NintendoLogic
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Everything posted by NintendoLogic
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Scott Keith says that Davey Richards is the best in the world right now. That's almost too perfect.
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The overall body of work isn't as good as Dream Rush's. But the first fall is hands down my favorite opening of any match, the equivalent of scoring a touchdown on the first play of the game. It's not the MOTY (hell, it's not even the best joshi match of the month), but it's still pretty amazing.
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I'm pretty sure Mayumi Ozaki is my favorite tag wrestler. I've dug just about everything I've seen with her and Dynamite Kansai or Cutie Suzuki. I love the way she does little things like taking cheap shots, breaking up pins, running interference, and knocking away the hand of someone trying to make the ropes. And she's awesome at providing structure and reeling things in. For example, when Toyata gets heel heat on her own team for attacking Kansai while she had Yamada in the Sharpshooter, Ozaki runs in for the cheap shot on Yamada to put the heat back on her team. Speaking of Toyota, I was pretty hard on her in the hair match thread. But I generally enjoy her in tag matches, which tend to accentuate her strengths and hide her weaknesses. Her short-term selling and inhuman flexibility make her a great FIP, and her sprinty style makes her great off the hot tag. Plus, her general disregard of long-term selling isn't as big a deal in matches where you can tag out and recuperate. With regard to this match in particular, she does an outstanding job of looking like she's at death's door after eating the first pinfall. I have a few issues with the match. First, far too much of the matwork is of the "I've got a hold locked in, but now I'm going to release it for no reason" variety (which appears to be a staple of early 90s joshi, unfortunately). And the second fall is fine in conception, but it fell flat in practice. Yamada was clearly gassed after the third backdrop, but she kept going and was barely getting any elevation at all at the end. But those are fairly minor quibbles. All things considered, this match is awesome.
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If you're talking about 7/29/93, that was Shigeru Kaneko. Regardless, Fukuzawa was awesome. I loved when he'd bust out random English (or English loanwords, as the case may be). Like "KAWADA DOWN! KAWADA DOWN!" whenever Kawada got KTFO. Or "ON THE FLOOR!" when Taue pulled away the protective mat in the 9/10/95 match.
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I don't really know that an obsessive drive to become the best fake fighter establishes you as a legit shooter. There are plenty of tales of Benoit hazing rookies and calling referees gay bitches, but I can't think of any stories of him handling himself in a real fight.
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The first Manami Toyota match I ever saw was vs. Aja Kong from Big Egg Universe, which made a very good first impression. Unfortunately, it isn't at all representative of her usual style. So when I started to dig deeper into her oeuvre, it was all downhill. This match encapsulates everything I dislike about Toyota's work. It's fast-paced and action-packed, but there really isn't any story being told. To quote The Simpsons, it's just a bunch of stuff that happens. This is most egregious with the segment where Yamada works over Toyota's leg with the half crab. Once Toyota regains control, she's hopping around like a jackrabbit and not even making a token effort to sell the leg. I'd been thinking recently that Toyota was the Davey Richards of joshi, and matches like this really reinforce that idea. Plus, I just can't buy into hair matches as being a big deal. I get the significance of masks and the gravity of putting them on the line. Hair, not so much. I mean, it's just hair. It'll grow back. Even given that, matches like Dump/Chiggy and MS-1/Sangre Chicana treat it like a big deal by bringing the hate and violence from the opening bell. I'm not saying there should have been that level of intensity, but there should have been something to push it beyond a standard match. If you went into this completely cold, you'd have no idea that anything of note was on the line.
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The only problem I have with the match is the part where Vader goes to the top rope for no reason. It'd be one thing if Harley Race had the ref distracted, but he didn't. It was a pretty blatant example of a "to hell with logic, it's time to move the match along" spot. Regardless, awesome match. Sting was pretty much the perfect opponent for Vader. A good enough bumper and seller to make Vader look like a killer with strong enough offense for his comebacks to be credible. Come to think of it, that's also a description of the ideal Flair opponent. So why is it that Sting/Vader was mostly awesome while Sting/Flair was largely underwhelming?
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Funny, I think WrestleWar is the best of the Flair/Steamboat matches. There's a whole lot to like about this match. The stupidity of the top rope DQ rule notwithstanding, the intentional DQ spot was so good that HHH recycled it in his iron man match. The way they worked the sleeper was awesome. And the ending was amazing. With that said, I do agree that the number of falls is excessive. I get that you wouldn't work an iron man match the same way you would a one-fall match. Still, Steamboat getting three pinfalls in twelve minutes is a bit much. Beyond that, I'm a lot more down on Steamboat in general than most people. He was great at so many things, but I never liked his offense, especially his lack of a credible finisher. I'm struggling to think of a single notable Steamboat match that ended in something other than a flash pin.
