Subject: LANCE DIAMOND! Friggin rules it against RECKLESS YOUTH! friggin rules it against CHEETAH MASTER! friggin rules it! TOSHIE UEMATSU! tears it up with SUGAR SATO! and ALL JAPAN! has its worst match that I can remember (hint: Shinzaki.) and other stuff I seen this week! WOO-HOO!

ALOHA~!

WELCOME TO DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #58!

It's been a great week all around as Rev Ray SUPPLIED the GOODS by sending me more MST3K than one man should ever deserve. You are the MAN, Rev! I'm taping your tapes as we speak! I'M HUGE! HA-KEEBA! and what have you! And I finally finished the GARGANTUAN Glenn tape- the master of the Phat Ass RCA T190- and golly it was GREAT! I'll do that Pancrase deal from the tape next week, since I haven't gone back to watch the Yuki Kondo/DeLucia match yet, though I'm hoping for the best. And between ALL THAT, I STILL haven't finished watching Toyota vs Ito or the fabled Kazumi match which looks to be this weekends project, so I think I'm gonna do a LAAADDDIIEESSS post this weekend with that and the GAEA special with Kyoko vs Satomura and Sugar vs Tamura - PLUS the Global Light Heavyweight Tourney (which was amidst the Servo Ocean that Rev Ray sent) which I scanned through (CHAZ!! Master of the WORLDS TINIEST PANTS! YAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!), plus ALSO the tip of the LUCHA ICEBERG that Robert starting sending me. AND Last night I went over to Tim's House of Punishing and Beautiful Ladies and watched the WHOMP ASS triangle match from the IWA Eddie Gilbert Memorial between Lance Diamond, Cheetah Master and Reckless Youth, and GOLLY! did they put the FUCKIN HAMMER DOWN. Diamond is the best indie wrestler in the US of A and Reckless is second and Cheetah Master is number three and they were all together in the ring, going hogwild. Diamond has become a freakin suplex machine since coming back from shoulder surgery (including a float-over Northern Lights Suplex in some match in the PA/DEL/MD axis of Super 8 young punk Junior Heavyweight heaven that all those lucky stiffs on DC get to see, which somebody better make a Best Of Comp Already. And why can't wrestling fans get a tape of the Fargin Super-8 tourney?!?). (I get State Fair wrestling. With Debbie Combbs.) My fave was after two NLS's, where he teases a toprope No. Lights Suplex on Reckless Youth, which BETTER happen with a camcorder running, because I definitely want to see that when it happens. Cheetah Master is all neato high-flying and doesn't quite have the arsenal of the other two, but he is a great indie wrestler who can outwork most guys in the big two and is a great third for this triangle match. The main thing is the Reckless vs Diamond feud and they set up lots of stuff that I'm sure was used in their match last friday somewhere in Delaware (which, for some reason, Tim didn't get a freakin HH. DANG IT!) Reckless has the cool finisher- a reverse spinebuster to the opponents face, or maybe it should be called a belly to belly DDT- whatever you call it, I've never seen it before and it kicks my ass with collossal coolness. Lance takes him to the mat early and often and is real smooth and crisp which is something you really don't get in the US this side of Malenko. Reckless hangs with him and they keep coming back to the mat until the end, when they hit a bunch of NJJr/MP/WCW CW mid-level finishers, but reach the finale with Diamond hitting a half-rolling Dandino for the finish. This match is SWANK. These guys rule. A whole bunch.

@$@$@$@$@$@$@$ ALL JAPAN TV 9/14/97 (taped 9/6 from Budokan)

Hase vs Nakano: This was weirder than it was good. Hase controls the match, so Nakano- who looks like Freddy Fender pretending to be Elvis, and who is the world's tubbiest shootstyle guy who is still kinda good ((As opposed to Kitoa- who is fat and sucks))- has to work a pro style match. Remember the pro-style stylings of Dan the Beast Severn? Same thing. Hase does a fucking Giant Swing, which can only be done in a shootstyle setting with guys from BattlARTS being all ironic and shit. Here it just looked insulting. This wasn't a good pro style match and it wasn't a good shootstyle match. It wasn't a celebration of the variety of styles that make the whole big wide worldness of wrestlingness as fun and exciting and as existentially tripendicular as it is today; it was more like two guys who can't figure out what they wanted to do. Yep.

Kawada/ Taue/ Honda vs Williams/ Albright/ Takayama: This, of course, didn't have nearly enough of Kawada beating the holy shit out of Takayama. The only Golden Cup worth a fudge is Yamamoto and he's in Kingdom, which you can't find tapes of, no matter where ya look. Williams is all de-roided and looks a little sickly compared to his days when he would drink deeply of the Steinertinis. This match was actually okay considering how horrible it should have been, but I dig Taue in this one because he added a good stoic counterpoint to the annoying Triangle of Power and their broad aproach to being all-around American assholes by doing the cretin TOP symbol after every move. They deserve Takayama. Albright is looking healthier and was almost mobile in this match, which is good.

