tim
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Everything posted by tim
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This is wonderfully chaotic right from the opening bell and the crowd is super hot. Lots of crowd brawling, chair shots, bumps through the chairs in the crowd, good stuff. Tenryu is pretty dominant throughout. Best part of the match is Onita coming back into the ring after dominating the crowd brawling, and Tenryu meeting him as he steps onto the apron and unloading with jabs and chops to the throat as Onita stares him down and comes back for more. Really awesome brawl.
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This didn't really get gruesome until the end and for a lot of the match felt more like a 'enhanced' garbage brawl rather than a death match -- which I'm saying in a good way. Eventually they do go all out with bigger bumps through the barbwire, falling on nails etc. But it doesn't feel really nasty until toward the end which gives the ending minutes more intensity. Lots of cool stuff here, they kept it moving and utilized a lot of different stuff to keep it entertaining for the whole match. "Maximalist" is definitely the right word. Highlight has to be Honma hitting a light tube shot while jumping off a railing and following it up with, of all things, a small package.
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AJ winning the title back seems dumb. It makes Tanahashi's win over Okada, which Okada sure sold as a big deal, a lot less meaningful and what is AJ going to do with it? Continue with his heel champion leader of the Bullet Club schtick with them interfering in all his title matches? Please no. I'd like Ibushi to win the NJ Cup and challenge Nakamura for the IC title at Invasion Attack.
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I liked the moonsault in the beginning. Battlearts does a lot of stuff that you could say shouldn't "fit" into the style, but what's great about Battlearts is it's open to fitting in different stuff like that. Also love how it came right after a ridiculous entrance-way running knee strike, just about the last thing that makes sense in a style that's supposed to be based around realism. But it's all done in a good and fun way. Agreed that this is the least of the Battlearts matches but it's still pretty good, if too long. Ikeda was my favorite guy in this match, there were some greart moments with him laying it into Yone.
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I hadn't heard about the deadline myself, or just forgot it, and had my ballot finished over a year ago now. I wonder if this project wouldn't be reinvigorated by becoming a PWO-centered project rather than DVDVR-centered? It seems this place is the number one hotbed for in depth wrestling discussion/projects now and most of the guys involved in the project seem to post here more often than there.
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It was probably my favorite of their series actually, though I'll be rewatching it soon as I'm rewatching the whole thing on NJ World. Totally agreed about the Rainmaker spot though, the first kickout immediately after a Rainmaker should've been a much better moment after how much that move that been protected. It wasn't even dramatic because at that point in the match you knew it wasn't going to end.
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What is the real story with the papered numbers anyway? Was there any period where Dome shows were legit drawing 50k?
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I think NJPW booking is wrongly credited with being consistently great because they did one particular thing incredibly well, Okada's push. They created a legit main event draw literally out of nowhere in a short period of time. I don't think anyone can deny that doing that is incredibly impressive. Outside of that I've been very underwhelmed with a lot of NJPW booking especially in 2014. The crowds are beyond into Honma and they do nothing with him. I know he has that scandal associated with him but they're still obviously willing to use him. If you're gonna use someone, maximize their value. They made him this always losing underdog, fine enough if you're going to do something with it, but then they don't pull the trigger at the G1, don't give him a big feud, and let him pick up a pin in a throw away tag here. Ishii didn't even have a match in the Dome show last year. If people who praise NJPW booking were REALLY as invested in it as they are in WWE booking they would have thrown a fit. If WWE did something similar to that there'd be a meltdown. Naito's push was a huge failure, which in a lot of ways highlights how impressive Okada's push was. The overpushed Bullet Club this year totally blew, they bombed a big show thanks to lack of interest in that angle and it made a lot of the cards monotonous and uninteresting throughout the year even if the wrestling was good. Sakuraba has been put in really lame programs outside the latest one with Suzuki -- however much you don't like Sakuraba in the ring it's hard to deny that there has to be a big opportunity to having a legit MMA legend in NJPW that isn't being taken advantage of. NJPW booking has been doing a lot of things poorly and getting a bunch of credit for the couple good things they've been doing, even if those couple good things have been outstanding. NJPW could and should be a lot more interesting and exciting from a booking perspective.
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Given the 36k number, is there anything NJPW can really do to get the kind of attendance numbers people were projecting?
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By far the best Okada/Tanahashi match. This whole show was outstanding I thought. And when was the last time a Dome crowd was that hot?
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The last two matches I thought have been incredible. This whole show I think has been GREAT. Wiil write more tomorrow but I really have very little negative to say about this. Omega/Taguchi kinda sucked though.
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I liked it a lot. Wish they did more mat work early on though.
