Found Footage Friday: KONG~! KANSAI~! HAMADA~! SATOMURA~! STOMPER~! HEENAN HANDCUFFED TO T~!

Frank Hickey vs. Mongolian Stomper Kansas City 1960s

MD: This was another old match that Charles from Wrestling Playlists posted last year in one of his huge tape buying sprees. As best as I can tell, the Geigel match from earlier in this show was online but this wasn't. It's certainly a moment in time and a moment in pro wrestling canon in its own way. More on that in a minute. Stomper, at this point, had the look (mostly shaved head, fu manchu style goatee) but he talked just like a normal guy and wasn't affected (in his inner ear) by the crowd's boos. Hickey had an elaborate costume with a cape and a headguard. They don't call him the Spaceman here, but he was. I don't know if this was heel vs heel or what but these were just two big guys throwing big shots for the most part. Hickey controlled this more than I'd expect, honestly, as Stomper was pushed harder and talked about going after Thesz post match. Midway through the match, a hulking figure with glasses from the crowd walked up to ringside and had to be shuffled away. That was a debuting Ox Baker (no facial hair) and one subplot through the match was the commentary talking about how they had to turn him down when he wanted to wrestle before because despite being 300 pounds he wasn't trained. At the end of the clip,  after Stomper had won somewhat anticlimactically, they said that the promoters were going to allow Ox to wrestle that coming Thursday and he got to introduce himself. Interesting little angle/gimmick for the 60s. To me, it was just strange to see the Stomper not even trying to put on foreign airs.

Superstar Billy Graham vs. Hercules WWF 8/15/87

MD: This was another recent Richard Land find so you'll have to go find his patreon. While there was absolutely no way it could live up to its promise on paper, it was still pretty great, all the more so because I didn't realize what the post-match was going to be. This was when Graham was stepping in for Patera. The match itself was ok. Hercules created the motion with a few big bumps. He had some nice cutoffs. Graham controlled the middle and was able to stand tall with his strength. They had a nice finish where Hercules tried to slam Graham from the outside in and got rolled through on it. 

The real appeal here, however, was Heenan. This had the one-two punch of Heenan handcuffed to Mr. T and the losing manager having to get whipped, so you can only imagine all of Heenan's mannerisms as he got yanked around by T and then the whole hoopla of the post-match with Hercules trying desperately to protect his manager and then Graham and finally Patera getting their shots in on a writhing, squirming Heenan as the crowd went wild. I wish there was more of it. A lot of the time we just got glimpses in the corner of the screen of Heenan's reactions. This was definitely more for the live crowd, but I'm glad we got to see it at all.

ER: I thought Heenan's promo to start this whole segment was far and away the most cutting thing. Heenan wasn't funny at all, he was ruthless. I mean, he was funny, but he came off tough, like a guy who ran a hard card game. When he was talking about being cuffed to Mr. T he straight up told Ken Patera to put the cuffs on himself, as a little stroll down memory lane. He talked about how everyone you see with big arms and a big body is unemployed, because working men can't spend 8 hours lifting and 8 hours working. He makes fun of Graham for eating 19 cans of tuna and 65 raw eggs all day. It's a promo that felt like real hate, and it made the match more disappointing for having hardly any hate at all. I don't think any of the Heenan/Mr. T payoffs were there and it was one of those reminders of how big wrestlers were and how small actors are. When Bobby Heenan is larger than Mr. T and he just cut a promo about real tough men from the midwest, I want more than just 10 minutes of Heenan cowering from T on the floor. 

It's insane how Billy Graham aged 30 years in 10. 1987 Billy Graham works like 75 year old Jimmy Valiant. 10 years earlier he was the most charismatic man in the building and here he's like 1999 Terry Gordy. Hercules I thought looked great. His kneedrops and elbowdrop and knuckle locks and big bump to the floor selling for Graham all looked strong. He had a pretty steep hill to climb and the stipulation would have been more fun if it had ended with Heenan bumping for Mr. T and Patera instead of absorbing pulled belt shots thrown by a one armed man and a suddenly elderly man. 

Aja Kong/Dynamite Kansai vs. Ayako Hamada/Meiko Satomura GAEA 6/22/03

MD: It's hard for me to write this one up. So much happens. It's one imaginative, iconic spot after the next. You watch it and by the end you forgot that Aja branded the guardrail at one point even though it was awesome in the moment. They just pack in so much in twenty minutes and while there are themes (Kansai going for the Splash Mountain until she gets it, it gets broken up, and then she gets it again for the win, for instance), and while I'd even say it comes together and never entirely falls apart, it's just a lot to keep track of. Here, of course, you have not just the problem of Aja early on but also the problem of Kansai where she can just catch you in a claw and slam you to the ground. Even worse for Hamada and Satomura is when you get the problem of both, where you can put one down but the other is creeping over to hit you with a lariat. There was one point where Hamada was pinballing back and forth to kick Kansai to try to break an ankle lock on Satomura and then nail Aja so Aja wouldn't flatten her and she had two or three tries to do that before she just got crushed by Aja.

In some ways, despite all the spots and bombs and bumps (and occasionally weapons) this did have a bit of a sports feel where Hamada and Satomura would get lots of little shots on goal, but all it would take would be one breakaway from Kong/Kansai to end it and everyone knew it. Some of that was from the two teams just constantly pressing forward and never letting up, even though things still had weight (of course they did) and impact. It felt like a big deal when Hamada and Satomura got their opponents down and on the ropes, and they had some very big bombs of their own (literally as they power bombed Kansai onto Aja for instance). That said, it was all just a matter of time, of course, but it was a spirited time while it lasted.

ER: I thought this was good but never came close to approaching the greatness of the Kong/Meiko match from the week before (which Matt and I wrote about earlier this month). Meiko is one of our great punishment takers, an out-laster on the same level of Yuki Ishikawa. I buy it from Meiko, it's Ayako I don't buy it from here. The excitement of the Aja/Meiko matches is how Aja is going to walk through most of Meiko's offense, and be honest about the things that slow her down. You don't just get leniency from Stan Hansen, you have to move him before he sells for you. Aja is the same, you actually need to move her or bounce her on her head, and Dynamite Kansai can do the same thing. Aja and Dynamite as a team are similar to the problem created when Vader and Hansen teamed in All Japan. They are going to walk through almost anyone and Ayako's well thrown but worked elbow smashes are not going to be taken seriously by either. I need some real fire from an underdog outsized babyface and if you're still holding back a little on arm strikes after Kansai stomps on your fucking face from the top, then I stop buying it. 

