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BigVanCrush

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Everything posted by BigVanCrush

  1. BigVanCrush
    This rules. Corino's now established as a serious wrestler who can take a beating and keep fighting after Tajiri nearly murdered him at Hardcore Heaven. Here, we get Jerry Lynn wrestling a more aggressive, violent match than usual. I made the comment while watching this that Corino's hair color would match his trunks in a minute or two and good lord did it ever. This might be the definitive Corino blade job. Lynn doing the war paint with Corino's blood is a really memorable spot. They managed to nip the 'you fucked up' chants in the bud by immediately going to whatever was next, which I appreciated. The cradle piledriver finish looked brutal. Both guys did a hell of a job here. It's a shame more people don't talk about how great these two were, especially in the second half of the year. ***1/2
  2. BigVanCrush
    I thought this was an excellent match until the finish. I get not wanting Van Dam to lose clean since he's basically the top star, but it does kind of suck for Jerry that the biggest win of his career at this point has a 'yeah but' attached to it. This series isn't for everyone and on some days I'm not too fond of some of the matches myself, but I did enjoy this one for the most part and it was another very good match from a great show and I'd really love to know who the hell thought Credible/Storm should have gone on last over this. ***1/2
  3. BigVanCrush
    Hey look, it's another Tajiri match from 2000 that kicks a whole lot of ass. Corino, for any faults that can be pointed out in him, can take a classic ass whipping and bleed buckets while doing so and that's exactly what he does here. Tajiri is fantastic as the ass kicker who's fed up with the way he's treated by The Network. I think this match went a long way in bridging the gap from Corino being a chickenshit comedy guy to being a guy who could realistically headline the company. I've always loved the manjigatame -> mist spot and Victory sold it great. The dropkick to the table was nasty, Tajiri's brainbuster on the ramp was nasty and the flurry he lands on Corino before the finish has been burned into my brain forever. Not quite a MOTYC, just below it, but one of the very best matches in ECW history and another highlight on what was a fantastic show. ****1/2
  4. BigVanCrush
    One of the best opening matches I've ever seen. They don't get a ton of time but Balls puts on a hell of a performance here and Tanaka is his usual, reliable self. I was shocked at Balls kicking out of one Rolling Elbow and the Diamond Dust, but it does show that he'd grown tougher since their series in 1998. Some ungodly chair shots in this one. Great goddamn match. ****
  5. BigVanCrush
    One of the very best matches this year. Lesnar was great not only in dominating AJ, but selling for AJ and making it seem like AJ was a legitimate threat. Once AJ starts to fight back and mount some significant offense, this went from 'great' to 'one of the best matches I've seen in a long fucking time'. AJ was great here, but Brock was fantastic as well. This is what happens when you give two of the best wrestlers ever time on a major PPV. ****3/4
  6. BigVanCrush
    The greatest match in ROH history, Danielson's greatest match and maybe my pick for the best world title match of the decade. *****+
  7. BigVanCrush
    This match kicks ass. KENTA is great as the undersized dickhead trying to plug away at the mammoth World Champion and Morishima is equally great at murdering KENTA for even thinking he had a chance. For my money, Morishima is the greatest ROH World champion ever because of matches like this. With previous champions, the title got associated with usually long, bloated matches (especially when Gabe got the hard on for Danielson going 30+) and his reign was the exact opposite. The matches were shorter, more violent and more impactful. Literally every ROH World Champion who came after him has lacked every one of those traits. Some of it might be a booking issue but a lot of it falls onto the performers IMO. Anyways, this match is awesome and one of the best sub 10:00 matches ever. Definitely in my top 10 ROH World Title matches at worst. ****1/2
  8. BigVanCrush
    I vividly remember watching this when it aired. My mom's reaction to the blood in this match was, "I can't believe you want to watch something like this." Out of all the matches from TNN that I got to see (everything from the 2/18 episode through the end of the TNN run), this is the match I remember the best despite having not seen it since it aired. Watching it again tonight I can safely say this is the best three way dance ECW ever produced and I'd put it ahead of the X-Division ones from years later. All three guys bleeding made it seem more like an all out war for the title rather than just three really good wrestlers doing stuff and everything they did in the match itself carried that off very well. I actually liked the idea of Rhino, Corino and Victory helping Tajiri win because it played into the whole 'Cyrus wants the TV belt on Rhino and he'll stop at nothing to do it' story they were running with. Tajiri was friggin' awesome here, Super Crazy was good and Guido was his always-reliable self. Even in 2000, ECW had a roster willing to work hard and deliver good matches. ****1/2
  9. BigVanCrush
    WALTER Beating Riddle up was awesome. Riddle completely no selling the leg and then making a comeback featuring a goddamn flying knee and a swanton bomb was stupid and kind of sums up everything I hate about watching him. He knows how to do the moves but the rest of it doesn't seem to click with him. Thankfully, this match being the WALTER show greatly outweighs Riddle's bullshit. Very good match when Riddle wasn't doing what he does.
  10. BigVanCrush
    This is probably the greatest ~10:00 match ever. It's violent, hate filled, has great brawling and several memorable spots. Joe looked like an ass kicker, Necro looked like an ass kicker, hell not even the goofy ass ref could drag this down. Just a wonderful match. *****
  11. BigVanCrush
    Pretty much this but I'd go ***** on this one. What a goddamn match.
  12. BigVanCrush
    This match sucked.
  13. BigVanCrush
    This was probably my least favorite of Hideki's big singles matches this year but this still kicked a lot of ass.
  14. BigVanCrush
    They really outdid themselves in this one with their commitment to insane bumps and no real downtime. This was, to me, as good as the modern New Japan main event style is going to get. I felt it blew all of the highly praised Okada matches out of the water with the lone exception being the Shibata match. This felt like two guys trying to hurt each other and win the match. Ibushi's swandive German is one of my favorite 'that's not going to end well' spots in wrestling and the middle rope piledriver was nasty as well. The finish, or rather Ibushi's bump for it, was both great and terrifying at the same time. That little bastard does not give a fuck and I love him for it. Probably my New Japan MOTY and I think it's probably my pick for the best match in New Japan since at least the 2014 G1. *****
  15. BigVanCrush
    Didn't like this nearly as much as their 2014 match. Really felt like it dragged for the first 2/3 and the final third wasn't good enough to make up for how much the rest of it bored me.
  16. BigVanCrush

