KANEMOTO! Matsumoto! LIGER! Hokuto! KAORU! Sugar Satoh! BOB BACHLUND! and other stuff on the positive tip this week and that crappy Williams/Misawa match!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #31! I try to watch tapes
in some semblance of order for some unknown reason- and once again this
week I watched about everything in a haphazard, random order so here's
the cooler stuff you may want to try to get a hold of, as I REALLY start
getting into the 9,000 tapes that Lorefice has sent me and, of course,
the ever-present batches of coolness from the omnipotent Glenn!
WOO-HOO!
-GOOOODDDDDDD DDDDAAAAAANNNNNNNGGGG!!! Koji Kanemoto vs Jushin Thunder
Liger for the J-Crown KICKS ASS! (GLLLLLEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!) I
think it might beat out Liger/Ohtani from last week in certain aspects,
though I probably need to watch both of them side by side to be sure.
Koji sells at a different level than Ohtani in this match- whereas
Ohtani sold as the young underdog who is postioned to take the belts,
Kanemoto sells in his match as the young punk bastard who is there to
kick the hell out of his codger rival until said codger finally gets
around to finishing him off. This was a freakin war. Liger hits the
ALL-NEW KANEMOTO-KILLER POWERBOMB that HAS to be seen to be believed.
Kanemoto out-Ohtani'ed Ohtani in selling that motherf*cker, I'd say 14
inches of clearance on the head bounce. Kanemoto is your basic
stiff-as-living-breathing-hell bastard as he puts the boots to the old
guy, including the new sign of coolness: the TAKA little kicks to the
head of a prone old guy. Kanemoto hits some beautiful spots off the top
rope and does his signature
Running-World's-Fastest-Released-Belly-To-Belly-Suplex. Liger doesn't
go through all the finishers he needed for Ohtani, but enough to make
Koji look as strong as he has been looking. Kanemoto rules the Freakin
World and Liger Rules the Freakin Universe. I wanna goddam rematch for
both of these matches already. Motegi confrontation at the interview
rounds out the night.:)
The Koshinaka/Great Muta match that they showed on the same show sucked
like a Muta match isn't afraid to suck as they can't seem to do the
table spots and Koshinaka realizes that any attempt to drag a match out
of Mutoh while in gimmick is pointless, so 24-7 real wrestler Koshinaka
does the smart thing, banks his check and tries to avoid getting mixed
up in the NWO angle and requests that they call back when they need a
real wrestling match again.
-The GAEA Champ Forum from threeish weeks ago Ruled it pretty hard. The
first match is is all the little gal rookies that are also starting to
come into their own (and Ichiki:)). Ichiki and lil Toshie Uematsu tag
with the other Kato maybe vs Hirota, Numao and Sonoko Kato. It's pretty
good for a bunch of rookies as they get all Lucha-esque in their
intricate multi-cute lil gal spots. The highlights are this weird
cartwheel armdrag by the other member of the Uematsu/Ichiki trio and the
fabulous Dragon Suplex by Sonoko. Ichiki is improving fast in that she
is becoming more crisp in her execution and her willingness to get
killed by everybody else. Numao is gonna be REAL good one day.
The Satomura/Sugar Satoh match, possibly, for the WCW Women's
Cruiserweight title or something dealing with that, was pretty choice,
with both of these gals going into full submission hold mode. They do
the great thing of doing the near-submission reverses and counters that
would replace the near-falls of a regular match. Very cool, as these
are definitely two of the real deals for the future. Afterwards, Shugah
is the hot minky ball of evil that she can be and Satomura is the
hot-headed defender of the faith that she is wont to be in these OZ
Academy encounters. (Satomura was wearing the CHOICE red outfit as
opposed to the lesser hot-pink get-up.:))
The Akira/Chigusa vs KAORU/Matsumoto match is great, if not for
Matsumoto- who gets Ichiki'd all over the ring by the cranky old bitch
Akira and equally cranky Chigusa. They beat the hell out of her and
KAORU just kinda runs in and keeps her in play for the other to punt
around. Akira hits her myriad of Death Drop Driver's and whatnot and
Chigusa does her running, rolling, face-destroying kicks. I think KAORU
gets a KAORUbomb II in somewhere over there, but if I were Matsumoto,
I'd hop on the OZ Academy bandwagon already. At least the Matron of
that little gang would have taken a chair to the bridge ladies who were
kicking your keister all over the place before it was all said and
done. GAEA RULES! WOO-HOO!
