The Great 16 Man WWF Raw Battle Royal of 2/15/93

16 Man Battle Royal WWF Raw 2/15/93

ER: I've watched this battle royal a couple of times now and I think it's grown into a really fantastic one. I was initially disappointed, as it's the last appearance we have of Berzerker (and his only appearance in a match on Raw), and I'll always be at least a little bit butt-chapped over not getting Berzerker all over these early episodes of Raw. Once I was able to emotionally move past that fact, I was able to enjoy this battle royal for the very real joys within. This is a very active battle royal with some pairings that we never got to see in actual singles matches, a cool mix of a few top guys (Razor, Michaels, Tatanka) and undercarders, painful elimination bumps, and hard work. Razor, Michaels, and Tito gave standout performances, with Tito lasting as a surprise final four, Razor actively punching his way through the entire match, and Michaels punching and bumping and stooging across all of it. Every time I saw Razor in the background he was in a punch out with someone new, either decking Kim Chee right across the jaw, getting lifted into a choke by Typhoon, then turning around and throwing his long right hands to punch anyone close. Michaels throws great jabs throughout (teeing off on Tatanka in the corner) and bumps bigger the longer it goes, capping everything off with a ton of showmanship leading up to his elimination. 

Berzerker is really important to a battle royal, as he's constant motion and never gets stuck just trying to lift someone's leg over a rope. This man has no loyalties (though he does assist heels when approaching a babyface and heel locked in combat) and is endlessly entertaining as he constantly stomps across the ring looking for someone to clobber. Even though he was eliminated sadly early by Kamala, Berzerker was involved in a couple of great bits: Tito leapt off the middle turnbuckle to punch Berzerker in the face (Berzerker held in place), and Berzerker sold it by backpedaling all the way across the ring while punching at the sky; when Owen Hart jumps onto Berzerker's back with a sleeper, Berzerker calmly walks to the nearest set of ropes and dumps Owen right over his head to the floor. I was also wildly entertained by Steve Lombardi's appearance as Kim Chee. The Kim Chee persona plays better to Lombardi's strengths than Brooklyn Brawler does. In this role Kim Chee was mostly just trying to avoid Kamala, and his whole time in the match was spent running away from him, directly into someone else's attack. It all culminated in Kamala chasing Kim Chee through the crowd and into the balcony of the Manhattan Center, which was an awesome visual, spotlight following them as they crawl over chairs and run through the loge seating. 

Bob Backlund was his usual extremely annoying battle royal self, constantly spider monkeying himself on the ropes with his butt sticking out, always a hard man to eliminate. Koko got tossed high over the ropes by Michaels, Damian DeMento got wrecked by Typhoon (also a guy with a fun battle royal performance, digging his fingers into peoples' mouth and eyes while they were holding onto ropes), Berzerker took an expectedly big bump to elimination, Typhoon was a big crashing wave hitting the apron and ring steps on his way to the floor, and the Shawn Michaels elimination was spectacular. The match came down to a final four of Razor, Tatanka, Michaels, and Tito. Razor rolls out of the ring after Tito nails him with the flying forearm, leaving Tatanka and Tito to run wild on Michaels. Michaels gets run back and forth across the ring, post to post, taking those "leap to middle buckle and corkscrew senton the mat" bumps to greater effect with each one. I kept expecting him to comeback and at least dupe Tito into getting thrown out, but I loved how it was just two good babyfaces knocking an asshole heel senseless until they threw him far over the top rope to eliminate him. 

There was a great pre-match angle where they said the 16 Man Battle Royal got changed to a 15 Man Battle Royal because all 15 wrestlers refused to participate in a battle royal with Giant Gonzalez. It was a smart move to protect Gonzalez (and everyone else), but a stupid move in that it did not give us any Berzerker/Gonzalez interaction, or Kamala/Gonzalez; because of that decision we never got to see Iron Mike Sharpe make a dumb face as he backed away from Giant Gonzalez, and we should have been upset. But I liked how they did use Gonzalez, having him come out to ambush and eliminate both Tatanka and Tito, giving Razor the win by sheer luck of him being outside the ring when the fur suit carnage happened.  Tito splatted hard to the mat, a great battle royal effort ended with an unforgiving back bump. Gonzalez looks massive, Razor's mullet de-greased and fluffed out behind him as he celebrates his win, hopping in place repeatedly while his thumbs point squarely to his chest. 

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An Exhaustingly Exhaustive Review of WWF Royal Rumble 1/24/93, Pt. 2

Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon

ER: Another great match. Perhaps too long, but still a great match. The first 75 minutes of the show is one of the best 75 minute stretches of wrestling you'll find in any era of WWF. A couple pieces could have been placed differently, and the crowd gets weirdly restless in the middle (maybe burned out by too many closely strung together nearfalls? I don't know). This starts with a great opening punch exchange, and Razor never got enough credit at the time for his punches. I'm not sure who else could even make the claim to a better whipping right hand in this era, or any era. Razor's punch doesn't allow much wiggle room and requires a lot of moving parts, and I don't know who threw a similar punch better. Also, Razor and Bret are both great stomp punchers. Razor throws those long rights, whips Bret hard into the turnbuckle, and Bret takes just a classic back first bump into them, making it look almost as violent as his classic chest first bump always looks.  

Hart takes over by working over Razor's leg, kicking it out from under him a few times while holding onto his other leg, slamming it into the ringpost, and it's the only part of the match that feels incomplete or misplaced. It never really leads anywhere, Razor doesn't sell the knee, and I don't think you really needed a leg work segment to set up the Sharpshooter finish 12 minutes later. You can just win with the Sharpshooter, you don't need leg work. Now Razor working over Bret's ribs is much more interesting, and it starts with Razor reversing an Irish whip by jamming a kitchen sink knee into things, then whips Hart low into the corner. Bret slides across the mat ribs first and gets wrapped around the ringpost, and the ribs give Razor a cool focal point for the rest of the match. We DO get Bret going hard chest first to the buckles and we realize, yes, the Bret chest first turnbuckle bump IS the definitive violent corner bump. This particular one is one of Bret's best versions, and think of how many matches that covers. I don't know how Bret's arms didn't go completely numb after hitting the buckles. He ran full speed into them like he couldn't see them and had no idea they were there, and then fell backwards, rigid, to the mat. Most match finishes do not look as nasty as Bret running into the buckles. 

