So I went back and watched a bunch of 90s joshi not that long ago and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed all of it. A couple nights ago I got the urge to watch some Necro Butcher ridiculousness and then I watched some Low-Ki and now I guess I'm going down this rabbit hole. I won't have watched some of this stuff in about fifteen years, while some I'll be taking a run at for the first time. I'm not sure what the ratio will be on your indie classics to scuzzy warehouse snuff films where someone gets hit in the head with a Betamax player. I'm less likely to revisit your Danielson/Nigel series than Necro Butcher v Toby Klein. Don't have much interest in watching a Joe/Punk broadway, any of those lengthy Bryan Danielson title defences against an Alex Shelley or Delirious, that Punk/Hero match that went two hours, pretty much anything involving Tyler Black or Davey Richards or Kevin Steen. We'll see how it goes.
These two are probably the closest we've ever had to a US Ishikawa v Ikeda. It's really a match-up made in heaven and if I watched every Danielson/Low-Ki match from the early 00s and compared them with every Danielson/Nigel McGuinness match from the mid 00s, I'd be shocked if I didn't come away thinking the former held up way better (outside of that 6th Anniversary match anyway). This one isn't quite as all-time level spectacular as the JAPW match from June, but it had a bunch of the same qualities. The matwork is as strong as any matwork in US history. It's tight, gritty, all of it applied violently and you buy them trying to rend limbs. In between Low-Ki would throw vicious strikes - the short punts to the eye, one upkick that was insane - while Danielson would stretch him like this was some Stu Hart torture session. Danielson's ground and pound also ruled and the part where he was raining down crossfaces was fucking unbelievable. It's striker v grappler in a lot of ways, but like the very best Ishikawa/Ikeda that doesn't mean Ki is useless on the mat or Danielson can't throw strikes. The main difference between this and the JAPW match is that the last fifteen minutes are more along the lines of your indie/juniors dream match. That's not really my jam but this was done about as well as I could want. The selling remained strong, the pacing was good, everything they hit looked as snug and and painful as you'd want, I never felt like anything was overkill, the finish itself was great...even at about 32 minutes it was pretty much the perfect modern day epic and one that holds up nearly twenty years later. I haven't said that about a lot of matches from 2002 trying to shoot for the same thing, especially not ones that run half an hour.
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