El-P

Nah. You're the one falling asleep and Takada decline any responsability if you're not paying attention. As far as looking like he's actually fighting, well, I've never seen Cena punt anyone with kicks and palm strikes as agressively as Takada does. Especially when he's pissed when the guy he's working with is the one not paying attention. And when he's going for the ropes trying to escape the submissions, he's simply one of the best ever at making it dramatic and urgent.

Yeah, defensive wasn't the right word, hence the " ". I explained what I meant afterward. Oh yeah, he's awesome at selling the escapes and KOs. And yeah, he's about flash and drama. I've been saying that for 15 years now.

May I ask, who is Paula ? As far as being boring, I remember not being impressed at all by his New Japan when he toured for the Super Junior in 93 or so.

Well, Japanese don't even have letters to begin with. BTW, Hido does have a weird career. Culminating with marying Megumi MF Kudo.

After rewatching a bunch of stuff recently : Nobuhiko Takada. Great worker, no doubt about it. And probably Backlund. And maybe...

(from the yearbook discussion) Takada's biggest strenght is actually on "defense", making every big KO he takes and every submissions he's put on look like death and milk them Onita style. Takada can be awesome on offensive too, especially standing up, kicking or punching you in the face (the headbutt revenge spot during his February 90 match against Fujiwara was a great exemple for instance, as is him punting Kosh face in 96 in retaliation of a dropkick), and although he's not a mat wizard like Fujiwara is, he's excellent at feeding holds to his opponent. And that's what his game is about : he doesn't want to look like a great technician, he doesn't care about that like John Cena doesn't care to work like Steven Regal. He wants to create drama, be put into holds so he can get into the ropes in a frenzy and sell every knock down to the maximum effect. That's Takada's game. Pro-wrestling mentality vs shoot-style mentality ? Who cares. He's terrific at what he does.

When I say he wasn't selling the kicks *that much*, I'm talking about both time he was in the corner eating a flurry. He was just standing there instead of putting them over. As far as Takada only looking good when he's on offensive, that's very wrong, as Takada's biggest strenght is actually on "defense", making every big KO he takes and every submissions he's put on look like death and milk them Onita style. Takada can be awesome on offensive too, especially standing up, kicking or punching you in the face (the headbutt revenge spot here was great), and although he's not a mat wizard like Fujiwara is, he's excellent at feeding holds to his opponent. And that's what his game is about : he doesn't want to look like a great technician, he doesn't care about that like John Cena doesn't care to work like Steven Regal. He wants to create drama, be put into holds so he can get into the ropes in a frenzy and sell every knock down to the maximum effect. That's Takada's game. Pro-wrestling mentality vs shoot-style mentality ? Who cares. He's terrific at what he does.

Watching at this thread, and having not followed the build, I realize I have zero interest in this card, which is kinda sad actually. I may still watch it because it's the second biggest card of the year for WWE (although it really doesn't feel like it apart from Taker vs Lesnar, which sounds bad on paper anyway considering their last match one year ago), but really, I only "care" about Rusev and Cesaro vs Owens. The NXT show doesn't look that great either. The woman match I want to watch, likewise Liger only because of the WTF factor of Liger on WWE TV. Blake & Murphy, Baron Corbin I don't care for at all. The main event could be really good, although I'm not sold on Balor yet (and his intro gets on my nerves).

Well, I went threw a bunch of entire cards from 1990 already, and it was really fun for the most part. UWF 2.0 was a terrific promotion, probably the best shoot-style promotion top to bottom (Tamura in RINGS remains my favourite, ever, but the undercards were often marred with awful stuff)

Garbage. Not as bad as the 01/04 match (but what is ?), but really, whenever Ogawa gets on offense, it's legit pathetic. Hash succeeds in making it watchable and entertaining for a while, but having him sell for the godawful offense of Ogawa (who sucks to an amazing degree, Dennis Rodman was a better worker than this) forever is just depressing. A hundred STO and shitty kicks later, Hash looks dead. I never understood the reasoning behind this whole program. It killed Hash as a draw and he was never the same after this abortion of a feud. Fuck you Inoki.

Do the later NOAH years, when he was immobile and doing a billion chops and a bunch of head drops, hurt him at this point ? I'm sure some would advocate he still had some great matches then, while others probably hate this same period.

The stuff I've seen from the 00's was rather underwhelming from memories, but it was some time ago now (probably around the SC poll).

Liger was still very good, but Kashin sucks. He works that lousy half-heelish/half mediocre submission style, with no focus nor charisma. Total failure of a champion and character. NJPW really had issues with their masked characters at this point, as I seem to remember Minoru Tanaka really struggled as Heat.

