cactus
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Everything posted by cactus
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Kenny spends the first half of this working over Phoenix. Despite his generic indy wrestler name, Owen Phoenix was decent and always worked as well as the high-flying babyface underdog. Kenny is in full heel DDT anime villain mode. He gets under your skin as an irritating little shit, but I could do without him doing his chainsaw forearm spot as that was too campy for my tastes. Phoenix showed plenty of fire in the finishing stretch, with him getting a very convincing near fall on a brainbuster before he is put away with Croyt's Wrath. This was a fun work rate sprint with a clear face and heel divide that went just the right length. Like most indy matches that are heavy on the work rate, this had a few issues such as the done-to-death strike exchange spots, but all their stuff looked smooth enough that it didn't detract from the match. ★★★¼ -
This features a lot of comedy wrestling mixed with some fun juniors action. Bubblegum, who has the gimmick of a chickenshit council estate yob, provided most of the comedy and he really shone in this match. After Bubblegum, Elgin impressed me the most by doing some impressive power spots and working surprisingly well as the straight man to Bubblegum's comedy act. Dragon didn't get too involved with the comedy, but his broken English delivery of telling Bubblegum to go fuck himself really tickled me as I didn't expect that on a family-friendly show. Dragon didn't do anything too physical, as he only comes in to get some shine and to get the decisive fall. Ligero was just here to deliver the work rate for his team, and his sequences with Bubblegum showed that these two had great chemistry together. This was a lot of fun as it gave guys like Elgin and Dragon to work in an environment that they were not used to. ★★★¼
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Antonio De Luca was one of the regulars for 4FW and he showed a lot of promise. Possessing a great look and loads of charisma, he was always a heel and his gimmick was that of an egotistical Italian douchebag. The crowd teases him with chants of 'Where's My Pizza!' as he is introduced. Carlito, who was released from WWE a few years earlier, is in incredible shape and starts this one off by spitting his apple into De Luca's face. De Luca was quite sloppy here, but he was still quite young and he more than made up for his in-ring shortcomings by showing a lot of character. He had a small flap on his tights that he would arrogantly flap to generate some crowd heat as he beats down Carlito. He even gets a small child to swing at him as he's teasing the audience! Carlito had the reputation of being lazy, but he did all the spots you would expect from him and then some. I don't recall ever seeing Carlito doing a superkick or a screw neckbreaker during his time in WWE. Although giving the crowd the apple spot before the match was definitely a mistake as the crowd quieted down significantly after Carlito did his most famous spot so early into the match. This wasn't a classic by any means, but the fans are just happy to see a former WWE star wrestle in their small hometown and De Luca makes this worth a watch with his sublime character work. ★★½
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Undertaker working with Angle causes Undertaker to really pull his finger out and deliver a career-great performance. He's an underappreciated seller and he shows this as Angle targets his knee and ankle in an attempt to soften it up for the ankle lock. He limps all over the place and never makes his hurt leg feel like an afterthought. I have a few gripes with this match though. The finish feels flat as the crowd isn't fully buying Undertaker's triangle choke as a threat yet and they just look confused when Angle counters the choke into the deciding pinfall. You could tell they were scrambling to find a finish that made both guys look strong. ★★★★¼
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After few minutes of feeling each other in a variety of waist locks and arm wringers, they hit and neat sequence that ends in Cedric getting hit by a kick to the chest that sounded like a shotgun blast. Ibushi's strikes are put over big time as Mauro and Bryan talk about his time in NJPW. Cedric is more than able to keep up with Ibushi and hits some a beautiful-looking Michinoku Driver and Brain Buster during the final moments of this match. After trading 2. 9 falls, Cedric falls to Ibushi's sit-out Last Ride finisher. This was lacking in storytelling and character building, as they opted to put on an exhibition chocked full of jaw-dropping spots and sequences, but what an exhibition this was! ★★★★¼
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That opening match was surprisingly mediocre. I'm a fan of all three women, but nothing seemed to click. A lot of the sequences looked fake, sloppy and you could tell they were all having an off-night. Also, there was no way that Charlotte was taking the fall if she wasn't winning.
