I'm pretty darn up to date on the WWE these days, but have regrettably fallen behind on some of the extra cirricular stuff kicking around out there.. Here are the reviews of some of those:
Samoa Joe v. Takeshi Morishima ROH Fifth Year Anniversary Show 2/16/07
This is a super-fun (and good) big man slug fest. While all the attention is sort of on Joe because he's leaving ROH at this point, the match itself is all about Morishima. There's nothing deep about this match in the slightest, just two guys tossin' bombs.
Basically both move through almost all of their signature stuff and after two pretty long control segments for both, neither guy is able to get the job done, so they just say 'fvck it' and start killing each other. Eventually Joe strings enough stuff together to get the big man on the mat and slap on a deep and pretty nasty rear naked choke to end the match. I'd definately say this wasn't much more than two guys running through their move set if the stuff they did wasn't executed so well. The ole kick looked good, the back drop driver looked good, all of the signature stuff looked rough and tumble, just the way it needed to look.
There is some stuff though, that'll probably leave you feeling a bit weird about this, namely Morishima just sort of chilling on the top turnbuckle waiting to get plowed with the muscle buster and Joe checking his watch after every pin fall....for like 30 seconds. Really though, it's not really here nor there, as most everything in this match is a lot of fun. This is my idea of what a big man match should be, like two bricks clacking together.. ***1/2
Kotaro Suzuki & Ricky Marvin v. The Briscoe's, GHC Jr Hvt Tag Team Championships, NOAH 1/21/07
I watched this before and liked it, but admittedly was sort of half-a$$ watching it so I didn't REALLY get a good look at it. This is REALLY a fantastic juniors match and not only is it the best junior tag match of the year so for, it's easily the best juniors match so far.
The Briscoe's can be really hit and miss sometimes, as they work a very spot-oriented style that works or doesn't, but this is an instance where it really, really, really works awesome. In order for spot style to be good for me, the transitions need to be good and more specifically in Briscoe matches, the other team really needs to bring the goods. Both happen here and it's awesome.
We start off with a really simple story. The Briscoe's are champs and basically rowdy Americans looking for a fight. They want to strike, drop you on your head till it explodes and double team you to pieces. Suzuki and Marvin on the other hand, aren't QUITE as spiteful, but aren't going to be pushed around and are more comfortable wrestling the Briscoe's as opposed to fighting them and goad them into making mistakes. They REALLY stick with this formula well through the first three quarters of the matches.
Suzuki and Marvin usually control the Briscoe's, but EVERY SINGLE TIME the match gets into striking in any form, the Briscoe's not only come out on top, they easily come out on top and Suzuki and Marvin have to survive, regroup, settle and re-establish control. Really, there's nothing mroe to it than that.
The transitions in this match are practically flawless. The Briscoe's make a mistake, Suzuki and Marvin go into multi-tasking mode, neutralize a Briscoe and take control. They maintain control until they try to throw bombs, what the Briscoe's like, and pay for it. Basically the match just goes back and forth constantly in this formula until the Briscoe's eventually get worn down enough for the Suzuki/Marvin team to trade bombs and have a chance, and they're able to hit enough big stuff to win the match. Nothing complicated, but just great spot-style wreslting.
The Briscoe's play up their dumb, frothing at the mouth redneck thing super well in this, but mostly, the credit for taking this to the next level is all Suzuki and Marvin. Suzuki is shockingly great in this. He seems much more wiling to trade with the Briscoe's and plays the role of the spunky one. Marvin is silky smooth, cool, calm and collected and totally comes off as the 'calming' factor in the match. Great role playing.
The key to the match for Suzuki and Marvin is to cut off the REALLY big stuff from the Briscoe's and they do that several times, twice with the doomsday device. No matter how deep the pile of doo doo seems to get for Suzuki and Marvin, they keep the Briscoe's off balance enough to at least prevent them from hitting the BIG BIG stuff and are able to constantly screw up the briscoe's pacing. Eventually the Briscoe's are worn down enogh to where the faces can open up the bag o tricks and score the victory.
This is just FANTASTIC stuff from both teams who stick with a fun formula and throw in some really fun and innovative spots to keep the crowd off their backsides the whole match. The momentum swings are constantly dramatic and for the last ten minutes, both teams look like they're within a hair's breath of losing the match. That's good wrestling. This is fantastic and shouldn't be missed. ***1/2
Takeshi Morishima v. Austin Aries, ROH World Championship, 4/27/07
Aries spends the opening moments of the match trying to knock Mori off his feet. it takes him about 672 shoulder blocks and strikes to do it though, before Mori just grabs him and spikes him of the mat like a football. Morishima is a total monster and does a fun job with it. He does the old Andre the Giant 'stand on em' thing and does the running bump butt and all that good stuff.
Basically, this is Aries making comebacks and showing life here and there with Morishima controlling almost the entire 15 minutes. JUST as you're REALLY getting tired of the Morishima control segment which lasts 10 minutes or so, Aries is able to catch a break and dumps the big man to the floor as he charges at him. Aries sales through the ropes and starts building SOMETHING, before Mori cuts him off. Mori hits a running bump butt in the corner barracade and then goes to do it again and Aries avoids it by the skin of his teeth and hits two missile drop kicks. We got back into the ring and Aries' freakign retardedly goes for a brain buster he's incredibly unlikely to hit given he's pretty much hit a tope and two drop kicks the entire match. Mori blocks it and another three-four minutes of MOrishima killing Aries. Then we do the 'remember the last time I won the title?' part of the match where Aries tries to basically re-inact the closing sequence of his match with Joe, except he finds this one much harder to pull off. Mori fights the first crucifix bomb attempt but can't avoid the second one. Aries kicks MOri twice and then hits a brain buster adn a 450 for... MOri gets his foot on the ropes. Aries says 'fvck it i'll just do it again' and goes for a second 450 only for Morishima to quickly recover and hit a nasty back drop suplex off the top rope and then a lariat which Aries flips 600 times to sell then kicks out. Mori hits one more backdrop driver and it's over.
