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Tajiri!


Dylan Waco

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http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xowlq3_ta...lay-smash_sport

 

Tajiri v. Finlay - SMASH 2/19/12

 

I am a Tajiri mark and I am a Finlay mark. Still this is 2012 and while I have had some of Tajiri's Smash matches pretty fun, I have not loved any of the ones I've seen and I came into this with the hopes that it would be a good match. This makes me want to go back and watch all of them, because this just an awesome match, and an early MOTYC for me.

 

Knowing that SMASH is going out of business really added to the feel of the intros with the national anthems as Tajiri - who might have my all time favorite facial expressions in wrestling history - has this great stoic look to him as he mouths the words, while the image of the Japanese flag is stands fading behind him. Has a total "Tajiri's last stand" feel to it and the match reflects that to.

 

There is a ton of stuff I loved in this. Right out of the gate Finlay flecks sweat at Tajiri who mocks that he has grabbed it and runs his hand on the top rope to cleanse himself of Finlay's filth with an almost Regalesque comedic smirk on his face. Then they go onto have a totally unexpected matwork exchange that is really tight with both guys working really rough, including a sick take down from Finlay and some really nice exchanges from Tajiri who hones in on the leg of Finlay. Nothing was given here as we've got Tajiri scrapping to stay up on a drop toehold attempt (he fails and taste the mat) and Finlay desperate not to give up position to Tajiri who keeps breaking through. Tajiri finally throws some kicks, including some stomps that looked really great right to Finlay's knees, which Finlay sold well even as he struck right back.

 

Tajiri's frustration selling was pretty neat and both guys have great facials throughout this. Finlay going for the Celtic Cross early was a cool touch as it really put over the fact that he was trying to finish Tajiri and wasn't toying with him which is a mild criticism I have of him at times. Really all the big spots in this were great and the theme of Tajiri going for his signature spots only to get caught was pretty awesome, with the tarantula counter being especially awesome. Some will complain about the slight flub on the baseball slide/apron spot but I thought it was kind of neat as it blocked the contact and Tajiri had this great look to him like he was totally perplexed as to what was holding him up.

 

Finlay's control was perhaps a hair less intense than I would have liked, but it was a mild criticism and I actually liked Finlay's persistent hatred for Starbuck leading to another teased Tajiri comeback. Incidentally Finlay took Tajiri's kicks unbelievably well here, selling them with this huge whiplash bumps, including one where he spilled to the floor. Tajiri going back to the leg toward the end and getting a great near fall on a head kick really had me marking out hard. Tajiri managed to fight through one tombstone, survived a sucker job with the Shillelagh, and nearly fought off a second tombstone attempt before finally eating it for the fall. Totally exceeded my expectations and if this was Tajiri's big match swan song it was a hell of a way to go out.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acVCiQJZtUw

 

Tajiri v. Steve Austin - Raw 9/20/01

 

God damn this was a fucking cock tease. This was Austin at his height and Tajiri was still one of the best wrestlers on Earth when given chances and they really teased they were going to let this go balls to the wall for five minutes or so of wild brawl (which is a style that Tajiri is great at). Instead Austin quickly takes over after a minimal Tajiri flurry and while Tajiri takes an awesome bump to the floor and sells his ass off it is a totally uneventful steam rolling. Too bad.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Sbqrqy1e9s

 

Tajiri v. Eddie Guerrero - WWE

 

This had elements of a really awesome match, but it wasn't put together as well as you would hope. Still these guys got a lot of time and it was a good match. I really liked the beginning with Eddie lowrider not bouncing, so he checks the trunk and get misted by Tajiri. Then Eddie spends a couple of minutes trying to say he was blind and can't compete which was pretty great. The best aspect of this was the slugfest feel as both guy really kicked the shit out of each other, with Tajiri digging in with his forearms, Eddie following suit and of course the stiff kicks. Tajiri throwing an insane high kick to Eddie's ass as he had him in the mounted position in the corner was really impressive. The highspots in this were really well built to and some of them looked sick with Eddie focusing on Tajiri's back as a sort of subtext. Cool moment with Tajiri hitting a superplex but selling the impact more as his back had been beaten all match. Tajiri finally comes back with Eddie taking his big bump off of the monkey flip, which Tajiri follows up with a nasty punch and a great looking high kick by the announce table which led to a near fall. I didn't particularly care for some of the back and fourth before the finish and this had the typical "lie, cheat, steal" era finish with ref bump, belt shot, et. but over all I found this quite enjoyable. You could imagine them having great matches on house shows.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teweH7U2PKg