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I too prefer the J-Cup match, but this is still an incredible match feature two of the best juniors ever. This might be heavy on workrate, but you've also got the story of Sasuke trying to prove to the world that his victory over Liger wasn't a fluke. This back-and-forth sprint has big bombs and even bigger dives. Sasuke jump starts this by land an incredible dive to the outside and it's the first of many. They all look great and they never descended into spotfest territory. ★★★★½
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For a spotfest to impress me at this point in my fandom, they really have to go for it and work as smooth as silk and these guys did all of that. This was an awesome spectacle that left my jaw firmly on the ground. Ospreay is the bigger man and takes control of his opponent to start. The only thing that could bring distract from his incredible athletism is his hilariously goofy facial expressions. Everything was going so-so until that insane shooting star plancha from Bandido made everyone in the building lose their shit. Bandido has some of the smoothest hurricanaranas that I've seen. Ospreay's backflipping out of Bandido's already impressive finish was the coolest thing I've seen in a wrestling ring in quite some time. ★★★★
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Man, I have forgotten how smug and arrogant Okada was when he was a baby Rainmaker. His facials here are so damn smackable. Despite his arrogance, the NJPW fans are starting to get behind him and start to wear tiresome of Tanahashi's goody-two-shoes attitude. This means Tana goes into John Cena mode and does all his signature taunts with a touch more pizzazz to really get under his detractor's skin whilst still being a babyface. Okada mostly dominates the first exchanges and works Tanahashi over in a variety of Lucha submissions. Tanahashi lands a Fujiwara early and then spends the rest of the match working Okada's arm. Okada sells his injury well and I loved that he switched his elbow pad over so that he could hit his flying elbow without damaging his arm any further. Small touches like that go a long way. The exchanges we get during the final ten minutes are explosive and exciting, and never look cooperative or too cutesy. Throw in the molten-hot crowd and you got yourself an all-time classic. ★★★★¾
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NJPW's ace takes on the rebellious anti-hero. The crowd are split on this one. Tana goes for Naito's leg, which is how he got the win during their last encounter. Tana's arm is hanging on by a thread and Naito takes control by delivering dropkicks to his hurt wing. Just when I thought that they forgot about the arm work, Naito once again uses it to gain an advantage in the finishing stretch. I remember when I first saw this at the time, and I wasn't quite sure why everyone loved this as much as they did. I imagine G1 fatigue played a factor as I had seen weeks of great matches from NJPW by this point in the tournament and it's very easy to get burnt out by their back-and-forth style of wrestling. Nearly four years on, I can say that I finally see what all the fuss was about. The final stretch where Naito is bent like an accordion in Tana's cloverleaf had me on edge. I might find NJPW's main event style to feel sameish for my taste and the constant assault of big spots and nearfalls can wear me out, but I'd be very hard to press to even suggest that this wasn't a great match! ★★★★¼
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I'm a bit confused why Dave Meltzer went five stars on this. I am well aware that it's just one man's opinion, but still. What we got here was an enjoyable 11-minute spotfest and nothing more. Dragon Lee's forearms look weak as hell and there's little to no selling to be found here. It's just a showcase of high spots. Some of those high spots are jaw-dropping, with Bandido usually pulling off the coolest moves. His rebound belly-to-back suplex is a sight to behold. Then there are spots like the Avalanche Blockbuster, in which the awkward and fake-looking set-up isn't worth the final result. If you want to watch a spotfest that doesn't outwear it's welcome, then there are worse matches to go with than this. ★★★
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After Shibata left the struggling company Tanahashi worked his arse off to rebuild, Tanahashi wants to teach Shibata a lesson. He can't just decide to come back now that business is starting to boom again. We get a hell of a Tanahashi performance here. He isn't the baby-kissing ace here, but instead, he's a territorial dickhead who's not afraid to play Shibata's game and start laying in some violent strikes and disrespectful slaps to Shibata's handsome mug. As much as I loved Shibata when he returned to NJPW nearly a decade ago, I can admit that certain elements of his schtick haven't aged particularly well. The constant man-up strike trade-offs have become cliche now, but that's not to say that I didn't love this match. Tanahashi is smart enough to pepper in some limbwork here and it plays right into the final pinfall. This had some simple yet compelling storytelling with bucketloads of stiff strikes that'll have you wincing and an explosive finishing stretch. ★★★★
