Tuesday 30 April 2019

Hansen v Kobashi (they have a good match)

Stan Hansen v Kenta Kobashi (All Japan, 9/4/91)

Goodness, this might be the meanest Stan Hansen there's ever been. That covers a ridiculous amount of ground and it's nigh on impossible to know for sure, but he was in a deeply unpleasant mood on this night and he took every bit of it out on Kobashi. Before the bell even rings he just murders him with a lariat and for the next five minutes Kobashi is googly-eyed trying to regain his bearings. Hansen drags him outside, powerbombs him on the floor - which is the ever-present in their rivalry - and recklessly chucks a table at his head. He just wallops him up and down the place and Kobashi can only fight back with a chop here or a kick there. Of course every hope spot he gets, no matter how minuscule, elicits a massive reaction. I actually watched their match from 1990 just before this and you could already see the progress Kobashi had made from then to this, not necessarily as a worker (though that too, obviously), but more his standing in the All Japan pecking order. In the 1990 match his hope spots were ragged, more of an annoyance to Hansen than anything he truly had to worry about. Here he was getting worried, especially after Kobashi hit the moonsault, and then again when Kobashi took it to the floor himself. I've written about a few Hansen/Kobashi matches on this stupid blog over the years and I always bring up how you can track their interactions from beginning to end, how they evolve, the threads that run through all of them -- it might be my favourite of the prominent 90s All Japan match-ups in that respect. At the end of the day it's simple enough. Hansen is a menace who runs roughshod over everything, Kobashi is the young prodigy who's destined for the crown. The former's decline coincides with the latter's rise and at a certain point in their trajectories Kobashi will overtake Hansen. It's just how it goes. How Hansen tries to fight back the tide with each subsequent bout is where the dynamic thrives. At this point there isn't a huge amount of danger that he'll lose, but Kobashi doggedly going after the sleeper out on the floor had Hansen reeling and the way he shut him down with that second lariat was fucking incredible. Hansen was pissed off before but that felt like a real breaking point, where he was thoroughly fed up with this kid and just wanted to go chew some tobacco in peace. The way he slammed him into the barricade afterwards was borderline absurd and the finish is another all-time Hansen v Kobashi level finish. Stan Hansen, you truly were the surliest.

Saturday 27 April 2019

New Japan Handhelds (well, one handheld)

Andre the Giant v Dick Murdoch (New Japan, 6/13/84)

This is a match-up I'd never really given any thought to before, then I saw it on the match list and it instantly stood out as a must-watch. Andre's awesome, Murdoch's awesome, how could a match between them not be? Run it a few years earlier and it's pretty close to dream match territory. By '84 Andre was pretty broken down, so this was more of a fun seven minutes built around shtick, but if you can't get on board with Andre the Giant and Dick Murdoch working seven minutes of shtick then why are you even here? Andre was a hoot in this. The crowd are fully behind Murdoch to start so Andre covers his ears with his massive paws and wants the ref' to do something about the noise. He stalks Murdoch down, backs him into the corner and pounces, but Murdoch scoots under his arm to safety. When he eventually keeps him stuck there he goes for the big butt bump, Murdoch moves, but Andre stops short before hitting nothing but turnbuckle. Both point to their head because they're too smart to fall for the other's games. Andre would shout "break!" and let everyone know he was giving Murdoch the clean break, really sell the nose after Murdoch pops him, bellow like a big old bear as he's squeezed by a headlock; it was a performance where he didn't do much physically, but he didn't need to do much physically because of his personality and how much mileage he could get out of the smallest things. Finish was really cool as well. Murdoch goes up top for Cattle Branding, Andre keeps trying to break away but Murdoch drags him back by that big head of hair. Andre then backs into Murdoch instead and crotches him on the top rope. Murdoch still has hold of the hair and makes one last push, but Andre just turns around and slams him off the top, following up by squashing him like a grape. These guys were the greatest.

Saturday 13 April 2019

Lesnar/Cena/Rollins (a good WWE triple threat match?)