We get a lot of Razor working on Bret with his abdominal stretch, stomps, a stiff shoulderblock, and his always nice fallaway slam. Bret's big comeback from all of that is big, with Razor taking a high  backdrop bump to the floor and then Hart nailing a full body tope (with a couple of sneaky mounted punches thrown in after the landing). They work in a lot of momentum shifts down the stretch, which were all handled well but might have benefitted from one or two of them being dropped. Still, it lead to some classics, including proof that Bret might be the only person who can make the jump off the middle buckle into someone's boot actually look damaging and not silly, and the way he crumbles after hitting it is an incredible sell. It also helps that he hits his Hitman elbow off the middle rope so actually has a reason to be leaping off it into a boot in the first place. The match really should have ended with Bret wriggling out of what surely would have been a match finishing Razor's Edge to trap Razor with a backslide. Nothing that came after was necessary, and the finishing itself came off a little clunky (even with Razor grabbing onto the ropes and Earl Hebner's pant leg to desperately stop the Sharpshooter. Pulling a backslide out of the jaws of a Razor's Edge would have kept Razor stronger, and the backslide looked like a finish (most of the crowd bit hard at the late kickout). Still, even with my criticisms this felt like the 2nd best match on a card with four strong matches. 

Lex Luger debuts as Narcissus in an awkward segment where really nothing at all works. They have the trifold mirror set up in the entrance way, but Luger's gear covers up a lot of his body so you can't even see what all the fuss is about. And there IS fuss. Luger poses to an obstructed view while Heenan lavishes such praise over his body that it nearly approaches Power and Glory workout video levels of uncomfortable. My favorite part was when Heenan drooled over Luger's thighs. "Yes! Look at yourself! Enjoy yourself, Narcissus! Look at his thighs!!!"

The Rumble Match

This is a really really good Rumble, with the only flaw being that it is TOO LONG. It has a great first half and almost felt like a love letter to fans of the territories, as it was front-loaded with several different world and regional champs and that early star power felt big. Within the first 10 entrants we had Flair, Backlund, Dibiase, Lawler, Tenryu and Perfect. Flair and Backlund start it off, and neither Monsoon or Heenan talk about what a historic showdown it legitimately was. When you think of early 80s WWF champ, you think Backlund; When you think of early 80s NWA champ, you think Flair. As best I know, this is the only recorded footage of these two facing each other. There was an early 80s "title unification" match at the Omni but I don't think footage of that was ever shown on TV. So you get a fairly decent chunk of a Flair/Backlund match, years later than you would have wanted it, but they work it like an actual match (as opposed to spending the time trying to lift a guy's leg over the ropes). Papa Shango interrupts as the 3rd entrant but gets disposed of immediately, so we get a 4 minute Backlund/Flair match, and that's pretty neat. Now, Backlund was in this Rumble for over an hour, but I thought he looked pretty bad during at least his first half hour, and 1993 Backlund had a ton of weird timing issues. It often felt like Backlund was purposely trying to throw off his opponents' timing during this run, but he doesn't seem the type to do that. 

The two major standouts of this Rumble are Flair and Lawler. They're each in for just 15-20 minutes but their activity and execution and sheer knowledge of how to work a great Rumble is unparalleled. Flair must have had a running bet to see how many eye pokes he could fit in to his run, as he cuts off every single spot with an eye poke and it's incredible. My favorite was right after Max Moon came in and hit a fiery babyface sequence, and Flair tapped him on the shoulder and poked him in the eyes before just walking off. Lawler looked amazing during his whole run, punching everyone in sight and selling even better, getting into battles with guys we never got to see him battle (like Lawler/Backlund, or Lawler/TENRYU! Just the idea of a Lawler/Tenryu singles match makes me angry that they were even in the same ring and it didn't happen). Lawler has an awesome moment with Max Moon, where Max hits his nice corner spinning heel kick on Lawler, goes for it again and eats a huge backdrop bump to the floor. Huge bumps to the floor were one of the great things about this Rumble as I'd say 2/3 of the eliminations were dangerous bumps or bad landings, and that's an insanely high percentage. Also, Lawler has these incredible lowrider car show screen printed tights. Perfect targets Flair and Lawler and anything those three do with and against each other is gold, and if you want to talk about disgusting eliminations then you have to talk about Lawler and Perfect. 

Lawler takes the highest elimination bump of the match, getting launched by Perfect, and then immediately cashes in that receipt. Dibiase and Koko start shoving Perfect over, and Lawler begins yanking him by the head, really making it look like Perfect was desperately trying to hold on to that bottom rope, turning it into a really violent elimination. Referees are trying to pull Lawler away, guys in the ring are shoving Perfect, and Perfect hangs on to the bottom rope as long as humanly possible. It's, ahem, perfect. Knobbs, Skinner, and Samu have really memorable 3 minute runs, and you need a few high end crash and burn guys to make a Rumble good. Knobbs got a huge crowd reaction and had a real fired up run, Skinner came in like a dangerous potato throwing asshole, and Samu came in throwing headbutts. They all took tremendous bumps to elimination, with Samu's maybe the most dangerous. Undertaker had come out midway through (hilariously right as Lawler was headed back through the curtain, and Lawler gives Undertaker a wide berth) and he eliminates Samu by setting him on the top rope and shoving him hard, Samu flipping onto the apron on his head before going to the floor. Berzerker was fun during his 5 minutes, but with a guy who can eat up that much of the ring you hope for more than 5 minutes. I loved how, when Berzerker entered the ring, he went around the ring literally hitting every single person in the match. He didn't focus on anyone (until following Backlund to the floor and hitting him with a chair) but instead just stomped and clubbed his way through everyone. Koko also had a good run, building off 10 year feuds by going after Lawler while gleefully hiking up his gigantic High Energy windbreaker pants. 

The halves of the match are really clearly divided, as the ring needs to be fully cleared so Giant Gonzalez can debut and attack the Undertaker. I liked the Gonzalez debut, even though they never actually learned how to film him. When a guy is *actually* 8 feet tall, you don't need to film him from the floor up. He's the tallest man in pro wrestling history! Show him from far away so you can see how much larger he is than anything else in the arena! When you shoot him ground up it just makes him look like a normal guy, albeit a normal guy wearing a fur and muscle suit.  The problem is, since you had to clear the ring for that angle, and you front loaded the Rumble with most of the best workers, you're left with IRS, Damien DeMento, and Backlund when the smoke clears. It takes quite awhile to build any of that lost momentum back, with even a Natural Disasters Explode moment feeling tepid. Earthquake went right after Typhoon with no explanation, eliminated him, and then it was never mentioned again (Earthquake was gone at the end of the month and worked WAR for the rest of the year). 

