WELCOME TO THE DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #110! |
We here at the DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW were noticing how much 1999 kicks 1998's ass fifteen ways to Sunday in the Match Of The Year region. Schneider and I were talking on the phone and he reeled off ten matches better than the Tenryu vs Hashimoto match that he and I considered the match of the year for 1998 (Magnum Tokyo vs Sasuke, Them Ogawa tag matches, Benoit vs Bret Hart pre-Russo, Misawa vs Kawada Armbroke match, Misawa vs Kobashi in the Misawa's Sweet Ass match, Honma vs Yamakawa, Ikeda vs Otsuka ). There are TWO more in this DVDVR- your DVDVR #110- with the Ikeda/ Ishikawa and the mega-GREAT Aja Kong vs Meiko Satomura match- which was my match of the year before I saw the AMAZING Ikeda vs Ishikawa match. It's nice not having to settle with a match that barely scraped into the greatness realm. It's also nice that there will be a wide ranging debate over what is the Match of the Year with so many to choose from- as opposed to last years Kousaka vs Tamura or Hash vs Tenryu schools of thought.
We'd also like to welcome aboard young Anthony Gancarski- a man whom we have been meaning to make a Playah for a couple of years now but circumstances had always gotten in the way. Finally the time is right and things have fallen into place so we have luckily added his vast skills of analyzing the art called Pro Wrestling to our already impressive Murderer's Row of hardcore motherfucking wrestling fans. Welcome, Fat Tony. Long may you ride....
And Naimark brings the shootstyle frothing goodness and his strange need to vent, The Ripper is all about the All Japan Handheld from 1992 what with Doug Furnas' tiny pants, and Pete gets misty for Heisin Inshingin (hoo-boy, my spelling...) on your sweet ass, but first- SCHNEIDERRRRRR...
@#@#@#@#@# GAEA G-PANIC! 10/15/99
(Phil Schneider)
This was the second super show for GAEA this
year, and was a little disappointing compared to the DOPE 4/4 show.
Still it did feature some good stuff, and a legit Match of the Year candidate
so disappointing is sort of a relative term when you are talking about
the greatness that is GAEA.
Sonoko Kato vs. Toshie Uematsu:
The new evil Sonoko makes me feel funny. This
match was pretty great as Sonoko has stepped up her game and is now a legitimate
Kawada to Meiko Satamura’s Misawa. Uematsu is kind of Kikiuchi if I am
to beat this metaphor to death (Nagashima is a sounder Kobashi, Sato is
Taue). She is sort of undersized, and while being a good worker tends to
get smoked by her peers. Sonoko attempted the million counter finish
that she is so good at, but she seemed to have to dumb it down a bit for
Uematsu. The match had a bunch of heat, and Uematsu was all fired up, to
punish the traitor, and that whole bit was pretty great. Darn good opener
but not transcendent or anything.
RIE vs. Kaori Nakayama:
This was FMW style and resembled most of their
crappy non-Combat/Kudo women’s matches: Some blood, some chairs,
a chain, blah blah. RIE wins and proves her evilness or something. I suppose
I would rather watch this kind of match, then a straight wrestling match
between these two sucksters, but it still wasn’t much to write home about.
Devil Masami vs. Super Heel
Sakura Hirota:
Not really a comedy match, because it wasn’t
funny. Hirota does all these imitations and Masami was someone she imitated.
It was sort of like if Rich Little had to fight Nixon, and it was probably
about as entertaining.
Team Nostradamus (Akira Hokoto/Mayumi
Ozaki) vs. Las Caraches Orientales (Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita):
Boy this stunk. The Public Enemy of Joshie
Puroresu (You know how great PE looked when you first got ECW TV,
and how as the weeks went on they got progressively crappier,) Mima Mim
Shimoda and Etsuko Grunge, have another in a series of listless crappy
brawls. It’s fucking Akira Hokuto and Mayumi Ozaki, and you can’t
get off your ass, this has arguably two of the greatest workers in Women’s
Wrestling history, and it was barely better then the fucking RIE match.
