DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #172 (Simple Version)
BIG JAPAN~! is the apple of DEAN’S~! eye! RIPPA~! and BALTIMORE~! aren’t on speaking terms! BLOOD~! so much BLOOD~! HARLY RAGE~! needs to buy a vowel! SHELDON GOLDBERG~! eats a sandwich! SERENA DEEB~! RAMPAGE BROWN~! MR. EXOTIC EROTIC~!?!?!?! ISRAELI PRO WRESTLING~! MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS~!
HIYA~!
WELCOME TO DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #172
Fucking hell. We have been working on this issue for 9 God Damn months. This one is all on me. I watched a whole lotta shit but trying to put fingers to keyboard in an interesting way just wasn’t happening. Plus, I had the Rangers doomed but enjoyable Stanley Cup run and then the World Cup and then I moved and then I got a new work computer all my old shit was gone and finding new shit was next to impossible. Plus, PLUS – I was using all my best material on Twitter (@D_V_D_V_R)
The happy accident with this issue is that when Dean was reviewing every day (which the candle went out on a long time ago) he already had written his parts but since I dragged my feet long enough, you have all forgotten you have read them since – let’s be honest – if it isn’t on the first page of the board you fuckers don’t think it exists. So NEW TO YOU~!
Of course – my personal hell is the fact that Dean included end notes. So clearly that is my punishment for this taking so long. Oh Dean and your comical numbering system. I will find #8 eventually…
Videos are embedded again (somehow). This time I didn’t even fucking bother to deal with Dailymotion embeds. You can click on that link and dance with that devil. Some videos have been yanked since we first wrote the review and I only half-heartedly searched for a replacement. It was easier to write one line quips that entertained myself.
Have at it and maybe another will be out before we all die or the Russian hackers come back.
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BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING (3/27/2014)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
SHINOBU/ BRAHMAN SHU/ BRAHMAN KEI vs. MADOKA/ HERCULES SENGA/ TSUTOMU OOSUGI:
I’m glad I’ve memorized the roster of Big Japan Pro Wrestling so I can add the first names to the line up that goes unmentioned when you pull up the Youtube video. (1) Fuck it, IIIIIIII like the Brahman Brothers because – though I hate Wrestling Hilarity – I DO truly enjoy guys who will lay it in. And the Brahman boys beat the cat piss out of you a lot harder than they with will make the viewer keel over with side-splitting hilarity. Shinobu and Madoka are good second tier (undersized) Strong Style Division guys – so one can only hope that this doesn’t turn into groin bowling and the usual retarded powder spots. You can also hope that Kate Upton shows up at your doorstep and take you to Denny’s. Cuz the Brahman do a thing and that is their thing – whatever kind of match you wanted be damned. (2) But lets go ahead and watch this fucking thing so we get on to the death matches that I will hate. Until I watch them and then I will find some kind of redeeming feature – as is my want when I descend into the depths of Big Japan vampire death matches. So here we go. It’s nine minutes – WHAT’S IT GONNA HURT? After all this, they do this as a pretty fun straight 6 man match – with the Brahman hitting a World’s Best Total Elimination on Madoka. OooooSugi stomps on Kei and then water starts flying everywhere. Then luggage groin bowling. Then it’s back to the straight 6 man. Then Hercules becomes blackened but goes crazy and throws everybody over the top rope and then gets the pinfall. So you will always have that. In that, it was a variation on the Brahman match. In that, the other four guys would blend in to the 700 other indie 120 pound juniors in Japanese wrestling. In that the modern age allows to not even deal with the opening matches much less fast forward over them like in the old days. In that you really have to drill down for one to realize that two of these guys are the tag team the Speed of Sounds.(3)
KAZUKI HASHIMOTO/ DAICHI HASHIMOTO vs. RYUICHI SEKINE/ TAKYUKI UEKI:
C’mon guys, you got fuggin Double Hash and you give it seven minutes? Couldn’t cut any of the forty minutes of guys standing around to get hit in the head light tubes? So please, fell free to suck it! For those new to the game, Daichi is son of legendary wrestler Shinya Hashimoto – a man that TRUE men base their lives upon. Kazuki is the fatter one who looks like he is the bastard son or possibly wayward son of Shinya Hashimoto’s sister Wanda Hashimoto. Sekine and Ueki I do not recall ever seeing.(4) Luckily, they aren’t afraid to mix it up with assorted Hashes and bring a wad of Fighting Spirit to the proceedings- in this, the finest 7 minute match where guys kick each other in the chest a lot. I really dig this Sekine guy. He’ll punch you right in the teeth. The last part is Ueki forearming K-Hash until K-Hash says (5), “Why! Enough of this nonsense!” and just crushes Ueki’s skull with a headbutt. Ueki struggles to find the inner FIRE to survive but he eventually taps the tap of the Big Japan rookie in a 7 minute match.
MANABOOOO SOYA/ HIDEYOSHI KAMITANI vs. SHINYA ISHIKAWA/ RYUICHI KAWAKAMI:
I don’t recall Kamitani, but I am 48 years old and I have four children, two teenage daughters, a full-time job and I used to drink a lot so I may have seen him in a six man here or there.(6) The other guys- I actually really really dig. So I am stoked! Manabu’s get-up gets more feral as Kawakami’s hairstyle gets more and more Emo. Kamitani’s paunts are hilariously bad- plum shorts with a red longhorn skull on the back? My mind wanders to where that would possibly be fashionable or bad ass or anything other than something one would find next to the expired Russian cookies at Roses. Actually, the Roses angle makes me love the pants now. I am a child. Meanwhile, they were doing Pro Wrestling time killing things while I pondered a 22 year old’s little paunts. I am possibly secretly creepy. Kawakami mixes it up with the youthfullest of the four- and gives him a lot, but also beats the living pee out of him. Soya and Kawakami go all Big Japan Strongstyle so YOU fall in love and become hopelessly devoted to THIS MATCH! Man, Kawakami is growing on me. HOLY FLIPPIN BALLS, The Kawakami EVEREST Backdrop Driver is to die for. Ishikawa tags in and Soya hits the EVEREST Vertical Suplex and I am pasting the pointing of loving this matching. BLAZILLION STARS. Teenboy Kamatani tags in and adds comical dropkicks to the proceedings before hitting a more in context of the match style side suplex. mHe also hits a toprope shoulder block that crushes the lanky Texan Ishikawa in a very impressive way. Ishikawa is so impressed that he fuckin DESTROYS youthboy with a running forearm to the face- TWICE!- and this match is ruling the fucking world as much as any 13 minute match could or should. Oh man, dig the old school finish. Postmatch, Soya and Kawakami set up a match I am STOKED to see come to fruition. Big Japan Strong Style RULEZ.
MASATO INABA/ MASAYA TAKAHASHI/ SABURO INEMATSU vs JAKI NUMAZAWA/ JUN KASAI/ TAKUMI TSAKAMOTO:
Well, here we go with the deathmatch portion of the evening. I checked the Cagematch.net bios and this quite the smorgasborg of shitty indie guys. The walking around begins early. It’s odd. Everybody throws immensely shitty punches and everybody blades- yet the match before- and (GOD KNOWS) the match after- look 75000 times more violent and painful- and yet both of those matches are bladeless and plundahless .(7) It just goes to show that Strongstyle is the TRUE hardcore style when both are shown in the light of day. Sheesh. This match is fucking horrible for the most part, though I did kinda dig Masaya Takahashi and Tsakamoto- in that they kinda could be combined into one wrestler that did enough decent looking stuff that I would like him. So you got. You will always have that.
KOHEI SATO/ SHUJI ISHIKAWA vs RYUJI ITO/ YUKO MIYAMOTO:
I watched this last week- mostly because I secretly totally love Shuji ishikawa. Ishikawa is probably the stiffest crowbar in all of JAPAN. I don’t actually have to get in the ring, I am a wrestling fan. THUS, I love watching Ishikawa because he will fucking LAY IT IN. I’m also an American. If I was in a situation where I would have to face Shuji Ishikawa, I would wave a gun at him from a tower. People that are employed by Big Japan and hover around their weird ass region betwixt the Strong Style/Tag section and the Death Match section, usually getting mauled by Ishikawa at some point. Here, he is tagging with Kohei Sato, who I haven’t really thought of much in the last couple of year- it’s nothing he’s done, it’s just that Zero-One doesn’t surface much on the internet and I try limit my wrestling viewing to the internet. Sato realizes that to make this match work, he will have to match the stiffness of Ishikawa. ishikawa’s level of stiffness is already PREPOSTEROUS. Sato matching his stiffness inspires Ishikawa to work, like, DEVOID-OF-A-GOD, MERCILESSLY stiff. Miyamoto and Ito have been around and the total Mulkization that they endure is pretty fucking harrowing- though you do get a real Rock N Roll Express vibe as Miyamoto hits some offense and then just gets fucking slaughtered while the crowd goes all molten for his comeback. Ito is fun as Robert Gibson but trading forearms with Shuji ishjikawa is no way to go through life, my son. Soo fucking intense. Probably my Japan match of the year so far. I am not you.
ISAMI KODAKA vs. KANKURO HOSHINO:
Ah, I didn’t realize there was only one more match or I would have written about this yesterday. Bear with an ohoold foooulish mahn. I’ve probably seen these guys before. I never watch the BJPW death matches anymore but I watch all of the BJPW undercard matches I can find- so I assume they drifted through to my viewing experience at some point or another. But let’s just assume I’m watching these guys for the first time- so you can bear the brunt of my annoying conclusions with ease. Yes. With ease. HEY! Thhhherrrre’s STUFF all over the ring! My guess: blood before the first 2 minutes are up. Kodaka has the belts and is all young and good-lookin’. Hoshino has hilarious hair and looks like shaved with a belt sander. They have a count down to race to all the good stuff- so it’s like Supermarket Sweep but instead of going for the high priced laundry detergent, you go for the Board With Rusted Tincan Lids. Annnd blading starts TWENTY-ONE SECONDS after Kodaka reaches the ring. Yoiks, The brawling is tepid- like you replaced Cactus Jack and Terry Funk with two ladies from your mother-in-law’s garden club. I wouldn’t be surprised if they sat down and had a few cucumber sandwiches after carving each other up with exploded light tubes. But I’m getting ahead of myself and there is PUH-LENTY of garbage match left. Maybe it will swing the other way and get all BattlARTS on our asses! Well, they do immediately carve each other up with light tubes. I await sandwiches. Hey, Hoshino will kick you really hard so are in the NETHER REGION of my two analogies.(11) Then Hoshino does one of those retarded 40 yard sprints that ALWAYS looks stupid, but at least Kodaka is smart enough to not buy into the idiocy and moves out of the way. Hoshino then does these really nice looking kicks to make up for the stupid shit he just did. I’m assuming at some point, he will figure out what looks good and keep that- and stop doing all the stupid shit. One can only hope for these things. Eventually, Hoshino goes back first into the light the tubes and LMOAGOAHFLLTAYAAFGLUMFEBWYTFP!(12) They do some MAJESTIC~!light tube forehead carving through the ropes and they do assorted slams onto ladders and chairs and slams onto light tubes. And, of course, NOTHING looks better or more painful that Hoshino’s kicks to the stomach- sooo FUCK you, little death match! Hoshino also hits a Corner Lariat that is more painful looking than any of the garbage spots so far. Kodaka does elaborate stacking of tubes and bricks and does a series of garbage-assisted Russian Leg Sweeps. Hoshino sells them as the All japan Lariat No-Sell-Then-Sell- which is fine, I GUESS. Hoshino Kawada Reverses A Suplex for TRANSITION~! to offence hitting a Nodawa onto a ladder- the power of which has been nullified by the assorted body slams and Russian Leg Sweeps onto said ladder. But it was nice, if you like that kind of shit. They both sell the fuck out of Hoshino Senton Onto A Step Ladder On the Chest Of Kodaka- so the psychology is confusing. Or maybe I just can’t give a fuck if your main event death match is smoked by ANY expoding barbed-wire match from 20 years ago. We gotta move forward folks. The Honma/Yamakawa axis of death matches of the late 90s was the next step past total explosives and barbed wire- because it replaced the pyro with wrestling psychology. This stuff is the worst of both worlds- no psychology, no cool shit blowing up. But I’m being a little harsh. Let’s move on to the finsh, shall we? Thank you. The Corner Frankensteiner Onto the Ladder followed the toprope stomp onto Hoshino Prone Holding Three Light Tubes is not as good as Hoshino’s immediate hopping up and Lariating of Kodaka. The selling is…… suspect. But I could forgive questionable selling IF THEY WOULD BLOW UP SOMETHING! Hoshino’s simple toprope Senton looks way better than the same spots with garbage elements. It’s baffling. Everything Hoshino does that is not garbage related looks more effective than all the garbage spots in the match. It might be that I buy Hoshino lariats more than I buy Hoshino laying on his back holding six bricks while Kodaka climbs the ropes. Finish was fine. I will allow YOU to watch it yourself. Your welcome. I’m here for you. I had a lot of beefs with this match- the main thing being that it would have been better as a straight wrestling match. I’m probably just being a dick. BAHHHHH!
ENDNOTES
1. In that I have memorized the address of cagematch.net, in that cagematch.net is run by crazy, anal retentive Germans who have every possible detail of every majorish wrestling card that has happened or is about to happen. God bless them.
2. Though to be fair, their match against the Golden Lovers (9) was pretty fucking great even if it did go along with the usual Brahman routine.
3. Which is not even close to “the Golden Lovers”.
4. According the HOTLINX on Cagematch.net, Sekine is a K-Dojo guy. He is 25 years old, 5’7″ and weighs 176 pounds. You can follow him on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/ryuichisekine . Ueki is a Big Japan guy. He is 22 years old, 5’7″ (10) and weighs 189 pounds. His finisher is the Cross Body Block- making him the NEW Ricky Steamboat!
5. To himself.
6. According the HOTLINX on Cagematch.net, Kamitani is Big Japan youngster. He is 22 years old, 5’10” and 196 pounds. That is pretty big for Japanese indie guy. His homepage is http://ameblo.jp/nokamiya.
7. I stand corrected. Ito gives Sato two chairshots. Which is pretty funny in that they are the least stiffest things to happen in the entire wrestling match.
9. The tag team name Golden Lovers….. SOOOOOOOO fucking great. For the record, my favortie tagteam name will probably always be “The Minnesota Wrecking Crew”.
10. I get the feeling that Japanese promotions list 5’3″ Juniors at 5’7″ like colleges list 5′ 9″ quarterbacks as 6’1″.
11. Or metaphors or whatever I’m clumsily setting up. Let me get back to cramming words deeply into the butt of this review.
12. Let Me Once Again Go On About How Fucking Lame Light Tubes Are. You Are A Fucking GARBAGE LEAGUE! Use MOTHERFUCKING EXPLODING BARBED WIRE, YOU TOTAL FUCKING PUSSIES!
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GREAT AMERICAN BASH 1989
(by PHIL RIPPA)
Tim Livingston donated money. Tim Livingston requested the 1989 Great American Bash. Tim Livingston can go kick rocks. Oh God Dammit! This is one of the fucking shows from Baltimore too. Grr… You are lucky I like you Tim. Well at least used to like you. Now, I have a DVD of this show so that is what I am going to use (and it appears to be the commercial tape version so who the fuck knows what is edited out. The run time is only 2 hours so that is already something for the plus column.) And for all of you who are all “Well – you could just be watching it on the Network!” yeah, you can go fuck yourselves.
$15,000 TRIPLE CROWN BATTLE ROYAL FINALS
Well since they already had the two rings set up for War Games later why not run a randomly complex Battle Royal to open the show. This is me just trying to explain the set-up
This is a two ring battle royal. All the guys start in Ring One. When you are eliminated from Ring One, you go to Ring Two and a second Battle Royal starts. In theory, winner of Ring One will wrestle the winner of Ring Two with the winner taking all. There is a reason I am saying “in theory”.
At the Clash of the Champions prior to this show – they announced they were doing this Battle Royal and there would be qualifying Battle Royals to earn your spot in the Finals. Who the fuck knows if they ran any actual qualifying battle royals (I am way too lazy to look). If they did – some poor schmuck paid decent house show money to see a Battle Royal that was won by say Bill Irwin or Ranger Ross.
There are 14 guys in the Battle Royal – which means that they supposedly won a qualifying Battle Royal. They are: Eddie Gilbert, Terry Gordy, Scott Hall, Bill Irwin, Brian Pillman, Ranger Ross, Mike Rotunda, Ron Simmons, Rick & Scott Steiner, Steve Williams, Kevin Sullivan, Sid Vicious and Dan Spivey. Each guy is carrying a crown to the ring – presumably that they have to cash in to be allowed in the ring – which is a nice touch.
One would presume that they booked this Battle Royal to get more guys on the show but upon closer inspection – 10 of the 14 guys work a second match (11 if you count Eddie Gilbert who acts as Sting’s second). The only guys not seen again are Ron Simmons, Ranger Ross and Scott Hall. So… good for them I guess (of course – God forbid we put together a random tag match. Can’t do it – have to make sure we timed out the show well enough for the Tuxedo Match.) Really the NWA motto should have just been “NWA – Home of the Pointless Show Filler”
Okay – actual match time. I will say this – there are a lot of guys I like in this and most of them throw really good punches so at least they can make this believable. Like I would watch a 10 minute Battle Royal of Terry Gordy just punching people. First person dumped into the second ring is Ranger Ross. I know you are frustrated Ross and this is Baltimore but resist the urge to rob any banks and/or liquor stores. We have all seen The Wire. Nothing good awaits you down that path. Ron Simmons (who was the one who dumped Ross) immediately joins Ring Two. Hmm… I notice a pattern here. They clearly have something in common. It’s like this is an episode of Star Trek and they are the expendable crewmen. Alas – they start wailing on each other and the crowd eats it up. You can’t make this stuff up. Ross eliminates Simmons because that’s what we want – more Ranger Ross camera time. HA! Third guy into the 2nd ring is Scott Hall. So the first three guys eliminated from the first ring were the three guys who were only working once. WE HAVE A GOD DAMN PECKING ORDER HERE IN THE NWA AND WE WILL RIGIDLY FOLLOW IT!!!! Oh and apparently – you can only be eliminated from Ring One from the side where the two rings touch. So it is so convenient (or awkward depending on if you are an optimist or pessimist) that everything naturally gravitated in that direction. And there is the first Home Video edit as we suddenly swipe our way to where Dan Spivey is in the 2nd ring crushing Ross via the powerbomb. The first ring is just Sid vs. Pillman. The match is only like 10 minutes yet they decided to clip like a minute out of it. Lord knows what was fucked up that they had to take out. Though it doesn’t seem like they are two concerned about botches because they leave in the spot where Pillman clearly is supposed to duck a Sid “punch” and then deliver a dropkick to transition to offense. Well Pillman doesn’t duck so Sid just waves his arm over Pillman’s head and then they just kinda stare at each other. So yeah… Anyway, it becomes impossible to track everything once they spread over the two rings because the camera is always in the wrong spot. Sid is the survivor in Ring One as Pillman eliminates himself into Ring Two. Ring Two comes down to Spivey, Steve Williams and Mike Rotunda. HA! HA! HA! Oh God they clearly don’t care about botches because Rotunda eliminates himself but only after Williams forgets to duck out of the way of the running clothesline. God Bless your heart Mike. It didn’t look absurd. Not at all. Jim Ross tried to cover for you so. And then we get right back to the NWA sure loves to dick over their fans. I mean Spivey wins the second ring thanks to ref distraction and outside interference… in a Battle Royal. And then Teddy Long (fresh into his manager days) comes out to say that Sid and Spivey aren’t going to fight and will split the check so there isn’t even a legit winner. I would be more outraged but these fans are people who willingly live in Baltimore. They probably don’t deserve a decisive winner.
BRIAN PILLMAN vs. BILL IRWIN
It’s not even fair to say this was joined in progress as they only show like three minutes of a 10 minute match. But at least y’all get to see that Brian Pillman clearly was on the Brady Anderson diet. (Though would a steady diet of roids for any of you who might be confused.) I am amused that they made these two guys walk all the way to the back after the Battle Royal just to come right back down to the ring. At least they got their cardio in. This match does expose us to Nick Patrick and his pornstache. Smart. Play to your audience Nick. What is shown was fine. Really it is just all setup to get to the point where Pillman leaps from one ring into the other for the high cross body for the win.
SKYSCRAPERS (Sid Vicious/Dan Spivey) vs. DYNAMIC DUDES (Johnny Ace/Shane Douglas)
Much like the previous match – only a few minutes is shown. This is all the Skyscrapers butt fucking the Dudes. You basically could look at this match as the Skyscrapers being the Mayflower vans and the Dudes being the entire city of Baltimore. Or in more recent terms – Ace and Douglas basically look like they just were in an elevator with Ray Rice.
JIM CORNETTE vs. PAUL E DANGEROUSLY – TUXEDO MATCH
Hate… Tim… Livingston… so… much… God the period when Cornette and the Midnights were faces was just so… wrong. At least I know where Ray Lewis suit went to. Too bad the prosecutors couldn’t. This last about five minutes. Five minutes that you will never ever fucking get back. Especially when Bob Caudle gets way too excited about the clothes coming off. Of course, now I have to worry that either Cornette or Heyman will start yelling at me on Twitter. Maybe both.
RICK & SCOTT STEINER vs. THE VARSITY CLUB (Mike Rotunda/Kevin Sullivan) – Texas Tornado Match
Okay – now this is kinda great since the Texas Tornado rules allow it to just be a five minute brawl. Rick Steiner and Kevin Sullivan just wander around ring side waffling each other with things. Missy Hyatt in her prime. Scott and Rotunda in the ring doing their thing. Jason Hervey running for his life at ringside. Everyone just tossing suplexes left and right. Did I mention Missy Hyatt in her prime? God – I don’t know what I enjoy more: Rotunda changing singlets between this match and the Battle Royal or that no one thought that maybe they should take the 30 seconds and clean up the powder in the ring leftover from the Tuxedo match. Not all white substances are illegal drugs Baltimore. Len Bias was already dead. He wasn’t going to come out and snorted it all for you. Clean that shit up!
STING vs. THE GREAT MUTA – World TV Championship
Sigh… I miss Gary Hart like Muta clearly misses having functioning knees. I should mention that Ed wanted me to work in a Gary Hart manager/Gary Hart presidential candidate joke but it wasn’t happening (of course – the first draft of this, I forgot to finish typing so the joke just ended… much like Hart’s candidacy. BOOM!!!! YOU AIN’T GOT SHIT ON ME JOHNNY CARSON!!!) Eddie Gilbert is seconding Sting and if this was another time I would say it was screaming ANGLE ALERT~! but this is not another time. The ravages of time also make me forget how enjoyable the Sting/Muta feud was. Part of this is because some of the other Sting feuds were so fucking good (especially Sting/Vader). Part of it also might be because it was so quick. Like a glorious rocket destined to burn out ever so quick. Kinda like the Baltimore Stallions. The match starts off with a guy in each ring as they filibuster with each other over which ring to start in until Sting says “Fuck It” and goes diving from one ring into the other. Which in 1989 – most of us rubes hadn’t seen shit like that and where losing our minds. Just like watching The Great Fucking Muta in 1989. Let me try and recapture what would have happened if I was trying to write a review in the early days of discovering Muta.
HOLY FUCK!!! WHAT THE FUCK DID HE JUST DO???? WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT FLIPPY THING INTO THE CORNER!!! JESUS H CHRIST!!! THAT MOONSAULT IS THE GREATEST MOTHERFUCKING THING I HAVE EVER GOD DAMN SEEN!!!! DID HE JUST LAND ON HIS MOTHERFUCKING FEET WHILE DOING THE FUCKING MOONSAULT!!! HE POSSESSES BLACK MAGIC!!! HE WILL RULE US ALL!!!
(Granted if I was writing this in 1989 – it would have probably been more racist too but since this is now, I can clean it up and make myself look good.) I love that they had announced a 30 minute time limit and then proceeded to only go eight. It means that what you get is a sprint which is fine but you could have easily booked the card better so this match would have gotten more time but hey TUXEDO MATCH~! Also since this is the NWA – as already proven they hate to give their fans clean finishes. Nick Patrick gets a faceful of mist. Muta hits the moonsault and get the visual pin on Sting as Tommy Young takes his sweet time getting into the ring and attempting to count. Sting kicks out. Sting then hits a belly to back suplex with a bridge. Young counts. Muta gets his shoulder up at (which BTW is right in front of fucking Young’s face) but Young counts to three anyway. Young declares Sting the winner and still champ. Patrick – who remember had a face full of mist AND was outside the ring says NAY! NAY! And kinda sorta reverses the finish. Basically Muta and Hart grab the belt and flee. No announcement is made to the crowd. On the home video, Ross and Caudle are baffled, they watch the replay once, don’t know what happened, and then they cut to the next match. So basically Tommy Young is Richie Garcia. Nick Patrick is kinda sorta Jeffrey Maier. And the crowd remains Orioles fans. (And before you all yell at me – I know the belt was declared held-up until Muta eventually wins it.)
RICKY STEAMBOAT vs. LEX LUGER – US TITLE MATCH
Ooof…. some of the ridiculous “elaborate” entrances at the time were down right stupid. Steamboat has his wife come out carrying Richie Steamboat… so even then Richie apparently had a banged up back. Then Ricky comes out and he is “surfing” to the ring on a big wood board that is carried by a bunch of children. That looked really safe. And the entire time, Steamboat was holding a Kimono Dragon (that someone decided needed to be wearing a leather studded vest). OH! OH! And Bob Caudle reads whatever the 1989 version of Wikipedia would be to give us the history lesson of said Kimono Dragon. Anyway – the match is SUPPOSED to be No-DQ but Luger as champ (and fairly new heel) is refusing to wrestle if it is a No-DQ match. So long story short – Gary Jester comes out and there is a little discussion and Steamboat – the idiot – agrees to drop the No-DQ stip. I mean what other choice did he and the NWA have? “Well he was refusing to wrestle. Clearly we have no system in place where we can institute some sort of punishment on him for refusing to wrestle. Nope – you are all shit out of luck. Nothing we can do!” I am not sure I prepared to handle all this sudden LEX LUGER! SUPER WORKER!!! Nonsense that has popped up on the interwebs. I mean he is totally there and I don’t mind watching a match with him but… yeah. Of course – there was a movement once that Demolition was the greatest tag team of all time. You gentle reader can be fucking dumb sometimes. Also dumb is Jim Ross who is all “I don’t understand why there are fans still cheering Luger.” YOU ARE IN BALTIMORE JIM!!! Just be thankful they are wearing pants. Okay – focus. It is really difficult to have a bad match with Steamboat… especially in the late 80s. So this is all sorts of neat. Luger brings the dickish power offense that of course Steamboat can sell like death. I wish Luger would sell chops more than just moving his head to the side but at least he is trying. And Luger isn’t afraid to LAUNCH himself over the top rope as Steamboat starts his comeback. Of course – since the whole point of the match was to get over the fact that it was now a regular match instead of No-DQ, the nonsense begins. And by nonsense I mean Tommy Young being an over-officious jerk. Long story short – Young keeps preventing Steamboat from doing things because apparently you can’t chop a guy without Young being offended. Nor can you waffle him with a chair. Oh okay… I get that second one. But yeah – the finish is Steamboat getting DQed after Luger introduces a chair into the proceedings. So we up to three inconclusive finishes on this show.
