SECRET SANTO 2023~!

[Casey]

3 hours ago, The Natural said:

Indeed, we meet again. Thanks for my match. Which time period of WWF main events are you after and you have Peacock right if I can't find them on YouTube? Cheers.

I do indeed have Peacock. That’s probably how I’ll watch, given YouTube is trash without an adblocker uhhhh, let’s do the early 90s this time.

[Matt D]

On 1/8/2024 at 5:06 PM, Casey said:

Oh I’d love for you to do PWG, but that’s extremely hard to find on your normal video sites like YouTube or Dailymotion. ROH in 2010 and onwards would probably fill that void nicely. Rollins is champion around this time, however

If you have Honor Club that would work even better, but if not that’s okay too. I can work with that.

Just assume I have access to anything. If I hit a wall in the months to come, I'll let you know.

[Curt McGirt]

Hey, can somebody help out with this? Who is Abbuda Dein from that PR match? It's not Rocky Iaukea, son of King Curtis, because according to both Wiki and Cagematch he never wrestled for the WWC. (I ask this because in the Blood and Thunder vol. 2 book he's noted for working in WAR, so I wanted to take a peek and see if it was the same guy. That book also points out the identity of Jason the Terrible in PR indeed being Karl Moffat because the Puerto Rican dude, whos name escapes me just now, started doing Jason in W*ING after Victor Quinones got ahold of the idea.)

[Matt D]

I watched him some in AJPW. Wiki does say he's King Curtis' son.

Spoiler

3/3/91: Ogawa vs Rocky Ieukea: Rocky came out wearing a net, refused to give it to the ref, and then started the match by tossing it on Ogawa. Fun stuff. Much slower paced and mat based with Rocky using his size and Ogawa having to overcome it. Which he really didn't do much. Rocky took most of this, bullying him around until he missed a splash off the top and Ogawa won with a missile dropkick. I wonder how many single wins he had by this point? Let me see. Ha. He was beating Sasaki in 86. No, he had a bunch of undercard ones through the years so this wasn't a big deal or anything. He didn't win a lot in 1990 though so it probably still felt like an upset especially after the shocking net beginning.

 

[Curt McGirt]

It says he went under that name, yes, but not that he worked for WWC. Cagematch doesn't give any listings for him working WWC either. 

[Matt D]

15 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

It says he went under that name, yes, but not that he worked for WWC. Cagematch doesn't give any listings for him working WWC either. 

Cagematch is really bad for PR. It's been a shock doing the SC project and not having that as a resource to use.

[Matt D]

Anyway, great job this time around guys. Thanks for participating. Past Casey, I'll see the rest of you for the next round this summer.

Edited January 12 by Matt D

[Sammo~!]

This has been an exceedingly busy and emotionally draining holiday season for me. So my apologies on dragging my feet on these writeups. But I've been snowed in for two and I have the time and bandwidth for the important things right now: Pro Wrestling. So here we go 

First things first. I still owe @Gordi the former AEW fan a review from the last Secret Santo: 

Jaguar Yokota vs La Galactica 9/17/84
 

Spoiler

This is one of those matches that I’ve read about, but have never had the pleasure of watching. From the jump Jaguar Yokota is getting mobbed by the fans. The fans are going absolutely bonkers. 1980s AJW crowds are forever incredible. La Galactica storms out in one of the coolest ring jackets I’ve ever seen and jumps Yokota from behind. A bunch of referees and officials jump in to break things up but not before Galactica gets in a couple of cheap shots. Somehow Jaguar Yokota gets cut on the leg in the melee. Shas this amazing face that’s a mixture of rage, indignation, shock, and intent. Galactica is gonna get it. Yokota is too pissed for the flower girls, you love to see it. I guess at this point I should talk about the elephant in the room: the English commentary on this match is butts. I had to tune it out by pretending it was a viewing party and they were the two friends in the room who didn’t know about pro wrestling. Luckily the wrestling was captivating enough, and the original Japanese commentary was unmuted enough that I was able to largely ignore it.

