Subject: KANAKO MOTOYO! gets all Toyota-esque with TOMOKO KUZUMI! LANCE STORM! looks all cool against DANNY COLLINS! in Germany. ULTIMATE WARRIOR looks great against ULF HERMAN! in super-fast-forward! Badd Blood has Blood and is real Badd.
ALOHA~!
The news about Brian Pillman's death is tragic and shocking. I feel
like I have seen a man slowly and steadily self-destruct right in front
of my eyes- if it turns out he did die of a drug overdose. What a waste
and a shame.
WELCOME TO DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #52!
I just got back from Tim's- where Dave,Wayne, Steve, Keith, and the
fella Tim never introduces me to just finishes the gut-wrenching viewing
of Badd Blood and I had to watch this JWP tape to get the spectre of
Vince ruining a GREAT match by sticking in the the shittiest angle of
the year, out of my mind. If I were Micheals, I would just quit and go
to Mexico and wrestle until my contract was up. He almost kills himself
doing the craziest table bump ever seen, just to set up a shittiest of
shitty run-ins by Isaac Yankem DDS's latest incarnation to expose the
business, and totally disregard EVERYTHING this cage match was building
to. I'd be suitably pissed. The rest of the card was not very good but
not as bone-headedly shitty and infuriately stupid. When the flag match
turned into a game of Buck-Buck, I was digging it the most. Wayne and I
exchanged kick ass Fat Albert jokes. Anyway, here's the wrestling
things.
!@!@!@!@! JWP TV [5/18/97 (taped 5/10 Tokyo); 6/20/97 (taped 6/8-6/15)]
JWP is just awesome. JWP is the most underrated promotion on the face
of the earth. They have more cool wrestlers per capita than anyone.
Their champion, Hikari Fukuoka is as good as any champion in any other
promotion and smokes most others like a cheap cigar when you think about
it. It isn't stagnant and in turmoil like AJW, it's roster is more
developed than GAEA in that they have more great workers in their prime
at the top, and JWP is just chock-filled with REALLY hot babes who can
wrestle like mother fukcers.
Tomoko Kozumi vs Kanako Motoya for the JWP Jr Title is freaking GREAT.
GAEA has lots more good youngsters than JWP but none of them are as
polished as these two. Both are from the Manami Toyota mold with Kozumi
being one leg up because she also seems to model her moves after the
amazing Hikari Fukuoka. Motoya gets loads of offense in early, hitting
fabulous amounts of Toyota-style springboard out-of-ring dropkicks and a
fun-filled goofball sentonathon sequence right before Kazumi kicks in
with the upper level powerbombs. Kazumi hits a cool variation of that
corner top-turnbuckle roll-up that Psicosis would later try on Juventud
Guerrera and almost kill him. OOOHH Yeah, Kazumi vs all the GAEA tiny
gals is gonna be filling some seats for a long time starting in the
very near future. Ditto for the copiously impressive Motoya. They are
definately ALL THAT and a bag of chips, as the youth say these days.
Devil Masami/Hikari Fukuoka vs Cutie Suzuki/Plum Mariko for the JWP Tag
Title is marred by the fact that the one taking the hellish bumps is now
dead because of her extensive exposure to them. Since Plum Mariko
didn't look she doing too well at this point in May, I can't believe
that they didn't notice that was something was really wrong months
later. I guess hindsight is 20/20, but it definately makes watching
this match a real sad experience. Plum Mariko was so great at the times
when she wasn't injured, and it is a shame and a tragedy to see her
untimely end being moved up by high impact matches like these because
nobody was aware of her condition while they were wrestling her.
Dynamite Kansai vs Candy Okutsu was pretty okay by the end but it starts
off with a truly annoying amount of no-selling by usually adorable
Dynamite Kansai. Candy never gets in anything too impressive past a
suplex on the floor and a good plancha off the turnbuckle- as they did
the little gal trying to affect the no-selling big gal- not my favorite
kind of match- but these two are professionals so it should be good..
