always disliked the "stunner onto a object" spots actually. Looked like it hurt Austin's ass more than the other guy. I did enjoy watching these two take stupid bumps and Hardy's Diving Legdrop in particular looked super nasty. **1/4

Look-I'm giving Jeff Hardy's first TNA run a shot. I like trainwrecks. "Full Metal Mayhem" screams "we wanted to do a TLC match but WWE copyrighted that". This is a garbage match in TNA, is there an unnecessary additional stipulation that accomplishes nothing? You bet there is! I didn't expect this to make sense and it met my expectations, it had the obvious setting up of spots I feared and Hardy even won a ladder-assisted test of strength against Abyss. Lots of walking around that doesn't look like fighting or them fighting while wasted. I'm sure Jeff Hardy vs. Jerry Estrada would've been a classic though. The Twist Of Fate on the floor was embarrassingly looking bad and I'm sure I could pick this apart if I cared enough to do that. Hardy is a maniac that will take insane bumps which prevented this from totally sucking. **

This is Hardy's TNA debut. Enthusiastic crowd cheers him on and it goes much better than his legendary ROH debut did. Soaking it in like they did was the right call. Mechanically AJ was leagues above Hardy here, and Jeff's usualy sloppiness seemed to be even more of an issue here, probably due to his unfamiliarity with the six sided ring and I assume he was a mess at the time since WWE got rid of him. Most of the action here was OK. I thought the chop dare spots were stupid but liked AJ kicking Hardy when he grew tired of him and him shoving Jeff's wacky hand sign aside was a cool moment and we got the usual non-finish. **1/2

My favourite bit in the Hajime No Ippo manga:

And that would be a fine discussion on its own. Everyone can start a thread.

Well someone brought it up anyway. I've hammered on Sheamus enough. He's had some great matches over the years. So has Taguchi. Dylan likes overrating mediocre wrestlers.

It feels so weird to see Big Show actually work dominant. The match was all him throwing Jeff around, he even killed Matt and pushed the ref around which played into the finish where he went for a Diving Legdrop for god knows what reason to set up the finish with the whole Team Xtreme or whatever they were called all hitting their top rope finishers on him and a quick count. Not much to say about Hardy's performance except that I liked his selling. **3/4

For a 2-3 minute TV match they sure did cram a lot in here. Hardy did some insane stuff (nothing out of the ordinary in terms of what he did but watching him hit a breathtaking Whisper In The Wind after accepting the move for the mess it is most of the time was unusual for one). I liked the way they set up the finish and I'd much rather have them leave me wanting more than owestay their welcome, especially when it comes to workrate matches. **3/4

I was wondering what I'd think of Val, I remember him having some matches against D'Lo Brown I loved but man he looked super good in this, throwing good looking suplexes, slams and whatnot, it was a joy to watch him throw Jeff around. Jeff's Tope Con Giro was beautiful-there's something magical about a sloppy worker like him hitting something just right. It looks like he's taking someone down full force unlike when someone who has perfect control (like Devitt) does it. Ideally you'd have both like Santo but I'll take Sabu and Jeff Hardy over Devitt easily. It's not just the slams-the back elbow, the elbow drop, the clotheslines-Val lays them all in and hits an awesome Blue Thunder Driver to top it all off. Lita has nothing on Gedo when it comes to working the crowd during the heat section, I did like the, uhm, legged-full nelson Venis used during it. And he threw some good punches too! Jeff did fine but maybe I should reevaluate Val Venis next. ***

A face vs. face match with them exchanging control segments and it works! I liked a lot of the transitions and how they built to their bigger spots and they managed to produce an exciting finish with a hot crowd. ***