Carlos Colon comes out fairly late, but it's really weird because he clearly belonged in the first half of this when it felt like they were legitimately trying to bring in a ton of regional champs. What would Carlos Colon even mean to a 1993 WWF audience? Also, you better believe Monsoon referred to the 45 year old Colon as a youngster after both he and Heenan had spent the entire match using Backlund's age 43 as a negative against him.  I would love a show of hands at the Arco Arena to find out how many in attendance knew anything about Carlos Colon. They had him announced for the Rumble several weeks before the match, but had only showed a picture of him during Mean Gene's Rumble previews, no footage or anything. It would have been far more valuable to see Colon throwing punches and headbutts at Lawler, Tenryu, and Flair; instead we get to see a lot of Colon against Damien DeMento, which is weird! Tatanka was by far the most exciting worker of the 2nd half of this, and his chops in the corner were thrown with more force than any Flair chop. 

Bob Backlund is 28th elimination, going past the hour mark and getting the most mixed reaction of the match. For the first half hour the crowd audibly hated him, but the longer he stayed in the more the crowd seemed to be pulling for him. When he was eliminated I genuinely could not tell if the loud reaction was applause for him making it that far, or relief that Backlund was not going to be in the main event of WrestleMania. The finish run is Macho Man vs. Yokozuna, which was better than I remembered, but the execution of the finish is as bad as I remembered. They work a 5 minute singles match as the final two, and it's good. Savage gets Yokozuna reeling with axe handles, Yokozuna hits a great thrust kick, Savage fights back, and eventually hits the big elbow. And then Savage pins Yokozuna...in the Rumble...and Yoko kicks out, sending Savage over the top to the floor. I kinda get it, I guess? The pinfall attempt just looks stupid and makes Savage look like a total dweeb, but I guess I can buy that the two of them had been one on one so long at the end that Savage went into Singles Match Mode. But that elimination? One man just cannot press a man from his back, over the top rope, and make it look like anything other than a man jumping over the top rope. Savage does as well as possible in that situation, but surely we could have figured out a better way for Yokozuna to eliminate Macho Man. This Rumble is way too long and dips hard for a bit in the middle, but that first half has some of the best work in Royal Rumble Match history and that alone makes this one of the best Rumbles, warts and all. 

This feels like one of the best WWF PPVs and it's weird that it doesn't get discussed as such. I thought every match was a varying degree of great, with the Rumble Match itself being too long and having too much deadweight but still succeeding due to a lot of hard work from the entrants. Lawler, Flair, Perfect, Dibiase, and several guys who were only in for 3 minutes all had great showings, and it had some of the nastiest elimination bumps of any Rumble. The other 4 matches are great in their specific way, and I think it's important that they all accomplished something very different, all felt very different. The opening tag is one of the great WWF tags of the 90s, Michaels/Jannetty had a better match at a house show the day before (and a much better match a few months later on Raw) but still delivered here, the big boys fight was fast paced and fun, and Hart/Razor gave us a Bret singles match that we rarely saw (they had two PPV matches and to my knowledge no other singles matches that made tape). This was a great show. Every single match is recommended. 

Best Matches: 

1. Beverly Brothers vs. Steiners

2. Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon

3. Big Boss Man vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

4. The Rumble Match

5. Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

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Berzerker Tried Blue Apron. What Happened Next Will SHOCK You!

48. Berzerker vs. Koko B. Ware - WWF 7/21/91

I had been trying to do this Berzerker project chronologically, but I was hoping there would be matches I hadn't noticed, or didn't know existed, that would crop up after I had "passed" them. So far, this is the only one, but it was one I was hoping made tape. Apparently this match only aired on a Canadian TV broadcast. It was taped in Canada, but this could also mean that WWF thought Vikings may have also come from Canada so were targeting that market. Or, they were targeting the niche Canadian POC ornithologist market. That market can be a tough one to crack, but brother they SPEND. Koko really wasn't getting any TV singles matches at this point, and it's kind of a wonder he stuck around on the roster long enough to land in High Energy the next year. If you look at what he was up to during '91, you would have expected him to be released at literally any point. 

But this match is super fun. Berzerker cared not about card placement when he worked guys, and Koko gets a good run during this, while Berzerker breaks out some things I haven't seen in any other match of his. Berzerker was pretty generous in this one (a running theme we've now seen a lot), doing his crazy bump to the floor off a Koko dropkick, and letting Koko get in his cool missile dropkick where he lands on his feet (which still feels like a wild spot to me). He worked in the splits bump (even though it took them longer to get on the same page, as Koko kept kicking at the wrong time. You gotta kick in a leg sweep way, and Koko didn't seem to be getting that at first). Berzerker put a pretty good mauling on Koko, showing off with his own high dropkick, locked on an absolutely brutal cravate, and won with a disgusting hotshot that really should have been his regular finisher. His cravat is rarely used but always looks awesome, and this one is probably the best one he ever did: One hand is smothering Koko's mouth while the top hand is twisting and pressing down, looks like something surly Kawada would do to a young punk. The cravat should have been a regular part of his moveset, with him twisting that head and HUSSing. And that hotshot? Fucking forget about it. Koko died. Berzerker caught him in a bearhug and just fell backwards into the ropes, and I'm surprised all three ropes didn't just snap under the weight of Koko's neck being forced down through them. The bump was so brutal, that Koko disappeared, only to emerge months later as a man with a sudden proclivity for baggy, checkered chiffon genie pants. Sad.

49. 40 Man Battle Royal - WWF Prime Time Wrestling 7/6/92

The situation in my own life, surrounding this match, could not have been any better, and I don't actually think it's possible for anybody else to enjoy it as much as I did. The stars aligned perfectly. I had several friends over, we had been playing video games, having drinks, eating snacks, some of us had special cookies, and the mood was fun. My pal Josh said he was in the mood for some 1992 WWF Prime Time. You know, that thing when your friend requests to watch syndicated 1992 professional wrestling? That thing. That may seem like an odd mood to be in, to some of you, but that mood is a familiar one for Josh. He adores 1991-1993 WWF/WCW. In fact, this Berzerker project lines up pretty exactly with his Liam Neeson-like specific set of skills. So yeah, the mood in the room was perfect. We each made our predictions, Tim chose Bulldog, Josh chose Bret, Charlie chose the Nasty Boys, and I naturally put my money where my mouth was and bet on Berzerker to take it all...

