Matt D

Deep breath and back to NJPW. 7/7/87: Dangerous Violent Warlord vs Lukewarm George Takano: Warlord was so, so green. At times, he'd have good instincts when it came to when to give and when not to. There was a funny bit early where he just ate Takano's stuff and Takano had a surprised look on his face before Warlord crushed him. At other times, he went over too easy. Or he'd do a straight knee instead of a pressing one to the gut "kitchen sink" (hate that phrase but you'll know what I mean) style. Or he'd let Takano bodyslam too early into the match when it didn't mean anything. Lots of stuff like that. Finish was him pushing Takano away to dodge an axe handle off the top, press slamming him throat first onto the top rope, and hitting a huge jumping clothesline. Then instead of pinning him he hits a weak dumb elbow smash and then pins him. Super imposing looking though. 7/7/87: Bigelow/Buzz Sawyer vs Muto/Fujinami: I thought Muto goes to NOW as the token young guy at some point? Their Taue? Guess not yet. This was pretty awesome, let me tell you. Sawyer's a nut and he brings out the nuttiness in Bigelow. And Muto feels like the perfect opponent for him in some ways. At one point, he cartwheeled over Muto's prone body and dropkicked him. Then Muto went for the handspring into the corner and Bigelow just tossed him and chucked him over his head. Glorious stuff. Heels worked well together too, drawing the ref so illegal stuff could happen on the outside. Eventually Fujinami came in hot. But they eventually got the advantage again. Finish was Bigelow press slamming Muto to the floor and then helping Sawyer pile drive Fujinami. At that point they shoved the ref and got dqed and then started tearing up chairs and what not. Good stuff. 7/12/87: Takada/Fujiwara vs Choshu/Kobayashi: It's Kobayashi not Koyabashi. I just have to say that 100 times. I need a device to remember that. Kobayashi has a b before y; b is for better, as in better than Cobra/George Takano. This was a HH and kind of hard to see. I guess that the NEW/NOW thing hadn't gotten to house shows yet? What we could see was pretty awesome though! Choshu and Fujiwara continued warring. Kobayashi (better than Cobra) was just a really bright flash of excitement. He could do all of the Tiger Mask era stuff but make it work with the UWF guys because he made it look credible. It's hard to talk about specifics because it was hard to see but they were able to get some heat on Fujiwara until he pressed up and did his flip over escape to get a tag. They got some on Takada and then on Fujiwara again until he headbutted his way out of it. Choshu and Kobayashi did some of the Ishin Gundan double teams you'd expect like the Slaughter Cannon. Finish was very good as Takada spinkicked Kobayashi into his own corner and Choshu came in hot. Fujiwara broke up the Scorpion but Kobayashi got him out of the way so Choshu could hit the lariat. Good stuff but I wish we had this one proshot or even a better quality HH. Glad we have it at all though.

I'm glad that they put RVD in a spotty 4-way elimination match instead of tying him to the HOOK stuff by "giving" us Jericho vs RVD in 2024 as a rematch from their match that Jericho got pissy about on the internet all those years ago for people not liking it as much as he thought they should. Also, Emi vs Yuka on Rampage should be delightful.

They taped Manders/Tankman/BEEF vs Mogul Embassy last night.

The Bloodsport Bushido card is wild.

… what if Chuck hugs Shane?

What if he hugs Taylor instead?

Cassidy vs Taylor should be great fun. Hopefully Trent causes Cassidy to lose since Taylor could use the win.

4/4 fin

I mean I wouldn't have necessarily booked it but more power to those crazy Deadlock people.

I can discount a couple (1, 6, 9) but in general, it's tough to decide. I did consolidate all the reviews if that helps: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/topic/8657-matt-watches-1989-ajpw1986-njpw-on-a-treadmill/&do=findComment&comment=1366422

Doing a quick doublepost as I moved all the Bock vs Jumbo matches into here so I have them in one place.

4/4 con't

There's never been a game ever in the history of all games where I was glad for carrying capacity or though it improved the experience. I want to pick up everything there is to pick up. I've been replaying Golden Sun 1+2 on the NSO and it's so annoying that all of the necessary psynergy items count against your total item count for a character. Just let the characters learn the abilities without an item then.

You think Maddie might have had an issue at least.

Knight vs Parker was worked with a lot of bells and whistles (pre match ambush, blood, interference, valets getting removed, low blow, lots of late match kickouts). It just feels like something from another reality though.

So I could not have predicted where this was going:

11 year old is very annoyed with me that I’m not letting her see it until I see the next couple of episodes. I read the interview with the showrunner and it looks like time travel isn’t fixing this. Real case of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should”, but the execution was good.

Also, Jae, you want to watch all the Danielson stuff but especially check out the two CMLL in AEW matches. Then you can watch the two AEW in CMLL matches.

Hits keep coming:

This is a thing you missed:

See I half think that’s ROH instead. Rampage is more of a Worldwide.

Danielson, Claudio, FTR, Garcia, Shibata? Or maybe Christian in there. Brody King? Eddie? I don't know. Give it some time. They run a lot of six-man tags on Collision. But it's really Danielson's show in a lot of ways now that Punk is gone.

Dynamite is Triple H led Raw with more workrate. Collision is Smackdown Six era Smackdown. Rampage is Heat. ROH is FCW/OVW/Deep South.

I didn't. I saw it once, with commercials, so it's hard to judge structurally and I don't want to go back for it. It went two breaks, which was a lot. At times, I thought Copeland felt like he was wrestling "random luchador" for the first time and he was doing stuff that would have made more sense against Fenix, but then because of the size differential, that wouldn't have worked, so it was kind of awkward and performative but also still just snuck into the "What worked" category when they ran those spots. You could buy Adam Copeland, the character, trying to pull this stuff given the opportunity. It's funny how Excalibur has no idea what to call most of Copeland's moveset. Not calling the Edgucator is fine (though not being familiar with it isn't), I get that, but call the Electric Chair Drop! That was almost nostalgia seeing him pull that out, and it's weird to have Edge nostalia but it's probably more Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain nostalgia, you know? The apron powerslam was neat but there's just too much apron offense in general. It's every match almost. That's not their fault here. I think it overachieved but it overachieved against a lower baseline given the pairing. It's definitely a positive check in the "Copeland stretches outside the WWE system" column.

There are weeks with almost nothing I want to see. There are weeks where I want to see almost everything. Usually it's a Dynamite/Collision split with Rampage in the middle though. The next few TVs are looking pretty fun though.