DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW ISSUE #175 (Simple Version)
TOMOAKI HONMA~! WINS~! Wait… WHAT?!?!?!?~! VICTOR JOVICA~! bleeds by example~! DAISUKE~! has no last name~! DEAN~! still can’t spell Mr. Gannosuke correctly~! LUDARK SHAITAN~! BULL OF THE WOODS~! JUDY MARTIN~! KENGO MASHIMO~! LUCHA DEEP CUTS~!
HIYA~!
Welcome to the Death Valley Driver Video Review Issue #175
A THANKSGIVING TRADITION BITCHES~! ALSO BI-WEEKLY~!
Yeah… that ends with this issue. I will promise you one more issue in 2015 (and it will be a special one) but we are now at the mercy of Old Man Rasmussen’s hands.
Even if you don’t love you some me, I love me some me…
~!~
RIPPA YOUTUBE JOURNEY
(BY PHIL RIPPA)
Have a laugh at my notes for this review
ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER vs. VICTOR JOVICA – Chain Match
For those that don’t know – Victor Jovica is the co-founder (and promoter) of the World Wrestling Council. I bring this up because I am now convinced Vince McMahon saw a tape of his one day and thought “I can out bleed him. He isn’t the only crazy ass authority figure!”
Jovica as a worker… wasn’t very good. So he made up for it by painting the canvas in his own blood. And, Good Lord, is this match no exception. It’s being held somewhere in Trinidad where the Croatian born is a National Hero because of… reasons. (Sorry Shaka Hislop. Marcel and I still love you.) A tournament may or may not have been held where the winner got to face Abby in a chain match which is a pretty shitty ass prize if you ask me. Jovica was the “winner” of this “tournament” so we have that plunky underdog having the miracle run of his life angle.
Well chain match + Abby + Close enough to Puerto Rico = blood. Punch, stab, bleed. Punch, stab, bleed. Repeat. That is the layout to the match until you get to the corner touching portion. Then it becomes the laziest chain match ever but I am cutting them some slack since it is two fat guys who have lost A LOT of blood. Jovica gets the win to a huge reaction from the crowd. Abby gets bitter and beats down Jovica for awhile as TNT and Miguel Perez Jr have to do the longest run in ever to safe the boss man.
Word of warning. The announcing is done by Hugo Sanvinovich and Bobby Jaggers (clearly the match is taken off of one of those PR comp tapes – either bloodiest battles or whatever the fuck the name of the one with Carribbean in its title). My warning comes from the fact that Jaggers – God Bless him – has this weird cackle that makes him sound like Woody Woodpecker. You get to hear that – oh…. about 20 times this match.
So assuming you like blood in your matches – watch this. If you don’t, grow a set.
ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER/CICLON NEGRO vs. MASIO KOMA/SAMSON KUTSUWADA – ALL JAPAN (12/11/72)
Man this match is almost as old as me. Early 70s All Japan means reasonably skinny, barefooted, screams when he sells Abby. It also means guys who I am not sure who the fuck they are. Koma? Kutsuwada? Samson Kutsuwada is the doughiest motherfucker I have ever seen. Like a webble with legs. He is in the red trucks and unfortunate hair. Oof.. Masio Koma died in 1975 of liver failure at only the age of 35. Well that explains why I have never seen him and why I am depressed the rest of the day.
I am not quite sure I have ever seen an entire match based around punching dudes in the throat so this is definitely a new one. But that is what Abby and Negro do. Abby is also a dick and it is kinda great. There is also a roll-up sequence between Negro and Koma that’s fun because it isn’t Indy guys trying to copy Eddy/Malenko because it’s the in thing to do. TWENTY YEARS PRIOR BITCHES~! Anyway – Kutsuwada eventually becomes the lumpiest hot tag ever and that is a moment of hope for the tiny faces. But after it gets cutoff it’s more side headlock and punches until Negro wastes Koma with a shoulder breaker for the three.
Wait? This is two out of three falls. Well that would have been fucking nice to know beforehand. Christ – that would explain why this clip has 15 more minutes. Of course the crowd is SILENT. I mean even more silent than the usual respectful Japanese crowd. It takes Koma biting Abby’s ear to finally get the crowd into the match. Well our faces have found the key to victory apparently – bite and chop Abby’s ears. That all somehow leads to a countout victory for Koma and Kutsuwada as Kutsuwada rolls in at 19 while everyone is doing an approximation of brawling.
Yeah – the bloom is definitely off the rose of this match. Poor poor Kutsuwada is showing the effects of not being built for speed or pleasure. But – hey! – Koma starts to bleed because maybe that’s the reason I was like to this match. *Shrug* There is really no HOT TAG SAMSON~! Part II as everything has kinda broken down and the ref clearly is outta fucks to give so Koma and Kutsuwada just double team everyone for the rest of the match, Negro gets stabbed in the throat, sells it like hot death and the that is that.
This isn’t the worst match ever that someone tried to claim but it isn’t anywhere near the best either. Everyone watch more Ciclon Negro though.
TNT vs. MR. POGO – WWC 14th Anniversary Show (9/20/87)
Now I start to get in trouble with Youtube and my viewing history. I COULD have spent the rest of the time just picking off matches from skk’s matchlist but I wanted to attempt to change it up. And I wasn’t doing a third Abby much. So pretty much my only option was going back to Puerto Rico where TNT and Pogo are main eventing one of the three locations WWC ran for this Anniversary show. If it is good enough for WrestleMania II it is good enough for WWC! I guess a Japanese guy working in PR is good enough for Youtube’s algorithms.
God – fuck this match. The sound is all FUBARed. Jump cuts fucking galore. They needed TWO ref bumps to get to the shitty finish. Probably the one positive is that Pogo looks to be in the best shape of his life so at least he will always have the late 80s. And because of his slender figure – he can deliver a nasty ass fucking round house kick.
MAXIMO/VOLADOR JR vs. REY BUCANERO/TERRIBLE – Double Hair Match (CMLL – 3/20/15 (taped), 3/28/15 (aired)
This was the other way Youtube could go – putting me into cubs’ channel for the rest of time. If you haven’t realized yet – I watch a lot of things on Cubs’ playlist. You should too. This match took place the same day as the Dragon Lee/Kamaitachi mask match so yeah… way to not be thought about. I am still not sure why it became a tag match and not just Rey Bucanero/Volador but this CMLL so I am not going to hurt my head.
Man – I still fucking hate the race through the first two falls lucha match but lucha is gonna lucha so here we are (though quicker caidas means quicker turn around on the reappearance of booty shots.) The rudos take the first caida since the technicos decide to jump Bucanero and Terrible as they are coming out. How did that work out for you guys? Secunda Caida goes – of course – to Maximo and Volador . We have an ass based transition which is always fun. The one-man Spanish Fly gets an ugly setup so that sucked (sorry Volador) but it is hard to fuck up a Greco-Roman Lip Lock so Maximo has that go for him.
Okay – final caida. Which for all intents and purposes is the entire match. FIRST – I want to say that since being unmasked, Volador basically became the Mexican John Morrison (in terms of look). Morrison wishes he could fly as well as Volador. (Of course, I spent far too long trying to figure out who the Mexican Melina would be. Did like Estrella Magica fuck both Volador and Marco Corleone?) SECOND – Maximo is a fucking Brazo so of course I love him. It is tough for me to look at him and not wonder why he still isn’t rolling as Brazo de Plata Jr. since he looks EXACTLY like his Dad. That being said – the Maximo gimmick is fucking awesome (though he might be hitting the ceiling of what he can do with it.)
Anyhoo – now we have hit a flat out sprint. Which is awesome… when the shitty camerawork can keep up. So many missed moves. What I can remember is Maximo topeing Terrible into someone’s lap (OH! Side note – I don’t know if I can ever do Terrible as WOTD because Googling him is a son of a bitch.) was probably my favorite dive. Terrible being eliminated thanks to Sports Entertainment was sad but understandable all things considered. Plus it set up, Bucanero NUKING him with cradle piledriver that I guess wasn’t a cradle piledriver. (Way to shoot that from the back so we don’t see the impact!) Either way, Volador Jr is dead dead dead. That was my favorite move of the match. Bucanero gets into “if I am losing my hair, I am going balls out” mode complete with the PHAT-ASS Cannoball off the ring ramp. I also dug the roll-up sequence at the end which played off the second caida finish AND the outside interference. Also – full credit to Volador Jr and Terrible for selling the Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.
However I have never be so disappointed in a hair cutting. They give poor Terrible the dullest scissors ever so can barely hack his way through his luscious locks. They show less than two minutes of hair cutting and the barber has no jacket with scissors on the back of it. Booo!!!! Other than that – fun as all get out.
2014 INFIERNO EN EL RING MATCH – CMLL (12/5/14 (taped), 12/13/14 (aired)
Full disclosure – I originally wanted to leave cubs’ matchlist for my list but my only choice was a fucking Mil Mascaras match and I will be damned if I do that again. So basically this was the only choice left. Anyway – INFERNO IN THE RING~! This will be your “escape the cage until two guys are left, last two have a match, loser loses his hair” match. The cage doesn’t have an awkward dome on it that Homicide gets stuck on so TNA looks down its nose on this match.
Your participants are: Marco Corleone, Ultimo Guerrero, Volador Jr., Terrible, Shocker, Barbaro Cavernario, Rey Bucanero, Máximo, Felino and Blue Panther. Great, Felino is around to ruin everything. Every since his lost his mask and his fuzzy back, I have no time for him. Not that I had much beforehand. Thank God his brother is awesome.
Brawl is on and I immediately see Blue Panther and Barbaro Cavernario square off and I immediately dream of a never ending singles feud. Dear Lord – I don’t ask for much. But that would be swell. And suddenly we have 40 SECONDS TO SHAMPOO!!! (Actually – it is just the countdown to when guys can actually escape but thanks to shitty cameramen and weird product placement…)
Okay – so now guys can escape and Shocker and Terrible are idiots since they sit on the top of the cage punching each other. Just get the fuck out. Save your hair! I assume Terrible was just confused that Shocker actually showed up for a booking (I guess it was Mr. Niebla’s turn to no-show (no I don’t know if Niebla was actually there. Just let me have my joke!)) So yeah… those two are the first ones out of the cage.
CAVEMAN BUTT SIGHTING!!! The Caveman ladies must have loved that.
Blue Panther gets out because he is Blue Motherfucking Panther. He is also brilliant as he comes down the side with the ramp thus protecting his knees. VETERAN PRESENCE~!
