dawho5
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Everything posted by dawho5
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I'll agree this is overlong, but there is a ton of good stuff packed into the match. Both of these guys are absolute workhorses and really bring the goods on the mat. Tamura may be slightly better on the mat, but he can't match Anjoh on his feet. Good to great match that would absolutely be MOTY contender at 15 mins. -
I enjoyed parts of this. The whole didn't make sense. Casas working as the underneath babyface and cowardly heel all at the same time didn't work for me. Dragon had lots of cool offense, and had 90% of the offense in the match. Why did he lose 2 falls? I guess I don't mind the idea that a well-executed submission or roll-up (which both were) can end a match, but I wish Casas had gotten a good chunk more offense and either a. ) stuck with the cowardly rudo act all the way through or b.) hadn't been trying to run away so much and just played the babyface fighting from underneath.
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If you are going to set up the Summerslam mains like they did, this is at least one way of building intrigue for them. Probably the best way given the circumstances, but I kinda wish they had done Savage/Flair. Also, maybe some seeds of the Attitude Era here where there truly are no good guys, everyone is out for themselves.
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The Tommy Rich promo was super hard to believe. But it's Memphis so I give it a pass. Loved Dundee's promo.
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For years I did not like this match. This viewing was different. First, going in knowing about Misawa's left arm helps a lot. Second, I have finally accepted that Hansen worked Misawa differently than he did everyone else and even kinda dug it this time. Hansen doesn't want to get elbowed, plain and simple. Despite being wild Texas brawler he also wants to win. So he is going after the match differently knowing Misawa's strength is in the elbow. Third, great selling and struggle by both guys throughout. It certainly is not your standard AJPW match, but if you look at it as just "a wrestling match" and judge it on the strengths and weaknesses of the wrestlers involved everything makes a ton of sense. And there is a ton of small stuff that I missed before. The kickass Hansen dropkick after eating a few elbows, then staying down just as long as Misawa. Misawa showing a ton of fire (and a bit of temper) while going off on Hansen at one point. Hansen's king of the mountain and Misawa's fight to get through the ropes with both guys fighting each other from the ground was amazing. Hansen selling the facelock like death rocked too. None of which is what you would think of as classic King's Road, but it all works within the match they wrestled. Maybe it is in the top 50 AJPW matches not wrestled like AJPW matches? I would agree that it is not great when you think about what you want from Hansen/Misawa. And I wish they had done one 15 minute balls-to-the-wall elbow vs. big Texan brawling sprint. I truly do. The fact that we didn't get one of those shouldn't make this match something less than what it is though.
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Loved how this match put Taue over, and his performance in it. Jumbo was great too, which is absolutely no surprise. The MVC were pretty good save a few times where they broke the momentum of the match to take a breather. Seems like an important match in the Akira Taue canon.
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Way better match than I would have expected from Global, but it is hardly surprising because both these guys are always at least solid. I liked the two guest heel announcers too, Tatum and Price do really well. Manny gets a little off the rails during his promo, but it's mostly good and he keeps the intensity up.
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Best AAA match so far for sure. Opening mat exchange was amazing. I know I complained about Eddie Gilbert punching the ref with a chain a couple of times blatantly a while back and how it shouldn't be allowed without repurcussions. I take it back here. Punch that bald fuck over and over until he's out. The match will improve. Great dive in caida 3 by Astro, who is such a surprisingly good to great worker.
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Love both of these guys in this match. And the story. One of Han's early bouts he shows his strikes to be almost as good as his grappling and the match suffers for it. Here he plays up Vrij's striking superiority in every way possible and it is just amazing. Even down to the "that didn't hurt" reaction after the third knockdown he suffered that tells you he really is hurt. Not on the list of the best sub-10 minute matches ever, but totally on the list of best sub-11 minute matches ever. And probably one of the greatest worked shootstyle matches you'll see too.
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I thought it was a fun matchup with both guys bringing something fun in a grappling sense to the table. Busting out the Karelin lifts on each other was pretty sweet too. Liked the story of Koba looking like the underdog on paper but being ahead on points due to somehow being able to find counters to everything Zaza did that led to submissions. And Zaza fighitng back with a better striking offense and more flexibility. The kick to Koba's chin while on the mat and the finishing submission were nasty in the most awesome way possible too. At around 11 minutes this one does not overstay it's welcome.