Same basic formula, with LCO busting out their lame double teams i.e. the
rail ride, the chair crap and a some double chokeslam which they completely
blow, while Akira Hokoto bleeds a lot. Akira and Mayumi get the big win
which hopefully exits LCO out of GAEA for good, off to J’D or LLPW or Neo
Ladies so I have to watch you no more.
Kaoru/Toshiya Yamada vs. Chiyako
Nagashima/Suger Sato:
This match was pretty boss, although it fell
short of what it could have been. GAEA clipped this match and we start
with the highspots, KAORU hits a big moonsault off the scaffolding, which
wastes her partner, setting Yamada up for a Nagashima top rope double stomp
to the floor, which was a nasty impact for such an oldster to take. The
cruel and unforgiving GAEA editors then move to the finishing sequence
which is where I think the real flaw in this match lays. Chiyako Nagashima
may not get the hype that Kato and Satamura get, but she is becoming every
bit their equal, much like a hot and sexy Danny Kroffat she is a
master of working complex and exciting finishing sequences, KAORU
and Nagashima worked this great series, where the each kept countering
out finisher attempts with cross armbreakers, it looked really great and
would have made a hot finish for the match. After that series, KAORU and
Yamada attempted some sort of double team superplex, which they take too
long to set up, and completely blow, it totally killed the heat of the
finish. Then instead of letting Nagashima work another counter sequence
with KAORU, they have Sugar Sato do a crappy New Japan multi uraken finish
(i.e., she hits KAORU with 37 urakens with the 38th knocking her out) It
was a **** match with a * finish, and didn’t really live up to it’s early
promise.
Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura:
The undying All Japan Metaphor continues, as
Aja and Meiko do Jumbo and Mitsuhara 2K. (This idea was originally postulated
by fellow Playa Dean Rasmussen) Aja plays pissed off cranky veteran
to the hilt as she is filled with hate for the spunky Satomura. Aja just
beats the dimples off Meiko in the first part of the match, really laying
in the kicks and forearms. Aja even busts out the worlds greatest tope
and just flattens Satamura who takes it full force with out the usual wall
of trainees to cushion the fall. Most of Meiko’s combacks were of the flash
variety, like when she turned Aja’s top rope back elbow into a cross arm-breaker
or KO’ing Aja with her flip kick. However unlike other big stars of Joshie,
Meiko would actually sell the previous beating, instead of just leaping
back into offense. The selling was what made this match so great, my favorite
spot of this match has Aja going over and slapping on a sleeper hold, shortly
after being in the cross-armbreaker, but having to break the hold because
her arm is too hurt, that boys and girls is professional wrestling. The
built to the super hot ending, with the crowd going ballistic for every
near fall, as Meiko and Aja exchanged big moves in a heated and realistic
manner, incomprehensibly great match, the best in the history of GAEA and
one of the best women’s matches ever.
Lioness Aska vs. Chigusa Nagayo:
This was the biggest match on the biggest Joshie
Puroresu card in the last 3 or so years, and ended up being another disappointment.
Women’s Wrestling in Japan had really hit the skids when the Matsunaga
brothers spent AJW into the toilet. You had a bunch of vanity leagues drawing
flies, and a bad economy looked like it was going to kill Joshie for good,
Chigusa started the SSU angle and got fans excited about Women’s wrestling
again and this match was the big blowoff of that awesome feud. Aska
and Nagayo are the two most senior non-Devil workers in Joshie and thus
while you might not be able to expect them to perform physically at the
level of the younger workers, you would hope they would able to put together
a compelling match using psychology (kind of like the way Ric Flair is
wrestling ***1/2 house show matches on the most recent WCW tour.) Shockingly
what we had was a match chock full of monster bumps and dangerous moves,
but severely flawed in basic comprehensible match psychology. The match
begins with four huge table spots (Including a firemans carry drop off
the entrenceway onto an unbroken table which looked totally kidney destroying),
and then they moves directly into a knuckle lock- WTF? The whole thing
just felt off, the end had Chigusa absorbing a big beating and then winning
with a fireball, a move which was lame and out of nowhere. This wasn’t
even close to the matches Lioness produced with Kyoko Inoue, and Chigusa
seems in better shape and has a supposedly better grasp of what makes a
wrestling match. To it’s credit the crowd was rabidly hot for this match,
and both women took some big bumps, but it resembled nothing if not a WWF
main even, with the big table bumps and blood replacing actual wrestling.