For all the nonsense these matches can have – I liked that there were a few times were guys teased doing signature spots and instead faked out and went for the escape. Like Maximo teased doing his ring walk splash and did a U-turn and started climbing out. Maximo also had my favorite spot of the match as he escapes and as he is at the top of the cage he starts calling for Marco Corleone, acting like he is going to escape. Poor poor beautiful Marco races totally buying it. He gets to the top and Maximo lays a big kiss on Marco, thus knocking poor poor gullible Marco back into the ring. That was great.
Ultimo Guerrero is out next and Corleone gets out this time but not after being able to get some of his heat back (and some lady pleasing hip thrusting in). You know, I really am indifferent to the former Mark Jindrak but I do dig that he was able to go somewhere and totally thrive after the fiasco that was the failing of WCW. Not everything has to be in the WWE kids.
Left in the match our favorite Caveman, Volador Jr, Rey Bucanero and stupid Felino. Everyone beats on Volador for a bit. Then Volador hits a top rope arm drag on Cavernario that it cut away from mid-move. Never change CMLL. That allows Volador to keep his hair (I should also mention that this match takes place Volador becoming the greatest John Morrison ever as I talk about in that other review.)
MORE CAVEMAN BUTT!
Bucanero takes a wicked bump at point to tease him getting out. Go big or go home. Cavernario is the last escapee via a not at all contrived battle on the side of the cage. So, unsurprisingly, the two fattest guys are the last ones still inside the cage. The “match” starts and it is two minutes of each guying trying rollups. Well until stupid Felino tries a top rope elbow drop that apparently connected but Bucanero kicks out at two and then immediately rolls Felino up for the win. What is this? New Japan? That was weird.
Anyway, this is a proper hair cut as Felino fights it for awhile so Bucanero has to hold him down. But we get to see the majority of his hair go bye bye. Ya know – for a guy doing a cat gimmick, Felino sure has a startling lack of head and back hair.
~!~
DEAN INFURIATES RIPPA
A new segment where Dean writes a review that is really fucking unfriendly in any sorta format for a typical DVDVR so it gets put here. For now it is reviewing two matches at once.
ANGEL de ORO vs POLVORA- CMLL- 7/28/2015
MR GANNESUKE vs Daisuke – GUTS World (7/19/15)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Ha! I spent yesterday dividing the wrestling wheat from the wrestling chaff just so I don’t end up reviewing 12 matches in a row that SUCK IT~!- so, of course, I felt weird about the lack of spontaneity of that process THUS I decided to review two matches that I have been saving and not actually watching because for whatever reason they are both 40 minutes long. THUSLY, I get to experience them as I write about them and I can also get them off my fucking Watch Later lists- which is 90% of wrestling viewing, being able to say you saw it((the other 10% is the wrestling you actually are actively excited about.))) Since I don’t actually ever want to spend 80 minutes watching wrestling ever- especially where there is only one wrestler that I have a definite idea of their value in the ring; and of these four, it’s Mr Gannesuke and I haven’t seen him have a good in 15 years and I’ve seen him have possibly two matches since then, I have my fears and reservations. But HEY! maybe if you give him 40 minutes to work, all the old magic will come back! I sure fucking hope so because I’m pushing 50 and I can’t really be wasting solid blocks of time on crappy bullshit. One could say that wrestling itself is crappy bullshit and I say to you, Mr Straw Man That I Created To Hit With My Cyber LARIAT, FUCK YOU RIGHT IN YOUR STRAW HINDER HOLE! Only 95% of wrestling is unwatchable bullshit. So here is hoping that GUTS WORLD can actually bring in and land a match in the top 5%.
Jesus, the more I write about it and think about it, the more impossible it sounds. Luckily! I have no idea who this Daisuke character is- so I checked his Cagematch.net profile and this gets to looking like an even crappier gamble of my time. He is a GUTS WORLD PRO WRESTLING guy and he is their mighty champion! His matches on the matchlist are in the same zany circle of the indies that the FREEDOMS~! guys populate- your STYLE-E, your HEAT UP, your Dotonbori Pro supercards. Also, it looks like he wrestles on average 3 times a month tops. This could mean a couple of things: He has a real full time job that pays actual money and it limits his wrestling because of time constraints and thus, he is secretly the owner of GUTS WORLD- with Guts Ishijima as a mere figurehead, A STINKIN’ FIGUREHEAD!, of the GWPW empire- a Guts Tunney if you will; OR he is like Mr Gannesuke and is blackballed from wrestling a lot of places for reasons never explained to me (or he is part of the reason Gannesuke is blackballed? The speculation is probably limited to me and 217 people who have actually watched all or part of this match); OR he is like our boy from Apache Pro/FMW Restart, HASEGAWA, who wrestles like 40 times a month but they are such… questionable… promotions and skeezy cards that even the psychotic, overly-detail-obsessed freaks at Cagematch.net don’t even track them. It happens. HASEGAWA has been wrestling for fifteen-ish years now prolly (if my memory of the Apache Pro timeline is correct)and has no English-language presence in the on-line wrestling community, and yet he has video evidence of being in the ring with some of the big boys of Japanese wrestling- including the match he last posted, where he and W*ING/SOCIAL motherfucking PROGRESS WRESTLING FEDERATION veteran Hiroshi Shimada took on two non-descript indie guys in parking lot. But there is no evidence of that show anywhere on the internet (and why should there be? I don’t think Cagematch or PuroLove- or any of the other go-to sites for research, document the results of the equivalent of a county fair.) So yeah, we’re banking on the Japanese equivalent of a ECWA undercard guy to go 40 minutes with Gannesuke- who is two years younger than me. And my toes hurt when I lay down. So what I’m getting to is that the gimmick of this review is that I’m just going to watch both of these at the same time and see if I can keep track. I will rewind if I miss a guy who is suddenly spewing blood and I miss the reason or they suddenly stretcher a guy out and I missed the part where lands on the floor on his shoulder wrong.
The other match in this digest of wrestling that should scare me for investing so much time is the preposterously long title match between Angel de Oro and Polvora. I know that I used to confuse Angel de Oro as Valiente some how- they have similar masks and Valiente has a similar build if you combined Angel de Oro with his washer and dryer. Polvoro I’ve seen wrestle a thousand times but he is always the other guy wrestling when I was interested in three other guys in the match. AND THEY ARE GOING 40 FUCKING MINUTES! The upside of this is that I’m pretty sure that I will be the only person on this earth to have actually watched both of these matches by the time I finish, so I will always have that. Okay, enough writecrastinating. Gannesuke is 36:27 which I’m assuming has extra time for Japanese indie hugs. Angel de Oro is 39:53 and I assume there will be 5 minutes of ring girls taunting me about my age and impending impotence. I will not type the crying. Gannesuke is Dailymotion so I will get to really concentrate on the 20 minutes of matwork in the Oro match in-between the commercials every five minutes and the predicted two computer restarts when Dailymotion freezes up my spare laptop. AND GO! Polvora has a cool mask, Mr Gannesuke has an awesome floral robe. Daisuke looks like a generic NOAH junior heavyweight but we’ll see. Oro and Polvora take it to the mat immediately and its actually pretty slick and quick like good lucha matwork has to be. Mr G locks up and they are definately setting up for going long as he drives him into the ropes and they break. The Oro match is doing the same thing but with slightly quicker matwork, but Oro works a keylock while Daisuke hits a dropkick to start an armbar sequence that Mr G counters into a pinning predicament that Daisuke counters into a front face lock.
Meanwhile! The luchadores are doing the extended knucklelock sequence with Oro doing the Santo staked head scissors thing to drive Polvora out the ring. They tease a highspot but it is still way early. They instead take it the the mat and Oro does a really nice preposterous lucha roll-up to take the first fall. Over in Japan, Mr G is still working an armbar but they are doing a total 70’s thing of actively working ever angle of the armbar as Daisuke counters into a kneebar. So yeah, they are killing time until they can start beating each other to death. But Daisuke is good at crushing Mr G’s knee with elbow drops so he is familiar with old school psychology so that is surprising. Over in Mexico, Oro hits a perfectly fine tope to crush Polvora against the rail- as Polvora takes a shoulder like a champ. Mr G and Daisuke get back to a vertical base and they do a by-the-book headlock-head scissors sequence and you get a feeling that this would fit in at MUGA/Dradition show. Or hell, a 1965 AWA main event. Oop, missed a fall in Mexico, I shall rewind. Oro hits an awkward cross body and goes for the toprope something. Polvora counters at the top and hits a Released Top Rope Sidewalk Slam for the second fall. So now we get 27 minutes of a 3rd fall.
Over in Japan, GLORIOUSLY, Daisuke is STILL WORKING THE KNEE! He is actually laying it in. I dig this guy. He deserves whatever IBM is paying him. They go to the Daisuke figure four and Mr G sells it like he has trained 300 guys how to wrestle. I dig this match. Meanwhile, in Mexico, Polvora is beating on Oro and taunting the crowd for backing such a fucking loser! “Did you shitty cross body block I had to sell!?!?” he screams! One would assume. Mr G hits the ropes and collapses out of the ring to the floor. Polvora baffles Oro by running the ropes slightly eccentrically and lands a SPEAR~! onto Oro for two. Cavernerio Barbario is ontraged over something I missed and Oro hits a fucking beautiful Orihara Moonsault to the floor. Mr G is on offense with a Ron Simmons catapult across the throat and THEN a Tully Blanchard RELEASED Hot Shot. I hope for a shoe lace rake but instead he detaches the padding on the ring buckle. Oro and Polvora do a bunch of really nice roll-ups as this is a perfectly fine, if underly violent lucha title match- with Oro helping his cause by doing lots of nice in-ring flying to add to his more spectacular high-flying. I would assume that Polvora will begin beating the hell out of him at some point, but so far he is in this as he is in every other match in which I’ve seen him- invisible but not hindering the match. (Here I take a moment to if I missed anything between Gannesuke going to the floor and going on offense. And I didn’t. This match is fucking old school as hell. Mr G shoulder blocks him in the stomach getting in and that’s his transition to offense. Daisuke is going to win this with an Airplane Spin if all of this is any indication. Both Mr G and Daisuke hit the exposed turnbuckle and it leads to Mr G driving him into the buckle again and thus the psychology of the match established at 18:32- Mr G will work the shoulder. Mr G then works the shoulder.