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS (Bobby Eaton/Stan Lane) & ROAD WARRIORS & STEVE WILLIAMS vs. THE FABULOUS FREEBIRDS (Michael Hayes/Jimmy Garvin) & THE SAMOAN SWAT TEAM & TERRY GORDY – WARGAMES
Okay – without evening having to watch this match again here are the important things I remember
It is one of the more random Wargames ever. Like the booking was all “Oh shit – we are due to run a WarGames match. Umm… okay the Road Warriors and SST hate each other now. And… umm… shit… well the Freebirds are the champs. Fuck. I guess the Midnights are faces now. But that is only eight guys. Hey! Steve. Terry. You guys want to be in Wargames? It will hurt more but then you have an excuse for more drugs. You in? Okay, sweet.”
Williams presses Gordy into the top of the cage a few times. Boy did the commercial for the home video LOVE to show you that one.
There is no blood in the match. God – I don’t understand people who are all shocked by that. This is the second straight year in Baltimore. DO NONE OF YOU FUCKERS REMEMBER THE MAIN EVENT OF THE ‘88 BASH??? They used the whole Maryland State Commissions hate of blood to book themselves out of giving Luger the title. So yeah… having blood this year in what is technically an undercard match isn’t going to happen.
Anyway – in the least shocking decision ever Bobby Eaton starts for his team. Jimmy Garvin starts for the other. And since nothing is gonna happen till all 10 are in the ring the order of entry is Garvin, Eaton, Gordy, Williams, Samu, Animal, Fatu, Lane, Hayes, Hawk. So yes – Paul Ellering and Jim Cornette thought more of Animal than Stan Lane. And I don’t blame them. Also, as a random aside, I really wish Cornette and Williams had been together longer. God – this match could have just been Gordy and Eaton throwing punches at each other and it would have been the best one ever. Sadly that doesn’t happen. Basically – you just have to wait awhile and then Hawk randomly grabs Garvin and puts him in a hangman until Tommy Young is able to get in the ring and call for the bell. But since the faces are the dumbest people ever, they leave the ring with tunnel vision and the heels all jump Animal and beat the hell out of him for a long time while everyone else can’t get in. Oh I should point out that the cage had two doors and the heels are only blocking one (because the heels escape out of the second door when the faces finally get in). God – if this was the time when if the fans cheered you, you had to have the IQ of a turnip.
RIC FLAIR vs. TERRY FUNK – NWA WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPIONSHIP
Mmm…. Flair vs. Funk Feud. Funk comes out with Gary Hart (and a legion of police officers which is pretty God Damn Boss. Plus smart – since ya know Baltimore and all that) so you know something is afoot. Alas – they were not being subtle with the foreshadowing. Flair comes out with four ladies – presumably none of them Cal Ripken’s wife since Peter Angelos didn’t suddenly race out and fake a power outage so that no one had to have their streak broken. This match is just two middle aged guys beating the shit out of each other (at least for the start). That might not be everyone’s cup of tea but it works for me. Sadly it doesn’t stay that way. First Flair attempts to blade himself after running his head into his hand… err… I mean the post. THE POST! Ignore the business exposing camera angle. He doesn’t really complete the job (or was just softening himself up for later). Then there are some awkward bumps between the two, with Flair finally getting the advantage and he starts to work on Funk’s neck. Great but then suddenly Flair hits a piledriver. Now between these two – Flair piledriving Funk should be THE spot of the match. The crowd reacts like it is but Flair hits it and Funk sells like Funk always does. Then Flair just goes “One More Time!” instead of trying the cover. Funk Funk sells and then crawls out of the ring. They get back in the ring and Funk is no longer acting a man who was hit with two piledrivers that are supposed to be fiery hot death. So Flair just slaps on the Figure Four. You would think that Ric Fucking Flair of all people would have done any sort of leg damage beforehand but NOOOOOO. So Hart throws the branding iron into the ring, Tommy Young is an idiot, and Flair is now bleeding from having a branding iron jabbed between his eyes. Funk then hits a piledriver (which I will allow since the feud at least had established that Flair has a shitty ass neck) that Flair survives. I guess the NWA sure wasn’t afraid to totally bury the piledriver after all the hard work they had done building it up. Hey Terry! Maybe you should have done those swing neckbreakers BEFORE USING THE PILEDRIVER!!! God for two guys I love they really are irritating me. Well at least the branding iron is now two for two in drawing blood as Flair pops Funk with it so he can transition into his turn to ignore all the work that was just done to his neck. Anyway – the decide to go with the Spinning Toe Hold into Figure Four into Small Package duel as the finish with Flair retaining. Muta then returns from where ever he hid to mist Flair and the beatdown is on. Doug Dillinger does a comical run in to save Flair from being piledriven on a chair – complete with no-selling a chop from Muta which is pretty fucking amazing when you think about it. This also had the famous Jim Ross line of “That’s Doug Dillinger! HE’S A CIVILIAN!!!” Man – that shouldn’t make me laugh as much as it should. But moving on – Sting eventually makes the save which the fine folks making the commercial tape would like you to believe was well received by the crowd. Of course – in addition to adding cheers, they probably should have figured out a way to show ALLLLL the people at ring side not reacting at all. (Though too be fair – once Flair gets involved in the brawl the crowd actually picks back up.) Hindsight being 20/20 and all that they really should have just had Muta/Sting brawl from their match into this match and just have had a 4 way brawl instead of that amazingly disappointing match.
So in summation – you too can give us money and then make me rage and hate you.
~!~
OZ ACADEMY (4/16/2014)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Oh yes. It is referred to as the Joshi Puroresu. The thing nowadays about Joshi is that it SEEMS to be deader and deader every year, yet never really keels over and dies. It’s kinda like a really severe version of wrestling itself- except Joshi could actually fade away forever but I don’t think wrestling itself will ever completely go away. I dunno. The only Joshi I ever REALLY got into was GAEA, and that was because Chigusa and company came up with really fun angles, filled with intrigue and suspense and betrayal! Everything else was kinda like a series of house shows for the most part.(13) Oz Academy was a huge chuck of the greatness of GAEA but it has never really picked up any of the steam to rekindle much of the GAEA magic. I don’t know why. Anyhoos! ON TO THE Lllllaaaaaaaadies…..
SAKURA HIROTA vs. KAGETSU:
Well, I see that Sakura Hirota still wrestles! Checking the Cagenet.net website, I find that she… JESUS. Hirota is 36 years old? Man, she has been wrestling 17 years now.(14) She looks really good for an older wrestling lady- in that she has put on her womanly girth without actually going to seed- thus she is imposing without being all Wal-Marty. I see that she is still about comedy spots- which is probably why isn’t wearing a kneebrace now. Kagetsu is new to me.(15) She is a youth that is not afraid to lay it in in a opening comedy match so I immediately dig her. But it is still a comedy match and IIIIIIIIII find most comedy matches not worthy of my precious time. Let me put on my monocle and move on to the next match…. WHOA! HOLD IT! Hey Man! The finish is stiff AND weird. Billion stars for sheer lesbianic bebafflement. Kudos, aging clown wrestler, Kudos…
CARLOS AMANO/ MANAMI TOYOTA vs. KAORI YONEYAMA/ HIROYO MATSUMOTO:
I’ve dug all these gals at some point in my Joshi Viewing Lifetime- some memories are more clear- Toyota, Amani, Yoneyama- than others- Matsumoto. I seem to remember Yoneyama and Matsumoto(16) during the dying days of JWP TV- before JWP started running garages and bowling alleys.(17) The last saw of Manami Toyota was a WHILE ago and she had started replacing her haphazard high-flying with pretty effective Old Mean Lady Assbeatingness. She has girthed up even more- which makes her low-grade current high-flying look a lot better- as now it’s got some ass behind it. The match is strange. They do all these Gilligan’s Island-level comedy spots and then go directly into 57 suplexes. I have no beef with your shitty hilarious wrestling if you follow it up with an endless string of suplexes, so this match is staying above water- even if Amano, Yoneyama, and Matsumoto are not setting the world on fire with their in-ring technique. C’mon, guys Japanese wrestling without Fighting Spirit is the worst of all possible wrestling. Oh man, Manami’s Hateful Great Aunt Missile Dropkick is soooo much nastier now but this match is losing steam- and it’s losing steam on unforced errors as they do a parade of total goofball spots that totally turns me on this match. Why start building up a head of steam with Manami beginning to start kicking folks asses and then do a batch comedy spots? Many wrestlers in this match should know better- and I just get the feeling that they didn’t care any more. Yeesh.
TOMOKA NAKAGAWA vs. HIKARU SHIDA:
Holy fudge! Gottdam, Hikaru Shida is one saucy lookin’ vixen- as we say here in the South. OF MY PANTS! Let me rush to Cagematch.net and look at Hikaru Shida’s biography- because being a son of the sacred soil of Virginia, even in my HEART, 16 will get you 20.(18) Okay, we’re good. Joshi nerds can jack off to their hearts content without feeling any creepier than they usually do. I think the boots bedecked in Invincible Ironman colors is adding to YOUR feeling that this is waay too much overall pathetic creepiness in this wrestling review. Fuck the world, they absolutely rock. But let me apologize for taking you to places I myself want to go.(19) Now, as they lock up, I will move away- well, one more thing. She has a… like a… “If She Were Born In Carolina, She Would Be A Denny’s Waitress” vibe to her. There is a part of me that finds that alluring. Okydoke. Back to the thing with the thing. I’m sure I’ve seen Tomoko Nakagawa but I can’t recall.(20) She is wearing leather pants but not in a Catwoman kind of way. They do some stuff and don’t really lean into it much. It’s kinda like a indie match during the time period of WCW cruiserweights- where it was what you saw on TV but at half speed and 1/2 stiffness. Nakagawa does fruity embellishments to her dropkicks to the sitting opponent- something I think I’ve hated for solid decade now. Hikaru’s offense is a lot more fun and tooth-loosening, though she does the 40 yard sprint to- choose one- [kick/lariat/bash in the head with a light tube] spot that I have hated for a solid decade now. She does hit the nice GTS into a back-breaker which would have to suck to take. They kinda do stuff to each other with varying success of looking good- the pinnacle is good lariat by Nakagawa and really nice spinning pinwheel savat spinning crescent kick by Hikaru. What the hey! A FALCON ARROW~! in the 2-0-TEENZ~! Hey they are still doing the SHINING WIZARDO~! in the Mid-Teenz Of The New Centruy. Finish is fun and rollingaroundy! This match was more about the Youth of Asian ruining quality Under Armour work out shorts than it was about finding a saviour for Joshi Puroresu, Though they may be related? Things to ponder- as we wander- to the next match…
TO BE CONTINUED!
ENDNOTES
13. I should not generalize like this without mentioning that there is probably 8,000 hours of LLPW somewhere out there that I haven’t seen- though I wish it would surface so we could make Rippa watch it. That was awesome.
14. Cagenet.net says Hirota brings her softball and swimming background to her wrestling stylings. If she was in Baptist drunk league softball, I would truly dig a late career ass-stomper bizarre comeback for the matriarch of lady comedy matches.
15. Cagematch sez that Kagetsu is 21 years old, 5’3″ and weights 136 lbs. She knows the judo! Oh man, she was trained by fuckin Meiko Satomura.
16. Okay, I’m thinking of somebody else- my guess, Ran Yu Yu. Cagematch tellz me that Hiroyo Matsumoto is 28, 5’6″, and weighs 156 lbs. She does not claim to know judo. The bio on Yoneyama is awesome: she is 4’11” and her background is in badminton.(21) She can turn it all around at this point of her career if she wrestles for Shimmer and debuts her ShuttleCock Driver ’14.
17. A joshi Beleiber will fill me in if they actually ran a skating rink. Joshi can take your wrestling fandom from 0 to suicidal depression in 3 seconds.
18. Via the Cagematch.net database, Hikaru Shida is 25 years old, 5’5″ and weights 125 lbs. One can masturbate furious… I mean… follow her on the internet here: http://ameblo.jp/shidahikaru. Hey, she was trained by Emi Sakura! She knows the Judo.
19. Iron Man= Erotic? Jiminy fuck, Rasmussen, what is your DEAL? I say to myself. Daily.
20. Via the Cagenet.match database, Tomoka Nakagawa is GEEZ! 32 years old. Folks had complete careers that I have completely glossed over. She is 5’1″ and weighs 125 lbs? I’m guessing every 94 pound wrestler in Joshi is listed as 125. Hey, she trained by Yoshida! She does not know the Judo.
21. Okay I made is all the way to age 48 without realizing its “BadmiNton” not “BadmiTten”. One never stops learning.
~!~
NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING (3/6/2014)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
TIM LENNOX/ BRANDINO DAVIS vs. THE END:
Now that I have a hook to get me to watch all these NECW episodes that I have piling up in Youtube, we can both be thoroughly psyched to see The Bam Bam Love Children crush enhancement talent like some fucked up Yankee Moondog Clones. I have seen a LOT of clubbing forearms this week. Is it possible for there to be… too many… clubbing forearms for me to see? A cornucopia of clubby forearms lilt down from the sky- onto enhancement talent, like so many cinder blocks dropped off a highway overpass. Splatting a meaty splat of pleasingness. Both Bigelow babies have really fucking great elbow drops. Brandino Davis is Lee Scottian in the taking the furious ass-beating. Tim Lennox has his face ground into the mat, but unfortunately, they pull him up and fucking SMASH him in the corner with a running Lariat. Postmatch, it MORPHES into TOTAL BIGELOW MOONDOG BABIES! as they beat enhancement talent to death with chains. Squashy! You will love this.
Between matches, Sheldon Goldberg is eating a Reuben. Mmmmmmmmm, Reubenzzzz…..
MISS SAMMI LANE vs. ALEXXIS NEVAEH:
Miss Sammi is wearing the Catwoman mask and a thousand nerd boners are launched all the way across Milton to Revere. Mistress Belmont has purple hair and I flash back to comical drunken sex with Siouxsie and the Banshees blaring in the background. I collect myself. So to speak. We return from a commercial and the Catwoman mask is off- but the leather tiny paunts of Miss Sammi Lane is catalytic in causing problematic teen laundry questioning all the way from Winthrop to Somerville. Alexxis Nevaeh is subbing for that Casey Ray gal from the episode we spoke of IN THE FUTURE!! It’s not that my methods are sloppy and that I am just watching shit randomly; it’s just that I have no real direction to where I’m going- viewing-wise, so I’m just watching stuff as I see them pop up. Because as I think of excuses for this way of reviewing wrestling- and I have been doing this for 15 years now, sonny punk bitch- I will say that episodic TV is one thing but wrestling standing on its own is usually something else all together. So here we are. Alexxis is here. Casey Ray shows up again in like 6 weeks- or maybe sooner to make with the twists turns that possibly happen between this match and the match with Sammi Lane and Mistress Belmont turning the other goth chick from the Sisterhood. We’ll see, unless there is the kinda crappy upper card stuff pemeating the in-between episodes- and if that is case, I will probably not bother to watch. So as of now, NECW is TO ME: 1.) Bigelow Moondog Babies, 2.) Goth Chicks in the SISTERHOOD- because I dig the HEATHERS angle, American women work stiff these days, and it also facilitates teen masturbation jokes. So here we are. Alexxis storms the ring and I will buy into the fact that this is a big deal, the SISTERHOOD probably thought they had everything under control but Alexxis showing up was the last thing they wanted, etc. Ooo, it is all catfighting. Nevaeh is wearing yoga pants variations and she punches folks in the face. The fact that she is slightly older than my oldest daughter creeps me out as much as you hope it would. Sammi is kind of awesome in the ring- all hatefaul and kicky and smacky. The giant heeled WHORE BOOTS! have got to hurt when thrust into your ribs and Alexxis is taking a suitably violent babyface ass-beating. Sammi is evil and smiling as she inflicts her brand of slugging offence. Alexis goes on offense with chops- ooooo man, right to the Lady Pecs! Nevaeh isn’t the smoothest in the ring, but she hits a Fisherman Buster Suplex. The Sisterhood CHEAT to get Sammi back in control- AND It’S LIKE TWO AGAINST ONE! But ironically, Belmont accidentally hits Sammi and Navaeh pulls the upset! Better than your first month WOW match but not as good your lower end Serena Deeb matches. Postmatch, Alexxis has a Boston accent, calls the Sisterhood bitches and then speaks of herself in the third person. Confusing. Alluring. Confusluring.
~!~
NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING (4/3/2014)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Backwards we go to waay in April. Soon we will caught up and I will review NECW like a LASER! as it comes out.
NICK FAHRENHEIT vs. APOCALYPSE:
Tony Ullyses is a great manager. Apocalypse(22) is one half of THE END and Tony does the great schtickt of offering every opponent of The End(23) the opportunity to quit before the match starts. Our man Nick is listed at 175, but I’m guessing 160. Jesus. It’s just a regular squash until the Elbow Drops starts falling. GEEEZZ. Fahrenheit’s collarbones just got pulverized. Then the real beatings kick in. Farenheit does some comical karate kicks, as they blow a bunch of stuff- so they opt back to the idea of beating Farenheit to death: mostly with chokeslam powerbombs but also with a chain. I’m going to be so sad when I finally see The End in a regular match and I find out that they can only do squashes. It will be like the first time I saw Sid Vicious at the Coliseum. Sad, really…
SCOTTY SLADE/ MARK SHURMAN vs. COADY WARD/ DAVE NIEVES:
Slade and Shurman are your tag champs and I am assuming that everyone in the ring is slaughterized by The End by the end of the end of this. Slade is tiny. Cruiserweight Enhancement Specialist Coady Ward towers over him. Shurman is the superworker of the two. They do the double elbow drop and they are called Team Friendship but they don’t do the totally friendly thing and kiss each other before the elbow drop like TEAM NO RESPECT would. Slade is very knee-based and is totally smoked by Coady Ward. Ward is very much the NECW’s version of the Gambler. You should watch and rejoice. Nieves isn’t bad either. He does a nice Fat Boy Senton. God, the more they tag in Ward, the more his stuff looks better than anybody else in the ring. Slade hits a DDT to make the hot tag and WHERE ARRE THE END?!? Shurman hits a nice fall-away slam and a Steve Armstrong Toprope Shoulder Block. And their finisher is the Dudley Death Drop! BAH! No horrendous assbeating by The End! BAHHH! Coady Ward is awesome. BAAAHHH!
(Rippa Note – This month’s video was yanked off of Youtube. I blame Dean.)
ENDNOTES
22. NECW does the super wild thing of spelling “Apocalypse” as “Apocalypse”. Correct spelling is the next wave of Pro Wrestling!
23. The Bam Bam Bigelow Twins for those just catching up.
~!~
RANDOM SHIMMER THAT IS ON THE INTERWEBS
(by PHIL RIPPA)
I started poking around the interwebs for what I could find from Shimmer, which is the best wrestling that none of you fuckers are watching. So this is a hodgepodge. I also tried to just use the matches that they themselves posted as to not bone them in their DVD sales. But I also realize that thinking that totally overvalued the importance of these shitty keystrokes that I am making and this board and website. Clearly I am no Scott Keith.On the flip side, I am now getting irritated all over again about how people complain about women’s wrestling especially on this side of the Pacific. Please tell me again Meltzer how the only good current female North American worker is ole’ Jumbo Tsuruta with tits Natalya Neidhart. Grr…
AMAZING KONG vs. MsCHIF – SHIMMER (April 7, 2007)
Holy Shit does 2007 feel like forever ago. MsChif really is the spiritual successor to Riot and she really should be Dean’s favorite wrestler. Kong is Kong and, again, this is fucking 2007 when she was right in the middle of fucking feeling it. Good this match is great. It is a fantastic version of the classic big person/little person match. Now to be fair – I should probably use quotes around little person since MsChif isn’t exactly small for a women’s wrestler but compared to Kong she is Rey Jr-esqe. OH! The other thing I should point out that at this stage in her career, MsChif was kinda working with the plunky underdog who can take an ass-beating but won’t go away quietly gimmick. This also serves as a wonderful reminder that there are often moves that look so much better in a women’s match due to the ladies having more flexible bodies. And MsChif is damn near Gumby especially on two spots that basically showcase Kong as a destroyer. The first is when MsChif is up against the ropes and Kong whallops her with a running clothesline. One would normally see a worker take the flip bump over the top rope. MsChif however presses and bends her body against the ropes so it basically appears like Kong is trying to squeeze curd through a cheese cloth. The other spot is the fun, throw your opponent over your shoulder and then clap their head and feet together. Of course, Kong does it so violently you wonder if MsChif truly does have a spine. OH! OH! Kong throws a missile dropkick so by board standards she is the greatest female worker ever. Anyway – as I said this is all sorts of fun MsChif getting some hope spots in but also getting mauled by a Stan Hansen would shed a tear clothesline. And the Illinois crowd doing itself credit for being super-hot for the big spots.
SARA DEL RAY/MADISON EAGLES vs. AYUMI KURIHARA/AYAKO HAMADA – SHIMMER (October 2, 2011) – SHIMMER TAG TEAM TITLES
This is off of SHIMMER Vol 43 DVD/Event/Hootenanny??? (I mean you would think I would know exactly how I want to phrase it but I am stupid.) If one recalls – in the last issue I stated that I wanted to make sure I checked out more Madison Eagles. So this is just an added bonus that she is teaming with Sara Del Ray – who, thankfully, seems to finally be getting some shine thanks to her work with NXT. Ayumi and Hamada are your tag champs and yet again I could make a comment about how HEY! REMEMBER WHEN TNA HAD HAMADA AND HAD NO FUCKING CLUE WHAT TO DO WITH HER???? But that was in the mid-Aughts and I could be making those same comments today just inserting half of New Japan’s roster so let us take a break from beating that horse. I am not as familiar with my Shimmer Titles as I probably should be but since Eagles is the Heavyweight Champ at the time of this match – ALL THE BELTS IN ONE MATCH! I don’t know why that makes me happy but it does. What also makes me happy is Del Ray and Eagles being amazing heels and freaking out as the crowd tries to through streamers into the ring for the champs. It really is the simple things. The match starts off fast with a brawl and then suddenly Ayumi is the cutest Ricky Morton you have ever seen. Del Ray and Eagles are fucking fabulous heels so this is all the 80s tag work you ever want to see. They do an amazing job of constantly taunting a frustrated Hamada while doing dastardly heel things. (Things that look especially good because Eagles is billed at 6’1” and I think that is close to legit so MONSTER HEEL~! Eagles also has a questionable back tattoo that I normally would mock but I am older and wiser and realize she would destroy me so we are moving on.) So Hamada finally gets the hot tag and what is awesome is that they tease that Del Ray and Eagles are able to cut it off but Hamada gets another run and suddenly we are knee deep in a 21st Century North American every LCO Title Defense Match that I am so super stoked for. I am amused that while there are dueling Octopus stretches and you think to yourself (if you are young and, if that is the case, I hate your youth) “Oh that is where AJ got it from”, I was thinking “AJ really needs to steal the tarantula-esqe armbar that Ayumi through on Eagles that looked like white-hot death.” God this is so so good. Why do you hate wrestling? Why do you hate vaginas? Why do you hate wrestling with vaginas? Wait… that so didn’t come out right. Y’all suck for not watching this. There that is better. I hate myself for needing almost three years to watch this.
ANGIE SKYE vs. THUNDERKITTY – SPARKLE (Oct. 28, 2012)
So if I understand correctly – Sparkle is the name of the pre-show Shimmer stuff. Think of it like Heat or Main Event used to be before PPVs many moons ago. Plus it works for the variety of folks I am trying to showcase. Thunderkitty appears to be doing a kinda sorta Bettie Page gimmick complete with leopard print tights. Unfortunately for Thunderkitty – she is no Bettie Page but considering there are like maybe 5 women I would put in that category that really isn’t a bad thing. And I just realized that Thunderkitty really should be named Thundercougar. Angie Skye is doing a… well fuck knows what type of gimmick she is trying to do. She has cropped reddish brown hair with what looks to be a tail flying out the back along with one (that’s right – just one) Fuzzy boot. But then she has tights that look like they stolen directly from Mariko Yoshida’s locker. Is there a Spider Squirrel comic book character I am not aware of? Maybe in the DC Universe? I think I ended up enjoying Skye’s dickish heel moveset more than Kitty’s thicker older lady offense which is really just hard chops and charges into the corner. Skye wins with an Unprettier out of nowhere that looked nastier than it should have been since Kitty took it… not well.
ALLISON DANGER vs. CAT POWER – SHIMMER
I have no idea what is going on with all the Cat-themed names in this promotion. Maybe it is to prevent me from making all the masturbation jokes. SAVE THE KITTENS~! Anyway – I realized that I realized that I have been watching the better half of the Corino family for like a fucking decade and that made me sad (solely because of the passage of time not because I think Danger is a bad wrestler). Nor do I want to think of my own mortality thanks to the horrible health problems that Danger had to go through that ultimately forced her to retire. Instead I will focus on the fact that Danger is one of the people Taylor Matheny wrestled back in another lifetime and discovering that tape this weekend that has almost every Tough Enough Taylor match on it made me wonder if Brian Kendrick is going to try and come kick my ass. Well I assume I will smell him coming if he tries (from the smell of weed. I might as well explain that joke because if you are going to be a pro-Kendrick defender I am going to assume you too will need me to keep this at a chill level.) I am going to work under the assumption that Cat Power is a Danger trainee (or something close to that). Normally I would try and look that up but you try Googling Cat Power and not end up listening to pop songs the rest of the afternoon. Okay fine… I will do it. OH! She is a Scott D’Amore trainee. Whelp – that means she is in Jarrett’s database. The interwebs also tells me that this was her tryout match which totally makes sense since Danger lets her take the majority of the match before going over at the end. I mean it’s a perfectly fine, fun little 4 ½ minute match. Since Power is around 5’ 10” that is going to make her look HOOOGE~! next to most of the folks she will be working but no so HOOOGE~! that it would be awkward. Plus she would be HOOOGE~! enough to look credible against say the Awesome Kong’s of the world (or whoever the 2014 of Kong would now be). Ugh… arrange those sentences into something coherent. I think you fuckers get what I am trying to say. I would say the one thing Power showed off is that she clearly had a good understanding of how to interact with the crowd and how to play off the referee too. Of course – that also got me wondering about how – with her career and co-founding of Shimmer – if Allison Danger is currently the most influential person to the current state of women’s wrestling in North America. Hmm… I am thinking I will file that away
LUFISTO vs. SARAYA KNIGHT – SHIMMER Championship (NCW Femmes Fatales XI – March 30, 2013)
I am including this because it is for the SHIMMER Championship even though it was put on by NCW (What I can figure out is that Femme Fatales is basically the Canadian version of SHIMMER started by Lufisto. Blame Canada). Lufisto is the other person who I think could be Dean’s new favorite wrestler besides MsChif. Of course basically I feel that way about anyone who has brightly colored hair and some junk in the trunk. Saraya Knight is Paige’s Mama and is your Shimmer Champion and dickish heel. (And yes – the “Dean’s new favorite wrestler” rule applies here too.) The clip says it is 28 minutes long but the actual match doesn’t start until like seven minutes in because Knight wanders around punching random fat dudes in the face and cutting a promo on Lufisto. Also since this match is in Montreal you need to deal with a ring announcer who keeps flipping between French and English and is good at neither. God you feel the full 28 minutes on this especially on Dailymotion. Basically Knight is really good as a heel – especially with her mannerisms and promo work (granted I am biased to those with a British accent). The problem is that somewhere along the lines she thought that adding a lot of Zbysko stalls to her repertoire was a good idea. No… no it wasn’t. Get yourself about 10 minutes into the match and they finally start brawling and it picks up (despite the terrible French Canadian chants in the crowd. Stupid handheld.) Knight likes to pummel Lufisto in the lady parts with a chair. Lufisto likes to stop selling the shots to the lady parts very very quickly. Alas – that tends to be a theme with any brawl through the crowd. Oof – the 4000 ad breaks thanks to Dailymotion are making this really difficult to enjoy. Hey look – Knight has a GIANT Z for a tramp stamp that makes me laugh way more than it should. All I know is at some point Lufisto does a Death Valley Driver on a chair that Knight kicks out of and then Lufisto starts bleeding from the head thanks to an unprotected chair shot to her dome. (I thought our neighbors to the North were supposed to be smarter than that.) And then there is a run-in by someone who hits Lufisto with a SECOND unprotected chair shot. Jesus Christ people. Holy Shit – that was Mercedes Martinez! I haven’t seen her in a month of Sundays. Well anyway I guess it’s no-DQ since it all happened in front of the ref. Knight gets the win as she stretches an unconscious Lufisto – who does the job in her home town so great another WWE trend catching on elsewhere five years after the fact.
