b1
Psicosis wears a wig and other annoying Lucha Libre Conclusions and Questions: One man's veiwing marathon comes to an end..
Howdy!
I finished 13 of 14 tapes of Lucha Libre I got from various sources (good eggs all! Thank you Dams and Master Socha!) and after veiwing all the crotchshots, plancha magnificos, and two triple tope suicidas, I figured it was time to ask a few more questions and make annoying conclusions (the internet in a nutshell! HAHAHAHA!)
First the questions:
1. What are those Stars of David all over Jerry Estrada's tights for? 2. What does "the Vale" mean on the back of Fuerva and Fuerverita Guerrera's tights (My guess: "Tiniest pants available":))? 3. Why did Winner's and Super Calo have a mascara vs mascara match? I got months of AAA TV surrounding this match and it kinda of popped out of nowhere. 4. Are the Power Raiders, the X-men, Thunderbird, Venom, Boomerang, (other sundry little guys in shiny suits) all the same pool of four wrestlers with different outfits? 5. What happened to Mascarita Sagrada when Mascara Sagrada was fired? Does your mini follow you to EMLL? 6. Why doesn't Octagon cut off that thing that hangs down from his mask? It would take two occasions tops where Pentagon tied my head tothe ring and pummeled me for me to grab the pinking sheers.:)
Comments:
-I think I know why Cien Caras generates so much heat without actually doing much in the ring. The key is his use of the "Touch and Go" by Emerson, Lake and Powell as his entrance music. He was getting heat from me and I even had a mute button. I can't imagine what Psicosis said to cause that riot if the same crowd can keep from throwing chairs when this song is blairing at them for five minutes.
-I feel like an idiot, and I'm mad that nobody told me before, but when I got to the tape where Lizmark pulled Psicosis' wig off, I was really surprised. I thought his hair was actually that big. I would comment to my friend, Cliff, "What's the point of having a mask when everybody will recognize your gargantuan hair?" And- now that I've composed myself- he looks five times as evil without the hair, just the white mask and the horns. He should definately adopt that look.
-After watching a lot of CMLL, I noticed that the only thing separating the big two of Mexico is Misterio JR, Juventud Guerrera, Super Calo, Psicosis, Latin Lover, and Heavy Metal for AAA and Silver King, Dos Caras, Apolo Dantes and Negro Casas for CMLL. Take away all of these and you've got identical talent rosters, workrate wise.
-I couldn't figure out who I thought was the more interesting heel- Fuerva Guerrera or Apolo Dantes. Fuerva is hilarious as the sneakiest bastard in Mexico, but Apolo has the best facial features this side of Steven Regal.
-I never realized what an all around wrestler Silver King was until I saw him wrestle Dantes mano a mano. He is way beyond everybody in EMLL even Casas, kind of like EMLL's Juventud Guerrera (but old...or something).
-I was stoked to get some Dos Caras matches after being impressed by his unique style when he was in Michinoku Pro. The weird thing is that when he is in Mexico in trios matches I found myself forgetting he is even in the match. Others had my attention and Atlantis isn't that good of a wrestler to do that to me. Maybe Dos Caras is an anomalie- a Mexican legend who is better when wrestling in Japan.
-Winner's is the most annoying wrestler in the world, and he is not good in the ring.
-Latin Lover is everything that Winner's wants to be and he is good in the ring- sort of a face Rick Rude. I could see him getting over big in the US big two. Ditto for El Valodor.
-Batches of good wrestlers: Los Folkiloris (Great outfits!), X-men, The freakin Power Raiders (the dopiest wrestlers that rule). Batches of Bad wrestlers: Los Payosos (though they do provide the surreal image of a ninja ((Octagon)) kicking a clown in the groin:)), Los Pandilleros, and Los Destructores.
-ECW should bring in Super Calo and Heavy Metal in next in their cavalcade of introducing Mexican talent. Both would be highly conducive to the ECW mutants in that they aren't as slick as Rey, Juventud or Psicosis, but they have grittier personas. Super Calo would own Philadelphia in one match.
-Bali is too good to have to wrestle in a monkey suit.
-There are two things the US promotions will never top, anglewise. Goldust absolutely pales in talent and mysterious intrigue to Pimpinela Escarlata and Bill Alfonso wishes he generate one third of the heat that El Tirante generates. Between Fuerza Guerrera and El Tirante, I was on floor laughing more than any other time watching any wrestling (with the possible exception of a few Gran Naniwa matches).

I'll stop now or this will never end:)
                               Dean Rasmussen

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b2
MATCHES OF THE YEAR SO FAR: one man's analysis.

Howdy!

I just got a tape that had four match of the year candidates on it so I figured, Hell!, it's July, the year is more than half over, let's see what we got!

I just watched the Jushin Liger/Shinjiro Ohtani match, the three ECW Juventud Guerrera/Rey Misterio Jr matches and the Too Cold Scorpio/Sabu time limit draw, so I'm definately a happy camper who is full inquisitive insight.

Here is a list of the ones, off the top of my head, that I've really dug so far, in order of how much I liked them, and then I will sort them out.

2nd ECW Juventud/Rey Liger/Ohtani Regal/Finlay (the two before the parking lot brawl)
Juventud/Rey (March in Mexico on the Barnett handheld)
Benoit/Ohtani
 3rd ECW JG/RM jr
Sabu/Scorpio
Liger/Sasuke for the IWGP at BF96.
Ohtani/Takaiwa
Shiryu/Super Delphin
New Japan jrs vs UWFi jrs ten man tag.
TAKA Michinoku vs TigerMask
Bret Hart vs Davey Boy Smith
Malenko/Liger on Nitro

The best match I've seen so far would have been the Juventud/Rey match from Tijuana, but the third Caida is so screwed up, that it almost ruins it. The best of the ECW series was the second one, though the version that I saw was pretty truncated. It was cooler because they use three different Japanese finishers at the end of each fall, my fave being Rey's Minami Toyota Straight Jacket Suplex with a bridge which I've never seen a man attempt before. Plus, Juventud's Dragon suplex is as impressive as Chris Benoit, who is obviously one of Juventud's idols. Watching Misterio and Sabu back to back, one can see the influence of Sabu on these guys, something that is very obvious to see in Psicosis, but a little more subtle in Rey and Juventud. Its not so much the highspots per minute but more in the way that they incorporated Sabu's brawling style- which I'm guessing is as much a homage to him as the suplexes are to their other influences.

For those who forgot about them, go back and watch the Regal/Belfast Bruiser matches, because they still hold up for feud of the year. They are freakin brutal and some of the most intense brawls one will see. Watch them one after the other and you get a feeling as to how much effort is put into every match. Finlay best be coming back soon.

Shinjiro Ohtani is in four of these and he has definately hit the point where he can be considered one of the greatest wrestlers in the world, especially from a selling standpoint. The brutality of the Benoit match is pretty incredible, but the brutality of the Liger/Ohtani match surpasses it (especially with that Liger bomb that looks like it breaks Shinjiro in half), but the key to building the crescendo at the end is how masterfully Ohtani sells the mountain of punishment and the credibility of his comeback (something that was a little off in the Ohtani/Black Tiger match I watched tonight, so I didn't include it). The highlight of the Benoit match is where he tops the hellish powerbomb by Benoit by hitting that beautiful springboard DDT. Any thing less would have been anticlimatic. Add that to the Death Valley Bomb he takes from Takaiwa in their match and we can say that we have a highly offensively-talented young man who can sell at Steamboat proportions.

The Sabu/Scorpio match makes mad that I have to hunt down tapes of this stuff when it is only six hours away. Hey ECW! Get a real TV contract! This is one of the first matches I've seen where most of Sabu's highspots made sense, but I think the way he wrestled it, not as a wild man, but as a fan favorite, made it that much cooler. I'm guessing Scorpio was controlling the pace because I don't remember a Sabu match where he sold his bumps this well.

The TAKA/TigerMask match was great because TAKA did all of his insane highspots, was a complete bastard and you still hate TigerMask for working on the injured knee TAKA was selling.  TAKA is pretty close to becoming my favorite wrestler (I'm guessing he will be when I finishwatching the next Michinoku Pro tape next week.)

The ten man match is in there because it has a vicious Death Valley Driver by Takaiwa and a Yamamoto suplex to highlight one of the stiffest style matches in mainstream wrestling. Cool moves, stiffness, intensity- what else could you want.

All in all, the US is pretty well represented, but you still have to go out of country or ECW to see consistently great stuff.
                               Dean Rasmussen
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b3
LANCE STORM KICKS BUTT!! and other stuff I saw or read this week!:)

Howdy!

I got a lot of little things that don't warrant their own post so I figured I'd stick them all together so as to rise above their own individual insignificance. I recently got a bunch of tapes I'm in the process of watching so I figgered I would comment on some things I saw and I would comment on stuff I've read on the web. Yes! I am that WILD!

-I watched the WAR Super Heavy Tagteam tournament from last December, and it was the mixed bag of mixed bags! The absolute highlight was the Japanese debut of Lance Storm. JIMINY CRICKETS! I'd only seen a couple of SMW Thrillseekers matches with him in it and I wasn't prepared to be blown away like I was. I'm sure that the fact that Chris Jericho was his opponent had something to do with it but one can't detract from the awesome display he pulled off. My favorite moves were the somersault plancha and the Kyoko Inoue Blind Elbow after running up the turnbuckle. Jericho also ruled, and he really facilitated a great debut for his former partner.  Somebody had better sign both of these guys quick (though I read from Micasa that Jericho is to start for WCW next month.)

The other highlights were the Mochizuki/Tatsumi Kitahara vs Gedo/Jado match, Fuyuki/Shinobu Kandori vs Tenryu/Ultimo Dragon and the Ultimo Dragon/Tenryu vs Gedo/Jado matches. Kandori was particularly good against Dragon, though she was pretty loose with him, it's not like he is Hotta or anything. Mochizuki rules and I would like to see a match that he actually wins in.:) I had never seen Kitahara before and he's about as stiff as you'd ever want. Gedo is actually starting to grow on me, so long as I don't have to see the little pants of Fuyuki ever again. The lowlights were -get ready- El Gigante! and Typhoon! Guess what! They both still really suck! El Gigante sucks more than he used to which is pretty incredible in my book. All in all, the good stuff was good enough to outweigh the bad stuff.

-I saw the Blizzard Yuki vs Chapparita Delfin match from March. Asari still isn't good yet, but the Skyytwister press is one of the coolest moves on earth and there is a choice one in this match. The mask was weird enough but the baggy shorts were ultimate fashion faux pas. Sakie Hasegawa makes my heart skip a beat when she enters my TV screen. WOTTA BABE!:) It also had the beautiful Super Delfin vs La Pantera match. La Pantera really tears it up in this one, and he proved to me that he would be considered one of the greatest luchadores around today if his outfit wasn't so hideous. Great match though.

Also on the tape was a Champ Forum BattleArts which looked like fourth rate Pancrase or third rate UWFi. It did have one impressive shoot wrestler in Axe Thunder Otsuka, who had a WHOLE lot of speed and hit real hard.

-I watched the Rey Misterio Jr/Psicosis match from 3/1/96 and it was memorable for the usual reasons and was set apart by the crazy chairshot bonanza at the end. Chairshots are so much more effective when they are an afterthought to spicing up an already technically sound. The undercard was varied between somewhat okay and totally unwatchable. Halloween has the best intro in all of AAA.

The Ultimo Dragon/Misterio rumor is back up and running, so I'm stoked I guess. Of course, this match will take place in front of a batch of redneck bikers, so who knows how it will turn out (my guess: ugly!). With this, Malenko/Benoit and the Nakano match (if Madusa is willing to work at all) will make it three WCW PPV in a row for me, a new record!:)

I'm still waiting to see this Psicosis/Billy Kidman thing to see if I must kill or just torture someone.:)

-I watched an eight hour Cactus Jack tape which absolutely ruled (God bless Phil!) After watching all 600 spectacular interveiws, I would say that Herb is just restating the same thing that Cactus Jack said during the Dreamer feud when he criticizes ECW vampires. That period has to be the alltime pinnacle of interveiws by anyone ever. I've noticed that Mankind is starting to pick up steam in the interveiw department with the Jake Roberts religious overtones angle. Hopefully, this will produce something 1/10 as good as the great tangents that he went off on in his stint with ECW. Hopefully, Vince will have sense to let him go to it without sterilizing it to much.

-I made a tape this week that had my favorite non-Mexican Lucha Libre match: Great Sasuke/Kendo/Shimoda vs Super Delfin/Gran Naniwa/Sakie Hasegawa from last  December. What a great mix of highspots and comedy spots, lifted directly from their Mexican counterparts- add this to the total charm and state-of-the art highspots that permeates all good Michinoku Pro matches, whatcha get is a very special match, especially the chemistry between Delfin, Naniwa, and Sakie. And who is this Kendo and why isn't he internationally famous?

-I watched IWA 5 Death Matches this week and the Silver King matches kicked the death matches asses so bad it was amazing. Silver King rules the freaking world.

-In case anyone was wondering: the people who can wrestle in FMW are Ooyo, Tanaka, Hayabusa, and the new, improved Gladiator. The rest kinda suck.

Gotta go watch three months of GAEA and a batch of Great Sasuke, so I gotta go!

                               Dean Rasmussen

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b4
KOBASHI! KOBASHI! and other stuff I seen and heard this week!
Howdy!
Here's more yammering about tapes I watched, wrestling I saw on tv and things I've read this week.
Kenta Kobashi winning the Triple Crown is as great as it is weird. I'm really glad he's got it because I'm not a big Akira Taue fan, but I would have to add me to the Ollie Postlethwaite list of confusion. It's kind of like if Chris Benoit won the WCW Championship or something. You know eventually he was probably going to do it but not right now. I'm guessing the belts and trophies and those certificate things will be back around Misawa's waist before too long, though.

Those WAR house reports made me wonder if they were both sold out because of Rey, Juventud and Psicosis were there. Or was it the Takada matches that were packing them in. I'm glad Juventud Guerrera is on the WAR tour but I would like him to win some. I'm guessing there will be a race to see if Jericho/Juventud happens in WAR or in WCW first. All I know is that Mochizuki vs Juventud may be the first true test of Juventud's mettle as an international level wrestler. Mochizuki being pinned by John Tenta is a disgrace to the sport. I just realized that they ran the spectrum of Canadian wrestling: One end-Chris Jericho and Lance Storm, the other end-John Tenta. Maybe next time they can get Cibernetico and run the "from good to bad" gauntlet of Mexican wrestling.

It was a good week for wrestling on television. The Psicosis/Misterio match on the Pro was the best match that show has ever had on it that I can remember, though it wasn't in the range of their more meaningful matches. I wish all wrestlers could mail in a match that was that good and I wish Psicosis would start winning already. I don't get WorldWide but would be interested in seeing that Kidman/Psicosis match. That would be a great feud that nobody else would care about.:) There was a surprisingly good match between Malenko and Dave Taylor, with Taylor showing some nifty moves that he hasn't showed before. I get the feeling that Taylor may be the most talented wrestler to be totally buried this year. Either way, these two should have a mini-program just to rebuild Taylor as a good mat wrestler and then they should try and wring whatever is left out of  Eaton, and try to get the tag scene back on track. Malenko looks more and more comfortable in front of the mic each week, which is good to see. Benoit... well... HE CAN OUTWRESTLE ANYONE IN THE WORLD! :) Sorry, he is holding steady as a guy who is stuck in the Owen Hart school of interveiwing.

Kevin Kelly whips ass. If they could get him and Ross on more than one show (like, how about all of them) it would make watching the WWF a lot easier. I finally saw Alex Porteau and I don't know what the problem anybody would have with him is. He's an embryonic Malenko and God knows wrestling needs more good mat wrestlers. I like any wrestler that can do Northern Light suplex variations credibly (HEY! Who doesn't love that?) It was irritating that his match on the Action Zone was totally interrupted by a useless Pillman cut away. Vince, don't steal THAT irritating habit from WCW. The Rockers had best get the belt; Jannetty is getting back to his indie form and Al Snow is starting to unleash his massive arsenal. It was cool when Ross commented on how Al Snow"s gimmick gets in the way of his actual wrestling. This is a real announcing team, I am truly hoping that this is a wave of the future and forces WCW to give Tenay a regular announcing gig; because with Kelly and Ross together, the WWF is smoking WCW's hinders in the announcing department (If they get rid of Lawler and the truly annoying Pettingill they are in like Flynn). This Salvatore Sincere crap is about as irritating as WWF gets because the guy seems to be able wrestle AND he seems real uncomfortable with his gimmick. I won't even start with Ron Simmons. Another irritating thing is that when Useless Sycho Sid has a hurt back, he wins in one minute. When the great Vader has a hurt back, he is jobbed in one minute.

I watched a bunch of Champ Forums which featured the lovely ladies of GAEA. Aside from the obvious great stuff with Chigusa and Kaoru (who freakin' rules!), I was impressed with the spunky little Toshies- Toshie Uematsu and Toshie Sato. Both seemed undersized and green, but I admired their pluck. GAEA is loaded with young talent and if they follow the lead of Chigusa on how to become a wrestler that audiences can truly care about, the future looks bright for a long time for this sassy operation. It was Kudo-less, but it had a great Sakie Hasegawa/Chigusa match which I'm figuring was Sakie's last for GAEA before she retired. The actual wrestling wasn't that gr eat but the emotion at the end was priceless. Chigusa wins and then drags Hasesgawa on top her and forces the ref to count to three and then everybody starts to cry. It was great. Chigusa is a female Onita in terms of how a face should act when becoming legendary. You don't get stuff as genuinely touching as that too often. The best technical wrestling match was Kaoru vs Combat Toyota, because I think that Combat is SO underrated and Kaoru is SO awesome. There was also a good match where Hikari Fukuoka and Kaoru beat the living crap out of the young punks, Chikayo Nagashima and Toshie Uematsu. Fukuoka should hang out in GAEA more. She is a great old bastard wrestler when dealing with all these youngsters. There were four or five consecutive moonsaults to drive the point home. The look of fear in the eyes of the youngsters throughout the match was fabulous psychology and Hikari had this great smug look on her face the whole time.

I saw the Sasuke/Liger match from the Peace festival and it was very much more on the mat than any other match seen between these two. The Sasuke Special is becoming vestigal in the Great Sasuke's arsenal and seemed to be kind of out of nowhere in the match. His mat arsenal is almost to the point where he can get away with only halfway trying to kill himself. Liger is so deeply great at mat wrestling now that he could never fly again and noone would be able to really complain. They both whipped ass though and it is definately worth hunting down.
I'll yammer more next week, after I watch Skydiving J and a bunch of other stuff, wife willing:).
KENTA RULEZ! TAUE DROOLS!

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b6

AKIYAMA! "Champion DOWN! Champion DOWN!"- and other stuff I saw and heard about this week!
Howdy!
I got a bitchin tape from m'man Phil, with lots of cool stuff on it so I figured I'd tell y'all about it.
-I saw a bunch of All Japan TV. I'm guessing it was from May or June because Taue defended the Triple Crown against Kawada, but I could be wrong. I think they took the belt off ol' Akira because he is can't consistently deliver the great matches, because this one was kind of lacklustre, and great matches against Kawada should be a given. I think Kawada is a great but this wasnt all that it should have been. I think its because Taue has too many goofy spots that he does, like that leg lift thing where he wrenches the head of his opponent. Kawada has that dopey "little kicks to the head" spot that is pretty goofy, but he has so many other things to take your mind off of it (like kicking the f*uck out of his opponent:)), so it doesn't hurt him as much. Kobashi has that Minami Toyota rolling on the ground thing that is pretty goofy but he is twice the wrestling machine that these two are, so I'm guessing that is why he has the hardware, trophies and certificates. Taue wins the "Most Stoic" award over anyone in All Japan, which is his coolest aspect. I am actually starting to really dig Akira Taue, and that is a lot easier to do when he isn't wearing the Triple Crown when there are guys who can wrestle circles around him, like Kobashi.
-Saw two Misawa/Akyama tagteams. The first one was the best, against Doctor Death and Johnny Ace. Steve Williams looks like he is back in wrestling form and Ace just rules. Ace really rocked in this match. His Ace Crusher looks so much cooler than DDP's. It's hard to believe that he was a Dynamic Dude at one time in his life. What is that suplex that Akyama kept doing called? It's a variation of a Northern Lights Suplex kinda. The best part of the match was when Akyama amd Ace were pretty much wrestling a singles match for seven or eight minutes with Williams and Misawa outside beating the heck out of each other but always running the ring to make the save at the last minute out of nowhere. Misawa wasn't afraid to take every bump imaginable as All Japan moves deeply into the state of never having a suplex that doesn't drive the recipient directly on his head.:) Thus, it must really suck when Doc is doing the suplexing. This was one of the better matches I've seen in a long while.
The second was Misawa/Akyama vs Kobashi/Diet. Diet is very old school pro style and looks like a rangy Texan type. He did a cool released Niagra driver. Kobashi stole the show as expected and Misawa did a lot of elbows and generally ruled. I'm guessing Akyama is one of the young punks that will be moving up the ladder as Kobashi takes the next step and is leaving a place vacant, as he was quite impressive, working as stiff as his elders and not being smoked completely by Kobashi and Misawa (unlike that six man tag with Van Damme I saw a few weeks ago). Diet seemed young and to have a lot of potential, and he could easily be stolen back to the United States for the big two.

- I finally saw Skydiving J yesterday and there was tons that ruled! To HELL WITH IT! I'm going on record as saying that Michinoku Pro Cruiserweights are better, man for man, than New Japan Cruiserweights! They smoked them on this night in terms of innovation, bumps taken and matches delivered. TAKA Michinoku and Super Delfin had the match of the night as TAKA really pulled out the stops including a springboard plancha from one top rope to a cattycorner top rope that had me rewinding a couple of dozen times. I don't know what I was thinking when I thought that Delfin was overrated! The last three matches I've seen him in have been absolutely great! And he definately had the hippest mask on earth. It was kinda burgundy and earth tone. Very Stylish! TAKA pulled off one his fabulous TAKA drivers (or Michinoku Special #2, or whatever!:)) and took it to the mat and to the air with equal intensity. THIS GUY WHIPS ASS! He has passed Sasuke as the best wrestler in Michinoku Pro and is closing in on the divine Gran Naniwa as my personal favorite.
The Liger/Dick Togo match was, despite reports to the contrary, pretty choice. Liger was great as an absolute prick, and did a Fargo Strut better that JJ or even our man Stevie! The big surprise for me was handsome Dick Togo. I had never seen him before and somebody told me that he was actually a repackaged Terry Boy or Shiryu. He came out with Shiryu and he didn't look like Terry Boy, so I don't know. He was not afraid to take a bump- my favorite being Togo trying a ring apron hurricanrana and Liger turning it into a powerbomb onto the floor to a very sickening thud. Togo got way too much elevation on it for any sane man to get, knowing that he is about to eat a lot of floor. All through it, Togo made Liger's already impressive power moves look twice as hellish, especially the toprope Fisherman buster after the missed Togo senton (which was after he had made two of them.) Liger was great and Togo was impressive, if not in Liger's league yet.
The Sasuke/Black Tiger match was pretty grounded which would have been fine with me if it hadn't been so slow in large portions. Eddie was really aggressive and I'm starting to like him more as Black Tiger in the ring than his stateside version, I'm just wondering if there is some way to translate it into his stateside persona. Sasuke was intense enough but it was pretty flat overall. They would never succumb to the Lucha leanings that each have, which would have been a great addition to the sometimes clumsy submission stuff, and would have really been cool to see someone with Sasuke's ring speed with someone who is a master of the style. I guess they were trying to stay within the New Japan Junior's style, and that limited the range of what these two could do between the ropes. The end was the exact one as Misterio/Psicosis at BatB, Hurricanrana out of a DieHard Kansai, so I'm guessing our AAA fellas watch tapes (unlike WCW announcers).

The Ohtani/Kazushi Sakuraba was pretty great. It was your basic "UWFi guy doesn't work with the New Japan guy on pro style stuff, so New Japan guy whips his ass shoot style" and Ohtani is the master of this and tears Sakuraba a new one. TAKA and Ohtani are becoming the most versatile wrestlers in the world, not unlike budding Benoits, with TAKA having the lead because he can work Lucha style and I've never seen Ohtani try to work that style. They can both work UWFi and New Japan Junior styles. I read that Yamamoto was hurt and couldn't do the match, but this was probably the same match, without the bleached hair. Sakuraba was as impressive as all the young guys in UWFi are with all the cool snap suplexes and stiff kicks. Ohtani hits a beautiful dragon suplex but goes for the submission instead of bridging for the pin, sort of like Takaiwa when he does a Boston Crab for the submission after he hits the totally disabling Death Valley Driver (a New Japan Young Punk trend!)
The rest was short highlights, the highlights of the highlights being: Takaiwa dickishly Death Valley Driving Gran Hamada.( HEY! C'MON HE'S OLD!) but doing the job for Hamada anyway (it is Hamada. You wouldn't have a job if it weren't for him selling the Junior Hvywt style to the public years ago, ya punk!:)) The highlights of the Naniwa/Dragon match looked cool, though I read that the match sucked. I'd like to decide for myself though.
The lowlight was the divine Shiryu jobbing to the pretty useless Motegi. Oh well, at least Motegi has won a match that has reached the States.:) Shiryu's new mask kicks ass, and the highlights showed some impressive highspots, though Shiryu didn't land on his feet during that weird tope thing he does and there wasn't enough to capture the intensity that Shiryu has been reaching in his last couple of matches.
The end set up this months tournaments with everybody throwing all their belts in a pile in the middle of the ring and agreeing to unification tournament. If it is for one unified title, they should do the great thing and have the champion carry around all eight belts at once after he wins, like the Triple Crown holder does with those three belts.
-Phil gave me a Silver King/Texacano vs Super Astro/Miguel Perez Jr match from IWA, and Silver King and Super Astro combined to show the origins of a lot of moves that are being gotten over by Misterio in WCW. Astro is best chubby guy in wrestling, though SATO would take him to the limit in the ring and at the buffet line.:)
-I got a big batch of ECW I hadn't seen from Saint Phil :). Too Cold Scorpio is the best wrestler at ECW and he should be wrestling worldwide. He carried the adequately talented Shane Douglas and the psychologyless Sabu each to Match of the year Candidate this year. Notice how much was Too Cold in the Douglas match and you will see that Douglas is working his ass off and Too Cold is making his spots look spectacular (especially the sling shot suplex onto the guard rail.) Scorpio can make a good wrestler look great and can settle a great but disorganized wrestler down to the point of creating a great match as opposed to one filled with just highspots. If Scorpio was in a bigger organization right now he would be recognized as being in the list of top twenty workers in the world. And Sabu is developing a sense of psychology. I noticed this in the Stevie Richards match, where it worked back and forth in a logical sequence and built to a coherent ending. Of course, that could have been Richards, but I'm giving Mr. Brunk the benefit of the doubt.
The best wrestler I can't stand watching is Rob Van Damme. I don't understand it. He is great here and in Japan and has been in some of the best matches I've seen this and last year. His match against Sabu (the second one, I think, is the one I saw yesterday) was flawless with the exception of one overselling of a Sabu punch. That was pretty much what ECW would want to be known for, hardcore but more real wrestling than you would ever want; a really different style that straddles mainstream and Japanese garbage wrestling, kind of like if all the WCW cruiserweights watched way too many Terry Funk matches. It was a perfect mix. Maybe with Van Damme I just can't stand that pony tail or something, or his goofy unneccessary gymnastic embellishments. I need to get over it, because he is great. I saw a match on Wrestling Power 96 where he carried Gorgeous George III to a *** star match on an independent card, so I got a clue there. Add that to the Kroffat match I saw him in last year and he is developing an impressive resume, and his style is pretty unique.

The Luna Vachon/Stevie Richards cage match was great. Vachon should be picked up by WCW and they should have her be the #1 heel in a Women's division. Her and Medusa could be conduits for bringing in Japanese counterparts. I'm also thinking that GAEA wrestlers would be a better fit for the states than any other group, in that Chigusa has a better grasp of the heel/face structure than her Japanese counterparts, and Vachon would be able to hang with Chigusa easier than having to hang with Inoue or Minami level wrestlers (God knows Medusa can't). Plus Vachon/Combat vs Medusa/Chigusa would go over in the States better than anything else I could think of. Vachon was impressive and she should be in a ring more often. The testicular claw was absolutely brilliant!

The Sandman/Whipwreck ladder series was truly impressive. The Sandman was the best I've seen him and for some reason Mikey was eternally a non-entity. He would do all these things that would be impressive, but the presence of Sandman totally overshadowed him; Mikey became another person being beaten to death by Sandman who somehow won the third match. I think that is the allure of Sandman. his ring presence is undeniably, you can't look away. I saw all three and they smoke the Micheals/Ramone series like a cheap cigar. Sandman's leg drop off from the rafters, the insane plancha by Sandman on to the ladder as it was draped over the security rail and the great interveiws by Steve Austin before every match were all amazing, a true pinnacle for that type of match.

The Gangstas/Dreamer vs Eliminators/Brian Lee match was AWESOME! The Eliminators are WAY TOO talented for such big men. Tommy Dreamer has gone from being the Kanemura of the US to becoming the Nakamaki of the US, so he is going more laterally than forward, but he has made some progress. The Kronos flying space Tiger Drop made my day! These guys are Cruiserweights trapped in heavyweight bodies! I was disappionted that Prime Time Brian Lee didn't come out to "Train, Train" by Blackfoot, but he brawls with best of them. This IWA deal should be a godsend for Dreamer, who should fit in snug like a bug in a rug.

