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MJH

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Everything posted by MJH

  1. MJH
    I was trepidacious about watching this again and, unfortunately, that turned out to be for good reason; this might hold up the least with me of all the '90s Jr stuff. I just didn't feel the hate at all. They sounded like they were wrestling on mute. The controls (and then transitions) felt just so casual. Aside from a bit on the surfboard, Liger didn't fight back once during Samurai's early run, which had a complete lack of intensity once he took it back in the ring. Samurai looked woefully green here to me, he really did. And Liger's just laying there taking it. And then... he does a total no-sell comeback. You saw it coming with the repeated punches but, really, he just suddenly fights back, levels him with a few shoteis and he's fine. Then you get Liger's main control which, for 1992, features some awesome spots. But it felt like a casual exhibition. There's more intensity from Liger, and there's far more emphatic execution, but it felt so easy, Samurai might as well have been a body bag for what he was doing here. And then the transition out of that segment is a duck/elbow from Samurai. After a payback powerbomb on the floor, a somersault senton to the floor, a moonsault to the floor, a wicked shotei flurry etc... he just ducks a swing and hits a running elbow and he's on top again, looking perfectly fine. I've no real problems with the finish, but by that point I'm bored and waiting for the match to end. ** I get that Liger's control in the middle was blowaway at the time. He might not bring "every hot move invented", but it was spectacular. That aside, I really don't see anything in this at all. It's structured fine, but I don't think they told the story well; if you're building a match around hate, you have to be fighting over just about everything, and this didn't feel like a fight to me at all.
  2. MJH
    I have Eddy/Benoit BOSJ 96 as my #1 NJ Jr MOTD. I've spoken as to why in the yearbook thread and elsewhere. I think you're a bit harsh on him for the 92 Jr tournament, Loss, if only because it was his first tour, and he's spoken about how much he wanted to work Japan so he'd've been pretty nervous. And he wasn't nearly as near to his peak as Benoit was at that point (I'll be interested to see if you find the G1 Benoit/Liger as much a one-man show as I did last time). Overall, I've found most Eddy stuff from NJ holds up better than others', although he doesn't have the output of classics (then or now) as Benoit/Liger/etc.
  3. MJH
    Yeah, John, on re-reading your post after my own reply I realised the difference in "holding up" vs. "not as good as I remembered", hence the edit. As far as Misawa/Kobashi goes, I think it's important to watch it as a stand-alone match; to me their "rivalry" as far as an arc of matches only really began with the 1/97 switch. 3/96 is a Misawa-by-numbers where he's selling to the audience as much as he can that Kobashi just might get the win. In that sense it's more comparable to the Misawa/Taue 2/93 match (and I think it's better than that match, although it obviously should be as well). ****3/4? No. But I'm hard-pressed to think of a better singles match in AJ that year. Kawada/Taue on the same show, I like, but I prefer their match a year earlier rather substantially (and their Budokan match is not so good). Taue/Doc is good for what it is, and I could understand people prefering it, especially with what Misawa/Kobashi went on to do, but I don't think you could fairly call it better. Kawada/Kobashi I need to get back to. If I were to rate it, it'd probably be ****, maybe ****1/4. I think it's the first "Misawa/Kobashi" match in the sense that their work is ahead of what any other heavyweight pairing have done, and it's coherent. 4/93 we only have the stretch, which is very good but it's, what, 1/3 of the whole thing? Their '95 Carnival match I like a lot but it's "smaller". 10/95 is what it is; I haven't watched it in years and don't really plan to until I get to it whenever I next run through the year. I've always liked the idea of the start more than most seem to (I mean, it makes sense for Kobashi to throw big shit early to get enough of a "lead") but IIRC there's a weird re-set shortly thereafter and, well, you know the rest. Misawa/Kobashi vs. Otani/Samurai? I just think there's more to the former. But, I can understand being in the minority on preferring the AJ match. For one, the latter is more special and notable. If you know how Misawa/Kobashi work(ed), it's by the books in a lot of ways. And, well, I love how they work, at least most of the time.
