KOJI KANEMOTO! whomps ass against TAKAIWA! HEY! i thought USWA! was gonna suck! LANCE STORM! against TRACY SMOTHERS! and other things I saw.
Howdy!
WELCOME TO DEATH VALLEY DRIVER #46! Golly! What a PHAT-ASS week of
wrestling related activities. It started with a roadtrip to see Phil,
Cheetah and KING OF THE CREASE Jeremy Billones.
I showed up early so we could watch the Samurai Debut thing that had
INOKI vs GASPAR the PIRATE!! We watched the WHOMP ASS
Ikeda/(bad-haired)Ono vs Otsuka/somebody who slips my mind right now
match and GOLLY! that was almost as good as BattlARTS gets, as it was
stiff as hell, fun as crap and cool as heck. Ono is such the bomb and
Otsuka was a suplex machine for once. Ikeda was truly king-sized,
laying the boots to whoever was in range and instilling the psychology
that is making him the fun part of All Japan these days.
The Koji Kitoa vs Mabel was amazing. Yep. They're both really fat. Yep.
The Michinoku Match was AWESOME as you would expect, but also Yakushiji
was Juventudesque in the speed of his multi-rotation armdrags. Sasuke
was the perfect punching bag and Dick Togo ruled it as is his wont. The
pinnacle of the highspots in this one was the double tope suicida with
Yakushiji ending up in the second row.
There was a Judo match with a chubby white who looked like he forgot to
wear pants. AWESOME!!
Jeremy was late because he had to get some dentistry done after yet
another glove dropping incident on the ice.:) Me and Cheetah and Phil
ate at the Cheesecake Factory in DC and we watched Phil eat the worlds
fattest salad (three heads at least) and made our neighboring diners
uncomfortable by yammering about wrestling for the entire time. We
went back to Phil massive bachelor pad and met up with Jeremy and
watched a big batch of wrestling.
We watched a REALLY choice "King of the Iron Claw" Mitsuhara Misawa vs
Jumbo Tsuruta match from 1991 and Jumbo beats the living crap out of the
overly-spunky-at-that-point Mitsuhara. I'm assuming that deep stoicism
would follow in the Man's career. Jumbo hits three bone-bashing
backdrops that had to suck. I see where the spine-fusing All Japan
tradition began. Jumbo was the greatest ever.
We then watch a mountain of Lucha including the 16 man and assorted
other stuff as Phil attempted to telekinetically tell what was on any of
the thirty or so UNMARKED wrestling videos strewn across the floor. We
are still amazed that Cheetah and Jeremy STILL hadn't seen the Juventud
37,0000 foot tope.:) Jeremy leaves mid-Caida and me and Cheetah hang out
with the young punk for a while longer enjoying wrestling fellowship
together and after a while we went back to our normal, non-wrestling
intensive lives (yeah right).
The next day I spoke to Glenn who was plying his rulingness to the US of
A and tearing up the Keno lounges in Reno (I think that's what he
said.:)) The next day the Glenn Tape arrived. WOO-HOO!
-7/5 GAEA Champ Forum 7/5/97
This is a weird one. It has to shoot fights with Meiko Satomura vs
(former?)OZ-ite Hiromi Kato and Sonoko Kato vs Makie Numao. They are
pushing Numao as a shootstyle badass type and this helped that along I
guess though it exposed Kato as not being as good at that style as they
led us to believe. Neither of these are too bad I guess, but I would
have preferred actual pro style matches between these four, but a weird
change of pace I guess.
The elimination match between Chigusa/Yamada/Satomura/Sonoko/ Numao vs
Sugar Sato/ Nagashima/ H.Kato/ Matsumoto/Uematsu was a lot of fun. I
couldn't figure out why Uematsu and Matsumoto were doing on the same
side as such OZ luminaries though I guess GAEA has reclaimed all her
youngsters and is leaving the Ozaki-inspired fun to the old women.
Pretty active match with Uematsu being bitchier than Sugar which is
upsetting. Great ending as Yamada ends up with a batch of youngsters.
Overall, I liked it, but I'm a freak. You may want to ease into this one
after many other tapes before.
