DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW ISSUE #170
(cover by CRZ – go to The-W)
THE BODYGUARD~! and ZEUS~! hook’em up~! KAGETORA~! can’t handle his liquor~! TNA~! isn’t very good~! WE~! ended up watching a lot of FMW~! and MASATO TANAKA~! JERRY FLYNN~! MAYBE???? KYOKO KIMURA~! SUWAMA~! AMERICAN WILD CHILD~! TAIYO KEA~! or KIA~! as DEAN~! kept insisting on typing~! Bring on your SOUTH KOREAN AUTOS~!
HIYA~!
Welcome to the Death Valley Driver Video Review #170!
As anyone who works in education or has children knows – May is a terrible terrible month. I really don’t want to hear the word “graduation” at least for another year. And since Dean was cowering in fear from his wife, this took awhile to come together. Which worked out because of all that FMW that showed up. Of course, since this is professional wrestling about 10 guys passed away in the six weeks since the last issue. Alas, the things you love are destined to hurt you the most.
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OSAKA PRO “OSAKA HURRICANE 2009” (2/15/09)
(by PHIL RIPPA)
This is Osaka Pro’s “big” show – well one of their “big” shows, since their is also the 10th anniversary show. And the fact that I just typed that Osaka Pro is celebrating its 10th anniversary is amazingly depressing. I need a drink. Still, I am giddy about this show, even counting the fact that the Great Sasuke match didn’t air. Okay – who the fuck am I kidding? It was Sasuke/Asian Coogar vs. Black Buffalo/Tigers Mask for THE BELTS~! Stupid unfair justice system. Poor poor crazy politicians. THAT WILL TEACH YOU SUBWAY PAPARAZZI!!!! YOU MESS WITH THE BULL, YOU GET THE HORNS!!!!
KAZUAKI MIHARA vs. NAOKI SETOGUCHI
I guess I am destined to not see a full Mihara match. Not that I am necessarily complaining. I assume that when we get around to doing a second Fatboy Issue – he will be working second from the top so then he can claim his rightful place in Japanese Doughboy history. I almost feel like he is behind his time as he could theoretically have made a great midcard lumpy WAR heavyweight. Or not… all of this is my way of padding for a clipped match that was right there for the four minutes it flashed across my computer screen. Oh and Setoguchi’s shoulder tape job thingy was just baffling to me.
ULTIMO DRAGO/TSUBASA vs. MASAMUNE/OROCHI
Ooof…. are any of these matches going to be shown in their entirety? That is going to suck if they aren’t. Hey! Tsubasa! Remember when Konnan had WCW fly him in so he could beat him in a squash on a Nitro? Yeah, it was the same episode that Ultimo won the TV title over Steve Regal. FULL CIRCLE BITCHES!!! This match… isn’t very good. Now, I have seen a lot of Masamune and Orochi but I don’t remember them being this stinky. There was a lot of blown spots (Tsubasa selling a drop toe hold that really wasn’t there was… peculiar). Plus, I don’t know if they were intimated of Tsubasa and Dragon in a “HEY!!! I SAW YOU ON TBS ONE NIGHT!!! WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO MEET ROBBIE RAGE?!?!?! PLEASE MR. DRAGON, TEACH ME THE WAYS OF THE AMERICAN WOMEN!!!” kinda way or what but our two Rudo Army pals sure weren’t afraid to show a whole lotta daylight in their offense. (Watch Masamune “kick” his way out of a submission and see if you want to argue.) This can be avoided.
DUMP MATSUMOTO/KUISHINBO KAMEN/EBESSAN III/KYUUSEI NINJA RANMARUK vs. TAKAKU FUKE/MIRACLE MAN/STALKER ICHIKAWA/KANJUROU MATSUYAMA
Apparently depending on one’s tolerance and patience for the Japanese comedy match scene – one might find this HI…LAR…IOUS. I am not really one of those people. And there is no fucking way I am reviewing this. Let me just throw out a couple of random observations and we can all continue with our day.
1) Dump Matsumoto looks exactly – and I mean EXACTLY – like Ian Rotten now. I am happy I saw her because it reminded me to try and find a Rotten brother match for the fatboy issue. So for that alone – I am happy she was booked in this fiasco
2) Also regarding Dump. It’s a little off-putting to see an enormous woman with swastikas all over her body canning everyone under the sun but the fucking clowns are unharmed.
3) Matsuyama might have the most legit set of abs of any comedy worker ever.
4) Now that issues of the DVDVR are back and I am reviewing again, I can finally point out that Stalker Ichikawa so looks like the product of what would happen if Grant Imahara got canned from Mythbusters and was desperate for money.
5) This entire match might have been an elaborate ruse so Miracle Man could get himself a little action. Maybe the boob grab he got on Dump’s attendant was his payment for the match.
ATSUSHI KOTOGE/DAISUKE HARDA/TADASUKE vs. KAZMA/MAKOTO OISHI/SHIORI ASAHI
HEY! It’s my pals from Blood Butt! (Yes I know it’s Blood and Guts. Clearly you didn’t read Issue #168) They are taking on those rapscallions from Kaientai Dojo. I do really enjoy what dicks Omega are, especially Makoto Oishi. Granted, it does help when you basically can dress in nothing but championship belts. Well and doing a little Gene Kelly soft shoe to distract the ref. The match isn’t really that great because it is full of that indy-flippy-divey-overly-elaborate-choreographed type of stuff that can get irritating over time. I mean Oishi & Asahi not only continue to torment us with the Canadian Destroyer but they insist on adding like five extra steps at the beginning. That being said, I could watch Kazma all day since I am a mark for tall, lumpy guys. And no, this doesn’t mean that I am a mark for myself. Jerks.
RIKI KANSHU/TATSUMI EBENAMI vs. SMALL ANTONIO INOKI/HONEY SHINYA
Seriously? Seriously? SERIOUSLY??? This got almost 10 minutes of air time but Great Sasuke slaps someone around and we can’t see it? God – clearly I have angered someone to make me go through this. Stupid wacky comedy. At least we yet again see why Ebessan wears a shirt. Ooof.
THE BODYGUARD vs. ZEUS
This is the Bodyguard’s supposed debut match. It makes sense in that clearly Osaka Pro was building to a match between the two forever but to have your first match be against Zeus is… well.. yeah. I mean, I guess it could be worse and it could actually be against Tiny Lister. And apparently at some point, these two had an arm wrestling contest complete with lots of OVER THE TOP~! graphics. Sadly, I kinda want to see that. Hooo boy – whoever trained The Bodyguard sure forgot to teach him how to punch. But at least he has mastered the press slam. And he did seem to absolutely murder someone with something that might have been an attempt at Splash Mountain in the hype video so there was that. They kept it short and Zeus goes over real clean. After the match, Zeus gets on THE STICK~! and announces that he is giving up on wrestling and is going to try boxing. Ooof… I except six page Meltzer updates about once a month. Anyhoo – I enjoyed this in an acceptable two guys who don’t know how to do much and being left to their own devices kinda way. The best wrestling bodyguard gimmicks in my mind at this moment (and this will probably change 59 times before this even gets published):
1) Ray Traylor
2) Curtis Hughes
3) The Bodyguard
4) Tyson Tomko
5) Kevin Nash – since I really just wanted to put The Bodyguard ahead of both Tomko and Nash.
HIDEYOSHI vs. BILLY KEN KID
This is for the Osaka Pro Title… oh wait… is everything for THE BELT~! now? I am so easily confused. I watched this match… and forgot everything about it. That might tell you something about it. I do remember both of them having the neat “Big Show” elaborate hood/cloak entrance garb. I also remember that the crowd was dead. I mean deader than you would normally expect from a Japanese crowd. This was the Main Event after all. Thankfully(???) I hadn’t deleted the file off my computer so I am running it in the background to see if there is anything I wanted to mention. You can definitely see that they were going 30 minutes plus by the pacing right from the get go. HideyoZybysko is really annoying in the opening minutes but I can’t hate him too much when he starts basing his offense on foot stomps. Yeah – the crowd reactions really did kill this match for me. Example: there is a sequence where Hideyoshi hits a great tope then a top rope double arm DDT and then drops kicks BKK into the corner all to no reaction at all. THEN about a minute later – BKK does the over the ring post tope con hilo and you would think that might get something from the crowd. You would be wrong. The crowd FINALLY reacts to the finish but I had a problem with that too since, of course, Hideyoshi kicked out of about three things that should have been the finish. Oh well. Billy Ken Kid gets the title and then gets all chatty Cathy on THE STICK~! This was what it was.