If an elderly Vince McMahon can perform in matches like this how challenging
can they be.
!@!@!@!@!@! ALL JAPAN HANDHELD (11/30/90)
(PHIL RIPPA)
Mr. Lynch delivered the goods and I continue
to yammer on about late 1990 All Japan.
Masa Fuchi/Yoshinari Ogawa vs.
Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Isamu Teranishi:
The match was kinda there. There was some wrestling
which we have all seen done by better wrestlers. In a big surprise Kikuchi
gets beat on for about 70% of the match. He then does the job to a Thesz
press. This match went about 15 minutes but the mental clock in my head
had it at about 4 hours.
Kenta Kobashi/Johnny Ace vs.
Giant Warrior/Nitron:
Kobashi is left out of the white man's "Giant
Mullet Contest". I feel like I should know both Warrior and Nitron but
I can't place either one of them right now. Match is really poopy as Kobashi
spends a lot more time on the outside while the white stiffs expose the
business. It was soooooo a North American Heavyweight matchup. Lots of
chinlocks, shoulder blocks, KICKS OF FEAR and other nonsense. Ace wins
with an elbow smash from the top rope.
Abdullah the Butcher/Kimala
II vs. Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma:
Number of people in this match who need a manzier
- 4.
Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs.
Doug Furnas/Ricky Santana:
Was Phil LaFon too busy sitting on the Almighty
Throne trying to pass a couple of dime bags that he couldn't have wrestled?
For some reason, I remember Santana being better than what he should in
this match. In fact, everyone mails it in during the match. Well
I shouldn't say that. Dynamite is a shell of his former self but
he does the best he can. See the problem lies with the fact that
Furnas and Santana aren't, say, the Malenko boys. Whereas Dean and
Joe bust out all the elaborate and freaky matwork that allow Smith and
Dynamite to look good without too much effort, Furnas' dropkick and Santana's
armbar ain't gonna cut the mustard. Ending also comes out of nowhere
which didn't make things easier to swallow.
Steve Williams/Terry Gordy vs.
Rusher Kimura/Mighty Inoue:
Well..... ummm...... ahhhh..... I'm sure that
Kimura and Inoue are fine chaps but they are ancient. And this is 1990!!!!
Gordy is well on the way to giving up the ghost and he isn't shoot punching
Mick Foley so he does nothing in this match. Lots of stalling and
chinlocks abound as Williams and Gordy drag about 13 minutes of wrestling
out of the elders. Williams wins with a lackluster Oklahoma Stampede.
Kimura gets on the House STICK and cracks a few jokes to the delight of
the crowd. The second viewing put me to sleep so there was really
no point to the match.
Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada
vs. Dick Slater/Joel Deaton:
Ricky Misawa and Robbie Kawada drive the ladies
crazy with their good looks and stoicism. I haven't seen Deaton in forever
so this will be interesting. For some bizarre reason, both teams take turns
playing the subtle heels but soon enough Slater and Deaton immerse themselves
in their proper rolls. This match is really fun and it is chock full all
sorts of things that make you remember why you are a wrestling fan.
The Texans come out to the theme from Raiders of the Lost Arc and Deaton
even cracks his bullwhip in time. There are lots of partner saves
including the ever popular lay across the turnbuckle to protect your teammate
spot. There are two distinct portion of the match as Kawada/Misawa
work over Deaton's arm and the Texans work over Kawada's back. All of it
is old schoolerific and spiffy. Slater takes Misawa's forearm smashes like
a man while Deaton lets Kawada blast him in the face a few times. There
is really only one blown spot as Misawa rotates too soon on a neckbreaker
so it looks like Dirty Dick's Dirty Pits knocked him down. Otherwise, best
match of the night.
