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[1994-07-17-WAR-2nd Anniversary Show] Ultimo Dragon vs Great Sasuke


Loss

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  • 2 months later...

Sasuke has been the best junior in the world in '94, and he has had some outstanding matches. This is really good too, but it's nowhere near his best. So many of the things they do have been overdone and worn out in other matches (I don't need to see a standoff after a pair of leg sweep and pin attempts with both guys going for simultaneous dropkicks EVER AGAIN). I know this isn't New Japan, but this layout is exactly the layout that people criticize NJ juniors for -- matwork for 10 minutes, followed by nearfalls for 10 minutes. It's a good match, but it doesn't hold up as well as everything else from Sasuke has this year.

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Dragon has an evil looking mask on. Lots of one guy doing a move and the other guy countering right back with the same move. Very even between the two. Sasuke takes the first clear advantage with the big dive to the outside. Fans were quick to move out of the way on that. Dragon hits the same move later. Sasuke with his big flip dive to the outside why trying to avoid the guardrail as much as possible. I enjoyed the dives.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This was good but only that. This was way too much your-turn-my-turn for me. The opening exchanges had two or three standoffs which is too many. On the other hand, the dives were great and some of the near falls were well timed. I've enjoyed Sasuke this year but I was kind of disappointed in this match.

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Sasuke has shown repeatedly that he can mix in his gorgeous high spots and near falls into a great story match this year, so to see him do a more junior exhibition style match with Dragon here was real disappointing. The execution of the moves was done really well but I was just detached from the whole theme they were going for.

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  • 1 year later...

matwork for 10 minutes, followed by nearfalls for 10 minutes.

 

Heh, "matwork." All I saw was two guys doing a fucking Dancing with the Stars routine. I know the indy-faceoff spot wasn't worn into the ground in 1994 but this was SO cooperative-looking, especially the "cover for a 0-count and roll off" stuff, even moreso than the ending to that Samurai/Dragon match.

 

Sasuke has had an outstanding year, but I don't quite get the sense that he's developed into a true "ring general" yet, who can truly lead somebody else through a great match--certainly not to the level of Liger and probably not to the level of Delfin either. So put him in against Dragon, who is quite possibly the worst ring general among "great" workers in the history of wrestling, and you have a recipe for a disappointment at best and a disaster at worst. The first part of this was actively terrible and more or less took me out of the rest of the match. The closing stretch was done a lot better, with some well-timed kickouts and a better job with the transitions. So this was a better match than that Samurai atrocity, but neither guy really compelled me to care about them on any level. I'll keep saying this until he proves me wrong: Ultimo Dragon blows. Through the first few years of his career, I have never seen a more tone-deaf worker in my life.

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  • 1 year later...

Dreadful. Like Pete said there really wasn't any matwork, just a series of horrible parity spots. As uninspiring as the build of NJ Junior matches usually were at least it provided some grounding and structure. This was an out and out pure spotfest. Whilst watching I was thinking back to Special K in ROH. Not something I've seen in the last decade, but it still haunts me so.

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  • 1 year later...

Aww man :/ This was a match I'd been meaning to see for years as I really enjoyed their 10/96 match. Unfortunately, I couldn't say this was great or even a highly recommended match.

 

I have no problem with NJ Jr style, parity spots etc. The pace was quick, the execution was very good, dives were insane (highlights of the bout) but, it was missing something. The middle and end (if there was a middle) was big move-pin attempt-kickout at 2-repeat. I mean come on! Punch the guy a couple times, stomp him, work him over with a hold at least. Don't just do a move, cover him, pick him up, and do another move!

 

If they would have cut out 5 minutes they could come up with a different plan or this one they'd came up with wouldn't have been so repetitive.

 

I'll still recommend it for the dives and execution especially if you haven't seen Sasuke or Ultimo.

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  • 1 year later...

This is mediocre. Its a spotfest with no purpose, nothing to tie the spots together in an interesting or meaningful way. There is no struggle. No semblance of an actual athletic competition. It's just two masked men taking turns at sloppy acrobatics. I wish it was bad so I would have something to critique, but Ultimo Dragon's ambitions are too low for that. I put the blame on him because Sasuke has shown that he's willing to put in the work against other opponents. In the finishing stretch Dragon sells the near falls like he's relaxing on the beach. Can anyone point out one thing Dragon does well beyond athletic highspots? That's a legitimate question. 

And what is with Dragon doing the Flair flop off of a slap at the beginning? That didn't go anywhere.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1994-07-17-WAR-2nd Anniversary Show] Ultimo Dragon vs Great Sasuke
  • 1 year later...

Mindless 90’s juniors match, bright spots on Sasuke’s execution but that’s about it. There’s much better ways to spend 15 minutes but it’s still fun to reminisce how this kind of match is what expanded the wresting horizon for many of us. Still, decisively mediocre, watch at your own risk or if your in the mood that style.

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