Heads Up Battle 1999 Santo/Casas v. Bestia/Scorpio Jr. vs. Misawa v. Vader

[Phil Schneider]

Misawa v. Vader will challenge the Mascara contra Mascara match. Watch the matches, pimp your favorite and we will revile the winner next Saturday.

 

 

[NintendoLogic]

That's not even the year's best Vader/Misawa match.

[Phil Schneider]

It was the one Curt nominated, been years since I have seen them

[Go2Sleep]

I should probably recuse myself from voting here for multiple reasons. I nominated the match (not that I expected it to be the first challenger, but I'm honored). I'm highly biased in favor of 90s AJ, and biased against older Lucha. Yeah I dig LU, but that's definitely more of an American-oriented hybrid style. 

That said, the CMLL match kept me moderately interested despite the video quality. The first fall was really good, especially the finishing sequence, even though I usually hate the lucha concept of double eliminations that never have any drama after the first guy loses. The second and third falls had some awkwardness and guys standing around doing nothing in a tornado match, but I guess you could attribute that to selling fatigue. Seemed better than most old lucha I've watched, so I guess if you're into it, this match was probably great.

I nominated that Misawa/Vader match specifically because of how different it was and how it stood out in contrast to many of Misawa's title matches. Not that those weren't usually great, but it never hurts to freshen things up. It reminded me of a more violent version of the Lesnar/Cena Summer Slam match. After those first three Germans, the announcers and crowd make it feel completely different. There's no time killing, no pointless matwork, no heatless pin/submission attempts early. Everything feels like it could it end the match and Misawa got to work as a total underdog, which isn't something that had happened since the Jumbo series. The match conveyed all the king's road style intensity and epicness that the high-end AJ TC matches usually did, but it did it in 12 minutes instead of 40.

Granted I'd probably pick a dozen AJ matches from 99 over any lucha match even if it's one of the company's "worst" years that decade, but I'm glad this match is getting a look.

[RIPPA]

I am not sure which one this is referencing but from Driverette Bravo

Quote

PHIL:  While Dean wrote the review of Ikeda vs. Otsuka, I watched the pretty great Misawa vs. Vader match from the Dome show.  Vader has had quite the spectacular resurgence, as this match was as good as the best of his pre-WWF material, and a step above his early All Japan matches. Stiffness rules the roost as Vader starts out by popping Misawa with his corner punches, knocking Misawa's head back and forth with each punch, they then went into a mat section, which is the thing that all non-Vader All Japan matches lack. This paucity of mat wrestling is my biggest beef with All Japan and why I prefer BattArts and Lucha to AJ matches. There was bunches of other great stuff in this match too, as Misawa breaks out the nasty elbow suicida, and the pescada onto a prone Vader, he also gives Vader a released German Suplex which Vader leaped with so it looked really dangerous. It is little spots like that which seperate Leon White from every other superheavyweight in the world. Vader hit a nasty released German of his own, and a nice Tiger Driver, which was a big Fuck You to Misawa. Vader also missed his awesome moonsault, a move which is just unbelievable for a 400+ pound, 40+ years old man to attempt, even without a history of bad knees. This was clipping along at MOTYC pace, but the ending was kind of weak, as Misawa breaks out his elbow combos, he pastes him with a discus elbow for a near fall but his final running elbow was weak looking, and I think Vader went down too easy. Still a damn good match and a better match then last years Dome main event.

 

[Phil Schneider]

We enjoyed Vader v. Misawa a bunch but the lucha tag is the winner!

http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2016/10/all-time-moty-list-head-to-head_29.html

[Go2Sleep]

Based on Eric's review, I think he would also really like the Kobashi match I posted in the other thread.

[Curt McGirt]

I watched three Misawa/Vader matches (or maybe four, can't remember) last night cause I had free net access and WHEW. The one in question is the most spectacle-like, but all of them consist of rumpled, aging Misawa dying on his sword against a man his same age who is just too much of a beast to conquer. Where Vader can go down the list of his arsenal, Misawa is reduced to planchas and elbows alone and it creates a great deal of vulnerability; whereas he used to be the guy to bust out new moves and massacre opponents the tables are turned against this giant foreigner. Really cool because somehow I've never seen any of them but they're awesome. The problem with watching though is 1. Vader looks almost invincible, like Brock currently, and 2. Misawa clearly has years taken off his life in ways we can't imagine in the span of minutes every single match. It's unfortunate and kind of heartbreaking and makes you question your fandom.

Of course the second I tried to watch the tag match I checked my battery power and the phone was next to nil, so that'll have to wait.