Matt D

Some capsule thoughts: I'm with Pete on OMG vs Young. OMG was excellent at this point at knowing exactly how much to give. I shortchanged this match when I saw it on paper(despite liking Gang well enough) and that was a mistake. Young played up the local underdog favorite well, hyper-focused on a body part that would keep him in it. There was always the sense that Gang just needed one opportunity to crush him though. He showed me a lot here, milking moments to the crowd's dismay. It's not the craziest thing in the world to put the belt on him if he's the one main event on the roster not constantly going to Japan. Also with Pete on the AWA structure of the six man. Double heat. I thought the hot tags were lacking even if the heat was perfectly fine. I really like babyface Duncum in Houston for some reason. He plays that Blackjack Mulligan of towering cowboy (as opposed to the more technical cowboy in Casey) role well. Tully looks like such a star in these matches. I'm not saying he gets overshadowed by Gino in Duo tags but there's a lot less distinction than in these ones. The O'Connor match was great, less so for the match itself, which was a fine five minute snippet of a top wristlock battle, but because of the Boesch history lesson. He was just spouting information for five minutes straight and it left me wanting more of that (and it looks like they just posted another). I liked how he had to almost apologize for how singular the action was, commenting on the difference between late 60s wrestling and the wrestling of that day. I went back and watched Buddy Roberts vs Steve Williams in the cage too, because we got the promos that tied everything together. Right now we have the three cage matches (Doc vs Buddy, Doc vs Hayes, Dibiase vs Gordy/Hayes), some promos, at least one tag, and some scattered six mans with either Doc or Dibiase. It's a hell of a package. It feels like a chapter of one of the best forgotten feuds of the 80s. The 3 shows, 3 cage matches deal is such a great idea.

Thanks for the heads up! Those look like a lot of fun.

In this case it was all a big ad for KFC and they wanted it on YouTube for the general public.

Good for Toots.

Gentlemen, if you'd permit me to submit a third reading of the match. First and foremost, my interest was stoked because of your severe difference in opinion. You are two of my favorite voices in reviewing, analyzing and comparing this fine art that we all appreciate. I'd like to admit a few caveats before I begin. The first is that I come in completely ignorant of these two wrestlers and of JWP in this time period, and frankly, do not have the strongest background in joshi in general. The second is that I have a tendency to read far too much into matches to the point of having a reputation as such, but in this match felt the need, due to my ignorance and the fact that I did come in wanting to like it, to go even further. I assure you that I did not fabricate any dots, merely connecting what I saw, but I worry that I drifted past my own overly robust internal logic deep into the realm known as Johnny logic. Now then, let me lay out the narrative as I see it. Misae Genki is a bully. She is bigger and stronger than Ran Yu Yu. She is also far, far less skilled. Ran Yu Yu is much more of a technician and while not nearly as strong, has a deep and intense fighting spirit, a never say die attitude, and is a warrior who will stand up for the little guy. From the get go, Genki tries to bully her way through the match, immediately staging an ambush where she slaps and kicks Ran Yu Yu in the most humiliaiting way possible. Ran Yu Yu, as she will do throughout, fights back and then enraged forces the lockup that Loss was so keen on. I can understand how one moment such as this, so rare and so primal can color an entire match for a viewer and even Jetlag admitted to there being above average moments. The story stays consistent. The lock up ends with another underhanded attempt by Genki. Ran Yu Yu fires back. She then calls for a test of strength but Genki uses her power to turn it into a double knucklelock instead. She then starts employing full on bully tactics, stomping and ragdolling Ran around. There's an extra element of "shoving her into a locker" with every slam and throw. She ultimately settles in to work on the back, but grows complacent and bored with playing with her prey (who refuses to give up) and tosses her against the ropes for something more enjoyable and dynamic. This is a mistake that she'll repeat through the match and it allows Ran to fire back with aerial offense (more on the transitions later). This is a huge blemish on the match, of course. Ran has a tendency to really throw herself into her offense. It's one thing to drop the selling after a transition. It's another to land so hard on her own worked-over back after her moves and not sell it in the least. I can't forgive that. Now, though, Ran is in control and she keeps that control by getting a few revenge holds. It's interesting to watch this as it fits into the broader story of this part of the match. Genki is stronger and meaner but her execution is lacking. She doesn't have the skill to get the most out of her strength. Ran is quicker and far more technically sound, but she's not strong enough to really lock in her holds and hit her moves as effectively as she needs to. When you factor in Ran's never-say-die attitude and Genki's strength and toughness, it means that neither can put the other away. In this, I fully admit that I may be turning obvious failings in the match's execution (Genki being sloppy and Ran just not being strong enough to make her stuff look good) into features. This plays into the transitions as well. Ran's firmly in charge when she's hitting moves or locking in holds, but when she tries to whip Genki into the corner, she's almost always reversed. When Genki does get offense back, it's hugely bully like. She hits a massive atomic drop. She tosses Ran into all of the railings on the outside. She utilizes a long airplane spin. All of this is hugely enhanced by Ran's truly singular ability to throw herself into her bumps. Then, as before, she gets complacent as a bully is want to do, allowing for Genki to recover and get her share of revenge back on the floor, including a revenge airplane spin which might be my favorite single moment of the match. From here on in we go towards an extended finishing stretch. I would not say there is "Your turn, my turn" so much as smaller transitions based around Ran trying whips or Genki allowing for distance to be created. The action is generally consistent. Neither can put the other away. Ran hits a lot of moves but they're lacking in impact. She's just barely hitting them. She can just barely lock her holds (like the dragon sleeper in). She's not big enough to hold Genki down. Genki hits a lot of moves but the technique is lacking. She's clumsy and Ran just has too much fire within her. Ran does her best when she's leaning on finesse, but even then, she can't quite hook what she wants. This builds towards the forearm exchanges and the finish, and here, I buy how many it takes because Ran just doesn't have the mass here. The match, the playing to the crowd, the reactions of the wrestlers present Ran's forearm as a killer but when she finally loads it up and hits it how she wants, Genki just laughs it off as a bully would. What does Ran do then? She takes the ridicule, goes back to the well and fires once more. Maybe it's a kill shot. Maybe it's a lucky shot. Maybe it's David throwing the sling. Whatever it is, it works. So there's my reading. The selling was suspect throughout the match. I thought the transitions were mostly believable, but if they were logical, they were my logic. I know nothing about these two. Maybe I'm completely wrong on the fact that there was supposed to be a size difference. I do think Genki definitely wrestled like a bully and that Ran was presented as more savvy and technical. The extent of the difference between the two, though? That was me reading into what I saw. That they presented me something I could see so much in made this a very fun match for me. Can you do this with any match? No. The points need to be there. Can you stretch potential (probably, I admit) flaws into features? Only if they're this consistent, which I imagine is rare. I never want to see either of these two again because to do so would almost certainly break the illusion I created here. It was a fun trick, but it's one I can only manage once.

