Talk about it here.

I'm distracted early on by the idea that Moo Toe Cagey would be an amazing message board name. This is not a very interesting match. They spend too much time sitting in headlocks, and some of Owen's highspots are *too* graceful ... like he's doing ballet instead of competing in a contact sport. Just some punching and kicking mixed into the stuff he was already doing would have gone a long way to make him seem more aggressive.

This is another sort of a "Hey, these two guys wrestled each other" match but man, is it miles ahead of Bret vs. Misawa. The only Owen thing that really bothered me as far as looking choreographed was his too-easy blocked kick into an enzuigiri spot. No, he didn't have much in the way of strikes but I can deal with that if you throw some nasty suplexes, something I'm not sure Owen gets enough credit for in general. His moonsault was off but was a good excuse for Mutoh to kick out and then say, "Here, let me show you how it's done."

Can't say that I cared about anything anyone did in this match. Sometimes that is a problem for me with Owen Hart matches. While mostly technically good, I have no real emotional connection at all and they seem flat as a result.

This was pretty lackluster. It felt like a Brad Armstrong opening a Clash match to it.

Disappointed again by an Owen match on this set. Too much headlocks by both. Owen gets in some nice suplexes. He pretty much misses his moonsault which is all on him since he put Muto in position. Muto's moonsault wasn't pretty either but it connected.

Ok match but Mutoh looks like he's taking a night off. Owen overshoots on his moonsault and then Mutoh undershoots on his.

For some reason, this match was misdated June 30 on the discs, so I made a new thread for it in the June forum before I found this one. Copying and pasting is giving me trouble in this forum (I know how to do it in every other forum I participate in but this one, so it's the forum's issue, not mine), so I'll have to retype my comments by hand. Here we go:

 

Neat little match, but not as end-to-end as you'd expect, possibly because Owen has a legitimate back or ribs injury. I'm kind of surprised that this one got as nasty as it did, but I remember someone saying that it took Muto a while to get out of Muta mode upon his return from the States, so that may be a partial explanation.

 

I love the irony of Muto using the sharpshooter as an attempted submission, even though Owen wouldn't begin to use it for several years.

 

Big win for Muto, but Owen looks like a comer here, and his career in Japan is well on its way.

I guess a kind of dream match that I didn't know existed and was pretty excited about when I popped up, but man I was bored. I guess Owen is still pretty young here so I wonder if it would have been better a few years later.

Owen screwed up big time setting Mutoh down for the moonsault. Then Mutoh didn't have enough time to move before he had to stop. Brilliant. Either way, some nice suplexes by Owen to go along with a meandering match.