What are you watching?

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

I just finished the All Japan 80s set so I'm diving back into the complete NWA 1989 season. Just watched Flair/Steamboat from Chi-Town Rumble and I forgot how goddam amazing that match is.

[FLIK]

AJW 3/20/1993

 

- Saemi Numata vs Masami Watanabe

 

Really really didn't need to see a re-match between these two. Slightly better then their match a week earlier, the early matwork was a little nicer atleast but still a pretty worthless matchup. Numata won with a shoulder block...yup....

 

- (3WA Midget Title) Little Frankie © vs Mr.Buddhaman

 

Why the freakin division that consisted of the same 3 midgets rotating in an eternal hellish loop is beyond me

 

- Mima Shimoda & Suzuki Minami vs Kaoru Ito & Terri Power

 

Terri was the weak link here, she's focused more on the basic stuff she can do well but in a long match like this it gets a bit repetitive after the billionth lariat or power slam. Still, that's a minor fault in an otherwise damn good match. 1st half was made up of the other 3 all working long FIP sections and the 2nd half was all action with Ito steping up for her team to carry the majority of the load. Another great showing vs Shimoda and she worked really well with Suzuka too as it came down to them for the last few mins with the others running interferance. Crazy sit out powerbomb from Suzuka on Ito ends it.

 

- Miori Kamiya Retirement Ceremony

 

Pretty big send off for someone who never rose past mid card status, you could def tell the fans & the promotion really had a lot of love for Kamiya. Kamiya gives a teary eyed farewell speach then the usual stuff that happens at these things follows. Lots of old faces show up including Mika Takahashi (looking like a 12 yr old with pigtails), Crane Yu, Lioness & Jaguar. Hokuto & Bull who were on tour in Meixco sent letters to be read. Hotta, Suzuka & Aja also give short speaches. Ito's last up and she nearly breaks down in tears too. Everyone else on the roster gives her flowers her way up the isle. Whole thing goes about 20 mins.

 

- Sakie Hasegawa vs Tomoko Watanabe

 

Really good match when it was just them trading holds back & forth. Dug the contrast as Sakie had the more skillful technique, lots of manuvering around from hold to hold whear as Wat was more raw and and simple in her approach. Down the stretch things fall a part a little bit as Sakie seems out of it for some reason, like either she got hurt or gassed out. They get back on track a bit once Sakie starts going for a bunch of STFs that the anouncers make sure to point out is in tribute to her partner Debbie. Fun spot a little later on as Wat teases superplexing her to the floor but Sakie reverses it. A few kicks and suplexes later she gets the win. Good match overall despite a few rough moments.

 

- Manami Toyota vs Takako Inoue

 

The big follow up from last months tag title match. Takako waste no time and jumps Toyota in the isle and they fight into the crowd. Toyota tries to take her out with a diving cross body off the stage but wipes out Numata instead, back near ringside Takako tries a dive of her own but takes out another young girl instead. Tak recovers quickly and follows by hauling off on Toyota with a big series of punches then just to be a jerk starts stomping on her hands and pulling hair once she's down. After that Tak makes the mistake of falling back into her old comfort zone, instead of continuing with more aggressive offense she goes back to her old standard of trying to controll the match with a bunch of submissions. She has some success at first but ultimately it fails her. Toyota gets controll of the match and we get a long stretch of her busting out a bunch of holds of her own and when I say her own I mean exclusively her own. At least 4 times during this part Toyota cranks on some strange hold i've never seen anyone do before and that I have no way of describing other then they look hurty as hell. I'm sure Toyota is a pretty clean living woman but if someone told me before some of her matches she liked to pop mushrooms injected with cafine and sprinkled with acid I wouldn't doubt them. It would explain so much Anyways, Tak eventually has enough of being made into a human pretzel and kicks Toyota in the chest a bunch of times to transition back in controll. Doesn't last long as Toyota counters a lariat attempt into the rolling cradle. Toyota hits a bunch of suplexs to follow up and Takako counters with a tombstone for 2 counts. Takako catches Toyota with a top rope choke slam for a mega near fall that wakes up the crowd who thought she had the win. Big Takako chant after that. Toyota getting desperate gets in string of suplexes, cradles and a moonsault all for 2. Last burst of offense from Tak sees her drop Toyota with a big backdrop suplex and then attempt a dragon but Toyota mule kicks out of it, hits 2 more moonsaults and then the JOCS to finally win. Awesome awesome match, between this, the Kyoko match in Jan and the big tags w Hotta, Takako has by far been the standout wrestler of the 1st quarter of 93 as her evolution continues to be one of the most interesting things to follow in joshi. Match had myself and the fans thear really hoping she'd FINALLY be able to get that big win to prove herself but again, she comes close only to fails and be left looking dejected.