La Galactica is such a great bully heel. She goes straight for the open wound on Yokota’s leg. Taking her down, biting and scratching and getting a couple of nasty looking half-crabs in the ropes. Every time Jaguar tries to create any space, she’s immediately swarmed by Galactica with leg kicks and cheap shots. Eventually Galactica miscalculates and gets sent over the top rope, giving Yokota a chance to catch her breath. The next part of the match is a lot more 50/50. Yokota takes Galactica down with a couple of drop-toe holds and tries to slow things down Galactica is still largely in control however, and every time it feels like Yokota starts to get any kind of advantage she’s pretty quickly shut down by something: knee to the face, tope suicida, tombstone. They brawl to the outside, and Galactica comes back bleeding through her mask.

Jaguar Yokota’s comeback is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Every big move that Galactica hits, Yokota just keeps getting up. She’s fighting for every inch. Her face tells the entire story. Whenever time the camera catches her face you can see she’s 100% powered by “fuck you” energy. There is no way she’s losing this. You can feel her defiance through the screen, it was unreal. One of my favorite recurring Joshi bits is the bridging kickout. It’s probably easier to just throw one shoulder up, but bridging out of the pin is a much more direct display of your willpower. The home stretch sees Yokota bridging out at 2 after several huge moves, including a tombstone piledriver. Galactica goes for a 2nd Tombstone and Yokota flips it over and turns it into a tombstone of her own. And now it’s Galactica’s turn to bridge out at 2. Yokota eventually ducks a Galactica clothesline with a forward handspring, the kind you see in just about every modern open chain-wrestling exchange. But the way this handspring was shot, low angle from the apron, Jaguar Yokota partially backlit and obscured by a spotlight on the ceiling, so you’re not able to get a complete view of the flip, except for the absolute roar of the crowd. It made that seemingly basic flip feel like the climax of an incredible battle, and wouldn’t you know it? Jaguar Yokota hits a german suplex immediately afterward and gets the win. What an incredible match. Thanks for sharing, sorry it took so long to get to this, more for my sake.

 

On 12/11/2023 at 12:03 AM, HeadCheese said:

@sammo Giving you Jiro Kuroshio vs. Seigo Tachibana from Wrestle-1 (5/6/2018)

https://youtu.be/7qTMg4A3UUQ?si=l_w_v89EW-vGa95f

Jiro Kuroshio vs. Seigo Tachibana from Wrestle-1 (5/6/2018)
 

Spoiler

I’m going into this match completely blind. I haven’t seen any Wrestle-1 at all and I’m not really familiar with either wrestler. I know Jiro Kuroshiro becomes Ikemen Jiro in NXT, but after watching this match I can officially say I’ve seen more Jiro Kuroshiro matches than Ikeman Jiro matches, so there’s that. Right away they’re going over the rules of the SPECIAL HARDCORE MATCH, which just seems like you’re typical WWE-style hardcore match with the use of all kinds of zany weapons. Shoutouts to the ANYWHERE HOLD rule though, it’s good to know where you can and can’t HOLD.

The match starts off with Jiro holding … something? I have no idea what it is, it’s like a mesh fence with a metal base, is it a traffic divider? Baseball backstop? Some kind of construction barrier? Who can say! Jiro is using it as a shield however. Tachibana is dual wielding a steel chair and a kendo stick. We’re going ham immediately. They jostle for position and Tachibana drops the chair and is just using the kendo stick, he manages to disarm Jiro of the security barrier-thingie and Jiro immediately goes for an umbrella to defend himself. I just want to say that I really appreciate Tachibana selling his kendo stick bouncing off of Jiro’s umbrella like it’s made of vibranium. Just top-tier cheese. I adored that little touch. The next gag is even better though, they do the bit from every samurai flick and anime where they slide past each other with their weapons, and both men freeze in their slashing poses and…it’s Jiro that falls! We’re off to a great start.

The middle part of the match becomes kind of a tedious walk-and-brawl. Jiro goes into the audience and starts to go shopping, they’re giving him all kinds of weird items to use as weapons: a squeaky toy hammer, a wooden dagger, a pineapple. At this point they’re brawling through the audience and just hitting one another with comical plunder. There is the stiffest pineapple shot I’ve ever seen in my life. At one point Jiro sells a rubber chicken like a bullet to the chest. Jiro performs a mongolian chop and claps Tachibana over the ears while holding two eggs. It’s pretty gross, that’s how you get ear salmonella. Tachibana tries to get up and is slipping on the egg all over the floor and I swear he just said “fuck it” and took a really ugly back bump on to the concrete.  

