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(Also Not March Madness): SECRET SANTO March 2020


Matt D

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22 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

This was like a really long, really fast BattlARTS tag. I fucking loved it. Yamada has to be my new favorite kicker in puroresu history. And hey, Manami didn't bug me at all! Give me these four again, and again, and again, and I will watch it. 

 

Sorry for recommending something so long. After picking it I thought I’d give something shorter as a replacement with that Jaguar match. Thought you’d get a kick out of it though. 

This is the first of three matches. Something to check out down the road.

Edit: I’m slow at posting. Haha. Didn’t see you responded. I’m not exactly sure of the story elements outside of the matches themselves. Worth a watch. 

Edited by OctopusCinema
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On 5/3/2020 at 8:26 PM, Smelly McUgly said:

@AxB This seems like a match that you might well have seen before, but I think you liked brawls? This is a good old sloppy brawl and high-key one of my favorite fun little garbage matches. 

 

 

Yeah, fun and sloppy covers it. I loved this match in 1994. It felt like, this match was the apex of what Cactus Jack had been working towards his whole career. We'd seen hints of this kind of unhinged chaos, but it had always been a capsule of chaos contained within the context of a mostly in-ring wrestling match. Not here. There's not much in the ring, and maybe even less wrestling. Although oddly, looking at it now, it doesn't really feel like a Cactus Jack match, or a Maxx Payne match. It feels more like a Nasty Boys fight that a mildly disinterested Cactus happens to be in.

This match happened on the 17th April 1994. Cactus' infamous ear incident was on March 16th 1994, so a month earlier. And he's spoken at length about how the psychological ramifications of losing a body part messed him up more than he realised at the time, so it does make sense. And Payne wasn't really a guy who had a brawling style most of the time, he was an athletic big man who (as it eventually turned out) was really good at suplexes. If only he'd gone to Japan (he'd already been, though. He trained in the NJPW Dojo at the same time as Chr*s B*n**t) instead of the WWF he might be more highly thought of now, but as it is he was underused in WCW, underused in WWF and then out of the business after that. The Nasty Boys, they had long careers. And mostly, they were really boring. Maybe this match was the one they were waiting their whole careers for, and it was all downhill for them before and after this (and the one a month later with Kevin Sullivan in Maxx's place, which was actually supposed to be Kevin & Dave Sullivan vs the Nastys, but they had Cactus sub for Dave because Dave was useless. Or injured. Probably injured, come to think. But he was useless).

The Nasties enter first. Cactus and Maxx come out second, and they are jumped on the ramp, which the cameraman misses, and then the director frantically Kevin Dunns the first exchanges because everyone loves crowd shots. The match consists entirely of Knobbs and Saggs hitting Cactus & Maxx with things, with the babyfaces making comebacks and the Nasties not selling. It doesn't come across more as an actual scrap than as a Pro-Wrestling Street Fight, because of the aforementioned no-selling, and because the Nasties are so stiff and sloppy. There's things wrestlers do in brawls to engage the fans, to set things up and build to big spots, and they don't happen here. There's none of the brandishing a weapon before they use it, for example. None of the old "Shall I?" or even the look under the ring to see what's there. It's just go, go, go. And once they've hit someone with a pool cue, don't wait for the guy to sell it and let the people wonder how much it must have hurt. No, hit them again right away.

It's wild, it's chaotic, it's a lot of fun. But on the other hand, it might be a bit of a stretch to actually call it good. This style of brawling became a big thing from the mid 90s, and was the WWE main event style for a good while in the 2000s, but this was an unrefined, unevolved version of it. The choice of weapons in this does look positively quaint to anyone who's familiar with Death matches from the last 10 years. Saggs trying to set up a Piledriver through a table and blowing it because he positioned his weight wrong makes perfect sense in 1994 (when table spots were basically a Sabu trademark nobody else did), but it's a Botchamania idiot spot today.

On commentary, Tony Schiavone did a great job of adding to the action, being both mind blown at the awesomeness whilst also being little taken aback at the disturbing levels of violence. Bobby Heenan was caught between two stools because his character should have been loving every second of it, but you could tell the man himself wasn't actually that into it. So he fell back on his cheesy Rupert Pupkin comedy routine and it didn't fit at all.

