Friday, February 5, 2010

Nous observons chaque seconde #7

Brian

So, I'm watching ROH Death Before Dishonor VII Night Two (I loathe shows with cumbersome, long titles as such) and lately I've been watching matches in random order off of DVDs for no explicable reason. I click on Tyler Black vs. Tyson Dux, assuming it'd be as bad spot to start as anywhere else, when lo and behold Black comes to the ring wearing a kid's sized maroon Gryffindor (of Harry Potter fame) t-shirt! What is homeboy thinking? Next world's champ? More like next guy to get shoved into a locker...

Jessie

if he came to the ring sporting that garb, he should have put on the Cloak of Invisibility right on top of it.

Last thing i caught was some random matches being contested over the US title in the late WCW 90's era. 1st thing that caught my eye was the retaining water Bret Hart, dude was so bulky. He squashed DDP in ANOTHER angle where DDP was so injured he couldn't do anything, then saw 2 Luger matches where Bret basically kept him on the ground the whole match with kicks and leglocks. Why does Lex throw his hands in front of his eyes like he was Harvey Dent trying to block some acid when someone punches him in the gut? That ever happen to anyone else in the Universe?

Adam

Not sure how the Harry Potter garb fits into his character ... dude should be condemned for sporting that with his emo Hot Topic shirts.

Tim and I were bored tonight so we decided to venture over to the Sorg for the weekly HWA show. I've mentioned this before, but they're up on the fourth floor ballroom and game area which looked like it hadn't been painted in about 20 years. The paint was literally peeling off the ceiling. Show was definitely worth five bucks but not much more. First bout was Nate Flames vs. Aaron Extreme ... both dudes were skinny as fuck and had their spandex hanging off of them. Aaron botched a simple bodyslam and accidentally dumped Flames on his head. Six-Way bout was fine for what it was. Jesse Emerson was over like crazy and looked really good. My main reason for going to the show, Tim Donst, was eliminated about halfway through. Main event was Jon Moxley & Irish Airborne vs. King Vu & Noble Bloods. Started off ok but quickly became a mess. Bunch of legal man issues with some zombie guy interfering and knocking Dave Crist off the top rope.

Picked up the World Heavyweight Title DVD from the library today. Going to watch the documentary and a few select matches off there. Didn't really want to fork out twenty bucks for another lackluster DVD, which has pretty much been the story of all of the title history DVDs. I hope they get the Best of Raw 2009 DVD, don't really want to drop the cash for that one either but I do want to re-watch some of the stuff that's on there.

Jessie

oh , the Sorg? Anybody blame the ghostly spirits for messing up their undercard spots? I'm not familiar with Tim Donst, but now you've pique my interest. Got any of his stuff I can watch?

The paint was literally peeling off the ceiling

haha, that place is crawling with lead poisoning! Please tell me you heckled the shit out of the Crist boys too, as you're known to do. Let me know how that World Title dvd is, thing i've liked about the Title dvd's is the unique matches they provide.

I caught some of a Toryumon X show, (labeled Toryumon 102?) but it seemed a mix of diff. matches from diff. locales. Opening was the Pineapple Harai team against two luchadors, it had it's moments, nothing on the card really stuck out, it all balanced between being good and not rememorable. CIMA, Doi and Suwa were in a 6 man which was building well but then a dude in a thong was involved and it turned to bad comedy. Also saw Owen v. Edge on Breakdown, in a vacuum the match worked, they both worked hard, not really selling "Attitude" just good fundamentals. I miss the days where two guys were given a chance on a PPV to have a great match, with no storyline needed.

Adam

Donst is a Chikara regular and had a feud against former tag partner Hydra in the latter part of last year. My copy of "Man Makes Plans" is currently in circulation and he completely destroys Hydra on that particular show. It also has a pretty good Claudio/Hallowicked main.

Didn't heckle them any really, was just there to sit back and enjoy some low-grade indy action in anticipation for their big show on Friday. Yes, the game room/pool hall we all waited in until the ballroom opened and just rife with shady characters. Did I mention the creepy entrance off Main Street and the ultra shady stairway that we took up to the fourth floor. You owe it to yourself to come out just once and see how completely ridiculous and crusty their set-up is.

Getting ready to cue up Impact and recharge the laptop. Will send some thoughts later on.

Brian

Watched the 1/28/10 TV -- the last stuff I'll be viewing in my apartment of two years as I move into our new house today. Superstars was fairly good, the women's tag was a bit of an eyesore, but the rest delivered. Who would have thunk it: Chris Masters vs. Primo vs. Chavo Guerrero in a random three-way match and it was fucking awesome? Seriously, ECW gets all the credit for the best three-way bouts, but, offhand I'm having trouble coming up with a single one that was better than this. Big bumps to the floor, nearfalls, teases, etc. I really liked it. The main, David Hart Smith vs. Matt Hardy, was decent, with the highlight being Matt's consistent arm selling. It kind of reminded me of the Warlord vs. British Bulldog bouts off of old Coliseum Videos.