Terrific junior match. Total nonstop action (pun intended), and junior puroresu was much better before the annoying influence of american indy wrestling kicked in via ROH and such. Ohtani and Kanemoto are great, but Takaiwa brings his usual different, more power based offense, which I always though was nice because it brought some variety to the mix. And Minoru Tanaka was that terrific Battlart worker who was dating Yumi Fukawa (he ended up marrying her, I guess they're still together, which would be quite nice). The junior tags were the saving grace of a promotion going straight into Inokism hell.

Holy shit. Paige's reaction was quite funny, while Bryan looked like he wanted to be out of here, he was legit cringing. Gotta love Paige stirring the shit up by asking "what's a ring rat ?". This is better than any scripted promo on RAW.

SASUKE = The Great Sasuke as a cigarette smoking heel with a different mask Gotta love the CAPS ARE EVIL mentality of the Japanese.

Excellent match, but I totally understand the criticism of people who got bored by it. Plus, I actually think Takada was clearly the better of the two here, as Fujiwara just didn't play the outclassed veteran that well like garetta said. He never really put over Takada's kicks as dangerous and was pretty much no-selling them the entire match. I know that can be interpreted as "playing defensive", but the issue is that the end of the match really had nothing to do with that. More to come about that. Takada really was the one pushing the pace and feeding Fuji, sometime with no answer from the "virtuoso of shoot-style". Now, there's a moment in this thread that epitomized why the Takada hatred/blind Fujiwara love pisses me off : Takada was indeed rocking Fujiwara with kicks, but like he did before, Fuji really wasn't putting them over, and certainly did no great staggering nor selling. Actually, after the high kick straight to the head, Fuji just stood there, not even hinting at going down. It happened once before in the match, and Takada got the same reaction then : putting Fuji into one of his "limp-noddle leg locks", which infact really looked limped that time. That being said, he was effectively feeding Fujiwara one of his legs, which is something he's a master at, but Fuji just didn't do anything, to the point Takada had to let the hold go, grab an arm and slap Fuji's back of the head like a bitch, then go to a jujigatame to then have Fuji counter it and jump to the ropes. Ok, that was before. Now, this time. What matters is that it's actually the ending sequence. So, what do we have here ? We have Takada rocking Fuji with kicks in the corner, and Fuji just standing around like he did pretty much the entire match when they did kicking sequences. Great defensive storytelling ? Waiting for a mistake to capitalize ? Not quite to me. What I see is Fuji not doing shit with Takada's kicks, and instead of going down for a dramatic near KO, Fuji just stands there. Ok, so what does Takada do ? He takes Fuji by the hand, litteraly, almost like he would irish-whip him, but simply grabs him into the center of the ring and "drops into one of his limp-noodle leg locks". Because Fuji ain't doing shit with the hot kicks. He's not capitalizing on Takada's flurry of youthful offense either. He's just standing there and Takada has to drag him at the center of the ring to get into something else. So, "limp-noddle leg lock" we are into now. Fuji doesn't sell much, I guess he's kinda KOed by the kicks. Well, except he didn't go down at all (as opposed to say, Koshinaka in 96 ?). So, we get Fuji slowly getting up to his feet and countering Takada's hold into a heel hold of his own. It's deliberate, it's not done with much urgency nor "mustering his final reserve". It's well done, but it's not particulary special. So then, Takada twists his body, search for the ropes, making it dramatic like he knows how, tries to undo the hold but can't and finally taps out. That's the sequence. It's not even an interpretation, that's what happens. Of course, you can always have various definition of "great staggering and selling", but in all honesty (and I love Fujiwara, so really…) Fuji was just standing there, not selling the kicks much and Takada had to drag him in the center of the ring because Fuji would just not go down, just like he did before in the match. Takada was going for a dramatic near knock-downs, Fuji wasn't doing shit at this moment. And as far as the "subtle" storytelling, well, not quite. In the end, Fuji didn't lure Takada into a false sense of security to get a hold. He basically just reversed a "limp-noddle leg lock" like he usually would. The "defensive strategy" really didn't play a role in the finish, and Fuji didn't came off like an old guy doing his best to stop the young bull. He never put over the kicks really strong, came off better on the mat (like he should) and got a knock-down on Takada with his running headbutt (a classic pure shoot-style spot if there's one). He was also doing this great obnoxious tiger dance like it's been said, which is terrific underdog character work. Fuji didn't came off like the veteran having to dig into his knowledge here. Takada did look a bit outclassed because Fuji wasn't into going down for dramatic near knock downs like Takada was aiming for twice in the match. Takada clearly pushed the pace and the work here, and Fuji was not up to speed at points . I love Fujiwara and think he was a great worker in the 80's, but by 90 he was already a bit passed his prime although still mostly excellent. This is not one of his best showing. Their match in October is great and there Fujiwara delivers a great performance. Not here, although the match was still excellent and Fuji had some great moments in it, as always.