(Rippa Note – I found it via Dailymotion so you know this one was already dicey and the video has been since removed… from Dailymotion. Think about that one.)
~!~
ZERO-1 (5/6/2014)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
I’m not sure what I was babbling aboot when I said Zero-1 had a tiny internet presence because lately I’ve been watching a lot of internet Zero-1. Actually, I’ve been watching a lot of internet Zero-1 that features Kohei Sato(24). This is the card kicking off the Wrestle-1 Invasion, as it would be cool if Wrestle-1 decided it wanted to destroy all other wrestling promotions with “-1” in the name. Let’s roll around in the undercard!
DAEMON UEDA/ TAKUYA SUGAWARA vs. RYOUJI SAI/ SHAWN GUINNESS:
Pfft. I don’t know these guys from Adam.(25) Actually, after researching this, I’ve probably seen all these guys in some sort of 6 or 8-man matches through the years- and I do remember a Shawn Guinness singles match a little while ago. This is your ultimate opening match because none of these guys are Wrestle-1 so this is just killing time until the Clash Of The -1s kicks in. This is 8 minutes long but is 4 minutes of Daemon Ueda driving around and walking around looking at things. Management must hate these guys. This is way too clipped to get a grip of the story being told- but I do get the feeling that Guinness would fit in really well in ROH- as the majority is him selling assorted mid-grade offense from Ueda and then hitting semi-stiff strikes that would excite folks who aren’t into Yuki Okabayashi or Shuji Ishikawa. But yeah, you got two guys over 6 foot tall in your opening match? You prolly should work on getting them up the card because you can’t teach tall in Japan. Or maybe they suck. You can’t really tell from this 2 minutes of wrestling action. I don’t know why they bothered because it has made me ask myself the same question.
DAIKI INABA/ KAZ HAYASHI/ SEIKI YOSHIOKA vs. IKUTO HIDAKA/ MINEO FUJITA/ YOSHIKAZU YOKOYAMA:
I have been a fan of Kaz Hayashi for almost 20 years now. I got into Michinoku Pro in 1995 after seeing the Tokyo Dome 8 man on Tim Noel’s late, lamented and throughly awesome WRESTLING POWER on the cable access back in the day. I was first sucked by the totally fucking insane Tope Con Hilo by the Great Sasuke- but as I started getting tapes, I started to appreciate the Lucha Libre stylings of Shiryu. I guess I’ve been a fan of Hidaka for 17 years?(26) His tagteam with Minoru Fujita was pretty helpful in understanding the fun of junior heavyweight wrestling- as they were the Sleazy Indie Rock and Roll Express for a while there. I do not want to know how those matches aged. In my mind they are eternally awesome. The other 4 I’m not so familiar with.(27) Kaz’s team is Wrestle-1 and Hidaka is team ZERO-1- so lets see if anyone makes an impression yet. It starts off promising as Yokoyama and his 80s Canadian hair trades shots to the head with Inaba. Inaba is good if you let him kick folks a bunch. Mineo does a few elaborate and fruity spots that involve Inaba sitting on the second rope for 90 seconds- as if Mineo uses Instant Hypnotism on Inaba and renders him (and the veiwer) immune to the rules of how things actually work- so basically he is taking the suspension of disbelief inherent in all wrestling and stretching it to the point of “if they belief the basic concept of this, they will believe anything at all!” Which is the anti-thesis of Strong Style- and pro wrestling itself. Pro wrestling is based on the wrestlers and the veiwer agreeing to a certain amount of guidelines. Inside the ring, everything must have some sort of logic:
USUAL INTERNAL DIALOGUE:
Your Logical Mind: Why is he climbing to the top rope? That’s stupid.
Wrestling Logical Mind: No. People sometimes land flamboyantly awesome moves from the top rope. It would not strain the boundaries of wrestling for a guy to attempt something as his opponent is prone on the mat.
Your Logical Mind: But if his opponent is lying on the mat prone, why doesn’t he just pin him?
Wrestling Logical Mind: He really hates him and want to totally destroy him and.. actually, why don’t you shut the fuck up and leave me alone. You don’t want to me to start asking you about all the stupid bullshit you buy into for some reason.
Your Logical Mind: Jesus Christ, forget I said anything.
INTERNAL DIALOGUE OF INABA SITTING IN THE ROPES FOR 90 SECONDS:
Your Logical Mind: Why is he just sitting there while Mineo Hidaka is all the way on the other side of the ring getting the crowd to chant?
Wrestling Logical Mind: Maybe they don’t think we’ll notice?
Your Logical Mind: Are wrestling fans that stupid or is it okay if you are getting people into the match or something?
Wrestling Logical Mind: No. It’s actually retarded. Fuck this match.
Kaz Hayashi tags in and Hidaka tags in, Hidaka still has the 90s junior indie offense with slightly stiffer applications here and there. Kaz is more New Japan Junior still and doesn’t make for much I give a shit about anymore. Yokoyama tags in and he is the most fun- being a poorman’s Shuji Kondo, if that’s how you want to go through life. He does a really nice powerslam on Yoshioka and crushes him real good with a pretty nasty looking Toprope Elbow Drop. He hits a Two Quarters Legit Death Valley Bomb for the win, so good for him and good for this match for not having seven minutes of nearfalls. There you go.
THE TALLY OF IMPRESSIONS:
Kaz Hayashi: Eh.
Diaki Inaba: Kicks really hard. But not hard enough to enter into the realm of Lunatic Crowbars That Dean Enjoys Because Dean Is Kind Of A Jerk,
Ikuto Hidaka: Tag team with Minoru Fujita again!
Yoshikazu Yokoyama: Most interesting of the guys in this match because he did simple stuff without fruity embellishments and it all looked pretty good.
Mineo Fujita: Very annoyingly Dragon Gatey- but did help me create the Inner Dialogue schtickt that will now use forever for matches that are glazing me over.
Seiki Yoshioka: Is landed on a lot. Maybe next match.
KOHEI SATO vs. HIDEKI SUZUKI:
I’m sure I’ve seen Hideki Suzuki before but it’s been so long that I may be confusing him with assorted indie tiny highfliers from the late 90s, early 00’s.(28) Being that he is not tiny, I’ll let it ride- since he just started 5 years ago and thus he is MYSTERIOUS to me. At 6’3″ and 6’4″, these two not only tower over most Japanese wrestlers, they tower over most US wrestlers these days. Which is strange. So we got two hosses- one hoss that kill you to death with stiffness and another hoss who is mysterious to me- the question: will the assbeating be monumental? Sato is the assbeater of the year- THUS he wears really girly earrings. Who would give him shit if he were a douchebag millenial- BUT since he is just a little younger then ME, he probably gets his fashion sense from old Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark videos, which would be awesome.(29) They start with the comical ZERO-1 sub-1990s All Japan Bullshit Half-Assed Matwork and we await to see just how horrific this ass-beating will be. Sato is really making with the Sid Eudy matwork- comical headlocks, a chinlock that would make you giggle. Suzuki does the Fighting For The Cross-Armbreaker spot that kills a little time. It’s like a Godzilla movie and this is the part where they show the board room where they talk about what they are going to do for 25 minutes. But the Godzilla monster parts of the recent Sato matches has been full-fucking-blown Kaiser Ghidorah transforming into King Ghidorah and destroying Tokyo. The Kaiser head splits apart at 9:40 as Sato and Suzuki start fucking killing each other with forearms and kicks. Sato dominates early and does the truly dickish knee to the bottom of the chin on a Suzuki who is on one knee. Suzuki gets in some shots and does a lot of Fujiwara-cum-other-type Armbars but also works his way into my heart by standing on Sato head after he makes the ropebreak. Sato sells the elbow as he kicked to the floor. Sato rolls back in, favoring the elbow so Suzuki immediately stands on the joint and then pump handles it. This is deep psychology because Sato uses that elbow to smash people’s faces. Suzuki is pretty awesome in this section, busting up the arm and smacking Sato in the face like a little bitch, calling him a pussy. Sato knees him in the stomach and starts his non-elbow leg (PSYCHOLOGY!) to kick the fuck out of Suzuki’s lungs and hit an early Falcon Arrow(30) and move straight to an attempt at his Memphis Piledriver. But Suzuki fights out and hits a beautiful dropkick to go back on offence. He does a Diamond Cutter and then kneedrop across the neck- Welcome To The Pro Style! They battle for the Butterfly Suplex- which is odd but perfectly fine- that Sato wins but then loses big to Suzuki very nice EXPLOIDAH Suplex. The Cobra Twist! The Octapus Hold! I believe they are the same hold! It’s a good hold for this because it hinges on the Sato bad elbow (MORE WITH THE PSYCHOLOGY!). Sato counters out with a- YES!- fucking nasty Northern Lights Bomb!(31) Suzuki counters with a comical backbreaker but hits a far hurtier Dragon Suplex With A Bridge. Sato kicks out of the pinning attempt and answers with a kick to the face and FUCKING AWWESOME Piledriver- crushing Suzuki’s head like a large round twelve pound bug. And then the Everest German Suplex! For the win? That was quick. This was good but not awe-inspiring as the last five matches I’ve seen with Kohei Sato. Suzuki was good but he could have brung more of the hate. He started off well at making this a more heated affair but played it too subtle. But, yeah not bad and this match is worth watching. Postmatch, KAI comes and mumbles things to Sato. Sato says things in Japanese to KAI. KAI does a head fake and Super Kicks Sato- thus setting up KAI getting stomped to death by Sato soon. Fun!
TO BE CONTINUED!
ENDNOTES
24. I’ve watched so much Kohei Sato that I no longer have to keep looking at the video title to spell “Kohei” correctly.(33) While we are in the endnotes, http://cagematch.de sez Kohei Sato is 36 years old, is- WOW!- 6’4″?!?! , and 264 pounds? I didn’t realize how TOWERING he was. He also uses Judo.
25. http://cagematch.de sez Daemon Ueda is 31 years old, 6’0″, and 231 pounds. He’s a big fella. He knows ku rah tay. Takuya Sugawara is 30 years old, 5’10” and 198 pounds. He was trained by Ultimo Dragon. Ryouji Sai is 33 years old, 6’3″ and 231 pounds. Another big fella! He also uses the Ku Rah Tay. Shaun Guinness is 27 years old, 5’10”, 178 pounds. I’m guessing the guy who trained him- Fergal Devitt- is Prince Devitt, but I feel like researching this match no more forever.
26. Cagematch says 1997. Oops, that’s Mineo- not Minoru- Fujita. RESEARCH~!
27. http://cagematch.de sez Daiki Inaba has been wrestling one year and was trained by Rene Dupree’s dad. That’s kind of awesome. He is 26, 5’8″ and 180 pounds. Seiki Yoshioka is 26, 5’7″ and 169 pounds. he was trained by frickin’ Hanzo Nakajima. Talk about your obscure original Michinoku Pro guys. Mineo Fujita is 34, 5’10” and 176 pounds. He was trained by Animal Hamaguchi. He draws from his experience in Ju-Jitsu and Volleyball to vanquish his opponents. Yoshikuzo Yokoyama is 26, 5′ 10″ and weighs 216 pounds. his hair seems the most interesting aspect of his biography. And it’s not really that interesting.
28. http://cagematch.de sez Hideki Suzuki is 34 years old, 6’3″, 242 pounds. WHOA! He was trained by Billy Robinson.
29. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1kttx_omd-enola-gay_music Oh, what a great fucking song.(34)
30. #16 of the New Era.
31. #1 of the New Era.
32. I swear to God that I thought I was going to fucking kill somebody if I had to check the video title to keep spelling “Sugiura”. I mean, I’ve been spelling his name for 15 years now.(33) I think that’s how much I did not give a crap about Sugiura generally.
33. According to http://cagematch.de , WHAT? Sugiura is FORTY-THREE YEARS OLD? He’s old enough to remember the first Flock Of Seagulls record! he’s old enough to remember the first time “Rock And Roll Crazy Nights” by Loudness was ever played on the radio in Nagoya. And he has been wrestling 13 years. I wonder what he did before the grappling bug got him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Sugiura says he was a self defense instructor before Tamon Honda recruited him. Oh. He’s not actually IN this match.
34. I obviously mixed up Kohei Sato’s age with Sugiura’s age. I have no fucking recollection of what anybody was sporting ear-wise in 1996 so we’re just going to go with the boss OMD song.
~!~
SNAKEPIT ADELAIDE PRO WRESTLING (5/19/2014)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Snakepit Pro from Australia has been around a few years and they have a pretty high high end and relatively passable low-end and lotsa stuff in the middle- so they are better than most of the world’s indies. They have quality fat guys so I hardly ever delete one of these. But never actually watch them either, so THAT changes NOW. Good on ya, mate. And whatever else shit Australians say in movies.
RYAN WINTERS/ DALLAS SOMMERS vs. TYLER DANIELS/ DAMIEN SYNN:
Winters and Sommers are the Party Rockers and they are the tag champs. Damien Synn spells “sin” like “synn” so here’s hoping he’s a really big fat guy. We begin the Aussie Wrestling Viewing! Winters has Daniels in a headlock and they work that for a while and I am overcome with nostalgia for a time when every match started with this. Winters throws some punches to the face- OMIGOD! MY MIND GOES BLANK! POOF!! A puff of SMOKE! My vision is hazy but it seems like The Monster Abyss comes out of the floor and then falls on the ground laughing at how crappy those punches are. Or you would want that to happen- because Abyss has shitty punches but his punches looks like fuckin Bobby Eaton’s in comparison to what we just viewed. Oh Gentle Reader, HOLD ME! How did that punch make it onto the internet where tenders hearts like mine can see?!?!? Oh well. ONWARD~! Tyler Daniels’ punches are several million times better than Ryan Winters’- so yes, they are above average. Damien Synn is soooooo on the Current Fat Boy 50- as his entire offense is based around sweet sweet Clubbing Forearms. Winters sunset flips to TRANSITION~! to offence and then punches Synn in the face with his dick- thus nullifying all shittiness of his fist punching- as I think you either get one or the other- good worked punches with your fist or good Three quarters Legit punches with your dick. I mean, SERIOUSLY, did Dick Murdoch ever fly groin-first into an opponents face? WELL, IF YOU DON’T KNOW, YOU DON’T GET TO JUDGE! Winters tags in Dallas Sommers and he Fisherman Busters the quality fatness of Synn. Synn is pretty good as he makes Sommers perfectly nearly okay punches look really good. Well, kinda. Synn and Daniels cheat like Australian BASTARDS! They beat on Sommers with snapmares and Daniels does the old school thing off arguing with the ref while choking Sommers with his shin. After hitting two non-fatboy Clubbing Forearms, Daniels hits a suitably glorious fistdrop and this match is too weird and then too old school to hate. Synn hits an awkward kneedrop and this isn’t the most consistent wrestling you will see. But its hard to screw up a basic Southern tag match- and Syn and Daniels are really good at knowing how to work those aspects of the match- even if the execution is a little hit and miss. So they are really good at distracting the ref and cutting off the hot tag, but not so good making a knee to the stomach look overly good. Syn is good at standing on Sommers head and does the GREAT dickish move of standing on Sommers fingers while the ref argues with Daniels. Yeah, fuck it, this has the best unseen tag that I’ve seen this year so this match does nothing but win. Sommers bites Synn while Synn is standing on his fingers but doesn’t actually get the hot tag after said unseen tag. Sommers hits a fucking beautiful non-rotating Spinebuster- as you have to rotate it like Arn to get full points. Ryan Winters house a-fire is the weirdest, most awkward thing you will see. Just watch it. DON’T FUCKING ARGUE WITH ME! WATCH IT! I could not do it justice. Your rewards will be GREAT. Daniels and Synn get the belts by just cheating and cheating and cheating while the ref is on the floor yelling at Syn and Sommers. I guess I would say more entertaining than good- but that’s fucking nonsense- Entertaining IS good. Thus, this match is GOOD. Watch it and tell me you were not entertained! You try to say, “No, fat man, I was not entertained.” And I would say unto thee- THOU ART A LIAR!
ADAM CROWE vs. BOBBY V:
These two are rookies if I understand the Australian-speaking announcers correctly. They both have good punches for a new guys. Oh, actually Adam Crowe is the rookie and Bobby V has been training him, so this is a Mentor/Disciple match. These can be fun. V lays it in like he’s supposed to- getting a nearfall on the Vertical Suplex. Crowe jumps in the air and slaps V on the way down and plays to the crowd and kicks V like he is a little bitch. This not being Japan, V keeps selling his offense instead of becoming enraged and causing internal bleeding after kicking all the bones out of Crowe’s ribcage. He does do a really fucking beautiful straight kick dead to the face to set up up a nice Flying Through The Ropes Lariat In The Corner. Crowe hits a super kick as we go along and takes his time making the cover and thus not getting the pinfall- so its more about Crowe being young and making rookie mistakes than its about dissing your mentor- as V wins with the Frogsplash. So not nearly as good as THAT would have been if it went less pedestrian more dramatic and Japanese, but perfectly fine for the work in the ring and what with one of them if a new guy. Eh. I’ve seen infinitely worse by guys who have been wrestling a lot longer. But that doesn’t mean you will miss much of anything if you skip over this.
CANNONBALL CHRIS TAYLOR vs. JAKE VIPER:
Why “Viper” didn’t go with “Vyper” or even better “Vyypyyrr” all goes to show that correct spelling is coming back to the pro wrestling. Taylor is tall and thick and looks like a wrestler- which is pretty important. Viper is fun arguing with the ref to get the rubes riled up. Taylor shows about 6 days of daylight on a punch and Viper sells it. Bill Watts and readers of the Death Valley Driver Video Review would not be pleased. It is not pleasing. Everything else he does in the match is fine but I’ve already checked out of this match. Atually, you should watch to see what a cautionary tale Jake Viper’s punches are. Boy, I wasted my Abyss jokes early. Avoid this match (though I will keep an eye out for Taylor). Definately watch the first tag match- if just for the fucking weirdness.
~!~
PRO WRESTLING NOAH (5/17/2014)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Nothing looks more boring than your average NOAH card line-up. So many anonymous gaijin. So many Japanese guys you stopped being excited about seeing ten years ago. But then you actually watch the NOAH and most of it is as tedious as you expected- but then you realize why you used to get excited about some of these guys. Hope springs eternal until the first boring ass juniors match throws you out of the sky, plowing into the hard earth below…
MITSUHIRO KITAMIYA vs. HITOSHI KUMANO:
Ha! The youth of NOAH are unknown to my aging eyes. I shall let the RESEARCH! wash over me.(35) These guys have 3 years experience betwixt them so I may just count the dropkicks. Kitamiya was trained by Kensuke Sasaki so maybe he will crush the other littler fella. We can always hope. Oooo, Kumano is a wee fellow. Kitmiya towers over Kumano and owns a giant man-rack. He will crush Kumano with his mighty boobs! Instead, they have a basic rookie opening card match. The highlight of the first half of the match is a keylock by Kitamiya. One always wonders how these make it on TV. Well, at least we have it that Kitamiya will lay it in- as being trained by Sasaki and Masa Sato would dictate. Dropkick number one! Kumano is all fiery with his forearms to the head of Kitamiya, so Kitamiya gets in his own dropkick to get us up to our second dropkick. And then a counter dropkick- number three. Kumano hits a very nice Fisherman Suplex and bridges deeply the bridge of bridging. Ooo, fun nearfalls by Kumano. Kitamiya cuts him off with the Abdominal Stretch and the crowd starts chanting something, I’m guessing “Take it home!” but my Japanese language skills are non-existent. Kitamiya applies the half crab and we are in the homestretch. The crowd gets behind wee Kumano’s fighting spirit as he tries to fight out of the Octopus Hold but it is no use. He taps like a tiny rookie will tap. You could whole life without seeing this, but I didn’t hate this match at all. It was a fine rookie match- but there is nothing more unneccessary than a televised rookie match. But I’m not your mom, man. Do what you want with this thing.
MOTHERFUCKING DIASUKE MOTHERFUCKING IKEDA vs. HAJIME OHARA:
I know that a Hajime is a clasp one uses with a scarf, I’m assuming HERE that a Hajime is a wrestler who gets the holy dogshit beaten out of himself. At one point, Diasuke Ikeda was my favorite wrestler on this planet Earth. Then he disappeared almost completely, except for a Futen match here and there- which were usually motherfucking awesome. And then you get the occasional mailed-in NOAH tag match. Here’s hoping that he feels the power of the BattlARTS in this singles match and we all get to feel bad about Hajime Ohara never remembering any of his times tables ever again. Speaking of Hajime Ohara, let me sink my arms deeply into the RESEARCH…..(36) Allright, come on, Ikeda. Make me not hate NOAH Ikeda. Ikeda has the big sword and Ikeda is attacked before he get his robe off. Ohara throws him into the rail because in NOAH, everyone gets thrown into the rail. Ohara double dropkicks Ikeda straight into the buttocks and I can only assume that Ikeda is going to fucking maul this guy at some point. En Lieu, Ohara hits a Vertical Suplex and applies a comical submission- as Ohara wrestled in CMLL and wants to show this to everyone in the building and TV and on the internet. Ikeda begins the ass-beating section of the match with a flying spinning savat crescent kick to the face. Then Ikeda kick him in the face two more times- and I can’t lie, I’m feeling it for this match. ikeda kicks him dead in the face three more times and goes for the pin. Ohara, obviously losing all memory of the career of Diasuke Ikeda due to the 7 kicks to the face, kicks out at two. Ikeda keylocks and Ohara’s basic motor skills are saved. Ohara makes the ropes and Ikeda, being Daisauke Ikeda, starts kicking him as he is rolling on the mat. Ooooh man, that’s the stuff right there. And he pump handles Ohara’s arm and kicks him in the face a few more times. Ohara flashes back to 2002 and whips out a Backstabber as we snicker to help go through a small barrage of Lucha Libre roll ups- as he wants to emphasize his lucha background with a Shootstyle guy for whatever reason. At 8:55, he decides to trade elbows to the face with Diasuke Ikeda- which would be like me trading elbows with Diasuke Ikeda. Nobody should do that. Ohara gets a couple of shots in but Ikeda rolls through them as if he was in motherfucking BattlARTS for ten years- and then just fucking destroys Ohara with a headbutt to the bridge of the nose and a roundhouse kick to the back of the head. YEESH! You forget over time that Ikeda really doesn’t give a fuck about you and your whining about it being 3/4 legit.. Ohara opts against every good decision he could make in his life and kicks out at two. Ikeda just fucking SLAUGHTERIZES the mortal reamins of Ohara with a lariat and MAAAAAAN, does falling in love with NOAH Diasuke Ikeda feel great. Reunited and feeeels soo goooood! Reunited and it’s uuuuuunderstooood… JILLION motherfucking STARS.
DIASUKE HARADA vs. QUIET STORM (wait, what?) vs. ZACK SABRE JR:
Quiet Storm! I haven’t seen him wrestle since…. man, 2003? This is like the other day when my youngest daughter had an art opening for her art class in the city (RVA! Richmond! Richmond, Virginia!) and me n my oldest daughter went to Martin’s in Carytown to get a raw veggie platter for the snack section of said art opening(37). We went to the place where you scan it yourself and who was at the next scanner? My friend Andy! I hadn’t seen him in months! He had a new band that needed a singer. I said, “I can sing!” I bring you this mundane story because I am killing time. I am WAAAY to stoked about Ikeda beating someone’s ass- and it is time for all my good feeling to smash into the earth, as my euphoria morphs into a flaming zeppelin- as I have to watch- Jebus, fuck THIS- a fucking three-way match. Three way matches are fucking horrible.
THINGS THAT I WOULD RATHER WATCH THAN A THREE-WAY MATCH:
1. One of those matches where someone hypnotises her opponent and makes her dance and act like a chicken.(38)
2. One of those matches where they all do the match is slow motion because HILARITY is so much better than any inkling of KAYFABE!(38)
3. An indie ladies match where one of the ladies checks her watch in the middle of a headlock.(38)
4. A Disney Channel Memorial Day Dog With A Blog 18 hour marathon.(39)
5. 100 of those videos on YouTube where guys play Minecraft and talk about it while both my sons watch intently like it was the fucking moon-landing.(38)
Oh well, let’s get on with this. Okay, QUIET STORM! I think I will just let YOU, my beloved gentle reader, think of a hilarious “smooth jazz” joke like we used to make about his name back in the olden days. I dig Zack Sabre Jr from the two or three matches I have seen. Quiet Storm is all beefy now! He looks like Glenn Danzig between the time when the “Mother” video came out and the time where he became an aging lesbian. Hey, let me research Harada- as I have skipped over about 600 of his matches in the last two years.(40) This three-way makes me think that I would like a Sabre/ Harada match. It also makes me think that there is nothing fucking more useless than a three-way match. I mean, the work is perfectly fine- what with Quiet Storm being the 5’7″ Scott Norton of the Junior set. Zack Sabre bumps like a true hoss for Storm off the toprope to the floor. I wander off to the read the Quiet Storm page on cagematch.de while this match roils into the usual three-way spots that YOU obviously love and I hate. Hey, I didn’t know that he was Canadian. At some point in his career he was the Summer Santa. I will note that Zack Sabre is trying like a motherfucker to try to make me not hate this match- so kudos to you, young man. But it’s like my hatred of Alt country, you can make your points but at the end of the day, I ain’t listening to it. But yeah, Zack Sabre is building up goodwill that will carry over to a match that I watch that he is that isn’t designed to be retarded. Scott Norton is your winner!
TO BE CONTINUED
ENDNOTES
35. I go to the cagematch.de for THE REEEEEESUUUHCH~!~! Mitsuhiro Kitamiya is 25 years old, 5’8″, 209 pounds. Ooo! Thick! He has been wrestling 2 years and was trained by Kensuke Sasaki and Masa Saito. Hitoshi Kumano is 22 years old, 5’7″, 165 pounds. He is a rookie. I await dropkicks.
36. Oh man, reading his Wrestling New Classic section in wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hajime_Ohara) it seems that the booker of WNC booked Ohara as if Ohara was fucking the booker’s girlfriend on the grave of the booker’s mother every night. After he jumped to NOAH, it appears that the NOAH booker is booking Ohara as if Ohara was fucking the NOAH booker’s mom on the grave of the NOAH booker’s grampa every night. Luckily, he gets to wrestling motherfucking Diasuke Ikeda. Possibly, someone should tell him about the simple rewards of driving a forklift. Two breaks a day, the boss doesn’t fuck with you, you lift a bunch of stuff off trucks but actually have to touch anything. It’s a sweet gig. Or maybe assembling scaffolding for a living.