It's a short battle royal, just 10 minutes or so, but it's so good!! Not only does Berzerker win, but he puts in an amazing battle royal performance. What is second most notable, is that this is probably the best WWF performance from Skinner Steve Keirn (I should watch the Bret singles match as it's been literal decades since I've seen it). Now, half the entrants in this are jobbers, and they're all the first to go. Berzerker stays on the floor while the ring was full, and stomps around tearing up and eating signs from fans while 39 other guys are fighting in the ring. The first elimination is Berzerker just reaching up from the floor and pulling a jobber out over the top, then kicking his ass into the aisles. Kerry Von Erich then spends a minute hip tossing a half dozen other jobbers over the top, and Berzerker just waits on the floor to stomp on them right after they get eliminated! So everyone is still in the ring, and Berzerker is just meanly stomping eliminated jobbers in the back of the head and chopping them down the aisle. 

Once others start getting eliminated you notice how nasty some of the eliminations are: Kato takes a huge backdrop to elimination; the Beverly Brothers sacrifice themselves just to take out Bret, looking like they are shoot eliminating him as they yank hard on his legs and violently tug him to the floor; Berzerker gives Koko a mammoth backdrop to the floor to eliminate him. But then shit gets REAL when it's down to Skinner, Berzerker, Bulldog and Kerry von Erich. Skinner does a sick eye rake on Bulldog and Skinner/Berzerker team up to try to eliminate him, while KVE tries to pull Bulldog back in. Berzerker and KVE pull each other away and start going at it, leaving Skinner to eliminate Bulldog on his own. And this elimination HAS TO BE the crown jewel of Steve Keirn's WWF stint. Bulldog is desperately hanging on, and Skinner stomps the shit out of him, then holds onto the top rope with both hands to get leverage to push Bulldog out with his legs. Bulldog looks like he's legit trying to hold on but Skinner gets to just dominate him all the way to the floor. The entire room flipped out over that one. Shit was real. 

How tremendous is a final 3 of Berzerker, Kerry von Erich, and Skinner!?!? KVE valiantly fights them off, but Berzerker and Skinner attack with eye rakes and back rakes!! Skinner throws tons of stiff clubbing shots to KVE, really soaking in this final 3 appearance. KVE ducks a shot and Berzerker almost accidentally gets eliminated by Skinner, but then Keirn says fuck it and just tries to eliminate Berzerker! He survives, and then KVE and Skinner start fighting near the ropes, which is when Josh yelled "BERZERKER IS GOING TO ELIMINATE THEM BOTH!!!" By this point, everybody else's picks had been eliminated, and EVERYONE knew how much I'd been working on my Berzerker project. So the room was going wild for Berzerker, and when he won the bomb just went off. The whole room was flipping out. It felt like we all won that battle royal. There was literally no other day in my 36 years on earth that would have been a better time to watch this battle royal. It was perfection.

50. Berzerker/Papa Shango vs. Undertaker/Ultimate Warrior - 7/12/92

I really really liked this. It was pretty much just what you would want from this match. It was a fast 8 minutes, which meant that nobody got exposed (anybody know what is considered the best Shango/Kama/Godfather match? I can't recall ever seeing a match with him and thinking "now THAT'S a keeper", but they must exist, right?), and everybody could go go go, and they did. Berzerker/Warrior was a genuinely fun match up, and Warrior busted ass in this, as did Berzerker (I guess I had assumed that would happen though). Berzerker bumped all around for Warrior as if he was Savage or Flair, and Warrior ate a big boot really nicely. Shango and Taker were more background characters but the money was in the UW/Zerk showdowns. Another match where you can say with no argument that Berzerker worked harder than anybody else in the ring, really a super generous opponent. Considering 3 of these guys (well, really 4) weren't considered "workrate legends" during this time, this match was a blast.

"My Berzerker is at top of the WWF. He will take any opponent in ring and crush and make them suffer, including YOU Undertaker!" ~Mr. Fuji

"The people know! Now there's no doubt in the peoples' minds who the toughest wrestler in the World Wrestling Federation is! Well Undertaker, you had a taste of the Berzerker! Undertaker, how does it feel to get your cold, stinkin', white, ugly flesh beaten, dragged out and kicked on?? The Berzerker will not, cannot, and WON'T be stopped! Huss! Huss!" ~Berzerker

Undertaker vs. Bruce Mitchell ends quickly, but Undertaker doesn't get much time to celebrate as Berzerker comes stalking down the aisle. Paul Bearer is caught on the ring steps, and Mr. Fuji throws salt in his eyes! Bearer takes a sick backwards bump off the steps , rolling over and doing an awesome tumble. Fuji grabs the urn, and Undertaker grabs Fuji, so Berzerker rushes in to club Taker. Taker chokes Berzerker and Fuji hits him with a cane, which does not faze Undertaker, then Berzerkers throws salt into Taker's eyes!! They use it as a smoke screen to escape down the aisle.

51. Berzerker vs. Jason Knight - Superstars 7/20/92

Jason Knight has that sick ombre high top fade mullet. He looks like Brian Bosworth crossed with Buff Bagwell. He bumps nicely for Berzerker, springing back across the ring after Berzerker chokes him in the ropes. The rest is as you would expect. But this match is important because it is the RETURN of Berzerker throwing his opponent to the floor to win! Knight bumps it painfully by landing harder on one leg than the other.

52. Berzerker/Ric Flair vs. Undertaker/Randy Savage - 7/21/92

Look at this lineup right here! As far as I can tell this never aired on American TV, and it's all just weird. This is during Savage's reign as champ, but he's never mentioned as the champ or shown wearing the belt. Most of his time post WMVIII was spent wrestling Flair on house show runs in rematches, with a couple neat sounding matches that never made tape (or are on a Coliseum video I don't know about) mixed in. I'd love to see World Champ Savage vs. Kamala. You look at the names in this tag, and one of them is not like the other. Also of note, is that Berzerker is larger than the Undertaker, and this may be the smallest I've ever seen Savage. This was before the Zahorian steroid trial, but Savage just looked super tiny, you know, compared to pro wrestling physiques, and compared to his prior physiques. And for a long match, there really isn't a whole lot of Berzerker, or a whole lot of anything. This was almost a "night off" house show match, with oodles of charm just due to the star power of the workers, but not a lot of actual work. It IS a tremendous Flair show, and actually made me want to go back and see a lot more WWF Flair matches. The way he picks on Savage and the way he stooges for Undertaker are classic. Undertaker breaks out a couple of really great gorilla press slams, and I LOVE a great gorilla press slam. Sadly Berzerker doesn't get to do much, although he does take another one of his splits bumps, and is obviously in there to take a pin (after a nice Tombstone/Macho Man elbow combo, which is actually a nice thing to be pinned by as it showed the team thought they needed to pull out both moves to keep him down). An amusing match, and an excellent Flair performance, but something that could have been so much more.


