[2001-01-12-Revolution Pro-This Is War] Super Dragon & Rising Son vs Tokyo Gu-Ren-Tai (Ultra Taro Jr & Disco Machine)

[GSR]

Disco is more interested than dancing than wrestling so Son gives him a swift kick to the head to get his attention. Neither man is really able to gain an early advantage as the two of them trade holds. More dancing from Disco and this time Son tries to catch him off guard with a sunset flip. They attempt the Guerrero/Malenko pinning sequence, but it’s shoddily executed and they give up half way through to tag their respective partners. A ‘respect’ spot and I kinda hoped that one wouldn’t have permeated its way across to Revolution Pro. A pair of stiff open hands to the side of Dragon’s head, who responds with a forearm across the face and one of the hardest slaps to the chest you’re ever likely to hear. It’s doubtful that Taro’s T-shirt he’s wearing offered much protection to that! Not satisfied, he gives him one more and Dragon shakes out his hand after those two. He and Son work some unique double team manoeuvres including a combination rocking horse/baseball slide dropkick to the head (with Son starting his run on the floor and sliding under the bottom rope and into the ring to land the dropkick). Dragon picks Taro up, as if for a backbreaker across the knee, but Son with a bicycle kick that connects to the side of his face. Taro takes to the outside, and after a string of dives are cut off one way or another, he flapjacks Son onto the apron. The action briefly returns to the ring before stereo shotgun dropkicks send Dragon and Son tumbling through the ropes. Taro climbs up on Disco’s shoulders and flip dives off them to the floor, although it looks like he comes up a little short and takes an uncomfortable bump on the concrete. Side slam/guillotine leg drop combination for a two. For some reason the referee turns his back on things to have a word with Dragon which allows Gu-Ren-Tai to hit a triple dropkick (their unnamed Japanese second also getting in on the action) on Son. The set up to that spot looked really weak. Son flips over on the double back suplex and a double dropkick to the back of both of them. He’s millimetres away from the tag to Dragon when Disco grabs him and DDT’s him to the mat. Son avoids the double knee strike in the corner and floors Disco with a jumping spin kick. As Taro runs at him, drop toe hold and he headbutts his own partner in the groin. Finally he can now make the tag to Dragon. Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker on Taro and a basement dropkick to Disco. Rolling kick in the corner, but Disco reverses the Irish whip and Taro levels him with a clothesline. Dragon ducks the double clothesline and lands a double dropkick. It’s dropkick overload here as with Dragon down on all fours, Son leaps off his back with a dropkick to Taro and Disco as both take another spill to the floor. Springboard flip dive out on to them followed by a corkscrew Quebrada by Dragon! Back inside and Dragon with a suplex on Taro for a two. He escapes the ‘Psycho Driver’ but then gets driven upside down, chest first into the turnbuckles. Taro fights his way out of the superplex and a forearm sends Dragon crashing to the mat. Quality leaping huracanrana from the top as Son is forced to break up the pin. Son counters the frankensteiner with a powerbomb and Taro manages to get a shoulder up just in time. Fisherman buster, but he then lands on his face after missing the ‘Shooting Star press’. Scoop powerslam by Disco for a near fall. He holds on after a suplex to deliver a sit-out face first variety and this time its Dragon who’s in for the save. The whole premise about having to tag in your partner appears to have been ditched as Dragon just stays in the ring and hits a brain buster on Disco. There’s no-one home on the ‘Phoenix splash’ and Disco rolls out the ring to be replaced by Taro. Maybe they’ve changed it to Lucha Libre rules? Rolling ‘Rude Awakening’ neckbreaker. Leaping Tornado DDT and a Son ‘Swanton bomb’ puts a stop to that pin attempt. Top rope frankensteiner on Disco, but as Son runs the ropes he has his ankle hooked by the second (right in front of the official) and is pulled to the outside. High crossbody to the floor and as the second puts the boots to Son it allows Taro and Disco to double team Dragon. Double chokeslam off the top and Tokyo Gu-Ren-Tai pick up the win.

 

If you were to plot a graph correlating work ethic against the number of fans in attendance, I doubt you’d find anyone who would work harder than the Revolution Pro guys do in front of such a small crowd. Despite that ethic I had some serious problems with the match, the main one being if the wrestlers can enter whenever they want like they did in the closing stretch, then why didn’t Dragon do so earlier when Son was being worked over? That makes no sense. Unless of course they weren’t ‘supposed’ to, but then why wasn’t the official enforcing the rules? It all got a little confusing. Talking of which, why did he just let Gu-Ren-Tai’s second interfere right in front of him. Oh, and that distraction spot earlier in the match was weak as. It might be a touch hypocritical after praising how hard they do work, but think they actually probably do too much and they could easily cut down on the excesses. All in all I’d say this falls slap bang in the middle of the three Revolution Pro matches that I’ve watched so far.

[soup23]

Real good tag match showing a lot of flare. Rev Pro continues to not reach great levels due to having some nonsensical pacing overall on their tags but the strikes and energy are there.  Super Dragon in particular is really supplanting himself as a force throughout the US indie scene in 2001. He bullies around TARO and works well complimenting the best aspects of Disco Machine. It really feels like these four would be having these tags for the next decade to come but by 2007, all were gone from the scene. ***1/2 (6.9)

[AstroBoy]

This was a ton of fun.  These guys worked this with enough of a classic tag structure to give it some shape but what they clearly excel at here is big spots and sequences and they pull off some killer stuff nicely.  Super Dragon has a big time feel to him and there is just a certain kind of go for broke chemistry that these guys all seem to have.

***