In Mexico, at 18:52, Polvora hits a nasty backbreaker using the ropes to get a two count and both seconds are awesome being outraged at the ref. Polvora hits a nice Lyger Bomb for two and I fear that there will be twenty minutes of nearfalls. Dailymotion is just kinda stopping at 20 minutes for a moment en lieu of going to a commercial- THIS MATCH IS TOO IMPORTANT! It’s like soccer! I assume a box will surround the outside screen with the Budweiser logo. Mr G fights out of Daisuke’s desperation arm bar and body slams Daisuke and works the shoulder some more by going into a LEGIT NWA Armbar where you grab the wrist and try to rip the shoulder apart by pushing off your opponents neck and ribs with your feet. This is becoming Stecher-Lewis 2015!
Meanwhile, I miss three nearfalls in Mexico so I back it up a bit as Mr G mauls Daisuke’s shoulder. (I pause the Mr G match to get my bearings.) Oh man, nice lariat by Polvora for two. Yeah, the replay shows that he layed it in and Oro leaned it to it. For the title, DADDY! Oro jawbreakers to TRANSITION~! and goes up top but plunges to the floor as Polvora catches him and pushes and then fucking crushes him with a SPECTACULAR toprope plancha to the floor. Should your rudo smoke your technico’s best highspot like acheap cigar? It doesn’t matter what we think because here we are and that’s whatit was. Oro tries to make up for it by fruitily embellishing a Flying Space Tiger Drop but all it does is LOSE to the plancha. Oro superkicks and mini-moonsaults Polvora and he is STILL being showed up by the plancha. Polvora kicks out and hits a reverse Juvie Driver for two as DailyMotion craps out on cue at 23 minutes. I find it again and Daisuke is hitting the ropes allowing Mr G to get up and stomp on his shoulder. Mr Gannesuke FUCKING BULLDOGS THE SHOULDER like the motherfucking ANDERSEN BROTHERS! I back this match 100%! And he does it again! This is some old school quality wrestling.
In Mexico, they do a quick Guerrero-Malenko roll-up sequence into a Polvora Surf Board until Oro hits the ropes. Diasuke decides that the best way to beat 1960s Pro Style is with Strong Style and starts laying in the forearms. He sells the shoulder before hitting the snap suplex and gets caught going up top but escapes the shoulder breaker attempt and goes for a lariat that crushes the ref. Mr G gets the VISUAL PIN as this goes to an 80s WWF style match. In Mexico they are clotheslining each other and laying around the ring as if this is going….. Broadway? Oro and Polvora fight at the top of the turnbuckle when Oro hits a Frankensteiner for two. Polvora stomps on his head and they do the Guerrero Malenko roll-up into a surfboard again. Polvora escapes and the match has lapped itself. They do an elaborate set up of Polvora hitting the toprope released sidewalk slam again. Polvora gets up and goes to the toprope a third time, misses a splash and Oro wins with the surfboard. I guess the fact that I didn’t know that that was Oro’s finisher made the lead up to the finish a little baffling. It was a good match, I don’t know if you need invest 32 minutes in it. It was psychologically sound except for a few parts, and the ending was a bit of a mess. Go watch the Kamaitachi/ Dragon Lee match instead- more spectacular and the rudo works stiffer.
Meanwhile back to the finish of our Japanese match. Lemme jump back to Mr G. He gets the visual pin, notices the bumped ref is still out and throws Daisuke out of the ring- hitting a great dropkick through the ropes to keep him out of the ring. The ref slowly comes aroun as Mr G stands in the middle of the ring and tries to suplex Daisuke in, but he escapes and hits a very nice Backdrop Driver on a the 47 year old Gannesuke and they lay there selling the accumulated damage. Daisuke drops an elbow and hits a spinning senton to set up a Frogsplash for two- as this was like an Ode to Eddy Guerrero but nobody would kick out of Eddy’s Frogsplash. Daisuke hits a Tiger Driver for two and he goes for a Roaring Elbow that Mr G counters into a Fujiwara Armbar and then he hits a THIRD BULLDOG TO THE SHOULDER! Daisuke tries to fight out a suplex attempt and Mr G turns into a full blown Fujiwara Armbar and this is soooo going Broadway. Daisuke hits the ropes and Mr G drives him through the fricking mat with a GIGANTIC powerbomb. Man, fuck the world, Mr Gannesuke still has the best looking offense. Daisuke kicks out and hits a lariat eventually so they both lay there for a while. Daisuke hits ten forearms and gets a two count. He hits a legit straight up Falcon Arrow for two and hits a roaring elbow for two (I am now trying to remember Hisakatsu Ooya’s finisher now), and then hits a Toprope Elbow for two. Mr G crawls around as Daisuke sinks in the Full Nelson but Mr G hits the ropes. Mr G is helpless against the ropes as Daisuke is landing running forearms. Gannesukke tries a desperation suplex but Daisuke counters out and clamps in another Full Nelson and hits a BEAUTIFUL Dragon Suplex with a bridge for the win! There is a lot to love in this match. The first 25ish minutes is totally Tatsumi Fujinami versus Osamu Nishimura and the last ten was an Ode to FMW finishers. The biggest upside was how fucking great Gannesuke looked in this. The only downside is that there were way to many kick outs- especially after the psychology established in the first 25 minutes. I really like how they built up to the finish so I can forgive that. I can’t imagine anybody but me, BAHU and JT digging this match, but hell, it’s your 36 minutes, what else you gonna do?
~!~
BEST OF THE INDIES – TEXAS EDITION
(by PHIL RIPPA)
I discovered this series on Dailymotion which appears to be someone just throwing together clips that are already up on Youtube into a compliation. This is the one that I got based on whatever the fuck Dailymotion was thinking at the moment. It is an easy way to get some exposure to some random US indy stuff. This was is all “Texas”. I am not quite sure what the means since when you watch the matches there, technically, is no consistent one thing linking them (at least that I can see.)
BRYSIN SCOTT VS. ARMANI GATES – NWA TEXOMA (March 21, 2014)
I have missed me some tiny building wrestling. Armani Gates is pudgy with purple trunks so he has that going for him. Brysin Scott would like you to squint really hard because if you do you might actually think he was Doug Williams. (The wrestler not the Super Bowl winning quarterback. For Scott to look like THAT Doug Williams… yeah… there is probably no good way for me to finish that statement.) The wrestler Doug Williams also was never as flippy as Scott tries to be in the barely five minutes this match goes. He does a crazy ass middle rope late rotation tope con hilo that someone did not end in disaster. He also busts out a middle rope moonsault. (In hindsight – Scott might be the smartest wrestler ever as he decided to not have a run in with the maybe 8 foot ceilings). The missed moonsault was Scott’s undoing as Gates hits him with a sit-out facebuster for the victory.
BYRON WILCOTT VS. “COWBOY” JAMES CLAXTON – NWA TEXAS STAMPEDE (July 13, 2013 – Bull of the Woods Championship)
This has so much going on straight out the jump. FIRST – The Bull of the Woods Championship might be the best name for anything in the history of everything. SECOND – Hey! James Beard! THIRD – Man this is a small ring. Both Wilcott and Claxton are large men and they are both taller than the ring when standing on the outside. FOUR – Claxton has a shocking lack of cowboy stuff for guy working as a cowboy. He wears blue and black ring form fitting ring trucks which are like the last thing any true cowboy would get caught dead in. He also has ill-fitting cowboy boots that looks like a little kid playing dressup in the parent’s clothes.
This really is the best match in the Randy Orton/Sheamus series. Wilcott is also known as Big Daddy Yum Yum and more than matches Claxton in the Hoss Division. So these two start going at it in front of about 40 people in an elementary school and they do everything Orton/Sheamus SHOULD be doing the next 8312 times they wrestle. The long Orton chinlock sequence is replaced with midsection work including a bridging bear hug that Wilcott does and more people need to steal. There was definitely a RKO AND Brogue Kick thrown in to help my metaphor work.
I even kinda dug the shitty ending a Claxton inadvertly forearms Beard in the face. Claxton then his a big move (which I fucking forgot to write in my notes – I am tempted to say a spear because I feel like odds are good that a spear will occur in any heavyweight match now). Anyway – Claxton covers and gets the visual three. Beard awakes and you think he will count but instead he rings the bell and Wilcott keeps his title via DQ. Man – it would have been even better to totally Dusty Finish the 20 hillbillies but this was fun too.
SOUTHERN UPRISING (Andy Dalton/Bobby Lambert) vs. CHARLIE HAAS/CHRIS MARVAL – BRANDED OUTLAW WRESTLING
I wonder if this Andy Dalton could ever win a playoff game. ZING~! Charlie Haas was only one of two guys I had heard of before watching these matches (Big Daddy Yum Yum was the other). Of course – I should say that Kurt Angle was only one of two guys I had heard of because Haas has gone full Angle. Comes out to Angle’s music (he gets a slight pass since technically it was his music too – though that was carpet bagging back then.) He is roided the fuck out and he does nothing but suplexes and wacky submissions. (He gets the win with… something… that consisted of folding Dalton in half and stepping on his head. That I approved of.)
Southern Uprising come off as a real fun Big/Little team. Dalton is the tiny one who runs his mouth non-stop. He probably should stop dressing a Thing #2 though. Lambert is a big fucking man (or Dalton is even smaller than I realize). He is basically doing a Wyatt gimmick (or what will forever be known now as the Wyatt Gimmick) since he is dressed EXACTLY like Braun Strowman (My fault for not realizing how trendy Cabela’s was, I guess.)
The camerawork is really fucking distracting and took away a lot from this match as there is only so much headless wrestling I can watch. Maybe not stand on the ring apron next time sparky.
AMERICOS VS. MATT RIVIERA – NWA VENDETTA (April 3, 2015 – NWA Western States Championship)
NWA Vendetta is based outta Cali and this card is being held in a casino in Vegas so that is where the “Texas” theme fell apart for me. Now it could be because it is for the Western States title and not the Western Heritage Title despite the 1340 times I called it that.
Matt Riviera is really neat. You can tell he is a guy who has watched a lot of tapes so he uses a non-traditional offense (especially for the indie scene). But more importantly – HE STILL HAS A MYSPACE PAGE – https://myspace.com/therealmattriviera- AWWWWEEESSSSOMMMMMMEEEE!!!!
Hey! James Beard! Again!
Americos is a dude named Barrett Brown working under a mask as a masked… American. There really isn’t much to the gimmick than that outside a hideous tattoo that does make it seem like he is readying himself for a call up when the WWE replaces Sin Cara again.
Sadly the match gets very sports entertainy (I really don’t want to replay the Wedgie Bomb). Plus, there was a ring apron bump (Shh… don’t tell Bix). James Beard looks like an idiot in dealing with the outside interference (though this Luscious Lynn was apparently Manny Fernandez trained so… yay?!?!?!). And if Riviera is going to do submissions that are based around sitting on guy’s shoulders he should just switch to a stump puller.