If you haven't seen this match, you should watch it. It's only like 10 minutes. But if you saw this match years ago and have fond memories of it, watching it again might dilute those memories a little.

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I cut to the end and got a laugh out of the panic in Tony's voice when Brain asked him if he'd ever seen anything like this and he lets out this freaked-out "NO..." Also, the bump off the ramp and the one Nasty scooting the shovel off the ramp right into Cactus' face are both so ridiculous. 

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Sorry, I forgot to do mine. I've been working all week, so I've had easily-disposable Nitros, Thunders, and Worldwides in the background. I'll finish mine up today. 

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Ok, guys. I think we might be winding down with things as they are now, but we'll at least do one more week here as we think about other formats. Maybe we'll do two. We'll see. 

Supremebve
OctopusCinema

Curt McGirt
Ace

AxB
Smelly McUgly

Matt D
Gordi

Gordi, give me something I've never seen.

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@gordi

Did you see the Andre/Tito/Chavo as heels trios that we pieced together?

You must have, right?

If so, watch this:

I kind of wanted to give you the Sin Piedad 2006 Shocker & Universo 2000 Vs Kenzo & Marco Corleone apeustas match because it's a lot of fun but it's in four parts on youtube.

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@Matt D I have not seen that Andre match. I also love me some Super Porky, so I may try to hit both of those.

Finding something you've never seen is a pretty interesting challenge. I'll start with his one: 

It's one of those matches that is an all time personal favourite despite not being any kind of ****5/8 classic. 

It's my drinking buddies Kuuga and Mihara in the ring with an absolute legend. 

It's my good friend Asian Cooger spitting at Fujiwara and calling him grandaddy.

Its the match where Fujiwara gave me a high five on his way out of the ring (though sadly the camera cuts away to my boy Yoon Kang Chul just before that great moment in my life).

It's an absolutely typical Osaka Pro special guest 6-man tag match, but I love it more than Okada vs Shibata, Michaels vs Taker, or Punk vs Joe. I'd enjoy hearing the thoughts of someone with no personal connection to the match, and since it's old man Fujiwara you know it won't be a complete waste of your time.

Edited by gordi
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@gordi gave me some World Class, wooooo! 

Dynamic Duo vs. Kerry and Kevin Von Erich

Gino's out here cutting promos like a future Horseman. He's put up his Corvette against the Von Erichs. Even with the counter-stip (Dynamic Duo get a match of their choice at a future date), I'm pretty sure this telegraphs the finish. Anyway, after some extended shit-talking by Hernandez and Adams, here come the Von Erich boys. 

Kevin gets the best of Gino early. After a heel regroup and a tag, Adams fares little better. Kerry's kind of sloppy on a pinning combination in there somewhere. Finally, Kerry whiffs on a discus punch and the heels take over. Standard heelery on the part of Hernandez and Adams (with a bit of running in from Kevin to even the score). Kerry busts up a front facelock with an iron claw, but gets double-teamed back down and ends up in a sleeper. Adams controls Kerry by pulling hair. Kerry fires up again and gets tossed through the ropes when he tries to do too much instead of getting a tag. Adams and Kerry end up in a pretty wild brawl outside as inside the ring, Kevin punches Gino in the dick and has a visual pinfall (though neither man is legal).

Eventually, Kerry and Adams, the legal men, end up back in the ring. Kerry re-asserts control leading into the finish, where another wild brawl breaks out, there's a ref bump into a hangman's position in the ropes (GREAT visual and a cool-ass ref bump, one of the best I've ever seen), and contrary to my expectations, Gino gets the win with powder to Kevin's eyes when the official who's come out to help David Manning counts it. 

The crowd was hot for this. It was fine. I sort of wish they either went full-on arena brawl or stuck to a more traditional tag formula and just teased out the control segments a bit more and had shine segments for the faces were a bit more prolonged and better. Gino can cut the fuck out of a promo, though. I'm not sorry that I watched this.

Anyway, poor, poor @AxB. You've been paired with me about eight times so far. Anyway, since I'm watching a shit ton of 2000 WCW now, here's a Booker T/Lance Storm match that I enjoyed for what it was:

 

Sorry, I could only find it in German commentary as a single video and I didn't want to go back through the playlist I'm using to earmark it within the episode it comes from. This is the type of match that comes off WAY better when you've watched it in the midst of the typical crap that WCW was putting on in 2000, though by August, the shows are getting clearly better. 

