dawho5
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Everything posted by dawho5
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When I get there. Going through the Shield chronologically and NXT as a sort of warm-up and cool-down for my All Japan watchings. Worked in a few Mark Henry 2011 PPV matches with plans to follow Cesaro and the historic Bryan 2013 run after I finish up with the Shield and Henry. Sheamus is looking like a contender for more viewing as well. I'm trying to watch matches as they come up of people I have read about but not seen much of. -
You could make the argument that WCCW was actually getting close to being able to doing what Vince did before all their troubles with the von Erichs. But the problem with that would be that not all of the von Erichs were going to be marketable national stars. And I can't see Fritz making the call to job his boys out to whoever needed to be put over to make things work. If you look at 1992 WCW the idea of Watts going national opposite Vince is actually interesting. No top rope rule is something that makes you wonder how the whole talent bidding war would have gone with no cruiserweights. They would have essentially been bidding on the same big hosses to work different styles of wrestling programs. But nobody besides Vince was going to resort to all the dirty tricks on the rest of the promoters. They knew one another and had worked together too long. And they seemed more loyal to each other than the wrestlers. Which has also been mentioned. So maybe that's Vince's true genius. Knowing the system well enough to break it. He knew that if he could give the big name wrestlers guaranteed yearly contracts it was a win-win. And he knew that having all the big names locked up meant that nobody else was going to make any money. Or at least not enough to compete. Here's a different what-if scenario. What happens if Turner never decides to get involved in wrestling? How much sooner does Vince have the monopoly on wrestling when Turner isn't throwing money at big names and Vince can get everybody under one roof faster? Or do a few territories still have enough firepower to carry on when Vince reaches the amount of big names he can afford with the business he's doing? How long does it take for the smaller guys to get a platform for their wrestling style in the States? There's all kinds of variables that could have changed the course of wrestling in America completely. I think that Vince's consolidation was bound to happen eventually. And to go even further I think that over time whoever had become the dominant force would get complacent and be out of touch. It's bound to happen when you get to that position.
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The NXT style seems like a sort of indy hybrid with WWE tropes. All of the things Loss hit on are a part of NXT style, but to a much lesser degree. I will say that I abhor most of those things despite really liking some of the workers in both NXT and WWE. A little off-topic, but are all the hyped WWE matches in the 2010s and 2000s forums?
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Kofi works really, really fucking light. Kane as the voice of reason and Bryan as the spiteful avenger is a nice role reversal. Kane annoys me every time I see him wrestle. He works almost as light as Kofi. The Shield taunting Bryan as the weak link is so awesome. I thought Ambrose was the most impressive of the Shield members here. One thing I hate about the whole "the Shield thrives in chaos" thing is that they thrive in order too. When they isolate somebody it's usually not chaotic at all. It's worked in a way that's methodical regardless of their pace. Kane taking the fall is a step up for the Shield, they finally get the fall on the big name in the matchup.
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I liked Kane getting eliminated first both for character reasons and for how much he brought these matches down. Bryan holding out as long as he did was a lot of fun. The Shield completely disregarding the rules and triple teaming Cena anyway was pretty sweet. Really brings home that group mentality in a meaningful way. They in no way cared about the DQ. All they were worried about was destroying the opposition as a group regardless of the rules.
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I didn't hate anyone in this match except for Kane. His offense is garbage. His selling isn't there. Bryan was a lot of fun, but I always want to strangle King or JBL whenever they talk about him. Taker actually played his role really well here. I'm no big Undertaker fan, but he was good in this. It's one of the lesser Shield matches through the end of May but is still pretty good.
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This was the match that got me hooked on the Shield. The TLC match was really good, but you never really know how well it's going to translate outside of the craziness of the gimmick. I dig how the Shield, when they are in their fast tag offense, don't do a lot of running around that involves moving the victim or put themselves in between the victim and their corner. They are constantly positioning themselves in between their opponent and his corner. There's not a bunch of fancy offense. There's enough, but it's mostly hard-hitting and laser focused. That does make their use of rope-running and corner stuff almost an obvious signal that we're going to get a hot tag soon though. Ryback as the big hot tag was actually really good. He looks like a complete musclehead and classic WWE big man nonsense. But I suppose that he still could be in a long singles match. I liked Sheamus ripping off the protective vest on Ambrose a lot. As well as the kick out of nowhere. Cena was good as the face-in-peril and the avenger towards the end. One thing I really like about the way the Shield was booked is they always appear weaker than their big name opponents one on one, but manage to get somebody else down long enough to double or triple team whoever it may be into a bad spot.
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I loved this match. The early finisher reversal stuff was fine because it negated the need for doing it later. Paige destroying Emma was so great. I was almost disappointed at Emma again going into her finishing routine right off of being destroyed without any kind of vengeance. But she switches gears after it doesn't work and gets brutal right back in Paige's direction. I thought the character work here was good too, with Emma getting angry and letting it get the better of her with the ill-advised slaps that led to Paige turning it around. Paige's dismay over the Paige Turner not working was great too. Both women sold excellently throughout and the stiffness was just great. This was a complete and total war. Regal on commentary so far on this show has been great too.
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I thought that they put Zayn over as the never-say-die face really well. The counter spots based off the 2 out of 3 falls were really well done. Some of the later nearfalls were a bit much though. The one count was just bad. Overall a very good match, but too many nearfalls and a really badly placed one count kill any chance of it being great.
