dawho5

In regards to your discussion of cage matches and escape rules, I understand keeping it out of a blood feud for sure. The one time I see that being a viable stip is when you have the most chickenshit of heels who keeps eluding the babyface until the point they have to lock the guy in a cage to get any kind of match out of him. I would also like to point out how it is that Marty (a known Titans associate) and Kelly are the only champions of Brainbuster so far. Anyone else think that there is some sort of Titans conspiracy going on here?

This is a lead-in tag to the singles match in the same month. All the Hansen vs. Kawada teasing you'd expect is there and it is done really well. As a bonus you get Kobashi vs. Hansen. Take into consideration this is just before Kawada jumps over to team with Taue and it's one of the last tours you're going to see this team together (and it's against one of their best opponents in Hansen.) Kobashi is in the middle of his big singles push and Kawada has been steadily rising for a while, so it makes their Hansen interactions very interesting. Oh, and there's some fun with a chair in the ring and a dance around anyone hitting a legal man with it. AND (I saved the best part for last) Kawada "welcomes RVD to All Japan." In, of course, frighteningly evil ways.

If (and I do mean if) all of this talk is founded in reality and Bryan is on the way out, we at the very least got to see him get his moment in the sun at WM last year. I doubt there's a more deserving guy on the roster and I imagine he will put as many guys over as he can on the way out. Not that it will matter once they get re-buried in their subsequent feuds to keep the parity.

I have to think that the "evil authority figure" that seems omnipresent since the MNW started has to have a lot to do with it. What's the point of having someone abusing their power as GM/owner/show supervisor/commissioner/whatever if they don't pick on the main babyfaces and stack the deck against them? How are you going to announce a main event one week and have it consistently changed at the whim of whomever has been put into that role without pissing the fans off regularly?

No argument there goc, that's Ogawa's career match. Partially because you get this palpable sense of Kobashi wanting to wanting nothing more than to kill the little shit once he gets his hands on him.

Kawada wasn't ready to beat Misawa in 94. He had just gotten embarrassed in July of 93 with the massively lopsided finish. The 6/94 match was his "almost" match to put him right on the doorstep and rightly so. It's just that it took four more years for him to finally get that singles win and that killed him. The obvious recent one is HHH vs. Sting. After watching WM 30 I was almost impressed with Triple H's willingness to put people over. But I watched 31 first, so I knew better.

They get better after 1991, but I hated watching them in that year. It seemed like they took the idea of being pushed as "take 80% of the offense in the early match." And they seem to like just laying/standing around in rest holds. Worst match for me was when Misawa/Kawada turned the tables and laid around in rest holds for the majority of the early match. It seemed like some kind of Bizarro Hell wrestling match.

HHH/Steph vs. Rock Rousey w/Stone Cold as ref Sting vs. Undertaker double retirement match NWO vs. DX six man tag Daniel Bryan in some meaningless midcard multi-man/multi-tag team match John Cena facing the newest midcard sensation...and going over Lots of now NXT guys and midcarders in the Andre Battle Royal with somebody who doesn't need it going over I'm sure there's one more midcard feud that shows up, a long-winded Triple H promo with Rock interruption and a diva's match in the piss break spot. I went with less my fantasy booking and more the likely suspects. Depressing as they may be.

I think that's one of the things that made Bryan stand out so much. He somehow makes all the pre-planned sequences work for the crowd.

So "technical wrestler" is some kind of catch-all term then? I won't say this for me at all times in my wrestling fandom, but I hate the idea of classifying wrestlers into groups like that. Is Rey Misterio, Jr. a high flier despite being good at suplexes when he's not way undersized and a capable striker? My feeling is that everybody has their own constantly evolving skillset as a worker and it's futile to say they are this,, that or the other. Roughly speaking, Sheamus, Ambrose, Reigns, Barrett, Harper, Wyatt and Cena are all "brawlers." But they all have different aspects of wrestling they excel at besides brawling as well as different weaknesses. So it's hard for me to throw them into a grouping together and call it good. At best it gives you the idea that they spend a lot of time engaged in fisticuffs during a match. Great podcast to listen to. Not sure about all the logic bombs, but I'm willing to ignore those.