~!~
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?
~!~
KAMUI vs DAISUKE MASAOKA – PRO WRESTLING FREEDOMS (7/29/2015) [RASMUSSEN]
I love this match. I forced my two sons to watch it and they liked it- and they haven’t been impressed by anything since I showed them the Onita exploding barbed wire matches a few months back. The big debate at that point after those matches was all about how painful or not painful the fireworks exploding on your back would be. I should get them to re-watch those matches now that the bottom line of pain was established by assorted NFL players blowing off their fingers over the summer. Something to look forward and also a parenting moment- “Note, son, that at no time does Terry Funk ever put his fingers near the exploding part. That is key to having fireworks blow up on your body but not actually disfigure you! Hand daddy that m-80 and I’ll show you! Let me show you something about daddy’s crazy ass Hawaiian side…” They will appreciate a valuable life lesson from their old man! And they could have a commemorative index and ring finger to remember me long after I am gone. Then I’ll tell them how to not drink themselves to death in their 20’s! I am fountain of experience and useful knowledge! I fixed the fence with three old belts! (True.))) So I forced them to watch the end of this and they were stoked as any boy would be when seeing people doing really stupid things in dangerous situations. SO I share this with you, fellow lover of Japanese people doing hilariously psychotic acts of violence in postmodern industrial approximations of the apocalypse. Daisuke Masaoka is a pretty fresh faced 31 year old and he doesn’t seem dead inside for a guy of whom it says on Cagematch.net, “Promotion: Pro Wrestling FREEDOMS.” Kamui’s profile says the same thing but he wears a mask, so I can’t gauge how dead inside he is. Cagematch.net does tell us that he was trained by Mr Gannosuke which may explain why this garbage match beats the living dogshit out of all your Big Japan main event Off-Broadway-Saw II-Revival/Traveling Geek Show. FMW was awesome because it had death matches but it was TRANSCENDENT because it was based in wrestling for the most part- and Mr Gannosuke was a LOT of that. Thus, it is established that FREEDOMS is a super sleazy Japanese indie, mostly in the vane of Onita Pro or SECRET BASE! They have a decent crowd and it has the feel of ECWA during the Super 8- when random Delawareans wander down from the hills to the armoury to watch the wrestling and finally get all the kids some of those cheese fries the city folk always talk about. Kamui attacks BEFORE THE BELL ON THE RAMP WITH A CHAIR and A CHAIN! He makes a man use the prepositions! The chaos of the brawling through the crowd is almost W*ING-esque in its energy and chaos- energy and chaos are key to me liking your garbage fed. Kamui chokes him with a chain right in front of the camera- FOR YOU!- and they brawl all over the room with Kamui pretty much controlling the action. They take it to the ring and Kamui hits a TOTAL 5/4ths Mike Awesome/Masato Tanaka chairshot on Masaoka after choking him some more with a chain. The little seat flew out and everything! Yeaaa! Kamui gets a two count and Masaoka sells the damage as Kamui throws some chairs on the mat from a stack under turnbuckle- thus keeping the annoying elaborate set-ups to a minimum. The body slam on the stack of chairs looks great because it looks painful, an idea that a lot of garbage wrestlers miss when instead going for maximum spewage of blood. Flourescent tubes don’t look painful, landing on a five chairs directly on your back is an experience we can picture and EMPATHIZE with. You KNOW it sucked to take that bump and THAT IS THE POINT OF TAKING A BUMP. You are doing something that looks painful and you have learned the secrets of wrestling to minimize the pain- but being slammed onto an uneven surface is going to hurt. And this looks like it hurts. Your bump is successful from a viewer’s standpoint. The question for the professional wrestler is how much of making it look successful actually causes damage to your body and was it worth it. I’ve seen guys do a whole lot more and not get the same effect- mostly because the bump was more painful but it doesn’t convey anything to the viewer. I mean guys in Big Japan death matches go through a table from a 20 foot scaffold for a farging two count. Some shit just isn’t thought through. Here, Masaoka sells it about as much I imagine it hurt. Kamui continues working the back and goes back to choking him to death with a chain until Masaoka escapes the chain as Kamui tries to hang him over the toprope- like Tom Pritchard being assaulted by Dirty White Boy in the greatest thing in wrestling ever. Masaoka hits a spinning wheel savate cresecent kick to the face of Kamui off the apron and also gets the chain. AND SOME MEASURE OF REVENGE! by slamming the chain across Kamui’s back. He also lays in the forearms so I’m loving this, the psychology, the stiffness, the…. aaaaaaand they completely fuck up a Frankensteiner in the middle of the ring. So yeah, you get reminded of some things before you get to anoint these two as the second coming of Hayabusa and Mr Gannesuke. Masaoka recovers with a really nice Asai Moonsault. They go back in the ring hit a bunch of stuff to make you almost forget the Frankensteiner- and I dig that they have a whole nearfall section right in the middle of the ring before going into the lunacy of the ending. The best part is another nasty slam into chairs that Masaoka takes likes a KING before bumping to the floor off the toprope. Kamui is fixing TO GET THE VAN! but Masaoka hits him with a 3/4 Awesome/Tanaka chair shot and they post each other and actually sell chair shots in the 2015 and everything. They fight back to the van and kick each other in the face and the crowd is all standing because its a FUCKING VAN MATCH. Kamui gets behind the wheel of the van and whacks into Masaoka like he a DC hooker on 13th street. Kamui puts Masaoka on a board across four chairs and ASCENDS THE VAN! It is at this point that one wonders why he doesn’t actually just slam him on the ground and run over him with the van- but then one ASSUMES that one of the stipulations of the van rental was 1) no drinking while driving, 2) secondary drivers MUST be insured, and 3) any manslaughter convictions could be cause for forfeiture of the security deposit. So EN LIEU of death and murder, Masaoka throws a chair at Kamui and also ascends the van and they are doing the GREAT thing of beating each other to death to set up the spot that you and AUDIENCE knows will be the finish. The key to me is that they really beat the shit out of other. Kamui finally gets him into a Fireman’s carry and Death Valley Drives him through the board to the floor and crushes Masaoka for THE WIN! Keep it simple and sometimes you pull off an indie garbage masterpiece. Your GARBAGE MATCH OF THE YEAR. Postmatch, they hug and I ain’t even mad.
~!~
KENGO MASHIMO vs. RYOTA NAKATSU (DNA – 7/1/2015) [RASMUSSEN]
Ryota Nakatsu is a DDT rookie. According to Cagematch.net, this is his 32nd time in the ring. Oh man, I didn’t realize that Mashimo is 36 years old. He’s also 5′ 11″. I always figured he was a wee man. My perception is blurry. The vision dims…. I guess they are pushing young Nakatsu because I accidentally read the finish. Huhn? I assume this has a Hector Garza- Scott Hall finish? Either way, let’s how enraged we can become. They keep it on the mat early, with Nakatsu trying to work the shoulder but the veteran Mishimo swarms all over him and rolls him around and balls him up and works on his five or six sleeper variations until settling on a keylock. Nakatsu spins out and hits the ropes and Mashimo has to sell some really odd strikes by Nakatsu in the mount- like Nakatsu has never actually seen anybody throw punches before and it trying to remember how it was described to him. He switches to the guard and then Mashimo does a knee lock into a STF. The match is the story of Mashimo schooling Nakatsu on the mat and then sinking in a submission. After a while, Mashimo opts to take it to the middle of the ring and collapses young Nakatsu by crushing his hamstring with a kick. Nakutsu does a double leg takedown does more really odd strikes before Mashimo can counter into an ankle lock and so far this is quite the rookie match. They kick each other and Nakutsu kicks like he is scared to hurt Mashimo. Mashimo is a Futen guy so he fucking crushes him with kicks. Nakatsu sells the leg a lot – which is good, but his offense sucks ass at this point, so this isn’t as compelling as the last Mishimo match you saw. They have a wild flurry back and forth and suddenly this gets really fun. Nakatsu flies into a crossarmbreaker and Mashimo is totally panicked as he freaks out as he hits the ropes. Then Nakatsu hits a fucking NASTY German with a Bridge and Mashimo is freaking out again as he kicks out at 2!! THEN Nakatsu flies directly into another cross arm breaker that Moshimo powers out of and we are feeling Mashimo’s desperation, like Drew Bledsoe reaching for his helmet as Tom Brady leads the offense to the winning drive. Nakatsu does another flurry of punches but Mashimo takes him to the mat into a crossface and does a fabulously awesome variation on the Rings Of Saturn. FOR THE WIN! The typo at Cagematch made this way more exciting than I thought it would be- as I was seeing how Mashimo was setting up to succumbing to a cross arm breaker by underestimating his opponent, THUS it was actually a surprise when he won! Maybe, this is more insideous than we think. DDT is a fucking lunatic organization- I mean they got their own OVW without actually being 1/500th the size of the WWE. Maybe this is a Russo-like concept of working the SMARTS~! by reporting the results wrong so people like me (or probabaly ONLY me) will be enraged that Mashimo is 36 years old and veteran of the indies and yet he is putting over this 24 year punk who had his first match in November. The SWERVE that Mashimo actually wins after a super spirited match by Nankatsu makes the match internet famous and they have a rematch where both GO OFF SCRIPT!! I need a fucking drink to sandblast that kind of retarded thinking out of head and out of my memory. So yeah, it was actually good by the end and the misinformation DELIGHTED me. ALSO. THE BEST FUCKING BEST PART. The best part, the indie handshake ends with Mashimo kicking him in the leg. This ain’t Sunday school. BILLION STARS.
~!~
JUDY MARTIN VS. DESIREE PETERSON – WWE (7/22/85 – Boston Gardens)
(by RIPPA)
One of the things that WWE Classics did really well was put all these house shows from the 80s from MSG and Boston Gardens and Maple Leaf Gardens and then we can enjoy the most random shit. Like when Matt was all “Hey – there is a Judy Martin match from Boston that is hella fun” I knew it was on. And this did not disappoint.
Martin is clearly disliked by the crowd (or the concept of a women’s match that didn’t have Wendi Richter in it). Either way – trash is getting tossed the whole time. Plus – Peterson can pass as Irish enough for the crowd to get behind (I guess Velvet McIntyre was busy that day). Side comment from my wife who happened to be in the room when I was watching this for a second time “It’s nice to see women with actual women’s figures competing.” Yeah… my wife is not a fan of the Bellas.