iMPACT! wasn't as bad as the last few weeks, a step in a better direction with some decent in-ring stuff. The theme seemed to be guys that blew it at the last pay-per-view redeeming themselves in much better matches. Sean Morley vs. Desmond Wolfe was a really good opener, what a commanding performance by Desmond, he's looking confident and measured and this felt right. Daniels and Hernandez both had less than spectacular performances at the pay-per-view, neither really vindicated themselves a la Morley, as Hernandez is furthering his case as most overrated guy in the company, looking like an 8-year old trapped in a large, steroid-fueled man's body. Liked Hamada beating up all the Beautiful People, the Kendrick/Machine Guns vs. Young Bucks/Red sprint was fun while it lasted, but far too short to be memorable. Lastly, Ken Anderson who really came off like shit at the PPV, had a surprisingly enjoyable match with Jarrett, felt borderline '93 USWA, with Jarrett eating lots of punches, extended wristlock sequences, etc.

A good night of wrestling TV, I'd definitely recommend the Superstars three-way, and possibly Val vs. Nigel. Now I'm off to watch Colt Cabana vs. Joey Ryan - No DQ from DBD VII Night 2.

Jessie

Perhaps I will venture a trek to that sordid Operahouse one day, I don't see it in the very near future however. Cool like to see his work on that show whenever it floats back around, guess I"ll get my library card ready.

I also saw the last 30 minutes of Impact, and I was apalled at the random 2 moves we got as Doug Williams wins the X Title??? What a way to tell you a belt don't mean shit! It was literally 2 moves, and a replay shown in between them and new champ, what a joke. The Bischoff segments, while he's a good performer, felt like they accomplished nothing, and Styles seemed like an out of place fool strutting around the locker room with Flair and bimbos. But, yes i also did enjoy parts of Jarrett v. Anderson, I was more into Jarrett's punching, had that real Watts-esque clubbing to it and Anderson sold them well, the finish was also smooth even though it's been done a million times, they pulled it off well, would like to see more from those two, I actually think Jarrett could really help Anderson if they gave them an extended program but I doubt that will happen.

Brian

Watched TAKA Michinoku vs. Shoichi Uchida from the FUTEN show. Nice to see TAKA in a shootstyle setting again. I was real amazed by how terrific TAKA's selling of submissions was, great anguished facials and noise, especially when he was having his leg worked and later while in a crossface-like hold. Uchida sold an enzuguri like Rake Yohn when Bam antiqued him with flour. A quality nine minute fight.

Sitting on the floor in my furniture-less house I wanted to christen it with a special match for its first viewing. Jake Christ vs. "Sexy" Shawn Cook from XCW Mid-West. I love the redneck crowd. Obese lady in white sneakers in the second row grabs the seat next to her to prop her sizable legs on. The thing I don't like about their set-up with only one, lone hard camera, is my favorite aspect is selling and facials, and it makes it a lot more difficult to get a sense for that sort of thing when I feel like I'm watching from the vintage point of a fly on the wall. Cook comes off like a poor man's Mr. Kennedy with a touch of Texas-era Rod Price/Alex Porteau, but kid's got a killer dropkick and a not too shabby crossbody.

Waiting for Duke Energy to come to my place to check out this livewire spouting out of the ground in our backyard so I watch Jado & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Kazuchika Okada & Nobuo Yoshihashi. Ishii gets his nose busted early and looks great spitting out blood. Nubuo sells a Jado clothesline like his soul was just robbed, falling to the mat like a lifeless flesh bag. Could be a good name for a Canadian hardcore band. They'd probably end up pissed at each other, fuck each other's girlfriends' assholes, and break up over Xbox privileges on the tour bus.

Jessie

I'm taking that idea and making it into a script for NBC, they obviously see crap (Leno) as an asset, maybe they'll run with that fucked up concept and turn it into a situation comedy! Could you see Jado's scrawny ass doing schtick in an apartment setting with fucking Meredith Baxter? Hahaha

i've got a new piece from Champions Carnival coming up, (as well as a piece on last night's Rumble) for the blog, only other stuff I watched was more of WWE's Breakdown show from 98. Scorpio leading Too Cool through a passable match, Droz and Mero bungling more spots than in Sable's last plastic surgery, then onto a fun little stiff fight with Vader and Bradshaw, D'Lo v. Gangrel had a few cool spots, but their was no pace to it at all just two guys doing moves to each other back and forth and then I started this abysmal 3 man cage match with Rock, Shamrock and Foley, a triple abdominal stretch! is this an LSD-induced nightmare or did that spot actually happen? Loads of punches and stupid haircuts, i loved Foley's promo before the match where he brought up a ton of stupid things in life and ended by saying "but nothing is stupider than the People's Elbow, Rock, you're nuts if you think i'm actually going to lay down and let you get over on me with that ridiculous move." Oh inside scripting, as if Foley was vomiting Russo out of his mouth speaking the words himself.

RIP Jacky Boy, loved your Mid-Atlantic shit, your "Lifters" were among the best

Adam

I remember not too much good coming out of that Break Down show. Wasn't there a major botch in the Scorpio match where he falls off a chair or something? I remember liking the Bradshaw/Vader match as well. So many random undercard bouts during that era in WWF.

