Matt D

Kronos, http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/36602-stan-hansen-dan-kroffat-vs-rock-n-roll-express-ajpw-10261988/ So, I don't want you to take this one personally. It's a very cool, novel match in a lot of ways. It's just that those ways add up to defeat the otherwise unquestionable purpose of Morton/Gibson, the glorified ideal of southern tag team wrestling, and the shine/heat/comeback formula. I'm glad to have had a chance to watch it again and to actually write about it this time and thank you for that, but it's the embodiment of why we can't have nice things.

This is the worst Rock 'n' Roll express match of all time. What if you take everything that makes the R'n'R work, everything that makes them great, and then you put them in an environment where none of that matters, against an opponent who won't allow any of it? That's what you get here. Look, the match has a few things going for it. One, if you want to see Stan Hansen destroying people, this is a match for you. He has smaller opponents but is still in the AJPW setting, close enough to his physical prime that he has the wind and the dexterity to hit stuff cleanly. There's one point of the match where he has a face-vice on Morton, just literally has his hands over Morton's face, and that's basically the whole match. Kroffat stands out as the most exciting wrestler of 1988 offensively. He hits a ton of interesting things, none of which seem contrived. By 1992, he'd be the total package, with an almost memphis-like ability to work the crowd and his opponents and the ref as a heel yet still making it seem 100% to fit in AJPW. Here he just has spatterings of that, but he's still fascinating to watch. You get the feeling like he could have a Meltzerian six star match with 1988 Owen Hart or whatever. It's also immensely cool to hear the crowd chant "rock and roll" at the start. But this is a hot mess, a hot, hot mess. The Southern tag formula is the greatest gift god ever gave to us through pro wrestling. The Express are heavenly angels of that style. And Stan Hansen is basically the devil sent to tear it all to shreds. It starts off well enough with Kroffat eating the R'n'R fast offense. The fans are into it. They're chanting. Kroffat's game. It's a shine and it's working, at least right up until the point where Hansen storms in for no reason and starts to kill both guys. It's pretty much all downhill from there, with Morton looking as lost as I've ever seen him. He repeats spots (dropkicking Kroffat twice into the corner which comes off as very weird), has just weird comeback attempts (he does a small package 2-3 times, including once on Hansen and it's absolutely NOT what the fans want to see; at another point, his big comeback move is an armdrag on Hansen, which basically just lets Hansen get enough distance to destroy him again), and basically is put in a position by Hansen's relentlessness where he can't breathe enough to sell. If the guy is constantly hitting you, you can't sell. Hansen doesn't let anything breathe at all. Let's say Morton gets a kick in on a back body drop attempt. Ricky would normally drop to the ground, sell, and move to get another shot in, to really build up tension for the eventual cut off. The second he turns, Hansen's back on him again. Nothing. Just a guzzling. Probably the worst thing was when Hansen missed a Lariat on the outside early on and hit the post. In a normal match, that would have been a big moment and would have set up a very believable shine and built into the overall flow of the match. Here? Well, Hansen lets them double team him for about twenty seconds and that's that. It's basically their only offense on him all match. If wrestling is about moments and making them matter, this is just so much noise. It's vaguely amusing to watch Hansen kill these guys, sure. It's novel. I don't think it's good though, not at all. There's no comeback. There's no hot tag. How do you do a R'n'R match with no hot tag? Even in Japan. There was still room for it. Instead of a comeback and Gibson coming in to at least try to clean house, there's a cutesy spot with a missed shoulder block and a trip by Morton and a Flying Body Press by Gibson and both R'n'Rs trying to pin Hansen. It's a mercy to all of us when Hansen follows this up by turning around after a missed kick to hit the lariat on Morton. In isolation, there are a lot of cool little bits here. Something as simple as Hansen dropping the kneepad to flatten Morton as Kroffat holds him down is innately cool. The match is full of stuff like that but none of it adds up. The crowd started the match by chanting Rock 'n' Roll but there wasn't a single thing in there that made them want to chant when Morton was in that facevice late on. Gibson was standing on the second turnbuckle on the outside. Morton was waiting for the crowd to fire him up, but the crowd didn't care. The fire never came. Not even the greatest babyface tag team of all time could survive Stan Hansen stomping out the flame of pro wrestling beauty.