The match starts off fast as Peterson is all young and spunky. Martin – since she has been around the block a time or two – quickly grows weary of the nonsense and just starts beating Peterson’s ass. She hangman’s her on the top rope and then wastes her with a powerbomb that in 1985 Gorilla Monsoon and Gene Okerlund have no idea what it was (INVERTED BACKBREAKER~!). That is when Martin goes full heel – yanks Peterson up at two and just chucks her onto the announcers table with Gorilla and Gene. This would be when you realize Peterson is an insane bump freak and there is no part of the Boston Garden she doesn’t bounce off of.
God – Martin is such a great bitch, a fact she proves the most when she kicks Peterson in the va-jay-jay to a big reaction from the crowd and Gorilla. Yeah, I love this match. Gorilla and Gene are fully invested in the ass kicking, going on and on about how nefarious Martin is and how the ref really needs to stop things. Then HOPE SPOT~! as Martin misses a leg drop (which is really funny to think about since this was 1985. FUCK YOUR FINISHER HULK HOGAN! COME AT ME! I AM JUDY MARTIN BITCH!) Petersen hits a dropkick and the crowd is now into the supposedly meaningless match between people who are not Richter and Moolah. Off to a commercial break.
As soon as the cut back to the match – clearly as a rib now – Martin chucks Petersen AGAIN on to the announcers table. Man, somehow Petersen made that bump looking even nastier thanks to putting her whole back squarely on the monitor. Mene Gene awkwardly tries not to fondle Petersen while – shocker – the Boston crowd basically wants him to go all Big Ben on her. Gorilla gets fed up and just picks up Petersen and flings her back into the ring and now we have seen everything. Martin is now toying with Petersen which is perfect because she whips her into the ropes, Petersen ducks a clothesline, high crossbody, FLASH PIN~! Oh yeah – the crowd totally loved that. Yeah… that was a fucking clinic by Martin in getting a crowd involved and building up a babyface. This is less than 10 minutes so you have no excuse to watch it.
~!~
ALAS DE ACERO/ ARAMIS/ ETERNO vs ESPADA DE PLATA/ KEISER DRAGO/ OFICIAL 911 (IWRG- 8/5/2015)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
This is a new thing I’m starting where I try to review all the matches I am going to watch anyway, so I might as well review what I can. There used to be this thing when I was a kid called “magazines”. One of these magazines was called Creem magazine and it was about rock music and was very key in introducing me and other dopes from the suburbs about punk rock and the New Wave. I remember first time I heard Joy Division in college in 1984, I remember that I had read about them four years earlier in Creem. It was one of those kind of magazines- a way to making you smarter and hipper than you actually were. People my age and older who read Creem were very influenced by it because it was actually fun to read- as opposed to sounding like it has a stick shoved up its ass- like Rolling Stone. My general ideas of reviewing things come from my memories of how Creem did things, in that fucking anything goes as long as you get across the general idea of what the value is of what you were writing- and I’m sure they also had an index where they do a wad of reviews together. Or maybe not, it was like 40 years ago. Anyway, I’m gonna write while watching stuff on my Watch Later list and hopefully 40% of it won’t suck ass. Or at least will suck ass in a comical, easy-to-write-jokes about way! Holy Shit! Let’s do it!
I may be a really good-looking man- you can’t fight, why do try?- and I may be a fine guy to hang out with, but I am not a rich man. I got four kids and a mortgage and two perfectly fine cars to maintain- and one of my kids just started at VCU and the other ones think I’m made of fucking money and so on and so forth. Luckily, the internet allows me to keep my wrestling addiction pretty cost-free- but I do pay ten bucks a month for the FIOS Spanish band of stations so I can get the Puerto Rican wrestling (initially), but also the IWRG. IWRG is odd. When it is good it is GREAT! When it is not good, it is like listening to the collective soundtrack work of Phil Collins. After eating a turkey. A turkey soaked in Mackeson Triple Stout. After being hit in the head with a brick. Yet, somehow more punishing and life-defeating. But no matter which you get, the matwork is good and 46 minutes in they will hit some high spots. This match is actually looking like it is in the middle, which is counter to the point I just made- so yeah, there is mediocre IWRG, but this tilts slightly towards Good That Is Great rather than the Turkey Brick “Against All Odds” Is The To Live and Die In LA Title Track IWRG. 911 does a good powerbomb for a luchadore is all I come away for the first fall. Second fall they brawl to the floor and maybe this IS fucking great. Speaking of great, the leather/alligator-skin oficial’s pants sported by 911 are fucking AWESOME. I love that he pulls the shirt off one of the scrawny technicos so the little guy gets the full brunt of his chops! And a nice dropkick. 911 rules this fucking match. I want blood! They de-shirt another technico and then the THIRD! They take turns chopping them and beating on them. This is fun. Then 911 missile dropkicks the fattest technico directly in the balls as the other two hold him at toprope dropkick level. This is good rudo-ing. For ME. I mean, it’s probably not the best idea in the world to make the technicos look like total pussies who are just getting the fuck beaten out of them as they quiver in fear, but I grew up watching Blackjack Mulligan, Beat some heat onto these pantywaistes and make me respect them for surviving. Fuck yes. The technicos fire back with assorted assisted headscissors and hit a fucking AWESOME out of control triple tope suicida where half of everybody involved lands teeth first in the rail. This sets up the Technicos winning the second fall and they look that much stronger because 911 beat the dogshit out of them for 80% of the fall. Between falls, I look up the technico so I can have some idea of who they are. I sorta knew Eterno was the fat, unmasked one. Aramis is the scrawniest, wormiest one. Good luck separating the rudos who aren’t wearing oficiales pants. Cagematch.net even throws up it’s overly scrubbed Germanic hands. Third fall is more of Oficial 911 making me give a fuck about this match by setting the bar for the ass-beating the technicos are going to take, which is pretty high. Huh, Aramis, for a scrawny, wormy, emaciated guy will stand in the middle of the ring and lay it in. Eterno is pretty limber for a who is approaching the I Am A Load section of his life- we’ve all been there my brother, ain’t nuthin wrong with it. He is also very mattress like when one the non-descript rudos topes the fuck out of him. Alero submits the other rudo and then 911 gets rid of Alas De Acero to allow Eterno and 911 to go at for our big finale. LET THE FAT BOYS GO AT IT! Man, 911 does a fucking BEAUTIFUL Jerry Estrada bump to the floor and I stare in amazement. This is like a 1997 CMLL Classic Undercard match if you took Arkangel, Karloff LaGarde, Zumbido and Ultraman Jr and locked them in a basement and starved them for a month. Alas, Alas De Acero hits a corkscrew plancha to allow Eterno to pin one of the Guys Who Also Wrestled With 911 somehow and 911 is pissed about somebody who was eliminated hitting a ragtag corkscrew plancha on him, thus allowing Eterno to do…. something…. to win. Postmatch, several rudos- including some guys from the back storm the ring and beat the shit out of the technicos few a little while until a couple more technicos show up and everybody stands around and I look at my keyboard as I type and look back and realize that I’m really sure which side is which. Either way, THE RING IS FILLED WITH 9 REALLY SKINNY GUYS WITH MASKS THAT ALL VARIATIONS OF GRAN GUERRERO! But this was pretty fucking choice for a totally random IWRG match. I give 7 stars and 3 clovers.
~!~
CRAZY STAR/ FELINA METALIKA vs LUDARK SHAITAN/ KEIRA- CARALUCHA PROMOTIONS- 8/6/2015
(by RASMUSSEN)
We here at the Death Valley Driver Video Review and attached Message Board, in-house, follow a few things nobody else prolly gives a shit about. Like Pro Wrestling Shi-en (which HOLY FUCK! has a page at http://www.puroresucentral.com/ShienPro.html), our boy HASEGAWA from Apache Pro- who is so UNDERGROUND~! that he doesn’t even show up on Puroresu Central’s Apache roster page- much less Cagematch.net. Another wrestler I follow is Ludark Shaitan who was trained by Silver King and who actually has a Cagematch profile (http://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=9993). I fucking LOVE it when one of her matches show up on my YouTube feed because she is a lot like HASEGAWA in that she will wrestle fucking ANYWHERE. The upside is that sketchier places in Japan are kind of like Big Lots parking lots and county fairs. Sketchy places in Mexico are sketchy places in FUCKING MEXICO so it’s truly awesome. Plus she is basically a garbage wrestler- and thus is the hottest garbage wrestler on earth, THUS you get the whole Megumi Kudo-like fan boys jacking it with one hand-stabbing themselves in the forehead with the other hand mentality. This is a more upscale building for a Ludark match , but Felina Metalika looks like they took a skinny waitress from the Speed & Brisco Truck Stop and put a mask on her. If she breaks out a Virginia Slim and starts smoking while waiting on the apron, I will not be surprised. Her thigh tattoo is soooooooooo astounding in its home-madeness. Crazy Star is peppy and a little thick as the young men say these days. Ludark is evil in this or maybe the crowd in San Juan just loves all the lady wrestlers. It’s heart warming. Keira is a big mean lady. Ludark tells the ref to go fuck himself when he tries to touch her so they definately projecting: EVIL. Ludark is soooo awesome. Both teams pose for pictures. BUT Ludark and Keira attack them from behind while the technicos are doing their Run DMC poses. OH MAN, I THINK I LOVE KEIRA! She will beat the shit out of a gal. GOTTDAM, she is the nastiness. I’m not sure what the crowd is chanting, but I’m guessing it is unkind to Keira- as she is fuckikng buzzsaw beating the fuck out the beloved technicas. This is quality rudo ass-beating. Ludark goes after Felina’s mask and the crowd is suitably stoked into hating YOUR eviiiiilllll BAD GIRLS! The Youth Of Mexico are out of luck because this isn’t on television- this would go over big what with the DUEL TURA SANTANA’s in the ring, stomping the hell out of people. I really can’t express how fucking great Ludark and Keira are in this first fall. Soo fucking stiff. Ludark smacks Crazy Star on the buttocks region and Keira fucking crushes her with a SUWA dropkick to the head and then they crush Felina in the corner and it is motherfucking beautiful. Keira smacks Crazy Star around at ringside and calls the crowd a bunch of pussies and they take the first fall. Ludark tells the ref to go fuck himself again as he tries to raise her hand. The technicas hug each other outside on the floor and try to gather their wits to combat such total and utter EVIL. Second fall, Ludark wants this stupid bitch to shake her hand! C’mon, what are you afraid of? OH. You should be afraid of Keira dropkicking in the back! The bear mauling of the poor technicas continues and you don’t dig this- really.- go fuck yourself. AT EXACTLY 12:00 IS THE PINNACLE OF LUCHA LIBRE IN 2015! Holy shit, do I love this. Ludark goes up top to do the face ten-punch spot but instead starts crossfacing her across the eyes and nose because this match proves IT CAN SOMEHOW GET BETTER. Crazy Star finally gets on offense by reversing this into a Lyger bomb and the technicas try to come close to match the stiffness of the first caida and THEY are waaay fun on offense too, but it is a major step down- but they get it a try and I give them credit for that. Felina gets the fall with a nice Swanton and then they throw Keira in the corner and Felina picks up Crazy Star’s big ass and Valley Drives her into Kiera in the corner. I back this finish to the second fall 100%. Between falls, the rudos taunt Crazy Star at ringside and it truly is a Russ Meyer film come to life. The third fall starts with Ludark stomping on Felina and Felina countering with some good lowgrade armdrags and a nice flying head scissors. THEN the two big gals, Keira and Crazy Star, talk shit about each other and smack each other in the face in the middle of the ring. They roll around and do some stuff to get to Felina hitting a Reverse Cradle Piledriver on Kudark for a pinfall attempt that Keira breaks up with a kick that was straight out of a fucking BattlARTS tag match. God damn. Keira smashes Felina’s face with a face smasher. The rudos cheat to set up Ludark hitting a PREPOSTEROUSLY nasty brainbuster for the pin and then Keira hits a German with a bridge for the other pin. This time they both tell the ref to fuck off. Postmatch, they rip off Felina Metalika’s mask and Ludark shines Keira’s boots with it. SOOOOOOO MOTHERFUCKING GREAT. 8 ZILLION STARS
~!~
PAIGE vs. BAYLEY – WWE Wrestlemania Axxess 2014 (April 5, 2014)
(RIPPA)
I was looking at my “Watch Later List” and realized that I am still WAY behind on my lucha. I also realized that buried amongst the random WWE house show matches I have, I never checked this match off. Before we discuss what we can see of the match – let us discuss the quality of the handheld. Points for being shot horizontally. Minus points for not making any real attempt to avoid all the people standing in front of you. This really becomes an issue about halfway through when three dudebros show up and stand directly in front if the iPhone filming this. That means we get to watch more of them taking selfies of each other than the actual match. Is it any surprise one of them is wearing a Dolph Ziggler shirt?
