BACKSTORY~!
I jumped in my brownish, goldish, greenish Mazda Protege and headed to the Wild West End to view wrestling, crack some jokes, look at cool wrestling mags and wrestling related documents ("That titles history! WHIP ASS!"), and get the AntiChristo Interview back.:) Rejoice Brothers and Sisters! "The Number One... And The Best!" will kick off nCo Lucha tape #2! YESSS! I arrive at Tim's SWANK Bachelor Townhouse and plop down punishingly on his poor beanbag chair. I peruse the new Jeff Lynch tapelist and try to sway the purchasing decisions that Tim will make by subliminally making directive comments ("HEY! Mr Nieblas vs Black Warrior in Japan! I bet THAT'S neat!" "II would get that WAR tape because that Six-man with Ultimo and Juventud MORE than makes up for that [[I SWEAR I'M NOT KIDDING!]] John Tenta vs New Arashi match! RIGHT?!?!") I start looking at his latest issue of the Lariat when the viewing begins. Tim loads up his- WHAT?- nine VCR's and we dig the innate coolness that is a Glenn tape. The first thing on it was...............

ACTUAL WRESTLING~!

MICHINOKU PRO CHAMP FORUM- 4/12/97

-This baby started off with a Vampiro/La Pantera vs Somebody (Tim knew his name. My guess was Battle Ranger or Dragon Winger's little brother:))/Perro Russo. We discuss the merits of Vampiro. I say he's a very average luchadore and he doesn't bother me like he bothers some people. Tim says he hasn't seen enough of him to tell. I tell Tim that I watched this match enough to tell that Pantera wasn't going to be doing anything spectacular, so we fast forwarded to the Shiryu/Shinzaki debacle. GOD! With that on Sunday and the Lizmark Jr thing on Monday, no wonder I've been biggest crybaby on the internet.:) GOD! I need a hug! JDW? HERB? EVAN?:) Shinzaki stinks up the joint and Shiryu tries in vain to carry his sorry ass. You don't want to see it, but it's too late for me- I've been hardened by the Shinzaki Lie. The main event- make that the MAIN EVENT- is another installment of a slight variation of the Kick Ass ten man match, this time with MOTEGI subbing for the defiled and injured Shiryu. TAKA steals the freaking show from the get-go by Luchaesquely bitch slapping Super Delfin. Delfin is on another wrestling plane all-together these days as he hits an Ass-Stomping Array of lucha moves. Delfin is a freak of wrestling now; he freaks me out with his weirdness in the ring. He wrestles his hybrid style- a MEAN version Lucha Libre chock full of Japanese suplexes- and everybody else can stay out of the way, and it rules WAY TOO hard. Me and Tim laugh at the idea that Sasuke's in-ring Quebrada is a SET-UP move these days for the TAKA reverse springboard moonsault to the floor, this one was pretty spectacular as he lands a little to close to the camera man and you get the whip ass 3-D effect. I can definately go on and on about how cool this match was (very middling in comparison to the other one's in the series- very incredibly better than everything else in the world.:)) so I'll just comment on Motegi and Funaki and call it a review.:) Funaki was very lucha-esque while in, hitting a very Blue Panther-style corner dropkick and then he would throw in a shootstyle throw and slam. He is getting more Cheetah-friendly every time out.:) Motegi was as solid as ever, though he still looks WAY too timid to be in the Big Deluxe. Tim and I comment on how he can be internationally recognized now as a heel since he has a beard, long black trunks and a wrinkly forehead.:) He whups on Yakushiji for a while, as Yakushiji was the one he got to do the least in this one (I notice they take turns at that. TAKA was the first match, Shiryu was the second, etc.) Hell! It was all there. Every thing you could want in a wrestling match- Young Guys who try, Old guys who try, Psychology, Athleticism, mat wrestling, luchaspots, highspots, surliness, cool masks, Dick Togo, you name it. Get this MOFO already! On a side note: KDX were all wearing the BWO KDX T-shirt that whipped my ass with mind-bending awesomeness.:)

