Dylan Waco Posted March 4, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2012 Thanks for the links guys. I'm going to put them all on the dock. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Rob Posted March 5, 2012 Report Share Posted March 5, 2012 Not rewatched it, but I remember enjoying this match with Batista a whole lot at the time - There's also a Chris Masters match on Youtube, and the pair had real nice chemistry together, but for a short match it's split into like five parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2012 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2NgDXy7Hi4 Tajiri v. Billy Kidman - Backlash 02 This was a really, really good match despite Kidman's unwillingness to sell the back work that Tajiri put in and the dreaded Kidman powerbomb reversal spot. This had some fun deviations from norm, with Tajiri working a really tight control segment and Kidman coming back. Kidman is a poor man's Rey, but you don't need the real thing to make this work as Tajiri was on point. This had some great shit including Tajiri doing Goldust slide out the ring and hit your opponent spot, but of course mixing it up and throwing an insane head kick instead. Kidman actually counters the first tarantula attempt, but Tajiri cuts him off and hits a second one which fit with the theme of Tajiri targetting his back. Then Tajiri busts out with an elbow drop, downward heel kick and a double stomp to Tajiri's back which I thought was a really neat and un-Tajiri like combo. Cut off and hope spots in this were really cool to, including Tajiri taking this awesome car crash bump off of a dropkick on his rewind elbow attempt and Kidman dying on a missed shooting star. Tajiri was really excellent at selling the shock of not getting the fall off the subsequent head kick and the finish with Tajiri misting Kidman on a powerbomb attempt and pinning him was perfectly executed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bhWI-vX30s...feature=related Tajiri v. Rhyno - Unforgiven 2001 My God the bump Tajiri took for the gore on the Raw stage to set this up was totally ridiculous. This was about the most ECWish match ever as it was less than five minutes from bell to bell, but jam packed with cool shit. They even tease an ECW staple violence against women spot which ends up with Rhyno running full speed into a Tajiri head kick. I had forgotten that Rhyno was a pretty good base, basically the predecessor to Michael Elgin, and Tajiri is pretty good using him as tool to get in his spots. Very fun sprint. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB0g5sCHq3w...feature=related Tajiri v. Jamie Noble God damn another really sweet balls out sprint. It is ridiculous how shitty modern "spot" wrestling is compared to this as here both guys actually take time to put over the impact of the moves and have some hint of body language and character that they are contributing as well. This is almost exactly five minutes long, they did a ton, and none of it felt like over kill. They even found a really unique way to set up the tarantula spot and Noble diving head first into that back kick was a fucking insane finish. This was aces. Tajiri v. Kid Kash v. Simon Diamond - ECW 10/17/99 Man Tajiri's back elbows on Kash looked brutal as fuck here. Tajiri being annoyed by Simon's interference in his beatdown of Kash and just getting up and stiffing the shit out of him was awesome. Simon actually hits a decent looking plancha on Tajiri but takes a bunch of time to pose and ends up getting killed by a tope con hilo from Kash. Kash with a nice springboard missle dropkick for a nearfall. Tajiri with a badass twisting submission on Kash who then gets eliminated by Diamond who blocks his moonsault attempt with a reverse DDT. Tajiri goes to shake Diamond's hand and then kicks the shit out of him. Really loved the Diamond powerbomb/floatover pinning combo spot. Really fun sequence with Diamond pointing to his head only after a nut shot only for Tajiri to do the same thing to him. Tajiri wins with the brainbuster. I liked this a lot, but it was short. Tajiri/Super Nova v. FBI - 12/27/98 Holy shit the pre-match is great as the whole FBI is out including Rich, Big Guido, and Sal E. Rich gets them fired up and then Smothers adds fuel to the fire on the mic. Tajiri is mocking Rich for having round eyes which is hilariously awesome and Guido is screaming at the crowd. Guido starts to do the Smothers hand clap to warm the crowd gimmick and Tajiri stops it by leaning over and slapping the canvas. Opening mat exchange was fun. Tajiri gets slapped to shit which he sells great. He comes back with some kicks including a springboard enziguri and is still selling the slap. Hell he is selling the slap even after the next exchange. Guido bails to the floor and crowd starts chanting faggot so Smothers rips off his shirt in anger and then starts simulating double fisting cocks. Guido gets in the ring and starts screaming at Tajiri. Tajiri just looks at him so Guido starts screaming at him in obviously fake Japanese gibberish which was hilarious. Smothers trips Tajiri coming off the ropes but Guido misses an elbow drop and Tajiri ends up hitting a tope con hilo onto both of them for a huge pop. They do an elaborate sequence that ends with Tajiri hitting a dropkick to the leg and then a knee bar. Smothers runs in and they start double teaming Tajiri which brings out Nova. God damn does Nova's early offense suck. They recover pretty quick due to the bumping of the FBI as they take everything really well. Ends up being Tajiri and Guido alone again and Tajiri kills him with a brainbuster. This had to be one of Tajiri's first matches in ECW which may be why they paired him off with Nova here on the impromptu tag. As much as I don't like that "run-in and change match from singles to tag" staple of ECW, I do love the FBI and I do love Tajiri and this is a unique look at both. Tajiri/Mikey Whipwreck v. FBI - ECW TV 9/1/00 Opening segment with Guido and Tajiri is really great as they do two standoff spots that are actually entertaining, a great Fujiwara spot, et. Then Mamaluke comes in and just flies around bumping like crazy, taking nasty double teams and kicks to the head, et. This is the sort of match where a lightning pace is not a hindrance because both teams do such a good job of hitting their shit cleanly and they actually work control segments on top of that. Mikey getting kicked in the face and then eating a nasty triple rotation DDT from Mamaluke was