- I saw the Rey/Juventud cage match from AAA television and it rocked. REASON #1328932 to be a Juventudiac: The first move by Juventud was that Akyama suplex that I didn't know the name of up there. Mexican cage matches are the best in the world because everything happens on top of the cage and they always end up climbing overtop of each other to get out like people would end up doing in real life.:) The ending was anticlimatic but the rest of the match made up for it.  Juventud's rolling Guillotine legdrop from the top of the cage was pretty choice.
-Saw the Konan/Psicosis match on the Pro this morning. Hey Dusty, you fat piece of sh*t, if you don't think Psicosis is tough enough, I have a barbwire cage match from Tijuana with Psicosis and Halloween beating the crap out of Leon Negro and Ultraman 2000. And he can also jump off the ground which you definately couldn't do, you fat useless nothing.
Next week: Dean get's tapes of Rey Misterio Sr's WWO from Dams and watches all of it in one sitting! It may not be for the weak of heart!
NANIWA!
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ANTICHRISTO- MEXICO'S ULTIMATE MONSTER HEEL! and other stuff I saw and heard this week
Howdy!

It was a crappy week for wrestling outside the ring this week with the Liger and Sasuke news, but I'm dwelling on that in Mike's e-zine, so I'll yammer about how great things were in the ring this week- most of which was domestic, which is supercool! AND the usual crap about what I saw on tape this week.
-I watched twelve hours of WWO wrestling on tape from Luchameistro Dams Lauly. Dave warned me about WWO, about it being an EMLL weak sister independent promotion, inhabited by washed up old guys, but HEY! I'm a freak! Sometimes a man has to have his Lucha Libre!  Anyway, WWO is Rey Misterio Sr's Promotion that compete's in the bitterly contested Baja/LA territory. I think this is why WWO gets such a bad rap, it is compared to Konan's insane AAA promotion and also took the place of AAA on a lot of TV stations; so the seeds of bitterness were sown and its probably unfair malalignment germinated. Being a native Virginian and not influenced by the bitter rivalry of the promotional feud, I'm guessing I can give an unbiased veiw of Rey Sr's august promotion. (I tried to forget about the Tijuana handhelds I have for a moment.) There were a lot of really great wrestlers on these tapes, including my fave Silver King and Ultimo Dragon. The problem is that since 95% of the matches were trios, so you'd get one great worker in with three green local guys and two awful old guys. This also leads to some real weird wrestling. Some prime examples were: Ultimo Dragon doing comedy spots with a three hundred year old Exotico and then five minutes later putting on a lucha clinic with Negro Casas in the same match.

The WEIRDEST THING I'VE EVER SEEN IN WRESTLING also occurred during the first tape: There was this wrestler called Antichristo with a goats head on a pole and truly freaky mask. They are interveiwing him in English, I guess to attract the gringo crowd, and he says in broken English,"ANTI-CHRIST IS THE BEST! I AM ANTI-CHRIST AND I AM NUMBER ONE!" Then the announcer said something in Spanish, and Antichristo grabs the mike and yells, "I AM NUMBER ONE! ANTI-CHRIST IS NUMBER ONE! (very loudly) NOT GOD! BUT MEEEEEEE!" I swear I thought I was going to laugh until I died. I showed it to Cliff when he came over to watch Hogwild and he was actually crying from laughing so hard- definite answering machine fodder. THEN, he, of course, wrestled a trios match where his partner was Chavo Guerrero (does Eddie know who his brother is consorting with?:)) and they wrestle, of course, HAYABUSA! Hayabusa is with Onita Jr who I'd never seen but was pretty okay and UltraMan (thus the FMW connection). Then the rest of the four months I have, the dark one disappears, I guess having done his job of using wrestling as a vehicle to establish Satan's earthly kingdom.:) Oh yeah, the beast is a crappy wrestler.
The best matches were Silver King/Super Astro/Dandy teamed together. Silver King and Super Astro rule it and Dandy can't do much anymore but didn't get in the way. Super Astro is amazing for such a pudge. I love his Plancha diving shoulder block onto the floor.

The best guys I had never seen before were El Solitario, Solar and Angel Blanco. They also had a match where Apollo Dantes wrestled face, which was strange to me. When did he turn?
I finally saw El Brazo de Plata. God, he's awesome! I love any real fat guy who can move around that much.

The best guys who are too old to be really great but could still work were Atlantis, who is actually still pretty good, Fishman, who is still a heat machine, and Rey Sr, who can still get around pretty well. I hope I never see Mocho Cota again.

In summary, WWO: more weird than good.

-This WCW/AAA thing is delivering. There were two great matches and one really good match for free involving AAA luchadores, the best being the too-short Ultimo Dragon/Rey Misterio match on Nitro. Ultimo ruled it so hard! I'm glad they let him go to it at the expense of the champion, who had a subdued match in comparison. I really hope UD is wrestling Malenko Thursday like I keep hearing about, though it sucks that it is at the the expense of Psicosis' elbow injury. The Misterio/Malenko match on the pro saturday morning was pretty choice, with Misterio selling most of the match. Rey is becoming a very complete wrestler very quickly in this new environment of the New Japan/AAA/WAR axis and I hope they would get Juventud in there already. I was glad to see Psicosis get the win finally on TV, as he carried the very green Prince Iukea to a decent match. I await the Psicosis push with baited breath. And they definitely need to sign Ultimo Dragon already.

-The WCW/New Japan tournament next month looks pretty pathetic except for the Flair/Fujinami match, which I gotta love for sentimental reasons. The Muto/Regal match would be interesting but both of these guys aren't afraid to be the laziest workers with talent on earth, so I not getting my hopes up. I can't remember who Shinya Hashimoto is kicking the lungs out of, I hope Scott Hall.
I wish they would have brought over some the WCW young guys and have them go at it with the UWFi and New Japan young punks. Alex Wright needs to get a dose of that super stiff style because by the time he gets to prominence the UWFi-shootstyle-mutated-with-New Japan-mat style will be the common style for the weight class I would predict. Plus it would give all these youg guys something to look forward to instead of the endless drone of jobbing to AAA and New Japan acquisitions. I dunno, I think I'd be into a Kidman/Takaiwa match, despite the hellish beating our boy Billy would take.
I now must watch six hours of FMW from Saint Phil and Dams along with a batch of AJW so I'll fill y'all in on that and whatever else arrives.
NANIWA~!
                         Dean Rasmussen, Ultimomaniac!
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TAKA! NAKAGAWA! GREAT SASUKE! DYNAMITE KID! wotta week!- and other stuff I saw and heard this week.
Howdy!
I had a bittersweet week of tape veiwing since a lot of it was from the 80's- and if ever there was a hit and miss decade, that was it.
-I watched a few zillion hours of Pro Wrestling This Week from 1988- up to Bruiser Brodie's death. This was Joe Pedicino's great syndicated show that was a sampler of basically all independent wrestling every week. The show was so chock full of love for the sport that one can overlook the usually subpar action that was offered up. The late 80's indie scene was great for angles, pretty bad for wrestling- my favorite being the Dirty White Boy and White Girl angle from CWF in Alabama where White Girl, sporting a blackeye, pleads with a face Tom Pritchard to save her from more beatings from White Boy. Pritchard is giving her a stern lecture about straightening out her life when, of course, when the future P L Hopper commences to beating the crap out of him with a chair. He then proceeds to cut off his hair and string him up with a noose. All the while, White Girl is laughing and kicking the future Bodydonna. Now that was good old fashioned hardcore redneck violence. The crappiest parts of the show are when they would show some horrendous WWF match. I am sometimes down on today's WWF, but compared to the shit they used to shovel out (I saw a Hercules vs Duggan match, and StrikeForce twice!) today's WWF is All-Japan Carnival 365 days a year. It was definitely cool seeing a formative Paul Heyman, learning how to be a heat machine in front of a batch of Alabamans. And I never want to see Playboy Buddy Rose's big fat hinder ever again (and I thought Flair's flabby ass on my TV screen was bad enough.:)) The most touching show was the tribute to Bruiser Brodie, about a week after he died and the honest rage of Jerry Blackwell over the ordeal; it was very heartfelt and beautifully done. I'm also guessing that Paul Heyman is the only man to be kissed by Bruiser Brodie on national TV.
-I saw a Dynamite Kid vs George Takano as Cobra match from 1984 and GEEEZ! I sometimes forget how awesome the Dynamite Kid was in his prime. The added attraction was that he was totally bald (as was Davy Boy Smith in his match on that tape- YIKES!). I think this match was better than most TigerMask/Dynamite Kid matches I've seen. Much stiffer, with great psychology on both sides, as opposed to Kid dictating the pace and trying to keep a handle on Sayama. And Dynamite Kid goes to one knee to block a piledriver like somebody else does now.:) Benoit still has a couple of steps to go to reach Dynamite's level of arrogance, even if he has at least matched his intensity. Also on that tape were three David Schultz matches, who I had not really seen other than when he slapped the hell out of that idiot reporter and got banned for life. God! These were pretty choice, pretty technically sound for a redneck ass-stomper, and his match tagging with Larry Coage against Inoki and Fujinami was downright brutal.
-I watched NWA True Grit from 1988 and that brought back a lot of good memories. I was in college and I would go get drunk at parties when all music and talking stopped as everyone would stop and marvel at the Flair interveiw on TV at one in the morning. NWA would come to the Richmond Coliseum every month and we would get ten people together and go. We would make a cretinously drunken roadtrip to Charlottesville to see the Great Muta at U-Hall. It was a golden time. The main thing that struck me about this PPV was that every match was good from top to bottom with the cream of the crop being the Fantastics vs Steve Williams/Kevin Sullivan and a truly great Barry Windham/BamBam Bigelow match. It is easy to forget that for a short while in the late eighties, Barry Windham was THE best wrestler in North America and if you need any proof, see this match. Workrate, intensity, stiffness, psychology- he had it all for a short while. Flair also dragged Luger's loser ass to a great match.
-Bushy Tail also sent me a truly weird Sheik special on Big Time Wrestling from 1976. It had matches from the sixties and early seventies, with the Sheik executing some pretty nifty moves. After all the Pogo I've seen, its kind of weird to believe how horrified I was as a kid when he would use that flash paper to burn people's faces. It was neat to see the pre- "I like to Hurt People" Sheik, especialy since it spared us the movie's spectacularly horrible soundtrack. The ads for Cobo arena "with girls, a six man midgets match and over 40 stars" are priceless.
-I watched the 5/5/96 FMW show that St. Phil sent me and it was about as hit and miss as any FMW tape with the highlights being the Kudo/Combat Toyota Exploding Barb wire match, the Cactus Jack swansong and the truly fantabulous TAKA Michinoku/Koji Nakagawa match which sported three TAKAbombs and impressive wrestling all around. The Cactus match made me happy that he is Mankind now and will be able to prolong his career for a few years because I don't know how many more bumps he could take like these. I'm convinced that Kanemura enjoys being bodyslammed into barbed wire and spidernet, that can be the only explanation for anyone allowing this much pain and agony to be inflicted upon one's body. The Pogo match was irritating because Pogo once again carves up a wrestler who can work circles around most people in the sport when he takes the sicle to Tanaka. The Kudo/Combat match reminded me of a Tenryu/Onita EBW Cage match I saw once that was cool because there was so much actual wrestling in it that you forget its an exploding barbed wire match, so when they hit the wire, the explosion is that much more impressive. This is definitely the most brutal match I've ever seen involving two women (including Hotta/Candori), maybe the most overall involving two people who are actual, card carrying wrestlers. I have to disagree with Phil when he said that the EBW was more horrifying than the two backdrop drivers at the end. I think I would definitely want to go head first into the barbed wire than get that next to last backdrop driver. That looked career-ending. GAEA just rules at every level. The Chigusa/Shark Ichyu... Ichuy... Ms. Pogo match was also pushing the limits of what I can take in a woman's match. Chigusa is so cool, and is the perfect face, and I hate to see her blade or juice hardway. I was still entranced by the GAEA matches far more than the men's matches (except for the TAKA/Nakagawa and the fabulous Hayato match ((who was that masked man who beat the hell out of him? Between Hayato and Ooya I don't know who the biggest pretty boy in FMW is.:))

-I started watching a gargantuan Japanese tape and saw the fabulous TAKA/Great Sasuke match. If anyone ever thought that Sasuke couldn't have a great match without the Sasuke Special look no further than this match. All the bumps were within the non-life-threatening range and it was as intense in the end as any other match I've seen these two in.
-This was a pretty crappy week for free TV wrestling with the best being the Malenko/Regal match. I love the way Malenko can cover up for a subpar middle of a match by kicking it into overdrive at the end (see his match against Liger on Nitro.) I didn't see SummerSlam, being the Bizarro World John Petrie :)(I must get every WCW PPV, but never get WWF PPVs) but am looking forward to seeing the Mero Shooting Star Press.
All in all, it was a great week to be a tape trader!
NANIWA~!
                         Dean Rasmussen, Super Caloiac!
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BENOIT! KOBASHI! TAUE! DiBIASE! BUZZ SAWYER! and other stuff I've seen and heard so far this week!
Howdy!
I'm a do these every three days or so, so they don't get too unweildy (or something spelled similar to that).
-I just saw the Kenta Kobashi/Akira Taue match on tape (God bless Phil!:)) with the Triple Crown title switch and all I can say is: DANG! What a great match! Kenta was so intense and Taue was the best I had ever seen him. The best part is at the end when Kobashi pins him (68 near falls later:)) and the shocked crowd rushes the ring. The only bad part is that now that I'm finally taking a shine to Taue, he's no longer champion and will probably never be again. Kobashi is a wrestling machine and this was a great example of it, as he stretched the boundaries of the All Japan style with cool spots over the top rope (especially the guillotine legdrop over the top to the floor onto Taue's head) but always stayed within the allotted framework of the style. Everybody should study how the highspots were set up, especially how long they set up the spinning DDT by Kobashi. Taue teases a toprope chokeslam all match and finally sets Kenta on the turnbuckle and gets set to finally unleash it. The DDT is a counter to the Taue finisher and it made absolutely perfect sense when Kobashi nails it (I give it 4 Guerreros:)). Sometimes I forget that All Japan is the greatest thing you can watch if your in the mood to pay really close attention to a match and figure out the sublties and nuances. Luckily the dogs were asleep, my wife was cross-stitching and I was in the mood  for the long haul that is a great All Japan match. You need to set aside a lot of time and pay close attention, but by the end the payoff is always there (this is getting a little creepy. Sorry.:)). This match is a textbook example of how good a match should be when you crown a new champion.
Also on the tape is a Jun Akyama/Misawa va Akira Taue/Kawada match. This was a pretty basic premise of Akayama and Misawa taking turns getting the crap beaten out of them. Akira does that beautiful running kick to the head a couple of times and you just know it has to suck to be on the recieving end of that. The other highlights were: Taue doing the world's fattest tope onto Misawa; Kawada with the brilliant attempt to no-sell Akayama's Exploder suplex but falling into the ropes after trying to bounce right up (this was set up by Akayama attempting to nosell the little kicks thing that Kawada does, but after the first nosell, Kawada does it again and finishes it off by punting Akayama's face across the mat). The more I see of Kobashi, Akayama, and Taue, the more I want to see them more than Misawa and Kawada. I figured Akayama would always do the job in these
type of matches but that would be giving away the ending.:)
-I saw a couple of hours of Mid South from 1986 and it was pretty beautiful. The great thing is that Bill Watts was such a terrifying booker that he scared Duggan into having a semblance of workrate. Ted DiBiase was the cornerstone of that promotion and you can tell what he instilled in the guys that paid attention to him, especially Steve Williams and Terry Taylor. That no bullshit style was what American wrestling should be by now; but other promotions had the spotlight and by the time Ted got there it was too late. Ted Dibiase and Steve Williams vs Al Perez and Wendell Cooley was a blueprint of how to pace a match, instill psychology, get a lesser opponent over, and still keep your heel heat. Also sticking out on the tape are all the matches involving the Fantastics. After watching these guys against Slater and Sawyer here and Williams and Sullivan in NWA, and seeing them live a jillion times at the Richmond Coliseum, I would have to say that these guys were the most overlooked wrestlers in the 80's. I'm guessing they went to All Japan because their Mid South style fit in perfectly. I can imagine that their idiot gimmick ruined them in the eyes of most wrestling fans but both these guys could go. Of course, I was glad that there is plenty of Dick Murdock in his prime, giving interveiws and putting on a hell of match against Butch Reed, including the Murdock dropkick, which always impressed me about the big man. And the absolutely greatest thing is whole MidSouth idea of hard wrestling, clean pinfalls, getting over moves, Redneck angles, loud interveiws and everybody working their asses off if they wanted to keep their jobs. A minor note is that every annoucer, including Bill Watts, called a suplex a suplay. And Heyman must have studied these tapes like a bible.
- I watched Chris Benoit vs Too Cold Scorpio from SuperBrawl 3 and it was exquisite for the most part. Benoit is four times the wrestler now than he was then, and he is twice the wrestler there then when he was in Stampede, so next year he should disappear in a blinding light of wrestling perfection.:) Scorpio was flashier then than now, but he wasn't nearly as complete of a wrestler then as he is now. I'm thinking that Benoit has the record of most Timelimit draws that don't end in Timelimit draws in ratio to how many pay per veiws he has appeared in. I need an aspirin now. What was the story behind his first stint in WCW. All I can remember is him saying in an interveiw in I think late 94 that he had no anamosity towards anyone there.
I must finish off the Michinoku Pro, the Guerrero-Malenko matches and Ladder match section of the Phil tapes and watch Scott's "Flair in Japan" tape and the NJ Junior tag tournament tape and the other tape he sent me and I'll fill y'all in Thursday. Super Calo is official for FallBrawl and I'm STOKED!
NANIWA~!
                          Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
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dvd4
OHTANI! BENOIT! STEAMBOAT! MISAWA! and other stuff I saw and heard the last couple of days!
Howdy!
It's time for the Death Valley Driver Video Review #4! It's been a big week, in that I almost got caught up except for the batch that St. Phil has sent me and a couple that Scott sent me. Lemme yammer on.
-I saw the 94 Best of the Super Jr commercial tape and it was pretty freakin choice! The best part was Super Delfin's outfit, which was a bizarre variation on his opponent's outfit, Jushin Liger. That was probably the best match I've seen Delfin work and I've been on a real hot streak of finding seven great Delfin matches in a row. The irritating parts were the fact that the Benoit/Fit Finlay match was slashed to ribbons- they showed about two minutes of it- and that TAKA Michinoku at that point was a Motegiesque style whipping boy in these tournaments and was whupped by everybody. I wanted to see the Belfast Bruiser work TAKA over but they edited that to about one minute.

-On the same tape was the Junior Tag Tournament and that absolutely kicked ass. Malenko and Ishizawa rule as a tagteam and their match against Benoit and Ohtani is a classic, but my fave is Ishizawa and Malenko vs Funaki/Ishikawa who I'm guessing are UWFi young punks. I love when Malenko kicks it into gear with guys who mat wrestle for a living. Ishizawa kicks and suplexes his shoot style opponents, using their own style against them, but when Malenko gets in, he uses pro style mat wrestling sped up to a blinding speed. I'm guessing this tournament was the beginning of Ohtani's ascent in the Junior Division because he is absolutely brilliant and way intense. Motegi and Kamakaze from Social Progress Wrestling get their hinders handed to them by Two Cold Scorpio and El Samurai. Motegi is growing on me because he is spunky and will never win a tournament match and he has a nice head scissors. Plus he runs the greatest named promotion on earth now that WAR doesn't mean "Wrestle and Romance" anymore (Live For Today!). Another cool tagteam is the Great Sasuke and Black Tiger. Sasuke better not retire, he is too f*ckin cool. They do all these lucha variations during double teams that scream for a reprise of this tagteam. Eddie better get his hinder on Nitro soon, I'm going through withdrawals.
-I watched the 8/28/94 FMW show (Scott rules!) and it had some pretty hip things on it. The Hayabusa/Sabu match was pretty great if really disjointed, but it is definately official- Billy Kidman has the best Shooting Star Press in the world. The match that impressed me the most is the Tarzan Goto/Ooya match which had vestigal garbage elements in it (YEP!) but it was basically Ooya ruling like a MotherF*cker and still jobbing to the over-the-hill Goto. Ooya is the most overlooked wrestler in Japan and should be a superstar already. I don't know what Keiji Mutoh and Chosyu were bitching about when it came to the garbage organizations. I can understand someone saying IWA is pretty crappy from a technical standpoint (except for Silver King, who can work circles around anybody on earth) but FMW has plenty of good wrestlers. I'd much rather watch a Masato Tanaka match than another Masa Chono snoozefest. Matasunaga and Kanemura have to rely on the chairs and barbed wire, but Hayabusa, Tanaka, Hisakatsu Ooya, Koji Nakagawa and even the Gladiator on a good day can produce great, technically sound matches. I've seen them! Plus FMW's women's division in conjunction with GAEA is producing the most interesting women's wrestling to me at this point in time, especially with the enigmatic presence of Chigusa amd the trailblazing of KAORU. (Added points for Matsunaga wearing the ass-stomping "W*ING, KING OF DANGER!" black longsleeve t-shirt during death matches. I fell out!:))
-I watched a bunch of Ricky Steamboat matches including a fabulous match against Misawa as Tiger Mask that Scott sent me. Guess what! The psychology was flawless! This was from 89 and Steamboat was NWA champion. Misawa was just settling into being the greatest wrestler on earth and this match is just great- sort of a showcase of what 80's NWA and All Japan had in common. Solid wrestling moves, stiffness and flawless psychology. Paul sent a batch of WWF Steamboat and I can't believe I was driven so far away from WWF back then that I missed this aspect of Steamboat's career. His match against Don Muraco is great. Cliff warned me that Muraco used to be great and know I can see why. Very old school pro style that builds to logical endings and what have you. Stuff they should teach you in wrestling school before they let you on the mat. They also showed those cretinous WWF "Dragon in Japan" vignettes that drove me deeply into the arms of the NWA. I'm trying to remember if Ed Leslie was ever sort of good or if Steamboat really could carry Beefcake to that high of a quality match like the one on this tape. Ditto Davy Boy Smith.

