Tuesday, September 15, 2015

Roppingi Vice vs. Briscoes


Roppongi Vice vs. The Briscoes - ROH Death Before Dishonor XIII - 5

Roppongi Vice sounds like an STD you'd contract from a Minato prostitute. Feel oddly comforted in the fact that Mark Briscoe and I share the same wild hairstyle presently. Strangely Mark and Rocky give each other Dap after the opening salvo. Baretta doing much better for himself on the indies and in Japan than he'd ever have working on WWE's C-level shows. I heard he even got invited over to one of Tommy Dreamer's famed pig knuckle stews after a recent House of Hardcore show. All the silverware was courtesy of Abdullah the Butcher's baggy pants. Jay goes from World champ to selling double shoulderblocks by RPG Vice. Some credit is due to WWE for improving their tag division this past calendar year but ROH really has the best tag action around. They just need to bring Disorderly Conduct out of retirement to be the grizzled old vets that take shit from no one

If this is Death Before Dishonor someone should shoot Kevin Kelly as that beige jacket is a dishonor to fashion. Anybody know if Veda Scott eats meat? I dig how Mark's camo shorts are all tattered and ripped in shreds looks like something the Rat King wore. Mark absconds Trent's yellow headband thus absorbing his powers and pro wres prowess. Really dug Romero's flying knee off the apron onto Jay. Like to see Ryback attempt that and tear his quad and be out 8 months. Briscoes deserve to be in some kind of HoF when it's all said and done for giving us over a decade worth of gnarly. Baretta bleeding from the eye like he just took a John Dodson elbow in the clinch. Unreal "Buff Blockbuster" off the apron by Mark on Rocky where he looked shot from a circus canon. Jay Driller + Froggy Bow combo on Trent ends this. Pretty damn fun mid-show bout.

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Swagger vs. Rose

Adam Rose vs. Jack Swagger - WWE Main Event - 8/11/15 - 2

Two darlings of WWE’s C-level shows square off. Rose pops off some Reggie White-level forearms. Is Swagger or Miz the biggest fall from grace after losing a World title? Rose’s new vinyl trunks look like a stained glass rendering of a vagina from an anatomy textbook. Rose totally steals Delirious’ Shadows Over Hell finisher but doesn’t get the job done. Patriot Lock ends this one faster than it took Adam Rose to hit on the bartender in the faded Hum shirt at a dive bar post-show. If looking for a better Swagger match go back a week prior to the 8/4 episode where he and Big Show work a lengthy bout I found surprisingly good.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

Saturday Night's Main Event 5/11/85 Co-Review


Brian and I are doing co-reviews of all the Saturday Night Main Event episodes. Here's the one that started it all!

Saturday Night's Main Event I - 5/11/85 - Nassau Coliseum, Long Island, New York

1. The US Express & Ricky Steamboat vs. George Steele, Nikolai Volkoff, & The Iron Sheik - B: 3  A: 3

Brian: If this was just a typical house show I may have knocked the score down another notch but this felt slightly more special and like a moment being the kick off of the beloved SNME run. The good guys were aces on offense and given the abbreviated time allotments the matches got on this show the heels weren't even given a heat section. Felt bad watching Ricky try to hiptoss Steele and Volkoff as they were clearly giant uncooperative bags of manure he had to imitate he was physically tossing as they really both just awkwardly rolled forward their foots barely leaving the mat if at all. You get the sense here with his size and look Windham could have been a much bigger star. Steele gets rolled up playing up his hapless buffoon character then eats a turnbuckle post-match in frustration. I think I'd rather see these six hitting the buffet at Ponderosa than in the ring together.

Adam: There probably would have been more bite here if, like Brian mentioned, the heels had a heat section, even if small. Otherwise, this was as about as one-sided as you could get with a six-man tag team squash as the faces dominated the whole match. As was also mentioned, Steel and Volkoff were extremely uncooperative on some hiptosses, about as uncooperative as the giant bags of mulch I threw down in my flower beds this past spring. Windham rolling up Steele after Sheik and Volkoff bailed pretty much made the whole team look like they were imitating old Keystone Cops routines. Not much depth here but worth a look as the first-ever SNME match.

2. Hulk Hogan vs. Bob Orton - WWF Championship Match - A: 4  B: 2

Adam: This was hot off the heels of WrestleMania and was a fun little scrum. Hogan has his usual assortment of punching and brawling. Orton hit a few couple good knees, an atomic drop, and attempted a superplex but that was about the extent of his offense. Also, what was up with the ring during this match? Everything someone bumped it sounded like a snare drum. For a six-minute match, this was about as good as you’ll get during this time. The ending was a bit weak with Piper supposedly interfering with a punch and then Mr. T getting involved. Hogan was then cornered but was saved by Paul Orndorff causing the heels to scamper like roaches when you turn on a light. 

Brian: Not the first to be confounded by Hogan's biting and face gouging and other villain-like tactics in lieu of more classicism and heroic posturing. Maybe marathoning a bunch of Jafar Panahi films has brought out the humanist in me but I found myself much more interested in watching the audience here than the participants. Crowds just believed so much more then. When Piper interfered there was a lady who's face got redder than a Scotch bonnet pepper. Today she'd be a meme.

3. Wendi Richter vs. Fabulous Moolah - WWF Women's Championship Match - B: 3  A: 2

Brian: Cyndi Lauper was forced to watch this match on as 9" monitor back toward the end of a darkened entrance aisle. Think I saw a guy in the crowd wearing a Peachfuzz mask. Title match gets 4 minutes so there's less meat to this thing than a black bean burger. Crazy to think how different women's wrestling is today. They'd never let an old, wrinkly, saggy lady be a top in-ring talent but Moolah was an asset here dishing out some mean offense like a short headbutt that looked brutal. Richter was all '80's hair and anguished facials but retained her title with a counter roll-up so as to keep Moolah looking strong as a perennial challenger.

Adam: I though Moolah was old in the 90s but she still looked incredibly old here. Moolah took a hell of a bump over the top rope and smashed on the floor pretty good. Seeing Lauper getting booted out before the match and then showing her watching this at the end of the aisle was pretty entertaining. Roll-up at the end felt pretty flat and the majority of this felt really choreographed.

4. Junkyard Dog vs. Pete Doherty - A: 2  B: 4

Adam: Not much here except your typical Saturday morning squash match, although Doherty has a bit more street cred than your Mario Mancini’s of the world. Since this was a Mother’s Day show, JYD brought his mom to the ring, who looked less than impressed at her son’s chosen profession in the pre-match interview. Doherty yelling when JYD yanked him up from the floor by his hair was a hoot and was pretty much the highlight of this. I’m guessing for the victory dinner, Dog and his Momma hit the local Denny’s on the way to the next town.

Brian: In an unforeseen plot twist similarly to the grandparents in The Visit not really being the kids' grandparents but escaped patients from a psychiatric hospital this shocked me by being my favorite match of the show. And while I wish I could give more credit to JYD and his momma's purple church dress I have to hand out MVP honors to Pete Doherty. This golden-haired jobber bumped and gesticulated with a fervor determined to stand out even if he was put in the death slot. Doherty took a superplex off the top so hard it made me incontinent. Sometimes JYD's headbutts can look lazy or dire but I loved how he kept his hands tightly in Pete's messy mop of blonde hair not letting him go and just delivering headbutt shots while Doherty made the fascinating acting decision to jiggle his pasty white physique after each skull rattling shot.