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MJH

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  1. MJH
    I watched the first Raw from 1998 (1/5) last night, and Faarooq picked Shamrock up for a press, didn't extend his arms, but rather dropped down to his knees with his head in Shamrock's mid-section as a rib-crusher-sort-of-thing. I've never seen or heard of that being done by anyone else and whilst it's not related to the time you're thinking of, just thought I'd pass it on as it fits the thread in a way. Babyface Shawn did like to bump the press-slam, often taking it to the floor as a cut-off even on spot shows if I remember correctly from Jerad/JHM's great handheld write-up a few years back.
  2. MJH
    I've always been really fond of that Bret/Taker match at One Night Only, I think it's my favourite of there's with none of the others particularly close.
  3. MJH
    Well, I dug up a DVDVR post from 2006 concerning this match: I was really looking forward to watching the match but watching it I felt that it was essentially Panther's formula and Astro brought nothing besides his big flashy moves to the match - which to his credit, despite iffy execution on lesser spots (facebuster esp), he nailed fantastically throughout. Astro looked *OK* but seeing a guy wearing silver as he was the natural reaction was "Santo in his place would make this match far better". The "Flair" comparison stems from Panther seeming to bring more comedy than I'd normally associate with him, not to mention getting cut off on the top rope and the finish was very reminiscent of Flair. That, and the match being, as I said, blatantly Panther laying everything out in a similar vein to Flair's matches with Sting and Luger at the end of the '80s. As far as Panther matches go I'd take the Korakuen match with Hijo Del Santo where they make having a very good match look like the easiest thing in the world to do such is their unbeleivable chemistry with each other. *** As it happens, I've been meaning to re-watch some older Lucha, and given this match is on YouTube, I'll use this as impetus to re-watch this match over the next few days.
  4. MJH
    You and me both, for the record, though I can probably watch less of the former and more of the latter than you could.
  5. MJH
    Too much offence doesn't kill a match; too little time between the moves (ie: too little selling) is what kills them. You can *never* have too much offence if you can use it effectively. It keeps things fresh, creative, unpredictable, and interesting. Now, I'm not going to say that offence is the most important factor in a wrestler's talent - the most important thing is that the offence that he/she does have is a) executed well and fits both their character and the match - but if you're trying to say that it's a negligble factor then, I'm sorry, that's just wrong. If you took the offensive abilities out of the All Japan guys then they're not having near the matches they had. Not even close. Kawada and Taue only had 'small movesets' when compared with Misawa and Kobashi; if you compare them to heavyweights (especially heels) in any other company or time-frame, then you realise that they had an awful lot of it.
  6. MJH
    Actually, now that I think of it, there is: Benoit works the arm here like the Andersons wish they could. Northern Lights Suplex with an arm tied under, Back Suplex with an arm tied under... granted, he was almost certainly the greatest wrestler ever mechanically at this point in time, but still.
  7. MJH
    I think this is the best 'Nitro-style' match ever, and their best match in the US. Not much else to add.
  8. MJH
    Michael Cole is supposed to be annoying; it doesn't mean him being so is necessarilly a good thing, nor that we should praise him for it.
  9. MJH
    That wasn't quite my point (though I'll frequently admit to not being to best at getting my points across in the most succinct fashion ). By 'does it work', I don't mean, 'Austin and Bret were trying for a double-switch and they pulled it off' or anything like that, nor anything to do with the promoter's intention when they booked it. Sometimes I do think it's worth baring in mind, as, say, the whole argument over Shawn nipping up on HHH in his return match forgets the fact that the nip-up had to be there as an 'I'm back!' moment for Shawn, and Hunter's character had to work the back, ergo... What I mean is, basically, people shouldn't consider 'logic' and 'storytelling' as the be-all-and-end-all in matches where they're clearly not a part of what the wrestlers are going for. To do so misses the point. It would be like criticising a fantasy novel for not being realistic. So, in that instance, 'yes' is the answer to the question of the thread. Hence 'at times' in answering the question myself at the start of the post.
  10. MJH