Andre The Giant/Giant Baba vs.
Dory & Terry Funk:
The match stinks. Come on. Baba and
Andre in 1990. STINK!!!! The only thing that needs to be said
is that this is the match where Baba breaks his leg. He and Dory
tumble over the top rope and Baba never gets back up. Of course,
this takes place on the side of the ring completely opposite from the guy
who is doing the handheld. I don't know how badly it was broken.
I am amazed that it didn't happen earlier in his career because I remember
the first time I ever saw Baba I thought "Jesus, how do his legs not break
just from standing."
Jumbo Tsurta/Akira Taue vs.
Stan Hansen/Danny Spivey:
It is the return of AKIRA FONZIETAUE!!!!!!!!!!
Taue was sooooo not afraid to have a hairdo straight out of an ABC 70s
sitcom. Spivey, as per usual, is a late entrant into the mullet contest.
Some unknown person or persons pissed in Hansen's whiskey before the match
because he is all ornery and he takes it out on Taue. The big tease
of the match is the Tsurta/Hansen matchup. So they spend 11 minutes
building to it. That means 11 minutes of Spivey's pedestrian offense
and comical attempts to sell. There is even a point where Taue sells
a clothesline even though all it did was wipe some of the mousse off the
top of his head. Now is the part of the match I don't understand.
Jumbo finally gets into the ring with Hansen. He hits an elbow and
the tags the exhausted Taue back in. One lariat later and the match is
over. I just don't understand. Oh well.
PART THE 1ST: HEISEI ISHINGUN AFTERNOON SHOW
Shiro Koshinaka has THE STICK! and uses it to
call out some kid named Hiroyoshi Tenzan, back from Europe after ripping
up the beefers in Catch. Koshinaka I guess wants to recruit Tenzan
into HI, but Tenzan gives him the Mongolian chop and proceeds to take out
Ohara for good measure. Hey, Pee-Wee Moore is the ref and he looks
just as confused in Japan as he used to do in ECW! Ohara says "The
NOIVE of dis character!" and picks up Tenzan's punk card for a match.
MICHIYOSHI "SLUGGO" OHARA vs.
HIROYOSHI TENZAN:
Ohara jumps Tenzan the second he hits the ring,
but Tenzan decides that he ain't gonna sell for someone that looks even
goofier than he does at this stage in his career. Ohara gets
some scattered offense but this is essentially a squash for Tenzan, who
eventually hits a Mountain Bomb and follows with a sidebuster for the pin
at 7:53. Tenzan continues to work over Sluggo postmatch, which
results in Koshinaka, Goto and Kabuki to run in and it's a 4-1 on Tenzan.
This in turn leads to Masa Saito, Hirata and Yatsu heading out to
even the sides, and just like that we've got our first-half main event.
2/3 FALLS- SHIRO KOSHINAKA/THE
GREAT KABUKI/TATSUTOSHI GOTO vs. MASA SAITO/ YOSHIAKI YATSU/JUNJI HIRATA:
Much love shown to us by Asahi TV for clipping
the match. Hirata takes the first fall with the Machine Suplex on
Goto at 8:53. Goto evens things up with a backdrop on Yatsu for the
pin at 5:30, and Team HI wins the match after Akitoshi Saito interferes
behind the ref's back, kicking Hirata off the ropes to the floor where
Kabuki and Goto give him a spike piledriver. He gets rolled back
in and Koshinaka promptly gives him the Gentle Bomb for the decisive pin
at 4:54. Masa shows his disgust for HI's actions by BODYSLAMMING
all 7 of them in a row! BULLATHAWOODSEEFYAWEEL! HI recovers
from this goofiness and destroys Masa 7-1 until the save is made by Tenzan...
and CHONO?!?! Tenzan further muddies the waters by going after Masa
because he's a nice kid and all but really confused, and Chono offers to
become the father figure he really needs. "HOI! JOIN ME MY SON AND
WE SHALL RULE THE WORLD!"
