What are you watching?

[Exposer]

Watched Souled Out 1997 today. It was a risky thing to do and it showed. Every match had brawling and some unpredictability. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't. No match was better than solid. Honestly, the only match I'd call solid was the ladder match between Syxx and Eddie. The Miss NWO contest was silly and took up too much of the show. One trend I did enjoy was WCW getting some measure of retaliation in each match whether it be WCW talent arriving to watch the show in the first match, Jimmy Hart getting his licks in on Bubba, or Randy Anderson intervening in the tag title match. Other than that, this was a pretty bland show. I liked some things that were tried in the matches, but the execution was off. In comparison to Rumble 97, the Rumble was much better. The writing is much clearer and the production is obviously better. This time around the work was better as well. I'll jump into February soon.

[Exposer]

Watched IYH Final Four today. Very good PPV. I had fun watching it. The matches were much better than the Rumble's and the storylines continue to get more interesting. Mero-Snow was a nice little opener. Both guys have enough interesting offense to bring out to keep things up. The NOD six-man was fun. Scorpio hit a couple of great dives and was in-peril. That left me happy. HHH-Rock was well put together. It wasn't great, but it was a solid mid-card match. Chyna choked out Terri post-match. It's hilarlous to me that she debuted in my city, Chattanooga. Owen/Bulldog-Can-Ams was fun. Furnas and Lafon pulled out some awesome offense and Owen bumped tremendously for it. The main event was awesome. The order and execution of a few of the eliminations were poor. Austin shouldn't have been eliminated first. Vader was outstanding. His brawling, bumping, big spots, and elimination were incredible. I was extremely proud to see the UTC arena exploding and literally shaking violently at his elimination. Great moment. The final Taker-Bret showdown was hampered by Austin's interference. The execution of the finish was terrible. It actually brought the crowd down. That's a shame because with a better organization of eliminations, this match would have been a classic. I liked the closing moments of the show with Sid confronting Bret. It made me want to watch Raw the next night. Overall, this was a damn good show. WWF was picking up some real steam by this point.

[(BP)]

Started rewatching 97' from Final Four on. I'm up to Cold Day in Hell, and I'm excited for Canadian Stampede. Every show things are clicking more and more, and the in-ring is a lot better than during the height of the attitude era.

[Jordan]

Riki Choshu vs. Shinya Hashimoto, 1/4/2001 Dome Show

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl-dpFxU_zI

 

Man am I glad I clicked on this after listening to Choshu's theme on YouTube (which for some inexplicable reason has its best result show up only in Kanji and Katakana to actually hear the theme and not some random cover) because it fucking ruled up until the hilariously bad finish.

 

Hash being a douchebag in the opening via stalling and not even wanting to enter the ring was awesome to see since I'm so used to Hash as this brave warrior who won't turn down a fight, but he makes it work. And when he finally does, he just starts laying in this brutal beating on Choshu that the ref has to repeatedly breakup.

 

Finally Choshu finds an opening during one of the breakup sequences to fucking nail Hash with a punch that was so wonderfully brutal that I hit like as fast as I could. This follows with Hash getting outside to regain his bearings and remove his gloves as if to signal "it's time for a fight" or something like that and he then gets back in the ring and gets in one of those really gritty collar elbow tie ups that only these two can pull off.

 

What follows afterwards was a mix of ridiculously stiff lariats, great selling, and just two guys beating the crap out of each other but not at the expense of putting over how grueling the affair really was. There's a Hash DDT in there that looks disgusting. And then...Fujinami just decides to end it. I ultimately don't think this was better than their '96 or '97 outings (even before the crap finish) but it was still cool to see "Invader Hash" I guess trying to kick Choshu's ass.

[Kronos]

The best thing about Hashimoto is everything.

[BruiserBrody]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/from-the-wwe-network-the-best-of-msg-and-maple-leaf-gardens/#.UyG2qIUm-So

I travel back to 1985 to watch the Dream Team battle Ricky Steamboat and Tito Santana, and the "blow off" of Hogan vs. Mr. Wonderful's first feud. Then we head to 1991 for "Rowdy" Roddy Piper taking aim at the "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, The Road Warriors vs.The Natural Disasters and THE BERZERKER steals the show!