But I did like this. I made a prolonged noise I've never made before in reaction to that double stomp to the face. I let out of deep guttural oof at the finish when Aja presumably broke one of Meiko's ribs with a kick to the stomach harder than any Kawada ever threw. I liked the way Aja treated Hamada like a little pest, finally hitting her with a backfist without much effort and then sitting on her while Dynamite disposes of Meiko. There were stretches where kicks were missing and timing was behind, and that's just not going to be enough to stop two monsters. Also, it's crazy how much faster Kong's kicks look than Hamada's or Meiko's. She's like Scott Norton with speed, it's unreal. 

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Found Footage Friday: KONG~! MEIKO~! CACTUS~! ATLANTIS~! MASAKRE~! DANDY~! JT SMITH~!

Cactus Jack vs. JT Smith TWA 8/20/91

MD: Guessing on this date from the finish. It's surreal to see Foley go from Manchester vs Vader back to this (just a couple of years earlier). He did stuff on top of stuff to keep it entertaining, smacking a chair into his head (two chairs; the first wooden which he sold more), going on the mic for a big rant (after which he ran right into Smith's offense), the Cactus clothesline over the top, a flip bump in the corner, so on and so forth.

His shots in the corner all looked great and he was there for every little thing Smith did. Smith was in the right place at the right time hitting the right stuff for a lot of this, keeping the crowd engaged as a babyface, but it was hard not to be overshadowed by Cactus. I'd call this more entertaining than coherent or great, but you still didn't want to look away which was the hallmark of early 90s Foley. Great finish too as Foley got his throat caught in the ropes leading to a count out, a very clever way to get Cactus Jack out of a tournament if need be.

ER: A cool match, and I love the timing of this coming just a week after we covered a new Cactus/Vader match. That was 1993, this is 1991, and Cactus seems like such a different wrestler in this one. Just two years later he was slower, beefier, and his execution on almost everything was completely different. Here he threw punches with his arm and threw them more overhand, completely different arm slot than he would use for most of his career. His punches looked great here. Every time he hit JT Smith it looked like a real shot. JT Smith was in there to take shots, and the crowd responded to it. They really got behind him, even though every single time we got a glimpse of the crowd there didn't seem to be a single person in attendance who looked like him. How about that. 

JT Smith isn't really a guy with offense, so of course you were going to have Cactus make up for that. That's when you get him wandering around the building hitting himself with chairs, cutting a promo mid-match, keeping people riled and wary against him and hot behind JT. He knew JT was going to bump big for him - JT Smith got thrown, hit, or clotheslined to the floor three times in under a minute and every fall he took to the floor looked great - and he is Cactus Jack so of course he's going to take some bumps. That said, I don't know if I've seen Cactus take that Ray Stevens bump in the corner before. It's not the Shawn Michaels roll up bump, it's the Stevens bump that John Nord and Mike Modest took neck/shoulder first into the buckles. Nord and Modest took it more horizontally and landed flat, but Cactus takes it messier and ends with an uglier bump down into the mat. 

There were two really great moments, as judged by some guy sitting near the cameraman who exclaimed "Oh SHIT!" two different times: The first was when a charging Cactus clothesline knocked Smith sideways on landed him on his stomach; the second was when Cactus got himself hanged in the ropes very near to where he was sitting. His verbal exclamations were absolutely correct both times. 

Atlantis/Rayo de Jalisco Jr/El Dandy vs. Pierroth Jr/Masakre/MS-1 CMLL 9/92

MD: Really a blast in the about ten minutes we get here. The primera and segunda function almost as a fully formed sprint and then we get at least part of the finish of the tercera. Atlantis looks like a huge star here. He bounds into the ring and gets ambushed starting the rudo control. Masakre is a menace here, sneaking in and punching anyone he can at any point, even when they're in holds.

Atlantis comes back basically on his own, including eating a punch and kipping up immediately to fire back. While this is happening Rayo is fondly holding the hand of a prone Dandy. Atlantis just outslicks all three rudos until his partners can come back (and when they do, it's with a huge Dandy punch and Rayo doing his shtick; it all felt balanced here). For the tercera we come in on them switching matches around which is a little weird, but the tecnicos pretty quickly overcome. I would have liked to see how we got to the mask switching but overall what we did get here was great.

Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura GAEA 6/14/03

MD: We're going to try to tackle some of these GAEA uploads that people think are rare/new as we've done a bad job at that. I have no idea about the context here, but I do know that Aja Kong might be the most immediately watchable wrestler ever. You can drop into almost any of her matches from almost any period and while the match might be enhanced by content, you're going to be able to figure out exactly what's going on. 

I call it the "Problem of Aja" which has to be overcome by any opponent she faces. She's too big, too strong, too fierce, too much, and even against someone like Satomura, you see it right from the get go where Aja just stuffs her and starts to pull her apart, wrenching her arms in all sorts of ways they don't belong. With a little bit of distance Satomura can get a quick shot in, but by giving Aja a little bit of distance, she'll get run over in turn. She can smash her head with the metal bucket (or throw it at her) but Aja will just take it and headbutt her back, or even worse: she'll get the bucket and smash Satomura and then drop her head first on it. 

The great equalizer here was Satomura's death valley drivers. Any move that took so much effort could justifiably have such an effect, and they were enough to turn the tide and even to almost put Aja away, but almost isn't enough and while she was able to duck the uraken a few times and get ten strikes in for every one Aja hit, all it took was one landing to end this.

ER: I thought this was incredible. This wasn't out there before? This is new? We're just seeing this match, that feels like one of the classic matches of a classic feud? That can't be. If this match happened on this week's Dynamite it would be a 5.5 star match that people actually remember two months later. Aja Kong is an unstoppable danger that must be endured, and I've never responded to a woman wrestler the way I respond to Aja. The same way I can show any of my non-wrestling bubble friends any Stan Hansen match from any era and they recognize on sight that this man is beating the shit out of everyone and moving and falling and reacting in ways they have never seen yet instantly understand, Aja Kong has that exact same level of accessibility. If this is your first Aja Kong/Meiko match, you will understand everything. The fight Aja forces Meiko into bringing, Aja's unbeatable and at times literally unmovable condescending honesty, and Meiko's urge and determination. Aja feels like someone who cannot be moved and it requires Meiko to do it for real, and when Aja takes something for real she's finally a monster wounded. 

