KAWADA! MISAWA! AKIRA TAUE! AKIYAMA! All Japan Carnival 95 and that's about all I've seen so far this week.:)
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #12! This will be pretty
much all about All Japan Carnival 95 since I got it Monday and I had
birthing classes on Tuesday and I watched all of it Wednesday and
tonight, so it was a psychology overload so if it gets disjointed, please
forgive me.:)
-The best match was Taue vs Kawada (God! One sentence in and I can feel
the flames incoming.:)) I liked it the most because of the sheer
brutality of it. Kawada working stiff as flying hell was balanced by
Taue continuously taking Kawada out to the floor and beating the hell out
of him. Taue is such a physically awkward guy that I overlooked how well
he works a match, which is really weird because he moves it along at such
a snails pace, but somehow he makes it work. I guess his size makes the
slower pace palatable because it adds weight to his moves, and makes them
seem more effective (sort of the Keichi Takano effect) For this whole
tournament, his matches were all good, but I guess it helps when your
weakest opponent is Jun Akiyama, so we weren't treated to a Dan
Spivey/Akira Taue match, that would shattered the illusion of Akira for
me.:) The other weird thing was that I noticed that the more I see Taue,
the less I like Kobashi. Kenta comes off as such a weinie sometimes-
especially in the six man match in volume one. I think what I like about
Taue on this tape is that he is all psychology and stoicism. His only
real highspot is that chokeslam on the floor and the occassional midgrade
powerbomb, but he's so methodical and absolutely no bullshit in his
approach that I have to love him. Put that into the ring with the manic
intensity of Kawada and it's really hard for me to lose. Kawada looks
cool hitting such a big target, and it makes his suplexes look that much
more impressive.
-The Misawa/Kawada match ruled the fucking world. I guess that was as
close to a win for Kawada as he was going to get because by the end he is
beating the crap out of our man Mitsuhara. I was pissed he didn't get
the win, actually at the end. I guess the part where they stop the match
in the beginning was one of those All Japan Shoot Angles and it worked- I
was confused.:) There were so many cool parts to this match I will
attempt to hit on a couple of things. I love the reverse to reverse to
reverse of the suplex setup and then Kawada falls on his head so he can
kick Misawa before he lands. Kawada sold the Tiger Driver on the floor
pretty well at first because he looked like he was out of it but I was
thinking about how cool it would have been to have sold it all the way
through the match. The ending was great because, unlike the Taue/Misawa
match, at the end there looked like there was going to be a
certain-Misawa opponent victory and when the bell rings you can feel the
air come out of the room. The best Misawa move was the Chicken wing
suplex directly on Kawada's head to hold off Kawada's first flurry of
pinfall attempts. The great psychological ploy was that by the second
flurry, when Kawada was just beating the shit out of Misawa, you knew
that if the bell didn't ring, another such stop-gap suplex wasn't
forthcoming and Kawada gets the win. This wasn't the case in the
Taue/Misawa draw because neither man had established dominance and,
though it was entertaining as all get-out, one is left with the feeling
that they were just spinning their wheels.
-Jun Akiyama had a great match against Taue, which I wasn't banking on
and had a lacklustre match against both Kawada and Misawa. Both had cool
moments, especially when Akiyama turned on the suplex machine, but the
endings were such a sign of Big Four Dominance that the submissions left
a bad taste in this man's mouth. Misawa used the obscure lucha Indian
Deathlock with a front face lock as the submission finisher. The fact
that it was clumsily applied added up to quite an anticlimax to a match
that had its moments. At least he fared better than Omori against
Kawada, where Kawada beat him to death and basically does the one finger
pin. I was expecting Kawada to yell at the ref for not giving him the
five count. I'm not sure where this tournament was in the developement
of Akiyama, but he wrestled circles around Kobashi, match for match, and
though they have similar styles, Akiyama has left out all the really
stupid types of things that irritate me about Kobashi. THose little
karate chops and the rolling thing on the ground (especially to BABA!)
really make me wince, and when Kawada sells the chops, I laugh out loud
and feel sorry for Kawada at the same time. It's like when Malenko had
to sell the Jim Powers kneelift, he'll do it but you know he feels goofy
for selling it. Akiyama is definitely on track to be the next great
badass in wrestling. Hell! Give him Kobashi's non-Triple Crown spot and
give him some wins.
-The Americans were treated about as well as the Japanese at Starcade.
Danny Spivey spent more time in the bathroom on the plane to Japan than
on the mat. He was beaten in less than seven minutes in both matches he
was in that I saw, and I'm guessing his non-functioning hip had something
to do with it. Kroffat vs Furnas was a zany batch of fun, with Danny
getting bent out of shape about Doug exposing the Kroffat hinder to the
shocked and amazed Carnival crowd. I REALLY hope that they use their
neck-breaking suplexes that were exhibited in this match on either of the
Goddwinns.:) To see the deterioration of Hansen watch his and Misawa's
respective matches against Doug Furnas. Misawa makes it nifty, Hansen
makes it a the only TRULY suckass match on the tape.
-The first volume had a neat six man tag with Taue, Baba and Kawada vs
Hansen, Kobashi and Misawa. My favorite part was when Hansen makes the
save, he pulls Taue off Kobashi, drags him out of the ring and just
starts stomping him into oblivion. Why people don't try saves like that
more often is beyond me. Baba looks mummified and it was great to see
the best workers in the world having to sell his punches and
clotheslines. there was some subtext between Baba and Kobashi that made
Kobashi look like a big baby for having the need to whup up on a very old
man.
- Nitro had some cool things on it. The best was Rey Misterio vs the man
formerly known as the Gigilo. Jimmy has found his freakin working boots
when he can hang with Rey and he did pretty well for himself. Push him
already. Juventud was on. I was happy. He jobbed. I was unhappy. He
jobbed to Regal. I was okay with it. I'm glad it looks like they are
moving towards Malenko/Psicosis, as I would think it would have a lot of
promise, and I hope we see a decent Psicosis/Juvnetud match out of all
this.
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