really great. Mikey's stunner is a move that I usually think looks sort of stupid but the FBI take it so well here. This is really short, but almost a picture perfect sprint. Everything you would want out of these two teams, a clean finish, no interference, and a super hot crowd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Victator Posted March 11, 2012 Report Share Posted March 11, 2012 I think Tajiri and Rhino were perfect for each other. Everything they did meshed so well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Sorrow Posted March 11, 2012 Report Share Posted March 11, 2012 I'm sure I'll talk about this more later, but I actually think Tajiri v. Guido is the best series in ECW history. Tajiri and Crazy's best matches were probably better and they had a great routine, but the Tajiri v. Guido matches had more subtlety to them and more variety. One of the themes they often worked with was Guido targetting the arm and Tajiri working the kicks to counter I just watched a bunch of Tajiri/ Guido stuff on the ECW set and I was thinking the same thing. Everyone remembers and goes on about the Super Crazy matches but the Guido ones , at least to me, are far more awesome and fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted March 11, 2012 Author Report Share Posted March 11, 2012 Tajiri and Crazy basically had two matches. They had their pure workrate dance exchange match was really awesome when they were hitting all cylinders and even occasionally included some neat inter-match psychology. Then they had their wild brawls which were fucking awesome and include two matches that I would probably have in my personal all time ECW top five. Guido and Tajiri had similar themes that they worked, but they had much more variety to their matches in that you never really knew what the focus was going to be, how it was going to be built, what changes you could expect, et. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Evans Posted March 30, 2012 Report Share Posted March 30, 2012 Ciclon Ramirez/Americo Rocca/Yoshihiro Tajiri vs. Mogur/Halcon Negro/Guerrero de la Muerte 1/23/1996 More Tajiri in CMLL. He just stiffs the hell out of Mogur with his kicks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted April 6, 2012 Report Share Posted April 6, 2012 Bumping to request your thoughts on Tajiri/Gedo from 2/3/98: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPdNywB220M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted April 6, 2012 Report Share Posted April 6, 2012 Bumping to request your thoughts on Tajiri/Gedo from 2/3/98: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPdNywB220M I haven't rewachted it, but I remember it as being truly an excellent match, one of the best single Gedo match ever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KB8 Posted April 15, 2012 Report Share Posted April 15, 2012 Been watching the ECW set (which is fucking incredible), and the Tajiri/Guido match from 3/24/00 really feels like one of the best sub-ten minute TV matches I've ever seen. I've watched it 3 times in the last 2 days and I fucking love it. That spot where Tajiri sits Guido in the tree of woe in the corner and stomps a chair straight in his face looked brutal. Guess I'll ask this in here -- what's the best Tajiri/Guido match? The only matches I've watched from the set so far are the ones from disc 12 (so nothing pre-2000), but there are other Tajiri/Guido matches on the set from '99. I'm pretty fucking stoked about watching them at some point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted April 15, 2012 Author Report Share Posted April 15, 2012 Tajiri and Guido had so many awesome matches I actually think it is really hard to pick just one. I would lean toward the 4/30/99 match, but it really is tough Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLIK Posted April 17, 2012 Report Share Posted April 17, 2012 ........review request for Tajiri & Great Muta vs Goldust & Hakushi http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18vva_mu...n-hakushi_sport http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x18vvg_mu...n-hakushi_sport Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted October 25, 2013 Author Report Share Posted October 25, 2013 Tajiri v. Osamu Nishimura - MUGA 2/3 Falls 9/23/07 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MovHA-5tdfI Man I fucking loved this. I have no memory of having seen this before, which is odd because I was big on MUGA and think the Nishimura v. Fujinami match from there is one of the best matches in Japan from the post-AJPW split era. Anyhow this was sort of a "when worlds collide" match as you have the traditionalist approach of Nishimura v. Tajiri. Tajiri at this point was basically an Americanized wrestler, who's schtick was effectively a stereotypical depiction of the "sneaky Japanese," so in a sense this would be like if the FBI wrestled Bruno Sammartino and Dominic Denucci on a WWF house show in 1986. What was genius about this match is that they really didn't go to a completely over the top presentation with Tajiri until the very end. Up until that point there ere flashes - little smirks from Tajiri, the slow crouching stance, some of his mocking gestures - but as a whole this was a straight wrestling match in the MUGA sense. Tajiri targeted the arm with a variety of holds including hammerlocks, wristlocks, various armbars and of course kicks to the wounded wing. Nish fought back by targetting the leg with vicious kicks and forearms. This is how the match was worked from beginning to end. You could argue some of the holds weren't super tight, but in terms of building to a pay off and developing body part work this was great stuff. I loved ending to the first fall which I thought was a subtle way of Tajiri getting a duke because of the arm work. I also really loved the eventual attack on Tajiri's leg as it came across as an almost desperate explosion, starting as a hope spot and building to Tajiri In Peril. Nishimura's bombs away to the leg was fucking awesome, as was Tajiri's ill timed tarantula being his downfall. The misting worked more than usual because it felt out of place for MUGA and the back and fourth strikes to the injured body parts was as good a variation of that trope as you will see. The finish itself may have been overbooked, but it paid off everything the match had built to. This was awesome wrestling. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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