WELCOME TO DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #124! |
The cover to this DVDVR was assembled by Wes Hatch- a gifted artist from the great state of Georgia.
Ah. The beloved Professional Wrestling. What else could you possibly love more when it comes to truly fucked art forms that thrill you in weird inexplicable ways. We took a little time off and went through a lot of shit and rested and regained our energies and all that other stuff that happens about every 25 DVDVRs so let's have at it already. I give you REV RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
_+_
!@!@!@!@!@! A Movie Review:
GAEA Girls
(REV RAY DUFFY!)
While not quite a video yet, Pete and
I ended up hitting GAEA Girls at a film festival at the NY Museum of Natural
History.
GAEA Girls focuses on the story of
Saika Takeuchi, who is in training to become a GAEA wrestler. Takeuchi
is interviewed about why she wants to be a wrestler and her answer is because
she wants to be a wrestler and she says because she feels this is her chance
to be someone. Basically, that as herself, she is shy and quiet,
but in the ring she can be larger than life. The film starts off with Takeuchi
training and Wakabashi returning to the
garage. The garage is basically
everything for the younger girls, it serves as their home, their gym and
their ring. It seems like all of the younger girls are living there
amidst bins and banners and posters and boxes
of merchandise for the promotion.
Wakabashi had quit before and was returning for a second go at becoming
a wrestler. Chigusa jokingly (or maybe not) says if Wakabashi drops
out again, that she'll kill her. We never come to find out as Wakabashi
ends up running away one night, apparently having had enough of the gym.
There's some footage showed from the Double Destiny match filmed where
Chigusa blows fire at Lioness Aska and wins the GAEA promotion back from
the Super Star Unit. More footage is showed at the gym, Takeushi
works with Satomura in the ring as Nagashima referee. Satomura is
not happy with how Takeushi's performing and yells (as it was translated
by the British) "Now you're taking the piss!" and delivers a drop kick
that's so brutal at least 2 people bolted from threatre as Saika is bleeding
from the mouth or face as a result. The drop kick needed no translation.
They chastise Saika for not giving her all in the work out, questioning
her who taught her to wrestle like that, telling her if you don't give
it your all when you're in the ring, that's when people get hurt. I watch
this and secretly wish someone would send Satomura over to the US to work
some sparring with Nash and Luger. Saika, though she needs stitches
for the injury, continues her training. However, the brutality of the sparring
session scares another trainee who's name I didn't catch into quitting.
The trainee basically said that she was having doubts about being able
to stick with the program, but after seeing Takeuchi's session decides
that she doesn't think she can do it. Footage is shown of a Satomura/Kato
match up. This of course leads to probably the most annoying aspect of
the film, the fact that they enhanced some of the in ring hits to sound
a lot more brutal. This may fly with non-wrestling fans, but it leads to
real goofy moments where the kick that follows up a body slam sounds about
4 times louder. They interview Satomura back at the training facility in
which Satomura breaks down about her fear of being a failure, which sort
of strikes me as strange given the fact that she's pretty much in the position
of being the young ace of the promotion. As training continues, another
recruit named Sato joins the garage and the stop watch is started on how
long she'll last. Saika's test comes up, she works matches with Kato, Hirota
and Satomura, which again ends up with Saika being bloodied again.
Chigusa and Yuka Sugiyama, the promoter for GAEA, give their review, which
is negative as they feel that Saika is giving up during the matches.
The "giving up" reference may get confusing as even though the graphics
say that "Takeuchi gives up" in at least one of the matches via a tap out,
I think the "giving up" is that Saika is not showing enough spirit and
ends up being a punching bag in a lot of the matches or just not giving
it enough. Chigusa gives a furious review of Saika's performance
and basically says that her tears are bullshit and slaps her around some
and says that she's had enough and that she's done as Takeuchi begs to
stay in the program. They allow Takeuchi to stay, but the test is
enough to scare Sato into leaving. Takeuchi's second test has her
facing off with Uematsu, Satomura and Chigusa. Takeuchi seems more
spirited in the second test, some of her offense is hot and cold, but there's
a marked improvement. The match with Chigusa is pretty brutal as
Chigusa kills the hell out of her with a lariat twice, busting her up again.
Chigusa still takes her to task for not fighting back enough, but in the
end, it is decided that she passes and her debut match is set for Korakuen
Hall on October 23 against Satomura. Prior to the debut, they interview
Chigusa, who talks about her father who was in the military. Chigusa
says that her father was very strict with her and she so wanted to prove
herself to the point of "beating her father" by becoming a success and
basically saying "see, I proved you wrong", only in not so nice terms.
She basically said when people hit her, her attitude is "you bitch" and
hit them right back, which is what she's trying to get from her students.
Chigusa admits she's not sure if what she's doing is the best way, but
that it's that attitude that got her where she was. The big day comes
and they show the match while switching to shots of Takeuchi's mother and
father in the audience matching the match. Takeuchi loses, but still,
she gets to show a lot for a rookie and the show ends as her family and
friends take a picture with her.
Overall, I thought the movie did a good
job. It didn't try to do too much and dilute the story that they
ended up going with. The crowd seemed into the movie as a few people
popped for Takeuchi's school boy cradle that get her a 2 count on Satomura
during her debut. I think it gives the people a good idea of what
kind of effort and what struggles someone will go through to become a wrestler.
Is it brutal at times? Yes. But given the demands that being
a wrestler in Japan require, a situation like that can be expected.
It's tough love. I saw situations similiar (but without the slapping
upside the head and maybe 1/1000 of the intensity) when I was
training in the martial arts. The
training has to be hard as it's obvious that they don't want to waste their
time on getting someone in the ring to end up quitting on you. Whether
Chigusa is right or wrong, at this point in time, she has in my opinion
a lot of the promising rookies in her camp, which is something that can't
be said for a lot of feds, so she must be doing something right.
There were a few moments in the film where I wasn't sure if they were slightly
working the film makers. I think the second test may have had some
elements of that as they had the G-Panic crew there doing some footage
for their show so I have some of my doubts about how authentic some of
the comments may have been, but that's probably all the worked shoot BS
in the US talking. I do not doubt the fact Takeuchi got potatoed
in any of those matches. The draw backs would be then cranking up
with the foley artists in matches and the one instance of crowd sweetening
in the debut match, of course, a lot of this bugging me is probably from
the fact that I have seen these matches on tape already. The other
minor low point was the subtitles. Will someone please do a documentary
and letterbox it and put the subtitles in the letter box. White on
white subtitles are murder. Other random stuff to watch for in the movie
: the great "Mr. Softie" of bread delivery trucks which pulls up
to the garage. It has a jingle and everything, the 8 million rescue
animals that show up one day and appear in the second half of the film
and the fact that the last lines of the GAEA Japan theme is "WE ARE FREAK-OUT!
WE ARE GAEA JAPAN!"
~@~
@#@#@#@#@# PILLMAN MEMORIAL
2000: CHRIS BENOIT vs STEVE REGAL
(ANTHONY GANCARSKI)
I went into this match having heard varying
opinions about it, Some folks praised it mildly. Some folks put it between
*** and ****, which, if you notice the huge gulf in folks' star ratings,
means that there was nothing close to a definitive read of the match. But
I'm here to tell you why, as of right now, this match should be a lock
for US MOTY.
