JvK reviews pimped matches from late 90s-10s

[Superstar Sleeze]

Monstah rating for 8/6/00! I gave it 4. Did you watch the 8/5/00 tag Misawa/TAUE vs Kobashi/Akiyama that sets up 8/6/00?

[Grimmas]

So far about on how par with Parv's ratings for WM19. Shockingly enough.

[JerryvonKramer]

Why's it shocking Grimmas? You presented an entire series of AJ excite with me and our ratings were seldom that far apart. Same with Chad on WTBBP and same with Pete on Titans. Half a star here or there. I don't get why it's "shocking" whenever anyone is in agreement with me these days.

[GOTNW]

If you wanna explore a new territory one of these days I suggest binging 2000/2001 NOAH. One of the best booked promotional runs in history. The Akiyama-Kobashi feud lasts until 2004 and continues being great but the transition they made from All Japan is just unreal, particularly in establishing so many new guys and getting them over (hindsight is what it is, but it worked at the time). They go from having no undercard to having a loaded one and take full advantage of that. The Sternness-Burning tags are just so damn cool-pretty much every match has something distinctive and memorable about it.

[Microstatistics]

I would strongly recommend Kobashi's GHC title 2003-2005 run. It might be the best heavyweight title run in history in terms of diversity of opponents and quality of matches. It's one of the main reasons I think Kobashi is clearly the greatest of the four pillars.

[JerryvonKramer]

The Rock vs. Steve Austin (3/30/03)

 

Rock is heel here. Austin super aggressive in the opening exchanges: working with real intensity. JR has come alive for this one. It only took him about two hours to warm up. Austin sends Rock into the steel steps. Stomps by Austin. Back suplex by Austin now. He really seems to have his working boots on here. Irish whips by Austin. Awesome clothesline. Austin jaws with Hebner, and while his back is turned Rock hits a chop block taking out the knee. And again outside the ring. Rock smashes the knee on the announce table now. And again.

 

Keeps attacking this leg. Wraps it on the ring post. Smashes knee on the mat. Rock ensures he takes time out to jaw the fans. Sharpshooter by Rock. He stays on this leg. Rock puts on Austin's jacket and mocks him. Austin comes back. Double collision spot. Whoever was the road agent on this, has done an absolutely superb job of laying this out so far.

 

Thesz press by Austin, and the rights. Big elbow. Cover gets two. I think this match with Rock as heel and Austin as face feels totally right, the psychology is just spot on for it. Flying clothesline by Rock. He's still wearing Austin's jacket.

 

Stunner by Rock. Cover gets two only. They haven't done the finisher swap spam too much tonight. Hard right by Rock. Five or six of them, but misses the last and Austin hits his own stunner, cover gets two only. JR is doing a much better job of calling this. He was totally switched off earlier.

 

Spinebuster by Rock cuts off another stunner attempt. People's elbow. Cover gets two only. Rock Bottom now. Cover gets two only. And again. Rock is frustrated. He might try to do stuff other than finishers maybe? I dunno, I think he's going for a third one. Third Rock Bottom, and that'll do it.

 

Up until the finishing stretch, I thought this was really well laid out and worked by both guys. Finish seemed oddly one-sided to me, Austin put Rock over big time here. I mean he virtually killed him. I'd have liked the legwork to have factored into the finish a bit more, and actually for a bit more offense from Austin. Three Rock Bottoms in a row without any sort of reply seems excessive.

 

Solid match with sound psychology though. And Austin still sells that leg walking back down the aisle. Really interesting he went out jobbing clean as a whistle right in the middle. True pro.

 

***3/4

 

Brock Lesnar vs. Kurt Angle (3/30/03)

 

Pretty insane that this match is ALSO on this card. I mean there's a stacked card, and then there's a stacked card. I have to say that setup angle I watched on SD is just super-duper weak for a WM main event. I mean just a rubbish rubbish angle compared to the other angles coming into this mania.

 

Okay, I'm excepting a shitload of suplexes here, and I'll be sad if I don't get them. I feel like I have zero memory of this whole Mania, but I definitely watched it smoking weed with a sock over the fire alarm over the house of a friend whose folks were so rich they actually bought her a house to live in during uni, and they had Sky. This was my key method of watching PPVs during this time, but those girls liked smoking a lot of dope and drinking red wine, and had zero interest in wrestling, so it was just kind of on in the background with only me really taking notice in the corner of one eye. I got to see more in the summertime when I was back at my folks.

