Same elephant, different blind man...

Posted by: BostonIdol on March 26, 1998 at 11:11:56:

<Picture>Responding to: Different VCR's produce different footage?

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: : It looks like it's

: : going to be a sprint with sustained heat when suddenly

: : Akiyama clamps on a figure four headscissor and just

: : sits, and Misawa just lays there for 45 seconds, and

: : the crowd heat goes away.

: I don't think AJ fans expect or really want to see

: just a sprint from a Misawa match. The heat dying

: is the risk you run when you start really hot.

Let's check 6/6 and see if the heat died. 10/21?

: They had to take it down at some point. Your other

: option is to start slow and build the crowd up, but

: is it that important whether the crowd is quite for

: a stretch in the middle instead of for a stretch in

: the beginning? My point, though the heat didn't

: sustain throughout, they were easily able to get it

: whenever something important was happening,

They got pops for spots, Mike, with no sustain until

the final four or five minutes of nearfalls. That's

WWF calibre work in my book. Spot, pop, resthold.

BTW, the reason I noticed the crowd is because I was

getting bored with the work myself. The crowd seemed

to feel the same way about it, from what I could hear.

: which was often. When Jun was most over was during

: the final minutes when he came within a fraction of

: a second more than once of scoring the collassol

: upset. If they lost the crowd, the finish wouldn't

: have worked because they would have been dead for

: the closing sequence instead of the hottest for it.

Nice try, Mike, but I could probably find a dozen

matches that were dead in the middle and popped during

the near falls. I could also find a dozen that kept

the crowd interested between spots, rather than getting

the occaisional pop for a new move.

: You sound like you are descriping a Sting or Al Snow

: with that ridiculous Head match or something the way

: you talk about them losing the crowd.

Hmmm... You're right, Mike. In fact I felt almost

like I was watching ECW for a few minutes there as

they piled up meaningless moves between silence. As

soon as Misawa went for a reverse chinlock (no, not the

facelock submission) I knew it was going to get bad.

Misawa used that resthold during 3/1 Doc and the

well forgotten Honda match in January.

: Not many people are going to pop for things like

: that headscissor, but you could see that Jun had

: weakened the neck early and now he was trying to

: further that on the ground.

He wasn't "trying" to do anything, which is why the

lost the crowd. He did little to work the hold and

Misawa did little to sell it. Luger worked more

convincing wristlocks with Dusty at the GAB in 1987.

: The only move that was troublesomely not over was

: Misawa's facelock, saying to me that he needs to

: beat someone of note with it fairly soon to get the

: heat back on it.

Maybe they thought "Oh god, is he going for the sleeper

again? We saw this in the Honda match."

: Jun pushed Misawa to the limit, if not farther, and

: he had the fans reacting as if they believed as much

: as any fan can that the king was about to be

: dethroned. That was a big advance over their

: September TC match.

The finish was strong, the body stunk. What mistifies

me is why they had to blow for ten minutes when the

match only went a little over twenty.

: Main difference was Jun's aggression. Last time he

: was tentative and nice until the latter portion, and

: the heat didn't pick up when he started getting

: nasty and going all out on his partners bad neck.

: This time, he wrestled like a peer, coming out with

: all guns blazing and pulling new spots out of his

: ass to try to take the belts.

Yup. It was a hot start. I've indentified exactly

where it died. Perhaps you can ID where it picked up

again and count the minutes in between. I'll be happy

to go through it blow by blow.

: : From that point until the final four or five minutes,

: : all the new moves and big spots they rolled out couldn't

: : get the crowd buzzing again. Of course, a reverse

: : chinlock by Akiyama, a facelock by Akiyama, and a

: : reverse chinlock by Misawa didn't help matters.

: The key spots were all getting at least good pops.

: The spots you mention by Jun are weardown holds that

: advanced the psych, but aren't seen as finishers.

They only advance the psych if you work through them.

Jun applied them with the ferocity and drive of 3/1

Doc Williams. Watch Jun during the headscissors. The

only work he's doing is sucking in air. Heck, Mike,

New Japan Juniors do better selling of holds than what

I saw in this match.

: I'm wondering if we were watching the same match.

Yeah. You popped for the new moves, I was bored by

the storyline or lack thereof. You focused on the hot

start and strong finish, which I don't dispute BTW,

while I focused on the dreck that made up the middle

half of the match. Maybe it's because I was tired

the first time I saw it, or because in every subsequent

viewing with friends it gets eerily quiet for ten

minutes in the middle.

: : I love mat wrestling, but the mat wrestling here

: : consisted of several ineffective restholds which stole

: : momentum from the moves around them.

: I can agree that the fact that Jun doesn't have a

: submission to the neck took the heat down, but how

: many submission holds were actually used in this

: match?

Precious few, but I'm not arguing that indifferent

submissions are any better than indifferent restholds.