Before the bell, when the ref anachronistically checks the workers for foreign objects, you can hear a buzz and a crackle in the crowd. And why shouldn't there have been? The crowd had sat through some fair-to-middlin' indy stuff, a solid old-school match between Tim Horner and Tom Pritchard, and some forgettable stuff involving WCW workers. But Benoit and Regal had every chance to be the crown jewel of the Pillman tribute, and those in attendance knew it.
The wrestlers circled each other to start off, teasing a collar and elbow but Benoit fires off a stiff punch to Regal's cheek, They circle again, Regal with his fists balled in the least comic way you can imagine, both workers already deep into wrestling and a world away from the worlds of gimmick and promos. C&E teased again, but Regal this time gets the shot in.
Why is this opening so important, so revolutionary? We all have expectations for old-school style matches: collar and elbow lockup, rope running, chain wrestling, and then some signature spots, finish, commercial. In deviating from the established format, Benoit and Regal at once establish their debt to the great US matches of the past (Steamboat/Flair; Funk/Brisco; Rogers/O'Connor) but then go on to say that there can be something more. That there can be another chapter in the book without end that is worked professional wrestling.
The workers circle each other again. Finally the collar and elbow, a murderous lockup with both men scrambling for leverage until Benoit finally muscles Regal into a corner. As the ref works the break, Benoit keeps pushing and Regal tries his damnedest to get his opponent off of him. Regal fires with some short forearms and Benoit wobbles out of the corner a bit, giving Regal some space. Benoit concedes the break, but only after a parting jab to the cheek.
C&E teased, but Benoit grabs and wrings an arm. Regal somersaults to escape, but Benoit maintains the pressure. Regal attempts a side headlock, but Benoit bears down and twists Regal to the canvas, working the arm all the time, driving his knee into the shoulder. Regal kips up, but Benoit keeps a hold of the wrist, working the pressure points in the wrist and the carpals.
Regal with an armdrag to escape, but Benoit maintains advantage and works a hammerlock on the facedown, prone Englishman. Regal braces with his free arm to sell the leverage, and eventually regains his feet; Benoit, though, maintains the hammerlock. We are two minutes into this, and we've already established the fundamental psychology of the match: the aggressor Benoit, the putative favorite, attempting to mangle the arm of returning-to-grace Regal. Regal who could've fallen victim to the demons that have befallen so many workers before him, but who saw this match as his one last chance to be a legit, world-class, asskicking worker again.
How can you not fall in love with a match so rich in subtext? The last match so deep in meaning was Bret/Benoit, and it's fitting that the best wrestler in the world is also party to two of the most meaningful matches in our time.
Benoit still working the hammer. Regal twists out, and we're back to a standing wristlock. Regal twists out of that and scores a single-leg takedown, and wrings the wrist of a grounded Crippler. Benoit back to his feet, but Regal scores a judoesque armdrag, and presses Benoit's shoulders to the mat for a one count. To assist in the next cover, Regal jams his knee into the Canadian's collarbone. Another one count, and Benoit bridges. Regal with a knee thrust to the chest again, and you can hear the Rube Crew in the crowd grousing, and wondering if the Rock could beat up Big Show in real life.
Benoit kips up and the workers joust for leverage. Nothing here for the crowd to pop for yet, and you can tell Benoit and Regal don't care one bit. But this is far from the technically-sound work that Malenko has been accused of rendering in a vacuum; these workers know that the crowd will be rewarded if they just stick with the match. We're three minutes in.
Benoit takes Regal's knee out, and Regal is forced to the bridge position, as we get some more old-school mirroring. Regal with a kip up -- Benoit maintains his grasp on the Brit's wrists, even as Regal scores a kick to Benoit's thigh. Regal with a monkey flip; Benoit maintains his hold on Regal's wrists. Regal somersaults back, Benoit is up, and we're back to the double wristlock. Benoit lays in some headbutts, and we're back to Nitro episodes when the camera was pulled back and the action was sanitized for your protection. Not this time, though; the headbutts are as straight and lethal as a whiskey/Arsenic cocktail. Regal winces and attempts to maintain his feet; headbutt, kick, another kick. Regal grabs Benoit's foot, but Benoit comes back with an enziguiri that staggers Lord Steven. A dropkick knocks him to the canvas, and Regal goes outside to catch his breath.
Benoit attempts a baseball slide, but misses. Regal doesn't miss with a high kick to Benoit's chest, though. The workers scramble up to the apron; Benoit lays some shots in, grabs Regal's head, and drives him face-first into the side of the ring. Regal is sprawled out on his backside on the arena floor. Benoit presses his advantage outside for a bit, then rolls Regal back into the ring. Lateral press for two.
Benoit with a back-suplex; another two count follows. Then a couple kicks and punches, with Regal counters with a drop-toe hold into an STF. The finish is teased, but it's too early; Benoit is too strong and he scuttles to the ropes. Regal rewards Benoit with a couple of precise short kicks from a standing position, and then pulls him up for a standing dropkick.
Single leg takedown. Regal flips Benoit over like he's one of the Godfather's hos and works him through a couple of surfboard variations. A weakened Benoit breaks. Regal attempts to press his advantage, but Benoit dodges a punch and German suplexes his opponent.
Both men splayed out on the mat. We are seven minutes in.
Benoit pulls Regal to his feet and fires off some chops; Regal retorts with a headbutt and then four severe kicks to Benoit's torso. Crippler on his ass, and a Regal chant fires up as Regal sucks wind on the ropes.
Benoit pulled up by the Brit and they exchange shots, which Benoit gets the better of. Two German suplexes chained together; Regal fires out before the third, and we get some more slobberknockin'. Regal with a double-underhook; Benoit with a block, an escape, and then a release German suplex to end the sequence.
Benoit goes up top for the headbutt; Regal intercepts him on the turnbuckle and fires him off with a double-underhook gutwrench superplex. Regal with a lateral press for a quick two, and then some more presses, and some more near-falls. Regal powers Benoit up, attempts to whip him into the corner. Benoit reverses. Regal staggers out of the corner; the wrestlers collide and butt heads. Both are down for another referee's count.
Benoit rolls over onto Regal for a two count. Then he picks the Brit up, but Regal ducks behind and rolls Benoit up for two. Then an attempted backslide and a release suplex, each with their own near falls. Regal fires off some shots, and attempts a tombstone; Benoit reverses. Top rope headbutt misses, and both men are prone.
Both workers up at 8. They work a couple standing switches and then Benoit comes back with a released German suplex. Regal is dazed; Benoit capitalizes and locks on the Crippler Crossface. Regal taps out instantaneously.
After the match, Benoit needs a number of attempts to gain his feet. Regal, meanwhile, lies motionless on the mat. Benoit checks on him to make sure he's well, and -- amidst a deafening Regal chant -- Benoit helps Regal to his feet.
Final thoughts: people like to proclaim old-school rasslin dead, like PWCrotch.com's Jason Powell and a bunch of others. Many folks reading this very review don't get old-school wrestling, don't understand that for wrestling to have a future beyond that of bullshit spectacle, it has to be rooted in legit-seeming, life-and-death conflict. This match augurs well for the future of the art of wrestling; when the wrestling boom ends, when the spotfest heroes and the garbage practicioners are all crippled up somewhere, when there are 1500 people even at WWF shows, folks like Regal and Benoit make the statement that for there to be a new-school, it must be rooted in the old. For an artform to matter, it can't be rooted in a vacuum.
