ohtani's jacket
DVDVR 80s Project
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Everything posted by ohtani's jacket
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Every halfway decent babyface in the history of the business has been able to follow the script to the extent that Hogan did in that match. Just because Hogan was more over than just about every halfway decent babyface in the history of the business doesn't mean that he did something extra special. If Hogan's so spectacular then why do they need a three ring circus in Danny Davis, Bobby Heenan and the cage? Hogan wasn't bad or anything, but it's not as though he did anything special to draw heat. -
This match was so great. Really cements Fujiwara as the best worker in Japan from 1990-94.
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It's not hogan that changed. It's us. Well, I watched the Orndorff cage match and it was a fun match because of Jesse and Vince and Orndorff and Bobby in that order. I'm not trying to be contrary, but Hogan didn't do a single thing in the match that I would consider noteworthy. I guess you could argue that he was effective at following the script, so to speak, but that's the job of a professional wrestler. Nobody's going to accuse Hogan of not knowing the basics.
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I can't understand this revisionism that Hogan was effective. Somebody point to the one match for a skeptic like me.
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Hogan and Warrior had a very unfair advantage in Wrestlefest -- their slam would eliminate people over the top rope. I always went DiBiase and he didn't have a slam so had to get a pin or submission. Great game. Are you talking about the Royal Rumble? Anybody could throw someone over the ropes in that game.
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I finally got around to watching this and I guess the answer was that it was just different from a typical WWE match with Lesnar bringing the quasi-shoot style stuff and working stiffer than expected. It was kind of a one note match, but not bad. I thought it started off well and lost steam when Brock started bringing the ringpost and steel steps into play. Cena getting zero offense and then winning with a steel chain wrapped round his fist and a single finisher on the steps was kind of weird, but Brock winning would've been equally weird after beating the crap out of Cena for the entire match. I'm not sure I'd call it a spectacle since it wasn't that spectacular compared to say your typical Undertaker/Triple H/Shawn Michaels Wrestlemania extravaganza, at least in terms of how things operate in the WWE Universe, but it was certainly different.
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I don't think they pay off the Hokuto/Kandori storyline particularly well. The match is four different match-ups happening at the same time and not very well laid out. The first Hokuto/Kandori match was perfect and didn't need to be expanded upon. Hokuto won but learnt her lesson at the same time. This match was kind of messy like it didn't know whether it was about the bitter regret about Hokuto's pending retirement or a resolution between the heat between Kandori and Hokuto or both, but really Hokuto should have moved on from being a bitch to Kandori. I don't think that aspect worked well at all. But more than that it just doesn't play out in the ring that well. Aja and Bull are unfocused in their attack and there isn't the heat segments you'd expect that deal with the uneasy Hokuto/Kandori alliance. You kind of expect them to go all FIP on Hokuto or something and it never really happens. The abuse she sustains is the abuse she sustained in every match. The part where Kandori finally starts acting like a partner to Hokuto didn't have much effect and the whole thing seemed like they were just winging a long match. I'm kind of down on all wrestling atm, but that's how I felt about it a decade or so after the last time I watched it.
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I don't know that they were announced beforehand, but they were premeditated.
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Hadn't watched this in a long time. God it took forever. If they'd trimmed the fat it really would have been one of the greatest matches of all time instead of an overwrought epic.
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Toyota wasn't an outlier. She was the one that the majority of the other workers wanted to be like. Her style wasn't that unique, either. Dating back to the 70s there are workers who wrestle a go-go-go style. There was a period where the workers were influenced by Jaguar Yokota and Chigusa Nagayo, but for the most part go-go-go has always been the trademark of Japanese women's wrestling and only workers with different builds or slightly different strengths deviated from that path. The key is the rhythm. If you can't get into the rhythm of Joshi puroresu then it's not very enjoyable. You have to watch a whole bunch of it to get a proper feel for it. Kyoko Inoue was a super pro-wrestler. The camel clutches and surfboards were part of the rhythm of Joshi matches and I doubt they bother anybody who's really into Joshi like FLIK or MJH. Long term selling I think is a bulllshit concept and should be an obsolete criticism. Why should there be long term selling? It's lazy psychology. You can hobble around on a bad wheel in a big match every once and a while, but to do it every match is asinine. You got stretched out for a bit, it hurt, but you don't need to go around limping for the rest of the match. That's boring. The transitions either work or don't work depending on whether you're into the rhythm I guess. I mean when the partners start saving each other ad nauseum and they've called each other kono yaro for the millionth time it really depends whether you're into it rather than it being structurally sound. My problem in the matches I've tried to watch recently is that they're too dense, but Japanese wrestling is like that. It's full of overkill. The 90s was just this fat, bloated era where they overdid everything and cashed in.