-NEW JAPAN TV 7/5/97
Shinjiro Ohtani/Koji Kanemoto vs Liger/Honaga was really good, though
not quite as spectacular as what these four have been involved in
lately. Kanemoto and Liger are magic in the ring as they trade hellish
realeased German Suplexes. Honaga continues to be a weird hybrid of Arn
Anderson and Gran Hamada. Ohtani is otherworldly as usual, though he
oversells the hell out of a powerbomb and a palmthrust. He hits a choice
springboard missile dropkick and actually hits a Liger-Killer
Powerbomb. Liger was divine as ever- selling Kanemoto's crushing
suplexes like a pro and balancing the dick quotient by spitting at
Ohtani while Shinjiro is standing on the apron. Honaga is growing on me
quite a bit and he assumes the role as oldest, wiliest veteran. The
blown ending didn't help any.
Takaiwa jobs to some guy I have never seen before. He was very allright
but why is Takaiwa putting him over?
All that and the amazing nWo Sting who gets better every tape. This
time around he perfects his top rope lariat.
-NEW JAPAN TV 7/12/97
This was another weird one. Liger/El Samurai vs Nogami/Kobayashi was
kinda off-handed and kinda pointless. It was well wrestled as one would
imagine but Nogami and Kobayashi are so overmatched in this match that
they have to go full bore and Liger and Samurai dumb their match down a
notch to accomadate these cats. It worked though as this was kinda
entertaining in a WCW Pro kinda way.
Kanemoto vs Takaiwa ROCKED THE FUCKING WORLD. Takaiwa hits about every
cool suplex and powerbomb on earth and also hits the Neverending suplex
that is becoming the DieHard Kansai into a Hurricanrana of 1997.
Kanemoto does all of his cool stuff and takes his game to another level
(if that's possible) by selling the Death Valley Driver LIKE A KING.
I'm guessing he said,"Hey fatboy, the cameras are rolling and I killed
Samurai last time. Slam me on my neck REALLY hard and we'll call it
even." Takaiwa is becoming everything he promised last year- the
cool-ass powerman of the young punks. The post-match is truly
MAN-SIZED. Koji Kanemoto is the best wrestler on earth at the current
moment.
nWo Sting outworks everybody in his match. Muta is fun in this one. No
one does a heartpunch and that's something.
-ALL JAPAN TV 7/13/97
Hase/Ikeda vs Kikuchi/Shiga was a giant step backwards for everyone
involved. Hase, the greatest Heavyweight in New Japan History, looked
like crap- slow and very not crisp. Ikeda was clipped out of a lot of
the match which was bad for Shiga since Ikeda and Ono are the only ones
in All Japan with enough balls to sell for him. The Kikuchi vs Ikeda
feud which I'm supposing they are shooting for wasn't advanced at all.
ME NOT WANT TO SEE HASE vs KOBASHI.
Kawada/Taue/Ogawa vs Kobashi/Smith/Mossman was good for Mossman and
Kawada mixing it up. The rest sucked. These guys don't care anymore.
-GAEA Champ Forum 7/19/97
This was pretty cool all the way through. Chigusa vs Rina Ishii was
strange because Chigusa broke her irritating string of beating the crap
out of the youngsters by actually selling a whole bunch for the
unheralded Iisha. Iisha is spunky as hell and quite a decent mat
technician and Chigusa guided her along to a credible story of Ishii
alternating between massive underdog taking a beating to credible
aggressor hitting decent leg submissions.
KAORU/Hokuto vs Yamada/Numao was pretty nifty as Yamada continues to
love her new promotional move by delivering the goods in this
low-impact, but very good match. Hokuto beats the crap out of Numao and
its really cool when Akira and Yamada start tangling. KAORU returns to
eternal jobber role, which diminishes her rulingness not one iota. I'm
wondering why Hokuto wasn't with either of her proteges- Toshie Uematsu
or Matsumodo.
