KANDORI! Yamada! CHIGUSA! KOBASHI! Kroffat! AKIYAMA! Williams! BENNETT! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to Death Valley Driver Video Review #11!!!
I'm a ONE MAN BANDWIDTH SLAUGHTERHOUSE this weekend, what with batches of
tapes from benevolent Scott, Dams the Man, and Paul the Stud with it All
(sorry!:)) to yammer on about, add that to Halloween Havoc tomorrow, and
cretin NAWA wrestling in Midlothian tonight, all I can say is "Dean
Rasmussen- get used to the name! He's wearing out his cyber-welcome."
Let's go to the ring.:)
- I watched two All Japan handhelds from 94 that Scott sent me and these
were more fun than I thought AJ could be. These were the first two
complete cards I've ever seen of AJ and it was actually real goofy in
spots, which I wasn't expecting and, of course it had a lot of great
matches on them. The highlight of the first card, from April 11, 1994,
for me, was Steve Williams vs Jun Akiyama, which degenerated into a
clinic of suplex brutality, with Williams getting more neckbreaking high
angle suplexes in and I'm really glad I'm not Jun Akiyama, though he more
than held his own against my country's greatest wrestling machine. When
the f*ck does Williams face Takada? I would have interest in seeing
that. Johnny Ace and The Eagle vs John Nord and Dan Kroffat was
surprisely good because Nord actually worked as hard as the other guys
and took more heckish bumps. I had no idea that he had any inkling of
wrestling ability. Johnny Ace ruled as he always does. Ditto Kroffat. I
had the Kobashi/Hansen match on some compilation I got so I didn't
rewatch it yet, though I do remember it being stiff and full of
psychology.:) The second handheld from November 19, 1994, was
highlighted by the AMAZINGLY fun Misawa/Kobashi vs Furnas/Kroffat match,
which bodes well for the WWF if these guys can be 1/100th as effective
against such august tagteam concepts as the Godwinns (yikes!). The basic
premise is that Kobashi gets his ass beaten into the ground while Danny
and Doug cheat like all good North Americans do :) and the crowd REALLY
gets into it. I love it when they boo the save made by Misawa after
Can-Am has done every textbook American pro style ref distraction and
underhanded move in the book. (Dan Kroffat does this hip swivel thing on
the first hh that I had seen him do in a match against Silver King and El
Texacano in Mexico, when Can-AM were wearing masks, and I always wondered
which one did it. It's Kroffat and I fell out. If you haven't seen it,
you'll cry. The ladies will love it.) Misawa really mailed this one in,
so I'm guessing he was injured or something, or maybe he didn't want to
get in the way of the INSANE amount of nearfalls that permeate the last
five minutes of the match, after our man Kenta has been bludgeoned beyond
recognition. A truly great match. The rest of the card was truly in the
realm of "God! He made the Japanese Tour? I didn't even know he still
wrestled!" category. Usually it's Tom Zenk or that Tommy Dreamer/Taue
match type of thing, this time around, it was Kimala and JIM STEELE!?!?
The great thing is that the teaming of Kimala and Abdullah the Butcher
shows that, in the end, they really are just fourth rate Headhunters.:)
Decent match between Kawada/Fuchi/Taue vs Kiyama/ Omori/Asako with a
fabulous three-man All Japan beatdown on Kawada. When Akiyama and Kawada
are in together its magic, except Kawada kept doing that REALLY goofy
log-rolling on the chest of Akiyama move. Overall, a great way to kill an
afternoon. Props to Mighty Inoue for the little Sentons.
- At the end of the AJ hh tape was the added extra (Scott rules!)- a
video wall hh of some of the 11/94 Big Egg Wrestling Universe show from
the Tokyo Dome and there were truly fabulous happenings on it. The first
thing was Debbie Malenko against someone in an amateur match which was
kinda neat. I'm guessing this was after she broke her leg. She can go
to it. The second match was a GREAT Reggie Bennett vs Chigusa Nagayo
match that had the great pseudoshoot (or maybe real) Chigusa rib injury.