Brock Lesnar v John Cena v Seth Rollins (Royal Rumble, 1/25/15)

This might be my favourite WWE triple threat ever. That isn't a huge bar because it's not really a match type I can be arsed with, but the ropey parts you usually get with them were worked around pretty well. Lesnar ruled as an indestructible juggernaut and I thought he sold progressive damage awesomely, as he usually does. You can gripe about him shrugging off AAs and treating them like regular body slams and I won't really argue with you, but every fucker has shrugged off an AA or twelve and Lesnar SHOULD be booked like that. If Dolph Ziggler is kicking out of AAs then better believe it shouldn't be keeping Brock Lesnar down for more than a hiccup. Plus his bumping was generally shit hot and he takes a curb stomp better than anyone. That sequence where Cena speared him through the barricade, wellied him with the steps and then Rollins crushed him with the elbow through the table ruled, and how Brock sold that accumulation of damage was a big part of it. You think he's out, then he gets up again so his opponents have to take it a step further. He gets up again, so they have to respond in kind. He was like the perfect anime villain who'd take the big energy blast, the hero thinking he's finally finished him off, only for the dust to settle and there stands Brock, little more than a scratch as evidence he's even been in a fight. The Suplex City stuff can be super lame when it's the crux of a match, but there's a stupendous car crash quality to him flinging guys around and it'll generally work for me as part of a bigger picture. Rollins took one German all weird on his shoulder and ear and Cena, who isn't the most natural looking bumper anyway, took Germans on his elbows and way up on his neck. The bit where Noble and Mercury tried to interfere and Lesnar fucking suplexed the both of them was also badass. Basically, Lesnar is a guy whose stuff looks killer, obviously has the aura of being a wrecking ball, so those annoying triple threat tropes where someone has to chill out on the peripheries for a while feel more plausible than usual where Lesnar is involved. Similarly, if you're going to take HIM out for a prolonged period you better make it look good, and this felt like something you could see keeping even the inexorable Lesnar out for a while. Unfortunately his absence meant we got an extended Cena/Rollins segment and that struck me as the weakest period of the match by far. Wasn't terrible or anything, but Rollins is the worst and it was nowhere near as engaging as the stuff involving Lesnar. Brock bursting back into the action with a huge deadlift German was an awesome moment though, and I liked how he dropped to his knees afterwards as if all his adrenaline had been spent in the aftermath of getting smashed through a table.

Thursday 11 April 2019

Sasha v Bayley (part 1)

Sasha Banks v Bayley (NXT Takeover: Brooklyn, 8/22/15) 

This was really good, but maybe I let expectations get the better of me because I think I preferred Sasha/Becky. I always watch Bayley and think she's a pretty strong babyface, at least in that she can garner sympathy, but I never really get into her and then I say it's probably because I've never followed any of her JOURNEY and whatnot. I wonder if maybe I need to see more to properly get it. But like, I've seen more than enough of her now and I don't love her. Her selling in this was better than I've seen it any other time and she's generally fine at selling anyway, so it was a strong underdog performance. Her offence is not very good, though. Good strikes matter to me and hers are pretty often Candice Michelle level. She's not great at making those rehearsed sequences not look rehearsed, but then she's certainly not the only one in WWE who has that problem. Still, she's likeable and not totally hokey and probably better than El Generico? She was good in this. Sasha was better and mostly pretty great. Once again she's so much more interesting as a heel, or at least as the one who gets to work from above. I liked those parts where Bayley's stubbornness clearly annoyed her and so she'd go for something she'd usually do, except she'd add a wee bit of brutality to it out of malice. Bayley managed to avoid the double knees off the middle turnbuckle twice and it annoyed Sasha enough that she wanted to hit it from the top rope instead. You got the shit-talking, the mean looking submissions, then she got frustrated at not being able to win, maybe even doubted herself a little (but didn't communicate that in overly hammy fashion), and so she upped the violence another notch and tried to re-break Bayley's hand. Stuff around the hand was really cool and my favourite part of the match might've been Sasha just stomping on it mid-Banks Statement as Beyley tried to grab the ropes. Sasha is also bonkers as fuck and that reverse rana off the top rope was nuts. Crowd were fairly split until about the final third and then they mostly got way behind Bayley, so it's a testament to both of them for getting the crowd to really buy into the face/heel dynamic rather than the "this is very good wrestling and we shall cheer appreciatively for all of it!" dynamic. I can't be bothered with a 30 minute match right now but I'll try and watch the Ironman before I turn 40. 50 tops.

Wednesday 10 April 2019

The Boss (Sasha, not Bruce)

I've been saying for years that I'm going to check out those Sasha/Bayley matches from NXT. I say a lot of things but today I went to do just that. Then I forgot that I said I'd watch this match as well and so I did that first. I'll watch the Bayley matches...soon?


