13 replies to this topic

[DEAN]

Dorkfest for Sunday March 16, 2009!  Casa De RASMUCHOOOOS!

Your CELEBRANTS: DEAN, Tim- a good egg to watch the wrestling with, Dave "MattClassic" Layne, and young Kevin.

It was only about 2 hours long so it was a pretty truncated DorkFest.  Nothing was completely blow-away great since I had already seen the Dutch Mantell stuff.  But anyway, I'll keep it short so my fellow CELEBRANTZ~! can chime in.

- Watched the fucking ETERNAL Kaz Hayashi vs Minoru Tanaka title match from Saturday's All Japan card.  there is NO reason these two guys should go longer than 20 minutes.  This goes legit like 44 minutes.  Tanaka sells the leg in the middle and that was nice, and they had a perfectly fine section in the middle with mat work to kill like 15 minutes but you still have 15 minutes of finishers which is fucking ENDLESS.  Yoi.

- Dave wanted to watch some Memphis and I needed to watch the end of the Dutch/Lawler barbed-wire match.  We watched the set-up in the studio- which is about as violent as wrestling gets, if you recall.  Actually, we watched a fucking BEAUTIFUL Rock and Roll Express vs The Nightmares match before we watched the Essence Of Manliness that is Lawler vs Mantell.  Maaaaan, the fucking Nightmares fucking RULE.  Watch them bump like fucking KINGs in that match.  So fucking great.

- Kevin hadn't seen any DDT so we watched the build up to the UWA 6-man.  I use word association: Dino... buttocks... tiny pants... buttocks... exploding car...woman in shoulder pads.... man in tiny pants.... in blackface to represent surviving car exploding.  We watched a few minutes of the 6 man- but TAKA in of 09 MINUS the hate of KDX vs Inshingun EQUALS Jesus, does this suck some ass.

- We kinda blew through the latest OZ Academy.  Manami is getting LARGER.  Takako is still COMPLETELY mountable as is KAORU.  Sonoko Kato has found her womanly girthiness also.  Aja Kong has grown her hair out and now looks like your great aunt.  Dynamite Kansai cut her hair off so as to no longer have the Hotta Grows Out Her Hair vibe.  I'll go back and watch the wrestling later.  Probably.

We'll have better luch next time.

DEAN.

[J.T.]

Man if Kevin hasn't seen any DDT, then you totally should've dug up some random Poison Sawada JULIE match or better yet, the Kota Ibushi vs. Kenny Omega match from last August.

I think I've still got the DDT retirement ceremony for the Ladder on VHS somewhere in my storage unit.

[J.H.]

DEAN, on Mar 17 2009, 01:41 AM, said:

- We kinda blew through the latest OZ Academy.  Manami is getting LARGER.  Takako is still COMPLETELY mountable as is KAORU.  Sonoko Kato has found her womanly girthiness also.  Aja Kong has grown her hair out and now looks like your great aunt.  Dynamite Kansai cut her hair off so as to no longer have the Hotta Grows Out Her Hair vibe.  I'll go back and watch the wrestling later.  Probably.

We'll have better luch next time.

DEAN.

- The Toyota is getting larger as she has been fully embracing her bitch heel a bit more these days.
- Takako will remain mountable for like the next 10-20 years. She will be luring young unsuspecting Japanese lads to her lair and drink their blood to remain young. No seriously though, her side job isa yoga instructor so she is even more limber and athletic now. She is even more beautiful and elegantbody wise than she was before.
- Kansai got her head shaved after she and Amano dropped the OZ tag titles to D-FIX. After that she swore vengeance... yadda, yadda, yadda.. she now is the OZ Academy Champion/Headmistress.

Joshi is at a dull point right now. OZ Academy is like GAEA without Chigusa's penchant for long drawn out angles. JWP is good when we get i and NEO id... well NEO i.e. ya gotta get through some crap to get to the good.

James

[J.T.]

J.H., on Mar 17 2009, 07:38 AM, said:

Joshi is at a dull point right now. OZ Academy is like GAEA without Chigusa's penchant for long drawn out angles. JWP is good when we get i and NEO id... well NEO i.e. ya gotta get through some crap to get to the good.

I thought that joshi was on the comeback trail these days with the Shirai Sisters leading the charge?  What gives?

[WrestlingPower]

This was one of those dorkfest that was more "let's watch random stuff" than good stuff, which seems to happen every 3rd or so dorkfest.  2 hrs is a bit short and really makes us question the 40 min drive out to Dean's.  Maybe the next time people's wives/significant others are out of town we will need to have an extended dorkfest including dinner.

The Memphis stuff was the highlight for sure.  That Nightmares match was awesome and I had forgotten about it until reading this.  Bearded Danny Davis & Ken Wayne (who Dean laughably refers to as the Best Tiger Mask) were bumping freaks.  I joked at one point that Morton didn't even have to be there to give armdrags, they would bump on their own.  Lawler/Mantel was great, just wish the VQ was better, but for 82-83 Memphis it still looked decent.