I like him a lot more as Prince Puma. I think he wrestles at least somewhat differently in that role. Granted, the matches that all stand out the most are the Muertes matches and that might just be a case of him having a base to work with instead of someone with a similar style to force a lot of overall excess.

And thats a perfect example of people not getting that performer means the whole package, not just work. I really like some of his promos from that year. Its a truly great performer who doesnt need to talk to be that over, dude. Unless Ive missed the existence of Sabu promos, anything is possible.

And thats a perfect example of people not getting that performer means the whole package, not just work. I really like some of his promos from that year.

I'm shooting for Weds again this week. Anyone else want back on/temporarily off for the week?

Theyre way more fun as babyfaces. If you stick it out, youll see.

The best squash that they had was on the 10/3/92 superstars vs Horowitz and Bob Bradley, btw.

I am looking forward to reading that review.

I actually kind of like this idea if that's what they're going for. It'd create a very strong association.

Kane one spot ahead of Rollins makes me happy, at least. Also, I'm not sure who David Clare is but he comes off as a scholar and a gentleman.

The hour long Bock/Hennig match, yes. https://sites.google.com/site/chrisharrington/mookieghana-prowrestlingstatistics/top80s_awa_results

Kronos, That's a match I saw in passing a few years ago but I've never actually written it up and I'm looking forward to do so. I remember that some things really stood out as unique and it's a great example of what happens when even some of the best wrestlers in the world are put in a situation where they can't begin to contain the force of nature that is Stan Hansen. My match for you (because you liked the 88 Rockers vs Demos match which I love) is the 8/30/86 Midnight Rockers vs Rose/Somers match. It's here listed as 9/2. This came in #2 on the DVDVR 80s set and is just amazing. I think it's many degrees better than the first cage match between the two teams, for instance.

Week 6 I've pulled bucky and Matt Franklin for this week. I've pulled topropepodcast. I don't think Kronos heard from Tim Cooke last week. Since we're at an odd #, I'll be happy to double up with Tim if he drops back in to the thread. Just let me know. I didn't check for doubles this week, so if you are paired with someone you've already had, try to use what you learned to shape your match for them. Nintendo Logic southofheavy Migs dawho5 HeadCheese Rah Tim Evans concrete1992 Grimmas Jmare007 WingedEagle fxnj Matt D Kronos Richeyedwards Jetlag SirEdgar SPS AstroBoy dkookypunk43 Kronos, hoping I have a match for you by the end of the day.