The GAEA girls at ringside keep taking this to higher levels, their volume and cries and anger growing over a brisk 12 minutes, and the crowd actually sounds upset when Aja kicks out of Meiko's final surge of fire. The anguish of her girls at ringside was felt as much or more than the emotion all over Meiko's face.  Every hit in this match is honest as can be. The death valley drivers compress Kong, the slaps seem like they should all swell Meiko's jaw and wreck her hearing. Kong gives this woman a brainbuster on a metal bucket and it's not as violent as a half dozen of Kong's strikes. The emotion is huge for a "short" match, and Kong pulling a fucking small package - and a small package so well executed that it would have brought a tear to Bret Hart's eye - is one of the greatest bullshit asshole heel spots I've ever seen. Can you picture Stan Hansen needle dicking his way into pulling a small package on Misawa? Riots. I've never seen something so brazen. She eventually buckles Meiko's entire body with a uraken but I wanted to see the looks on everyone's faces and the boos from every mouth had Aja Kong won with that perfect small package. 

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Found Footage Friday: EL SANTO~! EL HIJO DEL SANTO~! MEIKO~! KONG~! PANTHER~! COLON~!

Carlos Colon/El Santo vs. Barrabas/Rebelde Rojo 2/1/75?

MD: Hijo del Santo posted this and at the very least, the quality is better than whatever we had before. We hadn't covered it and it's a good, focused look at both Santo and a relatively young Carlos. There's so little footage of Santo that you look as closely as possible and really watch how he moves. He was mainly paired with Rebelde Rojo at first and there are the throws you'd expect, but also a nice mat transition into a stretch muffler type submission and these really nice kneelifts that come in from the front instead of the side. Later on, he'd throw Barrabas around by his beard and hit headscissors takeovers and post match, he had a nice tope where he squared up and ran all the way across the ring to build up speed. The heels were game here and Colon had zip to everything he did. In the absence of footage, you always wonder, but from this glimpse of Santo there was oomph and swagger behind his movements and you do really get the sense that there was something tangible to the legend.

PAS: This was just a glimpse, but any glimpse of Santo is pretty great (honestly a glimpse of young Colon is pretty awesome too). Santo moved a little like his son, although without that incredible lightness of foot that Hijo brings to the table. Love those straight knee lifts up the middle, really felt Mr. Wrestling 2ish, which is really what you want from a kneelift. His tope looked good to, and he landed it almost like a Thez press. The rudos mostly bumped and fed, but did it well, would have liked of course to see this in a fuller version, but it's El Santo we take what we can get!


Meiko Satomura vs. Aja Kong GAEA 4/24/98

MD: This is apparently their first singles match. Satomura wasn't even twenty yet most likely. I'm a big fan of these ten minute GAEA Aja matches where someone has to try to figure out how to solve the puzzle/problem of her. Meiko started strong with a trip and some pummelling, but it ended with Aja just staring her down in the corner and crushing her as she ran back across the ring to build momentum. From there, Kong played with her like a cat with a toy. When Meiko dared to come back, Kong smashed her with the aluminum box (fairly mirthful about it as she played keep away with the ref). Yet, as the match went on, it went from being about Satomura surviving, to her just scoring a point or two and not getting completely shut out, to her getting a moral win by really doing a little bit of damage, to her actually having a shot. It was one thing to get a lucky, gutsy slam. It was another to pry off an arm and force Aja to make a rope break. It was something else entirely to struggle Aja up for a death valley driver and the closest of nearfalls. All the while, Aja would shake it off and crush and compact Meiko with one bomb or another. When she finally put her down with a death valley driver of her own and the meanest Uraken imaginable, it felt definitive, but not at all like the mercy killing it might have felt like earlier in the match.

PAS: This was an iconic rivalry which produced some incredible matches. This wasn't one of those, instead it was a really young Meiko just starting to chip away at the mountain in front of her. I loved how Aja just walked through her early kicks and dropped her with one of her own. Meiko was only really able to get an advantage when Aja would get too cocky and head to the top rope, where Meiko was able twice to use cool armbar take downs to bring her down. That Death Valley Driver Meiko hit felt like a big moment, she had tried for it multiple times before, and dropping a big girl like Aja on her is really nasty. Aja DVD was even sicker though, and the uraken was .95 RAW Chaparita Asari level violent. We are going to have to dig through this GAEA youtube channel, lots of stuff on there, and I imagine a bunch of it is new and cool. 

Hijo del Santo/Blue Panther vs. Nosawa/Scorpio, Jr. FCW 5/15/04

MD: A little bit clipped, but 15+ minutes of action with clear transitions and most of the big moments intact. First two thirds of this felt a little like an exhibition, the traveling show, with Santo as the world's best Mil Mascaras and Blue Panther as his trusty Dos Caras. The interesting things to me were how good Nosawa's punches probably would have looked in the crowd but how the camera angle betrayed them and how the announcers were struggling valiantly to fit lucha into their pro wrestling box. I do think we missed some of the violence of the rudo beatdown in the segunda. It started with Panther's knee going out mysteriously but by the time the comeback occurred, Santo's mask was ripped from the bottom and he was out for blood. Maybe it's just the last few matches we've seen with him, buy my favorite Santito now is pissed off tercera comeback Santito. Here he opened up Scorpio with a chair and decided to just run across the ring and kick him in the wound to open it up more. He had a stutter step on the senton-into-a-dive on the finish but by that point I didn't care because he was running about kicking rudos' wounds open and apparently that's my guy.

PAS: Any Santo is great, and he had cool chemistry with Scorpio Jr. over the years, including taking Scorps hair in an incredible tag apuestas match. I always dig Santo working his headscissors spots, and it was cool to watch him snap and bloody up Scorpio. Panther and Nosawa were just kind of there, second banana technico is not working towards Panther's strengths as a wrestlers, and Nosawa is more of a fun character then a good wrestler. I am into Santo digging into his tape library and posting random shit, hopefully there is more iconic shit out there, but this was a fun diversion.

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New Footage Friday: CASAS! AJA! MEIKO! SANTO! PANTHER! TARZAN!

