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tim

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Everything posted by tim

  1. This started out lovely with some wild chaos, blood, marauding through the crowd, the kind of gritty-sloppy garbage match I love. It did drag for me after a while though, but I get the sense they wanted a longer match for a sense of importance. The Headhunters sure did kill people with splashes here.
  2. I know I watched this a couple days ago, but I can't remember a single thing about it.
  3. "I was in rehab ... for the fifth time ... in seven years." The overwrought drama of this line I just found hilarious. Actually, the whole interview was pretty funny in that respect. I liked the highlights with the song (actually, it got the song stuck in my head enough that I'm listening to it as I write this post!). The spot with Sandman in the ropes and Raven hitting dropkicks looked pretty good actually. Sandman's "dive" to the outside, much less so.
  4. Ospreay/Scurl from this month, pretty clearly I think.
  5. I loved this match so much. Not a wasted second and every single thing looked great. They were able to use a short amount of time to still gradually build up a match to a quick but great homestretch and get the crowd really into it. These guys are on a different level to everyone else in wrestling, or very, very nearly everyone else. Who else is going out there and having such a technically good, compact match and making it exciting and engrossing without recourse to huge spots or over the top nearfalls? Not guys like Okada or Kenny Omega, though I like both a lot. I like Zack Sabre a lot but his mechanics aren't this good. I like Will Ospreay more than a lot of people here but he might as well be a backyarder compared to these two; same goes for the likes of Finn Balor or Seth Rollins, and I like Seth a good bit too. This match was a joy to watch.
  6. Bryan and AJ are a step above everyone else in wrestling. Who else could go out there and have such a technically good match, with the crowd so involved, given that amount of time and without recourse to crazy spots? I like Okada and Omega but forget about it, they're not on AJ and Bryan's level. Guys like Ospreay, Scurl, Seth Rollins, I don't dislike any of those guys, but they might as well be backyarders compared to those two.
  7. I was hoping that they were going to have something of a dramatic match, but if this was always the goal and Taker wasn't going to do anything more physically intense, the way they booked toward it and pulled it off was actually PERFECT. In context this wasn't disappointing at all. Very memorable segment, Elias with one of the great heel spots of all time, and man Cena went HIGH for that Chokeslam.
  8. This match just made me angry at WWE. Their 2015 match is one of my all time favorites and I've been really looking forward to the rematch, and then they just totally ruin it by the stupidest booking and layout imaginable. They tried to get Brock over as a heel, so now the crowd didn't like ANYONE in this match and had no investment other than to express their disinterest in another Roman coronation. Brock's schtick wasn't even over because they'd succeeded in making him unlikeable. No one cared about the F5 kickouts because no one cared about Roman and no one thought he was going to lose. Roman kicking out of the F5 over and over again was just boring and essentially down-time in the match. The whole thing was awkward because the crowd never reacted to any spot in the match. Now, there was a lot in the match that was awesome. The beginning exchange between the two, Brock almost killing Roman by dropping him on his head on the outside, Roman's weird and violent looking bump across the announce table, Roman's freaking AWESOME spear to Brock across the announce table, Brock's knee strike counter, and the BLOOD! But, none of it really mattered, because it was all in the context of a totally tonedef and utterly failed match layout.
  9. I definitely need to rewatch this because I wasn't really feeling this whole show for some reason, but everyone else is raving so maybe it was just my mood. But on first impression, I'm closer to this opinion than the blowaway MOTY position, though I didn't dislike the match at all. It felt too WWE-faux-dramatic and not enough like a real grudge match, though I guess it felt closer to a real grudge match than you just about ever get in the WWE context. A match like this needs to be more about hate, grit and selling than visually impressive spots and big kickouts. Although, the ending was off the charts awesome, I'll give it that.
  10. I loved this match. Ospreay mostly being worked over and hitting a few big highspots is exactly what his role should be in every match. Also, he should never be allowed to work a match longer than 15 minutes (unless it's against KUSHIDA). So this is a match that optimizes Ospreay, and in such contexts I generally really like him. They played off his neck injury from Sakura Genesis and it was really effective. The crowd was actually involved in the match and really hot and sympathetic for Ospreay, rather than just sitting on their hands and popping for spots. The last couple minutes were great with Ospreay getting a super hot run of offense, including a totally sick powerbomb, into a great ending spot. My match of the weekend so far, one of my favorites of the year.
  11. Really fun match, especially once it gets down to Delphin and Naniwa mounting their comeback, which makes for a really dramatic and exciting ending portion. Beginning was really good too with quick action and some nice dives. Sasuke's elimination was really cool. In general the eliminations were well done. Naniwa and Delfin fighting back provided more real drama than you often get in MPro matches which makes this really stand out among MPro matches, though it's not exactly one of the classics.
  12. Another ECW brawl that's fun no matter how bad the mechanics were at times. But man, that attempt by Dreamer at the bridging Indian Deathlock submission was dire. Lots of energy all the way through and the fan trying to take a shot at Douglas in the beginning was a wild moment.
  13. I loved the two Golden Lovers matches in New Japan a month or so ago but this one, not so much. I was really tired while watching it, to the point where it might warrant a re-match, but this was waaaay too long and even as a spotfest I didn't find it that impressive for any extended period of time. A couple impressive spots. Overall entertaining, but not close to great.
  14. I pretty much discount the beginning portions of the match and view this as just El Dandy vs. El Hijo del Santo. And for that, it's one of the classic lucha brawls. Great looking strikes and they really bring the blood here. Lots of hate and intensity, and toward the end the match really has that gritty, war of attrition feeling that just a handful of the very best lucha brawls reach. Wild crowd, Santo's over the top tope was incredible, and the final spot with the struggle over the Camel Clutch before Santo locks his hands over Dandy's bloody face and wrenches back is one of the best endings ever.
  15. Watching this was a very interesting experience. I hadn't watched it in close to ten years, and it was striking in a lot of ways. My impression was rather different than it was years ago, when I had watched this match a couple times as one of the classics. To get the negative out of the way first: it's not as good as I remember it; which is to say, it's not a no-brainer to be in my top 10 matches of all time. It's still the match of the year, and an all-time classic. This is Taue's match, in a BIG way. In fact, that's the strongest theme of the match. Taue won the match, and he had written the victory in stone about 10 minutes before he and Kawada finally picked Misawa dry. Kawada, indeed, was a bit unimpressive here. Akiyama is rather pathetic when the match ends, as in being very sympathetic. 1996 was a huge year of growth for him, and in the first half of this match that was exhibited every bit here. Misawa and Akiyama functioned as a team every bit as well as Kawada and Taue did, and Akiyama didn't seem a step below Misawa. Until the apron Nodawa, which he never recovered from, and guaranteed the end of the match in one moment. The action in the beginning is outstanding, of course. Taue's performance is remarkable pretty much right off the bat. Just really great, very even action, featuring a great cinematic strike exchange between Kawada and Misawa in the middle. Eventually Akiyama and Misawa are able to take out Taue and have Kawada cornered and nailed with some big moves, and for the first time in the match it feels like one team is about to bring it home. But suddenly Taue rallies and single handedly regains the advantage, and is able to hit the apron Nodawa on Akiyama, and that's all she wrote. Misawa had a real superman performance, taking as much punishment as anyone can take. But he never even gets an extended bout of offense -- and it's mostly thanks to Taue, again. Taue is always a step ahead of Misawa, and in the immediate aftermath of Taue's taking out Akiyama, it's striking how sharp Taue looks always ending up on top in all his exchanges with Misawa. After Taue establishes dominance over Misawa with Akiyama done in for good, it's just a slow grind wearing Misawa down. Akiyama attempts a very ineffectual comeback at the end, and it is very dramatic, but gets shut down by an absolutely killer backdrop driver from Kawada. It's a fascinating match. For drama and the quality of the action, I don't think it's in the same league as something like 6/9/95. Simply for the quality of the move-to-move action, the November match was probably better actually; but this one has the drama and compelling narrative.
  16. This I actually liked more than the last match. Nice novelty with the fairly ridiculous gaijin team. Greco is, predictably, awesome grappling with Ikeda. Krueger is a bit inept but plays his role well in the match and makes things more unique. Hits big powerbomb to end it looked nasty.
  17. Pretty good match. Felt a little too submission based to play to Taka and Funaki's strengths. Ikeda hits some vicious lariats on his comeback and the last burst of action with Taka hitting his springboard dropkick is good. Overall I'm the low vote on this one it seems.
  18. Boy this is hard to rank against the 10/10 match. I think the pre-home stretch of this match was better, considerably better actually. Had an edge to it, was more dynamic, and everything looked so good. But the 10/10 match has it beat for the extended insanity of the finishing run, although this match had an awesome finishing run itself. Maybe 10/10 gets the slightest of edge, but this is still one of the MPro classics.
  19. I do love this kind of contentious juniors wrestling. I love Otani and Kanemoto as a team; and I quite like Liger and Samurai as a team too. Otani's out of nowhere springboard dropkick was incredible and the ending was good too. Extended post-match beatdown, Otani even makes the ref count a pin on Liger! Very good match all around.
  20. Pretty wild opening with a Naniwa sneak attack followed by a top rope hurricanrana to the outside, and Dragon splats right on the floor; and when Dragon makes his comeback, he does outside to powerbomb Naniwa on the floor! Other than those big bumps, the match was fine. Sort of lost my attention as it went on.
  21. tim