Intermission! Tenzan and Chono yell cool-sounding shit at each other backstage! Koshinaka calls out Choshu over THE STICK! Choshu arrives and heads upstairs! The young NJ ref wanders by wearing one of them there new-fangled ECW shirts! Koshinaka and Choshu yell cool-sounding shit at each other backstage! Chairs are thrown! Otani and Yasuda hold both sides back single-handedly!
PART THE 2ND: NEW JAPAN EVENING SHOW
RIKI CHOSHU/SHINYA HASHIMOTO/JUNJI
HIRATA vs. MASAHIRO CHONO/ HIROYOSHI TENZAN/ HIRO SAITO:
Choshu immediately goes after Tenzan on the floor,
posting him and clotheslining him right into the crowd since he's the
mook who started this whole mess. It's
great as Choshu is absolutely beating the shit out of him, never letting
up even while he steps into the ring and Hashimoto passes Tenzan to him.
Hash tags in and gets to lay in some kicks and a DDT, then Hirata uses
his round to work over Tenzan. Choshu tags in and hits a pair of
Riki Lariatos, but Chono sneaks in from behind and hits a kenka kick.
Chono goes nuts on Choshu with kicks, which allows Tenzan to make his own
comeback with Mongolian Chops. Everyone else starts brawling on the
floor, which allows Hiro to sneak in and help Tenzan hit a spike piledriver
on Choshu. Hiro slams Choshu, Tenzan heads up top and hits a diving
headbutt on Choshu for the MEGA-UPSET pin at 5:35 without even getting
tagged out! Tenzan celebrates like he just won the lottery, but it's
short-lived as a livid Hash blindsides him with kicks and sends him into
the crowd. Before long Hash and Hirata are halfway up the fucking
BLEACHERS destroying Tenzan, but that allows Chono and Hiro to give Choshu
a double-teaming of their own. Choshu soon revives and chairs Chono
while Hash and Hirata resume their merry demolition of Tenzan back in the
ring, but Chono steals the chair and gives Choshu a shot of his own while
Murder Inc. affiliate Sabu hits the ring. Chono hands him a table,
but rather than using it himself he instead lays Hash on top of it and
allows Tenzan to put Hash through the table with a senton off the top.
Sabu then proceeds to use what's left of the table on Hash until Hirata
finally makes the save with a chair and drives the lot of them to the back.
The crowd is going absolutely berzerk throughout the whole thing... the
whole thing is that insanely hot.
Epilogue! Choshu yells cool-sounding shit! He throws chairs at Hash and Hirata, who leave wearing "Hoo boy, he's having one of *these* again..." looks and light out in search of Chono's locker-room! They find it! Schmozz ensues! Yasuda wanders around confused! Sabu mugs for the camera! Everyone yells cool-sounding shit at each other! Hash and Hase swear revenge! The End.
Overall a really cool show, like a more wrestling-intensive
Raw with the SPORTS ENTERTAINMENT sacrificed for straight rassling angles
and Godzilla-level heat and hatred. Choshu is just super in this
the whole way...
~+~
#$#$#$#$#$#$ BATTLARTS BATTLESATION
ON SAMURAI TV! 8/29/1999
(DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Y'know, BattlARTS is the best wrestling promotion
in the world. When BattlARTS is on, it transcends all other arts
in terms of true physicality and esoteric weirdness. This Battle
Station has the best BattlARTS match ever in the history of the promotion
and I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I AM MOTHERFUCKING STOKED THAT I CAN ALMOST
SAY THAT SENTENCE WITH EVERY KNEW BATTLARTS BATTLE STATION I GET.
This is the Young Generation Battle 99 Tournament and it has an Ikeda vs
Ishikawa Match that crushes everything in it's wake.
