Randy Savage vs. Bret Hart (WCW, 5/17/1998)
Requested by Lacelle
You know, much is made of that one time Michael Buffer called Bret "Bret The Hitman Clarke". Off the top of my head, I can't remember if that was before or after this match happened, so I don't know if Buffer calling him "The Hitman Bret" and omitting his last name entirely is an improvement or not, but there you have it. Anyway, Bret is a member of nWo Hollywood and Savage is a member of nWo Wolfpac at this point, and well, that angle was really one of the more underappreciated stupid things that WCW did in this period. Once upon a time, WCW trying to fight off the nWo was a really, really big deal. And then, the nWo became sort of an inconvenience that WCW just had to live with (and constantly lose to). Now, we have the nWo fighting amongst themselves, so really, we don't need to give a shit about WCW's involvement in this at all. Still, if there was any good at all to come out of this angle, this match was it.
Roddy Piper is the special guest ref for this, and as special guest refs go, I think he gets a passing grade, though not a perfect one. There's a mentality amongst a lot of people that special guest refs are almost universally bad because they draw some degree of attention to themselves in a way that refs normally aren't supposed to do (I'm looking at you, Slick Johnson), and they usually don't call matches the way refs normally are supposed to. But that seems to me to completely miss the point - why would you book a special guest ref if they weren't supposed to come off as special? Not acting like a normal referee and drawing attention to themselves is the whole point of a special guest ref, otherwise you'd just have a regular-ass ref. And no, that doesn't mean special guest refs can't screw up a match big time. They can draw so much attention to themselves that it detracts from the wrestlers. Their reffing style can be so far afield that it becomes jarring. I'm just saying when you bring one in, it's usually for a reason. As far as this applies to Piper...well, he said he wanted a fight in the promos leading up to this match, and his character is a well-established wild card. If anything it would be dumber for him to play this totally straight, because that's just not who he is. In terms of how he calls this match, he mostly avoids the major pitfalls of the special guest ref - he gets his character across while keeping the focus on Bret and Savage, he calls it down the middle, he plays fast and loose with the rules, but not to the point where it seems far-fetched. I think he gets a little too hands on with the wrestlers at points - there's a bit early in the match where Bret is stalling on the outside, and Roddy gets fed up and throws him back in the ring. Not a deal-breaker by any means, but it keeps him from reaching Michael Hayes/Jackie Fargo/Ken Shamrock levels of quality special guest reffing. But he knows his job, and overall, he does it well.
So yeah, the match. I think the big thing that stands out to me here is that, off the top of my head, this may have been the stiffest performance I've ever seen from the Hitman. All of his strikes looked really hurty, including some nasty shots to the face and the back, as well as his usual hooks to the gut which he actually appeared not to be stomping for. I mean, there probably was some stomping in there, but he was throwing hands so hard that I couldn't really bother to notice. Mike Tenay epically misses the point, pointing out that Bret considers himself the best technical wrestler in the world and "hopes to use Randy Savage as a proving ground". But clearly Don West was the problem with the TNA announce team. Randy Savage isn't one to take this lying down, throwing some great shots of his own, but Bret regains control quickly, and they end up on the outside, including a cool moment where Bret tries to drop the ringsteps on Randy's head. Bobby Heenan picks up the slack for Tenay's earlier dopeyness, saying that Bret probably realized he had to turn up the heat just to combat Savage's wildman tendencies. Savage avoids having his noggin crushed and fights back, leading to a low-point in the match where Bret kinda struggles with an axehandle off of the guardrail into the crowd, followed by some shitty ECW crowd brawling that I can't really follow. They get back in the ring, and Bret starts working after Savage's injured knee, as well as busting out a particularly snappy Russian leg sweep and a big piledriver. The ending gets...weird. Bret has Savage in the Sharpshooter, but doesn't have it totally sunk in, so when Elizabeth runs out, Savage powers up and gets Bret in a Sharpshooter of his own. At this point, Liz runs into the ring and argues with Piper for no really adequately explained reason, which leads to Savage breaking the hold, and getting low-blowed by Bret. Bret would then attack Piper from behind with knux (which he later planted on Savage), allowing Hogan to run out, take out Savage's other leg, and when Piper comes to, Savage is back in the Sharpshooter and is forced to tap. Liz, what the hell were you doing? I mean, it's late-90's WCW. She might have been setting up a heel turn, but I can't be expected to keep up with that shit. Still, really good match, and Hogan sneakily crawling away from the ring afterwords was amusing.