~!~
DRAGON GATE (3/5/09)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
I will get these off my HARD DRIVE! OFF MY HARD DRIVE!
SPECIAL DRINKING CONTEST: KAGETORA vs Kenichiro Arai:
Toshie Aria lets go of her father’s hand and Aria smiles a slight comfort knowing she will be fine after he is gone- a reality that is closely approaching the 67 year old former wrestler and bar owner. Toshie is embraced by her partner and they leave the hospital room. “Father, we’ll check back in in a few days. I’ll call you tomorrow. I love you.”
” I love you too, darling. Don’t worry about me.” Arai’s son from his second marriage enters the hospital room. He has just gotten off work and he is stoic and quiet after veiwing the sight of his fierce father laid low by something as pedestrian as cancer.
“Hey son, didn’t think I was gonna go out like THIS, did you?”
“You? No, I figured you’d be ripped apart by wolves. Or maybe… hit by a bus while in a drunken stupor.”
“Nah. Boy, if you get old enough, you realize that you probably aren’t gonna go out in a blaze of glory but like one of those pathetic, deteriorating old people you didn’t wanna look at when you were young.”
“Yeah, well I’m glad it was later than sooner.”
“It really sucks ass, son- but you also get the warm feeling of knowing that you finished. It’s like when you work overtime two weeks in a row. You hate it while you’re doing it and it fucking kills you inside because you know you’ve been whoring out your time to someone, but you also feel stronger for having gone through it. Like the shittiness makes the triumph of enduring it that much more empowering or something.”
Arai looked at his 18 year old son, assuming to himself that he was looking for the last time. “Look. Son. I’m not the best guy in the world and God knows I’ve made enough mistakes raising you- hell, between me and your mother, I’m amazed you’re still alive sometimes when I think back about it. But you know I’ve always wanted the best for you and your sister. Now your sister goes her own way and a lot of things she does I don’t agree with. Just listen to me and I’ll shut the fuck up forever. I didn’t go into the chapel for her lesbian wedding but I was standing outside the whole time and she knew from the first time she told me she was a gay that I loved her and would always love her. I support her as far as my raising and my beliefs allow me too. She is my daughter and I taught her to think for herself and sometimes you gotta piss off your daddy to be free. I am a MAN, motherfucker- so I know when get pissed off and I know when to shut the fuck up. What I’m gonna tell you about today is a story about love. I don’t know a lot but there’s plenty I can tell a young bastard you, so listen up.”
“You’re gonna fucking die, aren’t you. You’re gonna fucking die like TONIGHT.”
“Yeah. So listen up before I fucking die.” Aria drinks some water and pulls the blanket up over his chest. “When I was 20 years old, this young buck KAGETORA and had drinking contest. It was sponsored by the promotion but it really came out of rivalry up to that point. We were from the same general area growing up and we had a lot in common. His upbringing was a little rougher than mine- mostly because he never knew his old man- not that me knowing my old man was fucking walk in the park, mind you. That’s why I always told you and your sister when I was yelling at you that you bastards were BOTH lucky I wasn’t my old man. My old man would have beaten the living dogshit out of you two. He beat the living dogshit out of me and brother enough times. It wasn’t abuse and it wasn’t regular. It would build up and he would just fucking lose it. When I think back, I realize that I brought most of that shit onto myself, though nobody deserves that much of an assbeating. But that was his way and I learned to live with it. The fact he got killed that day at bleach mill didn’t really hit me very hard because of all that, but I STILL take everything he told to heart even today. Even after realizing how fucked up he was and how weak he was. But, fuck, who am I to talk about weakness. I know I hurt you and your momma and your sister. You know I made up to all of you as much as I could. So hopefully, you can take this shit forward until your strapped to a gurney one day looking at your son. KAGETORA was my friend and we worked together wrestling for Dragon Gate. We would get the shittiest paydays because the wrestling biz sucked ass in the 2000s. You gotta remember that they didn’t even put the Triple Crown on Yoshie until 2011, so you can see what a fuckin wasteland it was. Anyway, me n KAGETORA would take our payouts, pay off the power and water bill and end with like $2.39- so we would buy a 64 ounce glass jug of Country CLub Malt Liquor and drink it from little dixie cups. If it was a good night, Dragon Kid would let us work the gimmick table and we could pilfer 9 or 10 bucks off T2P t-shirts because they weren’t in the inventory list. So anyway, they came up with idea to have an in-ring drinking contest because Max- who was running the promotion- was a big mark for IWA-Midsouth and they had Necro-Butcher (yep, SENATOR Necro Butcher) and Corporal Robinson have a Tequila deathmatch and Max wanted to run that angle in Japan. Me and KAGETORA weren’t big on Tequila so we talked them into three cases of Country Club. We’d chug a 12 pack in the ring and the other 2 and half cases would be ours for after the match. Well anyway, we chug the malt liquor and the crowd was kinda of into it and then we did the pull apart and it was pretty good at getting enough for the match and the match was fine so Max was happy. After the match, I started drinking with KAGETORA and he gets this fucking terrible idea- he says, “Since this was supposed to be for a drinking contest, we should HAVE A DRINKING CONTEST.” KAGETORA or KG as I called him was drunk enough to be a dick about so I agreed. KG was also raised rough and wrong so he could drink ridiculous amounts of liquor without actually thinking about the effect it was going to have on him. he could drink and drink and drink and vomit and wreck his car and piss of his girlfriend and go back and do the same shit every night. I was kinda the same way, though I didn’t go so much quantity and like to actually have a GOOD TIME when I’m drunk. KG was more about fighting the world and hiding a lot of pain when he drinking so he wasn’t any fun at all when the initial rush was over and all you had a was a psychotically depressed out of control idiot on your hands. I liked to be more of annoyingly talkative drunk. It’s annoying, but not scary. Folks just move away from you after you’ve yelled your opinion at them. Anyway, drinking like KG got me into his whole hellish world of drinking. I had just broken up with- oir should I say got brokened up with my girlfriend of a few months. It was abd relationship. I left a damn good woman for her and- y’know that Billy Bragg song where he says, “I don’t know what love is, but look into your eyes and I know it isn’t there.” You know that song.”
“Dad, I’m your son and your a hundred. But go ahead…”
“Well, you have listen here. It’s important because you’ll EXPERIENCE it at some point in your life. YOU don’t what love is. But you can look into your lover’s eyes and know that it’s not there! And it’s a motherfucker. I was 20. When your twenty you don’t accept shit that can’t be changed. When your twenty, you can’t look into the emptiness of your own soul and say, “Fuck, I guess that’s that.” Nope. When your twenty and all the truth hits you at once, you go on the Mystery Walk and you walk until you are dead or the police keep you from being dead. See. What happened is- this was years before I met your mother and before I met my first wife.
