Subject: MINORU TANAKA! gets all tricky with TAKA MICHINOKU! SILVER KING! and TEXANO! rip it up with LIGHTNING KID! and Gentleman JERRY LYNN! in Hamada's UWF amd other stuff I saw today! WOO-HOO!
ALOHA~!
WELCOME TO DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #53!
VACATION KICKS ASS! I rolled around on the floor all day trying to keep
the youngster in constant supply of Sesame Street figurines and her
beloved Vampiro doll has its foot chewed off already (either the damned
dogs or she is becoming proficient with the three teeth that have come
in so far). In between I got to watch a batch of wrestling which led
up quite nicely to the ASS STOMPING that Benoit gave Hennig. Hennig is
definately getting pummeled into my heart. Anyhoos, today I
watched a bunch of stuff that two of my main homies, Pete! and Phil!
sent me and I finally got to watch them in their entirity. I'll keep it
short because HEY! I got to do the Ollie Page Nitro report! WOO-HOO!
LET'S GET IT ON~!
$%$%$%$% HAMADAâS UWF CHAMP FORUM (1/19/92)
Oh man, Jerry Lynn/Lightning Kid/Doctor Wagner vs Los Cowboys/Dos Caras
is about as good as this whole Luchapuroresu style gets. Silver King
takes it to the mat with Lynn and Waltman and schools them on how fast
one can do an Oklahoma Roll. Dos Caras showboats his freaky Mexican
submissions and all-around niftiness while the Gringos stand agape in
his wake of entangling holds of superunlikeliness. Waltman was deeply
into crazy bumps at any cost mode and tries to kill himself with a
CHOICE somersault tope onto the youthful and spry Texano. Texano and
Waltman decide it's time to kick the paste
out of each other and proceed to do so, at the delight of me. Silver
King is SO awesome in this as he is faster than he is now (if not as
complete as he is now). Lynn and Silver King make it magic and it gets
me stoked about the Jerry Lynn/Sasuke match in ECW next month- as Lynn
joins the multitude of great lost wrestlers of the nineties.
La Pantera and a ten year old Heavy Metal (who was going by his real
moniker at the time Canelo Casas) have a fantabulous spotfest- as HM was
far more into self-destructive behaviour in the ring back then as
opposed to his current rumored route toward self-destruction. La
Pantera did his ass-stomping Tope Con Hilo into the fifth row and Heavy
Metal has only his zits and his learner's permit to protect him. The
spots never end as La Pantera takes the youngster to the promised land
of actually good beyond the spots matchness, as he calms the punk down
and tries to make his 60 highspots per minute make sense in the context
of the match. No mean feat.
Villanos III and IV mix it up with the future Gedo and Jado, who were
billed as the far more cool and unfathomable handles of Coolie SZ and
Bulldog KT, and I'm
trying to figure out where Gedo lost his workrate along the way, because
it was quite
resplendent in this match and the Lynn/Waltman infamous curseword match
which
follows this match. The Villanos are as good as you can get when it
comes to Lucha mat wrestling and all-around rocking the Lucha House in
an old school way, so this match wasn't really the best outlet to
showcase their mystical and otherworldly lucha grandioseness. All four
go at pretty good but the style of straight puroresu structure doesn't
suit the classic rudos, though they try to adapt to the style. Luckily,
the aren't afraid to whip out the monster classic tope. Gedo and Jado
do that Pitbulls finisher with the toprope assisted powerbomb and we
call it a match. Gedo. Gedo.
El Gran Hamada and Kendo kick it out against the fat and underrated
Brazo de Oro and the fat and very fat Brazo de Plata. Hamada is much
more energized these days than in this match from back when he just
entering his forties, for some reason. My guess is that Michinoku Pro is
basically a culmination of what he laid the groundwork for in UWF, so he
feels even more tied to MP than his own promotional fore-runner, but of
course I could be way off base and he had a change in diet or something.