The match makes its way back to the ring and Tachibana hits Jiro over the head with a laptop and goes for the first pin of the match. Now we’re building contraptions out of chairs and kendo sticks and that weird fence/barrier/thingie and just doing whatever big moves we can through them. This part of the match felt like it was on fast-forward to me. It didn’t feel like any of these huge moves through all the furniture was doing any damage to either the person giving or recieving. Jiro does a swanton from the top outside to a table. Tachibana chokeslams Jiro from the top through that barrier thing. Eventually Jiro hits a moonsault from the top of the ladder and gets the 3-count and he pops back up fresh as a daisy to bow to the crowd.

I don’t know what to think of this match. The opening silliness was great, I feel like there could have been some more creativity with some of the weaponry during the 2nd act of the match where they were just braining each other with foreign objects. And then the closing bit felt rushed and devoid of any gravity to the massive moves being landed. All the pieces were there for a great match, but it was lacking a lot of the little interstitial things that separate good matches from great ones. No connective tissue, but the cool spots were really cool.

 

On 12/17/2023 at 3:06 PM, Casey said:

@Sammo~!

I like weird, interesting match-ups. Specifically shit from Japan.

Some jobber named Dice Morgan and a future HOFer Scott Hall versus Shinya Hashimoto & Masa Saito. It doesn’t even start until 7 minutes in, by the way. It’s just so funny to me seeing Undertaker, about a half of a year away from being who we all know now, taking stiff kicks and punches from Hashimoto. I’ve got no clue if Hall was using the Razor’s Edge at this time in his career, maybe as a transition move, but he gives one to Hashimoto that looks like a struggle and, while it doesn’t have the smoothness as it later would, still looks pretty devastating as far as moves go. Maybe even moreso.

 

Punisher Dice Morgan & Scott Hall vs Masa Saito & Shinya Hashimoto - March 19, 1990 - IWGP Tag Title

 

Spoiler

This is a 2 on 3 Handicap Match, Champions Masa Saito & Shinya Hashimoto vs Dice Morgan (who’s that guy?), Scott Hall, and Scott Hall’s mustache. Dice Morgan is the Infant Undertaker. Scott Hall is MASSIVE, Masa Saito has always been a huge, neckless wonder, but he’s also looking incredible here. We get the foreign heels national anthem spot with Hall and Taker. So good.

It’s kind of wild seeing this version of Mark Calloway, all emotive and selling. He’s playing the big American brawler archetype here. He looks a lot smaller here. I know Scott Hall is like 6’7” and Taker is like 6’10” but Hall is so much bigger than Calloway in terms of musculature here, and Shinya Hashimoto and Masa Saito, while much shorter than the American team, are also both quite large men. Dice Morgan spends most of the match selling, again it’s pretty wild to see how mobile and vocal Taker is. He’s still figuring things out, spending most of his time figuring out how to apply the Iron Claw. Scott Hall, however, has it figured out by now. There’s a bit where he’s applying a spinning toe-hold and at the end of every rotation, he points at Masa Saito and shouts “GIVE UP!”. Pro wrestling.

Masa Saito on offense is a ton of fun. I will never get sick of watching that dude dump people on their heads with Saito Suplexes and Backdrop Drivers. I’ve always loved his version of the figure four, where he’s kneeling in front of the opponent and flexing, just asserting his dominance. Some other highlights: Dice Morgan does the rope walk into chop that Taker would do later, but this version is much quicker and feel more like a proper misdirection spot with how fast and sloppy it looked. I liked it. He also does a really ugly, scary looking gutwrench powerbomb on Hashimoto. Hashimoto looked like he didn’t really want to go up for anything. At one point Scott Hall just yokes him up for a Razor’s Edge. Hashimoto didn’t really want any of that, but Hall didn’t care and just brute forced Hashimoto up over his head and chucked him. The home stretch of the match is just each wrestler hitting a big move, going for the pin and then having the partner come in and break it up. Eventually Masa Saito gets Dice Morgan out of the ring, allowing Hashimoto to hit the DDT and Spinning Wheel Kick for the win.

This match was fun to watch mostly as a weird piece of history. Nothing really special and the outcome was never really in doubt but the action was solid and fun to watch. Scott Hall was already pretty established by this point but he was still 80s mustache Scott Hall, and Dice Morgan was a fun look into Taker’s past. Hashimoto is always fun to watch and it’s cool seeing later-period Masa Saito still kicking ass.

