Octopus

@Goodear, you’re crazy! Haha, I’m gonna have to try the same time viewing. Good observation about the faces not being overt suckers. Anyone stand out for you, performer wise? I fell in love with the heels in this. The sneaky sucker punches in the corner got me. Min excited to watch your rec. My work is going to limited hours so I’ll potentially have a lot of time off for the next week or so. If I don’t get to it tonight than for sure tomorrow. Also, I may need more Hashimoto madness from @Curt McGirt.

@Goodear, here’s your match. It was posted by the Segunda Caida crew recently so if you watched it already I can get you another one. Eddy Wiecz/Eddy Koparanian vs. Georges Gueret/Andre Bollet 2/23/56 (part 1&2) I chose this one for you because in your AEW posts I remembered you liked Sammy Guerrera. So I was trying to think of fun arrogant heels. Gueret and Bollet play the heel roles really well here. Excited to read what you think.

@Curt McGirt, that Tenryu vs Hashimoto was a war! Dear lord, they beat each other up. Side Note: I now know it’s Hash and not Hosh. D’oh!

Shinya Hoshimoto vs Kensuke Sasaki - 8/31/1997 And it all started with a stare down. A moment so simple, that when right, nothing is better to start out a big bout. I may be unfamiliar with both these gentlemen’s work. But for this moment I know the aura I can feel. The idea of competitors. I forget about Kyle being a rude jackass in front of customers at work. I forget about my light headache. I forget about biting my tongue a minute ago. I only know one thing. A strong dude with a mullet and another strong dude with hair my mom has in pictures before I was born are looking into each other’s eyes, ready to compete for an absolutely gorgeous looking IWGP Championship. Kensuke Sasaki and Shinya Hashimoto lock fingers twice. Both times Sakaki establishes his strength. The first time he is able to move Hashimoto to the ropes. The second he bends his body downward so Hoshimoto is lower than him with his wrists bend back. Being a wise champion, Hashimoto uses his body positioning to push Sasaki to the ropes, leveraging his head against his shoulders to drive him. These moments are barely a few minutes, yet are handled with such grace and pacing that they’re bodies seamlessly struggled together as a smooth Bela Tarr camera shot. These are truly competitors that will inch against for the grand prize and I have a feeling each moment of pushing against each other will matter for the victory. Kensuke Sasaki seemed to have the advantage early with lock ups. How about early strikes? That’s going to The Champ. Shinya Hoshimoto’s open hand strikes for the time being is moving Kensuke Sasaki’s chops in the early minutes. Very good play by Hoshimoto to abort the lockup’s for raw swinging physicality. After a few strikes and moving Sasaki around, grounding Sasaki with a rebounding shoulder tackle is his play. Just as Sasaki was standing over Hoshimoto on his knees a minute ago, Sasaki separates, holding his chest and the roles are now completely reversed. This is merely all within the first few minutes. I usually don’t like writing reviews as play by plays, but at times this showdown comes across so grand and larger than life that I seem to revert it. These sequences seemed well placed for how I’m interpreting these athletes to be. I don’t know the story of Shinya. I saw in the description of the YouTube page that this was a part of his long title run. I only know Kensuke Sasaki from his 2005 chop off with Kenta Kobashi. So seeing him as the one losing a strike exchange makes me see this Shinya Hoshimoto as a mythic open hand slapping beast. All who hear Shinya Hoshimoto should Fear him. All who hear Shinya Hoshimoto should respect him. I know I do. The following sequence involves Kensuke Sasaki taking what he learned early on was his advantage and running with it. Hand lockup transitioned into grounding towards an arm bar. And under utilized way of making an arm bar, or in this case maybe struggling to maintain a near arm bar is how it is sold. I’ll see a lot of workers get it put in, lay on their belly, and wildly wave their arms and head. Shinya Hoshimoto does one better. Wincing in pain, he doesn’t drop down fully and stoically keeps trying to push himself up out of it. The most important part of his body visually to the viewers is his fingers. He keeps moving them and pumping his fingers to keep circulation. After grinding him down, Kensuke Sasaki let’s go and begins working over Hoshimoto’s shoulder with stomps. Lifting him up and finally showing he isn’t to be messed around with strikes, delivers a series of chops to down the groggy champ. Shinya Hoshimoto appears to not be one to be put down at his own game, after a few seconds to snap himself back into the match, slaps the heck out of Sasaki. Downing him to the point of holding his chest in pain. The rest of the match is the battle of positioning. Shinya maintains striking dominance throughout with fiery moments of Kensuke Sasaki knocking Hoshimoto over with stiff chops or slaps to the face. But Hoshimoto’s strikes are just too strong to maintain any comeback advantage. Back and forth they go with Sasaki’s power moves being blocked. After Sasaki reverses a duplex we seem to be in End game. Sasaki brings us home with head chops and lariats. A stiff power bomb and then his finishing move that I don’t know the name of ends the day. The selling that Kensuke Sasaki did after being knocked over each time pays off in the end with such a rewarding feeling that he is the one holding his hands up. I enjoy matches like this. Where there is a visible struggle to get a move accomplished. When a lockup can be intriguing, I’m interested. Thanks @Six String Orchestra for the recommendation. Any other of either of these guys’ match you’d recommend me checking out? Sadly, now that the match is over, I bumped that damn same spot on my tongue I bit. _____ Glad you liked the match, @NikoBaltimore. I thought it would be a breezy enough match with enough popping off back and forth between all three guys that it would be a good way to start. I highly recommend the match with Vikingo vs Laredo Kid that my dude @Curt McGirt posted. It’s cool seeing him in a one on one match after the craziness of the triple threat. I think in terms of American work he’s had a few matches with Impact this year. I’m not sure what any contract situation is. Edit: ITS HASHIMOTO, damn it! ?