COMPLETE & ACCURATE BERZERKER!

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What Happened to Berzerker? We Can't Look Away! The New Look is Mesmerizing...

23. Berzerker vs. Bob Smedley - Prime Time Wrestling 10/1/91

Smedley is Bobby Blaze, using a name that is more amusing, and decidedly less "1991" than Blaze. We were an American Gladiator loving people in 1991. Names like Blaze made sense and felt safe to us. He leans nicely into kicks and snaps back from them on the bump. This could have been a really fun competitive match just a few years later. This was not that.

24. Berzerker vs. Eric Freedom - Superstars 10/21/91

Freedom looks EXACTLY like Todd Pettengill, when Pettengill had a mullet. He also has bushy armpit hair. IMPORTANT: He is the smallest wrestler that Berzerker has faced thus far. He is similar in size to Scott Taylor, but I think Freedom is smaller. Freedom ain't free, though, and Berzerker stiffs him up. Freedom bumps like a maniac, looking and bumping similar to this era Sean Waltman. After getting whipped hard into the buckles and bumping great off it, Lord Alfred cackles about how he's probably paralyzed. He keeps laughing. He's laughing really hard, at his own comment that Eric Freedom is paralyzed. Berzeker mixes up his move order a little bit, dropping Freedom with the falling slam, immediately hitting the big legdrop, then following right up with the kneedrop. I dug the combo. Freedom takes a great rolling bump after getting tossed to the floor. Supposedly this guy still works, wouldn't mind seeing some of this 90s work.

25. Berzerker vs. Bret Hart - MSG 10/28/91

They had another match a year later that was really disappointing, really short, and maybe the least giving Bret Hart match of the 90s. Hart worked competitive matches with every single member of the roster so it was a bummer to see such a non-match against Berzerker. Thankfully I found this one from MSG, which was fleshed out and really good. It goes a bit differently than I expected, with Hart starting out going toe to toe and really throwing everything at Berzerker. Berzerker's three bumps to the floor all came consecutively, with Hart sending him to the floor with a dropkick, clothesline and then an atomic drop. Berzerker would bump over the top, then immediately rush back into the ring and get knocked over again. It was great. His 4th time rushing into the ring he just dives at Bret and catches him with a headbutt to the stomach. And from there we get the Berzerker control segment which I've really come to enjoy. He throws lots of clubbing forearms, big slams, big boots, a perfect piledriver, and he smartly gives Bret hope spots off of his own missed offense. 

He misses a big kneedrop that allows Bret to land a couple shots, and later he misses a weird and ambitious dropkick from the middle rope, while Bret Hart is lying down. He clearly wasn't going for a leg drop, it was like he wanted to dropkick Bret's face from the middle rope. When Bret does come back it's good, as we get a couple convincing roll ups, Berzerker doing his awesome splits bump off leg kicks so Bret can set up the Sharpshooter (it's a really fun bump, but this was easily the most logical use of it since it tied directly to the sharpshooter), plus a real logical escape from the sharpshooter that seemed like it never happened: Hart went to turn him, and Berzerker just punched him in the face from his back. I really liked the finish, with Berzerker going for a clothesline and Hart landing a snug crucifix for a flash pin, with Berzerker getting up and flipping out postmatch. This is probably the best overall Berzerker match we've seen, and likely the best we'll get. Bret knew how to keep things tight, so instead of the bloated-but-fun 16 minute Bulldog match we get a more snug and satisfying 11 minute version of that. Really good stuff.

26. Berzerker vs. Fred Morgan - November 1991

Oh, Fred Morgan, you're the worst. I cannot explain why I laughed so hard at the way Morgan bumped for the opening club to his back, just dropping to the mat in a belly flop; or, how hard I laughed at how he bumped the next chop, just rigidly dropping to his back and lying motionless. Morgan just seems clueless, with his egg shaped torso in red and blue singlet/tights. He runs nose and mouth into a big boot, and tumbles all the way into the entrance way after getting tossed to the floor, but the guy just looks like the biggest hump. He won't ever get a rematch.

27. Berzerker vs. Russ Greenberg - Wrestling Challenge 11/12/91

I wonder why Greenberg never got more of a shot with WWF. He worked tons of jobber matches in 1991, and had a nice physique. Nice physique and tan is typically enough to get you a shot in early 90s WWF. Here he has bubblegum colored trunks, and admirably goes for a different strategy against Berzerker: He charges him! He runs in trying to lock up! I mean, Berzerker just pump kicks him in the chest. But at least he tried something! Berzerker mixes things up here, swinging Greenberg around in a front headlock, hitting a chokeslam (that Greenberg doesn't get up for) and hitting his awesome missile shoulderblock (that he should use more, as it looks great when it hits AND when it misses). After flubbing the chokeslam I didn't expect much out of the toss to the floor, but Greenberg got launched. Good for him. Still, wonder why he never got a shot. IMPORTANT: Greenberg should have at MINIMUM been brought into 1998 WCW when Jericho kept using that as a nickname for Goldberg. Jericho promising to beat Greenberg at Fall Brawl, and then beating Russ Greenberg, would have been a pointlessly fun moment.

28. Berzerker vs. Tito Santana - Superstars 11/13/91

Strange match, as Tito takes probably 70% of it, and overpowers Berzerker on several occasions. That's not what I was expecting at all. The first couple minutes see them lock up a few times, with Santana backing up Berzerker each time. On the fourth lock up Santana rushes in and Berzerker just drops to his knees, headbutting Santana in the dick. Awesome spot. But weird that the 320 lb guy had to use his speed and smarts to get the duke on Tito Santana. Santana overpowering Berzerker kind of continues throughout the match, with Santana reversing a couple of Irish whips. It's weird. Berzerker doesn't bump like crazy for Santana, the way he has for other stars. Santana does run into a big boot nicely though. Fuji tries to cheat to win by hooking Tito's ankle with the cane, and it genuinely doesn't seem like Tito expects the spot. He's running the ropes and Fuji hooks him, and Santana trips so hard that it yanks the cane out of Fuji's hands. Berzerker gets DQ'd, Tito beats him with the cane, and this was just a weird, unsatisfying match. Neither guy really wanted to take control, Tito works better as comeback babyface.