-Paul sent me a compilation with AAA match that was very-second-hour-of- Nitro-like. Los Villanos and Fishman are wrestling Perro Aguayo and, for some reason, Cien Caras, Universo 2000 and the other brother who's name has escaped me all day. I'm guessing this related to their feud with Los Villanos but I don't know if it was before or after the feud was ended with that cage match and couldn't figure out how Perro got mixed up in it. Perro, of course, gets the holy crap beaten out himself as the brothers refuse to tag him and the truly great thing is that when Perro is knocked out of the ring and is laying on the floor of the first row and it is clear that they are not helping helping Aguayo, the Dynamita Brothers go into the ring and beat the crap out Los Villanos and Fishman. I'm glad that WCW has stopped stealing lame angles from the WWF and now only steal great angles from New Japan and AAA.:) I love the different levels of evil idea and for WCW to pull it off, they need a Los Villanos group, which the Dungeon of Doom could be if they put good wrestlers in it. They've already produced their own Los Locos Gringos with the NWO. AAA has the blueprint for the two tier heel vs heel feud, one within and one outside the organization. To duplicate this effect, WCW needs guys who can go at it (Jericho, Psicosis) in the Dungeon of Doom. There really isn't anyone in the dungeon that looks like he would last thirty seconds with Benoit or Flair and they won't make this feud successful until they do.
-I read in Herb's tidbits that WCW is going to use GAEA wrestlers as part of an effort to establish a women's division. Since it is my second fave organization in Japan, behind Michinoku Pro, you can imagine how stoked I was! The weird thing about this is that ECW is gonna be bringing in the BIG gun of Minami Toyota at about the same time, so WCW won't be following the lead of ECW this time around. I gotta bad feeling that ECW will do it right, like they did getting over the NJ3 and the AAA4, and that WCW won't have a blueprint to steal for gettting them over and just totally drop the ball. The major difference is that GAEA is so angle driven that it seems like it would adapt to America easier than AJW wrestlers, so maybe it will all equal out. I think Chigusa will get over before Minami to the marks even though she isn't close to being the same class as Minami
technically, but I think she will get over just because she is a tough old broad that fights for what is right (a female Steamboat in that sense). The key will be if WCW has ANY sense and brings her and her entourage of tiny wrestling disciples in as faces as opposed to the universally unsuccessful Japanese-as-evil policy they have maintained. ECW has the major advantage that to see Minami is to fall in love with Minami and if they can con Yamada to have another hair vs hair match with her, we will have a beautiful wrestling moment in the bingo hall again, because that one in Japan was one of the most intense things I have ever seen.
-I didn't hear Juventud mentioned on WCWSN so I wonder what the deal with his match with Konan is. I need to get a grip.:)
NANIWA~!
                          Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
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dvd5
TAUE! DREAMER! TSURUTA! and other things I saw and heard this week.
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #5!
It was a big week for killing time watching tapes of wrestling- what with the Hurricane and all! Of course, the two megathreads are still making sure nobody can go to bed at a normal hour, so time was still tight.:)
-I watched Akira Taue vs Tommy Dreamer (PHIIIILLLLL!) in All Japan and YEP! I can see why Dreamer isn't gonna threaten anybody for the Triple Crown any time soon, in that he was squashed in four minutes by the then-lethargic Taue. Dreamer looked as uncomfortable in All Japan as Akira Taue would look in the ring with El Hijo del Santo so I don't wanna come down too hard on our boy Tommy. I then watched Dreamer's match with Funk against Raven and Cactus Jack in ECW and- c'mon gals and guys!- Tommy was born to be a garbage wrestler. He was brilliant in that match! Funk and Cactus did their usual world class brawling and Raven did the touching halo of barbed wire Tribute to Matsunaga.:) From a wrestling standpoint, Dreamer is Onita-like in the feigning of technical wrestling but you can tell he is really into the violent end of it. I'm just glad that Tommy Dreamer has found a niche that he finds rewarding and that he realized his lot in life before did something really stupid, like wallow in midcard status in the big two in Japan and The US of A for the rest of his career. The world can use an American Masato Tanaka, but, hey, one Tom Zenk was enough (God bless him). We're looking at a new worldwide trend of better wrestlers getting mixed up in the garbage leagues and,hell, I'm all for it. Garbage wrestling isn't going to go away so they might as well try and make it into something cool (as opposed to just sick); if you stick enough talented and semi-talented guys into it, an actual, credible style may come out of it. If that ever reaches fruition, then FMW and ECW won't be so apologetic to the normal organizations when it comes to defending the more excessive aspects of their matches and can say it works on its own terms. I don't see people coming down on Lucha Libre because three guys sometimes pin one guy at one time. It works in the realm of Lucha Libre so to hell with everybody else; it works on its own terms, it doesn't matter if anybody thinks it's wrong, that's the style and that's that. It's a staple of the style. If these talented young punks in ECW and FMW work out a credible style over a period of time, they can have the same privilege and it won't be compared to regular pro style. It will be its own style and have its own rules. It has to get past the point of being chumps who can't actually wrestle so they hit each other with chairs; It has to reach the point where it is wrestlers who decide to expand the repertiore at there disposal to include violent elements outside the normal pro style, but use them in addition to, as opposed to "as in place of", wrestling skill. FMW is reaching that point with its young guys, why shouldn't the US have its own vanguard, with Dreamer at the point.
-I watched the September installment of WRESTLING POWER 96 and it rocked as usual. This month it concentrated on two smaller US indie organizations with two matches- one pretty good, one REALLY good. The pretty good one was Lance Diamond vs Cheetah Master in an Ironman match from Pennsyvania Championship Wrestling. It looked to be from a nightclub and  the action was very highflying at times with decent amounts of upper level mat wrestling mixed in. The Cheetah Master is a young blond haired guy who was more aerial and Diamond was pretty proficient in a lot of the more intricate mat moves one usually doesn't get in an indie match. There were jerky sections of the match as these youngsters hadn't figured out exactly how to time their transitions between sequences just right yet, but many of the intricate pinning sequences were pretty choice once they got them rolling. Cheetah Master hit a couple really nice springboard moves, the best being a springboard dropkick and a less successful springboard dropkick of Diamond off the turnbuckle (but I can only think of five or six guys who can pull that off with a lot of success, so it was cool that he hit it as much as he did.) Diamond hit a great Northern Lights suplex. The action was pretty constant the entire half hour and the pacing wasn't as breakneck as young highflyers tend to fall into, which would have screwed up any chance for effective selling. This was pretty impressive and more seasoning will get these guys where they need to go because they both have a decent base to build on. The second match was INSANE for Waynesboro, VA (Tim where do you find these cards?:)) David Jericho went up against Chris Hamrick in what looked like a High School gym in Waynesboro. These guys are already there. Somebody sign them up. David Jericho wrestled at the Chesterfield County fair last week and this is third match I have seen him in and he is my indie fave. All there is left is for someone from a larger organization to notice him and he will be on his way. He has great charisma and can really wrestle. He did a great frankensteiner and flew around like champ. This was the first Chris Hamrick match I'd ever seen and he was REALLY impressive. There was an awesome toprope gutwrench powerbomb by Hamrick that was just like Benoit would do. He was also not afraid to bleed profusely. I want to see more of these two, they rule! Flex Kavana was in the Power Spotlight and he seems like he will be impressive after a while. Hey Tim! Next month Mark "the Shark" Shrader and M. Mossman are my nominations for Power Spotlight! Tim Noel is to US independent wrestling what Dave Fields is to Lucha Libre and John D. Williams is to Japanese wrestling- an almanac of knowledge at our fingertips.
- I watched the 3/2/94 WAR show with Onita/Tarzan Goto vs Ashura Hara/Tenryu headlining and, as usual, WAR delivers the very best and the very worst. I wasn't prepared for a Meng/Mr. Hughes match but there it was, right on the screen, staring at me like a bad Family Matters rerun. There was also a truly horrible match between Koji Kitoa and a masked Sumo guy that I couldn't make out. That one stung. OUCH!:) On a much happier note, there was a Great Sasuke/SATO (now handsome Dick Togo) vs Orihara and Ultimo Dragon match. THIS MATCH WAS GREAT! And I really don't even like Orihara all that much. But this time around, Orihara is such a prick that he worked off the eternally-face Sasuke really well. I really wanted Sasuke to kick his ass bad, so maybe Orihara was doing his job of riling me up really well. The only part I really didn't like was Orihara no-selling a piledriver. I mean what is this guy, the suckass RW Hawk? Sasuke stayed in the ring and flew all over the place between the ropes with Ultimo Dragon. SATO showed his precursor to "Dick Togo, the Bump Taking Machine" form by taking some pretty hellish bumps.  Dick Togo/SATO is quietly made his mark and creeping up my list of wrestlers who RU LE! I mean, HECK! he does the fattest Senton in the world and sometimes he does it from the top rope to the floor. The Onita/Goto match was pretty great. I hadn't seen it in a while (I have it on a Scott Decker compilation that I got a while back). I think I liked it the most because a.) these g uys areold enough to be my father but still worked their hinders off, and b.) Ashura Hara looks exactly like my Uncle Doug (who could kick all four of these guys' asses.:))
-I watched the Ironman match from BeachBlast between Steamboat and Rude and, boy!, that was as good as wrestling gets. I've watched about fifteen Steamboat matches the last couple of weeks and he HAS to go down as an ALL-TIME great. I'd put him up with anyone. He always did great things regardless of the bizarreness of his particular push or his state of health. The fact that at that point Rude was healthy enough to still work helped put this match way over the top, and the ending is great with the mad scramble to get a pinfall.
-Speaking of wrestlers that could work, I watched a batch of Ric Flair in Japan matches. I got one thing to say- Jumbo Tsuruta was a great wrestler and people don't give him enough respect. All the matches against Flair are as good as it gets and smoke the Tenryu matches against Flair like a cheap cigar. The truly weird thing is that on this same tape is Flair versus Steamboat in Japan in one of the best matches I've ever seen between the two (and that would be saying something, growing up in the Mid-Atlantic era for part of my childhood) and the Japanese crowd sits on its hands. It's weird because the crowd freaks out for the Flair/Martel AWA vs NWA belt match and it's half as good as the Steamboat match. Did the Japanese audiences have something against the Steamer or something? The Flair/Martel match is the best I've seen Martel in but I really haven't seen much pre-Model Martel. Talk about old-school wrestling psychology, this was steeped in it (as were all of these matches.) Highspots were few, great sequences of pinfalls abounded and everybody sold like Motherf*ckers.
- I watched Silver King (or as I call him- Silver God:))/Shocker vs Dr Wagner/Super Astro and it was as fast paced and fabulous as one would expect. Shocker does the KING OF TOPES on Dr Wagner and does a Ciclon Rimirez-style ending of driving him into chairs with armrests completely out of control. As if that wasn't enough, Silver King grabs Wagner (who is his actual brother) and throws him into the fourth row in what has to be a truly painful sequence for the lesser-wrestling brother. I've got two brothers and there have been times when I have wanted to do tht.:)
-I watched a couple matches while taping them for other people and the best spot I saw was during the Sasuke/Onita barb wire no-ropes death match when Sasuke does the Sasuke Special over barbed wire strung across the ringposts onto Onita into the exploding Spider net. Also the Ohtani/Sasuke match from 10/94 was truly beautiful and lasted 3 hours it seemed like (but in a good way.)
-I watched the Best of the Hart Foundation and I didn't realize how much Niedhart has deteriorated; he could actually work at one time. All of these were pretty choice, the most choice being the match against the Rougeaus. Jacque Rougeau is my new quest to get a lot of stuff about, because I was so not into WWF when he was doing his best stuff that I didn't see a whole lot of him. I never realized what a graceful wrestler he was and I wonder if the French Connection will live up to the Rougeau matches Jacque was in. The match against the British Bulldogs was pretty cool but there wasn't enough Dynamite Kid and Bret Hart one on one for my tastes. The great added extra was the evil Bret Hart against Ricky Steamboat, in keeping with recurring Steamboat theme that has been the last month. Stampede meets Mid-Atlantic and everybody wins.
NEXT WEEK: LUCHA! LUCHA! LUCHA! and hopefully that Ultimo Dragon/Chris Jericho match people were raving about and the 95 Best of the Super J and a whole bunch of AJW!
NANIWA~!
                 Dean Rasmussen, Friend to the KING OF DANGER!
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dvd6
Takada! Kudo! Jericho! Allbright! KAORU! Tanaka! Ooya! Waltman! and other stuff I saw this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to Death Valley Driver Video Review #6!
The lovely wife is visiting her parents in Carolina so I got the whole house to myself! No Lifetime Movies! No quilting shows! Just wall to wall wrestling! I HAVE NO LIFE! HEY! Lifes are for squares, and I'm waxing and milking all you squares...
- To hell with Takada vs Misawa, I wanna see a rematch of the Gary Allbright/Takada match from 1994 I saw on tape this morning (Tim went to ECW in Philly last night so I ain't thanking him! You suck!:) A jealous Dean gets a grip... :)). Allbright looked awkward during obligatory exchanging mutual knee-bar section of that is a staple of all shootstyle matches but his suplexes were near perfect and he sold Takada's knees to the stomach like a freakin champ. The best part was that I got to mark out to a full nelson for the first time in a while. In shootstyle, a Full Nelson is as cool as a Skyytwister Press is in pro style, because you know in a pseudo-real wrestling match that a Full Nelson by Gary Allbright would choke you out immediately, and the second time he slapped it on Takada, it was like being a kid again and seeing Ric Flair put the figure four on BlackJack Mulligan. I want to see a rematch where Takada takes him to the mat and doesn't get by on kicking him all to hell. Allbright, by the time it was over, looked like he could wrestle circles around Takada (which I guess he could) and Takada looked like he didn't have the sophistication to mat wrestle with him credibly (which I know he could). UWFi can be the best worked wrestling in the world when the right guys are in and I wonder why Vader and Allbright would ever leave a style so suited for them so well. The Vader match against Tamara was great as Vader tears the punk a new one and kisses him afterwards. I like Vader as a real person in UWFi than as the version we get in the states. A humanized Vader is a truly spooky thing.
- I watched a mountain of FMW and GAEA stuff from earlier this year (thanks Rob and St. Phil! Unless you too went to see ECW last night!:)). Attention all future bookmakers: to see how to set up a feud see how Chigusa Nagayo beats the crap out of Migumi Kudo and drags Kudo's mortal enemy, Shark Tsuchiya, into the fray of the FMW against GAEA feud, and thus set up the streetfight at the 5/5/96 FMW supershow. Chigusa is so good at getting angles over that I don't even speak Japanese and I still wanted her to kick Tsuchiya's Pogo-aping ass (speaking of phrases that didn't translate well.. :)). Shark powerbombs Kudo and then challenge Chigusa and this leads to a massive GAEA/FMW women's riot through the audience, as Chigusa's tiny followers try to restrain Nagayo and, at the same time, take fabulous potshots at the FMW youngsters that are trying to restrain Tsuchiya. GAEA vs FMW is the most fun-filled feud in wrestling and Chigusa is great at pissing off the tough gals in FMW. The riot is MUST SEE TV! The exquisite KAORU wrestled Combat Toyota on the Phil tape and it is as choice as one would expect from the "now-that-I've-become-an-interesting-wrestler-I'll-retire" Combat Toyata and KAORU. KAORU is the double whammy because she is a world class wrestler and never lets up the I-hate-FMW mentality even after this great match when a handshake would be the order of the day. KAORU does her zillion suplex and moonsault variations and hung with the butt-kicking aspects of Combat's arsenal and threw in some garbage spots of her own for good measure. Combat showed off her expanded mat attack and hit one af the more graceful dropkicks one would see from a person of her size. Combat should move to the US and work US pansy style women's wrestling if her body isn't holding up to back-drop-driver intensive Japanese style. It's a shame to show so much promise at the end one's career and not get the props you deserve. The Megumi Kudo/Shark Tsuchiya Barb Wire Death Match surpasses the 5/5 Toyota/Kudo match in terms of violence per square foot, but Tsuchiya sucks as much as Pogo, her prototype, in the ring so this wasn't nearly as cool as the CT/MK match. The only really good part was when Kudo gives Shark the HORRIBLE back-drop driver from heck! I'm still feeling that! I can't believe Kudo's retiring next year, too. She rules.
-Also on the FMW tape that I got was the usual mixed bag one get's from the FMW men's department. The absolute dirt worst Ricky Fuji match I've ever seen (versus Nanjo) is on it and it would make crops fail. On a MUCH better note Hisakatsu Ooya wrestles Daisuke Ikeda from BattleArts. Ooya is the co-chairman of "Coolest Wrestlers in a Garbage Wrestling Organization" (Masato Tanaka co-chairs) because he pulled a good match out a BattleArts wrestler. Ikeda is pretty intense, as most of those shootstyle types are, and does the usual shootstyle drill: kick, knee, go for an cross armbreaker, opponent gets to the ropes, stand up, kick, knee, go for a knee bar, etc. Ooya stops the madness by suplexing the F#CK out of him twice. Ooya is becoming a pro style mat fave of mine and he works the half-assed shootstyle that IS BattleArts better than any of them do and sells better any of those Pancrase never-weres ever could, and does some of the most vicious, Benoitesque suplexes on earth. The six man street fight between FMW and W*ING was pretty good, mostly because Masato Tanaka was a part of the proceedings to kick the intensity level up a bit, and it worked best when he and Kanemura were going at it in the audience as Tanaka can do any suplex and Kanemura can take any bump, the more painful the better I guess. Hayabusa and Tanaka get extra points for successful manipulation of a ladder in a barb wire match, and I freaked out for Tanaka's tope over barbed wire, which would have really sucked if he slipped in Matsunaga's pool of blood or something. Hayabusa went flying into the spidernet about four times which made his "agony of defeat" tantrum at the end seem that much more plausible. An added highlight that made me happy was the unfurling of the W*ING flag at the end that said: "Wrestling International New Generation; (And wrapped in barbed wire) KING OF DANGER." I immediately called the KING OF DANGER (Cliff) and told him that I had a skirt idea for him.:)
- I watched the <<>> WAR international Junior Tournament from last year and that was the f*cking miracle tape. There was the obvious cool stuff (Jericho/Ultimo Dragon) but there were things I could not imagine on it: two Gedo matches that were great, SEAN WALTMAN doing stuff I've never seen him do (lucha moves, northern light suplexes, kicks nine times stiffer than his best day in the Whiff). The Gedo/Waltman was a mutual miracle match because it was twice as good as anything I've seen either of them in. Gedo in WAR is such a surly punk that when it works and he is in with a good worker, he can take it to another level. WCW should look at Waltman in this tournament, which included a good match against Negro "Out-in-the-First-Round-in-Japan" Casas, and bring him in as this version. Forget that he is a little guy- I mean HELL! he will tower over Misterio and Juventud- and just let him kick people's asses like he does here. They can remove his WWF candyass image by letting him go wild like this in his first match in. The Ultimo Dragon vs Chris Jericho RULED THE WORLD! When Jericho gets to the point in WCW where he is using his whole arsenal he had better be the most over face in WCW or I will start doubting the intelligence of wrestling fans (that was a joke, I guess). This tournament is best that I currently own on tape. Every match is at the peak of every participants ability and I was shocked by how good the performances of some wrestlers that I didn't think much of before were.
Next week: All the stuff I said I would watch last week! Lucha! Lucha! Lucha! I swear! and I'll watch the AJW that has been hanging over my head for three weeks! (I need to get over the feeling that I would be cheating on Chigusa and the gals.:))
NANIWA~!
                               Dean Rasmussen,
             "There's no place called heaven if we haven't already been there."
                                - The Verlaines
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Vader!Heavy Metal!Misterio!Juventud!Tony Arce!Too Cold!Jericho! Ganstas! (Gee, a North American Edition!) and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #7. It was a wacky week of wrestling veiwing as I once again put off watching the ten hours of All Japan Women that I have on tape, for some reason, (Stupidity I suppose.)
-I watched a AAA tape from November 1994 that Tim (lover of all things Shockmaster/Typhoon based!:)) traded to me and it was pretty choice. Dave Fields always said that Los Destructores whipped ass and after watching the Heavy Metal/Tony Arce hair-vs-hair match, I'm coming around to his way of thinking. Arce is a classic luchadore Rudo that makes a good wrestler like Heavy Metal look great. This was a freaking bumpfest with Arce taking every opportunity to land on his head after flying over the top rope. It collapsed into a beautiful brawl into the stands, with Latin Lover and Rocco Whatshisname flying into the stands and beating the crap out of each other in one of the better "seconds take over" type brawl. I was upset that the AAA barber didn't have an Ass Stomping coat like his EMLL counterpart sports. I watched a HeavyMetal/Super Calo/Psicosis/Konan/Cibernetico sent from St. Phil and Heavy Metal steals the show by the end, and made a good match out something involving the RW Hawk of Mexico, the wretched Cibernetico. I'm guessing that Heavy Metal will be the next highflyer to head to WCW (personal problems notwithstanding.) He's very Super Calo-esque, in that he isn't as flashy as Rey, Juventud or Psicosis, but is very solid in other areas and can work traditional lucha libre at higher level than their older predecessors, though maybe not transcend it like Rey, Juventud and Psicosis. I think he could make the transition with little trouble and the experience would do him good. Latin Lover would be another great choice though I have no idea how they would get him over to the Gringos.
-St. Phil sent me the Vader/Micheals match and it was pretty spectacular, if not pretty flawed. The stopping of the match twice, I'm guessing so Cornette could berate Micheals and get into the act, really sucked, and took away from the great momentum the match had reached by then. The infamous blown spot was pretty bad (Hell! I'd be pissed!) but the plancha and the tease of the Misterio toprope-to-the-floor hurricanrana into a powerbomb by Micheals made up for it. I'm glad he won by moonsault because the Super Kick is so incredibly lame, and it would have been awful to end such a good match by that method.. Vader wasn't afraid to take a bump and worked well making his oversized opponent look credible in the fray, but it made me think of how great a Micheals/Guerrero match would be, and how interesting Vader could make a Giant/Vader match become. Maybe its time for that much vaunted dreamcard. The Undertaker/Mankind boiler Room match was pretty long and HEY! let's face it, if you've seen Cactus/Funk in a barbed wire match, this family entertainment level violence just doesn't cut it. I guess you could also say, if you saw the Cactus barbed wire period, that its a good thing he is being paid a lot more to be in fights this less strenuous. He's done his time, I would want him to take it easy for the rest of his career.
-St.Phil sent me the four way TV title match from ECW and it was pretty great. Scorpio outworked everybody and did the most spectacular move of the match with the tope into the rail and they utilized the four man concept to a pretty high degree with the building planchas. Shane Douglas supplied most of he psychology and didn't hinder the progress of the three better workers that were in the ring with him, so I give him his props. Jericho was a lame duck so he didn't outshine anyone, which is to his credit, because I think he could smoke Douglas and Pitbull 2 pretty bad if he really wanted to. The Scorpio drop kick of Lionsault was a new twist and it looked pretty dangerous. Scorpio right now has to be the most improved wrestler of the year. In this match, considered by some the best in ECW this year (I'd go with Sabu/Van Damme no 1), Scorpio was the driving force behind it and made it what it was, until he was knocked out of it, allowing the angles and superfluous underwear-clad valet powerbombing took over and finished it up. This makes four great matches in a row that I've seen Scorpio in and that has put him as the best full-time wrestler ECW has.
-Phil also sent me the Gangstas/Eliminators feud and golly was that fun! The Gangstas are very Bruise Bros.-esque in that there brawling isn't very fascinating but those interveiws are the difference and they are a freakin riot. The Eliminators are so custom made for any kind of fray that the Gangstas could be utilized to there fullest potential- much more than Ganstas/TPE stuff I've seen. I LOVE the interview where New Jack talks about getting good advice from his "old lady."
-The best match on free TV this was, of course, the WCWSN main event of Juventud vs Rey Misterio Jr. There were two or three things I'd never seen these two do, including the great gourdbuster on the apron and the spinning hurricarana into the ring. It was ironic that Dusty wonders about their mat wrestling ability as Juventud hits a Murdock-class brainbuster on Rey. Juventud has definately mastered the Asai Moonsault and hit it about as beautifully as I've ever seen and he also hit a beautiful German Suplex. Another interesting thing about the match was that even when they blow spots, these two look cool!:) The missed dropkick of the Hilo Con Plancha was pretty beautiful eventhough it was botched completely. These two guys RULE THE EARTH and I think I could watch them compete against each other in synchronized swimming. I await the other two matches they have on tape. And the first top rope hurricanrana looked NASTY!
NEXT WEEK: Ten hours of AJW! I PROMISE!
NANIWA~!
                          Dean Rasmussen, Tanakaholic!
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HOTTA! Lioness Asuka! Yamada! Sakie HASAGAWA! Shimoda! Minami Toyota! and Takako Inoue makes me feel funny when I watch her matches- and other things I saw and heard this week (including the Juventud/Luger travesty)
Howdy!
Welcome to Death Valley Driver Video Review #8! This week I gear up to get my hinder handed  to me by my man John Williams and my other fellow International Wrestling freaks as I comment on two tapes I watched this week that were of All Japan Women's Pro Wrestling- the largest, most important wrestling organization that I have the least knowledge of. With that highly awkward sentence out of the way let me delve into the twisted and beautiful world of Japanese mainstream women's wrestling. LET'S GO!
- I watched the commercial tape for June 3,1994 (Scott ROCKS!) and it was CHOICE! The highlight for me has me torn between the beautiful match between Sakie Hasegawa and Manami Toyota and the grimly brutal match between Yumiko Hotta and Toshiyo Yamada. I will probably give the edge to the Hotta/Yamada match just because it was one of the top five stiffest matches I've seen and the second stiffest I've seen Hotta in. Hotta/Lioness Asuka from March of 95 takes the cake for women beating the living hell out of each other, but I like this match with Yamada more, probably because the Asuka match was violent to the point of being disturbing (for me, personally, anyway). I think another thing is that in a match this violent and intense, its good to see a sign that this is a work, and they were good at hiding that in the Asuka match so you get caught up in the stiffness of all the shots being given. For some reason this doesn't bother me in a man's match and I guess its a double standard one should have to get over. I mean its all wrestling, no matter the gender of the participants, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. In the Yamada match, Yamada is just NAILING Hotta in the face with these insanely stiff kicks while Hotta is against the ropes and, after about three of these, Hotta looks at her and quickly nods her head, as if to signal,"I'm okay, give me a couple more." For some reason this was comforting to me. After that I realized that this match is a triumph of the will- to have the will to plan that much pain for yourself and cooperate to have it inflicted. The Sakie Hasegawa/Minami Toyota match was exquisite, because HEY! Minami Toyota is THE BEST WRESTLER IN THE WORLD and Sakie is the most likable. This had every cool spot that I've seen Toyota do and there were things that I had never seen Hasegawa do, a lot of lucha rollup variations and what have you. Minami has the coolest toprope-to-the-floor (Great who?:)) dropkick of anyone on the earth and she only does the rolling-her-opponent thing for a few seconds. The Sakie consecutive suplex of choice was the butterfly suplex and, by the end, I REALLY wish Sakie didn't have to retire and I don't know who to blame. God, she was great. There is a Skyytwisterless Chaparita ASARI match on the tape, which I had never experienced before. The young lass isn't good enough to try that just yet. She should rely on it until she can work a good match. I mean if she has a bad match and hits a Skyytwister Press, heck! I'm still happy and still pop like a goofball. The Shimoda/Mita match was pretty choice mainly because Shimoda hits the most fabulous Death Valley Driver I've seen in a while (Takaiwa still has her beat though, but not by much.) Candy Okutsu is the human punching bag in this one. Takako is heelish in her match against Suzuka Manami. GOD! She busts me up bad with her visual awesomeness. I'm gonna have to start fast forwarding through her matches to avoid developing lust in my heart.:)
-The second tape in my AJW mini-marathon was from Sept of last year (Dams RULES!) the Akira Hokuta/Minami Toyota match left me flat, probably because I saw it the same afternoon as seeing the Hasegawa/Toyota match and I don't think it compared at all, or maybe because they did all these prolonged table spots that just didn't look that cool.:) All those Fisherman Busters by  Toyota were great considering who she was doing it to and the Stranglehold Gamma by Hokuta was great, being the unique situation that she and her husband borrow each other's finishers from time  to time. The TRULY fantabulous match was Yoshido/Ito/Blizzard Yuki against Yamada/Tomoko Watanabe/ and that temptress vixen woman.:) Yuki (who looks amazingly like Sakie Hasegawa:)) does a BEAUTIFUL Sasuke Special- though the camera angle was cruddy. I've seen Watanabe a couple of times now and she is pretty underrated. She took the truly hellish bumps and did one the most graceful ranas into a roll-up that I've seen. The consecutive suplex of choice by Blizzard Sakie was the Exploder suplex and it HAD to suck after about three of them. Takako wore this black leather bondage outfit and I, being happily married, averted my eyes to spare myself the wrath of my God and my wife.:) A Hotta/Reggie Bennett match was on this tape and I had never seen Bennett wrestle in Japan so I couldn't tell if Hotta has trouble with straight pro style or if Bennett wasn't having a good night or what. Either way, this match wasn't one of the better ones that I saw during eightish hours that I watched. Reggie seems like a cool chick, though, from the interveiw afterwards, in a good-natured redneck kinda way. The Shimoda/Mita vs Asuka/Jaguar Yokota match was a little better than Hotta/Bennett but not by much. All four seemed a little listless. The Aja Kong/Bison Kimura was a bloodbath that kept me riveted while it was going on. Kong hits two GRIM spinning backhand punches that hurt to look at. Aja Kong is so great. I really hope she is coming to the WCW when they start up the fabled women's division. It would make up for me not being able to see Manami at ECW (a long happy story!).
The overall impression after watching all this AJW is that, hell, these are the best athletes in wrestling and this is the most difficult style to wrestle, but I still like GAEA more because a.) GAEA is more fun and B.) Sakie Hasegawa has retired.
-I watched WCW Saturday Night and I was thrilled that my favorite wrestler in the world was squashed by my least favorite wrestler in the world. Who the hell booked that five minutes of bullshit? I guess they are only pushing two AAA wrestlers, Misterio and Konan- actually I guess they are gonna push Psicosis eventually- so Juventud and Super Calo are gonna be out in the cold, but jobbing the supremely talented Juventud to the useless sack of shit Lex Luger is an unforgivable disgrace. I can't think of a worse thing I've seen in wrestling.
NANIWA~!
                   Dean Rasmussen, Juventud Guerrera RULES THE
MOTHERFUCKING EARTH AND LEX LUGER SUCKS GREEN DONKEY LUNGS!
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LA PARKA! Rey Misterio Jr! PSICOSIS! ULtimo Dragon! HEAVY METAL! and its all one match folks! and Jericho vs Halloween! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to Death Valley Driver #9! Unbelievably (for me anyway), I'm almost caught up- tapewise. So the cycle begins again!:) Where is that Lacy fella?!?:)
- I got a fantabulous Extreme Southwest (tm-jdw((So THERE!:))) handheld from Tim (the benevolent tapesmaster and lover of all things Psichodelico-esque:)) from 6/2/96. The Main Event RULED! It's a four corners match between Rey Misterio Jr/Perro Aguayo vs Ultimo Dragon/La Parka vs Psicosis/Heavy Metal vs Cibernetico/Pierroth Jr, with a single elimination rule- so instead of both guys being out after one gets pinned, you can stay in it after your partner is eliminated. This stipulation pays major dividends by the time its all whittled down. LaParka carries the first half of the match, as his 300% wild ring work is quickly catching up to his wild attire. Ultimo Dragon and Rey are tagged in at the same time but refuse to go tecnico a tecnico (thus fueling my enthusiasm about the HogWild match even more). LaParka and Rey end up in together and they go at it about as fast as Lucha Libre can get, but with the great non-slams replacing the slams that would end each sequence, with a mountain of spinning flying headscissors into standing switches and reversals that kept this veiwer from blinking in fear of missing any of it. After this, there is a highlight for each wrestler with Ultimo doing an inring Asai moonsault, Heavy Metal running up the ropes, and Psicosis doing an INSANE over-the-turnbuckle bump, so everybody is on full throttle (except for Cibernetico- who doesn't do highlights or anything really). Perro Aguayo gets into the act with a great old style tope. Pierroth Jr then starts to no-sell everything by Misterio, and eventhough I hate no-selling as much as a rightminded wrestling fan will hate the career of Lex Luger, Misterio makes the best of it by doing goofy Lucha selling of a hurt hand after each knife-edge chop. After electrifying the proceedings, highlighting it with the lucha staple flying chair shot after a fabulously intricate lucha rope running sequence and catching the big Ass springboard tope from Misterio (after Psicosis ducks out of the way), La Parka is eliminated. I'm guessing this was a good thing, because the man had to be tired after working his ass off for that long. The match then becomes the Misterio/Psicosis show as everybody is eliminated and these two are the last two standing. They proceed to add to the New Luchadores of AAA Legend by cranking out one of the most beautiful matches these two have had and make a great match even better. The gist of this was that it was every spot from Bash at the Beach distilled into a ten span added to other spots that FREAKED ME OUT. The ending was... HEY! HEY! That would be telling!
Also on this tape was luchadore extraordinaire- Chris Jericho! Now this was fun! The match itself consisted of Jericho, the very solid Leon Negro and Angel Mensajero (who I've never seen before up) against Halloween, Enfermo Jr, and Viernes 13th. I really want to really like Halloween. He'll go the extra mile, he's a GREAT second and he has stolen the best stuff from Fuerza Guerrera. He can do everything but wrestle. Anyway, it was great to watch Halloween sucker the naive Canadian into the Fuerza Guerrera Ican't-believe-you-won't-hug-me-I'm-your-bestest-friend-on-earth spot, my personal all-time favorite rudo gimmick. Jericho hits the mat real well, going native on the low impact armdrags and selling the bizarre leglocks and abdominal stretch variations that permeate Lucha Libre, but Jericho never really goes hogwild like he could have. Things get extreme as Los Pandilleros hit the ring and kick the crap out of the tecnicos. More interesting than great.
The first match on the tape was Los X-men and Thunderbird (and, yes, he rules sometimes:)) against Deprador, Negro Azteca, AMNESIA!!!, and Genghis Khan. Deprador is a strange luchadore. He is very technically capable as a rudo, very traveled (I saw him in the Michinoku Pro Match I ever saw), and has one of the wildest outfits in wrestling, but just never quite can make it out of the first match. The other three rudos I couldn't tell apart from one another, though I've seen Negro Azteca a few times and I think he is the one sans the mask. The match starts off well with Thunderbird doing some nifty highflying. He is older and has the Plan 9 from Outer Space outfit on. Amnesia, I'm guessing, tries an El Hijo Del Santo one inch from the ringpost tope and I guess he landed wrong because he isn't seen again. Los X-men hit a batch of cool topes in the second Caida with the best being Wolverine doing the Shiryu somersault tope (3/4 shiryus:)) This year with all these hand helds being available and after seeing seven or eight of them, I think these young punks- Los X-men- are the most improved and they are beginning to approach the Power Raiders level of goofiness-drenched awesomeness.
Damian 666 vs Mascara Sagrada Jr rounds out the cast.:)
- I watched a batch of 80's WWF sent to me by Tall Paul, the Stud With It All (or something like that!:)) It had a batch of Bulldogs, Rougeaus and Quebecers matches and the Quebecers win hands down, when it comes to great wrestlers that made the best of super idiot booking in the WWF. I mean HELL! they made a Bushwhackers match interesting. The most promising match on this tape is the Survivor's Series match which is ruined by the end by cretin booking. The Match has the Brainbusters, the Rougeaus, the British Buldogs, the Rockers, the Young Stallions- some of the best tagteams of the 80's who are, of course, eliminated to make room for the important steriod fest of a Demolition/Powers of Pain final. The Conquistadors are the third last to knocked out. Who do I punch?
- A-Number one in the what the f*ck department is the Takada/Abdullah the Butcher match announced by Tokyo Pro this week. Does Takada need money or something? Is he Abdullah's son-in-law? Did they offer ole Nobuhiku a lifetime supply of ribs from Abdullah's restaurant or something? ME DON'T WANT TAPE!
- The Juventud/Misterio match was pretty great on Saturday night. Is it me, or is Rey actually getting adept at selling in subtle ways? I love this UWFi thigh kicking stuff that Juventud is getting into. When is the Takaiwa vs Juventud match? I would be stoked. I'm guessing this dream team of Rey and Juventud starts after Rey drops the belt to Malenko at Havoc, setting up a kinda cool sounding Malenko/Waltman feud and explaining the loss to our boy Alex.
Next Week: I dunno. I've watched all the tapes I currently have. Something, I assure you!:)
NANIWA~!
                         Dean Rasmussen, SATOgenerian
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dvd10
Jeff JARRETT! Dean MALENKO! Steve AUSTIN! and other things I watched for the mountain of tape to arrive!
Howdy!
Welcome to Death Valley Driver Video Review #10!
I finished the last match of the last mountain of tapes I got, which means a little down time between deliveries. I gotta a bunch coming in soon, including enough for a Lucha Librathon III- which will be twenty six hours if my math is right. I'll keep the yammering to a minimum because I'm sure I'll be wearing out my bandwidth welcome after all that and the batch of All Japan gets in.
- I watched Clash of the Champions: Miami Mayhem, which was at the end of the Kingsized Bulldogs-Rougeaus-Quebecers tape that Paul (the no-longer ECW-chasted:)) traded to me, and it was pretty choice in spots. Barry Windham vs Brad Armstrong was pretty good, but it just made me wonder how far Windham would have gone if everything hadn't gone wrong for him. By the time this was on the air, he was a thoroughly amazing wrestler- even if he was using a claw as a finisher.:) The Fantastics carried the Sheepherders to a good match, thus sealing their fate as the greatest forgotten tagteam of recent times. The main event was a highly unsatisfying Sting/Dusty vs Tully/Arn. I hadn't watched a Dusty match in a while and had forgotten that he wasn't as bad as Duggan is; heck, he actually threw a dropkick. Sting no-sold enough to be a New Japan Heavyweight contender, but still seemed to have enthusiasm for his chosen field. The endless Horsemen screwjob booking ruined the ending and made me want to punch someone- my guess, a certain Virgil Runnells.
 Jeff Jarrett rules the f*cking earth. His match on Nitro this week was beautiful. I don't know who is the best in WCW now at getting opponents over- Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho or Jeff Jarrett. The Argument for Jericho would be his recent match against Mike Enos, the houseshow reports of him pulling very good matches out of Disco Inferno, and the >hell!< miracle match against Steve Armstrong Saturday on WCWSN, which I was amazed at seeing. I actually forgot for a minute that Armstrong was jobbed into oblivion prior to this match and was just being carried by Jericho with such absolute perfection. Jarrett might have it over Eddie because Eddie couldn't drag a decent match out of Bubba like Jarrett did Monday and Jericho may have it over Eddie because Chris pulled a good match out of Enos, unlike Eddie. Of course, the true proof is when they are in with real, honest to God workers. I'm guessing sooner or later we're gonna get the ass-stomping Benoit/Jarrett feud and then we'll see double J's true workrate colors. Benoit/Jericho was great, the elevenish Guerrero/Benoit matches RULED, and I'm guessing that the heat in a Benoit/Jarrett match may be enough to take to that same level- though Jarrett isn't quite in the other two's league, physical talent-wise- though he does have a flawless grasp of old-school American selling and psychology, and GOD! can anybody work a match better in the US?
- The Steve Austin/Shawn Micheals match SHOULD have been one of the highlights of the year, but God! did it suck. I glad Austin has kicked it into gear lately but it really is useless to work that hard for such a crappy ending. Shit! Savio Vega got a clean pin over him, but Micheals can't? Geez, how about a 45 minute time-limit draw? And the split screen crap with Vader, Cornette, and Sid didn't thrill me either. I don't know. WWF should be glad that it only pulled a 1.8 during this match, because the mass frustration over something that high on the top of the card could have caused irreparable damage.