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Is Paul Bearer the worst manager ever or what? Distracting the referee so your own guy can get pulverized by a chair? C'mon, son. Still, excellent match. It's kind of remarkable if you think about it, but arguably the three greatest matches in WWF history (HBK/Mankind and the two Hart/Austin matches) all took place within a six-month window. Even more remarkably, it was during the company's commercial nadir.
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It was a pretty amusing inversion of the usual state of affairs to see Hansen spend the bulk of a match working over somebody else's arm. It's almost inconceivable that a match featuring Mitsuharu Misawa and Stan Hansen could end up being overlooked and underrated, but that's kind of what happened. I'd put this right behind 7/29 and 2/28 as far as Hansen's 1993 output goes.
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Not only is this the US match of the year, I think it's the best US match of all time (although I wouldn't be surprised if I put the submission match at #1 the next time I watched it). What puts it over the top is the millions of little things they do right. My favorite example is when Austin hits the stunner. Bret's too close to the ropes, so Austin drags him to the middle of the ring before making the pin, which gives Bret enough time to kick out. It gets Bret over as a gutsy fighter, keeps Austin's finisher protected, and creates ambiguity as to whether Bret would have made the ropes if Austin had made the pin straightaway.
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They could have just been too terrified to voice any objections.
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I also initially thought carbon monoxide or food poisoning. I didn't suspect foul play until I heard news to that effect. For me, the creepiest part of the tribute show was when HHH related the "funny story" of how when some guy (I think it was Daivari) committed some minor breach of protocol, Chris made him do 1000 squats and 500 more the next day. Do these guys really not realize how stuff like this comes across to normal human beings?
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He was Alberto Del Rio's ring announcer on the old school Raw. That's all I can think of.
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I certainly wouldn't consider the WWE being above doing a tribute show to someone they at least strongly suspected was a murderer. The only thing that gets me is what their motivation might have been. With other instances of documented McMahon sociopathy, there's some conceivable benefit to be derived. I mean, it's clear why Linda would try to act like she hardly knew Lance Cade. For Benoit, though, I can't think of anything.
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It's a better name than Winged Eagle. Aren't eagles winged by definition?
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What does he mean? That they would've been too smart to have been double-crossed? Or that they wouldn't have been marks for the belt?
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HHH could have simply ordered Del Rio to cash in like Vince did at the PPV.
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The tournament was Vince's idea. For all we know, HHH views Punk as the legitimate champion and has getting the belt off him as his top priority.
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The WWE creates its own reality. If they had gone through with the HHH pedigrees Punk scenario, the tournament would have simply been stricken from the books, just like Del Rio's #1 contendership was stricken after Punk was reinstated.
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The main problem I had with the match was the blown spots. I don't demand robotically precise execution in my matches, and the botches didn't detract from my enjoyment of Punk/Cena at all. But there have to be some standards, especially when they're this egregious. Like the spot where Takako starts to go for a suicide dive, stops in her tracks, walks up to the ropes, and does a weak little double axehandle off the apron. And the Jackie Gayda-level bad blown armdrag. And Kansai nearly dropping Takako on her head during the first Splash Mountain attempt. On that note, I did like Hotta trying to salvage it by running in and trying to make it look like she broke it up. Match was fine otherwise.
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That's not a huge surprise, what with the presidential address the announcers spent the entire show taking potshots at Obama for.
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Loss and others consider this the greatest juniors match of all time. Ditch and others consider it good but not great. I think they're both right. I'm not a fan of the NJ junior style at all, so when I first watched this match, I was blown away by the fact that it didn't adhere to the typical junior formula. They didn't start out by wasting time with pointless matwork. Samurai brings the hate from the get-go, busting out every rudo tactic in the book in the process. Eventually, Liger snaps and unloads on Samurai with everything in his arsenal. And the closing stretch feels more organic than the usual my turn-your turn style. Upon subsequent viewings, the mach loses its luster a little. For one thing, Samurai blows through his heel spots too rapidly. By the end, he's got nothing left, and it's just another juniors match. It kind of reminded me of KENTA/SUWA in that respect. And I agree with MJH that the transitions were a little too abrupt. Still, it's an awesome match worth checking out.