dawho5
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Everything posted by dawho5
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Match seemed designed to put Okada over in the standard Japanese fashion of dealing with youngsters. I drifted off a bit whenever Sugiura was in the ring, which has become a habit. He's just so one-dimensional, even if he is good at that dimension. Goto is worse because he's not as good at it. Okada was clearly still learning here, but he tries to put on a spirited performance. Aoki was just sort of...there. If you can't tell, I didn't much care for this match. -
Both good and bad stuff here. Nakamura and Milano make for a fun non-standard NOAH match. They work over Shiozaki's leg after the opening stuff, then Nakamura inexplicably stops attacking the leg to let Shiozaki win a strike exchange. The leg is never attacked again, but Shiozaki sells it for a little while to his credit. They work a nice transition into a good finishing run. Nakamura was mostly good, but he's starting to seem a bit like KENTA. No matter how the early match goes, we're doing the finishing sequence with the same big spots and teases. I really don't like that about Japan in the 2000s that the finish always had to have a lot of nearfalls off of big moves, strikes and suplexes without any real thought given to how the first 15-25 minutes of the match went. This was a really well-worked finish, Shiozaki and Milano shine particularly. I'd call Milano MVP of the match for the way he kept interjecting his chickenshit heel act into the macho pissing contest-fueled NOAH matches.
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This was better than I thought it would be. They do some athletic opening stuff, then Ibushi gets caught by a dropkick to the leg on a dive attempt and Ishimori takes advantage. I like Ishimori's working over the leg, and Ibushi sold well between moves all the way til the end. But Ibushi's comebacks were often very sprinty or flippy to the point where you could see the leg not being sold during. It's a small complaint, but it happens often enough that it works against the match. Ishimori skips a lot of his overly long setup offense late, which ehlps. Nearfalls go a little too far in the kickouts, but it's not near as much as most 2000s stuff. Also, pretty well laid out. It's not getting a vote, but it was a fun watch and worth it. Both are good at the intricate athletic sequences that border on gymnastics, but they keep that to a minimum, which to me makes the best use of those kinds of sequences.
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I would agree with Matt that at a certain point it became very easy to read about the booking/backstage aspects of pro wrestling. It had a lot to do with message boards moreso than newsletters I'd guess. Places like DVDVR and their competitors. I don't think fans were "dumb" before this happened, just not as many had the easy access to the kind of information that would make someone what we would now call a "smart" fan. I guess my questions would be a bit more pointed towards the different audiences and what percentage of fans within them were the type who read the stuff on the internet and discussed booking, match layout, etc. What percentage for WWE? How about for RoH? What about New Japan? Would those numbers have changed from the mid-90s until now? Would it always be in the direction towards more "smart" fans? How many of those fans who use the internet really get involved in the types of discussions that go on here daily? What reasons did you have specifically for the direction you took once you started getting into wrestling? Did that keep going in the same direction once you joined any one of the internet wrestling discussion boards? If it changed, why? Can the answers to these questions apply to a lot of other fans or are you very likely in the minority? edit: I think there's a few questions I missed. What communities did you join as far as discussing wrestling? Did you enjoy them or take anything from them? What did you not like about them? How did that affect what discussion boards you joined after that? These probably have quite a lot of bearing on how you look at the subject at hand as much as they helped form who we all are as wrestling fans.
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I have been trying to think of a response to this line of argument for a while that encapsulates how I look at this. Hoping this works. On the one hand, I think that yes, the internet has changed the way some fans look at pro wrestling. For my it goes back to the "why" part of jdw's argument. That is the part that the internet really opens up to younger fans now with much less personal experience necessary to see it. On the other hand, I've been to live MMA events that my friends were taking part in. The majority of the people who went to them seemed to want to drink, be really loud and get excited when somebody started getting the shit beaten out of them. Who it was didn't matter very often. I've got to guess that a certain cross section of those people would gladly go to a WWE or indy show and watch people "fake" beat each other up and yell and scream while drinking to blow off steam. And you know, that plays into the way the faces are always rejecting authority (the boss?) and sticking it to the man. It gets to the more casual audience in a big way because of what those people would like to do given the chance. My feeling about this whole argument is that we're really talking about a matter of the ratio of "smart" fans who read the internet and talk about booking to people who just show up to yell and scream and chant, just for the entertainment of it. I would guess that has changed, but to what degree I really have no idea.
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I thought this had it's moments. Oba's comedy stuff was too over the top for me. Ono was great as a dick heel. Seeing Ikeda in the Ishikawa role was weird but it worked. Not as well for me, but it did work. And I got the feeling that Suruga was a protégé of Ikeda and the point of the match was to put him and to a lesser extent Oba over. Ikeda wrestlng almost face makes this a little odd as far as structure. Towards the end, Ikeda really gives Suruga a lot, but comes up with the right move at the right time for a victory.