[Badlittlekitten]

Decided to watch some Oz Academy show I come across to see how the joshi are doing these days.

 

Chikayo Nagashima/Meiko Satomura/Sonoko Kato/Tsubasa Kuragaki/Carlos Amano -vs- Jungle Jack (Aja Kong/Ran Yu-Yu/AKINO/Hiroyo Matsumoto/Tomoka Nakagawa) (12/02/2012)

This was in the spirit of those 90s JWP multi-women matches where they start as a kinda singles gauntlet thing before all the women step up onto the apron together and join in the fun.

 

First the positives; The early Satomura/Kong segment was okay and the Nagashima/Matsumoto was fun. This is the first I've seen of Nagashima since her GAEA days and on this evidence she hasn't lost a step. Matsumoto was a good base for her and they worked a nice brisk pace. Kong looked as brutal as ever and her and Meiko have bunches of chemistry. Amano and AKINO were fine in their portion but I really could do without the comical headbutts, they always take me out of the action. The headbutts looked pretty poor too and, although the unflattering camera angle didn't help things, there was a lot of sloppiness in this match in general . Speaking of which - Nakagawa was quite terrible in this, sloppy, loose and all over the place.

Things go rapidly downhill after the singles period is ditched and all the girls clutter up the ring as they please. It's just a clusterfuck of girls constantly breaking up pins (do all four partners need to break a pin?) and tedious my-turn-your-turn shit. There's never a chance for any tension to build. And it goes on and on and on . . . There's one point 35 minutes in where Meiko seems to have a spark lit underneath her and starts destroying AKINO with an extra sense of urgency like she wants this damn thing to end . . but it goes nowhere, she's quietly snuffed out and disappears into the blur again.

I didn't like this match but I'm glad I watched it. I really want to check out a Nagashima/Matsumoto singles match now (please say they exist) and would like to see more of Kuragaki vs Kong. But it was nowhere near the level of them old JWP matches as it lacked the focus and good work.

Aja Kong/Sonoko Kato -vs- Ayumi Kurihara/AKINO 08/19/2012
The heavy clipping made it hard to get a full picture of this match but what was shown was fine. Kong and Kato spend the first half of the match dominating their opponents and coming out on top after every flurry. I enjoyed Kong getting the best of Ayumi and AKINO's double team attempts although I HATED that the pair completely no sold Kong's double suplex on them. Why the fuck would you do that? It's shocking how little Kong seems to have aged in twenty years. She's the joshi Dustin Rhodes. When AKINO/Kurihara finally start getting in some offence it turns into a nearfall-fest. I wish AKINO wouldn't do that horrible shining wizard thing. The match seems to continue after the time limit draw for some reason but I had tapped out by that point to be honest, although I did watch the finish and thought it was good. The best thing about this was the crowd which was surprisingly good by modern joshi standards.

Chikayo Nagashima -vs- Hiroyo Matsumoto. (Oz Openweight Title ) 08/19/2012
Well I didn't have to wait long to get my match! There were some major flaws in this - the chairs were unnecessary fluff and Hiroyo's 'fighting spirit' nonsense almost turned me off, (I don't have a problem with fighting spirit in itself but there's a right way to do it in my eyes. Kobashi getting fired up after an elbow to the face and delivering a backdrop is fine because he continues selling again after the move and once the adrenalines worn off. It feels like a desperate flurry and amps up excitement in a match. Matsumoto arbitrarily deciding that it's her time to control the match after Nagashima's viscous chair attack just looks fucking stupid, especially without her showing any signs of long term damage after her offensive burst. Makes everything pointless) - BUT the closing stretch to this was very good. Nagashima's small frame compliments Matsumoto's power very well and there were lots of cool powerbombs, roll ups and reversals. It was a bit my-turn-your turn but they were at least selling fatigue in between moves and building anticipation for the finish. The finish itself was great with a ref bump! and some GREEN MIST! I've only seen a handful of Nagashima matches and I will rectify that because she's looked great here. She actually looks like she's trying to fuck up her opponents which too many of these girls don't. I loved the bit where she was violently rubbing the point of her elbow across Hiroyo's cut forehead. Good stuff.

