soup23
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Jaguar Yokota vs La Galactica - 2/27/85 My final match in my trilogy of greatness from last night. This seemed like a good match to throw up to people that classify Jaguar as a "cold" worker. She starts off here with a fury and is ripping at the mask of Galactica less than a minute in. I loved the onset of this and the cronies for at Galactica being stunned for being one upped using these tactics. Of course, Galactica was bound to come back and boy does she ever attacking the arm with a vengeance. Blading of the arm is one of my favorite wrestling things when done sparingly and this was a great example of it adding a little extra bit of intensity to the frantic situation. The interference being blatant can be annoying in the middle of this but at least the seconds stayed mostly out of the way. Galactica does a great job attacking and dragging Jaguar around and Jaguar sells wonderfully. Her comeback had me there every bit of the way and the countout victory felt like a smart way to give her the win but to keep Galactica strong. Jaguar is rising up my ranks with a fury. ****1/4
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Steve Veidor vs. Gwyn Davies (5/26/76) I watched this after Jumbo vs. Flair and thought it was terrific. Davies has been receiving a ton of the praise and he was great gradually having to take more short cuts after he thought he could coast on size alone. Veidor though really made the match work well. It is not easy to go into a match like this and make it that convincing of the size disparity. It takes both individuals playing their role well to execute the simplistic story. Veidor was great at doing cartwheels, diving presses and other quick bursts of speed to get that across throughout each round. The buildup to the public warning and punch is magnificent and the crowd and announcer add to the dismay of Davies seeping to these levels. The bloody mouth visual only amplified things and Veidor was able to play out on his foot or on the ropes really well. His roundhouse punches to give some slight hope were well timed and provided a good contrast that Davies would remain frustrated by this plucky babyface. Finish felt definitive in that Davies won but everyone came away with Veidor gaining the moral victory. Awesome intro to the WOS stuff for this project. ****1/2
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Ric Flair vs. Jumbo Tsuruta 4/27/78 Really nice glimpse of earliest complete Flair I have seen and a great match overall match that on first watch I would only have below the 1982 and 1983 ones. First fall was my favorite of the three and where Flair did the most interesting stuff. Jumbo starts out by working vigorously on Flair's arm and elbow. Good solid stuff of course and Flair was selling right along without doing his "screaming Oh God" technique that would prevail his later years. Flair gets sent into the corner and takes a great bump to the floor elbow first instead of Flair flipping. When Flair does gain the advantage, it is with the use of the a stomp and he begins working over Jumbo's midsection. Finishing stretch was really good as they traded reversals and sold damage at various points. Jumbo evades an atomic drop and hits a back suplex for the first fall victory in around 15 minutes. Second fall shows Flair begin to focus on the leg, but I enjoyed the more technical aspects of Flair's character here. There weren't many instances of Flair begging off or going to the top just because. I could see how NWA veterans like Dory, Brisco etc would see this as Flair being the heir apparent and someone who could to an extent hang on the mat and bridge the gap between the old NWA title style matches and the faster paced, bomb throwing era that the 80's would usher in. Flair's figure four in particular is protected really well in this second fall and he wins with that move in around 8 minutes. The third fall is abbreviated and the most disappointing portion of the match to me as it goes three minutes and essentially consists of both men going for broke. Again, this felt pretty fast paced for 1978 and the reversal pinning cradle that Jumbo wins the match with is clever. Flair at the end of the match is disappointed because it seemed like he had Jumbo right where he wanted him, but he is respectful that on this night, Jumbo was the better man. Very good performance by both men in the 1970's. ****1/4
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I like Fujinami, I really do but he is someone that gets brought up as #1 contenders and top five by loads of individuals here and I see no shot of him being that high on my ballot. He was great in 1980 and 1981 but I think Dylan touching on the singles feud is spot on. When you get to the tip top of my ballot, there is that one feud that I would like to see to catapult people over the top. Multiple type feuds are a plus. Kawada has it with Misawa and vice versa. Kobashi has it with Misawa and Hansen. Jumbo and Tenryu have it with each other. Flair vs. Steamboat and Funk. Lawler with Dundee. All of those I would place above the Choshu vs. Fujinami matches and feud overall. Was the Choshu vs. Fujinami matches very good stuff. Absolutely, although I am probably more down on it than others but I didn't watch that series of matches feeling like I was seeing an all timer type feud. The 90's are a rough patch for Fujinami which everyone pretty much universally agrees. Therefore, I am left hanging my hat on the 80's run and while it is certainly enough to propel him to the top half of my ballot, it leads me fairly cold in other parts for a top 10 GOAT contender.