Here's what I said on SC about the Dibiase stuff: The latest gem from NWAOnDemand. We'd had the cage match JIP, but this is the whole package: pre-match mic-work to set things up, the cage match, the crowd buzzing afterwards as Ted heads to the back and then comes back out, the whipping match in the cage, and then post match backstage promos (including some pre-post interview moments that serve as outtakes). Thirty-two minutes of great Watts-style wrestling. This is the penultimate encounter of the Freebirds vs Dibiase/Doc feud, which also included some really great Doc vs Gordy matches and the awesome Hayes vs Doc cage match, which people need to sign up for the service and see if they haven't yet. Doc is supposed to wrestle Gordy here in the cage but Ted claims that they injured him. I assume he's on a Japan tour instead. Hayes wants them to give the match to Gordy but Ted takes it for himself, even though he's booked right after in the whipping match. The cage match is pretty much everything you'd want it to be. Gordy, like always, is an absolute beast in using his body mass to control the match. He uses the ring, and in this case, the cage, so well, bullying Dibiase around, fighting out of the corner, using the turnbuckles as weapons. He has such a natural physical presence. Dibiase, on the other hand, is such an ideal mid-south babyface, a triple tough brawler who can take punishment, who can and will sell (both his back to Gordy's offense and ring utilization, and his face from the sheer power of Gordy's blows), but that'll come back with his fits and guts alone. I had never realized until watching this match that the true, absolute point of Dibiase's signature fistdrops is to work over a bloody wound. They're amazing here. In the end, he escapes to the back with the win and the belt, causing Hayes to rant and rave and the crowd to buzz elatedly for the few minutes before Born in the USA comes back on and Dibiase makes his way back out for round two. This is simple, straightforward, and effective. Hayes wants to steal back the belt and escape the cage and whatever punishment he can muster is just to allow enough space to manage that. It (along with the fact that Hayes is seen as much as a manager as anything else) helps rationalize how a worn down (and ambushed) Dibiase can fight back. Every time Hayes gets a real advantage, he goes for the belt. Every time he does, Dibiase recovers and battles back. It's short, sweet, and effective and leaves the fans buzzing and happy, all preparation for the Gordy vs Dibiase blow-off match on Halloween night. The post match Gordy promo is a horrorshow of blood and fury. It's great to watch on its own and very cool to see the few seconds of him getting ready to talk in the "outtake." Just classic stuff all around. ----- I was happily surprised by the Robley vs Casey match. I thought that Robley did a good job portraying that he did want the money and that he was really out to hurt Casey. When a shot to the throat is nasty enough that Boesch pops for it, you know something right is happening. I liked the legwork too. He did some things you just don't see everyday. I don't think we give Casey quite enough credit. He had a real connection with the Houston crowd and could call upon very potent bursts of babyface fire. There are certain matches with him that I'm hoping we get. This whole angle, however, was new to us. I feel like this era is a little underrepresented in the footage so far. Mansfield is out there like a proto-Eddie Gilbert and it's very cool. There are all sorts of gimmick matches involved in the feud and it went on for a while. The post match promos were a lot of fun. I'm sure Robley did the "Go Buck Go" thing a thousand times in his career but I loved that. I bet Johnny's going to love Tank's shirt.