 

Number of amateur style takedowns to start and Brock works an armbar. Back suplex by Angle. Brock pops back up. Sick spot where Angle Germans Brock onto the turnbuckle now. Awesome. Drives Brock onto the barricade. He's injured his midsection.

 

Back suplex by Angle. Cover gets two. Snap suplex. Two only. Bow and arrow by Angle. I just want to say quickly that generally Cole and Tazz have dicked all over JR and Lawler on commentary tonight. Tazz brings a lot more insight on commentary. Brock tries to elbow out of this, but Angle positions his body to cut him off, using his bodyweight well. Now almost a rear-naked choke by Angle. This is some good storytelling here, Angle has wrestled a very smart match using his knowledge and experience to stay on top of the bigger man. It's good stuff.

 

Brock starts a comeback but Angle cuts him off. Dumps Brock. Rolls him back in. Spinebuster by Brock buys him some time as both men are down. Knees by Brock. Charges in the corner. Belly to belly suplex. And again. Cover gets two. German suplex by Angle. A second. A third. Four. Suplex city bitch. All of those are psychologically sound since the German attacks the injured mid-section of Brock.

 

Brock tries the F5, but Angle counters with the ankle lock. Half crab. So attacking both that leg and the injured ribs now. Tazz is very good at getting over the basic strategy during this, shades of Coach Heath from Florida wrestling. Angle eats a backdrop over the top which gets Brock some time to recover. Shoulder charges in the corner by Brock. But Angle nails a release German suplex. What an equalizer! Brock goes 360 on the bump! Angle slam! Two only.

 

F5! But Angle kicks out. I'm not surprised, Brock hasn't had much on offense. Angle sneaks over for a surprise ankle lock right in the middle. Angle drags him to the middle and grapevines the leg. He manages to get to the ropes. F5 by Lesnar now. Brock seems to get smug about something. Doesn't cover. Goes up to the top. Shooting star press! Angle evades! Cover by Angle gets two. Brock seemed to land on his neck. A third F5 by Brock hits though. And that's three.

 

The finishing stretch was a bit finish-spam heavy for me, but the shooting star press from such a big man was cool to see. Thought the match up until the final quarter was really good, great action and sound pyschology from Angle in general working the match as a former Olympian in a manner that made near-perfect sense. The story told was compelling, Brock nearly had to kill himself to win, and yes we got a metric fuck ton of suplexes. I thought this was a great selling performance from Brock, and they earned the embrace at the end. Very very good match, but from the first F5 on lapses too much into WWE cliches to be a classic, especially as Rock had just given Austin three Rock Bottoms. Finisher spam was running rampant around this time.

 

****1/2

[MoS]

Rock had never beaten Austin in a singles match before I think, and Austin pretty much knew it was his last match - he was broken down and had a massive panic attack the night before, spending the night in hospital, to the point the match could very well have been cancelled - and they did not know then that Rock would essentially never be a full-time wrestler again. This was like the passing of the torch that never was.

[MoS]

Also Brock botched the shooting star press and nearly killed himself in the process.

[WingedEagle]

Great, now I need to rewatch that Kobashi-Akiyama match from 2000. I had it about ***3/4, so very curious why we might really be that far off.

 

Very much in line on Mania 19. Hogan-Vince was an incredibly pleasant surprise that was well laid out and never dragged. This was also the show where it hit me that my thoughts on Michaels might need to be tempered. I'd remembered him as this GOAT worker who hit home runs on big shows every time out. Those matches are there as I still think the Angle and Undertakers matches are classics, but those are few and far between. The meat is comprised of 3-3.5 star matches that if anything leave you wanting more because the expectations are so high going into them.

[BrianB]

Rock had never beaten Austin in a singles match before I think, and Austin pretty much knew it was his last match - he was broken down and had a massive panic attack the night before, spending the night in hospital, to the point the match could very well have been cancelled - and they did not know then that Rock would essentially never be a full-time wrestler again. This was like the passing of the torch that never was.