 

Tajiri/Brock Lesnar v. Edge/Rey Misterio - SD 10/10/02

 

Solid little tv match built off the premise that Brock was the reluctant sub partner for Tajiri with Jamie Noble out. Tajiri's body language and facial expressions are really fucking amusing here and the match has some good exchanges. Tajiri was probably the third best guy in the match after Rey and Brock but that's hardly a knock on him. Edge offense looked awful, but the finishing flurry from the babyfaces was really well done structurally and got a nice reaction from the crowd.

 

 

Tajiri/Nunzio v. Billy Kidman/Rey Misterio - SD 9/?/01

 

The match itself is only about four minutes or so, but this is worth watching for the finishing run with Tajiri and Rey. There are some nice spots before that including each team with a prone position/dropkick variation and Tajiri running over Kidman like a treadmill to knock Rey off the apron on a hot tag attempt. But the finishing run was really sharp, including a crazy spinning arm drag into cradle from Rey and then the best counter I've ever seen of the Tajiri handspring elbow as Rey ducked and Tajiri just sort of stumbled back into the ropes with a "WTF?" look, turning around in time to get 619'ed in the back right into a Kidman dropkick. It sounds ridiculous but it was actually extremely well executed. Rey ends up getting kidding his head kicked off out of nowhere by Tajiri and loses cleanly.

 

Tajiri v. Super Crazy v. Tom Marquez - ECW 1/14/00

 

This just missed being on the ECW Set as I almost used a personal pick to get it on (Will and Kris weren't terribly high on it). I loved it because it was a total "Tajiri is nuts" showcase match. It's like he realized Marquez was limited so just did as much wacky shit as possible to keep the match interesting.

He is so dismissive toward Marquez just casually punting him in the face at will, almost like it is an annoyance that he even has to engage him to that degree. Great spot on the floor with Marquez airballing a plancha, Crazy getting bumped into the crowd and then Tajiri sets up a chair and stands on it to punt Marquez head. Then Tajiri wildly runs through the crowd knocking people over, beats the shit out of Crazy and Marquez and stands on a table tossing candy in the air while mocking the faces. Marquez gets eliminated first and then there is a weird pause as their is a brawl in the crowd which does hurt the match some. Still the closing stuff with Tajiri/Crazy was good and it had a definitive Super Crazy finish which was a staple I liked of his matches when going through the ECW footage. I doubt this is available anywhere online, but it's worth tracking down.

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What do you think of the Tajiri vs Benoit vs Rhino vs Eddy match from Summerslam 03?

In the on deck circle, along with the BJPW tag Flik directed me to.

 

On Tajiri v. Tozawa, I haven't watched enough Tozawa to be fair. I do like Tozawa more than I like any of the other DG or DGesque guys, but there is nothing in him that suggests he will ever be as good as Tajiri.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euyKuXUV3fE

 

Tajiri v. Eddy Guerrero v. Rhino v. Chris Benoit - SummerSlam 03

 