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Finishing sequence was really well-done. Good work between the falls, they paid off on three things that happened in the match 2 weeks earlier, and it didn't last forever with way too many nearfalls. Only problem is that Nakajima chose to work the leg early and throughout. And if I've learned anything about KENTA in my 2000-2009 watchings, it's that he wrestles one way regardless of the circumstance. So even after legwork, let's sprint across the ring three times in quick succession and then use a springboard move with no slowdown. What a waste of a perfectly good finish. edit: For clarity, I'm gonna lay out my reasons for not liking this. Opening is good, lots of kicks and rope-running like you'd expect. Then Nakajima works the leg over and KENTA sticks to the original gameplan. Nakajima sort of comes back to that, but also works the leg over some more. At this point, they aren't wrestling the same match. Then finish starts and they sync up to put together a really good one. If I'm putting this together, I tell Nakajima to just run around and trade kicks/elbows/high flying with KENTA for the first 15. That goes perfectly well into the finish they did. Much better than the actual first 15 minutes of the match.
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I would agree on everything said about Akiyama. He just never had his own big rival to make his place special. Both Misawa and Kobashi had Kawada there to really push them hard to (in Misawa's case) never let up despite being on top or (for Kobashi) keep doing more and more to get the fans on his side. Overrated I would go with Kobashi, for many reason I feel no need to repeat. Underrated, I'm gonna go a little off the beaten path and say Katsuyori Shibata. The guy brings a completely different dynamic to every match I've seen him in and tends to get the other workers involved fired up one way or another. He's probably not a great worker, but what he brings to the table has made my limited viewings of him entertaining.
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This could have been really good. Nakamura's continued selling of the leg for 3 seconds into his offense pretty bogus given the focus on it. Nearfall sequence was just a little overdone on what was kicked out on, but it seemed really tame compared to most. Tanahashi hit the best sling blade I've seen countering a landslide. It's not overlong, right around 25 minutes, which goes hand-in-hand with the finishing stretch not having lots of laying around and useless strike exchanges just so it could be an epic match. Early stuff was really nice, had a good Misawa vs. Kawada feel to it in the rope-running and teasing of big spots early. Too bad that didn't last.
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So many things I'm not sure of here. Why is Misawa vs. Nakamura a big deal? Why Sugiura? Can Hirooki Goto throw an elbow that looks like it hurts? Sugiura gets old pretty fast whenever I see him wrestle. Too many pissing contests to "build the match". Same few power spots, sometimes done later to be reversed. Then when he does do things besides that, it makes no sense. He grabs an ankle lock on Nakamura after nobody has touched a leg and they spend a few minutes making it into a big spot. Did I miss parts of this match or something? Nakamura gets put over really well. And he looks good for the most part. Misawa has stretches where he looks old and worn out. And damn, how many years did he wrestle with no major breaks? I'd say that's deserved and not in any way complaint-worthy material. Misawa still wrestling in 2009 had to take a superhuman effort. Goto gets his weak strikes and a few suplexes, but is mostly an afterthought. Nakamura catches Sugiura with a flash armbar and gets the submission in 3 seconds. I get that it can do that, but that was a weird finish. Oddball match, not awful, but not getting a vote.
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I remember watching this. but I guess I never posted anything. 4-way is better as spotfests go. Honestly I never look at Toryumon or DG as something I need a coherent story to enjoy the match. It's not like NOAH where it's supposed to be a big, serious wrestling company. But then, I don't rate Toryumon very high when it does get a vote, so there are drawbacks to that as well.
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And Regal lived up to the in-ring requirements for sure.
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Anyone using Skynyrd as their entrance music rules, period. I think that goes for any of the old blues music I've heard as entrance music as well.
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I learned a long time ago to stay away from Japanese deathmatches. Some things just are not for me, and that's one of them.
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I didn't think this was as good as the tag on the same night. But it was still up there as far as the whole of the 2000s go. Yano is a clear underdog here, but he holds his own on the mat. Usuda starts in with strikes just to drive the point home that he doesn't have to play Yano's game and takes a big lead. Yano manages to get it back to the mat and then does some pro wrestling style striking to get his own standing ten count on Usuda. Once Usuda gets over the shock of that he starts taking Yano apart with kicks. Vicious kicks. Please don't let that ever happen to me kicks. Can Yano capitalize on the damage to Usuda's arms before the kicks take their toll? Finish is....well, it looks like something to avoid anyway.
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These guys definitely did a lot of things right. The rib work by Yoshitsune was exceptional early. Hayato's comeback was really well-done. They work this incredible apron sequence where Yoshitsune backflips out of a German and lands perfectly on the apron. That is some fucking precision right there. Then they do some ECW stuff, which is okay. Then they work a 18 minute finishing run that goes way too far over the top. Don't get me wrong, lots of it was really impressive stuff, but these long sequences of false finishes just for the point of having them have gotten more out of control as the decade wears on. Dial it back about ten minutes and get a few good nearfalls each and I would have voted for it.
