Jetlag
DVDVR 80s Project
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Everything posted by Jetlag
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Another clipped match. Hamada and Akino still seem to be working as plucky underdogs. What they show of this was mostly spots and double teams. The stuff looked good and Futagami is really fun in this type of match as she has nice unpredictable submissions and cradles. Still, I'm waiting for something complete. -
Hey look, it's Candy! Haven't seen her in a while. She looked skinnier than before. This was also clipped, but seemed somewhat complete. Another forgettable match where Candy dominated a lot then falls to the usual Aja trademarks. Okay but really nothing to write home about. Candy sold about that she was exerting herself to throw Aja around which was a nice touch, but her dominating so much of the match was kind of stupid.
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Into 2000 we go. Michiko Ohmukai/Etsuko Mita vs. Mima Shimoda/Yumi Fukawa (1/30) A Parejas Increibles Match! More disjointed pretty girl action! To make this even more disjointed, they clipped a 20 minute match down to about 6. I don't really bemourn this being clipped as it looked like their typical affairs that I wasn't in love with from 1999, plus they didn't really play up the Parejas Increibles aspect. To be fair, some of the exchanges here were kind of fun. Ayako Hamada/Mika Akino vs. Rie Tamada/Mikiko Futagami (1/30) Another clipped match. Hamada and Akino still seem to be working as plucky underdogs. What they show of this was mostly spots and double teams. The stuff looked good and Futagami is really fun in this type of match as she has nice unpredictable submissions and cradles. Still, I'm waiting for something complete. Aja Kong vs. Candy Okutsu (1/30) Hey look, it's Candy! Haven't seen her in a while. She looked skinnier than before. This was also clipped, but seemed somewhat complete. Another forgettable match where Candy dominated a lot then falls to the usual Aja trademarks. Okay but really nothing to write home about. Candy sold about that she was exerting herself to throw Aja around which was a nice touch, but her dominating so much of the match was kind of stupid.
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This was a good trios match. The highlights were the opening Genki/Saito matwork, Shisa's highspots and all things Kenichiro Arai who is such a cool character. The Toryumon crew couldn't touch the 90s M-Pro guys and you could tell that they were more interested in putting together finishing stretches than the body of the mat (the rudo work in this match was pretty average), but this was in the 90s M-Pro style and a very fun, fresh take at it.
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Cool 7 minute match built around swank technical stuff. If Dragon Gate still has matches like these I'd really like to know about them. Kondo does some surprisingly nifty submission stuff and SAITO has some impressive swanky headstand moves. Some moves were a little slow, altough in their defense they were doing pretty intricate stuff and things didn't get exhibition-y.
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You can call this a mat spotfest if you will, but fuck it. This ruled. This is exactly what makes Arsion so cool. Ultra smooth, tricked out matwork with plenty of freaky Solar-ish submission grabs, dreadful battling on the ground and Fukawa fighting the big bad spider lady like a fiend. Super enjoyable compact bout.
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Blitzkrieg gets to look damn impressive in his debut against Rey. Some awesome, high precision moves here. The announce team was working hard to put Blitzkrieg over as equal to Rey. He was close when it came to athletic moves, but you could tell he didn't have a great understanding of selling. Still Rey carried him well and both guys came out looking great in this bout.
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This was a very good popcorn match with a ton of sick moves and bumps. It was even psychologically interesting, as the heels didn't want to exert themselves and targeted the faces, while Rey and Kidman initially worked together. However, soon it was chaos and nobody cared who the legal man was anymore. Also, the commentators didn't know that it was First Fall Wins, so tried to explain guys breaking up pinfalls by them not wanting their winning chances decrease. Man, Kidman pulling Juvi by the hair getting a bigger reaction than Psicosis' insane bump to the floor is telling that these guys didn't have the most efficient understanding of crowd pleasing. Maybe Psicosis just likes crashing on the floor, it wouldn't surprise me. I also liked how violent some of the pin breakups were.