  4. MJH
    To your first point - I think that's terribly overblown. For one, I've never seen anyone match their long term selling as far as putting over how exacting/exhausting the matches are. It no doubt helps when you're working so physically and I'm sure it's "3/4 Legit" that they're tired but still. You only have to watch the Cena/Punk match where John has wrestled for half an hour and dives out the ring fresh to punch Ace, or countless other "epic" matches where guys are rar'ing through the last stretch of near falls. Are there instances where they could've perhaps put something over more? Sure. But the "no-selling" works for me perfectly fine in context. *** As to the second - I agree entirely. It's not that I actively hate Liger/Otani/whomever... the point is they're clearly great talents much moreso than, say, Kota Ibushi (well, he's great athletically). Ibushi may as well just do his spots because a) he does them really fucking well and I'm not sure there's anything else he does nearly as well, so why not? If you take something like Liger/Otani where they're supposedly doing dominant/underdog, and they go and work the first half of the match even, and Liger never has an extended run of offence in the middle showing his dominance, and Otani's comebacks/transitions are no harder for him than Liger's are for him etc... you expect more. Or I do. It's not as though they were working to crowds who maybe need a bunch of flashy shit after more flashy shit after more flashy shit to keep them engaged and are otherwise dead (and often blacked out under the house lights).
  5. MJH
    To me it just boils down to one guy goes after the arm vs. one guy goes after the leg. There's very little to it. It's about as good/great as limb vs. limb is going to ever be, and I don't have a problem with people calling it great because it's moreorless the best version of that kind of match, but I can't help thinking it needs something more. It's great that they stuck with it, but I was never one for "if you start working a limb you have to stick with it" anyway. I don't think that *on its own* works. It's like building a match purely around two finishers. It works to a point, but ultimately it comes down to the powerbomb guy vs. the tiger suplex guy or whatever, unless it's a part of something bigger. I've heard people talk about it having an underdog story for Otani - and there are times when he sells as such, obviously - but the match is far too 50/50 for me to buy into that. I prefer it to a lot of Juniors stuff because it's coherent for its duration and it's not "kill time... TV cue - Let's GO!" I can't call it great when it's that one-dimensional, and I really don't see any comparison with the AJPW guys. Ed: I'll amend "not holding up" insomuch as to say that it's still great for the (majority of) reasons it was great then. It's more a case of me not thinking it as great as I once did watching it back more recently.
  6. MJH
    I love Bret, and don't like the majority of '90s NJ Junior matches now, so it's no surprise I'd go with Bret too. There are times when I'm really impressed with Samurai; whilst I don't rate 1/96 with Otani nearly as highly as a lot of people, both are clearly strong workers. But I don't think much of it really holds together with Samurai. I'm not sure there's a single Samurai match that I think holds up as well and truly great (I have to revisit the Liger Junior Final) whereas the majority of Bret's best stuff holds up as strong as it always was for me.
  7. MJH
    It cannot be stated enough; AJW's editors were the best by a ludicrous margin. If you watch any Zenjo TV, you think you're watching complete matches every time, and with their general pacing being what it was, you're not surprised that it's fast early. It's only when you see them working towards the finish much quicker than you know they would've that you realise there's been stuff spliced.
  8. MJH
    Why? Warrior was coming back.
  9. MJH
    Heh, I was expecting Lawrence Taylor.
  10. MJH
    I wonder how many other workers pulled off a strong main event in their 3rd/4th match?
  11. MJH
    And that $45 price is for a SD feed of an HD show, which only emphasises the difference between the two. This same debate was a part of the MitB thread on DVDVR; people talking about how much "value for money" the show was. It was a great show, and had it been £15 on SBO rather than No Extra Charge on Sky Sports, I'd've been fine with paying the £15 for the show (which is the same as the DVD retail price here). But $55 for an HD feed is nearly triple that and I just don't think even the greatest show ever would be worth that.
  12. MJH
    I don't see any correlation between them whatsoever; and no.
  13. MJH
    For something that no one was believing, I thought Cena did great with that promo. I wasn't expecting the next turn though. I know it's the McMahons but wtf?
  14. MJH
    The Cara thing looked like a complete work. He had a great shine run before that, popped the crowd who were placid (with some boos) for his entrance... and then got out. I thought the show was great. The SD MitB died for a while after the Cara thing, but picked up well, Danielson was a great "knat" and the finishing sequence was really good. Thankfully he wasn't bumped off or he'd've looked stupid for doing spots > grabbing it in that position. Divas... eh. Show/Henry was as good as one could hope. Raw MitB was fun. Inferior to Smackdown's, the start was week and the melee atop the ladders was 'eh', but it had its share of cool spots and some very nasty looking falls. Orton/Christian did nothing for me. The first half was really light, really loose, and some of those RKO teases were outright bad. But the crowd popped big for both Christian winning and Orton doing his psycho thing. Cena/Punk took the crowd fo granted in the first half (hence then gradually quietening in the middle), but the finishing run was great fun, and some of those spots in the middle were nifty. I don't think it was a great match at all, but I enjoyed it tremendously.