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No expert but Ogawa was always Misawa's buddy. So that may have played into it. And a great opponent. Love when Misawa busts out all of the offense he learned in his excursion to Mexico on Ogawa, offense you never see him use on anyone else. He once got a win over Ogawa (the flip side of this match) with one of those double chickenwing submissions that involved a figure four at the same time. Also, you have to know that Baba was a very slow, slow slow-and-steady booker. The big wins for guys coming from underneath came rarely and meant a lot. It also meant you could predict who was going to take the fall on either team pretty easily and see momentum shifts coming based on who was tagged in against who. As far as the match goes, it's another really good AJPW 6-man from the Jumbo vs. Misawa era. Probably my favorite era of AJPW is 91-mid 94, so this is my bread-and-butter. Love how it is always Taue interrupting Kawada pins and Jumbo is always willing to take those cheap shots at Misawa. And how Taue may be bigger than Kikiuchi, but he takes Kikuchi for granted a little bit and gives him too many chances when he has him down. The way each matchup is wrestled differently in these matches was always a big thing for me. I'll probably still be enjoying them when I'm about ready to retire. Also, Kikuchi getting absolutely murdered by Jumbo is amazing to watch.
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One thing bugs me about Memphis heels the more I watch. Eddie hits the ref twice with a chain. Anywhere else that would be grounds for the guy never being invited back. But he keeps getting matches somehow. It's hard to reconcile even with suspension of disbelief. Same as some of the rampages the Moondogs went on, needed to be curbed a little to be effective. Great promo though and Christopher is starting to find himself as a heel.
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Not sure what the Beverly Brothers did to get a title shot. Wonder how that match would play out with bruisers like Bloom and Enos against the big immovable objects. The whole Hart family being torn apart thing is kinda overplayed. You'd think with a family as involved in wrestling as theirs it would be old hat. Also, is it really hard to tell Davey was on the roids? No wonder the WWF got pinched. Not sure on Martel/Michaels. I suppose you need a heel/heel match given how all the big name babyfaces seem to be busy. Bruno's screaming was necessary, but it took away from the promo for me. As did Kamala. Honestly the tag match for curiosity and the Hart vs. Davey are all I would want to see on the card.
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Not truly a match but a spectacle with truly no comparison in the world of wrestling. Still hard to say if that is in an entirely or mostly bad way.
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I come down somewhere in between Sleaze and the people who love this match. On the plus side I really dug the opening matwork. Struggle along with both guys aiming at important targets, as well as Chono staying really active throughout. The match lost me a little in the middle of the finish run when they slowed it down, but not enough that they didn't have me back by the end. I liked the finish not coming from the STF. If more matches ended with unexpected moves the finishers would have more impact. I wouldn't call it a great match, but I'd say it was really, really good with some major flaws that drag it down a little.Great work by Rude for sure.
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I would swear that backslide won Benoit a match against Liger previously. Most of what I would say has been covered, but I really did enjoy this match as a sprint with a power vs. guile story. That baseball slide was easily the best one I've ever seen. Never been a fan of the pointless, feeling-out matwork they do in NJPW. It rarely figures into anything except for passing time. Here they at least kept it mostly to the neck-based holds that actually do come into play later, so it isn't as bad as it could be with a bunch of arm and leg work that goes nowhere.
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Great match for all of the reasons above. I would add the following. Atlantis losing the first fall after hitting a couple of big moves on Charles that he couldn't follow up on because of the bad shoulder and then Charles putting him away with a quikc follow-up move after a dropkick was genius. Charles got away from the arm in caida 2, which is why Atlantis was able to hit a few high impact moves that targeted his back and finish him with the abdominal stretch. If it had been caida 3 I would have been upset, caida 2 makes sense. I called the finish once Charles started rolling him up over and over. The fact that Charles went for a leg submission to set it up made it much better, but it made so much sense given the rest of the match.