Bennett worked well with Chigusa and I wonder if they will be reprising
this in WCW when the GAEA/WCW deal kicks in in January. I would be
deeply into it, if they do. The third match was VERY VERY GREAT with
Shinobu Kandori and Futagami vs Yamada and Tomoko Watanabe. Futagami and
Watanabe (who works her hinder off in this match) are running
interference for the real hellstorm of Yamada vs Kandori. These young
ladies beat the living hell out of each other. Yamada misses the top
rope spin kick like she did against Hotta. Kandori is just a f*cking
badass, working as stiff as she wants to. Somebody needs to make a
"Awesome Babes of Shootstyle" tape with Kandori, Hotta, Yamada, Asuka and
our gal, Aja. It was CHOICE! Then there are bunch of introductions and
neat shots of the Domes structure and the beginning of the Michinoku Pro
match that is cut off after about five minutes. Luckily, I believe St.
Phil is sending the commercial version of that match next week. Delfin
has the coolest entrance music now and Naniwa's rocked as usual. I love
the crab-claw oversized ovenmitts.
-I watched WrestleWar 89 with THE MATCH on it and, HELL! it was great!
Thanks Paul! Except for the match afterwards! Road Warriors- ugh. I
won't go on about how great the Flair/Steamboat match was because its
been analyzed to death, but I will say one thing- the match was REALLY
PERFECT, especially the second time around, but Flair/Funk was better. I
said it, so there. The Muta/Doug Gilbert match reminded me of when I saw
Muta in Charlottesville at U Hall with a bunch farmers and he was really
okay!
-The October Edition of Wrestling Power 96 delivered the goods as usual
(sometimes living in Richmond has its advantages!), The featured matches
were ECW handhelds from Reading (or as we say down hear Reeding), PA.
The Sabu vs Damian 666 match was pretty good, though I should like Damian
more than I do, because he is the biggest overacheiver in wrestling right
now, in that he can make a match interesting though he doesn't have a lot
of natural athletic ability. I like the fact that they both went at it
full bore at a house show, though this wasn't Sabu vs Scorpio or
anything. The second match was really good- Robbie Van Dam vs Shane
Douglas. This went in and out of the ring with the goofy martial arts
stuff kept to a minimum. I'm still confused about Douglas. Is he
getting better or does he just have better guys carrying him? Either
way, this was a really good match with lots of trademark furniture usage
which is always an added extra when coupled with a real wrestling match,
which it was. Hell with it! Van Dam is gonna be a truly fine
wrestler for a long time and I'm totally sold on him now. The Wrestling
Spotlight was on Steve Corino (I think I spelled it right) (the 4-5-6
kid) and GEEZ! y'all weren't kidding! He is Waltman's doppelganger. The
show ended with a big tribute to Magnum TA and I wonder if we would have
been subjected to Lex Luger if Magnum would have kept the car on the
road. It seems he was on the brink of attaining the position that Luger
held right after Terry Allen was forced out of the sport. Overall,
another fabulous show (and I'll forgive them for busting on Juventud
falling over the steps.:)
-The Juventud match this morning was good. I'm guessing this wasn't too
old because of the SlimJim ring. I give his springboard DDT a 5/8ths
Ohtani.:) I read a Bischoff interveiw on their homepage where he hinted
at a Cruiserweight tag title so this Juventud/Misterio tagteaming
suddenly makes sense. I guess they are gonna use Rey to get as many
belts over as possible. It will all be worth it if we get a
Rey/Juventud vs Liger/Ultimo match out of it. My question is- how does
the ProAzteca stuff affect the WCW/AAA deal? Is it back to tapes to see
Psicosis, Jucventud and the boys (which would suck)? Did Bischoff
negotiate with Konnan or with Pena? Is AAA dead in the water? Whither
Ultimo Dragon? Mexico is such a foreign country some times.
IN A FEW DAYS: All Japan Carnival 95! First leg of Luchathon III! Dream
Slam I and II! Incessant rambling!
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