Now, about the match. It is fun to look back and see the evolution of Bayley’s character. Her she is in the Best Possible Santino phase of her career where there is A LOT of comedy but it totally works. I mean they base the first two minutes around a head band and it’s kinda awesome (it would have been better in front of a crowd that actually cared.) Also – she is using her old theme song that only Matt is sad she no longer has. (This one – https://youtu.be/r5fgniNLzZs)
Paige is working what turns out to be her final NXT match (as this was the day before Mania and she beat AJ at the RAW on Monday). God, Paige is so much better when she isn’t forced to work a WWE Diva style match. Granted – she is working with Bayley who probably, besides Emma, was the best person for her in NXT. Lots of neat limb work with great selling by both of them. They also work in the tease of a hug which is the only thing the crowd did care about. It’s fun for what it was. I still am not sure what the actual finish was thanks to the peanut head in front of the camera but alas.
~!~
TOMOAKI HONMA vs TOMOHIRO ISHII- NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING- 8/12/2015- [RASMUSSEN]:
Today I take a swing at clearing out some matches on my dailymotion Watch Later list. This is from yesterday’s G-1 Climax and it is a sequel to a pretty boss match from earlier this year. These two guys operate at about the same level on the card and it’s always fun when they try to show which guy is The Best Guy Who Is Good At Making The Guy We Are Actually Pushing Look Good. Here, in New Japan, YOU are in shock as they do a Strong Style opening! THE STRONG STYLE! RIGHT HERE I NEW JAPAN! IT’S FINALLY HERE! Shoulder blocks for as far as the eye can see! Lariat competitions of epic proportions! Wistful memories of a thousand Scott Norton/Hiroshi Hase matches! This has ridiculous headbutts by Ishiii early- as a taunt I assume because Honma makes with the headbutts quite often- and Ishii also really lays in a few chops before settling into a 1/4 Eudy chinlock that he TRANSFORMS into a Beyond Syd Eudy Chinlock by driving his forearm and crossfacing into Honma’s eyes. It is little things like that makes Ishii so lovable and this is two days in a row that the crossface has amade a normal wrestling hold almost spectacular- yesterday’s being Ludark Shaitan creating a heel version of the ten-count punches in the corner by replacing the ten punches with one really long crossface across the eyes and nose. When I see that, I am reminded of the whoever the GENIUS was that first thought to dropkick someone while in a Giant Swing- so basic yet made a dopey move really fucking great. Ishii returns the headbutt to the equation- and actually, Ishii does the Strong Style headbutt which is the BattlARTS headbutt which looks totally fucking nasty and real. Honma does the pro style headbutt which is more like a in-ring tope, thus Ishii isn’t really taunting Honma, it’s two different styles. Ishii is complaining to the ref that Honma is a big fuckin pussy because Honma is laying on the mat trying to remember who he is and why he is in a ring with a maniac. Then Ishii beats on him some more and then he kinda just lightly kicks him in the head (like Koji Kanemoto used to always do back when we were all in love with New Japan Juniors) as Honma once again lies on the ground, baffled, terrified, out-of-sorts. They do this for a littel while until they finally get back to a vertical base and the psychological section of Ishii proving that he just lords over this punk eases into the active section where Honma now must move on from his position as Ishii’s bitch- onward into the future of what he be frrom this moment on! (I added this after watching the match because the psychology of this whole section makes so much more sense in hindsight) They fight for a suplex- Ishii loses the struggle but then he completely sandbags Honma- forcing Honma to legit power him up and thus hit the awesome totally legit EVEREST Brainbuster! Then Honma comes around to the GRAVITY of this match, realizing that he can eaither be a punk-ass also-ran and Ishii’s eternal BITCH or he can slowly let it sink in that there is a real measure of urgency to his effort in this match! (More post-match hindsight insight.) Honma slowly starts working stiffer and stiffer until he is really driving the forearms into Ishii’s head. And then Ishii- totally over having to once again keep this motherfucker in his place- responds by just fucking slaughterizing Honma with forearms. Ishii hits a non-Everest Brainbuster and Honma no-sells it to run into a Released German as Honma is filled with urgency but not with all the same skills and talent to match!. They very violently chop each other and lariat each other to set up the both of the fucking MOTHERFUCKING fucking MOTHERFUCKING KILLING each other with chops- and the people who like pro wrestling would like this match- this part anyway. The chopping goes on for a while to the point where they actually start selling it, which where I like the Big Japan version of this spot more. They don’t have the Kobashi-Sasaki baggage to work through and can get straight to the Chops Actually Affect Me part as opposed to the We Mush Get In 125 Chops Because That Is The Baseline Of Our Version Of Strong Style. Finally, Ishiii gets him good one time into the throat and Honma hits the mat agony (And one assumes from the postmatch that Ishii really did get him one really good right on the trachea). Ishii drags him up and chops him across the throat again- to your delight. They go up top and Ishii hits the fucking BEAUTIFUL Toprope Brainbuster. They do some things to put some distance between Honma taking a toprope braingbuster and Honma going on offense, which I guess is long enough if you can get past the fact that a Toprope Brainbuster is basically replacing a Boston Crab spot in this match, but that shipped sailed a while ago. Honam goes on offense by hitting a DDT that Ishii does the Full Rob Van Dam Headstand Sell but with added Faces Of Horrible Pain added (and I can’t remember anything else that Rob Van Dam that was ever better than how he sold DDTs). Then they go back to lariating each other- and they are really fucking slaughtering each other by this point, until Honma wins and does the running headbutt to Ishii’s back which he uses to set up a thoroughly nasty K-DRILLAH~! to set-up a totally unsuccessful toprope headbutt. One wonders why still tries after missing 85% of the time. WHY! HE NEVERS WINS BECAUSE HE NEVER HITS THAT AND THAT IS THE BEGNNING OF HIS DOWNFALL EVERY TIME HE LOSES! Then he misses a headbutt to the corner and so Ishii pelts him with elbows and a Stiffest Lariat of 2015 and (from here on out anytime a wrestling sitting no the mat and someone does a move that he would usually do while his opponent is standing, I am going to refer to it as “Roaring” as if it were a variation of Masato Tanaka Roaring Elbow, Just so you don’t think I am making shit up! Thanks, my beloved reader!) Roaring Lariat for two. Honma gets in a desperation counter Brainbuster to buy time before the inevitable- with the added bonus of Ishii trademark selling of the shoulder a little. Ishii and Honma trade assorted headbutts and you are excited- Ishii with the vicious It Must Suck To Wrestle Hi-styled, Hardway-Blood Headbutt, Honma with the more conventional running and bouncing style headbutts. Hey! Honma hits the Roaring Headbutt to Ishii’s shoulder- and suddenly maybe Honma is winning this. (I actually wrote this before seeing the end.) Honma then channels the entire offense of Koshinaka but places his ass on his shoulders! The headbutt running off the ropes! The butt-butt but with his head there instead of his butt! The total Iceman King Parson’s Cocoa Butt but with his head there instead his head! Wait…Total Iceman King Parsons Cocoa Butt! AND THEN….. Honma actually hits the fuckin toprope HEADBUTT! HOLY SHIT! HONMA WINS A MATCH OVER ISHII! Honma is now the finest Guy Who Will Put Over The Guy Who Is Being Pushed! The crowd goes totally apeshit for the Honma win. He goes total Onita postmatch and the crowd backs his play 100%. Children want his wrist tape! What a moment!