    Edge

    BigVanCrush replied to stro's topic in The Microscope

    what was the gimmick for the tag match from no mercy 2002
  17. BigVanCrush
    I like this match a lot. There's two really memorably spots (chair shot counter to the dive and the ladder Walls of Jericho/tarantula/whatever the fuck that was) and there's enough brutality to make up for, as the poster above me said, this being kind of a cold match. I don't think it's a MOTYC or an all time classic, but it's a very fun match. It's amazing to think these guys were paired as a tag team four months later. ***3/4
  18. BigVanCrush
    Man, this was good shit. It's a little suplex heavy (as in there's a shit ton of suplexes in this match) and there's two run ins but on the whole this works a lot better than their match from nine months later in terms of a WWF Title match on TV that delivers the goods. Austin is determined, frenzied even, as he gets his first one-on-one shot at the title since returning. Angle weathers the storm until Regal runs down and fails to accomplish anything because Austin lays him out. There's some bumps over the rail because it's 2001 and we're still doing that. The finishing stretch is great as Angle unloads a ton of suplexes on Austin before Austin makes his comeback and finally hits the Stunner and the place goes fucking nuts. Just as Austin's about to win, Triple H pulls Hebner out of the ring and decks him so we don't get an actual finish to this one. What we do get, however, is a super heated brawl with Austin and Hunter after the match is over where Hunter busts Austin open with the pipe that Regal brought out when he tried to attack Austin during the match. This isn't a MOTYC, it probably wouldn't make my top 20 greatest RAW matches list or whatever, but this was a pretty damn great TV main event title match that I would at least put on the same level as the Unforgiven match. ****
  19. BigVanCrush
    This was the main event to the first ECW on TNN I ever saw. In terms of their series in ECW, this is well beneath November to Remember and the December '99 matches. By this point, they had a formula down for these matches to where I'm convinced they could have done this in their sleep. The finish is great, the rest of the match is standard for what they were doing at the time. Not nearly their best match but far from their worst. ***
  20. BigVanCrush
    So the SummerSlam match is a classic, the Unforgiven match was great but a step down...and then there's this. They started out brawling in the entrance way like they did the other two and they did the exposed floor bit from Unforgiven but with one bump instead of three. Angle teased using the Stunner but Austin countered. They didn't do a whole lot to play off of the Unforgiven finish here. This felt like a lame duck TV match that just happened to be a title change. I'm not a huge fan of the Regal turn here, both because it was predictable and it wasn't the finish. Austin hitting one Stunner after that for the finish when we know Angle can take far more ends this one on such a flat, sour note compared to the masterpiece at SummerSlam and the really solid match from Unforgiven. They have a match at Vengeance (and a couple earlier in the year) that I want to check out again. It's a good match, but for the climax of the heel Austin vs. babyface Angle series, this is not a fitting or satisfying conclusion at all. ***
  21. BigVanCrush
    So the follow up to the super classic at SummerSlam isn't quite on the same level. The heat isn't quite there and the hate isn't as palpable as it was in the previous match and both of those things hurt this match a bit. Angle is the aggressive challenger who knows he had Austin beat last time and goes all out early on, throwing Austin off the stage and smashing his head into the post like Austin did to Angle at SummerSlam. Angle exposes the concrete so he can piledrive Austin but it never happens. He and Austin take a couple of bumps onto the concrete that largely don't mean anything in the grand scheme of the match, they're kind of just there. The finisher stealing reminds me of when my cousins and I would do that shit against each other in No Mercy. I'm not a huge fan of the finish of this one. Kurt wins via submission but Austin's hand is under the rope, so the babyface challenger wins the title in his hometown but it's not a clean win. That doesn't sit right with me. On the whole, this is a damn good main event that had the impossible task of living up to the first match. Worth seeking out if you liked the SummerSlam match but don't go in expecting anything near as good. ****