    And to touch upon a few points addressed in the thread: - No, wrestling doesn't have the scope for absurdism/dadaism/post-modernism/etc. Wrestling can 'break the fourth wall' and work: an Ebessan comedy match with slow-motion wrestling, the ladder winning the title in DDT, but by-and-large, no. - 'working a body part' does not tell a story by itself; it's a strategy. My criticism for Ohtani/Samurai came down to the fact that, really, it's just 'a guy working an arm vs. a guy working a leg'. The same could be said for a match where it's all about wrestler A building to his finish vs. wrestler B building to his: it's 'a guy doing a powerbomb vs. a guy doing a figure-four'. And in most cases it's, as John said, just a way of killing time. I don't think the leg vs. neck portion of Misawa/Kawada was just them 'killing time', for instance. In a way it is of course, because it's set out as something for them to do for 10-minutes to take the match right the way down before building things all the way back up. But, Misawa retaliating as he did is a very strong detail in the 'this is Kawada's night!' feel of the match up until the final showdown; or, it works into the story of the match.
  11. MJH
    But, seriously, to answer the question at hand (and to echo the compliments paid to this thread; a great read), my answer, somewhat evasively I know, is 'at times'. If I was to state a weakness that I feel crops up a lot of the time when it comes to the internet-at-large reviewing wrestling, it's that, too often, people want to find a single formula for reviewing. But the reality is that matches are not worked with the same goals in mind. Sure, some (a fair percentage) are looking to be 'logical', to 'tell a story' (however you break it down), but a lot of the time they're not. For the wrestlers, it all comes down to the simple question of 'does it work?'. For us, I suppose, it should come down to the simple question of 'does it work?' It seems silly to me to watch, say, a Dragon Gate match, or a modern WWE TLC (or similar) match, and expect something other than a spot-fest. For me, those should always come down to 'were the spots cool?' They're not trying for anything more than that, for the spots to look cool and draw 'oohs' and 'ahhs' and aesthetic 'pops', rather than something more dramatic (as a story) or resonant. They're CGI-laden action films, if you have to draw the comparison. And I'll stick by TLC 1, or certain DG matches, as 'great fucking spot fests'. I'm not expecting anything more than that, and they deliver upon that. In short: they work. You could tear them apart if you look at them for certain things, but when they're so obviously not intended to be a logical narrative, then why look for one, or criticise them for not having one. On the other hand, I might criticise an 'epic' ROH match for 'not making sense', because I do believe that, more often than not, moreso in a Danielson match than a Davey one, they are trying to 'tell a story'. And a lot of the times, for me at least, they fail. They'll still have their cool spots, maybe even as many as a Dragon Gate trios, but whereas the DG match succeeds in solely presenting a great stunt show, a Danielson/McGuiness match, for instance, is trying to be more than that.
  12. MJH
    I love Flair as much as the next guy, but if you're watching his matches for their internal logic, you deserve for your brains to get scrambled.
  13. MJH
    I was actually surprised at how scaled down this was the last time I watched it: it's your basic 3-part US-style match. After this, just about every match Misawa had with Taue was a sprint, which works because Taue's biggest strength was in throwing bombs. I'm half-way between Loss and John because on the one hand, it is disappointig after the Carnival Final, but that was a classic; on the other, I do think this is still pretty great and I prefer it to Mutoh/Hash. The reality is, and as much as people have realised the NJ heavies were, in fact, rather fucking good in the last x-years, people still expect a certain level from the AJ guys that they don't from their NJ counterparts and whereas Hash/Mutoh is right at the highest level of what they did, this isn't near the top level for AJ.
  14. MJH
    I disagree. There are a lot of nice 'play off' spots here, but... this is so uneven it's not even funny. Much more than WMX, Shawn is putting on a show, and the by-product of that is, by the end, he's taken infinitely more punishment than Razor. The balance was much better at WMX. Everything felt so much more natural the first time around; here, you can tell they're (Shawn) trying that bit too hard to better it. This is still a very good match, and certainly a very strong candidate for USMOTY (I've always preferred Bret/Diesel at Survivor Series) but this is barely hanging on to being 'a match with a ladder' as opposed to the modern 'ladder match' (stunt show).
  15. MJH
    What I remember most about this match is how well they handle 'momentum': how it swings from Kawada to Misawa, and how down the stretch Kawada doesn't have it like he did earlier. Beyond that, there's little more to add. Just a super, super match.
  16. MJH
    Adonis (I think) had the best bulldog; he'd switch from the headlock to an elbow drop in the air. Does anyone drop a knee on the face anymore or is it always the shoulder?
  17. MJH