Randy Savage vs. Ron Garvin (ICW, 1982/83)
Requested by Tim Evans
So, what did I write about the match during the 80's Memphis Project, again?
"I know this isn't a huge revelation or anything, but damn, was Garvin not afraid to kick a dude's ass or what? Potential top 30 pick."
Well, that's not very enlightening. And where did I actually end up putting this on my ballot....#22? Wow, that's surprising. Usually "potential top 30 pick" coming from me just means "it probably won't be in my bottom third", but this was one of the few that held up. Anyway, what I wrote wasn't especially informative, but it sums up my thoughts on this match pretty well. Garvin kicked Savage's ass. A lot. And it was awesome. The early jockeying for position was pretty cool, too, with the dueling front facelocks and Garvin's super-smooth looking schoolboy, but then Ronnie starts laying in the shots, and that's when shit gets real. All these punches and kneedrops and stomps...no wonder the Garvin stomp developed. This dude's stomp was unreal. Are there still people who think the Garvin stomp was a stupid move? Cause those motherfuckers were dumb as shit. Garvin lays in everything full force, and it rules. Savage, meanwhile, eats the beating like a man, bleeding, selling it great, and taking some nasty bumps into the cage. His comeback has him throwing some hard shots of his own, and both guys just come off as total badasses. Fun finishing stretch with ref George Weingroff (I've heard of blind refs, but this is ridiculous) getting bumped just long enough for Garvin to steal his belt, and both guys get to make use of it. Right now, I'm feeling like if I redid my Memphis ballot, this probably would drop, but hell if I know how much. It's still an excellent match, regardless. The quality of the link does this no justice. If you don't have one already, hit up Will about the Memphis set, because it is solid gold.
Daisuke Sekimoto & Yuji Okabayashi vs. Manabu Soya & Seiya Sanada (AJPW, 3/21/2011)
Requested by ダニエル
OK, so Seki & Oka vs. Soya & Friends is a match-up that's gone one for two for me so far. To be fair, the one I didn't like is empirically great, and I only bashed it because I bash everything that is highly praised, but that's besides the point. The important thing is that I've seen a good take on this match, and I've seen a bad take on this match, so this one could've split either way for me. And....I hated it. Actually, "hate" is a strong term. This match had it's moments, moreso than their February match. But there was also more actively bad than that match, and ranking the three, I feel comfortable putting this last. There isn't a lot of new criticism to offer that you can't find in my reviews of the other two reviews (and other recent-ish puro reviews, since those problems are emblematic of the genre as a whole right now), so en lieu of a traditional review, here's a list of things you can blame for my dislike of what very well may have been another empirically great match.
Blame it on Daisuke Sekimoto.
I've reviewed a disproportionately large number of Sekimoto matches here, and I think I've told the same story in all of them. The relevant part is that I used to not like him, and now I do. In the February match, he was the guy doing the most to keep me from totally hating it, and in the April match, he was a big part of why I totally loved it. I put my faith in him twice, and he rewarded that decision twice. In March, however, he comes up short. This really felt like a regressive performance for him, like this was more of the lame old Sekimoto of a few years ago than the more dynamic wrestler who's developed recently. In matches built around beefy guys hitting each other a lot, Sekimoto can usually be counted upon to be both beefy and hard-hitting, but his offense really lacked it's usual punch, and he just came off as another guy going through the motions. I will give him this much: he busted out a tope near the end of the match that totally caught me by surprise, and I dug that. He wasn't terrible, he wasn't even the worst guy in the match, it's just that he's usually the most reliable, and this time, I couldn't rely on him.
