ULTIMO DRAGON! GREAT SASUKE! Ohtani! LOS DESTRUCTORES! Psicosis! La PARKA! JUSHIN THUNDER LIGER! LEON NEGRO! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #14! I got the J-Crown from
the amazing Dams and watched it immediately and I watched a batch of
Extreme Southwest (tm-JDW:)) which I'll get to some of (HELL! It's too
much for one week if I try to figure out all of it.:))
-(With the exception of the fractured skull) The J-Crown RULES! The
highlight is the Ohtani/Ultimo Dragon match which is the most fun I've
had watching a match in a while. The key to this match is that Ultimo
and Ohtani are about at the same rung at this point, with Shinjiro being
the next big thing and capable of beating the big boys (Benoit in the WCW
Cruiserweight final) and Dragon being the legend and being on a bit of
resurgence, the feel of the match is that it is up for grabs (having done
away with the perfunctory token matches for Negro Casas ((who looked
great!)) and Motegi which were never in doubt.) Ohtani hits all of his
springboard spots (more than I've ever seen him hit in one match) and
Ultimo Dragon has all of his patented highspots- the assorted ranas, Asai
moonsaults in and out of the ring. The difference for the Dragon is that
he has REALLY hit the formula of combining the grace of being a great
Luchadore with the stiffness of being a great Japanese style wrestler.
The difference for Ohtani is that he has hit the formula for combining
the New Japan Jr Heavyweight style with the UWFi shoot-style. So all
this in the ring at the same time delivers the wrestling goods. Ohtani
has mastered the art of the big sell, with my favorite thing being his
Crawling Escape (tm-DHR:)) from the opponent's finisher, which I first
noticed after Benoit's first Ohtani Killer Powerbomb (tm-JDW:)) in their
match for the WCW belt. After some submission holds early (or maybe
late, I join Ollie in desiring the commercial uncut version of this baby)
the mountain of near pinfalls begin. The timing is everything for all
these. They pause between near pins and explode into the suplex,
hurricanrana, or powerbomb variation so as to make it look like the
finisher; the first nearpin- an Ohtani Tiger Suplex- is the best because
it had the great 2 and 98/100ths count by Dragon. By mid match, the
excitement level is already at a feverpitch. The last quarter is
variations of the young punk Ohtani getting fired up and being thwarted
by UD, the wily veteran. Dragon is on the turnbuckle as Ohtani rushes him
three or four times, each time eating some Dragon fists. Ohtani finally
gets UD in the position for the Superplex, only to be reversed into a
very fat facebuster. Ultimo finishes him off with a running powerbomb
and a great match comes to a close. This match RULED, but Liger/Ohtani
RULED MORE. I would put it between Benoit/Ohtani and Liger/Ohtani.
Ohtani better have the J-Crown for a while in 97 because he is becoming
the absolute KING of the junior heavyweights.
Another great match was the final, though it was marred by the injury
sustained by the Great Sasuke. Ultimo Dragon should just breakdown and
join Michinoku Pro because the most beautiful 70 or 80 seconds of this
whole wrestling year was when UD and the Great Sasuke are running the
ropes Lucha Libre style, hitting all the graceful armdrags and head
scissors. His Lucha leanings would guarantee more of the same in the
lucha-crazy Michinoku Pro. This match was beautiful on a lot of levels
when you get past the obviously supergraceful lucha libre areas. The
speed that UD and Sasuke mat wrestle, which was almost the entire first
half of the match, is pretty awe-inspiring. Hell, Sasuke is so quick and
precise doing suplexes and knee- bars that he can definitely join Liger
in the Great Highflyers Who Are Even Better When They Are Grounded club.
Ditto Ultimo Dragon who is so fluid that he is a true joy to behold.
The highspots were neat though. During the exchange of Quebradas onto
the floor, notice that both of them come close to destroying a fan.
Sasuke comes very close taking out a five year old in the front row.
