PeteF3
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[1993-11-21-WWF-Survivor Series Showdown] Yokozuna vs Bret Hart
PeteF3 replied to PeteF3's topic in November 1993
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[1993-08-25-AJW-Legacy of Queens] Shinobu Kandori vs Kyoko Inoue
PeteF3 replied to PeteF3's topic in August 1993
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Had a lot more trouble getting into this. It's a fine performance from Hokuto but it felt like she was wrestling for four here. Minami is possibly the least charismatic wrestler in the history of joshi if not all of Japan, and Hotta and Inoue were mostly uninspiring until the end when we got to Hotta murdering Hokuto with bombs. I'm about to commit heresy, but I think I'm already over the "Hokuto suffers a crippling injury and fights through it" story--regardless of how entrenched it is in real life. I'm starting to prefer matches like the Saito one where she's the woman in charge and wrestles accordingly.
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Kandori's entire persona is that of someone in a huge hurry who's stuck in a line at Subway behind a person taking 5 minutes to decide what type of cheese they want--just a perpetual grump. It makes for a great contrast with the eternally bubbly Kyoko. This is a marvelously well-built match, with Inoue really working outside of her comfort zone. There are some fantastic reversals and counters, like a more intense version of the Kawada/Taue CC match. After a few heart-rendering near-falls, we got a finish that I actually really liked, and was built to just as well as the rest of the match. Some of the most dramatic rope escapes you'll ever see, which sets up the winning submission pretty spectacularly. Kandori may have been involved in the two best joshi singles matches of the year.
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This is a hell of a match indeed, with a terrific Lizmark performance for the first fall and Estrada stepping up his game in the third. The psychology surrounding the Tirabuzon submission is great--Lizmark outwrestles Estrada at every turn, but Estrada seems to have one submission in his holster that Lizmark doesn't have an answer for. After tapping him to win the second fall the third fall is about Lizmark trying to escape being put in that hold again. I think I have the 2/14 trios match as the current Lucha MOTY but this is a solid #2.
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Mascara is pretty limited--he can't do much more than punch, kick, and roll people up. But damned if this isn't a Pat Patterson-level booking masterpiece. The first two falls are over quickly in that perfunctory "let's get them out of the way" manner, but the finishes are delightfully screwy. First, Aguayo is going to town on 2000 in the corner, raining punches on him, when suddenly Chocolate calls for the bell for a low blow. Very cool and out-of-nowhere finish and good use of the standard long lucha replay, as we break down whether or not Aguayo really punched him low or not. You can almost see Chocolate under the hood trying to find "indisputable evidence" whether or not to overturn the call. The ruling on the field stands, and Aguayo is down 1-0 before he has a chance to take a breath. Universo 2000 makes his presence known in the second fall than then Mascara gets greedy, clobbering Aguayo with brass knucks so blatantly than even the heel ref Chocolate has to DQ him for it. That's two falls out of the way in about 5 minutes, leaving about 20 for the rest of the match. Aguayo does a monster blade job off the knucks shot and levels Mascara with every bit of offense that he has, while Ano is just trying to keep his head above water with small packages and cheap shots from Universo. Eventually Mascara's mask is all red, and I can't tell if it's because he bladed himself or it's Aguayo's blood. Universo nails Aguayo as he bounces off the ropes, and as Chocolate goes over to reprimand him, Aguayo recovers to BLATANTLY uppercut Mascara in the nuts as the crowd loses their shit. Universo throws a fit, but Chocolate doesn't see anything and Aguayo covers for the win and the mask. The crowd loves it, and I rejoice never having to tell Universo and Mascara apart again going forward. One of the most markout-worthy finishes on any Yearbook, a perfect poetic-justice ending built across three falls. I tend to dislike the heel ref shtick in lucha because they never seem to get any comeuppance, so when they inadvertently aid the babyfaces through their own incompetence that sort of feels like a satisfying payoff. AAA would copy this sort of layout with Tirantes, Los Gringos Locos, and Blue Panther in the famous double apuestas match the next year, to similarly great results. As a match, this wasn't as good as Cien Caras' mask loss, but from a booking standpoint it's a highlight of any year. This also has Universo, who does one of the greatest jobs of a ringside second I've ever seen.
