[1996-12-11-FMW-Year End Sensation] W*ING Kanemura vs The Gladiator

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Good match, but not as good as I hoped it would be. The Tanaka match against Kanemura earlier in the year was way better.

[PeteF3]

From the moment Kanemura gets power bombed over the top rope through the table, this is really damn good, with Kanemura throwing a bunch of cool near-falls at Awesome and Awesome responding in his power bomb-happy way. But the opening is just killed by the endless scene of Awesome's leg tied up in the ropes, which I still don't know was a blown spot or intentional, considering how quick Kanemura was to go after his exposed (and bandaged) leg. Whichever way it is, it goes on and on and on and then Awesome pretty much blows off the leg work entirely and doesn't sell it for the rest of the match. If this were JIP it'd look like a hell of a match.

[soup23]

Good match but forgettable is about where I land as well. Kanemura is one of my favorites in the deathmatch scene and I thought he excelled here in trying to put over the size of Awesome after he worked him over for the first portion of the match. Awesome wasn't as reckless as he will be at certain points in the next few years but still struck me as someone with just raw size here as far as actual psychology to put everything together. ***