Heat: The Space Age of Pro Wrestling

The Wrestling Webcomic from the 31st Century
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AJPW – 1/26/1998 – Misawa vs. Akiyama 2

by Jeff on September 22, 2013 at 8:23 pm
Posted In: Blog

A couple of weeks ago I posted Jun Akiyama’s first shot at Mitsuharu Misawa’s AJPW Triple Crown. If you haven’t checked that out, I strongly encourage you to do so, because it was great. You know what was also great? Their rematch. In January of 1998, Jun Akiyama got a second shot at the Triple Crown, and it was a very different but also fantastic bout. This second match-up struck me as very fast-paced in comparison to the typical AJPW championship match of the time, although that may be the result of the white-hot, drive-it-like-we-stole-it pace of the first few minutes. By the two minute mark, the crowd is convinced they’re about to see a new champion crowned in devastating fashion. That’s pretty impressive given that most of the matches for the Triple Crown clock in at over 20 minutes.

But enough from me, check out Misawa vs. Akiyama 2.

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All Japan Pro Wrestling – Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Jun Akiyama 6/9/1997

by Jeff on September 5, 2013 at 3:31 am
Posted In: Blog

My cable box shit the bed for a while today, so I spent a couple of hours watching the History of the Triple Crown DVD set I picked up from RudoReels as a Christmas gift for myself. I’m about halfway through that beast of a set, and I stumbled upon this gem. Mitsuharu Misawa, in the midst of his run as pro wrestling’s green-clad god and the subject of many of Dave Meltzer’s 5 star wet dreams, defends the All Japan Pro Wrestling Triple Crown against a new challenger, Jun Akiyama. At this point, Misawa is All Japan’s undisputed ace, while Akiyama has been rising up the ranks since his debut in 1992 against Kenta Kobashi. This is Akiyama’s first match for the Triple Crown, and much like his debut, his first championship match is excellent. Also, there’s a shot during his entrance where he looks like the spitting image of Inoki, which I was amused by. Inoki and Akiyama – chin brothers.

└ Tags: AJPW, All Japan Pro Wrestling, Jun Akiyama, Mitsuharu Misawa, Triple Crown
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Ring Of Honor: SCUM’s Time Has Come

by Jeff on July 29, 2013 at 1:32 am
Posted In: Blog

Ring of Honor’s much-hyped Steel Cage Warfare episode of ROH TV aired in my market tonight, and it was the kind of wrestling television that motivates me to write blog posts. The SCUM story in ROH has been a big deal, but not a wholly positive one in the views of a lot of critics on the internet, which is basically the entire internet, because apparently anonymity and negativity go hand-in-hand. Anyway, I’m going to break down some elements of the SCUM angle and it’s resolution in a handy-dandy plus/minus list!

PLUS – Steen, Jacobs, and Corino were a group of rebels with legitimate reasons to want to destroy ROH. All of them could handle their business on the mic and perform in the ring, and Steen was a juggernaut of ultraviolence as he shredded the list of contenders to his title in his quest to demolish ROH.

MINUS – Steen, Jacobs, and Corino were opposed by Jim Cornette’s sense of propriety and whatever random opponents he could throw at the upstarts who ruined a dinner party.

PLUS – Steve Corino’s evolution as a character was fascinating to watch as he was pushed farther and farther over the edge by his continued failure to destroy ROH. The culmination of his arc at Steel Cage Warfare was gripping, as even his long-time ally Jacobs knew he had gone too far when he tried to set Steen on fire. Corino clobbering Jacobs and revealing that, ultimately, SCUM was nothing but an extension of his psychosis was a fitting end to a fantastic run of character work, and it also capped off a high-concept company-spanning feud with a very personal, human element.

MINUS – A lot of time was spent questioning Steen’s loyalty to ROH after he was excommunicated from SCUM, but at the apex of its dramatic potential, nothing was done with that idea. The commentary hinted heavily that Steen wasn’t in the building and expressed concern that he might not show up. He came down the ramp immediately when his music hit. Steen not showing immediately could have been an amazing point of drama in the match, that unfortunately that story thread was just tied up neatly with Steen’s allegiance never being in question once he stepped into the arena.

PLUS – Matt Hardy was pretty much perfect for the role in which he was placed. When Kevin Steen lost the ROH title to Jay Briscoe, Corino lost faith in Steen’s commitment to the cause. Enter Matt Hardy. An outsider who made his name in the domineering corporation the shadow of which ROH struggles to break free from.

MINUS – Matt Hardy matches. Hardy’s matches were a perfect fit for his character. They didn’t jive with ROH’s style, and that’s the point, but for me personally they just weren’t all that entertaining.