As always, Stacey and Elliott have the best chemistry imaginable. And it was great for them to have a match they disagreed on, too. It was even better that it was a match where Stacey was actively punishing Elliott for making her witness murder. I will try to watch that Generation Me match at some point. I'll watch anything that's ten minutes long. I refuse to comment on the last thirty minutes of the show.

The answer is Marty.

He survived that Doomsday Device on a hotel bed.

This is one of the worst Regal matches I've ever seen: The pre-match stuff though!

The program from Boesch's retirement card was on Classics too: http://www.wrestlingclassics.com/mu/mu-tw/spec-ed/08-28-87-boesch-cover.jpg http://www.wrestlingclassics.com/mu/mu-tw/spec-ed/08-28-87-boesch-pg2.jpg http://www.wrestlingclassics.com/mu/mu-tw/spec-ed/08-28-87-boesch-pg3.jpg http://www.wrestlingclassics.com/mu/mu-tw/spec-ed/08-28-87-boesch-pg4.jpg

Bush coaching Wahoo in Little League sounds like wonderful wrestling BS.

Timing is bad for Woods because he just had a big Up Up Down Down video with Steph and Vince congratulated him. That probably wouldn't have happened if this came out a week before.

The idea of a rich guy buying the hillbilly's farm is legit good. Just saying.

I'm bumping this so people can relive the pain.

I guess the simple answer to that question is: some other match. If there's no planned match that looks like a real title match for SD, maybe they should have planned different matches. This is a curious phenomenon we get now since Meltzer gets pretty much the whole Mania card by the end of January. People like us know what the matches are before they're even hinted at on TV, so we see them as a fait accompli and just end up kind of questioning the build to those matches or their card placement, rather than questioning why we're having the matches themselves. We don't allow ourselves to criticise the card itself too much because hey, we've known how it was going to be for ages! What are you gonna do eh? If your planning leads you to AJ Styles having the year he had and carrying the title he did only to be nowhere near the title picture at Mania, feuding with a non-wrestler GM, while Orton and Bray fight over the title in the middle of a cartoon supernatural feud and Cena is in a midcard mixed tag angle based around Total Divas...something went wrong somewhere. A different match entirely, is the answer. It's also years and years of lowered expectations. Modern Wrestlemania is a burden that we have to endure as fans.

In general, it's very cool to have these Gold Cup matches. I'm trying to think of an equivalent, but it's hard because it's so regional. It'd be as if Wrestlemania XX happened, we never really heard much about it, and we're seeing it for the first time years later. Something like that. That's the thing with this footage. There really is no equivalent. You can't just randomly drop the idea of "Oh, here's a three night series of shows to celebrate 50 years in wrestling" like it's nothing. There's so much weight and prestige behind that. 50 years is a huge thing. I'm really curious how the last night worked. We've seen results of Tito winning a battle royal and Tito beating Bock. The way Boesch explained it, the battle royal was a seeding one. The first two people out wrestled each other and so on. He keep stressing the idea that there'd be one man standing in the end, so I'm still trying to figure out if that means that the winners went on to face each other or not? It seems like that'd be a really long night of wrestling if that was the case. Quick thoughts on a couple of matches: Tully vs Graham was fine. Graham worked hard. Tully kept it interesting. For a twenty minute draw, it moved at a good pace. Graham was talented. He's just so naturally unlikable that it's hard to root for him as a babyface. At least Greg Gagne (who was also talented but unlikable) always had Brunzell with him. Atlas vs Lewin had its problems (heel Lewin's karate chop offense is the worst thing, just the worst. I actually kind of like it as goofy babyface offense though), but it was an amazing way to get over a new babyface in the territory. Atlas looked like a million bucks in there and so much of that was Lewin.