One of the things that's surprised me on re-watch is how much I enjoy Lance Storm in this heel run (another thing is how much I dig Kronik, but that's another matter altogether). 

Edited by Smelly McUgly
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1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

I can't believe they don't have Aja vs. KAORU or any of the Chigusa vs. Dump matches online.

There were more before a couple of years back. I assume someone had YT take them down.

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On 5/10/2020 at 8:03 PM, gordi said:

@Matt D I have not seen that Andre match. I also love me some Super Porky, so I may try to hit both of those.

Finding something you've never seen is a pretty interesting challenge. I'll start with his one: 

It's one of those matches that is an all time personal favourite despite not being any kind of ****5/8 classic. 

It's my drinking buddies Kuuga and Mihara in the ring with an absolute legend. 

It's my good friend Asian Cooger spitting at Fujiwara and calling him grandaddy.

Its the match where Fujiwara gave me a high five on his way out of the ring (though sadly the camera cuts away to my boy Yoon Kang Chul just before that great moment in my life).

It's an absolutely typical Osaka Pro special guest 6-man tag match, but I love it more than Okada vs Shibata, Michaels vs Taker, or Punk vs Joe. I'd enjoy hearing the thoughts of someone with no personal connection to the match, and since it's old man Fujiwara you know it won't be a complete waste of your time.

I've got some German stuff to watch for Friday and while all of that is likely going to be great (like a Van Buyten vs PCO chain match), it feels like work, and this did not feel like work. I have no background in 2010s Osaka Pro. I have plenty of background in 2010s Fujiwara. I have not seen this.

I liked it a lot. Simple straightforward, with an A story and some B color. Fujiwara here, even more than other places he worked during the decade was late era Andre. Relatively immobile, almost impenetrable,  the world bumping around him, just a power and a presence and a legend. Kuuga spent the whole match taunting him, spitting, using his own armbar while staring at him, etc. JOKER spent a lot of the match trying to hurt him and failing, eating headbutts or chops. The only time they could get to him was when went to the eyes. You never got the sense that Fujiwara had much affection for his partners. Tough love, maybe, slapping Mihara to fire him up, casually sending a dazed and defenseless Chul back into the fray on the outside. Tough love. When he was hot to get in on the apron, it was more to get his hands on Kuuga (though I'm not convinced that he could tell JOKER apart in a kayfabe perspective; it didn't really matter, no matter how much Kuuga wanted it to), and if that meant his partners got mauled a bit more, so be it. Mihara played his part exceptionally well, and there's a world where I would have gotten to see Mihara/Maximo vs Hideyoshi/Euforia from around this time, but it unfortunately not this world. Shul was there to throw some kicks, get beat up,  get shoved into the fire by Fujiwara and launch one big dive. I'm conflicted on the finish. My heart says that it went around in a circle one too many times (and it was only twice, so maybe i just wanted it to be once). It's tricky because you needed the dive and subsequent chaos to clear the ring for Fujiwara and Kuuga but at the same time it was really building to a hot tag to Fujiwara, but then that's not quite the style either. Really though, the armbar being broken up set up the super tricked out submission counter out of Kuuga's awesome sliding leg dive, while still protecting the armbar and getting over JOKER's mob mentality so it's fine. My head thinks it's fine, maybe better than fine.

I found Gordi mid match in the crowd and was properly satisfied that he cheered for the babyface comeback in the stretch despite split personal connections. Anyway, this is how you use a legend to elevate and celebrate your product. 

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Thanks Matt, that warms my heart. That whole section where I am sitting (on the left of the entrance ramp from the hard camera's perspective) is full of Kuuga's friends. Everyone sitting around me got their tickets from him. If you look at the pictures from some of the Asian Cooger drinking parties that I've attended, you'll probably recognize many of the same faces. Mostly, we know each other through him, including some of the now-married couples who met each other at one of his parties or events. And most of us spend the match booing him like crazy. When Kuuga makes his entrance, if you are watching closely, you'll almost always see him take a moment to yell and shake his fist at us while we boo loudly and make the thumbs-down gesture. 

