Ditch
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Everything posted by Ditch
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Speaking of New Japan booking... you have a very rare New Japan event at Nippon Budokan, with the following undercard: 1. Tokimitsu Ishizawa beat Tatsuhito Takaiwa 2. Satoshi Kojima & Manabu Nakanishi beat Yuji Nagata & Shinjiro Otani 3. Yoshiaki Yatsu , Hiro Saito & Norio Honaga beat Shiro Koshinaka, Kuniaki Kobayashi & Masao Orihara when Yatsu pinned Orihara. 4. Hiroshi Hase beat Tadao Yasuda (debut) (10:26) with a crab hold. 5. Tatsutoshi Goto beat Masahiro Chono 6. Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu & Osamu Kido beat Power Warrior, Takayuki Iizuka & Akira Nogami Ouch. I mean that is just dog meat. But then they book Hashimoto vs Liger, making it a one-match card at a big venue, and one of the participants is a junior. AND it's just a week after another big show with a much stronger card in the same city. ProWrestlingHistory shows the gate for this as being far below the gate of the Budokan shows to either side, which means they propped up the attendance number somehow. Still, $400,000 for a heavy vs junior match is nothing to sneeze at, and it's certainly a vote of confidence in Liger. All done to build up the J Cup two months later. Really good match, with Hashimoto putting Liger over way more than he had to.
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Doc works like he's got Misawa at the next Budokan show with the Triple Crown on the line, but that is not to be. I think if you compare Williams here with Williams a year earlier, you can clearly see that he's improved significantly and now deserves to be #2 (or even #1) gaijin. Also, The Eagle is in this. Who gives a shit. I could have been the partner and it would have rocked based on Williams' performance.
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Weird that they didn't book this as an IWGP title defense. They didn't NEED it, but it would have been nice to have the only clean Inoki job in the last ____ years of his career be used to build an IWGP challenger, after Inoki vacated the title to begin with and then took Fujinami to a draw in '88. Anyway, this is a very good match, though I'm probably cooler towards it than most. If anything it's about as good a BOOKING job as New Japan did in the '90s. Tenryu ran through the roster in '93, and though he lost to Fujinami he got that win back in December. So Tenryu then beating Inoki meant he'd won his last singles match against everyone he'd faced, and that in turn covered everyone but Mutoh: Hash, Inoki, Fujinami, Hase, Chono, Koshinaka, and assorted midcarders. For Hashimoto to win here and essentially end the feud put him over even more than winning the title in September.
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3 of the 4 pairings are great, and the 4th (Asako/Omori) gets the least amount of spotlight. Kawada/Kobashi was, of course, good to the last drop at this point in time. The vet vs young lion segments are also strong and drive home the 1/2 vs 1/2 booking format. I think a match with this format, worked this well, would be an easy MOTYC anywhere but All Japan.
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Most non-fans still say WWF. We live in somewhat of a bubble about this.
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Kobashi was clearly a future star as a rookie in '89 and crowds responded that way. He didn't win much before '93, but was steadily pushed more with each year, and the crowd saw that progress. By '93 they were going nuts at the prospect of him beating the likes of Hansen and Williams; his win to cap off the year was HUGE, and set the stage for yet more pushing in '94.
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Hogan was Jesus With Muscles. Flair was a vain, jet-setting SOB. The more '80s Flair promos I watch, the clearer it becomes that Flair was absolutely *not* a cartoon. Over-the-top, yes, but not a cartoon. The same can be said about the vast majority of big JCP names. A good comparison would be Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase to Flair. DiBiase was more of a gimmick; Flair was more of a character. For instance, the "Creation of the Million Dollar Title" vignette: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMDRdnMDSto Compare to, say, an angle where Flair tries to buy the love of Precious because she has a big rack, or he buys a suit for Magnum TA because he hates Magnum's fashion sense. It's still 'sports entertainment', but it's endlessly closer to what one would actually see in real life. DiBiase skit is clearly scripted and rehearsed.
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Cut: 02/03/98 - Yoshihiro Taijiri vs Gran Naniwa 02/28/98 - Minoru Fujita vs Ikuto Hidaka 11/20/98 - Hayabusa vs Kodo Fuyuki 11/20/98 - Mr. Gannosuke vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda I'm sure FLIK disagrees on Hayabusa/Fuyuki. Clip: 12/13/98 - Hisakatsu Oya vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda Fun finishing run but not much of a body.
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The Skydome was closed. And it was quite the live experience.
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Meltzer gave it 5*. He talks about big Mania matches with a ton of kicking out of finishers and brings up... Savage/Steamboat, a match that didn't have any finishers PERIOD.
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I'd suggest cutting these, or at the very least just showing the finish. As for the 'best source'... oof I don't have time right now but I wish I did.
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Someone, I forget who, gave me a DVD rip of Kawada/Taue vs Hayabusa/Shinzaki, complete; it's on my website now. So it's out there.
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The Misawa/Akiyama vs Kawada/Taue was indeed 11/28 and should be on. Kawada/Taue vs Team FMW should also be on. Kawada/Taue vs Kobashi/Ace 11/15 I can't recall offhand; probably good but those teams never produced a true MOTYC. I'm pretty sure I've seen that Misawa vs Williams match and was bored by it.
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Most wrestling sucks. As much as anything good wrestling is about avoiding things that DON'T make sense.
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I just can't imagine Owen doing a tombstone in the middle of the match.
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...what?
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"Is he any good as a writer" has almost nothing to do with "would a shoot interview with him be worthwhile". The seminar, on the other hand...
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Kobashi gets to show 'progress' in that he took the champ to a draw; Kawada still looks like the stronger of the two and keeps the title. Would have made more sense if Kawada wins in like 45-50 minutes here, then Kobashi takes *Misawa* to a broadway in October, followed by Kobashi winning in his next title shot in '96. Though a 60 minute version of the October TC match... eww.
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She's the damn meal ticket! Isn't everyone supposed to be her 'guy'?