All Time MOTY Head to Head: Ishikawa v. Ikeda V. Captain's Fall NOAH

KENTA/Naomichi Marufuji/Kotaro Suzuki/Ricky Marvin vs. SUWA/Makoto Hashi/Takashi Sugiura/Yoshinobu Kanemaru NOAH 4/17/05

ER: Well, this stunk. And it stunk differently from the typical bad match stink, because this stunk AND lasted 50 minutes. That's just cruel. I remember really liking a few of these NOAH Captains Fall matches. This must not have been one of them. This match was all over the map, paced poorly, structured oddly, and just not very good. It was long. And I can't for the life of me understand why it took 50 minutes for them to accomplish what little they did. At minimum, it was a masterful SUWA performance. Everybody looked their best against SUWA, even when he had to wait eternities for Marufuji to set up his horrible offense. SUWA made some little things mean more, took offense like he and few others can (that dragon rana that Marvin pinned him with, yeesh), and just looked like a boss. Sugiura feels like a guy who got really overlooked during this era, and during his career, as I liked all of his contributions here. Whereas KENTA would be breaking up pinfalls with weak ass stomps, Sugiura would come blazing in with a vicious spear. All of his spears looked like the best version of any spear. Hashi really didn't blossom until a couple years later and peaked in FUTEN, but he still has some fun contributions, and he's a certified psycho for all of the damage he's no doubt doing to his body with those diving headbutts. But man that babyface team was junk. Marufuji is arguably the worst wrestler of the last 15 years that anyone thought was "good". He's terrible. He's super klutzy, his selling is out the window (watch him sell a brainbuster from Kanemaru by just standing up and slapping him in the side before getting the pin with a roll up) and his offense looks convoluted and weak. He's so, so terrible. KENTA looked slow and weak in a lot of this, with him finally getting inspired to throw some full force slaps in the midst of his awful combos and overly rehearsed junk. Marvin had some beautiful flash and I always liked him. His fast flip moonsault with his knees hitting face was amazing. Suzuki is a weird guy, as his offense always kind of blew, but he knew how to sell damage better than most of the other babyface juniors. Watch him lock on an octopus, get clonked by a Hashi headbutt, and then crumble to the mat out of his submission. There was also a lot of questionable reffing, as many times he would prevent the faces from making saves while the heels ran wild, and that never made sense. And right out of the gate the heels were the underdogs as Kanemaru got beat first. Who ever books a multi man match and has the heels outnumbered!?!? I am normally one to piss all over quick eliminations, but this really could have had 20 minutes lopped off and benefitted so much more. But I really, really disliked this.

PAS: I didn't mind this, it was way too long, there was about twenty minutes before the first elimination, and while there was some OK stuff, it really dragged. I also don't get the psychology of having KENTA and Marufuji v. Sugiura as the final guys in the match. Sugiura team was working the match as heels, so having the heel fail to fight off two blowjob babyfaces is odd, you didn't see Arn taken to the back, while Tully valiantly fought off Ricky and Robert. I am always happy to see SUWA and he was pretty great in this, SUWA was Toryuman trained so he had lots of experience working with pretty boy flyers, and every time he was in, his opponent looked awesome. He absolutely slaughters Suzuki with his John Woo dropkick, and the Ricky Marvin dragon rana was about the slickest I remember seeing.  I also really liked KENTA throwing shots with Hashi (who has a lifetime pass for me based on his FUTEN tag) and Sugiura. Enough good stuff in this, that I basically enjoyed it, although it isn't anything I would strongly recommend.

Ikeda v. Ishikawa review

Verdict:

PAS: I didn't hate this as much as Eric, but it doesn't even come close to Ishikawa v. Ikeda. This is a wire to wire win for FUTEN

ER: I thought this stunk. Killer SUWA performance, but no moment in this even came close to sniffing Ikeda/Ishikawa.

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St. Louis Dream Match: Harley Race vs Crusher Blackwell

Harley Race vs Crusher Blackwell (St Louis, November 16th, 1984)

Roy Lucier's been doing the Lord's work (Blears, Littlebrook, Hayes, whoever). From what I can tell, he's gotten his hands on a fairly big collection of footage and has been going through it and posting it to youtube. A lot of this stuff has been out there in tape trading circles but not necessarily online before. All sorts of stuff, Poffo ICW I haven't seen before (including a long Gang vs Savage match), a bunch of Hawaii, some Montreal, just all sorts of stuff.

This match, in particular, is St. Louis, aired on Japanese TV. It's something I knew was out there, always wanted to see, but didn't necessarily want to buy a bunch of Bob Brown matches to get to it. I've heard that the majority of St. Louis out there is fairly disappointing. You've got basically three wrestlers worth seeing there, Blackwell, Reed, and Race, and this is a singles match between Blackwell vs Race, a week before Starrcade 84, apparently for the NWA title.

A lot of Race ends up being disappointing too. He always gave too much as a heel champion. From the stories and his sheer presence you wanted Brock Lesnar and ended up with a prototype of Flair's worst tendencies. He was a great, energetic bumper, but you wanted to see him kill guys. This, however, is babyface Race in his home territory against a deceptively athletic monster. For twelve minutes it was everything I wanted.

Race was giving, as he should have been, but also double tough. He had the crowd behind him, an opponent who was an obvious threat, and the pro wrestling savvy to know how to milk every moment. The match was going to build to the bodyslam, as well it should, but it got there in a pretty novel way. Blackwell would dominate, would make a mistake, and Race would hit a big move. Then Blackwell would get a bit of paralleled revenge, hitting that same move. In sequence that was a dropkick (yes, Blackwell hit a dropkick), a suplex (yes, Race hit a suplex on Blackwell), and then finally the slam. In between, Race punched Blackwell in the face a ton of times, they ran a couple of headbutt spots where babyface Race's head was a force of nature, and they have a pretty surprising finish considering Race was NWA champion. Blackwell isn't just the most underrated wrestler ever. He's also apparently the most unexpected NWA champion of all time. 

I've seen three major matches this weekend, the 77 Race vs Funk NWA Championship classic, an 82 Bockwinkel performance vs JYD which was downright amazing, and this. I'm not going to say that this could touch the Race vs Funk match, because very little can, but it's everything I wanted it to be from these two and has become instantly is one of my favorite 100 or so matches. I can't wait to see what pops up next.

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