*The WWE Universe has Fiend Fever!

I can come up with something for you in case something happened with @Ace . And if he does message you then you can just ignore mine. What’s your bind spots?

Bless your six stringed heart, @Six String Orchestra! Excited to check this out. Thanks.

Hey @NikoBaltimore, I usually see you in the AEW threads and you mentioned a blind spot being lucha. Some people can be on the fence with lucha so I wanted to find something not epically long and having someone from AEW. Dip your toes in to see if you want to expand with any of the people in this match. El Hijo Del Vikingo vs Taurus vs Jack Evans: This is a match that intrigued me enough to keep digging through AAA stuff from the past year or two. Hope you enjoy!

Yaaaaay! Boooooo!

I died reading this. Dude. I’m still cracking up.

New Matt Hardy YouTube video might have a clue or two

If this leads to more friendship, then I’m in! I don’t have the long tenure posting here that most of you guys have so hopefully my involvement doesn’t make things too difficult.

Mark Henry w/ Three 6 Mafia.

I think what’s tough with neck tattoos (on the side, specially) is that a person will naturally hutch forward and the image will become inadvertently diagonal and/or stretched in an oblong manner. Especially how his seems to have various points. Not a fan aesthetically. If they can make it fit the character with a cute Road to Neck Tattoo video or if I just get use to it, then cool. I saw a tweet saying something along the lines of how he’s sticking his neck out for AEW and his family name. Cool. At the moment I’m no digging it. Even so, whatever. It’s a jarring change but I’m moreso shrugging than actually caring. I look at it like Evil Uno’s previous outfit. Wasn’t good , wasn’t mad, but wasn’t good. They switched it up and made it work. Difference is that it’s easy to change an outfit. A tattoo is a tattoo.

Satanico vs Hechicero - 2/6/18 this one was reviewed by the friendly folks at Segunda Caida 4/6/17. This was from the year before. I would have posted it above this other but I’m too much of a noob that I deleted it and then accidentally copied it the same way. Thanks @odessasteps for the rec!

I think TH2 are fine with where they are. Annoyingly cocky performers you want to see beat up but don’t care to see in stories. Get the crowd pumped on the secondary show or used to boost up a team’s record. B&B are also in that zone, but there’s enough there that it’s cool seeing them in a week long story or something going around in the background. Saying that, I do enjoy Evans. He was in a really good match a year ago with Taurus and Hijo Del Vikingo in Mexico and a few other very fun spots. I’m sure they could do more as a team but I’m not really buying that they’re needed. You mentioned Jurassic Express and Lucha Bros. Lucha Bros have a crazy amount of charisma that helps with that crowd connection. Jurassic Express through their fun collective gimmick and Marko’s size have people talking about them. TH2 are just kind of there. And you need that on the roster.

That Yuka Sakazaki is really something special.

Any recommendations for El Satanico matches from this decade? Or even anthing from the previous decade after 02. Watched him vs Blue Panther from 2015 and loved it. Past few months digging through footage he’s really climbed up as one of my favorites. Learned a lot lurking through old discussions on this and a few other sites.

Jake The Snake On Talk is Jericho had me laughing so hard. What an amazing performer. He did an amazing impression of the Macho Man.

It would go off of who has the best losing record. In order to keep the title Nakazawa has to lay down in tag matches.