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This match had a good dynamic, but it went on for far too long. Stylistically it was the same match that Joshi pro-wrestlers have been having for twenty years now, but it mostly worked well because of Bull and to a lesser extent Aja. Submission work went nowhere, which doesn't bother me so much but added to the length of the match. Didn't have a problem with the spot Childs mentioned, however, as the same thing happens in Southern style tag wrestling after the hot tag and is just a concession you make when watching wrestling. Aja looked small to me in this match or at least she worked small. Not the performance you'd expect from an ace, but then Bull always outshone her in the ring.
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Decent match. These guys had some good matches but it was never really a match up that excited me. Whenever I watch a match like this, I try to imagine what it would be like to have seen it on a random Saturday night instead of placing too great an expectation on it. In that regard it was entertaining, but it only really kicked into high gear for me with the finishing stretch. Would've liked to have seen a pin.
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I can't get into this WAR stuff at all. The atmosphere here was better than the match itself, which was sloppy and uninteresting. I don't get the love for Tenryu. I mean he's cool and shit but how does that make his poor execution excusable? I really hate how dense Japanese wrestling is. They do too many moves and have too many nearfalls. 90s matches in particular are just overkill. So many of the criticisms about women's matches are applicable to the men as well. I don't see any difference between say this and a Chigusa JWP performance.
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This is off the top of my head. I might forget some and I can't be bothered looking up the particular title. Title matches Ray Mendoza vs. Tatsumi Fujinami, El Toreo, 8/13/78 Gran Cochisse vs. Satanico, 9/14/84 Angel Azteca vs. El Dandy, 6/1/90 Atlantis vs Blue Panther, 8/9/91 Los Infernales (MS-1, Satanico & Pirata Morgan) vs. Los Brazos, 11/22/91 El Dandy vs Negro Casas, 7/3/92 Mascarita Sagrada vs Espectrito, AAA 3/12/94 Espanto Jr. vs. El Hijo Del Santo, 5/14/92 Rey Misterio Jr. vs Psicosis, AAA 9/22/95 Cicloncito Ramirez vs Damiancito El Guerrero, 1/7/97 Negro Navarro vs. El Dandy, IWRG 11/18/01 Mistico vs. El Averno, CMLL 1/30/05 Zatura vs. Trauma II, 6/18/09 Virus vs. Guerrero Maya Jr, CMLL 6/7/11 Wager matches MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana, 9/23/83 Sangre Chicana vs. Perro Aguayo, 2/28/86 Espanto Jr. vs. El Hijo Del Santo, 8/31/86 Trio Fantasia v. Thundercats, (Masks vs. Masks), 12/8/91 El Hijo Del Santo vs. Negro Casas, 9/19/97 Atlantis vs. Villano III, 3/17/00 Blue Panther vs. Villano V, 09/19/08 Negro Casas vs. Blue Panther, 3/2/12 I can think of examples of guys targeting a body part during a match but not as the focus of the match itself.
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Can't say I ever had a problem with Caudle and Ross.
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Personally, I don't think Terry is as good a mat worker as he is a brawler. His selling is sublime and he can work holds all right, but his matwork against guys like Trauma II and just about anyone he's been paired against in a Navarro/Solar tag is consistently disappointing. Navarro tends to make the your turn, my turn matwork more compelling than Terry because of his personality, but the focus on Navarro v. Solar is often to the detriment of the rest of the match. Panther I think is overrated at this stage of his career and Casas was never a great mat worker, but I'm in the minority with these opinions.
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A lot of the maestro tags are worked like exhibition matches and a lot of the matwork is poor. In a sense it's a convention because that's how they've been laying the matches out for several years now, but that doesn't mean it's good. It is probably apparent to you by now when guys like Terry and Navarro are working a story and when they're doing a maestro exhibition. The only way you can really defend the your turn, my turn matwork is to look at it as some form of one-upmanship where they're daring each other to physically hurt one another. Kind of like a battle of machismo.
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Well, even though Kazama owned LLPW she wasn't seen as its top star. The Hokuto/Kazama feud would've been like Kandori challenging Takako or Cutie to a fight.
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The only other matches Kandori had on the level of the Hokuto one were against Devil and Bull, two workers with strong personalities in their own right. Kandori was a good foil because she was seen as legit and had shot on Jackie Sato and we all know how Japanese pro-wrestling loves shooter/wrestler angles. Put Kandori in the driver's seat, however, and it wouldn't have worked. Hokuto brought all the heat. That Dream Slam match is 100% about Hokuto. The arc in that match is incredible, probably bigger than any story arc in pro-wrestling history. Kandori plays her part in destroying Hokuto, but it's really Hokuto's promos that tell the story.
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The UWA began talent sharing and co-promoting shows with EMLL in the early 80s when they were still drawing well. They also had talent sharing arrangements with the WWF, NJPW and JWP. In England, Joint Promotions had a strangehold over talent for decades until the talent became dissatisfied and jumped to All Star Promotions. There was no cooperation between the two.