37. Being a hog, I ate 85% of the raw vegetables that I brung.
38. This actually happened.
39. I don’t think this has happened but I wouldn’t put anything past those motherfuckers at Disney.
40. Per cagematch.de, Diasuke Harada is 27 years old, 5’6″, 198 pounds. Hmm weird: wee AND thick. He has been wrestling 7 years and I hope he isn’t as bland in the ring as he is in this personal data list. Who would date this man when the distinguished picture of Masashi Aoyagi is right there on the same NOAH 2014 page? No one. That’s right.
~!~
PAYOLLA REVIEWS
So these are the random matches that folks requested who donated money. WE CAN BE BOUGHT~!
TERRY FUNK vs. RICK MARTEL – WORLD WRESTLING COUNCIL (1986):
(DEAN)
This match is awesome for the simple reason that it is every single goofball schtickt that Terry funk does in matches. It starts with Funk getting his hat stompecd on by Martel- a variation on my all time favorite Funk Hat Bits where Lee Scott grabs Funk’s hat, puts it on and does a hillbilly dance- thus allowing Funk a REASON to to just beat the hell out of Lee Scott. Here. it’s more to get Martel over with the PR rubes. And it works. The body of the match is a lot like the body of the Barry Windham match from a year earlier- Funk flailing around and spazzing out to everything. Funk sells to the back of the building to the sorta comical punches by Martel and the head pounding into the top turn buckle which allows him hit the ground and get his branding iron. It’s really just elaborate stalling. It’s a quarter way through when they finally lock up- Funk goes on the offensive and body slams Martel to allow Funk to go to the top turnbuckle, lose his balance and crush his testicles on the toprope. Terry Funk is kinda like Eddie Van Halen runnign up and down the stage doing “Eruption”- except replacing the hammer ons and pull-offs with crazy ass Terry Funk wrestling spots. Funk spends a minute walking around and dealing with his fractured junk and Martel REALLY could have stayed in Montreal for this match. Funk solves his groin crisis, throws chairs into the stands! (luckily there is a net there to protect wrestler and crowd), gets into a shoving match with someone at ringside. Terry Funk is fucking crazy. Martel pops back up into the match as they run the ropes, Martel slinks out of the match as Terry Funk gets his stomach stuck on the toprope and thus allows Martel to yank his paunts down, exposing the Funkster’s white hiney to the world. Funk, not the most subtle of pro wrestlers, opts to continue with his buttocks exposed. Funk gets up into the grill of more people in the audience and I await Funk to set some chairs on fire and throw them at the ringside crowd. What did the talk about when they got to the ring.
MARTEL: We just do regular wrest…
FUNK: I’m just gonna do everything they don’t let me do in America! I’m gonna do everything they don’t let me do in JAPAN!
MARTEL: Oh Jesus…
11 minutes in, Funk is doing clean breaks as I’m loving him wildly bucking to get out of the headlock. Funk makes up for the two cleans breaks by crushing Martel’s testicles while headlocking him. He then Piledrives him on the infield of the stadium and stomps him in the dirt- thus going from one crazy form of Funkism to a must more violent form of Funkism. Martel is just kinda standing waiting for the wrestling to be applied to him as he realizes that Funk is the weird ass Terry Funk Match Zone. Funk takes it back to the ring and applies a sleeper. Martel goes way big is selling the escape and really starts chewign the scenery when Funk starts choking him with tape. Martel gets the tape from Funk and starts choking his and Funk goes total fucking Liza Minelli In Cabaret big in selling it. Funk escapes a sleeping by send both of them over the toprope. Funk does the Funk Wearing Of A Chair and Martel FUCKING PILEDRIVES HIM WHILE FUNK IS WEARING THE CHAIR! Terry Funk is CRAZY. Funk tries to get in the ring. Martel realizes this is the only chance he has to make a dent in this match and starts laying it in on Funk. They run the ropes a little and Martel hits a Sunset Flip and Funk cheats to win by holding on to the ropes. Funk taunts Martel and the crowd as they all look for batteries and dirty diapers to pelt Funk with. Terry Funk is wrestlings version of Marlon Brando- a uncontrollable force of nature that is so brilliant when brilliant that you can’t really believe it. This match is up in there somewhere.
BONESAW vs. NECRO BUTCHER
(RIPPA)
God – I never realized Tim Livingston hated us this much. First off – DO NOT FUCKING WATCH THIS MATCH WITH THE SOUND ON! Everything you have ever hated about indy wrestling fans happens on this recording. The dude-bros filming the match (or at least standing right next to camera) do every single possible horrific chant you could imagine. Including multiple ECW! chants. Let me point out that ECW died a decade before this match took place and neither fucking guy ever fucking worked ECW. (You also can vaguely make out the guys who are doing actual play by play which is really awkward). Then… Grr….God Fucking Dammit…. then at around the 7 minute mark the following fucking conversation happens
Douche Bro#1 tries to start an “Ouch” chant
(Rando in crowd yells WE WANT TABLES!)
Douche Bro #1 (excitedly): OH!
Douche Bro #1 AND #2: WE WANT TABLES!!!
(That is chanted once and the Douche Bro #2 has his 3 fighting brain cells fire)
Douche Bro #2: Wait! TLC! TLC! TLC!
Douche Bro #1 joins in.
Someone then yells “There’s no ladder morons!”
I weep for current and future generations. Anyway – this is two dudes beating the hell out of each other in a family friendly way for 10 minutes. Impressively enough, probably the “stupidest” bump is Bonesaw missing the top rope elbow drop because that ring sure as shit didn’t look like it had much give. Would have preferred the flash finish to not happen immediately after said missed elbow drop but this was nothing to complain about. As I said – either watch it with no sound or find the “official” version and pray that it is better
MIRACLE VIOLENCE CONNECTION (STEVE WILLIAMS/TERRY GORDY) vs. BARRY WINDHAM/DUSTIN RHODES – WCW SATURDAY NIGHT (10/3/92 – Unified Tag Titles)
(by RIPPA)
Another Tim Livingston request. Alas we have run into a slight issue. All I can find online is the second half of this match. And don’t you fucking tell me to pay $9.99 to watch it. I am not trusting my memory of what happened. Clearly there was some wrestling. Because of this, I am just going to throw out some of my random thoughts watching this over again.
I am not sure if the first half exists somewhere but this is what we are working with. Thank God for Monsoon Classics since they uploaded the 12 minutes in one video. Someone uploaded into THREE fucking videos. I mean I get having to split it in two in the pre-10 minute limit days but THREE! Savages.
It is so weird to have this match be on Saturday Night. More specifically, taped at Center Stage. It really should have been the semis of the Real World Tag League. Fuck – would it really have been that hard to work out a deal with All Japan to have Windham and Rhodes there instead of like Dan Spivey and Kendall Windham or the Patriot and Jackie Fulton or even fucking Joel Deaton and God Damn Billy Black.
These four guys should not have ever been in the Center Stage ring. This is because they are all giants and since we are in a studio it is the tiniest ring ever. I mean – Steve Williams is the “shortest” guy at 6’4”. Barry Windham legit could reach two corners at once if he was laying down. Everything looks so so wrong. I mean the whole match is predicated on MVC isolating either Windham or Rhodes on their side of the ring. Which is great… when you ignore the fact that if either raises their arm up they are in position to make a tag.
OH! This piece of beauty from the Center Stage wiki page. “Memorable matches included WCW US Champion Konnan v. Scott Armstrong, Sgt. Craig Pittman v. Diamond Dallas Page, Sting and Lex Luger v. Public Enemy”
To add to the weirdness – Arn Anderson is the color man with Jim Ross. Now this weirdness is welcome as Arn is really fucking good. The best part is that Arn can be a heel announcer who doesn’t conflict with Ross. Ross calling a match, letting his color man work in salient points and, most importantly, not doing unfunny schtick while working in awkward plugs is the best kind of Jim Ross. (It also helps when Ross is calling Watts guys.)
The clip that is uploaded is 12 minutes. It is the second act of a match where it starts with match being joined out of a commercial break. All one knows is that everyone is sweaty and Windham is your face in peril. So in this 12 minutes you get 6 minutes of Windham trying to make a tag. Close to a minutes of Rhodes getting the hot tag. Then 2 minutes of Rhodes being the face in peril. Then the rest is the finishing sequence. You should watch it all but you really should watch every match that Steve Williams is in. And every match that Terry Gordy is in. And every match that Barry Windham is in. And every match that Dustin Rhodes is in.
After Windham and Rhodes get the belts for reasons. You have a scant few seconds to figure out what the fuck the faces who come out to celebrate are wearing. All I was able to conclude is that Ron Simmons lives in a home with no mirrors.
~!~
NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING (4/10/2014)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
We will continue to review random episodes from the giant stockpile of current New England Championship Wrestling- skipping over the ones that BORE me. This one doesn’t BORE me. So la-de-dah, let’s take a gander, shall we? This episode starts off well with Miss Sammi Lane calling the Canadian newcomer, Jasmin, a “CHIPPIE”! Oh hell yes! A chippie! I love this gal. She is accusing the canuck gal of being slatternly! They stomp on the foot of the shleppy announcer guy. They call him a useless lump and he tries to hide is audible boner. Sammi Lane then follows up the “chippie” slur by calling her True North counterpart a “bimbo”! Can “trollop” and “Jezebel” be far off? I sooo love the NECW ladies.
MISS SAMMI LANE vs. JASMIN:
Nikki Valentine is at ringside so this is before she was banished from the Sisterhood. They have a pre-match interview with Jasmin and she doesn’t call Miss Sammy a “tarted-up hussy”, so way to drop the ball Miss Maple Syrup. And on to the action. Well, for someone questioning the modesty of her opponent, Miss Sammi is dressed just as much like a harridan!- what with the cleavage and lace leggings and tiny leather paunts. Jasmin does a one armed cartwheel and I contemplate trying one those myself- and I wonder how quickly my arm would snap into an impossible direction. Miss Lane says, to herself, “Oh fuck the gymnastics!” and knees the adorable wee Canadian in the breadbasket. Vikki Valentine CHEATS! Hot chicks who are mean girls- Jesus Christ, Sheldon Goldberg, how many Russ Meyer films have you watched? I’m not saying you should stop or anything, I’m just wondering. Sammi hits the is Lateral or Vertical Suplex- the one where are in a Brainbuster position. Anyway, that with a bridge for two and you can say that Sammi Lane is beating some heat onto the cute little moose-hugger. Sammi is using basic offense but it looks pretty good. The teeny Jasmin faceplants to TRANSITION~! after escaping the screamy chinlock of Sammi Lane. Jasmin hits some spunky lowgrade highflying things like some hysterically loose lariats and a knee to the face to the corner. Sammi responds with two bitchy looking- if not overly Kohei Sato-ish- forearms to the face. Nikki Valentine PLANTS THE SEEDS OF HER EXILE by fucking up the Holding Of The Face Wrestler So The Heel Wrestler Can Elbow Her In The Face thing. Jasmin goes all Memphis with the roll-up for the 3 count, causing the hatred betwixt Miss Sammi Lane and Nikki Valentine to begin to boil. After the pin, Jasmin makes the face that heavy metal guitar players make mid-solo when they can’t believe how awesome they are playing. I really dig Miss Sammi Lane and not just because she reminds me of bad girls I used want to date in high school- but I didn’t smoke so I wasn’t slimy enough to father their children before graduation. Jasmin is adorable but really needs to work on laying it in. Postmatch: Announcer boy gets on Sammi’s nerves and Sammi proceeds to browbeat Nikki Valentine a little. And then they kind of wander off.
JOHNNY THUNDER vs. MASSHOLE MIKE McCARTHY:
Prematch, Mike McCarthy spells a bunch of words and I’m too tired to try figure out what he’s spelling. So I deem this PROMO~! as …. BAD! Johnny Thunder goes for the low-key Jake Roberts PROMO~! and THAT you never see anymore. Bravo, young Mister Thunder. Thunder controls early with not quite yet hilariously unstiff indie punches and lariats- but they are edging close to it. Thunder in the mount throws the bare minimum level of worked punches before they become giggle-worthy. And then they get worse after they both stand-up. McCarthy goes on offense and his stuff looks waay indie house show loose. Nothing looks good in this but it isn’t embarrassingly bad- I just don’t buy any of it. Remember the words of Johnny Valentine- I don’t have to make them think wrestling is real, I have to make them think I am real. Or something awesome like that. This is every match you ever saw in the middle of every card you ever saw at a county fair- except there is no deep fried Oreos. The finish is scewy and elaborate for no reason. Actually, it’s the same finish from the laaadies match- except the ladies’ match was 40 times stiffer. And that match wasn’t that stiff. Wait for episodes with The End in the main event- though the ladies match was perfectly fine.
~!~
There’s no turning back now- I’m under attack now- I see the skies are open
And I hear the word spoken- SINGLES GOING STEADY You only perceive
what you believe- You need only believe to believe- What do you know?- What do you know?
~!~
REY ESCORPION vs. MAXIMO – CMLL (4/20/2014)
(DEAN)
I was excited to see this pop up in the TheCubsFan thing from Youtube today. And WHY NOT!? Rey Escorpion is bringing out ass-stomp on all assorted Brazos- and Maximo being the most exotic Brazo means the working against type should be pretty dramatic and awesome. Or it could suck. I haven’t seen many Maximo matches about which I ever actually gave a shit- but this is for the title and this is against the guy who orchestrated a pretty Horseman-like postmatch stompdown on his uncle so hopefully: hatred and blood. The first caida is perfectly fine, I guess. It focuses on the title aspect of the match, avoids anything too interesting and collapses into a half-crab on Escorpion for Maximo to take the first fall. Second fall is clumsy and crappy and is over in 45 seconds, as Escorpion rolls Maximo into a Rings O Saturn and one can only hope that the third fall is going long to allow them to mop up all the blood. We shall see. Third fall starts fun with Maximo hitting a totally fat boy tope after hitting a lot of in-ring high-flying really cleanly. Escorpion opts for the equally fat boy tope con hilo and we are back to basic lucha libre, basic roll-ups and a few nearfalls as the story unfolds- with a very nasty Maximo powerslam to bring the DANGER! Maximo needs to gain-like- 45 more pounds. He hits a Love Machine Splash and you can tell it sucked to be Escorpion, but if he fattened up just a little bit, it would look so much more painful. But, looking at his family history, I’m sure this a not DREAM but a PREDICTION! They do a little more nearfall mania and Maximo sexually assaults Escorpion by kissing him, leading to a pinfall- but the seconds both stop two different 3 counts, here and later. Escorpion makes with the foule and YOU and IIIII will have to wait for the hair of one man to be put up against the hair of the other man for us to get anything transcendent out of this match up. So yeah, this match was a perfectly fine title match- though the foule is kinda un-title-y, what with the air of legitimacy of title matches supposedly wrestled as if the athletic commission would have to approve the match. Thus, the entire 3 fall is not true Lucha Title Match form, as IIIIII would be handing down fine after fine on the wrestlers, the ref, the seconds and the promoter. I went into this match expecting at least 1/5th of euphoric greatness of Escorpion vs Super Porky, which wasn’t a CRAZY thing to expect. So yeah, fuck this match. Wait for something with some hate attached to it.
RAMPAGE BROWN vs. MICKY FINN – EXPLOSIVE PRO WRESTLING (4/27/2014)
(DEAN)
Rampage Brown is flying up my list of not just favorite wrestlers wrestling in Britain but favorite wrestlers wrestling in wrestling rings. I vaguely remember seeing Mickey Finn. He does have the seedy Cockney Snakepit BASTARD look to him, so he is already ahead of the game as we begin. He works the arm- which is smart because Rampage uses his arm when he is beating the dog crap out of you, so definitely hold on to the arm. Nouvelle Brit wrestling is awesome not just because it approximates World Of Sport- style wrestling to some degree, but is also the last bastion of a LOT of things: such as in this match, Finn works the arm into a headscissors spot to the spot where Rampage escapes and shoots into the ropes to go back into Finn working the arm. Nobody does that anymore. From that, Rampage does his Budding Fit Finlay stylings by just hitting totally great looking, assholish heel offense. He then threatens to beat up all the snot nosed kids in the audience and your LOVE for RAMPAGE is now LOVE WITHOUT END. Finn takes his ass-beating and shows the SPARK! the FIRE! and LOVE OF GOOD SPORTSMANSHIP! to not quit! The brats in the audience clap and cheer as he gets to his feet! He battles back and shoots Rampage into the ropes! He’s gonna..Oh wait. Rampage totally just fucking kills him. Finn makes with a few more HOPE SPOTS~!(1) and Rampage kicks him right in the face a few times. The children are upset. Rampage is making them even more upset by SCOFFING at their booing! They trade elbows so this is just extra added AngloGrapploFun. Finn gets Rampage sitting in the corner and Rampage’s skanky valet charges at Finn and is drop-toe-holded into Rampage’s manly parts!- though she seems to weigh about 73 pounds, so it could only hurt so much. Finn then hits a fucking beautiful overhead Fishermanbuster Suplex, but 73 pounds of wee lass to the junk and a truly fine looking suplex is not enough. Rampage kicks out. The finish by Rampage is sooooo fucking AWESOME. Watch it yourself. Fucking BEAUTIFUL. This match is great but one should also note that alllll current AngloGrappling is pretty great. Finn should definitely go the heel route- as he really look like a guy who would stab you in the gums with a screwdriver.(2)
ENDNOTES
1. I’ve been away for a few years; what’s the new lingo for this?
2.A la the Polo Cockney from the Mighty Boosh, the greatest pop culture manifestation of what Americans TRULY fear about the British. That and the Dangerous Brothers. Shudder! The British underbelly! Horrifying! Dear British reader, the unspoken fear of the sleazy British underbelly is probably comparable to what British people would fear about American swamp/meth culture. I’m blue-skying here.
VILLANO IV vs. BLUE DEMON JR – AAA (4/19/2014)
(DEAN)
I watched this last night- because Villano IV is pretty fucking great and every now and then you have to RE-see how amazingly horrible Blue Demon Jr is. Put the two together and it is about as baffling as you would imagine. I figured I would start at zero and scored it as it meanders through its 25 minutes and see to what total the parts of the whole add up. Let me come full force with the MATH+ART analysis!
SCORE- COMMENTS
+1- Opening video package shows footage of a V4/ Chessman match that I may want to go back look at. Really. Well, at some point. Next year maybe. Two years tops.
+7- Hot AAA ring girl is wearing a full Pink Panther costume; like the inescapable hotness of Juventud Guerrera in the 90s that used Pro Wrestling to gauge if you should go out and sleep with other men, this match uses the hottest possible example to gauge if you have even an inkling of engaging in sex with a furry. PERSONAL GAUGE: Uhhhhhh… I’M TOO OLD FOR THAT SHIT! Let’s move on.
+4- Blue Demon Jr is beloved by children. When I was a child, my favorite wrestler was Blackjack Mulligan. When I was born, Lyndon Johnson was in the White House. I remember them playing NEW Beatles songs on the radio. I remember watching the moon-landing on TV. I remember thinking mosh pits were passe in 1984.
+0- Match starts, I cannot pad the positive side anymore.
+5- Villano does a nice headscissors section and early matwork isn’t horrendous- not that the sludge-like Blue Demon Jr is any help. Villano 4 is basically wrestling and carrying a big sack of cole slaw at this point.
-2- Big Sack Of Cole Slaw COMES ALIVE and tries really crappy looking Lucha submissions.
-4- BSofCS doesn’t lean into ANYTHING, his timing is akin to me with the ladies when I was 15, and he moves like he ate a bag of old pork chops that he bought last week and just remembered where he put them (trunk of car).
-2- Points off for lame looking corner head slamming spot,done to allow BDJ to go outside, obviously blade, get posted…
+25- … and bleed like he is hiding Invader 3’s stomach under his mask and V4 is Manny Fernandez. QUALITY bloodspewing! Maaan! TOTAL QUALITY BLOODSPEWING.
+5- Nice punches by Blue Demon and the crowd is crazy for BDJ’s angry blood-spewing babyface comeback.
0- Follows with a good chairshot and follows up with sub-ECW Lance Storm chairshot. This is a Lucha bloodmatch and I am fucking vampire. Fuckin BRING IT. Concussions are temporary! Art is forever. Okay, maybe not that.
+9- V4 starts pummeling BDJ and starts ripping his mask so BDJ’s blood can spew out freely. And with a little coaxing, Blue Demon could power wash Satan’s condo with his skullsplosion of plasma.
-4- BDJ sets up a tope by casually pushing V4 in the middle of the ring, who then must walk across the ring and inexplicably fall to the floor.
+5- BUUUUTTT, it was a nice old school tope by BDJ.
+3- They trade some perfectly fine submissions and nearfalls as we head to the finish.
-7- V4 hits TWO clotheslines so shitty that Davey Boy Smith from heaven said (3), “My God, that was horrible.” (4)
-2- They trade some pretty awkward submissions and some slow motion HIGHSPOTZ~!
+2- BDJ hits a nice corner Frankensteiner for a nearfall. A spot that seemed far more impressive the first time i ever saw it- Steve Austin vs The Great Muta- Spring Stampede 94.(5)
+5- The crowd is way into it by this point.
+5- Perfectly fine submission hold for the finish.
I kinda liked this match, though it was severely flawed. Let’s add up my mathematicals:
THE VERDICT: +42
Well, there you go. Quality situational blading will take you far. The blood CONCEPTUALLY made sense- in that it MASKS the shittiness of BDJ trying to mat wrestle. Plus it helps convey his OUTRAGE at such rudo tactics and makes his technico beatdown pretty molten.
ENDNOTES
3. To himself.
4. To which God responded, “Yeah hoss, that won’t no good.”(12)
5. But then again, I useta think the heart punch was devastating move when I was a child.
12. God talks exactly like Dick Murdock
EL CANEK vs. TATSUMI FUJINAMI – 1978
(RIPPA)
First of all – this is not to be confused with the match from 83 that was on the 80s set and seems to be the only one that a lot of people have seen of Canek. Which is a shame. I mean it’s one thing to be all “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE HYPE IS ABOUT!” but to have only really seen the one match is a diservice. But anyway this is from 1978 if the interwebs are to be believed and it fucking rules. The first three minutes or so are two guys just rocking it on the mat – exchanging various headlocks and attempts to reverse out of it. I dig it but do understand that this might not be some people’s bags because they want a quicker pace or they want to know a reason a headlock was applied. Whatevs. Apparently, Canek agreed with these people because he suddenly decided to get to whipping Fujinami’s ass. I mean out of fucking nowhere Fujinami’s head is meeting ring post and the turnbuckle support (which, by the way, he is so not afraid to lean into). And there is the biting – the wonderful biting of the forehead. OH! and the nasty ass table shot since this ain’t no fucking piece of IKEA shit landing on Fujinami. So yeah – Fujinami is bleeding. Sweet sweet glorious blood. God – don’t ask me why Canek is in full on KNEEL BEFORE ZOD~! mode but it is great. Especially when he starts stretching the bloody Fujinami. Man – Dean Ambrose needs to steal the “step on a dude’s throat while they are dangling outside the ring” spot right quick. Finally – Fujinami gets your firey babyface comeback, which in the late 70s in Japan meant vicious uppercuts and dropkicks. He there gets to ripping Canek’s mask apart and I have zero complaints. So our combatants are going back and forth and Canek busts out the MOTERFUCKING PLANCHA OF CRAZINESS as he dives over the top rope and Fujinami decides “I will take this in the manliest way possible!” Actually that might have ended up being my only complaint – they so could have teased a countout better there. But still – it all breaks down and then crowd (and me) are loving it. Fujinami backdrops Canek over the top rope that Bill Watts would not approve of and then does every luchadore proud by doing a crazy ass tope to fucking nowhere. And – again – since this is 1978, the crowd is losing its God damn mind. Anyway – here is the double countout and neither man is happy but and his fantastic hair will hear none of it
(Rippa Note – the Youtube account I got this from was turfed cuz of multiple violations and it appears no one re-upped it anywhere. Booo….)
ANDRE THE GIANT/TONY ST. CLAIR vs. SEIJI SAKAGUCHI/KANTARO HOSHINO (June 13, 1985)
(RIPPA)
I think there is a misconception that I hate comedy wrestling. That is not true. I hate comedy wrestling when it involves Santino Marella. Well and some other guys – but definitely Santino. However, I love love love comedy wrestling when it involves Andre the Motherfucking Giant. And this isn’t comedy in the sense of “Oh we called the ablino wrestler milky” it’s Sakaguchi and Hoshino dealing with the consequences of poking the bear that is Andre. I mean Hoshino is in borderline mini territory and Sakaguchi – while normally not considered small – isn’t exactly eye to eye with Andre. So you have wacky bits of them trying to deal any damage to Andre and you have an irritated Andre looking to vengence. It also works well when you have usual grumpy Andre yelling at fans coming to the ring. It is good comedy wrestling when you are watching Andre’s expressions as Hoshino tries a single leg takedown. And it is really good comedy wrestling when the entire crowd is chanting for Hoshino. No one is being made to look bad and even when they aren’t doing the wacky bits – you have St. Clair fucking wrestling. And the length of the match and the finish are perfect. This is the greatest Saturday Morning Slam match ever.
LITTLE GUIDO vs. RABBI SWISSA – ISRAELI PRO WRESTLING ASSOCIATION (4/19/2014)
(DEAN)
Golly, I haven’t thought of Little Guido since… hmmmm… Ring Ka King. Okay, so India, Israel, UWFi- Little Guido will wrestling in the exotic places. This match is odd because it appears they flew him over and have him wrestle for 8 minutes? Maybe he did a seminar. It also appears they flew in a warehouse from the Midwest because the ring set-up, random machinery in the background and dozens in attendance make me think “backwoods of Indiana” as opposed to “Birthplace of three major religions.” The evil rabbi pushes a teen for mouthing off and Little Guido holds the rabbi so the teen can smack him. The rest of the match flails around until it ends. As indie as a bald guy in leather pants.
JUN AKIYAMA/ YOSHINOBU KANEMARU vs. KEISUKE ISHII/ SHIGEHIRO IRIE – DRAMATIC DREAM TEAM (4/29/2014)
(DEAN)
OOOOh MAN! So this happened yesterday. The internet is pretty good. Jun Akiyama and Kanemaru are the tag champs. I love Shigehiro Irie but I cannot IMAGINE what kind ass-stomping he will take hands of frickin Jun Akiyama- as Akiyama has been doing a pretty good job aging into “‘Jumbo Tsrututa Old Man Phase’ channeling ‘Tenryu’s Old Man Phase.'” Ishii appears to be NEARLY old enough to get his learners permit. Maybe he will divine more fighting spirit by channeling how boring society is and how phony his parents are! CAGE THE ELEPHANT RULES, OLD MAAAN!(6) This match is starting to be basically what you thought it would be- BURNING beating the fudge out of the youngsters with the youngsters getting in stuff here and there. They pummel teen Ishii first: slamming him to the concrete, kicking his head on the apron, tearing up his tickets to the Orwells.(7) Akiyama must look at Ishii and see his own lost youth- or maybe Ishii reminds him of some teenager from his own youth that had fancy hair and a fancy car and stole Jun’s true love away. Cuz yeah, Akiyama beats on Ishii like Ishii fucked his girlfriend. So it’s a fun basic story. Boy meets Girl/ Boy falls in love/ Other Boy steals Girl/ Boy jumps off the second rope and stomps on Other Boy’s stomach. Irie goes on offense and starts with a SWEEET old school Vertical Suplex. Jun Akiyama being Jun Akiyama leans into all of Irie’s offense before eventually cutting him off and letting Kanemaru tag in. The hot tag to Ishii is beautiful and I’ll let you watch it- as it extends the Akiyama Is Going To Fucking Kill Ishiii subtext. Ishii gets in a lot of offense on Kanumaru and he is all peppy and happy. THEN… AKIYAMA… TAGS… IN… Ishii is slaughterized into a fine paste by assorted Akiyama knees to the face and is then BEAUTIFULLY Brainbustered by Kanemaru. It is some ugliness. He probably never remember this match! Age and guile beats youth and a bad haircut every ti… WHAT? Whatwhatwhat? Ohmigolly, watch this match. Caribooooo, Cari-booo-oooo-ooooo
ENDNOTES
6. My 14 year old daughter loves this band. I would feel like the oldest man alive if I broke the news to her that they stole everything from the Pixies(or bands that listened to the Pixies). It would probably boil down to me telling boring stories about seeing the Pixies with Pere Ubu and Pere Ubu blowing them off the stage. My daughter would roll her eyes and go back to stabbing things in Skyrim. I would cough and cobwebs would fly out of my mouth.