Been rewatching his classic matches from UWF in 1990, and some UWF-I vs NJ stuff. Yeah, Takada was terrific at what he did. Great big match worker. Of course he's much closer to Onita in spirit that Fujiwara or Tamura. He's not about doing amazing matwork and submission wrestling. He's about milking each near escapes and KOs to their most dramatic effect. He's about making everything look big (like, say, Cena). And although he's not a mat scientist, he's really good on his feet and he will kick you in the face. Actually, kicking Koji Kitao in the face immediately warrants him a very high placement. Well, all joking aside, I will not have him as high as last time, most probably, but top 20 ? Pretty sure. I'll revisit some NJ eighties stuff too, to see how this holds up with me.

Terrific short match. Exactly what the Mutoh match should have been but wasn't. And once again, sorry I have to do that but... Yeah. That's kinda the point. Shoot-style vs pro-style, ya know. And that's how every match on the card was contested. The UWF-I matches with two guys from the promotion (which at this time was only two undercard matches) were contested under UWF-I rules, with the points and KO system. All the other UWF-I vs NJ matches were contested under NJ rules. UWF-I was dead anyway, as clearly the audience was totally NJ. Yay, consistency actually. First off, Kosh never got up and waited for a ten count after the brainbuster. He slowly turned around and covered Takada, who was selling. He's a pro-style worker, he goes for the pin. Makes sense. Then when Takada does his fired-up comeback and kicks Kosh into oblivion, he turns his back and goes to his corner expecting a ten count, because that's what a UWF-I guy would naturally do. Yay, consistency and actually psychology too. And then when Kosh gets up, here he goes again but this time won't take the ten count and chooses to get Kosh back up and go straight into a submission. More on that later. I'll pass on the idea that Takada is spending the whole match laying on the mat, because it's just ridiculous, anyone actually watching the match without blinders can see it. Actually, Takada gets some quite badass moments, as when Kosh dropkicks him toward the corner and Takada immediately turns around after registering the shot and punts Kosh right in the face, like "WTF was that weak pro-wrestling shit ?", which people would gush for if anyone else but Takada was doing it (if Fujiwara or even Maeda did the exact same spot, people around here would collectively cum all over the board) Indeed, Kosh wasn't exacty running for the ropes that time around. However, the very first time Takada applies the same hold earlier in the match, Kosh reverses it by going to his feet with much urgency. Likewise, when Takada applies a leg hold at one point, Kosh sells like like death and jumps to the ropes like Ohtani or any good UWF-I guys would. So, what about that last time ? Well, it's good to mention that just before being put into the hold, Kosh was basically KOed by Takada, as showed by the straight bump he took from the kick, then Takada only puts him into the armbar to put the cherry on the cake. Did he took too long to tap out ? Might say yes, but really at this point the "credibility" of the shoot-style has been killed by Takada submitting to a figure four and Choshu no-selling everything by Anjoh then Kakihara at both Dome shows. It's not like Kosh did any damage to that hold, like I said he was KOed just before plus he submitted anyway and sold the arm as he sat up afterward. So yeah, terrific short match, and really cool to see these two old rivals get at it once again (likewise Sano vs Liger). As far as dogshit performance, Mutoh delivers one for the ages on the same show. Absolutely hilarious at points. I don't think anyone stayed longer in a heel hold while not selling it nor going to the ropes. Then selling it for two seconds on his feet then not selling it at all again. Then winning with the figure four *again* against poor Sano who worked his ass off and could have gotten a better match than Takada because his style suits the dynamic of the match better, but Mutoh was so hilariously bad here that it was just impossible to save this debacle.

Another feather in his cap is how well he worked against the UWF-I guys. He was easily the best at it. Granted, it was during his peak years, and he looked like the best worker ever during that short time. Still, it was a stylistic shift and he made it work without trying to ape the whole shoot style.

Sasha Banks or The Young Bucks ? Choice easy made.

Much much better than the infamous and insanely overrated Tokyo Dome match, because for once, there was a focus in a Steiner match.

They really went All Japan on our asses and it was excellent, but the crowd was spent after getting crazy for Rocky & HHH. Their best match together, before their feud would degenerate into actual awful boring matches thanks to idiotic gimmicks and the involvment of Kane.

Agreed. It's the Graal of shoot-style fans, but it's a bit hardcore if you're not completely into the style or even into Tamura, who is the purest artist (yes, I said it) of shoot-style pro-wrestling.

Word. The 30mn draw with Khosaka is my favourite match ever.