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Steve Veidor Steve Veidor vs. John Elijah (10/30/79) This was one of Veidor's last televised appearances. It was a real happy-go-lucky sort of Veidor match and Elijah played along nicely. Walton name dropped Bruno Sammartino in this bout, mentioning that the wrestler in the previous match, Spiros Arion "the Iron Greek", had sold out Madison Square Garden facing Sammartino, which I assume was more factual than the times he'd try to say that Terry Rudge had taken Antonio Inoki to a draw. Giant Haystacks/Big Daddy vs. Steve Veidor/Tibor Szakacs (4/21/76) This was a fun match. During the intros, I had no idea what to expect. On one side you had two of the all-time great professional wrestlers and on the other side you had Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, and there was this moment where Tibor was standing there in his yellow jacket looking cool as shit and I had no idea how he was gonna play it. But to Veidor and Szakacs' credit, they hammed it right up. Both guys had awesome strikes and Daddy and Haystacks bumped like fools for them, so it was a pretty good spectacle. Daddy sucked, but we know that. What surprised me was what good buddies he was with Haystacks in their leaner days. They were thick as thieves those two. It almost makes their later rivalry Shakespearean. Big Daddy/Giant Haystacks vs. Steve Veidor/Tibor Szakacs (4/6/76) This was these teams' first match from Croydon, which was Veidor's hometown. I think Daddy missed his true calling as he was a natural prick and should have stayed a heel. Perhaps in the 80s when business began to struggle they could have turned Daddy heel to shake things up. This was another fun bout. I liked the return match more because of how fired up Veidor and Szakacs were, but this was the catalyst for that performance. There wasn't much in the way of wrestling, but Veidor hit the most gorgeous dropkicks. He really was some athlete. All reviews are by OJ
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Comparisons OJ were strictly for the emotions it conjured up for me, not on the progression of the storyline for each match up.
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Agree with Matt, this doesn't have the violent visuals that I described above but the emotion was there for me all the way and it drew me in just the same.
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Good Will Wrestling: CMLL 81st Anniversary Show Recap
soup23 replied to soup23's topic in Publications and Podcasts
Give it a shot now Johnny. -
I told Parv the other day that 79 was my favorite to. 78 has the raw emotion but feels more like a Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl type segment than a complete epic match. The 79 match put everything together. Still, that three match series makes for a great night of wrestling and Dory is a pleasure to watch in them.
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Jackies promo was pretty weird and I don't know why they were claiming Sable was fat. Sable looks like she just came from the cabin with Brock with that get up she was wearing. Big hype for the bikini contest on Sunday.
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This angle is attitude era at its worse.
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The 20 minute opening soliloquy to start Raw of course feels mundane now, but this was a great with Vince laying out what has happened in the past week and setting up to the climax to start the show with Taker snapping and giving chokeslams. The air Slaughter got on his was great.
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At least Sting is being plugged into a program with Hart in a battle of who WCW fucked up pushing more in 1998. The low blow spot on the Giant was crazy with how it got the crowd over. They have some shocking chemistry. Giant and Hall win the tag straps making the struggle Sting had to win them seem moot.
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Will is joined by Phil Schneider & Kris Zellner to discuss CMLL’s 81st Anniversary Show at Arena Mexico. Tons of dives! Weird submissions! Tons of women! Hair vs. Hair! Mask vs. Mask! Join Will as we review an awesome show and a truly historic night of wrestling. ​http://placetobenation.com/good-will-wrestling-cmll-81st-anniversary-show-recap/
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This post cannot be displayed because it is in a password protected forum. Enter Password
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Thanks for the writeups, I will seek out that Veidor vs. Davies match for sure.
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Really crappy brawl between Wolfpac and Hollywood's gang with no one feeling too interested. Man, how much has Sting been shifted down?
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Finally Jericho lays it out for Deano by challenging him to a last chance match. They could have probably headlined Nitro with this match if they had done it correctly.
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Steiner vs. Steiner much like Hall vs. Nash just didn't have as much juice to it as WCW thought. Bagwell does his turn here which feels very reckless and a missed opportunity. Now, Bagwell is just Big Popppa's lackey.
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Was this a retirement of sorts for Maeda? The ringing bell at the end was the reason I ask. Anyway, I agree that this didn't have the precision or the brutality of other stuff in shoot style we have seen in 1998 but it did have an awesome story of Maeda having pretty much complete control and then realizing in the tail end that he was out gunned and didn't have much left to give and therefore he runs out the clock. The stirke exchanges in the waning minutes were nice and the ankle lock in the middle of this looked brutal. I love the variety of all the shoot style matches that have stood out in 1998 so far. (****1/4)
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So this where Michael St. John washed up. Good intro junior type match but also a match where you can tell they haven't figured out how to keep things interesting through the highspots. Still, the crowd popped huge for everything and St. John was good on commentary comparing the young Moore to a young Bill Dundee. (**)
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Hales is back with his personal digs while Lawler is restrained. He talks about his first two wives and calls Stacey a two bit something. This gets Lawler riled up and loose and the chase is on to the parking lot. Lawler goes for a piledriver but is restrained by everyone including Dave Brown. Another great chaotic scene to end an episode of Power Pro.
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Rock vs. Brian Christopher this Tuesday in Memphis. This would have a been a lot of fun to see around this time.
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Randy is in the production truck vowing revenge. Randy states that he has some dirt he will expose later.
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I loved the fake out for this as I thought it was ridiculous for Lawler to be selling this so much but it was a fake out all along. I do think this angle has removed itself from the Austin vs. McMahon dynamic as much as it could in the past couple of weeks and become a lot more interesting to me as a result.