- The other highlight of the wrestling week- for me at least- was the very good Malenko/Brad Armstrong match Monday. The NWO crap hovered over it, but the solid wrestling prevailed. I loved the inverted cradle with a leg scissors on the legs finisher.:)
-The WTF section this week is the mask vs mask challenge by the Great Sasuke that was accepted by Dos Caras. I don't want to figure this out. Sasuke isn't dropping his mask, at least not to Dos, and I'm guessing the Dos Caras is gonna be buried wearing his mask like El Santo, so I'm truly baffled by this one.
NEXT WEEK: Back to the veiwing grindstone! LUCHA! LUCHA! LUCHA! ALL-JAPAN!
WHATEVER ELSE GETS SENT TO ME!
NANIWA~!
                           Dean Rasmussen, Jerichoiac!
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dvd11
KANDORI! Yamada! CHIGUSA! KOBASHI! Kroffat! AKIYAMA! Williams! BENNETT! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to Death Valley Driver Video Review #11!!!
I'm a ONE MAN BANDWIDTH SLAUGHTERHOUSE this weekend, what with batches of tapes from benevolent Scott, Dams the Man, and Paul the Stud with it All (sorry!:)) to yammer on about, add that to Halloween Havoc tomorrow, and cretin NAWA wrestling in Midlothian tonight, all I can say is "Dean Rasmussen- get used to the name! He's wearing out his cyber-welcome." Let's go to the ring.:)
- I watched two All Japan handhelds from 94 that Scott sent me and these were more fun than I thought AJ could be. These were the first two complete cards I've ever seen of AJ and it was actually real goofy in spots, which I wasn't expecting and, of course it had a lot of great matches on them. The highlight of the first card, from April 11, 1994, for me, was Steve Williams vs Jun Akiyama, which degenerated into a clinic of suplex brutality, with Williams getting more neckbreaking high angle suplexes in and I'm really glad I'm not Jun Akiyama, though he more than held his own against my country's greatest wrestling machine. When the f*ck does Williams face Takada? I would have interest in seeing that. Johnny Ace and The Eagle vs John Nord and Dan Kroffat was surprisely good because Nord actually worked as hard as the other guys and took more heckish bumps. I had no idea that he had any inkling of wrestling ability. Johnny Ace ruled as he always does. Ditto Kroffat. I had the Kobashi/Hansen match on some compilation I got so I didn't rewatch it yet, though I do remember it being stiff and full of psychology.:) The second handheld from November 19, 1994, was highlighted by the AMAZINGLY fun Misawa/Kobashi vs Furnas/Kroffat match, which bodes well for the WWF if these guys can be 1/100th as effective against such august tagteam concepts as the Godwinns (yikes!). The basic premise is that Kobashi gets his ass beaten into the ground while Danny and Doug cheat like all good North Americans do :) and the crowd REALLY gets into it. I love it when they boo the save made by Misawa after Can-Am has done every textbook American pro style ref distraction and underhanded move in the book. (Dan Kroffat does this hip swivel thing on the first hh that I had seen him do in a match against Silver King and El Texacano in Mexico, when Can-AM were wearing masks, and I always wondered which one did it. It's Kroffat and I fell out. If you haven't seen it, you'll cry. The ladies will love it.) Misawa really mailed this one in, so I'm guessing he was injured or something, or maybe he didn't want to get in the way of the INSANE amount of nearfalls that permeate the last five minutes of the match, after our man Kenta has been bludgeoned beyond recognition. A truly great match. The rest of the card was truly in the realm of "God! He made the Japanese Tour? I didn't even know he still wrestled!" category. Usually it's Tom Zenk or that Tommy Dreamer/Taue match type of thing, this time around, it was Kimala and JIM STEELE!?!? The great thing is that the teaming of Kimala and Abdullah the Butcher shows that, in the end, they really are just fourth rate Headhunters.:) Decent match between Kawada/Fuchi/Taue vs Kiyama/ Omori/Asako with a fabulous three-man All Japan beatdown on Kawada. When Akiyama and Kawada are in together its magic, except Kawada kept doing that REALLY goofy log-rolling on the chest of Akiyama move. Overall, a great way to kill an afternoon. Props to Mighty Inoue for the little Sentons.
- At the end of the AJ hh tape was the added extra (Scott rules!)- a video wall hh of some of the 11/94 Big Egg Wrestling Universe show from the Tokyo Dome and there were truly fabulous happenings on it. The first thing was Debbie Malenko against someone in an amateur match which was kinda neat. I'm guessing this was after she broke her leg. She can go to it. The second match was a GREAT Reggie Bennett vs Chigusa Nagayo match that had the great pseudoshoot (or maybe real) Chigusa rib injury. Bennett worked well with Chigusa and I wonder if they will be reprising this in WCW when the GAEA/WCW deal kicks in in January. I would be deeply into it, if they do. The third match was VERY VERY GREAT with Shinobu Kandori and Futagami vs Yamada and Tomoko Watanabe. Futagami and Watanabe (who works her hinder off in this match) are running interference for the real hellstorm of Yamada vs Kandori. These young ladies beat the living hell out of each other. Yamada misses the top rope spin kick like she did against Hotta. Kandori is just a f*cking badass, working as stiff as she wants to. Somebody needs to make a "Awesome Babes of Shootstyle" tape with Kandori, Hotta, Yamada, Asuka and our gal, Aja. It  was CHOICE! Then there are bunch of introductions and neat shots of the Domes structure and the beginning of the Michinoku Pro match that is cut off after about five minutes. Luckily, I believe St. Phil is sending the commercial version of that match next week. Delfin has the coolest entrance music now and Naniwa's rocked as usual. I love the crab-claw oversized ovenmitts.
-I watched WrestleWar 89 with THE MATCH on it and, HELL! it was great! Thanks Paul! Except for the match afterwards! Road Warriors- ugh. I won't go on about how great the Flair/Steamboat match was because its been analyzed to death, but I will say one thing- the match was REALLY PERFECT, especially the second time around, but Flair/Funk was better. I said it, so there. The Muta/Doug Gilbert match reminded me of when I saw Muta in Charlottesville at U Hall with a bunch farmers and he was really okay!
-The October Edition of Wrestling Power 96 delivered the goods as usual (sometimes living in Richmond has its advantages!), The featured matches were ECW handhelds from Reading (or as we say down hear Reeding), PA. The Sabu vs Damian 666 match was pretty good, though I should like Damian more than I do, because he is the biggest overacheiver in wrestling right now, in that he can make a match interesting though he doesn't have a lot of natural athletic ability. I like the fact that they both went at it full bore at a house show, though this wasn't Sabu vs Scorpio or anything. The second match was really good- Robbie Van Dam vs Shane Douglas. This went in and out of the ring with the goofy martial arts stuff kept to a minimum. I'm still confused about Douglas. Is he getting better or does he just have better guys carrying him? Either way, this was a really good match with lots of trademark furniture usage which is always an added extra when coupled with a real wrestling match, which it was. Hell with it! Van Dam is gonna be a truly fine wrestler for a long time and I'm totally sold on him now. The Wrestling Spotlight was on Steve Corino (I think I spelled it right) (the 4-5-6 kid) and GEEZ! y'all weren't kidding! He is Waltman's doppelganger. The show ended with a big tribute to Magnum TA and I wonder if we would have been subjected to Lex Luger if Magnum would have kept the car on the road. It seems he was on the brink of attaining the position that Luger held right after Terry Allen was forced out of the sport. Overall, another fabulous show (and I'll forgive them for busting on Juventud falling over the steps.:)
-The Juventud match this morning was good. I'm guessing this wasn't too old because of the SlimJim ring. I give his springboard DDT a 5/8ths Ohtani.:) I read a Bischoff interveiw on their homepage where he hinted at a Cruiserweight tag title so this Juventud/Misterio tagteaming suddenly makes sense. I guess they are gonna use Rey to get as many belts over as possible. It will all be worth it if we get a Rey/Juventud vs Liger/Ultimo match out of it. My question is- how does the ProAzteca stuff affect the WCW/AAA deal? Is it back to tapes to see Psicosis, Jucventud and the boys (which would suck)? Did Bischoff negotiate with Konnan or with Pena? Is AAA dead in the water? Whither Ultimo Dragon? Mexico is such a foreign country some times.
IN A FEW DAYS: All Japan Carnival 95! First leg of Luchathon III! Dream Slam I and II!Incessant rambling!
NANIWA~!
                          Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
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dvd12
KAWADA! MISAWA! AKIRA TAUE! AKIYAMA! All Japan Carnival 95 and that's about all I've seen so far this week.:)
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #12! This will be pretty much all about All Japan Carnival 95 since I got it Monday and I had birthing classes on Tuesday and I watched all of it Wednsday and tonight, so it was a psychology overload so if it gets disjointed, please forgive me.:)  -The best match was Taue vs Kawada (God! One sentence in and I can feel the flames incoming.:)) I liked it the most because of the sheer brutality of it. Kawada working stiff as flying hell was balanced by Taue continuously taking Kawada out to the floor and beating the hell out of him. Taue is such a physically awkward guy that I overlooked how well he works a match, which is really weird because he moves it along at such a snails pace, but somehow he makes it work. I guess his size makes the slower pace palatable because it adds weight to his moves, and makes them seem more effective (sort of the Keichi Takano effect) For this whole tournament, his matches were all good, but I guess it helps when your weakest opponent is Jun Akiyama, so we weren't treated to a Dan Spivey/Akira Taue match, that would shattered the illusion of Akira for me.:) The other weird thing was that I noticed that the more I see Taue, the less I like Kobashi. Kenta comes off as such a weinie sometimes- especially in the six man match in volume one. I think what I like about Taue on this tape is that he is all psychology and stoicism. His only real highspot is that chokeslam on the floor and the occassional midgrade powerbomb, but he's so methodical and absolutely no bullshit in his approach that I have to love him. Put that into the ring with the manic intensity of Kawada and it's really hard for me to lose. Kawada looks cool hitting such a big target, and it makes his suplexes look that much more impressive.
-The Misawa/Kawada match ruled the fucking world. I guess that was as close to a win for Kawada as he was going to get because by the end he is beating the crap out of our man Mitsuhara. I was pissed he didn't get the win, actually at the end. I guess the part where they stop the match in the beginning was one of those All Japan Shoot Angles and it worked- I was confused.:) There were so many cool parts to this match I will attempt to hit on a couple of things. I love the reverse to reverse to reverse of the suplex setup and then Kawada falls on his head so he can kick Misawa before he lands. Kawada sold the Tiger Driver on the floor pretty well at first because he looked like he was out of it but I was thinking about how cool it would ave been to have sold it all the way through the match. The ending was great because, unlike the Taue/Misawa match, at the end there looked like there was going to be a certain-Misawa opponent victory and when the bell rings you can feel the air come out of the room. The best Misawa move was the Chicken wing suplex directly on Kawada's head to hold off Kawada's first flurry of pinfall attempts. The great psychological ploy was that by the second flurry, when Kawada was just beating the shit out of Misawa, you knew that if the bell didn't ring, another such stop-gap suplex wasn't forthcoming and Kawada gets the win. This wasn't the case in the Taue/Misawa draw because neither man had established dominance and, though it was entertaining as all get-out, one is left with the feeling that they were just spinning their wheels.
-Jun Akiyama had a great match against Taue, which I wasn't banking on and had a lacklustre match against both Kawada and Misawa. Both had cool moments, especially when Akiyama turned on the suplex machine, but the endings were such a sign of
Big Four Dominance that the submissions left a bad taste in this man's mouth. Misawa used the obscure lucha Indian Deathlock with a front face lock as the submission finisher. The fact that it was clumsily applied added up to quite an anticlimax to a match that had its moments. At least he fared better than Omori against Kawada, where Kawada beat him to death and basically does the one finger pin. I was expecting Kawada to yell at the ref for not giving him the five count. I'm not sure where this tournament was in the developement of Akiyama, but he wrestled circles around Kobashi, match for match, and though they have similar styles, Akiyama has left out all the really stupid types of things that irritate me about Kobashi. THose little karate chops and the rolling thing on the ground (especially to BABA!) really make me wince, and when Kawada sells the
chops, I laugh out loud and feel sorry for Kawada at the same time. It's like when Malenko had to sell the Jim Powers kneelift, he'll do it but you know he feels goofy for selling it. Akiyama is definitely on track to be the next great badass in wrestling. Hell! Give him Kobashi's non-Triple Crown spot and give him some wins.
-The Americans were treated about as well as the Japanese at Starcade. Danny Spivey spent more time in the bathroom on the plane to Japan than on the mat. He was beaten in less than seven minutes in both matc hes he was in that I saw, and I'm guessing his non-functioning hip had something to do with it. Kroffat vs Furnas was a zany batch of fun, with Danny getting  bent out of shape about Doug exposing the Kroffat hinder to the shocked and amazed Carnival crowd. I REALLY hope that they use their neck-breaking suplexes that were exhibited in this match on either of the Goddwinns.:) To see the deterioration of Hansen watch his and Misawa's respective matches against Doug Furnas. Misawa makes it nifty, Hansen makes it a the only TRULY suckass match on the tape.
-The first volume had a neat six man tag with Taue, Baba and Kawada vs Hansen, Kobashi and Misawa. My favorite part was when Hansen makes the save, he pulls Taue off Kobashi, drags him out of the ring and just starts stomping him into oblivion. Why people don't try saves like that more often is beyond me. Baba looks mummified and it was great to see the best workers in the world having to sell his punches and clotheslines. there was some subtext between Baba and Kobashi that made Kobashi look like a big baby for having the need to whup up on a very old man.
- Nitro had some cool things on it. The best was Rey Misterio vs the man formerly known as the Gigilo. Jimmy has found his freakin working boots when he can hang with Rey and he did pretty well for himself. Push him already. Juventud was on. I was happy. He jobbed. I was unhappy. He jobbed to Regal. I was okay with it. I'm glad it looks like they  are moving towards Malenko/Psicosis, as I would think it would have a lot of promise, and I hope we see a decent Psicosis/Juvnetud match out of all this.
NANIWA~!
                                    Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
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dvd13
EL HIJO DEL SANTO! Dos Caras! YAMAZAKI! Chigusa! Chono! El CANEK! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVEIW #13!
-I watched the second and third nights of the G-1 Climax (Gosh bless Paul!) and many questions arise. The main one is WHERE THE HELL HAS YAMAZAKI BEEN ALL MY LIFE!?! He rules! His match against Koshinaka was my fave. Where do you gotta go to get those whip ass boots? He mixed in a lot of submission style and kicks, and he didn't get on my nerves (like the suckass Kojima did) by no-selling everything. Actually, I  shouldn't be so hard on the punk, Kojima, because Hirata, Kensuke Sasaki, and Tensan also suffered from Road Warriors Syndrome. Masa Chono won points for making Koshinaka's gentle powerbomb look devastating by REALLY leaning way forward before taking the hit. He also performed the most dickish lowblow in wrestling history, and should be commended for that. If Chono could be as psychotic as he is cool, he would be onto something. The Shinya Hashimoto/Hiroshi Tensan match was pretty cool, with Hashimoto selling the knee all the way to the end. I guess this kicks Tensan up a few notches and still leaves Hashimoto an opening to kick his ass later when his knee is "100%". I guess that would be the subtlest screwjob in wrestling. I'm guessing that the first night had the good Mutoh matches, from what I've read. but the Yamazaki matches made this worth it for me, just so I can have a New Japan Heavyweight to focus on when rifling through sundry tape lists. There was only one Ricky Chosyu match and it was the suckass one against Tensan, so I didn't get the whole experience that I read about that made this one so special, but I guess I will when I get the rest of it.
-I have been slowly watching all the Lucha Libre I got from Dams (King of All Mexico) and the weird thing is that I have actually really like a lot of the WWO stuff he's sent me. The best was the El Canek/Villano III vs Dos Caras/Mil Mascaras match, which was deeply in slow motion by Lucha standards, but was absolutely technically perfect and as graceful as you're gonna get. Dos Caras hits all of his supercool spinning armdrags into abdominal stretches that noone else can pull off, and Mil Mascaras was less mummified than he usually is. El Canek is not afraid to still rule and Villano III more than held his own. It was a great little match that harkened to different era of Lucha Libre. Another match that was good but I doubt I'll stick on any best of tapes was Rey Misterio Sr vs MS-1. It's was as psychology laden as it was plodding but the psychology kept my interest. The first two Caidas were throwaways to build heat to the third Caida where each used assorted leglocks and stretches to attempt to get the submission and one got the sense of urgency when MS-1 refused to go to the ropes and instead powered out of a Misterio Camel Clutch variation. It built to a screwy ending which was irritating but didn't detract too much from the effort shown. A good batch of hilarious booking was in the El Rocketeer/El Espacial/Neutron,Jr vs Alcon Azul/California Kid/El Taura match. All of these guys are local talent, though they all were semi-talented and El Rocketeer had a major league outfit (and a minor-league tope). The best part is the endless succession of submission holds that were all interrupted by a partner of the victim and the partner would then throw a different submission hold on the erstwhile applicator of the submission hoold until HIS partner would break it up and it would start all over again. HEY! TRUST ME! It makes sense when you see it!:) A couple of freaky FMW meets EMLL matches which were from a while back are also on the shows, with Hayabusa/Onita Jr vs Los Pandilleros I and II being the weirdest. Hayabusa actually did some Lucha moves and looked a lot better than in the other match I have him in in WWO (a six-man with the true ICON OF WRESTLING: ANTICHRISTO! NUMBER ONE AND THE BEST!!!) The other FMW match was the incredibly choice Tarzan Goto/Atsushi Onita/El Hijo Del Santo vs Horance(sic) Boulder/Negro Casas/Mark Starr (not THAT Mark Starr). It was great because neither promotion conceded anything to the other's style, so Onita kicked the hell out of Boulder (who is four times the wrestler his uncle is) all around the arena while Casas and Santo kind of stand around in ring waiting for the actual match to start. Santo steals the show as he hits all of his acrobatic highspots, including one I had never seen before- A Spinning Armdrag Directly into the 2" from the Cornerpost Tope. Negro Casas did the best La Majistral I've ever seen. Onita was Onitalike- bleeding, pouring water on his head, staying intense. Goto had little impact on the match. The rest of the tape was old guys who suck now against young who suck because they are so green, which is what you need to produce the stars of tomorrow.
-Nitro ruled because CHIGUSA WAS ON MY GODDAM TV SCREEN ON FUCKIN BASIC CABLE! I dunno about this Zero stuff, but if Hokuto is wrestling as Jubuki maybe they are going for the whole hog elaborate costumed wrestles division, which worked for Michinoku. I'm waiting and seeing, because if anybody can pull off a Women's Division in the US, Chigusa can. But Phil had a good point about 1 face and seven heels. I'm guessing they are gonna have to use Toshie Uematsu and KAORU as faces if they are bringing them in because Toshie ain't working any other way, that I can see. I also read that Mayumi Ozaki isn't in it and she would rule as a heel if she can freak out like she does in GAEA. I guessing the final will be Bull Nakano vs Medusa, if Bull has signed with GAEA or WCW, and then I would turn Bull and make Chigusa the #1 heel, since she is the f*cking heat machine.
-I read that WWIII will have Rey vs Ultimo Dragon for the J-Crown. I'll be there with everybody on earth that I know and will be stoked beyond recognition if this baby comes to pass. Hell, give the eight belts to Rey to set up the MATCH FROM HECK! Misterio/Liger here and maybe Rey/Sasuke in Japan! Psicosis vs Malenko should also whip my ass. If Chigusa is there, I'll forgive them for the sixty man battle royal.
NANIWA~!
                                    Dean Rasmussen, Akiyamaiac!
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dvd14
ULTIMO DRAGON! GREAT SASUKE! Ohtani! LOS DESTRUCTORES! Psicosis! La PARKA! JUSHIN THUNDER LIGER! LEON NEGRO! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #14! I got the J-Crown from the amazing Dams and watched it immediately and I watched a batch of Extreme Southwest (tm-JDW:)) which I'll get to some of (HELL! It's too much for one week if I try to figure out all of it.:))
-(With the exception of the fractured skull) The J-Crown RULES! The highlight is the Ohtani/Ultimo Dragon match which is the most fun I've had watching a match in a while. The key to this match is that Ultimo and Ohtani are about at the same rung at this point, with Shinjiro being the next big thing and capable of beating the big boys (Benoit in the WCW Cruiserweight final) and Dragon being the legend and being on a bit of resurgence, the feel of the match is that it is up for grabs (having done away with the perfunctory token matches for Negro Casas ((who looked great!)) and Motegi which were never in doubt.) Ohtani hits all of his springboard spots (more than I've ever seen him hit in one match) and Ultim o Dragon has all of his patented highspots- the assorted ranas, Asai moonsaults in and out of the ring. The difference for the Dragon is that he has REALLY hit the formula of combining the grace of being a great Luchadore with the stiffness of being a great Japanese style wrestler. The difference for Ohtani is that he has hit the formula for combining the New Japan Jr Heavyweight style with the UWFi shoot-style. So all this in the ring at the same time delivers the wrestling goods. Ohtani has mastered the art of the big sell, with my favorite thing being his Crawling Escape (tm-DHR:)) from the opponent's finisher, which I first noticed after Benoit's first Ohtani Killer Powerbomb (tm-JDW:)) in their match for the WCW belt. After some submission holds early (or maybe late, I join Ollie in desiring the commercial uncut version of this baby) the mountain of near pinfalls begin. The timing is everything for all these. They pause between near pins and explode into the suplex, hurricanrana, or powerbomb variation so as to make it look like the finisher; the first nearpin- an Ohtani Tiger Suplex- is the best because it had the great 2 and 98/100ths count by Dragon. By mid match, the excitement level is already at a feverpitch. The last quarter is variations of the young punk Ohtani getting fired up and being thwarted by UD, the wily veteran. Dragon is on the turnbuckle as Ohtani rushes him three or four times, each time eating some Dragon fists. Ohtani finally gets UD in the position for the Superplex, only to be reversed into a very fat facebuster. Ultimo finishes him off with a running powerbomb and a great match comes to a close. This match RULED, but Liger/Ohtani RULED MORE. I would put it between Benoit/Ohtani and Liger/Ohtani. Ohtani better have the J-Crown for a while in 97 because he is becoming the absolute KING of the junior heavyweights.
Another great match was the final, though it was marred by the injury sustained by the Great Sasuke. Ultimo Dragon should just breakdown and join Michinoku Pro because the most beautiful 70 or 80 seconds of this whole wrestling year was when UD and the Great Sasuke are running the ropes Lucha Libre style, hitting all the graceful armdrags and head scissors. His Lucha leanings would guarantee more of the same in the lucha-crazy Michinoku Pro. This match was beautiful on a lot of levels when you get past the obviously supergraceful lucha libre areas. The speed that UD and Sasuke mat wrestle, which was almost the entire first half of the match, is pretty awe-inspiring. Hell, Sasuke is so quick and precise doing suplexes and knee- bars that he can definitely join Liger in the Great Highflyers Who Are Even Better When They Are Grounded club. Ditto Ultimo Dragon who is so fluid that he is a true joy to behold. The highspots were neat though. During the exchange of Quebradas onto the floor, notice that both of them come close to destroying a fan. Sasuke comes very close taking out a five year old in the front row. (talk about early childhood trauma). The most infamous highspot looks to me more like a botched senton than a botched hurricanrana. I thought he just didn't get enough air in his Senton a nd couldn't land flat on UD, thus the unfortunate result. On a lighter note, I hope that they continue the bizarre Hot-Chicks-With-The-Eight-Belts procession for each J-Crown defense. It was a true Flair-inspired move, in that brilliant goofy way that says WRESTLING!:)
Jushin Thunder Liger looked impressive in the 2 minutes he was in the tournament. I'm guessing the released suplexes he did on Dragon will a new thing for him, and they looked pretty hellish. Negro Casas looked great against Ohtani. He had cool boots, long pants and has let his hair grow out. The highlight of that match was the springboard headscissors by Casas. Motegi looked like Motegi, but with a beard. El Samurai is creeping back up on me again, because I hadn't seen him wrestle in a while and had forgotten how cool he is in the ring. His match against Sasuke was the third best and came very close being second. In the middle of all this, Dan the Beast Severn wrestled Fujiwara in a very unUFC style match. Severn wrestled his almost-effective mutant pro style. It didn't help that Severn did five backdrop drivers in a row and Fujiwara kicked out of four of them. That doesn't make Fujiwara look good, it just makes Severn's version appear to be 1/5th as good as Steve Williams'.
-I watched six AAA handhelds from Dams and they were as hit and miss as all AAA hh's are. The Main Events are spectacular and the undercard is pretty good to spotty to horrible. The best tape was the one from 10/16 with a GREAT match between Jungla/Leon Negro vs Psicosis/Fobia. It started with a perfect first Caida of Lucha style matwork, with Jungla- who I had never had an opinion of- really showing adeptness, hanging with Psicosis on the mat. Leon Negro continues to impress me with speed and all-around spunkiness. He is developing into the next Super Calo- with an even more straight forward style which will work well with his flashier counterparts. The second and third Caidas moved smoothly into more garbage spots, which made sense for the match because it built to the insanely hot (screwy) ending. Los Pandilleros vs Los Destructores was a GREAT brawl with the Pandys really getting their asses handed to them by the older guys in the goofy masks. Pandy #1 blades like a freak and Arce and the boys just stomp them into oblivion. I'm going crazy because I'm starting to sense that one of the Pandilleros is the highflyer of the group, he just hasn't let loose yet. (Someone tell Dave Fields that I'm finally sold on Los Destructores and he can sleep easy now.:)) The first main event was hilarious with Pierroth doing the big bully act with Misterio Jr, even to the point of pants-ing the lil fella. This was a real dog's breakfast of a wrestling match, the pinnacle being Konnan teeing eggs off of Cibernetico's stomach with a golf club. It was Surreal SouthWest for a minute there. The second Main Event was Halloween (mascara vs mascara with Thunderbird), which I haven't watched, but I'm guessing will be pretty choice. - The 7/14 hh had a REALLY choice La Parka vs Misterioso match. Misterioso is SO underrated, and La Parka is so GOOD that this match was quite interesting. It stayed on the mat for most of the match with La Parka throwing in a wacky highspot here and there. Very fast-paced, very psychologically sound, thanks to the steady hand of Misterioso guiding this baby along. La Parka is so freakishly off-beat even when he is seriously wrestling that I wonder if his gimmick is hiding the true jewel of modern lucha libre from the rest of the world. Juventud and Jerry Estrada drag Cibernetico along for the ride on the same card, taking on the aforementioned Leon Negro, the large and TICK-like Tinieblas, Jr and Blue Demon, Jr. Juvnetud and Estrada do what they do best, make their opponents look like wrestling machines, and Juventud gets in some offense to satiate my insane need for cool looking legdrops.:) Cibernetico sucks, but hey! lemme try to say something new!:) The Main Event- a double chain match with Misterio, Psicosis and Super Calo- I didn't watch yet, either.:)
NEXT WEEK: The rest of the AAA handhelds that I watched! The two AAA main events I haven't watched! The best of Jushin Thunder Liger tape which I'm 80% done watching! DREAMSLAM II (I swear!)! and fistloads of other stuff!:)
 NANIWA~!
                                    Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
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dvd15
HOTTA! Ozaki! KANSAI! Yamada! CUTIE SUZUKI! KANDORI! The other Yamada! BAT YOSHINAGA! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #15!! After endless broken promises and unforseen delays (HEY! J-Crown is J-Crown!), I finally watched Dreamslam II (Thanks Dams! You F*ckin RULE!) It's been a wrestling intensive week here in the capitol, but I'm finally got to begin catching up on the 17(!) tapes that I haven't watched yet.
-DREAM SLAM II rules the freakin world. I don't know where to begin. I'll start with the St. Phil dream date, Yumiko Hotta.:) She is thrust into a whimsical match with the... adorable?...Bolshio Kid (I wanna know who hated her enough to stick her in this match), the fabulously foxy Cutie Suzuki, and the very impressive Plum Mariko against her aforementioned evil badness and the Inoue Sisters. Kyoko and Bolshoi do a lot of lighthearted comedy spots and get the crowd in that warm and loving mood. Takako is less of the "Vixen who will be very, very cross with you" at the start as she and Plum trade assorted holds. A true sense of cross-promotional mutual respect is felt as Takako and Cutie lock up, both realizing that they are the main suppliers of adolescent boys (and Dean and Scott) to their respective promotions. Then, of course, Hotta comes in and kicks the holy f*ck out of everybody. Phil was telling me how brutal it was seeing her kicking a young lady dressed as a clown directly in the face, but I was more perturbed by her potatoing the hell out of Ms Suzuki. I was cringing at some of those. By the end of the assault, Cutie has a look of a lady very cheesed-off at the ultra-realistic attempt at professional wrestling by the lovely Hotta. Not that she would complain, Cutie is cute as a bug and tough as nails. Plum Mariko is very double jointed, I would suspect, considering the impossible angle at which Hotta was starting her knee-bars. GOD! Give Hotta the belt already.
The 2/3 falls final match between Dynamite Kansai and Mayumi Ozaki up against Yamada and Minami Toyota was pretty choice. The main thing I realized is that Mayumi Ozaki isn't afraid to work circles around the beloved Minami. Kansai is fabulous as always, but all three pale in comparison to Yamada. Yamada and Ozaki carry the body of the match with Kansai picking her shots to kick really hard and Toyota picking her spots to do flashy highspots. Ozaki is kind of a Michinoku Pro style wrestler- smallish, durable, and given to doing highspots at the most effective moments, as opposed to the gaudy display by her AJW counterpart. It was kind of like they had this really cool wrestling match going on, with Yamada working on Ozaki, doing toperope enziguiris and such, which would build up to Kansai making a few saves and finally getting in the ring to beat the hell out of the AJWomen and then Toyota would tag in and have to change the match completely to facilitate her signature moves. It was a great match but should have been better. I blame the booking. They should have stuck Aja in there instead of Toyota and we would have had a real ass-stomper of a match on our hands.
Chigusa vs Bull Nakano was a great match and showed how much psychology a women's match can have. Of course, with these two, I would have expected no less. This was one of the weirdest and most enthralling matches I've seen in a while. They skirted a lot of conventions, as this was a kinda "dare" match, which started out with Nakano telling Chigusa to slap her in the chest in the beginning of the fall, to the pinnacle when Chigusa dares Nakano to guillotine her and lays down and lets her at the end. In between, it was a great test of wills as each exchanges submission holds. For a match so devoid of highspots, it was great to see the feverpitch it reached. The one flaw was the goofy Nunchuks spot that Nakano did REAL late in the match and made no sense, considering what they had built up to. After the match, Chigusa gave a great speech (though I don't have a clue as to what she said) and Bull was crying and it was great. Chigusa Nagayo is the fuckin best.
I was stoked about seeing Bat Yoshinaga. She is a minature Hotta and I was excited about finding out what she is doing now. Of course, she has since retired, which is a prerequisite to me discovering a minor promotion women's star that I like (see: Combat Toyoda).
I finally saw Harley Saito. She was very incredible. I guess she will never retire.:)
The Aja Kong/Akira Hokuta vs Shinobu Kandori/Eagle Sawai match was great just for the  awesome hatred displayed between Akira and Kandori, but there was so much more to go along with it. Eagle was a monster which I had never pictured her as before, but she and Aja held the rest of the match together as they stalled for the s howdown between Kandori and Hokuto. Kandori wasn't as impressive as the last couple of matches I've seen her in, or maybe she didn't want to actually kill anybody, or maybe I've been watching too much Hotta, Yamada, Aja and Asuka matches. Hokuto is always awesome and this was one her best psychological tour-de-forces, playing the seething but injured matriarch, who knows she can't beat her vastly more powerful rival. Kandori is great as the smug protagonist, and Aja is great at the end as the outraged monster who is helpless to help her friend now that the damage has been done. (RASMUSSEN is about to give away an ending ((or did I just do that))so avert your eyes if you haven't seen it yet) In the final moments, when Kandori gets the armbar on Hokuto, the look of total corrupt power in the eyes of Kandori is absolutely riveting as she commands Eagle to detain Aja so she can take Hokuto out for good. The look of complete contempt for Kandori by Hokuto as they stop the match is as priceless. What a great match.
-Wrestling Power 96 was on this week and it ruled as usual. This week was Violence for the sake of Violence (I guess predicting the horrible actions at a ECW card earlier this week) and the pinnacle was the Mat Classic- Eddie Gilbert vs Cactus Jack in 91 in TWA in Philadelphia. Michael Tyler in his reveiw AND Dave, the host of Mat Classic, both commented on how "tame this is compared to today's standards." I think they both meant "great by today's standards." This was a great brawl that was infused with a high degree of actual wrestling- like a slightly better version of the truly great Sting/Cactus falls count anywhere match. I don't know how they got Eddie Gilbert yelling, "Get the fuck outta my face" to the ref past ch.38 censors but I'm glad they did. That's how I wanna remember the late great Eddie Gilbert. That and the TigerMask match he had in WWWF. They showed the HeadHunters vs Ono/Nakamaki match from IWA, with the grisly barbwire moonsault sandwich which Nakamaki enjoys partaking in a little too much. I need to go back and see the first part of the show with the ECW streetfight with Tommy Dreamer and Brian Lee. I'll have the DVDVR supplement of matches I was gonna tell you about but still haven't seen yet.:)
-AWF really sucked this week. Manny Fernandez is becoming a good wrestler, though he isn't really that maniacal. On the other hand, he hit a Plancha and a toprope hurricanrana, so why nit-pick. I never want to see the Road Warriors or Tony Atlas or Nailz ever wrestle again. This week is Gentleman Chris Adams vs Fidel Sierra which could be okay or really stupid.
-Nitro sucked this week. Eddie/Konnan started well, but somehow the middle fell out and the ending was kinda goofy. Eddie best be getting the belt. Is Tony Pena really Villano IV without a mask? I was digging that match. Regal is kicking it into gear and they should bring in more pseudo international technical experts. They should definitely bring in Dos Caras to go at Regal as a clash of great technical mat styles, if they want to go that route. As for the Rey/Psicosis match- that was a highspot, not a match. I dunno.
NANIWA~!
                                 Dean Rasmussen, CHIGUSAHEAD!
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dvd16
DICK TOGO! TAKA MICHINOKU! Extreme Mayumi! GREAT SASUKE! Dos Caras! KAORU! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW # 16! I'm knee deep in tapes as we await the big day! This will be sort of a supplemental issue, because the big dog issue of Yamada/Liger and All-Japan 93 will be out before this weekend so I figured I'd better gush about this match before I forget something important about it.
-I have win, place, and show for the DVDVR match of the year! The Michinoku Pro Ten Man match WHIPPED ASS SO EXTRA HARD! Top to bottom, the most enjoyable 32 minutes of wrestling I've seen this year (Thanks Ollie, you f*ckin Rule!). It starts off great with Handsome Dick Togo, Shiryu, Men's Teiho (with Barry Windhamesque hair), Funaki, and TAKA Michinoku doing the SOMETHING DX salute and I'm instantly psyched. Dick Togo comes to the ring in the coolest get-up in Japan- Temporary mask of a skull with an eyepatch, with the sky blue skull coat- has 2B seen 2 B B-lieved! The DX boys come out as a group, while the other five come out individually. Naniwa and Super Delphin battle it out for coolest entrance, with Delphin winning with the hip Sci-Fi theme music putting him over the giant claws. Naniwa was also wearing a rather lacklustre mask- not shiny at all, so he dropped the ball in the outfit department. I was pissed that the camera went to wide to get the full effect of the prerequisite group pose. TigerMask, El Gran Hamada and Masato Yakashiji come out to much less fanfare.
The match itself was relentless and absolutely fabulous without become totally suicidal (except for TAKA's springboard moonsault into the second row, which I await our boy Rey's attempt to top.) TAKA was spectacular when he had to be but didn't overshadow anybody until the aforementioed Big One. The New Fun Submission Style that Michinoku has been flirting with (talk about mutant wrestling style) popped up between breathtaking Lucha Libre sequences. The new adherent to the Newest Wave of Lucha Libre was Yakashiji. Yakashiji was always the Other Guy in all the Michinoku undercards, but in this match he did a very credible Misterio impersonation when his time for springboard intensive hurricanranas highspots came up. He also hit the best La Pantera Spinning-Slide-Into -An-Armdrag I've ever seen and he added a few twists to make the move his very own. Dick Togo stole the show with his psychotically weird presence. No fat man has ever done so much with so much, or something. He has really made gargantuan strides towards being the coolest wrestler on the face of the earth this year. Gran Naniwa made me laugh out loud a few times and did a great sequence where he tried to mirror a sequence by El Gran Hamada- where Hamada hit a swinging DDT and then hit a toprope hurricanrana. Naniwa hits his swinging DDT (the second best (behind Hamada's) of the six in the match!), and proceeds to stick the old fella on the turnbuckle. Wise old Hamada doesn't fall for it and does the "Ultimo Dragon foils Ohtani" spot and Naniwa is miffed. Naniwa ends up eventually hitting the rana but Hamada makes him earn it (20th best out of the 57 ranas in the match.:) All that speed and psychology too. I'd give away the ending if I mentioned the psychology of the final spot. Super Delphin joined everybody else in the hyper workrate ode-to-lucha extravaganza by hitting his best moves perfectly. He and Shiryu rekindled the ongoing feud they have, as they went at it a thousand miles a minute. They have such a different slant on the lucha spots, adding a whole lot of stiffness and brutality to the grace and beauty that other slicker luchadores would use. Shiryu was the only one in the match who pretty much just put everybody else over- to the point that he didn't even attempt his signature backflip tope thing. El Gran  Hamada was solid and still spectacular and was the stabilizing force that injected the psycholgy that his years can accomodate. He was especially effective in keeping Naniwa and Togo focused while they were in with him. Tiger Mask and TAKA's main addition to the match was the submission moves section, with each doing deuling climbing cross-arm breakers and the reprised the TigerMask-Kicks-The-Hell-Out-TAKA and Taka tries to no-sell him, but more in the Kawada way and not the RW-Hawk way. I guess that means "try to hide the pain" no-sell, as opposed to the suckass Hawk version of "I forgot its fake" no-sell. I could talk forever about this match but it will pale in comparison to seeing this charming, beautiful crowning achievement of Michinoku Pro. Get the tape.
-The Great Sasuke/Mil Mascaras/Kobayashi vs Dynamite Kid/Dos Caras/Original TigerMask would have been okay if the pall of the condition of the Dynamite Kid wasn't haunting ever person who sees this match. I was expecting him to look bad after reading the reports, but I was truly shocked at how unhealthy he looked. I really can't believe he is turning 38. JDW is right,he looked 65- and emaciated. I guess he is a double living testimony of the dangers of highspots and the danger of steroids. If one can look past the Kid, Mascaras and Caras were trying to make the best of it or so it seemed from the highly truncated version I have. The Great Sasuke shows that he has learned from the career threatening injury by doing a fatass Sasuke Special onto Caras onto the floor. Its too depressing to think of the irony of Sasuke doing that right after fracturing his skull in a match that had the Dynamite Kid in it. How much of a clue do you need?
-The Hayabusa/Shinzaki match was the dirt worst. It had a Ricky Fuji quality to it that I never want to see again. I blame everybody. Lazy, horrible, ill-conceived, badly executed, anti-climatic- you name it, it's all that.
-I saw the tip of the GAEA iceberg I just got in (YES! Ollie Rules!) and evil Mayumi Ozaki makes me feel all funny inside! Yee-HA! She's such a little ball of evil and it's great! She tends to not work, though, while filled with evil, which is a downside to an otherwise deliriously beautiful turn of events. I wish I knew what she said to Chigusa and KAORU after KAORU was whupped by two little youngsters, (who convert to Mayumi's army- Nagashimi covertly). Chigusa's expression is priceless and KAORU looks p.o.ed. This sets up Mayumi beating the hell out of my gal KAORU in the next match, which was very not JWP but very ECW/FMW in tone. I await a KAORU vs Mayumi Actual Wrestling Match with baited breath.
-AWF had a really good Fidel Sierra/Chris Adams match. I'm not kidding. For some reason, they worked really hard and made it really entertaining. I was shocked and amazed. Sierra does a side suplex and Adams does La Majistral. Go figure. The rest of the show really sucked. Ronnie Twist did an airplane spin as a finisher, which I thought was neat, but he still was coated
in suck.