 

 

On 1/2/2024 at 3:12 AM, The Natural said:

Apologies for the delay. Thank you for a Bryan Danielson match I haven't seen. Here's one for you as two days time Danielson will have his first NJPW match in 20 years so to mark it:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3hCoMvRtJhc&pp=ygUZYnJ5YW4gZGFuaWVsc29uIGN1cnJ5IG1hbg%3D%3D

I tend to give people two choices and here's the second only just recently added to YouTube:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lxHscUgchQ0&pp=ygUUYnJldCBoYXJ0IGZ1bGwgbWF0Y2g%3D

Cheers!

Bryan Danielson & Curry Man vs Gedo & Jado 3/12/2004 IWGP JR Heavyweight Tag Title Match
 

Spoiler

This is another one that I haven’t seen. I knew that Danielson and Curry Man were IWGP Jr Tag Champs but I hadn’t seen the match where they had won the belts. Right away I can tell that Gedo had a hand in this match because we immediately get some of the Gedo-isms that bother me in modern NJPW. Jado and Gedo have a third guy who pulls Danielson out of the ring and starts to beat on him. The ref tries to regain control and does end up ejecting the third man. At this point though Jado just grabs a chair and starts wailing on Bryan’s leg. The referee somehow doesn’t see this happening, I assume because he is off camera and lacks object permanence. Like, I understand that Gedo grew up watching Memphis and loves to get heat at the start of the match like this, but I’ve always thought this kind of blatant stuff in front of the ref was egregious. Though I will say it was hilarious how Bryan would swear after every chair shot and get bleeped out.

Eventually they get back in the ring and continue to work on Bryan’s leg, including Jado applying a Stump Puller that would make Doink the Clown proud. They work over Bryan for quite a while, putting him in all kinds of holds and quickly tagging in and out. Bryan’s selling is great here. He’s clearly at a disadvantage but you can see he’s not giving up and you can also tell that he’s working it out in his head and trying to look for any advantage he can get. This Bryan Danielson guy is pretty good at a lot of the small things in wrestling. Eventually Jado over extends himself and eats a boot while running to the corner, and then a 2nd rope diving european uppercut from Danielson. Both men are down and Bryan makes it to the corner for the hot, spicy, tastes great tag to Curry Man. Curry Man runs wild for a little bit before he’s cut off by Gedo. At this point it breaks down. Gedo and Jado try to get Curry Man up for a double team powerbomb and Bryan runs in. There’s one bit where Curry Man does a moonsault onto Bryan and Gedo wrapped up in a figure four that just looked like a recipe for 4 broken legs. Gnarly. Bryan hits the Regalplex, but Gedo kicks out. There’s a blind tag by Curry Man and as Gedo starts to put Bryan into the Gedo Clutch, Curry Man comes in and hits the Angels Wings for the win.

Good match, nothing great. I felt the first part was marred a bit by the interference and chair shots, not that those don’t have a place in pro wrestling, but the heels should at least attempt to make an effort to do it behind the ref’s back. Baby Danielson was great even back then, but he spent most of the match selling. Curry Man was booked as the big star here, getting all of the hero moments in the match. Good match, I like all 4 guys in it, but I’ve seen better individual

 

Edited January 15 by Sammo~!
Added spoiler boxes to break up walls of text

[Curt McGirt]

I love how you're complaining about structure in a match where people are braining each other with pineapples.

9 hours ago, Sammo~! said:

Jado and Gedo have a third guy

Bad Boy Hido? (just guessing)

Anyway, great reviews! 

[HeadCheese]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:28 PM, Gordi the former AEW fan said:

 

Anyway: not really random, but certainly weird and enjoyable: Mutoh and a Mutoh impersonator vs Tenzan and a Chono impersonator:

 

Someone should earnestly take the F-1 Champion. It unironocally is a fun match with rainbow foil and the F1 like logo. Super fun match! I like how much fun they were all seeming to have to have a great time aswell. I don't understand the reference but, the lower third changing because the wrestlers changed outfits is a good bit.

Thank you for recommending this,  I was having a unsure brain time and this brightened my mood. This brought me alot of smiles 

[HeadCheese]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:28 PM, Gordi the former AEW fan said:

Seemingly random, eh? All right, I think I can help you there.

