Subject: KENTA KOBASHI! and HIROSHI HASE! suplex the crap outta each other! MANO NEGRO JR! is the latest cool young punk in EMLL! YAMAZAKI! and TAKADA! beat the holy hell out of each other! and other stuff I saw or heard this week!
ALOHA~!
WELCOME TO DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #50!
It was a fatass week of wrestling viewing as I got to watch the rest of
the Glenn Tape that I alluded to last week (for those of you with the
special DVDVR WHOMP-ASS DECODER RING!! HAKEEBA!) and golly! was it chock
full of SWANK WRESTLING ACTION! I also started watching more of the wad
of swank wrestling that Doug sent and the stuff from 89 ROCKS way too
hard. I started in on the History of Rings MAMMOTH tape from Rob Fuckin
Newland, world's busiest man and all-aroundest goodest egg, but I
haven't gotten past the Bill Kazmier match (HEY! RIGHT THERE! It's
shootstyle... Bill.... Kazmier....) so it will be uncommented upon until
next week, when I can hate Tamara some more and irritate John D
Williams, world's biggest Tamara mark (tee-hee).:) I'm also gearing up
for the big expedition to the WCW Houseshow in Fairfax- where Hangman
Tim, Dave, Phil (and hopefully the other Phil) and I will pounce upon
Jeremy and Cheetah (who I hear will be wearing GAB 89-era Sting make-up
to counterpoint my wearing of the 90's Crow-style make-up.:p) and we all
get to watch Eddy vs UD. I'M STOKED!
@@@@@@ GRUPO REVOLUCION CHAMP FORUM 8/16/97
-This was a weird one as the green young anonymous punks of GR do six
half decent impersonations of Ultimo Dragon- for obvious reasons- and
have the best match on tape. I can see where Jericho and Lance Storm
learned their highspots- hanging out with Ultimo, because they all do
the same ones- Asai Moonsault variations, Quebradas, Springboard
clotheslines and dropkicks to the floor, plus they all work stiffer than
your average trainee, so there you have it. The future looks bright
South of the Border. The Brazo de Oro/ El Brazo/Alacran Negro vs
Tsubasa/Super Astro/Kendo was WAY too much Brazo's and Kendo trying to
be all cute and shit and not enough Tsubasa and SuperAstro. KEndo has
entered into my top ten list of most annoying wrestlers on earth-
despite the boss tope. JUST WRESTLE, YOU CRETIN! He falls down trying
to do a slick entrance into the ring and crawls out to the apron. I'm
trying to figure out why Tsubasa is such the favored son of Groupo
Revolucion- he's about as good as the other punks but he gets the cool
mask and the big matches. Go figger. La Fiera/Emilio Charles Jr. vs
Ultimo Dragon/Atlantis was pretty low impact. La Fiero and Atlantis
kinda mailed it it. UD tries to make it more memorable but can't muster
the spark needed to make this anything special. Emilio Charles rounds
out the cast.
$$$$$$CMLL CHAMP FORUM 8/23/97
-This is great! The first whole match on the tape is Ultraman Jr./Mano
Negro Jr./Mr. Agira vs Archangel/(Glenn said) Futoro (but I thought I
heard Cadaver Ultratumbo but I could be delirious)/Violencia and GOLLY!
is this chock full of Young Lucha Punk Goodness! Mano Negro Jr and Mr
Aguila team up, yet battle it out to see who can do the most psychotic
highspots with Mano Negro Jr actually winning by doing the somersault
tope into the fifth row. The great thing about this youngster Son of
Mano Negro is that he looks like he could develope into a legit
heavyweight since he is already pretty big for a luchadore. Aguila and
Negro also have the superfabulous Overly Enhance-Toprope Assisted-
Illogically Fabulous Deuling Armdrags, with Aguila winning with the
double springboard variation into a rana position into an armdrag. Mano
was a close second with the more traditional One Hand Knucklelock run up
the turnbuckle flyover into an armdrag. Ultraman Jr is pretty
underrated as far as luchadores go, but he is as good as most other
luchadores on the earth and he acquits himself well by not getting
smoked by the youth phenomenons that he is tagging with- in that he also
gets in some fantabulous highspots, but also had better mat work.