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The teacher/student relationship between Ishikawa and Sawa comes through pretty strong in this one. It was sorta there in the last two matches they were both involved in, but this one cements it. Great tag match, with Sawa playing the face-in-peril really well before Ishikawa has to try and make up all the lost ground. It's like a Battlarts version of the Misawa/Akiyama or Kobashi tags. Only there's more. Ishikawa beat Tiger in a match just about a month earlier and it seems like Sawa and Hara have a rivalry. If you pay attention to how the match is built, you get the idea that the finish from last match isn't happening here. And it doesn't, but it's still damn good. I'd say it's better than the lead-in singles bout by a ways. This will be around the 30-40 range.
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First twenty minutes or so were good. Marufuji is figuring out how to build a match without flipping all over the place and Kondo seems like his early match is usually pretty good. Neither is great at it, but they are better than passable. Then we get to the finishing run. Kondo has this repertoire of power moves that is ridiculously big, and they all look like finishing moves. Which is a problem because 95% of them are only used as nearfalls. Marufuji seems to have developed some big nearfalls and near-submissions that can be used in a finishing run without looking too overdone. Then he starts hitting all his flippy shit and kills that train of thought. Not the worst match by far in this project, but probably not getting a vote.
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I came pretty late to the game to pro wrestling. I was already old enough to know it was fake, but didn't care. Entertainment is entertainment, I know that movies are fake but I like those. As for the internet stuff, I was one of those "elitists" who liked watching Japanese wrestling from the mid-90s right around 1998-2000. And I did have that "you won't see this stuff on Monday night" attitude about it, so maybe in truth I was a bit of an elitist. But I think that's a stage that you go through on the way to being aware that all wrestling has it's merits, you just have to find the stuff that works for you. That's one thing I think a lot of people fail to recognize, both in relation to themselves and others, that as you watch more wrestling and see different things, your views on it end up changing over time. You could apply that to these so-called "smarks" or any group of wrestling fans that you may have a particular dislike for. Or any one of the people that post here. I can guarantee you that their opinions on a match they haven't watched in ten years will have been changed, however slightly, by matches they have seen and things they have read, be it on here or anywhere else in between.
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Brutal BatBat tag, but without the overarcing story of the 6-man or the Otsuka vs. Super Tiger 2 match. This one is just 4 guys beating the shit out of each other with a rivalry (Sawa vs. Yoshikawa) playing out at the end. It's still loads of fun and will get a vote, but I liked the others better.
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Early match is really, really good. When KENTA is working slow and steady to build a match he's very fun to watch. Then we do the dives, which goes on a bit too long, but that's forgivable. And then we do the big long "we have to have a billion nearfalls" part of the match that always kills me. Not to mention KENTA goes into million miles per hour mode too often to truly be selling the earlier damage. You cut ten minutes off of this and just work to a finish instead of all the excess and it's a really good match.
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I am loving these 08 Battlarts matches. Once you get to the end, the competitors are all looking like they've been through Hell and back and are on their last legs. They start with grappling, which puts Otsuka at an early lead, but not by enough. Tiger starts getting wise to this and goes to strikes, which leaves Otsuka in a lot of trouble. he struggles thrugh some big flurries to get some suplexes in, but is barely able to stand before the count himself. Can he finish off the upstart Super Tiger, or will Otsuka get KOed before he can get to that point? One thing I liked a lot about this match was the long-term selling by both. Neither comes back "fresh" and gets in big offense. When Otsuka gets back to what has been working for him after taking a quick but brutal beating, he never truly seems like he's recovered, just on top for the moment. When Super Tiger starts hitting his big late flurries, he collapses in the corner afterwards as if taking Otsuka away from grappling is in fact something that requires a lot of effort. Well done match, should show up on my ballot somewhere.
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I'm still in shock as to how amazing this match was. Everybody comes up big when they need to. The above reviews have a lot of my sentiments about this match covered, but I'll try to add more. For one, the STORY that takes place from the first elimination until the end of the match is god damn incredible. Yes, they are brutally stiff to the point where you're wondering how they do it. But once the first elimination takes place, it becomes this great struggle for survival by that guy's team for quite a while. They have to scratch and claw their way to something that might end the match only to get hit by some ridiculously stiff shot to break it up because they have one partner while the guy they are slapping the submission on has two. Once they even things up, it's this intense battle to keep afloat after that superhuman effort. Then the next elimination occurs and we get the same thing all over again two on one. And then, just when you think it can't get any better...the fourth elimination, one on one. Holy shit do they ever have one of the best mini-brawls you will ever see. Nobody is backing down, the shots are so god damn brutal, but neither one can allow themselves to get knocked down. Then they go into submission attempts, very likely because if they had continued there would have been a legit KO very soon. I was so blown away by this match, it's gonna make my top 5 easily. I'm really looking at how my top 3 or 4 are configured lately, but this will be in my top 5. I'm trying to figure out whose performance was best out of the six, but I have to be honest. Tiger and Sawa brought it for sure, but they are clearly a level below the other 4. Between the other four, I have a hard time choosing. Let's just say everybody involved in this match hit it out of the park.