7. My daughters went to see Panic At The Disco at the Richmond Chili Cook-off last week and they said the Orwells were awesome. Thus, I included it in the “Ishii is a 15 year old” string of jokes. Please note that I stopped trying to be hip and cool the first time one of my babies vomited directly onto my face.(13)
13.1996.
SHINJIRO OOTANI/ GENICHIRO TENRYU vs. MASATO TANAKA/ DAICHI HASHIMOTO – 11TH YASUKUNI SHRINE FESTIVAL:
(DEAN)
I was scanning the Real Hero account over at Daily Motion to see what immediately popped out to me. A few Suwama matches from Champion Carnival, a weird ass Luke Gallows match from Taiwan, “HEY!” I said (8), “Tenryu is still wrestling!” Alan had mentioned a match when I was on his podcast (9), and maybe this was it. I heard that Tenryu will still break your nose because, let us face it, it is a good story to tell every couple of years.(10) Jesus, Ohtani and Tanaka(11) start it out by beating the dog piss out of each other and sets the tone for what portends to be a delightful foray into assholishness and grumpy old man face-punchiness. It is elbows to the teeth for three minutes and then Hash Jr and Tenryu hook it up. Tenryu is a thousand and does not move much but he approaches this match with the idea that, “I tried to beat your father completely to death. And you weigh 1/9th as much as he did.” D-Hash is fucking AWESOME as the asshole upstart trying to upstage a guy who will punch you just dead in the face. Tenryu then punches Hashimoto dead in the face. And then chops him straight across the Adam’s Apple. Hashimoto takes a few more shots, checks the extent of crushed face and crushes the ham string of Tenryu with a savat spin crescent kick. Ohtani casts Hashimoto into the Tree Of Woe and dropkicks him in the face, making him not so pretty anymore. Regular wrestling kicks in for few minutes as they kinda realize that if they keep up this level of stiffness, nobody is going to remember where they van is parked- much less how to get home. Tenryu tags in and goes back to punching Hashimoto dead in the face. Tenryu and Tanaka exchange chops and Tenryu is making “If Only I Had Invested More Wisely, I wouldn’t Have To Do This Shit” faces. Ohtani does the New Japan Juniors Face scraper on Tanaka- and it reminds that Tanaka was flying into exploding barbed wire when Ohtani first started doing this spot. What a crazy world. It becomes obvious that Tenryu can only go for fivish minutes so they spend a lot of time setting up Hashimoto punting the Head of Ohtani around the ring. Ohtani tries a Rotation Powerbomb but his knee buckles so he goes for the Dragon Suplex for the win. This was fun. I wish Hashimoto could face 1999 Tenryu. That would have been a real hoot.
ENDNOTES
8. To myself
9. cuz I’m some kind of big shot.
10. Like every year when I tell my kids the story of how I recovered the fumble in the game in 1984, and launched the mighty Oscar Smith Tigers to VICTORY over those BASTARDS from Indian River! I took than team ON MY SHOULDERS and WILLED the FIELD GOAL THROUGH! And WE WON THREE TO MOTHERFUCKING NOTHING! YOU LITTLE BASTARDS COME BACK HERE! I HAVEN’T FINISHED MY STORY! GOD DAMMIT!
11. Actually, it was just Ohtani and Tanaka- not Jesus, Ohtani and Tanaka. Jesus would turn the other cheek- and then hit a POWERBOMB! AM I RIGHT?!?!
SERENA DEEB vs. MIA YIM – PRO WRESTLING BOMBSHELLS (3/8/2014)
(DEAN)
I reviewed a Serena Deeb match against that wee Japanese hellion- Kana- from SMASH! and I really dug young Deeb. This match is from last month and she’s grown her hair out and is wearing a more- you know, the area that a lady has between her shoulders and her belly button- intensive top, a play which I will back 100%. I am UNFAMILIAR with Mia Yim (probably).(14) They are wrestling in one of the four thousand ballrooms in the Northeast where one can stage a wrestling match- of which I have been to a few in my time. They make with the standing switches early and the announcer is yelling a lot. Allow me to turn him down. This starts pretty basic, but is already a lot better than the three Oz Academy matches I watched earlier. They hit it with a lot more purpose and intensity- even when working a headlock spot. Hey, they work a headlock spot! And Serena makes with a drop toe hold! These gals should go wrestle in All-Star Wrestling in Great Britain. This is fun- what with the endless roll-ups into a weird ass Two Count Rolling Cradle Ball rolling aboot the ring. Then they start beating the hell out of each other with chops to the GIRLPECS~! It’s official, I like Mia Yim. OKayOkayOkayOkayOkay, Hold on hold on hold on- HOW DOES SERENA DEEB HAVE THE BEST PUNCHES IN WRESTLING? JESUS CHRIST, WATCH THIS MATCH. Her punches look fucking GREAT. God, this match is awesome. Deeb procures the Leg Based Full Nelson Variation and Serena becomes more and more evil. Serena’s offense looks really great and a lot of that is Yim leaning into it. Serena hits the RIB-BRREAKAH! but Yim fights back- and her offence isn’t as nasty looking as Deeb’s but still is pretty hurty looking most of the time. Finish is weird in that wierd is GREAT here- IN THAT they hit a finisher and the person hit with this finisher is THEN PINNED- in 2014! This match was great. Deebs should just punch people the whole match. She is now fucking awesome.
ENDNOTES
14. Cagematch sez Mia Wim is 25 years old, 5’7″ and weighs 125 lbs(!). Maybe all women in wrestling weigh 125 pounds. She does not claim to know Judo but she does bring a volleyball background to her grappling.
NIKKI VALENTINE vs. KASEY RAY – NEW ENGLAND CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING (4/2014)
(DEAN)
Being an internet big shot, I’m Facebook Friends with Sheldon Goldberg- owner of NECW.(15) He links an episode every week and I always mean to watch them- as I used to review them back when I went through that phase where I drew a bunch of comix after not drawing anything for fifteen years. I always dug at least something every week. Now that we are back to doing we do best- reviewing the pro wrestling- I figured I could start watching again. So here we go. This Ep starts with Kasey Ray with Barbie luggage getting out of SUV and talking shit about the SISTERHOOD! NECW seems to be doing a homage to the film HEATHERS, but with the SISTERHOOD consisting of Goth/Art chicks – en leiu of cheerleaders being the ones all hateful. All three of the SISTERHOOD look unstable and broken like most art chicks- but I do dig the cliquey lesbianic undertone that permeates the estrogen gathering upon which they are commenting They stomp the schleppy announcer guys foot- LIKE JERKS! Sammy Lane wears a Catwoman-esque mask to the ring but doesn’t wear it when they CUT A PROMO~! on our gal Casey. She should make it a point to keep the mask on the whole time- as the Julie Newmar look works on so many levels- so many dark and inspiring levels- plus it would lead to an excuse for assorted hair versus mask matches down the line. I’m just thinking out loud here.(16) Casey Ray storms the ring and they start making with the pro wrestling and it is all armdrags and forearms to the head at the beginning- and I dig that since Fit Finlay used to train the Divas and Shimmer shoots for a 90’s Joshi feel, US indie ladies wrestling has evolved into this style where you pretty much lay in everything. I mean, this is kinda of an offhand match but every thing they try is plenty stiff. They keep it pretty basic with the basic story being that Nikki Valentine is on the outs if she loses- thus she loses and we await the Mistress Belmont and Sunny Lane to cull the herd and beat Nikki Valentine to death. So Mistress Belmont drums her out with a FALCON ARROW?- the second in three days! So it was more of an angle than a match- THEN OUT COMES TOXIS! Toxis is a TOTAL lunch lady and she fucking KILLS Nikki with a spear! Oh man, she is like one of those giant women on Maurie Povich who screams at the skinny quiet guy who refuses to own up to fathering her daughter. Holy shit! All this AND Damien Wayne is wrestling in NECW now. Yeah, evil women in black leather, giant angry big mean ladies, Damien fuckin Wayne- I’ll watch your little wrestling show.(17)
ENDNOTES
15. I’m also a member of the Zap Rowsdower Fan Page. Which isn’t nearly as awesome as it should be.
16. Any reason to keep the Michelle Fiefferness in wrestling is a good reason.
17. Goddamn, the squash match afterwards with the tag team, The End, is awesome because it is a true ass-beating squash with lots of fun fat boy tagteam maneuvers, but the PINNACLE is that they are to Bam Bam Bigelow what the Headhunters are to Abdullah the Butcher and what the Harris Brothers were to Bruiser Brodie. The Bastard Sons Of Bam Bam really beat the shit out of the wee fellas who agreed to get completely Moondogged on regional TV. It should defintely be added to DVDVR Squash Directory. YEA NECW!
DEVIL MASAMI vs. VELVET MCINTYRE – All Japan Women’s Wrestling (1986)
(by RIPPA)
When I first started watching Joshi – Devil Masami was the world’s angriest grandmother. Here is amazingly young and MILF-Tastic and my loins are all sorts of confused. Then through in the great lost women’s worker of Velvet McIntyre and I will gladly give this 12 minutes of my time. Since I can never be totally happy – even for just 12 minutes – the VQ is dicey as shit. Still – I don’t need stable footage to enjoy the hate that each lady was putting into the match. Such an odd match. It is basically a Devil Masami squash as she mollywhopps Vevlet for a while until eventually all the devious ladies who accompanied Velvet to the ring decide to take matters in their own hands and start beating on Devil just because they can. (God bless you randomly applied wrestling rules). OH! I should mention that amongst the folks helping out Velvet are Bull Nakano and Judy Martin (complete with outstanding t-shirt that just says BOSS on the back). So now you are thinking Velvet has the advantage and… yeah… Devil is beating on her again. Oh jumping knee from the top and it’s over. All righty then. Outside of the VQ and the hideous English commentary – perfectly acceptable.
BIG DADDY WALTER/ROBERT DREISSKER vs. CHRISTIAN MEIXNER/MEXX – EUROPEAN WRESTLING ASSOCIATION (2/2014)
(DEAN)
I was scaring up some matches by the folks I automatically watch immediately these days- Big (Van)Daddy Walter, LA PARK, El Hijo Del Santo, Demolition Davies, Rampage Brown, Arkangel De La Muerte, and as of yesterday, Serena Deeb. I put in Big Van Walter and got few matches I had not seen- including this one. Somewhere in OSTEREICH!, Big Daddy is tagging with an equally large man whom I don’t believe I’ve ever seen(18) and they are wrestling against MEXX whom I vaguely recall from Alex Wright’s promotion NEW European Championship Wrestling- and also Christian Meixner, whom the Cagematch.net says did a total DDP and started wrestling 4 years ago at age FORTY-THREE. So yeah, I am a complete pussy for whining about my knees hurting when I stand up. He and Mexx are beloved by the Austrians, and Big Daddy and Dreissker act all hateful like good heels should. Note that there hundreds of people there- like alot more than you see at the WXW cards, actually. I wonder if EWA is like All-Star in Britain- successful traditional wrestling with big audiences and very little internet presence. There are a lot of kids there chanting and screaming so the fun already built in. This is pretty fucking great. They start with Mexx taking a beating and then getting in all this offense on Dreissker after Dreissker keeps missing elbow drops. The TRANSITION~! to offence for the big bruising evil guys occurs when Big Daddy reaches in and clotheslines MEXX while MEXX is dancing around for the rubes. Big Daddy then hits a FUCKING BEAUTIFUL Elbow Drop. And then there is a big not quite hot tag but the crowd freaks out for it anyway- and we start over as the Evil Austrians hit floor and the Good Austrians pose for the crowd. Walter and MEXX get back in the ring- as MEXX is a good worker and looks to be shouldering the load for his side as he takes the beating Morton Style. Walter hits all of his power moves which are strangely kind of hit and miss in this for some reason- which is odd since his stuff looks pretty great all the time every other time I’ve seen. They do a Cavalcade Of Fat Guys Hitting Elbow Drops- like FIFTEEN of them- and your inner Greg Valentine says, “Oh hell yes!” Walter tags back in and he does those fucking NASTY knee drops to the elbow, and then he switches to the kneedrops to the back of the knee and then the knee drop to the chest for the nearfall and it is beautiful Pro Wrestling. They cheat to hit a Double Lariat and Dreissker hits a really nice Bionic Elbow- and let me state I that I have seen this many Elbow Drops EVER in one match. It is truly a DREAM MATCH. Meixner is hotly tagged in and he is very Bill Kasmeir-esque in every possible way. MEXX does lots of fruity embellishment splashes onto Dreissker to the children’s delight- so it definately worked. Walter and MEXX were head and shoulders above their partners but it was a little uneven even when it was those two in the ring. But the power offense of Walter and Dreissker really does make it worth your time when its kicking in. It is a fat boy bonanza of hurtiness.
ENDNOTES
18. Let me check the Cagematch.net database. Robert Dreissker is 24 years old, 5′ 11″, and weighs 295 pounds. His nickname is the Danube Dragon.
DEMOLITION DAVIES vs. FVN – DANSK PRO WRESTLING (9/14/2013)
(DEAN)
Man, a lot of Danes show up for pro wrestling. Demolition Davies is German and FVN is Danish. You REALLY want Davies to use all 400 pounds of his fat and crush this little freak. FVN is pretty good at getting real heat- as he does the scrawny douchebag gimmick like a champ. He will also take the full measure of GIGANTIC fat man landing on him with seven buckets of his fat. And he bounces all over the ring for Davies. So yeah FVN is the best Danish wrestler I’ve currently seen. Jesus, Cagematch.net sez that is 18 and has been wrestling 2 years. That’s pretty fuckin good for a stupid teenager. They work a weird match: the crowd doesn’t like FVN but they like his pluckiness- as he does all these little guy high-flying spots around the pile of Davies’ five hogs of a stomach- before Davies wakes up and just fucking kills him with a pretty beautiful sideways Watanabe Screwdriver. This is a wee wisp of a match but fat guys crushing teenagers is always worth 8 minutes of your time.
CHESSMAN vs. VILLANO IV – AAA (3/16/2014)
(DEAN)
Ha! Remember when I gave points to the V4/Blue Demon Jr match where there was footage of a Chessamn vs V4 match that SPARKED my interest? Well, well, well, Mr. Fat Boy Deanie Weinie Bikini Panini, looks like you gotta put your money where your mouth, dumb ass. There it was. In my Watch Later Collection on my YouTube account- between all the Dragon Gate I’m never going to watch and all those West Virginia Pro Wrestling that I will today!(19) LATER! OR TOMORROW! THURSDAY TOPS! Anyway, yes, Chessman. Problematic. Not horrendous. He will die for your pleasure. He’s a lot better than Blue Demon Jr. Probably. No. He is a lot better than Blue Demon Jr. Ah fuck it, Villano IV can carry anyone. Let’s watch these motherfuckers lock up! Well, the initial early first caida matwork is far far far less awkward than the Blue Demon match. Goddam, V4 makes with the Heavier Luchadore Crushing You With Heaviness Tope early and THE LOVE BEGINS. V4 does a really nice powerslam- that also looks like one of his armdrags, as he is all about being in-ring momentum incarnate. GOTDAMN, V4 will lean into a chairshot like Masato Tanaka in front of 1,200 Philadelphia girthy reprobates. Chessman pulls on the mask and FUCK AND YES, V4 IS BLEEDING LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING MOTHERFUCKER. V4 and Chessman trade punches and then kicks and I await Chessman to take his ass-beating. They fiddle around and have this spot where Chessman awkwardly runs into the turnbackle, where he obviously blades, just like in the Blue Demon match and- just like the Blue Demon match, it goes from crappy awkward spot for blading to the awesomeness of …. why yes, WE HAVE A BLOODBATH! So yeah, this is pretty much the Blue Demon match but it’s better because it has more blood and Chessman will lean into V4’s offense with gusto- as I’m assuming this is the V4 brawl that V4 knows best. It has the same build to the same basic spots. The difference- and this is important, Chessman is basically the face in this; Blue Demon was waaaaaay more effective at getting the crowd to be sympathetic his spewing blood to fight evil. Blue Demon was totally old school in having V4 beat a mountain of heat onto him and make the fired-up comeback that drove the kids wild. Chessman doesn’t have that moment, so there is a big difference- in that Chessman is better at leaning into stuff and is really good at brawling with V4 in this, but Blue Demon connected more effectively with the crowd through some very basic old school psychology. I like this match a lot more than the Blue Demon Jr match- don’t get me wrong- but it would have been aided by the same grasp of psychology. V4 is fucking awesome in this- just punching him in the open cut. Chessman leans into to all of V4’s punches and I am digging him a lot more now than before this match started. Holy shit, V4 does these full Yoshihito Sasake headbutts to a prone Chessman and this match is just tremendous. Blood is all over the mat and Chessman attacks V4 while he is being checked by the ring-side physician and then does his own fatboy tope onto bedoublebladed V4. They finally both get back in the ring as blood is every where and they hit some nearfalls- both sell the blood loss by probably not needing to sell all the blood loss. It leads up to Chessman missing a moonsault that actually feels like a real transition to V4’s offence- as opposed to the worn out spot that it has become. That’s the weight that blood adds to a match. V4 misses a second rope senton and it all leads up to Chessman hitting a spear for the win- which is pretty perfect ending for the ground up hardass brawling this has. Maaaan, QUALITY LUCHA LIBRE.
ENDNOTES
19. Actually. master of the Chilean Ass-stomper Videos- Momo- posted it in the Internet Best 2014 thread and I saved it from there. A while ago. So gauge, in your mind, how long before I get to that Lawler/Gangrel tag match.
KOHEI SATO/ SHUJI ISHIKAWA vs. DAICHI HASHIMOTO/ KAZUKI HASHIMOTO – BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING (2/7/2014)
(DEAN)
What the FUCK? How did this get past me? It’s my two favorite tag teams beating the crap out of each other! I will make a point of being more alert. Daichi is wearing the headband like his old man. I hope kicks somebodies lungs into the third row like his old man. Ooo, it starts in the aisle and it is STIFF! Man, Kohei Sato will knock your fucking teeth out. MAAAAAAN, Shuji Ishikawa will fucking KILL YOU. Well well, it morphs seamlessly into a tag match. Kazuki begs to tag in and this is going to be fucking BEAUTIFUL. Kohei Sato just fucking slaughterizes him with forearms. Just SLAUGHTERIZES HIM. Kazuki is awwwwesome as the young bastard who refuses to give Sato any respect. Thus the story is that Kohie Sato has to beat respect into Kazuki Hashimoto. That has to be the most glorious sentence I can write about Japanese wrestling in 2014. They then just kill each other for a few minutes and then Shuji Ishikawa tags in because the match wasn’t tripley preposterously stiff yet. Sato is pretty great being amused and delighted at the fighting spirit of K-Hash. Shuji tags in and is less amused and is more about trying to break all of Kazuki Hashimoto’s ribs. K-Hash DRAGON SCREWZ TO OFFENSE AND MAKES THE HOT TAG! D-Hash lays in the leather and then knees Sato in the head to lead up to a SWEET D-Hash EVEREST~! German Suplex. Sato escapes by shoving his knee into Daichi Hashimoto’s stomach really really really really hard. He then tags in ishikawa because his intenstines didn’t actually out of his back yet, Ishikawa seems to want shower the paying customers with Daichi Hashimoto’s insides. En LIEU, Shuji hits two positively-gentle-in-comparison lariats for two. D-Hash opts to trade forearms with Shuji Ishikawa- which seems crazy because Shuji Ishikawa will fucking bash your head in, but our man Diachi doesn’t actually die because he gets in a dropkick- WHO KNEW!- and makes the tag. K-Hash does the Ohtani-Kanemoto Footscrapes and then kicks Shuji and then drops a fucking COMPLETELY nasty kneedrop right across Ishikawa’s face and this match is about as great as I am allowed to get. Ishikawa blocks a Belly to Belly suplex attempt by crushing Kazuki Hashimoto’s skull with his own skull- twice, and hits his own suplex to make the tag and Sato is now seeming to really up the stiffness to some stratopheric, BattlARTSian level. So yeah, he ups it A LOT. K-Hash responds and finally takes down Sato and D-Hash does fruity Masaaki Mochizuuki Super J Cup 94 Run The Ropes Kicks To The Back Of The Head dealy- which kinda like a comedy spot in this match- though nobody told anybody. They do a bunch of tag wrestling spots I guess to recirculate all the blood that has bashed out of each other’s heads. After Sato hits a comical FALCON fucking ARROW (That’s the fourth one I’ve seen since I started back on these), they go back to crushing each others skulls with forearms and kicks. Sato goes old school with a fucking MAGNIFICENT Lawler Piledriver. God damn, I couldn’t even dream this match. Sato then hits a fuckin CHOICE total Everest German Suplex for the win. Goddam, I love me some professional wrestling. People who don’t like Japanese wrestling can go fuck themselves. Post-match, Kazuki blows kisses at Sato. So fucking great.
UNDERTAKER vs. GREAT KHALI – WWE SMACKDOWN (August 8, 2006 – Last Man Standing)
(by RIPPA)
Y’all remember that time when Smackdown was motherfucking awesome – right? Poor poor WWE breaking what wasn’t broken. Anyway – I rediscovered this match during the Great Khali Wrestler of the Day thread where I somehow became the biggest Khali mark in the world. Mainly – because they are far too many of you who are all HE IS BIG AND SLOW AND UGLY SO CLEARLY HE SUCKS AT THE WRESTLING!!!! And doing that without actually watching any of the matches thus forgetting that the brilliance of said time period where Smackdown was motherfucking awesome was that there were oodles of guys who could go guy and someone in creative realized “Shit – just put them in matches with Khali”. Possibly my favorite part of era when Smackdown was motherfucking awesome was the fact that they had all these heavyweights who just decided to go out and throw bombs at each other and we all got weepy because suddenly there was a honest to goodness Heavyweight division that was aces. The leader of that was the Undertaker during his last good run. Here he is in what is the blow off match of the Khali feud so he decides that the only thing to do is BUMP LIKE A GOD DAMN FREAK! Sure I will oversell the punches. Headfirst into the ring post and the Smackdown display? Fine. Of course I will take the stage bump. I never want to hear anyway bitch about a match using smoke and mirrors and space magic because it is all working beautifully here to make Khali look like a destroyer of worlds. The DC crowd gets super hyped behind Taker playing the deepest darkest Ricky Morton ever. A deep dark Ricky Morton that clearly hates his knees (watch the ring stairs bump and you will know what I am talking about.) Now I want to give some great to Khali here too since I am FAR too entertained by Khali trash talk so as he struts around talking shit while beating on Taker, that is #1 and the best. THEN Khali taps the biggest fucking vein in his forehead that he can find. Yeah – this is a match you need fucking blood in especially after taking ring steps to the dome. Anyway – Khali stays down after two unprotected chair shots (oh such a simpler time) and a chokeslam and we all benefit from watching this.
GOLDEN LOVERS (KOTA IBUSHI/ KENNY OMEGA) vs. MICHAEL NAKAZAWA/ TOMOMITSU MATSUNAGA – DRAMATIC DREAM TEAM (3/21/2014)
(DEAN)
Golden Lovers is still the best current tag team name in wrestling.(20) I usualy run far away from good-lookin’ fellas that do a lot of highspots (I know. I’m lying.) but both of these guys were beaten into my heart by either El Generico or Shugehiro Irie matches. Nakazawa(21)and Matsunaga(22)I don’t think I’ve seen- but I prolly have and just don’t remember. I don’t know why it takes my so long to get around to the DDT. My guess-hmmmmm…. prolly….. all the naked male ass. The Golden Lovers are coated in belts! Matsunaga and Omega have a pose off so the men who enjoy the love of other men can have their paunts coated in something other than belts! I like Omega because he uses the moves of a illusionist/magician like his opponents in this match may use the moves of Judo- as Omega is all flourishy and flamboyount in his selling- and it is pleasing as something that works for no one else but him. Ibushi tags and looks to accidentally crushed Nakazawa’s back and it looks like they are going to make that a story but. Unfortunately. For me. They head straight to the HILARIOUS! wrestling. It is based around Nakazawa and Matsunaga using their body building body oil as the basis of hilarious spot after hilarious spot. Okay, I’m debating if it takes me longer to get around to watching (non-Shigehiro Irie) DDT because of the naked male ass or the copious amounts of shitty comedy spots. Namakawa is pretty nifty when not hilarious and Matsunaga hits a pretty nice piledriver on Omega- who sells it like David Copenfield on Ectasy. Then they trade forearms to the face and Matsunaga hits a really nice buttahflah suplex and THEN! it’s back to the hilarity. And my hatred rises again. Koata Ibushi goes all gymnastic and I’m hating that. Oooooooh lordy lordy look whose 40…. this match drifts more and more and more away the tag match I reviewed right above this- so I really don’t hate this, PER SE, but it is such a giant plunge downward that I’m having trouble appreciating the NUANCES of the DDT match. LUCKILY they start really blowing spots so I have an excuse to hate this match. Well, not hate, just DISMISS this match. Yeah, this match doesn’t work in the context what IIII like in my pro wrestling and it also doesn’t work in the context of what iiiiiiit seems to be trying to do. Jesus Christ! The finish is PREPOSTEROUSLY dangerous. So you will always have that. Holy crap! Skip to the finish.
(Rippa Note – I had to grab the dailymotion version because the original Youtube version is gone. Stupid Youtube and their enforcing of rules. They are so square man…)
ENDNOTES
20. Nothing comes close. FUCK YOU, NOTHING COMES CLOSE!
21. I go to the cagematch.net database- the go-to website for researching things of which I am embarrassingly uninformed. Golly, Michael Nakazawa is 38 years old. He did a slight DDP by starting in the ring at 30. He knows the Judo.
22. I go to the cagematch.net database- the go-to website for researching things of which I am embarrassingly uninformed. Golly, Tomomitsu Matsunaga is 33 years old. He knows the Judo and was trained by motherfucking Dick motherfucking Togo.
