OHTANI! Liger! HOKUTO! Uematsu! KAORU! Ichiki! TERRY TAYLOR! Bobby Eaton! and other stuff on the positive tip this week!
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #30! This week I'm gonna do
the other half of the Glenn Tape I got with the MONSTER Ohtani/Liger
match and the GAEA Bridge Ladies of Death Tape, part II. I also watched
a batch of early 90's WCW stuff. I also started the Japanese Women's
Wrestling Marathon of Marathons so this will be a little brief as I
wanted to TRY to do all of those tapes all at once. WOO-HOO!
-John Williams (beloved yet Beelezebub-esque:)) tipped me off on what
the Ohtani/Liger J-Crown Match was gonna be like when he said it was a
lot like a certain match recently at Koruken Hall and I'm sure he meant
that it compares QUITE a bit to the Misawa/Kobashi Triple Crown match
from last month in psychology and perfection of selling and execution-
though of course there was a lot of differences also, but I'll try to
get to those later.:) Both matches were basically the Old Veteran is
doing everything he can to finish off the upstart, but the upstart-
feeling the need to replace the veteran in his position of greatness,
and realizing that this match is his best opportunity- isn't going down
regardless of the number of TigerDrivers or FishermanBuster Suplexes the
old fella does. Ohtani and Kobashi sell similarly, getting those
overwrought facials that young punks are allowed to get. Kobashi is too
old for that, so he doesn't do it in his match for the first time since
I've seen him, which is the first step of reaching the true top level of
All Japan- being the veteran that doesn't have to get all fired up, but
one who can stoicly take your opponent apart. The much younger Ohtani
is much more excitable, and Liger is more Misawa than Misawa in terms of
greatness so this definitely took on an identity of its own by the time
one thinks about it overall. Liger hits Ohtani with all his past
finishers- Fisherman Buster Suplex, Liger Bomb and they don't put him
away. Ohtani used everything in his arsenal, this side of his rarely
used springboard DDT, to get the win. There were lots of nearfalls both
ways with the best ones for Ohtani after the springboard missile kick at
the end and after they did the spot that Ohtani and Ultimo Dragon did in
their match where UD is perched on the turnbuckle and kept knocking
Shinjiro off except, this time, Ohtani hits the frankensteiner. The
ending of both of the J-Crown and The Triple Crown Match had similar
endings in that both Misawa and Liger both start using their famous
striking move to get the win- Misawa hitting all those elbows between
TigerDrivers and Liger beating the crap out of Ohtani with palm
thrusts. Liger has his finisher in his match made to look a lot
stronger because it was a beautifully-sold running palm thrust that
Ohtani made look like he was hit with a baseball bat. What a GREAT
match and what a great month for wrestling!
-The GAEA Champ Forum with the Akira Hokuto/Toshie Uematsu vs
KAORU/Ichiki match was pretty beautiful and VERY grim. The Bridge Club
of GAEA continues to take out their frustrations at getting older by
beating the holy hell out the youngsters- even one's they are tagging
with. The match is full of neckwrenching AJ suplexes and assorted
drivers with Ichiki taking the brunt of the truly Hellish Akira BackDrop
Driver and Uematsu taking the brunt of the KAORU-does-the-TAKABomb.
Toshie also does an assisted double leg drop off the top to the floor
that much pretty ended up with her landing on her head after Akira
throws her WAY to hard at the young Miss Ichiki and KAORU. Ichiki
looked as good as she has looked so far, which would figure since Akira
was there to help her through it (and slam her on top of her head).
Toshie looked EVEN SPUNKIER being all tough and whatnot with Akira.
Akira is looking GREAT these days assuming the role of the total cranky
old woman who is absolute death in the ring. She works so stiff and is
so dynamic, you forget that she has been through an entire crippling
career in AJW and shouldn't be able to walk that well, much less improve
her arsenal to include state-of-the-art All Japan moves. She's always
had flawless psychology so I'll just restate that here. GAEA rules yadda
yadda yadda..:)
-I watched a bunch of early 90's WCW and GOD! did a lot of it suck. The
York Foundation was one of the stupidest ideas in wrestling, with the
stomach-churning computer crap, but it did get involved with the best
match of the stuff I saw, which was Terry Taylor vs Bobby Eaton for the
TV title tournament. It was very Mid-South: sound psychology, no
highspots, hellish bumps, clean pinfall, high workrate. I'm glad I saw
that because I remember Taylor being a great worker from UWF, but I had
forgotten how good Eaton used to be. The Pillman/Tom Zenk vs Midnight
Express match was really good. Lane and Eaton are about at their peak
here as they hit everything perfectly. Lane was a good worker if not in
the Eaton category. Zenk looked like he might have become something at
that point, I can't remember what happened to change that. The rest was
mindwrenchingly bad to well-documentedly good.:)
-I watched ECW last week, as I was in Tidewater under direct orders from
the Army of Grandmas-The Strongest Force In The Universe:) and all I can
say is that Tommy Rich as a Full-Blooded Italian was the best thing I
have EVER seen on that show. A old, fat, drunk redneck pissing people
off in Phuiladelphia was absolute MAGIC. I think I might have cried at
the sheer beauty of it all. That rookie looked promising and Little
Guido is realy good I think. The rest sucked donkey lungs.
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, SonokoHEAD!