From what you've posted so far, it looks like we have got pretty similar tastes (i.e. we both dig the weird/amusing stuff) so I don't think I need to request "NO WWE OR NXT FOR OLD GORDLOW PLEASE!" but I will anyway.

 I'm gonna try to give you THREE choices. Possibly, one of the doors will have a tiger behind it. While I was tickled when Casey reviewed two of the Bull title matches I gave him and overjoyed when Matt just reviewed ALL of the matches I handed him, I want to make it clear that IT'S PERFECTLY FINE TO JUST CHOOSE ONE. The CAPS are more for my internet buddy porksweats than for you, HeadCheese. I worry that the reason I haven't seen a review of one of the before they were stars ROH matches I gave him is that maybe porky thinks I expect him to do multiple reviews and that is proving daunting.  Also, getting matched up with porksweats and HeadCheese makes me smile. 

I need to switch browsers to post videos, and scroll through my YT history to find my random pairings matches. Please be patient as I append three videos to this post. Also: No need to post my match three times. Once will be fine

Also: Allow me to encourage anyone participating or lurking to dish out the likes and HaHas and Thank You Trophies to anyone doing a decent review longer than a paragraph in this thread. Probably doesn't matter to most of the participants, but: There's some good stuff here! It deserves all the love. Also: My Panamanian wrestling write up from last week getting ZERO love bummed me out and it feels discouraging. Look at John E's review above. It's amusing AND insightful. If you don't give that a like there's something wrong with you. If you are reluctant to give out likes because you are trying to "win the day" THINK ABOUT YOUR LIFE CHOICES. Spreading joy is better than winning. And apparently the key to "winning the day" is just to spam every thread, so why would anyone take pride or joy in that anyway? SPREAD THE JOY AND APPRECIATION!

Anyway: not really random, but certainly weird and enjoyable: Mutoh and a Mutoh impersonator vs Tenzan and a Chono impersonator:

Random, random, random.... How about Sabu, Kasai... and my boy Kikutaro?

Or... Suzuki and Nakazawa? In a match that I am CERTAIN helped to inspire Stadium Stampede

No tigers, but... two non-gory Kasai matches 

Watched the 2v2

Someone should earnestly take the F-1 Champion. It unironocally is a fun match with rainbow foil and the F1 like logo. Super fun match! I like how much fun they were all seeming to have to have a great time aswell especially Tenzan. This match is nice. I don't understand the reference but, the lower third changing because the wrestlers changed outfits is a good bit.

Thank you for recommending this,  I was having a unsure brain time and this brightened my mood. This brought me alot of smiles

[HeadCheese]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:28 PM, Gordi the former AEW fan said:

Seemingly random, eh? All right, I think I can help you there.

From what you've posted so far, it looks like we have got pretty similar tastes (i.e. we both dig the weird/amusing stuff) so I don't think I need to request "NO WWE OR NXT FOR OLD GORDLOW PLEASE!" but I will anyway.

 I'm gonna try to give you THREE choices. Possibly, one of the doors will have a tiger behind it. While I was tickled when Casey reviewed two of the Bull title matches I gave him and overjoyed when Matt just reviewed ALL of the matches I handed him, I want to make it clear that IT'S PERFECTLY FINE TO JUST CHOOSE ONE. The CAPS are more for my internet buddy porksweats than for you, HeadCheese. I worry that the reason I haven't seen a review of one of the before they were stars ROH matches I gave him is that maybe porky thinks I expect him to do multiple reviews and that is proving daunting.  Also, getting matched up with porksweats and HeadCheese makes me smile. 

I need to switch browsers to post videos, and scroll through my YT history to find my random pairings matches. Please be patient as I append three videos to this post. Also: No need to post my match three times. Once will be fine

Also: Allow me to encourage anyone participating or lurking to dish out the likes and HaHas and Thank You Trophies to anyone doing a decent review longer than a paragraph in this thread. Probably doesn't matter to most of the participants, but: There's some good stuff here! It deserves all the love. Also: My Panamanian wrestling write up from last week getting ZERO love bummed me out and it feels discouraging. Look at John E's review above. It's amusing AND insightful. If you don't give that a like there's something wrong with you. If you are reluctant to give out likes because you are trying to "win the day" THINK ABOUT YOUR LIFE CHOICES. Spreading joy is better than winning. And apparently the key to "winning the day" is just to spam every thread, so why would anyone take pride or joy in that anyway? SPREAD THE JOY AND APPRECIATION!

