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Calvin

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Everything posted by Calvin

  1. Calvin
    The Rockers are a terrific pure babyface team, and Jannetty stands out here as he plays the face-in-peril role with gusto. Powers of Pain are solid bomb throwers, pinballing the smaller Rockers around with ease, and they're able to keep up a more fast, workrate pace. Great, great match. I would imagine this is up there as one of the best WWF matches of 1990, and probably one of their best tag matches of the decade. ****
  2. Calvin
    It's a testament to how great Tenryu is that he can overshadow three other great performances through sheer violence alone. ***1/2
  3. Calvin
    I don't think they did enough here to justify a twelve minute timeslot, but we get an inspired Muta performance, and Arn is a television maestro, so this is mostly enjoyable. **3/4
  4. Calvin
    A total Eaton masterclass here as he bumps his ass off, sells with conviction, and works a brilliant control segment. He's the best plug-and-play wrestler ... maybe ever? I prefer Flair as a heel, but the dynamics are arguably irrelevant given the chemistry these two possess. ****
  5. Calvin
    I've never heard of Nishiwaki, but she completely eats shit on a tope to the outside by bum-rushing Bull before the match even begins and juices herself into a crimson mask, so now I love her. She ends up being a great foil for Bull as the plucky, out-of-her-depth babyface. Her surprise attack in the beginning only serves to bite her in the ass. Nishiwaki postures and stalls a lot as she ponders on what to do, and even when she's gifted an opportunity (Bull injures her arm clotheslining a ring pole), it doesn't really amount to anything because Bull is an unstoppable titan. By the end, it's all high-risk moves and desperation bombs as Bull walks through everything she has to offer and puts her down with a back-breaking Thunder Fire Powerbomb to kickstart a career-defining WWWA title reign. ****
  6. Calvin
    I'm not used to the presentation of early 90's Joshi where the target audience seems to be teenage girls instead of the general populace. It's a .... different soundscape, for sure, and the similarities in everyone's appearance from attire to haircut is borderline militaristic. Hokuto seems to be in her pre-Dangerous Queen phase, and it's like I'm watching an entirely different human being. Anyways, once the culture shock wore off, this was enjoyable. It's cut at a familiar Joshi pace, but with more of a conventional tag team structure to hold it all together. I can't imagine a sleeper hold being used as a high-spot better than it was here, but I suppose you can make any move seem like a credible finisher if conveyed with the proper emotion. ***
  7. Calvin
    This hits all the high points of a Muto match and it's a ten minute, high-effort sprint, so no meandering bullshit from him. ***1/2
  8. Calvin
    Joshi brawls can be hit or miss, and this became mostly incoherent as the match progressed, but great performances from all four involved prevent this from completely unraveling. By the end, it looks like a nuke had hit the ring with the ropes falling apart, all the weapons thrown about, and blood everywhere. ***1/4
  9. Calvin
    This is essentially a condensed, 30-minute version of their 1/19 hour draw, but the dueling leg psychology was much weaker here. It's still great, though, and this just proves that there is absolutely no reason to ever jerk yourself off for 60 minutes when you can climax in 30. Kawada needs to win this in order to get a tiebreaker match with Misawa, and of course it's only fitting that Kobashi ends Kawada's tournament run without even actually beating him. ****
  10. Calvin
    A condensed Joshi match transplanted straight onto WWF TV in 1995. Incredible, really. It's so different from anything the American crowd is used to that nobody knows how to react. Nakano goes all out here, and she has great chemistry with Blayze, too. ***1/2
  11. Calvin
    You can see how this ended up being a blueprint match for hundreds, if not thousands, of indie matches down the line. Beat for beat, I have seen this exact structure before many times in the modern era, but it's novel and innovative in 1995. I don't love this -- it's kind of long, with questionable selling, and Malenko's work can be so cold & clinical sometimes that it just disconnects me from the match -- but these two should be recognized as pioneers for what they accomplish here. It's work that the crowd has never seen before, sneers at initially, and by the end their on their feet in applause. ***1/4
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  13. Calvin
    A precursor to their reputed classic three days later, this ends up a draw and felt like the ace surviving Taue instead of the usual other way around. This isn't as physical as Taue's matches with Kobashi and Kawada since Misawa is working with a broken orbital bone, but there are moments here where Taue viciously targets the face and of course it fucking rules. I'm surprised at how early they blow a Dynamic Bomb nearfall, but it's somewhat protected since Taue doesn't soften up Misawa with the apron Nodowa beforehand, and you also get the sense that Taue goes to it hastily because he erroneously smells blood in the water. ***1/2