Kansai sells enough by the middle of the match to make me avoid the
Shark Tsuchiya crackes, so when she puts the boots to the underratedly
beautiful Candy Okutsu by the end, it isn't stomach-turning as it could
have been.
Hikari Fukuoka vs Tomoko Kozumi for the JWP Title is a little sloppy in
parts but, overall, it is deep in the realm of Coolness. Kozumi beats
the crap out of Hikari for a long time, and gets some hot nearfalls
after hitting some hot moves! HOT! Kazumi shoots her wad by hitting the
fat-ass springboard planchas and dropkicks to the floor that soften up
the beautiful Fukuoka enough to hit her with the lucha-inspired
role-ups. Hikari finally reverses things as she kicks Kuzumi in the
stomach as a highspot goes awry and goes into her power arsenal and hits
some devastating suplexes to set her awe-inspiring Tiger Driver
finisher. I guess the next phase is for Hikari to have to use the
horrifyingly painful-looking Moonsault Stomp on her next. I'm sure Miss
Kozumi is suitable stoked.:) Hey! Hey! Welcome to the bigtime.
Chigusa Nagayo/Devil Masami/Meiko Satomura/Tomoko Miyaguchi vs Mayumi
Ozaki/Chikayo Nagashima/Sugar Sato/Reiko Amano in an Elimination Match
was a peck of fun. Joe Petrow and Glenn Tsunekawa were in attendence
that night and yet neither hipped me to the fact that you get to see the
divine Mayumi Ozaki's sports bra by the end! WOO-HOO! BOTH HANDS ON THE
KEYBOARD, PLEASE! This was fast-paced and I would have preferred more
youngsters lasting longer, though everyone of the old ladies- with the
obvious and annoying exception of less-than-endearing Devil Masami- sold
for them like champs. Satomura and Sato were the best of the lil
punkins- each hitting their usually cool spots (flying reverse elbow,
toprope rolling cross-armbreaker, dragon screw) with Sugar doing the
choice dropkick off the toprope to the leg of Devil- all before being
eliminated WAAAY too early. Nagashima was kinda non-existant in this
match as was the early-exited (yeah sure.:)) Miyaguchi. Chigusa and Oz
at the end was REALLY choice as they kicked the holy hell outta of each
other, kicked out of each other's finishers and were constantly being
saved by eliminated punkins and grandmas that were erstwhile kicking
each other's butts out on the floor. Chigusa hits the FATTEST ASS
powerbomb that eclipses her earlier attempt at her Rolling Three. This
was neato, definately.
Devil Masami/Jaguar Yokota vs Dynamite Kansai/Candy Okutsu is the
surprisely awesome match on this tape. Jaguar Yokota is becoming the
Female Equivalent To El Gran Hamada in that in a span of absolutely NO
TIME has gone from old codger who is definately over the hill to spry
Senoir Citizen that wrestles as hard as any of the youngsters. She is
definately feeling it in this one because she is being nifty all over
the place in this match, being all wiley and resilient against the
outclassed Kansai and making Candy look Goddess-like when she is in with
her. The Octupus Hold part with Jaguar and Dynamite is priceless. It
was really neat seeing Jaguar in with women who weren't so green or
over-the-hill that she didn't have to dumb it down any- like she does a
lot of times in Jd'. Devil Masami rounds out the match. GET ALL
THIS!!! WHOMP ASS!
#$#$#$#$#$ Catch Wrestling Association (I'm guessing)- Return of the
Warrior (9/23/95 from Hannover, Germany)
Doug sent me this baby, along with a very cool UK mystery handheld of a
KO Tourney that even Peter Ransom can't place.:) DIG IT!