[Blazer]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/from-the-wwe-network-the-best-of-msg-and-maple-leaf-gardens/#.UyG2qIUm-So

 

I travel back to 1985 to watch the Dream Team battle Ricky Steamboat and Tito Santana, and the "blow off" of Hogan vs. Mr. Wonderful's first feud. Then we head to 1991 for "Rowdy" Roddy Piper taking aim at the "Nature Boy" Ric Flair, The Road Warriors vs.The Natural Disasters and THE BERZERKER steals the show!

 

Just watched that tag match the other day on one of the old CHVs. Santana and Steamboat blew the damn roof off MLG with that match. Enjoy.

[dawho5]

On that Hash vs. Choshu match, it looked like Choshu's right arm was hurt going into the match. He was selling it as soon as he hit his big punch and never stopped. Then they were icing it on the way to the back. I got the feeling that Fujinami stopped it when he saw Choshu was just going to keep hitting lariats with an already injured arm until he made it worse.

[Exposer]

Watched Superbrawl 97 today. Not good. There were some matches that had good parts, but there wasn't a single match that I'd call good. Eddie-Jericho and Rey-Iakeau were the best matches. Both of those were no better than decent. The pop for Luger in the tag title match was great and I loved Nash powerbombing Giant. That was probably the highlight of the show. The main event was bad. The post-match was worse. Final Four beats this PPV soundly.

[ohtani's jacket]

I remember being really excited about the WWF right up to SummerSlam then it tapers off a bit with Austin's injury being a momentum killer.

[Kronos]

Okay, so I thought I would give Lockdown a try since I haven't seen any TNA in almost two years.

 

I made it 90 seconds into the first match: a 6-man tag inside a steel cage. Once Sabin and the blonde Japanese guy started going all Dragon Gate dancing choreography, I turned it off.

 

I think I will go on YT and watch 1984 WWF instead. . .

[Badlittlekitten]

Okay, so I thought I would give Lockdown a try since I haven't seen any TNA in almost two years.

 

I made it 90 seconds into the first match: a 6-man tag inside a steel cage. Once Sabin and the blonde Japanese guy started going all Dragon Gate dancing choreography, I turned it off.

 

 

Then you missed out man! That TNA PPV was one of the worst shows I've ever watched. The Mr Anderson/Sam Shaw/Christy Hemme segment was terrible to the point of being quite mesmeric. Time slowed down. Abyss coming out from under the ring in the title match is the first time I've felt embarrassed about watching wrestling whilst nobody else was present. Dixie just isn't fit to be on camera (although she is fit) and watching her trying to pull off the Authority heel role in multiple segments to clear 'go away' heat is painful and hilarious at the same time. The wrestling is awful anyway.

 

What a shower of shite this company is.

[BruiserBrody]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/nwa-starrcade-88-true-grit/#.UyiIT4Um-So

 

Starrcade 88

Flair tries to fend off Lex Luger a second time over capturing the World title, Dusty and Sting take the measure of the Road Warriors, Barry Windham tries to survive the massive Bam Bam Bigelow, The Midnight Express battles...The Midnight Express!?!!? And Rick Steiner enjoys the biggest win of his career...so far.

[Kronos]

 

Okay, so I thought I would give Lockdown a try since I haven't seen any TNA in almost two years.

 

I made it 90 seconds into the first match: a 6-man tag inside a steel cage. Once Sabin and the blonde Japanese guy started going all Dragon Gate dancing choreography, I turned it off.

 

 

Then you missed out man! That TNA PPV was one of the worst shows I've ever watched. The Mr Anderson/Sam Shaw/Christy Hemme segment was terrible to the point of being quite mesmeric. Time slowed down. Abyss coming out from under the ring in the title match is the first time I've felt embarrassed about watching wrestling whilst nobody else was present. Dixie just isn't fit to be on camera (although she is fit) and watching her trying to pull off the Authority heel role in multiple segments to clear 'go away' heat is painful and hilarious at the same time. The wrestling is awful anyway.

 

What a shower of shite this company is.