Máscara Mágica/Olímpus/Silver King vs. Guerrero de la Muerte/Negro Casas/Rey Bucanero CMLL 6/29/96

MD: I love dropping into a moment in time like this, even for a mid-card feud with some great window dressing. This set up a Welterweight title match between Mascara Magica and Guerrero de la Muerte which would then set up their apeuestas match, and I have to admit, this actually made me want see all of that. They worked well together, with Guerrero standing out as a particularly effective clubbering bully that could still turn it up a notch. That's to say I didn't mind that the focus of this one was on them and not Casas and Silver King, not that we didn't get some great stuff from each individually and together. They played Sharp Dressed Man for both sets of entrances and Negro Casas had fun with it. He danced and hugged the ref with the expected audacity and familiarity so the pre-match is great. There are certain wrestlers you don't want to take your eye off in a match, no matter what is happening. Terry Funk is one. Casas is another. For the primera, they paired Olimpus with Casas and Bucanero with Silver King, which made sense. Young Bucanero, as always, was ambitious but not always entirely smooth. I loved how Casas reacted to basically everything Olimpus did (even when in a simple hold, as Olimpus would go for the chin or the hair or an arm, etc., Casas just was totally on all the time in his complaining and reacting). We did get some good Casas and Silver King time in the segunda and tercera, with the usual rope running trip spots that no one did better and some fun brawling through the ropes to clear the ring for Magica and Guerrero at the end.

ER: Great match, I loved this. I haven't seen much Guerrero de la Muerte, and I'm not sure I've ever seen Olimpus, and that already helps make it a great on paper match for me. It has two of my all time favorites in Casas and Silver King, two guys I've seen a ton and like in Magica and Bucanero, and two guys who are new or relatively new to me, one of each category on each side. The guys I loved did things that I loved, it's fun seeing the elements of Bucanero that stayed as he matured and the small things that didn't, I loved the rope work of Olimpus and the overall rounded professionalism of GdlM. Everybody fit into their cog nicely, the pairings all looked good, and we got a couple of things I've never seen. Casas and King were the highlights, with King especially moving blisteringly fast. I love seeing these two move, and they both looked excellent. King broke out this cool looking spot, where he and Bucanero had been working a nice sunset flip sequence. King kicked out of one and Bucanero went for another one, and King just tried to run away during the flip. The spot looked minorly blown when Bucanero nudged by him, and the spot became something unique and special. If it started as Bucanero slightly missing his mark and sunset flipping King after a delay, the moment Bucanero was sliding down King's back to pull him down by the legs, King starts to move with Bucanero on his back! So Bucanero was being blocked by King while King basically held him in position for Omori's Axe Guillotine Driver. It was a cool visual, pulled off quick, and felt like something innovative we'd see in French Catch. All I see now is 50s French Catch in wrestling, even if there is zero chance those wrestlers ever even heard of French Catch.

Bucanero wrestled more like a junior (and was sized like a junior), and he still had his lunatic fast spills to the floor. Bucanero was a longtime favorite of mine for the many ways he knows how to get to an arena floor, and is still capable of surprising. The peak of his powers was around 2001, when he and Christian were having weekly TV contests to see who could take the most bumps over the top to the floor in a match. Here he is not taking high bumps to the floor, but fast beautiful lucha rolls to the floor, the way a veteran luchador knows how to kind of back handspring through the ropes to the floor after taking a dropkick.  Young Bucanero, wearing gorgeous plate glass tights, had veteran level bumps to the floor at age 21. Olimpus had a couple of great ropes moments with a couple of nice tricks. I loved the moment at the end of a caida where Casas ran in to break up a pin, and Olimpus ran in the ring behind him to spring off the middle rope with a dropkick to the back of Casas's head. in ring springboard senton to a standing opponent is a fun signature spot, and it was hit and reversed in satisfying ways here. I don't think Olimpus has much of a rep, but he has few enough matches that maybe I should go through an under 10 match Olimpus run, while also doing an under 10 matches Babe Richard run, since there is some overlap with each in the same match. Is it stupid to go through and review the 20 or so available Olimpus and Babe Richard matches before I go through and review 20 or so available Javier Llanes matches? Almost certainly! Will that make a difference? Of course not. Casas made Olimpus look plenty good in their exchanges, and King worked fast with all the rudos. Seeing King try to actually take out Casas's feet with dropdowns during a sequence is just one of those signs that guys are taking their best shot at making this match a good one, and I grinned the whole time.

Aja Kong vs. Meiko Satomura GAEA 12/15/01

MD: At the 22 minute mark here I turned it onto 2x speed so I could just get through this. I was pretty much done after the fourth death valley bomb. I was probably done a minute or two before that. It's a me thing as much as anything else. What I post on the blog is basically what I watch: old French wrestling and what we find for NFF which is basically lucha, German Catch, old Japanese TV and handhelds and occasional territory stuff. The other guys watch things more broadly and much more modern wrestling. The point is that I am not at all mentally prepared for twelve minute excess-laden finishing stretches that end up being more than one third the total length of the match anymore. Wrestling isn't math, but I think that's probably my rule of thumb: while there can be exceptions like anything else, a finishing stretch should be a lot closer to 1/6th the length of the total match than 1/3rd. If anyone wants to engage me on this, I'm happy to write a couple thousand words somewhere. Otherwise, let me just talk about the rest and not drag down NFF.

What I love about Aja, especially Gaea era Aja is that her matches tend to be like thought experiments. Like Hansen and to a degree Brock, what makes them so fascinating is watching how her opponent tries to handle the unstoppable force that she presents. Meiko, obviously, was presented as a force unto herself, but she came in prepared for and experienced against what she was going to face and that let them work in some more early counters. Even so, Aja took most of this on the notion that if she can get her hands on you (and that means running into her hands as well), she's going to cut you off. Her opponents are always working from a point of disadvantage, which with a normal monster heel would be a perfectly fine narrative point, but with Aja means even more. She can attack from all sorts of different angles: my favorite here was when she just sidestepped Meiko and tripped her to cut off a comeback corner charge. I also liked how opportunity-driven Meiko's comebacks were. After getting battered around the ringside area, Aja placed her back on the apron and she used the higher ground for an axe kick in a way that felt perfectly strategic. Later on, Aja dropped her onto some metal with a brainbuster, but the ref demanded the object leave the ring before counting the pin, letting her come back with another Pele kick. She went to that well once too often and the finishing stretch (overextended as it was) was entered by Meiko realizing she didn't have the right distance/angle and jamming herself on launching another which let Aja clothesline her instead. The match was full of little touches like that which kept things both believable (human) and interesting for the first two-thirds. And I'll just leave it at that.

