tim

More a random question than a comment but I don't know if there's "Random Questions" thread: Did the idea that Japanese crowds are "quiet and respectful" come from Taz's commentary on the Benoit DVD or has it always been a thing people have said?

And Jesus Christ for a guy for whom "shitty offense" is at the top of his flaws list, Tanahashi does NOT need to be using the Styles Clash of all things.

I generally liked the one that got five stars although I wouldn't even say it's a particularly good match. Just watched the G1 match and it's a match I enjoyed watching and honestly WANT to say is great overall because I think it did a lot of things really well, but there's too many flaws, not the least of which being shitty offense from both parties. Although a lot of the last 10-15 minutes or so were a lot of fun I thought, and Okada sold the leg surprisingly well. So I definitely liked it based on its strengths, but it's totally one of the NJ matches where they try to make up for a boring and meandering first half with a near-fall-full hot second half.

wow, thanks a ton for the info oj and mookei. OJ, although the comparison of the crush girls to mainstream pop culture icons may be off, do you still think as far as their success/popularity in wrestling and some level of pop appeal they compare favorably relative to a guy like Hogan in the US? And were those 20+'s during the Tiger Mask craze the best ratings wrestling would ever do (or had ever done) in Japan?

Reading the wikipedia article on Chigusa Nagayo, it notes that during the Crush Girls run they regularly drew ratings of 12.0+. Which, if compared to even the best of RAW ratings during the peak, is huge. Now, first of all, IS it as good as it sounds -- is a 12.0 in Japan as big as a 12.0 would be in the US? Heck, is it even TRUE (it's an un-sourced claim but I've seen it around often). Did other companies get comparable ratings in Japan? Is there a good source of information re: Japanese TV ratings for wrestling? (as an aside, any particularly good write ups/articles/whatever anyone has on the crush girls cultural phenomenon would be nice)

so we all lost our shit over that right? what a fucking match.

Downloaded the PWG show out of curiosity and watched a bit of it. Thought the Young Bucks match had a couple spots that were legitimately cool out of context but as a whole the match was a mess. I can get down with somewhat ridiculous workrate spotty tag matches in the context of a whole show but the choreographed stuff in this was just over the top. It's also actually the first Chuck Taylor match I've ever seen and shit is that guy annoying. Tried to watch Eddie/Lethal but I couldn't get through the stretch of boring nothingless indie matches have to work through before lazily tacking on a run of nearfalls. Will probably try to watch the whole show later and sit through it. The hammerlock spot was as shitty as purported. So Drake/Sammi. Shit, I'm just gonna come out and say I thought it was a very good match. "Deathmatch" stuff really isn't my thing; I could have gone without the staple gun to the cheeks and the salt; no reason anyone needs to take an awesome bomb through steel chairs onto concrete. But if you think of the weapon shots, the nasty spots, the thumbtack bumbs, etc as "wrestling moves" constituent of the match then this was a legitimately well worked wrestling match. Big spots were built up to and stuff was actually used in creative and interesting ways: Sammi throwing the tacks into Drake's eyes as Drake was about to run him into the tacks, Drake then throwing the tacks he could grab in Sammi's eyes when he had him in the Stretch Muffler, the stapler gun sunset flip spot, several more. I can totally understand how that stuff could make someone uncomfortable and I could have done without plenty of the nastier stuff, but there were a lot of legitimately creative and interesting spots in here which were used to built a good, dramatic match.

god how deflating. bryan looks to win it, suddenly the person the crowd cares least about in the whole promotion comes out to dead silence. orton was just about the least interesting choice to win. i didnt think the match was bad and thought the beginning was actually quite good, and probably better than the first match as a whole. still both mitbs were underwhelming. ziggler/adr was underwhelming but still good, though AJ coming out killed the crowd and gave the match an awkward feel overall. cena/henry was fucking great though so hey there's that. sorta glad i didnt spend the money for tickets as i was considering since i live in philly. still i decided to pay for it so i'd be sure to have a stable stream for cena/henry which i've wanted to see forever. i'll just focus on the cena/henry positive. oh, and the ending of the first mitb was great. 6.5/10

I'm really not at all an NJPW fan and agree that a lot of modern puro is awful, but I just watched this match and actually really liked it. Maybe it helped that instead of coming in hearing reviews of it being some sort of ultra-realistic affair (it's definitely not) I came in having heard this and having someone on another forum imply I might like it. A few of these criticisms I agree with: - The back suplex spot wasn't to my liking, although they did sell the damage afterward; which was a theme in the match I did appreciated -- I though they did a good job selling, I guess, "accumulated damage" right after brief sprints of heavy striking. Like how in the beginning Shibata gets blitzed by Goto but then takes advantage with a flurry of kicks and afterwards holds his head and reclines against the ropes. Stuff like that happened a lot. - The fanciful Edge-tier MOVEZ. Probably my biggest pet peeve in wrestling. Like the mentioned Goto spinning thing and Shibata's DVD into the back breaker. No question that stuff is awful. HOWEVER: I thought the selling of the strikes was quite good. Again, there were extended flurries of striking but they usually sold the damage right afterward, even whoever had won the exchange. The figure four leg lock I though was cool because of the way Shibata held Goto's foot in place for it. Definitely doesn't make it some kind of realistic quasi-shoot affair but for the match it was I think it added a nice touch. Shibata had clearly built up momentum toward the end: he had hit a DVD, the aforementioned shitty DVD-into-backbreaker thing and then had Goto in a sleeper. Goto was almost out in the sleeper but Shibata broke it off with Sibata ostensibly half conscious and then delivered the running kick. I really liked that ending and it seemed perfectly reasonable and not out of nowhere to me. Plus there were cool things in the match like Goto ducking Shibata's swift kick through the ropes in the beginning, Shibata using Goto's hair for the leg sweep, etc. Hell, the short length could probably be construed as "selling" in a way considering how long major NJ matches are wont to go. I hate using "fighting spirit" as an excuse for blatant no selling, but really though this match was a pretty good example of legit "delayed selling" stuff. With such a short match those criticisms I agree with weight fairly heavily on it but I still thought it was a cool match and would recommend people to check it out even if you're not a fan of Japanese wrestling these days. I was really shocked that I like it.