    1996 MOTY

    Well, November was absolutely fucking insane.
  22. One of the wildest spectacles in wrestling history. I don't know if there's a wilder wrestling match than this. The hatred is turned up to 100 here and so is the crowd for every second of the match. And all the brawling looks great. The technico comeback is awesome again. The run of dives at the end is great and Garza's botched dive looks terrifying and is totally in keeping with the character of the match. I think the ending to this match is my favorite ending to a wrestling match ever. If there were any match appropriately described as a WAR, it's this.
  23. Wow, I wasn't expecting this match to be this good. Yeah, given the match-up and the feedback here I had very, very high expectations, but not THIS high! The three real canonical classic AJPW 90s tags -- RWTL 93, RWTL 96 and 6/9/95 -- are still in another league, but this isn't that far off. And at only 20 minutes it packs in a whooole lot of action. There's a nice, rough beginning with Taue and Akiyama and soon into the match Kawada and Taue get in control of Misawa and really give him a beating, including a Doomsday Nodawa on the floor(!) and a powerbomb on the floor. Misawa's extended comeback is so great with some intricate sequences, and they take their time paying it off. With Akiyama in the ring it soon becomes evenly matched and boy do they go balls to the wall right up to the end. Some really creative, intricate wrestling too. Akiyama and Misawa eventually go after Kawada's leg and it leads to his downfall. Kawada still puts up fight but his kicks get less and less effective as his leg gets more and more damaged, and Misawa takes him out with two Tiger Drivers in a row.
  24. Bischoff is terribly obnoxious, but I suppose in a good way for a smarmy heel manager role. Welp, Bagwell in the NWO is a major dilution. The NWO gimmick works better as a rogue faction rather than an actually organization trying to compete with WCW as an organization.
  25. Ha, Shawn really is petulant here. I liked the promo because in theory it's a great step to start turning him heel, though that's not what happens. Lawler going after Lotharia was a hoot.
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