ANDY HUG! El Canek! PEGUSUS KID! El Hijo Del Santo! VILLANO III! Villano IV! and other stuff I saw and heard this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #26! It was a good week for
tape-watchng, I got Mike's first Mountain of Tapes with all this old UWA
stuff on it and I watched a bunch of stuff that I had watched before but
needed to watch again. Plus one of my best friends- taking me totally by
surprise- moved back from Australia, my combo played out at a smoky bar
and the BOOZE jokes were back in MST3K, so overall (Except for the 50
hours of working) it was a great week!
-I watched all the Hamada's UWA commercial tapes (MIKE! WOO-HOO!) that
focussed on one particular wrestler for an hour then focussed on another
for an hour and so on. The UWA tapes were a lot
of things- strange (the Hijo Del Santo action adventure movie that was
shown between Caida's of his match against Negro Casas, which is up
there with the Rock and Roll Express Music Video for Rock and Roll All
Night in MidSouth, as the weirdest wrestling related thing you will see),
cool (El Canek at the beach swimming with the hipsky blue trunks and the
mask), Very Interesting (Villano III showing young punks how to wrestle
in his gym), and disappointing in spots (only showing five minutes of
TRULY ASS STOMPING Dos Caras vs El Canek match). Of course this is all
mixed in with some of the best wrestling on earth ever. The El Hijo del
Santo tape had great Santo vs Negro Casas match that was beautiful and it
becomes REALLY interesting when you compare it to the Rey Misterio,Jr vs
Juventud Guerrero matches from last year, because the young luchadores
borrow quite a bit from the Late 80's version, especially the highly
choreographed mat work where they mirror each other and then break out
into the lightning fast armdrag and headscissor combinations. I thought
that was cool when Juventud and Rey did it, and now it's even cooler when
you see where they got it from- sort of adds even more weight to those
classic matches from last year. Another comparison would be the rudo
role that Juventud and Negro both play in their respective matches,
expending as much effort as the technico in making the moves of the
technico look more great than they ever should. I never noticed the
Negro Casas effect on Juventud until now- though there may just be the
common influence of Fuerza Guerrera on both of them.
The El Canek commercial tape was cool just because I've only seen his
later matches when he is too old to do anything anymore. It was great
seeing him in action when he was younger and truly graceful. The five
minutes of El Canek vs Dos Caras had me so stoked, as it was a younger
Dos Caras that was flying more than he does now and they were going at it
pretty good and then they cut to personal reflection footage and then its
El Canek vs Kokina! It was neat seeing Yokozuna actually working a
little but you can imagine my chagrin.:)
The Villano III tape had the spellbinding Villano II vs Pegasus Kid
(Benoit in a Iowa Barnstormers mask, I thought to myself) and Benoit was
truly Luchaesque in this baby. Villano used all the inventive matwork
that sets a good luchadore apart and Benoit was freakin Benoit (even
then) and it was choice. The ending was strange because Benoit sets up
Villano for a superplex and the announcers contend (via "Hilarious Foule
Instant Replay") that Benoit fouled him by sitting him on the turnbuckle.
Despite this, it was an awesome wrestling display- as Benoit is just
starting to notice his potential as a world class wrestler and has
adapted to the Lucha style. Villano III I need to find a lot more of.
There was also a Perro Aguayo tape and eventhough he is in with the
legendary El Gran Hamada, he still sucks and sucked back then, regardles
of who he is wrestling.
-I rewatched some K-1 (Ollie!) while making a Pancrase section of a tape
for Mike and I'm with Ollie on this- I usually don't dig kickboxing, but
this stuff is so much cooler. This is a lot closer to Pancrase than
Kickboxing on ESPN in my estimation. Ollie pointed out how the build up
of each match sets it apart, and I'd have to agree, plus it has it's own
Bas Rutten with the also-cult-worthy, charismatic kicking-machine, Andy
Hug.
-Nitro was good this week, which it had to be to counteract the last two
weeks, which were a merciless onslaught of suck. The Guerrero/Malenko
matches from Monday and Saturday were great I thought- though the screwy
and goofy, respectively, endings were quite the hinderence. They need to
take one of the belts off of one of these guys so the unclean finish
isn't such a sure thing, but overall, this was as inspired as I've seen
these two look when in with each other since the heady ECW days of
yesteryear.:) The Regal/Misterio Jr match was great- with Regal showing
that he can do anything with anybody and make a great match out of any
awkward situation when he wants to. Rey was once again surprising with
his courage in the face of incredible stiffness, and was nearly credible
looking against such a larger opponent in the match- though the chasm of
size differential would only allow so much in the eyes of the American
Wrestling public, I would say. I liked the Chavo Jr/Jarrett vs
Benoit/Mongo match though it was quite the unlikely pairing. Chavo
worked his little hinder off and took his beating from Benoit like a man.
Mongo shows slight improvement in the ring, since I no longer fear him
screwing up really badly and crippling someone accidently. I wish they
would put the belt on Benoit and have a full-blown Jarret/Benoit feud
already. Alex Wright is looking better (except for the blown springboard
dropkick). The Steiners/High Voltage match I dug for some reason and as
for the Randy Anderson thing, my question is- when did Jim Cornette
starting booking WCW? The rest sucked.
-The Thursday Raw Thursday was pretty okay. I liked the Headbangers
match quite a bit, though Aldo Montoya and Holly aren't... really...
good. I was astonished at the clean pin by Hart on Vader, though I think
it was another nail in the coffin of the Mythically Great Monster Heel
Called Vader as opposed to some radical change in the WWF booking method.
I'll believe the Micheals retirement when I don't see it. I was in the
audience for the fake collapse, so I ain't buying nothing. The rest
pretty much sucked.
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, SonokoHEAD!