5 Most Stylish VESTS/COATS currently in wrestling: 5. Jimmy Harts' Misfits Jacket. 4. Kevin Nash's NWO circle the world vest. 3. Dick Togo's Sky Blue Skull Jacket. 2. Dos Caras sparkly red wind-breaker. 1. The truly Rad EMLL Barber's "sparkly scissors" coat.
NEXT: Before Friday, I will have the whole Liger/Yamada and All-Japan 93 stuff totally digested and yammered about! Plus more GAEA, FMW, and G-1 Climax! WOO-HOO!
NANIWA~!
                              Dean Rasmussen, BlackJack MulliganHEAD!
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dvd17
MASATO TANAKA! HOTTA rules the freakin world! AJA f*cking KONG! CHONO! YAMAZAKI! Shiryu! Jaguar Yokota! the marathon of wrestling continues! Woo-Hoo!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #17! This is another supplemental thing as I keep getting an influx of tres cool wrestling and I'm trying to keep up with the massive coolness I'm taking in. I think I'm gonna break the Liger tape into three match segments because it's amazingly difficult to comment on because it takes into account so many elements, and I'll start that next week when all these tapes I've been dying to see finally start win ding down.
-I saw the Masato Tanaka vs W*ING Kanemura match from 8/1/96 and it was very, very impressive. Very old style as it built from a headlock and worked it's way out, and stayed very undeathmatchlike (though there was a batch of blood and a table spot.) It started with clean breaks, head locks into side suplexes and worked to a garbage vestige with a table spot. It then kicked into the extended ending section which began with Tanaka hitting a choice toprope dropkick and then went into an extended series of nearfalls as they exchanged a truly impressive array of suplex variations, spinning DDTs, assorted planchas and a MASSIVE amount of psychology never before seen in a FMW ring. The main thing I was simultaneously impressed by/pissed off by was the fact that Kanemura is a fucking suplex machine and was fabulous in this match (though Tanaka overtook him in the wrestling department in the end by being the true wrestling machine of FMW). I'm pissed because when I think of the career of Kanemura, I think of four things: 1. Kevin Sullivan carving him up in SMW, 2. Kanemura being powerbombed onto fire. 3. Cactus Jack's last opponent who flew face first into the spidernet. 4. A halfway decent match Hayabusa on the FMW Summer Tape. If he was capable of the level exhibited in this match all along, what a waste of a semi-talented wrestler. On the up side, this makes the match against the Gladiator look MUCH more promising because Gladiator can also wrestle when he wants to. And they had better push Tanaka through the f*ckin roof as an actual wrestler, because he shows a lot more promise than 80% of any other heavyweight in any other promotion. I would also make these two tag-team against everybody they can get in the ring with.
-I saw a truly fabulous Aja Kong/Tamada vs Hotta/Maekawa match from September 28th of this year and there is a lot to comment on. Number one is that Hotta is growing out her hair and she looks great- suddenly filled with oodles of babe-u-locity. She is also not afraid to beat the holy hell out of opponents and this may be her most brutal display to date. Tamada and Maekawa are the youngsters of the match- Tamada is highflyerish and Maekawa is actually quite impressive as the budding shootstyle Hotta follower. Both of these young ladies get the big hurt applied by Aja and Hotta. The story of the match is that Hotta is taking advantage of the young, inexperienced Tamada by kicker her about as stiffly as I've ever seen. There is one part where Maekawa has her in the reverse chinlock, and Hotta does usual stiff kick to the chest spot, but these are TRULY hellish. Hotta creates a truly sickening thud sound and Aja is going crazy. When Tamada finally tags out after being beaten to a pulp, Aja comes in and exacts some revenge, and it is about as horrifying as it was on the other side. I'm assuming there has been a Aja/Hotta match set up from this because it was a great idea to transpose the match they will against each other onto their respective proteges. It kind of made the ending anticlimatic as it was basically a truncated version of what the singles match would be (I suppose), though I would say those few moments were quite promising and I hope I get a hold of that match. I also want to know who Tamada and Maekawa pissed off to get stuck in that match.
-I saw the rest of the G-1 and it was really choice, except for Sasuke going over Hashimoto. Chono/Yamazaki was cool if just for the two coolest pairs of boots in Japan. It was very submission attempt intensive and Yamazaki ruled. I was surprised at how good Chono was in this match and was totally blown away by his matches against Mutoh and Chosyu. Mutoh's matches against Koshinaka and Chono make you want to slap him upside the head for all the other matches he refused to deliver the goods in. The Koshinaka/Mutoh match was great just for the furious ending where Koshinaka has a Kawada-vs-Misawa hellish flurry that makes each nearfall seem like the real thing- a real rollercoaster of a match. The Chono match was cool because of the counters that Mutoh used against Chono's signature moves, as Mutoh worked Chono's leg from every impossible position imaginable. Chono ruled SUPER hard with the filthiest lowblow I've seen in a while. It is MEGA choice, worthy of a Destructore-status foule.:) The final with Chosyu/Chono was another great match, with the pinnacle being Tatsumi Fujinami slapping Chosyu when he fell out of the ring, telling him to get in there and finish off that  young punk! It was a basic story: Chono beats the hell of him and Chosyu has to find the fighting spirit to get up, fight and to go out with a bang. This was the most I've enjoyed New Japan Heavyweight since I've been watching tapes of them.
 -I finally saw some Jd' and it was quite the mixed bag. They have hip looking rings- with trendy red and black trim that separates them from the less design oriented JWP rings. Of course the wrestling was much more sketchy, but first things first.:) I'm not sure what kind of style they are shooting for. They have great masks. Cooga's is about as choice as they come- a cleaner line than Blizzard Yuki but in the same vein.:) Jaguar Yokota's mask when she does the Li Hua gimmick is pretty menacing. Since I fell asleep the first time, I need to go back and watch the Shimoda/Shiratori vs Yokota/Kosugi match to watch her actually wrestle and see if I can see a semblance of what drew JDW to her. Her Li Hua character (I woke up when this one began)is pretty grim and not wrestling intensive, though she does convey calculating menace quite well- though carving up Bison Kimura and then reviving her by bleeding on her has psychosexual underpinnings I don't even want to begin to get into.:) I guess they are shooting for a mixture of GAEA and FMW women's division style of garbage wrestling without the FMW neat angles and GAEA actual wrestling. I don't know, maybe it will develope into something interesting after a while. It wasn't horrible, it just wasn't that good.
-I saw a bunch of All Japan from 93 and I guess that was The Year Every American Wrestler Beat The Crap Out Of Kenta Kobashi. This has been covered pretty extensively lately by JDW, Lacy, Ollie and everybody else who saw it all back then so I'll only touch on a few things. The Hansen/Kobashi match was great and JWD was right about the ending- What a great finality to that lariat. The Steve Williams/Kobashi put Kobashi back in my good graces after the third hideous backdrop driver. All three made me absolutely cringe. I wonder if Williams can make it back to that level. That match is about as good as it gets. (Actually the Patriot didn't beat the crap out of him.) A really curious match was the six man with DiBiase in it. When did he retire? I thought it was long before this.
Top five masks in wrestling.
5. Cibernetico 4. Super Delfin (Burgundy and earthtones version) 3. Halloween 2. Discovery 1. Juventud Guerrera (Misterioso-style version with the fringe.)
NEXT COUPLE IN THE NEXT WEEK: More Michinoku Pro, New Japan, Pancrase, GAEA, AJW and hour after hour after hour of Lucha Libre!! You're stoked and so am I!:) Woo-Hoo!
NANIWA~!
                                   Dean Rasmussen, JerichoHEAD!
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dvd18
MEN'S TEIOH (or however the hell you spell it)! Tiger Mask IV! Chris Jericho! ULTIMO DRAGON! SHOICHI FUNAKI! TAKA MICHINOKU! and other post-youngster things I saw!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #18! The youngster has arrived, the duel-grandma-mafia kicks are over (they're old school:), the lil gal is asleep as is the wife, so I can finally do another one of these without having to run over gaze in wonderment as the lil one yawns. I await the Michinoku Pro "These Days" COMM TAPE post by the exalted Dark Cheetah and pray to the cais. hellish overlords that they release it to the wrestling starved RSPW masses.:)
-BIG NEWS! I saw an entire BattlArts Champ Forum that I liked (August something-1996)! (Thanks Rob! Post already!) The highlight for me was watching TAKA Michinoku and Shoichi Funaki tag against those... two ... other... guys (MUST... FIND... MATCHLIST... TO... STEAL... Ollie?) TAKA is becoming a mutant version of Shinjiro Ohtani- in that Ohtani looks REAL at home trading kicks and submission holds with the UWFi punks and TAKA looked REAL at home staying on the mat with the BattlArts young punks. The main difference is that UWFi is fifty times stiffer than BattleArts and four times as good. Regardless of the difference of quality of the shoot promotions, the application of TAKA's speed and quickness from a highflying style to shootstyle is very impressive. He wrestles a smart pseudo-shoot style relying more on being quicker than his opponent and countering his holds, than on kicking his opponent (which actually is the BattlArts variation on the shootstyle phenomenon- a sort of Fujiwara-esque philosophy mixed with way too much pro style crud to make it overly effective.) The major edge that TAKA has over his vastly talented New Japan young superstar compatrio t is that TAKA can work a Lucha match as well as anyone in Mexico, and I haven't seen our boy Shinjiro work one past the mutated Mexican-Japanese style of the Negro Casas match from the J-Crown. Thus, I EAGERLY await the first TAKA/Misterio match, but would merely "freak out and party" (tm Alex Wright) at the idea of a Ohtani/Misterio match. Funaki is much more at home in these matches than in the Michinoku Pro deals he ends up in and is a good powerman to TAKA's spectacularness and they worked a combination Northern Lights Suplex-into-a-springboard-kneedrop just to add to the http://www.photon.co.jp/sections/6_staff/glenn/nCo/dvdvr/dvdvr.html
/Michinoku Pro "we-make-shootstyle-fun" motif that is running wild in Michinoku these days. The other two matches were basically shoot-style matches with pro style psychology (been watching Hotta matches, I see) and worked very well from both sides of these coins. Diasuke Ikeda vs (I guess) Carl Greco was first rate- with a lot more stiffness and less pro style tangents. The key to me for these things is if I spend less time concentrating on how much they are selling and more on it looking (if not being) so stiff that any selling looks natural (which is how pro style should be also, in my book). Ikeda has finally won me over- after these matches ( he was in a tag match earlier in the show) and the whip ass Ooya match ( HESHAM... HESHAM... HESHAM... WORSHIP AT THE FEET OF HISAKATSU OOYA...:)) I'll start watching these BattlArts things, despite the hilariously bad matches that accompany the good. Hell, that's my rationale for watching WCW...
- I watched the Champs Forum with the fab 8-man tag of Denny Collins, Dick Togo, Shoichi Funaki and Shiryu as they squared off against Super Astro, Super Delphin, El Gran Hamada, and Alexander Otsuka and the tres cool TigerMaskIV vs Men's Teioh match, and it all was steeped in greatness. The 8-man tag is the kind of thing that makes Michinoku Pro great: Eight wrestlers, four different styles united by workrate, style and execution- what a fantabulous melting pot of wrestling! The pinnacle of this was Dick Togo finally going face-to-face with his Mexican wrestling-style inspiration- Super Astro. My guess is that they had to have this match to prove that Dick Togo and Super Astro were two different fellas.:) Super Astro had the coolest mask I've ever seen him in (gold lame with silver and white embroidery) and ruled the goddang world like he is wont to do, being one of my fave old school Luchadores with SilverKing. I really hope Michinoku Pro becomes the home away from home for all these Mexican greats because to see him in with all these guys that stole all of his moves is a real joy to see. Plus if the Mil Mascaras, Dos Caras, and Super Astro matches I've seen this week are any indication, they go out and spring for new masks for their idols and they were never more of the Lucha fashion plates until they hit MP. The Tiger Mask IV vs Men's Teioh match was pretty choice as it finally dawned on me what they are trying to do with the former Terry Boy. He is going to the living embodiment of American Pro Style wrestling- even down to the Flair Woo before the figure four leglock. I'm guessing the whole Something DX is about some kind of North American invasion of styles or something. If Shiryu starts wearing masks that have Toronto Mapleleafs insignia on them and starts badmouthng Lucha Libre then my theory will be correct.:) I hope this is the case, because only MP would embrace ALL styles like it does and organize them against each other in such an entertaining way. I would expect a stable of Anglophile wrestlers with Tigermask IV and the Great Sasuke being at the forefront, because one can really tell that Sasuke has a deep fascination with the history of British mat wrestling. Tiger Mask IV, though nowhere near as good as any of the other three, would fit that mold quite nicely.
_I saw a bunch of IWA (Winnipeg) and I can't quite figure out the year it was braodcast originally. My guess would be early 95. It had a lot of choice wrestling- my fave being the Natural who I guess is the Great Lost Canadian Heat Machine. He was also a great announcer, explaining a Stretch Plum in detail as Chris Jericho applied it. The highlight was a Ultimo Dragaon/Chris Jericho match that took place at some theatre in Manitoba I would guess. It was a freaky match because they couldn't do anything outside the ring because it was on a stage, so they decided to make it rule in the ring. Jericho did all these cool Mexican abdominal stretch variations that I'm quite the sucker for and UD and Jericho did the whole headscissor sequences that made their WAR Super Junior tourney deal such a success. Other wrestlers that seemed pretty good were Iceman Eric Freeze and Diamond Timothy Flowers, but there was quite a bit of the Great Gama and Champagne Gerry Morrow.
-I saw a WAR Commercial tape (did I tell you how much Rob rules the fucking world?) that had a Misterio/Psicosis match that was definititely the last of the series. This was definitely running on vapors because it didn't have any of the spark of their other ten matches I think I've seen. I guess this WCW stay has actually helped Rey as much as it has hindered Juventud, because the last couple of PPV Rey matches are much better than this match. I guess its the fantastic infusion of psychology that is infused into Rey's current matches that is starting to put them in a different class than these highspot fests with Psicosis. Plus I'm starting to dig Psicosis as the Mexican mat wrestler that I've seen him as in the last few matches, which actually dates back to the key series of matches against El Hijo Del Santo I guess, as opposed to the Sabu-esque suicidal bumptaker. The more I see them progress as a total wrestlers, the less I'll be blown away by these type of matches. There is a Jericho/UD match with UD in a ass-whomping black outfit (I thought it was the return of Ultimate Dragon at first). See synopsis above.:) There was a Motegi tag match <> where Motegi is beaten unmercifully by your basic genaric WAR heavyweight cretin.:) So it's not just Jr Hvywt Tournaments anymore! WOO-HOO! There is also a Tenryu vs Mr Pogo match that really rules if you watch as you fast forward past it like I did.:)
- After watching WCWSN, it's official: Biggest comeback, most improved wrestler and feud of the year ALL belong to Steven Regal. Since the Ass-Stomping feud with Fit Finlay (Come back to us Belfast Bruiser!) Regal has ruled it so hard, and pulling good matches out of okay workers like Hugh Morrus is becoming quite the common occurance. The days of laziness are over it seems. I await a Regal/Benoit feud.
NEXT WEEK: LUCHA! LUCHA LIBRE! AND MORE LUCHA LIBRE! That weird ass "Rumble" British TV show (Rob, you were right!:)) and the rest of those Ollie GAEA tapes with Akira Hokuta on em! WOO-HOO!
NANIWA~!
                                    Dean Rasmussen, HaleyHEAD!
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dvd19
TOSHIE UEMATSU! Blue Panther! FUERZA GUERRERA! Koshinaka! ALLBRIGHT! KAWADA! Yamazaki! and Other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #19! It was a big week for veiwing and it was the apparent end of AWF so thus ends the surreal threads with Jason Robar (on that subject, anyway.:)) The best of Liger stuff will start next week because I've put it off long enough and I don't even want to begin thinking about what life will become like after trying to analyze the History of IWGP titles tapes I got from Rob The King!
_Ollie (who rules the freaking world, by the way) sent me the motherlode of GAEA a few weeks back and I finally got to the end of it all (Next up: K-1 Star WARS! ANd Pancrase! Can you say http://www.photon.co.jp/sections/6_staff/glenn/nCo/dvdvr/dvdvr.html