I was kind of perplexed what was the whole "Sheamus as Misawa" comparison about and wondering whether I accidentally slept hrough that part of that one podcast but now I remembered it was about him having multiple moves he could put opponents away. Yeah I disagree. What happened is basically they gave him a bunch of moves that used to be someone's finishers (Air Raid Craish, Cloverleaf, maybe someone used the Fireman's Carry Roll...I think that's it?) and then he won a match or two with them before quickly prostituting their credibility. If you're raving about Sheamus having all these finishers you better put over Dolph Ziggler's Sleeperhold and John Cena's Diving Legdrop. Punk *really* only had the Go 2 Sleep as a proper finisher but his Anaconda Vice and Roundhouse Kick won more matches than any of Sheamus' secondary stuff. It's an odd and blatantly utrue talking point. I also hate it when wrestlers hook the leg just for the sake of doing it. The shoulders matter. Sheamus hooking the leg when he's facing Big Show always looked so stupid.

And this is the first match I've come across during my Jeff Hardy reevaluation that sucks. I had no idea I had an opinion on Al Snow but apparently I do and it's that he's the shits and that he couldn't work himself out of a shoot. His control segments were soooooo dull and uninteresting, you have Jeff Hardy bumping for you and you can't take advantage of it, what the hell man? Booking of this was bizarre and creepy, the worst of the late WCW/TNA gimmick matches complete with the implied rape or violence against women. Bad, bad, go away Al Snow.

This is a "Hammer above the ring Ladder match". It didn't suck! It actually made about as much sense as a TNA could. Hardy gets some nice shine early on before Bully Ray cuts him off on his first ladder climbing attempt and goes after the leg. And-say what you want about Jeff at this point-but his selling was still really good here. I liked how they teased his comebacks a couple of times (he never dropped selling during them btw) only for him to get quickly cut off and how his proper comeback only came when Bully Ray played to the crowd for too long. Ray also did some botchamania worthy stuff here, preposterously jumping over a ladder to set up a spot and completely missing the steel steps when Hardy attempted to ram his head into them. He gave us this so all is forgiven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo_TKf9vkJ8 Match eventually become overreliant on using Ray pushing Hardy off the ladder as the only transition. In classic TNA fashion a Ladder match ends in a no contest. Who knows what the rules were anyway. Were there pins? Did they need to hit someone with the hammer to win? Eh. **1/2

Jeff Hardy sells his back injury during the entrance which sets the pace for the whole thing. JR brings up how he injured it and they clued me, watching this match match completely out of context, in on the angle. He went for a bige Swanton of the top of the cage (and missed it) when he could've just won the match by climbing down. Excellent selling performance by Jeff here, Christian ruled too, his punches looked really good. There's a moment here where Hardy goes for his crotch double leg drop but then feeds the transition to Christian by selling his back and Christian just kicks him in the face and-YES! THAT'S HOW YOU DO IT! It's not that hard! Jeff counters an Unprettier into a Twist Of Fate but then once again goes for the Swanton instead of covering Christian, Matt tries to stop him and Christian shoves Matt into Jeff for the finish. This is about as good of a way for them to set up Matt's heel turn as there was and the match was extremely efficient. It's a three minute TV match, and maybe it's three stars when compared to all wrestling ever, for what it was it's great and I recommend you to check it out if you want to see where I'm coming from when I claim Jeff Hardy is this amazing wrestler a couple of days months from now.

Jeff seems to be pretty good at creating momentum and space for his stuff which is one of the most important things for a WWE babyface. The Whisper In The Wind is a pretty logical counter to have with common irish whips are in WWE. It's like Choshu's Backdrop counter to the Headlock-I can see why some would dislike it but guys are going to go for it in every match so might as well have a ready counter for it. I do need to think of a way to explain how Triple H's Back Body Drop counter is different. Test is a guy whom you see discussion about in terms of missed opportunities, being screwed over by the Triple H-Stephanie real life relationship etc. but I don't remember actually hearing an opinion about him as a worker. I liked the Clothesline cut off to Jeff's jump off the barricade, his Big Boot looked good and he hit the ref with a pretty good right hand. Thumbs up! **3/4

