Matt D

TA vs Kelly Kiniski is a perfectly fine young lions opening match. It's early into Magnum's career, which is always cool to see. They work a very simple match, shine headlock, heat headscissors, come out and finish. It's a bit clumsy but the effort level is there and the exuberance makes it worth spending ten minutes on. There are moments where an exchange doesn't go quite as smoothly as it should and it works all the more for it because of the realness in them trying to grab to recover. Also fun is Boesch lauding the first female director they ever had on Houston wrestling. The top of this show looks like a blast too, so hopefully we get it.

Balor, Bayley, Cass, Carmella could for NXT in ten years.

To be fair, 1982 Houston technology looks like this:

It's much more of an Indy gimmick but the fact he can work it into the match puts him over a guy like Enzo who is mostly entrance.

Slater vs Tully/Gino is quickly becoming another one of those legendary feuds as we get more and more of the pieces. I think we have most of the big ones now. There are a couple more tags I'd like to see (Especially the Brody cage matches), plus the footage of when they injure Slater that led to this specific set of matches. And I guess there has to be a turn at some point since Slater was teaming with them just a week or two before he started to wrestle Gino. The high moments have been great though and this was no different. I'm with Pete on this. Manny was big in Houston but a lot of that footage (both as a face and a heel) just hasn't turned up yet. It's obvious that he just got it so intrinsically though, knowing exactly when to play to the crowd and how much anticipation to put into things. He was a ham of sorts, but in a way that really connected. Tully was just a total joy in this. He walked the perfect line between total stooging and a sort of stubborn toughness. They managed to cover a lot of ground in relatively little time. The limbwork was a lot of fun. The KO knee in the second fall was awesome. All of the end match stuff was so heated and violent. And even though it was half the time, Slater vs Tully was hugely economical too. Both of them were coming in hurt and that played into the time they had, keeping in mind, of course, Slater's huge advantage. Great, lost feud.

"Sure Canada. We'll give you a PPV again....."

They do the Pink versions for Breast Cancer Awareness month. They could do blue and red of the normal merch and probably make money, yeah.

The only things with any stakes are the title matches. If they were going to go this route, they had to come up with some sort of stake other than "brand pride."

Thus the PPV ban. The only reason why they went back on it is because demographic changes and the rise of social media have made it so all the crowds are now revolting.

Oh yeah, I need to see that too.

I just watched #1. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Dan Kroffat is the best guy in that specific match, right? That's not a crazy notion is it? I'm not going to get Taue-sized crap for that notion, right? I want to watch basically all of the Dan Kroffat matches now.

Thirded

You call Creationists idiots pretty frequently. Just saying.

I'm behind on everything this week but the Duggan stuff was a lot of fun. I would have liked a bit more of a mauling. I wonder if Pete learned a bad word from Duggan. I liked the Brody match. It had issues (some stuff didn't look great, there was annoying lip service to selling the shoulder at the end). It was about as good as you could possibly expect a five minute Smirnoff/Brody match to be though. There are a thousand little and big things I wish Brody would have done differently (in crowd interaction, in energy levels, in selling, in attributing meaning to things) but the fans bought him on this night certainly.

There can be a middle ground. For instance, there can be a middle ground between Styles going against direction being an issue AND what he said specifically being an issue, and the two of them combined being enough to get him canned.

I like how he invalidated the firing by taking credit for it.

That was going great but really came together when Elliott brought in Eddy.