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Anticipation rankings: Nakamura/Ibushi > Sakuraba/Suzuki > Naito/AJ > Ishii/Makabe > Okada/Tanahashi > Jr Tag > Honma tag > NEW JAPAN RUMBLE > Tag match > Omega/Taguchi > NOAH tag
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I read work that fits this description almost daily. You're talking about an idealized past that never existed. I'm not. Don't be patronizing. Go and read journals and broadsheets from 1830 - 1960. The standard of writing in my experience is much higher. There are good pieces today and there were bad pieces then. You still get good writers like Barney Ronay who would have been right at home in that era. I'm talking in general. Much more content is produced today and a good proportion of it is vacuous, uninformative, shoddily produced click bait. They are catering to an audience with lower attention span and who expects a lot of content to be produced daily if not hourly. Not an audience with fewer distractions who are buying a publication weekly and devote time and attention to reading it. As such, the overall quality has dipped. People used to cut clippings out of music publications and save them because they enjoyed reading them so much. When was the last time Rolling Stone or NME or Pitchfork produced a great piece of journalism? Isn't it an issue of quantity expanding massively in both directions? And the average person being more likely to spend their time on clickbait nonsense than on good, deeply written accounts of complex subjects? There are a couple sites and blogs I check every day for both their own content and links to other content and there is more good journalism than you could possibly read in a day. You could say a lot of it you won't find in newspapers or on the front pages of million-hits-a-day top websites but I guess I don't consider that very relevant. You wouldn't find the best journalism in 1960 in TV Guide either.
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Another great segment and this is just miles and miles above everything else seen on Power Pro so far. Or WWE and WCW even. Old school feel while at the same time blending in the reality-blurring aspects of the time, but actually doing that right, and being focused on a real feud building to matches. Again everyone is great, the whole layout is perfect and it continues to make sense and actually make you feel invested in what happens next. Again I wish we had the matches this stuff is building to.
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Even when an MPro tag isn't really exceptionally good it's still a lot of fun to watch. Until the end stretch this wasn't great or anything but it was still enjoyable, the MPro style was just so good when done right. The end stretch though was really great, CIMA and Taka have a really great segment and everyone really kicks up the pace and does some cool stuff. Ending was really good with Taka intercepting a move with a springboard dropkick and following up with the Michinoku Driver for the win. I really like CIMA here in general.
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Great match that is really all the best aspects of ECW rolled into one. Everyone is over and connects with the crowd, good use of hardcore stuff, crowd brawling and a huge spot that gives it an out of control feel that you couldn't get in the two big promotions, an over the top ending and some great work in between blending good wrestling spots with hardcore stuff. Bubba really bumped great here and Spike good great in general as the plucky small guy taking it to the bigger Dudleys. Some really good nearfalls, some that I actually bought as the finish. The kind of match that could only really happen in ECW and a great one.
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Really cool match here that mixes in a bunch of different stuff. They have crowd brawling, weapons, triple team stuff, traditional six man spots, two FIPs (well, one is a HIP), dives and some very good regular ring work. I like how they do some traditional stuff, play by the rules of legal tags most of the time but they still keep a bit of a hardcore edge throughout, like how in Hido's peril section he makes a comeback with a low blow and instead of getting a hot tag he knocks the other opponents off the apron and they go do some brawling outside. The weapon use here was very good, it never dominated the match but was used for well timed and cool highspots. Really fun stuff and my favorite of the FMW matches so far.
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The aftermath completely negated anything special about the Summerslam match. It was played like a parody of a Cena feud written by someone who hates Cena. He comes right out talking about how he'll overcome and get his win back and how he hasn't been demoralized etc etc. Awful. Then he squashes Bray the first night he's back wrestling. Everything about Cena from the moment he got back on TV screamed at the viewer that the Summerslam match was not a special occassion and that nothing at all about Cena or this feud will be different than how any other Cena feud always is.
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For the love of God get Biscoff off commentary, he's beyond awful. Terrible segment, and also checks off the 2014 WWE list by running a big PPV match the day after on TV.
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This Master P celebrity spot is so lame. They seem to be getting booed too.
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Perfect segment. Hugely entertaining and funny and Austin is great.
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A fittingly shitty match for this shitty feud. Up to now I thought that although it featured several head-scratching decisions the WCW title scene was entertaining and interesting for the most part. Now with Nash as lame smiling babyface, a terrible over the hill Savage with a weird-in-a-bad-way three women stable and a PPV main event Sid run-in, it's just flatly awful.
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This is a new level of bad. The dog attack was not only a terrible idea but executed even worse than you would think. Then the Steiners come out and ramble on for way too long.
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Bagwell, the guy WCW seems ready to push as their big up and comer, makes himself look like an idiot by DQing the guy he wants to win and the crowd cheers when everyone beats him up.