29. Berzerker, Skinner, Hercules & Col. Mustafa vs. Jim Duggan, Tito Santana, Sgt. Slaughter & Texas Tornado - WWF Survivor Series 11/27/91

I hadn't seen this match in years, probably since I rented the tape from the video store, so I first turned to the foremost authority on WWF star ratings, Scott Keith. Not only did he describe 6 of the participants as "jobbers" (odd, since Berzerker had only lost one match at this point and Duggan was always protected), but also called Slaughter a traitor and Von Erich a "suicidal drug addict". That's some level 7 edgelord shit right there. He didn't like the match, guys. But let me be the first to say, that Scott Keith may not be correct. 

First, pre match we get a wonderful gift, of Berzerker really being the only person enforcing his gimmick on the building, and the other wrestlers. All the heels come out together, but all the faces get individual entrances, and they kept cutting back to wide shots of the ring during these entrances, and Berzerker was just Hussing around, stomping all around the ring, figure 8ing around his teammates and his opponents; Just stomping and hussing and everybody in the ring was completely ignoring it. It's like when a guy hits a HR to break a slump, and the whole dugout ignores him. It was amazing. Gorilla has a great line before the bell, "I have little doubt in my mind who's coming out on top in this match." Fair statement. Skinner slaps Santana hard to start, then bumps fast for him, really selling a shove and going down to a snap headlock takedown. It also makes me laugh hard seeing Skinner do leapfrog/dropdown spots, for whatever reason. Skinner cuts low on a missed back elbow, and then bails so Santana misses a big crossbody, really crash and burned. Berzerker tags in and ridiculously goes for some sort of double stomp/leg drop on Tito, that misses. Kerry comes in and throws some bad punches that Berzerker no sells, and then Berzerker misses a dropkick. Berzerker missing offense is so much damn fun. I even dig the Hercules/Duggan shoulderblock and stompy punch exchange. Iron Sheik was pretty toast at this point (he even tags in and goes straight to a chinlock, come on) but he threw a cool double chop to Duggan's throat that someone should steal. 

Berzerker's apron work is tremendous, just hiking the length of the apron, back and forth, wandering into the wrong corner, occupying himself by untying a turnbuckle pad while Sheik is eliminated. THINK OF HOW SMART THAT IS!! Herc and Skinner just stood 8 feet away not saving Sheik from elimination, Berzerker meanwhile became the only heel I've seen logically kayfabe occupy himself during a pinfall, that didn't involve selling an injury. Amazing spot that was completely missed. Berzerker is really pulling his kicks this match, which is odd. But now that turnbuckle pad comes into play as he runs Slaughter into it. Man that undoing the pad stuff was so amazing in its placement in the match. I'm never going to get over this. Brilliant. Killer run where Berzerker brings back the splits bump off a Slaughter leg kick, then takes two insanely fast bumps over the top to the floor, really awesome bumps. The first is Duggan clotheslining him over the top, and Berzerker lands on his feet, charges right back in, and eats an insanely high backdrop bump to the floor on the other side. Santana has a nice hot tag opposite Hercules, even hits a kind of superman punch for the pin. Skinner eats a pin off a Slaughter blind tag roll up, and Berzerker is the last heel. He immediately charges in but misses a dropkick. The bumps on this guy! That turnbuckle pad comes back AGAIN when Slaughter gets revenge on him for it. Slaughter whips him into Duggan's clothesline to end it, with Berzerker taking a huge bump off the 3 point lariat. For a total throwaway, this was a really fun match, with Berzerker clearly working harder than anyone in the match. Not a great match, but a great performance by him.

30. Berzerker vs. Kerry Von Erich - MSG 11/30/91

Weird short match with a botched finish (though not by either of the wrestlers). It only goes about 3 minutes, and is really good for those 3 minutes. Until the stupid finish I was thinking it had potential to be his best match so far, which is impressive with the Valentine and Hart matches. He hits a stiff boot on Kerry, gets clotheslined over the top and the backdropped over the other side, just like the Survivor Series match, then suckers KVE into a missed corner charge and yanks him to the floor. Berzerker gets his head bounced off the steps, and the a couple seconds later the bell rings. Fans boo, Vince has no clue what happened on commentary, the count out win is announced; but Berzerker was only on the floor 7 or 8 seconds, and the ref didn't even seem like he was counting. It felt like someone accidentally rang the bell and Finkel improvised. Really disappointing. (Match is around the 13 minute mark of the link)

31. Berzerker vs. Scott Baizo - Superstars 12/4/91

So this match tricked me, as the file had a 6 minute running time, but it turns out 4 minutes of that is interviews with Virgil, Repo Man and High Energy. So you come for the hilarious jobber name of Scott Baizo (I hope he at some point teamed up with another man, maybe a man working an Indian gimmick, named Chaw-Chee, and that their tag team name was Charles & Charge, and that 25 years later he became a shameless shit pile with the same asshole haircut he had when he was relevant, decades before) and you stay for the disgusting match finishing bump. Yes this is a Berzerker squash, with him hitting the flying shoulderblock, a nasty kneedrop to the chest, his big boots with opponent tied up in the ropes, and then the finish which is him throwing Baizo over the ropes to the floor, practically past the ringside mats. Gross fall. Berzerker pillages on.

32. Berzerker vs. Barbarian - December 1991

Before the match Berzerker throws a high kick at the black ring announcer I don't recognize, who goes scrambling out of the way, and I already love this. Two giant dudes beating each other while wearing fur loincloths and boots. This match. HAD. TO. HAPPEN. It's like a Manowar album shoot gone horribly, tragically wrong. This starts off great with Berzerker throwing an impossibly stiff thud of a chop and Barbarian hitting him in the throat. We get more of Berzerker's super fast rope running, his big flying shoulderblock, and awesome missed flying shoulderblock into the corner, a couple big boots from both men (Barbarian's landing right under the chin), Barbarian clearly showing Berzerker he wasn't going to gas out and could work just as fast, big clubbing arms, and two crazy looking dudes shouting at each other after a count out.

More Berzerker tomorrow!!

COMPLETE & ACCURATE BERZERKER!

