cactus
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Everything posted by cactus
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Clocking in at 55 minutes, this is a long watch that rewards your focus. They start slow with Cena overpowering Michaels. Cena keeps going for the STFU early and Michaels starts to show his frustration. Cena keeps taking back control by laying out HBK with his beefy lariats. They do a neat callback to Wrestlemania 23, where Michaels attempts to piledrive Cena onto the steel steps, only this time it doesn't work out and Michaels is sent back dropped onto the mats, an insane bump for a 41 year old with a history of back injuries to take. One thing I absoutely adore this match for is that no one hits their finishing move more than once, and it makes the action feels that much easier to get excited about. Michaels is sublime at selling fatigue. He finally nails some Sweet Chin Music, and crumbles onto Cena to secure the pin and wrapping up this epic encounter. This is The John Cena Big Match without all the cliche finishing move spammage watering down the formula. Arguably one of the best matches to take place on WWE Raw ever. ★★★★½ -
Austin and Michaels are teaming up here, but they are not friends at all. They are facing off at the next PPV and it seems entirely possible that this team could combust at any given minute. This is Michael's first match since February and he shows zero signs of ring rust. He's the FIP for most of this match and he's fantastic. He gets crotched on the top rope after a gorilla press from Bulldog. Ouch. The heel team cut the ring in half and keep working down Michaels. There is a lot of teases of Michaels getting the hot tag and the crowd eat it all up. Once Austin's in, he quickly hits the Stunner and gets the win and all hell breaks loose as a massive brawl breaks out. The kind of Southern Tag that would make Jim Cornette splooge. ★★★★
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This is champion vs champion match and they both enter the arena with very little fanfare. Maybe Punk wasn't as over as I would of liked to believe in 2012. As one can expect, this is very technical match and both guys work well of each other. Bryan is the overly excited quasi-face heel, celebrating his small victories like he's won the Royal Rumble. He goes to work on Punk's arm. He stretches it out and stomps on wrist, ala William Regal. There's a cool callback to this later in the match, when Punk has to change arms when he attempts to hit his corner bulldog. They brawl outside the ring with duelling uppercut exchanges. Just when Punk is about put away Bryan, Chris Jericho appears and attacks Bryan. Punk is disqualified and Bryan sits on the entrance ramp and celebrates in an over the top fashion. ★★★½
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This is a rematch from the night before. Ziggler comes down to the ring with Vickie Guerrero and her NXT rookie Kaitlyn I didn't realise how long ago 2010 felt until I heard how Lawler was on commentary on this match. He was ripping into Vickie Guerrero for her weight and appearance and he's SUPPOSED TO BE THE BABYFACE. Anyway, you can tell Mr. Workrate Dolph Ziggler is having a whale of a time getting to wrestle the Indy Legend Bryan Danielson. He's clearly been watching his ROH tapes as the opening exchange seems very reminiscence of Bryan's time in ROH. Bryan scoops a leg and attempts to stomp on Ziggler's head, but he's just barely dodges. It's a neat exchange. The only facial expression that Ziggler seems to have is 'Smug Handsome Heel', but he makes up for this with some nifty amateur wrestling flavoured roll ups. There's plenty of cool nearfalls here, mostly stemming from roll ups and cradles. It's a shame the actual finish is lacking. Ziggler gets trapped in the LeBell lock, Vickie sneaks his foot under the ropes, he taps anyway, match over. Oh well. ★★★½
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After watching the Flair/Steamboat '89 trilogy, I have to say that I'm not a fan of Flair hamming it up here. I prefer the super serious Flair who limits the comedy face flops. It's also a shame that we didn't see more of Mr Perfect as a babyface. His bumping is well more suitable for a face. His comeback after no selling Flair's chop was a cool moment and made Perfect looked like a million bucks. There's nearfalls aplenty here. Perfect gets the W after hitting a Perfectplex out of nowhere and that's the end of Flair's WWF first run. This was an 80's territories styled match injected with some cartoony 90s WWF colour. ★★★★
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Ali could died out there after WWE messing with the crowd around with the Kofi stuff, but they saved this sinking ship with a brilliant three way. Ali successfully wins back the crowd with his madman bumping. Owens is a brutish babyface and predictably, Bryan is excellent as the sheepish and calculating environmentalist heel. ★★★★¼
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A standard Shield affair. I was expecting Roman's big return to match Kobashi coming back to NOAH in 2007, but it's a great testament to WWE's shoddy booking that I really couldn't care less about his return match. The heel team could of been anybody. The best moments were the big dive in the crowd area and Rollin's unexpected cursing. I'm just happy to see The Big Dog back. ★★★