Not much of a smoker. My main thing is I might have a beer or two on lunch. It’s a pretty relaxed culture for that. A camera shop in Northeast Minneapolis and we keep beers in the bottom of the film coolers. It’s generally for after work but can get pretty gray. We’ve popped some open day after snow storms when it’s super dead. I just have to be careful not to over do it. I hear you can catch marijuana from door knobs and toilet seats. wrestling is cool.

Ramble time: January 9th, 2009. My buddy and I had been off and on going to the local Minneapolis fed, F1rst Wrestling off and on for a few months. Around this time you’d see random CHIKARA guys or legends preforming or at least doing some type of appearance. The main guys at this point happened to be Arik Cannon (who still reps there and is now crazy over with the fans) and Horace The Psychopath( Horace was a bald lunatic with a white fan pant and would go from being violent to rocking back and forth). The two big matches of this show? Arik Cannon vs Jerry Lynn and Horace The Psychopath vs The Sandman. Arik Cannon and Jerry Lynn put on a really good match. Lots of sunset flips and loud chops. Feel good all around and my buddy and me high fived. Horace The Psychopath vs The Sandman was a match I will never forget. More memorable than when “Casanova” pulled his wiener out to his pal, during the heel pose down at the end of the show, thinking no one else would see. More memorable than Ariya Daivari insulting the troops and a guy flipping out in the audience to the point of Arik Cannon calming him down. Horace vs Sandman was THE moment of 2009 Minneapolis Indy wrestling. Horace The Psychopath’s music hits. He sprints the the ring. The ref is scared and hold onto the ropes. Horace goes to each side of the ring and uncontrollably rocks back and forth. Who’s next to the ring? 6% Body Fat Rob James comes out for some reason. He’s been teaming with Horace and they’ve been working the mean heel making the crazy guy think he’s his friend so crazy guy can beat up his enemies gimmick. Oh, and he’s doing that Simon Dean fitness instructor gimmick. He’s warning Horace that Sandman is craaaaazy and will hurt him. Don’t do the match. Horace is confused. Then other heel with hot heel girlfriend I forget the name of, that a show ago I thought was fighting Horace but now they’re cool because why not is also warning Horace that Sandman is Craaaaaaazy. Horace turns to the fans. Puts his hands to his ears. Rocks back and forth and does a fist punching motion. Everyone is pumped up for some pumped up pumping action. The crowd chants “Horace! Horace! Horace!” Rob James and other heel are warning him. Saying the F1rst faithful just want to see Horace get hurt. Sandman is just too craaaaazy. THE LIGHTS TURN OUT. OH UH. Dun dun ~dun~ DUN dun. Dun da dun dun dun. LIGHTS FLICKERING. Everyone is looking out. Could it be? No? It can’t. Yes, yes it is. Sandman is in the upper level with a beer and a kendo stick at the balcony. Everyone is going absolutely bananas. He drinks the beer, smashes it on his head. Dear lord, First Ave was loud as heck. Makes his way down the stairs and I high fives so many bros. He stands on a chair and pours another beer on himself. I’m givin High fives all around to the people next to me. Maybe a fist bump or two. Horace is announced. Sandman slides in the ring. Everyone is loud. Other bad guys now run away. Sandman is announced. Bell rings. Sandman is using his kendo stick. Horace loves pain. They go to the outside and Horace is now using chairs. Sandman is wobbling around. The once scared ref is simply sitting on the top turnbuckle. A new ref runs out to reason with the other ref to establish rules. He starts trying to count them out, the old ref turns around the new ref and yells “THIS IS EXTREME!” And punches him. He goes back to the top turnbuckle. Sandman and Horace are in the ring. Series of rest hold. Horace is down and Sandman is stumbling around. Very blown out and can barely stand. What was once very loud has slowly quieted down to mere murmurs. It became apparent to everyone that Sandman was extremely drunk. There might have been a chuckle or two but the majority of the audience, myself included, was silently melancholic. Sandman trying to pick Horace up and he falls backwards on his butt like a toddler. Horace helpfully places his head under Sandman’s arm to be put in a headlock. After a series of assisted headlock oriented takedowns, Sandman finds his kendo stick again and hits Horace. Falls on top of him for the pin. They lay there for a minute or so and everyone is avoiding eye contact. You can tell they are having a conversation ala Rock and Stone Cold after their last Wrestlemania match. So, everybody: What was the saddest/ most embarrassing/ highest level of awkward you’ve seen at a wrestling show?

Wait, hold the phone. @Nice Guy Eddie is a fan of Seinfeld?!?!?!