Arkangel is SO the rudo great these days- sort of a new Murabunta: great
worker, reels in the young punks when they get in over their head, and
generates fabulous heat. Violencia is WAY on his way to achieving the
same end. He is the future of rudos- bigger, fatter offense, but can
sell and carry the flashy young punks through the match. He's tough as
nails and can really work- maybe he is the underrated one of all the
good ones in this match, since Violencia is ALWAYS in with the real big
boys of EMLL, thus he is NEVER noticed. That other guy, whoever the
hell he is, rounds out the cast.:)
The main event is about as Main Event as you can get. Shocker/Mr.
Niebla/Super Astro vs Black Warrior/Rey Buccanero/Fellino rules the
fuckin WORLD! Everybody but Bucanero (who IS good) could be in the
running for Best Luchadore in the Face of the Earth as Soon as Silver
King Retires Honors. Shocker is SO the shit. He is too AWESOME for
mere words. Super Astro has an off match by the end. Black Warrior
takes some Black Warrior-style bumps (the hiptoss over the toprope,
double hell Jerry bump) and just kicks ass like he is wont to do.
Niebla is insane. Felino is great blah, blah, blah. You know the
drill. GET ALLLLLLL THIS.
#######NEW JAPAN TV 8/23/97
This baby starts out with Fujita vs Don Frye in a UWFi style worked
shoot and GOD! does it KICK ASS! Frye is so built for this style and he
is such a good old-fashioned American Dick that this is instantly a good
feud with the boring, stoic and laconic Judo-Boy, Ogawa. Frye doesn't
break holds when Fujita hits the ropes, he punches him in the face
really hard, he threatens to kick Inoki's scrawny million year old ass,
and is basically a total asshole heel in the best sense of the word. The
crowd was going nuts, the wrestlers at ringside were aghast and I was
digging it the MOST. This is gonna be WAYYY too much fun.
It gets even better with the El Samurai vs Takaiwa post-J-Crown match
wherein Takaiwa and El Samurai continue their mutual trend of being in
amazingly hellish and bone-crushing matches. This one takes the cake in
terms of sheer c-4 crushing toprope moves. El SAmurai once again takes
the most Gargantuan hard bump known to man as Takaiwa hits the toprope
Death Valley Driver and kills El Samurai as much as the reverse
hurricanrana kills him in the match against Kanemoto. El gets in the
toprope DDT and reverses a superplex, but it doesn't make for the
Endless Powerbomb (three real ones as opposed to the usual thing passed
off as the Endless Powerbomb) that goes directly into the MEANEST, MOST
VICIOUS MICHINOKU DRIVER II I HAVE EVER SEEN. AND I'VE SEEN KAORU'S.
This match kicked ass. I wanna see all of it.
Muta vs Steven Regal from G-1 was okay but short. Regal worked a whole
and Muta layed around on his fat lazy ass and sucked all the goodness
out of this. Regal rules. Muto sucks cocker spaniel.
Choshu/Kimura vs Fujinami/Kido was good in a low impact kinda way.
Woo-hoo.
******NEW JAPAN TV 8/30/97
-BOY! G-1 REALLY sucked this year if this highlight reel is any
indication. It starts with Regal vs Kojima. Hey, I like Kojima as much
as the next guy, but at least use both hands when doing a Diamond Cutter
on Regal. Regal as Japan job-boy is irrtating, considering he is better
than all of them in this tourney.
Hirata vs Norton- short clip. Not good.
Yasuda vs Tenzan was actually pretty okay which shocked the hell out of
me. Yasuda tried to work and Tensan attempted to work so this wasn't as
horrible as it should have been. Actually looked like Yasuda was gonna
get the upset for a second there. Kinda AWA-ish, in a good way.
Chono vs Ohara was okay because it was so short. Chono has the cast on
his ankle and can't realy do anything so Ohara goes for the ankle which
kinda makes this less nauseating. Chono with some sort of submission.
Muta vs Nakanishi- Muta tries to stab him. Neat. Try to wrestle you
sorry sack of shit.
Hashimoto vs Yamazaki- This looked like it was one of the better matches
of the tourney and even then it won't much. Yamazaki kicks the hell out
of Hash for a while, Hash kicks Yamazaki back to set up the predictable
finish.
