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KB8

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  1. KB8
    Shawn is gloriously obnoxious, from calling Jeff 'Jeffrey' to the way he even chews his gum. And sitting poolside with the Intercontinental belt is fucking great. I've seen a bunch of early 90s douchebag Michaels promos, but I don't remember any being this good.
  2. KB8
    Tatanka telling a bunch of 8 year olds to work out 6 times a week was waaaay the best part of this.
  3. KB8
    Yeah, this is great stuff; felt like a top 10 singles match for both guys the last time I saw it. There's one spot where Heyman cheapshots Dustin with his phone and a lady in the crowd goes totally nuts. She's holding a kid that looks about a year old and winds up swinging him/her around like a ragdoll in a rage. Not sure where this falls in a worldwide "best of the year" list, but I'd say it's a top 20 lock for WCW and adds to both guys' case as the WOTY for 92.
  4. KB8

    General thoughts about 1992

    KB8 replied to Loss's topic in 1992

    I don't have this yet, and probably won't for another few months (still barely scratched the surface of 93 and I just picked up 96), but I watched a ton of 92 All Japan last year and over the last year or so I've watched a truckload of 92 WCW. From those two companies alone there's about 15 legit WOTY candidates. WCW in 1992 is probably my favourite single year for any company in history and there is a ridiculous amount of stuff worth watching.
  5. KB8
    I'm not much of an Ultimo Dragon fan, but I agree with Loss - this looks like a possible career match and maybe his best performance. But this is really the Negro Casas show as he is spectacular here. The matwork in the first caida is really strong; nothing necessarily tricked out, but it came across as a struggle. Casas has such charisma - and is so good - that I found myself focusing on him practically the whole time. He's pretty much a master of subtlety. Love how he'd sort of play to the crowd's cheers in the opening fall during the matwork only to clearly stop giving a shot after he goes a fall down. The low blow after he second fall was such an amazing cheapshot, and from that point on the crowd are fully behind Ultimo. The stretch run had me biting on a few of the nearfalls as well. In some ways this might be the biggest surprise of the set for me so far.
  6. KB8
    I actually liked this more than the January six-man, and while I agree with Loss in that this is a good Misawa showcase, I thought it was Kawada that looked like the best in the world (I'm only two months and four days into this, but right now I'd say Kawada and Tenryu are at the top of a hypothetical WOTY list). Everything seemed to really pick up and hit another gear whenever he got in there, especially when he was abusing Akiyama. Misawa comes across as a born leader while Kawada seems like the most vicious "second in command" possible. Felt like it was only a matter of time before he got tired playing second fiddle and wanted to run things his way. Misawa didn't kick enough guys in the spleen. Kawada as Nicky Santoro to Misaswa's Sam Rothstein probably isn't a good analogy, but it was the first one that came to mind.
  7. KB8
    Watched and wrote about this a few months ago, and my thoughts are more or less identical after another watch. Strangely enough I actually liked the handheld version a little more than the TV version. I'm not usually a handheld guy, but I thought some stuff, like the Choshu lariat where he changes direction and blasts Tenryu, came off better from the handheld view. Then again, Tenryu's reaction to it is caught better in the TV version, so it evens itself out in the end, I guess. Kido down the stretch is still tremendous.
  8. KB8