I found Ramos really interesting. He obviously didn't have much left in the tank, but he used his mass in pretty novel ways. He was mainly using it as a shield to do things so the ref couldn't see them. Past that, he utilized the visual inconsistency of someone so big basically operating with chickenshit tactics instead of controlling the match like a bully. It's some of the stuff John Studd would do as well (and get no credit for) and I half wonder if Studd learned it from Ramos when he was working in Houston as Captain USA. The problem here was that Caras is the wrong opponent for that. Someone like Terry Funk (or maybe even Tiger Conway, Jr. from what we've seen of him) might have been able to make a whole match out of the act. Caras needs someone who can either base for him or go with him and Ramos, at this stage of his career, just wasn't either. I'm really curious if Ramos worked this way when he was younger and didn't blow up quite so thoroughly, because that could have made for a really unique wrestler.

Maybe Foley can bring in Maria Menounos to face her?

The Lucas match was interesting. I got a kick out of Boesch calling him "dependable" as the very first thing, because you knew how important that was to him.What was most striking was just how much of the match Lucas took as the babyface. Some of the headscissors stuff was good and fairly elaborate, working and out through spots, but then it moved on to him being on top with a headlock and so on and so forth. Grenade, combustible as he may have been, barely got anything in the match. Meanwhile, while Lucas was sound and working hard, I wouldn't say he was particularly memorable, so if both wrestlers came out looking better in the Ivan/Tiger match, as Pete indicated, I'm not sure anyone really came out of this one looking all that great. The kids running to the rail to celebrate the win enjoyed it though, so there's that at least, right? This is the sort of match which could theoretically turn me negatively on a wrestler, but only if I saw him do it a number of times, and also keeping the context of the card in mind. This was the opening match on the card, as best as I can tell, with the Tiger/Ivan match following it. If they flipped the two it would have worked better I think.

I can't sleep and I've got a telework day tomorrow so I'm playing some catch up: Kiniski vs Patton: Kiniski was just on fire here. I've seen very little of young Kiniski but I can't imagine he worked like this twenty years earlier. He just threw himself into everything for eight minutes or so. This was old man go-go-go, with chops and mares and endless geriatric aggression. Patton would get his chops in with a shot to the throat or by yanking him down from the outside, but in general, he was game to feed and feed and feed. I would have loved to see ten minutes of Kiniski vs Gino from right around here. As it was, this was a lot of fun. More on the Gold Cup after I find the strength to watch a 20 minute Mike Graham match. Some things seem to stand out. Tiger vs Ivan: Boesch summed it up perfectly, not with "Some people don't admit they're terrible," to describe Ivan, but with "Listen to the rising crescendo." That was the match, which was hardly ambitious but really solid as the sort of undercard match that gets the crowd into the show, that lets Boesch talk about some upcoming talent and read off the birthdays. Conway had the fans on every hold he worked his way out of, struggling and waving them along to cheer. They were more than happy to do so. He was over enough and talented enough that in another territory (if he could recapture what he had with the local connection here) he could have held a secondary belt or been the guy to put over whoever was going to face the travelling champ, that sort of role. Ivan kept on top with cheapshots and eyerakes (leading Boesch to comment, in his imitable fashion how that could make you gunshy and hesitant to come in). Conway would come back with his athleticism and his punches and due to the unbreakable head, having his share of flourishes to stand out, and would finally get just enough distance to hit the flying headbutt off the top on a rising Ivan. Ivan's a meat and potatoes wrestler but there's nothing wrong with that. Matches like this aren't main events, but they make the wrestling world go round.

Big Show vs Mayweather might be the single greatest Mania performance.

I think the belief is that Dave's influence is so massive among hardcore wrestling fans that his star ratings will either turn them on or turn them off to watching or caring about lucha libre, and I don't disagree. And if you are like me, when you see something great and appreciate it, you want others to see it and appreciate it, because at your core, you like seeing other people experience joy and happiness, especially when it's for the same reason you experienced joy and happiness. And when you see something awesome that no one has talked about, after you get past the initial reaction of, "Wow, it's awesome that we discovered this", there is a little disappointment that the performers were not celebrated for the greatness of the match when it actually happened, a process that Dave has more or less controlled for nearly 40 years. But anyway, it's not so much about one guy having a divergent opinion as much as it is about the weight that opinion carries. When people like the things we like, it's a nice reminder that we aren't alone in this world, it gives us a sense of community and it fulfills the human need to connect with other human beings, using professional wrestling as a medium to do so. I think that's generally true of any hobby with a social component. I think the bigger issue has always been that he missed the mark on about half of the things that made lucha great.