I was really dissapointed with this match. It wasn't bad, there just wasn't really anything to it. Morishima sold REALLY well for Austin while Austin over sold as per the usual, but clearly with good intentions in mind.
The thing I didn't like about this is that they basically just tried to tweak some spots in the Joe-Aries match from a few years ago and run with them. They work towards the end a bit, but the Aries offense is just entitrely unoriginal and re-hashed. There isn't a SINGLE point where I felt as if Aries was a legit challenger for Morishima either. It just wasn't convincing in any way. Mori oversold the whole 'this is way too easy' thing too, as a lot of foreigners tend to do, because they're not really super sharp on communicating to the culture they're wrestling in front of. I don't really fault him for doing it, but it did completely make me think Aries was a total joke as a challenger.
Aries doesn't really DO anything than run through his signature stuff and eat some big moves. The crowd though, reacted to everything he did.. why, I don't know as it didn't grip me in the slightest, but the crowd popped for it and if it's working for most, then who am I ya know? But hoenstly, this isn't even in the top 30 of the stuff i've seen thus far this year. Aries is usually GREAT wrestling big men, but not here. This one's way, way, way, way overhyped, IMO. I don't want to totally kill this, because it's not a bad match, it's just been done so many times I can't get into it. **1/2
Bryan Danielson v. Go Shiosaki, ROH Invades Japan, 7/16/07
Good match here that plays out well. For those of you who don't know, Danielson was ROH Champion for a year and a half almost before dropping the belt in December to Homicide. This is one of his first few matches back since losing the belt. Go Shiosaki on the other hand, is this spunky Kobashi-clone from Pro Wrestling NOAH that well, "Goes" like crazy. Pretty much, that's the way this match plays out.
Early on, Shiosaki is wrestling pretty smart. Danielson seems to be a little surprised at how difficult it is for him to really contain Go and wrestle him to the mat. Go outdoes Dragon with strikes, throws and other fun stuff before Danielson is eventually able to put him in his place. To beat Go, Danielson isn't going to get into strikes. He's smaller, Go's bigger and stronger, thus it'd be a really stupid idea. So Danielson, the consomite viewer of wrestling tapes, must've watched the film of the Jun Akiyama-Go Shiosaki match from earlier this year where Akiyama pretty much demolished Go's arm and overwhelmed him from there.
Danielson applies a similar strategy and has success with it, wrestling Go to the ground and finding all sorts of ways to pick his arm apart. This works for a variety of weaknesses, none of which are as important as Danielson minimizing Go's greatest asset, which is his size and striking ability. Also, Dragon's two primary finishers: Cattle Mutilation and the cross face chicken wing, are both centered around the arm. Seems smart. Danielson seems to be content to work that arm. Go on the other hand, just wants to "Go" and throw bombs. Danielson gets increasingly frustrated by Go's ability to wiggle away from himand drop him on his head and whatnot, and that leads to mistakes that allow Go to control a lot more of this match then you'd think it would.
After much frustration, Danielson pretty much goes with the "bombs it is" decision and gets plowed. Danielson regains his patience, which sort of becomes the key to the match in a way. Dragon goes right back to picking apart the arm before Go again wiggles out, but this time Danielson... instead of losing his temper and making a mistake, seems content to take the moves in hopes that he'll be able to catch Go making a mistake of HIS own, and capitalize on the smart and patient wrestling he employed earlier in the match. It pays off for Dragon in the end, as Go misses a moonsault and Dragon's able to slap on cattle mutiliation. Go manages to almost wiggle out of it and go at another comeback, but Dragon quickly makes sure he's got Go dazed enough to keep the hold on, hits the KO elbows and then locks the hold back on for the submission win at around 27 minutes.
This was pretty good stuff, but really.. this was all Dragon. Go didn't do anything I haven't seen him do a thousand times in NOAH already. That's not a bad thing, but Go pretty much went until he got young and stupid again, and the cagey vet figured out a way to beat him. Nothing really new. This is worked a lot like the Akiyama match from January, as I mentioned earlier. Danielson's clearly the better wrestler, but Go keeps in the game with lots of spunk and fast moving offense, despite being bigger. This frustrates Danielson at first and causes him to sort of lose focus. In January, Akiyama had a lot of success working Go's arm, but unlike Danielson, he had the size t o pretty much overwhelm him and cut off the comebacks. Danielson on the other hand, has to work through Go's comebacks BECAUSE he lacks the size to completely keep him at bay, In many respects, Danielson has to almost let Go sort of do his thing, wrestle smart and stay patient to win. Unlike Akiyama, he can't really just go out there and say' hell, I think i'm going home in 10 minutes tonight'. He's got to use his cunning to beat a bigger Go.
It's a nice progressive spin on earlier stuff this year, but really, Dragon completely owns this match from bell to bell. His facials, selection of offence, his mounting frustration, etc., make this match WAY better than it would have been say, had Austin Aries worked it. My one sort of problem with this match is that the arm work is a BIG piece of it, and not just used for control. Go kind of forgets it's beingworked sometimes, and not other times and is inconsistent in that regard. The pacing is a little funny too as I found myself a little bit in the same corner as the crowd... it starts pretty slow and plodding then literally in five seconds is all over the place and you're kind of like 'oh wow, wait what's going on?" Aside from some pacing issues and Go still being pretty green despite what a lot of people might think, this is a pretty good match, but also a pretty one sided affair, at least in terms of who brougth the goods. Definately a good match though.***
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