Ditch
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Everything posted by Ditch
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I finished going through my 1999 DVDs and man... slim pickings in terms of hidden gems. Hope it's not too late. Burning vs Hansen/Taue 11/30 (TWTL round-robin) should go in. Decent enough lead-in to the final, feel-good finish, and it goes just the right length. Kosaka vs Yamamoto, RINGS 5/22, should also get in as quality shoot-style. *Possibly* Han vs Naruse from that show if you think there isn't enough RINGS content.
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Watching Heyman on the MMA Hour, where he says he feels sorry for Cesaro, I think WWE would be smart to go this route: -Lesnar beats Cena -Lesnar/Heyman/Cesaro promo on Raw to celebrate (possibly after a Lesnar/Cena rematch) -Heyman goes overboard praising Lesnar, causing Cesaro to get mad. After some back-and-forth, Cesaro pops Heyman, puts Lesnar on his ass, and ducks out of the ring -Lesnar/Cesaro feud over the fall Heyman would certainly be game to get Cesaro over. Meanwhile, Reigns fights the likes of Rollins and Orton to get ready for winning the Rumble. So the Cesaro push doesn't force them to stop the Reigns push. But then I'm sure WWE would be afraid of Cenaro getting too over and the crowd turning on Reigns... which is exactly the sort of half-hearted CYA booking that hurts the company as much as anything.
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So why is Cesaro getting buried? Could be my fault for forgetting, I'm sure it was really well thought-out and logical.
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Is it safe to say that everything in the DVDVR '80s sets will be in the 1980s yearbooks? Because that makes things a lot easier as a basis.
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Updated the spreadsheet to fix a link and upgrade the 8/28/08 DG tag.
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I vividly recall how pissed I was when I watched that Hero/Punk match, along with their 50 minute ladder match. The former has so little in the way of focus or drama, it's just filler and laying around. With the latter (heh), they want to mix 'ladder match' with 'technical epic', then the finish is a run-in. Aaaargh. Thankfully both of them wised up.
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EA Sports uses (abuses?) Real American:
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The extra cards seem to be more about promoting the product in various regions (especially new countries) than anything else. Though maybe they could have the same effect by having like half as many shows in Vegas and cutting back on the number of events accordingly, which would increase the average quality of the overseas cards markedly.
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To those of you who are watching everything: do you notice a significant difference in quality between the highlighted and non-highlighted matches?
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Chael is a bigger carny than anyone in pro wrestling today, by miles. The way he spun the initial test failure to try and emerge as a babyface was masterful. That said, I'm skeptical he can work HGH into the "I want to be a dad" narrative.
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This comes from what has to be FMW's best comm release, and I remember how many people were introduced to Gannosuke from his matches with Tanaka and Shinzaki on it. I'm certainly one of them. Gannosuke attacking the arm was a much more compelling control segment than one normally got from FMW, and they followed up with a solid finish. Not mind-blowing, but I think it holds up markedly better than the Onita deathmatches and the often spotty post-Onita main events.
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New Japan's junior title matches hit the skids from '97 to '98. This is still a good match, but has that certain "first half is filler, second half is a hot sprint" quality, which keeps it from being great overall. From here, it's like the wrestlers forgot how to build a compelling singles match. Most of the time they even failed to deliver a hot sprint at the end.
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I gave this match several tries and never dug it. Liger wasn't enough of a prick, Hashi gets too much offense (which isn't his strong suit), and the finish doesn't get hot. The structure should have been: -Opening -Liger control -Hashi comeback -Low-end bombs from Liger -Hashi nearfalls on Liger -Hashi survives a couple big moves, but Liger finally puts him away And do all that in 15-18 minutes rather than 22. Not exactly rocket science. I think some people rate this highly based on the concept rather than the actual match.
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2001-2002 is a weak patch IMO. 2003-2006 is much stronger.
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There is no lack of reviewable material that gets accepted as 'good' initially, and there can be a sort of insta-consensus public opinion to protect it from much criticism. The question of whether that opinion holds up over time is a legitimate one, although for business/success purposes the short-term reaction has 99% of the value. I agree with Dylan that well-executed old-school action can still be exciting/interesting today. From clever counters to snug-looking punches to effective psychology, there are timeless aspects to pro wrestling that we can always appreciate. And there are ways to analyze old-school matches so that we can judge who did what better. "Who was the greatest ever?" or "who was a hall-of-fame talent?" is a question asked about countless fields, generating endless debate. If we have to accept "people liked it back then" as the final word, there is no way to analyze the past. Bill's point about movies is a good one. I'll add that old TV is even less likely to hold up. But some of it does! There are lessons to be drawn from the best work from decades past. The inherent quality from the past we still appreciate today will almost certainly contain some elements that aren't being put to full use. We can learn! But only if we look at the past with something besides rose-colored glasses.
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NJ 12/4/98 (Lynch 1316), Tenryu/Koshinaka vs Hashimoto/Fujinami is a fun slugfest. Tenryu vs Hashimoto is MONEY, now and forever. Also has Norton vs Nakanishi in what is probably the worst IWGP match of the '90s for star power and one of the most underwhelming title bouts you'll ever see. Yikes.
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More RWTL on Lynch 1267, mostly clipped. Misawa/Ogawa vs Ace/Barton, Kawada/Taue vs Kobashi/Akiyama, the Kobashi/Akiyama vs Vader/Hansen round-robin and final, and more. Plenty worth including that won't take up much space. Almost done with my '98 puro viewing.
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Nakamura was legit hurt in the '07 G-1 semifinal, which he was supposed to win. If he had then won the final, they would have done Nagata vs Nakamura in October. I suspect that was the plan.
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I have to say thanks for doing this. Having watched everything in very haphazard/piecemeal fashion, it's nice to see how someone reacts watching things in sequence. And that most of the small stuff I like has been holding up.