KANEMURA! Hayabusa! THE GREAT SASUKE! Koji Kanemoto! GLADIATOR! TAKA MICHINOKU! and other stuff and heard I saw this week
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #29! It has been a big week
in tape veiwing- what with St Phil sending the Bonanza #3 (Finally!:))
with all the good stuff from the crappy PPVs from January and February
mixed in with a batch of other stuff I haven't quite gotten to yet:),
and all-around good egg, Michael Bochicchio (You, my friend, KICK ASS!),
supplying the new FMW after the multi-month drought.
-The Onita Returns FMW Supershow (MICHAEL!!) from 12/11 RULED! Well,
the opening bout sucked REAL bad and the Main Event was more
codger-intensive than the last two Piper/Hogan Matches of the Century
combined- though the ME did have a certain amount of charm and the
opener had me reassured that whoever is Crypt The Keeper is still
wrestling over in Japan, as opposed to sweeping up at a local bar
somewhere like he could be. It was only four matches so it didn't have
Kudo getting mauled by Kandori, but HELL! I guess I'll see that soon
enough.:)
The W*ING Kanemura vs The Gladiator was pretty RAD! It was about as
good as I was expecting- what with the recent trend that has caught on
the last year and a half of having actual wrestling matches on FMW
cards- and this one delivered on quite a few levels, though it did have
its flaws. The main flaw was that the Gladiator I believe REALLY
botched a plancha and got his leg caught in the ropes and Kanemura just
kinda went with it and started hitting his knee with a chair. It took a
while for the ref to get his foot out and it took a while to get things
going at a decent pitch, though they did there eventually. My guess is
that they may have wanted to do a thing where he gets his leg caught
like that but figured it would be easier to get it out. The upside is
that it worked to force Gladiator to sell the knee for a while and gave
Kanemura something to focus on, which he did and it fiiled up the middle
of the match. The transition to the pretty hot ending (actually)
started with a great table spot where W*ING Kanemura, while draped in a
W*ING flag, dives off the top turnbuckle onto the restrained (by the
W*ING expatriots) Gladiator. Gladiator returns the favor later by doing
an over-the-top-rope powerbomb onto a table on the floor, all of which
which was about too beautiful to believe. Between these furniture
intensive spots was a mountain of wrestling that culminated in a truly
fun nearfall fest with suplexes, Thunderfire Powerbombs and
Screwdrivers galore. It was a lot like the other good FMW actual
wrestling matches, but with the two added tablespots in and the whole
middle part of Gladiator unable to do an Awesomebomb because he was
selling the knee shots. I watched a batch of W*ING (HESHAM!) this week
and the difference between Kanemura there and Kanemura here lately is
that if you put his insane spots in the middle of a good wrestling
match, they are pretty freaking awesome. If you build a match around
them, you have a sick fuck trying to kill himself. Kanemura is freaking
me out. I NEVER figured I would EVER like him, but that's all changed.
The Great Sasuke vs Hayabusa was really good with Hayabusa not being the
irritating whipping boy that he usually is which I hate and Sasuke being
as spectacular as he usually is which I love. Both of these guys aren't
afraid to take a shot at killing themselves and this was no different in
a lot of ways. The difference is that the innate coolness of Sasuke as
a wrestler calmed Hayabusa down to actually work a good match. Hayabusa
actually hit a couple of cool suplexes including a great spinning
BrainBuster, which was a new one on me and I finally saw what a Falcon
Arrow and that's pretty neat- sort of a toprope TAKAbomb. Sasuke hit a
great Sasuke Special II and I don't remember a Hilo con Plancha so maybe
he is trying to make it to 35 afterall.:) Hayabusa is such a carry-able
wrestler when he wants to be and this is was a good example of someone
guiding him along to a good match. The fact that he was aggressive and
tough and not such a wimpering wuss like he has been the last eight
matches I've seen him in helped this match immensely. In a related
note, the temporary headwear was pretty fabulous- with Hayabusa donning
the Falcon motif and Sasuke wearing the carpeted and furry extended
Sasuke mask. I was digging this.