Sasha Banks v Becky Lynch (NXT Takeover: Unstoppable, 5/20/15)

I know this happened a while back now, but it's pretty crazy watching it in 2019, three days after a Wrestlemania headlined by one of them, where that same one of them became the first unified women's champion in WWE history (unless they had a unified Divas champion that I've forgotten about). Even if I wasn't really following NXT in 2015 I know how highly thought of Sasha Banks was. You had this, the Bayley series, folk talking her up as the absolute prodigy of women's wrestling in the US. A year later she was part of the very first women's hell in a cell as women headlined a WWE PPV for the first time ever. If you had to bet on one of these two main eventing the first women's Wrestlemania main event you'd have put the house on it being Sasha. Honestly, I haven't really cared about Sasha in a while. It's not that she's a terrible babyface or anything, she's just not very interesting. But this was heel Sasha and she felt so much more natural. You could see it against Rousey when she got to show some of her heel chops, how she got to be real nasty working the arm, the way she mostly worked from the top and didn't need to focus so much of garnering sympathy. This was a similar performance from an offensive standpoint, only it was ramped way up and she got to go all the way with the mugging and shit-talking. The arm work was mean and inventive and I liked how it came about as a response to Becky trying to do it first. She took over with a big arm-wringer drop onto the ring apron, then worked a great straightjacket choke where she'd stomp Becky's arms into the mat as the hold was applied. There was an awesome bit as well where Becky crawled over to the ropes to pull herself up, ending up straddling the middle rope, so Sasha yanked her into the position Becky would assume for her pre-match headbanging and twisted her arm over the top rope at a nasty angle, mimicking Becky at the same time. Becky going for Sasha's arm in kind gave us a really cool dual limb work dynamic, which isn't really something we've ever gotten a lot of in WWE. Even though she was technically the babyface the crowd were largely behind Sasha, but by the end they were all for Becky submitting her with the armbar. She mostly sold that arm the whole way through as well, hanging it by her side as she climbed the turnbuckles and generally reminded you that she was working hurt. The arm breaker off the top at the end didn't come off great, but it definitely worked as a payoff to the arm work and a nice set up for the Banks Statement. Really cool match. Maybe Becky Lynch might get over after all.

Sunday 7 April 2019

Velveteen Dream Weekend!

It's that time of the year where eleven thousand hours of wrestling take place over the course of Wrestlemania Weekend and better men and women than I try to take all of it in. Last year I was on a real wrestling high going into the weekend and watched a fair amount of stuff, including NXT, Matt Riddle's Bloodsport and the fourteen hour Wrestlemania show itself. This year I've barely had time to watch anything (and haven't for a few weeks), but obviously I was checking out any Velveteen Dream. I'd like to give some Bloodsport a go as well even if I don't know when I'll actually have time. I'll also watch Wrestlemania tonight because I guess why not at this point (aside from it being stupid long).


Velveteen Dream v Matt Riddle (NXT Takeover: New York, 4/5/19)

I haven't really paid much attention to Riddle since he's been in NXT. My commitment to following along with any promotion at this point never lasts very long and so I might've missed something worthwhile. So this might not be his best match in NXT, but I will make the very bold claim based on pretty much nothing other than this very match that he won't have many better. I'll watch anything with Dream, so I was pretty hyped and it didn't disappoint. The early parts in Velveteen Dream matches will always put a smile on my face and I liked Riddle being as chilled as always, having fun taking Dream over with tricked out submissions and generally having a good time doing what he does. None of Dream's horse shit was working on him and Riddle gyrating his hips while he was tossing him around was amusing. Then Dream stomped on Riddle's bare foot and that was that. He pissed him off and as soon as Riddle took over - with the awesome German suplex on the floor - he just went on a tear. This was such a cool Matt Riddle performance, the way he dropped the breezy attitude and tried to mangle Dream. He flirted once or twice with his heel side as well, throwing some mean strikes before releasing on a rope break, punting Dream in the chest, doing everything with a scowl. Dream's Hulk-Up stuff is obviously carny as fuck, but I'll always get a kick out of it and I liked how it led to the double ax handle to the floor, which he'd tried earlier before Riddle grabbed him and took over. The finishing run never got excessive at all and it meant that, outside the finish itself, the biggest spot led to the biggest nearfall. That German/Flying Bro sequence was incredible and Dream took the German almost full Kobashi style right on his cranium. Finish itself was great too. Riddle can grab and submit a guy from anywhere, but Dream is resourceful and the champ for a reason. He weathered the storm, took everything Riddle threw at him and managed to pull it out in the clutch. You get the sense there's a bigger match in them as well, and that's pretty refreshing when just about every match these days shoots for epic first time out. I can't remember the last time I was disappointed by a Velveteen Dream match.