It's the indifference Mike, not the inate quality of

the hold. If Jun put on a figure four leglock instead

of a figure four headscissor, and they both acted the

same, it still would have lost the crowd. It was

obvious that they were resting. Hold selection wasn't

the issue there.

: :That, plus the

: : fact that the body of the match was "just there", was

: : a disappointment to me.

: I disagree. Jun was getting the better of the

: fast-paced portions the entire match.

So did Taue on 7/25, much to the dismay of others.

: Misawa had to go another direction, he slowed the

: pace down.

Wrong, Mike. Jun slowed it down with the headscissors,

then went to two other blatant restholds before Misawa

ever started to "slow the pace down."

: When Jun was on offense during the body of the match,

: he was advancing the neck injury storyline.

Sort of, but to little effect. He didn't need high

tech submissions. The old Flair-Funk head snap would

have gotten over better than half the moves he used.

: When Misawa was on offense, he was selling that

: injury every chance he got, as always. When it got

: hot for the finish, Jun threw everything at the neck

: he could, but Misawa mo is eventually finding it in

: him to turn it around as you know. However, this

: was after several unsuccessful attempts to turn it

: around with the trusty elbow, which showed Jun's

: toughness because he withstood it and went right

: back on the attack. Eventually Misawa just had

: enough and gave Jun that look when Jun tried to put

: him away with elbows saying , "I'm the guy who

: knocks people out around here" and turned it around.

The finish was good, a little more complex than many

of Misawa's defenses. The middle bored me. The lone

bright spot was Jun hitting the Tiger Driver and Misawa

getting fired up, momentarily.

: : Even if the crowd had been

: : hot, the progression of moves meant little to me.

: I don't know why. This is a very good discussion,

: but I'm wondering if we are discussing the same

: thing.

Gee Mike, I've cited several instances and you've taken

issue with none directly. The figure four headlock, the

restholds. They were all there. It's the same match.

: : The fact that the crowd wasn't hot tells you that they

: : weren't too impressed with the body of the match either.

: I don't think we watched the same match. Next thing

: you are going to tell me that the ringwork wasn't

: tremendous...

The holds blew, just about all of them as I recall.

Poor selection, yes, but lazy application was the real

problem.

: : (It's not always selling with me, you know.)

: I mentioned selling because Misawa's selling is in

: such a different stratosphere, and he was selling

: the bulk of the match, that Jun's selling looked so

: weak in comparison.

I think of Jun as a junior, so I'm not disappointed.

(Note to Hase fans - the reason I'll give Jun more

slack is that he's still fast enough to compete within

the junior style.)

: On problem with the match, IMO, was that, based on

: how it went, I would have liked to see Misawa on

: offense for another couple minutes at the end.

I think here they wanted to make Jun look stronger by

having him counter the expected Misawa thrust. Looking

back at the Taue match, it's almost 18 minutes of Taue

bashing Misawa, with a short, decisive Misawa comeback.

Here they were able to mix in some suprise comebacks

by Jun to forestall the inevitable.

: Jun practically made him extinct, but Misawa took it

: all and put him away rather quickly. Mind you, he

: put him away with his big spots and the new spot,

: but I think he progressed to those too soon it in

: his comeback. It was like they raised the bar so

: far with Jun competing on the same level as Kawada

: does, but then took it down by Misawa doing a couple

: big spots and it was over.

I was concerned by how many new spots they rolled into

this match, but the Misawa-Ace match was even worse in

terms of burning moves.

: The actual length of the match was fine, but I think

: you could have cut out a couple of spots earlier in

: favor of Misawa having a few more at the end.

Misawa doing more spots implies that Jun could take

them, which is what I guess they wanted to avoid.

This way Jun's offense is more impressive but he still

has a reason for losing to the other guys.

: So far, this is the best match I've seen from 1998.

Which isn't saying much of anything. BTW, using the

WON calendar, I thought the tag final was much better

than this or Misawa-Ace.

: I'm positive it will be surpassed. I can't wait...

Me too.

: BTW, if you want to tell me what was impressive

: about Misawa vs. Doc 10/11 *yawn*, I'm all ears (or

: should I say eyes?).

I mark out for the old NWA style psychology of working

on one body part so I really enjoyed seeing Doc focus

his offense on Misawa's leg with moves and submissions

that made sense and were well presented. I think it

showed that Doc could still be valuable if he focused

on wrestling rather than being a spot monster. Seems

like Stan's best match with Misawa was the one where

Stan focused on Misawa's arm. Or how about Koshinaka

working over Takada's hand in one of their matches?

Yes, I'm aware of Akiyama versus Misawa's neck. I was

jumping up and down about it last year when they did it

during Carny but it wasn't shown on TV. I'm a huge mark

for piledrivers and neckbreakers. Unfortunately Jun

didn't do enough in between to tie them together or

build up to them, IMO.

Frank