  22. BigVanCrush
    Oh this one's a masterpiece. This might be the original suplex city match given how crazy Angle went with the German suplexes in the beginning. Angle was great here, he took a classic ass kicking and kept fighting back. As good as he was, Austin was on a completely different planet as the psychotic heel champion who used every shortcut in the book in an attempt to beat the challenger before retaining the title on a DQ when he started wiping out referees. I liked Angle going nuts when he ankle locked Austin on the floor. The closeup of him bloodied screaming "you son of a bitch" is really effective stuff. The finish doesn't bother me at all, it makes complete sense that the Alliance ref would fuck the WWF guy over in the end so they could keep the title. My only gripe with this match is how high it set the bar for their future matches. Nothing was going to top this. I'd genuinely place this in my top 5 matches of 2001 and would put it very high on my list of best matches of the decade. *****
  23. BigVanCrush
    My only real gripe with this is that the finish feels flat, but everything else was great. Angle's chokeslam counter into the ankle lock and the apron leg drop counter into the ankle lock in particular stood out as two really cool, innovative counters especially for 2006. I liked that the match was well paced, especially given the two participants and the length of the match (just shy of 30:00). It felt like more of a big main event epic than anything else WWE produced that year and I think I like this one more than the Shawn match from WM 21 in terms of the 'big' Kurt Angle matches from this time period. Everything clicked until the match was over. It's a shame they didn't get a chance to run this back with a better finish but as it stands, this is a tremendous match. ****3/4
  24. BigVanCrush
    This was probably their best match together but as Ditch said, it's a second tier match in a really stacked year. Probably the second-to-last great match Vader ever had, but not a MOTYC for 2000 or even the best TCC match of the first half of the year. ****
  25. BigVanCrush
    Was surprised to see that there's no thread for this match. Good lord, what a spectacle. Though this one goes slightly longer, they pace it a lot better because while spots are being set up, things are actually happening so you're not just watching the guys set up the next big bump while everyone else is dead. Then they added in the wrinkle where every team has a helper as opposed to only the Hardyz having a helper with the Dudleyz having Spike and E&C having Rhyno and I like that the helpers factored into the finish with Rhyno pushing the ladder to send Matt/Bubba through four tables and boosting Christian to where he could get the belts. There's a ton of crazy bumps in this one, Jeff does the 20 foot swanton, they do the crazy spear from RAW only from a bigger ladder, Bubba and Matt go through the four tables. None of the big bumps really top the Matt Hardy backwards bump from the first, but I wouldn't have wanted them to try to top that. I think as a complete package, this is the best of the trilogy. They built off of the previous match, added a couple new wrinkles to the story, got rid of most of the downtime and the end result was a phenomenal stunt show match. Probably my #2 MOTN behind the main event. This is unbelievable. The first three TLC matches are as good as this kind of wrestling ever has been and ever will be. ****3/4
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