DEMOLITION DAVIES vs. HARLY RAGE – SVENSK WRESTLING SYD (2/15/2014)
(DEAN)
Okay, It takes less than one minute for me to dig SWS from Sweden. The match consists of 400 pound Demolition Davies against Sweden’s 300 pound youngster, Harly Rage. Davies is assisted to the ring by Amber Rox- a German young lady who I feel would get kicked out of Germany’s version of Chik-Fil-A because she so NASTY!(23) So much sleaziness and awesomeness just to keep the youth of Sweden occupied long enough to keep them from worshiping Odin and burning down 500 year old churches. C’mon kids, get with the Pro Wrestling, it’s cooler than Satan and you can still listen to death metal. Rage is thick and looks powerful and cagematch.net sez that he has been wrestling one year- and it laso sez that his finisher is called the Rage Butt! I remember the Rage Butt… yes, the Rage Butt….. ah sweet college/free clinic memories … This match early on is completely based on fat, fatness and ways to use your fat to inflict pain. Davies uses his fat thusly: 1.) Standing on Rages back, 2.) uses the fattest part of his Clubbing Forearms, 3.) placing the fat that packs around his junkular region into the small (thus least protected by the precious precious fat) of the back of Rage. Of the three, the crushing, crashing Clubbing Forearms are the most beautiful- allowing us to revel in the clubbing, the meaty fatty splatty clubbing sound lilts through the Swedish air into the camera into the internet into your media viewing area and we are all united in Wrestling Love as we feel- in our SOULS- the crashing, smashing clubbing forearms unite us in our pure and proper love of real big fat guys beat the living dogshit out of each other. But back to the chinlock. The chinlock is used to set up Demolition Davies to shoot Harly into the corner to then allow Davies to do the tribute to one of the finest fat boys to ever wrestle- Rikishi, in that Davies runs into the corner ass first and forces all the remnants of the weiner schnitzel, Hardee’s mushroom and swiss 3/4 pounders, several dozen newly minted Krispy Kreme Donuts, copious amounts of Cracker Barrel biscuits and gravy- all that couldn’t be reached by man of normal arm length and gigantic girth, all the regions that are difficult to get the Water Pik up into. Afterwards, Harly makes a very unhappy face. As would you. As would I. It is wrestling at its most real. MAYBE TOO REAL! Harly retaliates! After an altercation with sweet young thing- Amber Rox, he hits some nice fatboy lariats into the corner. Davies cuts him off with a DDT and Motherfucking BACK RAKE~! So yeah, I really can’t give this match enough stars. And then the Clubbing Forearms return. Harly does the only thing that counter Clubbing Forearms, YES!, Harly hits the Standing Fatboy Dropkick! Davies flies to the floor and almost splatters on top of our Doro Pesch Of Wrestling, Amber Rox- and Harly makes with his own Clubbing Forearms. They lethargically brawl around the Malmo bingo hall and crawl back into the ring. Davies crushes him with his Standing Sideways Watanabe Screwdriver but Harly kicks out. They stand and bash each other about until Harly POPS THE CROWD! by body slamming the enormous Davis!- but Davies kicks out. Davies totally destroys Harly with much nastier SSWS but plays to the Malmo rubes too long and misses a second buckle moonsault- allowing Harly to hit a Fat On Fat Nodawa for two. Harly pushes his luck and tries to slam him again but Davies MORPHS his fat from other parts of his body to make himself an German, sinister, unbalanced load, crushing Harly completely with his altered morbid obesity. The crowd is crestfallen- BUT they really start becoming molten for the Swedish fatness when Harly somehow gets his shoulder up! Davies sez through his body language that he has had enough of this Swede’s bullshit and is going to Demolish him with his own finisher. Davies tries to get Harly to go up for the Nodowa but you must realize that- to master a wrestling hold, one must master all the counters to said wrestling hold- so wrestling psychology dictates that it is very difficult to actually procure the opponent’s finisher onto himself. Here is a perfect example: Davies tries to lift him but Harly rolls into a beautiful Sasaki Judo Throw, crumpling Davies to the mat like so much boiled cabbage- thus allowing Harly to get to the toprope and finish off the hundred pound heavier opponent with the toprope headbutt which I believe is called the RAGE BUTT~! It should now be called the RAGE BUTT OF VICTORY! As he has ridden the Rage Butt to the pay window! Oh fuck yes!
ENDNOTES
23. Young Amber was trained by the awesome Teutonic Dancing Machine- Alex Wright. So yeah, this match is ruling fifteen was to sunday even before anybody locks up.
EL HIJO DEL SANTO/ HORUZ/ HURACAN RAMIREZ vs. ANGEL BLANCO JR/ CIEN CARAS JR/ EL HIJO DEL SOLITARIO – TODO X EL TODO (9/29/2013)
(DEAN)
I’m not sure how this got past me. I thought I was following TheCubsFan’s lucha libre match postings pretty closely and I’m always trying to stay alert for El Hijo Del Santo matches so I don’t have any idea. So, better late than never. I think the story of the match is that Santo has taken a batch of masks from the other side and they want to kick his ass. It’s a common El Hijo Del Santo story- since he’s gonna be buried with mask but he WILL fearless bleed all the way through his mask so you can get your heat back with out taking his mask. I’m not sure how this Huracan Ramirez(24)is related to THE Huracan Ramirez or to Ciclon Ramirez. All I know is that the REAL connection I ever got to straight up old school Lucha Libre was watching Ciclon Ramirez matches on assorted comp tapes from the days when the internet was new and anything was possible. So hope can only spring eternal that this Ramirez at least has a deadly tope. Santo and Angel Blanco Jr hit the ring 10 minutes in and they do the Santo Headscissors Variations and your traditional Lucha Libre Heart sings. After the apex of the staked Spinning Headscissor thingy and possibly the preparation for Santo To Bleed begins. First loosening the mask by Angel and then El Hijo del Solitario posting him and then the whoopin up on Ramirez to distract from Santo blading. We have the rudos beating the lesser technico member to take the fall. We await the second caida to see if we actually have a bloodbath on our hands but we do not and I am not very happy with match. En lieu of hatred and blood, they opt to crush Santo’s testicles on the ringpost and also kind of randomly brawl around the periphery of ring with unimpressive displays of static streetfighting. the whole second caida is pretty listless and brings every thing to a screeching halt until the tchnicos get the upper hand and it morphs into a straight trios match again so the technicos can take the second fall. Okay, COME ON THIRD FALL. DON’T PISS ME OFF! The technicos try to unmask El Hijo del Solitario and they kick off the third fall: can this become not a pile of shit in the next 15 minutes, we’ll see. Huracan does some mid-grade highflying. He is waaay tinier than Ciclon Ramirez so this guys tope will not crush three rows of seats. Angel Blanco Jr and Horuz fiddle atround a little, with Horuz hitting a few spots a little cleaner than Ramirez. Caras Jr at least beats on Santo a little start the ball rolling of what should be rudos beating the shit out of Santo. Instead its Santo hitting assorted dropkicks. God, this is pretty fucking horrible. El hijo del Santo hits a nice tope. Forty one minutes for one Santo tope? So much for the passion and glory of Lucha Libre. This was very much a house show effort and about as heatless as a TNA midcard heel turn. This match pissed me off. Fuck this match. Sooooooo. Yeah. Avoid this one.
ENDNOTES
24. Luchawiki mentions a Huracan Jr but he lost his mask. Is it too much to dream that this is just another twist in the Axel El Nieto de El Santo saga?(25) Oh to dream a dream….
25. Your backstory:http://www.luchawiki.com/index.php?title=Axel
KILLER KARLSSON vs. DEMOLITION DAVIES – DANSK PRO WRESTLING (11/17/2014)
(DEAN)
Karlsson(26) trained yesterday’s Swedish hero, Harly Rage. Here, he wrestles the guy that Harly Rage wrestled yesterday. The thing here though is that Demolition Davies is- in this match- the exalted CHAMPION of DENMARK! I can only assume that while begirdling the belt that he is sullen and melancholy- as he imitates the traits we the Danes posses while he champions over us. Under his mask, his brow furrows as he stares into the abyss of existence- his soul as cold and lifeless as a Scandinavian winter. Will the Swedish MENTOR to the hotbed that is Swedish pro wrestling have the grim determination of the Swedes to bring the belt out of Denmark and off the uncircumnavigatable waist of this Gothic interloper? Kaarlsssonis a much lankier Swede than his ERRAND BOY- SENT BY SWS- TO COLLECT A BILL- Harly Rage! He is 6’3″ and 202 pounds.(27) Meanwhile, across the ring, Davies is fifteen tons of buttery devastation. What strategy can Karlsson use? Was he fool to drive to Denmark? Or was it one of those EuroRail thingys I read about? Since Denmark is all about existential dread and stoic helplessness, the rotund German is the face and the fellow Scandinavian is the heel. So I guess this is like going for Ivan Koloff when he wrestled Cowboy Bill Watts. So shameful. So Scandinavian. So Scandishameful. The hated Swede tries to work the arm early but Davies uses so much of his life-sustaining fat to fling our heelish Swede straight overhead to the mat. The crowd assumes that it is already over but Karlsson gets a shoulder, all just to get in position for Davies to use an impossible amount of fat to crush him in a Samoan Drop. Karlsson, not wanting to become a Living Squeezed Tube of Toothpaste, battles out and crawls down Davies’ back and shoots for the Sunset Flip, but there’s too much Germanic Crisco in the can and Karlsson, luckily for him- avoids the Industrial Refridgeration Unit-level ass-drop that Demoltion Davies tries to bring to Karlsson’s face. The story of the match is that Demolition Davies is much much much fatter than Killer Karlsson. Which is actually A SHOOT when you think about it. Davies goes into that mode- like when he wrestled that 18 year from Denmark that we watched a few days ago. Davies kind of wallows around a bit disoriented and Karlsson tries all these wrestling holds that helplessly bounce off the Berlin Butterball! Davies then crushes him with a corner clothesline- assuming the roll of a Teutonic Commando Boone, and then he assumes the roll of a Teutonic Rikishi by crushing Karlsson’s face with Bison-like ass. Karllssson survives and actually gets in a flurry of comical offense- hitting a really nice elbow drop in there somewhere. And I mean comical not because it is performed well, but is performed on someone who towers over him in Fatness. I mean, I like this Killer Karlsson guy. He stays on offense a while. THEN. Davies counters with beautiful clubbing forearms. How would I describe a Clubbing Forearm? The wondrous sound of a 5 pound tube of hamburger being slapped against a cement floor; perhaps the melody of a pillowcase of tapioca pudding being flung against the wall. Ah but a pale comparison of the true beauty of you- you sweet Clubbing Forearm. Killer Karlssson chops and punches with all his strenghth but he does not have the FAT to control a man of so much FAT. Davies crushes the Swede’s heart with a punch and the Swede collapses like the US dollar. Davies misses a Bossman Splash and it is all Karllllsssson can hope for- Fat working against Fat. He tries a toprope splash but there is enough Swedish ass in his trunks to topple the Behemoth of a Thousand Spare Ribs. Davies jumps up and lands with his several metric tonnes CHANNELLED into his ass and drives his wide-loaded keister directly through the chest of the Swede. And Killer Karlsson- in respects to this match- is no more. 493 Stars for 632 pounds of totally bodacious awesome.
ENDNOTES
26. Or Karlson, if you want to believe Cagematch.net.
27. http://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=11511&name=Killer+Karlson
RAMPAGE BROWN vs. MARK HASKINS – WRESTLEBRATION 4 (7/2012)
(DEAN)
It’s our man, Rampage Brown from 2012. He is from Leeds and Mark Haskins is from Oxford- so I’m guessing that they naturally hate each other- as one is lead to believe because on the TV all British folk hate all other British folk from different counties or boroughs or whatever they’re called. Or so it seems from my experience of watching the Benny Hill Show. I also assume that in Britain, buxom young ladies find all kinds of ways for their clothes to be ripped off and all old bald guys are always being smacked very quickly on top and back of the head.(28) I don’t recall seeing Haskins wrestle before (which doesn’t mean that I haven’t seen him. I am a million and I don’t sleep much with all the night peeing. Hey! He was on the TNA?) He slaps hand with all the kids- because what I’ve learned RECENTLY about Britain is that every child in Britain goes to every wrestling match every where. So this means that British parents drop their kids off at wrestling matches like American parents dropped used to drop their kids off for Saturday matinees. OR Great Britain is now morphing into Louisiana in 1986 for some reason. Hopefully that means that Britian will develop an Anglo version of the Dirty Dozens Brass Band. All we really need to know is that Haskins is really good at being a good-lookin’ blond baby face- BUT THEN tries to crush the children he professes to love by crushing Rampage with million dollar fully out of control Tope Suicida to the rails and it is awesome. Rampage is delightful because he will bump all over the ring for you and lean into your European uppercuts and make them look great- and then he will go on offence and just beat living dogfuck out of you. Aaaaaaaaaand Rampage is done bumpin’ and sellin’ for the moment. Arg, the flapjack, the drape across the toprope, THE ELBOW DROP, THE HEAD BUTT- so simple, so great looking. Rampage will truly beat some heat onto a babyface and here he is just beating a forest fire on this fair-haired flower child. JESUS. Rampage fucking CRUSHES Haskins with psychotis forearms. FUCK ME RUNNIN’. Man, I think it is apt to compare Brown to Fit Finlay. It’s not that Finlay is the stiffest working guy on earth, it’s just that everything he does looks GREAT. And I would say the same with Rampage. I dig this Haskins guy- his stuff looks really good too. I am giving him the short shrift because Rampage is pretty much everything I want in wrestling. But Haskins is fucking tough as nails for taking this ass-beating and I do appreciate that. It takes a while for Haskins offense to attempt to reach the intensity of Brown’s , but he does take a swing for it and it approximates the intensity so that you buy his comeback. Jesus, Rampage counters the fourth superkick of the match with a freaking OVERHAND FALCON ARROW- the finest of the 5 I have seen in the last 8 days. Haskins gives his all but this is continuously on the brink of a true Lorenzoing of Haskins- and it’s really grreat as they head for the finish, as Haskins tries to beat his way out of the Lorenzo Zone and try to move more into the Finlay In The WCW US Title Division Zone. He lands squarely in the middle- as Rampage cuts off his flurry by suplexing him over the toprope to the floor. And its a time limit draw. That was fucking great. Postmatch, they almost ruin it with a threat of an indie postmatch hug.
ENDNOTES
28. Ha! Stupid Brits! Be carefeul what send to America for syndication on late night TV in the 1980s!
VORDELL WALKER vs. KYLE MATTHEWS – PRO WRESTLING EGO (11/24/12 – Great Southern 8 Tournament Finals)
(by RIPPA)
This is the finals of what appears to now be a yearly indy tournament (think Super 8 but with each guy representing a different southern state). Thankfully the series of tubes that is the internet allowed me figure out who the hell was in this thing. This is especially important since many of you require context before you can watch your wrestling.
So…
Matthews (representing Georgia) beat Corey Hollis (Alabama)
Chrisjen Hayme (representing Tennessee and having the most infuriating to spell name this side of XXXX) beat Lukas Frost (Mississippi)
Blain Rage (Florida) beat Purple Haze (Louisiana) in a match where the random name generator was used
And Bolt Brady (Texas) lost to Walker… who was also representing Georgia. Umm… okay.
Obviously Walker went over Rage and Matthews beat Hollis to reach the Finals. The key part here is that they did the whole FACE IS INJURED GOING INTO THE FINALS~! Bit as Hollis attacked Matthews after the match and “injured” his leg. I use the quotes because Matthews selling of said leg injury for the finals is to rub his thigh a few times walking to the ring. Though if I am to be fair – the story of the match is the dastardly Vordell Walker (I know this because the kids in the crowd love to boo him and this crowd is about two dozen people with a 75/25 ratio of kid to parent) jumps Matthews before the match and works over the leg. And that goes on basically for the entire 10 minute match. It works perfectly in regards to the psychology aspect of the match since tourney finals are inherently short (due guys working three times) AND doing an injured worker angle. Of course – that might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Anyway – there is the occasional Matthews hope spot but then it is Vordell being Vordell (which is awesome). Of course he might not want to super kick with his wounded leg – which he does twice including for the finish but he at least sells it. His trophy remains intact which might be the biggest upset of the night.
SERENA DEEB vs. TOMOKO NAKAGAWA- SMASH (7/15/2011)
(DEAN)
Man, Smash should not have sauntered off this mortal coil so quickly. It was such the new WRESTLE AND ROMANCE. Except WAR didn’t have a ladies division. Here, Serena was going through the awkward phase of growing her hair out- though she does get Legit Heel heat for looking like that bitch at HR who won’t approve your expense report. Tomoko Nakagawa I vaguely recall.(29) This is a wee match of 6ish minutes so we are looking at one of your higher grade TNA Knockout TV matches. Something with a fired up Gail Kim would be comparable to this. Kim and Deeb are both kinda buttless so it works on a couple of levels. (HA! Zero to creepy in only three sentences!) They work out of the headlock and it leads to Nakagawa armdrags and dropkicks- as nobody in Joshi seems to want to whip anybody’s ass anymore. Deeb isn’t based in the current Joshi so she does want to whip someone’s ass and that makes all the difference in the world as she drops Nakagawa into a full Rib-breaker. They do some nearfalls until Serena kicks Tomoko dead in the stomach and hits a spear for the win- as I guess we move on to SMASH’s version of a 15 minute Dixie Carter promo.
ENDNOTES
29. Cagematch.net sez she is 32, 5’1″ and weighs- could it be? Omigod, it is!- 125 pounds. She has been wrestling 9 years and do believe I have completely missed her career. Then pile of Joshi careers I glossed over from 2000 to 2014 would be very large pile indeed.
JUSTINE SILVER vs. BARBI HAYDEN- UPROAR PRO WRESTLING (1/11/2014)
(DEAN)
I have no idea how this match got into my Watch Later bin, but I am excited because I was looking for the date of this match on cagematch.de and pulled up the Barbi Hayden profile. And. She. Was. Trained. By. Motherfucking MISTER MEXICO~!(30) She is also from Texas- so I await a lariat the size of the Lone Star State. Justine Silver is not in Cagematch.de so I dub her “mysterious.” She wrestles some places as Mercedes Justine Silver to add to her mystery. They are somewhere in Florida- above Tampa on the Gulf Coast, more Redneck Florida than every other type of Florida. Being women wrestlers in America in the modern era, I assume this will stiffer than your usual indie fare. They fiddle around early and Barbi tries to establish her evilness and she does with knees to the stomach and a nice Northern Lights Suplex out of Greco-roman knucklelock- which Silver doesn’t release and she works it into a monkey flip! Oh fun! Silver is tiny- 95 pounds prolly, so her dropkicks lack ass, but is does make her more sympathetic when the FINALLY evil Barbi starts beating on her and yelling at the rubes. Barbi doesn’t really lay anything in, so you aren’t going to lose your mind (past her tiny tiny pants,) but she does actually throw a perfectly fine lariat. And her forearms across the girlchests of Silver look pretty good. She does this corner headscissors spot that rockets her to the top because you KNOW Mr Mexico said, “I used this move in the mascara contra mascara match with Mr Niebla. I want you to use it.” Silver makes her babyface comeback and it looks good in places, it looks really bad in places. This was almost thrown in the mid-level WOW match bin- but it is elevated a bit because Barbi Hayden’s finisher is fucking NASTY. Go watch it. So yeah, this was a slight match overall, but it was enough so that I will keep an eye out for Barbi.
ENDNOTES
30. And Funaki, which is also pretty fucking awesome. She is also 23 years old, 5’4″ and weighs 6 pounds less than every Japanese woman wrestler active today. There is no mention of Judo.
RAMPAGE BROWN vs. NATHAN CRUZ – PROGRESS STRONG-STYLE PRO WRESTLING (1/27/2013)
(DEAN)
Cruz I don’t believe I’ve seen.(31) Whoever he is, he has foresaken Kingston-Upon-Hull and now hails from Hollywood, California! U-S-A! U-S-A! Being that I am a God-fearing American man, I must go for my sangre, young Nathan Cruz. He needs a two by four and a flag. And expensive sunglasses because he is from the Hollywood section of America. So: 2×4, American Flag, Sunglasses, chewing tobacco, cowboy hat, bullrope. California is the most West you can get, so go all Cowboy, young Nathan. Come out to the best music produced in America- which was made in California: “Excuse Me I Think I’ve Got A Heartache” by Buck Owens or “Tonight The Bottle Let Me Down” by Merle Haggard. When I think California, I think redneck. Give em hell, Nate! So, it is established that the crowd doesn’t go for the Hollywood types, and thus Rampage Brown- the baddest motherfucker in Great Britain- is your face. Luckily for us, Rampage doesn’t change his wrestling style much when his hugging old ladies at ringside, he just doesn’t scream at the children as much. God, everything Rampage does looks like it would suck, as locking up becomes a hassle for our Yankee Doodle Boy. Rampage does a front facelock like Johnny Valentine used to do a front facelock. Cruz is pretty good at rousing the ire of the crowd as he plays the ninny that has to take short cuts to get the better of the waaaaaaaay stiffer working opponent. Cruz USE THE COMMON SENSE America gave you! Don’t trade chops with Rampage Brown. But he does and its fucking great. Brown finishes the Stomping the Fuck Out Of Nathan Cruz section by hitting the fucking beautiful SUWA double dropkick throwing your opponent across the ring into the turnbuckles. Ah man. Then he kicks fuckin kicks his Cruz’s back through his chest. After suplexing Cruz to the floor- a spot Brown does every match because it just makes sense- Cruz and Brown really beat the hell out of each other. Cruz’s stuff looks really good too. He has neat punches- kinda Windham-like. They kinda muddle around in the mid portion of the match, as they hit stuff here and there but there is no momentum until Cruz hits a nice Brainbuster and the crowd comes alive. Cruz continues to beat some heat unto Brown with stomps and some dickish dropkicks and punches to the face. Yeah, Cruz is definately a new member of the DVDVR Good Worked Punches Team. Brown goes on offense with a Flapjack! but sells the damage until they start trading gigantic forearms to the head. This match is really fucking great now in this section. GODDAM, this match goes from Stiff to BattlARTS Stiff in one second. They smash each other’s heads with headbutts and they hit some pro style stuff to get us towards the finish which they don’t hit very smoothly- so Brown rights the ship by fucking KILLING Cruz with a powerbomb! Cruz escapes a… type of… crossface and gets a nearfall with FALCON ARROW #9 of the New Era. Brown hits his overhand FALCON ARROW #10 and refuses the three count to take Cruz up top. Cruz fights out, misses a splash and escapes another (indecipherable) crossface. Cruz then goes all Memphis with the roll-up, grabbing the trunks and the ropes! For the win! U-S-A! U-S-A! Overall, waaay too sloppy in places. That knocks the shine off the truly fucking harrowing parts of this match. A mixed bag by Rampage’s standards but way better than most everything else.
ENDNOTES
31. Oh man, Cagematch sez Cruz is 23. It also says he debuted in 2006. 15? Is he the new Harley Race or the new Terry Gordy? He is also 5’11” and 185 pounds.
KOHEI SATO/ SHUJI ISHIKAWA vs. RYUICHI KAWAKAMI/ MANABU SOYA – BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING (5/5/2014)
(DEAN)
Oh man, my favorite tagteam rams right up against Big Japan’s promising Strong-Style Youth! Manabu taunts Shuji Ishikawa early- as Manabu has a very thick neck and assumes Shuji will not knock his skull clean off his neck. They do New Japan Heavyweight approximations- assorted tests of strength, shoulder blocks of weiner-size-testing, Arm-wringers of the testosteronely heirarchied- the usual manly stuff. Manabu feels as if he has won, so he tags in Kawakami(32) who wisely chinlocks Ishikawa to control the knees that would usually fly into your ribs really hard. They go back to the New Japan template with the Battle For A Body Slam that Ishikawa wins, allowing into the ring Kohei Sato- who has gone from guy of whom I deeply did not give a shit, to a guy whose matches I will watch immediately. That is probably my problem not his. Perhaps I should search his other recent matches to see his matches before this glorious tagteam culminated, and perhaps I will have a deeper love for Sato. Though, to be fair to myself, he is ZERO-ONE and ZERO-ONE isn’t the easiest stuff to find on the internet. So yeah, it’s his fault. Go to hell, nontagteam with Shuji Ishikawa Kohei Sato! Straight to hell! Kawakami is an aberration of the Big Japan Strong Style guys- in that he tends to actually SELL stuff. Its quite the spectacle considering the venue. Ishikawa and Sato appreciate the effort to get their offense over- and they show this appreciation by not stomping directly on his back after he fights out of a crossfacing submission by Ishikawa. Sato does knee him straight into the stomach though and thus the ass-stomping has begun. Sato and Ishikawa tag in and out, body slamming Kawakami to weaken him and allow Sato to rip his cranium off with forearms to the teeth. Kawakami makes the LOOK of- yes!- FIGHTING SPIRIT! and backdrops his way to tag in Manabooo Soya, who hits some lariats and gets a nearfall and gets all peppy and shit- though I don’t know. It seems like I should like Manabu Soya more than I do. Actually, of the Big japan guys I dig, he is behind Yuki Okabayashi, Kawamaki, Shinya ishikawa, Sekimoto, and where ever they put Yoshihito Sasaki. Soya fits in the style but he never actually excites me with anything he does. This is pro wrestling, not a timeshare seminar! EXCITE ME! Anyway, on cue, Manabu then hits the FUCKING AWESOME EVEREST(33) BRAINBUSTER and the fun of this match is kicking in. Sato cuts off the babyface comeback of Soya by using his knee to fly into the ribs of Soya, thus setting up Sato’s FALCON ARROW #11 of the New Era. Sato tags in Ishikawa who stomps on Soya from the second rope a few times and than hits a fucking Lou thesz press to cut off Soya again. I await the Ishikawa kneelift- as he seems to have been watching Mr Wrestling 2 tapes again. Kawakami is in and hits a really sweet Tazplex on the (sorta) towering Ishikawa. Sato makes the save by using his foot to make Kawakami’s kidneys no longer functional. Ishikawa then just fucking SLAUGHTERIZES Kawakami’s face with the stiffest forearms that YOU WILL SEE IN PRO WRESTLING. GOTTDAM. Kawakami fires back and Ishikawa sells it, but Ishikawa’s forearms just look a thousand times better. After an assisted German, Kawakami DOES then hit a running forearm that looks as molar-destroying as Ishikawa’s- and it is awesome. Ishikawa escapes a German and hits a 1975 VERTICAL SUPLEX. Ishikawa doing 1970s pro style moves mixed in with ageless legit horrifying punches to your face makes Shuji Ishikawa better than anybody YOU like. Sato and Ishikawa double team by deflating all of Kawakami’s internal organs with a duel knee to the stomach. Ishikawa and Kawakami begin the end by just standing in the middle of the ring and fucking kill each other with forearms to the face. After SHINING WIZARD #4 of the New Era, Ishikawa goes all 80s with the Lyger Bomb for the pin. I’m loving every match Ishikawa and Sato are in. The cool thing is that they didn’t just beat the fuck out of Soya and Kawakami. It was a totally different match than their match against Double Hash which was totally different than the killing of Ito and that scrawny guy. I am delighted.
ENDNOTES
32. Whose hair gets more and more hilarious. It is currently at Brian Bosworth Had A Lover In Japan In The 80s And Here You Go level of hilarious.