~@~
NEW JAPAN PRO WRESTLING TV-
10/9/2000- TOKYO DOME
(DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Toshiaki Kawada vs Kensuke
Sasaki:
The first two times I saw it I thought
this was... like... Match of The Millennium- then I remembered that Tanya
Tucker vs Glen Campbell also happened in what is technically this millennium.
Plus World War I and II and the American Civil War and what have you. But
I digress. As for this match, it was pretty much hell-fire and hurricanes
of stiffness- with Kawada and Sasaki beating the living fuck out of each
for 15 minutes. At first it seems REALLY straight forward- a kind
of Ode to Hashimoto vs Tenryu 1998 standing slugfest in thier own Ode to
stiffness. Upon further inspection it's actually a lot more complex
than this nearest predecessor. Hash/ Tenryu was hellishly stiff and
the most straightforward ass-kicking-based match in New Japan since Vader
beat the fuck out of Inoki. Hash/Tenryu works because they kept it
one-dimensional and intense. This match matches that intensity but
adds more elements from All Japan to make it a formalistically superior
match but also matches it's closest predecessors in sheer amount of horrendous
violence. I actually like a lot more Sasaki matches than most people.
I think he gets lumped in the no-selling shitty New Japan heavyweights
category too often when- in actuality- he has had a couple a decent matches
when he shouldn't have (I like his title defenses against Muta and, to
a lesser degree, Nishimura) but Sasaki IS what you can call a "limited"
worker- sorta like Buddy Ryan was a "limited" football coach. Sasaki
CAN work amazingly stiff though and that's all the magnificent Kawada needs
to make this one of the best PURE New Japan Heavyweight matches you'll
ever see. Kawada is on a mission here- he understands that the New
Japan Heavyweight style COULD have been the predominant All Japan style
if Misawa had half a brain and could look credible without snapping people's
spinal chords. Kawada knows that a simplification of the Psychology
and a simplification of moves can still create a compelling match and HERE
he gets his big chance to prove it. In front of a sold out Tokyo
Dome, against a wrestler who hasn't had a great match in five years, Kawada
pulls the trigger and shows that HE is the true money player in Puroresu.
Kawada understands the basis of the style- the moves are big, the story
is simple, the stiffness level is high- it's a perfect setting for Kawada,
the All Japan purveyor of said tenets of wrestling. That being said, it
should also be unnerving to Choshyu that Kawada can come in and have- in
his first try- the most perfect match in the style Choshyu has based his
promotion on. It doesn't say much for Manabu Nakanishi and Hiroshi
Tenzan, who have had five years to figure the style out and can't muster
1/100 of this match. The key is that Kawada understands the basis
of selling and the level of selling neccessary to make it work as a wrestling
match and how to make it work as a New Japan Heavyweight match. By
instilling the better part of the first thing, he automatically creates
the second. The New Japan simple match idea starts out of early in
the first three minutes as Kawada goes into a collar and elbow with Sasaki
and Sasaki powers out and they go back into a collar and elbow tie up.
The crowds pops big for a missed knife-edge chop by Sasaki- as Sasaki goes
for the big move while Kawada looks to be going for the All Japan slow
build by going into the headlock. Sasaki powers out, gets his own
headlock and gets shot into the ropes and hits a shoulder block for
the next big pop. Kawada starts the level of selling HERE, establishes
the value of every strike from that shoulderblock for the crowd to gauge
everything else against for the rest of the match and- having done this-
says, "It'S ON , Motherfucker." The All Japan slow build tease is over
as they just start fricking way-laying each other. The savage brutality
of the beating puts it in the realm of selling that blows the standard
New Japan level of selling out of the water. Whereas Sasaki, when
in with your basic Road Warrior Hawk-based NJ Heavyweight would pop up
after a lariat because he is so superhumanly powerful- when in reality
he is showing that illogical wrestling where selling isn't based on ANYTHING
CONSTANT sucks dick- here he is following the lead of Kawada.
The All Japan aspect of this very New Japan sprint of a match is that the
cumulative selling of moves is foreign to New Japan, but both Sasaki and
Kawada instill it into this match. The math of an All Japan is replaced
by the NEW math of this match- Replace cumulative head-crushing with cumulative
strikes, kicks and lariats- and add in a new element of working towards
an ACTUAL finisher. The logical clockwork psychology of Kawada and the
subtlety he brings to this slaughterhouse of a match is pretty awe-inspiring.
Kawada establishes a basis against which the crowd can measure each strike
and move and they both sell to that basis and the crowd accepts the story.
Then, Kawada establishes the superficial story to take the crowd to the
finish. Here it is inferrer that Sasaki needs to hit his Northern
Lights Bomb to win. Kawada needs to hit the right running high Kick.
The match is then divided into three sections and each directs the match
to the final race to the finish- a simpler formula than your classic All
Japan match, but a deeper idea for a New Japan Heavyweight match.
The start of the match is Sasaki getting more cumulative damage through
chops- as he hits astoundingly stiff chops on Kawada until Kawada can get
the transition and get a large accumulation of kicks to counteract the
damage. The selling of the chops and amazing amount of punishment
therein is at a level of selling that is basically no-selling at first,
but then you see the cumulative effect and it makes sense. THIS effect
is what Choshyu has always wanted in his Heavyweight matches but none of
his roided out monsters have the wrestling savvy to pull it off- because
they can't ever ACTUALLY SELL and it comes off as just shitty no-selling
at worst or just really scattershot psychology at best. Here, Kawada
takes Choshyu favorite roid monster and shows him EXACTLY how to make it
work. The match then goes into the middle section of submissions as Kawada
kicks the holy fuck out of Sasaki to get him in position for the Stretch
Plum. Sasaki counters out and REALLY KICKS THE HOLY MOTHERFUCK out
of Kawada to get two nearfalls with a Lariat and Powerbomb to set up his
Scorpion Deathlock. Now that both of these two have been put in a
submission hold foreign to them in their careers before this match (as
main event wrestlers anyway), the finish is simply who has the most left
after the two levels of sheer ass-stomp has been established. The
first two parts were comparable and equal ass-beatings with each setting
up the final flurry of who has the most fighting spirit left and shit.
They go back to the beginning, stand face to face and take turns beating
the holy fuck out of each other- Sasaki is stronger, Kawada has better
technique; Sasaki has more left in the tank, Kawada is craftier in fighting.
They hit a deadlock as Kawada responds to a FUCKING HEAD-RIPPING LARIAT
by Sasaki by kicking Sasaki right in the face before they both collapse.
After a double lariat 8 count, Sasaki goes for the kill by going for the
Northern Lights Bomb but Kawada has effectively worn him down enough for
Kawada to block the move and Sasaki collapse from the effort. Sasaki
collapses and Kawada kicks him in the face when he gets to his feet. Kawada
then zeroes in for the kill with three highkicks to the back of the head.
Sasaki does the Misawa-variation of blocking the finishing kick with a
lariat to the shin like Misawa would block with an Elbow Smash, but it
is too little too late as Kawada CRUSHES Sasaki's skull with the final
kick, sprawling desperately to get the three count. This was about
as great a match as you can pull off in such a huge place, as almost every
move is just fucking gigantic. It took a thousand viewings of this
match to figure out just how much of this great New Japan style match was
actually a very cool mutation of a great All Japan match. One key is that
the finish was final and built to a New Japan-style simple finish and that
makes it was far superior to the drawn out preposterous Five Dozen Finisher
finishes that was driving me away from late 90s All japan. The perfect
mutation of both styles is synthesized effortlessly first time out by Kawada
and I cannot wait for him to breath life into every other match he has
in New Japan. This match is fucking great.
