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My New Year's Revolution: The Rewatchening


NintendoLogic

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10 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

Calling her a cheap knockoff is a bit much, but I'd agree with describing her as largely a Dump clone in the early years of her career. By the time she came into her own as a worker around 1993, I'd say she was a synthesis of the best elements of Dump and Bull, with less emphasis on workrate than the latter but far more actual wrestling than the former.

Oh don't get me wrong, I love Aja. It's just that there definitely was a narrative that she was an inferior version of Dump, and  I wanted  to hear your thoughts cuz reading your reviews gave me the idea that you don't like Dump too much and like Aja a whole lot more

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13 hours ago, Kadaveri said:

They're really not the same as Aja generally plays fair when she feels her opponent is respectful of her. See the Kudo match for example. Dump always relentlessly cheated no matter what.

That's only really the case after she wins the red belt and supplants Bull as the ace of the company. If you look at her 1990-91 work, it's pretty much all crowd brawling and international objects.

13 hours ago, MoS said:

Oh don't get me wrong, I love Aja. It's just that there definitely was a narrative that she was an inferior version of Dump, and  I wanted  to hear your thoughts cuz reading your reviews gave me the idea that you don't like Dump too much and like Aja a whole lot more

As best I can tell, the Aja-as-Dump-clone talking point dates back to when Dave saw her live for the first time in 1990 (and again, it was largely accurate at that point). Dave seems to have a hang-up that makes him reluctant to reconsider first impressions, and when someone of his stature says something, there will inevitably be folks who lack the knowledge base to draw their own conclusions taking his word as gospel. For what it's worth, he's always said that Aja was a better worker than Dump.

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13 hours ago, NintendoLogic said:

As best I can tell, the Aja-as-Dump-clone talking point dates back to when Dave saw her live for the first time in 1990 (and again, it was largely accurate at that point). Dave seems to have a hang-up that makes him reluctant to reconsider first impressions, and when someone of his stature says something, there will inevitably be folks who lack the knowledge base to draw their own conclusions taking his word as gospel. For what it's worth, he's always said that Aja was a better worker than Dump.

If I am being honest, yeah, this question came to me cuz I was reading an Observer, not from 1990, but from sometime in the 00s, when Dave was discussing Aja's HOF credentials, and he mentioned this. 

Regardless, what do you think of Dump, and how would you compare her to Aja? I agree Aja is a better worker, but Dump had a presence that was out of this world. I have seen matches with the Crush Gals where she is like, drinking their blood almost, and everyone in the crowd is weeping

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I've never been a Dump fan. Garbage brawling is fine in small doses, but you have to back it up with some actual wrestling or at least strong non-weapons-based offense to hold my interest. The only straight wrestling matches I've seen Dump in are tags where Bull Nakano does all the heavy lifting. And stabbing people with scissors and the like has no place in pro wrestling as far as I'm concerned. She does have an awesome presence, but so did Sid (who incidentally was also fond of scissors).

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  • 1 month later...

Update:

Riki Choshu/Kensuke Sasaki/Shiro Koshinaka/Kuniaki Kobayashi/Kantaro Hoshino vs. Animal Hamaguchi/Masanobu Kurisu/Super Strong Machine/Tatsutoshi Goto/Hiro Saito (NJPW, 6/26/90)

I was prepared for a letdown after the February 1993 NJPW/WAR ten-man didn't do much for me, but this was everything I hoped it would be and more. This manages to be amazing despite the almost complete lack of star power. One side at least has a superstar in Choshu and a future star in Sasaki, but the other side consists entirely of sleazy midcarders. They compensate for the dearth of stars by serving up bucketloads of hatred. If you like 5-on-1 gang beatdowns and pre-CTE awareness headbutts, this'll be right up your alley. Another curveball comes in the form of this being 2/3 falls rather than elimination rules. The lack of ring-out eliminations opens the door to brawling on the floor, and they exploit it to the hilt. Kurisu in particular is a massive prick throughout, taking seemingly every opportunity to land a cheap shot or exploit an unfair advantage. He goes on the warpath with a chair in the first fall, and it's an awesome moment when he gets a taste of his own medicine in the third fall. But this is far from a one-man show, as the breakneck pace means everybody gets a chance to shine. Hamaguchi has some of the best elbow drops I've ever seen, Sasaki nearly breaks Goto's neck with a Rick Steiner-tier bulldog, Hoshino runs around punching people in the face like a pint-sized martial arts master in a 70s kung fu film, and Saito repeatedly flings himself into the guardrail like he's trying to cash in on a Lloyd's of London policy. A lot of 2/3 falls tags go awry by treating each fall as a self-contained mini-match with its own FIP section, hot tag, and finishing run. This is worked more like a high-end lucha apuestas match in that the falls are treated as part of an interconnected narrative. In the first fall, Koshinaka ends up falling victim to the numbers game and gets pinned without even coming close to making a tag. The massacre continues into the second fall, but he eventually tags out and even gets the pin for his side. He manages an additional receipt in the third fall when he headbutts Saito in the groin. More than anything, this is the kind of match that makes you appreciate wrestlers who can tell a story in the ring without needing the viewer to have an encyclopedic knowledge of context or backstory. I have absolutely no idea why these two groups are beefing with each other, but the way they go at it tooth and nail tells me everything I need to know. For my money, this is the second-best New Japan gang warfare match, behind only the August 1987 elimination match. ****1/2

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  • 2 weeks later...