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Didn't hear it, just seemed like the only reason the finish would be worked the way it was. It doesn't make sense with the way the match built to wanting to see Fuchi vs. Kawada only to have Ogawa end up in there for the majority of the finish. If Fuchi was above Kawada in the pecking order it might, but Fuchi has already lost to Kawada in a singles match. Only way the finish makes any sense to me is that it was booked as a way to debut Kawada's new big submission (his third in under six months). Not much later he puts Kroffat and then Kobashi away with it before he starts using it on guys like Fuchi or Jumbo. It's not dissimilar to how the bodyscissors sleeper and it's odd camel clutch-looking cousin were built up.
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Recently picked up the Network and started watching NXT from where they have it starting (Feb. 2014 IIRC). So far I enjoy the presentation and the wrestling quite a bit more than a lot of the WWE stuff. I suppose we can hope that Vince leaves NXT as is as a training tool for HHH. It's not like the majority of the NXT guys are really Vince type guys anyways. Most are more the alternative, indy type guys that Vince seems to hate the idea of as big stars and will only push when he needs to keep the fans in line. The announcing isn't much better than the main show though, except for when Regal shows up.
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I have to agree with Johnny on the original purpose of the thread. It does give posters a chance to rant about people who piss them off though, which can be a good thing. I have a hard time with the idea of the fawning co-host of a show hosted by a former wrestling promoter being "associated with wrestling" though. I'm sure anyone who has talked wrestling with co-workers has had to deal with a few who buy into the WWE myths wholesale and can't imagine there are other wrestlers worth watching. I've run into that once or twice before I stopped talking wrestling much at work and I can say it didn't make me hate anybody, just made me not want to talk wrestling with them. Associated with the business would be something far more solid to me.
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This was booked as a match for Kawada to debut the abdominal stretch version of the stretch plum. Kawada and Fuchi make the body of the match awesome, but for me the finish fell flat because of how all the momentum Fuchi and Kawada had built up was wasted. The first 3/4 or so of the match I saw after the clip was great. Ogawa and Kikuchi had a nice, heated exchange during that time as well.
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I liked this match quite a bit, but a lot of the stuff in it seemed like it was a rehash of 91 stuff. The setup for Kawada's finish of Ogawa hurt me watching it. Ogawa was the best he's been so far here. He brought a lot more emotion to the table in this match than in a lot of the major matches he was in during 91.
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I don't think I've seen any of the four matches you guys watched. Looking forward to them now though. You guys aren't wrong on the Misawa vs. Hansen match. Almost every Hansen vs. Misawa match I have watched is a disappointment when I look at how they worked against anybody else. The 8/92 match had the Misawa shoulder injury from earlier in the year, which played into the finish. Misawa, with an injured shoulder, won the triple crown from the big, badass gaijin Hansen. With an elbow. It takes the elbow that has been built up as big and just makes it bigger. Also the handshake afterwards is great. The match as a whole is not great, but it is necessary to the Misawa legend in more than one way. And if you watch the best Hansen vs. Misawa match in my opinion, the 93 match, it plays off of this one. It's one of those matches that is required viewing if you want a big part of the story, but not greta as a standalone match.
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I'd never seen this match before and it had me popping like crazy. Kawada finally putting the bodyscissors sleeper on Jumbo, basically anything Kawada and Jumbo related in this match is great. Doesn't hurt that Kobashi is all kinds of fired up and wants a piece of both Taue and Jumbo. Kobashi's run of offense near the end on Jumbo and the payoff is off the charts great. Kawada's lariat on Jumbo to start that offense is sublime. I can't believe this match didn't end up getting all kinds of pimped for how great it is.
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Actually, you should wait until I finish All Japan again and have time to go through it all first. Great stuff so far and I'm looking forward to the second half of 96.
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Some small things about this match because the big things have been covered. Kobashi hit an enzuigiri from the apron that Hansen banged his head into the top turnbuckle selling. On purpose or not that was fantastic. Hansen chopping Kobashi in the corner after the second vicious floor beating of Kobashi (body slam into the rail and Oklahoma stampede into the post) and turning to jaw with Higuchi only to eat a side kick from Kobashi was so fucking great. The sleeper sequence was mentioned, but the floor lariat that Kobashi sprints into afterwards and the desperate struggle to get off the floor afterwards are awesome. As is the fight to get back into the ring that ends with a Kobashi crossbody for his biggest nearfall of the match. I would put this behind the 7/29/93 match and ahead of the 4/93 fancam match and the 94 CC match. I'm not sure which of those two I have a 3 and 4, but I can say that any feud wth that kind of quality is something else. Also, at this point of 91 this is right behind 4/20 as my MOTY for All Japan.
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Those are great ideas, but I don't know that they'd be as good as the WWE list podcasts. The WWE lists seem pretty all over the place with enough goofiness, favoritism and attempts at representing a particular style or promotion with more than likely the wrong match to make for really good discussion material. Stuff like the DVDVR lists probably won't have near as much of that as the WWE lists.
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Great stuff on the tag team episode. I would agree with Parv on the pairing. I wonder, if either Kelly or Marty have watched much 80s AJPW and how the style was not as hard-hitting as one would assume based on the 90s, if Hansen in that environment was similar to Valentine in the 80s WWF?
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