Kendo was just hitting his stride as the most irritating semi-talented
wrestler on the international circuit, and he has the distinction of
blowing some fundamental spots on this baby to add to his Vegas-style
working of the crowd. The Brazos were still very good workers at this
point and hadn't degenerated into the
fat-guys-doing-somersaults-between-wornout-comedy-spots sideshow that
they are now.
Los Brazos/ Dr. Wagner Jr. VS. Los Villanos/Dos Caras/Sakigake Gantetsu
is truly memorable for the simple fact that it contains Sakigate
Gantetsu, who is, of course, the larval form of Dick Motherfukcing
TOGO. Togo is basically just a phat ass senton at this point and was
just beginning his journey to achieve Perfect Rudo-ology, years away
from reaching the level of Ultra Mexican Lucha Evil Nirvana. I was
freaking digging it the most, seeing how from lil acorns KICK ASS MIGHTY
OAKS of INNATE COOLNESS doth spring.
GET ALL THIS!
!@!@!@!@!@ EXTREME CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING- Fancam 2/14/96 Webster, MA
This is GREAT! KDX joins BWO and they have another in a string of great
matches with Naniwa, Sasuke, and El Gran Hamada that we all got to dig
WAAAY too much before the deal goes south- what with Sasuke having the
business savvy and future-planning skills of a 1987 Savings and Loan
Director. Sasuke is on fire in this baby as he tries to hold back the
irresistible tsunami of evil coolness that is the Trifecta of Manly
Firmness that was/is MEN'S TEIOH, Dick TOGO and TAKA fucking Michinoku-
long before Sasuke botched every aspect of the WWF invasion and broke up
the best act in town. You know the drill- Togo and the boys beat the
holy shit out of Sasuke, Sasuke does a cool comeback, Togo poses, TAKA
goes springboard crazy, TEIOH does the heavy lifting by putting the
amazingly great Naniwa on his neck a few times, Hamada is the pissed off
old guy who is the perfect foil for Togo in these matches when the fists
start flying on the floor and Naniwa gets all spunky and fiesty and
shows the true fighting spirit that makes his current broken leg such an
unfortunate setback to the just-becoming-flammable young future
superstar. The rubes in Webster eat it up as much as this rube in
Richmond enjoyed it on tape. Michinoku Pro Rules the fukcing earth and
I hate that it's going under.
&*&*&*&*& MICHINOKU PRO CHAMP FORUM (Who knows when, who knows where)
Phil sent me this mystery Champ Forum that is really hip even if I have
no information of about when it was, where they had it and who the hell
is that guy Sasuke wrestles on this (insert Steve DiSalvo joke here). I
do know that TAKA Michinoku tears it up with BattlARTS wunderkind Minoru
Tanaka. For the seven of us who actually bother to follow the spunky
little shootstyle outfit the kids call BattlARTS, we all know that
Minoru Tanaka is real deal of the Promotion- faster than Ono, harder
hitting than Alexander Otsuka- real future Pancrase or RINGS material.
He and TAKA take it to the mat and work for the fabled submission with
TAKA getting in his pro-style shots that Minoru counters into a shoot
submission holds, the pinnacle of which is the BEAUTIFUL La Majistral
counterspun perfectly into a ankle lock. Since it's MP and fixed, TAKA
kicks his shootstyle ass back to Ikedaland by the end and sets up the
thirty minute draw that looked pretty beautiful from the eight minutes
of highlights that BattlARTS showed on Champ Forum once. Minoru doesn't
kick the crap outta TAKA like he is wont to do with 24-7 shootstyle
guys, but this is neato nonetheless.
A charming six-man ends the CF, which was their raison d'etre before the
KDX vs Seikengiunchnnc feud took them into the realm of hard angles and
stiff, bloodfilled wrestling. Naniwa, Delfin and TAKA are the charming
heels and Sasuke, Shiryu and SATO are the charming faces. Shiryu does
his little jump, Delfin and Nanaiwa do a lot of comedy spots and Sasuke
kills himself as usual. AH... the good old days, whenever they were.
TOMORROW: More Lucha! ECW! USWA! WAR! WAR! WAR!
NANIWA~!
Dean Rasmussen, who loves it when Chris Benoit beats the hell out of Hennig.