 

 

 

Yes, Dixie is certainly an attractive woman. (Though she's no Steph.)

 

Sounds scary. Maybe I will pick up a sixer this weekend and give it another go.

[Kronos]

Finally started watching my AWA set that I have had forever.

 

Heenan is fantastic. We already knew that. But I have never seen him "wrestle". Here's he's tagging with Bock, and he's a total chickenshit heel who runs in and kicks guys who are down and then runs cowardly away when they come after him. I was digging on it pretty hard.

[Loss]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/nwa-starrcade-88-true-grit/#.UyiIT4Um-So

 

Starrcade 88

 

Flair tries to fend off Lex Luger a second time over capturing the World title, Dusty and Sting take the measure of the Road Warriors, Barry Windham tries to survive the massive Bam Bam Bigelow, The Midnight Express battles...The Midnight Express!?!!? And Rick Steiner enjoys the biggest win of his career...so far.

 

Luger was never actually booked to win at Starrcade. Dusty wanted the title off of Flair because Flair and Dusty were at war. So he came up with the idea of Rick Steiner facing Flair and beating him in five minutes. The idea was that Flair wouldn't pull anything with Steiner in the ring. Flair balked at that and Herd made his first executive decision, replacing Steiner with Luger in the main event and, after listening to advice from Larry Matysik, insisting that Flair go over clean.

 

I know that's not entirely different from what you said, but I just wanted to clarify.

[BruiserBrody]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/from-the-wwe-network-the-best-of-msg-and-boston-garden-wrestling-vol-2/#.UyriCFcm-So

Dory Funk Jr. vs. A MIDGET, Bulldogs vs. The Dream Team, WWWF World Champion vs NWA World Champion, Hulk Hogan hits a gusher vs. A cannibal, and Hogan vs. Flair(!) headline a card full of random finishes.

[(BP)]

The Starrcade 90' main event is bad for a lot of obvious reasons, but it's kind of fascinating to watch Flair try to cover his tracks and work a different style. The best part of this whole show was the Russian shooter guys in the Pat O'Connor tag tourney.

[BruiserBrody]

http://culturecrossfire.com/wrestling/wwe/from-the-wwe-network-the-best-of-wwf-old-school-house-shows-vol-3/#.UzF-I1cm-So

My third volume of reviews from the WWE Network's Old School House Shows trying to find diamonds in the rough: This week has Andre/Hillbilly Jim vs. Studd and Bundy, Steamboat vs. Savage, Piper vs. Muraco in a bloodbath, Bulldogs vs. Hart Foundation, Bruno Sammartino vs. Randy Savage, Duggan vs. The Iron Sheik, Jake the Snake vs. Earthquake and Hogan vs. Sgt. Slaughter - plus a TON of crappy encounters!

[Parts Unknown]

I'm currently on a world of sport bender, especially loving Terry Rudge. Guy was such a great worker, nothing flashy but does the simple things really well and most importantly it all looks killer. Should be mandatory viewing for any aspiring wrestler.

[khawk20]

Greg Valentine & David Shultz vs Tony Atlas & Rocky Johnson (Hartford, CT, 23/11/84)(hand held camera)

 

I ran across this on a mixed disc last night by accident. This was the closing match on a "Steel Cage turmoil" card

held in Hartford. For those that haven't seen the card, the idea of the Cage card was to start out with two wrestlers, and the winner

stayed in the cage and faced the next wrestler to come out...it was a gauntlet style setup. Very odd idea.

 

I note that tag match not for anything special other than the seemingly random Schultz-Valentine pairing, and the fact that such a

random bout closed out the card.