33. Please note I will call everything that starts at deadweight as “Everest”. Dowatchalike, but that’s how I’m rolling.
DAVE MASTIFF vs. EL LIGERO – ALTERNATIVE WRESTLING WORLD (9/23/2012)
(DEAN)
This begins with a four 120 pound guys in a tag match doing your basic little guy indie match- a lot of friuty embellishments, several dozen dropkicks to guys sitting up, what have you. Dave Mastiff comes to ring and goes all Sycho Sid and powerbombs all the cruiserweights- infuriating all the children at ringside. Mastiff gets on the STICK~! but I speak American so I have no idea what he is yelling about. The difference between WCW powerbombing all the cruiserweights and Mastiff powerbombing the cruiserweightsis that someone who is a cruiserweight actually shows up to defend the honor of the wee fellows! His name is El Ligero(34) and I assume his ass-beating will be horrific. Their match starts off like you assume it would, with Ligero using his speed and athleeticism to counter the thundering girthiness of Mastiff. Mastiff sells the comically tiny leg lariat by Ligero, which is commendable and unfortunate at the same time, – c’mon make him earn it to make it look good. Luckily, Dave Mastiff is a fucking behemoth and decides to at least make his stuff look good by hitting these really nasty elbows to the back and face and back and THEN- The Clubbing Forearm. I will be silent at the cosmic beauty. Mastiff screams at the children in English so I have no idea how inappropriate it was and then DROPS THE ELBOW for your pleasure. And you party and freak out. Ligero kicks Mastiff in the head a few times but Mastiff cuts his babyface comeback off with a giant shoulderblock. Mastiff hits the Davey Boy Smith Endless Body Slam but ends with a headbutt instead of a body slam- which makes more sense when you think about it. Ligero hits a bunch of spinny flying spin kick things that Mastiff sells, but one is really waiting for the Giant Man Devastation to begin. Luckily, the beatings will begin now. Mastiff pummels him on the outside and throws him inside and hits the total fatboy POWER DRIVER! Ligero does these little comebacks and Mastiff sells them and and then crushes Ligero with assorted Clubbing Forearms or just dickish straight forearms. It seems a little like Ligero wants to work a juniors match- or that’s the only match he feels comfortable with- or maybe Mastiff realizes that the kids want your basic wrestling match where the babyface coming back will draw them in. Either way, this is not your usual Big man/small man match. The kids buy Ligero’s ROH offense so it was smart for Mastiff to sell it so big- even though it looks kind of preposterous to me. They then work to this very elaborate toprope section where Ligero uses jumpiness to get Mastiff to bump big to the mat for the nearfall. Mastiff then opts to go ahead and crush Ligero in the most hilarious way possible: Ligero hits a running senton into the corner, jumps up and yells, “Arriba!” Mastiff gets up, German Suplexes him into the corner and hits his Flying Refridgerator running senton onto Ligero, just fucking motherfucking fucking CRUSHING him. For the pin. Surprising match. Mastiff did good job leaning into and selling Ligero’s… questionable offense… and they did keep the kids into it until the gigantic finish. Maaaan, that finish HAD to suck for Ligero.
ENDNOTES
34. According to the Cagematch.de database, El Ligero is 29 years old, 5’7″, and weighs 161 pounds.(39) He has been wrestling for 13 years.
39. 11.5 Stone.
DRAKE YOUNGER vs. AXEL TISCHER vs. BIG DADDY WALTER vs. CHRIS RUSH – WESTSIDE EXTREME WRESTLING (4/5/2014)
(DEAN)
Being an internet big shot, I was on Alan’s podcast and he mentioned this match as being really good. (Actually, this may be a different match. I’m sure this is a different match) I, being too old for stupid stipulations, usually avoid idiot 4-ways and 5-ways and 3-ways and intergender tag matches and the ilk. But, I will forsake my personal feeling for YOU, the tender reader. I watched the Big Daddy Walter/ Axel Tischer(35) match from this same card and it is pretty fucking great- mostly because Big Daddy Walter is so fucking great. I had forgotten about Drake Younger- as I haven’t watched Combat Zone wrestling since Wifebeater crippled Ryuchi Yamakawa way back in the day. Chris Rush I’m pretty sure I haven’t seen before. I assume the other three are there to punched in the face really hard by Walter. This is for the SHOTGUN belt- their version of the TV title (or TV Medallion if you want to go 80s Mid-South). This starts well with Walter punching a guy in the face really hard. Then they stand around because four-ways are stupid. Walter avalanches a guy in the corner and it breaks out into a singles match between Walter and Chris Rush, which is good because Walter goes completely Dusty Rhodes and Flip Flop and Flies on Rush and Tischer. He then sells a rana and hits a Big Boot on Younger. The upside of this match is that it is basically a chance for Walter to showcase his burly bruising offence in-between all the ROH goofball highflying. They switch the singles match sections- but Walter is even more fun at ringside stomping on Tischer while Younger and Rush do perfectly fine wrestling- including Chris Rush hitting FALCON ARROW #12 of the New Era. Walter’s offense soooo smokes everybody else in this match- and the fact that he hits his Fat Ass SUWA Million Mile Dropkick Sending You Into The Corner as his first move back in the ring confirms this. So fucking HARSH. Hey! Drake Younger hits the second Lygerbomb I’ve seen today. They do this thing were every body hits a finisher and then one leaves the ring so they can alternate- all without anything really building to anything (though Walter, Rampage Brown, Fit Finlay and Kohei Sato in this same match structure might be the greatest stupid gimmick match ever.) And ANOTHER LYGER BOMB! The third of the New Era! Oh, that’s the finish. Well, that was quite the Caffeine-Free Diet Coke of wrestling matches. Later Axel Tischer beats up Svetlana Kalinakov’s new boyfriend. OR DOES HE?
ENDNOTES
35. According to the Cagematch.de database, Axel Tischer is 27 years old, 6’2″ and 231 pounds. Chris Rush is also 27, 5’11”, 209 pounds. He has a soccer background just like Big Daddy Walter.
SERENA DEEB vs. SYURI – WRESTLING NEW CLASSIC (8/10/2013)
(DEAN)
WNC is Tajiri’s post-SMASH promotion. It has AKIRA so I will be scouring the internet for matches. Syuri(36) I am unfamiliar with (prolly)- but I will state as a fact that she is a comely lass and we will start there. Serena Deeb has grown her hair completely out, so now she looks like the HR person you hated, but after she was laid off and was taking some time to go back to school.(37) They lock-up and we will leave the idiot speculation and unmanly peripheral observance at the doorstep. They start with the working of the arm and then move into the Scientific Wrestling of key-locks and stepping on the bend of the knee and other stuff that looks all neat and anachronistic these days. Syuri procures the headlock and they work it like Greg Valentine in a studio match. Serena escapes the headlock and hits a fucking BEAUTIFUL Lariat. Syuri hits some tiny girl kicks and starts stomping on Serena and choking her and cheating and being a JERK! At 8 minutes, Serena starts throwing Lawler-level punches and YOU REMEMBER WHY SERENA DEEB IS FUCKING AWESOME. I mentioned the kneelift speculation in the review of the Ishikawa/Sato vs Kawakami/Soya match- Serena, being awesome, makes with the Knee Lift #1 of the New Era. Inside, your soul shrieks with delight! Serena begins pummelling the tiny Japanaese woman and talking shit to her and starts stomping on Syuri and choking her and cheating and being a JERK! Oddly, Syuri does a bunch of mid-grade Lucha Libre high-flying and it moves us to the beginning of the finsh by the two of them pulverizing each other with elbows to the face. Deeb goes to Lariat but Syuri procures the Octapus Hold and grunts like a Russian tennis player(38). Serena powers her way out and fucking breaks Syuri in half with a Rib Breaker. Syuri hits SHINING WIZARD #5 of the New Era to set up a nice German by Syuri, but she is then fucking CRUSHED by Serena lariat. Serena Deeb then does a Double Knee Rib Breaker and MY GOD does it look NASTY. Serena telegraphs the Spear and Syuri counters with a Super Kick and do some roll-ups to set up Deeb’s SECOND Double Knee Rib Breaker and Serena hits the Spear and it’s all over folks. Serena Deeb is awesome- mostly because she limits what she does to only the things that look really good. Its all you need to do. Its fucking genius.
ENDNOTES
36. Syuri is 25 years old, 5’5″, and is one hundred twenty-EIGHT pounds- thus making her a Joshi super heavyweight. She has a background in the Karate. And tennis. If she grunts during suplexes, I would assume there are 600 fetish sites cross-referencing her matches as we speak.
37. I think you join me in hoping that she grows it really really long and starts working a Lita Ford gimmick. Or maybe just going full redneck woman and starts wearing feathers in her hair and chugging fifths of Canadian Mist before every match. Her finisher could the FuckYewMotherfucker Driver ’14.
38. Okay, so the hypothesis of a multimedia Japanese fetish site revolving around Syuri applying submission holds has GOT to be a reality. Feel free to run that shameful Google search.
JESSY JADE vs. MELANIE GRAY- NEW EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING (2/1/2014)
(DEAN)
This is from the German fed run by Alex Wright, so, of course, I am totally fascinated. I have yet to see Jessy Jade(40) or Melanie Gray(41)- but I JUST READ IN CAGEMATCH.DE that Jessy Jade was trained by Alex Wright, which makes sense- but Melanie Gray was trained by ULF HERMANN~! Enjoy my unsettling excitement of the clash betwixt a disciple of Alex Wright and a disciple of Ulf Herman! So let’s go ahead and hook-em up; what could they screw up in 7 minutes? Eh, Gray doesn’t look 172 pounds- more like 145 tops. She does tower over the 18 year old Jade, though. They do your basic rookie match but with freakier armdrags, everything is a little slow and awkward. Jade does lean into Gray’s power-y offense and makes it look pretty good- especially taking an elbow right to the chin in the corner and then leaning into two corner lariats, which all leads to a perfectly fine snap suplex. Jade’s strikes are pretty crappy but she’s young and one can only hope that someone wises her up on that aspect o’ wrestling. Gray is suplex crazy- hitting the Northern Lights for two. YOY! HOLY CRAP! Jade needs to work her power slams and make them less possibly paralyzy! Gray shakes it off (somehow, man, that looked nasty) and takes a dropkick in the corner and a toprope Cross Body for 2. The crowd gets behind the youngster as she hits two perfectly not horrible chops to the LadyPecs and they have a less than smooth batch of counters to lead into Jade procuring the Samoan Drop for the win. This was what you would expect from a rookie and gal who mostly valets. Key to the future: Jade. Avoid the Powerslam.
ENDNOTES
40. Per the essential Cagematch.de, Jessy Jade is 18 years old, 5’5″, and 132 pounds. She uses JUDO!
41. Per the essential Cagematch.de, Gray is 26 years, 5’9″, and 172 pounds. Oh CRAP, GO BACK UP THERE!
L.A. PARK/ VOLADOR JR vs. LA SOMBRA/ ULTIMO GUERRERO- NUEVO LAREDO TAMAULIPAS (2/24/2014)
(DEAN)
To get back into Lucha Libre after a few weeks, one could go for the sure-fire wrestlers who deliver most as to what you like most in wrestling. My first go-to is El Hijo del Santo but last weeks disappointment drove me farther into Lucha Libre depression. This week, I try the LA PARK. This is a handheld and it has PARK and La Sombra brawling like motherfuckers into the crowd. La Sombra does a Chicken Fight Everest German Suplex. Okay, I have seen 800,000 La Sombra matches. Why is it until this match that he does anything I give a shit about. They beat LA PARK with a belt and I’m confused about who is the technicos. Ah, Volador makes the babyface comeback after LA PARK shows how nimble he still is, despite his weight and age- making with the dropkick- combo. LA PARK than gets the belt and smacks UG on his nekkid back skin and you hear it all the way to the back of the building. Jesus, that had to fucking SUCK. The crowd goes insane as you and I go insane watching and listening on Youtube. Then they pull up La Sombra’s shirt and do the same thing. Then LA PARK lets the crowd decide what to do to the ref- and they opt for a chair. This leads to UG and Sombra to try to get back on offense, but Volador Jr and LA PARK use intricate tag team wrestling to set up a fucking beautiful crowd-crushing tope con hilo by Volador and weird ass yet inexplicable atheltic Canadian Destroyer Counter by LA PARK on UG to take the second fall. It kinda jumps around a bit- getting a sweet PARK powerslam but then switches to the postmatch- not that it matters. LA PARK and La Sombre and Ultimo Guerrero and Volador Jr were enough to make wish I took my kids to see this. So let’s watch some more Lucha Libre.
STIGMA vs. CAMORRA – CMLL PUEBLA (12/30/2014 – Mask vs. Mask)
(DEAN)
Okay, few wrestling matches featuring guys I usually don’t give a hoot about can make me say, “Yes. This is going to fucking rule.” after 35 seconds into it. This is one. Sorry TWENTY-TWO seconds in and Camorra throws Stigma into the third row, crashing down on his buttocks and nearly wrecking a couples plans for the evening. Camorra gets the submission at 1:12 with a hold where he steps in and puts his knee to the area where Stigma’s foot joins his leg after figure-fouring it, punches him in the stomach to get the back of his elbow against Stigma’s head and to use his other leg to block Stigma’s right arm, all the while trying to hyperextend Stigma’s other arm behind his back by pulling with both hands. Maybe you should watch it. But yeah, somthing like that. As for my complete lack of backstory as to why this got to this point, I have to go with: Camorra has the better mask, what with the pointy chin. There should be a rule: If you have a really cool mask, you have to keep it until your son, daughter, nephew or niece can wear it. I’m pretty sure this is the first singles match I’ve seen of Camorra. When left to his own devices, he is evil- like a rudo should be. The Tree Of Woe Dropkick to the Dick is a fun move. They fiddle around a while and Stigma misses a rana- so Camorra goes for the submission where he figure-fours the leg while stepping into the part where- whoops! Stigma counters it into a Small Package, taking to take the second fall with 12 minutes to go. I am now expecting blood. C’mon, it’s mascara contra mascara! BLOOD! Stigma does a nifty 360″ Arm Drag into a pretty spectacular Tope Con Hilo that crushes Camorra like a bug. Back in the ring, Stigma goes crazy and starts yanking on the mask- which should be a sign that he is making room for the BLADE to come into play, or I ma not going to like this match.. Camorra counters by kicking him in the face and spearing our technico. They do some perfectly fine nearfalls yet I am unimpressed because of the lack of blood, and I am not going to like a mascara contra mascara match that does not feel it is important enough to warrant blood.. Camorra hits a fucking beautiful tope suicida and I am back to digging this match. They smack each other a bunch and run the ropes and Camorra just smothers Stigma with an Abdominal Stretch- as I am digging the little things Camorra does. Stigma counters out to procure his own Abdominal Octapus Hold, rolls him up and we get a nearfall which they parlay into a really nice roll-up sequence. This is really good- though I will not like if it does not have blood. Camorra bumps big off the toprope to the floor to set up Stigma’s spinning tope con hilo and they go back to nearfalls- which is all fine but I will not like this if there is no blood. Well, Stigma makes with the LygerBomb(42) and we have a perfectly good singles but a ruined mask versus mask match- all because it is an inconsequential version of a traditional grudge match that calls for blood. Mask versus mask without blood is the same as a Southern cage match without blood: you could do it, but I will not give a shit about your match if you do, you pussy. The upside is that Camorra looks to be starting a Zumbido mullet and I will back his play 100%. But yeah, no blood, no peace. Fuck this match.
ENDNOTES
42. #4 of the New Era!
DR CEREBRO/ GOLDEN MAGIC/ MASCARA PURPURA vs. DANNY CASAS/ OFICIAL 911/ SUPER NOVA – IWRG (1/5/2014)
(DEAN)
I haven’t seen Mascara Purpura since that MTV Lucha show from a ways back. His outfit is still very disturbing becauseit highlights the fact that he is the pastiest luchadore in all Mexico. This match is a hoot. They start beating the fudge out of each other at the start and it stays pretty brawly the whole time. Oficial 911 pummelling Golden Magic after crushing him against the ringpost one second into the match excites me as a wrestling fan. Golden Magic’s mask is already into blading shape one minute in. God, Super Nova beats on Purpura like purple boy owes him money after fucking his girlfriend- and this match is deeply violent and deeply my kind of wrestling. Oficial 911 is whipping Golden Magic’s ass like a little bitch and we haven’t even gotten to how much Dr Cerebro and Danny Casas hate each other’s guts. Super Nova uses a crutch NOT AS AN INSTRUMENT OF MERCY AND ASSISTANCE but as something to drive into the throat of Purpura: it is the rudos using good things for evil that makes them rudos. Oficial 911 gnaws on Golden Magic’s forehaead and Cerebro can’t use his giant brain to make the save because Danny Casas is kicking the hell out of him. It’s story-telling folks- and the story being toldis about guys kicking other guys the face and then beating them with chairs. And Oficial 911 DRINKS OF THE BLOOD OF GOLDEN MAGIC- because EVIL! And then he kicks him in the face again and then starts strangling him the camera cords. Suddenly, OUT OF NOWHERE! they opt to have a trios match, as Purpura and Cerebro goes wild with the technico flips and roll-ups, leading up to the lunatic backwards plancha off the ringpost by Golden Magic- smashing Oficial 911 and allowing the technicos to get the second fall- and to also start beating the living dogshit out of the rudos that had just spent ten minutes beating the living breathing dogshit out them. The pinnacle of the technico ass-stomping offensive is Dr Cerebro- as he opts to Follow The Path Of Murdoch And Lawler and just starts punching Danny Casa right in the face several times- all adding to my total delight with this match. But yeah, chairs are flying everywhere as the Righteous wrath on the Evil is just as fun as rudo kicking the technicos’ collective ass. This gets even wilder as they brawl all over the place. The story-telling: Oficial 911 grabs a spectator and hides behind him to keep Golden Magic from throwing more chairs at him. Then Mascara Purpura and Super Nova have the craziest and fastest Lucha Libre rope-running section and YOU are amazed how fucking awesome this match is. Jesus, what else could I possibly want? Oh yeah, Dr Cerebro takes it to the mat and then brawls to the floor to allow everybody to get crushed by a Purpura Tope. Vindication in that the man who bled is the man who gets the winning pinfall. Man, that is some fabulous Lucha Libre right there. Postmatch, Mascara Purpura and Super Nova beat the living hell out of each other. Sooooo great.
KOHEI SATO vs. TAKASHI SUGIURA – ZERO-1 (3/9/2014)
(DEAN)
HA! I am a dope. I spoke at length about not being ABLE to get into Kohei Sato until he got into the more highly visible Big Japan. AND YET, I had Zero-1 sitting right there on my Watch Later list. Actually, it’s a good development because now that I give a crap about Sato, I’ll pay attention to the match instead of glazing over as I try to bull through 60 Puroresu matches in one afternoon. I’ve never hated Sugiura, I just think I ever was too stoked about him. Let’s see what kind of assbeating he takes, shall we? They do the armbars and crossfaces and takedowns and other shit Sato doesn’t do in Big Japan. Here, he works for the keylock; there, he punches Kazuki Hashimoto in the face. Point: Big japan. Sugiura kills time by laying around in the kneebar and they bore me some more with half-assed UWFi approximations. Then they laugh the laugh of guys that are humoring themselves and get to the business of fucking beating the living hell out of each other. Jesus, this went from boring to BattlARTS is ONE SECOND. Goddam, Sugiura will lean into an forearm to the face like a champ. I offically want more Zero-1 in my life. And they go back to the keylock. Here, you use wrestling to fill time between the ass-stomping, there, Diachi Hashimoto smacks you in the face during a ropebreak and fills time by being a total asshole punk teenager bastard dick. Point: Eh. Meanwhile, they get back to fucking just MURDERLIZING each other with shots to the face. Goddamn. This is a simple story, what with the story-telling: If I hit you in the head a lot, you will have trouble fighting out of my Brainbuster. As your, brain has already been pretty busted up already. Sugiura makes with the EVEREST~! Side Suplex so fuck it, I love this guy. I’m on board for the big win. Sato kicks Sugiura’s lungs out of his chest to set up his Overhand FALCON ARROW(43). Sugiura hits a nice German after fighting out of Piledriver but Sato ups the ante by hitting the far superior EVEREST German Suplex and everyone lays around and sells it for while. Sugiura does this running kicks to the face that have never looked good for anyone, thus it is far more satisfying when Sato cuts him off by kneeing him in the stomach and hitting a fucking BEAUTIFUL Memphis Piledriver. MAN! That is quality skull crushing. Sugiura fights against the Everest German and LOSES. Sugiura fights out of the thrid Everest by elbowing Sato really in the head and hits a super nasty Backdrop Driver. Sato counters the goofy ass Shining Wizard by Sugiura and opts instead to trade Four Quarters Legit headbutts with Sugiura- JIMINY FUCKING CHRISTMAS!with Sato bleeding the hardest hardway you will see. Sugiura fucking unleashes ten FIVE QUARTERS LEGIT forearms to the face and thoroughly crushes Sato with another Backdrop Driver for the WIN. JESUS. If you like your wrestling a little snug, this here is your match. Man, hardway the really hard way. Fuck me running, watch aaaalllll this.
(Rippa Note – VIDEO DOWN~! VIDEO DOWN~)
ENDNOTES
43. #13 of the New Era!(44)
44. I was annoying even myself with this “New Era” shit, so I’m still amusing myself in the End Notes now. Before long I will be just writing it on little pieces of paper on my desk.
CASH CRASH vs. MR. EXOTIC EROTIC – NEW EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING (2/1/2014)
(DEAN)
Every day, I go to my Youtube subscriptions and send anything I want to watch to my Watch Later list- which I try to whittle down every day. This is preposterous, of course, because it builds up way faster than I could ever watch or even listlessly scan past. BUT! I slog away at it- watching immediately the things I dig; burying deeper the stuff I have no real interest in. A lot of indie stuff on Youtube is just endless promos I do not watch for upcoming shows that I will not be close enough to see. Actually, unless it is in the general Chesterfield, VA area, it’s too far away, at this point. Meanwhile, your German promotions will usually stick a match on these things just so you can figure out if they are running a slick operation or more of a glorified backyarder thing. NEW is quite the slick operation and Alex Wright is the owner/trainer to the some of the German Stars! This match has been sitting in the pile for a few months, so I opt NOW to see if these two guys a worth a crap! YESSSS! I have not seen the unfortunately named Cash Crash(45), nor the good-lookin’ Mr Exotic Erotic(46) and as the Cagematch.de states- neither are actually Alex Wright trainees- so the deep insight I was going to share into the fact that both work pretty stiff because there was a point when the Cruiserweights in WCW stopped concentrating so much on trying to keep up with Rey Misterio Jr and opted to try to keep up with Regal and Finlay- will be lost to the ages. It was a grand time in WCW- personally apexing with we all went up to Fairfax to see wrestling at the Partiot Center and Alex Wright and Chris Jericho laid it in like MOTHERFUCKERS. It was awesome. And it has nothing to do with this match we find out after a little research but I wanted to get in- as that was the first thing I thought of when I decided not to delete this match. Both of these guys are tiny! The totally misnamed Mr Exotic Erotic- in that he is just kind of a in shape fella and doesn’t actually wear fuzzy boas, doesn’t wear overly tiny pants and doesn’t kiss his opponent to transition to offense, all makes me not think he is that exotic. And erotic is such a nebulous word: Hell, if you’ve been married long enough, your partner not turning on the light in the morning to get ready for work is erotic. You say to yourself, “Wow! My partner didn’t have to do that. How thoughtful! I’m gonna hook her/him up tonight for that.” I’m guessing these guys work each other a lot between shifts at the chocolate factory, or ski lodge, or whatever one does in Switzerland (Celtic Frost Fan Club president, perhaps?), because they work really smoothly together. Or maybe they are just pretty good. Mr E E hits a SWEET Owen Hart sideways tope thingy. Crash responds with really good-lookin’ Front Chancery Snap Suplex after doing a really cool Bashing of Mr EE’s Forehead Into The Second Turnbuckle After Applying The CRAVATE~!- all this after doing the totally underrated Stomping Of The Foot to escape a headlock. I dig this guy. He does lots of little things that vary from good to really good looking, plus he has really good punches. Let’s here it for the Old School Southern Styel Wrestling Tendencies of the Swiss. He hits another nice suplex- so his big moves look nice- but he also subtley gets the crowd to hate him and get them behind Mr EE’s little comebacks- you know, wrestling psychology- before cutting him off and beating some more heat onto him. God, this little wrestles like a fat guy- as evidence by his totally sweet kneedrop across the throat. NEW is awesome because they do a slow-motion rerun of Crash’s Running knee To Face. The crowd comes alive to MR EE’s comeback- which is based on winning an exchange of forearms- which aren’t BattlARTS but aren’t bad. Then he flips flops and flies and hits a German and I am impressed by both of these guys. Nice Eiploider by Crash before Mr EE gets the flashpin with the last ditch superkick and that was a quality WCW Main Event match- FULL WORLD WIDE POINT. Keep an eye out for these two- especially Cash Crash. And he also needs a less stupider name.
ENDNOTES
45. Per http://www.cagematch.de , Cash Crash is 5’10 and 176 pounds. They do not list his age, so I’m guessing 17. Hey! He’s Swiss. There you go.
46. Per http://www.cagematch.de , Mr Exotic Erotic is 5’11 and 172 pounds. They do not list his age, so I’m guessing 17. Hey! He’s Swiss. How about that.
SHINOBU/ SHINYA ISHIKAWA vs. KOHEI SATO/ SHUJI ISHIKAWA- BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING (2/3/2014)
(DEAN)
God, how did a Sato/Ishikawa match hide for so long? You ALREADY have to feel for the scrawny wormy Shinobu(47), as he is waaaaay too little to take the beating he most assuredly will be taking. Shinya Ishikawa I dig. He’s lanky and doesn’t wither and run from a KoheiSato forearm exchange- JEBUS FUCKING CHRIST- your forearm of the year is at 3:08. Shinobu tags in after Shinya Ishikawa tags so… so much for common sense. He does trick Shuji into flying through the ropes to the floor so I’m guessing he is Shinya’s son-in-law or something- because he is allowing Shinobu to live. The funner story is Shinya Ishikawa and Kohei Sato beating the jumping holy fudge out of each other as they meander through the crowd. Actually, it’s probably more fun to watch Shuji Ishikawa knock down an entire section of chairs by throwing a wee flailing Shinobu through them. Shuji is all professional and whatnot by selling Shinobu’s forearms, but I think it was just to make him feel better about what is about to happen to him- as Shuji tags in Kohei Sato who just comes in and fucking pummels him with kicks to the back. Holy shit! Shuji Ishikawa tags back in and spares him some assbeating by doing a half-assed submission- probably so Shinobu’s lungs can fall back into place. Shuji does the dick move of tagging Kohei Sato back in. Sato continues to slaughterize the little guy- hitting a amazingly back-crunchy backbreaker. Then they hit the Double Suplex for two as they attempt to go ahead and crush the little fella- because Shinobu is feeling the FIGHTING SPIRIT! The crowd gets into his comical attempts to not die as he fights out of the Shuji ishikawa Pildriver attempt into a backdrop and makes the hot tag! The crowd is excited because Shinya Ishikawa is in the ring on fire! and stuff- but also forgets that Shinya Ishikawa gets to be a house-afire while trading elbows to the face with fucking Shuji Ishikawa. And it is grotesquely stiff as you imagined it would be- but Shinya Ishikawa does do a good Robert Gibson when Sato comes in to double team, even making with the dropkick on Sato. His house a-fre babyface comeback culminates with him hitting a Northern Lights Suplex With A Bridge on Shuji Ishikawa. Shuji Ishikawa is awesome by once again cutting off the babyface comeback via Lou Thesz Press. You party and freak out. Shinya Ishikawa gets to enjoy a thorough assbeating after Shuji Ishikawa tags in Kohei Sato. They trade shots to the head and Kohei hits his Overhand Falcon Arrow(48) but Shinya escapes and tags in Shinobu- which seems kinda mean by this point. Shinobu hits a missile dropkick on Sato- which I’m thinking equates to 1/700th of the PREPOSTEROUSLY nasty Nodawa that Kohei Sato answers with. Shuji and Sato double team on Shinobu with just the most hellish knees to the stomach you will ever see. Shinobu sells it by flying several feet into the air. Sato goes for the pin but Shinya Ishikawa makes the- I hate to call it a “save”. Shinobu is now nothing FIGHTING SPIRIT!- which is pretty cool, but he has been legit beaten to a pulp. It’s about the best story you can get out of this kind of mismatch: How much of a horrendous ass-beating can the weakest member of the two team take before succumbing? Answer: Jesus Christ, A LOT. He trades forearms with Shuji Ishikawa and get the crowd molten by hitting two desperation but really stiff lariats, letting Shinya hit the missile dropkick to set up the Shinobu Quebrada for a super molten nearfall. Sato then runs in and cuts of Shinobu’s comeback, Shuji clubs the hell out of Shinya and they Double Suplex Shinobu off the top. Shinobu is this close to dead as the crowd chants his name. Shuji tries to put an end to the massacre with the giant chokeslam but Shinya makes the save. Shinobu starts trading elbows again but Shuji Ishikawa just fucking kills Shinobu with a Released Dragon Suplex and an actual Shing Wizard where he jst fucking buries his knee directly into Shinobu’s face. Shinobu kicks out but he is nothing but Fighting Spirit now. Shuji hits the Niagra Driver and that is all. What a fucking ass-beating. What a fucking beautiful story. One billion stars. Watch as Shinobu is beaten into your heart.
