Loss
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While Eddy definitely got over through his ring work in ECW, looking back, I would say Paul Heyman pigeonholed him too much. They didn't bother putting any type of storyline with these matches, and by this point, Eddy had stopped doing the cheating mixed in with highspots that made the Scorpio match so fun. The difference in crowd reaction between that match and this match, despite this match likely being technically better, tells the story. So this is another beautiful match, but once you get past the execution, there's really no substance, and nothing at all going for it. That makes this the kind of match that doesn't hold up. I think it's pretty common knowledge that matches that have a really strong sense of psychology look much better when watching old footage than those that were just athletically impressive. Obviously, those can do both are the classics. This isn't a classic. Even when you look at the nature of the wrestling, there's no real point to it. Neither guy is really established as being better than the other guy. No moves have greater meaning than other moves. "Let's throw out a great match for no other reason than having a great match" seemed like a pretty odd idea to veteran promoters at the time, and time has proven them right. Eddy does the clothesline after the match because he doesn't like that he lost, but he wasn't working bell-to-bell as a heel, so it was all for naught. -
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July: #1 - Kenta Kobashi vs Akira Taue (AJPW 07/24/95) ****1/2 #2 - Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 07/24/95) ****1/4 #3 - Espectrito vs Super Munequito (AAA 07/08/95) ****1/4 #4 - Mayumi Ozaki vs Dynamite Kansai (JWP 07/23/95) ****1/4 #5 - El Hijo del Santo, Octagon, Rey Misterio Jr & La Parka, Pentagon, Jerry Estrada, Psicosis & Fuerza Guerrera (AAA 07/08/95) **** #6 - Masahito Kakihara & Hiromitsu Kanehara vs Yoji Anjo & Yoshihiro Takayama (UWFI 07/13/95) **** #7 - Rey Misterio Jr, Octagon & Super Muneco vs Psicosis, Fuerza Guerrera & Blue Panther (AAA 07/04/95) **** #8 - Shawn Michaels vs Jeff Jarrett (WWF In Your House 07/23/95) **** #9 - Chris Jericho vs Ultimo Dragon (WAR 07/07/95) ***1/2 #10 - Bret Hart vs Hakushi (WWF Monday Night RAW 07/24/95) ***1/2 #11 - Hayabusa vs The Gladiator (FMW 07/30/95) *** #12 - Stevie Richards vs Luna Vachon (ECW Heat Wave 07/15/95, Cage match) #13 - Kazushi Sakuraba & Naoki Sano vs Joe Malenko & Yoji Anjo (UWFI 07/22/95) #14 - Al Snow & Unabomb vs The Thugz (SMW TV 07/15/95) #15 - Raven & Stevie Richards vs Tommy Dreamer & Luna Vachon (ECW Hardcore Heaven 07/01/95) #16 - Jimmy Snuka, Bob Backlund & Mil Mascaras vs The Eliminators & Hector Garza (WAR 07/07/95) #17 - Barry Horowitz vs Skip (WWF Action Zone 07/09/95) #18 - PG-13 vs Matt & Jeff Hardy (SMW TV 07/15/95) Overall thoughts: In months where All Japan has featured matches, they're still head and shoulders above just about everything else. Kobashi/Taue I preferred to Misawa/Kawada, although I also thought Misawa/Kawada was fantastic. It felt like a lesser version of Misawa/Taue in some ways because of the similar layout though. The AAA matches are strong and there's some other good stuff as well. This was a great month for promos, and the angles on the USWA TV side of the USWA/SMW feud have been consistently excellent. PG-13, Lawler, Rich, Smothers and the Rock & Rolls are all tremendous interviews at this point, with Landell probably the biggest standout of all.
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They show a clip of Lawler and Shawn arguing the week before before Lawler finds and interviews Shawn in the locker room. Lawler says he wishes Shawn wasn't so busy because he'd love to face him. Shawn says he's free if Lawler wants to go, but Lawler tries to make excuses to get out of it based on his "journalistic oath".
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Relatively short, fast-paced match (less than half as long as Hayabusa/Oya), which works best for Gladiator's highspot style. Hayabusa shows his versatility on this yearbook in facing three opponents who work pretty differently from each other -- Onita, Oya and Gladiator -- and having solid, very different matches with each of them. This was heavyweight high-flying done really well. Hayabusa's neck position on that shooting star press looked really nasty. Awesome finishes with a top rope Liger bomb, which was quite the spot. Fun.
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Shameless and disgusting, but what do you expect? Hogan exploits Andre's death, even talking about his tears at the funeral while trying unsuccessfully to fake tears. What makes it so bad is not just the discussion of the funeral, but also talking about how there were always rumors that Andre had fathered a son, which I think crosses a line from wrestling angle to slander. Hogan is a good performer, so this is a good interview (a really good one, actually), but it's hard to see that because the exploitation is such a turn-off. This isn't far behind the WWE using Eddy's death in angles.
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They have a taped promo from Shawn Michaels hyping Superbowl of Wrestling. I'm impressed with how well he put over the storyline and adapted to the differences between SMW and the WWF. Then, we get a great video to "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" which is perfect for Shawn's gimmick. The clips are of course all WWF footage. We cut back to Cornette and Landell. Landell does what I think has a case for the best interview in wrestling history, talking about how important this match is to him, his athletic background, his problems with drugs and alcohol, being hired and fired everywhere, having suicidal thoughts, finding salvation, losing weight, what it was like growing up as a wrestling fan in Knoxville, how this match is a big step in him redeeming his career and how he wants Cornette to stay out of the match. It's filled with emotion and it's sincere. Just amazing.