 

Here's the full lineup from that night courtesy of Cawthon's History site. Check out some of the results...Strongbow over Patera must've been sold as Patera being completely exhausted, given Strongbow was jobbing to everyone at that point. I'd have to watch the card again, I don't remember it all as it's been a lot of years since I watched it:

 

WWF @ Hartford, CT - Civic Center - November 23, 1984
Steel Cage Turmoil:
WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine defeated SD Jones
WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine defeated Angelo Mosca
Tony Atlas defeated WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine
Tony Atlas defeated Bob Orton
David Schultz defeated Tony Atlas
Tito Santana defeated David Schultz
Tito Santana defeated Moondog Rex
Tito Santana defeated Bobby Heenan
Tito Santana defeated Moondog Spot
Ken Patera defeated Tito Santana
Ken Patera defeated David Sammartino
Ken Patera defeated Swede Hanson
Ken Patera defeated Mario Mancini
Ken Patera defeated Mr. Fuji
Ken Patera defeated Jose Luis Rivera
Chief Jay Strongbow defeated Ken Patera
Big John Studd defeated Chief Jay Strongbow
Big John Studd defeated Salvatore Bellomo
Finals: Big John Studd defeated Rocky Johnson
Non Cage Matches:
David Sammartino defeated Mr. Fuji
The Tonga Kid defeated Roddy Piper via disqualification
Tito Santana defeated Moondog Rex
Tony Atlas & Rocky Johnson defeated WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine & David Schultz via disqualification

 

[victory]

Greg Valentine & David Shultz vs Tony Atlas & Rocky Johnson (Hartford, CT, 23/11/84)(hand held camera)

 

I ran across this on a mixed disc last night by accident. This was the closing match on a "Steel Cage turmoil" card

held in Hartford. For those that haven't seen the card, the idea of the Cage card was to start out with two wrestlers, and the winner

stayed in the cage and faced the next wrestler to come out...it was a gauntlet style setup. Very odd idea.

 

I note that tag match not for anything special other than the seemingly random Schultz-Valentine pairing, and the fact that such a

random bout closed out the card.

 

Here's the full lineup from that night courtesy of Cawthon's History site. Check out some of the results...Strongbow over Patera must've been sold as Patera being completely exhausted, given Strongbow was jobbing to everyone at that point. I'd have to watch the card again, I don't remember it all as it's been a lot of years since I watched it:

 

WWF @ Hartford, CT - Civic Center - November 23, 1984

Steel Cage Turmoil:

WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine defeated SD Jones

WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine defeated Angelo Mosca

Tony Atlas defeated WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine

Tony Atlas defeated Bob Orton

David Schultz defeated Tony Atlas

Tito Santana defeated David Schultz

Tito Santana defeated Moondog Rex

Tito Santana defeated Bobby Heenan

Tito Santana defeated Moondog Spot

Ken Patera defeated Tito Santana

Ken Patera defeated David Sammartino

Ken Patera defeated Swede Hanson

Ken Patera defeated Mario Mancini

Ken Patera defeated Mr. Fuji

Ken Patera defeated Jose Luis Rivera

Chief Jay Strongbow defeated Ken Patera

Big John Studd defeated Chief Jay Strongbow

Big John Studd defeated Salvatore Bellomo

Finals: Big John Studd defeated Rocky Johnson

Non Cage Matches:

David Sammartino defeated Mr. Fuji

The Tonga Kid defeated Roddy Piper via disqualification

Tito Santana defeated Moondog Rex

Tony Atlas & Rocky Johnson defeated WWF IC Champion Greg Valentine & David Schultz via disqualification

 

I've heard of this show, just never have seen it. Some quick observations. The entries seem so random. Bellomo was second to last in coming out. Why? I take it there was no bracket system prior to the show. Patera wrestled 7 times and didn't even make it to the finals. Rocky comes out last and is the finals for no rhyme or reason apparently. I would guess this was some sort of an experiment that didn't work. Definitely an interesting concept.

 

It might of worked with fewer wrestlers and no jobbers.

[Robert S]

There is no tournament scheme, just a long gauntlet match. For Valentine (or SD Jones) to have won the whole thing he would have needed to win 19 straight matches. WWE ran tag team turmoils quite a lot over the last 15 years, just not with that many participants.

[victory]

There is no tournament scheme, just a long gauntlet match. For Valentine (or SD Jones) to have won the whole thing he would have needed to win 19 straight matches. WWE ran tag team turmoils quite a lot over the last 15 years, just not with that many participants.

Yeah I guess I was looking at it more as a tourney then a gauntlet.

 

Damn, 19 matches for Valentine would of been insane.