Anyway: not really random, but certainly weird and enjoyable: Mutoh and a Mutoh impersonator vs Tenzan and a Chono impersonator:

Random, random, random.... How about Sabu, Kasai... and my boy Kikutaro?

Or... Suzuki and Nakazawa? In a match that I am CERTAIN helped to inspire Stadium Stampede

No tigers, but... two non-gory Kasai matches 

Watched the 2v2

 

Someone should earnestly take the F-1 Champion. It unironocally is a fun match with rainbow foil and the F1 like logo. Super fun match! I like how much fun they were all seeming to have to have a great time aswell especially Tenzan. This match is nice. I don't understand the reference but, the lower third changing because the wrestlers changed outfits is a good bit.

 

Thank you for recommending this,  I was having a unsure brain time and this brightened my mood. This brought me alot of smiles

[Matt D]

@Casey It's the 10th of the month and time to think about this. I have no idea what you've seen and what you haven't, but I'm assuming the answer is "not much," so I'm going to give you the sort of stuff i wouldn't normally give someone because it's just too "mainstream" within our circles and you tell me if you've seen it or not.

Let's start with Blood on the Sand:

Rose/Somers vs Midnight Rockers. Have you seen it?

[Casey]

Of course I haven’t seen it, it’s not from the late 90s or later hahaha. I’m at work at the moment, but I’ll give it a watch Monday night and let you know what I think.

This is Yumi Fukawa versus Michiko Omukai, from sometime in 1998 in ARISON. I stumbled across this about two weeks ago over on Joshi Puro Island on Reddit and the highlights looked fun so I tracked down the entire match.

I hope that link embeds, it does when I made the post but it doesn’t when the post is published. Weird. It’s on Frank Pozen’s Dailymotion channel and is a fancam if that helps you out any.

Edited February 11 by Casey

[Casey]

On 2/10/2024 at 10:11 AM, Matt D said:

Let's start with Blood on the Sand:

Rose/Somers vs Midnight Rockers. Have you seen it?

I didn’t even realize this was Marty & Shawn until I started it, that’s wild.

Rose looks like the default build (in my mind) of a wrestler from the 1970s appearing in your local armory hall. Somers is like a skinny and lanky version of Rose. Shawn Michaels looks like a high school student. Even in 1986 or whatever, Marty Jannetty looks 40 somehow.

This is such a mismatch in styles, it’s weird. Shawn Michaels was selling his ass off even back then apparently. Match is only like 5 minutes in and he already has color, lol. The crowd (mostly women it sounds like… I wonder why) is really into this, though. So that’s always fun. I like that Somers just grabbed Shawn’s hand when he was crawling for the hot tag, instead of furiously attacking him like is the norm now - shows he’s in control and not feeling desperate to stop the tag. I’m already over young boy Shawn selling like he’s dying of blood loss though. Crowd is on fire for Marty, holy shit. Somer’s taking a ring post headshot in the ring is unbelievable, since he clearly has to make effort to do it. Meh. Did Marty just blade from a Buddy Rose bite or did I miss something? This match went bonkers real fast, everyone is brawling, two ref bumps and now I assume it’s a double DQ and some babyfaces come out to clear house.

This was… okay, I guess. I think I came away from this thinking Rose & Somers were the better ones in the match, but it might be because I’m overexposed and used to Shawn Michaels & Marty Jannetty’s stuff.

I read a review (411Mania, maybe?) that said this show had two of the best AWA matches that person had ever seen, and this was one of them. My question is, if that’s true… just how much did AWA suck?

[Matt D]

Interesting. We're on a marathon here instead of a sprint. People (who I actually listen to) tend to think this was maybe the best period in Michaels' career. Rose and Somers were absolutely leading them through this.

For your match I had to download it from dailymotion and upload to Youtube because DM wasn't playing well with me. But that was ok.

Here it is for people:

Spoiler

 

It wasn't what I was expecting. Most Arison I've seen is just Aja Kong destroying people. I got a little worried in the opening feeling out process when they were doing spots and really posting up in advance for it. They both had at least 5 years experience at this point so that sort of surprised me. Just real, pause, stop, look, post, go, feeling to it. Things got a lot better when they were either throwing kicks (most especially Ohmukai who was an absolute beast in there) or working the mat.