Went to the HWA show last Friday (my third live event in four days) and it was a really good show. It was the biggest crowd I've seen in a long time for them and probably the best show for bell-to-bell action since their glory days of 01-02. I enjoyed parts of the four way bout that featured Tarek the Legend. Seeing a dude named Madness who goes about 300 pounds to a dive over the top rope was pretty wild. The Moxley match was good although Vu didn't seem to have had the same fire and intensity he had in Norwood. Tim Donst tried to carry Dustin Rayz to a good match but Rayz' work was sloppier than an overstuffed burrito from Chipotle. The main event really delivered and as just as wild as I thought it would be. Irish Airborne actually put forth a good effort. Drake Younger was stiffing people with chairs and had a nice brawl with a member of the Hybrids in the bar which culminated with a piledriver on top of the bar. I didn't like the false finish they did with the Hybrids and Airborne just to eliminate the other two teams. Thus far, it's on my match of the year list but probably won't stay there long. For the record, Longworth Hall is a great venue for them and hopefully they will run there again.

Got three matches left from Clash #35 to watch and then I'll move on to one of the earlier ones. Really enjoying the Clash project thus far. Looking at the cards for some of the shows from the early 90s and they sound completely wild. As Dean Moriarty would say ... "Yes! Yes!"

Brian

Been a crazy week, moving and settling into our new house, so I've mostly watched TV stuff. Countdown to UFC 109 got me more interested in Marquardt vs. Sonnen and Thiago vs. Swick than the main event, but no mention of the Demian Maia or Trigg vs. Sera fights. Last night's ECW on SyFy was a mixed bag; liked Archer vs. Benjamin more the two times they've done it on Superstars, Archer needs better transitionary stuff on offense, and a more definable character. I hadn't been impressed with Trent Beretta before, but loved the way he sold the knockout kick of Tatsu. Main event was typical Christian formula, just with a shitty run-in finish, so nothing memorable there. Biggest thing coming out of the show was McMahon coming out saying ECW would be gone in three weeks. Good riddance. He said something new and evolutionary would be taking its spot -- the boys of FCW playing laser tag, perhaps? That'd be sci-fi. Also, been watching Silent Library again, they've had new episodes daily for awhile now, mostly featuring bands as guests. I love seeing people get hurt and eating gross stuff inside a public library, a genius concept, all thanks to the masochists and evil geniuses of Japan. Speaking of TV, Adam, what's the ETA on my copy of last week's SmackDown!? I'm looking forward to seeing how much better Mysterio looked than Michaels.

Been watching lots of Clash of the Champions stuff for our upcoming massive project. For those that haven't heard, which is likely everybody, we're all watching, reviewing, and ranking all 300+ CotC matches for a forthcoming series of gigantic posts. So, start preparing yourself now for our thoughts on Equalizer vs. Shockmaster, amongst other fantastic bouts. I downloaded the newest CMLL and Perros del Mal stuff available -- trying to stay relatively on-top of pimped lucha in '10. IWRG is showing up constantly on YouTube, too; so, there's no excuse not to watch some of the best wrestling in the world right now. While the Internet in general has apparently given up on Japanese stuff, I'm excited for '10, hoping some quality stuff surfaces in the months to come. It's definitely a superb time to be a fan and purveyor of the grappling arts.

Jessie

oh i love silent library, watched a whole marathon one slow Sunday afternoon, great stuff.
Archer is a boring weirdo, evidenced by larger than normal Tramp Stamp
Michaels v. Mysterio was good, even the angle afterwards made sense and made me curious about the whole main event scene coming up.

Adam

Brian, your copy of Smackdown will be ready in the next day or so.

I'm almost finished with the second disc of matches on the History of the World Title DVD. There's only a handful of matches I wanted to watch and review and I'm about halfway through those selections. The documentary portion was pretty bad. It completely glossed over WCW and WWE and focused more on the early days and the NWA title changes in the 70s. The narrator said "In the late 90s, there were simply too many title changes to keep track of". That was their excuse for glossing over everything. Only seen one recommendable match on in thus far, Buddy Rogers vs. Pat O'Connor from 1961. Everything else has been pretty hit and miss.

Brian

So, besides ROH on HDNet and the new Best of Pride Fighting Championships, my favorite weekly show is easily Superstars due to the wrestling/bullshit ratio being strongly in its favor. Almost finished with this week's episode and am really liking it. The women's tag to open wasn't do anyone any favors, although, Alicia Fox I feel has tons of potential, lots of inherent personality and good heel timing, with better opponents and programs she could be a memorable diva. Then, surprisingly, we had one of the better TV bouts of '10. Evan Bourne vs. Carlito! Evan's best in the co. right up there with v. Morrison (ECW on Sci-Fi) and v. Hardy (Cyber Sunday), and easily Carlito's best in-ring performance since '07. Carlito was selling the hell out of Bourne's leg kicks, he also sold a flying knee out on the floor amazingly, built very nicely and given plenty of time, really nice nearfall sequences, etc. The main event is a six-man tag which I'll be watching later tonight along some with January '10 NOAH shows I burnt.

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