I am typically not a fan of multi-man matches and haven't watched a match involving Benoit in a long time. My first thought in watching this was how fucking bizarre the booking meeting must have been when they decided to toss Rhino into the mix. I know Rhino was more highly regarded at the time, and amazingly enough he's the last of these guys to be employed by a major promotion, but I can't imagine the thought process involved in "hey lets book a workrate match with Eddy, Benoit, Tajiri and RHINO!" Having said that Rhino was pretty good here and in fact the whole match was about as good a multi-man like this as you'll see. I don't know if it was as good as the really good 4-way from Smackdown last Jan, but this did have the really cool story of Eddy picking his spots in the douchiest ways possible and managing to escape with his skin and title in tact. The double submission spot would have been silly without Eddy's facials and the Benoit headbutt spot was kind of silly albeit well executed, but most of this stuff was actually "believable" within the realm of four guys fighting. I'm a big fan of guys running wildly across the ring and delivering/receiving strikes and there was a shitload of that in this match. Plus Tajiri took a vicious spinebuster and hit a sick flip kick to Rhino's face. This also had about as good an Eddy "lie, cheat, steal" finish ever. If this had gone on three or four minutes longer it would have likely devolved into cute exchanges and overly contrived near fall fests of the worst sort, but for 10-12 minute match this worked very well.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am0696Hk11g

 

Tajiri v. Steve Corino - Hardcore Heaven 2000

 

One of my favorite matches from anywhere on the Earth in 2000, featuring two of my favorite guys from anywhere on the Earth in 2000. This works a bit better if you had watched the months of tv with Tajiri as the hired assassin of Corino and "The Network" and seen the angle where he turned face. But even without it, Corino's racist promo really makes you want to see him get savaged and I'll be god damned if that's not what happens. Rewatching it today this is slightly less of an extended squash than I had imagined, but it definitely has a unique psychology to it, as the story is basically "can Tajiri put away Corino before Corino finds a way to steal a victory." In effect Corino is "in peril" all match, but it works because you expect Tajiri to get screwed so he's sort of racing the clock. Corino blades off of a vicious delayed brainbuster on the ramp way and it is an absolutely epic blade job, visually one of the craziest I've ever seen. Tajiri is great as the bloodthirsty babyface seeking revenge, bring the blood pointing/biting, stiff kicks and crazy prop spots you want out of him in this setting. Corino gets a "hope spot" off of a back body drop through table that is in the ring (which Tajiri had kicking into his throat in a really sick spot I had forgotten about). Corino gets in some nice suplex near falls and finds time to set up a table in the ring while Tajiri's on the floor, but Tajiri crawls under the ring and meets him on the other end. Tajiri locks on an octopus, Jack Victory comes into the ring and you think "here comes the ass fucking finish where Tajiri get screwed" but instead he mists Victory and fucking snaps on Corino. Seriously this might be my favorite losing his shit spot since Ronald Miller grabbed the baseball bat and defended Kenneth from attempted jock assault in the climactic scene of Can't Buy Me Love (or at least as good as the Chico Che spot from the IWRG trios match I originally used this shitty analogy for) as Tajiri just goes fucking ballistic with a barrage of kicks and punches as the crowd explodes. Tajiri then calmly walks around the ring, punts Corino in the face as it rests on the table, sets him on the table and double stomps him through it before casually sitting on him for the pin. Yes Corino slightly telegraphed one spot (really it was the camera angle) and yes you can sort of see him blade if you look close enough, but this is a fucking awesome match and in a just World would have been the coming out party for Tajiri as a major star in the United States.

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Rhino had been feuding with Benoit since Vengeance. He returned in March as Benoit's mystery partner against the Guerreros and Team Angle.

This was after the team/feud with Angle and match at the Rumble where Benoit was clearly ready to be elevated but they had him treading water for the rest of the year until they started up the stuff with Lesnar, Heyman and Cena leading to the 04 Rumble. As a huge Benoit fan at the time (hey, we all were) and weekly viewer of SD I remember hating the way he was booked for most of 2003. This was also the time frame where he was put in a go nowhere feud with A-Train for a couple of months, who was a total negative heat channel changer at the time.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoEeLxSg4J8

 

Tajiri v. William Regal - WWE 11/3/01

 

God damn for a guy who was never really pushed Tajiri held a fuck load of titles in the WWE. I've only been watching this stuff for a few days and I've already seen matches where he was tag champ, U.S. champ and now cruiserweight champ. I am a big fan of the guy, but nothing better illustrates the increasing irrelevance of championships during this period more than the fact that Tajiri was a more decorated WWE title holder than Rick Rude or the Big Bossman ever were. Anyhow this was a pretty fun match. Too short to be great and Regal seemed to be working a step behind, but still plenty to like. Regal took Tajiri's kicks well and I Tajiri got to try out several fresh offensive spots. Regal wins after a missed Tajiri moonsault leads to a Regal Stretch. This is the kind of match that would have been a lot of fun for the live crowd, but doesn't quite live up to expectations on t.v.