” Y’see, ya always gets this one girl in your life who fandangles your whozit like a goat fukcing a dog. The PROBLEM is that you won’t be in love with her and she won’t be in love with you- or, if you are some kind of homo- he and he. But the sex will get your fancy parts in such an uproar that you won’t be able to think straight. Most poor stupid sons of bitches totally fuck their lives up by up and marrying this person. That list is longer than my arm. If you ain’t a fool and you realize what’s going on, you’ll be smart enough not to marry him or her, but you will be stupid enough to let the fucked upper ness of the situation kill you. That list is longer than that other list that is longer than my arm. So’s anyways, there I was. Drunk out of my motherfucking mind. Rambling around on a Mystery Walk. Cursing God and Jesus and anything biggern me. Screaming about the ability to fuck but not to love. Like I was made wrong! Fuckin’ God, fucking with me! Y’see, it ain’t about no emotion. It’s all chemical reaction at this point. You done sprayed her and claimed her fer yer own- cuz you can’t keep her like a human can keep her because God done made you wrong and fucked up your ability to love or some bullshit that makes sense your 20 years old and dumb as a bag of farts. So youse claim her in an animal way. She becomes your territory and she is an uppity piece of property. All because your a dumb son of a bitch who can’t figure out that youse both could find something later down the line that could make you all the way happy- as opposed to making your tender parts all spent and smoldering. It takes you years to figure out that love isn’t what you thought it was when you young and stupid as a fuck. So’s you curser God and claim her as your property and totally dehumanize the situation and now you are a drunken rambling wreck of retarded emotion and vengence. So you might as well beat the hell out of your best friend and destroy his truck. Except, that wasn’t his truck. And your going to jail and feel like a fool the rest of your god forsaken life. So yeah, I don’t know why I told you all of this. But yeah, maybe on your fucking death bed, this shit will cross your mind and you’ll think of your old man right before you join me in Glory. What I’m saying is that nobody has this shit figured out and you play it as it comes. If you come away with any knowledge or useful insight, try not to take it with you. And that’s all I got. Your welcome. And I’ll always love you……………………………”
YAMATO/ Ryo Saito/ Yasushi Kanda/ Kenichiro Arai vs. CIMA/ Susumu Yokosuka/ Gamma/ KAGETORA:
CIMA has the awesome Virgin Mary t-shirt on that you can buy at the Chesterfield flea market on Jeff Davis down by Rt 150. You can also get see the really great mannequins with big butts turned backwards so you can see how sweet your buttocks will look in the knock-off jeans and all the Obama As Jesus t-shirts you could possibly ever want. Last time I was there I bought me and the kids knock-off Sharpie markers. The brawl around the Hall and WHATEVER. KAGETORI and Arai are pretty liquored up and they both try to MUTA-MIST each other, but with sweet sweet booze. There is about ten minutes of nebulous Dragon Gate wrestling. I drifted off to the middle third of SEVEN SAMURAI that’s playing across the room on TCM. God knows, Ted Turner is a fucking retard, but I do watch his Classic Movie Channel more than anything else (other than football season.) YAMATO is still lovingly douchetastic though. Ugh, they take it to the streets and all action ceases as they do HILARIOUS whimsical things. Saito and Yokosuka finally put some things together that I want to see and they tag out and I notice that the rain has begun in the Kurosawa classic. Nice EXPLOIDAH by Saito. Perfectly fine double tope suicuda. God, do these things ever end? It is somehow LONGER than the 3 and half hours of the SEVEN SAMURAI. How many nearfalls before KAGEMUSHA starts? I can hear Robert Osborne now, “And the wrestlers in Dragon Gate were convinced that it would be a good idea to drag a batch of midgrade offense into 95 minutes of very bland wrestling. IT WAS CONTROVERSIAL but many on the internet would get very excited about it. It was a strange time indeed.” You want a REAL drinking contest? Challenge ANYONE to drink every time there is a lariat in the corner. CIMA wins somehow.
Naruki Doi/ BxB Hulk/ Naoki Tanizaki vs. Koji Kanemoto/ Masaaki Mochizuki/ Don Fuji:
I think I already rambled about Koji Kanemoto elsewhere so I’ll give you the truncated version: Old! Ricky Morton! Stiff! Old! Okay. On we go. Doi starts off by talking shit to Koji and taunts him with the belt! What an odd looking belt. OH RIGHT! The belt has a key- one for each defense or something. Koji is awesome invading and being an asshole so imagine my delight. God, Don Fuji is sooo in shape and does a Tiger Mask impression early and it is fabulous. Tanizaki and Mochizuki have a Jackie Chan section and we get to what we paid for- Koji versus Doi. Koji works him over and then gets around to smacking Doi around like a little bitch. Doi brings forearms in response and smacks him back but there isn’t the Kanemoto Shit-headedness behind the smacks that make them look like they sting more. Fuji and BxB trade punches and what have you until BxB hits a nice brainbuster. They go all Dragon Gate with the simultaneous submissions and lots of stuff into the corner and then its all springboard everything. You know the drill. Fuji breaks up the social dance by hitting the fucking GNARLEY Nodowa off the top rope to the apron. Koji and Doi have a really nice section where Koji hits the beautiful Released Tiger after they have a really lively exchange and goes back to the Koji ankle lock. Then it is back the Dragon Gate until Mochizuki pins Tanizaki and I assume you’ve seen this match several hundred times in your viewing experience.
~!~
RIPPA WATCHES WAY WAY TOO MUCH ONLINE TNA
(by PHIL RIPPA)
I have given TNA a few chances. Usually, I can stick with it for a week or two and then I just get beaten down so much. My biggest problem with this organization is that I hate the six-sided ring. (Hmm… TNA and AAA – two of my more hated feds. That can’t be coincidence). Of course – the slew of shitty wrestlers doesn’t help either. I will still get the PPVs from Netflix… or did, until someone made the decision to stop distributing them. Pretty smart business model. Anyway – very little TNA has actually been reviewed in the DVDVR and since I could find all of these on the web, I bit the bullet. These aren’t in chronological order nor do I think they are everything that is out there. This is basically as much as I could take before climbing a clock tower.
DAFFNEY vs. RAISHA SAEED
Did Daffney always have that enormous back tattoo? That was kinda surprising. Of course, most of the Daffney fanboys probably want to do unmentionable things to said back tattoo. I have also written far too many creepy words around these parts about Cheerleader Melissa so we are just going to move on. Yes, my pants are on… for now. There are two different things going on in this match. One is that Saeed (which Word keeps wanting to autocorrect to Seed. Ya know – sometimes you are too smart for your own good Bill Gates.) keeps trying to find neat ways to break Daffney’s back. The best being a hurty drop down out of a Boston Crab. The Second thing going on in the match is that Mike Tenay and Don West are doing their own thing and not really calling the match. Anyone trying to claim that TNA isn’t in full 2000 WCW mode should watch this. I mean West busting out his weird hybrid Lee Marshall/Norman Chad routine on a webmatch is just odd. And halfway through the match West and Tenay just lose it and spend the rest of the match laughing. Stay classy TNA. Anyway – the match itself is enjoyable and assuming you can turn your speakers off or are a mute – you should watch it.
SUICIDE vs. SHEIK BASHIR – X-Division Title Match
Wait a second – this is an X-Division title match? Aww… poor little title. Okay, Explosion? Is that the name of this show? Why do I care? Since I am not sure what point in time this match is, I am not sure if I am getting the Kazarian Suicide or the Daniels Suicide. Since this is kinda sorta recently (as in the last couple of months) I would think it would be Daniels. I am sure I will be able to tell soon enough. Which actually reminds me – if you ever wanted an example of why people complain that Daniels never evolved with the times think about that fact that he was working basically three different gimmicks and worked exactly the same for all three of them. I mean you would think you might want to change it up a little bit. Also – why the fuck does TNA feel the need to swoop their cable camera (or whatever the fuck that it is called in THE BIZ~!) all the fucking time? It’s like when the NFL first got the technology and there were like “WE ARE GOING TO MAKE YOU WATCH EVER KICKOFF LIKE THIS JUST BECAUSE WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY TO DO SO!!!!!!!!” So full of hate. Suicide wins with that douchey Suicide Solution move.
HOMICIDE vs. SHEIK BASHIR
Okay – I get it now. TNA Rough Cut (or whatever these webmatches are actually called) are just where they dump all the “Arab” matches’ DAMN THOSE FOREIGNERS!!! IF ONLY JOHN MCCAIN HAD BEEN ELECTED!!! THAT FENCE WOULD ALREADY BE BUILT AND WE WOULDN’T HAVE THIS PROBLEM!!! God – by the time I got the Caps Lock off, Don West is yelling what he is claiming is Farsi and Tenay is throwing out INSIDER~! terms. Okay – someone really should have told me that Vince Russo was even stupidly booking the internet matches. Actually – that shouldn’t surprise me at all. I kinda wanna spend the time searching for a web-only tag team break angle now. Anyhoo – this was a waste.
ROBERT ROODE vs. CONSEQUENCES CREED
OH SWEET MOTHER OF GOD!!! DON WEST – SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! MIKE TENAY – SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! Can someone please explain how either of these two still have their jobs? Why couldn’t Spike demand a “real” announcer like HDNet did to poor ROH? At least there would be an excuse for the terribleness. This is also the longest match so far so the prattling just goes on and on. And at no point are they actually calling the match. In fact, I assure you I heard West go “Boy – that Robert Roode has power and Mike, WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT THE WORLD TITLE MATCH!” At some point, the expiration date on West is going to come up and then someone will give Billy Mays a call since I am sure Discovery didn’t order that many eps of Pitch Men.
