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Gordi the former AEW fan

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Everything posted by Gordi the former AEW fan

  1. If Kawada had left AJPW early, everyone's All Time Greatest Matches lists would look so different!
  2. @Curt McGirt Next they set some old dude down in the ring for an interview, give a ten bell salute and he starts crying. What's up with that? That was the retirement ceremony for Kintaro Ohki, who was one of the three big rookies under Rikidozan (along with Kanji Inoki and Shohei Baba). IIRC, he ended up a bigger star in his native Korea than he ever was in Japan. He was famous for having an iron-tough head. His big spot was running full speed into the ring post, head first.
  3. North Dakota State. What do you have to do there to graduate? Milk a cow with your left hand?
  4. The V was apparently Don Sanders https://www.cagematch.net/?id=2&nr=14240&page=4 He holds a singles victory over Kenta Kobashi!
  5. My first pick would be Baba. Beloved promoter, probably the greatest booker ever, super solid and over babyface as a champion and as a comedy mid-carder, and a distinctive and recognizable voice on colour commentary. I'd recommend a 32-person active roster, at least 6 of whom should be women, 1 promoter, 1 booker, 1 ring announcer, 1 to 3 commentators, 2 or 3 referees, and between 2 and 12 "miscellaneous" personnel (such as managers, valets, agents, dojo training staff, corner men, ring boys, music producers, video staff, or what have you. Everyone picks 1 home arena. Total roster size: minimum 40, maximum 50. Active wrestlers limited to 32 so everyone has a chance to grab some stars and some favourites. People like Heenan or Baba can fill multiple roles while only taking up one roster spot. Everyone has a time machine and unlimited funding but once a person is picked they are totally off the board going forward. So, for example, if somebody picks Super Strong Machine then Junji Hirata, Sonny Two Rivers, Makai #1 etc are all off the board as well. I'd also recommend really stressing patience, as wilh everyone in different time zones you'd need a 12- to 24- hour window for making picks, so the draft would likely stretch out for weeks.
  6. Here's another damned good Piper brawl: And I am sure there will be more Hansen and more Gordy posted here soon enough, too.
  7. Hey @Edwin what I've done here is translate some of the commentary from the legendary Kawada vs Misawa June '94 match. My Japanese is good enough for most daily life situations, but listening to news or sports commentary at full speed is still tough for me. It's likely I've missed some of the nuances of what the announcers are saying. At the top of the show: Fukuzawa: If you're even thinking about changing the channel to our competition, fans, do not., because we've learned that at our competition, Yoshiaki Fujiwara is going to wrestle Shinya Hashimoto for their world title! Heh. That's gonna put some butts in the seats.. Hah. Baba: Will you stop! Wakabayashi: Fans, we've got a great night of action here for you here on Super Power Series! Abdullah The Butcher and Giant Kamala are here! In tag team action, we've got Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama vs Akira Taue & Tamon Honda... and what a main event we've got for you this evening! Baba: A Triple Crown Title Match. Wakabayashi: Champion Mitsuharu Misawa takes on top contender Toshiaki Kawada. It should be a real slobber-knocker! Fukuzawa: Both of those ham 'n' eggers attended Ashikaga Institute of Technology in Tochigi. What do you have to do there to graduate? Milk a cow with your left hand? Baba: Gimme a break! Fukuzawa: It's the greatest night in the history of our sport! At around the 25-minute mark, Kawada crushes Misawa, whi is bleeding from his ear, with a dangerous backdrop followed up by two folding powerbombs: Baba: Oh! Right on the external occipital protuberance! Wakabayashi: Will somebody stop the damned match? Baba: Good Gawd almighty! Wakabayashi: Buh Gawd! Count faster! Put them out of their misery! Fukuzawa: You know what's at stake? A man'll do anything! Wakabayashi: Pulling out all the stops, Toshiaki Kawada doing whatever necessary to hang in there. Fukuzawa: I'd do that to my own grandmother if I had to. Baba: I'm sure you would. Misawa puts Kawada away with the tiger driver '91: Fukuzawa: Tiger Driver '91! Tiger Driver '91! Tiger Driver '91! Wakabayashi: As Gawd is my witness, Kawada has been broken in half! Baba: What a maneuver! Wakabayashi: He gave us everything he had in him, tonight. Baba: This was the greatest night in the history of our sport. Fukuzawa: The pleasure was all yours, Baba.