Blame it on Manabu Soya.
He was the worst guy in this match. Without the great layout of the April match to guide him, he's still stuck in February's "let's put on a show" mode, more blatantly than anyone else. And at least in the February match he ate offense really well. Here, with the Big Japan guys falling down on the job offense-wise, he's not going to be bothered to make their stuff look any better. MORE FOREARM EXCHANGES RARRRRRR!!!!
Blame it on Ryota Hama.
Seeing a guy actually dedicated to having a good wrestling match rather than a shitty simulation of what a good wrestling match is supposed to look like kinda spoils me here. I mean, not that I was willing to accept the substitute to begin with, but Hama's presence in the April match makes a world of difference, and gives me all the more reason not to waste my time on this.
In spite of the above, don't blame it on Seiya Sanada.
He's actually the best thing about this match. Noticeably smaller than the three other sides of beef in the ring, he seems to realize he can do something different with his role in the match and runs with it, being all energetic on offense and taking big bumps off of the Big Japan team's power moves. For that matter, don't blame Okabayashi for this, either. He doesn't have a great showing here or anything, but he doesn't embarrass himself like he did in the February match, either. His double team spots with Sekimoto like the double rack and the double German were neat, and I liked him throwing around Sanada a bunch. I think if they had booked a ten-minute Sanada/Okabayashi singles match here instead of a 32-minute tag, I probably would've dug that.
Blame it on the booking.
Seriously, who was the genius who thought it was a good idea to give this turd 32 minutes? I don't care how much Sekimoto has improved, he does not have 32 minutes of material, and neither do any of these other guys, and believe me, it shows. It's not surprising that they failed to book an epic here, but they even failed to book a wannabe epic. There's a little sense of build here, but not much, and this match just takes a very long time to say very, very little. If Punk vs. Hero spent 90 minutes doing what could have been done in 30, this spent 32 minutes doing what could have been done in three, and that feels like a far bigger crime. The finishing stretch is pretty uninspired, too. Normally, this is the kind of match that will drive me crazy with a shitty, overblown, unearned "epic" final stretch, but here, they switch it up and give me a stretch run so unremarkable that it feels wrong to even call it a stretch run. Again, very little sense of build, and you'd think in 40 minutes they'd have built to something. Instead, the match ends the same way it started: blandly.
Blame it on the crowd.
Outside of Cena/Punk from Money in the Bank, the crowd for the April match might have been the hottest crowd I've seen for a wrestling match in 2011. Again, maybe this spoils me a bit, and I don't expect every match I watch to have a crowd that hot, but man was this crowd every bit as bored as I was by this or what? Dedicate 32 minutes to these guys, and the crowd really doesn't treat it any differently than any other undercard match. Polite applause, scattered bits of cheering for the cool parts...that's it. I don't need a crowd telling me to care about a good match, but they certainly weren't encouraging me to care about this.
Blame me for watching these out of order.
So in the April match, I made note of this bit:
"Sekimoto and Soya grabs each other by the hair, and Soya manages to push Sekimoto in the corner. Neither man will break, and Kyohei Wada actually has to step in between them, and when he can't break them up on his own, Okabayashi comes in to pull his tag partner off of Soya. Then, when Kyohei is admonishing Sekimoto, Soya pushes him aside and bum rushes Sekimoto."
It's a great "flip the switch" moment, signifying the match kicking into a higher gear than it's predecessors. Well, it turns out they did it first here, only without the ref shoving and bum rushing, and I have to ask myself, is the fact that this spot looks forced and completely out of place here because I had already seen it in the April match, or is it because that match really did it that much better and got that much more mileage out of it? I'm pretty sure it's the latter, but I'll throw it out there for consideration.