CHRIS SABIN vs. ERIC YOUNG
Something that really amused me that had nothing to do with this match are the usual mouth breathing comments on YouTube fighting over the identity of Suicide. It reminded me of another life when people tried to convince me that the Ultimate Warrior was dead. Of course – someone also wrote “I love the X-Division, its much more realistic than the heavyweight bouts..” Yup… when I think real I think the Motor City Machine Guns. And speaking of the MCMG – this is probably the closest I am going to get to the tag partners breaking up thing. Poor poor impatient Russo.
CUTE KIP vs. JAY LETHAL
Ooof… clearly I hate myself. I mean I’m watching Cute Kip matches. Excuse me, that is MAIN EVENTER CUTE KIP! God I really like the Beautiful People (ignoring their shitty current booking since all TNA booking is shitty) but Meltzer’s not so subtle lusting after them kinda makes me really not want them on my computer screen. Nor do I want the image of Dave’s mounting face in my head. Grr… This match is terrible but there are a couple of things worth a chuckle. 1) Clearly, Billy Gunn has never bothered to watch a single Jay Lethal match as Lethal goes to do that cartwheel into dropkick move that he does is every single match ever and Kip just lies on the mat looking at him before finally realizing “Oh – I guess I am supposed to sit up for this.” 2) Lethal was terrified of Kip thinking he was working too stiff or anything because he drops the worst – and I mean WORST – top rope elbow I have ever seen.
ROXXI vs. MADISON RAYNE
Aww… someone no longer works for the company. Now Roxxi doesn’t really impress me but stiffing Rocka Khan will win you some leeway with me. Of course – the weird brillo pad hairdo she has going as her hair grew back might kill that goodwill. Yeesh. Is the world’s most masculine Sarah McCloughlin really a gimmick we want to get behind? Actually – the more I think about it, that could be amusing. Moving on, I know I complained about creepy Meltzer but creepy Don West is really uncomfortable too. There are several shoot comments that weren’t meant to be shoot comments going on. In this case, a lot of them involve Madison Rayne’s implants.
RAISHA SAEED vs. ODB
Yeah… I will still watch anything Cheerleader Melissa does. I am a sad sad man. I also figure that someone will tell me that this was when she was hurt and that is actually someone else under the hood. And then I will be sad. Man – there was that one good ODB match and that was oh so many moons ago. I was trying to figure out some sort of whitty analogy for ODB just to pad space and I was blanking. And then Ed was telling me about the article he saw about the dildo being tossed around the old Yankee Stadium and a flying dildo from the upper deck of Yankee Stadium seemed just too apt not to mention. Yup, back to the West/Tenay comedy hour. Because when I invest my time with a promotion – I want it to be spent with HI!sterical jokes about the type of underwear Don West bought his wife. But hey – supposedly Don West is the greatest thing ever in wrestling now. I hate the internet. God I hate this fucking promotion.
~!~
FMW FROM 1990
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Atsushi Onita/ Tarzan Goto vs. Jerry Flynn/ Mitsuhiro Matsunaga – Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (12/10/1989)
HEY! THAT’s JERRY FLYNN! (Ed Note: Tom says this isn’t Jerry Flynn but it is actually Jerry Blaymon and that they don’t look like the same person.) He’s in a barbed-wire match! Goto is still tiny. I’m guessing in June 1990, he got married to an Italian lady and moved next door to a Hardee’s (Yes, that IS my excuse.) Flynn kicks Onita around a bunch and… WAIT. THAT’S MATSUNAGA? He looks like he’s TEN. He does kick Onita dead in the face. Goto is godlike with the stiffness and beats the dogshit out of Flynn. God, King Of Danger doesn’t even have scar tissue yet. Tarzan Goto looks like Brent Allbright and I laugh love’s easy laugh. Flynn’s kicks suck in this but you don’t notice because ONITA RIPS HIS WHOLE FUCKING ARM OPEN. GUUUUUUH-ROSS! Oh man, fucking INSANE. He still uses it to hit a blood-drenched lariat. Goto tags in and he and Matsunaga beat the hell out of each other. Flynn eats a Goto elbow straight to the teeth and takes some ugly and hateful headbutts before tagging in KoD and the beatings resume. Goto fucking CRUSHES KoD’s skull with a headbutt and Flynn tags in and finally hits a decent kick. Onita is flailing around the apron a bloody mess before goto headbutts to tag. Onita whips out the Backdrop Driver and the THUNDAH FIYAH POWAHBOMB HOLDOH! for the KNOCKOUT! Onita was fucking awesome.
Masa Kurisu vs. Shoji Akiyoshi – Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (12/10/1989)
These were posted on the board and I’m trying to figure out if I saw them in the 80s Japanese Indie run-up. I shall tax my memory and review this and pray for some Yoshie. This match HAD to make it onto Schneider’s final list. Kurisi basically spends the first half of the match stomping on Akiyoshi’s head. Akiyoshi fucking DESTROYS Kurisu’s jaw with a headbutt. Kurisu fires back with his own RIDICULOUSLY stiff headbutt, takes it to the streets and beats Aki to death with a chair. Back in the ring, the stomping continues until Aki procures the Boston Crab until Kurisu hits the ropes. Aki with the backbreaker and missile dropkick before Kurisu stomps on Aki’s face a few times to get the pin. This is fucking BEAUTIFUL.
Sambo Asako vs. Tarzan Goto – Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (1/7/1990)
God, whoever is posting old FMW, please continue. God, Goto is tiny. I haven’t ever seen Sambo Asako wrestle anywhere but in warehouses where several mummies end up wrestling each other at some point. This is kinda like hearing the guitar player for the Wedding Present’s first band. This is clipped to hell. Sambo is fat, but younger fat- as opposed to jiggly old guy fat. They work stiff as fuck- with Goto laying in the punches to the face until Sambo judo throws Tarzan over the toprope to the floor. Why was this clipped? It looked like the greatest thing ever. AIR SAMBO with the shoulder block! Lil Goto with the kicks to the neck! What else could I ask for? Goto wins with a sudden headbutt to the face! I WANT…. MORE SAMBO ASAKO… FUCKER.
Masanobu Kurisu vs. Atsushi Onita – Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (2/12/1990)
Awesome! Onita deathmatch I don’t think I’ve ever seen! God, Kurisu is my new 80s stiffness old guy messiah. They fight over the spidernets like in every barbed-wire match and tease the pay-off that will hit eventually. God, Onita isn’t afraid to beat the shit out of Kurisu as eagerly as Kurisu is eager to beat the shit out of Onita. Kurisu finally stomps Onita into the SPIDAH NET~! and the crowd explodes as we await the Spilling. Of. The. Giant. Bucket. Of. Blood. Kurisu stomps him back into the barbed wire before Onita can make it into the ring and I can’t even BEGIN to imagine what this must have been like to watch in 1990. Of course, I’m assuming that a trip into the barbed-wire is a respite from the straight punches to the face Kurisu serves up in the ring. Onita drags Kurisu out of the ring from the floor and I would be a dick to suggest explosions. They make it back to the ring and Onita hits a diving headbutt for two. Kurisu stomps on Onita’s head with great gusto and I’m wondering WHO IN THE FUCK HAS HIDING THIS FUCKING MATCH FROM ME ALL THESE YEARS? Kurisu punts Onita in the face through the ropes and tears of admiration of the beauty of the Garbage Professional Wrestling stream down YOUR face. Onita falls back into the barbed-wire and Kurisu goes back to stomping the living digshit out of him. Onita grabs him through the ropes and just beats him from the ring through the ropes off the apron into the barbed-wire. Kurisu takes a few shots into the turnbuckle bolt and then they opt to smakc the hell out of each other and THEN Kurisu hits a Bob Orton Jr Superplex on Onita for two. then a half crab. then big punts to the back. THEN he kicks Onita into the barbed wire again. Onita headbutts back into the ring and hits a DDT and then the NASTIEST THUNDER FIRE POWERBOMB ON EARTH! For Two? And another for the win. I’m sure it was fucking INSANE in 1990 but you will surprised about how much of a lack of blood there is. God, I want to see these two in a straight Texas Death Match. GAJILLION STARS.