Update:

Aja Kong vs. Manami Toyota (AJW, 8/20/97)

This is actually the highest-rated AJW match on Cagematch as of this writing, and I checked it out on a whim after the AEW women's title tournament had me in the mood for some classic Aja Kong. I had always avoided this because significant clipping doesn't sit well with me (this is officially a 30-minute draw with a little less than 20 minutes shown), but this greatly exceeded my expectations. It helps that editing was so seamless that it's nearly impossible to tell what got clipped. However, I suspect there was some funny business going on with the timekeeping. For example, the five-minute call came three and a half minutes after the opening bell, and there was no clipping at that point that I could detect. In any event, Kong vs. Toyota was very much an established commodity at this point, so of course they deliver the greatest hits (Aja stretching Toyota in the opening minutes, Aja dragging Toyota into the crowd and whipping her into some chairs, Toyota trying to put Aja through a table, etc.), but they also provide enough interesting twists that it doesn't feel like an exhibition. Toyota crashing and burning on a springboard plancha followed by Aja hitting a dive of her own may be my all-time favorite sequence involving these two. As a Toyota skeptic, I have to say this was a pretty great performance from her in terms of keeping her worst tendencies in check. Like selling, for example. I was pleasantly surprised when after she blocked a splash by putting her knees up, she took a few moments to regain her bearings and didn't just go back on offense right away. She also seemed to have toned down the screaming somewhat. Or maybe I've just become so inured to it that I was able to block it out. Perhaps more than anything, what sets this apart for me is the ending. I'm a big fan of "I've got nothing left but you'll have to kill me to pin me" finishes, and this has one of the best. Toyota is getting murdered by urakens and her defense is completely gone, but she refuses to stay down for the three-count, even bridging out of one pin attempt. So Aja literally takes the gloves off and lands a bare-fisted uraken, but time expires before she can make the cover. Big Egg Universe is still the definitive Kong/Toyota match, but this is head and shoulders above any of their WWWA title matches. ****1/2

As should hopefully be clear by now, the process of rewatching and reevaluating is an ongoing one. None of my previous takes in this thread should be taken as definitive. In fact, there's been a significant amount of shuffling on my list over the past year. Suffice it to say that my current top 100 would be roughly 20% different from the one from last March in terms of matches included.

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Update:

Darby Allin vs. Brian Cage (AEW, 1/13/21)

I may end up regretting jumping the gun on this one, but this increasingly feels like an all-timer to me. Allin's just about the best thing going today because he's a member of that rarest of breeds: the thinking man's spot machine. High-risk offense is his stock in trade, but the way he flings himself at his opponent makes them seem like primarily acts of violence rather than feats of athleticism. He also makes a concerted effort to minimize the suspension of disbelief necessary to buy into his matches. In particular, he's one of the few remaining practitioners of the lost art of making it look like he's genuinely catching his opponent off-guard with his topes (as when he nails Cage in the back of the head with one in the opening minute). The flip side of that is when his opponent has enough time to react, it usually doesn't end well for him (as when Cage catches him on his second tope attempt and turns it into a suplex). The stuff with the belt was perhaps a bit too cute, but being pressed off during a pin attempt and turning it around into a diving double foot stomp is an example of a spot that's creative without feeling overly contrived. It takes two to tango, and this match wouldn't have worked nearly as well without Cage turning in a superlative big man performance. Most of his power moves looked like they would cripple a normal man, and he had the good sense to space them out enough to allow the impact of each to sink in. His character work was on point as well. Between preening, posing, and fist-bumping his dudebro buddies, he came across as a completely unlikable douchebag. Of course, Allin amplified the impact both with his lunatic bumps (I seriously hope no one ever tries to replicate that table spot) and his more understated selling, like collapsing when Cage picked him up after bieling him halfway across the ring into the turnbuckle and then pummeling him with mounted punches. The kick-outs at one were great psychology because Cage was making nonchalant covers that left Allin's shoulder exposed. Most wrestlers these days are so focused on hooking the leg that they seem to forget that the goal is to pin your opponent's shoulders to the mat. It also played into the storyline of Allin managing to turn the tables by causing Cage to blow his stack with his defiance. An angry fighter is a sloppy fighter, and Cage's sloppiness gave Allin the opening he needed. A lot of people seem to be down on the finish, but it worked for me. After the beating Allin had sustained, making a full-fledged comeback and hitting his finisher wouldn't have been plausible (the coffin drop isn't exactly something that can be hit out of nowhere). And the size difference between the two was such that a flash pin wouldn't have worked either. The crucifix bomb off the top was a nice middle ground. ****1/2

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update:

AJ Styles vs. Kota Ibushi (NJPW, 4/5/15)