PLUS – Corino recommitting SCUM to destroying ROH after Steen’s title loss to Jay Briscoe was a great visual and an important part of Corino’s character journey.

MINUS – Corino’s new SCUM suffered very badly from nWo syndrome. The newly inflated SCUM added Rhino, Cliff Compton, Rhett Titus, Matt Hardy, and, for like one night, Jimmy Rave. The problem with this new version of the stable was that the only ones who actually mattered were Corino, a non-wrestler at this point, and Matt Hardy. Jacobs faded into the background. Rhino was off of television enough that I forgot he was in the group on several occasions. Titus has been in a freefall since Kenny King jumped to Impact and wasn’t given a large enough role in the group to turn himself around. Cliff Compton was also there. I’m not sure why.

PLUS – Steel Cage Warfare was an excellent end to the feud and a compelling match in and of itself. It’s combination of the War Games and Survivor Series formats provided an exciting bout that always made it seem like SCUM was within reach of destroying Ring of Honor.

MINUS – On paper, SCUM’s team and ROH’s team were not evenly matched AT ALL. Elgin and Lethal are upper tier guys in ROH and either one could hold the ROH World Title and do a great job in that role. Steen, once the unclear allegiance thing was swept aside, is in the same position. Whitmer is a legacy guy in ROH, and is particularly suited to matches which feature long-form exercises in the arts of ultraviolent ass-kickings. Now look at the SCUM team. Hardy wasn’t part of the team due to challenging Jay Briscoe, so SCUM’s top flight guy was missing, at least in terms of being a legitimate participant. So who have we got? Loyal soldier Jacobs, because somebody needed to be interesting on that team, and boy did he ever put in work to make that match as exciting as it was. Rhett Titus, who bumped like a cartoon character for some reason, and hasn’t done anything of significance since his feud with Charlie Haas. Cliff Compton as also there. He got powder all over the ring and I’m seriously not sure if he ever performed an interesting offensive move during this ROH run. He’s sure making the most of being on Colt Cabana’s podcast, but thus far he has given me no reason to find him interesting.Oh, and Rhino, who I forgot was in the faction, showed up for like thirty seconds. Seriously, I had to come back and edit this part in because I FORGOT THAT HE WAS EVEN THERE. So it’s three World Title contenders and a veteran of big-stage violent matches versus Jimmy Jacobs, two bland low card guys and Rhino who I keep forgetting is part of SCUM.

PLUS – Even taking my above issues with SCUM’s line-up in relation to ROH’s into account, Steel Cage Warfare was a fantastic match that built on the model of Survivor Series and War Games in an interesting way while telling a compelling story and taking several characters to new levels that make me want to see what they’re going to do next. It was an exciting half hour of professional wrestling that you should go out of your way to watch.

Also, the video package that led into Steel Cage Warfare was a well-produced encapsulation of the story leading to the match. ROH should use those more. Sure, they can’t match WWE’s team of video package wizards, but it did what video packages are supposed to do: remind you of important story beats that are about to be built upon or paid off.

 

└ Tags: Ring of Honor, ROH, Steel Cage Warfare
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Rey Mysterio, Jr. vs. Psicosis – Mexican Death Match

by Jeff on June 27, 2013 at 5:42 pm
Posted In: Blog

I posted this match on the blog about a year and a half ago, but it turns out that version was taken down. I just watched it again because Bloodsport: ECW’s Most Violent Matches is on Netflix, so I figured I’d find a new version to post. I really love Mysterio and Psicosis’ stuff from ECW. They’re a fascinating change of pace when looked at in the context of the billions of matches they’ve had against each other over their careers, because the ECW matches are the ones that deviate from their formula. The extreme elements really help separate those matches from the rest of the oeuvre while still retaining what made their encounters special. For your viewing pleasure, their Mexican Death Match from November 2 Remember 1995.


Rey Mysterio vs. Psicosis – Mexican Death Match by superbatista619

└ Tags: ECW, Psicosis, Rey Misterio Jr, Rey Mysterio
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Wrestling Retribution Project – Champion’s Grail Battle Royale

by Jeff on June 26, 2013 at 9:58 pm
Posted In: Blog

So Jeff Katz’ much ballyhooed and then much maligned Wrestling Retribution Project has finally emerged from the internet ether with its first footage. Katz put out a statement, which I read via Pro Wrestling Ponderings’ Facebook page, about what caused the project to disappear and why it’s reappearing now, which I’ll let you read for yourself if you’re interested. What I’d rather write about is the video itself.

First things first, you should check out the video HERE. The password is whattooksolongkatz.