Kim Hyun Hann vs. Sambo Asako – Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (4/1/1990)
I was reading through the FMW thread where all this solid gold stuff came from and I somehow got the idea that Hann was Jado when actually the guy who gets his head stomped on by Kurisu is Jado. So here I am stuck reviewing Sambo Asako sans mummies and space jews against some Korean karate guy. Ooh, where the zephyr winds take you when you don’t pay close enough attention. Either way, it reminds us that all early FMW wasn’t always the greatest thing you could ever watch- hell, go watch Onita versus Leon Spinks. Actually, maybe I need to rewatch that. Anyway, here we go. It’s 3 ROUNDS! Hann looks like one of those guys who would get their skulls crushed by 90 pound Brazilians in the first five UFCs. Sambo Asako looks like a big fat guy who would get his skull crushed by a Belgian in the first five UFCs. Put them together and it is HILARIOUS! Sambo swarms over him with his fat and JUDO THROWS! Kid Korea to the mat and goes for the keylock! for a standing 8 count? Hann does goofy Ali Shuffles before hitting the crappiest kicks that Sambo can lean into. JUMPING PETER PAN FAUNTASY KICK TO SAMBO’S FACE! for the standing 8 count! Second round, Hann kicks Sambo in the stomach and Sambo sells it like a big fat guy getting kick in his gigantic furnace-sized gut. I feel for you, my brother. Hann mounts the magical ropes like they were Captain Hook’s ship and does Magical Lost Boys Missile Fauntasy Dropkick for the Standing 8 count! Hann goes all Tiger Mask and runs up the ropes to piss off Sambo who JUDO THROWS~! for 8 count! Hann bounces around with his crappy Bruce Lee-isms and by the third round you REALLY want the handheld of Kendo Nagisaki vs. Kim Hyun Hann. Sambo kicks off the third round with a fucking BEAUTIFUL CAPTURE SUPLEX HOLD~! and procures the Crosswing Chickenface for the win! Fuck, even the FMW that sucks, rules. There is no way you cannot- in your fucking heart of hearts- fucking LOVE this.
Tarzan Goto/ Atsushi Onita vs Dragonmaster/ Masanobu Kurisu – Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (4/1/1990)
Dragonmaster is Kendo Nagasaki so my I am torqued about the degree of possibility of assbeating in this. Let’s crank up the VLC machine and watch this little baby, shall we? Onita enters confused and pissed, like all good deathmatches should start. Onita topes Kendo who reacts as if he has no idea of the concept of a tope which makes it truly awesome. Kendo flies through an entire section of chairs and then stands up BRAWLS LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER. Maaaaaaan, Kendo Nagasaki is the great lost brawler of Puro. the punches are fucking AWWWWWESOME. KENDO IS AWWWESSSSOOME. He beats the dogshit out of Goto and it FUCKING RULES. Kendo fucking SLAUGHTERS Goto with a chair and then they start beating the shit out of each other in the ring. Kendo bumps to the floor and Goto goes after Kendo and this is truly why YOU watch pro wrestling. Onita and Kurisu opt to enter the match and both decide for the less strenuous “Bleed a Bucket But Let Goto Deal With Nagasaki” route. Kendo with the HIDEOUSLY GNARLEY Piledriver. Kurisu can take being upstaged by Kendo no longer and just CRUSHES Goto’s skull with headbutts and blood is now flying all over the place. Jesus, Onita has to have the singular experience of saying, “At one point in my life, I was being simultaneously beaten to death by Kendo Nagasaki and Masanobu Kurisu! God, that sucked an ass!” For him. For us, it is fucking beautiful Professional Wrestling. Kurisu kicking Goto in the teeth with cowboy boots is soooo fucking great. Kendo is awesome beating Goto and Onita with a chair while Onita and Goto try to cover the other up. That is your story, Our friendship will WILL us to fight back with fighting spirit and THUS Goto and Onita go on offense. Onita isolates Kurisu and hits Thunder Fire Powerbombs for the win while Goto tries to keep Kendo from slaughtering the first 8 rows. POSSIBLY THE GREATEST THING ON EARTH. KENDO NAGASAKI IS YOUR OWN PERSONAL JESUS.
Lee Gak-Soo vs. Atsushi Onita – Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (5/19/1990)
I have no idea who Lee Gak-Soo is. Onita is FOCUSED! He is also 9 inches taller than Soo. Okay maybe five inches. WHOA! This one goes on for a while. Onita takes a shot to the face and goes out of the ring. Soo isn’t landing anything but Onita is leaning into it before using the power of Pro Style to beat back the spinning fauntasy kicks of the Karate guy. Onita doesn’t share the lil guys need to work loose as he drives Soo’s skull into the mat. Soo looks pissed off as he gets to his feet and one assumes that this gets a bit more heated as Soo gets the message. Second round is really tentative as Soo doesn’t know what to do and Onita can’t guide him fast enough. GIANT AXE KICK! for standing 8 count! GIANT BACKDROP DRIVER! for standing 8 count! No, it’s broken up to let Onita bring the PRO STYLE! Half-Crab! for standing 8 count! And Onita yells at some Karate guy at ringside! I am personally in love with the public domain synth rock that they play between rounds. So Jan Hammer-esque! Soo kicks Onita in the head a lot and Onita falls out of the ring. Soo seems to have figured out how hard he should be kicking Onita so things pick up. It also allows Onita to blade like a god damned freak. Soo gets with the program and starts laying some things in and actually sells a lariat like a pro. Back to the half crab and Karate boy at ringside is getting pissed at Onita’s slowness to break the hold. THUNDAH FIRE POWERBOMB and I assume this all over. NO! Nine count! Another THUNDAH FIRE POWERBOMB and the bell saves him. Okay, Onita is fucking awesome working this match. The second TFPB was just fucking HIDEOUS and he puts in just at the right time to allow the move to be saved and for the match to continue. JAN HAMMER~! Round Four, Onita sells some comical axe-kicks and then fucking CRUSHES Soo with a TFPB for the 9 count. Onita hits the fuckin GRANDADDY of HELLISH TFPBs and this match is EXACTLY like the Otsuka Five Released Dragon Suplexes match against Muhomed Yone where the 9 count makes EVERYONE look tougher. Postmatch, there is much crying. Onita ruled.
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YOUR UNINTENTIONAL WRESTLER OF THE WEEK….. MASATO TANAKA!!!
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Hayabusa vs. Masato Tanaka – Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (5/19/1998) [RASMUSSEN]:
I reviewed this back in the day. FLIK and Ditch uploaded this so I am watching it again 11 years later (Ed Note: Reviewed and comically formatted in Issue #93). I think FMW was the great lost promotion of the 90s- moreso than ECW, moreso than just about everything. There was a point for about four years where FMW was about everything I want in wrestling- just real great sleazy nasty fun. It was the best girlfriend you ever had. Then it started hanging out with Fuyuki and she got all fat and stupid and stinky and slutty. Anyway, this is from the point where she was fucking like a dog fucking a goat and then she would buy you a 40 of Magnum for when you woke up. Hayabusa hadn’t shot firecrackers out of his ass yet and Tanaka was still the underground darling of the deathmatchs- long before he became the Best Possible Non-Deathmatch Honma. They start off with the section of the Scientific Wrestling to make you appreciate the separated shoulder-inducing landings and buckets of blood that all FMW delivered by the end. After five minutes Tanaka destroys Busa’s knee and hits the fabulous Silver King Moonsault variation into a lariat off the second rope onto Hayabusa on the apron and Hayabusa lands like Hayabusa landed back when he was physically able to wrestle. Tanaka fucking CRUSHES him with a tope into the sixth row, because barriers ARE FOR PUSSIES! So fucking boss. They take it back to the ring and Tanaka spindles the knee some more and OPTS for the Figure Four Leg Lock HOLD! Hayabusa always oversold like Ricky Steamboat- if Ricky Steamboat resembled a crack-addicted male prostitute. They flail in the Fig4 and trade smacks to the face and reverse it and sell it and make it a really effective way to kill two minutes. Tanaka goes back to the knee and does a few other hold- Mexican Ceiling, Cattle Mutilation, what have you. Busa goes on offense by twisting the arm of Tanaka to defuse the ROLLING ELBOW HOLD! I really liked the Bulldog/Divorce Court mutation. Tanaka sells differently Steamboat-like as Busa makes with the kicks to the elbow and does several spindlizations of the elbow- and its all stiff and hurty-looking. Hayabusa tries a Springboard Splash that Tanaka turns into a TRULY hellish Powerslam. It is all lariats and Frankensteiners and lariats and Fuckin GNARLEY German Suplexes. HEY! I remember Spinning DDTs! Tanaka’s was choice back then. Hayabusa TRANSITIONS~! with a top rope Superplex and then hits a A JUST FUCKING INSANE Tope Con Hilo. Man, that kind of Tope Con Hilo died when he broke his neck- so graceful, so fucking crazy. They trade some late 90s junior finishers and do some nearfalls. HEY! An ACTUAL Falcon Arrow by the guy who created it! Ah, to be younger…. Tanaka starts making with the Thunder Fire Powerbombs and the memories rush in. Everything is very quiet, everyone has gone to sleep. I’m wide awake on these memories, because memories can’t wait. As David Byrne use to say. Several Sunbird, Stardust and Shooting Star presses later and Busa is finally all aboot his own Thunder Fire Powerbomb. It’s awesome- THUNDUH! FIYUH! Tanaka finally catches him off the top and hits the fucking NASTIEST Reverse Toprope Brainbuster ON EARTH. HOLY FUCK! And the running Lyger Bomb for two! THUNDAH FIYUH for two. It’s five thousand kick-outs until Hayabusa hits GNARLEY Released Dragon and accompanying Falcon Arrow. FOR TWO! Rolling Elbow for two! THUNDAH FIYAH for TWO! Yeah, I would definitely piss all over this match if it happened today, but the Tanaka/Awesome matches were what established and thus destroyed 2.9 match in the US so I have respect for the source. Plus there is some selling after the first initial endless nearfall sequence. But yeah, this wouldn’t work in the 09. Finish is a fucking GANSO Thunder Fire Powerbomb avec le Falcon Arrow for the win for Hayabusa. Fucking awesome. Memories….