 

- Bat Yoshinaga & Yumiko Hotta vs Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita

 

Cool to see Dream Orca reuiniting for the first time in a while here, Hotta & Bat teaming on the other hand always feels wrong, like they really should have been booked as mortal enemies for all eternity. Early portion of this sees Mita getting brutalized with kicks by both. The beating goes on for a while until you're just begging for her to fight back. When Yamada finally does come in she can't do much either. Eventually Mita & Yamada get their act together and start showing some fire. Funny bit sees everyone trading the camel clutch - punt spot back & forth. Finishing stretch is fun, the usual stuff you'd exspect from these 4. Mita eats an accidental kick from Yamada and a Hotta pyramid driver finishes her off. Nothing special overall but a pretty good match.

 

- Aja Kong vs Kyoko Inoue

 

So apparently this isn't a title match afterall which it's mistakenly listed as on a lot of tape trading sites, guess this does explain Kyoko getting jobed out a week ago. Still, even as a non title this feels like a really big affair. It's the first major singles match of Aja's reign and the first major singles between these two. Amusing bit early on as the crowds cheering on Kyoko so Aja just glares at them until they shut up. Kyoko tries to start fast but Aja shuts her down pretty quick then goes into her usual routine of grinding ppl down. Kyoko learns the very very very valuable lesson that you shouldn't slap Aja Kong in the face or she will short arm punch you so hard you'll almost cry. Aja's strategy of wearing her down pays off once Kyoko starts to fight back as she's visibly worn down and can't really put a string of stuff together allowing Aja to easily counter attack. Aja smells blood and goes for the kill at this point and turns the match into a brawl, Kyoko tries whiping Kong into the crowd but that only really seems to piss Aja off more and she quickly gets revenge for that. Down the stretch Kyoko continues to do an awesome job putting over the fatigue of the match. She fails to get Aja up for the romero stretch, she goes for a suplex and can't pull that off either. Kyoko tries to do one of her springboard elbows off the ropes but Aja catches her mid move and dumps her with a release german in one of the coolest moments i've seen in a while. Kyoko still keeps fighting back and uses all her strength to get Aja up for the Niagra Driver but only gets 2, she trys for a 2nd but has no energy left. A big uraken and diving elbow from Aja later it's over. Really great match, even though most of what i've talked about was the beating Kyoko took she got in enough of her fair share. Really good job of putting over Aja as an absolute monster without making Kyoko look so bad you couldn't buy her at this lvl or think she had no chance of winning. Post match Aja calls everyone in the ring for a big team rally as they get ready for war vs the world at Dreamslam.

[FLIK]

NWA Tri State 3-24-2002 Jerry Lynn vs Rey Mysterio Jr

 

Very first move of the match is Rey throwing a kick to the gut that misses by atleast a foot and Lynn still sells, all downhill from thear. 7 mins of really generic indyrific flips and ranas and armdrags. Just really really low end stuff even by early 00 indy standards. That whole period between WCW shutting down and WWF picking him up was quite the interesting time for Rey whear he was working random tiny US indies & CMLL.

 

Thinking about it, not that he hadn't done enough to be considered an an all time great by then but Rey's unique as a guy who had a significant career pre WWF and actually may have gotten better after going thear as usually it's the other way around.

