KOBASHI! KOBASHI! and other stuff I seen and heard this week!
Howdy!
Here's more yammering about tapes I watched, wrestling I saw on tv and
things I've read this week.
Kenta Kobashi winning the Triple Crown is as great as it is weird. I'm
really glad he's got it because I'm not a big Akira Taue fan, but I would
have to add me to the Ollie Postlethwaite list of confusion. It's kind
of like if Chris Benoit won the WCW Championship or something. You know
eventually he was probably going to do it but not right now. I'm
guessing the belts and trophies and those certificate things will be back
around Misawa's waist before too long, though.
Those WAR house reports made me wonder if they were both sold out because
of Rey, Juventud and Psicosis were there. Or was it the Takada matches
that were packing them in. I'm glad Juventud Guerrera is on the WAR tour
but I would like him to win some. I'm guessing there will be a race to
see if Jericho/Juventud happens in WAR or in WCW first. All I know is
that Mochizuki vs Juventud may be the first true test of Juventud's
mettle as an international level wrestler. Mochizuki being pinned by John
Tenta is a disgrace to the sport. I just realized that they ran the
spectrum of Canadian wrestling: One end-Chris Jericho and Lance Storm,
the other end-John Tenta. Maybe next time they can get Cibernetico and
run the "from good to bad" gauntlet of Mexican wrestling.
It was a good week for wrestling on television. The Psicosis/Misterio
match on the Pro was the best match that show has ever had on it that I
can remember, though it wasn't in the range of their more meaningful
matches. I wish all wrestlers could mail in a match that was that good
and I wish Psicosis would start winning already. I don't get WorldWide
but would be interested in seeing that Kidman/Psicosis match. That would
be a great feud that nobody else would care about.:) There was a
surprisingly good match between Malenko and Dave Taylor, with Taylor
showing some nifty moves that he hasn't showed before. I get the feeling
that Taylor may be the most talented wrestler to be totally buried this
year. Either way, these two should have a mini-program just to rebuild
Taylor as a good mat wrestler and then they should try and wring whatever
is left out of Eaton, and try to get the tag scene back on track.
Malenko looks more and more comfortable in front of the mic each week,
which is good to see. Benoit... well... HE CAN OUTWRESTLE ANYONE IN THE
WORLD! :) Sorry, he is holding steady as a guy who is stuck in the Owen
Hart school of interveiwing.
Kevin Kelly whips ass. If they could get him and Ross on more than one
show (like, how about all of them) it would make watching the WWF a lot
easier. I finally saw Alex Porteau and I don't know what the problem
anybody would have with him is. He's an embryonic Malenko and God knows
wrestling needs more good mat wrestlers. I like any wrestler that can do
Northern Light suplex variations credibly (HEY! Who doesn't love that?)
It was irritating that his match on the Action Zone was totally
interrupted by a useless Pillman cut away. Vince, don't steal THAT
irritating habit from WCW. The Rockers had best get the belt; Jannetty
is getting back to his indie form and Al Snow is starting to unleash his
massive arsenal. It was cool when Ross commented on how Al Snow"s gimmick
gets in the way of his actual wrestling. This is a real announcing team,
I am truly hoping that this is a wave of the future and forces WCW to
give Tenay a regular announcing gig; because with Kelly and Ross
together, the WWF is smoking WCW's hinders in the announcing department
(If they get rid of Lawler and the truly annoying Pettingill they are in
like Flynn). This Salvatore Sincere crap is about as irritating as WWF
gets because the guy seems to be able wrestle AND he seems real
uncomfortable with his gimmick. I won't even start with Ron Simmons.
Another irritating thing is that when Useless Sycho Sid has a hurt back,
he wins in one minute. When the great Vader has a hurt back, he is
jobbed in one minute.
I watched a bunch of Champ Forums which featured the lovely ladies of
GAEA. Aside from the obvious great stuff with Chigusa and Kaoru (who
freakin' rules!), I was impressed with the spunky little Toshies- Toshie
Uematsu and Toshie Sato. Both seemed undersized and green, but I admired
their pluck. GAEA is loaded with young talent and if they follow the
lead of Chigusa on how to become a wrestler that audiences can truly care
about, the future looks bright for a long time for this sassy operation.
It was Kudo-less, but it had a great Sakie Hasegawa/Chigusa match which
I'm figuring was Sakie's last for GAEA before she retired. The actual
wrestling wasn't that great but the emotion at the end was priceless.
Chigusa wins and then drags Hasesgawa on top her and forces the ref to
count to three and then everybody starts to cry. It was great. Chigusa
is a female Onita in terms of how a face should act when becoming
legendary. You don't get stuff as genuinely touching as that too often.
The best technical wrestling match was Kaoru vs Combat Toyota, because I
think that Combat is SO underrated and Kaoru is SO awesome. There was
also a good match where Hikari Fukuoka and Kaoru beat the living crap out
of the young punks, Chikayo Nagashima and Toshie Uematsu. Fukuoka should
hang out in GAEA more. She is a great old bastard wrestler when dealing
with all these youngsters. There were four or five consecutive
moonsaults to drive the point home. The look of fear in the eyes of the
youngsters throughout the match was fabulous psychology and Hikari had
this great smug look on her face the whole time.
I saw the Sasuke/Liger match from the Peace festival and it was very much
more on the mat than any other match seen between these two. The Sasuke
Special is becoming vestigal in the Great Sasuke's arsenal and seemed to
be kind of out of nowhere in the match. His mat arsenal is almost to the
point where he can get away with only halfway trying to kill himself.
Liger is so deeply great at mat wrestling now that he could never fly
again and noone would be able to really complain. They both whipped ass
though and it is definately worth hunting down.
I'll yammer more next week, after I watch Skydiving J and a bunch of
other stuff, wife willing:).
KENTA RULEZ! TAUE DROOLS!
Dean Rasmussen, Juventudiac!
