Childs
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Everything posted by Childs
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This wasn't quite as harrowing as their January match, but they did plenty of whips into the barbed wire and bled a bunch. They made pretty good use of the format. I liked Kudo reaching for a rope break as Kandori torqued on the ankle lock, only to realize she couldn't because she didn't want to grab barbed wire. The visual of Kudo doing a tope over the wire also looked cool. Apparently, this rivalry grabbed me, because I was pretty psyched when Kudo put Kandori away with a last, desperate flurry. -
This was like the seedy, meth-head version of Owen-Bulldog. I felt like I could get hepatitis just from looking at that mat. They tried to do a classic build, from matwork to highspots, but they didn't pull me in, aside from a few nifty moves. Ian was annoying on commentary.
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Finlay has produced an odd career arc -- really good young wrestler, great old wrestler, lots of meh in the middle years, when most guys peak.
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I don't remember seeing this at the time. I guess I was pretty WCW-oriented at this stage. But it was a hell of a lot more intense than your average wrestling "debate." Lawler and Heyman seemed to be legit seething at one another. It's hilarious that Lawler took on this role given all the ridiculous shit he did in Memphis over the years.
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This was more go-go-go than their January match. But hell, they did a bunch of cool stuff and didn't overstay their welcome. I've come to enjoy this match-up without feeling a ton of investment in it.
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This featured some great fucking offense, with Takaiwa sticking out as the one guy who couldn't really deliver. Liger-Otani continued to be gold. Benoit was in his prime. The star rating is kind of silly, but this delivered a dose of sugar.
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I'm not even sure this was a good match. It bored the shit out of me, and I generally like lucha title matches. Their timing was really poor at various points, with one guy standing around waiting for the other to hit his move. That surprised me, because I think of Atlantis as an unusually smooth worker.
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This was a straight spotfest. They started to develop the idea that Owen would cheat to win, but then they dropped it, which bugged me. I also hate the Owen spots that require naked cooperation from his opponent. This was fun to watch overall, because these guys were great athletes who knew each other well. Vince also amused me on commentary, pushing his company's youthful, athletic wrestling. Hey, you go with what you got. I've seen people list this as an all-time favorite WWF match, and I don't think it deserves that degree of love.
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I guess I get why Savage felt he had to go NWO. But there was something intriguing about him hanging with Sting, and they never developed it. Savage became marginalized in the NWO, despite his inherent charisma.
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No doubt that BattlArts lacked atmosphere all too often. But Otsuka was such a purely fun wrestler, the kind of guy who might try anything at anytime. And Ishikawa was already into his next-gen Fujiwara role, with all of his nasty little punches and his ability to hit a submission at any moment. So this was a pretty engaging 10 minutes.
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Yeah, that suplex spot was nuts. I had no memory of this, but it was super fun, with Meng and Barbarian looking badass and the cruiserweight intrigue advancing.
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Ozaki had more in the tank, but I wouldn't say Chigusa was along for the ride. She was certainly believable as a sadistic hoss. It still felt like a big deal when Ozaki beat her. Ozaki always brought a ton of passion and expressiveness to the table. She's definitely one of my three or four favorite joshi wrestlers of the decade. I enjoyed this.
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I had always found this a bit underwhelming in the past but liked it a lot on this viewing. It took them awhile to get going because of all the shenanigans with the seconds. Once they did, the technical display was as smooth and impressive as you'd expect from these guys. I liked the way Santo ramped up the physicality when he needed to seize the advantage and the fight Rey showed to avoid the camel clutch. I was surprised how heavily the crowd favored Santo down the stretch. In the end, probably just a notch below a lucha MOTYC.
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I agree that this was more effective than great. They kept everything moving and got everyone where they needed to be in storyline. But the match didn't build to many great moments on its own terms. Vader rightly gets credit as the performer of the night. Not only did he work through that gnarly cut, which added a tone of seriousness to the match. He took most of the biggest bumps despite outweighing everyone else by at least 100 pounds.
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Excellent arm attack by Yamazaki and selling by Hashimoto. I loved the moment when Hash said fuck it and just wailed on Yamazaki with five chops from the devastated limb. That would've come off poorly from most wrestlers, but he had laid the groundwork with his selling and was so good at working with emotion. Just a classic Hash moment. This was sort of the perfect New Japan counterpoint to Misawa-Kobashi.
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Never loved the pairing, but this was an excellent match. Kanemoto almost tried to punk Liger in the early going, acting cocky and swarming him with kicks whenever he tried to get up. I didn't think Liger was overly giving. Kanemoto had been a major rival for two years, and Liger had looked ready to go down only a week earlier against Koji's tag partner. This match was a cool demonstration of how Liger had come to use the palm strike as Misawa did the elbow. It was not only a potential finisher but his go-to when he needed to reset the action. In the end, Liger put Kanemoto away pretty decisively and looked great doing it.
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Taken out of context, this was a hell of a segment, with Michaels channeling what seemed like real emotion to discuss some fairly nuanced ideas about his position. Of course, you can't really watch it out of context.
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This match worked so well, both as 27 minutes of exciting action and as an important chapter in their rivalry. Liger was great. Everything he did looked great. And yet, Otani was better. Technically, he had an answer for everything Liger could throw at him. But he wasn't mature enough to take it home. He had to dangle his chin out there like proto-Anderson-Silva, and that shit wasn't going to fly with a proud champion. The finishing sequence was so great, with each palm strike resounding as a nail in Otani's coffin of hubris. One of my favorite things in sports is watching a team or athlete gradually learn how to be a contender. Liger-Otani has always struck me as one of the best wrestling dramatizations of that dynamic, albeit without the perfect payoff win for Otani. For me, this is probably neck-and-neck with Liger-Sano for best juniors match of the decade.
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Well, this was about as far from Han/Tamura as you can get! But hey, that's wrestling. It was a lot of fun watching two chunky, over-the-hill Southerners get a Philly crowd this riled. I liked Funk battering Rich's knees with the chair and then taking the receipt spot a few minutes later. Rich's control segment dragged a little, because as Loss said, he just couldn't do much at this point. But they took it home with a nice burst of action.
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I agree that Waltman has been more impressive than Eddy on the yearbooks overall. But I didn't see him outworking Eddy here, and I do think Eddy had probably passed him in 1996 with stuff like the Benoit match in New Japan. Ditch is right about Eddy's true peak coming in WWE. But I remember getting pretty excited about him when he turned heel in 1997. We'll see if that holds up. This was not a memorable ladder match, though it was fine. WCW in-ring has not kept up with the promos and angles so far.
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This was almost reminiscent of a great lucha match in the sense they were doing such complicated stuff at great speed. It really was a pinnacle match for shootstyle -- full of cool stuff that you couldn't quite do in a shoot but pretty far from anything you'd see in traditional pro wrestling. It's very cool that this and the Misawa/Kobashi match happened within 48 hours -- so totally different, yet almost equally great. Hurray wrestling!
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