LIGER! Cheetah! Scott! Phil! Jeremy! Chris! Rob! GREAT SASUKE! and other stuff that ruined all chances for stoicism at nCoCon 97!:)
Howdy!
WELCOME TO DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #34! This is the
special edition that will cover everything that was viewed at CheetahCON
97- a gathering to welcome the collosally nice and collossally wrestling
-knowledgable Scott Lacy to the fair Mid-Atlantic region and it also gave us
all a good excuse to roadtrip to Boonesboro to see indie wrestling at a
Livestock auction house and it gave us excuse to watch a big batch of
wrestling tapes and it gave us a good excuse to see what these internet folks
looklike.:) I personally had an absolutely swell time and Phil and I were
talking about hopefully roadtripping to MEWF this summer and goofing
around with these great people again (wife and girlfriend permitting! WOO-
HOO!) I had a blast!
I left the house at 11 after thanking Ollie for e-mailing me about
Kawada Finally pinning PHATboy Misawa and then I e-mailed JD and Glenn
to offer congratulations that This International Nightmare is Finally
over.:) I then e-mailed Lee and said I was on the way to the
Day-Long-WrestleTapeViewingfest/Midnight-Choker-Manual-gawkathon (B-bomb
BABY! Learn to love it, JD! Manami! WOO-HOO! ((Actually Takako smokes
her like cheap cigar in BODY OIL, but somebody had to say something:)))
/Landspeed record for most gut-busting quips in one room in one day,
(Rob Hoffman had a personal best 9,000 one-liners that left us all
staring in his wake (and rolling on the floor)). Lee and the amazing
Scott met me at the door as I arrived after doing a bit of sight-seeing
in the nation's capitol ("AHH CRAP! that's 495 to 395! Mother of Garsh!
Where the hell am I?"). I ventured into the Cheetah's lair, the
pinnacle of mystery and tantalizing esoterica, greeted our Leader and
the spunky Scott- who was up from Georgia- and scarfed down a lion's
share of the raw veggie platter. Lee was astounded at my propensity to
drink enough Diet Coke to satiate four average guests. I recoiled in
shame and asked to use the phone so I could call Phil and tell him where
I was when he needed to call and bail out of the road trip. I was pretty
positive that he was going to ruin his knee in his rugby game or
something like that and not be able to join the festivities. Luckily, my
fears were groundless as you will find out later. I was introduced to
the truly hilarious fellow-Richmonder Rob and planted my keister next to
him as Lee put in the first Japanese tape that JD sent from the left
coast. I am introduced to The Most Dangerous Man Ever Issued A License
In The State Of Virginia: Jeremy Billones.:) Jeremy proves to be one of
the sweetest folks in the world by the end of the day and ganders up at
the tape. It had-
NEW JAPAN TV- 4/12/97, Tokyo Dome
The saving grace on this baby was the Sasuke/Liger match which was about
as packed with manly goodness as one would expect. Sasuke does a Rider
Kick and a Sasuke Special so the fractured skull thing was lost on him,
I'm supposing. Liger is the MASTER OF WRESTLING. He is the BEST
WRESTLER IN THE WORLD. THIS MATCH RULED BECAUSE JUSHIN THUNDER LIGER
WAS IN IT. The finisher was bliss. Not so blissful was the fact that there was the usual New Japan ham-fisted editing of this match, but we got to see every second of the Inoki/Sayama throwaway ("Did he really just win with an abdominal stretch?"), the really crappy Chono/Muta match and other assorted NWo stuff.
Next on it was- ALL-JAPAN TV- with April Carny stuff on it.
Akiyama and Hansen was not good. No. Not at all.
Taue and Gary Allbright was short and fast-forwarded alot so we got to
see the good parts. They elude me at this moment.:)
At this point, Chris walks in the door with a bag of tapes. Chris is a muscular, burly man and good man to have with you when you are walking the mean streets of Boonesboro, I found out later.:)
Next up was the- MEWF-Three Way Ladder Match- Quinn Nash/Steve Corrino/Adam (Atom?)