The matwork actually felt shoot-style-esque as it got going. A lot of taking small openings and making the most of them or grasping for whatever might possibly work, hooking any free-floating limb at any moment as opposed to more elaborate and collaborative entry points. They got to elaborate places in the end but it came from the opportunistic sort of desperate grappling more than anything else. In this, Fukawa had a clear advantage, just willing to leap at Ohmukai at any point and latch on to her trying to pry off a limb. Unfortunately for her, Ohmukai had a clear strength advantage and was able to turn a lot of those attempts back upon Fukawa. There was a big pivot point mid match when she tried to do that and placed Fukawa onto the top only for Fukawa to catch a strike and fly off the top into a cross arm breaker attempt. She targeted the arm more than anything else, and you got the sense the finish was about Ohmukai adding insult to injury by returning the favor, but Fukawa should have worked on the legs because Ohmukai certainly used them to kick the crap out of her.

Like I said, some of the stand up spots felt performative in how they were set up and there were times that they were just going and going instead of selling (though that was counteracted by the greatest tool a lot of 90s joshi has going for it when it comes to selling, actual exhaustion) but the plucky technician vs the powerhouse kickmonster (with both of them able to dabble in the other's art) worked for me overall. I don't know if I'd want to live in this stuff but it was ok to visit.

We shall reconvene next month.

[Matt D]

@Casey, I wanted to give you something WWF for March. I didn't want to go to the top of the 80s set though, so I'm giving you something quite similar. The Alley Fight between Sgt. Slaughter and Pat Patterson.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16WunibwWA2PyNsSyoTr-88bYC8zh1MzS/view?usp=sharing

[Casey]

I’ll get to this sometime this week. I’m at work right now, but this weekend has sucked between me having to put a sick pet down and now I’m moving in a few weeks. I’ll edit this post and tag ya in it when I watch it and find you something.

EDIT: @Matt D

I’m gonna watch your match later tonight (any chance that’s on YouTube? My laptop is packed up in moving boxes… if not I guess I can watch it on my phone, not ideal tho).

Here’s something for you. I adore Nicole Matthews, and Allie Katch, but I’m sure you won’t, so here ya go!

 

Edited March 28 by Casey

[Matt D]

@CaseyI think most of it is on dailymotion but you lose the first 1/3 of the match or so. The way I watch stuff like this on Youtube sometimes is to upload it on a burner account as a draft but don't actually publish, either private or unlisted. Then you can access from your account usually. But that's more for my phone as is. It doesn't last on Youtube published. for long usually.

[Casey]

@Matt D I forgot I had a tablet so I’ll watch it on that tonight! I just don’t like watching matches on my small iPhone screen. Problem solved tho! I’ve never seen a Pat Patterson match, and VERY little Sgt. Slaughter (maybe like one match, from an old WrestleMania against Hogan) so this should be fun.

I hope you’re okay with me giving you joshi/women’s matches. It’s what I watch the most of, besides ECW and violent stuff, so… yeah. 

Edited March 28 by Casey

[Matt D]

46 minutes ago, Casey said:

@Matt D I forgot I had a tablet so I’ll watch it on that tonight! I just don’t like watching matches on my small iPhone screen. Problem solved tho! I’ve never seen a Pat Patterson match, and VERY little Sgt. Slaughter (maybe like one match, from an old WrestleMania against Hogan) so this should be fun.

I hope you’re okay with me giving you joshi/women’s matches. It’s what I watch the most of, besides ECW and violent stuff, so… yeah. 

I always assume I should seem more Matthews (and especially Matthews teamed with Portia Perez) as I'm not sure I've basically seen any, so works for me.

[Matt D]

On 3/17/2024 at 11:26 PM, Casey said:

I’ll get to this sometime this week. I’m at work right now, but this weekend has sucked between me having to put a sick pet down and now I’m moving in a few weeks. I’ll edit this post and tag ya in it when I watch it and find you something.

EDIT: @Matt D

I’m gonna watch your match later tonight (any chance that’s on YouTube? My laptop is packed up in moving boxes… if not I guess I can watch it on my phone, not ideal tho).

Here’s something for you. I adore Nicole Matthews, and Allie Katch, but I’m sure you won’t, so here ya go!