I haven't seen all of AJ's IWGP title matches, but I can't imagine any of them being better than this one. As the heel champion, he tries to grind it out while the plucky babyface challenger wants to pick up the pace. The latter is a role that fits Ibushi perfectly for obvious reasons. He's both athletically gifted and insane enough that when he goes for something like a springboard German suplex that sounds completely ridiculous on paper, you wait to see how he'll pull it off and don't automatically assume he'll get countered. AJ is no slouch in the athletic department himself, but trying to match Ibushi spot-for-spot only plays into the challenger's hands. He turns in a virtuoso rudo performance as he stooges in the opening minutes, talks trash, takes shortcuts like raking the eyes, and grinds Ibushi down with weardown holds. He's like a more acrobatic Rick Rude, which is probably the best possible style for a modern heel. It's certainly far preferable to the endless stalling and millions of run-ins we get in most current Bullet Club matches. Ibushi's selling during the heat section was impeccable for the most part-in particular, his crumple sell after a Styles elbow was Kawada-esque. There was some obligatory leg work that naturally didn't mean a thing down the stretch, but it was short enough that I can overlook it. There were plenty of sequences that were complex without feeling overly contrived (like Ibushi's first attempt at a golden triangle that ends with a German on the floor) as well as standard spots taken in unexpected directions (like AJ sliding under Ibushi's leapfrog attempt only for Ibushi to turn it into a diving double foot stomp). The match-ending spot has to be seen to be believed. Awesome post-match as well as Okada breaks up the Bullet Club's celebration and lays AJ out with a Rainmaker. ****1/2

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update:

Genichiro Tenryu/Takashi Ishikawa vs. Tatsumi Fujinami/Hiroshi Hase (WAR, 2/14/93)

Fujinami and Hase don't seem like the likeliest candidates to adapt to WAR-ism, but they manage to do just fine. The tone is set early on when Tenryu moves out of the way of a Fujinami tope attempt only for Hase to jump him and roll him back in the ring (the camera doesn't catch what exactly Hase does, unfortunately-it's a handheld). What this lacks in classic tag structure it more than makes up for in hatred and violence. This could very well be Fujinami's best performance of the 90s as he manages to come across as genuinely dangerous rather than simply a skilled wrestler. One of the match's highlights was him putting Ishikawa in a dragon sleeper and then turning toward Tenryu so he could talk trash. Tremendous finishing stretch as all seems lost for Team WAR on two separate occasions. First, Ishikawa wipes out on a plancha to nowhere, leaving Tenryu alone to be double-teamed, uranaged, and suplexed into oblivion. Later, after Ishikawa rises from the dead to rescue Tenryu from Hase's onslaught, he accidentally nails Tenryu in a sandwich lariat gone awry. However, he manages to redeem himself, as he recovers to break up a Hase German suplex and then detains Fujinami long enough to allow Tenryu to score the win with a powerbomb. The only real off note was Tenryu putting Fujinami in an abdominal stretch after his first powerbomb of the match, which served no real purpose other than to give Hase enough time to come in and break it up. Amazing match, right up there with the very best of the NJPW/WAR feud. ****1/2

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  • 3 months later...

Update:

Ricky Steamboat/Shane Douglas vs. Jushin Liger/Kensuke Sasaki (WCW, 12/29/92)

Despite a godawful Philly crowd more interested in directing homophobic abuse at Douglas than the action in the ring, this manages to be one of the best tag matches in WCW history and an excellent companion piece to the tag title match at Starrcade the previous day. Liger and Sasaki don't quite go full Southern heel, but they do unleash just about every double-team maneuver in the book, including a spike piledriver and a Hart Attack. Some quality arm work from Steamboat and Douglas in the early going, including Steamboat doing a running splash on Liger's arm and Douglas standing on Sasaki's arm in a top wristlock and then bringing his weight down. Ironically given the future enmity between the two, the Douglas-in-peril section begins when he gets thrown off the top rope Flair-style. This may be the best US work of Liger's career, as he brings both the high-end offense (he nearly takes Steamboat's head off with a spinning heel kick at one point) and the character work (kicking Douglas' hand away when the reached for his corner and then talking trash to Steamboat on the apron in particular standing out). Speaking of Steamboat, he works his heart out while waiting for the tag, cheering Douglas on like an overexcited Little League dad. They both come together when Sasaki has Douglas in a Boston crab and Steamboat and Douglas are standing side-by-side on the floor, Steamboat exhorting Douglas to make the ropes and Liger yelling at him to give up. I got a kick out of Douglas running in to break up a pin only to immediately eat shit when Sasaki sidestepped his dropkick. I thought the ending worked really well because Steamboat had been left for dead on the outside and he and Douglas had taken so much punishment that a surprise pin was the most plausible way for them to pull out the victory. They also did a great job of making it look like Sasaki didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. ****1/2

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On 7/24/2021 at 6:19 PM, NintendoLogic said:

Update:

Ricky Steamboat/Shane Douglas vs. Jushin Liger/Kensuke Sasaki (WCW, 12/29/92)
 

I’ve been trying to find this match for years without success... pleased to hear it get a favourable review.

This makes me all the more keen to track it down. Where did you find it please?

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