PAS: I agree with Matt, this match really could have used an editor. We only had a clipped version of this match before, and I imagine it might have worked a bit better as a clipped match, as it might night have felt as bloated. Still Joshi has a maximilist style and this is a pair of great wrestlers to watch overeat. Awesome Aja performance as she demonstrates again why she is one the greatest monster heel wrestlers of all time. Violent and brutal offense, mixed with perfectly timed moments of vulnerability.  Meiko is awesome in this match too, she has such credible offense, and is great at finding and taking advantage of openings. She has really good boxing for a pro-wrestler who doesn't throw punches. There were awesome moments where she uses head movement to evade shots, and she fires in these killer fast combos to the face. There were lots of moments when this would have have been an all time classic if they had ended there, and there were just too many of them. I did love the actual ending though, Aja's one count kick out is the best one count kick out I have ever seen. Total hubris, like a fighter who stands up too quick from a knockdown, instead of taking the moment to clear her head she bolts back up, only to get put back down. We just needed less nearfalls before that.


El Hijo Del Santo/La Mascara vs. Blue Panther/Tarzan Boy Monterey 1/1/06

MD: If we were going Epic/Great/Fun/Skip on this, it'd be Fun. Mascara was, not unexpectedly, the weakest link, but that's not to say he didn't carry himself well given who he was in there with. You'd get a 'rana that looked a little off but it'd follow three or four exchanges that hit perfectly. My favorite bits in the match weren't the perfectly smooth Panther vs Santo exchanges or the usual joy in seeing Santo's signature spots, but instead his interaction with Tarzan Boy. They had been on the same side of trios and at least one tag back in 98-00 when Tarzan Boy was much younger and after the tecnicos took the first fall here, Santo patted his cheek and shook his hand only for Tarzan Boy to return the favor. That felt like it really paid off with Tarzan Boy catching Santo with a powerbomb for a pin later on. My other favorite bit was Blue Panther using the drop down double leg nelson move we've been seeing from France so often lately to submit Mascara. The tercera was a little loose and free, feeling more like a local show than something for TV, but there were a bunch of tecnico dives and everyone went home happy. A good match with flashes of excellence from two of the best ever, and we're never going to complain about something like that popping up.

PAS: I love formula lucha libre, as a wrestling style performed well it has the highest floor. A basic househow lucha match is better then any other kind of houseshow wrestling. This is a match with two all time greats, a solid young wrestler and a competent hand, so it is going to be super entertaining. Santo and Panther are two of the most perfectly matched dance partners ever and we get some gorgeous exchanges between the two, some classic Santo dives and nifty interactions between Tarzan Boy and Santo, which had a bit more roughness then the smoothness of Santo and Panther. Mascara was pretty replaceable, but didn't do anything giant to drag down the match.

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AEW Double or Nothing 5/25/19

This wasn't a show I was particularly excited about. I imagine we are low voters on a bunch of the guys on this show, but Dustin Rhodes is an all time favorite, and the show is a big deal for sure.

Christopher Daniels/Scorpio Sky/Frankie Kazarian vs. T-Hawk/El Linderman/CIMA

PAS: This was what you would expect for a opening six man tag. I hadn't seen the SCU team in years and they seem to have kept all of their athleticism, pretty impressive that old man Daniels can still look so smooth, although smoothness isn't something I care a ton about. Strong Hearts was fine, I liked Hawk's chops and Linderman's deadlift German suplexes, but if you are going to bring in OWE guys, they really should have bought in the crazy Chinese Shaolin Monks rather then just second tier Dragons Gate guys. Fine but ultimately forgettable.

Dr. Britt Baker DMD vs. Kylie Rae vs. Nyla Rose vs. Awesome Kong

PAS: This was pretty bad and way too long. Awesome Kong was a cool surprise, but didn't look ready for in ring work and spent most of the match hanging outside. Rae doing her Gillberg version of Bayley was probably the most bush league thing on this show (either that or Cody's sledgehammer stuff). I am not sure there are enough non-WWE women to make a real division, this wasn't a good start, and I am not interested in seeing any of these ladies again.

Best Friends vs. Angelico/Jack Evans

PAS: I think it is a mistake for a fed basically main evented by the Young Bucks to have so many B-Team Bucks running around: SCU, both these teams, Lucha Brothers, Super Smash Brothers. They really need some teams who don't work the same style. You can't have 10 versions of the Rockers, you need a Twin Towers or Demolition. This is my semi-annual attempt to watch a Chuck Taylor match and get it, and I still don't. He hits some spots OK, but there are parts where he can't run the ropes and his forearms and kicks look terrible. Trent was mechanically fine, if uninteresting. Angelico is still Angelico, some of his stuff looks cool, the double teams with Evans are nifty, and then he throws a punch. Evans is still awesome, his body is made of jello, and he flips like crazy. His moonsault to the floor was one of the crazier spots of the night. Didn't care for this, it was a worse version of Bucks vs. Lucha Brothers and I didn't love that either.

Aja Kong/Yuka Sakazaki/Emi Sakura vs. Hikaru Shida/Riho/Ryo Mizunami

PAS: This was a fun showcase for all six ladies. Everyone got a chance to run through their stuff, and a lot of it looked pretty good. Sakazaki's magical girl shtick is pretty creepy, there already is a pervert constituency among Joshi fans and that seems to lean way into it. Aja is still a beast and definitely stood out, I especially liked any time she faced off with Mizunami, as I am always going to dig a big gal punch out. Shida got the big with with the knee, and I think a version of her 2018 singles with Aja would get over pretty big.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Cody

PAS: Opening part of this match was just OK, Cody doesn't really have good looking offense and some of the spots felt more cute then impactful. I loved the set up for the Dustin blade job, with Dustin setting up the nut kick, Cody removing the second turnbuckle to block it, and and Cody drop toe holding Dustin into the exposed buckle. That Dustin blade job was an all timer, it looked liked Strawberry Fanta was coming out of a fountain soda machine. I liked Cody's knuckle punches to the cut, and the figure four spot was really well executed. The punch exchange at the end of the match actually felt like a fist fight between brothers, and I loved the Code Red. I thought the ending was a bit anti-climactic, but man what a performance by Dustin. It was all bleeding, selling and emotion. It is up there with some of the best last ride, old man matches I have ever seen, and last ride old man matches are some of my favorite types.