I told Dave on the way home that I was depressed over joshi and should probably stay away from current stuff.  I definitely don't want to remember Toyota this way.  Dean & I both thought she looked like a slimmed down Eagle Sawai with the new red streak. Joshi seems to be in a rut of the veterans just don't have it anymore and are collecting a check (hopefully?) and the newcomers have no credibility and aren't anywhere near good (or passable) enough to justify any kind of high position on a card.  But I say this having watched part of 2 matches.

The DDT only went in the machine because Kevin & I wanted to see who Michael Nakazawa was before going to Chikara.  I'm pretty sure he was in that Europeans vs. Italians 6-man but none of us knew which one he was if he was even in it.

The NJ match was pretty interminable but the very first thing watched at a dorkfest always suffers from the distractions of conversations of catching up with each other and more folks arriving.  It picked up near the end but the finishing sequence did seem to be 5 min too long.  I agree with Dean, these 2 shouldn't go more than 20.  Minoru Tanaka takes patience anyway but 35+ min was too much.

[J.H.]

J.T., on Mar 17 2009, 07:44 AM, said:

J.H., on Mar 17 2009, 07:38 AM, said:

Joshi is at a dull point right now. OZ Academy is like GAEA without Chigusa's penchant for long drawn out angles. JWP is good when we get i and NEO id... well NEO i.e. ya gotta get through some crap to get to the good.

I thought that joshi was on the comeback trail these days with the Shirai Sisters leading the charge?  What gives?

It looked like Joshi was getting hot again from Summer 07 until about April of 08 but then things just got kinda dull. I mean everything is better with the Shirai sisters, don't get me wrong (Wheneer s mstch with one of them pops up I grab it), but It seems every fed is in a holding pattern. Hopefully JWP's MANIX-X show will iven things up what with the Hyuga/Haruyama rematch and hopefully the super tricked out team of Yabushita and Bolshoi going or the tag straps against Hotta and Keito. Oh and for some reason Kaori Yoneyama is now the designated job girl, which is just a crying shame because she is probably the best all around girl on the JWP roster.

Sendai is getting way to repetitive, hell the Shirai's wern't even invited to the JAJA UMA Tournamen this year (alot of Juniors weren't). NEO could be doing so much more with Passion Red  but having Kana and Taiyo feud with Revolucion Amandola ain't such a bad move. Its just you have Nanae holding the double title and no one really there to take it from her outside of Tamura (unless they they want to recommit to Emi Sakura).  I wish Yoshida would come in and win the Double Titles because then we'd get some really fun matches (Yoshida v. Sakura comes to mind).

Don't get me started me about WAVE...

James

[1JoshI]

DEAN, on Mar 17 2009, 12:41 AM, said:

- We kinda blew through the latest OZ Academy.  Manami is getting LARGER.  Takako is still COMPLETELY mountable as is KAORU.  Sonoko Kato has found her womanly girthiness also.  Aja Kong has grown her hair out and now looks like your great aunt.  Dynamite Kansai cut her hair off so as to no longer have the Hotta Grows Out Her Hair vibe.  I'll go back and watch the wrestling later.  Probably.

We'll have better luch next time.

DEAN.

What, an OZ Academy report without any mention of the PAUNTS-expanding Hiren, our favorite Sendai girl gone bad? Or Hiroyo Matsumoto, whose quest to be the 21st century's Bison Kimura has led her to costume choices that a 1989 Madusa Miceli wouldn't have made?

As far as OZ Academy goes, the best matches are those involving some combination of Chikayo Nagashima/Sonoko Kato/Carlos Amano/AKINO/Ran Yu-Yu where Mayumi Ozaki fights off the temptation to book it as her personal homage to the booking styles of WCW and/or TNA.  Nagashima's the best worker in the company, Amano's good when not stuck with the detoriated Mayumi, and Sonoko Kato's mobility is gone but she's very good at playing the babyface in peril, as she's about the only person in the company that I can totally buy as a face.  Everyone else is either a heel or has lots of history as a backstabber (hi Chikayo).

The best joshi these days involves the girls who debuted in the mid to late 90s. Look for Chikayo, Carlos, Ran, AKINO, Sonoko, Ayako Hamada, Meiko Satomura, Toshie Uematsu, Azumi Hyuga, Kayoko Haruyama, Tsubasa Kuragaki, Kaori Yoneyama, Nanae Takahashi, and Yoshiko Tamura when she feels like it (she's really the Liz Phair of joshi, capable of the great but usually settling for the mediocre).  There's a few halfway decent ones from the early 2000s (Tojuki Leon, Kyoko Kimura, Atsuko Emoto, even Yumi Ohka & Fuuka on good days) and the class of 05/06 (Ayumi Kurihara, Hiroyo, Arisa Nakajima, Kana, the Sendai girls) will be good.  A good general rule of thumb is that if she was on the card for Dreamslam or Big Egg and she's in a match in 2008/2009, it's probably not very good.  Also, the wrong girls retiring motif is continuing, as people like Misae Genki, Haruka Matsuo, Hikaru, Saki Maemura, and Sasori have all retired/will retire while we still have the Etsuko Mitas of the world trying to work.  She's so broken down that she's mostly relegated to the NEO undercard working dopey matches with people like Tanny Mouse or Makoto.

