[1993-06-05-NJPW-Explosion Tour] Eddy Guerrero vs Lightning Kid

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Really disappointing. I'm a huge fan of both guys and was let down. Eddy had an awesome dive, and the heat was just starting to pick up at the end when Kid got a win out of nowhere. That's a result that also made no sense to me since Kid was in the WWF and Eddy was going to be touring regularly for a while. Too bad, I was hoping for some hidden gem.

[goodhelmet]

Naylor loves this match.

[KB8]

Was this on Will's Eddy set? Because Eddy's dive was fucking nuts and something I figured I would've remembered. Kid kicking Eddy low seemed really out of place. Eddy was pretty clearly working heel, but it never even felt like a "taste of your own medicine" spot...just really weird and out of left field.

[Kevin Ridge]

Pretty boring until that great Guerrero dive to the outside. Brought me back into the match but then it was over just like that with Kid picking up another big upset win.

[PeteF3]

This felt like an opening-matwork segment dragged out to 10+ minutes--none of it ever went anywhere, it was just to fill space. It did get good once the dives started. Kid's somersault was cool and Eddy's springboard to the crowd was spectacular. Reasonably hot finish follows, though I agree that Kid's low blow was weird and totally unnecessary. There was sort of a quasi-payback spot when Eddy did a Fuerza Guerrera-style atomic drop, but it wasn't really sold as such. Good-looking tornado DDT ends it. They were able to save this and make it into something worthwhile but this wasn't really up to either guy's reputation.

[Matt D]

I actually kind of liked this for what it was. There were a few nice parallel spots and they really worked the holds, even if they were brief. I kind of think it should have ended after the low blow by Kid, but even that was sort of mirrored by the atomic drop and it all came back to end with the tornado DDT which was a call back to Eddie hitting the superplex earlier.

 

Oh yeah nice dive too.

[soup23]

Not a bad 10 minute match at all, just not the classic these guys probably could have had at this point. Kid winning confused me and him doing cheap tactics felt odd. The dives and some of the mat work was beautiful if inconsequential in the long run. Kind of a weird start to this disc with 2 out of the 3 matches having huge talent but disappointing results. **3/4

[garretta]

This wasn't the classic it probably should have been, but it wasn't too bad either. Eddie dominated the match, which I didn't expect; I thought that this would be more back-and-forth than it was.

 

If you buy Eddie as the heel here, you can kind of understand why Waltman felt the need to break the rules in kind, although neither man made a really big deal out of it. I'm kind of used to seeing faces kick their opponents low for no real reason; it's a staple face comeback spot in 1980s Puerto Rico, with Carlos Colon and Jose Gonzalez doing it in almost every match whether they need to or not.

 

Eddie's dive into the crowd was both thrilling and insane. I wonder if a spectator ever got hurt from either a dive like that or what happened immediately after (losing their balance trying to get away and falling to the floor, for example).

 

This tour of Waltman's explains why the 1-2-3 Kid was so reluctant to accept Razor Ramon's challenge for a rematch. Good move by Vince actually turning Sean's absence into a positive and using it to add more intrigue to an already hot angle. Five years ago (1988), the 1-2-3 Kid would have either been erased completely or made to seem like a poor dumb cluck who got lucky, That's if Hall didn't just beat him to a pulp in standard squash fashion.