ENDNOTES
47. Per http://www.cagematch.de , Shinobu is THIRTY-THREE years old! He is 5’8″, 172 pounds.
48. Number 15 of the New Era.
BIG DADDY WALTER/ ROBERT DREISSKER vs. MIKE SCHWARZ/ TOBY BLUNT – SOUTHSIDE XTREME WRESTLING:
(DEAN)
I think Mondays will be Terrorizing My Watch Later list- where I will destroy all matches that I will not watch. It looks like it will also be where I come across Big Daddy Walter matches hidden in the WXW Shotguns. Here, he and the Dreissker guy from the match we watched from Austria look to beat the life out of two German guys. I don’t think I’ve seen Schwarz or Blunt(49). Teeny Tiny Toby Blunt is thrown 900 feet in the air on a hip toss by Dreissker early. I’m assuming that this can’t possibly end well. Fuck, Walter hasn’t even tagged in. Toby gets a few fruity jumping junior spots in before tagging in the lanky good-lookin Schwarz. He trades power spots with Walter and WINS! He smacks Walter in the chest a couple of times to the delight of home crowd- like a Walter is a little bitch! This could get fun fast. Walter OPTS to maul him to cut him off. Dreissker tags in and uses Clubbing Forearms and neck-stretching techniques to allow Walter to tag back in and do some lowgrade stomping. Somehow Schwarz gets back on offence and tags in Blunt. Oddly, Walter opts to roll 3 times to position for Blunts Senton into the ring. Yoiks. Luckily, this sets up Big Daddy Walter stomping a mudhole in Toby- including a super awesome Super Kick on the prone Blunt who was shrugged off after a trying tornado DDT. Walter says, “HELL-OOOO! 1997 wants it’s move back!” I think, my German language skills don’t actually exist. Anyway, Dreissker tags in and hits a fucking BEAUTIFUL Greg Valentine-level elbow drop and you’ll want to watch it a couple of times. Jesus. Sometimes you just remember why you are different from ordinary fucking people and you dig wrestling too much. Fuck yes. Blunt fights out of a bearhug and makes the hot tag- with Walter and Dreissker selling the Scharz’s Road Warrior shoulderblocks like a bulkier Austrian Arn and Tully. Walter take a toprope chokeslam like a champ and the crowd is behind the Toby Missile Dropkick for the nearfall, but Dreissker makes the save. The Germans try to Double Suplex Dreissker but Walter attacks Schwarz from behind to set up a very bulky, brawny crushing Doomsday Device by Dreissker and Walter for the win. Toby went big on dying in the Doomsday Device nd should commended for Lee Scotting it. What did we learn from this little tag match? We learned that Walter sells a lot for guys who are 169 pounds- which is fine, because also crushes this same guy later. Which is all I care about in a match like this. You might dig this.
ENDNOTES
49. Per http://www.cagematch.de , Toby Blunt is 5′ 10″, 169 pounds and there isn’t much else- except they should note that he should avoid matches against angry Austrians twice his size. Mike Schwarz is 24 years old, 6′ 4″, 242 pounds- a BIGGUN!- and Big Daddy Walter helped train him. So how about that.
NEGRO CASAS vs. TITAN – CMLL ON FOX SPORTS (1/3/2014)
(DEAN)
I think the best way to watch my Watch Later List is to review a match from the beginning (older matches) then matches in the middle (the middle) and a match from the end(newest matches). The oldest unwatched match that I want to watch is this one. Negro Casas refuses to become boring- long after most of his contemporaries had been mailing it in for years. I dig Titan(50) because his mask is cool and he does goofball wrestling moves- goofball even by Lucha Libre Goofball standards. Let’s watch, shall we? The lovely ring gals taunt me with their tiny paunts. They start right in with the Titan goofball stuff- the Matrix Lariat Duck, the Walking On Your HANDS Rana all into a very non-goofball total Tope With All Of His Fat Behind it. Casas responds by smacking the punk around and dropkicking off the top to the floor. Titan bumps like a TOTAL king to the floor. Casas then knees and headbutts Titan into the corner and runs into a Titan hilarious missile dropkick submission morph- where Titan Figure Fours the legs, spins to half scissors the head and to also do a lucha ribspreader with his ankle and wrist, sorta- to win the fall. The card gal taunts me with her heaving wiggly paunts. Titan starts the second fall with perfectly fine looking kicks to the face and a Side Chin Lock into a very nice forearms to the face. I really await Casas to bring his so own special brand of assbeating and it starts with a stiff lariat of Titan who is running around on the apron for some reason- the reason: to be stiffly lariated by Negro Casas. Casas kicks him in the lungs and does the Ric Flair shin-breaking thing and rolls up Titan for a pin with a Dandino! I assume the third fall will be Casas beating the shit out of Titan or I will have wished that I had waited longer to watch this and had eventually deleted without watching it. But it starts well with Titan dragon-screwing Casas knee through the ropes- which looked pretty nasty. Casas takes the same dropkick bump off the top that Titan took in the first fall and Titan hits a very nice Tope Con Hilo and I got a bad feeling about this match. They do some nice nearfalls and other shit mostly revolving around things off and around the toprope. The flying into a Fujiwara armbar is nice by Titan and Casas cross-armbreaking down the ropes was cool. Titan hits a nice superplex and its a fine nearfall. Casas counters a toprope plancha for the flashpin. Aaand that was quite the pedestrian Negro Casas match. I’ve seen more heat in a 45 second exchange with Rush than in the 15 minutes of this. Where is the passion, the story-telling, and the kicking guys in the teeth. Not here. BOOOOOOOOOO! I SAY THEE- BOOOOOO!
ENDNOTES
50. Per http://www.cagematch.de , Titan is 23 years old, 5’7″, 187 pounds. Oh man, Satanico helped train him.
DAMIEN 666/ HALLOWEEN/ EL HIJO DE BLACK SILVER vs. TRAUMA I/ TRAUMA II/ APOLO ESTRADA JR- PROMOCIONES EL CHOLO DE TIJUANA (5/16/2014)
(DEAN)
Golly, I totally forgot about the Traumas, much less Damien and Halloween. I assumed the Traumas were going to be like the usual fringe luchadores who have ten years worth of matches that never make television and then they are on IWRG every week for five years again. El Hijo de Black Silver and Apolo Estrada(51) are also in this so we get to see new folks while seeing if the old folks are still worth a hoot. The Traumas still have great masks. Trauma I and Black Silver do neato tricked out lucha libre matwork, though this is jumps around a lot in the match. Damien with the Boston Crab to the half crab to falling victim to a backward figure four thingy leads to some nice armdrags so Damien can still move a little at least. Halloween and Apolo battle it out with shoulder blocks, as Halloween looks tiny now in a physically fit kind of way. They do a lot of house show lucha to fill time but the four-way submission was interesting. The second fall was a wad of mid-grade brawling that culmintes with Halloween pulling Trauma I’s mask off as this is turning into a real mess- and not a fun mess, just a mess. Third caida is less messy but not very coherent. Stuff happens but it doesn’t really build up to anything. This is flailing match- filled with sound and fury signifying nothing. I wasted my time, why should you? Maybe you’re CRAZY! Crazy fucker…
ENDNOTES
51. The only interesting factoid about either of these guys is that Apolo Estrada Jr has been wrestling since he was 13.
MASATO TANAKA vs. DAICHI HASHIMOTO – ZERO-1 (3/9/2014)
(DEAN)
It’s been a while since I got into a Tanaka match- I mean I’ve liked a lot of matches since his heyday taking Four Quarters Legit chairshots to the skull in ECW. Daichi Hashimoto is way fun so this has some promise. Tanaka is in magnificent shape so good for him. They work an armbar early and Tanaka opts to trade forearms to the head so I’m waking up. Hash is getting thicker, more manly, more ass behind the kicks to the chest. We can only hope that he is Barry Windham to Shinya’s Black Jack. God, Tanaka is seriously laying it in and then they switch to skull-smashing headbutt and suddenly I love this match. Tanaka is getting the best of the young punk and won’t let up. Tanaka throws him to the floor and slams him to the cement. He then makes with a chairshot that his ECW chairshots just wet their pants laughing at. Tanaka accidenatally hits four Reviving Powerslams and they go back to killing each other with forearms- Tanaka growing into a bigger dick as he gets in forearms two to one. Tanaka starts to really treat Daichi like a little bitch – and that’s what I like about this match, it tells a little story: Once upon a time, a young man named Masato fled the psychotic land of Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling. He had been blown up and set fire and stabbed with sticks and thrown into barbed wire that had really big fireworks on it and they would explode into his back and smoke would come up and someone would throw him into the barbed and it would scrape in his skin and would be all nasty and fucked up. Masato wanted more. He wanted to be known as a great wrestler, not a crazy stunt man, so he plotted his escape. He escaped this craziness and moved to America- where everybody has a chance to be whatever you want to be. Unfortunately, Masato got mixed up with an even zanier idea about wrestling. This was in a very dirty, yet strangely friendly city called Philadelphia. Here, he and a big man wearing KISS make-up would hit each in the head with chairs as hard as they could while fat guys hooted at them. Masato realized that dizzy, concussed and forgetful is no way to go through life. He left America though the fat people who hooted liked him very much and they wanted him to stay. But Tajiri was there and he felt he did all he could in America so he went back Japan and joined a far more laid back promotion called Zero-One. Shinya Hashimoto was the founder; it was finally the kind of wrestling Masato could be proud of! So he stuck with Zero-1 through thick and thin. One day Shinya Hashimoto died and every one was sad. Many people left ZERO-1 because who would go see ZERO-1 after its main attraction had passed away. Things were looking bleak. Masato stuck with ZERO-1 because he believed in the style and all his friends were there. They settled for a smaller market and went into survival mode. There was light at the end of the tunnel when Hashimoto’s son came of age to wrestle and Masato knew that for Daichi to be a Superstar like his father, Masato would have to beat the living fuck out of Daichi to prove to the world that Daichi was tough enough. Masato knew that he had to ride Daichi and beat him down and make him humble so that he would show the crowds his fighting spirit. Masato would elbow and kick and lariat and chop young Daichi. Daichi was beaten and hurt and it looked like the dream is dead. “You must earn your bones, you little bitch. You will not earn them from ME!” Daichi looks up after being kicked in the mouth and said, “You kick very hard and you have seen the world- BUT I HAVE THE EVEREST BACKDROP DRIVER, MOTHERFUCKER!” And that is were we pick up. Daichi lays in the kicks and buries a knee into Masato’s face in the corner. Masato tries to fire back but Daichi lands a sweet snap suplex. Masato makes with three big lariats- two in the corner, one in the center of the ring. Masato hits the toprope superplex for two and goes up for the Love Machine Splash but Daishi gets his knees up and does the Masaaki Mochizuki run-up-the-ropes kick to the back of the head. Daichi hits a DDT and a kick to the throat for two and another DDT for two- like HIS DAD! STORY WITHIN A STORY!He seems to be going for the Shinya Hashimoto Brainbuster- IF HE CAN HIT THE FUCKING SHINYA HASHIMOTO BRAINBUSTER HE WILL WIN THIS MATCH!- but Masato fights out of it like a total motherfucker and this match is waaaay better than I thought it would be. Daichi finally crushes Masato’s skull with a kick, but Masato lariats and hits a Brainbuster first. Daichi kicks out and Masato finally hits the FrogSplash for two. And a Roaring Elbow later and it is all over. They deeply need to get over Daichi hitting his dad’s Brainbuster as his finisher to take him to the top. This match was good.
(Rippa Note – Youtube hates Zero-1 or Masato Tanaka)
HOMBRE BALA JR/ SUPER HALCON JR/ TRITON vs. CANCERBERO/ PUMA/ RAZIEL – CMLL ON CADENATRES (2/18/2014)
(DEAN)
Thank you, young TheCubsFan, for supplying the Lucha Libre like a motherfucking KING. It’s hard to keep my favorite Rudo Conglomerates straight from month to month. I assume Puma- whom I believe is underrated- is now with the Cancerbero crew? Or is it a one shot thing. Either way, Cancerbero and Raziel are fucking awesome rudos. The technico crew is pretty generic- but really, who gives a shit about 99% of technicos in today’s lucha libre. Rudo is where the action is. And hopefully business is good. Early on, the ring girls taunt YOU with their jiggly butts and I weep the manly tears of the aging. Raziel and a technico- probably not Triton(52) because I think I remember his mask- do really long lowgrade mat exchange. You will still remember Solar after watching it. HA! Research sez that I am an idiot- that was Triton. And you will still not give a shit about his mat sequence with Raziel. Puma is fun getting all flustered and getting the business from the rubes when he can’t keep up with Super Halcon Jr. Cancerbero meanders around with Hombre Bala and it’s perfectly fine. Triton and Puma speed things up to the point where Raziel and Cancerbero do the fabulous Mexican Ceiling Hold Where Cancerbero Breaks Your Neck With A Reverse Stone Cold Stunner. After killing all the life out in Triton, Halcon and Hombre dropkick the Cancerbero and the Raziel to the floor- but Puma breaks up the impending topes and pays the price by getting beaten with knees to the chest, a FALCON ARROW!(53), and a very beautiful-in-its-simplicity straight-up Moonsault. For the pin. The CMLL Ring Gal who holds Segunda Caida card flaunts her buttcheeks at the camera and teens across Mexico explode viscuous loads over their Morrissey cds. Super Halcon and Raziel opt to chop each other across the chest. Raziel does the awesome thing of saying, “Fuck this and fuck you” and tags in Cancerbero who comes and just starts stomping the dogcrap out of young Super Halcon Jr. God, the Rudo Assbeat that Cancerbero brings is truly mighty. And then Cancerbero bumps all over the place to make Halcon’s comeback offence look godly. They take it the floor and Cancerbero misses a lariat and receives a SuperKick. Cancerbero, being evil, points to his weiner and screams “FOULE!” SO EVIL! Raziel tries his luck with Hombre Bala Jr and doesn’t fair much better. Raziel is awesome leaning into Hombre’s offence and I dig the role he creates here as the weak ninny to Cancerbero’s ass-stomper. They do a super eleborate and totally fun-filled 28 step spot to get the technicos off offense and into their assigned Lucha Libre Submission- as the rudos make with Raziel and Cancerbero doing Duelling Sharpshooter Variations. The third caida starts with Puma enraging the fans by beating on the assorted technicos and yanking on Super Halcon’s mask. Cancerbero picks up where Puma leaves off and starts beating some heat onto these technicos. Raziel hits a Superplex to allow Puma to totally enrage the ringside marks by hitting a batch of near foules and just about every other jerk-ass move a rudo can hit. Puma has to join the Cancerbero gang if he hasn’t already- he is too fun. Cancerbero begins just pummelling Super Halcon Jr but they do this like IMPOSSIBLE 68 step spot to somehow get Puma in position to hit a toprope Backstabber to get the pin. This match is fucking crazy. If you like rudos who beat the hell out of folks, this is for you. If you enjoy really elaborate- like PREPOSTEROUSLY elaborate lucha libre sequences, this is waaaaay for you. I enjoy both so I am very much recommending this to you, gentle reader.
ENDNOTES
52. Fuck it. I will go cagematch.de and find out who these technico shmoes are. Oh man, Hombre Bala Jr was partially trained by Arkangel de la Muerte. He also related to every pirate in Lucha Libre. Jiminy, Super Halcon Jr was trained by Gran Apache and fuckin MOGUR~!
53. #17 of the New Era. Probably.
SHIORI ASAHI/ RYUICHI SEKINE vs. SHINYA ISHIKAWA/ TAKAYUKI UEKI – BIG JAPAN PRO WRESTLING (2/26/2014)
(DEAN)
Okay, let me regather my bearings because I know I watched Sekine and Ueki last week or so. It. Is. Time. For. RESEARCH~! Ah, they took on Daichi Hashimoto and Kazuki Hashimoto- in the second match reviewed since I started The New Writing Discipline.(54) Ah cool, I dug those guys. They have your favorite quality in wrestlers- the FIGHTING SPIRIT! Here they are split up and one is tagging with the impressive lanky and underrated Shinya Ishikawa. Shiori Asahi I don’t believe I’ve ever seen.(55) Shinya ishikawa and Asahi start off with your basic headlocks and head scissors and whatnot. Shinya’s hair falls down into his face so the laaaadies hearts can melt- as he flaunts his bad boy good looks. Can you possibly tame his hunky heart? He’s had his heart broken by the worldly women of the world, can he settle down with girl next door like you? They used short dresses and ruby red lipstick, can you win him with your peach cobbler and nights on the couch watching Two Broke Girls? The ladies look at his shaggy mop and dreams are made. What the fuck was I watching again? Oh right! Sorry. Ueki and Sekine go straight for the Strong Style and these two are getting real close to becoming guys I love to watch wrestle. Sekine crushes Ueki’s spine with kicks and tags in Asahi who jumps on Ueki from the outside a lot and then does some kicking of his own while doing this elaborate nearfalls sequence- which is fine since he is too scrawny to actually beat anybody’s ass, it appears. Though Asahi does have a sleazy meanness to him that I dig on first inspection. He brings the Two Quarters Legit forearms but Ueki escapes and tags in Shinya Ishikawa who starts throwing everybody around the ring. He and Asahi trade forearms and Asahi loses. A lot. A hurty-looknig a lot. Asahi has many goofy spots. I dig the one where he and Ishikawa keep countering each others attempt to secure the Octapus Hold. Ihsikawa wins by opting out of the Cycle Of Octapus Hold and goes for the Northern Lights Suplex With A Bridge. Asahi survives and tags Sekine and Sekine gets in some stuff before Ishikawa cuts him off with a very Windham-like Dropkick. Ueki and Sekine stomp on each other for a while and Sekine gets one step closer to my love with a fabulous Running Rolling Hills. Asahi tags in and uses even more goofy spots. Asahi is actually pretty annoying. I think I am glad I missed 12 years of him and I start the Hatewagon….NOW. Asahi wins with an Octapus Hold. I don’t know. I don’t actually hate the fact I saw this. It was perfectly fine. I will continue with teh Shinya Ishikawa campaigning- though he is in TWO half matches positioned to be reviewed tomorrow- and that might break me. We’ll see. I guess I’ll just through in any other Sekine/ Ueki matches and we’ll just call it the least popular Driverette of the New Era. We’re here for the long haul.
ENDNOTES
54. Review is here with end notes of comical information: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/1969-death-valley-driverette-4292014/#entry173398
55. Jesus, cagematch.de sez that Asahi is THIRTY-SIX! He is also 5’9″ and 172 pounds. He has been wrestling 12 years. For better or for worse, that tells how little of K-Dojo I watched since the turn of the century.
MARC HAUSS vs. JOCK SAMPSON – DAWG Wrestling (9/26/14)
(by RIPPA)
You get to a certain point where you realize that what indy wrestling should be is shows for kids and fat guys. There is such a simple beauty in kids cheering the faces, booing the heels and the morbidly obese financing the show through concessions and photos with hot women. It is these moments when you realize that you can enjoy wrestling more and so not be annoyed by it. That is why I dug this Hauss/Sampson match. Not because it was a great match. Because it was wrestling in the least frustrating form ever. Marc Hauss is a great chicken shit heel. He also uses Run’s House as his entrance music so if we ever do a 500 again – he is Top 50. Jock Sampson thinks he is Dusty Rhodes but he really is a 21st Century version Jake “The Milkman” Milliman. He wears a lot of bandannas. Bandannas are not tassels. THAT IS WHY YOU ARE STILL STUCK ON THE INDY SCENE JOCK! The kids… tolerate him… mainly because he isn’t Hauss. They HATE him. Sampson throws a TON of chops and likes to yell HIP TOSS~! a bunch but folks are enjoying the match so go for it. Hauss hides behind the rather large ring announcer which gets a cheap pop from me. He also elbow drops a bandanna. TOP 30~! You can’t hate this match. It is the wrestling you first start experiencing when you were a kid. Unless you were Dean who got to see Dick Fucking Murdoch at like the age of 8. Grr… Anyway – Hauss wins because his no good, son of a… manager pulls on Sampson’s legs during a suplex attempt. Sampson challenges Hauss to a rematch. And this time it is going to be by his rules. Now one would think it would be a bull rope match since Sampson carries a bull rope to the ring. Plus he loves himself some Dusty Rhodes. So when he gets on the STICK~! He challenges Hauss to a… country whipping match… in New Jersey. Umm… sure. Okay – maybe I got a little annoyed at this match.
CRAZY BOY/ JOE LIDER vs. JUVENTUD GUERRERA/ STEVE PAIN – AAA (2/15/2014)
(DEAN)
God, it was forever ago that Juventud was pumping out good matches 10 times a week in WCW and in Mexico. It’s good to check in on him every now and then and lament what could have been if wasn’t fucking crazy. Crazy Boy and Joe Lider slosh into the middle of all Lucha Libre. Lider will take a preposterous bump every now and then- so he will always have that. I think Crazy Boy is Super Crazzy’s brother (actually….)- and I believe he is quite the Eddie Payton to Super Crazzy’s Walter Payton. And Steve Pain is Canadian, I believe.(56) Very little of what I just wrote stands up to the actual research, but I will leave it there to show the perception of sloggy random wrestlers versus the hard truth. This is a fun little brawl to start. Man, Juventud is expanding into middle age fatness – and he has the Brett Michaels dead eyes thing going too, so lets all get together and die a little inside. After a few crappy chairshots, it settles into a sorta tagmatch- in that they are all in the ring as opposed on the floor. Juvie stands on the back of Lider’s neck and it gets a bit listless. They crush Lider and Crazy’s testicles with chairs and yeaaaah, you really got to strain to remember when Juventud and Rey Misterio Jr were on the same path to superstardom. I’m trying to remember just where it all went to hell for Juventud. Naked and on drugs in the lobby of the Australian hotel maybe? Here, he gets outworked by fricking Joe Lider. Steve Pain does hit a fucking spectacular springboard from the second rope INSIDE the ring somersaulting over the toprope Tope Con Hilo. Nino Hamburguesa(57) makes a cameo with an AWWESOME fatboy Shiryu Tope. He also uses his fat to crush people in corner. Juventud hits a nice snap suplex on Crazy Boy and then takes a nice powerslam by Lider. This match is really sloppy in structure and really precise in execution- which means that this match has no excuse- though the style the Tijuana guys wrestle IS this sloppy meandering style- with way too much reliance on 1990’s ECW-ish garbage spots replacing any sort of build to anything memorable. They finish is big as Juventud takes a Rolling Hills from the toprope through a table by Lider and Strong is Death Valley Bombed through a burning table by Crazy Boy. Hey, don’t get wrong- I’m a total vampire fan when it comes to ridiculous spots but this is back-yarder shit; stunt work; psychology-free rehashing of a Pitbulls match. The table was a nice touch though. Pray for Juventud…
ENDNOTES
56. Cagematch.de proves what a FOOL I am! Crazy Boy is Super Crazzy’s cousin. He is 36 and Super Crazzy is 40. Steve Pain is not the guy I was thinking of. I was thinking of the guy who was with Taya Valkyrie- which, actually, looks like it was Steve Pain according to cagematch.de. Maybe the Canadian paleness of Valkyrie made Pain not look as Los Angelean and more Albertan. Either way, Steve Pain is from Los Angeles and was partly trained by motherfuckin RIKISHI! Taya Valkyrie, who has nothing to do with this match- is 30 years old, 5’8″, 145 pounds and has a background in ballet and bodybuilding. She hails from Victoria, British Columbia. She was trained by the beloved Lance Storm. Just to be overly thorough, Juventud is now frickin THIRTY-NINE now. He has been wrestling 22 years.
57. Nino Hamburguesa is EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD?
SERENA DEEB vs. BEAUTIFUL BEAA – BEAUTY SLAMMERS (4/30/2014)
(DEAN)
Trying to keep current on the ever awesome Serena Deeb and it appears she did a Canadian tour through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. This match was in a sports bar in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The whole tour is on youtube but this match had the most people attending so it didn’t make me depressed to watch. It also reminded me of that awesome West Carolina University college redneck bar where all the OMEGA guys would wrestle. Serena meanders to the ring- appears to try to hook-up with one of the guys sitting at the table and then trolls the drunken rubes by keeping her jacket on and THUS not allowing 700 pound drunk Nova Scotians to gaze at her chest pets and thus deny them fuel for jacking it as they pull off the side of the road on the way home. I think this would be called “psychology”. The STORY is that Serena Deeb is from Oakton, Virginia- which is between the sacred soil of Richmond, VA and the pit that is Washington, DC. The Beautiful Beaa is from Port Colborne, Ontario. Deeb grew up with people who became supercommuter douchebags populating the seven rings of hell that is the Exburbs of Northern Virginia. These jerks do yoga and BowFlex and whatever else exercises people with too much cable TV can be conned into doing. Beaa understands the Nova Scotians. If the giant drunken Nova Scotian doesn’t blow off some steam (so to speak), his heart could explode like a poutine-coated red dwarf gone super-nova. These men have families, god dammit! Beautiful Beaa is a Canadian hero for deciding that THESE Canadians paid their hard-earned money! They will see Serena Deeb’s magnificent rack! They will coat their snow mobile with viscuous, jalapena-popper-scented mangravy TONIGHT! So help her, Margaret Trudeau! Or something. Let’s watch the match. It’s not very long. God, Serena is such the total bitch to our hero the Beautiful Beaa. Arm-dragging her with great velocity, messing up her hair, and laying across the top turn buckle LIKE A JERK! The fat Nova Scotians chant for our hero. Man, Serena Deeb will fucking bump all over the ring like a QUEEN. Beaa taunts the evil Serena and the crowd and Serena seem to be having a good time. The Nova Scotians chant for the Removing Of The Coat and an enraged Serena beats the shit out the Beautiful Beaa and sends her to the floor. Serena taunts Beaa and makes with the comedy spot with the ref- allowing Beaa to rip off Serena’s coat- as a hundredish Canadian pairs of pants just lost a bit of their moisture integrity. Serena then goes back to pummelling Beaa. The Canadians actually start a “We Are Creepy!” chant and this is way into the God, I Wish I Could Have Been There area of Pro Wrestling Viewing. Those folks seem like folks who would drink five 40s of Mongoose with you. Serena opts to pull the Americans Are Better Than You Stupid Canadians card and this is truly the finest example of how to deliver the most match in a sports bar in Canada. They trade forearms and I dig the fire of our Canadian hero, the Beautiful Beaa. She lays it in harder than Deeb’s opponents in most of the Japanese matches I’ve seen Serena Deeb in. Beaa hits a nice Stone Cold Stunner for two. Serena goes all Lawler and tries to leave, but Beaa beats on her all the way back to ring. This match is a hoot. Serena throws her jacket over Beaa’s head, hits the Malenko Rib-Breaker and steals the match. Serena Deeb is so fucking great.