Just some brief thoughts on A couple of

[Resident Evil]

I watched a lot of wrestling during the last couple of weeks.

 

Two matches that moved me were with Williams vs Kawada and Williams vs Kobashi from 9/23/94

 

 

Williams vs Kawada is one of my all time favourite matches. I'm not quite sure of the date though because it's on a comp. Williams was a monstor and I loved how Kawada gradually knocked him down bit by bit until he got the eventual pinfall. Williams was just the perfect champion at the time. Believable, pulling off great matches, tough, charasmatic and strong as anything. I've always been impressed by his work ethic. I don't think people realise how hard he actually works in the ring. This is something that personally always allows me to get into his matches just a little bit more than others.

I liked Williams hulking up here as it gave Williams even more of an invincilibilty factor so when Kawada finally knocked him down it was all the more meaningful. Just a beautiful all time classic bout.

 

Now we step into a more controversial bout. Kobashi vs Williams from 9/94. A definite stepup from their match earlier in the year I enjoyed this one a lot more the second time around.

 

I think the pacing bothered me some the first time. I liked the match a lot but it stopped me from enjoying it as much as I could.

 

This time it didn't bother me as much. After a bit they started throwing out some bombs pretty early in the match. They sold the moves well but but because the moves were so strong it didn't allow the match to feel as important as it could've at the end. This time, that didn't bother me at much. I got into the heavy hitting at the beginning and just imagined the pain both wrestlers were going through trying to win the bout.

 

The execution and effort was on. Williams worked his butt off here and of course it goes without saying Kobashi did as well. But what really got me into this bout was Kobashi "heeling" it up.

 

Kobashi in a super match lost to Williams in September of 93 but only after a super human fighting spirit effort. At the time he was a star but not as big a star as we has here. In 93 he was expected to lose. In 94 he's still the underdog but he's an underdog that has a much better chance of winning.

And I felt the emotion of Kobashi in this. Kobashi wanted to win this. Badly. Very badly. Kobashi here was at the crossroads. His charactor would be put the test and that's a moment I always love in wrestling. What do you do when you reach that patch in life? What road will you take?

 

Kobashi goes into that bout and wrestles cleanly to start off. He does well and this bout gave off more of an impression that he is more of a peer to Kobashi than an underdog hoping against hope that he can pull off a victory. Kobashi hangs with Williams and he does a good job with it. Kobashi can feel it but yet he knows the task ahead of him is humongous.

 

And Kobashi does it -- he goes for the unsportsmanship route. He goes after the knee of Williams but only for one hit. Enough to keep his dream alive of winning the bout. The beautiful part of all this is that Kobashi only uses the knee as a clutch. He doesn't want to win with a "tainted" knee victory since he is a good guy at hart but he will comprosise his values if only for a brief second if it means he still has a chance of climbing that surmountable mountain.

 

Now comes another excellent part. Kobashi has Williams on the run but can't put him away. Williams being the tough hombre that he is starts to make what looks like an eventual comeback. He gets out of the way of a moonsault and Kobashi starts to panic. Once again he sees that brass ring slipping away from his fingers so the knee like it did previously in the night is targeted. Williams immediatly goes to the outside in considerable plan. Kobashi flustered doesn't have a clue on how to make Williams say uncle so he just desperately nails Williams on the outside while trying to think of something.

 

The ending part I love. Kobashi has Williams in the ring and he's still panicking. He's desperate as even his charactor exposing tricks of attacking the knee did not work. He's there trying to hit the spinning chops to the neck on William in a last ditch effort to finally knock the giant Williams down. Williams is like a video game boss who will just not go down. I believe if memory serves correct Kobashi's desperte chop attempts (great choice of a move to show panic) ends up costing him as Williams counters and destroys Kobashi with his backdrop drivers. Kobashi in a selling move I love does his best to get up on his feet but he is now punch drunk. The punch drunk stuff worked very well here as it expressed his panic, desperation and fighting spirit so vividly especially when he tries to use Williams to get himself back on his feet.

 

I just loved this as I connected so much here with Kobashi, his charactor and how we got to see it unfold when it was put to the test. It was also neat how it was Kobashi's panic attempt that cost him the match. Maybe if he didn't allow his charactor to go the route that it did in the match he could've won. Who knows? Fantastic stuff.

[Loss]

I like that second Doc/Kobashi match more than a lot of people, if only because of the audience gasps anytime Doc tries to go for the backdrop driver. The '93 match was crazy overkill, but it served its purpose in getting a move over. This was pretty early in my foray into AJPW, so I don't know if I'd feel the same way now, though.