    Matches of the Month

    KB8 replied to Loss's topic in 1993

    Well February was pretty spectacular. 1. Stan Hansen vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJ 2/28/93) 2. Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami, Osamu Kido, Hiroshi Hase & Tayayuki Iizuka vs. Genichiro Tenryu, Ashura Hara, Takashi Ishikawa, Ricky Fuyuki & Tatsumi Kitahara (2/3 falls) (NJ 2/16/93) 3. Vader vs. Sting (Strap Match) (SB 2/21/93) 4. Genichiro Tenryu, Ashura Hara & Takashi Ishikawa vs. Keiji Muto, Akira Nogami & Shinya Hashimoto (NJ 2/5/93) 5. Nobuhiko Takada vs. Kiyoshi Tamura (UWFI 2/14/93) 6. Chris Benoit vs. 2 Cold Scorpio (SB 2/21/93) 7. Rock & Roll Express, Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas vs. Heavenly Bodies & Hollywood Blonds (WWW 2/27/93) 8. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Akira Taue (AJ 2/28/93) 9. Rey Mysterio Jr., Winners & Super Calo vs. Heavy Metal, Picudo & Psicosis (AAA 2/14/93) 10. Brian Pillman vs. Ricky Steamboat (Lumberjack Match) (WCWSN 2/20/93) 11. Rock & Roll Express vs. Heavenly Bodies (SB 2/21/93) 12. Rey Mysterio Jr., Winners & Super Calo vs. Heavy Metal, Picudo & Psicosis (AAA 2/7/93) 13. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Aja Kong & Bat Yoshinaga (AJW 2/16/93) 14. Bobby Eaton vs. Ricky Morton (SMW 2/27/93) 15. Misterioso & Volador vs. Tony Arce & Vulcano (AAA 2/21/93) 16. Eddy Guerrero, El Hijo Del Santo & Konnan vs. Cien Caras, Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 (AAA 2/7/93) 17. Rock & Roll Express vs. Stud Stable (SMW 2/20/93) 18. Steve Armstrong & Wendell Cooley vs. Randy Barber & Johnny Starr (USA Wrestling 2/13/93) 19. Vader vs. Rick Thames (WCWSN 2/13/93) 20. Eddy Guerrero, El Hijo Del Santo & Konnan vs. Cien Caras, Mascara Ano 2000 & Universo 2000 (AAA 2/14/93) Hansen/Kawada is my working MOTY and really just an amazing match. The WAR v NJ 10-man tag and Vader/Sting aren't that far behind it, though, and the WAR/NJ 6-man from the 5th is the fourth match from February in my working top 5. I had already watched a chunk of the WAR v NJ feud before this, and it's easily one of the best feuds ever for me. I could watch that shit all day. Benoit/Scorp kind of blew me away in that it was always a match I thought was good, but still came away from it this time with a much higher opinion of it. That 8-man tag from Worldwide was so much fun, too. Crowd was amazing, everybody got to do some stuff...if it was longer and they got to stretch out a bit more then it would've been excellent. Great month.
  9. KB8
    I watched a ton of RAW from 2000 last year, and while I'd say the ten man tag from February is the only match that's a real slam dunk, there's a decent amount of fun stuff (unfortunately I don't remember much in the way of specifics). Super fun lead-in to Backlash. Crowd is insanely hot. This is a cage match that overbooked to high Hell and I love it. Shane takes a couple crazy bumps, the crowd are molten, and JR makes gay jokes because Patterson is hanging around ringside. This isn't the best triple threat match in company history, but it might be my favourite. Angle and Hunter spend most of it double teaming Rock before Hunter punts Angle in the balls and from that point it's every man for himself. The early HHH/Angle v Rock story and the fact it's short means there's no annoying "one guy takes a breather" stuff, which is generally what prevents me from liking this stip. I thought this was one of the better Kane matches I had seen. Rock does a great job making him look like a legit threat heading towards the Unforgiven PPV the next month. Crazy match that winds up breaking down into a big brawl. Eddie is awesome as a smarmy little douchebag, and Austin hurls Saturn across the announce table like it's a slip-n-slide. Probably the second or third best WWE TV match of the year. Don't remember much about this other than the outcome. Did think it was a really good TV tag, though. And the crowd was rocking as usual. There's also the HHH/Jericho match and angle where Jericho "wins" the title, but that's something that gets talked about pretty regularly, anyway. Although they had another match on June 12th that I thought was better as an actual match.
  10. KB8
    I got all long-winded and shit and rambled about this on my blog earlier. ----- The build up video packages to this are truly too spectacular to describe. Totally ridiculous and hilarious and there's Cheatum the Evil Midget. The build up as a whole was legitimately really good (the video packages are awful, but in the best way possible). Vader kills a jobber on an episode of Saturday Night, smears face pain over him and starts whipping him with a strap. There's a tag match from late January where Race holds Sting down and Vader whips him across the back. A week later Sting has a match with Barry Windham (Vader's partner in the aforementioned tag) and he winds up trying to hang him with the strap. And there's Cheatum the Evil Midget and a tug of war over a burning dinner table. Actual match has always been my favourite of the Sting/Vader matches, and I didn't change my mind this time around. Really feels like one of the definitive violent masterpieces in wrestling history. Vader just yanks Sting across the ring with the strap a couple times at the start, and you get the sense he's gonna enjoy