MASATO TANAKA/ALEX SHELLEY vs. SONJAY DUTT/DICK TOGO – Zero1 (3/15/05) – TLC Match (RIPPA)
The lack of reviews for two years so makes it easier to randomly find something amongst the huge swath of internet wrestling, watch it and say “Well… I know no one reviewed this.” In this case – I wanted to see Dick Togo, who I hadn’t seen in forever. They one downside of picking this match was that in then proceeded to send me into my TNA death spiral that y’all had to suffer through already. This is not a TLC in way that most of you are used to. Yes – Tables, Ladders and Chairs are all used as weapons but the match ends via pinfall. There is nothing hanging in the middle of the ring. No belts. No briefcases. No bags of cash. In theory – the match is following standard tag match rules (but we will get back to that). Anytime you watch wrestling – you often will consider a match better than it actually is based on one fact. It could be one crazy spot. Or someone’s outstanding hair. Or the fact that someone has tassels on their boots. In regards to this match – that one single thing is the fact that Dick Motherfucking Togo bleeds like a motherfucking stuck pig. Here’s the deal. You get about two minutes of Shelley and Dutt going all “HEY! WE ARE FROM TNA!!! DIVES!!! WEEEEEE!!!!” and then the match breaks into a brawl. During said brawl, Masato Tanaka wraps a chair around Togo’s head and rams him into the ring post. Togo decides to blade and… well… he certainly found a vein. And just too make sure he finishes the job, Tanaka then splashes Togo through a table after jumping off a ladder that was up on a ledge. Togo is bleeding all over the parquet floor in an amazing visual. Togo spends the rest of the match with a towel wrapped around his head… which turns deep red right in the middle. Mind you, it wasn’t the most sanitary thing as the towel keeps falling off and Togo keeps putting it back on. Poor poor impending hepatitis shot. Yeah – and this has to be the mother of all blade jobs for me to ignore the HUGE flaws with the match. Throughout the match, Togo seems to be the only one who thinks the tag rules apply as he waits on the apron for a tag during the TWO long segments where Dutt gets continually double teamed. One could argue “Hey – it’s Japan. You go with the flow and ignore the lack of logic.” Or the WWE for that matter where you know Triple H can brawl around ringside for 20 minutes and not get counted out or DQed which would have cost him the title. But what do I know? Oh and don’t get me started on the fact that Dutt gets double teamed for like 75% of the match and kicks out of 94 finishers – the “highlight” being taking a suplex from the top of a 12 ft ladder through a table and TWO frog splashes and kicking out. Grr…. There is also the fact that Togo gave his forehead for the cause but Tanaka takes a piece of wood to the face thanks to a Dutt flip coast-to-cast dropkick and doesn’t bleed. Let me say that again – in a “TLC” match, MASATO TANAKA!!!! takes a broken piece of wood directly to the forehead and doesn’t bleed. Though to be fair… it does seem that he was trying to blade and it just never got that far. Anyhoo – it is really hard to love this match but boy does Dick Togo bleed.
MR. GANNOSUKE vs. MASATO TANAKA – FMW (1/6/98) Doubles Titles Match (RIPPA)
Dean became obsessed with all the old FMW. Yeah – Dean is all about the FMW that El-P and Flix have been putting up on the matches board, thus creating one of the billion reasons it took to forever to get this review out. Dean suddenly yelled at me and said I should review this match. Of course he also said that it had been reviewed before but I can’t find that anywhere but Google does tend to hate me and it’s not like Schneider didn’t figure out every possible way to misspell Gannosuke’s name over the years. So without anything that I could use as a crutch we begin. Yes, this match is “old”. It is 11 years old and you people and your youth all suck and you think only things in the last two minutes are good and that Taker is the only big man wrestler ever and that Taker/Michaels is Match of the Year and that lucha is the work of the devil and that women are only good for fucking and if you never worked Ring of Honor you are flawed as a wrestler. I hate you all. Er…. Umm… where was I. By the time I was done watching this match, I had another reason why I regretted not just doing the Best of the 90s thingy as a committee instead of straight voting. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Democracy simply doesn’t work. Here is the deal – as I was searching to make sure I had the correct spelling of Gannosuke so I could properly mock Schneider – I stumbled across BAHU’s FMW site and he had this match in his Top 20 of his Top 100 list. So I was like hmmm… where did it end up in our balloting? And the match wasn’t even fucking nominated. I mean I am not saying I would have voted for it since, well, the match has some serious flaws, but I voted for some shitty shitty matches and probably should have had more FMW on my ballot but to not even be nominated. Yeesh. After so many years the chair swing duel is played out, not to mention fairly stupid at the time. Plus, there is the usual giant amount of no-selling (the biggest being Tanaka not selling his already injured arm that Gannosuke had been stabbing away at with a broken stick) and kicking out of 19 finishers. But the praying powerbomb off the stage through a table that Tanaka took was both stupid and nasty looking – especially when you remember that this was before he was taking it every night from Mike Awesome in ECW. And golly – the bleeding. Well that is still grisly as ever. The hate that seethes from Gannosuke as he stabs away at Tanaka’s arm turning the white elbow pad red is still gnarley as fuck and worth a full Worldwide point. It makes sense that Gannosuke got the belts (Oh God – I really am going to have to explain the Doubles Titles aren’t I? They were the Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Championship and the FMW Independent Heavyweight Championship.) This match took place like two months before Tanaka went to ECW and ruined my ability to enjoy a lot of his matches now. Stupid everything.
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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?
