Zero-1 10/11/2010
- (International Jr. Title) Ikuto Hidaka (c) vs Masamune
Really dug the opening matwork section but the rest of this felt flat like it was missing that extra spark of energy to take it to the next level. Darkly lit, small building with a half asleep crowd didn't help, whole thing just felt more like a slightly above average house show match then a televised championship title bout.
- Masato Tanaka & Shinjiro Ohtani vs Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Kintaro Kanemura
Kanemura & Tanaka are among my 10 most favorite wrestlers ever, Kuroda's pretty up thear too and i've alwasys loved Ohtani but everyone in this is well past their prime except Tanaka so I didn't have high hopes. At best I fig this would be a fun trip down memory lane, get in, hit a few sig spots and call it a wrap but they worked pretty hard with Kuroda especially steping things up. Final few mins with him vs Ohtani were pretty nice as they've always worked well together. Fun match that exceded my exspectations.
Battlarts
10/05/1998
Bob Backlund vs Daisuke Ikeda
Bob Backlund, Japan, Battlarts, Insane over the top theatrics, 85% whackiness, Backlund screaming, yelling, dancing, doing Terry Funk style animated crazy man bumping & goofball selling, wild swinging into thin air, falling over on fans, Backlund slaps the hell out of Ikeda, Ikeda gives Backlund the stiffest headbutt he's likely ever taken in his life, sold out K-hall crowd going apeshit, jumping up & down and loving every second, EXACTLY how you figure this would be on paper. Yup....
(B-CUP '98 Tournament R1) Hisakatsu Oya vs Greg Valentine
Was curious to see how much Valentine would try and adapt his style to Battlarts and the answer is that, well, he didn't. He pretty much just wrestled the same here as he would anywhear else in the world. No knock however as Valentine is still pretty dang awesome even this late in his career and this match is all about him showing off. Big batches of stiff chops, forearms & elbows, toss in a figure 4 and you're good to go. The mainstream US sceen had passed him by at this stage but he looked like he'd have fit right in working any number of Japan promotions at the time. Also gotta say, as a long time FMW super fan it was weird as hell watching Oya play underdog whiping boy as every other match of his I can think of that i've seen he either wrestles on the same level as his opponent or is a dominating heel/craft vetran. Here he just gets the crap kicked out of him and then wins with a surprise roll up. He didn't stink at the role but not exactly his forte etither. Anyways still a really fun sub 10 min match.
(B-CUP '98 Tournament R1) Yuki Ishikawa vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga
Good vs Evil, Them vs Us, 2 mother fuckers that don't like each other about to fight. Ishikawa, Battlarts Ace, representitive of clean pure skill based sportsman like grappling & striking contest. Matsunaga, Mr. Danger, dastardly invader, representitive of anything goes, weapon wielding hardcore matches. Matsunaga waste no time getting things started as he whips out a fuckin sword he smugled into the ring and goes after Ishikawa. He then uses every other dirty trick he can think of, he stabs him with a fork, he uses chairs, he chokes, he stomps, he bites him with his vampire fangs, just for the hell of it he goes back to his martial arts roots and tosses in a few karate kicks and a suplex too. Ishikawa fights back here and thear but keeps getting cut off and gets bloodied up. He does kind of wussy blade job on his head actually but all is forgiven when a few mins later he goes to the complete other end of the spectrum of balls out manliness and gets his arm legit carved up by Matsunaga's fork and starts driping blood all over. Finally he's able to catch Matsunaga with something and make his comeback to the delight of the crowd, and since this match is about pride as much as anything he never results to using Matsunaga's own weaposn against him. Instead he proves his style is better and finishes him with holds & suplexes, a quick sleeper puts Matsunaga out and Ishikawa mounts him and rains down punches as the ref calls for the bell and gives him the KO victory. Pro Wrestling can't get any more Pro Wrestling then this match here. Great stuff.
