Jump to content
Pro Wrestling Only

tcg91

Members
  • Posts

    391
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by tcg91

  1. This was better than the Steve Keirn match, part of the reason is Dynamite using a different strategy than his partner and aiming to busting Fujinami's forehead as soon as possible (as it was really effective when Keirn did it). Fujinami continuously checks his wound and then sells it really well when he starts bleeding, his strategy went out of the window as he was trying to keep Dynamite off his forehead with some matwork. Dynamite gets to look good, even in defeat, as his pin on the first diving headbutt was too cocky and then missing the second one completely changed the match. They also teased the suicide dive again from a desperate Fujinami, which he missed and seemed to be the end for him before he traps Dynamite with the bridge pin. The crowd was into it all along ****
  2. It's nice to see the Junior Heavyweights main eventing a show, even if it's just a B event. This was solid and good most times, but Keirn controlled the pace with a dull legwork at the beginning and the match was clearly affected by the lack of excitement. There was nothing wrong with his offence or Fujinami's selling, it just never became too good or dramatic. Things got better when Keirn was getting outwrestled and started punching Fujinami to get blood from forehead stitches, causing a disqualification. However, it didn't last long because Fujinami had a quick comeback and won the second fall in a couple of minutes. Seeing a 2/3 falls with a 2-0 result it's also quite fresh, but it's too bad that the match ended when it was getting good ***1/4
  3. This was ridiculously good. The match has the best looking and quickest armdrag/armbar sequences you could ever find, of course Saint was the one mastering the moves, while Grey was selling huge for him and getting a lot of sympathy from the crowd (to the point that Saint was booed by some fans, like a 2005 John Cena!). The control of the pace was nothing but excellent, as the match never dragged because Grey refused to stay down and his quick comebacks were always a treat. Grey's offence got more risky when we headed to the penultimate round and he managed to find two brave pinfalls on Saint, to win a match that seemed impossible for him to fix at that point ****1/4
  4. Portland was such a fun territory. Piper and Martel seem to be having a blast while tagging and dominating the match, interestingly that's the same thing that Martel did against Harley Race a couple of weeks earlier, despite being a babyface (you would think Portland would strive on heels calling the match). The future Bushwhackers here are 10/15 years younger and don't have a silly gimmick, they hold their ground quite well and get decent heat with their dirty tactics (ironically enough, they keep hitting Piper on his ear, a good few years before the Greg Valentine match). We get a non-finish, with the promise of an upcoming rematch, so that's good enough for me. ***1/4
  5. This was taped on January 22nd This is the famous Zbyszko turn and it's really well done. Their wrestling is clean and tight, Bruno keeps outwrestling Zbyszko and the student is clearly frustrated about it. Zbyszko shows fire and wants to win, runs the ropes really fast and clinches the arm as hard he can, but Bruno is clearly on top at every turn. Zbyszko explodes when Bruno shows compassion and starts taking it easy, opening the ropes for him is the ultimate humiliation. Zbyszko is great in his illegal beatdown and the visual of him leaving Bruno in a pool of blood is really effective. It's a match that basically becomes an angle, but the wrestling was solid and the story was told in a perfect way, the fact they did it all in less than 10 minutes is also quite impressive ***1/2
  6. Ken Patera was ripped and this was all about his strength against Backlund's technique. Backlund's armwork got a bit stale and it was quickly forgotten in the second part of the match, so it was just a way to fill some time. However, his selling was really great when Patera got him into a long bearhug and the crowd got into it; but even there, while Vince was teasing Backlund passing out to the bearhug, Patera only ever got flat 1 counts. I feel like they should have milked this to add a bit of drama to the match, as it never looked like Patera was going to be a real threat after that. The non-finish and the final brawl both looked good. Vince saying that there were 42,000 fans at the MSG makes the WrestleMania 3 figure look much more plausible **3/4
  7. This was a really nice Junior Heavyweight showcase, it went 20 minutes and never dragged once. I don't think Dynamite and Keirn tagged very regularly (if they did, I mostly missed it), but I surely wish they did because they showed a lot of chemistry and aggression when isolating the babyfaces, almost like this was a typical 80s Southern tag match. They did a good job at teasing a Dynamite/Fujinami confrontation to build a singles match, they also pinned each other but you never see enough of it, as most of the focus is on the gaijins destroying poor Hoshino. Fujinami gets the quiet crowd to pop big time when he hits a crazy suicide dive on Kid, but this leads to the heels beating Hoshino ***3/4