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The one-fall stip threw me, twice over--once at the false finish and again after the restart. This still built well from matwork to lots and lots and LOTS of near-falls, probably the most of any lucha match I've seen. Also countout teases for near-falls. All the bailouts gave this a very disjointed feel, but it did make the counts more meaningful. Speaking of which, the story here is another officiating controversy, and again it's done in an ambiguous, real-sports bad-officiating way rather than just a plain blind referee. Gotta say that having this on the same card as Aguayo/Mascara is overkill, even by lucha standards where the heel refs are part of the show. La Parka gets every benefit of the doubt on every close two-count and at least one near-COR, though replays seem to support the referee. He then ties up Lizmark and gets a three-count, with Lizmark not getting the same benefit. Replays again seem to support the referee, and Dr. Morales and Arturo Rivera sound like they're one step away from coming to blows themselves in the booth. But after a LONG delay, long arguments, and a conference with the Box y Lucha commission, apparently the match is restarted and we pick up where we left off. The turning point is Parka taking a horrific bump into the corner post, and it's pretty much downhill from there, as Lizmark locks on a shootstyle side mount submission. This was good, and a really coming-of-age performance for La Parka, but as I said--disjointed. The match was building up a ton of momentum and I'm not opposed to the idea of the restart, but the absurd length of time it took (it must have been close to 5 or 6 minutes, or more) stopped things dead in their tracks. And the officiating controversy didn't pay off as spectacularly as it did with Perro and Mascara Ano, though Lizmark deciding to go with a submission after not making any headway with pins was a clever touch. One for a La Parka comp, no question, but overall not quite as fun as the mask match on the same card.
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Can't watch all this stuff without getting to the finals. This may or may not be Hokuto's "retirement," which I know is bullshit but I'm not really clear on what the story with that is. Anyway, Aja really seems to have almost nothing left in the tank at this point, and they compensate by having her work a leg injury. Smart move, as it leads to a rare body-part-focused joshi match and Aja does a great job in selling it. However, the match still stands as a disappointing anticlimax. The finish probably could have been on the Yearbook just because it ended a show of such magnitude, but I can see why the match itself was left off. Hokuto, for whatever reason, seems to lack aggression when the opening is there to take Aja out, and a burned-out crowd (that was quiet to begin with) certainly doesn't help the atmosphere any. They throw a curveball at us by having Hokuto go "out" on top, which I certainly wasn't expecting. It's a nice moment for her, and she tearfully refuses Aja's WWWA title in another melodramatic post-match scene, but it certainly didn't come as the result of an inspiring performance. Lorefice's review has him incredulous that the card didn't end with Aja going over Manami, and I'm inclined to agree with him on that point. Jobbing your champion to a woman going into retirement (...right?) just smacks of being too clever by half.
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Had to watch this to make a comparison to SummerSlam. It is really cool how many promotions got involved with this show--I don't know if getting the WWF to contribute to this was really a major deal in Japan or not, but to me it is. Alundra gets a full-fledged motorcycle brigade as an entourage, so maybe it was. This was pretty well-worked but it suffers in front of the cavernous Dome crowd instead of the super-hot fans at the United Center, plus in Chicago they were really going balls-out to try to get over in front of a more skeptical audience while this is a little closer to going through the motions. It's also a very one-sided match in Bull's favor with Alundra getting in a few hope spots, including a badly blown attempted reverse dive off the turnbuckle. Decent match but I liked SummerSlam better and I suspect their Raw match next spring is better as well. This is a weird instance of a Japan show seemingly booking a match in a "death slot," WWF-style.
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I have no idea who LCO's opponents are. More slob-like ring gear for them, with oversized purple trousers and wifebeaters. I don't know why I'm so fixated on joshi fashion all of a sudden, but it's striking me as odd. They look like Japanese trailer trash, if such a thing exists. LCO themselves come out with the most ridiculously elaborate entrance of the year, with a choreographed dance troupe and being carried out King Haku-style, except somebody forgot to bring the thrones. Amusing contrast to the LLPW team. There are parts here that would fit right into a traditional southern tag--the LLPW team does lots of cheap double-teaming, and even some referee distraction spots and eye pokes to maintain or gain an advantage. There's also a payback spot involving their kendo stick, and Mita catching one of them in a fireman's carry and flinging them into their own partner in the corner, which is a basic spot that somebody should steal today. There are also some sloppy parts here, and while the LLPW team takes a hefty chunk of the match, it never really feels like LCO is in danger of losing. Also absolutely no heat for anything--I know the Dome could suppress crowd noise but this was pretty damn stark. I liked seeing what the mid- and under-card joshi types were doing, but this could have been pruned and the earlier tag given more time as a result.