Buff Bagwell vs Sasaki- This one pissed me off the most. Bagwell
performs the miracle of dragging a decent match out of the thoroughly
useless Sasaki, which is akin to dragging a good match out of the
equally as useless Meng. Sasaki starts getting blown up so he stops
selling and decides to take it home. Welcome to hell. BUFF rules the
world. Sasaki doesn't. No. Not at all.
Kojima vs Tenzan- This was the best match of the tourney if the
highlights are any indication. The steal liberally from a few
Kanemoto/Samurai/Takaiwa endings and do a good finish with lots of
nearfalls coming off cool looking toprope powermoves. Kojima makes up
for the Regal debacle and Tensan was actually bearable in this.
Norton vs Muta- Norton beats the shit out of Muta so I dug it.
Chono vs Hashimoto- Chono being hurt made this short, and the ankle of
Chono precluded any kind of great match. Super-choice brainbuster at
the end.
%%%%%ALL JAPAN TV 8/31/97
-This had the Hiroshi Hase vs Kenta Kobashi match that I figured would
have sucked. I figured Hase wasn't in wrestling shape enough to look
any good against Kobashi and that the match would be one of those forced
things like all of Doc's matches these days. Luckily, I was wrong and
this match was really good. Hase basically worked it like a
Mutoh-when-he-was-worth-a-shit match without the buckets of blood and
replace it with skull crushing suplexes by Kobashi. Hase works on
Kobashi's leg for a while to set up the figure four in-between trying to
get asssortes Northern Lights and Dragon Suplexes on Kobashi. I guess
there is a New Japan Finisher theme going throughout Hase's offense
in that he is countered from using everybody in New Japan's finishers by
Kobashi using assorted All Japan finishers. I figured that explained
the Tiger Driver 89 and all the other AJ suplexes du jour. All we needed
was a Scorpion Deathlock and a Stretch Plum and that would have sealed
it. Hase was great in this despite the goddam Giant Swing. His suplexes
were beautiful and he was sufficiently vicious in working on Kobashi's
leg. Kobashi was as great as usual- crushing Hase head with assorted
suplexes, not being too much of a weenie, and selling Hase's suplexes
like a champ. This was good, I wish Hase would have gone over. He can
still go, it seems.
The Akiyama/Misawa vs Allbright/Doc match was puzzling. Allbright gets
a clean pin on Misawa in 11 minutes? What the fudge? Doc looked better
in this and Allbright looked pretty spry, but they still suck at this
point- especially when compared to Misawa and Akiyama. Doc busts up
Akiyama for a while and that's kinda fun. Allbright gets off some fab
suplexes that Misawa sells like Misawa. A very baffling match. Far more
baffling than good.
@@@@@ BEST OF JAPAN 1989
This baby, which I'm thinking is the Jeff Lynch comp, was REALLY great.
I'll not dwell on all the great matches this week, but attempt to drag
it out over a couple of weeks which will actually work this time because
it's an eight hour tape and I'm not watching all of it at one time. I
swear!:) The best thing so far has been the GREAT, GREAT, GREAT, GREAT,
GREAT, GREAT, GREAT Yamazaki vs Takada match where Yamazaki is as
amazing as Takada and Takada is as amazing as he has ever been. The
basic story is: Yamazaki is trying to kick the holy hell out of Takada
while Takada is trying to suplex the holy hell out of Yamazaki. This is
just awesome as Yamazaki hits multiple flurries of stiff- as-all-hell
kicks directly to the mug of Takada. Takada counters the mountain of
violence with his amazing quickness, his amazing suplexes and his innate
coolness. Yamazaki and Takada jockey for position for submissions by
beating the holy shit out of each other. They set up submission holds
by kicking the lungs out of each other. They set up knock out blows by
hitting the most Judo-related suplexes they can conjure. Yamazaki is so
stiff and awesome by the end of this, when he is really kicking the fuck
out of Takada, that I'm amazed he wasn't instantly summoned to wrestling
Hercules at Mt Olympus. Takada, who has already achieved wrestling
godhood, is more than up for the challenge. It really gets no better
than this. This is just a great match.
NEXT WEEK: TSURUTA VS HANSEN! PROMDRESS AZTECA! OTANI VS EL SAMURAI!
RINGS! RINGS! ALL THE VOLK HAN THAT YOU CAN HANDLE! WOO-HOO!
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, HASHIMOTOCIZED!!!