I have lately been really in to sprints, scrambles, and comedy matches. I think I could catch up on more pre 2015 non-WWE/TNA stuff (just do not send me death matches). Some of my favorite matches are Kenta Kobashi vs. Kensuke Sasaki, FIST vs. Young Bucks (Chikara), Akira Hokato vs. Shinobu Kandori, Bayley vs. Sasha Banks (Brooklyn), and CM Punk vs. Delirious (The Punk IWA Farewell one). My reveiw trade match is this match http://highspots.tv/delirious-vs-man-scout-jake-manning/ Well, this was something alright. The link stopped working mid-week but I found it on youtube (I think posted by Manning himself). I couldn't find a date on this (there's barely anything on the internet at all) so no MDA post yet. I'll post my thoughts here for now. This was a comedy match done in front of a empty 'arena', which I think was the highspots warehouse. Apparently a show got rained out and this was sort of a bonus match, I guess posted online for the fans who missed out? Purpose is a big thing for me. Sometimes matches are trying to be great for the sake of being great, sometimes they have the cards stacked against them and can't possible be 5* given what they're trying to do, but they can still accomplish that thing, regardless of what it is and still be hugely special. So this feels weird to begin with. It's a comedy match with no one to laugh at the spots. There's no way to gauge the timing based on the crowd. They're trying to amuse each other, the ref (Cheeseburger?), and the few people hanging around the warehouse(with a ring in it). I appreciate the commitment to character, despite that, though it does degrade into a Bugs Bunny short, with Manning, however serious or not he generally is, falling into the world of his opponent. I guess it's more like Roger Rabbit dragging everything around him into a toon world, or the more accurately the self-aware meta-ness of the Animaniacs. Delirious bouncing around the ring like a maniac, including doing things like walking the rope for no reason is novel. It's a totally different vibe than someone like Kamala or Missing Link. It's manic in a different way, an Ultimate Warrior that didn't take himself so serious and objectivist and that was actually in on the joke and ran it into the ground. This is long, but there is some sense of restraint. It starts slow, with a refusal to lock up, progresses to Manning losing more and more of his bearings, and then builds to bigger spots, though it never gets too big. I thought Manning sort of lost it too early, and while there was a little bit of heat, he never really had control of the situation. Yes, it's funny when he's looking at his book (rulebook? Scout book? a heel walking around with a rule book to yell at the ref with is a good gimmick) and then immediately doing Delirious' own yell back at him. With all the talking, it's almost like a Three Stooges short of a Sam Raimi movie. There are times where Manning is playing around a bit too much, like when they shout out boxers' names when hitting each other, but that was one of the three or four things that popped me in the match (him shouting "Dick Murdoch!" and just kicking Delirious in the gut). That was one of those weird situations where they went just far enough with it for it to be annoying but not far enough for it to be serene. Also, it probably should have come earlier (it really sets up the finish) but there's no real way to rate escalation in a match so unreal. At the same time, there are things I notice and can't help but notice even if I strongly doubt they're intentional. For instance, that minute or two of heat had Manning cut of Delirious a couple of times with a back elbow. When Delirious finally fought back, Manning tried to stop it but got cut off with a Delirious back elbow followed by a big flying clothesline. It didn't actually go anywhere or mean anything in the big picture but I still liked it. At one point Delirious grabbed Manning's knee pads to pull himself up into a headbutt to the gut. That's a brilliant spot and I've never seen it before. If you watch a match and see one little thing like that you've never seen before, it's a match that you're better off for having watched. Delirious' finishing splash was pretty impressive and popped the insider "crowd." You can't rate something like this. It probably would have been just as effective at trying to do whatever it was trying to do in half the time, but it showed an admirable mix of restraint and insanity to fill twenty-plus minutes.

I like Angle turning heel in the process and being an annoying sports dad manager.

We're off-topic but, that's kind of how the Women's Royal Rumble worked this year. Do you care that this torchbearer for the revolution who idolized Eddy is interacting with his wife? What about Lita and Sasha interacting? Do you care that the Divas of Destruction are hugging in the ring before Nattie went full Nattie? What about Asuka usurping the Yes kicks from Brie? What about the Bellas as post-diva bully gatekeepers? Etc. You can tell from Stacey's posts that there was a hell of a lot going on with that Rumble if you take the leap and immerse yourself in it. Was that true with the men's rumble? Sure, but I don't think quite as much. Maybe we take it for granted. Absolutely they take it for granted. Some of it is the amount of TV we have. Everything is far more interconnected now, but it wasn't with the women since so many we haven't seen in so long. It was very much like the Flair vs All of His Old Enemies bits of the 1992 one. You couldn't do that today because a guy like Reigns wrestles most of the roster in a given year. Are there still plenty of opportunities for next year? Even with that same exact group? Yeah. I want to see Beth Phoenix interact with Molly now that we know Molly basically put her through wrestling school. I want to see Bayley get to interact with Lita. Or have an uber-babyface off with Molly. I want to see Torrie and Kelly Kelly interact because that would be bonkers. Etc and so on.

That was probably the worst thing in the Rumble, anyone else than her would have been better. Comedy spots in Rumbles are both good and necessary And frankly, there was something innately cool about getting to see Sasha interact with Eddy's wife.

Asuka will be in an oddball relationship with Jack Gallagher in 6 months.

No one knows how to turn their phones sideways. It's maddening.

I'll make it up to you as soon as someone posts the Asuka/Bayley vs Nia/Alexa tag from the house show circuit this week.

She was working a sexist angle, which works better against a man than against the female Glorious Benevolent Feminist Mother of the Women's Revolution. If Sasha and Bayley have a match on the fucking pre show I'm gonna go postal. They were supposed to main event this fucking thing. Fuck WWE. Multi-woman tag.

The kids seem to like Brother Love right now. I just want it to be something ridiculously pro wrestling. Teddy Long?

Do you think they missed a major opportunity by making Kurt Angle so comic a figure?

Workrate people like Rollins?