"RASMUSSEN-fatboy in over his head"? And with a family to support yet!) The match of the year in the GAEA promotion for your humble reveiwer was the Sugar Sato/Chikayo Nagashima vs Sonoko Kato/Toshie Uematsu match from September 16. It pretty much encompassed what GAEA is heading towards if it sticks around for a few more years- which is a better version of a really good FMW match. It swings from the ring to floor with the action in the ring being as choice as wrestlers this green can make it, and it is fabulously violent in the stands without aimless wandering to the next spot. Toshie Uematsu is so good in this match, hitting a FABULOUS array of Lucha moves that, when perfected in time, it will make her a force in the future. Sonoko is far more intense here than in her WCW debut- being less lovable and far more the Punishing Vixen that we demand from our future Goddess Icons. The story is that Nagashima has defected to OZ's Army (Mayumi Ozaki's perky heel stable) and Sugar Sato is still on the fence. The angle kicks the intensity of the match into overdrive (Hmmm... I think that means its a good angle) as all four beat the holy crap out of each other. I've seen the future and they wear matching little yellow outfits!
-Also on the Ollie-veiw-athon, I watched a disappiontingly short Gary Allbright vs... oh, heck what's his name?!? Toesheerko Koweirda:), and it was so choice while it was happening but it was only ten minutes long. All I know is that it must be HEll wrestling either of these guys. Koowanda kicks your lungs out and Allbright slams you directly on your head repeatedly. I loved the UWFi homage of Allbright not following Kowishka out of the ring when he is thrown out. Give Kawhatshisname the Triple Crown already. Kobashi- HA! I also await the tagmatch ruined for me, where you-now-who finally pins you-know-who!
-I think I saw the BEST caida in wrestling history yesterday. It was the first caida of the November 1994 match between Octagon/El Hijo Del Santo/Latin Lover vs Blue Panther/LaParka/Jerry Estrada. The sequence between Santo and Blue Panther had to be one of the most beautiful and graceful things I've ever seen in wrestling. It is like fifteen counters in mid air- a sort of clinic on how many EXTREMELY cool ways you can set up an armdrag or rana. LaParka and Octagon give it good run for their money with their intricate and breathtaking display of headscissor into breakbreaker into rana sequences. I'm guessing Octagon hung his working boots after this match because he's never come close to being this good in any match I've seen him in since then. Jerry Estrada earned his money by keeping the then VERY green Latin Lover from distracting from the beautiful parts of the Caida. The rest of the match was great also with LaParka turning face and Estrada taking the most horrible over the toprope bump your gonna see. Another GREAT match from the same show is Rey Misterio Sr vs Misterioso. It was a pretty methodical effort and Misterioso botches a few spots, which was kinda strange, but it was a good match with Misterio psychology which is actually really underrated. I think he would be considered a great wrestler and good booker if he didn't ruin his good old-style lucha matches with such pathetic foule-intensive endings. THe factor that transcends this match into the great category is that Misterioso comes to the ring with Fuerza Guerrera as a second (will they ever learn:)) and it becomes All Out War as Fuerza turns on Misterioso, who is wrestling Misterio who is just starting his gargantuan family feud with the Guerrera's, who hate everybody at this point. The mountain of violence spills out into the stands as everybody is beating the crap out of each other. Fuerza is the heat machine US promoters WISH they could create- especially since he is ALSO one of the most technically superb wrestlers to ever wrestle. Misterio, of course, hits an Aguayo-esque gusher. I've watched the first caida of the legendary Los Locos Gringos vs Perro, Los Hermanos Dynamita match and it's already WAY outa control.
-Nitro had a great opening match. Regal F*CKING rules now. The fact that he synthesized the disjointed lucha libre caida idea of "on the mat in the first, in the air in the second, and work on the big finish in the third caida" with the US Pro style was fabulous. If Psicosis took enough notes from this match, his Malenko match and his El Hijo Del Santo series, he will be more than able to make the transition from highspot machine who will be out of the sport in two years to great all-around wrestler who will be a joy to watch for years to come. God knows, every week he is becoming more and more proficient with his mat work and transitions. Notice how his highspots were built up to the point that the crowd actually popped at the idea of seeing it. Therein lies the key of getting these guys way over. Everyone of those guys should be wrestling Regal for fifteen miutes a pop. For Psicosis, psychology+matwork+highspots=wrestling legend I would say. Also on Nitro, Chono sucks in the ring %80 of the time, but what a cool looking heel (maybe we have a WCW Undertaker:)). Hopefully Nagata can pull a good match out of him (or any of the heavyweights) when he comes in. I love the fact that they are using Benoit in this bizarre sex scandal angle and I hope he has a white-hot feud when he jumps to NWO or whatever they have planned for him to resolve this horsemen angle, because the fact they pushing the best worker in the world is a very great thing, but Benoit the Sex-Machine I'm just not buying.:)
NANIWA~!
                                 Dean Rasmussen, Super CaloHEAD!
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dvd 20
DICK MURDOCK! FUKINAMI! Black Wozma! MAEDA! Adrian Adonis! ABDULLAH THE BUTCHER! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #20! I watched a batch of stuff and I'm here to yammer on about it. It's the holidays, so I'll keep it short and not too overwrought.:)
-I watched the first couple of volumes of the History of the IWGP Heavyweight Title history (Rob- the man! The legend! the guy!) and it's pretty freaking choice in places. Akira Maeda against Tatsumi Fujinami in the 1986 IWGP tournament is about as good as it gets folks (except for the ending- but they weren't afraid of bad endings back then.:)) Fujinami gets the holy F*CK kicked out of himself by the soon-to-be-crappy leader of RINGS. Maeda was a powder keg back then and this was a good demonstration of it. By the end Fujinami is a hard-way bloody wreck, but Maeda is also a lot worse for wear as they kick and suplex each other into oblivion- with Akira doing the high kicks to the head and superdick kicks to the knee and Tatsumi doing hip suplexes, though Maeda does a weird prototype Fisherman Buster suplex accidentally while recovering after blowing a spot. There is one point where Maeda is outside of the ring kicking Fujinami in the face and it is just WAY TOO INTENSE. I was freaked out ten years after the fact, I can't imagine what it must have been like then. Fujinami is so much cooler in this match than in the two against Chosyu. Here he is Strong Style defender and goes at the Shoot style punk like a champ and takes the beating like a champ. You just want him to beat the crap out of the vicious upstart jerk, so the incredible spinning kicks by Maeda build my super-hatred as each land on Tatsumi's face and by the final Garganta-kick you want Fujinami to go get a chair or something and go at him. Nobody should have to sell all of that. Not in 1986 anyway.:) The two matches against Chosyu are the Fujinami we all love to hate, with the gimpy knee and all. Chosyu looks like a long haired freak and doesn't bring it out of Fujinami like Maeda did. The earlier matches from 83,84 and 85 had WAY too much Andre the Giant, because Andre REALLY sucked by 82 and was really pathetic by 84, with all the gigantism side effects setting in. My main complaint is that I have seen so little of Sakaguchi, that to have his match on this tape be an Andre squash is irritating. The awesome match from 84 is Adrian Adonis vs Dick Murdock. Adonis was a freak. What a great wrestler and you can't really pin down why. He could fly- throwing some GREAT dropkicks for a guy his size-, he could go to the mat, and he takes a hellish bump- he pumps a great match out of Murdock. Vince mcMahon can burn in hell for what he did to this guy. The weird thing about the tape so far is that there is very little of Antonio Inoki actually wrestling and way to much of a young Hulk Hogan wrestling- which wasn't truly truly horrible back then.
-I watched the 6/24 Tokyo Pro Champ forum with the infamous Sabu vs Abdullah the Butcher match and it... wasn't... very... good. The first match is okay- pitting Black Wozma (Too Cold Scorpio) vs Daikokubou Benkai. I'm assuming that Benkai is a former Sumo wrestler, but he's too old, fat, and slow to get on with WAR.:) Wozma sells all of his lame chops (which is pretty funny) and then works in his highspots against his much older opponent. Wozma dances with the young seedy Tokyo Pro crowd when its over and it goes far to explain where all those seedy young punks that hung out at IWA shows have migrated to. The Sabu/Abdullah match was basically an ode to the Sheik vs Abdullah, with Sabu basically walking around with Abdullah, stabbing him in the head with a pencil and trying to open all of Abdullah's scar tissue- just like his uncle used to do. I guess Abdullah is actually finally feeling the years or Sabu didn't feel like doing any wrestling because this was about as low impact as it gets. It was more of a Red Cross Blood Drive than a wrestling match. The final match on it was two guys from Tokyo pro against Tarzan Goto (or Tarzan Scroto,as I call him. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAH) and Mr. Gannosuke- you're basic FMW bleeding freak. I fast forwarded after a few minutes, so, yes, I've let you- the RSPW reader- down.:)
NEXT WEEK: Back to the Lucha and the Liger and the rest of the IWGP stuff! Unless Phil mails me more stuff, then its All Japan Women until we're green around the gills! YES!
NANIWA~!
                                 Dean Rasmussen, Super CaloHEAD!
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dvd#20
SHIMODA! Minami Toyota! LIGER! Takada! Hase! and other stuff I saw this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #20! It's the holidays and I've not had a lot of time to gander at a batch of wrestling and, to top it off, I've been making a lot of tapes to send fellow Grapplephiles (WTF? You know who you are!) so this will be pretty dang short.
- I FINALLY started watching AJW Gran Prix Red and Blue 95 and SO FAR- It ROCKS! Fuck it, Mima Shimoda is the coolest wrestler to ever wrestle in AJW.:) She was so freaking awesome in her match against Minami Toyota (Malibu Dreamhouse Not included) that I was all busted up after the match- Torn between her, Hotta,Aja,Chigusa or KAORU as the coolest woman wrestler on earth. The PINNACLE of wrestling itself AS WE KNOW IT is the absolutely HORRIFYING four suplexes outside the ring- one on each side of the ring- as if Mima was seeing which side wanted to see Barbie busted up the most, like one of those "we got spirit yes we do, we got spirit how bout you" contests. Shimoda gets extra special points for fishhooking Malibu Stacy's mouth and making faces behind her back as she does it. I KNEW she was the coolest when she was in that mixed tag tag match in Michinoku Pro, but this seals it. Minami whipped ass too by doing her best "Talented Sabu" impersonation, trying very hard to kill herself with two springboard planchas and one springboard senton that was lost in the camera work. She did two table spots- both of which hurt Minami more than it hurt Mima or the table (hint to Japanese wrestlers: "Those half tables never break in half. Don't dive into them from the top turnbuckle.) Shimoda really kicks this matches ass into gear during the last eight minutes by just suplexing the living HELL out of Toyota repeatedly and taunting her as only a Female Vixen Icon can. Toyota fired back with a succession of suplex variations that only she can make look that beautiful. Maybe it's the GREAT hair flailing to the violent motion or the fact she gets such height and extension, all I know is that Moonami does the best, most specatular suplexes on earth when she is healthy (which I guess is "Never Again.") There were so many near falls in this match it was crazy- twice so close that the ref actually hit the mat the third time- I was in a frenzy by the end (I THINK it was because of the pinfalls! Of course Shimoda should wear more extensive clothing because the hotpants distract from her acute wrestling prowess.:)) This was one of the better matches I've ever seen just because I never figured such an AJW pro style wrestler could be so convincing beating the hell out of someone. Usually you have to wait for the real women (Aja, Kansai((in JWP)), Hotta) to supply the ass stomping, but no more- Welcome Shimoda, God's Cutest Ass-Stomper!
-I re-watched the Yamada/Takada and Yamada/Hase matches from the Best of Liger tape and they were quite awesome in a little way. These were matches where Yamada basically gets his ass handed to him. Takada basically goes through the motions and takes him to the mat, not bothering to kick the hell out of him a lot. It's great seeing Liger with bad hair and a REALLY bad warmup suit. His boots were awesome pre-gimmick though. This was basically a Takada glorified squash that isn't apparent until Yamada submits to a halfcrab after nine or ten minutes. The Hase match was strange because the whole time I was fascinated how technically perfect Hase was back then. Hase had the great quality to all of his moves in that they all looked like nobody else couls possibly be graceful enough to those moves. Sort of the Rey Misterio Jr mystique but on the mat and much more subtle. Malenko achieves this state every now and then. I await Hase's All-Japan debut. Yamada once again plays the young punk who has no WAY of winning (a trend that continues until they cover up his ugly mug.:)) and it translates later to his booking style in that he has had Ohtani, Ishizawa, Kanemoto and Takaiwa assume that role, and he himself and Benoit have translated the elder wrestler roles that Takada and Hase portrayed to him. In all the matches before the gimmick, he slowly but surely is getting moves over that aren't getting him wins but are getting him pops so that by the time he is feuding with Owen Hart (back when Owen was one of the greatest workers on earth) the Future Liger had gotten himself positioned to make the matches seem in doubt. More Next Week (Hart feud to the WHIP ASS NAOKI SANO FEUD).
-I heard REAL weird rumors on the various august internet sources:) and the weirdest was that Nagata (NJ Young Lion)was coming in to WCW for THREE years! If this is true, is he going to college here or something? I also read that Toshie Uematsu had won the Road To The WCW Tournament and would be over for a few months. That would be really great, though she is still pretty green and wrestling Medusa ain't gonna help her. I hope they send Sonoko Kato and Satomura over with her so they can wrestle each other and I can watch it for free on TV.:) If she wrestles Akira Hokuta for three months while she is here, her skills will skyrocket.
NEXT WEEK: Back to hours and hours of veiwing! More Liger! More Lucha! All the stuff Hesh and St. Phil (future
Shimodiac!) sent me! WOO-HOO!
NANIWA~!
                                   Dean Rasmussen, SonokoHEAD!
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dvd21
COBRA! Tigermask! KOSHINAKA! Fujinami! TAKADA! Yamada! HASE! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #21! I started watching the History of the IWGP Jr Heavyweight Title (Rob RULES THE DING DANG EARTH!) and got hooked into watching all five hours of it, once I started. This is the ultimate single tape to watch all at once, because you can get a good idea of how each legend of the ring compares to each other because their matches are so close together or they wrestle against common opponents, thus making comparisons easier to set up. The weirdest thing overall I found, from watching all of this, is that there is a period, between where this tape left off (3/16/89) and now, where the modern day New Japan Jr style developed and it is strange because, from where it left off, an even bigger emphasis on shootstyle seemed to be the direction that the Juniors were going.
The tape starts with Tatsumi Fujinami as a Junior and he is the prototype for the modern style much more than Tigermask I would say. He was such a solid strongstyle wrestler who could work the Luchadores' style (including a match with a younger Perro Aguayo who sucked back then too!) into his matches very fluidly and go back to being unbelievably stiff. The hyped up work rate that his matches display defined the gruelling style that the division would latch onto, which is the key to making him the prototype. The difference between him and a 90's jr heavyweight is that it wasn't a meshing of styles into one style. He was wrestling strong style but could work the Lucha style, but never incorporated it into his own style like they do today (except for his tope, I guess). His incorporation of strongstyle moves and psychology into a very fast paced match and a premium of highspots got the ball rolling for the Junior Heavyweight style we see today.
The second cog in the wheel is the TigerMask section, which is very erratic and wild as one would expect. The thing that struck me about Tigermask is that ALL the young Luchadores of today steal from TigerMask- especially in the springboard and rana department, ALL the young Japanese Juniors steal from Koshinaka and Hase- especially in selling department. Ohtani stole his "Crawl-Out_of_the_ring-After Getting "Ohtani-Killer"ed" directly from the Takada/Hase megamatch. The thing that irritated me about Tigermask is that he wrestled the same match a WHOLE lot of times and wasn't interested in selling a whole lot of anything to anybody especially anybody Mexican (See the TM/Villano III match). Whereas Fujinami would sell Mando Guerrero's odd Mexican leglocks, TM was far to busy being insecure about wrestling pro-style while fancying himself a world class shooter to make the match with Black Tiger as good as the deeply pro style Cobra would do later. I also noticed that when it came to awesome highflyers, El Gran Hamada was about as great (thus the name HAHAHA!) as you could have gotten when he was young and gave a TM a run for his money in the matches that appear on this tape, though he is more cool and graceful in the context of the match, fitting in sweet lucha sequences in at opportune moments, as opposed to the human highlight film experience of the TigerMask matches. The thing I'm left with overall after watching the TigerMask section, is that he was a great highflyer and a great wrestler, but his influence wasn't nearly as great on how good Jr Hvywght matches are worked today as Fujinami's, Koshinaka's and Takada's Junior days were.
Cobra's reign followed and it was also revolutionary because he was the first to really attempt to combine the Lucha elements into his mat style. The psychology of his matches were as solid as the Fujinami reign and blows TigerMask's spot-a-thons out of the water. Cobra was so stiff and fluid, but blows a WHOLE lot of spots because he was pushing the envelope of what he was capable of doing, it seemed to me. He also sold like a motherfuc*er- making the Black Tiger matches seem pretty hardhitting- though they were steeped in Lucha looseness. The Cobra/Dynamite Kid and the Saito/Cobra matches establish his stiffer work, which are all as credible as anything in the heavyweight division. Cobra is such a great lost wrestler- combining the stiffness and intensity of New Japan Strong Style and the graceful movement of a luchadore, cool mask, great matches that were rock solid in structure and execution- a true model for Eddy Guerrero and hopefully Psicosis and Juventud. I don't know why he isn't enshrined like the others in this tape.
The drastic change that hit the division is apparent in the first Cobra/Takada match where Takada BEATS the holy CRAP out of him and makes his style look so weak. It reminded me of the Maeda/Fujinami match from the HoIWGPHT tape except there is less of a defense of the pro style of wrestling by Cobra in this one. Takada just kicks the holy fuck out of him and Cobra kinda writhes on the mat taking super stiff kicks to the head as he tries to figure out how to work with this truly foreign style.
The Takada stuff is the best stuff on the tape- just because everybody in wrestling looks like such a collosal wussy compared to the level of stiffness in any Takada match. The fact that Koshinaka comes into prominence feuding with Takada at this time helps these matches hit mindblowing proportions. After watching all of these matches- which were PERFECT combinations of Pro Style selling and psychology with bonebreaking shootstyle stiffness with the intensity of the Sam Wattersonesque Koshinaka- and mix in the ultimate coolness of the two Yamazaki/Takada matches on the tape- it seemed that shootstyle was totally replacing lucha as the supporting style to compliment the main strong style that was always the basis of the Junior division. The pinnacle of this is the strange anomaly (and coolest match) on the tape- Keichi Yamada (future Liger Boy) vs Masakatsu Funaki (future Pancrase Boy). Yamada goes at it with Funaki so well in a shootstyle setting that it would seem that if the shoot style bug had gotten to young Yamada would have joined his friend Sano in that other league and would have been just as great as what he became in New Japan- just differently great. Luckily something hit Japan (Hamada's influence) that brought all three styles together into one pretty fabulous style- with lucha highflying now balancing shootstyle mat work and stiff kicks and Japanese pro style setting up the psychological starting point for both of these styles to cohabitate in harmony- with tweaking here and there for effect to lean more lucha (Michinoku Pro and, maybe one day, WCW Cruiserweight style) or more shootstyle (TAKA and Ohtani's assorted shootstyle young punk cronies.) Get this tape. It will make you glad you watch wrestling.
- Nitro REALLY sucked this week, though two matches were really good. The Rey/Psicosis match was good, though Psicosis is back to destroying his body at a frightening rate again. I hope this was just a lapse and not a trend, as I was digging the progress Psicosis was making in varying the styles in his matches. The Guerrero/Wright match was really good I thought, though devoid of any heat. Maybe if Nagata, LaParka, Jericho, Psicosis and Wright all wrestle Regal in the TV title division Alex can start rebuilding his career and Nagata's stay won't be a total wash. This week I start taping Raw. I've been putting it off for too long and they are getting too many guys I need to see but miss while taping Nitro (which I watch when I get home from rocking out! WOO-HOO! You're never too old!:)))
-In reaction to the Nasty Boy shoot, maybe the Nasty Boys will get fired -which will piss off Hogan and Dusty and they will both quit and they'll fire Duggan and Wallstreet and....
NANIWA~!
                                  Dean Rasmussen, Super CalHEAD!
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dvd22-
CHAVO JR! Kyoko! HOTTA! Liger! AJA! Dynamite Kansai! and Other stuff I've seen this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #22! I got a monstrous AssLoad of Tape from St.Phil (YOU RULE!) as he sent a giant batch of Japanese stuff. I also got a bunch of Calgary stuff from him and another Wrestling Bonanza Tape that had the match of matches on it. This may be a lil brief because I'm on the verge of Unclehood as we speak and I may have to drive to Raleigh at any moment to see my sis. MORE BABIES! WOO-HOO!
-I saw the Handheld of Minami Toyota vs Yumiko Hotta and GOD does Hotta kick her ass. It was kinda pathetic because Hotta is such a force that Minami's attack really pales in comparison. Actually, this is the whole key to the psychology of this match. It's a lot like that Vader/Flair match where Vader was still the unstoppable force and Flair was the greatly overmatched face who had to figure out a way to win. Hotta basically beats the hell out of her and shrugs off any attempt at offense by Toyota for the first half of the match- the most hellish is when Hotta gives her a stiff kick to the head here and there and kinda laughs about it. Minami finally gets Hotta out of the ring and starts flying on her and then it evens out as Toyota starts hitting some suplexes. This is kind of the way AJW should be going because they have Hotta and Aja who are both True Monsters and the better workers can work with Hotta and the lesser workers can be carried by Aja. Both of these women demand more from a match than fifty-eight highspots and that's a good step forward, I think.
-I saw the Hotta/Yamada match from sometime this year I think (Phil? Ollie? JDW?) and GOD! does Hotta kick her ass. Hotta is just out of control in this match. Yamada looked defenseless and much more pathetic than in their earlier encounters that I've seen. Hotta just stretches her and then kicks her and stretches her and kicks her and sells Yamada's kicks but they are so much less hellish than Hotta's that it doesn't look threatening at all. The ending is the absolute most horrible powerbomb I have ever seen: Hotta has Yamada in what looks like Razor's Edge but drives her down DIRECTLY ON HER HEAD as if Satan had invented the Tiger Driver. Hotta looks great in this one- long beautiful hair that hits her shoulders, fabulous boots. I can see why the guys around here go wild over her .:)
I'm basically giving away the ending of this next one. If you give a dang, ya may want to go to the next. Just thought I'd warn you.:)
-I saw the Hotta/Aja vs Kyoko/Minami match from AJW Gran Prix 96 Red and Blue (I'm thinking- one was red team and the other was blue team)and it was pretty choice. Hotta and Aja are the Dream Tagteam of Dream Tagteams. AJW should keep these two kids together for a run with the titles for a while though I don't see how anybody can CREDIBLY (hint,hint) beat them. Aja is the wrestler of the combo- doing great suplexes and power moves. The pinnacle was when she hit a Steiner Death Driver on Kyoko. I freaked! Hotta is the no-nonsense educated brawler of the combo. Hotta basically menaced them in the ring, getting flashy with a spinning back kick here and there. Minami blows a springboard plancha onto Hotta and looks like she broke her back. This match is so weird. Aja and Hotta basically pummel these two into oblivion but succumb to Kyoko and Minami's highflying and get into disarray. I wasn't buying it. After all the bludgeoning that Minami goes through in this bout there should be no way that she can come back and hit all these moves on Hotta and Aja out of nowhere. I dunno. It's like apple's and oranges in the ring. The obvious power and skill of Aja and Hotta should make this match an interesting but deeply obvious conclusion. The way the match was structured made it so that the power moves of the larger team was given the full advantage and there was no transition in this match like in the Hotta/Toyota match where it logically turned towards the smaller, quicker wrestler. It was kinda like they had to make Kyoko and Minami stay strong, which they should, but didn't want to bother making it seem logical in the context of the match. I dunno. In Barbie vs Aja, Barbie shouldn't win. In Barbie vs Hotta, Barbie REALLY shouldn't win. I'd put the monsters over big in a one-off tourney like this and go from there on the regular cards. I wasn't diggin this one when it was over.
-I watch Kansai/Aja vs Takako/Somebody (from Gran Prix I think, it's all one big stew of fabulous grap action!:)) and that RULED THE FREAKIN EARTH! This was deeply into "Kansai and Aja beat the living hell out of Takako and we all weep for Scott:)." Scott had a couple of things to cheer about- 1.) Takako was an Ass Stomping Vixen who got in her shots, on Kansai especially and 2.) she was wearing that little leather thing that really distracts me from her vast wealth of wrestling knowledge.:) DURN! The bad part is that Aja tells Kansai to keep Niagra Driving her all the while Aja is beating the crap out of Takako's hapless partner. After two you'd think Takako would stop appreciating the last minute saves. Aja puts an end to that with one truly horrifying spinning backhand, leaving Takako to succumb to her vertebrae-fusing fate. Great Match just because Kansai and Aja are so much fun together and because Takako is such a bitch when she wants to be and that looks so much cooler when doing it in the face of insurmountable odds. For her, its a real sign of grace in the sign of certain defeat- "You're gonna win, but you're gonna pay as much I can make you."
-I watched Jushin Thunder Liger vs Chavo Guerrero Jr on NJ television (well, on tape actually:)) and that was really good I thought. Chavo is developing into a nifty little wrestler and put in a good showing in this one. Liger sells quite a bit for him (SURPRISE!) and Chavo kinda electrified the crowd for a few minutes and then he blows a spot and Liger decides fun time is over and starts the EDUCATION and DISCIPLINE AS OF NOW. He starts it with a EVIL palm thrust that caves in Chavo's puny chest and a Chavo-Killer Powerbomb that hurt just watching. A fatass Fisherman Buster and there you have it! Liger is becoming monstrously great. A good match for Chavo though, he's gonna be a good one.
-I watched the TRULY GREAT Ohtani/Kanemoto vs El Samurai/Liger match from 96 Battle Formation (or something:)) and it was BOSS! THe recurring theme was: "Who can be the biggest Dick?" Winner (Surprisingly!) EL SAMURAI! He gets the honor by powerbombing Kanemoto and standing over him and posing while the ref counted to three. Before he can hit three, out of nowhere Ohtani flies off the rope and nails Samurai with a dropkick. Kanemoto takes a stab at dick honors by slapping his elders between moves. GOD! I've missed Kanemoto and it's good to see he hasn't mellowed any while he was out.:) Wotta surly bastard!:) Liger shoots for the Golden Penis award by doing the spine-destroying released German suplex on Ohtani in the neverending crusade to Kill Ohtani once and for all!:) Ohtani was out of the running because he's such an all-American Japanese wrestler.:) The Richie Cunningham of truly great wrestlers.:) This a whole lot of fun- as are all Liger matches I've seen the last two days. I need yet still more Ohtani.
-I watched an AWESOME Hashimoto/Hirata vs Kojima/Nakanishi match. I'm glad Bobby Hardwork Walker no-showed his NJ tour because they scheduled him to go against Hash and Hash is the stiffest wrestler in the world right now. Bobby would never be the same. Just ask Nakanishi. Hash is awesome in this match- kicking the lungs out of the young heavyweight punks. Hirata was also feeling it as he also attempted to cave in the chest and break the knees of his future successors. Kojima is growing on me as he was more than solid in this match. He moved towards instilling some passion in his work and its showing. Nakanishi is basically a slightly better Justin Hawk Bradshaw so the jury is still WAY out on him in regfards to if he will amount to anything. This was also the most I've been impressed by Hirata. Maybe its the generational thing but he was on fire for this one. The end was great as the young punks wrestle like MotherFuc*ers (well Kojima wrestled like a MotherFuc*ker, Nakanishi didn't get in the way like a MotherFuc*er.:)) and the old guard fight off the attack and it starts up again and so on. Phil really wasn't scared to deliver the good this month.
NEXT WEEK: The Glenn Tape in all of it's glory- GAEA,LLPW, NEW JAPAN, MOSSMAN finally! The rest of the WHIP ASS Phil Tapes! WOO-HOO! All-Japan including the first Gary Allbright/Karweenda match (Which I skimmed through and
was ALREADY blown away).  GOD FEARS HASHIMOTO.
                                   Dean Rasmussen, ShiryuHEAD!
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dvd23
KAORU! Great Sasuke! Toshie Uematsu! KAIENTAI DELUXE! Kandori! BULL NAKANO and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #23! I gotta ass-stompingly great tape from The World's Finest Human Being- nCo Glenn and garsh! did it rock! This article is gonna have to be spoiler intensive so beware if you have the 10 man Michinoku Pro rematch or the GAEA Road to WCW Tournament Champ Forum on the way!
-The GAEA Champ forum with Toshie Uematsu vs Bomber Hakari for the RTWCWT final was the best GAEA CF yet. It starts with Tourney highlights where Toshie does a tiny, cute impersonation of Shinya Hashimoto by selling a knee injury the whole tourney.:) By the time its down to Bomber and Toshie she's real limpy but HELL! she's the best wrestler of her generation, so far, so she turns it into a great match. She sells like a champ and is real smart about when to do highspots and when to take it to the mat. She's gonna be a great one. Last time I saw her she aped a rolling Dos Caras abdominal stretch, This time she hit a GREAT missile dropkick WHILE still selling the knee subtly while climbing the ropes. Bomber is a good, overlooked wrestler. She's small, agile but does a lot of power moves and knows how to keep the youngsters straight when they try too much and is a unspectacular but intense addition to the roster. I'm assuming that Bomber will be forth cog of the old gals (Akira, Chigusa and maybe, but probably not, KAORU) vs the young gals (Kato, Satamura, Uematsu) vs OZ's Army (Mayumi, Sugar, Chikayo Nagashima,Matsumoto) multi-headed feud that is developing. The only question now is- when does KAORU join Mayumi or does she join the young gals and OZ adds Numaeo. GAEA is deeply angle central right now but luckily the wrestling is getting really topnotch. The second match is Chigusa in a handicap match against Sugar Sato and Maiko Matsumoto of the cute, cuddly, truly evil OZ's army. This is 100% garbage match as Chigusa shows the punks how to take a bump and set up a credible tablespot. Chigusa and Sato take an assload of punishment with Chigusa blading like a pro. This is getting to be a pretty hot feud already and this is a pretty intense match- stiff and well'wrestled. After Chigusa powerbombs Sato through a table and gets the pin, the look of contempt in Sato's eyes is absolutely priceless. I can only imagine how good she's gonna be when she reaches twenty, she's already as feisty as you want a young punk heel to be.:) The post match Chigusa rant was great as she challenges the hockey-attire-clad Mayumi Ozaki to, I guess, not send kids to do your dirty work and what have you. Mayumi needs access to a monster though, to go up against the big strong Chigusa- she can kick the hell out of the flyers in her heel stable. Maybe Combat will come out of retirement. The third match was when I said F*CK THE FUTURE- THE FUTURE IS NOW. The Future-That-Is-Now goes by the names Sonoko Kato and Meiko Satamura. This is second great match in a row I've seen these two in and, of course it's hard to NOT have a great match when your opponents are Akira Hokuto and the alluring KAORU. Satamura is the BOMB now! She did two GREAT moves- the first was a toprope roll-into-a-cross armbreaker and the second was truly fabulous Death Valley Drop on KAORU that was as good as I've seen. She also has major intensity and toughness that complement her partner- who is the spunkiness poster-girl. The great part about this match is how Akira reacts to these immensely talented youngsters. They beat crap out of their elder for awhile there with an endless array of kicks (the GAEA equivalent to clubberin :)). Akira finally gets out her fix by battling like a legend is wont to do and smacks them on top of the head as she slinks off for the tag- highly pissed, which leads up to a kinda AWJ old-style vs GAEA young punk showdown with the young gals with Akira hitting all her signature moves but the youngsters surviving and fighting back in a youthful frenzy. Finally, Satamura and Akira are outside the ring battling it out and Sonoko Kato gets the best of KAORU- getting the biggest pin so far for a youngster in the promotion. Akira freaks at the collossal upset and Chigusa joins in on the Old-timers browbeating and the fate of KAORU is up in the air as she is totally isolated- she was pinned by Numaeo in that handicap match, was pinned by Kato in this match so she's on the outs with the old gals club; she had a blood feud with Mayumi and her minions so that's not an option I don't think, so I can only think she's gonna hook up with the youngsters and be their foxy guidance councellor. GAEA is too small to have a rogue just yet so she has to align with someone. This should be neat. This is how you do it folks. Keep the big gals in the spotlight but bring along the youngsters and get them over with impressive wins. Everybody is growing into their roles and the intrigue and the angles add to the wrestling to make this the most fascinating little independent promotion in Japan.
-The Michinoku Pro ten man rematch was CHOICE! The key to this match is that the Great Sasuke is in this and that kicks up the hatred in Dick TOGO and TAKA Michinoku to a fever pitch. This was not nearly as wild as the Match of the Year (learn to love it Crowboy.:)), with most of this staying on the mat with highspots mixed in liberally. The main difference is that TAKA takes this match over AFTER Gran Hamada takes the match over, whereas TAKA was pretty subdued in the Spot-a-thon. Hamada was great in this, getting all stiff and fired up with TOGO and eliminating Shiryu by sheer force of will. TAKA then comes in and BEATS the HOLY HELL out of Hamada- dickishly Double TAKA Bombing the older Junior Icon to elimination. El Gran Naniwa keeps redeeming himself from the Skydiving J debacle and is great in this match- outlasting his team mates and going like a Mother Fuc*er when it came down to him alone against TOGO and TAKA. Sasuke is healing well and was about 70% of what he is when healthy so he is looking better and looked like he actualy tried to cushion his fall when he did his Asai moonsault, which is a good sign. TAKA beats the hell out of Sasuke and does the dickish little kicks to the head and taunts him. Dick Togo does his Surfer pose on Sasuke's back and does it again as he is choking him over the rope. Super Delfin has become total face and, luckily, it's just as goofy as when he was a rascally heel- as he does the goofiest house afire hot tag ever in Japan ever, I would think. Delfin Rocked in this match as it looks like Men's Teioh and Dick Togo vs Naniwa and Delfin will be the match of the next couple of months as they ended up in the ring against each other quite a bit. TigerMask, Funaki and Shiryu were out early and it got more intense as it got whittled down and the Big Deluxe victory was becoming more apparent. This baby is white hot with Sasuke in the middle and TAKA and Handsome Dick TOGO being more heelish than the law allows. Kaientai Deluxe is the Heel Stable of Heel Stables right now and Sasuke, Delfin, Naniwa and the amazingly resurgent Hamada are great faces. I eagerly await the five matches- I'm just trying to figure out who will wrestle who. I'm sure it will be TOGO vs Sasuke. Past that, I just hope it's not another TigerMask vs TAKA. Hamada vs TAKA would be neat. Heck, maybe Sasuke vs TAKA if Sasuke is up for it. Of course, TAKA may disappear with Kanemoto in a white flash of Surly Perfection when THEY lock up.:)
-I saw Mossman FINALLY (Geez! Glenn is the KING!) and he was impressive- kinda like one of those UWFi young guys with that All Japan extra. He was in a six man against Akiyama on the other side (with Lacrosse thrown in for kicks.:) At the end there is five minutes of the year 2005 Triple Crown Title match as Mossman and Akiyama face off- one on one. Mossman is great with his stiff kicks and suplexes but Akiyama shows who is closer to the crown by hitting a FABULOUS double rolling Northern Lights Suplex, a move I had never seen before and still can't figure out how he did it. I just know that it must have hurt REAL bad.:) Akiyama whips ass- Mossman looks like he will whip as much ass soon.:)
- I watched the two hour LLPW retrospective which had lots of the greatest women in the world in with LLPW wrestlers, who were quite good at times, but I couldn't put a name on. I recognized Eagle Sawai and Shinobu Kandori, but under that I'm at a loss. There was a lot of FMW Women in a eight woman match (Nakamura, Sato, etc and Sawai wrestled Combat Toyoda later on the show) and if LLPW is absorbing the FMW ladies division after April after Kudo retires, like is reported, this could be a promotion to watch because FMW, when you get past Ms Kudoh, has all the hard, trailerpark-esque women that remind me of women I went to high school with, and that makes the FMW Women's division special in my heart.:) Plus they are great at doing big angles even if the wrestling is fifth rate. Maybe with Kandori  guiding them their work will pick up and we could have the Bigger two (AJW and JWP) and the Getting Bigger Two (GAEA and LLPW) which would lead to interesting cross promotion rivalries. The main event on the show was Bull Nakano vs Kandori in a falls-count-anywhere chainmatch and Jiminy Crickets! it was pretty rough and tough. Kandori has such a weird charisma and her style is so always
on the edge of a shoot it seems. Bull works about as stiff as I've seen and hits the GROTESQUELY Horrible Rolling Guillotine with her ankle wrapped in the chain. Kandori looked pretty stunned for a while afterwards. All in all, one of the better chain matches I've seen (actually this is the only good chain match I've ever seen.)
-Clash of the Champions pretty much Ruled despite itself I thought, but I wonder where Juventud was. The fact that the three man match worked so well with two non-lucha substitutes and at only six minutes is a great sign for future trios matches. Super Calo, Jericho, and Chavo were actually a pretty good face team and looked good together. It's time to roll out the Six-Man belts because these type of matches would be perfect to mobilize some of vast array  of talent that is spinning its collective heels at WCW. AND LaParka's tope was so Ciclon Ramirez-esque. The highspot fest was beautiful and the Super Frankensteiner was FANTABULOUS. It was good to get the MP JL for a match and Konnan is getting over for some reason. The UD/Malenko match was great and really long which made the trios match time easier to take. I hope to garsh these two have a long feud because they had two great matches in two days. I actually liked the Luger match for some reason. Maybe Scott Hall was the one behind all those great ladder matches because he carried Luger to a positive star match for the first time since he wrestled the Nature Boy WAy Back When. AND Where is Nagata already?
NANIWA~!
                                 Dean Rasmussen, Super CaloHEAD!
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dvd24
EL HIJO DEL SANTO! Negro Casas! SUPER ASTRO! Lou Thesz! B.Bomb! Kawarnda (WHO?) and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #24! It was a big week as the Santo Rudo tape graced the mailbox(PETE WHIPS ASS!), I tried to catch up on the pile of NJ and AJ stuff that St Phil sent, and WP97 Tim and Dave stopped by to see the youngster and show me pictures of Minami Toyota and other stuff, and I eagerly await the Yakushiji-fest that the beloved Glenn sent.
 -I watched the first of two giant Lucha tapes from lucha-maven extraordinaire, Pete, and GOD was it CHOICE! What the hell happened to EMLL? The last time I watched, it was a bunch of washed up has-beens getting in the way of the good Dos Caras moves. NOW: I counted six good young workers in the first three matches alone and they have the hottest feud of this decade possibly and it was all riveting. The pinnacle is the Hijo Del Santo heelturn. Hulk Hogan would have had to have set the American flag on fire and defame Elvis's mother to get the response that Santo got when he turned, this was really, really intense and the matches were at a different level than any I've seen in Lucha. ECW should sit down and study this and see how effective bloodletting can be when you save it up for a REAL feud, because when it gets to the Dandy/Santo/Negro Casas triangle match, it's coming out by the bucket and the thing that keeps it from seeming excessive is because of the amount of hatred involved and how well it was conveyed. If Santo, an actual real living legend who NOBODY could contemplate being anything but a perfect face, hates Casas enough to turn heel just to beat the shit out of him, the level of barbarism is established from the get go. These matches work completely against the strong points of Hijo and Casas, which is fabulous technical wrestling. These are more like a truly hardcore Brodie/Abdullah type megabrawl, and they are all carried by the fact that everybody is totally in shock that it's Del Santo bustin people open and stomping them into the ground. Dandy/Santo section of the feud produces the most harrowing visual images you will see in wrestling as Dandy bleeds enough for both men- turning the famous silver mask blood red. This is weird. This is great. I want more.
 -The rest of the tape was great for other reasons- mainly, everybody is working hard in EMLL. Hell! Satanico was a spry corpse for the match I saw him in with his ever-slower neato matwork. Silver King is looking great, post-losing his hair. Very stylish, and still one of the best topes in wrestling. Super Astro has- somehow- gotten even better. His highspots are even flashier and snappier and he hit one of the choicest fat Sentons to the floor and also hits a great top rope tope. Apollo Dantes actually did some highflying in the match I saw with him. Of course, he was in with Silver King and that brings out the best in him. Shocker got a truly beautiful new mask as everybody is jumping on the shiny metallic bandwagon (Super Astro was sporting his ass-stomping Togo-Killer Gold Michinoku Pro mask that he wore over in Japan in the second match on the tape I saw him, but I digress...:)). Shocker is the most underrated worker of EMLL. He rules! I don't remember ever seeing him in a bad match. The punks of EMLL that may have a future is that guy with the Misterio mask (Sorry I haven't compiled the matchlist yet.:)) and Black Warrior. Black Warrior is kinda big and moves really well, though he seems kinda green. The MisterioMask:) was very impressive also with quicker movement and a small arsenal of second tier highspots and a hint of mat ability, from the one match I saw. And there were bunch of other young punks that are too  soon to tell if they are going to amount to anything. Things are definitely looking up for the world's largest wrestling organization.
-I watched the Lou Thesz Biography (HESHAM is a kind and sharing god.:)) which I guess was from the early 80's, which was pretty informative and all, with his explanations of hooking and shooting and their origins and the historical perspective on wrestlers from the formative years were kinda fascinating. He tried not to come off as a bitter old fruit like he always struck me as when I read interveiws with him and he was pretty good about it except when he said Mexico never produced a good wrestler. Other interesting things he were that Dory Funk Jr was in need of more coaching at West Texas State, Buddy Rogers was not a real wrestler, Verne Gagne and Jack Brisco were great wrestlers and Harley Race was not a good wrestler. He was quite diplomatic with his opinion of Hulk Hogan, which was surprising.
-I watched a batch of the AJ tag tourney (PHIL!) including the Sabu/Allbright matches and they were pretty neat. The Sabu/Allbright vs Patriot/Kobashi match was the better of the two Sabu matches because it didn't have a TRULY ridiculous Sabu spot in it like the Hansen/Omori match had. I'm guessing they are setting up an Allbright/Kobashi feud to kill time until Kobashi gets the Triple crown back because they basically attempt to kill each other while Patriot and Sabu try to keep themselves occupied. This could be as choice as the Kawada/Allbright miniseries as AJ slowly figures out where Gary figures into the picture. So far, it seems his role is to prepare the big five for the equally hellish suplexes they will experience when wrestling Dr. Death Steve Williams. Sabu looked really okay in these matches and he worked really well with Omori, actually, so maybe they could explore that possibility as a future feud, if they are keeping our boy Terry over there for a while. Sabu and Allbright are actually a pretty good compliment to each other and would be really good if Sabu could convey an ounce of stiffness in any of his work. His flashy stuff would be a good counterpoint to single-minded matwork of Allbright. Allbright is becoming another favorite as he is not afraid to suplex the holy crap out of people and stay more stoic than any American ever has. I really look forward to a couple of Kobashi/Allbright matches and I figure they would have to have another at least to make up for the SURPRISE ending.:) I watched the Kawad/Taue vs Misawa/Akiyama and truly await: a.) the tag match where Somebody pins Misawa and b.) the next Triple Crown Title change where Kahoozits drops Misawa like a punk. Misawa going over Kawada is so INCREDIBLY old, and this match drove it home. I fell asleep as the Williams/Ace matches of the tape began so I'll yammer about those next time.:)
-WP97Tim and Dave came by the house to veiw the youngster, bedevil my hapless, innocent dogs and show me all the BITCHIN Japanese Wrestling Mags Tim just got(which said nothing about any angles, it was 100% workrate commentary. I could tell. What else would they talk about?:)) They had fabulous pictures of all the GAEA all stars and I watched as Tim and Dave recoiled in terror as I knew a little too much about Jd'. One of them mags also had a couple of pictures from B.Bomb, the Manami Toyota midnight choking pamphlet:), and HEY! CROWBOY! WADDYA MEAN SHE'S CHUBBING OUT!?! She looks AWESOME, and I mean that in the most respectful, aesthetic sense.:)
-Nitro SUCKED this week. God, I was distraught. The only decent match involved Billy Pearl, and that's all I want to remember. Hey! WCW BRAIN SURGEON/ROCKET SCIENTISTS/GLUE-SNIFFING CRETINS ! MORE CRUISERS AND REAL REGAL MATCHES! Who gives a shit about that other crap? RAW had a match that involved a heart punch and didn't involve Ox Baker, so it was a wash too.
NANIWA~!
                               Dean Rasmussen, GREAT SASUKEhead!
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dvd25
TAJIRI! Ohtani! YAKUSHIJI! Jaguar Yokota! GREAT SASUKE! TAKA MOTHERF*CKING MICHINOKU! and other stuff I saw this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #25! I gotta another tape from the kind and benevolent Glenn In Japan (the Mother Theresa of wrestling fans) and GOD did it rock! WOO-HOO!
-The coolest match on the tape was the Tajiri vs Ohtani at the Tokyo Dome show from last month. Tajiri is gonna be the shit, Bubba. Ohtani is already the shit (Bubba) and proved it by letting the indie guy get in all the good stuff- a selfless act that raises him to new heights in my eyes after all the shitty NJ bullying of the little guys for the rest of the matches, which made me want to go out and by all the tapes with Nakamaki just out of spite. Tajiri did these awesome shootstyle kicks and nigh-perfect suplexes and then he hit the most beautiful Asai moonsaults I've seen. I was REALLY impressed by this guy. He looked cool too. Kinda young and spunky... but a hint of surliness came to the surface.:) Ohtani tried  to wrestle heelishly but hisCunninghamness kept creeping through.:) I agree with JDW when he said the ending wasn't done well. This could have REALLY been the show stopper and I suspect that NJ allowed all of this so they could get a shot at stealing Tajiri. Hell! I would! I'd give him cooler pants though. (In a semi-related, entirely-stupid note, the best pants of the night were the leather pants worn by the guy who seconded Nakamaki. They smoked those stupid things Chono wears like a cheap cigar. Nakamaki also looked cooler than Chono, because- HEY!- nobody dresses better than when they are going to Death Match. I think that was why Chono was so pissed. That was the only time I EVER liked Nakamaki.:))
-I watched TWO Michinoku Pro Champ Forums and they both Whipped my Ass with manly goodness (WHAT!?!). The first had a boss six-man match between Gran Naniwa/Yakushiji/ and that Quasi-BattlARTS guy Hoshikawa, I think, vs Shiryu/Dick Togo and Men's Teioh. Yakushiji has the dopiest mask in all of wrestledom currently- looking kinda like a green ant, which is kinda cool in a way. He came out accompanied by a strange entourage of dancers that were wearing nifty traditional (maybe) outfits, with Yak pulling up the rear, out of step. Very odd! Yakush iji is NOW a direct clone of Rey Misterio Jr. which is a good thing if he uses that to develope his own moves and until then, at least we get to see toprope leg scissors onto the floor and those cool spinning around the shoulders elaborate armdrags that Rey doesn't do in WCW ever. Naniwa has lost his mind and did a heckish released German Suplex that All-Japaned Dick Togo directly onto his neck. Naniwa is too young to be getting this good. Ever since the valley of his Sky-Diving J match, he has truly kicked it deeply into gear. My fave highspot was the triple tope by BattlARTS guy, Naniwa and Yakushiji with Naniwa going over the turnbuckle. (I think his name is) Hoshikawa is better than the last time I saw him (an undercard throwaway against Terry Boy last year) and seemed to be another cog in the wheel to geting away from a league of total highflyers. I see a decent feud agaqinst MEN'S this year because they worked together well- with MEN'S hitting his power arsenal and ITHNI Hoshikawa did all of his pseudo-shoot stuff and it was pretty stiff and neat. Of course, he may be the one they could stick Funaki in with when they get tired of all these ten men deals. I'd like to see that too. Togo was the king as usual, but didn't have Hamada to really go wild on until the second Champ Forum. He sold all the Yakushiji Lucha armdrag stuff in both matches and cemented even more the fact that Togo is the Fuerza Guerrera in the body of Super Astro of Japan. YEP! THE SECOND MATCH between Kaientai Deluxe vs Sasuke's band of wusses was even better because Hamada, Sasuke and Funaki were in it. The SBOWs do the Wuss Beatdown of Funaki and he is carried off in dramatic fashion. Yakushiji is without his freakish mask so it lost a couple of points because I fear we will never see it again. Glenn noticed the same spots in both matches, which kinda glaring when you watch them right next to each other, but I think the main thing is that they are trying to get Yakushiji over by showing his best moves, which they do in both matches at the same time in both matches. Sasuke continues to look healthier and healthier, and looked best when in with Funaki, as they went all shootstyle on the proceedings and Sasuke did his Bruce Lee-Ali shuffle which I am the eternal sucker for. Hamada continues to resurge as this feud has brought it back to him and he is feeling it again. He and Togo are becoming a good rivalry and I hope it spills out into good singles matches between the two when the war breaks down into skirmishes. The second match on the tape is TAKA vs Super Delfin. this was real good- if not up to the level of the AWESOME Sky Diving J match. TAKA hits a springboard moonsault with the camera in perfect position to catch the total heighth of the jump and still stay real close up. I think I said,"DAMN!" when it happened.:) The first match on the first CF is Kendo vs Shiryu in kind of a throwaway, as it looked like Kendo hurt himself and they rushed to a finish and they didn't really do anything. Overall, a CHOICE batch of wrestling!
-TAKA vs Shinzaki. The words instill horror in the minds of everyone who fears big-name suckasses being put over actual wrestlers. Last year was bad with Juventud Guerrera being squashed by thoroughly useless piece of shit, Lex Luger, and this year has been worse with LaParka jobbing to holistic piece of shit, Ice Train. Now this. Luckily it wasn't so bad. It was REALLY not good, but at least TAKA made him work a little- with the absolute turd Shinzaki blowing up after one lucha sequence. TAKA being the insane deity that he is, answers all of our prayers by potatoing the fuck out of his royal crappiness before having to succumb to his lousy finisher sequence. TAKA also TAKAbombs him on a chair which was pretty choice, but not really enough to erase the smell of Shinzaki's wrestling skill. Shinzaki sucks green donkey lungs and should be a WAR undercard regular. He should definitely not be pissing off the worlds brightest young talent with his total lack of everything.
-I watched the Jd' Beauty Athlete II TV special and it was very embryonic. It wasn't as good as the GAEA stuff from this point in it's developement. Bloody Phoenix and Chikako Shiratori are their prospects for the future and they tried to get them in a hot match against each other at the end, but they are still too green to be in with each other. More matches against Bison and Yokota would do them a world of good. The older gals matches were low impact like in GAEA, but with out the added drama and psychology. They seemed a little lacklustre, but I'm sure it will all pick up once the youngsters start getting more mat time under their belts and can put together good matches, thus, the elders will get a fire lit under them and have something to work with. Jd' has potential to be the next wrestling Lolita, but it will have a way to go to reach GAEA's Nobakovesque proportions.:) It's to early to tell, but their punks show a spark that could ignite into something. This isn't the show to see it on though as they tend to lack confidence and seem tentative.
-I watch Mitsuhara Misawa vs Tamon Honda and it was pretty good. Honda got in some good offense and the crowd started getting into it as Misawa was basically going throught the motions at the beginning, but he started heating up the proceedings as Honda got a couple of nearfalls, which really started the crowd to chanting for the upset of upsets. If it had gone five more minutes and if the ending wasn't so anti-climatic I would have recommended it. It was real close. The Tag title switch was on the same show and it was kinda subpar I thought. That was the worst I've seen Steve Williams look. Kawada and Taue were relentless as one would suspect and Ace was his quietly great self as usual so it wasn't bad, but it wasn't as good as it could have been. Williams sells an arm injury that limits his Kawada-vertebrae-fusing ability WAY TOO MUCH for such an important match. I didn't like the psychology of the match because it got in the way of having a truly all out deadly suplexfest like it should have been. The pinnacle was the stoic beyond the realm of stoic victory interviews afterwards. It amounted to;
Interveiwer: So, Kawada, is it exciting to have the belts back around you and your partners waists again? This has be a real surprise after all y'all have been through in the last 14 months.
 Kawada: Yeah, what ever.
It's worth the price of admission for that alone.:)
-The Power Warrior vs Great Muta DID have the coolest headdress in wrestling ever- with the metallic helmet headcovering that Power Warrior had. Muta's was a lot like last years, so it didn't win the hippest article of clothing sweepstakes two years running. The match sucked but used a lot of tables, and the head gear was really neat. Did I mention the head gear?:)
-Nitro sucked again, though it was good to see Villano IV again. ALLRIGHT! Ice Train rules with that splash thing, boy. I'm glad he polished off that piker, LaParka. HEY! The NWO are gonna be involved with the Cruiserweights! COOL! WCW sux dik.
NANIWA~!
                                   Dean Rasmussen, LaParkaHEAD!
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dvd26-
ANDY HUG! El Canek! PEGUSUS KID! El Hijo Del Santo! VILLANO III! Villano IV! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #26! It was a good week for tape-watchng, I got Mike's first Mountain of Tapes with all this old UWA stuff on it and I watched a bunch of stuff that I had watched before but needed to watch again. Plus one of my best friends- taking me totally by surprise- moved back from Australia, my combo played out at a smoky bar and the BOOZE jokes were back in MST3K, so overall (Except for the 50 hours of working) it was a great week!
-I watched all the Hamada's UWA commercial tapes (MIKE! WOO-HOO!) that focussed on one particular wrestler for an hour then focussed on another for an hour and so on. The UWA tapes were a lot of things- strange (the Hijo Del Santo action adventure movie that was shown between Caida's of his match against Negro Casas, which is up there with the Rock and Roll Express Music Video for Rock and Roll All Night in MidSouth, as the weirdest wrestling related thing you will see), cool (El Canek at the beach swimming with the hipsky blue trunks and the mask), Very Interesting (Villano III showing young punks how to wrestle in his gym), and disappointing in spots (only showing five minutes of TRULY ASS STOMPING Dos Caras vs El Canek match). Of course this is all mixed in with some of the best wrestling on earth ever. The El Hijo del Santo tape had great Santo vs Negro Casas match that was beautiful and it becomes REALLY interesting when you compare it to the Rey Misterio,Jr vs Juventud Guerrero matches from last year, because the young luchadores borrow quite a bit from the Late 80's version, especially the highly choreographed mat work where they mirror each other and then break out into the lightning fast armdrag and headscissor combinations. I thought that was cool when Juventud and Rey did it, and now it's even cooler when you see where they got it from- sort of adds even more weight to those classic matches from last year. Another comparison would be the rudo role that Juventud and Negro both play in their respective matches, expending as much effort as the technico in making the moves of the technico look more great than they ever should. I never noticed the Negro Casas effect on Juventud until now- though there may just be the common influence of Fuerza Guerrera on both of them. The El Canek commercial tape was cool just because I've only seen his later matches when he is too old to do anything anymore. It was great seeing him in action when he was younger and truly graceful. The five minutes of El Canek vs Dos Caras had me so stoked, as it was a younger Dos Caras that was flying more than he does now and they were going at it pretty good and then they cut to personal reflection footage and then its El Canek vs Kokina! It was neat seeing Yokozuna actually working a little but you can imagine my chagrin.:) The Villano III tape had the spellbinding Villano II vs Pegasus Kid (Benoit in a Iowa  Barnstormers mask, I thought to myself) and Benoit was truly Luchaesque in this baby. Villano used all the inventive matwork that sets a good luchadore apart and Benoit was freakin Benoit (even then) and it was choice. The ending was strange because Benoit sets up Villano for a superplex and the announcers contend (via "Hilarious Foule Instant Replay") that Benoit fouled him by sitting him on the turnbuckle. Despite this, it was an awesome wrestling display- as Benoit is just starting to notice his potential as a world class wrestler and has adapted to the Lucha style. Villano III I need to find a lot more of. There was also a Perro Aguayo tape and eventhough he is in with the legendary El Gran Hamada, he still sucks and sucked back then, regardles of who he is wrestling.
-I rewatched some K-1 (Ollie!) while making a Pancrase section of a tape for Mike and I'm with Ollie on this- I usually don't dig kickboxing, but this stuff is so much cooler. This is a lot closer to Pancrase than Kickboxing on ESPN in my estimation. Ollie pointed out how the build up of each match sets it apart, and I'd have to agree, plus it has it's own Bas Rutten with the also-cult-worthy, charismatic kicking-machine, Andy Hug.
-Nitro was good this week, which it had to be to counteract the last two weeks, which were a merciless onslaught of suck. The Guerrero/Malenko matches from Monday and Saturday were great I thought- though the screwy and goofy, respectively, endings were quite the hinderence. They need to take one of the belts off of one of these guys so the unclean finish isn't such a sure thing, but overall, this was as inspired as I've seen these two look when in with each other since the heady ECW days of yesteryear.:) The Regal/Misterio Jr match was great- with Regal showing that he can do anything with anybody and make a great match out of any awkward situation when he wants to. Rey was once again surprising with his courage in the face of incredible stiffness, and was nearly credible looking against such a larger opponent in the match- though the chasm of size differential would only allow so much in the eyes of the American Wrestling public, I would say. I liked the Chavo Jr/Jarrett vs Benoit/Mongo match though it was quite the unlikely pairing. Chavo worked his little hinder off and took his beating from Benoit like a man. Mongo shows slight improvement in the ring, since I no longer fear him screwing up really badly and crippling someone accidently. I wish they would put the belt on Benoit and have a full-blown Jarret/Benoit feud already. Alex Wright is looking better (except for the blown springboard dropkick). The Steiners/High Voltage match I dug for some reason and as for the Randy Anderson thing, my question is- when did Jim Cornette starting booking WCW? The rest sucked.
-The Thursday Raw Thursday was pretty okay. I liked the Headbangers match quite a bit, though Aldo Montoya and Holly aren't... really... good. I was astonished at the clean pin by Hart on Vader, though I think it was another nail in the coffin of the Mythically Great Monster Heel Called Vader as opposed to some radical change in the WWF booking method. I'll believe the Micheals retirement when I don't see it. I was in the audience for the fake collapse, so I ain't buying nothing. The rest pretty much sucked.
NANIWA~!
                                   Dean Rasmussen, SonokoHEAD!
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dvd27
MISAWA! Cat Burgler! KOBASHI! Mark the Shark Shrader! KANEMOTO! Wreckless Youth! PSICOSIS! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #27! It's been a big week of tape watching as I began it intending to have a full blown Lucha Fest 97, since I had 9 (!) tapes of Lucha that I had partially or totally not seen yet, so I was going to watch all these and make a mini's compilation since HELL! why not? Of course three tapes in and I had exactly one mini's match on tape, so so much for that.:) I also got a bunch of Mid-Atlantic Independent Wrestling (CHEETAH!!! TIM!!!) and you gotta support the indies, so I started watching those for a while and THEN I got a tape from Glenn which had GAEA and NJ/NWO AND TWO (!!) Ohtani matches, so I watched those immediately! With this much stuff I'm definately gonna wait until next week to yammer about the GAEA (which RULED THE FREAKING WORLD.) and BattlARTS (which is actually amazingly good in spots) so the nCo minions of Champ Forum can get their copies and join me in the yammerfest.:)
-I watched the Misawa/Kobashi Triple Crown match (GLENNNNN!!!!!) and GOLLY did  it rule! Kobashi finds ways to continuously get out of the weenie doghouse and this time he does it by doing the TRULY HELLISH RELEASED BRAIN BUSTER. I had never seen that one before and had never seen a wrestler allow his own vertebrae to be crimped like that, but hey! That's the price you pat to be the Man.:) Misawa was brilliant as usual and there were so many little things to love about this match (except the finish) that I don't know where to start. The basic thrust of the match was that each one would take turns driving the other deeply onto their heads via an assortment of spinal-chord-severing released German suplexes and what have you. Misawa sells "near-death" like a freakin GOD for a minute there after Kobashi has put him through the ringer, and Kobashi actually tried a little subtlety in his selling after the second Tiger Driver (which looks really tame now, ESPECIALLY after Misawa hit the released German suplex which Kobashi can make look like attempted homocide). As one would expect it builds to about as hot a finish as you can get since these guys work so freakin stiff, so gradually the slowing of the workrate into the psychology drenched last ten minutes of nearfalls make them ALL look like they could definately be the finish. My beef is that after the highly complex finish, with each elaborate combination of suplexes and powerbombs and counters leading to logical extension in the next move and countermove, to finish it off with a Misawa elbow is sort of a letdown. I mean he did that to Tamon Honda last week, right? Well, I guess it didn't bother me too much because this is still a great match. My favorite thing about this match is that it has ten moves that are so stiff that they would kill  Hulk Hogan, and I find that comforting as justification for watching Japanese wrestling as anything else I can think of.:)
I watched the Jun Akiyama/Akira Taue surprise match:) and it was more interesting than good. Taue just isn't the one to do an effective Exploder suplex on. He's too big and lumpy and doesn't land real pretty like everybody else.:) Akiyama was impressive as always, but you could tell Taue wasn't digging the putting-over-the-punk idea, as Taue wasn't as sharp as he has been lately and was slapping Akiyama in the head and what have you. This wasn't a horrible match and it was kinda neat in parts, but it's just unseemly to watch the 12 year old spunky Jun getting all fired up and psyched when the man across the ring exudes such innate (and inert) stoicism. I mean Taue isn't the best wrestler in All Japan but he is the second most stoic and thus the second coolest. I dunno- stick Akiyama in a feud with Kobashi so it isn't so apparent and then Jun can work up the coolness food chain: Kobashi-Williams-Kawada- Taue-Misawa.:)
-I watched a batch of mid-atlantic independent promotions- one being the ECWA (somewhere in Pennsylvania with the card actually taking place in Delaware. TIM RULES! and he LOVES my dogs!:)) and the Leader (YES!!) sent me the bonanza batch of MEWF from Baltimore (I think!) so I saw all the young highflyers that everybody up there yammers about but I never see. The prognosis for Junior Heavyweight wrestling in the US is quite good if these matches are an indication. I saw Mark the Shark Shrader, (W)Reckless Youth, Billy Kidman, Adam Flash, Earl the Pearl, Devon Storm, Steve Corino, Romeo Cassanova, and the Cat Burgler all within a twenty-four hour span, so comparisons can definately be made- though these assessments may change as I finish watching both batches of tapes.:) The one I would definately keep my eye on (excluding Kidman since we all know what he is capable of) is (surprisingly) (W)Reckless Youth in ECWA and the Cat Burgler in MEWF, I would say. (W)RY is quite the heat machine and seems like he can work and was trying some unique stuff, my fave being the vertical abdominal stretch with the added headstretch, made famous by OOOCCCTTTOOOOGGOOONNN back when he used to wrestle (as opposed to SUCK). He sold well, did some tricky midlevel highspots and had about the best psychology of the two wads of indie wrestling I watched. The Cat Burgler was fabulous I thought. Very sharp in his execution, inventive in his moves, competently hit his fair to middling array of upper echelon highspots, was decent at telling a story, his workrate was good if not great. He could get stiffer and learn a wider array of mat moves, but the potential seemed there (of course I have about five more of his matches to go, so the jury is definay=tely out.:)) Steve Corino looked good in the one match I saw with him. He's kind of a goofy heat machine, but he hit a couple of decent mat moves and flies well. He needs to put on some weight, because to be as small as Rey Misteri Jr, you have to springboard twenty feet to the floor on a regular basis (or be a magnificent bastard like TAKA) to get away with it.:) Adam Flash was a spot machine, as his matches were Devon Stormesque in their lack of story and psychology. His spots were fair though still basically moves that Psicosis would use to SET UP his high spots.:) The only Devon Storm match I saw on these so far is against (BARF!) Jim Powers and God! does he stink! So poor Devon is in with a roided out megastiff and Devon can't do any spots and has to put Power's fat useless ass over anyway. (HEY! That must have been his WCW tryout. He passed with flying colors. Mr.Nash. Mr Hall...:)) Earl the Pearl I wasn't impressed with and Casanova seems too green to tell. All in all, it will be fun watching these kids grow and I hope all you folks who are going to the Mid-Atlantic Super J Cup have a good time (and get me a tape.:))
-I watched a KICK ASS Kanemoto/Jericho vs Liger/Samurai match (GLENN!) where, as always in a Kanemoto match, the point is to be the world's biggest dick. Once again the award goes to WILDLY resurgent El Samurai who is getting to Togo-esque terms of bad-assness. Liger was as great as Liger always is, slapping the  punks around and being Godlike in so many ways, but Kanemoto is BACK and it RULES! WOO HOO! The Stiffness! The Surliness! The Sun-In to bring out his highlights! It really gets no better than this! He is equally as awesome in the Takaiwa/Ohtani/Kanemoto vs Liger/El Samurai/Honaga match with the angry old guys using age and guile to outsmart their youngster opponents. El Samurai does a major selling faux pas by basically no-selling a Death Valley Drop by Takaiwa but it may have been that the young fella move to his next spot too quickly (which actually was probably the case). Kanemoto brings out the bastard in Ohtani and Takaiwa has the makings of a great bastard, so this match was pretty dang perfect. WHO DO I HAVE TO KILL TO SEE TAKA MICHINOKU VS KOJI KANEMOTO!?!?
-I watched the Rey Misterio Jr camcorder tape of him, Jericho and Psicosis wandering around Japan and it was pretty interesting in a weird travelogue kinda way. Psicosis look REALLY FREAKIN........... normal without his mask.:) Jericho seems like the kind of guy you would want to hang around. He seems like a real goofball, in a good way.:) The two matches on the tape are pretty good for a WAR houseshow, I guess. Damian and UD trade fabulous comedy spots and Psicosis tries to kill himself a couple of times. These two matches are nice enough but the strong selling point of the tape is sights and sounds of Japan through the eyes of young men who are fascinated by the snow on the ground and everything else. Plus Jericho is a riot.:)
-Nitro ruled this week. I thought it was funny that they stuck a zillion angles in the undercard matches of SuperBrawl at the last minute. The Makenko/Syxx part was great, I thought and actually worked in heating this ba by up, I think. Calo/Rey was the best they have done so far against each other. Konan/Guerrero was pretty choice. The Steiners of Hazard (tm-somebody!:)) had me thinking- "Last week the Cornette angle, this week a Lawler angle. Hmmmm... what is a trademark Dutch Mantell angle?:)" The TV title thing was very odd. Does this mean Rey gets the TV title at Superbrawl and loses it back to Regal? How did Rey get mixed up in a Regal angle? Where will this leave Iaukea? Will King Curtis come back? Will Sullivan run through the woods and disappear?:) I have weird feeling that they stumbled across the key to getting the Women's Division over, and she used to be Miss Texas. The good thing is that she may spark interest in a women's feud that could get over. The bad thing is that SOMEBODY that I hold dear from GAEA is gonna have to put her over. Or maybe we will luck out and only Medusa will have to do it.:) I dunno- Chigusa could guide her along and get her to the point where she could become a credible brawler, I guess.
NEXT WEEK: THE ASS-STOMPING GAEA Champ Forum! The good BattlARTS Champ Forum! That Ass-load of Lucha Libre I scratched the surface of (LOREFICE!)! The rest of Mid-Atlantic IndieMania! Buff Bagwell and KOjima Blow a ZILLION spots and sorta make up for it in their next match! NWO buys New Japan and other things! YES!
NANIWA~!
                                   Dean Rasmussen, Thunderbirdiac!