  8. The Buffalo Bills had a handsome and popular running back who rushed for 2000 yards in one season and started in national TV commercials. Maybe he could have been a celebrity guest wrestler in the '70s!
  9. Oh hell yeah this is a great choice for me right now. I assume that almost everyone on these boards has seen Beyond the Mat and is familiar with the context of this match from that documentary. I've also been re-reading a bunch of my favourite wrestling books to kill time during the crisis, and both Bret and Terry talk about this match in their books. Funk goes into more detail but there were three interesting tidbits from Bret's book that made the match even more interesting for me: 1) Bret was ill with the flu and working a busy schedule, and 2) this was their first time ever working together, both of which I think help explain the deliberate pacing of this match and 3) Dennis Stamp was Bret's first opponent when he worked in Amarillo as a young boy, which adds even more emotion to the story of Stamp working as the ref here (he does a fine job). This was a Terry Funk retirement match, and there are too many possible jokes here so I will just let you choose your own. In his book, Funk says that the match was in fact billed as his last match in Amarillo, not as his last match ever. What is most interesting to me, on watching the whole match separate from the documentary, is how much this is worked like Bret is the touring champion, putting over the local hero while scraping out a win. As I said, the match is worked at a pretty loose pace, but I think that works really well with the structure they are using here: After some really lovely chain wrestling (they were very clearly doing the dance), Bret pretty much dominates the wrestling portion of this match. He works over Funk's leg in a wide variety of ways, while needlessly throwing in cheap shots to Funk's eyes and throat (taking advantage of the no-DQ stip... but also doing most of it when Stamp isn't looking). Then, when the crowd is nice and riled up Terry starts firing back while on his knees and even, at one point, flat on his ass. When the brawling goes outside, Funk finally takes the advantage. Funk slips on a banana peel during the big (and arguably unnecessary) table spot and that leads into a hot finishing section where both men get near-falls off of reversing the other's finishing hold. The actual finish is perfectly appropriate for the "touring champ" type of match that they were working here. I guess I could have done without Bruce Hart trying to draw so much attention to himself, but it was neat seeing Stu in Bret's corner. In fact, even more than the in-ring action, what I love about this is that it is two of my absolute favourite pro wrestlers of all time showing a deep and abiding respect for each other. whether it was Bret selling his fear of the spinning toe hold or Terry doing the honours, this came across as representatives of two of the great wrestling families showing their mutual esteem. It felt good to watch this.
  10. In his book, Flair says that he and Perfect had to go to Savage's house to practice the match. He says that because of that he doesn't consider Savage to be a great worker, although he respects him.
  11. Oh hell yeah, @Edwin that is a modern classic of a brawl. It gets pretty crazy at the end with these two guys rolling around in the gravel winging potatoes at each other. Hard to believe that a guy in his 60s can dish out and take that much punishment.
  12. 100 % OK with me! Bryan Danielson, Johnny Saint, Mexican Minis, Dick Togo, Terry Funk, Dynamite Kansai, Jim Breaks, The British Bulldogs, or John Tenta, please. EDIT: yeah, I'd be down with a squash match grab bag, too.
  13. Man, what a pure joy it is to be able to watch something like that. Just yesterday I watched one of Andre's last matches, a 6-man tag with Baba and Dory Jr. And now today to see one of his earliest matches. So nice. Damned good pro wrestling, too.
  14. It's interesting that they repeated the mistake at WM13, putting Sid vs Taker as the ME over Bret vs Austin. You think they would have learned their lesson here. Also, I am not sure if "she's damaged goods!" would really have worked to enrage any man. I think at least some men realise and accept that their significant other has had some experience elsewhere. It sure works for an overly possessive lunatic like Savage, though. Just the two perfect characters to play out this particular angle.