 

Austin's hospitalization also resulted in Brock vs. Kurt ending the show, since Rock and Austin were originally supposed to be in that spot.

[Robert S]

Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama (6/8/00)

 

(...)

Some random guys hit the ring and try to beat on Akiyama but he sees them off. Who was that? A fan or some fat jobber? Who are all these wimpies?

(...)

The guy attacking Akiyama was Takeshi Rikio (who debuted one or two months before the All Japan - NOAH split), I think.

[Grimmas]

Why's it shocking Grimmas? You presented an entire series of AJ excite with me and our ratings were seldom that far apart. Same with Chad on WTBBP and same with Pete on Titans. Half a star here or there. I don't get why it's "shocking" whenever anyone is in agreement with me these days.

With modern things we are usually way off. Plus most people over rate that Michaels Jericho match.

[bradhindsight]

^ To echo Steven there, I was coming in to post that, while I think I'm around ***1/2 capped on that Michaels/Jericho match (and that isn't far off from ****1/4 (Scott Keith) or **** (chadley), it still feels like one of the more overrated Mania matches of all time. It's good. 3-3.5 is a good match as Parv noted, just not close to great/epic/insert Mania moment here status.

[Jimmy Redman]

As a Shawn fan I'll chirp in and say I agree with you about that match. It's pretty good, but not spectacular at all, and really underwhelming to watch now after all the hype.

 

I think every match they had during their 2008 feud is better.

[WingedEagle]

As a Shawn fan I'll chirp in and say I agree with you about that match. It's pretty good, but not spectacular at all, and really underwhelming to watch now after all the hype.

 

I think every match they had during their 2008 feud is better.

 

I'm just about done with the 2008 feud and concur. Forgot to mention it in my earlier post, but 2008 is a hell of year for Michaels. The Jericho matches & angles are all great, I think the Flair match it awesome and he pulls some good things together with Batista as well.

[JerryvonKramer]

Shingo Takagi vs Masaaki Mochizuki (11/01/15)

 

So I saw some gifs on Twitter of Dragon Gate and I assumed the action was sped up like the Adam West Batmobile, but apparently they do work that fast. Very intrigued. I'm not even going to try to describe the action here, so just gonna watch in full and register my impressions.

 

Okay ten minutes in, and I'll just say this: man, this is not what I was expecting AT ALL. For whatever reason I was expecting indie-style flippy nonsense, this isn't that. Actually it's pretty fucking cool. High impact, stiff as hell, well worked, well sold, meaty wrestling. Takagi (whose hairstyle is absolutely atrocious by the way!) seems to be a real nasty bastard, and he's been working the left leg pretty consistently. I love the fierceness of the strikes. Also while they are working at some pace, it hasn't been insane, no more go go than Flair / Steamboat I wouldn't say. Also, these guys take some time to work the crowd between their moves, and there's some real heft and sense of weight to everything. Digging this a fair bit so far, which I have to say is a total shock. Anyway, back to it.

 

Finished now. I thought this was wild, both guys absolutely worked their arses off. Couple of small things: it's weird to see a wrestling match built so entirely around strikes and martial arts type exchanges, but I thought that worked really well. They had this tendency to be "staggered" or dazed though, almost like in Street Fighter 2 when you can see the birds swirling round the head. I'm guessing that's a stylistic thing, but y'know Terry Funk or Arn "drunk punching" is not a million miles away. These guys work big so I bought it. Mochizuki's long term selling could probably have been better though, he had one leg destroyed early on and he was bouncing around with those kicks as if it was nothing. Also, some of his "pop ups" in the finish seemed a bit ridiculous, on the level of a Hogan comeback, and a ONE count after the beating he'd taken less than 90 seconds from him actually getting pinned was odd. I like Takagi's performance a bit better, just one little moment when he seemed a bit too cooperative on a superplex, but otherwise he was pretty good.

 

But all in all, I thought this was a lot of fun, with some cool spots, and some really hard hitting strikes. I watched Superbrawl III a couple of days back and was thinking how this would compare if it was on that card. Obviously not Sting vs. Vader level, but I'd take it over Benoit vs. Scorpio for sure. Probably about on par with Orndorff vs. Cactus Jack which I gave ****, so this can have the same. Something of a revelation to me, however, that this promotion isn't 150lb guys doing somersaults.