Joe Joe Lee vs. Rod Price: With the return of Rod Price to the hot-bed
of turmoil-that-one-would-usually-associate-with-a-CFL-franchise that is
the USWA, I can honestly say have seen Price's roided out mug WAY too
much this week- in that I watched a mountain of USWA that one of my main
homies, Walter sent me and then I saw this baby. Joe Joe Lee is none
other than New Japan future Saving Grace, Kojima. This is actually
pretty neat because Kojima was doing a Muta move set back then and it
works pretty well for him, though I prefer his spunky batch of power
moves and toprope shenanigans that he has based his style on now. Price
is proficient in his Steiner Lite batch of basic suplexes and body
slams. The announcing is in German and we know how much fun that can
be. FAR more curious than good, but you can't have everything, where
would you put it, as they say.
Cannonball Grizzly vs. Dave Taylor: I did not know that Dave Taylor
worked as a face over there and he had the very undignified parcel of
tassels strewn about his outfit and he was clapping a lot to get the
crowd into it, so you can imagine my chagrin when they add the
incredibly non-working Cannonball Grizzly into the unsettling mix.
Taylor can't do anything with the rotund Grizzly so he just kinda sells
a lot Grizzly's crappy offense and tries to get to the finish and go to
WCW and get a minor push or something. I need to get more of this CWA
stuff, but with Taylor in with guys who can actually do something, one
would think.
August Smisl vs. Big Titan: Speaking of guys who I'm seeing way too much
of because of my USWA connection, welcome to the world of Big Titan.:)
This match is a whole lot of punching by the current Rick Titan and
former fake Razor Ramone- though he hits a decent plancha and highly
okay Frankersteiner. Smisl didn't have enough of a chance to do much of
anything but sell, so I can't tell if he is one of those Euro-Mat Master
types or just some German guy who wrestles in Germany. YEP! Big Titan.
YEP!
Lance Storm vs.Danny Collins: this was pretty cool once it kicked in.
They start with a Kendo level stall through crowd call and response. It
works to the ultra-nifty highspots well and Lance is dynamic as all
get-out! Collins is good and pretty agile and sold Lances highflying
all-around swellness well. Belfast Bruiser runs in and beats the shit
out of Storm with a chain, which ya gotta love.
John Hawk aka Bradshaw vs. Ice Train: HEY!HEY! This was GREAT because
they BOTH move REALLY fast when I put on the Super Fast Forward!
YEEEEEEEEEEEE-HA~!
Dave Finlay/Drew McDonald vs. Tony St. Clair/Franz Schumann: I can't
figure out what happened in this match. It's over in like TWO minutes.
Drew MacDonald and St Clair do a little matwork, Drew takes an over the
toprope bump, Finaly tags in and pins St Clair and Schumann doesn't even
enter the ring. Very puzzling.
Ultimate Warrior vs. Ulf Hermann: HOLD ON A MINUTE! Ulf Herman does the
amazing feat of extracting a watchable match out of the totally
unwatchable Mr Hellwig. Herman literally works circles around the
amazingly blown-up-in-twenty-seconds UW and actually gets his
Warriorness to bump for him. Hell, Ulman gets in a tope and a
somersault senton off the apron on the baffled Ultimate one. Hellwig
does the smart thing and just sells and does restholds and only exposes
his hilariously unEuro-stiffness-level batch of K-rappy offense on two
occasions. This match doesn't suck for REAL until the very end when UW
goes into his finisher, so hell, I'm calling it a miracle and calling
Ulf Herman the King of the CWA and calling this a match up there with
the true enigmas of wrestling- falling well short of the Cactus Jack/Van
Hammer miracle of miracles mind you- but I minor miracle none the less.
There you have it.
CWA is basically like getting a WAR tape- you REALLY have no idea how to
judge the quality of ANYTHING until you watch it. That's what I love
about WAR and that's what I'm starting to really dig about the tiny
amount CWA-related stuff I've seen.
TOMORROW! LUCHA LUCHA LUCHA ! USWA! ECW! WAR!
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, who loves it when Juventud spins around LaParka's shoulders real quick and then kicks him in the head.