First off, I'm more glad than anyone that this is happening. I like the name, if only because I can picture the two of them portraying the different roles of Bill and Ted and the Grim Reaper in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and constantly forcing each other to play different games (or in this case watch different matches). Obviously this was not that format completely yet, but I think it works as a special extended pilot, like you'd get on TV, which is almost a mini movie, if that makes sense. I've laid out my views on the match pretty thoroughly. I do love this level of analysis. Parv gave me a little (friendly) heat the other day for the amount of detail/scrutiny I went into with Akiyama/Kobashi, but that's what I like best in wrestling, both in matches and analysis, the big picture AND the little one, the way a match builds from start to finish and to me, it's the matches that can handle that level of scrutiny that really hold up as the best ever. I don't agree on every point. I think they gave a bit too much credit where we just couldn't be sure, like Sasha's offense being limited due to her injury. I think a lot of what she did is what she would have done anyway, which I don't hold against her, but I'm not sure how much extra I give for it. More importantly, despite Charlotte's focus, I had somewhat lost the back-injury thread by the final spots so the back giving out felt sudden. I appreciate that they didn't though and I'm glad that bit worked for them. To me, the most important thing about the match was the level of character conviction and commitment shown by the two, even through botches. It's so important, especially with these two as the curtain is so thrown back now. We've seen more of Sasha as a human being than almost anyone else in her spot in history, I think. We also know Charlotte pretty well and we see both of them interact with each other out of character. But during the match, they were reacting, completely in character, to things that they couldn't anticipate, whether it was an awkward spot or (maybe) the table not breaking, or even the initial bit with the cage. They could have reset spots or worked around them, but instead they plowed through as the two characters and that gave a meaning and an absolute truth to what would otherwise feel false. There was a rawness to it all that made it feel like there was real danger, and that's not always what I want in wrestling. I'm still not 100% comfortable with it (and I would like to think that's not based on their gender. The last example before this that came to mind was, as I said, a Blade Runners squash), because I like my wrestling more illusionary (less is more, etc), but I appreciate commitment and conviction as much as anyone. In the cell, specifically, that's what a match is supposed to feel like. And this might be the first match that felt like it earned the cell in a decade. Great first show. I can't wait to hear a match that you two disagree on though.

That's fair, and again, I don't heavily hold it against Conrad (especially on a show like this where he admitted he didn't have time to do his research), but I have so little time to listen to things and there are so many things to listen to, that it's a killer for me on a show like this.

The Lawler/Superstar match was good for what it was. I think there were certain demands. Superstar was the one who had to get over more than Lawler to some degree. Mainly, I don't think the fans were super familiar with either guy (despite the magazines or Atlanta TV) and it reminded me a little at Dusty's reactions in Houston that we've seen. I really liked how Lawler used the mask at almost every point. I think he understood (like only he could) that he wasn't super over, that Superstar wasn't super over, but the idea of the mask, in general, was, so he kept going to it in order to get reactions, in order to help create unique hope spots and in order to help explain when Superstar got back over on him. I'm with Pete that it's obvious from this match that these two could have had an amazing one in Memphis. Also, I think, given enough time, Lawler would have had no problem getting over in Houston. If nothing else, it was very cool to hear Boesch announce one of his matches.