Mohammed Yone vs. Katsumi Usuda:
Neither of these guys are great workers but both
can be in great matches because of what they can do: Yone really takes
a big beating and will die for your pro wrestling pleasure, while Usuda
really kicks like a mofo and looks credible on the mat. Neither can
really put togerther a neat match by themselves so this is right in the
middle of all BattlARTS as it goes into BattlARTS Default Matchplan Mode:
"I'ma kick ya some, and then we'll do some submissions n stuff and then
we'll take it home already." Yone does a slight change of the formula
with his low-grade Pro Style Powermoves- the second rope guillotine legdrop,
the goofy pump handle Falcon Arrow, what have you. Usuda kicks him
some and hits a nice Released German Suplex and also does a superhurty
looking Fujiwara Armbar variation. Yone gets a "big" lariat to set
up a Half Crab and there you go- a wrestling match you just watched.
Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Malenko:
Malenko may suck at them legit shoot outings
that he so foolishly gets wrangled into doing, but as a pro-style wrestler,
he is DEEPLY coming into his own. The first part is basic generic
UWFi style matwork that Ishikawa makes fun by punching the fudge out of
Malenko- mostly in the ribs, sometimes right in the motherfucking face
to get me all tickled- to set up assorted submissions. The
second part of the match is where all the superfun stuff kicks in- as Malenko
goes into a big foray into preposterous submissions- with my fave being
this super cool WAR Special Full-Nelson Choke thing that was all kindsa
elaborate and freaked-out. Ishikawa makes it to the ropes and supplies
his own Great Malenko-trained tangly submissions and the fun continues.
Before this becomes a really great match, Ishikawa gets the submission.
The cool thing about this match is that there is this one section where
Ishikawa pretty much says, "Hey Carl, you're a kick-boxer, you should do
this thing where I slump in the corner and you just fucking NAIL my in
the face until my face gets all puffy." And they do it, and Ishikawa
still has to wrestle Ikeda in the tournament final and has enough left
to have the MOTY. Ishikawa is all kindsa good and all kindsa tough.
Takeshi Ono vs. Alexander Otsuka:
This was really good from what they showed.
Otsuka continues to be the weirdest wrestler in Japan as he goes all Post-Modern
with his haphazard style mixture. Here, he is all about the Pro Style
with the rope-running and NASTY released Suplexes. The story of this
short match is easy- If Otsuka gets a released Dragon Suplex on Takeshi,
Punkboy is out for the count. With that as the basis, Otsuka tries
to set him up and Ono tries to counter out of Otsuka's attempts and
in-between Ono shows that he has been working on his striking because he
hits some really fat ass shots- including a fabulous looking punch in the
face that Otsuka takes like a KING. The ending is supergreat as Otsuka
looks to finally get Ono up for the Dragon as a counter to a Lariat attempt
gone awry but Ono does the big Lucha Rollthrough into a floatover into
a Cross-Armbreaker THAT FREAKED ME OUT SO I PARTIED! so THUS the
finish is SOOO Multi-stylistic as it takes a Strong-Style Lariat counters
into a Strong-style Dragon Suplex Attempt into a lucha roll-up into a shootstyle
Cross-armbreaker. BattlARTS! It's ZANY! SUP DEEP IN THE
MANLY GOODNESS!
Daisuke Ikeda vs. Minoru Tanaka:
This was really short. Ikeda pulls one
of his comical high-flying moves out of his keister as he does the Moe-like
Moonsault to hilarious results. Fortunately, Ikeda saves the clipped-
to -hell match by hitting the MOST EVILEST Brain-buster tha tYOU'VE EVER
SEEN on your Minoru- killing him dead. WOO-HOO! A real 5 on the Koko
Ware Beautiful Brainbuster Scale.
Mohammed Yone vs. Carl Malenko:
You can gauge a wrestler in BattlARTS by his
Yone match some times. Malenko takes the empty vessel that is Yone
and makes the match super neato by taking it straight to the early and
staying there, hitting huge amounts of super-freaked-out pseudo submissions.