fucking around with him like this. Sting is a strong dude, but can he do much of anything when he's literally attached to Vader? Dragging him around the ring so he can touch all four corners is akin to towing a horsebox up a hill with a BMX. And even if he can possibly overcome the GIRTH, there's still the fact Vader will punch your fucking face through the back of your head if you get close enough to him. And well, the strap means you can't really NOT get close to him. The early stages are all Vader and before long he's whipping Sting like a mule, using the strap to draw him in close so he can squash him, dropping big elbows (there's one where he blatantly elbow drops Sting in the nuts), splashing him, etc. Sting takes over by essentially using the strap to force Vader into punching himself in the balls, and he goes on a great run of offense. You can clearly see Harley taking the blade across Vader's back after Sting's whipped him a bunch of times, and the visual of Vader stumbling around with his back all cut up was always a crazy violent image that stuck with me from the first time I saw the match. Love the spot where Sting uses the strap to draw Vader face-first into the ring post, and Sting trying to touch all four posts *outside* the ring is something I've always thought was really cool. Sting torpedoing head-first into the barricade is another nasty spot in a match full of nasty spots. Then we hit the final third and the brutality ramps way up. Vader's big paws open a cut in Sting's forehead and it's anybody's guess as to whether or not his stumbling around the ring is a sell job or not. Because Vader is really laying in the big paws. Feels like I've said that about Vader's punches a million times since I started this blog, but they're honestly as repulsive here as I've ever seen them. Sting's comeback is really tremendous. The German suplex is always a great spot in their matches, but the moment of the match for me is Sting's return onslaught in the corner. I don't think of Sting as a great puncher, but he threw some awesome punches earlier on when both guys were teeing off on each other (while they were on their knees. It fucking ruled), and the close up image of him rifling Vader with HUGE punches while Vader's crumpled like a lifeless sack in the corner was fucking amazing. He kind of collapses after he's punched himself out like a man who's just been pushed to commit horrific violence he never knew he had in him. And then he follows it up with one of the most impressive feats of strength I can recall seeing in wrestling when he carries Vader on his shoulders around the whole ring only to have Nick Patrick accidentally trip him up (after a really good ref' bump) six inches before touching the last turnbuckle, leaving Vader's entire dead weight to drop on top of him when he hits the mat. So close yet so far. Vader's back is all cut up, his ear is mutilated, he's covered in blood...he looks much worse off than Sting does. But Sting just towed a horsebox up a hill on a BMX before getting a freak puncture. Now he's got nothing left. Doesn't matter if he holds onto the ropes for dear life, doesn't matter if he tries to kick and claw and fight it. That stumble at the last hurdle has beaten him. Just an epic piece of pro-wrestling.
  11. KB8
    Hansen/Sarge sounds like something that's potentially spectacular. I'm assuming it'll be on the AWA set?
  12. KB8
    The 11/16/91 Hansen/Spivey v Misawa/Kawada tag might be my favourite Hansen performance. Not my favourite Hansen *match*, but he's seriously incredible as a crazy motherfucker in that tag. Kawada starts giving him his little kicks to the head at one point and Hansen just goes berserk, punting him in the head and trying to kick his kidneys through his ribcage. A little later Spivey has Kawada in a Boston crab, and Hansen just walks into the ring and starts stomping on his head, then he goes and gets a chair and blasts him with it, all while he's still in the Boston crab. Then he hurls the chair all the way across the ring at Misawa who's still on the apron, and when Misawa launches it back at him he dives clean out of the ring to get out the way. Just an amazingly surly performance. And the first Baba match on the AJ set is kingsized as well. There's always this sense of dread any time Hansen throws someone into the ropes because there's a good chance they're about to be decapitated. How many guys can make a fucking Irish whip seem like the scariest thing ever?
  13. KB8
    Big Man on Campus? I don't know if that's what he meant, but it's a good description either way. I thought this was fucking awesome. Feels like I'm being really hyperbolic, but I honestly thought this was up there with any multi-man match I've ever seen. The '84 gauntlet on the New Japan set is a different kettle of fish since it's basically a bunch of singles matches rolled into one (singles matches that build really well from one to the next, mind you), but I think I preferred this to the 3/86 and 9/88 matches that I had top 5 on my NJ ballot, and those two were pretty much my benchmark for multi-man tags. Just a million great moments, everybody gets to shine, tonnes of heat, guys being SCUMBAGS, Iizuka slapping Tenryu and Tenryu fucking MURDERING him...man, this was amazing.
  14. KB8