  8. This was great! Race completely made Martel, giving 90% of the first fall and selling his arm in such a believable way. 24 year old Martel had a lot of fire, but the story is that it takes him a long time to finish Race, while the World champion pins him quite easily in his comeback as he's clearly one step ahead. The crowd was behind Martel during his comeback and it's quite sad for them to see this match end up by a TV time limit, right when their hero had a lot of momentum. A nice bout and, again, Martel looked really good here. My only problem is Race not selling the arm towards the end, but everything else was pleasant to watch ***1/2
  9. This was quite disappointing to be honest. First of all, the match is heavily clipped as we only get about 25 minutes out of a 60 minutes draw. Secondly, some of Jumbo's limbo work was quite generic and seemed done to buy some time (I figure they did the same at the beginning of the match, especially as it wasn't broadcasted). That being said, it's still these two and so you can expect a solid match, good selling and an easy time when it comes to getting the crowd involved. Robinson killed it with selling his leg, especially towards the very end, when the pain prevented him from beating the clock and led us to the time limit draw. Not bad at all, but it looks like the second solid part of a throwaway title defence and I can't go really higher than this ***
  10. Seeing older fans laughing and having fun at ringside is very cool, but at times this match had too many comedy spots for my taste; this also happened because the crowd wasn't taking seriously a couple bumps that were not supposed to be comedic. However, they are two experienced grapplers and all the sequences looked clean and flawless; this style is the most similar thing to old school Lucha that you may see. While Costas was solid, this was the Ken Joyce show and he had several counters to trick his opponent, like the winning pinfall combination ***1/2
  11. Woah, I haven't seen one of these Houston two rings multi tag matches in a long time. I'm not a big fan of the stipulation, as sometimes it's hard to follow everything that is taking place, but they planned things quite wisely and you would see a bump in a ring while the other one was buying time with a rest-hold. Gino's selling was great, him and Kerry were clearly one step above the others and von Erich's dive across both rings was very creative. The finish also made sense, because Gino and Markus cheated to win the first fall against Conway, but they lose the match once they try to cheat again. A bit too messy at times, but the match was fun ***1/4
  12. Hi everyone, my name is Mark and I'm from the UK. Started watching wrestling at a very young age in '95, despite my parents hating it, as my uncle/cousin where big WWF/WCW fans and my grandad had lots of Joint Promotions tapes. WCW was my thing, but I remember becoming a WWF addict after watching a clip of Foley falling from the top of HIAC. Plus, while too young to know who Russo was, his shows felt so dirty and rushed anyway. Thanks to JP and a few local UK shows I knew what the indies were, but I was a full WWF/E fan until 2006ish, when I just grew tired of it. My cousin went to the ROH Unified show in 2006 and when I watched the DVD, another world opened up for me. 2006-2015ish was just the best time ever for me as a wrestling fan. Apart from watching 'Mania, I completely gave up on WWE and started watching pretty much everything else possible. My love for wrestling died when indy promoters that I respected (Gabe) or liked personally (a few European ones, but can't disclose much) sold their soul and dreams to WWE for a miserable dollar. The indy scene, but especially the UK indy scene that I loved and I supported (with my wallet as well) for years, completely died. It hasn't recovered and will never recover, not in my lifetime at least. Since 2017, I have watched little to no current pro wrestling. AEW killed it definitely for me, as they hired lots of great wrestlers and just can't get their stuff together, being a proof that great wrestlers are not necessarily good bookers and that sometimes they should be told what not to do. Furthermore, while I appreciate Tony for saving ROH from HHH's claws as Levesque has done more harm than good, the best company of the last 20 years is now a premium development territory for a TV company that can't write a good show to save their lives. Wrestling to me is a woman I used to be with and still love very much, even though we are not meant to be. I can't look at her anymore, because realising I don't love her today hurts, but I like to look back at pictures of us when we were happy together. After a few years without watching a thing, I restarted in 2020 as Covid gave me lots of free time. In the last 4 years, I have rewatched peak ROH, ECW, Joint Promotions and found out that I still love it very much. Then, gradually, I did watch a Wrestlemania, whatever AEW PPV it was and a bit of New Japan and it's just not for me. For the time being I'm sticking with the good old stuff. I have recently started rewatching lots of the stuff from the 80s, I have a list of 1000 matches and have currently seen about 100 of them. This forum definitely helped with the list and I'm looking forward to share my thoughts with you all!
×
×
  • Create New...