-I watched an (unbelievably) ALMOST TOTALLY GREAT WAR tape, 2/95,
(MIKE!!! WOO-HOO!! QUEBRADA!!!) I knew the Ultimo Dragon vs Jericho
match was gonna kick ass (which it did in a truly royal fashion). UD
was wearing little pants, which is the only flaw in this SUPERB match
between these two. I really think I have all of these matches on tape
between these two that exist, and this might be the best they have
done. UD uses a lot of Lucha moves I haven't seen him use in Japan (or
Mexico in fact) including a missed Corkscrew plancha. He and Jericho
mirrored each others moves, the pinnacle of which was the reverse
springboard moonsault to the floor that UD hit on Jericho after Jericho
had hit it on him. Jericho hits two FAT-ASS toprope suplexes that he
needs to doo over on this side of the Atlantic.
The weird match that I thought was good when it shouldn't have been was
the Bob Bachlund, Jimmy Snuka, and Mil Mascaras vs Hector Garza and The
Eliminators match. It is such a weird pairing and I was expecting the
worst, but everybody worked their ass off, Bachlund wasn't in for too
long at a time and when he was in, the Elims and Garza worked his NA Pro
Style really well. Snuka was actually kinda inspiring for a second
there as he worked a quick sequence with Garza before blowing up which
is normal for someone his age. This was the best this match could be,
with it staying low-impact but well-thought out to protect the fossils
in the ring, who were actually looking inspired for the affair. Garza
hits a Corkscrew plancha to the floor that misses Bachlund and hits
Perry Saturn. (The ELiminators look a zillion times cooler now, by the
way.:))
Tenryu vs Koji Kitoa was the main event and EVEN I don't have THAT iron
of a stomach to watch that at normal speed. I also fast forwarded
through the Gedo/somebody vs Tarzan Scroto (tee-hee!)/somebody match.
-JEEZEUS! I watched the Steve Williams/Mitsuhara Misawa and BOY! did
THAT suck! I'm not one to kick a man when he's down, but did Steve have
a twelve pack of Schlitz before that match? Nothing worked, it looked
real clumsy, no build to the random finishers that are thrown in until
end where Misawa mercifully puts this baby to bed- a real dog of a
match, ESPECIALLY considering the two guys who were in it. Williams
hits one good released German Suplex AND THEN goes into an extended
sleeper hold? YIKES! Explain this one away, folks.
-HEY! HEY! Benoit/Malenko for the belt! KICK ASS! If they drag Eddie
and a non-Cruiserweight Champion Waltman into this, we are gonna have a
real good monster feud on our hands! WOO-HOO! I see that Hokuto is
probly gonna be dropping the belt there too. Who knows though, they are
on a streak of not dropping belts at obvious points. Whatever gets the
division over I guess- even if it is putting the belt on the useless in
the ring Medusa. I await the Women's Cruiserweight belt and the arrival
of Toshie Uematsu to our fair shores.
-HEEEEEYYY! Who the Hell let Hanzo Nakajima into the Big Deluxe? I
guess he is the Micheal Wallstreet of Kaientai Deluxe.:)
NEXT WEEK: Hey! I watched DreamSlam I in my never-ending Women's
Wrestlathon and I'm a watch again for next week! And LUCHA! LUCHA!
LUCHA! Woo-HOO!
CHEETAH~!
Dean Rasmussen, ShiryuHEAD!