Kobashi vs Ogawa, GHC title, 11/1/03. Is it too late to start giving matches star ratings? Because if I could, I'd give this one five. It's probably as stereotypical as possible for me to love this one, but boy, did I ever. After one watch this feels like maybe my favorite match between Japanese natives. It had everything I tend to love about the 90s AJPW style: the attention to detail in both big and little moments, the continuity within a match (and presumably between them), the sense of struggle for each and every move, the roles and hierarchy (even if I don't always understand it fully). Due to the structure of the match, however, every move within the match mattered, and there was a clear sense of escalation. Nothing early on blurred the lines for what came later. The bombs were almost all kept to the end. I understand that, by its nature, body part driven matches can have a lower "level of difficulty" than bomb throwing main events when it comes to coherence and consistency and appropriate selling, but here, it was a strength, not a weakness, because Ogawa, by his nature, is a lower creature. It wasn't a case of them taking some sort of easy way out instead of doing a hundred headdrops but instead a hugely appropriate way to tackling the challenge of how to manage a 25 minute match between 2003 Kobashi and Ogawa. I'm probably going to just lay out the narrative here because the joy is in the details. How does Ogawa, who is opportunistic and desperate, who basically wrestles like the proverbial (Owen Hart-ian) "nugget," dirty, malodorous, and completely unflushable, survive against 2003 Kobashi? That's the question of the match. He manages not just to survive, but thrive, and it's by going to one of the most basic psychological templates. He goes after the leg like a man possessed. It's established early that he needs an equalizer. Right from the get go, he tries for an advantage, spitting at Kobashi and getting him down, splitting at his face, working his eyes. No meaningful effect but garnering anger and chops. They wrestle a bit after this, Ogawa just tricky enough to avoid early doom. He tries to contain Kobashi with a headlock, but Kobashi's able to just power him this way and that. Ogawa doesn't let go though and instead of getting shoved off, hangs on as he dives through the ropes to rake the eyes in a really novel little spot. He follows it up with a cravat, with a jumping sleeper, persistent and earnest, wrestling with a gumption that almost no one else could manage. None of it works though. Kobashi is just too much. To prove just how in control he is, Kobashi ends this sequence by forcing Ogawa around in a rolling cradle. Why? Just because he could. The punctuation? A nasty chop to the back of the neck that looks to put out Ogawa. That's the opening sequence. I wouldn't rightfully call it a shine. It certainly established the players, though. Ogawa is plucky, crafty. Kobashi is brutal, unstoppable, firmly in control, but with a cruel god's whimsy. Ogawa badly needs an equalizer, and he gets it here, playing dead as the ref tries to hold Kobashi back, and then leaping forward, having quite literally played possum in the face of a beast far above him upon the circle of life, to take out Kobashi's leg from behind. He pointed at his head after the fact, bless him. The match doesn't look back from there. The legwork's awesome and varied. Ogawa starts by working the leg against the post on the outside, and, hugely important, getting Kobashi's knee brace down to expose the tape underneath. Ogawa's unrelenting once that is done, twisting, kicking, kneeing, elbowing, contorting the leg. Whenever he's close enough for Kobashi to get his hands upon him, he cuts that off with rapid punches to the knee. He gets in little shots and big, visual ones like slamming it against the apron (and the crowd responds in kind, chanting for Kobashi). Kobashi is his usual double-tough self in this, but when he does get a chop in, he can't capitalize because he's selling the leg. There are some really strong sequences and hope spots too. For instance, at one point Ogawa goes for a knee-breaker, but Kobashi elbows him on the head, about to get out and get some distance. Ogawa, however, turns immediately and turns it into a dragon whip, something so in character for him, opportunistic and desperate, a hyena refusing to release its grip on its larger prey. Even when he makes the mistake of putting on the half-crab (so Kobashi can push-up out of it and hulk up), it's only a few mean chops in the corner before Ogawa unloads on the knee once again and takes back over. There's a sense, throughout this legwork, of escalation on both sides. Kobashi had started to fight back, so Ogawa takes him to the corner again and locks in a modified Hartlock around the post. He can't help himself though. His character always feels jarring to me in the hyperserious AJPW (and Noah) main event scene. Earlier on he had to point to his head. Here, he gets cocky, having taken the leg out of the king, and starts to mock Kobashi. Obviously, that doesn't go well for him, but Kobashi's ever move is earned, having to work through another kick to the knee (and missing a clothesline) to even get his jumping hangman's clothesline in. He can't fully capitalize with a suplex due to the leg, but Ogawa, once again sees the writing on the wall. He pushes him off desperately, causing a ref bump. It was not what I was expecting in a match like this, and what followed was even more jarring. With the ref down, Ogawa goes for the ring bell and starts to unload upon Kobashi's knee with it, both inside and outside the ring. Again, it's that escalation, the knowledge that it will take a superhuman effort upon Kobashi's current Achilles' heel to keep him down and maybe win this day. Again, though, due to his (to be quite honest) craven nature and his toad-like pride, Ogawa loses focus on the outside, if just a little, and it costs him dearly. He tries to whip Kobashi into the rail only to get reversed. Kobashi can't capitalize but it doesn't matter, because Ogawa closes the distance to slam his head into the post only to get it reversed, followed by Kobashi's killer spinning back chop to the neck against the pole, the most horrific of all chops. That drops Ogawa and allows for those at ringside