Next up was the Tokyo Dome stuff from week before lasts reveiw, so we watched the Liger/Sasuke match again and dug it. We made lots of jokes about Liger's Odd Redneck tendencies, especially the fabulously beautiful Belt Ladies that accompany him to the ring. Me and Tim alternate doing Tommy Rich impersonations as Liger talks about his ladies("Miss British Commonwealth Welterweight Belt is the one thats gonna feel mah lovin ta-naht! Suh-sah-kah is gonna love on Miss WWF Junior Heavyweight belt! GET^ FIRED UP!" For a full-transcript of the Liger as a Full Blooded Redneck running gag and the even more immature Miss British Commonwealth Welterweight Belt jokes, send me four dollars in stamp or coin.:) "Mah Deddah was in the Yah-Koo-Zuh so I gotta wear this heah mask! GET FIRED UP!"). We fast forwarded through Ogawa deal to get to...

J'd TV SPECIAL- 4/?/97

I had watched this already and was telling Tim that there was a good non-Chaquita Azteca Ester Moreno tag match on this with Jaguar Yokota, Cooga- who isn't... very... good... BUT A GREAT MASK!:), and La Infernal- the lady with the most gargantuan (we delicately stated) center of gravity... Hell! She wore the high cut pants! She's gotta really huge butt! There! I said it! I think I missed all the good parts laughing too hard at the gargantuan hinder jokes. I dunno. You'd think Jaguar or Bison would take her aside and say, "Hey Doll, you really should wear something more shearing than that get-up. Here are some black sweatpants." Moreno hit some neat highspots that she tends to miss these days and basically held Cooga's hand the whole time Cooga was attempting any offense. Wotta PRO! There were a lot of near falls and Tim was actually really impressed by Jaguar's willingness to take some pretty hellish bumps during brawling phase of the match, but overall it was really good by J'd standards but not really distinguished by other standards. I guess I can't complain- a step above competence is a good sign from J'd at this juncture, but Cooga is too old to THAT green. The match before that was the IWA chick that can't wrestle a lick but I shared with Tim my bizarre feelings of attraction to her. She's so trailer-parky and pale and stuff. Oooooo:)) You can live your life without seeing this tape unless you are a Kudo completist. Kudo vs Bison Kimera is very just there. Bison is a million years old so it's not like they mailed it in or anything, it's just so much the soon-to-be-sorely-missed Megumi could do past throwing in a whole bunch of nearfalls to make up for Bison's inability to actually wrestle a whole wrestling match these days.

We then fast-forwarded through the punishing fist of hell that was the Hansen/Ace travesty. Hey Stan! It's time to join Jumbo and Baba in the undercard. You've earned it. We get past Taue/Allbright to get to.................

GAEA CHAMP FORUM-4/19/97

OOOOOH This was fun! We watch the Rina Iishi/Maiko Matsumodo vs Sugar Sato/Nagashima match and it was very Nitro-esque in that it was 1:36 and it was very NOT Nitro-esque in that while Sugar and Nagashima are stomping on Rina's pretty lil head and standing on the ropes, they are also flipping off the GAEA audience. I freaked! Tim freaked! We FELL OUT! Nagashima pins Rina with a nifty looking surprise rollup and thus! THE BITCHINESS BEGAN!!! Matsumodo loses it- yelling for revenge and bursting into tears and Sugar- ever the slacker vixen- shrugs it off and assumes the roll of nineteen year old ice princess- smirking like a GODDESS!!!!!!! There was a Chigusa squash- where she beats the hell out of Hakari Kato and Hirota (the HOT one:)) Nagashima smacks Hirota in the head for getting her ass kicked and they drag them to the back to lick their wounds. Chigusa kept the same face as when she was originally betrayed by these two. It was kinda counterproductive I guess. I dunno- it establishes a reason for Kato and Hirota to hate Chigusa more (they did the same thing with Sato and Nagashima when they turned.) GAEA is getting as weird as it is getting good. The big match Ruled It Very Hard! Akira Hokuto and Sonoko Kato face KAORU and Meiko Satomura and all I can say is: Let's get these youngsters hating each other already! This was choice! KAORU supplied the paralyzing backdrop drivers this go round, with the queen of grumpiness- Akira- taiing the worst looking one. The Excalibur by KAORU was deeply into the realm of painfullness, as young Meiko meets the mat at a high rate of velocity. Kato and Meiko were a little sloppy in the ring at times but covered up for it well by automatically hitting submission holds to cover blown spots and the ending was Super 93 AJW- in that it wouldn't ever end and kept building and building until final finisher is hit. Tim noticed that it fell into the AJW trap of having ten finishers that shouldn't have been kicked out of, kicked out of (especially the truly horrific Excalibur by KAORU which looked stretcherable). I tended to agree but we also both agreed that it was a beautiful, yet barbaric match. It ends with KAORU and Hokuto slapping the hell out of each other. GET ALL THIS!

