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July 2022 Wrestling Discussion


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Usually I slowly work through my MOTY lists well past the year in question. But for the first half of 2022, here’s a match per tentacle.

 

- Hangman Adam Page vs Bryan Danielson:

Playing off of the hour long classic, they now have judges in case of another tie. Bryan is a prick in this. Mockingly dodging Page early and doing jumping jacks to show off to the mostly large judges. Phenomenal psychology and filled with parallel storytelling, beautiful stark red blood, uncomfortable headbutts. The win against Omega climaxed the anxious chapter of Hangman, but this match lead to him feeling like a true champion amongst an all time great roster. Danielson meanwhile cements his legacy as a true all time GOAT candidate.

 

- Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Go Shiozaki:

Hey kids, ya like wrestling? Ya like kicks? Chops? Neat, me too. This generation of NOAH cats is [one of] the type of wrestling I enjoy most. Two rivals fucking each other up over who the real NOAH is.

 

- Johnny Knoxville vs Sami Zayne:

Wrestling is FUN. 

 

- Anarchy in the Arena:

WRESTLING is fun.

 

- Daisuke Sekimoto vs Yuji Okabayashi

BEEF is BEEF.

 

- The Briscoes vs FTF

Good, solid, tag team fun. My favorite team from a decade ago vs my favorite team now. Let them do what they do best. Tag and do tag stuff. Great action. I found it most riveting in the second half of the match when the struggle for the characters to stand was highlighted. 

 

- Kento Miyahara vs Yuma Aoyagi 

I have see VERY LITTLE modern All Japan. If it is mostly like this, yum yum sign me up. I loved the early goings where their grapples and standoffs showed their evenness as opponents yet so vividly defined their characters. Grappling (yes, I FUCKING LOVE GRAPPLING) leading to strong arming the other against the ropes. The first go at this, Kento is in the strong position and slowly backs away. Inching and maintaining his position. Aoyagi is cautious of a strike and slightly lifts his knee, in case of a cheap shot. The ecosystem of their tension and ability is delicate and at any moment they can battle. Clean break. Second grappling push leads to Yuma in the strong position. Still, both competitors are ready and taking their time. Yuma is backing away and mockingly lightly double slaps Miyahara’s chest. Insecurity? Mind games? Doesn’t matter because STRIKE! Kento is good guy. Yuma is bad. This leads to brief faster paced action that Kento comes out ahead on.. Third grapple and Kento is in control. Fuck you, Yuma. Forearm. Look at this all as chapter one. The rest of the story is Yuma taking advantage of Kento when he hurts his lead. Most the match revolves around this with Aoyagi leading and Kento occasionally using his smarts to briefly turn things around. A beautiful moment comes from Yuma’s savagery as he is violently pummeling a limp and near dead Miyahara. Just viscously laying it in. Kento comes back with a second wind and knocks Yuma out with a head smash. People are checking on him. He has to be out. Lol, roll up and submission move. Playing opossum is great. This match is a real treat.

 

- Bryan Danielson vs Jon Moxley

Jeesh. They hit each other. Oh, cool. Regal. 

 

 

This year I have so far not been able to watch as much wrestling. Very limited time and my mental ability is very tired. I’ve seen practically no Joshi (hopefully can fix this!!!) outside out fanmade YouTube videos of badasses badassing each other (Guilin vs Iwatani looks good) and haven’t really watched any Lucha (give me Black Taurus’s mask, damn it!!!) so I am likely a fraud. 

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2 hours ago, (BP) said:

A Father’s Day Kerfuffle match where it’s two old juiceheads in bandanas beating the shit out of each other with Father’s Day home improvement gifts would be rad. 

finally a match where the "roll a bowling ball into someone's crotch" spot makes sense

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12 hours ago, Zakk_Sabbath said:

Not trying to be a Buzz Killington, or the taste police (love what you love!) but I personally just can't do it anymore with certain deathmatch weapons. If I were chancellor of hardcore, I'd ban anything stabby. They could've had a cartoon-ass lightsaber fight and gotten a better reaction.

I'd also end the skewers and whatever that carpeting tool is called. It never looks good, and probably hurts way worse than it looks. That's a lose/lose in my book.