~&~
@#@#@# All Pro Wrestling
- Internet Tournament 2000
(PHIL SCHNEIDER)
Watched an Internet tourney the way god
intended over the Internet, pretty good stuff without the hideous overbooking
that has plauged APW as of late
Myaki Franz vs. Vinny Massaro:
Myaki is a highspotty rookie, who is a
hell of an athlete but is still learning how to wrestle. He debuted a couple
of months before this match against Massaro in a spectacular but flawed
match, this is the rematch, and it is not as crazy, but is closer to a
wrestling match then a spot exhibition. Massaro is in full rudo mode as
he does a good job selling all of Massaros crazy lucha armdrags. Massaro
sells for a lot of this occasionally punctuating the match with a super
stiff forearm. Massaro also hits a nice tope-con-hilo and a Great Sasuke
style kill-my-self-more-then-I-kill-my-opponent Asai moonsault. The end
is really great as Massaro kills Franz with a Air Raid Crusher and a off
the hook Steiner Screwdriver.
"Fallen Angel" Christopher
Daniels vs. Jardi Franz:
Franz may be the most improved wrestler
of the year. In 1999 he was a highspot machine with very little straight
wrestling ability and a tendancy to blow spots. He has really stepped it
up in the last six months, becoming a suprisingly proficent mat wrestler
and raising the level on his highspots. Daniels is on of the best wrestlers
in the world, and is a supurb base for a highflyer like Franz. They break
out some nice mat wrestling to start, and then move into some swift counter
sequences. Franz's highspots include a springboard tope-con-hilo and a
wall walk. He also broke out a sweet rocker dropper counter to a powerbomb.
Daniels looked crisp as always, breaking out a really nice looking snap
suplex kip up and finsihing off Franz with a Last Rights. Could have used
some more time, but was a very good match.
"Fallen Angel" Christopher
Daniels vs. Vinny Massaro:
These guys are two of the most complex
workers in the indies. Daniels is a master of complex counter sequences
and Massaro is almost as proficent. They started with some mat wrestling,
which was highlighted by a super fast go-behind by Massaro, showing nice
agility for such a chubbed out cat. Massaro worked over the arm, including
rope walk legdrop which was slightly preposterous but kind of neat . Daniels
took over with a dropkick to the knee, he then channels Minoru Tanaka and
breaks out all of his freaky kneebars, including a prawn hold rolled into
a a kneebar and a reverse roll up into a kneebar. The also did a couple
of Danielsy counter sequences, Daniels tries a pildriver- Massaro
counters into an air raid crusher attempt- Daniels counters into
a roll up. Massaro can tend to get a little NOVAish or Kanyonastic,
where he will rather show a bunch of new moves then wrestle a match, but
he kept his innovations to a minimum in this match and just worked, and
this was probably the best singles match of his career. You want all of
this.
~%~
Karas vs. Yasaku:
Yasaku is the beefy heavyweight from DDT/Capture
International whose twin brother Diasaku doesn't actually look like him.
Karas is the Hayabusu long-nosed mask guy that will not stay off my tapes
as of late. They are both good little workers. This match fearlessly
sucks a hogleg when it shouldn't have- considering that I've seen both
of these guys in crappy Japanese indie matches where they elevated the
match to something good or at least watchable. Instead, this was the New
Millenium version of that ageless classic from WAR. Let's go back
to DVDVR #61 and relive the first time this Archtype Match was executed:
"Osamu Tachihikari vs BattleRanger- This is from the otherside, the dark,
hoary side of the WAR promotion. Battle Ranger is a good little quasi-lucha
flyer. Tachihikari is the most lumbering of the faceless lumbering WAR
heavyweights. Add it all up and you get a WAR heavyweight match without
the other lumbering heavyweight, replaced instead by a little guy who can
work selling for a clumsy galoot who doesn't sell. BOY! This ain't good."
The difference is that while I'm guessing that Yasaku is at the same level
of experience as OSAMU~~! was AT THIS JUNCTURE, Yasaku is a WHOLE LOT better
than Tachihikari. On the flipside, Caras is no BattleRanger.
Battle Ranger was fun and nifty and even more drenched in indie sleaze.
Either way, Karas gets in one Asai Moonsault and couple of kicks and a
whole bunch of knife-edge chops and lariats that go as unsold as a row
of tickets for Starrcade 2000. THIIIIISSSS SSSSSSUUUUUUCCCCKKKKSSSS.
Grace Asano was the ref though, so there is a big Pathetic International
Crush thing going on here for you lonely hearts at home.
Yoshiya Yamashita/ Yuji Kito
vs. Masked Falcon/ Lucky Boy:
I'm excited. I get excited sometimes
about the Professional Wrestling. I almost always get excited when
someone named Masked Falcon decides to thrown in with a wrestler named
Lucky Boy. 777 on his back and he is a lucky boy indeed, it would seem.
Lucky turns to GHASTLY horror as it seems that IWA boy, Yamashita, that
IIII championed as being "trained by Tortuga... probably; and thus IMMENIENTLY
worthy of top 500 consideration" has decided to take his brilliant training
by the world's best Japanese Knock-Off Of A Gimmick That Was Already Dated
12 Years Ago- lost Ninja Turtle the crotchshotastic TORTUGA- and thrown
the shit in the street! Actually, I'm too hard on Yamashita- it's just
that his offense is super lowgrade and he blows spots at the end and he
does the Locomotion Snapmare which is SOOOO 1998. Lucky is all about the
comedy spots and does these cool spazzoid headbutts like he is having a
stroke in mid diving headbutt. The spot where he runs the ropes and does
a backwards shoulderblock while waving to the crowd as if to say, "Greetings!
I am wrestling but I have time to acknowledge you" is quite adorable and
goofy in a Gamera Subplot Robot way. Kito and Falcon are the meat
of the match as they do all the stiffer stuff. I dunno. This
is a lot of wrestling moves executed competently, but they needed to work
towards some kind of climax. Two Kamikazes in one match say that
these four need to watch 6 hours of the Armstrong Brothers on tape before
they can attempt to wrestle another tag match. YEEKS!
Nise Onita/ Kikuzawa vs.
Ichiro Yaguchi/ Nise Yagushi:
Kikuzawa is the meat that keeps the ZIPANG-DDT-WESTERN
JAPAN-EAGLE PRO axis of wrestlng together. He is the all around good little
worker that can make a match with three astoundingly marginal workers like
these three bozos approach the Japanese Indie Promise Land of "Nearly Watchable"
status. Nise Yagushi comes out with Actual Yaguchi and it's funny.
Yaguchi is now a really big fat hog and his Nise is Jennifer Anniston Thin
so it looks like Yaguchi is doing a nouvelle Christian avante-gard venquiloquism
act. Nise Onita is all about Nise Offense and hits Nise clotheslines.
Nise translates to "fake" and I think it's like the Hawaiian word "aloha"-
in that it can also mean "suck". Or it should. These Nises
suck and they suck on the Onita Pro stuff. Nise Onita has cancer
so I will leave him alone now. Meanwhile, Nise Yaguchi will take
a GIGANTIC ass-kicking to rationalize his own existence as a Nise.