His bizarre approximations of legit shootstyle and legit carny submissions
are pretty glorious to behold. The weird-ass Crippler Crossface where
he mutates it into a fucked-up Stretch Plum, the cool-ass Side Grapvine
choke-out, the aforementioned WAR Special variation that he sets up with
the Great Lost Dean/Joe Malenko Powermove- the Butterfly Underhook Face-buster
on his knee that is 2 SWANk 2B B-lieved. It's all so fun, plus with
the big kicks to Yone's face, you gotta love it. Yone gets the push
to the top that is usually set aside for the Kensuke Sasakis of the world
as he gets the Half Crab after hitting a Sasaki Lariat to advance him to
the worst debacle in modern BattlARTS history. I welcome you to...
Daisuke Ikeda vs. Mohammed Yone:
This was quite the good little Ikeda-Carries-A-Lesser-Worker
match for a minute there. Yone's offense isn't very impressive but
Ikeda did what he could to lean into Yone's kicks to make them make that
funtabulous smacking sound that really gets over the fact that- in BattlARTS,
they really work motherfucking stiff. Ikeda was selling his kicks
and submissions and making Yone look like an all-around champ and then-
out of nowhere- IT ALL WENT WRONG. Yone foreshadows his Faux
Pas early when he takes two lariats from Ikeda and sells them like Rick
Steiner sells everything- kinda shaking his head like he is confused and
grimacing because he can't figure out how to ACTUALLY sell it. Then
Ikeda gets the SWANK Capture Suplex and YONE JUMPS RIGHT UP AND HITS A
LARIAT! Like Pro Motherfucking Wrestling doesn't affect him! WOW!
He then does the All-Japan stupid as shit Sell After The Lariat that Kenta
Kobashi and Mitsuhara Misawa are really not afraid to stink up their matches
with. Yone fearlessly brings the shittiest aspect of Puroresu to
BattlARTS- the last bastion of logic and selling in a no-selling universe-
so take your evil elsewhere Yone, you bleach-blond suckass loser.
Either way, Ikeda gets a Figure-Four and the win, while I await the next
DVDVR 500 so I can knock 150 slots off somebody I lobbied like a mofo to
get as high as he did. Ikeda was spectacular as usual, though.
Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa:
This is the best match in the history of BattlARTS
and I'm pretty sure it's the best of 1999. Ikeda and Ishikawa have
a decent string of great matches in a very short time and they always seem
to on the brink of really breaking through to the Classic Match status-
but the closest they ever came to it was a time limit draw that was reaching
too far for the structure of the match. This fixes all their little
problems and brings forth the MegaMatch that YOU knew they had in them.
The key to the match is that the main story is that both are going to stand
in the middle of the ring and try to knock out the other FIRST and then
if that isn't working, fight for the Brain-buster if you are Ikeda or the
Cobra Twist if you are Ishikawa. The beauty of this is that you have
the stiffest match off 1999 but it's the GOOD stiffness- stiffness that
hurts like living hell but doesn't leave you crippled in two years.
Psychology takes the place of highspots, the level of stiffness overshadows
any forays they would ever have into spectacular neck-breaking, and the
body of the match is standing face-to-face beating the living hell out
of each other or going at it on the mat while beating each other to death.
Ikeda and Ishikawa are kind of like how Eddie Gilbert described his feud
with Cactus Jack in 1993 when he spoke of he and Foley totally sacrificing
their body for the match with wreckless adandon. The difference is
that this BattlARTS match a better, standard basis to start from- where
actual wrestling skill is added to the innate toughness of the competitors,
as opposed to the Gilbert-Foley matches where the garbage spots were the
main conduit of action. Those were great matches but they freak shows.
Ikeda/Ishikawa is a great match because it is the pinnacle of what Pro
Style Wrestling should be- something you and I can't do, something that
takes will, and toughness, and skill and passion- it follows logic and
the rules that it sets up for itself. That is this match and after
all the lofty crap I've said about it, the REAL best part is that there
are whole sequences where you go- "I cannot fucking believe he just took
that kick right to the face." There are other parts where Ikeda will
take GIANT straight rights to the face to sell Ishikawa's kneebar
attempt that is beyond the scope of any worked wrestling. This is
the pinnacle of worked wrestling in 1999. YOU SO VERY DEEPLY WANT
ALL OF THIS.
~%~
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