 

****

[InYourCase]

I'm speechless.

[soup23]

Case, you should build JVK a 5-10 match Dragon Gate primer.

[InYourCase]

A few things on a more serious note even though I'm still in shock - a lot of people watched this match in a vacuum at the time, and somehow, Parv, I think you got it more than anyone else that did.

 

Takagi rules. For reference, I had him #21 in GWE. I don't think this is his best individual performance, but he obviously killed it here. He was in the midst of a feud vs. all of Dragon Gates legends - he went through Don Fujii, then Mochizuki, followed by Gamma (yuck), and then CIMA before he moved onto the next generation of guys. He was sick of CIMA and Mochizuki still clinging onto the spotlight, but because those two are so well respected by the DG fanbase, he came across like a huge dick. He's a bully.

 

This was built up as Mochizuki's last big match and he wrestled it like that. I said in my review that it was maybe the best singular performance I had ever seen in a match. Meltzer said it was better than any individual HBK performance he'd ever seen. The selling holds you back from seeing that, which I totally understand. I think we look at selling differently in the first pace, but I know that the selling here didn't bother me because this was him giving all he had - 20 years dedicated to a sport, and this was his swan song.

 

I gave it the full five. I think it's one of the 10 best matches I've ever seen. I'm shocked you liked it just because a lot of people that don't follow the company gave it a shot, and most of them didn't like it because of bullshit complaints like "Shingo's punches didn't look good enough". I'm thrilled you enjoyed it, Parv. Glad that people are seeing that DG is not full of guys that flip (they haven't been for almost a decade, but people still cling onto that).

[InYourCase]

Case, you should build JVK a 5-10 match Dragon Gate primer.

Done. Hopefully this thread sees some more DG soon.

[Microstatistics]

 

As a Shawn fan I'll chirp in and say I agree with you about that match. It's pretty good, but not spectacular at all, and really underwhelming to watch now after all the hype.

 

I think every match they had during their 2008 feud is better.

 

I'm just about done with the 2008 feud and concur. Forgot to mention it in my earlier post, but 2008 is a hell of year for Michaels. The Jericho matches & angles are all great, I think the Flair match it awesome and he pulls some good things together with Batista as well.

 

 

Agree that 2008 feud was really good.

 

 

I'd give that WM match around ***3/4 so very good but not quite great. It's a really great Jericho performance but a mediocre Michaels performance. My biggest knock against post-comeback Shawn is that he could be inconsistent. When he was on, he was really great but would occasionally phone it in.

[WingedEagle]

 

Case, you should build JVK a 5-10 match Dragon Gate primer.

Done. Hopefully this thread sees some more DG soon.

 

 

Where's the list at? I try to check out the big matches on big DG shows but am sure I'm missing something by not closely following the product. The pace can get weary at times but there's absolutely room for what they do in my wrestling viewing and the big stuff that doesn't fall too heavily into the comedy are often thrilling.

[InYourCase]

 

 

Case, you should build JVK a 5-10 match Dragon Gate primer.

Done. Hopefully this thread sees some more DG soon.

 

 

Where's the list at? I try to check out the big matches on big DG shows but am sure I'm missing something by not closely following the product. The pace can get weary at times but there's absolutely room for what they do in my wrestling viewing and the big stuff that doesn't fall too heavily into the comedy are often thrilling.

 

Grabbed a few matches off of Ditch's site that I think break the DG-stigma.

Shuji Kondo vs. Dragon Kid - 7/4/04

http://theditch.us/K...onKid7-4-04.avi

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Don Fujii - 5/11/05

http://theditch.us/M...ujii5-11-05.avi

Masato Yoshino vs. Don Fujii - 1/18/11

http://www.mediafire...tz3gg1gck5vbn6f

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Akira Tozawa - 10/13/11

http://www.mediafire...7yyw6w34p5oy73h

Shingo Takagi & YAMATO vs. K-Ness & Kenichiro Arai - 2/7/13

http://www.mediafire...741krrd5u8wwngx

[WingedEagle]

Good man. Hope to check out a couple this weekend.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Notice how most of those are singles. The multi-man tags getting so heavily pimped but are empty spotfests. That's what I associate DG with. Perhaps singles is the way to go.