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I love a good spotfest (I still think the first two TLC matches are two of the best ever matches in WWE history), but this left a lot to be desired. For every awe-inspiring high spot that went off without a hitch, there would be another spot with obvious cooperation that watered down the entire spectacle. Parts of this had me feeling like Jim Cornette, but they managed to wow me back into the room with spots like that incredible Canadian Destroyer from the ladder through the table. The final five minutes had some decent drama at least. Pentagon Jr. getting demasked when he nearly had the match won was a nice spot that I haven't seen in a ladder match before. Everything they did here clearly worked for the crowd and you can get a lot of this if you simply turn your mind off for 25 minutes, but I can't help but think how much this match would have been improved if they simply cut a few of the blown spots and trimmed off 5 minutes or so. ★★★¼
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All four men played their parts to perfections in this action-packed tag. The UWF invaders laid some brutal shots into the young NJPW upstarts. Koshinaka gets in a number of incredible hope spots here, including one where he changes the tide of the match by evading a potential match-ending wheel kick into the corner by Maeda. I know Mutoh gets a lot of stick for being lazy and dull these days, but in his prime, he was a fired-up babyface with one of the best moonsaults in the business. Although there are a few people in the crowd cheering on Maeda, by the time they reach the molten-hot finishing stretch, everyone in the building is rooting for the NJPW lads. Every match I've seen so far in the NJPW vs UWF storyline has been brilliant, and this was no different. Everyone here impressed, but I thought this was career-best performance from Koshinaka. ★★★★½
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Rewatched this tonight and I loved it even more. This was perfectly paced and everything flows exceedingly well, from the Brandi interference to the horrific bladejob by Dustin. Two years on and AEW still hasn't been able to top this. ★★★★★
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When it comes to the execution of the high-flying moves, Misawa was no Sayama. He hits some nice dives and counters here, it makes you wonder if fans at the time were less impressed by Misawa's version of Tiger Mask even if Misawa was by far the better worker. Kobayashi acts like a heel by attacking Misawa before the match, but the crowd was firmly behind him on this night. He has a lot of swagger about him and you can see why the crowd was rooting for him. He's able to cut Misawa off with a variety of spin kicks and work him down with some holds that start to outwear their welcome. The only part of this match that I straight-up didn't like was when Misawa crashes and burns to the outside after a failed corkscrew body press to the outside. My gripe wasn't with the dive itself, but how Misawa brushes it off. The crowd was clearly concerned by Misawa's fall and his no-selling wasted a good opportunity to create some drama. Kobayashi nearly wins this after landing both a Fisherman's suplex and a rolling clutch pin, but his opponent is too close to the ropes. This was a good way to make Kobayashi look strong, even if he isn't victorious on this night. This being the 80's in Japan, this ends in a no contest when both guys are unable to make the count after a spill to the outside. Overall, this was a fun juniors match with a molten-hot crowd. ★★★
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Kim shows plenty of fire as she lays in multiple barrages of elbows into Kong. Her elbows aren't the snuggest, but Kong doesn't over-sell them so that cancels that out. Nothing worse in wrestling when a heel sells a weak-looking move like a death blow. They brawl through the crowd and actually keep things interesting! Kim is fantastic at fighting from underneath and constantly being on the look for an opening. The finish involving multiple referees could have easily come off as contrived, but I thought they pulled it all off well. These two had the crowd in the palms of their hands here, with the fans buying into every near-fall. We need more women like Awesome Kong in 2021! ★★★★½
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Sting's presentation looks top-notch and Hogan knows how to stall in an entertaining manner. The opening face-off and Sting no-selling the suplex were also cool moments. Sadly that's all the good I can say about this. Sting gets gassed early and it becomes clear that the only thing Hogan can do by this point is stall and play to the crowd. Hogan can't work an interesting control segment to save his life. We get chants of 'Boring!'. Hogan hits a leg drop out of nowhere and pins Sting clean. The crooked referee was meant to count fast, but we get a fair count instead. This made the following moments even dumber. The ring bell doesn't ring as Bret Hart stops the timekeeper. The match is restarted with Bret as the referee ...because reasons and Sting taps out Hogan. The WCW locker room empties out and celebrates with The Stinger, as the crowd throws garbage into the ring. This was also Bret's WCW debut. What a shit show. This started off with a lot of promise and blew up in the most spectacular way. A total car crash of a main event. ★