hell yeah man, i LOVED deuce and domino. my dream wwe booking scenario is for them to return and have a lengthy honky tonk man-esque run with the tag titles, hamming it up with their gimmick like never before. also does anyone remember for a while there domino was taking nutty bumps left and right for no reason in nothing matches? it was awesome. i remember once he got eliminated from a battle royal, landed on his feet and JUST for the sake of taking a nutty bump jumped up and landed face first on the floor.

In an episode of House, House is watching a Christian vs. Abyss TNA match briefly.

Corino vs. Tajiri Akiyama vs. Shibata, 4/8/05 Kensuke/Kawada 2000 Foley vs Sting, 92 falls count anywhere Maybe ROH/CZW Cage of Death or the 6 man from the 100th show Wargames 94? When I watched it for the SC WCW poll a few years back it seemed like the most exciting and fast paced and i like it a lot.

Holy SHIT. Mark Henry, what a man.

It's funny how now that Roman Reigns is around the announcers are killing themselves to not call a spear by anyone else a "spear." On a RAW a while ago JBL literally stopped himself mid-word and instead called it a tackle, and at Extreme Rules Cole bent over backward to show everyone that Ryback's spear was definitely NOT a spear. Is Big Show still doing his spear and are they still calling it a spear? Haven't noticed.

There's a cool Goldust/Ezekiel match from October 2009. Stuck out for me at the time because Goldust does two really cool spots: he keeps dodging Zeke's attempted elbow drop, eventually rolling to the outside of the ring and hitting Zeke between the ropes as he tries to get after him; and at one point he starts a comeback attempt when Zeke is trying to lift him off the mat, starting throwing shots at his legs and thighs, then moving up to body shots, then moving up to a jawbreaker into mounted punches in the corner. It looks a lot cooler than it's possible to describe it. Man, I loved 2009 ECW so much. Also, does anyone have a link to the Chavo/Bourne match? I can't seem to find it on YT or DM.

to be fair, i thought the very first minute, minute and a half or so of punk/taker was good stuff. better than the recent taker mania matches where it's basically "we have no idea what to do until we kick out of finishers." although the middle portion of the match definitely fit that bill.

yeah. more than anything to do with the fact that everything that happened was painfully boring and no prospects coming out of mania are the least bit interesting.

i've been really surprised with the lack of theatrics attending the entrances

aside from the awful result i actually dont think that would've been bad without the shitty crowd. as it stands it felt terribly awkward and major spots fell flat.

Last time I saw Hash/Tenryu 8/8/93, a couple years ago, I felt it would be on the very short list of best matches I'd ever seen. Granted I haven't watched it since.

I loved their pre-taped vignette thing. Totally Swagger as dimwitted wholesome family conservative who happened to meet old guy who reads the federalist papers and Ron Paul's newsletter at a town hall meeting or something.

I would disagree that it isn't an important title, it's been instrumental in del Rio's face turn, Mark Henry's run, Danielson's push, etc. Frankly I would like it if it were just recognized as "new IC title," a legit upper-midcard title that legit upper card guys can foray in now and then, while the real top stars (Punk, Cena, etc) are involved in the WWE Title scene. Get the US and IC titles unified, might as well be under Cesaro since he's made the belt mean something. Drop all pretensions and have the Rumble count only to WWE Title. The sort of de-facto hierarchy going on right now I think would work pretty well if it was codified: the real stars are with the WWE Title, the upper-midcarders to fledgling stars are chasing the WHC, and there's an appreciable distance from that to the undercard guys(of whom there are plenty of reasonably over acts) going after the IC or US belt with little difference between the two, so go ahead and have Cesaro unite them.

Yeah they're in a weird position with the Heavyweight title. I don't mind it being a secondary belt, in fact I do think if they don't have a formal brand separate ONE belt has to be far and away THE belt, but it puts the WHC in a weird position of super-IC title, I'd say they should get rid of it but I feel like they want it around because Smackdown is still around, not its own show, further from RAW in terms of importance than its ever been, and I imagine the WHC angle gives the weekly shows some direction.

Henry/Show is my dream team, but only provided they call themselves "Too Big To Fail." As long as they have a team called the "Bailout", I am down with this. Wildly off topic, but I'd always retrospectively fantasy booked it that in 2008 instead of whatever shit they did with Shawn Michaels being poor or w/e, JBL should've come out flush with his newly received "bail out money" and bought up Show and Henry to do his bidding under the "Too Big to Fail" moniker.

Henry/Show is my dream team, but only provided they call themselves "Too Big To Fail."