HISAKATSU OOYA! suplexes hayabusa 10 times! SUPER ASTRO quebrada topes Mocha Cota! And other things I loved way too much this week.
Howdy!
Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #35! I watched a whole
bunch of FMW (HESHAM!!), a mountain of Big Japan/ECW TV (PHILLLL!!!!)
and a phat ass batch of EMLL/AAA/WWO (MIKE!!! DAMS!!!!)
FMW SUMMER TOUR 96 COMMERCIAL TAPE
- This was pretty choice- encompassing the endless touring of FMW during
a three month span. If you want to get a good idea of what FMW is
actually about in a day in/ day out kinda way, as opposed to their big
shows which are tricked-out to fill a stadium, get FMW Summer tour 95
and 96 because they pretty much show who can go and who can't in a real
wrestling match since their are more actual THREE-ROPES ONE REF THREE
COUNT PIN FALL KNOCK OUT OR SUBMISSION MATCHES as opposed to NO ROPE
TIGER NET EXPLODING BARBED WIRE DOUBLE HELL MATCHES. The best on this
tape is the absolutely fabulous Ooya/Hayabusa match- which starts to
make a case that Hayabusa doesn't suck, he just doesn't show up for the
big shows. Ooya beats the holy fuck out of him- hitting I believe the
count was 7 suplexes to an Octupus hold to three Akira Hokuto level Back
Drop Drivers. Hayabusa was impressive actually staying on the mat,
hitting his new array of suplexes that he would use later to make
Sasuke/Hayabusa pretty dang okay. If Hayabusa ditches the fragile pansy
crap I might actually start digging him. Ooya is the best wrestler in
FMW and he shows it on this tape- despite the fact he doesn't have
enough singles matches on this. The major downer of this tape is that
are no Tanaka singles matches for some reason, which is my main
criticism about FMW- their best workers are never showcased in singles
matches. I mean TAKA gets a whole singles match on the tape (with the
august talents of Ricky Fuji for garsh sakes) and Kanemura and Tanaka
are in six-man W*ING/FMW feud matches. They both rule it TOO hard in
those, but it's hard to see developement in a lucha libre six-man.
Despite that point of contention, this tape was pretty dang hip and I
was entertained for a lot of it and only had to fast-forward through a
couple of things.
GALAVISION Jan 97- EMLL/AAA
- Okay. I admit; I'm a freak. The Soccer Playing Goats are starting to
grow on me slightly. I mean, if I was saddled with the dirt-worst,
crappiest gimmick in wrestling, hell if I would work as hard as they
do. I'd bank the $20 and call it a day. I think the fact that they
team up with funner-than-fun Venum makes it easier to watch. On this
tape, they go up against other "guys with a supremely goofy gimmick who
work kinda hard"- Los Duendes (who all dressed like court jesters or
something) and it was very okay. Venum did all the spectacular
highspots and the other five did all the armdrags into the unlikely
fourth-tier lucha submissions. Hey! I've seen infinitely worse. The crowned Jewel of this tape was the EMLL Russian Roulette Tourney
with the GREAT Super Astro and his partner (or maybe his son or
something) Astro Junior. I watched a big batch of Lucha that spanned a
about eight or nine years and I can honestly say that Super Astro is
better now than he ever was. He rules it like a motherfucker in this
baby, a tournament to highlight some of the lesser stars in the CMLL
firmament- who can all work but aren't as famous as, say, Ray Jalisco
Jr. The one I was most impressed with in the tourney that I had never
seen before was Ultamatum- who has such a macho name for such a Bob
Mackie inspired outfit. He teamed with Brasso de Oro- who is also aging
well- and anchored the best match of tourney: Super Astro y Astro Jr vs
Brasso y Ultimatum. Since these were all one fall affairs, it is kinda
like what Nitro should be- a bunch of eight minute matches that are just
long enough to establish an inkling of psychology and then have a
extravagant flurry of highspots that set-up the first-tier lucha
submission (this time- an actually REALLY neat Boston Crab counter out
of a body scissors). Olypia and Olympico were other guys who were
pretty neat who I hadn't seen before- as these guys seem to be all over
EMLL it seems; not El Hijo Del Santo's or Blue Panther's league but very
sound luchadores who aren't afraid to have really good matches. I'm
getting way into these kinda wrestlers currently and EMLL is starting to
be one of the tapes I'm starting to get really stoked about getting.
Meanwhile back in AAA, I was digging the angle at the end of the
horrendously wrestled Deisel/Razor Ramone/Jake the Snake vs
Pierroth/Cibernetico/Perro Aguayo. Pierroth did a first, I believe:
he's a heel that has ANOTHER heel turn as he turns on Mexico to help the
Americans beat the shit out of Perro. This was a good way to end a
supercrappy match. Cibernetico was great at being aghast at what his
fellow rudo was doing as he storms to the dressing room. Jerry Estrada
and the rest of the Rudos come down and join Latin Lover and Hector
Garza at getting superpissed at Pierroth- the new Heel among Heels.
There may be hope for the beleaguered AAA yet as the heat looked pretty
intense.
ECW TV/Big Japan
Phil sent me a batch of ECW TV from the last twelve months it seems and
it was REALLY choice. Mikey Whipwreck is the bomb! He had a great
match with the always suspect Shane Douglas. So the book on Mikey is:
one good match with Shane Douglas/ three good matches with the eternally
crappy Sandman. Hmmmm.... it's official- Mikey is ECW's Shinjiro Ohtani
on a much lower scale. Heal that knee already. The TAZ/Johnny Smith
submission match wasn't good, no. not at all. Shane vs Pitbull II (the
"Good" one) was very okay. PBII no-sells way too much stuff for me to
ever like him and he is deeply saddled with the Scotty Riggs-level
arsenal of offense. Shane actually used a little of the psychology that
Steamboat taught him in this match and it saved it from being grotesque
as their PPV match-up. The Sabu/Van Dam broken ring match was pretty
good considering they had to change the whole match on the fly. I would
have been more impressed if either of them could just take it to the mat
as an option, but they couldn't, so they didn't, so I wasn't. Spike
Dudley/Chris Candito was the best squash I've seen in a while. It so
easy to forget that Vince ruined one of the best young wrestlers in the
world today. The Jericho stuff was great- especially the
Jericho/Scorpio match which kicked major hinder. They ain't gonna
replace Scorpio, it can't be done.
The Big Japan stuff Phil sent me had the Pirrahna match and GOLLY!
it was freakin bloody (as opposed to freakin good.:)) There was a
really good Tajiri/Crazy Big Japan Young Psychofreak vs
Nakamaki/Bleached guy with the big crosses on his get-up. Tajiri
supplied a lot wrestling (as did the psychofreak at times) and the guy
with the crosses was very passable at selling Tajiri's stuff, which all
combined with the cult-forming excesses of Nakamaki and his heir
apparent to form a very different kind of match. I kinda dug it because
it worked on its own terms as a garbagy wrestling-infused streetfight
that blows the rest of the stuff you usualy get from Big Japan away
because of the quality and dedication of the execution.
NEXT WEEK: WWO! EMLL! THE NEW GLENN TAPE WITH GAEA IF THE FREAKING US
POSTAL SERVICE HASN'T LOST IT ALREADY! LUCHA! LUCHA! LUCHA!
CHEETAH~!
Dean Rasmussen, CiceroHEAD!