    I haven't really seen a whole lot of joshi compared to most around here, so I don't know if she screams way more than anybody else (all the joshi I have seen has been full of screaming, though), but she was really channeling Maria Sharapova with the volume turned all the way up in this. First time she gets in she's running around screaming non-stop as if she's deliberately trying to be a parody of a screamy joshi wrestler. Not criticizing her as a wrestler/worker because of the screaming (I usually stay out of most joshi conversations, especially when it comes to Toyota, because I honestly don't feel "qualified" enough to say anything worthwhile on it); it's just something that was almost jarring here, especially since more often than not now I just accept the screaming in joshi as background noise and manage pretty well not to pay attention.
  15. KB8
    Irrespective of how good or bad she may be, Toyota might be the most irritating wrestler ever based on the fact she just will not fucking shut up. I've never seen Yoshinaga before, but she struck me as a sort of Aja-lite, which I'm not really opposed to. Aja was a lot of fun here, I though; just bulldozing people, accidentally backfisting the shit out of her own partner, stopping a pair of Duracell bunnies by flattening them, etc.
  16. KB8
    Definitely thought this was a better match as a whole than the first one, even if I thought the dives in the first were a bit better. Still, the dive train at the end was pretty spectacular, especially Winners' whatever-the-fuck-that-was that probably broke his face. Misterio also takes a couple really nasty face-first bumps into the turnbuckle. There's one where Heavy Metal blindsides him with a pump kick to the back and Rey just goes flying into the corner; it doesn't even look like it was intentional on his part, so I'm wondering if he actually knew it was coming. A little later all three rudos give him an irish whip and just launch him face-first into the turnbuckle, feet off the ground and everything.
  17. KB8
    I was kind of dreading this when I saw how long it was (almost 30 minutes of Konnan is not my idea of a good time), but Cien Caras riling people up is always something I can get a kick out of. Plus I'll watch anything with Eddie in it. Still thought K-Dawg was pretty awful, but there were some neat enough moments from the others. The last couple minutes with everybody sliding all over the place and Cien Caras punting everybody in the dick were pretty fun, too.
  18. KB8
    Probably the best Takada performance I've seen in a while (certainly in terms of matwork). Total underdog versus established top dog, which is a story I always dig, and I thought both guys were pretty great in their roles. Tamura's sell of the ribs after that kick was awesome, topped by his dead on his feet sell of the final flurry. This and the Yamazaki match Ditch mentioned might be an interesting comparison. I don't remember a whole lot about the Yamazaki match other than liking it a lot whenever I last saw it, but I imagine the story would be similar to this.
  19. KB8
    That opening punch was glorious.
  20. KB8
    Eddie's another really great tag wrestler. Not necessarily up there with Morton, Eaton, Arn -- the "top tier" guys -- but I've watched everything on Will's Eddie set and the guy was always pretty terrific in tags. I guess Los Guerreros was the only "real" tag team he was a part of in the US, but I thought they were by far the best of the three "Smackdown! Six" teams in 2002 and Eddie was really awesome the whole year, to the point where I'd say he has a strong case for being the best in America that year. When Chavo gets injured he starts teaming with Tajiri briefly and it's probably one of my favourite makeshift teams ever. Great FIP; always so animated when he's not in the ring (though not in a way that distracts from what's going on inside it) to the point where I'd say he's one of the best apron workers ever; could work well with virtually anybody; great whether he was babyface or heel; TONNES of shtick, again whether he was babyface or heel; crazy bumper; always had really good offense...if Marty is in the discussion then I think Eddie deserves to at least be floating around there (and I love Marty, btw).
  21. KB8
    I'd still say Michaels is one of the better tag wrestlers in US history. I don't dislike him as much as most people (around here, anyway) do in singles, but a tag environment "covers" for some of the things he's normally called out on in a singles environment. Rockers are the best team in company history for me and there's a shit ton of Rockers matches that I love; think the Cliq tag from that '94 Action Zone episode is terrific; the No Way Out '07 main event is one of the better "lead in" tags I can ever remember the company running...great FIP (thought he was a better FIP than Jannetty while Jannetty was better working the apron/coming in off the hot tag), really good chickenshit douchebag, isn't Bill Dundee in terms of shtick but has a huge bag of bumps (I know some people are iffy on that, especially as a heel, which I understand) and "hijinks", etc. Wouldn't say he's a Morton/Steamboat level FIP or an Eaton in terms of versatility and being able to work well with pretty much anybody (within a tag setting), but I'd say he ticks more or less all he boxes required to be in the discussion.
  22. KB8