The final match- Satomura/Sonoko/Uematsu/Hirota vs
Sugar/Nagashima/Matsumoto/H.Kato was a load of goofy fun as these tiny
gals put on quite a spunky match. Uematsu in with Sato and Nagashima is
the highlight as Toshie hits her wilder lucha stuff and also gets all
pouty and vixenlike. Sugar continues her coolness slide as her
wrestling skills double as she is quite dynamic setting up her
figure-four out a dragon screw finisher. Meiko Satomura shows why she
is still the most talented of the GAEA homegrown youngsters by
frantically being as shootstyle as she wants to be. This was all great
fun but I wish they would try and get back to something as focused and
spectacular as the OZ Academy feud. Yeah, GET ALL THIS.
-ECW TV JULY
My Brother-In-Law Lee and MASTER OF ALL THINGS WHOMP ASS-Walt sent me a
big batch of current ECW and, as usual, it was quite the mixed bag.
I'll get the bad out of the way to end this on a positive tip. This TAZ
crap sucks. Louie Spicolli can wrestle circles around this load and
he's putting him over in 35 seconds? Who books this shit? And thanks
for the classy Tommy Dreamer's Testicle angle. Boy! That's Hardcore!
Remind me not to get the Pay Per View! And Rick Rude is awful as a
commentator. The thing that made Joey Styles cool was that it was just
him and he talked about the match. I'm really tired of all these stiffs
in ECW.
On the positive tip, the PG-13 vs Mikey Whipreck/Spike Dudley match was
great. I had only seen a little of PG-13 and this was great. PG-13 are
so homemade in their wrestling inventiveness that one has to be
impressed. Mikey Whipreck is the best wrestler in ECW currently and he
is already on the way to being ultra-fantabulous. He and Spike were
equally as impressive in a much more conventional way, in that they ape
more conventional highflyers whereas you can tell that PG-13 figured all
theirs out on their own. If these four are on the PPV, I might get it.
Lance Storm vs Full-Blooded Italian Tracy Smothers was about as good as
you can get. This had everything you could want, in that it was a lot
like the PG-13/Whipreck-Spike match- Storm is so much of a
Stampede-WAR-UD-Benoit vein of wrestler and Smothers is so deeply a
Southern Redneck Ass-kicker vein of wrestler and both are great workers
so if these elements are all thrown together, you get a match as cool as
this one. Lance Storm is so high-impact that he should breakthrough any
moment now. Tracy Smothers is the great lost Southern wrestler. If
this rematch is on the PPV I might get.
The Candido/Douglas/Bigelow vs Pitbulls/Balls Mahoney match was booked
so over the top that it actually worked which is fortunate since these
are all guys who aren't afraid to stink up the joint if given half a
chance. The Dudley/Eliminators/Gangsters run-in kept everybody's mind
off the fact that nobody wins when Shane Douglas and Balls Mahoney take
it to the mat.
-USWA July 1997
HEY! This stuff is GREAT! Well. Okay, it's not great, but it's so
Mid-Atlantic 1976. Except that Brian Christopher isn't afraid to shoot
on Billie Joe Travis and blurt out Travis's reallife history as a
deadbeat dad. THAT WAS INCREDIBLY HARDCORE. These guys should have a
PPV instead. There was actually a couple of decent wrestling matches,
the best being PG (formerly Aldo PJ Montoya Walker) Walker vs Flash
Flanagan. This was impressive as these guys ape their favorite WCW
Cruiserweights- which is ALWAYS a good thing. Both these guys should be
on RAW wrestling Tajiri already. Hell, I'd watch. I await more from
these two and look forward to more weirdness from Brian Christopher (and
hell when you take a bigger bump than TAKA Michinoku in a match with
TAKA Michinoku you INSTANTLY gain my respect.) USWA also has a vast
array of horrible stiff (Spellbinder aka Phantasio, Diesel, MABEL) but
HELL! so did Mid-Atlantic.:)
NEXT WEEK: LOTS AND LOTS OF WRESTLING! YESSSS!!!! LUCHA! GAEA! LUCHA
LUCHA LUCHA! JAPAN 91! WHOMP ASS!
NANIWA (Heal quick!)~!
Dean Rasmussen, Digging Alex Wright the most since he got all experimental at the end of his little dance with the Nitro girls.
