All-Request Friday Night Phaze 2

Bryan Danielson vs. Teddy Hart (MLW, 1/9/2004)
Requested by Jingus

The commentary here is a little less notable. Color commentator Julius is severely undermiced, which seems like a hard production mistake to make, and the play-by-play guy makes reference to Teddy Hart using a "waKEEtaGAMee", which irritates me more than it realistically should. The match is basically fine, if underwhelming. It goes a little over eight minutes, and I have seen guys do a lot with eight minutes. This had a lot of stuff in it, but still ended up feeling short and sparse compared to, say, some of your more pimped sub-10 minute Superstars matches. Also, Danielson really looked like he was just along for the ride on this one. Didn't look bad by any means, but it is weird to see Danielson in a match where he is not actively excelling or trying to excel. He is a guy I have developed abnormally high standards for, and he didn't really meet them here. But again, he didn't look bad. Teddy Hart was both the best and worst thing about the match. All of his big, spectacular offense looked big and spectacular, particularly his springboard into a hurricanrana position which he rolled off into the...*sigh*..."waKEEtaGAMee". Then there's the matter of his pants. There's a noticeable rip in the seat from the beginning, and I wonder if he just tore it, or if that was by design. And then at about the half-way point of the match, I think I get my answer, as Danielson rips Teddy's pants off, which would be strange to begin with, but gets even stranger when you realize it's being played completely straight. It's not even a comedy moment. The announcer is going on about what a serious insult that was to Teddy's pride. It's kinda weird. The main problem with the match, though, was the finish. Teddy comes off the top rope with the Open Hart Surgery, but appears to fuck up his arm on the landing, with the announcer suggesting that he may have separated his shoulder. I've already reviewed Savage/Tenryu, where we saw how the last-minute tweaking of a body part can lead to a kick-ass finish. This is how not to do that. Teddy sells it to the back of...wherever it was MLW was shooting on it's deathbed. I wouldn't have been surprised if he starting shouting "heavens to Murgatroid" at some point. But then he guts it back up to the too rope, but guts his way through...his pre-move taunt where he raises his arms to to the side. Two seconds prior, he was clutching his arm to his chest in agony. Now it's instantly healed to the point that he can do his pre-move taunt. I mean, it was a less dynamic taunt, but come on, man. Priorites. He goes for the Hart Attack (shooting star press...not the double team move, obviously), but Danielson moves and locks on the Cattle Mutilation...which horrifically injured Teddy can somehow hang on to long enough to not only escape, but procure another "waKEEtaGAMee" - which required the use of his possibly separated shoulder - to make Danielson instatap. Well, what the fuck was the point of that? Still, this was a basically enjoyable little match, with Teddy bringing the fun highspots and Danielson being solid if unspecatcular.

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Terry Gordy (AJPW, 6/1/1991)
Requested by TimLivingston

Looking at Misawa vs. Gordy on paper, you get a certain image of what it might be. And well, this match is exactly that, and by extension, it's the probably the best match I've reviewed on All-Request to date. This is two bomb throwing guys throwing bombs, and every shot is super nasty looking. Gordy is a lot less bump happy here than he was in the States, but I think that works to the match's favor. He basically approaches this like he did his matches with Brody, where he is all about toe-to-toe brawling with his opponent. But Brody was a really big guy who didn't bump or sell a whole lot. Going toe-to-toe with him was almost a necessity for a good match (though Brody's final World Class run was probably the least shitty run of his massively overrated career, but that's neither here nor there). This is Misawa we're talking about. Specifically, this is Misawa in '91, still one year away from his first Triple Crown win, two years away from establishing himself as "The Man" in All Japan, and three years away from achieving wrestling immortality. He's still the scrappy youngster chasing after Jumbo at this point, but uh-oh, here's a big-ass Georgian roadblock that he's about to run headfirst into. So whereas Gordy vs. Brody is compelling because neither man will give an inch, Gordy vs. Misawa is compelling because Gordy won't give an inch, and Misawa will repeatedly be knocked down, but will keep coming back giving as good as he gets. The punches, elbows, kicks, and lariats thrown by both men are absolutely brutal. The tide turns when Misawa lucks into an enzuigiri that busts Gordy open, and they both end up spilling to the outside soon after. Misawa goes for a Tiger Driver on the floor, but Gordy back body drops him and goes for a Powerbomb on the floor, a sore point for Misawa stemming from a prior tag with Kawada against the Miracle Violence Connection. Misawa won't go up for it, so Gordy lets him go and then knocks him out of his boots with a lariat instead. From there, the second half of the match is Gordy trying to hit the Powerbomb vs. Misawa trying to hit the Tiger Driver (back when the plain old Tiger Driver could actually win Misawa a match), and both of them are unafraid to punish the other for not going along with their plans, including Gordy dropping Misawa with a nasty DDT when he blocks the Powerbomb. Gordy eventually manages to stuff him with it, but Misawa grabs the rope, so Gordy returns to lariating the fuck out of him before Misawa turns it around and drops him with the Tiger Driver for two. He then procures that odd facelock thing that he's used as a resthold in a billion matches, but in '91, it constitutes a legitimate nearfall (What was the timeline on All Japan taking submission holds seriously, anyway? Gordy breaks out the scorpion deathlock a couple times in this match, too.). The final stretch is actually Misawa's facelock vs. Gordy's lariat of all things, but it works quite well. Gordy looks like he's trying to decapitate Misawa 18 years early, and Misawa is just doing the best he can he wear the monster down. He actually gets a really big nearfall after trapping him in the facelock for a while. Gordy kicks him in the face from his back, sending Misawa tumbling into the corner, but as he makes it back to his feet, Misawa comes roaring out with a huge "fuck you, whitey" elbowsmash that puts Gordy down just long enough for Misawa to score the pin. Gordy recovers pretty quickly after that, and the ring crew rushes in to hold him back, while Misawa is still splayed out exhausted on the canvas and Fukuzawa starts going hoarse screaming on commentary. It really comes off as a big win for our new hero, which I'm guessing was the entire point. The match itself really feels like a lost classic. I got my copy from Ditch's site, so if you're in the know, you definitely want to track this down.