May 1998

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Really good tag action which was basically built around 2 dynamics. First, you had Satomura & Kato trying to chop down Yamada, who would cut them off with vicious kicks and suplexes. Yamada looked adorably like a middle aged mother in 1998, but still had some of the most brutal offense around. The sections with Kaoru were centered around her just getting smothered while Yamada would run in to save her by kicking people in the face like a BattlARTS tag. Some really cool spots built around a Sleeper Hold amongst other things. Match had focus and did not overstay it's welcome while delivering plenty of high end offense, which is what you want from joshi.

Fukuda enters the BOSJ and pushes the legend to the limit! Liger goes out of his way to make this indy nobody look great! It's hard not to love Fukuda here with how he withstands Liger's stiff shotais and busts out a bunch of great throws and holds. Opening matwork was pretty rockin' and better than the usual Liger trademark surfboards. Fukuda's sleeper variations were pretty choice and him getting control over Liger was done nicely. They do a pretty great section where they exchange pitbull headbutts on their knees to mix up the bomb throwing. The crowd gets hugely into the possible upset too. Sweet match.

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Dude Love vs Dustin Rhodes -WWF RAW 5/18/98 Funny exchange: JR mocks Vince forcing him to call Patterson a hall of gamer as a shoot. Lawyer quickly retorts it is always 53 year old Funk, which was hilariously Awesome short match. Apparently Dustin legit had a knee injury but you wouldn't know it. Easily the best Babyface worker on the roster. Great fire early aggressive and choking Foley. Foley going after the injured knee was great. Nice Dustin comeback climaxed with bulldog. Foley wins with Claw. Too short to be much God wish Dustin got more chances in 98. Great layout.

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Val Venis vs 2 Cold Scorpio - WWF RAW 5/18/98 I wanted to write this up because I thought this was a horrible debut. Watching some bad wrestling (I do watch RAW every week but that's mediocre not bad). I guess there was mediocre but for a debut it just felt really bad. Scorpio is a horrible jobber. He looked like a way bigger star than Venis. He had some great moves and great charisma, but didn't use it to make Venis look good. Venis looked pretty green here. I have no clue if he was a heel or Babyface. You don't know his style. The hip swivel was great and was literally his best spot. It just felt like a bunch of basic spots. Nothing to grab your attention or hol you in…

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No sane person will look at this matchup and expect any oustanding wrestling exchanges. However, as a spectacle this was insanely effective and super entertaining. This mostly stays in the ring, Matsunaga is in his gi and anytime he's throwing crazy kicks it's great. But of course, this is about heatmongering and the BattlARTS dudes doing their best to come across as slimy pricks, so the biggest pop for the crowd is when the Big Japan guys finally get them outside the ring and get to bowl them into the chairs. I also liked Yamakawa as the worlds bravest white belt trying to roll with Usuda, right at the go he goes for a feeble takedown and ends up eating a bunch of stiff …

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Another quality workrate trios from the CMLL crew which lacked maybe a slightly more stretched out opening to be be closer to the 4/24 trios. Still, all 3 falls were just excellent pro wrestling and it's really cool to see guys like Niebla and Aguila mix it up with the legends. This was worked technicos vs. Technicos so there is no rudo beatdown, however there is a general semblance of the greenhorns having to fight uphill against the savvy vets. For example Nieblas knee gets attacked in some pretty nasty moments, and Aguila eats a few boots to the face when getting too cute with his flying moves. Both Niebla and Aguila have some truely spectacular moves and Rivera holds …

Brazo de Plata, baby. This is not a match people would seek out on paper. Well, if YOU would seek this match out on paper, then I want to shake your hand and call you friend. If YOU, as a wrestling fan, can't get excited about a violent brawl with this many fat guys in it, shame on you. Or shame on me. Porky and Markus Jr. are killing eachother and it's awesome. Steele is a canadian guy with abs who has a solid enough punch and a funny bump over the top rope to entertain, and he gets slapped around plenty by Headhunter. He tries to speak spanish, and just gets walloped in the mouth. Still, you want this for the awesome Markus Jr. punch combos, blood, biting, Plata's fat g…

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