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Rampage - 6/2/2023


The Natural

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One of the few wrestling shows I've been able to sit all the way through in a long time. Rampage had no business being that good. 

ZSJr is always a great watch. Love his in ring style and swagger. Thought he got a good match out of Action, who I haven't really been following since his 1st big win over Jericho. 

I thought Willow vs Emi was a slugfest. They were really laying into the chops. It's interesting that Emi worked as if she is as strong as Willow. Loved that hesitation and then snap in the Dr. Bomb for the finish.

Shibata vs Moriarty was a great ME. Not sure what was up with Shibatas entrance but they kept it rolling and got down to business. Stiff penalty kick. Shibata gives me young Kenta vibes

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1 hour ago, AverageKong said:

Shibata gives me young Kenta vibes

You should watch the early trial series Shibata had in BML (I think) where he fought a bunch of NJPW legends. It was SUPER snotty; he just pissed testosterone all on the gods and the gods rained down upon him with a mighty vengeance. 

Okay I found a couple: 

Spoiler

「W-1」 Katsuyori Shibata vs. Jun Akiyama - YouTube

BML - Katsuyori Shibata vs Satoshi Kojima - YouTube

BML - Katsuyori Shibata vs Kensuke Sasaki - YouTube

Well damn here is a two hour comp! 

BML - Katsuyori Shibata Collection - YouTube

It starts out with him vs. FUCKING MURAKAMI so you should probably begin there even if you don't wanna watch 'em all. 

 

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Yeah, ZSJ vs Andretti overdelivered. I think you could have plugged a lot of people into Andretti's spot and it'd still have worked just as well, but maybe not particularly better, so it's a good showing for him and frankly a good couple of months even if I like the total product more than his specific inputs. Sabre was living the little bits of magic and smoothness and Andretti had big sweeping stuff so it worked. The selling was good from both guys. I love how Sabre sold the tope immediately thereafter and then moving forward. It probably went a couple of extra minutes too long but they were good moments. I was a low voter on early-career Sabre doing the Johnny Saint cosplay but he's so much better at being abrupt and intense now.

Willow vs Emi was the most conventional match of the night and while they hit hard, it didn't leap off the screen in the same way some of Emi's other big matches this year did. But that's ok. Everyone wanted Willow to shine and she did. Just a good, solid match to get over the new elevated champ.

Shibata was like an octopus all over Moriarty to start. I don't think this was as interesting as ZSJ vs Andretti but it made me want to see ZSJ vs Moriarty certainly. Andretti vs Shibata would be a mauling. I liked the little bits of character. Shibata's defensive wrestling is a bit poor man's Fujiwara for me, but Fujiwara is the richest man of them all so that's ok. I like Dick Slater even though he's not Terry Funk and Shibata brings certain unique things to the table. Moriarty put him over so much that it felt impressive that he was hanging at all, even if it was in very measured and deliberate ways that were more or less meant, through necessity, to just contain him. And Shibata was able to take over almost whenever he wanted. Bring on Garcia.

 

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3 hours ago, Matt D said:

Shibata was like an octopus all over Moriarty to start. I don't think this was as interesting as ZSJ vs Andretti but it made me want to see ZSJ vs Moriarty certainly.

I was thinking the same about ZSJ vs Moriarty. I think those 2 stylistically would gel really well together

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11 hours ago, Dog said:

I felt bad for Moriarty when that match ended up as pretty much an extended squash. 😕

This has kinda been a thing with Shibata in AEW. He squashed Yuta to win the belt too. He's like the opposite of Roman Reigns who is presented an unstoppable force but squeaks by every match with tons of cheating. Shibata is presented as great, but not super dominant, yet demolishes all of his opponents, especially in the context of pure rules. He countered Lee's finisher straight up instead of using the ropes when he had all 3 left lol.

His matches are all good, but they could probably stand to alter his presentation as head and shoulders above so that whoever finally beats him gets a big rub.

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When Shibata wrestled Orange Cassidy, he was just returning from a long injury layoff and his brain hadn't fully re-integrated with the inside of his head yet. Now he's back in ring shape, and his cybernetic implants are fully functional and his skull is properly bolted back together (like Eddie from Iron Maiden) so we're getting Terminator Shibata.

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On 6/3/2023 at 10:22 AM, Matt D said:

No time today. I'm only through the first match, and I had to watch it with the five year old who has never seen any wrestling. But it was lucha and energetic and I could establish pretty quickly that there was the champion, the good guy, and the bad guy, and she popped for all of Vikingo's stuff and the Komander rope walk and was glad that the champion won since she has firm feelings about being champion. Let's not do that again anytime soon though.

I'll get to the rest later.

5 year olds have the best wrestling takes!

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