to finally reconstruct Kobashi's legbrace. That's the beginning of the end for Ogawa. The major selling from Kobashi in the match happened after Ogawa got the brace down. The major selling ends once the brace is back up. That doesn't mean there aren't moments of weakness and opportunity before and after, but the damage is thusly minimized. With the brace, reconstructed, Kobashi pulls Ogawa up and the crowd gasps when they realize he's been opened up. Kobashi targets the wound immediately with punches and chops. It's wonderfully brutal. Ogawa tries to roll out to the ramp, and when Kobashi follows him, to catch him with a kick to the leg, but it's too little, too late with the brace back on and Kobashi drops him with his first real move of the match, a ddt on to the ramp. They make it back into the ring, with Kobashi keeping the chops up. Ogawa still has something of a physical advantage, and can reverse a whip into the corner, but misses a charge, allowing Kobashi to hit a long delayed (and very earned) belly to back for what I think is the first two count of the match. Kobashi slowly and deliberately follows it with a power bomb with a jackknife pin. It means so much, here at the twenty minute mark, because there hasn't been a match full of bombs. This power bomb feels like it means far more than any single move in the Akiyama vs Kobashi match and that goes back to economy. It's the moment where it's not just Kobashi fighting back or reversing a move, or buying some space. He's now reestablished his dominance. It lets him work over the wound again, allows for the ref to try to stop him, and colors the Ogawa low blow that follows, a last ditch attempt to stay in the match. It's too late, though, as Ogawa is back to his weaselly but unfocused desperation attempts and Kobashi is able to power right through the low blow and the enziguri that followed, concluding with the hyperchops in the corner and a superplex. They could have done a few ducked moves here, a few suplexes, one last hope attempt from Ogawa and gone home, but that's not what this match is. Instead, they lean hard on the details and make everything worth so much. The finishing stretch is amazing. Kobashi finally goes for his half nelson suplex. Ogawa slams his foot back against the knee and gets behind him for a belly to back. Kobashi makes it back up and goes for it again. This time Ogawa grabs the leg and rolls him up. Kobashi runs into the corner and Ogawa ducks out of the way for another roll up, using the ropes for two. Kobashi goes for one last half nelson suplex. Ogawa grabs for the leg again, but this time Kobashi catches him, and gives him a wrist clutch exploder, which is maybe the fourth or fifth actual move Kobashi hits the entire match, but it's one with so much meaning and build and payoff behind it. Basically, the rat finally got caught and if the knee-brace being reconstructed was the beginning of the end, this was the end of the end. Ogawa gets one last desperate gasp, trying to avoid the clothesline with a crucifix but Kobashi, the angry god at the end of his patience, shoves him off, and hits two clotheslines (the second purely gratuitous) to finish him off. It was everything I could want from a Kobashi match at this point. Ogawa earned everything he got in this match, and none of it was enough to really put Kobashi away. Maybe he could have stayed on the leg forever, but his strength, the cunning underhandedness, the dogged desperation, is also his weakness. He spits upon his betters, needs to show them up, to show that he's smarter than them, better than them, despite what society thinks, what the hierarchy says, despite the crowd chanting for Kobashi. So he acts in hubris, goes big, shows arrogance (because that, even more than a pinfall, might have been his true victory; to do that and get away with it) and it leads to his downfall. This was a greek tragedy of a wrestling match. At no point was Kobashi more or less giving than he should have been. They saved all of the big bombs for the end and by doing so, everything mattered. In general, I really feel like they could have worked this style of match more, not even with limbwork to drive it. In some ways, it's easier with someone credible (maybe it reminded me of the dynamic of a Hansen vs Kobashi a little, actually, but with a more earnest underdog fighting from underneath instead of the craven underdog deseprately attacking its wounded better). It says a lot about me, I think, that I'm so much more comfortable with Japanese matches when they're one-sided, or at least when they fit into more of a shine(or feeling out)/heat/comeback dynamic. I get the argument that I'm just too ignorant to understand the meaning of some of the more nuanced transitions in the back and forth, even big matches that build and build and build, but this was just so damn primal and perfect. Five Noahs, without a doubt. And the ark too (unicorns and dinosaurs included). Notes

It's not even that I blame Conrad for not knowing some of this. Blame isn't at all the right word. He outright said he didn't have time to do all of his research this week. It's not about blame or me looking down upon him. I just don't have 2 hours + for this stuff. That's all. I'm too deep down the rabbit hole about some of these specific topics. That may be on me, not them. I listened to 42 minutes and basically felt like I could tell them more about what they'd talked about so far than what they could tell me. Obviously, he has specific insider stories, big and small, and bits of nuance I would have never heard before, but it just wasn't an enjoyable experience getting through the noise to get to it. For some shows that'd be fine. For a show like this, I just don't have the time.

It's up and is the Dec 27 one (with the usual good VQ). BUT we also get the Lawler vs Masked Superstar match too, which I know I haven't seen before and it's ten minutes of two of my favorite wrestlers of all time. Maybe that was circulating previously, but I don't think so.

I'm sure that's why people voted for it in the first place, but it's kind of the thing I was least interested in on paper. It feels like it's the most covered.

Vaguely unrelated, but I'm very curious to see how the timing will work out this year now that they've gone to 4 hours for the main show.