[Tim Evans]

Watching BBscout's Bret vs Shawn dvd comp and man the time between Survivor Series 96 and Mania 97 is really weird. Shawn seemed to be going nuts after getting booed out of MSG at SS and started getting real angry till he lost his smile. Meanwhile, Bret had some great matches with Austin and a fun match vs HHH on raw. Speaking of Shawn losing his smile, How long was that planned ahead? I know Shawn was scheduled to face Sid for the title on that show. I'm guessing he didn't want to job? When did they announce the match wasn't going to happen?

[Bix]

Shawn vacating the title came out of nowhere, with Vince's "Oh, and Shawn Michaels is vacating the WWF Championship because he has a career-ending knee injury" announcement at the start of the Thursday Raw Thursday show being one of the all time WTF moments I've ever had watching wrestling.

 

As for Shawn being booed and all that, I went to the Nassau Coliseum show in December '96, where Michaels worked Austin in his first match in the NYC market since Survivor Series. Austin (still officially a strong heel) got a ton of cheers and Shawn got a ton of boos. After the match, when Austin left and Shawn was selling, he got up slowly to milk the boos. Then he cut a promo about being a lot different the next time we see him. It seemed like they were going to turn him or have him go tweener on TV, but then he lost his smile.

[sek69]

I always had the impression it was done like that because they were probably trying to talk him into actually jobbing the title up until moments before Vince made the announcement most likely.

[Chess Knight]

Nobuhiko Takada/Kiyoshi Tamura v Yoji Anjoh/Jim Boss (UWFi 30/7/91)

--Went around a half hour, and it got pretty draining after a while. I could have watched three hours os Tamura v Anjoh though, the first match-up they had in particular had some ridiculously cool shit. The Takada v Boss stuff was as boring as anything I've watched in a long time. Their first match up had me so bored that i was getting more interested in the fact that the ceiling looked to have sprung a leak and was dripping water in the ring. Either that or I imagined something to keep me watching. I felt embarrassed for Boss pretty much the whole match- whiffed kicks, awful stances, pretty avasive on anything. I'm not a Takada fan at all either, and I found it mostly dull as shit whenever he was on offense, but he had some nice stuff which popped the crowd with a kick or soemthing else. Pretty sure the crowd got a laugh out of Boss at some points. Tamura and Anjoh ruled and did what they could, but Takada and Boss' seeming refusal to....do anything.... was frustrating. This was "Kiyoshi and Yoji."

[Mad Dog]

ECW Hardcore TV... well the show that evolves into ECW Hardcore TV eventually. It's kind of creepy seeing the Sandman play a surfer and cut do-gooder groveling babyface promos. The Rockin' Rebel breaking the surfboard over his head was great and Funk cut an awesome crazy old man promo on episode 3. So far, I've found it to be a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting.

[shoe]

Regal vs Arn Anderson Superbrawl 94.

 

 

I watched this a few years ago and didn't rreally stick out to me. I've always been a fan of their 10/93 bout. Well on rewatch this is an awesome match with Regal just being nasty with destroying Arn's nose with cross faces, open palm strikes, rubbing his forearm into it. Arn was great here too by being Arn Anderson. Just a kick ass match. I really need to rewatch the bout from 93 to see which one I like better. The mat work was great, I loved Regal's strikes, the finish was pretty great. Even with this being as awesome as it was I feel a bit guilty by watching Dundee on the outside and wondering what type of bout he could have had with Regal.

[Tim Evans]

Watching some more of the Bret vs Shawn comp and I'm up to June 1997. Bret goes from feuding with Austin to back to feuding with Shawn. They just set up the Shawn vs Bret match at King of the Ring that would have been if Bret couldn't win in 10 minutes, he would never wrestle in the states again. I know the match turned into HBK vs Austin but if the match went through, would Bret have lost? I'm guessing it's another example of "Shawn doesn't want to job so the match is changed" situation. Bret's heel turn and introduction to the Hart Foundation was great but the promos sucked. Bret just kept saying the same things over and over again. The Austin beat down in the ambulance might still be my favorite Raw angle ever. Not only was everyone great but it's the first time I've heard Gorilla curse.