The main event showed me a few things. Mr Pogo is very odd as a face
and I have trouble sympathizing with a character that sets opponents on
fire and Pogo being even slower than before is REALLY pathetic. Onita
is still a lot of fun, if just too freakin melodramatic when its all
over. Ooya is FREAKIN GREAT as a bastard heel. What a dick!:) Ditto
Funk! And the main thing I've noticed is that the better dressed that
Masato Tanaka is, the less he'll get to do. Tanaka wears those hideous
biking pants in his real wrestling matches where he rules it so hard.
In these Street Fight deals, he eschews the basic Wranglers (which are
the Streetfight staples of most folks, especially Onita) and instead
dons the durable and sporting Charcoal grey Eddie Bauer denim pants with
fabulous yellow T (though it becomes totally red by the end there). He
gets in to good suplexes and a big plancha. Ooya gets in one good side
suplex. Tanaka gets the pin, which is something I guess, but I'm far
more excited about getting a tape of the Tanaka/Gladiator bout from last
week- bad pants and all, than seeing him get the pin in a match where he
kinda wander arounds the arena staying out of the grandpas' collective
way.:)
-TAKA vs Kanemoto was GREAT (GLENN!! Who ascended to Mt Olympus this
week to find his place among the other gods.:)) But it was cut all to
pieces. TAKA kinda kicks Koji's ass for a while, smacking him around,
hitting that springboard inverted moonsault and doing those little kicks
to the head that make him the idol of millions (here on RSPW at least:))
and then Koji turns it around and works TAKA over, smacking him upside
the head and hitting his KAORUesque arsenal of moonsaults. I REALLY love
these two guys and this made me hope that this whole match shows up on a
commercial tape somewhere. I REALLY want a bunch more matches between
these two.
-I watched the Super Delfin Commercial Tape (HESHAM!!!) and it was
hilarious. Between him macking on the ladies in a truly playerish way
and the highlights from Hamada's UWF, it was cool to see how Flair-like
our boy Delfin was. There is fab match against what had to be
Misterioso. He should have definately kept the babes with the flower
pots.:)
-I watched all the good matches from Souled Out and,if I had just seen
only them, I'd say,"Hey, Nitro is really kicking ass this week.:)" The
Chono/Jericho match was pretty good I thought and the Buff/Riggs match
was pretty good (I'm getting so addicted to Buff after seeing his NJ-NWO
"I'm an American idiot" stuff:)). The Guerrero/Waltman match was really
good I thought, especially with Waltman giving as much as he did. I'm
definitely back on the Waltman bandwagon (at least until the next
PPV.:)) St,Phil stuck the beauty pageant on just to add levity to the
occasion I guess.:)
-I watched the trios match from Royal Rumble and it wasn't the worst
trios match I've seen, but it was very good. Garza and Heavy Metal were
good and Jerry Estrada RULED IT when he NO-SOLD HIS OWN JERRY-BUMP! Now
that's tough!:) Aguayo and El Canek should have been in the Rumble and
Latin Lover and Perro Aguayo Jr (who was actually in the building and
can work fucking circles around his old man) should have rounded out
that cast of Luchadores. That would have ruled. McMahon was so
oblivious of these guys it was embarrassing, which is unfortunate
because he was TRYING to call the match and get them over, but it was
just outside of the realm of his announcing ability. He has enough
trouble calling a Lawler/Brett Hart match, much less a corkscrew
plancha.
NEXT WEEK: Liger/Ohtani! The Special Attack (tee-hee! This is already
written in my head! I'm SO STOKED !!) Michinoku Pro Champ Forum with
Naniwa vs Funaki and shocking angle at the end! Michinoku Pro
Championship matches tape that MB sent! The jillion tapes that M'man
Lorefice sent! GAEA! GAEA! GAEA! and [[I SWEAR!!]] a mountain of LUCHA!
Wotta Week!
CHEETAH~!
Dean Rasmussen, KanemotoHEAD!
P.S- Here is a plug for Glenn's nCo beautiful webpage because all of
these dvdrv babies, Pete's fantabulous and essential Lucha reports and
Scott's Takako shrine are housed there and because I dig everybody
involved (even YOU, Kawadaboy!):
http://www.photon.co.jp/sections/f_staff/nCo WOO-HOO!