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SLL's All-Request Friday Night

Rikidozan vs. The Destroyer - Best 2/3 Falls Match (JWA, 12/2/1963)
Requested by Jingus

The description on the YouTube page linked above says this is their historic match that drew the largest TV audience of any match in wrestling history. Assuming the dates are correct, that's not actually true. That match happened on May 24th of the same year, and to the best of my knowledge is still buried in the NTV vaults if the footage still exists at all. And that's unfortunate for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that - again assuming the dates are correct - this would be one of the last - possibly even the last - matches in Rikidozan's career. This match happened on December 2nd. Six days later, he'd be stabbed with a piss-soaked knife in a nightclub men's room. Five days after that, he'd be dead.

So let's send out Japan's greatest wrestling hero with a bang, as he takes on one of his greatest career rivals probably for the very last time. And I'm sure glad it's him, because while Rikidozan seems to have been mildly underrated as a worker, The Destroyer is one of the best, and at least half of this match's charm comes from him bitching at the referee. "Get 'im out of there! What's he gonna do, stay right there? Get 'im out of there! You don't see anyone in my corner, do ya?" There are kind of a limited number of Destroyer matches out there, but from what we have, he did seem to have a nice formula worked out that he executes here: attack, get countered, complain. This is something like 35-40 minutes, and he could build the bulk of a 35-40 minute match around stuff we usually think of as opening match bullshit. Rikidozan holds up his end of the bargain as the straight man in Destroyer's comedy routine well. He grabs a nice jumping headscissors takedown, and lord knows Destroyer is a guy who can work being in a headscissors. He tries to handstand out of it, but eats a mini-piledriver before eventually escaping. He clings to Rikidozan's leg and gets him backed into the corner, where he rams his shoulder into Rikidozan's gut while the ref was laying in the count before backing off ("I broke the hold, and I'll belt you, too!"). We get a lot of fun trading holds and complaining ("What's wrong with that? What's wrong?"..."I broke it! I broke it! I broke it!") before things start getting rough around the 20-minute mark. Rikidozan slams Destroyer and then busts out the double bootscrape on his face. Destroyer comes back with two big kneedrops. A third from the second rope misses, but he recovers and lays Rikidozan out with a pair of slams, getting the first fall with his feet on the ropes. There is hemming and hawing from the natives, but honestly, it was just his feet. He didn't actually lift his legs off of the ground to get added leverage. He just draped his ankles on the ropes. They should be hemming and hawing about how a wrestler as good as The Destroyer should be able to cheat better than that. Ah, well. It's a minor flub in an otherwise stellar match. Anyway, things get more aggressive in the second fall, including Destroyer shooting face-first into a kneelift, followed by Rikidozan's prototype Kawada short kicks. Destroyer comes back with one of his own, but he can't hold the advantage long before Rikidozan chops him in the throat to tie things up one fall apiece. Destroyer takes out his frustrations on the guy handing out bottled water between falls, and then really takes his frustrations out on Rikidozan when the third fall starts, immediately getting him in the corner and laying in big forearms and kicks. He grounds him and drops some more knees on him, including the nasty-as-fuck handstand double kneedrop to Rikidozan's face. Most of the rest of the match is The Destroyer trying to lock on the figure-four, which Rikidozan keeps countering by rolling with the stepover toehold onto his stomach, which was pretty clever,though I may argue that they dragged it out a touch too long. Eventually, though, Rikidozan kicks him off of an attempt and send him to the floor. He gives chase, and they have a nice little brawl until Rikidozan hits a backdrop on the concrete and makes it back in the ring just in time to beat the count and win the match. The crowd goes wild, blissfully unaware that their hero's most dangerous opponent of all was just about to strike.

Randy Savage vs. Bruno Sammartino - Lumberjack Match (WWF, 2/7/1987)
Requested by Televiper

Pretty great for a sub-five minute match. Savage wastes no time, using Elizabeth to keep Bruno at bay before pulling the QB sneak around Liz and the ref to blast Bruno with an axehandle. He lays into him, but Bruno makes a fast comeback. From what little I've seen of Bruno, I think he gets a bad rap as a worker. Even this late in the game, he's a pretty capable brawler, though obviously it helps to have Savage bumping around for you. Savage comes back with the help of an imaginary foreign object, and gets Van Terminator-level distance on a top-rope axehandle, but Bruno fights back and tosses Savage out of the ring to Ricky Steamboat, who dishes out some payback before sending him back to a Bruno bearhug. King Kong Bundy runs in to break it up, getting Savage DQ'd, and Savage bails as a big brawl with all the lumberjacks breaks out with Bruno and Steamboat standing tall at the end. Nice.

Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage - Lumberjack Match (WWF, 2/17/1986)
Requested by J.H.

This is the rematch of the bout I reviewed last week. In the month since, Savage has won the IC Title and Hogan has had his ribs injured by King Kong Bundy. Beyond that, this match really picks up right where the last one left off, with Hogan rushing the ring and clocking Savage behind in payback for the post-match cheapshot from last time. He also gives Savage a taste of his medicine by repeatedly bashing him in the head with the title belt just as Savage did the month before. Hogan is on fire offensively. His punches all look great, and he also shows off a nice backdrop and a great running back elbow into the corner. This all gets cut short when Bundy trips up Hogan while he's running the ropes, which doesn't immediately turn the match around, but does seem to throw off his game enough for Savage to go to the eyes and then hit a running kneelift to the taped ribs. Savage does a great job working over the ribs, including hitting four top-rope axehandles to them. There also a great spot where Hogan gets thrown to the outside in enemy territory, and Don Muraco holds him in place against the post so Bundy can deliver a nasty avalanche to Hogan. They roll him back in, and Savage winds up for a big right hand...and then just pushes him down and rolls him back out where Muraco and Bundy do it again. Hogan sells the beating really well for the bulk of the match, barely getting his shoulder up on every pinfall. But, of course, we do get our requisite Hulk-Up after the top rope elbow. Match ends pretty quick after that, as the criss cross off the ropes, and since turnabout is fair play, George Steele grabs Savage's leg, and Savage trips and lands in perfect position to be hit with the leg drop. After Hogan's great early offensive run, I kinda hoped his finishing stretch would be a little longer, but I still liked this a bunch.

Marty Jannetty vs. Skinner (WWF, 11/9/1992)
Requested by douchebag

Man, there is some weird-ass commentary between Gorilla Monsoon and Lord Alfred Hayes in this match. I'm trying to decide what the highlight was: Gorilla's off-hand comment about Sensational Sherri having been hit many times before "in numerous places", his implication that Hayes was into teen pussy, or him suddenly yelling that he'd belt Hayes if he disagreed with him over something and Hayes just laughing it off. When you're on a commentary team with Lord Alfred Hayes and you're out-weirding him, that's kinda impressive.