#!#!#!#!#!# GAEA CHAMP FORUM 9/20/97

This was the one night tourney for the number one contender for the WCW Women's Cruiserweight Title, and it's pretty fu**ing good. It's yet another in a gawdy display of the depth of the GAEA lil punkin roster. They had some cool teamings and some really good matches, with newest big 5 member Nagashima, Toshie Uematsu, Sonoko Kato and the Minkiest Kitten With a Whip, Sugar Sato stealing the tourney. The best thing is that the winning team has to cannibalistically wrestle each other and the winner gets the title shot. Gee. Everybody should do that. What a great incentive to actually work with a partner that you hate! And no idiot BattleBowl at the end.:)

Sonoko Kato/ Nagashima vs Ishii/ Hirota: Hirota is so cute and pudgy! The story of this match is the beginning of Nagashima and Kato accidently busting each other up. Ishii and Hirota are far down the foodchain so you knew how this was gonna end up, but they are spunky enough to keep it entertaining enough for the highlights, which was short.

Uematsu/ Sugar Sato vs Satomura/ Numao: This is like two minutes of highlights of what looks like a good match. GAEA needs to start putting out commercial tapes already so we could see all these matches in their entirety. I'm surprised Satomura goes out so early, since she is number one and the best.

Matsumoto/ Hiromi Kato vs Sonoko Kato/ Nagashima: Hiromi Kato is kinda underrated, and Matsumoto is decent if totally unspectacular. She needs to get some more moves to make her interesting- even if she as good a worker as any of the second tier punkins. Nagashima goes LUCHA LOCO in this tournament and she does the really elaborate roll-up for the win. Nagashima is definately the quiet really good worker in GAEA- tassles and all.

Uematsu/ Sugar Sato vs Sonoko Kato/ Nagashima: This is pretty great! Uematsu and Sugar go buckwild heel and Koloff the heck out of Kato and Nagashima- who feign facedom for the match slightly. Former and current partners Nagashima and Sato tear into each other like rival siblings- doing the superfantastic Double-Slap Knockout, after slapping each other around for a while to set up the catfight coop de gracey. Uematsu and Nagashima supply the flying that the their partners counter with cool submission moves. Uematsu and Nagashima counter submission moves with inventive Lucha counters. Sugar finally stats getting to the leg of Kato, after Kato gets in the big kicks that are becoming the lil gals trademark, and Sugar beats Kato with her own finisher, the Dragon Suplex. I could get into any combination of these four in a feud for totally different reasons for each. This is pretty freaking CHOICE. These gals are the stuff, they're tough, and Dean can't get enough.

Toshie Uematsu vs Sugar Sato: This was short, because these two have been wrestling all night. Basically boils down to Sugar getting two high altitude Dragon Screws in and then pulls out her surprise finisher- Ozaki's Uraken. This is a harbinger of "More later." Toshie Uematsu rules the farging world.

Chigusa Nagayo/ Akira Hokuto vs KAORU/ Toshiyo Yamada: Your basic GAEA old lady riot. Starts off fast, stays fast and ends fast. KAORU wears shiny pants and does a choice Excalibur a la Hokuto. Yamada hits a fat-ass Reverse Gory Bomb, and Nagayo shows off her somersault dropkick off the toprope. This wasn't a classic or anything, but it was a whole lot of fun. GAEA fuckin rules it. RULES!!

GET ALLLLL THIS!

#%#%#%#% ALL JAPAN TV 9/21 (taped 9/6 from Budokan) Hayabusa/ Shinzaki vs Kobashi/ Shiga: BOYOBOY! Does this suck. Kenta Kobashi- one of the best wrestlers in the world- has to lug Shinzaki's useless fat ass around and we have to watch. You'd think that King Turdboy would get fired up for a tag match against Kobashi what with stinkboy debutting in All Japan in the match and all- but you would be wrong, he does nothing, sells nothing, stands around and stinks up the place. Same old shit, better opponents. Shinzaki is more worthless than Mike Rotunda. What a fellow load of nothing. Hayabusa gave it the old college try though, being all spunky and outmanuevered-yet-fiesty; there is a rhyme and reason for his flying (basically "pick on Shiga, he ain't Kobashi") and Kobashi tried to make it look like these two were of the calibre that he is accustomed- but he couldn't because they ain't. Actually, the parts with Hayabusa would have been okay if he could have attempted to get with the style, but he was so out of his league in this, so Kobashi didn't slam him on his head or do anything even remotely dangerous against them, so it made them look like even less threatening fancypants pukes. Shiga puts over Hayabusa after the 460 splash and we can breath free knowing that Shiga didn't put over worthless wheelbarrow of shit, Shinzaki. This was SO much NOT as good as the Ikeda stuff. Kobashi selling Shinzaki's crappy offense was a travesty. WOW! The worst match I've seen in All Japan- and that includes comedy matches and assorted Kimalas. WOW!

