MASATO TANAKA! HOTTA rules the freakin world! AJA f*cking KONG! CHONO! YAMAZAKI! Shiryu! Jaguar Yokota! the marathon of wrestling continues! Woo-Hoo!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #17! This is another
supplemental thing as I keep getting an influx of tres cool wrestling and
I'm trying to keep up with the massive coolness I'm taking in. I think
I'm gonna break the Liger tape into three match segments because it's
amazingly difficult to comment on because it takes into account so many
elements, and I'll start that next week when all these tapes I've been
dying to see finally start winding down.
-I saw the Masato Tanaka vs W*ING Kanemura match from 8/1/96 and it was
very, very impressive. Very old style as it built from a headlock and
worked it's way out, and stayed very undeathmatchlike (though there was a
batch of blood and a table spot.) It started with clean breaks, head
locks into side suplexes and worked to a garbage vestige with a table
spot. It then kicked into the extended ending section which began with
Tanaka hitting a choice toprope dropkick and then went into an extended
series of nearfalls as they exchanged a truly impressive array of suplex
variations, spinning DDTs, assorted planchas and a MASSIVE amount of
psychology never before seen in a FMW ring. The main thing I was
simultaneously impressed by/pissed off by was the fact that Kanemura is a
fucking suplex machine and was fabulous in this match (though Tanaka
overtook him in the wrestling department in the end by being the true
wrestling machine of FMW). I'm pissed because when I think of the career
of Kanemura, I think of four things: 1. Kevin Sullivan carving him up in
SMW, 2. Kanemura being powerbombed onto fire. 3. Cactus Jack's last
opponent who flew face first into the spidernet. 4. A halfway decent
match Hayabusa on the FMW Summer Tape. If he was capable of the level
exhibited in this match all along, what a waste of a semi-talented
wrestler. On the up side, this makes the match against the Gladiator
look MUCH more promising because Gladiator can also wrestle when he wants
to. And they had better push Tanaka through the f*ckin roof as an actual
wrestler, because he shows a lot more promise than 80% of any other
heavyweight in any other promotion. I would also make these two tag-team
against everybody they can get in the ring with.
-I saw a truly fabulous Aja Kong/Tamada vs Hotta/Maekawa match from
September 28th of this year and there is a lot to comment on. Number one
is that Hotta is growing out her hair and she looks great- suddenly
filled with oodles of babe-u-locity. She is also not afraid to beat the
holy hell out of opponents and this may be her most brutal display to
date. Tamada and Maekawa are the youngsters of the match- Tamada is
highflyerish and Maekawa is actually quite impressive as the budding
shootstyle Hotta follower. Both of these young ladies get the big hurt
applied by Aja and Hotta. The story of the match is that Hotta is taking
advantage of the young, inexperienced Tamada by kicker her about as
stiffly as I've ever seen. There is one part where Maekawa has her in
the reverse chinlock, and Hotta does usual stiff kick to the chest spot,
but these are TRULY hellish. Hotta creates a truly sickening thud sound
and Aja is going crazy. When Tamada finally tags out after being beaten
to a pulp, Aja comes in and exacts some revenge, and it is about as
horrifying as it was on the other side. I'm assuming there has been a
Aja/Hotta match set up from this because it was a great idea to transpose
the match they will against each other onto their respective proteges.
It kind of made the ending anticlimatic as it was basically a truncated
version of what the singles match would be (I suppose), though I would
say those few moments were quite promising and I hope I get a hold of
that match. I also want to know who Tamada and Maekawa pissed off to get
stuck in that match.
-I saw the rest of the G-1 and it was really choice, except for Sasuke
going over Hashimoto. Chono/Yamazaki was cool if just for the two
coolest pairs of boots in Japan. It was very submission attempt
intensive and Yamazaki ruled. I was surprised at how good Chono was in
this match and was totally blown away by his matches against Mutoh and
Chosyu. Mutoh's matches against Koshinaka and Chono make you want to
slap him upside the head for all the other matches he refused to deliver
the goods in. The Koshinaka/Mutoh match was great just for the furious
ending where Koshinaka has a Kawada-vs-Misawa hellish flurry that makes
each nearfall seem like the real thing- a real rollercoaster of a match.
The Chono match was cool because of the counters that Mutoh used against
Chono's signature moves, as Mutoh worked Chono's leg from every
impossible position imaginable. Chono ruled SUPER hard with the
filthiest lowblow I've seen in a while. It is MEGA choice, worthy of a
Destructore-status foule.:) The final with Chosyu/Chono was another
great match, with the pinnacle being Tatsumi Fujinami slapping Chosyu
when he fell out of the ring, telling him to get in there and finish off
that young punk! It was a basic story: Chono beats the hell of him and
Chosyu has to find the fighting spirit to get up, fight and to go out
with a bang. This was the most I've enjoyed New Japan Heavyweight since
I've been watching tapes of them.
-I finally saw some Jd' and it was quite the mixed bag. They have hip
looking rings- with trendy red and black trim that separates them from
the less design oriented JWP rings. Of course the wrestling was much
more sketchy, but first things first.:) I'm not sure what kind of style
they are shooting for. They have great masks. Cooga's is about as
choice as they come- a cleaner line than Blizzard Yuki but in the same
vein.:) Jaguar Yokota's mask when she does the Li Hua gimmick is pretty
menacing. Since I fell asleep the first time, I need to go back and
watch the Shimoda/Shiratori vs Yokota/Kosugi match to watch her actually
wrestle and see if I can see a semblance of what drew JDW to her. Her Li
Hua character (I woke up when this one began)is pretty grim and not
wrestling intensive, though she does convey calculating menace quite
well- though carving up Bison Kimura and then reviving her by bleeding on
her has psychosexual underpinnings I don't even want to begin to get
into.:) I guess they are shooting for a mixture of GAEA and FMW women's
division style of garbage wrestling without the FMW neat angles and GAEA
actual wrestling. I don't know, maybe it will develope into something
interesting after a while. It wasn't horrible, it just wasn't that good.
-I saw a bunch of All Japan from 93 and I guess that was The Year Every
American Wrestler Beat The Crap Out Of Kenta Kobashi. This has been
covered pretty extensively lately by JDW, Lacy, Ollie and everybody else
who saw it all back then so I'll only touch on a few things. The
Hansen/Kobashi match was great and JWD was right about the ending- What a
great finality to that lariat. The Steve Williams/Kobashi put Kobashi
back in my good graces after the third hideous backdrop driver. All
three made me absolutely cringe. I wonder if Williams can make it back
to that level. That match is about as good as it gets. (Actually the
Patriot didn't beat the crap out of him.) A really curious match was the
six man with DiBiase in it. When did he retire? I thought it was long
before this.
Top five masks in wrestling.
5. Cibernetico
4. Super Delfin (Burgundy and earthtones version)
3. Halloween
2. Discovery
1. Juventud Guerrera (Misterioso-style version with the fringe.)
NEXT COUPLE IN THE NEXT WEEK: More Michinoku Pro, New Japan, Pancrase,
GAEA, AJW and hour after hour after hour of Lucha Libre!! You're
stoked and so am I!:) Woo-Hoo!
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, JerichoHEAD!