[MikeCampbell]

The Austin beat down in the ambulance might still be my favorite Raw angle ever. Not only was everyone great but it's the first time I've heard Gorilla curse.

Your not alone, dude. Whenever anyone does top ten RAW moment countdowns, that one is usually right at the top to the list, with good reason.

 

Does anyone else find it weird that Austin, who'd been swearing up a storm all year, got all offended and mad at Gorilla for telling him to get his ass out of the building?

[Tim Evans]

I'm up to One Night Only 97 on my Bret vs Shawn comp. Shawn has totally lost his mind after Summerslam 97. He's now alinged with HHH/Chyna and Rick Rude. I never got why Rude was in the group? DX didn't really need a suit guy. Of course he only lasted a couple months so it really doesn't matter. Shawn vs Taker from Ground Zero is like the ultimate Russo booked match. Shawn bumps around like a bad man while taking out refs with Taker. Taker kicks out of everything and the match ends in a double DQ. Just awful.

 

Meanwhile Bret only has Owen and Bulldog with him feuding with Vader and The Patriot. It's a shame the Patriot only lasted a couple months cause I liked the gimmick. Bret as champion after Summerslam is kind of disappointing. I liked how different his Taker match at One Night only was compared to Shawn's at Ground Zero. Really looking forward to the build up to Survivor Series as I haven't seen that since it happened and I don't think I've ever seen the Screwjob complete version.

[MJH]

I've always been really fond of that Bret/Taker match at One Night Only, I think it's my favourite of there's with none of the others particularly close.

[Dooley]

The Austin beat down in the ambulance might still be my favorite Raw angle ever. Not only was everyone great but it's the first time I've heard Gorilla curse.

Your not alone, dude. Whenever anyone does top ten RAW moment countdowns, that one is usually right at the top to the list, with good reason.

 

Does anyone else find it weird that Austin, who'd been swearing up a storm all year, got all offended and mad at Gorilla for telling him to get his ass out of the building?

 

I thought that was hilarious. Gorilla gets mad enough to swear and the foul-mouthed Austin yells "don't you talk to me like that!"

[NintendoLogic]

I watched the 8/22/85 Devil/Chiggy match again last night, and it occurred to me that it's the best possible New Japan juniors match. There's a pretty long stretch of matwork at the beginning, but it feels like an actual struggle and not something out of Cirque du Soleil. Just as importantly, it felt like the matwork was necessary to wear down the competitors to open them up for the bombs that came later in the match. And there were actual transitions to the bombs instead of them just being thrown around your-turn-my-turn style.

[Mad Dog]

More ECW still. Jay Sulli and Stevie Wonderful are such terrible announcers that they're making me yearn for Joey Styles to show up in a few months of television. There have been some real gems though.

 

Sulli must have a word of the day calendar or something because he gets fixated on a different word every week. One week he kept saying despicable and sounded exactly like Daffy Duck while saying it.

 

My favorite exchange from them so far was during a Sandman match. Sulli was trying to hype him up:

 

Sulli: "He's a great wrestler that goes both ways..." and then he yammers on for another couple of minutes.

 

Wonderful: "Goes both ways huh?"

 

They also fuck up a lot. They announce the wrong matches, they forget what week they're on during tapings. And god help you if they let Sulli and Todd Gordon in the booth alone.

 

So far the Rockin' Rebel has been the stand out worker of the early days. He's easily the third best worker on the roster after Terry Funk and Eddie Gilbert. Speaking of Gilbert, he plasters himself on television a little too much. One week he had a match, like three promos and an angle. It was just too much.

 

Still enjoying it though the last episode totally sucked.