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Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Hirooki Goto – NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING (5/3/09)[RASMUSSEN]
Goto has a new gay robe and I’m not digging it! No sir, not at all. Tanahashi has the fabulous hair still, so we will always have that. This match is either gonna being really great or really horrible. Let’s roll the dice, shall we? They flail around with matwork early- to the delight of the audience for some reason. Tanahashi works a headlock and I notice that New Japan is being sponsored by COORS NOW! Five minutes in and they go KING’S ROAD~! with the Greco-Roman knucklelock and work it into Goto working the arm. Why they are channeling Dory Funk in a 1973 studio match is kind of odd, but I’m not complaining yet. They chop each other and elbow each other and double hangman over the toprope and TAKE IT TO THE STREETS! Or not really. Goto isn’t whipping anyone’s ass in this so far. They battle for the suplex in or out of the ring and Goto OPTS for a pumphandle and Tanahashi answers with the between-the-ropes DragonScrew and I am still waiting for the MAGIC to start. Tanahashi spindles Goto’s knee for a while. They get smacky in the middle of this but they don’t really convey much hate. Goto starts beating on Tanahashi but Tanahashi kicks him in the knee and cuts him off. I dunno. Tanihashi sucks on offense and goto luckily goes on offense to bring me back and hits a FUCKING AWWWWWESOME TOPROPE ELBOW to take me way back in. They do the annoying counter of the running short lariat and set up Tanahashi’s shitty Swingblade. Tanahashi bumps big into the turnbuckle and then catches Goto on the knee to go back on offense. Goto tries to fight out but Tanahashi hits the super-mean-looking DragonScrew On Opponent Who Is On the Ground. Goto sells the Scorpion Deathlock until he hits the ropes and this match needs a heaping helping of Goto on offense. Goto complies with beautiful short lariat. They opt to beat the shit out of each other, and it’s fun as Goto chops him down and then punches him in the face. Goto breaks the neck and drops the elbow and the match is looking up. ANOTHER FUCKING BEAUTIFUL TOPROPE ELBOW by Goto and I cannot yet turn on this match. Tanahashi no-sells a Backdrop Driver and then can’t no-sell the second one. Goto can’t get him up for the Brainbuster and takes a Slingblade but Tanahashi gets all knees on the Frogsplash. Goto hits a rib-breaker and then hits his Shitty Goto Finisher for two. Tanahashi LEANS WAAAAY THE FUCK IN for a Goto lariat and it looked fucking BEAUTIFUL. Tanahashi hits a Frankensteiner (to counter) which you never see anymore and I appreciate the effort. TEXAS CLOVAH HOLDOH! by Tanahashi and they morph into a Goto Wings Of Saturn until Tanahashi hits the ropes. Goto kicks him a few times and they are all loud and nasty like YOU like them to be. Tanahashi with a quick roll-up and German With A Bridge to COMEBACK~! and then the Dragon Suplex Hold for TWO to set up the Frog splash to the knees to set up up the Texas Clovah Hold! Goto, knowing that III love him, opts to SPEW BLOOD FROM HIS MOUTH! and it rules. Tanahashi with another Dragon screw and Swing blade and Goto fights out until another SwingBlade and two Frog splashes and Tanahashi RETAINS! Eh, it was really good for these two going 30 minutes- as it didn’t seem like 30 minutes and there were really cool sections but Yoshie vs. Ishii going 10 was infinitely better. Just not enough big and nasty and heavyweight enough for this to be a 4 star match. I dunno. Completely psychologically sound and all, but I want more hell on earth from my heavyweight champion and his top challenger.
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KAORU/ONRYU vs. MEN’S TEIOH/KYOKO KIMURA – Big Japan (3/4/07) – Barbed Wire Boards Match (RIPPA)
I have zero clue how this flew under Dean’s radar. The only thing I can think of is that with the four folks (especially the outfits that two of the participants are sporting) involved in this match, it way exceeded the pants-pushing capabilities of the Richmond, VA area. Anyhoo – I found this amongst my unwatched piles of downloads from the Matches Folder. I think – THINK – Flix put this up but who can ever really be sure? And this match is motherfucking weird because it’s so a comedy match but it was like “But we are Big Japan. We have to have Barbed Wire Boards in it!” This leads to KAORU barely being able to contain her chuckles whilst crushing Kimura with barbed wire. Which is really weird… of course, it could just be revealing the sadist that KAORU just may be. Oh yeah – the intrigue so makes her hotter. Umm… Aww… Crap! There are two big problems with this match. 1) The guys are completely covered in clothing, thus minimizing the damage taken by said barbed wire. Though Men’s Teioh had the best method of protection and that was to not actually book himself to take any bumps in the stuff. The women are both wearing basically glorified sports bras AND are the first to take bumps into the boards. Clearly, equal pay isn’t the only issue that still needs to be addressed here. 2) There is a God awful jump-cut in the middle of this match. I mean I understand if you want to clip it but to go from KAORU and Kimura brawling outside the ring to Onryu slamming Kimura into one of the boards while Kimura is bleeding buckets from her forehead is clearly skipping a big part of the match. Unless Kimura was doing a hemophilic gimmick and now this was her opportunity to kick some back! 3) (Yes, I thought of a third) KAORU does a 619. Oh no, not you too KAORU. Don’t be seduced by the dark side. Don’t get me wrong – I didn’t hate this or anything it was just trying to please too many masters. Either eliminate all the wacky Teioh plays with the giant fro he was wearing and give me more of Kimura being the meat in a barbed wire board sammich that KAORU just moonsaulted. Or give me more Teioh grooving up on KAORU in that creepy “Yeah… this is Ishikawa booking himself in with the ladies of Arsion” way and eliminate Onryu having to kick out by pushing into a board that Kimura is lying on top of. Though, maybe this is the best way to describe Big Japan. I really don’t know anymore.
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Suwama vs. Taiyo Kea- All Japan Pro Wrestling (4/8/09) [RASMUSSEN]
From the Champions Carnival. These are two of my current fave guys wrestling so I’m stoked that are wrestling each other. I am expecting stiffness and quality powermoves. HOOKEM UP! This is all King’s Road all the way up to the Misawa/Tsuruta Greco-Roman knucklelock as they start off. Your former Milwaukee Mossman works the headlock as this goes way back to the old school and they fight to a vertical base and they are showered with light applause. Kia makes with the keylock and this is your basic Veteran Staving Off The Inevitable Assbeating From The Young Ass-stomping Bastard. Kea starts beating him to death and THEN JUST BEATING THE LIVING DOGSHIT OUT OF SUWAMA with chops- then the punches fly and then Kea hits the rail and the Veteran Will Take His Inevitable Assbeating. Kea is fucking AWESOME in this making the hotshot on the rail look fucking GNARLY, as Suwama fucking leans into everything to show that the old man will not go quietly into that good night. Kea with the Jumpinnnnn Pile DRIVAH for two and this is truly everything I wanted this to be. Kea has best looking offense in wrestling right now. It is so stiff and nasty. Suwama counters a suplex avec un suplex and the Beating Of The Veteran BEGINS. Suwama with the chops and the lariat and GINORMOUS Belly to Belly and this is fucking beautiful. Kia sells it like the first veteran tackle who ever played against Lawrence Taylor. kia gets in another flurry of chops and lariat and makes with the kicks. Suwama TRANSITIONS~! with shoulderblock off the ropes and procures the ankle lock and hits the FUCKING BEAUTIFUL Everest German after Kea hits the ropes. Kea escapes the LAST RIDE but his knee buckles so Suwama drives his shoulder into the knee and goes back to the ankle lock. Kea hits the ropes and Suwama tries to go all Flair on him but they awkwardly turn into some kind of DDT. Kea hits a Falcon Arrow- because he is love with the 90s?- and then procures the naked choke. Suwama makes the ropes and Kea brings the assbeat. they decide to lariat each other and no sell them for a minute until they HAVE to sell them and the ten count begins. They stand up and BEAT THE LIVING FUCK out of each other until Suwama overpowers him and hits a truly impressive Standing Overhead Belly to Belly. Kea struggles to his feet and tries to keep a headlock on his younger opponent only to take the full brunt of Suwama’s Deadlift BACKAH DROPAH HOLDAH! Kea fights out of the LAST RIDE again and hits his Falcon Arrow Styled Finisher for two and then FUCKING KILLS SUWAMA WITH A COBRA CLUTCH SUPLEX and IT IS FUCKING AWWWESOME. Suwama powers up and finally hits the LAST RIDE but the bell rings and- in the end, YOU don’t mind that it went Broadway. You are pissed that it didn’t go AN HOUR Broadway. Fucking beautiful wrestling.