But he also throws the worst punches by anyone ever trained to wrestle
in Japan. PERHAPS Ed Leslie did some kind of clinic at the Yaguchi
Famous Wrestler Dojo- it was the "Punches, BROTHER!: the Leslie method
to Big time Success In Sports Entertainment" seminar lecture hall "c".
Either way, I'm proud to announce that, yes, WE HAVE A NEW KING OF SHITTY
PUNCHES! He is Nise Yaguchi and you will go, "Awww FUCK YOU with THAT!"
when you see them. I'm hoping that I'm wrong- as I would wish this fate
upon no fellow brother or sister on this beautiful planet of love we call
"the World"- but Nise Yagushi has eternal shitty Japanese no-talent blood-sucking
freak written all over him- a future Nakamaki in the making. And
you were there on the groundfloor. When the Nises lock-up, I weep
horrible tears of hate. Hate for me. Hate for life. Hate. C'mon,
I'm your pal- send me quality controlled narcotics so I can forget
this match ever entered my life experience. Please.
Congo the Dark Knight vs.
Heaven:
Heaven is fun and will die for ya!
Gotta love THAT! Dead Dead Dead! Owie Owie Owie! He is wearing
Antifaz Midnight Blue tights instead of the BALLS OUT Daisy Dukes that
say "WHO COULD BE MORE OF A MANNNN THAN MEEEEE?!?!?" Thus it's a
mixed bag from the getgo with the one who would be Heaven. Congo The Dark
Knight is such a cool name. He's a shitty wrestler. Does a
lot of kicks and grounds the whole middle of the match and never allows
Heaven to attempt to escape this mortal coil via higspot gone horribly
wrong so I cannot love this section of the Heaven Canon of Ligament Ripping
Highspotfests. He does hit a nice Tope Con Hilo and nice Barrell
Roll Senton off the top rope. Heaven has the super fun Triple Wiggly
Dizzyboy Neckbreaker for a finisher so there is nothing to hate here.
Just nothing spectacular enough to make you want to see it.
Adachi vs. Black Heaven:
Adachi is a mystery. Right when
I want to write him off as an annoying Rob Van Dam of super Low Budget
Japanese Independent Wrestling, he'll go have a perfect lucha sequence
like the opening of this match. I mean, Adachi has some armdrags
that are to DIE for and he seems to have a real knack for lucha stylings.
From there, Black Heaven- who is a pretty good shake in the lucha department-
takes it straight to the mat, as these two have a slight clue as to how
to put a match together. Black Heaven makes with the lowgrade offence
after getting the offensive and Adachi droptoeholds his way to ruining
some classic Mexican submissions as he does the worst variation on a Pendulum
Hold you will ever see. After getting in some pretty stiff kicks, he does
the irritating rope walking spot. JET FREEZER~! makes a run-in, hitting
Adachi with a Springboard Bulldog and Black Heaven goes finisher wacky
as DOUBLE FOULES lead to SUPER KICKS and Adachi hits a cool as fuck off
the apron rope assisted Senton in to the ring for two and a DOUBLE SPRINGBAORD
MOONSAULT for two. Jet FREEZER~! and the LEGION OF DARKNESS cheat
like motherfuckers and get the transition of pure evil and four Kanyonized
Powerbombs later has Black Heaven getting the duke and applying the stompdown.
They beat Adachi's ass for a while and the faces all get smeared as they
try to make the save until surprise run-in- ASIAN COUGAR!- makes the actual
save- crushing Heaven (who is as evil as Black Heaven, it turns out!!)
with an Apron Legdrop! WOO-HOO!
The Main event was perfectly fine wrestling with Adachi doing more good than irritating, but lemme tell you, beloved reader- this ain't ZIPANG you want. Keep reading.
~!~
#$#$#$#$#$ ZIPANG-7/19/2000-
"NON-STOP PASSION!"
(DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Who Am I/ JET FREEZER vs.
Naoshi Sano/ Yoshiya Yamashita:
GOD! Where can I begin to START with the
love for the disparate throughly fucked-up elements of this match.
Who Am I is a white guy in a Hawaiian shirt who has LOST HIS MEMORY! SO
HE HAS TO WRESTLE TO FURTHER THE EVIL DESIGNS OF THE LEGION OF DARKNESS!!
JET FREEZER~! is his handler and has to convince Who AM I to take the vicious
Gaijin Who Looks Like A 7-11 Counter Clerk Attack to the cuddly Naoshi
Sano and the maligned Yamashita. Sano- who is used to trying to get
a handle on gimmick wrestlers gone haywire by always being on every SPWC
card ever, REALIZES that Who Am I is just as likely to help the forces
of good as easily as he will help the forces of evil but decides to just
start beating on the lost tourist for kicks. Yamashita looks perfectly
fine doing the same. JET FREEZER~! is kicky and low-end offensively,
but his ASTOUNDING TO INFINITY mask carries the match. Yamashita
gets the pin and the forces of Heaven's Legion Of Darkness corral WHO AM
I and try to get him settled down enough to get him to the back.
You probably need to just watch this to understand it. And it gets even
more fucked up and weird later. The wrestling is very a-okay. Naoshi
is a good lil worker.
Kana Misaki vs. Tsubasa Kuragaki:
HEY! It's the Ladies of JWP. Misaki
used to be Motoya back in the day and she is cute as living breathing hell.
Kuragaki looks like one of the Chigusa Nagayo Girls From Brazil clones.
She's kinda thick and powerful but throws good dropkicks. I've lost track
of the JWP gals pretty completely since they've lost television and it's
weird to see Misaki on a ZIPANG card when I figured she'd be spearheading
a big youth resurgence in Joshi. It seems JWP took the biggest hit
when it came to the near collapse of of Joshi. Motoya was the second or
third best youngster JWP had and she was the hottest looking. Now
I don't know where they run or who they draw or anything. As for this match,
it's pretty much Joshi by numbers but with Kuragaki blowing a bunch of
stuff. The Endless finishers part is kept to a reasonable amount
as Misaki hits a cool Senton, a Super Cool Front Chancery Suplex and UD
La Majistral variation for the pin. Kuragaki did a neato Backslide
into a Bridge that was not enough to save the parts that she blew, so I
can't give this match the love that I want to. Kana Misaki needs
to get snapped up by GAEA already.