Young Bucks vs. Lucha Brothers

PAS: Pretty much what you would expect, there were a couple of nice storyline moments, with the Bucks being a little rusty due to their long layoff, and the very end of the match with the work on Matt's arm. Still most of the match was running through a million headdrop finishers for 2.9 counts. Fenix had a couple of amazing moments of high flying, including a rope trick on both Bucks which looked great. But this was everything turned up to 10, and my eyes eventually just glassed over with the nearfalls. This kind of match is clearly going to be a showcase for this promotion, and I think it will keep me from really investing in it.

Kenny Omega vs. Chris Jericho

PAS: I wasn't coming into this match expecting to like it, and ended up kind of loving it. Omega is pretty much a poster boy for maximalist wrestling, but this was a match built around two guys stiffing each other with shots to the face and head. There were a couple of big spots which were done really well and sold really well, the double stomp with the table was kidney mushing, and I liked the surprise of Omega getting backdropped through the table. I loved how Jericho took all of his normally loose 2000s offense and made it eye socket crunching, those code breakers looked like they were going to shove Omega's cheekbone through his teeth. The broken nose really added to the match too, and Omega sold the shots like Gerald McClellan, it felt like we were watching him get beaten to death in the ring. Really liked the back elbow KO finish too, great performance by both guys, and one of the most surprising matches in years.

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: AJA KONG!! vs. Shida

6. Aja Kong vs. Hikaru Shida Oz Academy 9/17

PAS: Aja challenges for the Oz Academy title and shows that when the lights are bright she is still an incredible performer. She is 48 years old and can still rip off a classic like this. The early sections of this match were a classic wrestling story of arm vs. leg. Aja brutalizes Shida's knee while Shida tries to tear up Kong's arm, each trying to weaken the others big strike. Aja knows how to fuck up a knee, she throws these thudding kicks to the patella, punches Shida in the kneecap, tricks her into a jumping knee first into Aja's garbage can, and even breaks an armbar by repeatedly head-butting the side of the knee. Shida responds with some good arm work, including a nasty Fujiwara and a couple of sick looking stomps to the bicep. We get a great finish run, with Aja nearly getting a countout win by brainbustering Shida on the ramp. Aja tries to land some of her big backfists, although she doesn't get the full force with her bad arm, Shida has this knee strike where she grabs both of her opponents arms and pulls them into her knee. She obliterates Aja with this move, including splitting open the side of her head and swelling up her cheek and eye, that is a cool thing about Joshi, it can be chugging along and all of a sudden turn into the most violent thing you have ever seen. Final moments are a blood soaked war. I checked this out on whim to see some 2018 Aja, was not expecting a stone cold classic.

ER: Remember when title matches turned into bloody grudge matches right before your eyes? This is a great Queen Kong performance, attacking Shida's leg and body but showing vulnerability by effectively selling her arm straight through to the finish. Oh, and by taking a zillion shoot knees straight to her face and head. That will make someone come off as vulnerable. Kong is a mostly immovable object, and on the floor starts smacking around Shida's knee, beating it with a chair, stomping on it, hitting it with a small square trash can, and just standing and stepping all over her leg. Shida is as aggressive as she can be, and we get a great moment of her rushing in for a flying knee only to have Kong swing and connect with that damn pointy trash can right into Shida's knee. I love it. Shida finally realizes she shouldn't be going toe to toe with Kong and starts ripping at her arm, and all the arm stuff was good, really helped along the whole time by Kong's convincing selling. Vulnerable monster is a cool visual, with Kong still dangerous but seeing her right arm giving her more and more trouble. Shida is about as mean to Kong's arm as Kong was to Shida's knee, and even when Kong gets a breather she's holding her arm more and more. The brainbuster on the ramp was a great spot, Kong really dumped her and made Shida's crawl up the ramp believable; a count out ending would have been a bummer, but it also would have been because a monster dropped someone on their head, so...

But Shida makes it in and we get this bonkers finishing stretch, with Kong trying to drop her with her dead arm backfists, and Kong is great at not hitting her usual face smashing backfist as hard, really looking like she was swinging a limp meat sack at Shida, punishing for sure, but not deadly; Shida goes at it with knee strikes, with her bad knee. And it turns out, in a battle of dead arm versus dead knee, that sharp patella wins. Shida grabs Kong by both arms and starts firing unprotected knees right into Kong's face. Kong gets busted open and I couldn't tell at first where the cut was...until I realized that there were several cuts, Kong's face absorbing all knees. Busted nose, cut brow, split side of her head, swollen cheekbone, bleeding mouth, the whole thing was one of the wildest spectacles I've seen in a wrestling ring. For much of the match I was thinking "How is Shida going to believably beat Kong?" And it turns out the way to do that is to just knee her in the face a lot. That's the equalizer. I did have a couple problems with this, mainly that Shida really abandoned that knee for much of the last 2/3 of the match, and it was such a focus  - and so well done - for a long stretch that it was glaring when she no longer acknowledged it. But, she's also a joshi babyface, so of course I should have expected her to be running around after limb work. Joshi babyfaces getting their limbs worked over just makes them scream and run more. I also found it kind of silly that late in the match Kong started attacking Shida's leg with a kendo stick. Earlier in the match she was beating on it with chairs and jumping on it with her full weight, that seems way more effective than hitting it with a stick. Don't get cute on me, Aja, just step on it like a beast. But those kind of things are outshone by one of the more unexpected bits of violence we've seen, and the whole thing felt like an epic prize fight.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Aja v. Meiko

Aja Kong v. Meiko Satomura Sendai Girls 4/8

PAS: These two have been feuding since 1998, but this is their first singles match against each other since 2012. One of my favorite match ups in wrestling history. Aja is maybe the greatest monster wrestler ever, she has slowed down a bit but still will beat you silly, Meiko has great looking chop down offense, she was landing some great kicks, and even doing some cool kicks and stomps to Aja's instep. Kong lays a sick beating here, including braining Meiko with chairs and a metal door, punching her in the face and dropping her on her head, and Meiko kept finding ways to land her own shots. I thought it may have gone a bit overboard in the end, including some goofus no selling, but man overall this was a hell of a war. Loved to see this revisited, now we just need another Ishikawa v. Ikeda match.