 

 

Tajiri v. Shinobi - WWE 4/12/04

 

This is just a set up for the Tajiri v. Coach match they were building for the Backlash ppv. This is super short but is actually pretty fun as Snow is pretty good at these brief little matches and the parity exchanges at the beginning actually felt purposeful given the nature of the match. Not really worth going out of your way to see though.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/wealllovewrest.../14/zsg8XjGLfKE

 

Tajiri v. Shelton Benjamin v. El Generico - BCC Wrestling "Five Star Night" 10/15/11

 

Holy shit this is bizarre. BCC is a French fed (I think?) and the announcers call the pbp overhead in the arena so the whole match we get guys freaking out for every highspot and occasionally dropping heavily accented cliches. "French word, French word, French word, THE GOLD STANDARD! French word, French word, JAPANESE BUZZSAW, French word." One of the announcers even tries to lead the Generico "Ole" chants. The pre-match shit seems to go on forever and then the first three four minutes of an eleven minute match are eaten up by Shelton Benjamin doing the shittiest impression of Larry Zbyszko I've ever seen. Someone really should tell him that stalling only works if the fans want to see you get your ass kicked. You honestly get the impression that when Shelton keeps bailing, the live crowd feels relieved as it means they will get to see Tajiri v. Generico in a singles match, which I think we could all agree would have been the far better option. Speaking of Tajiri he is really funny standing around cross armed during most of Shelton's bullshit visibly annoyed. Eventually Shelton gets in the ring and honestly from that point this was a pretty good balls to the wall sprint. Some of the three way spots were a bit cute, but they were all hit clean and there weren't a ton of them as Tajiri played the role of "guy picking his spots" which he was really good at and led to some fun moments, like him covering Shelton as he tried to put a cross armbreaker on Generico or his cheap shot kick/rolling cradle combo early in the match. Tajiri and Generico each took a couple of wicked bumps and both guys ate each others kicks very well. Finishing run with every body pasting each other with head kicks, teased brainbuster attempts from both Tajiri and Generico and Tajiri actually winning with the mist/headkick combo was actually really well put together. I kind of figured this would be a car crash, but it was a fairly well worked match of this type.

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Tajiri v. Aguila Negra - IWA 11/13/94

 

I like the giant wood paneling wall on the outside of this venue they are working as it makes it look like they are wrestling in the entry room of my house. This match also benefited from some good camera work as there is a really tight close up of Tajiri scrambling for the ropes while tied up like a pretzel and another really good shot of the plancha he hits shortly before the finish. Tajiri was green here, they flub a few spots and the selling is shit. But the match had some decent spots and you could already tell he was talented.

 

 

Kengo Kimura & Takashi Ishikawa vs Shoji Nakamaki & Takashi Okano vs Kendo Nagasaki & Satoru Shiga (Shadow WX) vs Yoshihiro Tajiri & Yuichi Taniguchi vs Jado & Gedo - BJPW 6/3/97

 

Holy fuck this was all kinds of wonderful. Just a totally crazy clusterfuck but in the absolute best possible sense of that term. This has all kind of good shit. You've got old man Kendo Nagasaki holding court with a chair and falling over dudes, coming across like a dangerously senile Verne Gagne type let lose onto the World for the final time. Tajiri doing Asai's into the fourth row, kicking out of the entire offensive playbook of Jado and Gedo, taking multiple lunatic bumps onto the floor and getting into a slap fight with Kimura. Powder throwing and guys in suits getting waffled with chairs. Nakamaki and Ishikawa bleeding and exchanging barbed wire shots. Fans almost getting trampled. Nakamaki taking a spike piledriver on the floor and actually sellling it. Ishikawa and Kimura being awesome as fuck all match, taking control during the final stanza, crushing Okano with all there brutal looking shit and then winning in a completely decisive fashion yet still looking like guys who had survived a brush with death. Absolutely great freakshow match.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70ZzkvIpYOA