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Steamboat is more cocky than the last (televised) encounter. He slaps Flair twice in the opening feeling out process. They still get a loud gasp from the crowd after Steamboat nearly gets pinfall from a headlock. Crazy. Flair takes apart Steamboat leg throughout the three falls and Steamboat's selling of his injured leg is top-tier stuff. They do a neat callback to their Chi-Town match when Steamboat catches Flair on the apron with a chop after Flair attempts to rush up the top rope after being whipped over the turnbuckle. After claiming the first pinfall, Flair dominates the second fall for over 15 minutes and it never gets boring. Steamboat makes Flair submit, and the final fall is all about seeing if Steamboat can hang in for the remaining time limit and retain his title. It feels like heresy to not give this the perfect score, but I feel that the action in the Chi-Town Rumble match was much more compact and this match didn't need to go as long as it did. It's still Flair vs Steamboat, so it's still well worth your time. ★★★★¼
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This technical masterclass starts out with some simplistically brilliant matwork. The audience lets out a loud gasp when Steamboat gets an early nearfall on a headlock. A HEADLOCK! The knife edge chops start getting busted out by both men and they are nasty, even 30 years on. Ric's heel work is sublime. It never goes into cartoon territory. The spot where Flair flops over the top rope and sprints to the other side for a cross body always catches me off guard. They tease a Dusty finish, only for Steamboat to get the clean win. Crazy to think this isn't their best match. I sometimes think Ric Flair is overrated, but then I watch a classic match of his and I am pleasantly mistaken. ★★★★¾
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Jumbo ruled the 80s and is the ace of AJPW. The recently unmasked Tiger Mask II is now going by his real name and has something to prove. Jumbo bullies the new guy unmercifully. Tsuruta never had the most flashiest arsenal, but every strike and slam looks brutal. He ain't giving up his spot that easily. The crowd eat up every nearfall, they are all rooting for the underdog in Misawa. Misawa mixes up his strikes and flashy dives to put him near the level of Tsuruta. The middle portion slows the action right down, with many holds outwearing their welcome. The finishing stretch picks things right up and Misawa using his superior athleticism manages to get the pin was a genius bit of pro-wrestling. The finish wasn't completely decisive, leaving the door open for a rematch, yet it still made Misawa look like a big deal. This was the first ever AJPW match I watched and I was hooked on anything Misawa/Kobashi related and I'm happy to say this holds up. ★★★★½
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Miz has a come a long way since this match. He puts one of the worst looking Figure 4s before bailing out of the match and having his NXT rookie Alex Riley take his place. Even Miz's acting skills were average here. Riley puts on the Stretch Muffler on Bryan before it's quickly reversed into the LeBell lock and that's that. ★½
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This is a gauntlet match and the real meat of this match is Bryan's match with Cesaro. The first match with Swagger is solid and is over within 3 minutes and then Cesaro comes in and puts in an absolute clinic with Bryan. Seriously, these two are possibly the best pure wrestlers that WWE has had in the past decade. Cesaro can make little things like going for a sleeper hold look completely legit. The strike-off these guys have is phenomenal. The match goes downhill when Ryback comes in. I haven't seen a match of his since he left WWE and I've forgotten how dangerous he was. He botches a powerbomb and drops Bryan on his head. The match ends in a lame DQ finish, but this is worth seeking out just for the Cesaro part. ★★★¾
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This has nothing on the first two TLC matches, but it holds up on it's own merits. None of the teams are as established as Edge & Christian or The Hardy Boyz, so they make us care with some gnarly table spots and having Kane gradually beat the odds of being a lone wolf after his tag partner was taken out pre-match. Jeff gets to launch himself of a ladder, Spike gets thrown like he's weightless violently out of the ring, what more do you want? I'm just going to ignore the Katie Vick stuff that started directly after this match wrapping up. ★★★¾
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Bryan always excels at making his larger opponents appear even more dangerous and he's entirely convincing at chopping them down when he needs. That transition spot when he switches his guillotine choke to the LeBell lock was sublime. He's one of the GOATs for sure. Speaking of GOATs, Mark Henry is providing commentary for this and he's a boss. I wouldn't want to get on Big Mark's bad side. This holds up as a great TV title match that ended in cheap fashion, leaving the door open for further storyline progression. Excellent work from everyone evolved. ★★★½
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Hey, I enjoyed this a lot more than I could ever imagine. Okada removing the ugly pants to reveal that the Rainmaker of old was back got a huge pop out of me, as did his fiery assault on White and Gedo. Jay White doesn't do much for me still, but he looked a lot more confident than usual, and him picking up a clean win was genuinely shocking, especially as I was Okada was going to steamroll over him. ★★★¾
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Not as good as it could of been. This was very one sided, and there was never a point when it felt like Ishii could retain his title. A lot of the undercard felt under cooked and never got into that second gear, so I can't lay the blame on the wrestlers completely. Sabre did however look like a technical wizard who's not to be messed with, so it achieved what it set out to do. ★★½
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It was a bold move to have this open the main card and it paid off. This wasn't a total spotfest. I was worried they would throw things like psychology and selling out the window and just try to top Ospreay vs Ricochet, but thankfully I was proven wrong. This was a very violent affair, with some (slightly hammy) melodrama to boot. Ospreay might have some cheesy facial expressions and takes things too far, but he's a hell of a talent. ★★★★¼