  15. @Goodear I enjoyed the analysis you did of that sitcom 6-man tag with Vader (that, I believe, Octopus recommended to me) a while back, so I thought I'd give you a 6-man tag to review. A lot of the famous/classic ones are pretty long so instead please choose one of these two shorter not quite classic matches, each of which is pretty interesting in its own way.
  16. Now. This. This match right here. This one. It is NOTHING BUT CLUBBERING. Seriously. Not one move. Not one hold. Pure uncut clubbering. It is glorious.
  17. So your post made me curious and I found some clips of that segment on YouTube and... Yikes! That was rough to watch. I can't imagine who - other than maybe HHH, HBK, and Vince - that was meant to amuse or entertain in any way. I felt deeply embarrassed for them. I couldn't even get any schadenfreude out of it. Good Lord that was awful.
  18. That punch! Sangre Chicana-esque! And (I have made this joke before, but) Masked Superstar later in his career was literally a super (wrestling) Machine. Anyway, the logarithm keeps giving me stuff that I somehow had no idea existed. Today, it's absolute wrestling machines Toshiaki Kawada and Ricky Morton in the same ring as Footloose take on The R'n'R Express!! I have seen (and loved) The Fantastics in Japan, but this match-up very much surprised me. We actually, happily, get a sequence where Kawada & Fuyuki trap Morton in the red half of the ring and beat him down while Gibson fires up the Japanese crowd... and we get a double noggin knocker and a do-si-do spot in an All Japan ring!
  19. Letting the wrestlers find their own way seems to be working out better than I might have expected. I can remember late last year being impressed with how they were getting Private Party, Sammy, and Darby over but at the same time complaining that Hangman Cowboy, Doctor Baker the Dentist, and the Brandi & Awesome Dark Whatever were not working for me at all. I was far from alone in those feelings. Now: Baker and Page are two of the hottest acts in the company, and they moved on from the Brandi missteps. They are certainly not batting 1000 but they really seem to be hitting more often than they miss.
  20. Hitman vs Hot Rod is absolutely one of my all time favourite matches. Not every match has to tell a story, but that particular match is one of the best examples of how good pro wrestling can get as a story-telling medium. Excellent character work and in-ring acting by both men.
  21. It was a talking point that AEW definitely started themselves. Before the first TV show, they talked a lot about how it would have more of a sports feel and presentation, particularly focusing on how "wins and losses would count" in AEW. It's obviously turned out to be much more about a bunch of likable performers having fun at work. I, personally, am quite happy with that outcome. I don't think that the current roster would be well suited to present any kind of Americanized UWFi, or whatever it a that some people seem to be hoping for. The people who are hoping for a more realistic show are absolutely basing their hopes on how Dynamite was originally talked up, however.
  22. It's a damned interesting thing, watching a bunch of brawls like this, how spots (like, say, someone taking off their boot and using it as a weapon) crop up in different matches, and how you can start to make connections like Rikidozan/Kowalski -> Wahoo/Valentine. You can also see who influenced who, and how, and where people went with things. It's even more fun than I'd anticipated. That Tenryu tumble over the barricade was indeed a thing of beauty. I think my favourite "you might almost miss it if you are not paying attention" moment in that match comes just after Young Kawada hits the German on Gordy - when Hansen stands on Kawada's boot and kicks him in the leg like he's trying to knock his (clears throat, looks around) foot loose from his body.
  23. Hansen & Gordy vs Tenryu & Baby Kawada is right up there with Tsurutu & Tenryu vs Choshu & Yatsu as Greatest 80s AJPW tag match that is also in the GMOAT discussion. Such lovely psychology and story telling mixed in with all the violence, and a good candidate for Best Hansen Lariat Ever, as well. My favourite moment from those two videos, though, is DiBiase setting up for a dropkick and then apparently thinking "nah, that's too fancy for this match" and going right back to clubbering. Also: How much easier must it have been to be a booker when * being from New Zealand * was enough to make you a heel, and waving the Kiwi flag could drive the crowd into a frenzy. Also also: it was nice of Strike Force to lend Williams & DiBiase their gear. I believe this is the famous "I broke Wahoo's Leg" match. It's only about 50% clubbering, but the strikes are every bit as stiff as you'd imagine. Valentine does his father proud here:
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