10/23/1998
Yuki Ishikawa & Bob Backlund vs Alexander Otsuka & Hisakatsu Oya
You can really tell the Bat Bat guys are just totally marking out to be in thear with Backlund, loving it just as much as the fans. Anyways, this was much better then the Ikeda singles match wth a more impressive Backlund performance as you still get all the crazy old man fun but also get more "hey don't forget i'm still a really great wrestler who'll rip your freakin arm off" stuff to go along with it. Lot of diffrent things going on in this match, some comedy, some shoot style, some old school Muga goodness, someone busting out a suicide dive. Really impressed by how well they blended it all together. They aren't doing 1 long stretch of a certain style and then moving on, they pretty rapidly switch from one mode to another but it all feels totally natural and seamless with everyone on the same page. Good stuff
Also, i've decided Bob Backlund vs Johnny Saint is my new dream match :)
WWE Survivor Series 11/18/2007
2007 doesn't feel THAT long ago but it's coming up on 4 years now. Weirded me out to see how much turn over in talent there's been since this show, of the 40-50 people including anouncers and stuff that appeared on this show only maybe 1/4 are still around today and that's including guys like HHH & Taker who aren't around that much. Random fact, in the time since this show's happened HHH has only held the title 2 times, hard to believe. Only matches on this entire show that really lived up to my exspectations was the 10 woman tag & Hornswaggle vs Khali. Diva tag wasn't great, only went 5 mins, just enough for everyone to get in, do a tiny bit and then get out quickly, but it was enjoyable enough popcorn action + Mickie James kissed Melina for the pin, can't complain about that. The midget vs the giant only went 3 mins and had Khali smackig the hell out of him with a stiff as slap to the head which made me laugh. Hell in a Cell with Undertaker vs Batista I liked a lot too, best match on the show easily but judged against other Cell matches it felt really middle of the pack. Punk/Miz/Morrison was OK, but nothing memorable at all. Tag title match with Murdoch/Cade vs Rhodes/Holly was just plain fucking awful and felt like it draged forever. 9 man Survivor Series match I enjoyed but felt like it should have been better, just a nice solid match with a few really good moments mixed in. No one really looked bad in the match but the best guys in the by far were Finlay, Rey, Big Daddy V & HHH. The exstended HHH/Jeff vs Umaga/Finlay portion was the best part but a little too little too late to save the whole thing. Orton vs HBK stunk, i've been watching a lot of World of Sport the past few days so going from seeing Jim Breaks & Johnny Saint & Zoltan Bostchick rip things up on the mat to Shawn Michaels & Orton busting out a 20 pound bag of nothin hapening chinlocks is quite painful and I was suprememly bored by about 75% of this match. The match being built around the lame ass Orton can lose the title by DQ (hmmmmm, sounds familiar but I don't know why) vs HBK can't use the Superkick (yawn) stip didn't help. Also, post match there's quite the moment whear Shawn is selling the horrible beating he's taken during the match, crawling on his hands and knees desperatly reaching towards the fans to help pull him up, instead the fans just grab his hand and happily mug to the camera making the stupidest faces you could possibly imagine, HBK and his pain and suffering 3 inches from his face be damned. Whole show really felt like a glorified Smackdown.
WWE Superstars 8/26/2010
-Goldust vs William Regal
Didn't get nearly as much out of this as some others did. A fairly good 5 minute tv match but that's all it is, nothing to really memorable or standout.
- Curt Hawkins & Vance Archer vs The Dudebusters
Fairly bland match, first time seeing the Dudebusters that I can remember, wasn't that impressed outside of one of them hitting a pretty sweet dropkick from the top. First time seeing Vance Archer since his TNA days, he's a guy I always liked and thought got unfairly labled as a really shitty wrestler by a lot of people. He's not the greatest ever or anything but he has his moments and he looked fine here. I'm surprised the WWE never did much with him as there's far worse guys they keep around.
- Chris Masters vs Drew McIntyre
Having not seen any of his work since his crappy first run a few years back this got recomended to me as a match I should check out to see how much Chris Masters had improved. As an overall match I didn't think it was that great, just a good solid bout. Drew, who i've only seen a few times previously didn't look that great here, so that's what took it down for me. He was in controll for most of the match but I really couldn't get into much of his offense. Masters himself did look really awesome however and did a great job selling the leg, it's just that it came across like a 1 man show to me. I've heard they've had other good matches so this was enough to make me want to check out those and some other Masters matches too. Also, never noticed it before but McIntrye looks exactly like Brian Kendrick only taller and sounds exactly like him too except with an accent, weird.
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