My guess is he'd be fine. As long as people get the idea of what you're talking about it's usually okay.

RVD vs. Kroffat in All Japan 1995 stands out to me as a carry job, but it's less one-sided than you think. Kroffat provides a structure for all of RVD's highspots complete with logical setups. He beats up on RVD to make sure the fans pop for his offense. But RVD has to hit those spots right and with the right kind of emotion to get the crowd behind him just the same. If he misses big too often or is completely listless when he gets his time to shine it's all going to be for naught. And I have my doubts that it's even embarrassing in 1995 for RVD to need somebody to lay a match out around his highspots. I would imagine most "veteran vs. young guy" carry jobs are as much the more experienced guy teaching the younger guy some tricks of the trade during the match as they are anything else. We've all been in the position as the younger or less experienced person who has to learn the ropes. I know when I was learning different things at my current job there were days I was "carried" by the people around me that had been there a while and knew a lot more than I did. So I think that in a lot of cases it's just a part of the business that the worker who grasps the concepts better is calling the shots a bit more in an attempt to both put on a better match and teach the other wrestler more about what they are doing. It is to the benefit of everyone involved, so I hardly see it as a bad thing.

I loved the Lance Russell interview. Whoever said that nice guys finish last has obviously never met Lance Russell, who seems like he could be the most amicable guy you've ever heard talk. Oh, and the years of wrestling stories would be cool to hear too.

If this is the segment that started the show, I'll just say that the Bryan promo here and the crowd for it was possibly my favorite thing I've watched from 2014 that's not Shield vs. Wyatts. For a guy with no charisma who couldn't possibly be a main eventer because he is at best a B+ player, this guy gets some serious crowd reactions. I did love Bryan starting another "YES!" chant after Triple H told him and the fans how powerless they were and stalked off.

I was really impressed with the match layout and execution here. Bryan avoiding the majority of Triple H's attempts at arm work early until HHH had gone to the leg and tried an early pedigree to take his mind off it was great. The one finisher kickout was so well-placed and did so much for the match that they didn't need more. That's something that I think the WWE main event style needs to have more of is smart usage of finisher kickouts. I do wish the announcers had highlighted the fact that HHH was using the YES LOCK on DANIEL BRYAN rather than say things like, "He's using a crossface!" or "Imagine if Triple H could ake the submission specialist tap out at WrestleMania." Both of these are perfectly acceptable reactions to a submission that might end the match. But this was the submission Bryan had been beating people with for the last few years. Didn't detract from the match too much, so it's not a big deal. I would agree this is a standout Triple H performance. The sore loser reaction fit well with the way he had portrayed corporate HHH for months as well.

Having watched all of these matches recently I was excited for this one. I think the Kawada v Misawa match is right in the middle as far as their encounters go. The lack of excess vs. inclusion of more filler than usual (as per the style at this time) was an argument I was having with myself after re-watching this and at least it was well-executed filler. The Baba tag is great for all the reasons you mentioned. I love seeing Baba matches come up because he brings something so completely different to the table than anybody else can. Hansen vs. Baba is still a better matchup than Kawada vs. Baba. I watched a version of the MVC tag that cut off the first 2/3 of the match and clipped to the finish. My thinking was that if every MVC match had been presented that way I'd be much, much happier with them as a team. And that last match is my #1 or 2 desert island match on any given day. The other one it flip-flops with is Tully vs. Magnum. I take that to mean I love a good war more than most other kinds of wrestling matches. I have always had this theory that the Kawada kick right before the Hansen lariat left him a bit loopy and that was also partially responsible for the flying out of the ring. If you're looking for best lariat ever watch the April Kobashi match that is a handheld from a house show. THAT lariat will make you wonder how sane Kobashi ever was. I never questioned the guy's toughness, and I've seen him take a Vader moonsault where Vader missed and landed on his head. Without moving. You'd think that when you saw vader falling and figured out he was gonna land on your head, you'd call an audible. I thought the lariat in the 4/93 match was actually a crazier spot than that for a variety of reasons. The match before it is certainly great and worth your while, but that lariat is something I'll remember over any other spot I've ever seen.