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This was okay. I really liked some of the avoid and move stuff they did. Yoshiko tried a few athletic moves like an ugly 619 that really don't fit her, and overall her "bruiser" style wasn't as emphasized as I would have liked. Sareee is one of those from a stream of pushed girls with offense ranging from decent to whatever, not very charismatic or athletic and not very interested in selling. It turned into one of those "do alllllll the moves" matches with a few submissions thrown in that came across as restholds. It didn't get overkill-y (atleast by modern standards) but this really needed some type of story to be more than good as neither woman was the type for this sort of athletic contest
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SUWA has hair, terrible acne and is dressed like the jerkiest kid in high school. Dragon Kid was only in his 2nd year of wrestling, but already a bonafide highspot machine. Again, Suwa has a heel faction at ringside that interferes very liberally. It's almost shocking how much this feels like the heel faction matches New Japan would do with the Bullet Club. The moves are better - in fact, the whacky twisting headscissors etc. look great, but the stuff in between is impossibly dry and you can tell they are just glueing spots together. SUWA wasn't as much of a prick as later on and this was merely an indicator of things that would plague Dragon System wrestlers and soon all of wrestling later on. However, because it went 8 minutes and not 16 or 45 the match didn't feel bloated.
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A pudgy black metal cosplayer teaming with a prettyboy against a japanese guy pretending to be black and another pretty boy dressed as Tarzan. The one thing that T2P got right is to supplement the spots with cool matwork and submissions: some of the execution here was a little soft (naturally), but the techniques were positively wonky and IWRG-like. Yoshino and Tsujimoto/YASSHI added some heel tactics to give this something to it beyond "young guys experimenting". The stuff between the spots was pretty lacking as always with these stomp-happy Toryumon guys, but they stuck to whacky submissions and tricked-out reversals, and it was for the better. Very fun experimental juniors match.
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This got **** 1/2 from Meltzer. As expected, the match was very fast and had a lot of slick moves. Also, Shiima had his heel faction at ringside, which added a semblance of a story to the bout, as TOKYO had half a dozen guys piling up on him when he ended up on the outside. The execution was fine and this wound up being a decent indy style match, altough the action was not the type that will leave a lasting impression on me.
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Very cool match. Kakihara working over Ogawa with stiff shoot-like offense like a Mini-Kawada and getting the better of him with his shoot submission skills was pretty great. The legwork, aswell as the selling of it, were pretty sharp and because both guys are good defensive wrestlers, the finishing stretch was a ton of fun and not once bordering on overkill. I didn't think this was a classic or something but one of the more interesting junior matches of the 90s for sure.
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This felt like a match of two halves. Kobashi, with the bloody mouth and bandage was a pretty great visual, and the match was really good when Vader was laying an epic beating on Kobashi. However, I felt Kobashi could have done much better to make Vader look like a monster. His comebacks were fairly easy, and aside from the great opening exchange, I thought he was offensively not as good as Sting. Kobashi just running through his moveset against Vader of all people was kind of poor. So, overall it amounted to a solid match. Afterwards Vader is backstage yelling about why the competition for the Triple Crown is a japanese only club with a sad look in his eye. Vader will not stand for these injustices!
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HDA assaulting Kobashi's face was pretty great. The work on Kawada's leg was utilized smartly and all l the twisting and turning exchanges down the stretch were really well done. It almost feels a bit like a Greatest Hits version of an AJPW tag as it seems these guys can do this stuff in their sleep at this point. Still, a very good tag that was a breeze to watch and hit all the right marks. Agree about Taue, this felt like his formula performance and showcases his coolness very nicely.
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A highly athletic 7 minute sprint that saw these guys busting out one spectacular, unique move after another. Psicosis and Juvi acknowledged their heel roles, so it wasn't a nonsensical spotfest either. Typical of these guys to work their butts off like this on a random Nitro, Psicosis even busting out his crazy legdrop to the floor.
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Aw man, I'm not that bad. I understand there are limitations for niche events like this. However, the tournament had 3 matches that went 6-10 minutes, and everything else was 5 minutes or below, with 1 match going exactly 1 minute and Cobb/Walter going 2 and a half. So the combined time of all the matches on this card was 40 MINUTES. That kind of thing is a joke even for a sideshow and it wouldn't have hurt to give some of these bouts 5-6 minutes more time. As the matches with Thatcher showed you can have a very good match in 6, 8 or 10 minutes. Plus, Cobb and WALTER are far superior workers compared to Carnage and Rico. But doing anything special in a 2 minute match is near impossible. So this match was just a tease and nothing more.