 

Tajiri/Spike Dudley v. X-Pac/Albert - WWE 9/7/01

 

This was about as good a five minute tv match as you can reasonably hope for. Crowd is fucking molten from bell to bell and I can't blame them as they crammed this full with cool shit and managed to tell a story. Tajiri throwing the blindside kick to Albert as he was on the apron was a great spot, but when Spike tries his cheap shot a few minutes later he gets pressed and dropped backward to the floor face first. Total fucking luantic bump as he falls about eight or nine feet straight down and cracks his head on the apron on the way down. Albert is no Mark Henry at shit talking, but the crowd was loving Spike as an FIP and watching Albert pick him up by his belt and carry his dead weight to the heel corner was awesome. Albert misses a scissor kick and crotches himself allowing for a Tajiri hot tag. Tajiri is just insanely over and they get in a nice double team spot to take the monster Albert down, but in the interim X-Pac throws Spikes gal Molly Holly on the ground. Spike hits a plancha taking out Pac and Tajiri tries for the tarantula, but X-Pac runs over and decks him. Spike brings a title into the ring in a rage and the ref is tied up with him as Tajiri vaults off of Pac into a double handed chokeslam from Albert for the finish. If these guys had been give fifteen minutes they would have had a MOTYC.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9exI85g1sqQ

 

Tajiri v. Super Crazy - SMASH 1/29/11

 

This was kind of sad to watch. On the one hand both guys are still great athletes especially Tajiri who is in almost shockingly good shape and does some stuff here that was pretty impressive. I especially marked out for his sliding bridge escape that set up the finish. On the other hand this really felt like the worst sort of tribute match. There is a point where Crazy grabs a chair and screams ECW as he holds it a loft only for Tajiri to flip punt it into his face. It was a cool spot and actually unintentionally poignant, but it was just an isolated moment and that's really what this match was. A bunch of isolated moments expected to pop the crowd because that's what people do when Crazy does a moonsault or Tajiri does a back elbow. This wasn't even a spotfest really. This was the pro wrestling equivalent of Uncle Rico recording himself as he throws passes to imaginary friends in the middle of nowhere.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbbslCXLMjM

 

Tajiri v. Crash Holly - WWE 6/14/01

 

This was Tajiri's in ring debut with the WWE and was actually really fun for a three minute match. Tajiri was a guy used as fodder for other guys for most of his WWE run despite being really over. Here he was the guy getting the showcase and Crash was his fodder. Tajiri's spots looked brutal and crisp but the best part of this were the facial expressions of Regal who was Tajiri's second for the match.

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Loved that X-Factor tag match. Pac was really fucked over by the Invasion, he had a good thing going in the mid card.

 

Are you going to watch the singles matches between him and Tajiri?

My tentative goal is to watch any and all Tajiri matches I can find. I've watched (essentially) his entire ECW career and have reviews for just about all of that though I am trying to find some matches online to rewatch, review a second time and link to (that's what I did with Corino match). There is a ton of stuff that people are really only going to find on the ECW Set though and there was a fair amount of really good Tajiri stuff that was left on the cutting room floor that I will also post my reviews of as time goes on.

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A couple of requests from me as well.

 

Edge/Shelton Benjamin/Tajiri v. HHH/Batista/Randy Orton - 5/3/2004

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0_qGDuF_cw...feature=related

 

I recently watched this during my 2000-2004 re watch and thought Tajiri was excellent playing his part.

 

Tajiri v. Taka Michinoku from Raw 7/14/97

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAzxNjBBPkM

 

One of the earliest US Tajiri matches I recall seeing.

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