~!~
MANABU SOYA vs SHOTARO ASHINO- WRESTLE-1- 8/8/2015- [RASMUSSEN]
I useta dig Manabu Soya when he was on the periphery of the Big Japan Strong Style contingent but then he went to Wrestle-1, the abyss of Dean’s Wrestling Fandom until recently, because who the fuck knows what I’ll be into from week to week. Ye see, I’m the primary breadwinner of the Rasmussen household and I gotta button that shit down most of the time- I can’t lose my job, I can’t endanger my marriage, I can’t scar my children. The youth of the board may not understand yet, but it is a motherfucker. You think when you are young that you will be wild and free and party every fucking day and love all the ladies and be a general bad ass your whole life. I was like that. Drinking whiskey while listening to George Jones to go out and hang out at somebody’s house and listen to records of the Go-Betwee… I mean NO! going to bar and tearing shit up and punching motherfuckers in the face and stealing kisses and shooting off guns on Grace Street while walking on top of cop cars! Fuck yeah, bitch! But yeah, sooner of later you get sick of eating macaroni and cheese with a can of peas mixed in and you get sick of going to bars and getting drunk all the time. So you start feeling the urge to settle down and then you meet somebody stable who doesn’t annoy you and you don’t annoy them and you decide to make a life together. One by one, the things that signified your freedon are replaced by an obligation and an actual PAY-OFF for the sacrifice. I don’t know about anybody else, but I’ve got four kids and if I had my way, I’d have ten kids. Seriously. My children are the only REAL thing in my life- and its not that the rest of my life is shitty or anything, but children are the demarkation point for me milling around and staring at my shoes and my life actually starting. It’s hard and boring to explain, but yeah, if my wrestling viewing gets scattershot and erratic, it’s probably because there is very little things in my life that I can be random and scattershot about. ANNND thus I lost track of Manabu Soya. Plus he was always better in my mind than he was in the ring, so I was LOSING interest in him even before he disappeared from the internet places I would run across him. We all got on with our lives. Ashino is ROOKIE! I assume they have liked what they have seen because this is more of a straight up wrestling match than a match where Soya beats the fuck out a rookie. I mean, he DOES beat the fuck out of a rookie, but here the rookie beats the hell out of him too. It’s exciting! I’m gonna watch! Ashino runs through the streamers and starts laying in on Soya- stomping him, dropkicking him, CLUBBING well beyond his meager weight! Soya chops him and makes him make crying faces that shows that these are really hurty because I assume they are- and body slams him and makes him look at his awesome three braid beard and makes Ashino sell his manhood short for not having facial hair comparable to Dark Ozz, the pinnacle of facial hair. So yeah, it’s a rookie match early. Soya forearms the kidneys so it’s CHERRY KOOL=AID IN THE TERLIT IN THE MORNING for the youngster! Ashino fires back out of the corner and chops Soya to the center of the ring and Soya crushes him with a chop and then makes with the unprotected backdrop to set up the fucking NASTY running forerarm to the face to get the first real nearpin. Then Soya does an Airplane Spin but its while Ashino is in a Modified Cobra Clutch, Very odd but I commend his variation on a common theme. He then goes into a traditional Boston Crab and this is actually a rookie match but it just doesn’t feel like one- in my heart of hearts. Soya stands on his head as I write that to prove me wrong BUT Ashino then immediately hits a Released Belly To Belly Suplex when Soya charges at him, thus TRANSITIONING Ashino back to offense and THUS adding credence that this is the first match of Ashino’s career to actually mean anything! WE WERE THERE WHEN IT ALL STARTED! YOU AND ME! Ashino charges and shoulder butts and forearms until Soya hits the mat, finishing it off with a really nice flying forearm into the corner. The part where Soya would cut him off and finish him off would be where he charges out of the corner and whips Ashino into the corner BUT Ashino charges out of the corner and hits another running forearm! We are there! This is really happening! His regular is starting as we watch! He doges a Soya Lariat and hits a Lateral fricking Suplex like this is 1976- and I weep at the Lateral Suplex Splendor! He does a low grade Gut-wrench Suplex like this is 1988 but it also has the felle of an EVEREST Gutwrnch Suplex which be redundant because the gutwrench part is power up without assistance into a suplex- so it would be a More EVEREST Than Usual Gutwrench Suplex- and I weep at the Gutwrench Suplex Vibrance yadda yadda yadda. Soya headbutts him in the back of the head and slams him a around a bit before sinking in another Boston Crab- this one longer and more draggy and elaborate, transitioning into a Single Crab before Ashino hits the ropes- further proving that he definately is more than dropkicks and European Uppercuts from here on out! Ashino gets in two quick near flashpins and the crowd is aroused! Soya says, “Enough of this shit” and hits an EVEREST, a true EVEREST Brainbuster and that is the end of the story of Ashino’s first ma…. NO WAY! He kicks out at two. Ashino beats on Soya in the middle of the ring in a lsat ditch effort to pull the upset but Soya crushes his skull with a headbutt and fucking murders him with a short lariat and then Death Valley Drives him for the TWO COUNT!?! Sould it be? Could this be Ashino’s first shining moment in the SUN!??! Could this be the TIME and PLACE and ST… oh, Soya makes him submit to a Sharpshooter and the dream finally ends. But can the REALLY die? Postmatch, people I don’t recognize yell at Soya.
~!~
DAISUKE HARADA vs ATSUSHI KOTOGE- PRO WRESTLING NOAH- 8/5/2015- [RASMUSSEN]
There are some things in this world that just exist and you can’t really explain why: Lynyrd Skynard not breaking up forever after Ronnie Van Zandt died; The substituting of the word “gun” for “bitch” in the radio version of “The Devil Goes Down To Georgia” (Calling the devil a bitch is beyond the pale. What if it was Hitler? Do these shitheads want to hug Hitler? What the fuck? Fuck those assholes and fuck Charlie Daniels for even recording that version. Have some integrity.); .38 Special having three guitar players and two drummers but sound just like every other Southern rock band; and 28 minutes of wrestling between two NOAH junior heavyweights that doesn’t include exploding barbed-wire or a 15 minute intermission where the CMLL ring girls dance to Cold Gin by Kiss. Nope. Just straight up Harada versus Kotoge for actually it looks more like 22 minutes. Somebody posted it on the internet THUS there was a demand somewhere for it. People at the Differ Ariake paid cold hard cash to watch it live. They didn’t flee from their seats and pour into the streets as soon as the first arm-wringer clued them in that this going long. It’s on my dailymotion feed and THUS- AS IS MY WONT- I would watch five minutes of it at least, and if it actually drew me in, I would feel obligated- TO MYSELF- to watch the rest. I watched five minutes of it after posting it the Internet Match Of The Year thread- not as a candidate but more of a concise version of everything I’ve written so far here- and Kotoge is making a case for me to like him because the first five minutes made me re-think the whole match and thus HERE WE ARE! HAND IN HAND LIKE LOVERS ARE SUPPOSED TO! You reading this and Me writing this and from this point on, writing about this match and then I will come back when it is all over and try to figure out how and why I liked this or hated this and hopefully you’ll have a laugh or two and I will find some kind of insight into this. So here we go. The dullest, most unappealing aspect of Puroresu- skinny junior heavyweights- going at it for 22 minutes, as if you would give a fuck. I am here to give the fuck that no one else in their right mind would give. ENJOY THE FUCK. GIVEN. Hook-em up. I dig Kotoge. He has the strangest worked punches in wrestling- that actually work. They are like Barry Windham’s punches. Barry Windham was a fucking great wrestler for all you kids who weren’t around back in the day. He had these really cool punches that did the thing that nobody until now- with Kotoge (and a few examples that the beloved readers of this review will remind me of, one hopes) could do- he threw punches that were obviously worked, but they were also so cool looking that you actually bought them as an entity of WRESTLING and wrestling unto itself. Windham’s punches were nothing like Dick Murdock’s or Jerry Lawler’s punches where you go, “Oh man, those look legit but other wrestlers talked about how feather light they were.” Windham’s were all about the shoulder dropping when he would punch up and it became like a very short dance, and it was TRUE art because it became a reality created by the artist and you the viewer saw the TRUENESS of the art. THUS when Windham “this is me punching someone in the face” you didn’t say back “this is you PRETENDING to punch someone in the face”, you said ” why, you ARE punching someone in the face and this is now a part of my wrestling knowledge”. He created an extention of the pre-conceived rules of wrestling and willed through innate talent and perfect execution a new way to convey a punch to the face. So yeah, Kotoge is like that. That makes him kinda fascinating. Harada is perfectly fine. He doesn’t lean into a boot that he is running into like someone I would actively seek out to follow (so far. This is Dean in the future and this assessment CHANGES! SPOILERS! ARE FOR PUSSIES!). Kotoge headbutts a motherfucker like he isn’t there to just slap his thigh a lot and dropkick people while they are sitting down. Harada starts making me love this early by Death Valley Driving Kotoge into the apron. I think it was Tenryu and Kobashi that created the accepted belief- a belief that all wrestling fans have bought into, that any move done on the apron or off the apron is as devastating as the same move done off the toprope to the mat. I try not to think about it too much because I like things that aren’t much more dangerous looking a lot more dangerous- and this Apron Concept is the pinnacle currently. I remember how cool the Airplane Spin was when I was a kid, and then everybody thought about it too much and realized that it was kind of stupid. And the next thing you know, Paul doesn’t have a respected finisher anymore and turns his anger on Jimmy Valient, Valient’s street people… and eventually… Big Mama. Heartbreaking. I would also add the Claw and the Heartpunch to this list. Harada lays on the floor a while though it was Kotoge who took the impact, and if they want to fill the extra time allotted to them by selling stuff, I can get behind that. Harada stomps like a junior heavyweight but does start leaning into his forearms- one of which he REALLY lays into Kotoge’s chest of which Kotoge sells it like he is in LOVE and his heart just skipped a beat and now he’s dying from his heart beating wrong now. This is cautionary tale about the youth reading this falling in love! Don’t do it kids! Smoke cigarettes instead! Why don’t other wrestlers do this match structure? When you know you are going long, don’t do ten minutes of head scissors and arm-wringers. Do big nasty things and actually sell them for a while. Maybe this match is genius. Harada body slams Kotoge and it is enough for Harada to actually hit a toprope elbow smash- as this becomes the opposite of a MENG match, in that wrestling didn’t affect MENG at times, wrestling really really affects these two in this match. New ideas in wrestling psychology- I wasn’t planning on that when I woke up this morning. Harada wrenches Kotoge’s head and tries to break his neck like Pam in ARCHER did to her last remaining kidnapper, but slowly and not so lethally. Kotoge elbows out and hits a sunset flip for two, then hitting a leg lariat, of which, Harada sells the FUCK out of- which I don’t think I have actually ever seen. They run at each other and Kotoge hits him in the face with a running knee and they crawl around on the mat like Misawa and Tsuruta after 35 minutes. This is the anti-junior heavyweight match. I back its play 100% Kotoge does the Ode To Tajiri thigh slappy kick because he goes straight into an INVERTED Tarantula With Handstand- so there are junior heavyweight shitty vestiges in here still. They then run the ropes and Kotoge hits a just BEAUTIFULLY timed Running Diamond Cutter that Harada Misawa sells by kicking out at 2 98/100ths. Kotoge procures the Sharpshooter for a moment but Harada hits the ropes so Kotoge body slams him and goes up top but he plods along so the level of selling he did for Harada’s bodyslam is equal to his own body slam, thus making the fact that Harada catches him at the top of the turnbuckle psychologically sound. I like the tight shot of the two wrestlers struggling for dominance to hit the move off the top, because they do little things to convey the struggle: re-adjusting stances, punches to the stomach, and especially leverage as Kotoge tries to avoid the inevitable top rope suplex. Post inevitable toprope suplex, both crawl to a vertical base without even a pin attempt, as the time recovering justified it, I would say- and they start punching each other in the face. Kotoge’s punches- I swear, works of art. Harada’s forearms- good strong style forearms. This is a good batch of guys beating each other to death in the middle of the ring (possibly my next Airplane Spin Concept victim). Kotoge ends it by sneaking in a headbutt and hitting a Toprope Flying Cross-body Block! Just like Mil Mascaras! But Harada was prone on the mat so it would suck more. Harada desperately kicks out but it looks like the beginning of the end- unless they are channelling the structure of the Honma-Ishii match, which would actually be three days into their future. I SMELL A LAWSUIT! Harada sells it like a motherfucker. I will start watching his matches. Kotoge crushes the back of Harada’s skull with a headbutt and just runs and punts Harada right in the face. This is a great fucking match because it a juniors match based on damage, the selling of the damage and the response to the damage- en lieu of killing time until the most spectacular finisher makes the crowd think they’ve seen a great wrestling match. (Dean from the future~! here. I realize that that is the most dickish I’ve ever said about wrestling, but we are super fans here at the DVDVR. This ain’s a damn Sunday school!) Harada kicks out and this is the beginning of the end. Harada finally gets in a running forearm to go on offense after the endless drubbing by Konoge, hitting a SUDDENLY LETHAL Leg Lariat before hitting one of those new-fangled Shoulderbreakers that looks like they start off as a Falcon Arrow. Awesome! Harada goes for the fucking EVEREST German Suplex to finish Konoge off with one last spurt of offense, but Konoge hits the ropes and holds on, allowing Harada to bounce off the ropes and fly into the back of Konoge’s head with a forearm. Suddenly. Konoge is desperate and hits a roll-up and tries to get his own Butterfly suplex in, but Harada counters out and goes for his German again in a really nice sequence where both of them are both doing roll-ups and also trying to get the opponent into position for the respective finishers! So complex! I find it de-light-ful. Kotoge fights out of that and comes off the ropes and Harada just fucking CRUSHES Kotoge’s head with knee to the face and this match is FUCKING AWESOME. Harada gets in another big forearm and murderlizes Kotoge with his GTO variation for TWO! Ah crap, is there going to be eight minutes of finishers? I was there when they ruined a great match! One day these young punks will learn..Oh wait! Harada grabs the corpse of Kotoge and hits the German Suplex With A Bridge that he was fighting half the match to land and THAT IS THE FINISH! This match motherfucking GREAT. Ah, the last 6 minutes is Global Junior Heavyweight League Trophy presentation. So yeah, 19ish minute? You got no excuse not to watch this. Don’t be a pussy.