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Chris Hero and Homicide go 40 minutes in a seedy german nightclub. This was actually quite good when they stuck to matwork and basic stuff. They understood how to make their holds meaningful, and Homicide punishing Hero with stomps, kneedrops, headbutts etc. was pretty damn good. However, some of the reversal sequences they tried came across as sloppy and Hero may have oversold as he was acting dead for much of the 2nd and 3rd fall which reflected poorly on Homicide.
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Nominating: Timothy Thatcher vs. Matt Riddle, wXw 3/11 Full review: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/37567-timothy-thatcher-vs-matt-riddle-wxw-ambition-311/ I am no expert on current wrestling, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being my 2017 MOTY. This is for all you shootstyle loving weirdos. The matwork looked great and they built a really effective narrative. Riddle the modern MMA douche vs. Thatcher the carny Robinson-trained catch wrestler. Riddle's desperation knees on the ground are the greatest thing.
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I remember PCO being really cool when he was working indies, such as IWS. He looked like a class above everyone else. Feels like a guy who flew under the radars.
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For those of you who don't know: AMBITION is a pseudo-shootstyle tournament wXw runs once a year. This was excellent. Grappling Riddle using his legit ability is so much better than PWG style flopping around Matt Riddle. One could argue that this was a little your-turn-my-turn-ish, but fuck that. This was some real wrestling and I won't say no to that. Riddle as a highly athletic, flexible modern MMA freak vs. the carniness of Thatcher with his nasty facelocks and toeholds was great. They are smart enough to stay on the mat and deliver the focussed, high end grappling you want from a shootstyle main event. Also really liked how they built a really great, edge-of-your-seat-type finishing run while sticking to their strengths and keeping it groundbased. Riddle desperately contorting his body to avoid Thatcher's wristlock and making an awesome comeback using his ground knees is easily the highlight of his career so far. The only problem with the match was that the actual finish looked like crap, but everything up to it was fine fine wrestling.
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For those of you who don't know: AMBITION is a pseudo-shootstyle tournament wXw runs once a year. This was very good for what it was; WALTER clubbers Cobb, Cobb throws an absolutely hellish suplex and finishes with a nasty neck crank. The problem was that it went 2 minutes. Seriously, screw wXw for that shitty booking because this could have been great. Still, that Cobb suplex has to be seen.
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For those of you who don't know: AMBITION is a pseudo-shootstyle tournament wXw runs once a year. This was quite good, like you'd expect from these two. The grappling was positively PWFG and had a ton of physicality, and they went to tell a story, with Cobb obviously being the surperior wrestler and just an impossible to move beast on the mat, while Thatcher could win with submissions. I loved all the spots where Thatcher was overwhelmed by Cobb's Cobbness, such as Cobb easily shrugging off his attempts at a butterfly suplex or Thatcher getting squished by a basic waistlock. Also, at one point Cobb just cradled Thatcher into a pretzel. He really should make that move his finisher because it was freakin awesome. The finish was actually exciting and they played off their previous matches in the tournament.
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For those of you who don't know: AMBITION is a pseudo-shootstyle tournament wXw runs once per year. This was surprisingly good. Al-Ani is a talented german guy who can go on the mat, and Thatcher meant business. Al-Ani didn't do anything brilliant, but he could put up a fight against Thatcher, which was enough. Thatcher did all these neat little tricks and nasty holds. Twisting at the ankles, a nasty rolling clutch and a really painful looking grovit that he finished Al-Ani off with. This stayed on the mat and that was the right thing to do.
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Dragunov is this schlubby dude whose stuff really doesn't look that good. However, the german fans took a liking to him and thus he gets a big push. This was good. Ilja isn't a spot guy, so they actually build to the spots and generate some drama. Walter just punishes the little guy which is what you want. The match went downhill a little when they did the endless chop exchange, but puro cosplaying comes with the territory I guess. I really liked how Walter just flattened Ilja when he tried to hulk up and the finish, even with Ilja's lacking execution, was good solid pro wrestling charm.