Next on the tape was....

NEW JAPAN TV- TOKYO DOME- 4/19/97

This was the best! It had the highly butchered and truncated Ohtani/El Samurai match. El Samurai has the new mask that just KICKS! You'd really have to see it to believe it. Ohtani hits a couple of cool springboard dropkicks and leg lariats and stuff and El hits the- YES, I believe it was a Michinoku Driver I! The front chancellory suplex into a face-buster! COOL! The whole time the match is going on Dick Togo and the boys are hanging around ringside being a menace with their newest best buddy Koji Fuckin Kanemoto. After El finally kicks Ohtani's surly punk ass he issues a challenge to Dick Togo and the boys to GET FIRED AND GET IT ON! RIGHT NOW! (sorry:)) Togo being the good heel tells him to go f*ck himself and they swarm around their new fallen comrade, Shinjiro Ohtani. The best part of this is when they first are all around him and Shinjiro starts to take a poke at one of them, Kanemoto says something like, "Hey! Chill out! These guys are dicks like us!" and they all shake hands and kick puppies and stuff. THEN! They show highlights of the beautiful finish to the Liger/Sasuke match and the post match press-conference. ATTENTION ALL AMERICAN WRESTLING PROMOTIONS WHO WANT TO KNOW HOW TO RUN AN ANGLE: Watch this press-conference as it becomes an SMW-esque total melee as KDX crashes the party. LIGER IS FU*KING GREAT in this, being as pissed as humanly possible -kicking over the table, hurling chairs and beating on punks while being restrained. Koji and Togo are the fabulous key instigators. Dynamic and Intense! This feud is gonna RULE to the MAX! I AM SOOO STOKED!

I tell Tim of the surprisingly watchable Nakanishi/Tensan match but he doesn't want to chance it. We proceed to....

ALL JAPAN-CARNIVAL FINALS-4/20/97

This was the first two matches of the three match final. The best match and one of my faves so far this year is the Misawa/Kobashi match. These cats try to kill each other and its great! Kobashi throws the Man on his head about a half dozen times and they suplex and fight out of suplexes and kick out of finishers and each do a move neither of us have seen them do before. Misawa's was a standing roling guillotine into an enziguiri and it looked fantabulous. I can't remember what Kobashi's was but it will hit the minute I send this off. This match was a compressed version of all those other AJ matches I was thinking. There was less time between bone-crushing moves and a real sense of urgency was conveyed by Kobashi as he actually wrestled like a stud almost the whole match. Misawa is amazing.

The second match was six minutes long and would kill a mere mortal. Kawada works about as stiff as anyone has ever worked- NAILING Misawa with Garo Yepremiam level kicks directly to the face. Kawada basically mauls Misawa, stretchs the hell out of him with a super Stretch Plum, kicks the holy hell out of him, pins him and, of course, has the expression of a man who has just been informed that his flight has been overbooked.:) YOU'D BE WANTING TO GET THIS ONE!

NEXT WEEK: LUCHA! LUCHA! LUCHA! MORE GAEA (OLLLIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!!!) BattlARTS, Hopefully another another GLENN!!tape and hopefully more from the amazing Lorefice (read the Kudo retrospective in the latest Quebrada, it'll change the way you look at her AND FMW)!

NANIWA~!

DVDVRs #36 - 40

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