Anyway, match itself is pretty choice. This is one of Jannetty's first matches back after The Rockers' break-up, and he is all fun and athletic, and does a "block a monkey flip by stomping his face" variant where he does a fistdrop instead. That is one of my favorite stock spots in wrestling, and Marty has a good fistdrop, so cool to see him break it out. Cool spot where they fight to a stalemate, and the ref steps in between them, only for Skinner to reach around and smack Marty in the face. Not long after that, Marty takes a spill to the outside and tweaks his knee, and the second act of the match is built around Skinner: Master Technician working over the leg with various toeholds and kneebars. It's kinda brilliant at first, because you remember, "oh yeah, Skinner is Steve Keirn, he's a grizzled ring veteran who would know how to do this old-school stuff, and the fact that he's doing it under a silly early-90's WWF gimmick just makes it weirder and cooler". But then you remember "wait, I've actually seen a lot of pre-Skinner Steve Keirn, and I don't remember him ever doing any of this stuff...is he calling back to his 70's work or something? What am I looking at?". Marty makes his comeback, and does a great job selling the knee all the while before putting the Fabulous Alligator Man away with the top-rope fistdrop. Marty looked really good here, and Skinner did a fine job putting the youngster over.

Masato Yoshino vs. Don Fujii (Dragon Gate, 1/18/2011)
Requested by Brandon-E

Yes, I will even review Dragon Gate matches. Don't expect it to happen often. Especially if they're like this one.

I don't like Dragon Gate. I don't think that's a secret. What might be a secret - if only because it just occurred to me while watching this match - is that Dragon Gate might be my least favorite wrestling promotion ever. And when I say that, that doesn't mean I think it's the worst promotion I've ever seen. Believe me, I've seen far, far worse than Dragon Gate. I mean, from it's inception to this very day, even with the intermittent bits of good they've done, TNA has to be considered a vastly worse promotion than Dragon Gate. But they do intermittent bits of good, and I can laugh at the large swaths of bad, and the embarrassing spin doctoring that goes on after the fact. I can look back at death bed WCW and laugh at their pathetic foibles while digging their final syndie matches and the last-minute resurgence of the cruiserweight division. AAA at their very worst always had something interesting going on somewhere, even if you had to dig for it. But Dragon Gate is a wrestling dead zone, producing nothing good enough for me to really enjoy, and nothing bad enough for me to really laugh at. Dragon Gate is a promotion whose matches I can review with a form letter. In fact, I've got one right here:

"After Scott Keith's "Netcop Busts", the first thing I ever bought when I got into tape trading was a Jack Epstein "Best of Sasuke Sekigun vs. Kaientai D*X" tape. It's been a while, but the last time I watched the "These Days" 10-man, it was '05/'06, and I remember writing on the late, lamented Happy Wrestling Land board how surprised I was at how few dives were in it. Seriously, for a match that often gets thought of as the pinnacle of spot-fu, I remember counting a whopping two or three dives in the whole match. Which isn't to say it wasn't still chock full of spectacular looking offense, I just tended to remember it as being a lot of in-ring action in the first half building up to the out-of-control dives in the second half, and there really weren't that many dives. Even when I first saw it as a largely puro-illiterate kid, I was able to pick up on the significance of that first half ("Oh, they're keeping the match in the ring and just teasing dives right now to build anticipation, so when they actually start diving, I will be extra psyched for it. Cool!"), but when I rewatched it that last time, it really struck me how important that was. It may have only been two or three dives, but I remembered it like it was 30. They knew how to build a match, how to create a sense of scale, how to make things seem important...stuff I don't get from the Dragon Gate guys. I try - with varying degrees of success - to stay on top of the current wrestling scene. To that end, I do check out Dragon Gate matches every now and then. At best, what I've seen has been clean, inoffensive, aesthetically pleasing, but also emotionally empty. At worst, it's...well it's pretty much the same as it is at it's best, it's just more structurally flawed. I can see why people like it, but when I watch it, I just don't feel anything. It's been an even longer time than since I last watched old M-Pro, but I do remember liking Toryumon in it's original form. That might not age so well if I watched it now, but I wonder if there's an issue with the later generations of wrestlers from the company. There was a sense of real wrestling fun and old-school competence in Toryumon that Dragon Gate just abandoned. The fun was replaced by metrosexual fanservice, and the classic wrestling structure by an endless series of mechanically fine and emotionally hollow spots done constantly until the match ends. This isn't what I look for in wrestling, to the point that I'm loathe to even call it "wrestling". This is a demo of wrestling moves meant to get Japanese teenyboppers to touch themselves, and that's it."

But that doesn't really fully describe this match, so I've got to add a specialized post-script to the above.

Yoshino vs. Fujii. Is it a great match? No. Is it a terrible match. No. How does it compare to the average Dragon Gate match? Marginally favorably, largely thanks to Don Fujii. Fujii is the last of the old-school Toryumon guys who hasn't sold out stylistically to Dragon Gate (I'm looking at you, CIMA), and consequently, he tends to be the guy most likely to make a Dragon Gate match watchable these days. Here's the thing: back in the day, Fujii was widely considered the least of the major Toryumon guys. While he was pretty much always good, he was never great, and he still isn't. The fact that the least guy from that era is now the best guy in this one is really damning him with feint praise, not to mention a really damning statement about the rest of the roster. Speaking about the rest of the DG roster, let's talk about them for a second. Here's the sum total of what I can tell you about them: Shingo Takagi is exceptionally bad to the point that fucking Danielson couldn't carry him, Masato Yoshino runs really fast, and Akira Tozawa is actually great when he's put in an actual wrestling environment. That's it. I can't even make any kind of specific comment about Masaaki Mochizuki in 2011, and I had been a fan of his for years. So what we have here is the best of what's left against one of the less interchangeable (but still not particularly good) younger members of the roster. And bless Fujii's heart, he tries to work the grizzled veteran going up against the athletic youngster match to the best of his ability. The nearfall off of the Gedo clutch actually had me going for a second there. And for a guy sold on his speed, Yoshino does deliver on that front. He does Marufuji's stupid, stupid "drape the guy over the ropes, slowly walk away, getting a running start, and dropkick them spot", only here, he goes the entire length of the aisleway, but he runs so fast that it actually doesn't come off as any less stupid than when Marufuji does it. Still comes off as stupid, though. In the end, this is structured a lot better than most DG matches, and I can see how it was supposed to pull me in, and I appreciate the thought put behind it, but these were just not the guys who were going to make it happen.

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