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JUSHIN LIGER vs. YOSHITSUNE – Michinoku Pro Fukumen League 2007 Quarter Finals (9/1/07) (RIPPA)
Oh yeah… this is an outstanding match… that last three minutes. I always say that Raven/Kaz Hayashi from Worldwide was my favorite three minute match. This might be number two. This is from (assuming that the internet isn’t lying to me) Michinoku Pro’s Fukumen League. This is cooking right away as Yoshitsune gets introduced and charges the ring doing a missile dropkick from the entrance ramp over the top rope and into the ring. He then immediately hits a tope con hilo AND a Space Flying Tiger Drop. THAT is then followed with a 619 (Yeah, this is from aught seven and in aught nine it’s still going strong. Soon matches will be nothing but spears and 619s.) and a springboard 450 splash. Liger kicks out and you get the sense that he is thinking “Well FUCK THAT!” Hunch is correct as Liger shoteis the fuck out of Yoshitsune as a transition. Liger starts running through his big moves (running Ligerbomb, Brainbuster) but he can’t get the pin. Liger is visibly distraught so he attempts what I am going to assume was a top rope brainbuster. Yoshitsune turns it into a top rope 619 and then does kind of a reverse La Magistral for the upset. The Michinoku Pro boys including Great Sasuke hit the ring to party on. Bell to bell this was clocked at three minutes and thirty seconds. Someone had their thinking caps on as there was no way Yoshitsune could be counted on to not go all wacky in a longer match. I am guessing Liger was like “Oh hell no. There is no way I am dealing with this new fangled shit for 20 minutes. Let’s do this my way.” and the flash upset pin works oh so much better. I love evil bitter old man Liger.
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Koji Kanemoto vs Tsuyoshi Kikuchi- NEW JAPAN (5/31/2009) [RASMUSSEN]
At certain points in my wrestling appreciating life, this match would definitely fill my WrestleNerd Underpants with viscous streams of MANaisse. Now, I’m sorta back into Koji Kanemoto- as I dig his old guy turn a lot more than I dig most guys old guy turn (though not NEARLY as much as Kikuchi’s old guy turn against the New Japan Juniors- which was up there with Masa Inoue’s Old Man Is Last Of All Japan And Thus Fights Like Insane Motherfucker With Kawada). Kikuchi I haven’t seen in anything worth remembering since Lyger last spat on a NOAH fan and we all wept endless tears of love and admiration for the greatness of Lyger vs. Kikuchi. So, it’s Top O’ The Super J and Ryan posted this so let’s watch and enjoy. Or hate. We’ll see. Kikuchi still looks like he’s trying to remember where he parked his car after Jumbo beat the shit out of him in 1992. Koji points like a dick. I already love this. They start off with a love letter directly to ME by beating the holy dogpiss out of each other. The elbows are nasty and meaty, beefy and loud. You can prolly SMELL Koji’s teeth loosening. Kikuchi stands and Koji Ray Guy’s him to the back and then they start to JUST FUCKING KILL EACH other with elbows. They TAKE IT TO THE STREETS! On the outside, they brawl like motherfuckers- as Koji kicks Kikuchi in the teeth after throwing him into the rail a couple of times. Back in the ring Koji opts to kick the fuck out of Kikuchi some more and does nasty elbows in THE MOUNT~! inbetwixt dickish smacks to the face. Kikuchi fights out and assumes THE MOUNT~! and elbows fall on Koji’s head and you weep. Koji escapes and makes with the face scrapes the Moonsault Press Hold! Kikuchi sells the kicks by making the I’m About To Make A Comeback I’m Slightly Retarded Face and the elbows to SPID-OR SUPLEX commences. Kikuchi misses the diving headbutt and Koji is right there to punt him in the face like you were hoping he would be. Koji sinks in the ankle lock and Kikuchi groans to hit the ropes. You forgot how much you love Kikuchi Method Selling. He sells the top rope Dragon Screw by landing directly on his head. He groans like some kind of mutated lizard as he sells the second ankle lock. He rolls the ankle lock into a Small Package FOR THE WIN! Not quite one for the ages but they beat the fuck out of each other for me to say this was more than I expected to like this match. Bravo, duel Grampas.
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Suwama vs. Satoshi Kojima- ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING- CHAMPION CARNIVAL 2009 (5/4/2009) [RASMUSSEN]
It’s Kojima versus the homegrown better version of Kojima, Suwama! Suwama opens with beating the hell out of Kojima- reinstating my faith in him. They hit the STREETS and Kojima hits the rails and flails about. Kojima finally starts working on Suwama’s knee, making Kojima look like a pussy who can’t handle the offense of the big man- since Kojima is a power guy too. They trade punches- but after just watching a Kendo Nagasaki match, nothing will impress me for a while. Suwama is truly beating the dogpiss out of Kojima though and Kojima is basically falling out the ring to escape- so I assume he gets the flash pin at some point. Kojima gets in a hope spot Indian Deathlock but Suwama powers out and they wander Koruken hall and allow Kojima to do a bit of blading. The battle on the apron and Kojima comes to life to fight for a DDT on apron. Suwama fights out of the suplex on the floor and hits the GIANT Powerbomb on the floor. Kojima sells it like he just powerbombed by a real big motherfucker on floor. Suwama goes back to beating on Kojima in the corner and ending it with a SWEEEET Ron Simmons Catapult To The Throat To The Bottom Rope. Suwama really mauls him with chops and lariats in to the corner before hitting a really nice Magnum TA Belly to Belly. Suwama is so old school. Kojima avoids an avalanche and goes on a catchphrase-laden offensive spree. Suwama goes back on offense and then eats a nice Brainbuster by Kojima as this is trying to swing back to 50-50 with Kojima hitting the toprope Frankensteiner. Suwama responds with a Superplex and a DROPKICK~! Suwama pulling out the Dusty Rhodes Dropkick makes my heart melt. Beautiful released German by Suwama and then a DDT by Kojima means we are now in the realm of crappy US indie 50-50 match. Suwama takes a lariat and then Backdrop Drivers to TRANSITION~! and therein lies the problem. There is no rhyme of reason to why anyone suddenly is on offense. Kojima wins with a lariat out of nowhere! This is perfectly fine. Suwama needs someone with an actual offense to make his matches transcendent and Kojima isn’t your boy. Plus the psychology of the match was horrendous in spots. BAHH! MORE KENDO NAGASAKI!
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SUPER DRAGON/BLITZKRIEG vs. AMERICAN WILD CHILD/HELLBLAZER – All Pro Wrestling (8/15/97???) (RIPPA)
August 97 might so not be the date of this match as I found this on my hard drive and when I Goggled searched that was the only date that came up but it appears that these four wrestled about a billion times. This also may or may not be the Blitzkrieg who showed up in WCW. He doesn’t have any of the ring garb that you saw but he sure is flippy. God – I so used to be all about the California wrestling – especially the stuff I could find on the interwebs. I reviewed my share of UPW in the past and I dug Clickwrestle as I would try to find all the Bobby Quance I could. Heck – I was the one who tried to find all the Taylor Methany matches. God – the good old days. The fellas over at SoCal Uncensored will still send birthday wishes and I will be all misty water colored memories. I say all that mainly since this match is Turdtastic and I figure someone who reads this will be all sorts of angry and that we hate the West Coast. Remember address all letters to Rev. Ray Duffy. This is in the garage before the usual crowd of about 65 and who whoever is shooting it is up in the balcony and is clearly drunk and short as the camera will wildly swing to the ceiling at points and almost half of the ring gets blocked because the cameraman can’t shoot over the air conditioning or speaker or whatever the hell that giant black box is. I almost stopped watching two minutes in because this group of about 5 douches in green shirts who feel the need to chant stupid shit like “wannabe Konnan” at American Wild Child. Not that I shouldn’t have stopped watching this anyway as it is horrible. There are a metric ton of blown spots including American Wild Child doing what I think was supposed to be a handspring elbow into the corner that… well let’s just say it never got there. Unfortunately, for AWC that was so the least of his problems as at some point Super Dragon and Blitzkrieg do stereo tope con hilos and in the course of catching Dragon, AWC knocks himself out. This leads to the visual of 20 mouth breathers standing over him gawking but no one actually doing anything to… you know… help. I figure if AWC was conscious during the time he probably felt like he was in a scene out of Deliverance. Anyway – the match goes on for a little bit as the try to figure out what is going on until they just take it home. AWC gets stretchered out and the clip ends with the ring announcer saying, and I swear to God this is what he said, “That is a prime example of high risk wrestling and when the shit pays off, the shit pays off. But that is an example of when it doesn’t pay off. HOPEFULLY IT PAID OFF FOR THE FANS HERE!!!!” Yup – stay classy Mr. I think my suit coat, shorts and combat boots look good. Grr…