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A rare heel vs heel pairing that actually worked. Bryan teasing Lesnar was brilliant and Brock had me creasing when he planted Bryan after the first German. The prolonged beating of Bryan added fuel to the fire and seeing him finally get his comeback after knocking the referee down made for a cool moment. This is a rare match that made me feel like a kid, with every interaction feeling like it could result with the match ending. Lesnar's selling of the leg was sublime, him crumbling to the ground after attempting a F5 was a nice bit of wrestling psychology. This was something special. Even with no build this blows everything on this show out of the water. ★★★★¼
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This is hard to write about because of the frantic pace. There's tags every few seconds and it's such a fast tempo for a match of it's era. The 'Russians' are eliminated first, allowing the more talented teams to get some action. The rapidity of this reminds me of that amazing ten man tag from Canadian Stampede. No one man is legal for long (with the exception being when they were building for a hot tag), and everyone gets a time to shine. Valentine once again reminded me that I need to dive into his work as he was brilliant at isolating the babyface into his corner and he's a phenomenal bumper to boot. No one here looked bad, even Volkoff looked decent during his brief tenure opening the match. Clocking in at 37 minutes and featuring 20 men, this is an absolute unit of a match. Whilst there is some dragging in places, this is still a great watch. ★★★★
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The crowd boo at the announcement of the ladies' match about to take place. How classy. The audience are the worst thing about this match by far as they show zero enthusiasm until the Jumping Bomb Angels rock their world with their fast joshi puroresu style. The one good act that the crowd did during this was heckle whenever babyface Fabulous Moolah was the legal woman, although I'm sure they were booing because she was old and unattractive, and not because she was a vile and repugnant human being. She hits a barrage of crisp looking snapmares here at least. Can we talk about the Bomb Angels again? They were so great, wrestling a frantic pace and performing sequences never before seen on a WWF show. Velvet McIntyre wasn't half bad either. She puts in a spunky performance before she is taken out by Leilani Kai. Like the first match on this card, this lacked drama as they never touch on the premise of one sole babyface handicapped against a team of heels, but this worked as a great showcase for the Jumping Bomb Angels. ★★★¼
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Thankfully, Jim Duggan gets eliminated early. Sadly, he takes Harley Race with him when they both brawl too long on the outside and get themselves counted out. So, swings and roundabouts. Danny Davis continues to be one of my favorite unsung talent from the Hulkamania era, he's great as a sneaky little shit. The heels gain control during the middle, but the last few minutes the result never felt in question. The match ends with the three surviving babyfaces punishing Honkey before he decides to leave town and take the countout loss. While this finish lacks the drama of a sole face in peril, I can forgive this seeing as it's the first match of it's kind in the WWF. This also goes around 24 minutes, but it doesn't feel that long because of the quick eliminations and moments of brilliance sprinkled throughout. ★★¾
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Poor bastard. I have a ton of respect for the guy, hope he can beat it a second time.
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Khan previously injured Andre's ankle and spends most of this match trying to take it out again. Andre gets tied up in the ropes and Khan goes to town on his hurt foot. Andre was great at selling the injury and he's still quite agile at this point in time. The stretcher stipulation meant there was long periods of crew members trying to tie the wrestlers to the stretcher, and it hurt the match overall. Despite the abysmal stipulation, these guys brought their a games and it results in a good feud ender. ★★★¼
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Great punching, sublime selling and one hell of a crimson mask made this match the 1981 MOTY. Both guys are wearing street clothes, with Patterson using his cowboy boots and belt as weapons. Patterson pulverizes Slaughter in a one-sided beating. Slaughter takes some nasty bumps to the turnbuckle, and eventually his manager throws in the towel to save him from the match continuing. This helped Slaughter look strong in defeat. Although I like more variety in my wrestling than just straight brawls, this is still a must-see for anyone who likes old-school slug fests. ★★★★
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Greg Valentine really stood out as a great heel wrestler, a ring mechanic if you will. He flops around in Ric Flair fashion and he takes out Kid's leg right from the start. All his strikes looked legit. The heel team gets the win after a Valentine Figure Four, but The Bulldogs even the score with a brilliant top rope double team finish. Smith hoists Beefcake in a fireman's carry, and Kid dives off Beefcake to hit a headbutt on a prone Valentine. It's a sight to see and I don't think I've ever seen a finish like it. The final fall sees Kid trying to tag his partner as his leg is naff. The babyface eventually picks up the win after many teases and the crowd roar in approval. The Bulldogs have impeccable chemistry together, despite Dynamite Kid's injuries slowing him down. Even a broken-down Kid is still better than most. ★★★½