  15. MJH
    Reading Loss' posts about 1992 UWFi reminded me of Tamura/Anjoh from the second UWFi show (6/6), which has long been a favourite of mine.
  16. MJH
    You preferred 7/15? I didn't. I think this is sensational, right up there with just about any AJW tag and Top 5 MOTYC for the company (and almost certainly Top 10 for the year as a whole worldwide). A perfect way to wrap up an incredible year of progress. Hokuto/Takako before this is a whole lot of fun too.
  17. MJH
    Seconded.
  18. MJH
    These guys only debuted at the tail-end of 1991, am I right? What I can say is that this match happened as the opener on just about every UWFi show for six months straight. A quick check of my list has them fighting on 12/22/91, 1/9/92, 2/15/92, this match, 3/17/92 and 5/8/92. I'm not sure why this made the cut rather than any of the others (12/9 has Takada/Burbick in the main event, this show has Allbright squashing Kakihara, 3/17 is Allbright/Yamazaki and 5/8 is the first Allbright/Takada matches so it's not as though they were "rare" shows) but I do remember them all being fun, hard-fought, though I do remember thinking Kanehara was the better of the two.
  19. MJH
    Isn't this the match that aired complete on the Kobashi special that gave us the extended Can-Ams match?
  20. MJH
    1992 MOTY and the best match ever at this point. Very little to say, only that Kansai's performance here has really grown on me over the years, to the point where, the last time I watched it, I thought she was the best out there.
  21. MJH
    Obviously there's little to add to that run-down, Flik, the match is great. But showing Kyoko's face upside down is the only way they should ever shoot "lying down dazed"...
  22. MJH
    For the moment these are more rolling thoughts: I haven't revisited them since they happened - and I've got the entire 2000-2002 run to work through - but Maekawa/Momoe and Ito/Toyota 2/24 got a lot of talk at the time. Maekawa/Momoe does go ~45 though. There's another Ito/Toyota match later in the year, IIRC, which was Toyota's last match in Zenjo? That and something covering her entry to GAEA should be covered. There's Momoe winning the red belt from Ito. There's a NanaMomo/LCO tag title switch late in the year too. Kong/Hotta in the cage is short and might be of interest to people as well. There's the Ran/Hyuga feud in JWP. I'm drawing a blank on anything else... Hokuto's retirement in GAEA as well as the LCO reunion match around the same time I remember really liking. Little else comes to mind in GAEA, Flik's a bigger fan than me, I guess Meiko/Nagashima? There's the joshi "Kawada/Muto" with Toyota/Nagashima too.
  23. MJH
    I simply have to think that Cena doing his schtick in that segment was a way of him putting Punk over by comparison. If that's the case it's incredibly generous of Cena to almost bury himself to help elevate Punk. But, with WWE, you never know, they probably did think it would be funny; Punk and Vince played along with the "he did it" faces/pointing.
  24. MJH
    Given Honaga's style, not to mention current trends on "fandom", it wouldn't surprise me that his stuff holds up better 20 years later. I'm almost dreading revisiting the Liger/Samurai TOSJ Final.
  25. MJH
    I understood what you meant, and that's fair enough, everyone has their individual level of where their lines of acceptance lie. I haven't got a problem myself with a guy hitting a woman if he'd hit a guy for doing the same thing. Maybe I'm alone in that. I don't know if I could do so personally (and I've had girl friends stare all hell at me for saying so) but I'm not going to disagree with them, either, when they say "anytime you treat women as weaker than men you're being sexist". I've certainly no problem admitting I know a fair amount of girls who - even if I were to try and fight them - could handily kick my ass. There was a match in ARSION some time, I forget when or where, only I'm pretty sure it involved Apache, Hidaka I think, and maybe Mika Akino. Presumably the other girl was one of the Apache girls, and as far as I recall, they didn't play up the gender thing. Apache wasn't doing his surprise kisses or anything; they just did their match as if it were 4 guys or 4 girls, and I thought it was great that they did.
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