    Referees

    MJH replied to JerryvonKramer's topic in Pro Wrestling

    To be fair, given her track record, I'm pretty sure Hokuto would've sooner had her head cut to shit than if he'd barely cut her.
  18. MJH
    There's little to add - we all know it's a classic - but I'll just re-itterate that, for all the stuff people have lifted from All Japan, I can't fathom how some babyface hasn't stolen Misawa's elongated comebacks. It's no better on show than here.
  19. MJH

    Other 1993 worth watching

    MJH replied to Loss's topic in 1993

    I looked through listings I have for that match after reading Jericho's first book and wasn't able to find it myself. Great to know it is, in fact, out there.
  20. MJH
    Well of course it's not MOTY. But I've never really watched this as a conventional match. I read someone say a while ago how Meltzer rates matches "athletic feats" (or something to that effect). I'm not sure if that's entirely true, but it relates to his because I can never escape from the fact with this match that they tried to sprint for sixty minutes and nearly made it. I mean, that's just absurd. This just embodies the old-timer cliche that "they left it all out there". I've never seen two wrestlers work harder (physically). Does that make it a great match by itself? No. Is it their best match together? No, I too prefer the 8/94 match. The 12/99 match is more nostalgic than anything to me, capping off the decade by doing all their old spots (and a few new ones). But, with perhaps a different and more literal nuance, this is still as "incredible" as anything I've seen. I prefer it as a series to Toyota's matches with Yamada because Kyoko's charisma and the different dynamic athletically makes it easier for me. And, well, I just prefer her to Yamada. I mean, Kyoko/Toyota was, like Yamada/Toyota, just all about them doing their shit. And no two other wrestlers on the planet, I don't think, would have even tried to do this. Even the longest Toyota/Yamada match "only" went forty, was a lot slower than this early, and they still gassed out to fuck and it fell apart. There's really no direct comparison I can think of. Misawa/Kobashi did "long matches with lots of cool shit" far, far better, of course, and were 100lbs heavier let's not forget, but as a pace it was nothing on this. It falls apart, it's a mess by the end, it's overkill in the highest order, it's pure sprinting, but just the idea of what they were trying to do, how close they came, even with the overkill how much shit they had, etc, etc... I can't not be amazed by it.
  21. MJH
    Well a Dynamic Bomb is a Sit-Out Powerbomb, not the other way around; the former is a gimmicked name (Taue), the latter a literal name/description for the move. You'll get times when a move is so associated with its gimmicked name that that becomes its general term, often if it's also shorter/easier or if it comes to prominence through one guy (ie DDT; Dragon/Tiger Suplex). The problem now as opposed to fifteen years ago is that so many guys have their own version of a certain move, by adding a twist or a pump-handle lift or whatever.
  22. MJH
    What Tanahashi has amongst current "stars" in Japan is that you (well, certainly I) could see him positioned in a same role in previous, more successful generations; it was clear from the start he'd end up there. Now, that doesn't make him a HOF candidate, but it at least doesn't make him the sorriest of names put forward either.
  23. MJH
    It's a wonder they didn't can the gimmick after it bombed at Big Egg.
  24. MJH

    Other 1995 worth watching

    MJH replied to Loss's topic in 1995

    With regards to this set, I don't think there's much reason to complain about Joshi. Yes, Bull/Kyoko is better than a lot of matches on the set. But Toyota/Kong (title switch) and Asuka/Hotta (higher regarded at the time) had to go on ahead of it. Hokuto/Toyota had to go on from 9/2. It's not an *essential* match. In 1993, there were a lot of notable omissions, though I hold myself partly responsible for not actually discovering the pimping threads until the set was in the can. I stated the case, gave a bunch of matches for any additional collection, and, besides, anyone looking into Joshi is going to turn to 1993 first and the "classics", as it were, were on the set and more than enough to whet people's appetites. So when this set was being put together, Loss PM'ed both myself and Flik (being, I'd wager, the two biggest Joshi watchers currently on here) with a list of however many matches. Some (I can't find Toyota/Shimoda JGP for instance which is a much bigger loss) fell through the cracks, but that's just the nature of the beast. Given that both myself and Flik have watched *everything* from AJW in 1990 and 1991 in the last year or so, (a much lesser known period traditionally and therefore more important to get right; also far more important for any Bull re-evaluating), and I'll have went through everything for 1994 by the time that sets getting made, perhaps Flik too (he's going through every company) we'll eventually get it as right as possible. The point is that every effort is being made on the part of GH/Loss to cover it as effectively as possible, and as it's much less a focus of puroresu-watching nowadays, it's not going to have as much stuff as '90s AJ or NJ. Besides, like Loss said, it's also worth bearing in mind that 1995 was a fucking loaded year.
  25. MJH
    Sayama/Dymaite's series may have been torn a new one by the people watching the set, but it was one of the most essential matches for the NJ '80 set. This isn't that... but by finishing 5th on the DVDR poll for the decade and getting 4.5/4.75 from Meltzer, it had to be included.
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