ER: I love how these two dance with each other. And I always love how Meiko looks like any other unassuming Japanese woman, somebody you wouldn't notice in public, yet if you only know she's a maniac who can get dumped on her head time and again and come right back and kick you in your connective tissue. The early lock up moments were so cool, with neither cutting the other slack, no knuckle lock or arm wringer just given up. Meiko had all these neat short kicks to areas you don't see getting kicked, like a kick to Aja's shin to set up a lock up, or a kick to the forearm to set up a wristlock. It was a cool way of striking to open up an opportunity to get in close. Meiko keeps getting in close for side headlocks and the whole time I'm thinking what a terrible idea it is to put a side headlock on Kong, and sure enough before long Meiko is getting dumped on her head. But the match ramps up to a whole new level when Meiko flies off the top with a splash, and Kong sticks her legs straight up in the air, with Meiko landing full force on them stomach first and bouncing grossly off to the side, like a skater messing up a rail slide. I can't believe spots like that don't go viral. Meiko rolls to the floor and Kong follows for ass kicking reasons. Meiko gets tossed through chairs, gets chairs tossed at her, gets a heavy looking piece of ring barrier tossed at her, gets dropped with a brainbuster on the corner of that ring barrier, gets dropped with a brainbuster on a corner of Kong's trash can. She takes a lot of damage, is what I'm getting at. But she keeps coming back, keeps fighting, keeps finding ways to get at Kong. Meiko probably did take a bit TOO much damage to come back to the level she did, but overall it was a whole lot of fun watching them do their thing.


2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Digging in the Crates Podcast #1

Welcome to my new podcast, as Phil and guest create an on-air Schneider Comp, we pick a couple of matches each episode, discuss what we dig about them and at after a half dozen or so, we will have a new comp.

Digging in the Crates Episode #1

Here are links to the matches

Riki Choshu, Kantaro Hoshino, Kuniaki Kobyashi, Kantaro Hoshino, Kensuke Sasaki v. Animal Hamaguchi, Super Strong Machine, Tasutoshi Goto, Hiro Saito, Masanobu Kurisu 2/3 Falls (New Japan 6/26/90)

Negro Casas v. La Fiera Cabellera contra Cabellera EMLL (1/10/93)

Yukimiko Hotto v. Aja Kong (AJW 1/21/94)

Low-Ki v. Chris Dickenson (JAPW 3/21/15)

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Best of Japan 2000-2009: Aja Kong vs. KAORU, Gaea 2/13/00

1. Aja Kong vs. KAORU, Gaea 2/13/00

Aja Kong is my favorite female wrestler of all time and this match is one of my favorite joshi matches of all time (at least it was when I saw it over a decade ago) so I had tons of excitement to rewatch this one. Up until 2000 I had not seen much joshi. I'd seen Bull Nakano in WWF and WCW, and the Kong/Asari Raw match, and the only women's wrestling I had seen that was actually *from* Japan were a couple matches from FMW tapes. So then young me sees this match and was blown to pieces. I haven't seen this match in years and years and it was crazy how much still seemed fresh in my brain.

KAORU is all on fire to start and running circles around Kong and it rules, until she bites off more than she can chew and gets cute, and misses a senton off the top to the floor TAILBONE FIRST through a table. And then we get a brutal (to the shock of everybody) Aja Kong ass beating. Kong tosses her all around the building and god bless KAORU for taking the insane beating. Kong starts bouncing the broken table pieces of KAORU's face, then a couple chairs off her face, then piledrives her on the floor and runs her face first into a wall. And KAORU is busted open and Aja Kong does not give a fuck. All the speed vs. brute strength stuff works great here, with KAORU going back to the plan and ducking around a bunch of Kong backfists and playing dirty right in step by smacking Kong a bunch with a trashcan. However, again, zero fucks were given by Kong. In a crazy moment KAORU goes for a moonsault and lands face first into Kong's boots (while somewhere, a young Mistico was watching and thinking "I like that so much I'm gonna do it EVERY match!") and then when KAORU charges Kong, Kong just alley oops her in one of the more spectacular spots in wrestling history, with KAORU clearing the ropes and just crashing and burning onto the floor. It's like Kong thought of going for a hotshot, but just launched her 15 feet instead. Amazing.

Now it's Kong's turn to get cute and it costs her too. She goes for a dive and KAORU matadors her right into a table, then proceeds to beat the life out of Kong with a piece of broken table and THEN hits her top rope senton through the table (this time with Kong actually on it)! And somehow things get even more sick, as KAORU blocks a spinning backfist with the broken table and then begins slicing and smashing Kong's arm with the broken table. Kong is BLEEDING from her ARM!! Even sicker than Vader blading his chest. And forgive me for flipping out about Kong throwing KAORU to the floor earlier, because KAORU then moonsaults directly onto Kong's arm...while holding that broken table piece. I mean it looked like it just legit crushed Kong's arm.

One of the great things about the match is that all the transitions happen when either worker gets to fancy or starts playing outside their comfort zone. Kong starts to pile on and get cocky, that's when KAORU starts peppering her with stuff. KAORU starts foolishly trying to do power moves or string too many moves together? Kong backfists the hell out of her face. Kong goes to the top rope? KAORU dumps her vertically on her head with the grossest Michinoku Driver you have seen in your life. Kong should have probably died. All of this was so violent. Both women dished out furious beatings, KAORU getting punched and kicked in the face (finished off with a double backfist!) and Kong letting KAORU shine.

This match was just completely brutal. There were so many stiff shots, nasty spills and yet at no point did anything feel like overkill. Everything built, all the shifts in momentum happened logically and it was just one awesome oh shit moment after another. One of the most violent spectacles in wrestling history. I LOVED this.