(talk about early childhood trauma). The most infamous highspot looks to
me more like a botched senton than a botched hurricanrana. I thought he
just didn't get enough air in his Senton and couldn't land flat on UD,
thus the unfortunate result. On a lighter note, I hope that they
continue the bizarre Hot-Chicks-With-The-Eight-Belts procession for each
J-Crown defense. It was a true Flair-inspired move, in that brilliant
goofy way that says WRESTLING!:)
Jushin Thunder Liger looked impressive in the 2 minutes he was in the
tournament. I'm guessing the released suplexes he did on Dragon will a
new thing for him, and they looked pretty hellish. Negro Casas looked
great against Ohtani. He had cool boots, long pants and has let his hair
grow out. The highlight of that match was the springboard headscissors
by Casas. Motegi looked like Motegi, but with a beard. El Samurai is
creeping back up on me again, because I hadn't seen him wrestle in a
while and had forgotten how cool he is in the ring. His match against
Sasuke was the third best and came very close being second. In the
middle of all this, Dan the Beast Severn wrestled Fujiwara in a very
unUFC style match. Severn wrestled his almost-effective mutant pro style.
It didn't help that Severn did five backdrop drivers in a row and
Fujiwara kicked out of four of them. That doesn't make Fujiwara look
good, it just makes Severn's version appear to be 1/5th as good as Steve
Williams'.
-I watched six AAA handhelds from Dams and they were as hit and miss as
all AAA hh's are. The Main Events are spectacular and the undercard is
pretty good to spotty to horrible. The best tape was the one from 10/16
with a GREAT match between Jungla/Leon Negro vs Psicosis/Fobia. It
started with a perfect first Caida of Lucha style matwork, with Jungla-
who I had never had an opinion of- really showing adeptness, hanging with
Psicosis on the mat. Leon Negro continues to impress me with speed and
all-around spunkiness. He is developing into the next Super Calo- with
an even more straight forward style which will work well with his
flashier counterparts. The second and third Caidas moved smoothly into
more garbage spots, which made sense for the match because it built to
the insanely hot (screwy) ending. Los Pandilleros vs Los Destructores
was a GREAT brawl with the Pandys really getting their asses handed to
them by the older guys in the goofy masks. Pandy #1 blades like a freak
and Arce and the boys just stomp them into oblivion. I'm going crazy
because I'm starting to sense that one of the Pandilleros is the
highflyer of the group, he just hasn't let loose yet. (Someone tell Dave
Fields that I'm finally sold on Los Destructores and he can sleep easy
now.:)) The first main event was hilarious with Pierroth doing the big
bully act with Misterio Jr, even to the point of pants-ing the lil fella.
This was a real dog's breakfast of a wrestling match, the pinnacle being
Konnan teeing eggs off of Cibernetico's stomach with a golf club. It was
Surreal SouthWest for a minute there. The second Main Event was
Halloween (mascara vs mascara with Thunderbird), which I haven't watched,
but I'm guessing will be pretty choice.
- The 7/14 hh had a REALLY choice La Parka vs Misterioso match.
Misterioso is SO underrated, and La Parka is so GOOD that this match was
quite interesting. It stayed on the mat for most of the match with La
Parka throwing in a wacky highspot here and there. Very fast-paced, very
psychologically sound, thanks to the steady hand of Misterioso guiding
this baby along. La Parka is so freakishly off-beat even when he is
seriously wrestling that I wonder if his gimmick is hiding the true jewel
of modern lucha libre from the rest of the world. Juventud and Jerry
Estrada drag Cibernetico along for the ride on the same card, taking on
the aforementioned Leon Negro, the large and TICK-like Tinieblas, Jr and
Blue Demon, Jr. Juvnetud and Estrada do what they do best, make their
opponents look like wrestling machines, and Juventud gets in some offense
to satiate my insane need for cool looking legdrops.:) Cibernetico
sucks, but hey! lemme try to say something new!:) The Main Event- a
double chain match with Misterio, Psicosis and Super Calo- I didn't watch
yet, either.:)
NEXT WEEK: The rest of the AAA handhelds that I watched! The two AAA
main events I haven't watched! The best of Jushin Thunder Liger tape
which I'm 80% done watching! DREAMSLAM II (I swear!)! and fistloads of
other stuff!:)
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