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dvd28-
MEIKO SATOMURA! Ikeda! SONOKO KATO! Candy Okutsu! NAKAMAKI! CHIGUSA!! and other stuff I heard and saw this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW # 28! This week I got a Hiney-Load of tapes from Ollie and Mike so I gotta lot of ground to cover and I think everybody got their I Worship Glenn tape, so I'll kick off with that particular whip ass batch of grappling.:)
-The GAEA Champ Forum (GLENN!!) with Reyna Jubuki vs Infernal KAORU KICKED ASS pretty hard during the main event and faultered slightly during the youngsters match. It starts off with the introduction of Ichiki, a young tiny gal formerly of IWA. Her premiere match is tagging with the AWE$SOME Toshie Uematsu vs the surly punks from OZ's army- Nagashima (who is showing glimmers of rulingness) and the AWE$SOME Sugar Sato. This match began real well with Ichiki doing a lot of nifty flying moves. She's very proficient in the midgrade Lucha roll-ups and head scissors and on that base, the tutelage of Chigusa and Hokuto will make her a fine, if not spectacular, wrestler in time. The match gets kinda lost in the middle, where all four kinda spin their wheels for a while, a very odd thing for the super tight, psychology-laden matches that GAEA usually serves up. It can be unspectacular or overly-simplistic in its scope, but there is usually a foundation to every match that gives it a direction. The main event was Freakin Great. Very All Japan in the way it built, with KAORU making a fatal mistake early outside the ring that would finish her off later, Akira Hokuto selling to the hilt and climaxing with the state-of-the-art crippling suplexes that you usually have to look at MUCH uglier people, like Steve Williams:),to acheive. The match goes through a highflying phase with moonsaults and toprope somersaults and what have and that sets up the sell-a-thon where they struggle to get back in the ring, which sets up the onslaught of fantabulous finishing moves. KAORU hits two ASS-KICKING TAKAbomb II's and Akira wins the Steve Williams "you-might-die-from-this" award with the most HELLISH looking T-Bone Tazplex ever. KAORU couldn't have been digging it, as she is thrown directly on her head. On a side note, the Infernal mask was very middle of the pack, not very Jd'-ish at all.:)
-The BattlARTS that Glen sent was yet still another improvement on the one I had seen previously, as these guys really start figuring out where they are going with their very odd mongrel style. The Ikeda/Alexander Otsuka vs those 2 UWFi type of kick-and-suplex guys was BattlARTS at its most realized. It was a true mishmash of styles, weaving in and out from highly worked pro-style (Otsuka hits a freakin GIANT SWING, for God's sake!) to what looks like all-out shootfighting at the end. I don't know why this hasn't caught on yet- it's very post-modern with the wreckless combinations of highly divergent styles. They use shootstyle, but have saves like pro style. One tag partner is worked over and beaten until he makes a hot tag, all the while, not a single running of the ropes is attempted and they work him over with shootkicks and submission attempts. This stuff is freaky and I dig it; I mean the ending is SO hot and TRULY stiff as all Hell, that I was kinda fascinated. The other matches were a lot less. The Minoru match was kinda neat, as he is like the other young punks of BattlARTS, the seediest looking teens this side of an IWA audience.:) The first match sucked, so everything isn't looking up.:)
- I watched IWA 2nd Year Final Battle (OLLIE!!!) and it had the truly grim Nakamaki vs Chacott (who is Fuyuki or Keichi Takano or somebody). It was a barbed wire thumbtack match and Nakamaki proves once again what pathetic sick fuck he truly is as he is powerbombed into thumbtacks and he also tries to press his head into the thumbtacks to make them stick to his head. A good time was had by all.:)
-I watch New Japan's Super Powers Clash from 89 (MIKE!!!)and GOD! that was too much fun! Where are these Russian guys now? RINGS? Extreme Fighting? The guy who wrestled Buzz Sawyer (Zaniev?) was the deal, what did he do after this. The late Buzz Sawyer wasn't afraid to hit a phat-ass perfect German Suplex with a bridge, and then do the AWA screwjob finish which brought back a flood of memories that I had hoped to have drank away in my mid-twenties. The Chosyu/Hashimoto match was pretty good. Hash looks a lot better now with the Elvis look than he looked then with the Steve Miller look.:) The Vader matches were a peck of fun and the Bigelow match was a waste of everybody's time. The announcing by Bockwinkle was hiariously bad (I love the cross-armbreaker being called a headscissors).
-Ollie sent all the GAEA that I had missed over the last few months and there were about a zillion highlights. Candy Okutsu vs Toshie Uematsu was pretty choice, with Toshie showing she can hang with the big girls even if she hasn't passed them yet. Okutsu was the underrated great worker that she always is, as she guided Toshie to a match with quite a few really hot sections, especially when they are trading fabulous rollups. This was a good precursor of the really good Uematsu/Hikari match thatwould happen six months later, after Toshie had really hit her stride. The final of the rookie tourney was the pinnacle of the embarrassment of riches that is the rookie class of 96 of GAEA, as Meiko Satomura and Sonoko Kato showed that they are going to be truly special in the years to come. Their ring savvy is tremendous and their sense of timing and selling is uncanny for two gals who are so young and green. Kato isn't as good as she would become months later (obviously) but her basics of a really good wrestler are everpresent in this formative match between the soon-to-be WAY exciting tag partners. Satomura has expanded her repertiore immensely since this match as it seems her whole deal at the beginning of this year was limited to submission attempts, which made for a REALLy good match against Yamada, but gets kinda one dimensional when it limits the scope of what her opponent can do, and that is definately not a problem anymore for the hot tempered little firebrand.:) The ones who don't pop out here that really pop out later in the year is Sugar Sato and Nagashima, as the heel-turn has focused their style and helped them sort out the way their matches would go later.
-The Chigusa/ Devil Masami match for the AAAW title, in Singapore, was a great low-impact, high psychology woman's match that is becoming the trademark of GAEA when the ladies over 18 get in the ring. Devil Masami sells so WEIRD. My fave is when Chigusa hits her with one of those spinning jumping kicks that she does and Devil stares with her eyes really wide through the hair that is in her face and tries to look corpse-like. She is very Regal-esque in her facials. Chigusa wins the title and a TV set in the end for some reason that I don't want to understand.:)
 -I've calmed down about Nitro and my outrage at shithead going against Galaxy, and Roid Train going over LaParka. I dug Rey/Juventud and it looks like Malenko and Guerrerro are going deeply into the arms of WCW Angledom like their compadre Benoit, but at least they get to wrestle each other and Waltman while our boy Pegasus is stuck in the feud that refuses to end. As for the ECW stuff, all the guys who can work are taken or weren't there. Lance Storm would have been a good idea for this. Hell! Lance vs Miguel Perez would have been GREAT! Miguel Perez vs Savio Vega actually would be good. Perez was a coup. What the hell was Shamrock doing? He is giving up an ASS-STOMPER of a match against Bas Rutten to waste time in the WiFF. Say it ain't so.
NANIWA~!
                                 Dean Rasmussen, Subject of the Silver
                                     Kingdom. (Take that, Phil!:)
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dvd29
KANEMURA! Hayabusa! THE GREAT SASUKE! Koji Kanemoto! GLADIATOR! TAKA MICHINOKU! and other stuff and heard I saw this week
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #29! It has been a big week in tape veiwing- what with St Phil sending the Bonanza #3 (Finally!:)) with all the good stuff from the crappy PPVs from January and February mixed in with a batch of other stuff I haven't quite gotten to yet:), and all-around good egg, Michael Bochicchio (You, my friend, KICK ASS!), supplying the new FMW after the multi-month drought.
-The Onita Returns FMW Supershow (MICHAEL!!) from 12/11 RULED! Well, the opening bout sucked REAL bad and the Main Event was more codger-intensive than the last two Piper/Hogan Matches of the Century combined- though the ME did have a certain amount of charm and the opener had me reassured that whoever is Crypt The Keeper is still wrestling over in Japan, as opposed to sweeping up at a local bar somewhere like he could be. It was only four matches so it didn't have Kudo getting mauled by Kandori, but HELL! I guess I'll see that soon enough.:)
The W*ING Kanemura vs The Gladiator was pretty RAD! It was about as good as I was expecting- what with the recent trend that has caught on the last year and a half of having actual wrestling matches on FMW cards- and this one delivered on quite a few levels, though it did have its flaws. The main flaw was that the Gladiator I believe REALLY botched a plancha and got his leg caught in the ropes and Kanemura just kinda went with it and started hitting his knee with a chair. It took a while for the ref to get his foot out and it took a while to get things going at a decent pitch, though they did there eventually. My guess is that they may have wanted to do a thing where he gets his leg caught like that but figured it would be easier to get it out. The upside is that it worked to force Gladiator to sell the knee for a while and gave Kanemura something to focus on, which he did and it fiiled up the middle of the match. The transition to the pretty hot ending (actually) started with a great table spot where W*ING Kanemura, while draped in a W*ING flag, dives off the top turnbuckle onto the restrained (by the W*ING expatriots) Gladiator. Gladiator returns the favor later by doing an over-the-top-rope powerbomb onto a table on the floor, all of which which was about too beautiful to believe. Between these furniture intensive  spots was a mountain of wrestling that culminated in a truly fun nearfall fest with suplexes, Thunderfire Powerbombs and Screwdrivers galore. It was a lot like the other good FMW actual wrestling matches, but with the two added tablespots in and the whole middle part of Gladiator unable to do an Awesomebomb because he was selling the knee shots. I watched a batch of W*ING (HESHAM!) this week and the difference between Kanemura there and Kanemura here lately is that if you put his insane spots in the middle of a good wrestling match, they are pretty freaking awesome. If you build a match around them, you have a sick fuck trying to kill himself. Kanemura is freaking me out. I NEVER figured I would EVER like him, but that's all changed.
The Great Sasuke vs Hayabusa was really good with Hayabusa not being the irritating whipping boy that he usually is which I hate and Sasuke being as spectacular as he usually is which I love. Both of these guys aren't afraid to take a shot at killing themselves and this was no different in a lot of ways. The difference is that the innate coolness of Sasuke as a wrestler calmed Hayabusa down to actually work a good match. Hayabusa actually hit a couple of cool suplexes including a great spinning BrainBuster, which was a new one on me and I finally saw what a Falcon Arrow and that's pretty neat- sort of a toprope TAKAbomb. Sasuke hit a great Sasuke Special II and I don't remember a Hilo con Plancha so maybe he is trying to make it to 35 afterall.:) Hayabusa is such a carry-able wrestler when he wants to be and this is was a good example of someone guiding him along to a good match. The fact that he was aggressive and tough and not such a wimpering wuss like he has been the last eight matches I've seen him in helped this match immensely. In a related note, the temporary headwear was pretty fabulous- with Hayabusa donning the Falcon motif and Sasuke wearing the carpeted and furry extended Sasuke mask. I was digging this.
The main event showed me a few things. Mr Pogo is very odd as a face and I have trouble sympathizing with a character that sets opponents on fire and Pogo being even slower than before is REALLY pathetic. Onita is still a lot of fun, if just too freakin melodramatic when its all over. Ooya is FREAKIN GREAT as a bastard heel. What a dick!:) Ditto Funk! And the main thing I've noticed is that the better dressed that Masato Tanaka is, the less he'll get to do. Tanaka wears those hideous biking pants in his real wrestling matches where he rules it so hard. In these Street Fight deals, he eschews the basic Wranglers (which are the Streetfight staples of most folks, especially Onita) and instead dons the durable and sporting Charcoal grey Eddie Bauer denim pants with fabulous yellow T (though it becomes totally red by the end there). He gets in to good suplexes and a big plancha. Ooya gets in one good side suplex. Tanaka gets the pin, which is something I guess, but I'm far more excited about getting a tape of the Tanaka/Gladiator bout from last week- bad pants and all, than seeing  im get the pin in a match where he kinda wander arounds the arena staying out of the grandpas' collective way.:)
-TAKA vs Kanemoto was GREAT (GLENN!! Who ascended to Mt Olympus this week to find his place among the other gods.:)) But it was cut all to pieces. TAKA kinda kicks Koji's ass for a while, smacking him around, hitting that springboard inverted moonsault and doing those little kicks to the head that make him the idol of millions (here on RSPW at least:)) and then Koji turns it around and works TAKA over, smacking him upside the head and hitting his KAORUesque arsenal of moonsaults. I REALLY love these two guys and this made me hope that this whole match shows up on a commercial tape somewhere. I REALLY want a bunch more matches between these two.
 -I watched the Super Delfin Commercial Tape (HESHAM!!!) and it was hilarious. Between him macking on the ladies in a truly playerish way and the highlights from Hamada's UWF, it was cool to see how Flair-like our boy Delfin was. There is fab match against what had to be Misterioso. He should have definately kept the babes with the flower pots.:)
-I watched all the good matches from Souled Out and,if I had just seen only them, I'd say,"Hey, Nitro is really kicking ass this week.:)" The Chono/Jericho match was pretty good I thought and the Buff/Riggs match was pretty good (I'm getting so addicted to Buff after seeing his NJ-NWO "I'm an American idiot" stuff:)). The Guerrero/Waltman match was really good I thought, especially with Waltman giving as much as he did. I'm definitely back on the Waltman bandwagon (at least until the next PPV.:)) St,Phil stuck the beauty pageant on just to add levity to the occasion I guess.:)
-I watched the trios match from Royal Rumble and it wasn't the worst trios match I've seen, but it was very good. Garza and Heavy Metal were good and Jerry Estrada RULED IT when he NO-SOLD HIS OWN JERRY-BUMP! Now that's tough!:) Aguayo and El Canek should have been in the Rumble and Latin Lover and Perro Aguayo Jr (who was actually in the building and can work fucking circles around his old man) should have rounded out that cast of Luchadores. That would have ruled. McMahon was so oblivious of these guys it was embarrassing, which is unfortunate because he was TRYING to call the match and get them over, but it was just outside of the realm of his announcing ability. He has enough trouble calling a Lawler/Brett Hart match, much less a corkscrew plancha.
NEXT WEEK: Liger/Ohtani! The Special Attack (tee-hee! This is already written in my head! I'm SO STOKED !!) Michinoku Pro Champ Forum with Naniwa vs Funaki and shocking angle at the end! Michinoku Pro Championship matches tape that MB sent! The jillion tapes that M'man Lorefice sent! GAEA! GAEA! GAEA! and [[I SWEAR!!]] a mountain of LUCHA! Wotta Week!
CHEETAH~!
                                  Dean Rasmussen, KanemotoHEAD!
P.S- Here is a plug for Glenn's nCo beautiful webpage because all of these dvdrv babies, Pete's fantabulous and essential Lucha reports and Scott's Takako shrine are housed there and because I dig everybody involved (even YOU, Kawadaboy!):
http://www.photon.co.jp/sections/f_staff/nCo WOO-HOO!
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dvd30
OHTANI! Liger! HOKUTO! Uematsu! KAORU! Ichiki! TERRY TAYLOR! Bobby Eaton! and other stuff on the positive tip this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #30! This week I'm gonna do the other half of the Glenn Tape I got with the MONSTER Ohtani/Liger match and the GAEA Bridge Ladies of Death Tape, part II. I also watched a batch of early 90's WCW stuff. I also started the Japanese Women's Wrestling Marathon of Marathons so this will be a little brief as I wanted to TRY to do all of those tapes all at once. WOO-HOO!
-John Williams (beloved yet Beelezebub-esque:)) tipped me off on what the Ohtani/Liger J-Crown Match was gonna be like when he said it was a lot like a certain match recently at Koruken Hall and I'm sure he meant that it compares QUITE a bit to the Misawa/Kobashi Triple Crown match from last month in psychology and perfection of selling and execution- though of course there was a lot of differences also, but I'll try to get to those later.:) Both matches were basically the Old Veteran is doing everything he can to finish off the upstart, but the upstart- feeling the need to replace the veteran in his position of greatness, and realizing that this match is his best opportunity- isn't going down regardless of the number of TigerDrivers or FishermanBuster Suplexes the old fella does. Ohtani and Kobashi sell similarly, getting those overwrought facials that young punks are allowed to get. Kobashi is too old for that, so he doesn't do it in his match for  the first time since I've seen him, which is the first step of reaching the true top level of All Japan- being the veteran that doesn't have to get all fired up, but one who can stoicly take your opponent apart. The much younger Ohtani is much more excitable, and Liger is more Misawa than Misawa in terms of greatness so this definitely took on an identity of its own by the time one thinks about it overall. Liger hits Ohtani with all his past finishers- Fisherman Buster Suplex, Liger Bomb and they don't put him away. Ohtani used everything in his arsenal, this side of his rarely used springboard DDT, to get the win. There were lots of nearfalls both ways with the best ones for Ohtani after the springboard missile kick at the end and after they did the spot that Ohtani and Ultimo Dragon did in their match where UD is perched on the turnbuckle and kept knocking Shinjiro off except, this time, Ohtani hits the frankensteiner. The ending of both of the J-Crown and The Triple Crown Match had similar endings in that both Misawa and Liger both start using their famous striking move to get the win- Misawa hitting all those elbows between TigerDrivers and Liger beating the crap out of Ohtani with palm thrusts. Liger has his finisher in his match made to look a lot stronger because it was a beautifully-sold running palm thrust that Ohtani made look like he was hit with a baseball bat. What a GREAT match and what a great month for wrestling!
-The GAEA Champ Forum with the Akira Hokuto/Toshie Uematsu vs KAORU/Ichiki match was pretty beautiful and VERY grim. The Bridge Club of GAEA continues to take out their frustrations at getting older by beating the holy hell out the youngsters- even one's they are tagging with. The match is full of neckwrenching AJ suplexes and assorted drivers with Ichiki taking the brunt of the truly Hellish Akira BackDrop Driver and Uematsu taking the brunt of the KAORU-does-the-TAKABomb. Toshie also does an assisted double leg drop off the top to the floor that much pretty ended up with her landing on her head after Akira throws her WAY to hard at the young Miss Ichiki and KAORU. Ichiki looked as good as she has looked so far, which would figure since Akira was there to help her through it (and slam her on top of her head). Toshie looked EVEN SPUNKIER being all tough and whatnot with Akira. Akira is looking GREAT these days assuming the role of the total cranky old woman who is absolute death in the ring. She works so stiff and is so dynamic, you forget that she has been through an entire crippling career in AJW and shouldn't be able to walk that well, much less improve her arsenal to include state-of-the-art All Japan moves. She's always had flawless psychology so I'll just restate that here.
GAEA rules yadda yadda yadda..:)