NOZAWA/ Mitsanobu Kikuzawa
vs Arkangel del Muerte/ Starman:
Golly! NOZAWA is really improved immensely
since the underwhelming introduction I got to him on the CMLL Japan tape,
where he wrestled as Super Cacao and the brief appearance in the DDT Junior
Tournament. He is all intense and super on the Lucha tip now. He
is much less tentative and far more dynamic. NOZAWA and Kikuzawa
are TOKYO GURENTAI~! and they are up for the challenge of two of my fave
EMLL midcarders ever- Arkangel- he of the honeycomb design on the back
of his outfit, and Starman- who used to be called Ultraman Jr and who can
take it to the mat in an Old School Lucha way like a Old School mutha fukka
will. NOZAWA makes with the comedy early as he complains to Grace
every time Starman hits an armdrag- saying that his Mexican opponent is
pulling all areas of his hair and facial hair. After that they go
to mat hitting a few dozen reversals and then they have an extended armdrag
clinic so I am losing my fucking mind because I really LOVE that kinda
shit. ArkAngel and Kikuzawa take it straight to the mat- with each
trading kneebars, working up to armabars leading to RUDO Kikuzawa kicking
and punching to offense. NOZAWA and Starman go back to the coolest
armdrags they can think of, all adding up to a Quebradora by Starman driving
NOZAWA out to the floor leading to Arkangel and Kikuzawa topping their
counterparts armdrag clinic- as Kikuzawa accents his armdrags with a SUPER
cool ass Old School flying head scissors and Arkangel TOPPING HIM by hitting
a Near-Pantera level Floatover-Into-A-Baseball-Slide armdrag. I am now
suitably freaked out. ARKANGEL RULES. I'm thinking that since Arkangel
is in the weird position of being technico, he gets to do all the offense
that he never gets to do- as he does all the quebrada variations including
a superswank Quebrada elbow. NOZAWA hits a counter Lariat to get
back on offense and hits a beautiful Kaz Hayashi Vertical Tope. Starman
and Kikuzawa counter with the toprope diving armdrag into the MORTAL~!
into a pose and Arkangel goes into his rudo powermode- beating young NOZAWA
into submission. Starman and Arkangel then become Arena Mexico Midnight
Express hitting the slam into a Senton, the double dropkicks to the face
and the dickish dropkick in the Camel Clutch. NOZAWA escapes by hitting
two dropkicks on Arkangels knee and Kikuzawa comes in to get RUDOIZED!
ArkAngel and Starman do every double team move they can remember and all
of them rule. They get to the Double Leglock into the Crawling Through
Double Pin spot in case there was any question about the Luchaness of the
match and match is slowing down quickly. Before the finish kicks
in we have a full-blown Star but now third set of wrestlers to fill in
the middle so it is the spot diminished. ArkAngel and Starman start the
highspot train to lead to the finish with Arkangel hitting a Lizmark Old
School Piscada, Starman with the Tope Con Hilo and NOZAWA with Barrel Roll
Piscada. The finishes start as NOZAWA hits a king-sized Released
German for two and the Backslide for two. Arkangel starts hitting Liger
Bombs for two. They then go MEMPHIS with it, as Kikuzawa attempts
to bash Arkangel with the tag belts, Starman intercepts and gets the belt,
misses NOZAWA and hits Arkangel, DOUBLE SCHOOL BOYZ and you the Midsouth
Coliseum pops like monkeys! This was the best Arkangel has looked
in a while and I love NOZAWA now. This was good and fun like Lucharesu
should be. The fact that each team clearly swiotched from Rudo to
Technico twice in the match made it stylistically confusing, but the good
outweigh any bad, I'd say- as I enjoyed this match quite a bit.
Adachi/ Asian Cougar/ Masked
Falcon vs. Heaven/ Extraterrestrial Life/ Yoshida:
Extraterrestrial comes out in some kind
of oversized poptart wrapper and you freak out like a monkey. Heaven
unleashes him and he has one of theose gloriously taped together get-ups
that I absolutely adore because it is SOO fun- what with the tinfoil space
suit to the Big Daddy Roth Channels Eiger After Developing A Neurological
Disorder mask. Yoshida is the secret underground keeper in this match.
He is rocking with the high-flying and has the Poor Man's Yuji Yasaraoka
outfit that screams "WHAT!?! HUNH?". Heaven is FINALLY showing off
his Big Business in his tiny Daisy Dukes and he and Masked Falcon fearlessly
do some wrestling. Extraterrestrial Life (who I am 78% sure is a
Lucky Boy) makes with the comedy jokes, which is fine because it IS actually
a SPWC-level weird-ass gimmick where ETL walks around in hand wiggling
alieness and tries to be all alien and unorthodox in the ring. The
problem is that this is a pretty straight approximation of Lucha match
and ETL is paired up with the divine Asian Cougar- thus making this less
wrestlerific and more funny as they are married for the rest of the match,
which ISN'T good- but luckily they break it up before the end and the flyers
meet the flyers. Adachi and Heaven go through all of Adachi's more
annoying spots early and make with the funniest moment of the night- in
a Three Stooges Do Zipang kinda way- as they hit a double foule and pogo
around for a few minutes in comically groinular agony. Yoshida hits the
Double Springboard Quebrada off the toprope like a thinner, pimplier Silver
King, but it can't save him from the La Tapitia-esque and Gorrie-Special-drenched
stylings of Masked Falcon. Asian Cougar gets a moment of daylight as he
is tagged in against Yoshida and he gets all of his Leg-droppy offense
in. Yoshida hits a Double Springboard Dropkick and Double Springboard Plancha
to the floor as Asian Cougar becomes ONE with the HEAT SEGMENT~!
Heaven does some midgrade power moves to make way for a second foray of
Yoshida vs Asian Cougar with Yoshida getting crushed by the over-the-toprope
Legdrop and the Diving Senton to the floor. Yoshida and Masked Falcon
start the high spots of Hot Death with MORE Double Springboard Planchas
by Yoshida and a FUCKING BEAUTIFUL Tope Con Hilo by Asian Cougar. Extraterrestrial
Life does the very alien Spud Webb no hands springbaord Plancha that was
pretty nifty for a guy who I'm assuming can't see anything at all in that
get up. The finish is pretty great as ETL gets a very Earth-based
Liger Bomb on Adachi but starts spinning in a circle BECAUSE HE'S FROM
OUTERSPACE! thus setting up the perfect opportunity for a super kick by
Adachi. A jillion other finishers on the pathetic little fella from
outer Space then ensues- as he first has to contend with the new atmosphere
and then has to contend with being asked to put the Ace Of Zipang over
in a community center in some anonymous Prefecture in rural Japan. Post
match, the Army Of Darkness and the Army Of Light beat the crap out of
each other and we all win. Get this tape. It's really fun and
has the superstars of tomorrow (NOZAWA, Kikuzawa, Asian Cougar, Yoshida,
Naoshi Sano, and don't forget JET FREEZER~!) on it. Plus, you can NEVER
get too much Arkangel del la Muerte.
~!~
%^%^%^%^%^%^ ZIPANG- 8/14/00-
"FEARLESS SUMMER".
(DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Naoshi Sano/ Masked Falcon
vs. JET FREEZER/ Who Am I:
When we had last left WHO AM I, he was
being menaced by JET FREEZER~! and Heaven's Army Of Darkness. Here, his
resistance to JET FREEZER~! is even more pronounced and NOW is the time
for Naoshi Sano to use his keen skill to Control All Gimmicks and turn
WHO AM I against the Army Of Darkness. Naoshi and JET~! go at it
tooth and nail at the beginning- with neither being able to get the armbar.
JET~! cheats and gets Sano to the corner and, reluctantly, WHO AM I tags
in! This is where Naoshi talks WHO AM I into BREAKING FREE of JET
FREEZER~! and the diabolical Army Of Heaven! WHO AM I turns on JET~!
and spends the remainder of the match wandering about the building, trying
to stay away from the rest of the Army Of Darkness. Meanwhile JET~!
enjoys the ass-kicking that only a betrayed heel can enjoy. WHO AM
I wanders in and out of camera range wearing a different Mask from the
Army Of Darkness every time. Sano uses this time to mack on the always
alluring Grace, all in the name of distracting her from the endless double
team of JET but the undercurrent of love and admiration is SEETHING just
below the surface- WAITING for the macig of love to begin! Heaven
finally corrals WHO AM I and makes him tag back in. WHO AM I has
a sack of batteries or something that Heaven gave him and he is supposed
to hit Masked Falcon with it, but WHO AM I isn't interested in a life of
evil and Masked Falcon takes the sack away and attempts to hit JET with
it, but Falcon misses and hits WHO AM I with it. This is the BEGINNING
of I AM CODY's self-realization and reacclimation of his memory and the
first step to continuing his career as an inexplicable white guy in the
most obscure Japanese Indie on the face of the earth. I truly adore
ZIPANG.