At least with fire, tacks, etc. it's a relatively minor flesh wound 90% of the time, and you always get the big reveal pop when you take out the sack or the lighter fluid.

 

With all due respect to all the hardcore/deathmatch peeps here,

I think deathmatches for the sake of deathmatches is fucking abhorrent. To me, anything "hardcore" added to a feud should be part of the escalation of violence in a feud. Cold deathmatches for the sake of bloodletting and gore is gross to me personally. Whether it's a US or Japanese Indy...it's so fucking unnecessary. 

Blood is such an important and impactful accent in pro wrestling matches. It adds so much gravitas to intense feuds and hard hitting matches. Especially on a big stage or as the crescendo of conflict. Cheap blood for the sake of blood is just....cheap. and gross.

With all due respect.

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15 hours ago, Shartnado said:

I've only read about that happening and as I was using a weed whacker in the garden yesterday, I was reminded of it. I have no interest in actually ever seeing any of that stuff.

I once announced a weed whacker match between Fang and Pig Vomit.

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13 hours ago, Cobra Commander said:

wouldn't a weedwhacker be more painful if you hit the guy with the long solid part of it as opposed to doing spots with the weedwhacker string?

"Weedwhacker" is American for "whippersnipper", right? And when I used to snip whippers, I'd occasionally snip my own leg by accident. It stung a bit but that's it. So yeah, I would think a solid hit from a metal bar would hurt more.

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58 minutes ago, Shartnado said:

That must have been one for the ages!

They broke through a wall into the locker room because a weed whacker match needed something more extreme. This was in 2000, of course.

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Went to two shows in Michigan back to back yesterday, RPW and ICW: No Holds Barred did a double header on IWTV. I am definitely still recovering from some mild heat exhaustion, two shows in the middle of a field, I felt the burning sun.

Krule, aka Mads Krugger of MLW, made an awesome entrance through a corn field to wrestle The Carver of Cutters Alley, billed as Michael Myers vs Leatherface. Felt like an ultraviolent IWA Japan revival. They did a fun spot where both were down, did the Undertaker sit up at the same time and stared each other down. Real life horror film!

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potentially questionable idea, a match with two guys doing movie monster gimmicks (or ripping off movie monsters) where the only way to win is to unmask your opponent. After all, why would guys with that gimmick just civilly unmask after an Apuestas loss, you gotta rip off that mask and stand tall holding the other guy's "scalp"

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Since there was some talk earlier about mid-year stuff, here's what I've got on my list so far for best matches. Keep in mind, this is all based on what I've watched. These are listed in no particular order ...

WWE:
Seth Rollins vs. Cody Rhodes (Hell in a Cell)
Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair (WrestleMania Night 1)
Seth Rollins vs. Cody Rhodes (WrestleMania Night 1)
Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair vs. Asuka (Hell in a Cell)
Bron Breakker vs. Tommaso Ciampa vs. Dolph Ziggler (NXT Roadblock 3/8)

Impact:
Josh Alexander vs. Tomohiro Ishii (Under Siege)
Jake Something vs. Trey Miguel (Sacrifice)
Alex Shelley vs. Jay White (Sacrifice)
Speedball Mike Bailey vs. Trey Miguel (Against All Odds)
Trey Miguel vs. Steve Maclin (Hard to Kill)

AEW/ROH:
The Briscoes vs. FTR (ROH Supercard of Honor)
CM Punk vs. MJF (Revolution)
Hangman Page vs. Adam Cole (Revolution)
Blackpool Combat Club vs. Jericho Appreciation Society - Anarchy in the Arena (Double or Nothing)
Will Ospreay vs. Dax Harwood (Dynamite: Road Rager 6/15)
 

Edited by onelegbrynn
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On 7/3/2022 at 8:38 AM, Infinit said:

With all due respect to all the hardcore/deathmatch peeps here,

I think deathmatches for the sake of deathmatches is fucking abhorrent. To me, anything "hardcore" added to a feud should be part of the escalation of violence in a feud. Cold deathmatches for the sake of bloodletting and gore is gross to me personally. Whether it's a US or Japanese Indy...it's so fucking unnecessary. 