-I watched a bunch of early 90's WCW and GOD! did a lot of it suck. The York Foundation was one of the stupidest ideas in wrestling, with the stomach-churning computer crap, but it did get involved with the best match of the stuff I saw, which was Terry Taylor vs Bobby Eaton for the TV title tournament. It was very Mid-South: sound psychology, no highspots, hellish bumps, clean pinfall, high workrate. I'm glad I saw that because I remember Taylor being a great worker from UWF, but I had forgotten how good Eaton used to be. The Pillman/Tom Zenk vs Midnight Express match was really good. Lane and Eaton
are about at their peak here as they hit everything perfectly. Lane was a good worker if not in the Eaton category. Zenk looked like he might have become something at that point, I can't remember what happened to change that. The rest was mindwrenchingly bad to well-documentedly good.:)

-I watched ECW last week, as I was in Tidewater under direct orders from the Army of Grandmas-The Strongest Force In The Universe:) and all I can say is that Tommy Rich as a Full-Blooded Italian was the best thing I have EVER seen on that show. A old, fat, drunk redneck pissing people off in Phuiladelphia was absolute MAGIC. I think I might have cried at the sheer beauty of it all. That rookie looked promising and Little Guido is realy good I think. The rest sucked donkey lungs.

NANIWA~!

                                   Dean Rasmussen, SonokoHEAD!
 
 

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