This was terribly good. I've seen my share of Satomura over the years but never enough to really stick. I have a general sense of her but couldn't give you too many specifics. I have less of that for Shirai, who I've heard the hype for and maybe have seen a match or two but I don't even have the general sense. The opening matwork was tremendous, with such natural and organic progression from one hold to the next, both women really bringing it. They mixed quick strikes, blocks, and reversals in with more struggle-based holds. The bit where Shirai finally got a crab after being in one herself was very novel, as she locked in the crab, had to settle for a half crab once Satomura started struggling, and then cinched up the Texas Cloverleaf after that all in the most smooth yet believable way that you see with the best lucha maestro matwork. I hadn't expected Shirai to take the brunt of the match so viciously (let's face it, she's the one who came in with the cutesy mask and Satomura was all business; after the fact I figured out she was booked as a monster who had already beaten Satomura once, but coming in, I had no idea) but it really worked so well. She came in prepared for Satomura's kicks and suplexes and was able to cut both off in interesting fashion, utilizing dragon whips, and the best leg-grab-through-her own-legs-and-right-into-the-nastiest-hold counter to a German. I liked that she waited so long to target the leg too, because she was able to own that control segment, creating the impression that instead of taking the most opportunistic route, she really wanted to make a point, utilizing brutal foot choking, landing numerous knees (some of them set up in a contrived way that worked because of how quickly she managed it and how much impact she was able to hit it with. When she did something contrived, she made it seem like it would actually work better than the simple version, which is far rarer than you'd think), and stubbornly going back to her moonsault to the floor when it almost cost her in the first attempt. Satomura only got back into the match after a long choke, one that within the confines of the match, worked well. You had the sense, through the sharp contrast to what came before and through Shirai's selling, that she really lost her wind through it. You don't usually see that. It was great because by this point in the match, it was established that Satomura wasn't going to be able to come back with kicks and suplexes alone. Even then, once Shirai was able to shake it off, there was still the sense that she was the more dominant one in the match. Satomura really had to fight back. There were a lot of bombs towards the end but between the effort in hitting them (and the struggle and desperation to block them), the selling, physical and emotional, and just enough space being put between them, I picked up a sufficient sense of escalation and weight. I think ultimately that's what was most striking to me. I'm used to watching these quite good Charlotte matches where we remark on them making sure to sell in a key moment or which have a certain sharp transition, or maybe a spotlight little touch like repeated punches to the leg in a submission, something like that. You get the sense that those bits are carefully planned and choreographed. They're satisfying because they're still somewhat rare in WWE in general and in WWE's women's matches over the decades in particular, but here there seems to be something like that in every exchange, not as anything spotlight but just as the commonplace norm that comes from wrestlers having mastery of their craft. I am always very hesitant to judge a match when I don't have proper context. I haven't seen much Shirai. I don't remember much Satomura. I certainly didn't see their match from the previous December. So, I'm not necessarily going to say HOW good this was, but I'm quite confident in saying that it WAS good.

I can't imagine that rolling the dice on another twelve months is a good idea for Reigns (I can imagine they'll do it). Summerslam feels a lot more reasonable. So much of the problem with what they did a couple of years ago was not having him beat Rollins by Summerslam (if not earlier). Reigns had enough momentum after the Brock match (which worked, in real time, exactly how they wanted it to) to chase for a little while, but the key word there was little. I don't think Rollins stealing it was a bad thing, necessarily, but the key to that was Reigns beating him decisively in short order afterwards. Instead we got months and months of HHH, Jr. until Rollins ended up injured and there was never payoff (and it was too late by then anyway). They can't manage a year long story if they can't book more than a few weeks in advance at any point. The problem with Mania this year is that putting Reigns over Taker will piss off this crowd and they don't have a result that'll make people happy in the end. The crowd will be split on Goldberg vs Brock. No one cares THAT much about Randy Orton. AJ vs Shane will be split. Owens vs Jericho isn't high enough up the card (and even then, probably split). They don't have a match on this card where anyone actually cares about a winner. I think it's a much more interesting card than last year, but it's a disaster from that point of view.