[Cox]

Not that I'm a huge fan of Six Pack Sulli and Stevie Wonderful or anything, but it's possible that, if they were doing announcing live rather than pre-tape, that the format for the TV show might have changed from the time they taped the matches to the time that they actually aired, which makes things seem out of order. That would be a problem more with production than with the announcing. As somebody who produces an (admittedly, very, very, very small time) wrestling TV program, I have that problem a lot, and often just air stuff that "feels" out of order, because otherwise, I won't have time for it another week, and hope people don't notice.

[Tim Evans]

Finished the Bret vs Shawn comp last night. The screwjob was nuts as it was basically a brawl that ended with a match. They went into the crowd and Pat Patterson almost got beaten up by the fans. The lead up to the match in October was just digusting to watch though. Between the racism with the Nation vs DX vs Harts and the announcer almost acting like Pillman's death was fake. I remember the night afterwards Vince had Pillman's wife on but I didn't think it was on 4 more weeks? I think it was Vince that said something like "The late Brian Pillman isn't coming back to save the Harts from this". Then the interview with DX where they said the Harts were Klansman and Bret was the Grand Wizard was just wow. Bret should have quit right then and not even gone to Montreal.

[Kronos]

Black Terry, El Hijo Del Pirata Morgan & Skayde -vs- Negro Navarro, Trauma I & Trauma II (Todo X Todo, 2012-01-01) IWRG

I'm on the fence about this one. The first eight minutes was quite awful. Yes, the holds were cool, but there was way too much coopoeration. It was as if they were demonstrating the cool submission holds they learned. Chikara will do this sort of exhibition, but they'll do it with humor and speed.

Once the third pair gets into the ring - Pirata and ? - then it's like everyone remembers it's a competition. They pick up the pace, throw some nice strikes, go to the floor, and generally bring an excting match.

 

So, 8 min of slow motion exhibition. 9 or 10 minutes of decent quick-paced competiion.

[FLIK]

Watched the same match yesterday and largely agree except I only thought the Skinny Trauma vs Terry section of the first fall was awful, there's one point whear Trauma is trying to put him in a hold but Terry's not in the right position so Terry literally just gives him his hand to assist him in putting the move on. The Skyde vs Navarro part I liked.

[Kronos]

5491931[/url]']

Watched the same match yesterday and largely agree except I only thought the Skinny Trauma vs Terry section of the first fall was awful, there's one point whear Trauma is trying to put him in a hold but Terry's not in the right position so Terry literally just gives him his hand to assist him in putting the move on. The Skyde vs Navarro part I liked.

Terry is the older guy in bumblebee tights?

 

Skyde is the belly guy in blue, with horns?

 

Navarro is the guy built like Taz?

 

 

Not always easy for me with luchadores anyway, but especially tough with no intros. I'm glad I finally broke my IWRG handheld cherry, though. :-)

[FLIK]

Yup you got it

[El-P]

So far the Rockin' Rebel has been the stand out worker of the early days. He's easily the third best worker on the roster after Terry Funk and Eddie Gilbert.

To me, Johnny Hotbody was the stand out worker of the early days. Candido would have, if he had stayed a little longer. I don't remember Rebel being particulary good to be honest. Decent I'd say.

[Mad Dog]

Rebel has worked with more competent talent thus far than Johnny Hotbody has. Hotbody seems decent but he's feuding with Tommy Cairo. I'd say he's top 5 for who they have. I still have a long way to go so that idea might change with time.

[Cross Face Chicken Wing]

I'm watching the complete 1989 season of the NWA. I'm a couple of weeks past Clash VI and they finally moved WCW Saturday Night out of the old TV studio and into a bigger and more modern space.

 

In addition to the great work from Flair and Steamboat, I'm really loving Rick Steiner, the Great Muta, Dick Murdoch, Jim Cornette, Paul E., and Michael Hayes on color commentary.

 

I've heard Steamboat say in shoots a few times that he was disappointed they didn't give him a longer run w/ the belt. Regardless of how long of a run he got, they sure as hell didn't do much with him when he had the belt. He wasn't even on TV for three weeks after he won it, and all he's done after Clash IV is beat Ron Simmons and give some generic mailed-in taoed promos.