EL HIJO DEL SANTO! Negro Casas! SUPER ASTRO! Lou Thesz! B.Bomb! Kawarnda (WHO?) and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #24! It was a big week as the
Santo Rudo tape graced the mailbox(PETE WHIPS ASS!), I tried to catch up
on the pile of NJ and AJ stuff that St Phil sent, and WP97 Tim and Dave
stopped by to see the youngster and show me pictures of Minami Toyota and
other stuff, and I eagerly await the Yakushiji-fest that the beloved
Glenn sent.
-I watched the first of two giant Lucha tapes from lucha-maven
extraordinaire, Pete, and GOD was it CHOICE! What the hell happened to
EMLL? The last time I watched, it was a bunch of washed up has-beens
getting in the way of the good Dos Caras moves. NOW: I counted six good
young workers in the first three matches alone and they have the hottest
feud of this decade possibly and it was all riveting. The pinnacle is
the Hijo Del Santo heelturn. Hulk Hogan would have had to have set the
American flag on fire and defame Elvis's mother to get the response that
Santo got when he turned, this was really, really intense and the matches
were at a different level than any I've seen in Lucha. ECW should sit
down and study this and see how effective bloodletting can be when you
save it up for a REAL feud, because when it gets to the Dandy/Santo/Negro
Casas triangle match, it's coming out by the bucket and the thing that
keeps it from seeming excessive is because of the amount of hatred
involved and how well it was conveyed. If Santo, an actual real living
legend who NOBODY could contemplate being anything but a perfect face,
hates Casas enough to turn heel just to beat the shit out of him, the
level of barbarism is established from the get go. These matches work
completely against the strong points of Hijo and Casas, which is fabulous
technical wrestling. These are more like a truly hardcore
Brodie/Abdullah type megabrawl, and they are all carried by the fact
that everybody is totally in shock that it's Del Santo bustin people open
and stomping them into the ground. Dandy/Santo section of the feud
produces the most harrowing visual images you will see in wrestling as
Dandy bleeds enough for both men- turning the famous silver mask blood
red. This is weird. This is great. I want more.
-The rest of the tape was great for other reasons- mainly, everybody is
working hard in EMLL. Hell! Satanico was a spry corpse for the match I
saw him in with his ever-slower neato matwork. Silver King is looking
great, post-losing his hair. Very stylish, and still one of the best
topes in wrestling. Super Astro has- somehow- gotten even better. His
highspots are even flashier and snappier and he hit one of the choicest
fat Sentons to the floor and also hits a great top rope tope. Apollo
Dantes actually did some highflying in the match I saw with him. Of
course, he was in with Silver King and that brings out the best in him.
Shocker got a truly beautiful new mask as everybody is jumping on the
shiny metallic bandwagon (Super Astro was sporting his ass-stomping
Togo-Killer Gold Michinoku Pro mask that he wore over in Japan in the
second match on the tape I saw him, but I digress...:)). Shocker is the
most underrated worker of EMLL. He rules! I don't remember ever seeing
him in a bad match. The punks of EMLL that may have a future is that guy
with the Misterio mask (Sorry I haven't compiled the matchlist yet.:))
and Black Warrior. Black Warrior is kinda big and moves really well,
though he seems kinda green. The MisterioMask:) was very impressive also
with quicker movement and a small arsenal of second tier highspots and a
hint of mat ability, from the one match I saw. And there were bunch of
other young punks that are too soon to tell if they are going to amount
to anything. Things are definitely looking up for the world's largest
wrestling organization.
-I watched the Lou Thesz Biography (HESHAM is a kind and sharing god.:))
which I guess was from the early 80's, which was pretty informative and
all, with his explanations of hooking and shooting and their origins and
the historical perspective on wrestlers from the formative years were
kinda fascinating. He tried not to come off as a bitter old fruit like
he always struck me as when I read interveiws with him and he was pretty
good about it except when he said Mexico never produced a good wrestler.
Other interesting things he were that Dory Funk Jr was in need of more
coaching at West Texas State, Buddy Rogers was not a real wrestler, Verne
Gagne and Jack Brisco were great wrestlers and Harley Race was not a good
wrestler. He was quite diplomatic with his opinion of Hulk Hogan, which
was surprising.
-I watched a batch of the AJ tag tourney (PHIL!) including the
Sabu/Allbright matches and they were pretty neat. The Sabu/Allbright vs
Patriot/Kobashi match was the better of the two Sabu matches because it
didn't have a TRULY ridiculous Sabu spot in it like the Hansen/Omori
match had. I'm guessing they are setting up an Allbright/Kobashi feud to
kill time until Kobashi gets the Triple crown back because they basically
attempt to kill each other while Patriot and Sabu try to keep themselves
occupied. This could be as choice as the Kawada/Allbright miniseries as
AJ slowly figures out where Gary figures into the picture. So far, it
seems his role is to prepare the big five for the equally hellish
suplexes they will experience when wrestling Dr. Death Steve Williams.
Sabu looked really okay in these matches and he worked really well with
Omori, actually, so maybe they could explore that possibility as a future
feud, if they are keeping our boy Terry over there for a while. Sabu and
Allbright are actually a pretty good compliment to each other and would
be really good if Sabu could convey an ounce of stiffness in any of his
work. His flashy stuff would be a good counterpoint to single-minded
matwork of Allbright. Allbright is becoming another favorite as he is
not afraid to suplex the holy crap out of people and stay more stoic
than any American ever has. I really look forward to a couple of
Kobashi/Allbright matches and I figure they would have to have another at
least to make up for the SURPRISE ending.:) I watched the Kawad/Taue vs
Misawa/Akiyama and truly await: a.) the tag match where Somebody pins
Misawa and b.) the next Triple Crown Title change where Kahoozits drops
Misawa like a punk. Misawa going over Kawada is so INCREDIBLY old, and
this match drove it home. I fell asleep as the Williams/Ace matches of
the tape began so I'll yammer about those next time.:)
-WP97Tim and Dave came by the house to veiw the youngster, bedevil my
hapless, innocent dogs and show me all the BITCHIN Japanese Wrestling
Mags Tim just got(which said nothing about any angles, it was 100%
workrate commentary. I could tell. What else would they talk about?:))
They had fabulous pictures of all the GAEA all stars and I watched as
Tim and Dave recoiled in terror as I knew a little too much about Jd'.
One of them mags also had a couple of pictures from B.Bomb, the Manami
Toyota midnight choking pamphlet:), and HEY! CROWBOY! WADDYA MEAN SHE'S
CHUBBING OUT!?! She looks AWESOME, and I mean that in the most
respectful, aesthetic sense.:)
-Nitro SUCKED this week. God, I was distraught. The only decent match
involved Billy Pearl, and that's all I want to remember. Hey! WCW BRAIN
SURGEON/ROCKET SCIENTISTS/GLUE-SNIFFING CRETINS ! MORE CRUISERS AND REAL
REGAL MATCHES! Who gives a shit about that other crap? RAW had a match
that involved a heart punch and didn't involve Ox Baker, so it was a wash
too.
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, GREAT SASUKEhead!