El Consadole vs. FM Taro:
El Consadole is a bird and the ladies
bring him bird seeds before the match and he eats it. This match takes
a chance that the audience will be in the SPIRIT to go along with the whimsey
as Consadole and Fighting Machine TARO spend half the match doing Puroresu
Charlie Chaplain routines as Consadole is a duel role of opponent/pet bird.
That makes it balls out and really weird. It made me think that I
should do the same in this review. I should take a chance and hope
that the audience is in the right SPIRIT. Hell, if you've read through
THREE ZIPANG reviews, I owe you a part of my soul for reading about six
hours of wrestling that you will probably never see. FM TARO gets face
heat for also eating birdseeds from the ladies at ringside. He is
a good looking young man and the ladies are charmed as was the rest of
the audience. I myself worry about what I'm doing with my life sometimes.
I've done it my way at least. Or at least I think I've done it my
way. I think I'm a pretty big pussy a lot of times because I will
lose whole years of my life on stupid things. FM Taro does this great thing
of luring Consadole off his perch with birdseeds and when the birdman is
whimsically pecking at the seeds, Fighting Machine dropkicks him in the
head. The look on his face is priceless as he tries mitigate the
barrages of boo's with a look of "C'mon! I'm a good enough guy! It's
a wrestling match! I have to wrestle!" and the crowd is even
more enraptured in the match. I lost three years waiting tables,
three years printing t-shirts- overlapped by five years of an OBVIOUSLY
dead-end relationship that I fought like a motherfucker to keep together,
eventhough I knew it was REALLY hurting both of us. I would mitigate
it all by playing in bands and- since that was a fluke dream I had when
I was a child that somehow came true- would give me the power to continue
the more pathetic self-destructive tendencies I stupidly championed in
my mind. The crowd goes really apeshit as Consadole does a Diving
Headpeck and pecks his way out of the corner. The pecking is unexpected
by your reviewer and I was baffled and delighted. Even to this day,
I try to make sense of my twenties. I think I was kinda happy being
free from 25 to 27 because I felt a whole lot of loneliness and desperation
but it made me more alive for it. When your lonely and gone to seed
and no longer thought of as a sexual entity, the feeling of being pariah
is rejuvenating and cleansing for a while. When the thrill of being
a hideous shocking freak wears off and your left alone staring at a bottle
of some shitty beer you can't even afford anymore because you've squandered
every single ounce of talent god has given you in some foggy quest to be
"free"- you realize the price that you've paid. I wasn't cool- I
was just fat and drunk and an asshole. Then I would would screw my manhood
to the sticking place and come up with somekind of "living life intuitively
is more fulfilling than discipline and regimentation" bullshit to make
it through the times of hollow horrible moments of stinging clarity amidst
the daily grind. I'm realizing now that to live THAT intuitively
would require a boatload more moxy than I have stored away. I do take comfort
in the fact that though I was far too much of a pussy to live as riotously
as a true prodigal son would, and I didn't have enough of a good time to
justify the disappointment I've caused my mother and family and friends,
I do have a couple hundred good stories I can tell and I was a really good
source of comic relief for dear friends who were in similar existentially
mind-fucking straits. Either way, I'm married now and have amazingly
beautiful children. My job is perfect in that I am a strawboss- so
I can't fire anyone, I'm still in charge, and I'm not actual formal management-
so I have the some benefits and some of the pay of managemnet without having
to have a weird working relationship with my co-workers for the most part.
I figured if I had completely played it straight, I'd be making 15,000
more a year, probably would hate myself more and have even more regrets
than just what I have now- mostly being too overweight to attract all the
women I should have slept with. And that last part is just me being
a big fat whiny crybaby because I've had more intense, mystical, passionate
experiences with true women of strength or women of haunting vulnerability
and irresistible combinations and variations of the two, so much so that
any regret about not having more is an insult to the ones who told herself
that she loved me at one time and then gave me insight into the last mystery
an adult can begin to try to solve. To hell with me. FM Taro
kicks the Birdman in the head with a Superkick and charm and whimsy of
the moment give way to the rest of the night.
Congo the Dark Knight vs.Yoshiya
Yamashita:
Congo the Dark Night isn't whatcha call
very good. His finisher is the Claw and he does a really poopy Nodawa.
Yamashita is redeemed himself in my eyes but this match still sucks it
sideways.
Asian Cougar/Adachi/Yoshida
vs. Heaven/Extraterrestrial Life/Giant Watermelon Head:
Any match with both Extraterrestrial Life
AND Giant Watermelon Head automatically starts off with an Andromeda-level
amount of stars from the get go. The fact that Giant Watermelon Head
has the most indecipherably nebulous gimmick makes for a Crab Nebula of
stars. The fact that Extraterrestrial Life has a Frank Frazzetta-inspired
physique painted on his costume (a sort of Mr Goodbody of Aquilonia) makes
this already the greatest match in the history of our sport! Ring the bell
already! Giant Watermelon head has this three-tiered headdress that
takes two people to hold up as he makes his way to the ring. The
mask underneath is like Halloween's- but it's a Watermelon. And Giant Watermelon
Head isn't gonna do a Tope Con Hilo to Nowhere for your pleasure. Watermelon
Head does do the eternal happy boy dance that his Mexican Vegetation-Based
Masked Counterpart has never done- so it all equals out, sorta. He
is a big fat guy who does lotsa clotheslines too, so he's definately no
Halloween! REALLY! The MEAT of the match is ETL- who is more of a worker
and less of a gimmick in this match, as the painted on muscles propel him
to workingdom. The BIGGEST MEAT of the match is Heaven and Asian
Cougar ripping up the motherfucking house like TRUE KINGZ! as Asian Cougar
is just fuggin AWESOME and Heaven tries to hang with him, so it's all good.
Giant Watermelon Heads fights his urge to go to the mat with Adachi and
continues his chop-based offense so the yucks keep coming. It all leads
up to a big Tope Con hilo Part 2 Highspot train and it rox! The finish
is super-extended as they set up a bunch of ways to pummel ETL- including
Adachi getting him in a Mexican Pendulum Hold while Asian Cougar does a
Springbaord Legdrop across his head. The finish is finally Asian
Cougar hitting the prettiest Straitjacket German Suplex you'll ever see-
as ETL once again is the ZIPANG! whipping boy. This match is super fantastically
sleazily fun. Asian Cougar rules and ZIPANG is stuff you want if
you like your wrestling super goofy 24-7 and sometimes good in the ring.
Oh yeah!
~&~
WRESTLER OF THE WEEK: BRET HART
BRET HART vs CHRIS BENOIT;
Monday, October 4th, 1999- (DEAN RASMUSSEN):
(When Schneider said that we should
do Bret Hart for Wrestler Of The Week, Tony suggested that I reprint the
review of the Nitro Benoit/Bret match from the last Monday Nitro Workrate
report worth writing. Here it is.)