Things that are weird: 1)a midcarder getting a bigger pop than probably anyone on WWE television in the last five months 2)Raw using Thorn In Your Eye and RAW IS WAR in 2001 when the show feels completely different than in 1998/1999. This is a really cool read: http://www.fightingspiritmagazine.co.uk/art/interviews/499/training-ground-with-ricky-steamboat-fsm-122-aug-2015 The "sell during shine so you don't have to rebuild heat" bit stands out, and that's exactly what Jeff did here. Ok chain wrestling to start things off with Storm grabbing the hair to control the match. I liked all of Jeff's dropkick variations (the corner one in particular was so great but his Baseball Slide and Misawa counter out of the test of strength variation were also really cool). Storm's back work was good, I loved the way they set up a nearfall with the interference and it was a smart way to make Jeff look good despite him losing. Cool finish. ***

A strange turn of events has made me want to watch Jeff Hardy and here we are. One could question the decision to start a ladder match out with chain wrestling but they presented it as a face vs. face match and it worked for the crowd. This was always going to have big bumps and the ladder spots. I liked how they sold inbetween them but I didn't like the obvious set-ups some of them had. There were two or three spots that were just incredible-completely unique and organic use of the ladder like I'd never seen, like RVD was trying to pick up the ladder that was outside the ring and Jeff jumped from somewhere and the momentum carried over and the ladder hit RVD in the face, it was really great. But for every cool spot like that you'll get at least one very questonable looking move. I liked how Jeff just threw his body around, in that sense his lack of fluidity probably helps his character. I also liked some of the transitions like Jeff countering RVD's Dropkick with his Legdrop on the crotch and him jumping over RVD's kick and blasting him with a DDT but this went a little too long and they ran out of ideas. I also feel a personal disconnect in a way which RVD portrays violence, it just looks stupid to see a guy grab a ladder and go "hey you know what would hurt? if I did forward rolls and then jumped onto it". Yeah. It's hurt yourself. And since his character also includes doing kung-fu spots it doesn't really make sense for him to do that. Why not just beat the other guy with the kung-fu? Or hit him in the head with the damn ladder while it's there. **3/4

I think we're way past the point of needing a ring to call it prowres with all the falls count anywhere matches, WWF's hardcore division, DDT holding shows in pools and public parks and also microindies like Gatoh Move and whatever the hell the sex dungeon Takaiwa wrestled that one time in was using only mats.

This was fun. I had some structural problems with it and the pacing threw me off (too many times where they were just wandering around setting up the next spot, disliked the ringside brawling) but I enjoyed it thoroughly and it had an exciting finish which didn't go overboard with the kick-outs and ended when it should have. ***1/4

It's not just that *Tamura had excellent matches with Kohsaka and Yamamoto*. Han also had absolutely amazing matches with them, one you could easily argue were better than the Tamura matches. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka and Yoshihisa Yamamoto were great wrestlers. Personally I would still have Tamura/Han as the best RINGS series even if I think other pairings may have peaked at a higher level, Tamura vs. Yamamoto in particular with their 6/24/1999 being my pick for best match of all time. Man-a "best RINGS matches/feuds/wrestlers/anything" project would rule. I was going to bring up how heavily intertwined this was with narrative creation and whatnot and how many similar matches are often easily dismissed by many here but let's not get into that ever again please.

One of the strengths of the traditional All Japan style is that irish whip maneuvers have a good success rate which makes transitions done via irish whips feel more special. Case in point-Jumbo's High Knee here. Combined with his impressive leap and Robinson's perfect sell it made for a wonderful moment. Wild Angus continues to look ~fine I guess~. Match is mostly about the struggle for holds and building to the transitions. Nothing here feels redundant-Robinson gets his knee worked over for a bit and the next time he's in the ring and he hits a Backbreaker he sells the impact of his own which I vastly prefer to someone questionably falling down from "exhaustion" on his their own move to move onto the next sequence. Robinson-Destroyer bits were fun but weren't transcendent like one might hope from the two. ***1/4