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Hokuto's entrance attire looked incredible. They jump-start this after Hokuto hits a big dive to the outside as Toyota's making her way to the ring. They bring the hate during the first half, with Toyota violently throwing Hokuto around by her hair. They work on some snug holds, with Hokuto locking on a particularly tight Sharpshooter. It was interesting to see Toyota work as vicicious as she did here, which is a side of her that is rarely seen. This all falls to shit in the second half, where it felt like they were just trading moves. Seeing Hokuto obviously check on Toyota after a few of the bigger spots was one of those small things that took me right out of the match. They end up fighting outside, where they hit table spot after table spot before Toyota wraps this up after two Northern Light Suplexes. Yeah, this didn't vibe with me. The big moves looked devasting, but there's more to wrestling than getting your shit in. ★★¼
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They open this with some grappling to feel each other out and that eventually reaches a stalemate, so Joe starts to manhandle Angle. After a violent throw into the barricade and a head-first launch into the steel steps, Angle is cut open badly. Angle looked incredibly intense hyping himself up while donning the crimson mask. They really made this feel like Angle didn't stand a chance against the undefeated behemoth. The submission transitions in the finishing stretch were flawless and had the Impact Zone crowd reach boiling point. Angle escaping the Conquina Clutch by wrenching on Joe's already damaged ankle popped me big time. I didn't think Angle was too offensive here, with the exception of him pulling up the straps, only for him to pull them down again seconds later. I could have done without that. This might be one of my favourite ever TNA matches. ★★★★½
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Awesome wastes no time to bust out some high-risk moves. Despite being nearly 300 pounds, Awesomes moves with the grace and technique of a skilled cruiserweight. Joey Styles bitches on about how other big guys aren't bothered enough to leave their feet as if that's a bad thing. Tanaka takes some sickening chair shots and the crowd finally wakes up. After taking some more punishment, Tanaka is able to fight back and hit a devastating powerbomb to the outside, through a table. That spot was one of the few big moments that was built up well. The finish felt like a let-down, as it came out of nowhere. Although this was lacking a coherent structure and suffers from a severe lack of psychology, this was still entertaining as a pure spectacle. An awesome spectacle doesn't equate to a good match though. ★★¾
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You can find this match under Hidden Gems on the Network. They open the match by trading holds at a lightning pace. We see arm wrenches and snapmares before Liger locks in his Mexican Surfboard, which causes the crowd to gasp. Eddie gets out, and they work some crisp and quick cruiserweight exchanges. Liger gets the better of Eddie after he lands a sloppy Koppu kick that sends Eddie to the outside as the show goes to commercial. Eddie is in control as the show comes back, and he works down Liger's leg. Liger lands a few nearfalls after escaping a Gory Stretch. Liger's comeback is put on ice when Eddie lands a Brainbuster and hits the Frog Splash. The finish felt like it came out of nowhere. The crowd are sitting on their hands throughout the entirety of this match, but this was presented as a thrown-together match on their C-show, so the lack of reaction should come as no surprise. If you go into this expecting a ★★★★+ hidden gem between two of the best ever, you are going to be very disappointed. Everything we saw here was at least decent, but you could tell they were holding back slightly. ★★¾
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I wish this clicked with me more. This felt like they couldn't decided whether they wanted to do a explosive bloody brawl or a slow-burner technical bout, so they decided to meet in the middle and the result is a match that is lacking in urgency. The individual performances of both Flair and Race was solid, even if this was a drag to sit through. The most interesting part of this is the increasing tension between Race and guest referee Gene Kiniski. Kiniski has to physically pull Race from Flair. This might be No DQ, but Kiniski still wants Race to fight with honour! ★★½
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These two beat the shit out of each other in this bloody chain match. Piper is going into this with an ear injury and Valentine exploits it. Piper gets juice from the ear and expertly sells it by wobbling all over the place. How the hell do you get blood from an ear?! The image of Valentine's contorted face being wrenched against the chain will stick with me for a long time. Considering this is regarded as one of the best ever matches under the NWA banner, I do wish I liked this more than I did. Still, it's a brutal display of violence with convincing performances from both Valentine and Piper. ★★★★
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Every time I see a Bob Orton Jr. match. he always ends up impressing me with his Southern style of wrestling. Youngblood is here to be the pretty boy babyface who gets worked over by the heels until it's time to make the hot tag to Wahoo. Wahoo is looking rather washed up here, but he's only here to take the hot tag and land some weak looking chops, so he doesn't stink up the match at all. A beautifully executed float-over superplex is enough for the heels to take the victory. This gets a lot of time to breath, with the total match time clocking in at just under 15 minutes and it's very well paced. ★★★