    Matches of the Month

    KB8 replied to Loss's topic in 1993

    Finished January a couple days ago. I didn't watch anything for about 2 months before starting disc 2, though, so I'd probably need to re-watch some stuff just to jog my memory. 1. Mayumi Ozaki & Dynamite Kansai vs. Takako Inoue & Yumiko Hotta (JWP 1/15/93) 2. Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas vs. Hollywood Blonds (Clash 1/13/93) 3. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Riki Choshu (NJ 1/4/93) 4. Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Steve Williams & Terry Gordy (AJ 1/30/93) 5. Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas vs. Hollywood Blonds (WWW 1/30/93) 6. Eddy Guerrero & El Hijo Del Santo vs. Jerry Estrada & Espanto Jr. (AAA 1/22/93) 7. Ric Flair vs. Bret Hart (Iron Man Match) (Boston 1/9/93) 8. Ricky Steamboat & Dustin Rhodes vs. Barry Windham & Brian Pillman (WWW 1/2/93) 9. Eddie Gilbert vs. Terry Funk (I Quit Match) (Battle of the Belts 1/23/93) 10. Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Jun Akiyama & Yoshinari Ogawa (AJ 1/24/93) 11. Rock & Roll Express vs. Heavenly Bodies (SMW 1/30/93) 12. Barry Windham vs. Ricky Steamboat (WCWSN 1/9/93) 13. Cactus Jack vs. Paul Orndorff (Street Fight) (Main Event 1/10/93) 14. Barry Windham vs. 2 Cold Scorpio (WCWSN 1/23/93) 15. Mitsuharu Misawa, Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Akira Taue, Masa Fuchi & Jun Akiyama (AJ 1/8/93) 16. Rick & Scott Steiner vs. Hell Raisers (NJ 1/4/93) 17. Ricky Steamboat vs. Dustin Rhodes (WCWSN 1/23/93) 18. Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect (Loser Leaves the WWF) (RAW 1/25/93) 19. Great Muta vs. Masa Chono (NJ 1/4/93) 20. Tracy Smothers vs. Dirty White Boy vs. Killer Kyle vs. Jimmy Golden (SMW 1/16/93) 21. Jushin Liger vs. Ultimo Dragon (NJ 1/4/93) Looking at that, I suspect there's some stuff I'd switch around if I watched them again. I don't really remember anything about the 1/8 All Japan six man. Big fan of the top four matches. Rally looking forward to seeing the Tenryu/Choshu rematch, and the Misawa-Kawada/Williams-Gordy match at the end of the month definitely got me geared for the AJ stuff still to come, a lot of which I haven't seen in years but recall being terrific. And that Steamboat-Douglas/Austin-Pillman tag from the Clash of the Champions was fucking boss; totally caught me by surprise.
  23. KB8
    "Look, he's so tall the top of his head is sticking out through his hair." Cornette was amazing here. I mean, shit, everybody was great, but Cornette especially. Then we get a "greatest hits" impromptu match that rules hard on top of everything else.
  24. KB8
    Holy shit at that Fink promo. Totally caught me off guard and I thought it was easily better than the Hennig promo from January.
  25. KB8
    Wrapping Undertaker's knee around the post even though he's already unconscious was pretty weird, yeah, but I thought Taker's sell of it was awesome; like a zombie whose leg's just been pumped with a sawed-off. I can't remember the last time I actually watched an early 90s Undertaker match, but I thought he had that gimmick down pretty perfectly in terms of selling.
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