Zenjo
Members
-
Joined
-
Last visited
Everything posted by Zenjo
-
-
With a heel run in it would've all made sense. Without that it's a bizarre, out of place segment.
-
WTF is that growing out the back of Lance's head? It was hilarious how out of place he looked doing all these activities. Jericho was in his element mugging for the camera, the gimmick was great for him at this time. It was like a comedy montage in a mismatched buddies movie. The unintentional homoerotic overtones made it even funnier. Really great stuff. Seeing obscure gems like this for the first time are one of the best things about the Yearbooks.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Monster Heels are people too y'know! Anyone who's familiar with Megumi Kudo will know that she was a master at eliciting sympathy from the crowd. She certainly did that as well as ever here. What made this so unique was that the audience ended up feeling almost as much sympathy for the monster heel as they did for the babyface underdog! Was it because of it being Toyoda's retirement match? I don't think so. Watching this again I'd forgotten it was her final match, it's not remembered for that. What mattered was that there were two young ladies going far beyond the call of duty and suffering out there. They weren't doing it because they hated one another. I could even sense a certain camaraderie as they were beating the hell out of each other. They were caught in the middle of a war, and fighting to the bitter end was all they knew. The hardcore element was utilised perfectly. It wasn't a great gimmick match, it was a great wrestling match enchanced by a gimmick. They built it up slowly and used smart psychology to logically adapt to their surroundings. Whenever they hit the exploding ropes they made sure it really meant something. There was great wrestling action too. Both took high impact suplay with mark out near falls to follow. At the finish Combat-o took an unbelievable Ganso Powerbomb followed by the Kudo Driver to finally end it. An epic postmatch followed with a tearful and distressed Onita tending to his fallen soldiers and carrying Toyoda back by himself. Moving scenes and a classic match. It was one of those matches you could only get in Joshi Puroresu. It couldn't have been done with two men in there. It was never done this well again in FMW or anywhere else. The best Deathmatch ever.
-
I enjoyed the build. Richard started dicking it up right away. It wasn't to be heel vs face however, as Liger was no shrinking violet. He wanted to be the bad guy, and gave out worse than he got. The spirit of Black Liger was alive in this one. The stretch wasn't up to the same standard. Once Togo had hit his finisher twice and it wasn't enough then the result was nid. They should've finished it off soon after that and cut off a few unnecessary minutes off. I agree with Loss that this is one you want to see for the Liger performance.
-
Having a toilet door slammed on your unprotected head just can't be fun. The restroom was the scene of plenty of action and not a lot of resting. Dusty spotted a woman in the men's room for the first time in his life. She wasn't even cleaning. The combatants kept on stiffing each other for a very tight 10m. Memorable and entertaining.
-
Sting really was in need of a long break at this point of his career. His in ring work had declined significantly. Here the Stinger was mainly on the receiving end. That can't be too much fun with Regal stretching and pounding you, so I give him credit for toughness. The Englishman did all the work and made it into a fairly decent encounter. Regal himself would be going downhill in the none too distant future.
-
Okay so they produced the type of match they wanted. As the final it had all the trimmings. Yet this was the same formulaic stuff they'd been churning out for years by this point. The Junior style had become so stale and tiresome. Ohtani was performing much better than everyone else in the division at this point because he was adding psychology and a storyline to his matches. Eddy was technically well suited to wrestling in Japan, but wearing the mask detracted from his charisma. I'd much rather watch him in the US, or Mexico in his early career. It was pointless having the Black Tiger gimmick anyway when there was no longer a Tiger Mask in NJ.
-
Halfway through I was wondering if my positive memories of this were a bit off base. Clipping out 7m didn't help matters. I needn't have worried as this match was like a car going through the gears. By the finish it was pedal to the metal top speed. A classic stretch with plenty of excitement. There were several brutal headbumps administered by Williams, which the crowd were super into at this time. No end of nasty suplay, followed by mark out 2.9ers. It felt like the result was on a knife edge. The champions would survive everything, and Akiyama got the win over Ace to continue his push. Probably a top 10 match for '96.
-
Solid work during the build. Tiger worked over the knee, including some liberal usage of a chair. It looked like he was going to wrap up a fairly comfortable win until Shinjiro kicked out of the Frog Splash and began his comeback. They took it on a bit and Ohtani's charm really boosted the rating. He was in the form of his life, and I don't think this type of match would've been anything notable in other years.
-
This was from the one-off World Wrestling Peace Festival. Promoted by Antonio Inoki, held in LA and featuring wrestlers from across the globe. When I think of wrestling, 'peace' isn't the first word that comes to mind, but let's go with it. It was aerial warfare with impressive action. Not too long, easy to watch and didn't take itself very seriously. Ideal for a show like this with such a mixed target audience. Sweet, tasty, light and pleasing. I'll call it a good dessert of a match.
-
Surprisingly no government mules, although the woodshed got a mention. The strap match isn't as brutal as the chain. It does make a satisfying whipping sound however. They kept up a good intensity level throughout and had quite a strong rivalry. The workrate was impressive and there's always some drama with the turnbuckles. It lasted 5m too long but overall a successful gimmick match.
-
Well I'm sure someone, somewhere prefers this to Kudo vs Toyoda. The gap is gigantic though. The three main problems with this were: 1) The action wasn't up to much. The moves were sloppy when they tried more advanced sequences. It was mainly fighting. But that wouldn't have been so important if not for: 2) It wasn't very hardcore. Restrained usage of props and girly blade jobs. 3) The biggest problem of all was the small vs small dynamic. It needed a big girl or kicker to work properly. The Oz vs Kansai brawls from 95 hit the mark.
-
Taue rises to the top of the mountain for his first and final Triple Crown reign. He would of course also go on to claim the GHC crown many years later. It was satisfying to see because physically there's no way the guy should've been able to become a great pro wrestler working this style. His win here was done as a fluke, catching a one-off counter move. That was probably the right way to do it as Misawa was still the company ace. The bout was a sprint all the way. It wasn't like the earlier Kobashi vs Kawada match where they went for excellent and ended up with good. Here they just went for a good match and delivered it.
-
For the time being I've skipped 94-95 in my Yearbook viewing. So it stood out to me how Kobashi wasn't the worker that he was back in '93. Physically slower and more banged up. The fighting spirit was also slipping from charm to annoyance. There was no obvious theme here apart from two evenly matched main eventers going at it. They went full out for 20m and it wasn't lacking in ambition. It would've been improved by better pacing and more pronounced changes in momentum. Though it wasn't the standard they were aiming for it was still a good match with some excitement. Plus it didn't go on for an hour thank God!
-
The clear theme was Akiyama trying to prove that he belonged with the main event crew. By defeating Kawada and winning the tag straps he certainly accomplished that. It wasn't done as a fluke either, so a breakthrough moment for Jun. The action was typically strong with Kawada laying in some nasty kicks to the skull. The pacing didn't always feel right though. It started off a bit too quickly and didn't click until the Akiyama beatdown in the middle. The ending was satisfying and overall it was very good.
-