Blame it on Savage, Hart, and Garvin.
If you're going to do 21st century strike exchange-heavy fighting spirit puro bullshit, at least lay that shit in. You're giving me literally nothing else. This was downright tame, and the fact that I'm watching it in the shadow of two matches where guys really looked like they were kicking each other's asses, that's not good.
Blame it on the rain.
OK, it's not actually raining, but the weather is pretty dreary, and I think my seasonal affective disorder is starting to creep in. I'm sure that didn't help, but I'm guessing this stunk regardless.
Kendo Nagasaki vs. Greg Valentine (BJW, 7/6/1995)
Requested by Cobra Commander
Well, that's something I wasn't really ever expecting to see. Then again, it's not like Valentine hadn't been in his share of bloody brawls before this one. Yes, folks, this is Greg "The Hammer" Valentine circa 1995 working a Japanese Death Match. Specifically, it's a no-rope barbed wire match, which is actually pretty tame by '95 Big Japan standards, but still not necessarily something I expected The Hammer to show up in. Still, Valentine could go pretty late into his career, and I think he acquits himself fine here. The bigger question mark is Nagasaki, whom I have never really gone out of my way to see before. My findings are...inconclusive. The guy throws hands really well and bleeds a ton. His crowd brawling is really fun, dumping chairs and tables onto Valentine's head. But when he's not on offense, his selling can create some problems. There's a lot of him lying around on the mat, not so much selling as awkwardly looking around for the next move he has to take. There's a Valentine elbowdrop with an extended windup that's especially frustrating. Still, the rest of the match is an entertaining brawl. It passes my first major test for barbed-wire matches - do wrestlers suddenly gain the ability to resist Irish whips - with flying colors, as they forego that move entirely and mostly try to just push each other into the wire. Also, Greg taking it to the mat early to avoid dealing with the wire altogether was a lot of fun. And the finishing stretch, built around a race to piledrive your opponent onto the chair, was brutal and well-executed, with the actual piledriver finish being fittingly nasty. All in all, I got a kick out of this despite it's more flawed moments.
Kengo Mashimo vs. YOSHIYA (K-Dojo, 6/12/2008)
Requested by Brandon-E
Somebody who was watching Kaientai Dojo in this period more regularly than I is going to have to explain YOSHIYA to me, because as it stands, I don't know that I'm really equipped to review this properly. I guess the big question is is this guy a comedy act, or am I actually supposed to take this seriously. Because if he's a comedy act...well, he's not an especially funny one, but the match at least makes sense. If not, he is a spectacularly shitty wrestler who kills this thing dead within seconds of it getting out of the gate. Basically, he is a really schlubby looking guy who gets booked as a super-powered badass, and it just takes me out of the match immediately. And I do mean immediately - the first spot of the match is a really overblown test of strength that YOSHIYA wins handily despite Mashimo being built like a brick shithouse and YOSHIYA being built like me if I let myself go a bit more. And there's a lot more nonsense where that came from. He also sells really weirdly. I don't know if I can properly describe it. When Mashimo hits him, he sort of groans loudly and starts staggering a little and staring wide-eyed off into space. Mashimo does look really good here, and at this point, he really strikes me as someone who had all the tools, but just needed actual good opponents to use them against, and he sure as Hell wasn't getting that here. I'll give YOSHIYA this much: he did work really stiff here. At least they gave the asskicker gimmick to a guy who could actually kick ass convincingly. But everything else about it...yeah, I'm not entirely sure this isn't just some joke that I'm not getting.
Labels: Bret Hart, Daisuke Sekimoto, Greg Valentine, Kendo Nagasaki, Kengo Mashimo, Manabu Soya, Randy Savage, Ronnie Garvin, Seiya Sanada, SLL's All-Request Friday Night, WCW, YOSHIYA, Yuji Okabayashi
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