 

Interesting choice given what I gave you. I liked a good chunk of this. Katch's confidence and familiarity with the crowd stood out. I was surprised she'd only worked the venue a couple of times with the way she was using the crowd as props for instance. Matthews is super emotive. She's very good at being in the moment. There were only a couple of times where it felt like they were setting up spots instead of just organically going from bits of violence to more bits of violence. The build to the chain coming out for the modified tapatia was a nice touch as was the transition around the chain-wrapped leg. Katch selling her neck during her big comeback was nice. I was ready for them to go home shortly thereafter honestly, but I bought into the chairs being a logical point of escalation. Then I was really ready to go home after the superplex and they went into equal strike exchanges instead of a finishing stretch. I was a little bemused by Katch recovering so quickly after the wrench shot. For one, it wasn't a great visual weapon. The chairs were bigger and broader. The chain was set up more. A wrench is smaller and sort of harder to understand in pro wrestling physics. It was made into a big deal but then not sold like one and then it was what put Matthews away. You wouldn't have known she was being pile driven onto the wrench if the announcers didn't call it out for instance. They had set up a bunch of chairs right there. I might have wanted that to work into the finish instead? But overall, a lot of positive stuff here. I should watch more Matthews.

[Casey]

Hey, sorry! It’s been a busy few weeks with packing up my house, and showing the house, etc. I haven't even moved out yet, that’s the worst part. But I got a chance last night to watch this finally.

On 3/14/2024 at 7:36 PM, Matt D said:

@Casey, I wanted to give you something WWF for March. I didn't want to go to the top of the 80s set though, so I'm giving you something quite similar. The Alley Fight between Sgt. Slaughter and Pat Patterson.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16WunibwWA2PyNsSyoTr-88bYC8zh1MzS/view?usp=sharing

My feelings on this one are really mixed. I liked it in some parts, but others I didn’t. The parts I liked were the obvious ones if you know me: the violence. It felt like a fight, Patterson bleeding at the slightest touch. But the parts I didn’t, it felt like your regular WWF kind of stuff from years later. The overselling in particular got on my nerves (mostly Sgt. Slaughter). And why was Slaughter a heel (and it sounded like the crowd didn’t really care?), but the Canadian was the face (who got a pretty huge pop??).

I don’t think this even belongs on the best of an 80s set, but I’m also extremely bias and have admitted I don’t really like 80s stuff. But I’m open to it. Seeing Patterson being a wrestler and not Vince’s stooge is kind of wild for an Attitude Era kid to see, and Slaughter as a variation of what he’d later do is kind of weird and interesting as well. Early 80s WWF always trips me out when I see clips, like Dusty wrestling there or Billy Graham or whoever. In my mind’s eye, that’s not WWF, it should be Hogan or whatever other cartoony bullshit they’d do later. So this was fun, even if I didn’t particularly LIKE it. It’s interesting, is all I can really say.

[Matt D]

At the end of the day, I don't think I'm going to necessarily sway you. There are French matches I can show you where they're gritty as hell but the holds are so, so long and even though they're worked hard, I don't think you'll go for it (for instance), but with some of this more mainstream stuff, it's a bit of trying to show you that "Yes, wrestling was that, but it's also this too." But that's probably not going to change the fact you don't care for "the that." No worries on the delay. Life comes first. I'll regroup in ten days or so and find you the next one.

[Casey]

9 minutes ago, Matt D said:

At the end of the day, I don't think I'm going to necessarily sway you. There are French matches I can show you where they're gritty as hell but the holds are so, so long and even though they're worked hard, I don't think you'll go for it (for instance), but with some of this more mainstream stuff, it's a bit of trying to show you that "Yes, wrestling was that, but it's also this too." But that's probably not going to change the fact you don't care for "the that." No worries on the delay. Life comes first. I'll regroup in ten days or so and find you the next one.

I like to think I’ve found little bits of enjoyment in everything you’ve given me, even if ultimately I don’t “like it”. I join these Secret Santo projects to watch stuff I’ve never seen before and you’re giving me that, so I can’t complain. You’re more well versed than me, so I’m just giving you stuff I like to ultimately see what you like about it, don’t like, etc. That’s fun to me.

But if you give me those French matches I’m definitely giving you a Seth Rollins epic. You’ve been warned