^*^*^*^*^*MICHINOKU PRO 9/27/97 Champ Forum

Men's Teioh vs Tiger Mask IV: This was FREAKIN GREAT! This was the best King 0f Swank MEN'S match I've ever seen and REALLY the best TM4 match I've ever seen. TEIOH starts by kicking the crap out the little pansy and, for once in his powdered-assed little life, TM4 crawls out of the depths of fannydom to get all fire up and start beating the crap out of TEIOH. They then go on to some really nice submissions (TM4) countered by powermoves (MT). Chokeslams into Cross Armbreakers, cross-body blocks into Ace Crushers, it was so ultramagnetically awesome. They do two things I haven't seen before: an atomic shinbreaker made famous by Ric Flair from the apron to the floor, and the tope counter with a counter tope. TEIOH does his goofball <> and polishes off the little pantywaiste with an {{ode to Taue Nodowa}}- because Taue is so cool we all wish he was American, I guess- and MT can begin the KDX taunting. TM4 offers to shake his hand and MT drops him with a left and rips his mask off and then taunts him from outside the ring. I hope MP is around for a rematch, because this is prettty farkin cool.

The Great Sasuke vs Dick TOGO: This was also great. Sasuke fights like a MoFo while selling the knee, which is a cool thing. Togo beats the shit out of him nevertheless, but the invention in the gameplan of the offense of Sasuke made this more compelling than a straight TOGO/Sasuke bloodmatch would have been. Sometimes I forget that the Great Sasuke is actually Great- but to no avail. Togo with TWO Phat Ass Sentons, One Togo Surfer Pose out of an Indian Deathlock and a whole lotta wrestling. WOO-HOO! I hope Michinoku Pro doesn't go under! Or at least we can get tapes of the KDX shows! WHOMP ASS!

@%@%@%@%@%@%@ NEW JAPAN TV 9/27

Shinjiro Ohtani vs Koji Kanemoto wasn't nearly as good as it promised to be, though it had its moments. I mean, it was good, but Takaiwa vs Kanemoto and EVERY Kanemoto match from this year is better than this. It wasn't as good as the El Samurai vs Ohtani title switch and I thought THAT was subpar. But I'll keep this on the positive tip, and get the no-selling spot and the crappy ending out of the way now. There, it's out of the way. They slap each other a lot, and they do cool released German Suplexes on each other. Kanemoto kicks him really hard when they take it to the floor. Ohtani does a neat powerbomb. It lacked the manic intensity of the other J-Crown matches from this year. There wasn't a good build-up to the Dragon Suplex that Ohtani pulls out of nowhere- nothing cohesive and certainly nothing spectacular. Kanemoto doesn't do any of the cool things from his prior matches this year- they hint at a Muscle Storm but they just hit the mat together as Ohtani fights out of it. This was like a Nitro match to set up the PPV or something. I dunno. They need to take another stab at this little match-up.

^&^&^&^&^&ALL JAPAN TV taped on 9/27 from Korakuen Hall

Kobashi vs Ohmori: YEESH! What is this- RAW IS WAR?!? Ohmori is such the AJ shlub and Kobashi feigns a bad hamstring and still kicks his ass without breaking a sweat. Ohmori wrestles like a broken man in this, lacklustre and uninspired. Kobashi can barely fight the urge to whine and make a big comeback before he realizes that he wrestling Ohmori, who hasn't won a big match ever and ain't ABOUT to start now. Kobashi with a halfass Orange Crush. It might as well have Rusher Kimura in with Kobashi.

Misawa/ Akiyama/ Mossman vs Williams/ Albright/ Lacrosse: Another lacklustre little affair. I never realized before how.... not.... very.... good.... Lacrosse is, but when I see him fumbling around with Misawa I realized that he.... isn't.... good. Mossman should jump to BattlARTS for a while, since he wrestles that style, and it's wasted on Doctor Death and Lacrosse. Mossman vs Ikeda would be pretty SWANK. Nobody really does anything in this match- except LaCrosse, and you don't want to see that. Akiyama is deteriorating quickly and he needs something to get him out of this slump. This won't it. Albright hits some neat suplexes, actually.

NEXT WEEK: GAEA! JWP! AJW! PANCRASE! GLOBAL LIGHT HEAVYWEIGHT TOURNEY! whomp ass!!!

NANIWA~!

Dean Rasmussen, who's got an urge he's gotta purge cuz he's losing control.




DVDVRs #56 - 60

main DVDVR page