~!~
TATSUHIKO YOSHINO vs DAISUKE- GUTS WORLD WRESLTING- 3/28/2015- [RASMUSSEN]
I got like four hours sleep because I’m doing lots of assorted things with my youngstrers, my assorted old guy bands, general ME time- and they all converge on Monday so I am a bit mind-stunned and dullened and be-sluggished. Thus, I don’t feel like reviewing anything and just want to fuck around and do nothing- so, THIS would a perfect time to write something. When one has gotten out of one’s comfort level and one has mixed it all up and one is writing when one doesn’t feel like writing, it has got to afffect the end product. Plus when I’m tired I get rambling and I’ll probably need that to SYNTHESIZE the goings on in this match with the stray analysis and insight that would make this review worth reading. Yoshino is a guy whose match I reviewed a few weeks ago or maybe a week ago. I vaguely remember NOTHING. I assume from sheer gut instinct (LIKE GUTS! LIKE GUTS WORLD! LIKE GUTS WORLD PRO WRESTLING! I’M FUCKING DELIRIOUS! SOMEONE DRIVE ME HOME!) that if he sucked I would have some sort of revulsion to his name appearing on my vieo feed and I would have GLOSSED over this match. But no and no. I watched Daisuke have a totes MUGA clinic with Mr Gannesukke a few days ago. Yoshino has the belt- THE GUTS BELT! – and Yoshino also has teeny teeny teeny paunts. They start off with assorted armdrags and a nearfall and then they stare at each other and plot the next move. Hmmmm. Maybe GUTS World is a MUGA off-shoot; I would find that to be awesome and also find it very much in keeping with feds that I could become addicted to- give me an excuse GUTS World. They go Strong Style with the shoulderblocks that Daisuke wins. I hope that they go to four minutes of a head scissors- head lock sequence to drive me back into the arms the old love of the Tasumi Fujinami-ism and Osamu Nishimura-esqueness. Yoshino goes to the floor after being kicked in the stomach, so folks are selling stuff. Daisuke does a few dropkicks and elbow drops and then procures the 7/8ths Sid Eudy chinlock but they don’t go long before Yoshino hits the ropes, disrupting the attempt at an early total MUGA vibe. Daisuke hits a comically low impact backbreaker to set up a perfectly fine Eddy Senton over the ropes to a prone Yoshino on the mat and this match is lethargic as I am, but I’m digging the lethargy, as it is a sign of the Dradition mantra I keep repeating to myself when I try to get a handle on the style of the GUTS World. Old Style wrestling has a deliberate pace and the rewards of staying in the match as it unfolds can be very rewarding if the two wrestlers are good at telling the tale. Yoshino hits two dropkicks to TRANSITION to offense and BRINGS THE MUGA with a fucking Cravate! Then a Chinlock into a headlock into a 3/4 Nelson into a 3/4 Nelson Strangle Hold Gamma! Yoshino is showing his MUGA cred and I will follow him (even after they fuck this match up by doing a Ruckus/Nate Hatred 200 finishers finish the last five minutes- I AM FUTURE DEAN). After the rope break they decide to beat on each other in the middle of the ring and they both lay it in and I got no problem with it. Daisuke gets dropkicked off the toprope after going up for his Frog Splash of maybe his Elbow Drop allowing Yoshino to hit a pretty spectactular Tope Con Hilo afterwards. Daisuke takes a DDT into the ring between the second and third ropes LIKE A KING and that is nastiest DDT I’ve seen in a while. Yoshino is a fun junior heavyweight. He’s all highflying but he is also a nasty little bastard in every other aspect of his offense- which is key. Yoshino goes waaaay old school by staking the head with his feet on both sides of a prone Daisuke and twisting the neck by twisting his body- like El Hijo del Santo’s spot, but also the super 1970s stomping of the head while you hold it between your ankles. I don’t think I’ve seen that move in like 30 years. I think Flair used to do it back when he was this methodical in the ring. It’s so strange to see a match this ponderous. Nothing rushed, everything sold, every move meaning something. It’s a psychology that is almost completely lost. I can see why it has died, as this match doesn’t bring the craziness at a fast enough rate, but Yoshino on offence- as he cravates Daisuke through the ropes to run on the floor and dropkick him on the face as Daisuke leans on the apron, the set-up is true and the damage is sold. I love that every sequence is worked off of a chinlock- as I assume they are working this where they guy in the chinlock is calling the spot. They get up and trade chops until Yoshino cuts him off with a dropkick into the corner and hits a running forearm into the corner and they trade kicks to the stomach. Daisuke goes on offense by hitting a dragonscrew. Yoshino sells it in the corner as Daisuke runs over and hits a strasight up Fisherman Suplex and a Flying Cross-body block for two! Daisuke hits two two running forearms to the face to set-up a Half Crab and they finish begins (In a fauntasy world it turns out- MORE FUTURE DEAN!) when Daisuke does a couple of Indian Dethlok variations into a Romero Special to allow Daisuke to get in his version of the Flair Shinbreaker. He goes for another and Yoshino tries to leg lariat out but missed, giving Daisuke the opening to sink in the Figure-Four leglock. They roll through a few times like alligators but Yoshino gets rolled all the way over so it just puts him farther in the middle of the ring. He finally hits the ropes and does really nice desperation Dos Caras-level lucha roll-up spinning through into a Crippler Crossface. Yoshino is pretty fucking good. I love how he keeps rolling through the crossface to keep him in the center. Daisuke escapes by turning it into a pinning predicament. The upside of a ponderous MUGA-style match is that you really note the cool mat wrestling at the end. The match has slowly built up to this: Daisuke has found a way to hurt Yoshino by working the knee and getting the figure four. Yoshino has taken Daisuke to the mat and uses what he has left to torque the shit out of Daisuke’s neck. Now they are both vulnerable and both are selling the damage. (THIS would turn out to be the end of the psychologically sound section of the match. It was an intersting 20 minutes- FUTURE DEAN) This is pretty deep match until the finish where hit a couple too many finishers and the selling gets a little sporadic. Having watched the Daisuke/Gannesukke match, I remember the finish was about Daisuke not being able to hit the Dragon Suplex and then winning he finally does. They do that here where Yoshino fights out of the Daisuke Dragon Suplex attempt and just CRUSHES Daisuke with a PREPOSTEROUSLY high angle Juvie Driver. And then an EVEREST German Suplex and maybe I read the results wrong. (It is about here that I started realizing that this match was going straight to hell. Around here is where they should gotten to the finish. Eight minutes later…- FUTURE DEAN! THE AMAZING FUTURE DEAN!) Oh, Daisuke catches him on the way up and beats on him at the top of the turnbuckle to hit a toprope suplex and then hits a Frog Splash and then there are a thousand suplexes: Germans, Dragons, Tequila Sunrises, screwdrivers, squaredrivers. So yeah, this match goes off the rails after a pretty good body of the match. After 15 finishers the crowd could give a shit. I join the crowd though I don’t hate these guys. It just goes to show you what the guiding force of a Mr Gannesukke does for your MUGA match. Reel it in and keep focused or you get this. Man, the finish is a wreck- with Daisuke winning with his 700th forearm to the face- for three this time instead of two! I will still follow the GUTS World because there was enough MUGA in the beginning to counteract the 2005 CZW at the end- but yeah, I think this negates 1/2 of the coolness of the Gannesuke match so GUTS WORLD is still in the rotation, it is more precarious this week. DAISUKE! YOUR NEW CHAMPION!