I don't remember the exact point where I learned to truly, fully, unequivocally love the Great Kabuki. Or the point where I realised that I already DID truly, fully, unequivocally love the Great Kabuki. I mean, why would I remember that, you might ask? It probably wasn't an especially revelatory experience in my life. Might've just been a case of, "for a guy I always heard kind of wasn't good, I'm beginning to wonder if the Great Kabuki wasn't actually awesome." Probably a conclusion I happened upon one afternoon before continuing about the rest of my day. But none of that should lessen how much, in the here and now, with full commitment, I really do love the Great Kabuki. He was tremendous in this, mostly against Tenryu - who was also tremendous - but really against everyone and anyone. Kabuki is one of the best under-the-radar punchers of all time, especially those uppercuts to the ear. He threw many of them here and nobody sells taking a Kabuki uppercut to the ear better than Tenryu so you can imagine how good a lot of this was. Early on things threatened to break down and all six guys ended up in the ring, Jumbo somehow finding himself with a chair in his hand. The ref' managed to wrest the thing from his grasp before forcing Jumbo back onto the apron, but while this was happening Tenryu took the same chair and smashed Kabuki clean in the face with it. Kabuki was bleeding instantly and took a stomping from all three of his opponents. I love the way he sells and garners sympathy. To look at him, a stocky little menace with a face painted like a demon who punches people in the throat, you would not necessarily think people would be quick to sympathise with him. But he's a 25-year veteran at this stage (though only a couple years older than the guy across the ring who's kicking him in the spine repeatedly) and so he gets some of that love you only get from having been around the block a time or two. Even better than the way he sold vulnerability was the way he made his comeback. After Tenryu had grown tired of laying into him he tagged in Fuyuki, who went up top and flew at Kabuki with a cross body. Kabuki misting him in the face was out of nowhere spectacular and in that moment we one and all were fully behind the face-painted little gremlin who spits green liquid on people. The rest of the match was littered with the things that made the Jumbo v Tenryu feud amazing. The exchanges between those two were of course wonderful. The more they threw at each other the more they both seemed to know nothing between them would be settled on the night, which only made them more and more surly as the match went on, which meant there were very many instances of Kawada getting his teeth rattled or Tiger Mask having the bandage ripped off his shoulder and kicked in that same shoulder. The secondary players got to have their moments as well though, like when Kawada ran the ropes and managed not to fall over for once and about took someone out their boots with a lariat, or Tiger Mask absolutely clobbering Tenryu with a spin kick. If the last few minutes were a little bigger and they spent a bit longer building to the finish this could've been spectacular, but in the end it's hard to complain about getting a regular old awesome iteration of a Jumbo/Tenryu six-man.
No comments:
Post a Comment