Flash. At this point I commented, and Rob seconded me, that we collectively
hate everybody who lives in DC/PA/DEL because they can drive ten minutes
and see indie wrestling this good. GEEZ! This match was insane. This
was basically a clinic on cool bumps and yet there was an inkling of
psychology mixed in somewhere- though it kinda faded in and out
depending on what the highspot required.:) Royce Profitt's big fat head
obscures the coolest move of the match- Corrino's double legdrop off the
ladder onto both opponents. I knew this is what it was because Lee,
Rob, Chris and Jeremy all were there and they told me- lucky bastards.:)
We then find the GLENN! tape that GLENN! sent because he RULES THE
FUCKING WORLD! and it has many beautiful things on it
We reluctantly fast forward through all the Pancrase stuff (which I will
be watching as soon as I get my copy of this baby) lot of the AJW stuff
because we have to leave at 5 and we have about 12 hours of video we
wanna watch so the reader's digest version was what we were forced to do
with everybody's stuff. Scott wanted to see what Takako was wearing
(Black Leather! Oooooooo I feel funny....:)) and I wanted to see the end
of the Sato/Nagashima match (Sato with a figure four; no flipping of the
bird unfortunately; GAEA RULES!). After that was
ALL JAPAN TV- April 97
This had Akiyama vs Kobashi and GOD! did it rule. Kobashi flirts with
being the irritating Kenta that I have come know but puts that all to
rest with a ULTRAstiff spinning back-forearm that HAD to SUCK if you
were Akiyama. There is clearly audible THUD on the tape as Kenta gives
the youngster the discipline he needs. Kobashi slams Punkiyama on his
surly punk head a few times for good measure and Akiyama responds with
some CHOICE Exploder suplexes. I'm not giving away the ending, but I
didn't like it. I LOVED the match though. G'wan! Go get it already!
Cheetah then calls the enemy of all that good and decent- JD the
CROWBOY- and we all yammer with him for a while as he is sipping brandy
in his palatail estate somewhere in the So Cal area. I finally talk
with the dark one and we yammer about how incredibly old El Canek is and
how Eric Bischoff has FEAR OF A JDW PLANET! and how very not good the abdominal stretch is for a finisher in this day and age and what have
you:) He forces Lee to put in the second tape he sent which had the
MICHINOKU PRO CHAMP FORUM- 4-97
Which has all the five individual matches on it and Old Scratch said we
HAD to watch TAKA vs NANIWA and five minutes before we fire that tape
up, I call Phil's and he says he had been trying to call while we were
all yammering with Big John the Bischoff-Killer:). Jeremy, being the
true Master of Men, immediately takes off and goes to pick up Phil and
they return in time for us to watch the TAKA/Naniwa match. We skimmed
through the other four while waiting and we all wept bitter tears of hate and
disappointment as the incredibly very not-great Hanzo Nakajima, dressed
as TM4, does a surprise run-in on Super Delfin, and gets the win over
for Shiryu over Delfin. Can Kaientai Deluxe survive the addition of
their very own nWo Sting? The TAKA/Naniwa match was pretty spectacular as TAKA got all shoot-style
on him and Naniwa recovered enough from wearing an "Ode-to-Bam-Bam
Bigelow" outfit to hang with the best worker in MP (this month,
anyway!:)) Naniwa hit all his signature moves and hinted at the dreaded
ringpost-to-the-floor Frankensteiner but TAKA isn't stupid/crazy as
Sasuke so THAT wasn't gonna happen. TAKA did THE FATTEST ASSED reverse springboard moonsault I ever seed. This match was kneedeep in where MP's head is at these days- it had the Lucha, then mixed in a healthy
portion of flashier BAttlARTS submission stuff, and mixed in absolute
state-of-the-art highspots while all keeping the Japanese-style
psychology coated over every aspect. You should go get this baby too.
After this we began THE JOURNEY TO BOONEBORO- (or"I thought I saw Buddy Landell for a second there.") But that is for tomorrow's post, my child!
CHEETAH~!
Dean Rasmussen, CiceroHEAD!
