[1991-03-15-WWF-MSG, NY] Marty Jannetty vs Pat Tanaka

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The last 2-3 minutes of this had some good moments, but this match has had a big rep for a long time and I don't really get it at all. Tanaka spent forever trying to remove a turnbuckle that wouldn't come off and Jannetty's fired up response to Tanaka slapping him around seemed weak.

[shoe]

I never knew this was a pimped match. With that said this did nothing for me. The Jannetty dive to the outside was cool. The turnbuckle thing took forever , and Tanaka still didn't get it. I was quite surprised that it ended with a piledriver.

[PeteF3]

With apologies to JVK, the overdubbed Mooney/Hayes commentary kills my mood right off the bat--particularly when there are a ton of shots of Monsoon and Heenan at ringside that I really want to hear instead. This is okay-ish but clearly inferior to the other Rockers singles match we just saw, as there's just nothing much to Tanaka in control. He bumps great but all he has to show on offense in this role are martial arts strikes and headbutts. The finish was good and sort of out-of-the-box by the standards of the WWF style.

[Kevin Ridge]

Never heard of this one. Tag partners are not at ringside. See how long that lasts. Tanaka kicks the crap out of Jannetty at the start but shows his sportsmanship by bowing. Crap! Where did that finish come from? Sick looking sitout tombstone piledriver by Jannetty. Tanaka does not get his neck broken thankfully. Nice that it ended up being just a one on one match.

[Guest TheGreatPuma]

I may have seen another version of this match before. Whichever ever version it was, this I remember really enjoying back in the day. I could never skip bye a match with any member of the Orient Express.

[soup23]

Pretty blah stuff. I think this match looks real bad coming right off the heels of Liger vs. Honaga because that was a simple match but executed much better. Tanaka is a guy in general I feel Im lower than a lot on.

[ajtroma]

That finish was a Pat Tanaka staple. Im pretty sure that he busted that out for the first time with Jeff Jarrett in a cage match in 1987.

[garretta]

This match wasn't anything special except for the finishing piledriver by Jannetty, which I'm surprised he was allowed to use since the tombstone was Taker's finisher at the time. Maybe he was allowed special dispensation because he'd been in the WWF for so much longer than Taker had.

 

Tanaka showed almost nothing but chops and headbutts. What was he trying to do with that turnbuckle, anyway?

 

Sean and Lord Alfred weren't on their game at all; it's almost like this overdub was done as an afterthought at ten minutes to five on a Friday afternoon. It started with Sean calling Jannetty "Shawn Michaels" and got no better as time went on. Sean called this match as if he was reading cue cards at the Event Center: same tone, same inflections, everything. His Lordship wasn't offensive, but he wasn't particularly insightful either. As a bookend, after Jannetty got the win, Sean started to proclaim this a great victory for the Rockers and had to catch himself just in time with "A great victory for the Rocker, Marty Jannetty."

 

By the way, Shawn and Kato fought later on the same card, with Kato getting the pin after Tanaka interfered. The mini-feud was blown off the following month in a six-man tag. The Rockers teamed with Virgil to beat the OX and Fuji when Virgil put Tanaka out with the Million Dollar Dream.

 

This was most likely overdubbed to eliminate any references to Mania, which was still nine days away when this match happened live. Why references to past cards on Coliseum videotapes bothered Vince all of a sudden I'm not sure. I'd have much rather heard Gino, Bobby, and Lord Alfred's original commentary too, especially since the overdub was so passionless.

[dawho5]

Brutal finish, I've always wanted to see Tanaka do more. He seems like a really good wretsler when he's not playing up a martial arts Asian gimmick to the hilt.