Okay, so to start with, a lot of what I have to say here might be changed by seeing this match in the context of the entire show and not as an isolated event, but my initial impression is that the costs involved in producing this were absurd considering the quality of the product. I’m sure payroll was hefty, given the number of guys that needed to be flown in and then put up in hotels, as well as the fact that the crowd were all paid extras, but I’ve seen indy shows with better production value that had 2-3% of WRP’s budget.

The camera work needs to be called out here, as it’s particularly clunky. Even after being edited, stuff that’s being highlighted by the commentators is flat-out missed by the cameras being out of position. There’s no hard camera that is set up to get the entire ring in a single shot, which results in a cutting between several roaming cameras which are all basically getting the same shot from different directions. This gives the video a weird swaying quality whenever there’s a cut between the cameras, like the viewer is just floating in circles around the ring. As a result, there are also issues with what parts of the action the cameras are actually getting, as I mentioned earlier. While missing spots is certainly egregious on such a scripted show (moreso than a normal show, I’ll get to that), a lot of the shots gave me the impression that the camera men weren’t told what they were supposed to be focusing on at any given time in the match, and so they just guessed. In a normal indy battle royale, that would probably be fine, but in a match which is clearly developing multiple stories, somebody should have been directing the cameras. At one point just before the 19:50 mark of the video, the camera man gets a close-up of the mat. Yes, just the mat. Nobody was on it. It was just the mat, and the ring rope. And that got left in on the final edit. A hundred thousand dollar budget got less competent video than my local indy shows get with a two camera set-up and an editor who cuts the entire show for a couple hundred bucks.

Now, WRP is a project that was set up to take an HBO approach to professional wrestling, with tightly scripted stories told over a series of episodes with a beginning, middle, and end. Cool. Sounds like a good idea. The problem is that telling a tightly scripted story with the aforementioned production buffoonery is nigh-impossible, because while the wrestlers in the ring are trying to convey subtle emotions through facial expressions and the way they execute their spots, the production is shooting the wrong thing half the time. Compounding that issue, the commentary team of Jeff Katz and Nigel McGuinness (who seemed to be using a different name for this, but I didn’t catch what it was). Compared to his ROH work, Nigel sounded like he had been shotgunning bottles of Nyquil and then trying to read a script that was mounted on spinning cartoon newspapers. Jeff Katz, on the other hand, just kind of sucked. The play-by-play guy is supposed to be the audience’s guide through the stories and verbally manipulating where they are placing their attention in a match like this. Katz instead chose to constantly mention how impossible it is to call that much action in between tortured attempts to get himself over with clumsy attempts to breathe new life into wrestling cliches. Nigel, on the other hand, just sleepily threw cliches out whenever it was his turn to talk, presumably keen to return to the state of Nyquil-based hibernation that emerged from to call the match. Overall, the storytelling was reduced to sloppy mentions of rivalries that were budding or escalating just as one of the people involved in said rivalry was eliminated.

Now, the big angle of the battle royale was actually pretty interesting, and something that could definitely only be done in a super-scripted setting. If you plan to watch the video, but haven’t yet, go watch it before you read the rest of this so I don’t spoil it for you.

No, really, go watch it. SPOILERS AHOY.

At the end of the battle royale, with Joey Ryan’s “Chase Walker” character having fought valiantly through a knee injury only to be suckered by MVP’s “Lord of War,” Walker was dejected in the ring when the Illuminati, eliminated earlier in the bout, returned. Bobby Hollywood (Kevin Matthews) proved to be pretty excellent on the stick while Stan Shooter (Kenny Dykstra) proved to be… also there. Anyway, Hollwyood cut a very good promo about twist-endings in movies, then revealed that he had a twist of his own, before outing Chase Walker as gay. Now, given that it’s pro wrestling, this was done using a pair of F words. Now, here’s the part that wouldn’t work with a standard wrestling audience: the fans rallied behind Walker, because as paid extras, that’s what they were told to do. If this angle had happened in front of a normal wrestling crowd, Walker would have been booed mercilessly and the Illuminati would have been babyfaces because homophobia. Walker ran off the Illuminati by jumping Bobby Hollywood, and was then consoled by his now-revealed-to-be-fake girlfriend as he limped backstage, unable to say his piece on the mic.

Now, this angle was brilliantly executed, except for one thing: the commentary. Jeff Katz immediately busted out his “Owen” voice. Instead of letting the angle play out in silence, which would have been narratively the strongest way to emphasize its importance, Katz and Nigel chipped in with murmured assertions that what was happening was not okay. Which is a fine stance for the commentators to take, by the way, they just should have taken it after Walker left and the scene was over.

As a first impression of what was supposed to be a groundbreaking project, this battle royale left me firmly entrenched in a state of “meh.” If the entire series is available for free, I’ll watch it, because I think it’s a concept with potential, but I don’t think I’d buy it based on what I’ve seen so far.

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