And yet it is still my favorite 90s All Japan singles match. I know it's not the best match, but I still love it more than Misawa/Kawada 6/3/94 and the two major tags. It has a lot to do with both being my favorite wrestlers.

I did like how they used the Wyatts to strengthen the bond between the bickering Shield members despite Bray going after Cena. The match was all kinds of chaotic great, but I liked the PPV match more. I did think the chaotic brawl fit the way the rivalry had developed to this point, expecially with the Shield pushing things in that direction from the start. They were down one and the Wyatts had proven they could play the Shield's game, so throw something different at them. I want a third match between these two teams with a focused Shield, but I know I won't get one.

Damn you TG for picking one that I whiffed on. I forget the match, but when Fuchi starts counting along with the ref on a Jumbo cover and whoever it is kicks out Fuchi is more amazed than Jumbo, that moment made me so very very very happy. Masa Fuchi is some kind of wrestling genius that can make a match better even when he's not in it. In a country at the time where they didn't use managers.

Ted vs. Tenryu was a really fun match and I thought both did their parts to make it what it was. I think a lot of Ted's problem in tags was similar to the one experienced by everyone they paired with Hansen. Hansen is such a force of nature both in-ring and character wise that it was hard for any westerner to stand out in any way as his partner. They all ended up being cowboys like Stan and not...themselves. Hell, it even happened with Gordy when he was Hansen's partner. I don't know if it was intentional or his partners just weren't able to step out of his shadow while being his partner.

I love both. I agree with Parv about having to feel the wrestling to analyze it well. It's why I like watching wrestling so much and prefer that to talking about it. I just let it take me wherever it's going. Talking about the ride is just the cherry on top.

If I spent the next year not working and watching wrestling I'd still be far behind. But I suppose that means I'll never run out of wrestling I want to watch.

I have so many wrestling regrets. My biggest is letting my fandom lapse instead of trying to find new promotions to watch or different watching projects to keep me interested. Looking at everything that is available now I get this feeling I won't ever get to watch all the things I really want to.

I think that's one of the reasons why Rey is so highly regarded. He is a tiny dude compared to most WWE guys but he always seemed believable beating big guys when it happened. I think it does take a certain amount of presence and know-how for the smaller guys like Rey or Bryan to do what they do and have the overwhelming support they get. Where you take a guy like Ziggler and put him in that spot and it just wouldn't work because he wouldn't make you believe what he was doing as much.

I have never liked this match type. But this match worked all the way up until the Wyatts showed up. Christian's constant climbing of the cage when people try to pick him up out there is such a great chickenshit heel tactic. The dichotomy of Christian's character during the match is really fun, going back and forth between cowering and picking his spots to be a complete vicious bastard. Sheamus and Cesaro going right at one another every chance they got makes me want to track down every singles match available between the two of them. Orton hiding in the pod was the first thing he's done that garnered actual heel heat and not "we like Daniel Bryan/we don't like you or your constant push" heat. Cena wrestling smart was a nice touch given that he'd been in this kind of match before. Have I mentioned Cesaro comes out of this match looking like a BEAST? I really wish the WWE had booked Orton strong enough to beat an Injured Bryan once it came down to it. Explain to me why you need Kane to be involved unless you're unhappy that your fans seem to be forcing you down a road you don't want to go down. And maybe if you have Kane piss Bryan off enough it's the most logical thing booking wise for Kane to be his next feud after the Mania win (which you're not overly happy about giving him.) So all those internet smart fans are going to have a tough time arguing with that program given their love of "logical booking" once you give them their precious Bryan win. This is the kind of thing that drives me nuts about the WWE. They can book really smart when it comes to getting themselves out of things that end up being necessary despite their not wanting them. But when it comes to setting up good feuds for midcard champs or hot acts to keep their momentum going, they seem to be clueless. I say seem to be because it is my firm belief that much of the "bad booking" that keeps midcarders shuffling around while the current guys are fed to the old guard is absolutely intentional. It is done under the guise of poor booking but accomplishes everything the WWE seems to want. I have a hard time thinking that it's in any way unintentional.