Chris Benoit and Bret Hart have the Match
Of The Year on free TV and wonks can dispute the technical points when
compared Match Of The Year Candidate X and they will all lose in my eyes
because this match was so phenomenal and gets more phenomenal each time
you watch it- simply because there is so much story injected into this.
The KEY to this match is the understanding of what this match was- a vision
and a lament of what Bret Hart assumed wrestling would become, as this
became a rockhard story seeped in real life emotion with two master artists
expressing their sorrow through a sullen determination to show in one match
all that is good in their shared perspective of wrestling: wrestling that
is seeped in traditional forms and structures, masterfully showing how
a match is crafted while at the same time infusing the piece with state
of the art wrestling moves, man-sized stiffness, man-sized selling, man-sized
psychology- actual fucking KING-SIZED professional wrestling as filtered
through the basic tenets of the Hart Dungeon. This is what US Pro Style
SHOULD have become in 1990 after the end of the Flair/Steamboat era. This
is Bret Hart saying so IN THE RING and it you cannot get ANY cooler that
THAT. The backstory of this match is just coming out and it adds to the
already rich tapestry of the match: Bret was given the option to wrestle
in the same arena where his brother died- who died while working for a
man that betrayed Bret Hart and whom Bret Hart thoroughly despises. Instead
of doing what I would have done if it were my brother- which is try to
distance myself from the emotional trauma of that situation until I could
cope with the wellspring of feelings of love for my brother and the hatred
of whom I would consider the one responsible for his death, instead Bret
Hart decides to make his art his catharsis and decides to show the world
what his wrestling heritage is and he decides to show what his family was
capable of producing as he wrestles it's greatest graduate- Chris Benoit.
The backstory continues as Bret Hart requests to put over Chris Benoit
to the WCW, which is nixed by the WCW brass. This is key to the understanding
of this match because one can see that Bret knows what Benoit is- Benoit
is the one who has to embody the pinnacle of the Hart style and tradition
after Bret is through with the sport. Even when Owen was alive, Bret knew
that Owen's knees would prevent him from reaching the pure wrestling artform
pinnacle that he was capable of reaching, thus Bret Hart wants to put over
the real heir to the Hart Family domination of TRUE WRESTLING. This match
reaches vastly cool proportions even before the bell rings. THE MATCH ITSELF:
This was an exercise in everything that Bret Hart thinks is good wrestling
with concessions to what Benoit thinks is good wrestling. Hart supplies
the Heavyweight US Pro-Style match structure in the grand tradition by
starting from a headlock, working through the Knuckle Lock segment, into
stiff chops and punches and kicks- allowing for Benoit to hit big transitions
with suplexes and counters. Here is my favorite part- as Hart uses Old
School Finishers: A fucking GREAT DDT, a Memphis Piledriver, and Swinging
Neckbreaker to counteract Benoit's State-Of-The-Art Japanese Suplexes and
quasi-shootstyle submissions. EACH makes ONE concession as Bret Hart makes
an Old School US Pro-Style Back Suplex become a super High-Angle Back Suplex,
while Benoit takes a Boston Crab and mutates into his Boston Crab variation
(that Jericho would later use as his finisher.) The OTHER cool thing about
this match was that it was a forgone conclusion that Hart was going to
win so I was figuring that Benoit misses the headbutt and Bret procures
the SharpShooter- instead they go totally high tech with the double finisher
counter into a finisher ending and I was suitable amazed. Bret Hart who
has been doubting his role in Pro Wrestling- probably because he is the
greatest wrestler in North America and he is being treated like a glorified
Lex Luger- is able to focus again and cut out all the horror around him
and produce another great match after a long layoff from even an opportunity
to have a great match. Meanwhile Chris Benoit is SO Automatically Great
and SOO MONEY that his end being held up is such a forgone conclusion.
Just a great fucking match, perfectly done by WCW and- the exception of
Heenan's fucking embarrassing inability to ever go a whole minute without
trying to get (his own) useless ass over- perfectly done all around. The
ending and postmatch was absolutely number one and the best and it made
me proud to be a wrestling fan. Fuck the bullshit- this match is why I
watch Professional Wrestling.
Bret Hart vs. Owen Hart-
Marathon Match- 7/9/94- (PHIL SCHNEIDER): This is from a house show,
and is probably the best match I have ever seen which was never taped.
(Editor's Note - yes, the match exists on tape. Yes, Schneider's sentence
structure sucks.) I think what makes this slightly better then the
Marathon match versus Flair is that Owen and Bret are so familiar to each
other, this familiarity lends it self to a fluidity in their work which
wasn't present in the Flair match. The match went a good twenty minutes
before the first fall, this was the weakest point of the match as much
of it was spent with Owen going all Memphis heel, with a lot of pulling
of Bret's hair and stalling, the last couple of minutes of the first fall
were really good though with Bret getting the win with a nice bridged roll
up. The last forty minutes of the match are as good as any wrestling done
in America in the 1990's. The style of the match is definitly old school
American with a lot of mat wrestling, working over the limb and submission
holds, the mat work was especially good, the transitions were very good
looking with each reversal being very contested which gave it a much more
realistic look then some of the showier mat work used in NJ juniors influenced
matches. This is a perfect example of what made Bret Hart such a great
worker, he was a master of the little things that make wrestling matches
great. A lot of people critize Bret's work because he doesn't do a many
suplexes as TAZ throwing out lines like "five moves of doom." This shows
an ignorance of what a great wrestler is. The high impact moves in this
one hour match were pretty limited, a second rope superplex, a tombstone
piledriver, a regular piledriver and a diving headbutt, but they meant
so much more in the context of the match, then they do in many current
U.S. matches where they are thrown out in the first five minutes. However
each blow thrown was credible looking, every move was sold, Owen worked
on Bret's leg and Bret sold the injury the entire match, each one of the
falls made sense, and the crowd was really into each move.
The psychology in this match was really
interesting, even though Owen was the heel (and he was in full Austin Idol
mode for the first part of the match) he was really put over strong, and
Bret was almost made to look weak. Each man scored two falls in the regular
period, Owen got a pair of submission victories using a figure four, reapplying
the move immediately after getting the first submission and quickly getting
a second (which I really dug, as it is something that makes total sense,
but you rarely see in these types of matches.) Bret however won both of
his falls with flash roll ups. The end of the match was even odder. Owen
does a beautiful reversal of
a tilt-a-whirl into a tombstone, hits
a flying headbutt and puts on the sharpshooter, with Bret hanging on to
the time limit to avoid submitting. They then do a really hot ovetime period,
with Bret doing an awesome reversal of Owen's sharpshooter into a sharpshooter
of his own for the submission. Just a super match, which was superior
to their Wrestlemania match and is the best marathon match I have ever
seen.
~+~
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NEXT WEEK:TORYUMON! TORYUMON!
TORYUMON! RYAMA GO! IWRG! GAEA! GAEA~! GAEA! ARSION! OTHER STUFF!
*********************************************
THE DEATH VALLEY PLAYBOYS.
seven fists in the face
of wrestling
*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^
I want to shake like Laguardia,
Magic Mouth in the sun.
Take a ride to the courtyard,
before you can run.
-THE CARS
(Benjamin Orr: 1947-2000)
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