Blood is such an important and impactful accent in pro wrestling matches. It adds so much gravitas to intense feuds and hard hitting matches. Especially on a big stage or as the crescendo of conflict. Cheap blood for the sake of blood is just....cheap. and gross.

With all due respect.

I can understand why someone would feel that way, and often deathmatches are every bit of what, for example, Jim Cornette decides them as, fat guys with very little talent bashing each other with chairs or lighttubes for an audience of degenerates.

But someone like Jun Kasai or Rina Yamashita or Suzu Suzuki or Masashi Takeda are great wrestlers who do deathmatches. Because they enjoy doing them. There's this thing where it sometimes feels like at least ⅓ of joshi wrestlers when asked who their favourite wrestler is come back with Jun Kasai or even Abdullah Kobayashi.

End of the day, it feels a bit like complaining about a promotion such as PWG running cards where every match tries to steal the show and how that detracts from the main event. Ultimately if it draws enough to be self-sufficient then that's wrestling. I don't really think the existence of Freedoms really impacts on a non-deathmatch fan, it's a niche within a niche, it's like thinking it's dumb that noise music exists but it's not like you're going to run into Merzbow or Nurse With Wound on the radio or in a night club. 

Gross & cheap? I dunno, can't be that cheap getting all those boxes of lighttubes!

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10 minutes ago, Dog said:

There's a lot I don't like about "deathmatch" wrestling, but you know what I hate? That fluorescent lights somehow became "light tubes." Come on.

Do you really expect guys who do deathmatches to be able to spell Fluorescent? Let's not forget that last year one of these guys got a finger cut off at an IWA Deep South show (& while I have no intention of ever watching it, I did read a review that suggested not only was the bit planned but the camera managed to miss it...), not exactly dealing with Rhodes Scholars

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37 minutes ago, Kropotkin's Beard said:

Do you really expect guys who do deathmatches to be able to spell Fluorescent? Let's not forget that last year one of these guys got a finger cut off at an IWA Deep South show (& while I have no intention of ever watching it, I did read a review that suggested not only was the bit planned but the camera managed to miss it...), not exactly dealing with Rhodes Scholars

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Adrenaline, in my soul, now you learn from Cody Rhodes.

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I just avoid what I don't want to watch because I, too, don't really like deathmatches for deathmatches' sake with no build.  But two things I can't stand:

The switch from tables to hollow core doors: I've heard doors are cheaper and/or easier to come by at Home Depot nowadays.  Which is true?  Anyway, it's stupid.  At least tables have the thinnest of kayfabe reasons for being there.  Also, doors break like shit and you have to perfectly balance them on two chairs and then be careful because a stiff wind can blow that shit over. 

Deathmatch guys wrestling non-deathmatch matches just ruining everything: Back when I watched IWTV a lot, the mere existence of Matthew Justice pissed me off.  All he could do was stiff shot laden deathmatch stuff.  No discernible talent outside of being able to shoot hit people and get shoot hit.  So any non-deathmatch he was in had to magically become NO DQ because that was all the guy could do.   The worst was when Chris Dickinson was in this series of matches to build to a big main event match at Beyond's Americanrana show and he'd had a long series of great matches against a lot of really good workers.  And then his next match turned out to be Justice, so the match was inexplicably made a stupid-ass hardcore match.  I'd at least respect it if Justice grabbed the mic and said, "sorry, this is all I know how to do."

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1 hour ago, Kropotkin's Beard said:

Do you really expect guys who do deathmatches to be able to spell Fluorescent? Let's not forget that last year one of these guys got a finger cut off at an IWA Deep South show (& while I have no intention of ever watching it, I did read a review that suggested not only was the bit planned but the camera managed to miss it...), not exactly dealing with Rhodes Scholars

He didn’t get his finger cut off. He put a carrot in between his fingers and cut that off. It was a work, and a very unconvincing one.

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I was having this discussion w Matt yesterday. At this point in my wrestling life, I have no time for deathmatches, whether it’s Terry Funk and Mick Foley in 1994 or current guys using thumbtacks and glass. I’d even say I don’t want to see concession stand brawls, although I think there’s a diegetic argument about those and bunkhouse matches vs weapons matches, but wouldn’t deny its slightly hypocritical. 

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