BEST OF JAPAN MASTER LIST

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Phil's Ongoing 2008 MOTY List

1. Blue Panther v. Villano V CMLL 9/19
2. Yuki Ishikawa + Alexander Otsuka + Munenori Sawa v Daisuke Ikeda + Katsumi Usuda + Super Tiger II BattlArts 7/26
3. Jimmy Jacobs v. B.J. Whitmer IWA-MS 3/1
4. Floyd Mayweather v. Big Show WWE 3/30
5. Mike Quakenbush v. Johnny Saint WXW 3/8
6. Teddy Hart v. Eddie Kingston v. Homicide JAPW 1/19
7. Yuki Ishikawa v. Carl Greco BattlArts 6/1
8. Necro Butcher v. Sami Callihan IWA-MS 10/4
9. Rey Cometa/Pegasso/Freelance vs Los Oficiales IWRG 10/17
10. Necro Butcher v. Predator IGF 6/23
11. Blue Panther v. Atlantis CMLL 7/11
12. Necro Butcher v. 2 Cold Scorpio IWA-MS 8//17
13. Blue Panther v. Villano V CMLL 9/29
14. Meiko Satomura v. Aja Kong SENDAI 10/26
14. Yuki Ishikawa v. Alexander Otsuka RJPW 6/18
15. Mitsuhara Misawa v. Takeshi Morishima NOAH 3/2
16. Bryan Danielson v. Nigel McGuiness ROH 2/23
17. Erick Stevens v. Roderick Strong FIP 2/8
18. Trik Davis v. Sami Callihan IWA-MS 8/17
19. Nigel McGuiness v. Austin Aries ROH 3/28
20. Evan Bourne v. Chavo Guererro WWE 10/14
21. Finlay v. JBL WWE 3/30
22. Shawn Michaels v. Ric Flair WWE 3/30
23. Blue Panther v. Averno CMLL 11/4
24. El Valiente + El Hijo Del Fantasma + La Mascara v. La Sombra + Volador Jr. + Sagrado CMLL 4/30

14. Meiko Satomura v. Aja Kong SENDAI 10/26

I am pretty much completely uninterested in current Joshi wrestling, but I did love GAEA back in the day, and this was my favorite match-up. Pretty cool story with Satomura returning after a long absence from a broken orbital bone. She comes into the ring wearing an eyepatch like a sexy baby dike Pirata Morgan and Aja goes right after that eye, which is a cool match structure you don’t see a ton of. Aja welcomes her back with a spinning back fist which propels her out of the ring, and Meiko spends the rest of the match dodging and countering that back fist. Stiff, great selling, emotion and cool moves, fun fun stuff.

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Phil's UPDATED 2006 MOTY LIST

Here is the current list, reviews for the older matches are in previous DVDVR's

1. Chris Benoit v. Finlay WWE 5/21
2. Jun Akiyama v. Masao Inoue NOAH 4/23
3. Rey Mysterio v. Randy Orton WWE 4/4
4. Chris Benoit v. Finlay WWE 5/3
5. Finlay v. Rey Mysterio WWE 3/20
6. Chris Benoit v. JBL WWE 4/11
7. Homicide v. Necro Butcher 5/13
8. Chris Benoit v. William Regal WWE 5/8
9. American Dragon Brian Danielson v. Samoa Joe ROH 8/6
10. Chris Hero/Necro Butcher/Super Dragon v. Samoa Joe/B.J. Whitmer/Adam Pearce ROH 4/22
11. La Mascara/El Hijo Del Santo v. Blue Panther/Tarzan Boy CMLL GDL 1/1
12. Rey Mysterio v. Mark Henry WWE 1/15
13. Damien Wayne v. Sean Denny NWA-VA 5/6
14. Meiko Satomura v. Aja Kong Sendai Pro Wrestling 7/9
15. L.A. Park/Marco Corleone/Johnny Stamboli v. Dr. Wagner Jr./Dos Caras Jr./Lizmark Jr. CMLL 5/19
16. Yuki Ishikawa v. Hiroyuki Ito Big Mouth Loud 5/4
17. El Hijo Del Santo/Negro Casas/Mistico v. Atlantis/Black Warrior/Ultimo Guerrerro 8/4
18. Low-Ki v. Necro Butcher IWA-MS 4/1
19. Rey Mysterio/Bobby Lashley/Chris Benoit v. JBL/Finlay/Randy Orton WWE 2/23
20. Samoa Joe v. Necro Butcher IWA-MS 1/12


Previously on the list


- Juventud v. Kid Kash WWE 1/3
- A.J. Styles v. Matt Sydal ROH 1/14
- Samoa Joe v. BJ Whitmer ROH 1/14
- Chris Benoit v. Randy Orton WWE 1/24
- Shadow WX/Mammoth Sasaki v. Abdullah Kobyashi/Daisuke Sekimoto BJW 1/27/06
- Finlay v. Chris Benoit WWE 1/30
- HHH v. Big Show WWE 2/13
--Finlay/JBL v. Lashley/Chris Benoit WWE 2/16
-KENTA/Takeshi Morishima/Mohammed Yone v.Kenta Kobashi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Tamon Honda NOAH 2/17
- Undertaker v. Kurt Angle WWE 2/19
-KUDO & MIKAMI v. Yoshiaki Yago & MIYAWAKI Chikara 2/24
-Milano Collection AT/Skyde v. Claudio Castagnoli/ Chris Hero Chikara 2/26
-Minoru Suzuki vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara Big Mouth Loud 3/22
-Finlay v. Bobby Lashley WWE 5/8



14. Meiko Satomura v. Aja Kong Sendai Pro Wrestling 7/9

I can’t remember the last time I watched a non-IWA-MS, non-lucha women’s match, but when it is Aja Kong v. Meiko Satomura you watch and enjoy. Aja is one of my favorite wrestlers ever vagina or no vagina. The best monster wrestler ever, and that includes Vader. Meiko is a ton of fun too, she has some really flippy offense, which I usually hate, but she lands everything with some nasty force. I mean at one point Aja is on the ground and Meiko runs to the ropes does a handspring for no reason, I start to scoff, but she ends it with her knee driving right into Aja’s kidney’s, and all of a sudden I am fine with the handspring. She invented the pele kick, and she has a bunch of different ways to hit it really violently. Meiko is tearing up Aja’s arm for the majority of the match, so at one point near the end of the match, she takes over, by switching her lead foot and hitting a pele kick nearly from the ground right into Aja’s bicep. She brings a ton to the table.

This match was unsurprisingly made by Aja Kong. She is the master at playing a vulnerable killer, King Kong moments before falling off the Empire State Building. Meiko is working over the arm here, and Aja is Queensized at selling the pain in everything she does. There was one moment in the match, where she had just escaped an armbar, and she franticly scrambles to grab a garbage can, but when she gets it she kind of crumples for a minute, attempting to muster another run. That kind of stuff is just on another level of most wrestling selling, the difference between DeNiro and Affleck. This wasn’t an Aja classic, I could do without the duel Death Valley Driver no-sells, and it may have been about five minutes too long. Still you forgot all about Aja Kong, go watch this and remember.

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