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We get about five minutes of really good action. Good, but I wanted it to be better if only because we got a lot more footage than usual. Terry Gordy is really struggling to pull off his run-in at even a competent level and it's a little sad to watch him at this stage. The match participants proper are all on fire though. Wolfie D does some really nice highspots, and the table spots look brutal here because the table doesn't give at all for anything. So far, the USWA side of this feud is far superior to the SMW side. We get a post-match interview from Smothers, Landell, Gibson and Gordy that's as good as you'd expect it to be, especially from Landell and Smothers. These are the best Tracy Smothers promos I've ever seen, with this one even better than the last one. He's just great. We close out with PG-13 coming into the studio. JC Ice rocking the Z Cavaricci shirt! 1995 indeed. I think we can point to a two-year period or so where Wolfie D was the best babyface interview in wrestling, possibly more.
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"Your attention, class! Your attention!", followed by fingernails on a chalkboard. Dean Douglas explains the definition of knowledge. I'm not a huge Shane Douglas fan, but evil school teacher is a terrible gimmick for a guy who had gotten over in one environment as a star just by being a wrestler who ran his mouth too much. Shane's whining is often annoying, yes, but he did get screwed on this run.
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Another really good match between these two. The 1995 TV format wasn't conducive to PPV quality matches, but this isn't far behind In Your House. These two worked well together. Someone needs to steal the spot where Bret goes sliding across the ring back first into the ring post off an Irish whip. Jean-Pierre Lafitte steals something from ringside while they're simultaneously building up Isaac Yankem as Bret's next opponent on commentary. Please, get Bret out of this purgatory.
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Fatu is out in front of the Cow Palace, and they tried to make this pretty positive and inspirational. I like the idea, but considering he'd been on national television as a Samoan savage (No, not the Samoan Savage ...), they should have gone all the way and repackaged him with a different name.
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They're still working off of Misawa's injury, which I love, with Kawada going after his face pretty ruthlessly and Misawa selling a few shots as cheapshots. The line on this has always been that it's a sprint, but it doesn't feel all that differently paced than, say, their 7/93 match. It's probably a mildly better match because they've advanced their feud and working style more in that two-year period, but it's not something that particularly stands out to me. Kawada dominates most of this, with Misawa getting in brief hope spots that are well-timed. Anyone who likes laser-sharp body part work will enjoy this, especially because "work the face" isn't exactly as common as "work the leg" or "work the arm". Knowing Kawada, he was probably looking forward to building a match around face work. Kawada's major dominance for most of this makes Misawa's comeback and decisive win pretty satisfying. Sudden, and not as built up as I would have liked, but still satisfying.
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I agree with this. It's overly simplistic to say playing roles well is all it takes to make a match good. There is an athletic component to wrestling -- otherwise actors could step in and do it well without any training. Again, I think this is not an either/or thing. Many different things can make a match worth watching. Action alone isn't enough to make a match great ... except for the all-action spotfests that are great. Roles and story aren't enough to make a match great ... except for when they are enough to make a match great. Picking sides is making a pointless choice. I'd rather everyone be more open minded and realize just how many approaches exist that make a match worth watching. Each of those approaches likely has a long list of both successes and failures. To paraphrase Niels Bohr, the opposite of a profound truth may very well be another profound truth.
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Taue's awesome streak continues. He had good matches with Kobashi before he hit this peak period (from what I understand -- haven't checked out the '93 match that I've seen get some love), but I'm not sure he could have worked a match like this before 1995 where he's going bomb-for-bomb with Kobashi. They jump head first into the action right away and never look back. Most of the best AJ matches of the year so far have had the classic build, while this one is just two guys beating the hell out of each other from the opening bell. This is way more all-action than the Carny, but the Carny had a mini-coming of age thing going on with Taue that was perfectly in context of an arc that carried over to other matches. This is more isolated and a case of two guys leaving it all in the ring in the hopes of winning. There is definitely some substance. Things like the sleeper teases early on are paid off later in the match, which is really cool, and my heart told me Kobashi's moonsault and Taue's middle-of-the-ring nodowa were both finishes, even though my mind told me that wasn't true. Taue's big comeback at the end after Kobashi had things going in his direction for a pretty lengthy period of time was hard not to get behind. YMMV on what you'll like better between this and the Carny. Both are great, and I think I like this one better, but what makes me love both is that they're two very distinct matches. The only negative thing I can really say is that considering how much Taue had accomplished with the dynamic bomb a few months before this, using it to pop a nearfall in the opening minutes felt wrong. But everything else about this felt right.
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The early stalling. I really liked that every single tease was paid off in a wrestling-focused way. So there was clowning, but it all came back to the wrestling. I also liked that it wasn't the typical "heel shows ass at the end of every sequence", which is the norm for matches like that. Early on, Jarrett was out-wrestling and out-gloating Shawn in quite a few sequences himself. It was within the WWF style, but it was also pretty different from most WWF matches that go that long in terms of how they laid out and paced the match. The interference spots were smart and perfectly timed. It just worked really well all around.
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*WHOOSH*
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*WHOOSH*
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