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  15. Calvin
    This is for Scorpio's ECW World Television Championship. Total spotfest, but Eddie and Scorpio are charismatic enough to make this type of match compelling. There are a few dissonant notes here are there, maybe due to Joey Styles' horrendous commentary, but this otherwise a good showcase for Eddie in his debut match for ECW. ***
  16. Calvin
    Structurally similar to Taue's match with Kobashi on 3/21, but informed more by inter-team competitiveness instead of rivalry. Neither wrestler will lay down for the other despite their camaraderie, even getting downright nasty with each other at points, and it culminates with Taue killing Kawada dead in one of the best matches of the year. ****1/2
  17. Calvin
    There's something tragically poetic about Kawada not being able beat Misawa, even after breaking his face, but it's a testament to how good their chemistry was that they could recover from a potentially match-ending injury and still work a strong match. ***1/4
  18. Calvin
    This is for Diesel's WWF World Heavyweight Championship. Diesel surprisingly keeps up with Shawn here, who seems to be on the edge of throwing a tantrum, and they have a solid, if not long-winded, big/small match. Shawn obviously poops his pants while in control, and his lack of any engaging offense is magnified when he has to work heel against someone who has the size advantage on him, but Diesel kind of sells it convincingly enough to save those segments. **3/4
  19. Calvin
    This is for Aja's WWWA Championship. Toyota naturally brings a genuine pathos to the face-in-peril role despite her penchant for underselling, so Aja battering her for the majority of the match works -- at least superficially it does. I would go out on a limb and say that Toyota wasn't too egregious about popping up and down here, though. They show a surprising amount of restraint -- and a completely unsurprising amount of Toyota sloppiness -- in a finishing run that is built up to with care. Toyota has to pull out all the stops to put down Aja, and in the end she finally wins the main title for the first time! This isn't a classic, or even a great match, but it's a Toyota singles match that is enjoyable without the need of a tinfoil hat to prevent your brain cells from imploding en masse. ***1/2
  20. Calvin
    I appreciate how stiffly these two lay their punches & kicks in here, but their credulity quickly became strained by the excessive length of the match, and the lack of rope breaks meant they were able to milk the fuck out of boring ass holds to fill time. **1/4
  21. Calvin
    I love that these tournaments force the wrestlers to be more efficient, but sometimes you get matches like this one where it's tons of action that feels a little uninspired because it's not laid out or built up to in a gripping manner. Of course this is much more good than bad because it's these two stringing together fun, hard-hitting sequences, but you know -- we've seen much better from these two. ***1/4
  22. Calvin
    I found this to be fundamentally flawed to the point that I can't consider it a good match. It's certainly a unique one given the one-count stipulation, but it was mostly incoherent and excessively long bullshit with a smattering of fun individual moments and decent action. **1/4
  23. Calvin
    You get the sense that Taue's turning it up to another level here, and this of course ends up being a prelude to a career tournament run for him. Kobashi and Taue trade receipts for most of the match, and it's wildly entertaining watching these two mindlessly try to cave each others' chest in, but the match elevates itself to something special after a Nodowa Otoshi off of the apron leaves Kobashi fighting desperately for his life. It's a terrific selling performance, truly, and it doesn't feel heavy-handed at all because the finishing stretch ends up being smartly structured instead of devolving into another bloated attempt at an epic. These two have a history of going to the time limit, so this was the perfect platform for Taue to debut the Dynamic Bomb and finish Kobashi decisively before the clock ticked down. ****1/2
  24. Calvin
    It's refreshing to watch these high-calorie, low-runtime matches from All-Japan instead of another attempt at a protracted epic. Akiyama blitzes Kawada -- who is fresh off of a title loss to Stan Hansen, and is more ornery than usual -- in the beginning again, but pays dearly for it afterwards (again). ***1/2
  25. Calvin
    Ozaki winning this with a flash pin after no-selling a piledriver through the table took some wind out of this match's sails, but this is otherwise a great, sprawling brawl that really cements how violent and vicious Ozaki can be despite her dainty appearance. ***3/4
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