In the context of a pro-wrestling show, it would be wrong to yell "We love you!" at the top heel... but that is basically what we are doing. 

Although, in this particular case, I was also going apeshit cheering for Fujiwara... which both Kuuga and Mihara noticed and understood. Kuuga spitting at Fujiwara was pretty much the same as us booing Kuuga. It was a context-appropriate show of genuine respect. Mihara couldn't quite hide how hard he was marking out. Look at his grin after he gets slapped. I can only imagine how it must have felt to tag with Yoshiaki M. F. Fujiwara. I was losing my shit just having a good seat to see him live. 

The special guest wrestlers were a gift that Osaka pro doled out to us fans in unusually generous measure. I've been third row ringside or better for matches featuring Ohtani, Kyoko Inoue, Jaguar, Great Kabuki, Abdullah, Sayama, Fujinami, Sasuke, Danshoko Dino, Sekimoto, Okobayashi, Kana, Dump, Otsuka,  Finlay, Dick Togo, Chono, Onita... a ridiculous list of wrestling legends and personal favourites, either at Osaka Pro shows or through connections I made there...

Fujiwara was probably the one I marked out hardest for. He had a connection to Osaka Pro through his former student Fuke, and he obviously got a ton of respect from everyone. Check out all of the Joker heels bumping like madmen for Fujiwara's head-butts. They were loving it! 

Edited by gordi
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@supremebve , here’s my rec for you. If the clip is too long or if you’ve seen it I’ll get you something different.

Vader vs Nobuhiko Takada 

I was trying to think of what to give you and noticed you post in the MMA folder. So maybe something shoot-style? Hope you enjoy. 

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Watched the Toryumon three-way. It was really silly. Starting out with a coordinated boy-band dance segment is definitely not gonna compel me to enjoy what comes next but oh well. Surprisingly I didn't have any trouble identifying anyone after reading reviews of these things for years. Even more surprising was M2K looking like total dirtbags after the dance gear came off. Magnum was especially sleazy. Anyway, they all worked a million miles an hour and there were constant multi-person offensive attacks that involved five guys suplexing each other, etc. The funniest one was Don Fuji deciding to start overhand chopping five guys and having them all slap back at him in a row. I guess it was 2/3 falls and CIMA got two in a row. This wasn't my cup of tea really but I can see why people like it. Maybe I needed SUWA to come in and act a dick to all the Social Dance Boys, I dunno.

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On 5/12/2020 at 1:17 PM, OctopusCinema said:

@supremebve , here’s my rec for you. If the clip is too long or if you’ve seen it I’ll get you something different.

Vader vs Nobuhiko Takada 

I was trying to think of what to give you and noticed you post in the MMA folder. So maybe something shoot-style? Hope you enjoy. 

Shoot style isn't really my thing, I'll give it a shot.  I try to watch all of these with an open mind.  Do you have any specific areas that you're interested in?  

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2 hours ago, supremebve said:

Shoot style isn't really my thing, I'll give it a shot.  I try to watch all of these with an open mind.  Do you have any specific areas that you're interested in?  

Hopefully you like it. This was a match that got me more interested in the style. First few matches I watched I really didn’t get it. Why shoot style? Ya know. But I think Vader made it an easy transition into it. Now I can follow it a little more.

Digging through the site I noticed you’re a 90’s All Japan fan. I’ve seen a good deal of the Misawa/Kobashi vs Hold Demon Army type matches. Anything you could hit me with outside of those guys? 

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3 minutes ago, OctopusCinema said:

Hopefully you like it. This was a match that got me more interested in the style. First few matches I watched I really didn’t get it. Why shoot style? Ya know. But I think Vader made it an easy transition into it. Now I can follow it a little more.

Digging through the site I noticed you’re a 90’s All Japan fan. I’ve seen a good deal of the Misawa/Kobashi vs Hold Demon Army type matches. Anything you could hit me with outside of those guys? 

I'll give you a choice.  This is the same guys in a different context.  This is pretty much the beginning of Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi being treated like superstars against Jumbo Tsuruta, Taue, and Fuchi.  This is from the beginning of the feud that elevated the four pillars from promising young guys to the focus of the company.

 

This is just one of the guys in what equates to an All-Japan brawl.  

You can't go wrong with either, I give both of these *****

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