Someone needs to teach Manami some fat girl offense and that you can buy "relaxed fit" jeans (a lesson that I, alas, have learned).  She's still serviceable, but she can't really do some of her stock moves anymore.  Her Japanese Ocean Cyclone suplex these days is worse that the ones you sometimes see from US Indy chicks ripping her moveset off.

[FLIK]

Quote

I thought that joshi was on the comeback trail these days with the Shirai Sisters leading the charge? What gives?

Lot less stuff making tape is also a big problem

Sendai hasn't had tv in about 5 months, not sure if they even still have a deal. Also agree about them being really repetitive and stale. 4 years in and they're STILL doing the fucking us vs them theme vs random outsiders on all their shows. Girls like Okuda & Hiren are far more interesting when wrestling outside the promotion

IBUKI makes tape like once a year

JWP makes tv like 3 times a year + a few random comm tapes popping up

EVERY NEO show makes tape pretty much, their big cards always deliver, I like watching their comm tapes for the most part but like JH said you have to sort through a lot of crap to find the hidden gems on smaller shows.

OZ Academy still has regular monthly tv and has some really good matches on their best days and atleast does interesting booking on their worst but it's the same crew for the most part we've seen working together for years and years now, though they have been mixing in a few new girls like Matsumoto & Hiren into the mix which has freshened things up some.

And yeah, less said about WAVE and LLPW the better....

Quote

A good general rule of thumb is that if she was on the card for Dreamslam or Big Egg and she's in a match in 2008/2009, it's probably not very good

Well, I wouldn't go quite that far.
OZ can still go. Her style isn't every ones cup of tea granted, but for the style she does she's still really good at it.
Toyota, KAORU & Kansai can still put on good stuff on ocasion and on their best days still aren't putting on horrible matches.
Aja's always great.
Yoshida's from that generation and is still awesome, though she hasn't been around in a while.

[dannykeyz]

Sendai was always going to be a tough promotion to run and get off the ground.  One, they are out in the stix, pretty isolated from the rest of the Joshi groups and two they started from scratch.  Four rookies and one top talent in Meiko was a tough way to start.  So even picking up a couple of new girls they were always going to have to work at a slower pace than the likes of JWP and NEO.  Then, the inevitable started to happen - Injuries.  And when one of those was Meiko herself, you knew they were going to have it rough.  I can't help thinking that had a lot to do with them losing Gaora coverage, which probably contributed to their current booking and outlook.  Really, a couple of promotion mergers would give Joshi a really rosy future, because there is more than enough talent to make some strong setups.  But we know thats not going to happen.  Joshi thread hijack!

[J.H.]

1JoshI, on Mar 17 2009, 11:18 AM, said:

The best joshi these days involves the girls who debuted in the mid to late 90s. Look for Chikayo, Carlos, Ran, AKINO, Sonoko, Ayako Hamada, Meiko Satomura, Toshie Uematsu, Azumi Hyuga, Kayoko Haruyama, Tsubasa Kuragaki, Kaori Yoneyama, Nanae Takahashi, and Yoshiko Tamura when she feels like it (she's really the Liz Phair of joshi, capable of the great but usually settling for the mediocre).

This is the most apt analogy/comparison for Tamura I can think of. Kudos to you Josh

James

[FLIK]

Quote

pretty isolated from the rest of the Joshi groups and two they started from scratch. Four rookies and one top talent in Meiko was a tough way to start.

Well, starting out they weren't that much worse then GAEA who only had Chigusa, KAORU, Bomber & 6 rookies to start, with Chiggy being the only real top talent. But you look at whear GAEA was 3-4 years in and they were miles ahead of whear Sendai is at this stage. Meiko or whoever's in charge of booking is too scater brained & random in terms of the outsiders they use and for god knows what reason, they never book any in house rivalries so there's never any big momentum carried over from show to show that often.

[J.H.]

FLIK, on Mar 17 2009, 05:40 PM, said:

Quote

pretty isolated from the rest of the Joshi groups and two they started from scratch. Four rookies and one top talent in Meiko was a tough way to start.

Well, starting out they weren't that much worse then GAEA who only had Chigusa, KAORU, Bomber & 6 rookies to start, with Chiggy being the only real top talent. But you look at whear GAEA was 3-4 years in and they were miles ahead of whear Sendai is at this stage. Meiko or whoever's in charge of booking is too scater brained & random in terms of the outsiders they use and for god knows what reason, they never book any in house rivalries so there's never any big momentum carried over from show to show that often.

But GAEA ended up with Yamada, Ozaki and Hokuto by the end of their first year and Chigusa relied on angles to get the young girls, one of whom was Satomura, over. Satomura has yet to do any type of angle and with Hiren being all evil in Oz Academy a natural angle is right there. I mean hell, Sendai is backed by MPRO and if any fed relies on feuds and angles it i MPRO, yet here we are close to 4 years into SENDAI and all these girls do is wrestle and lose to outsiders. If any Joshi league NEEDS factions and storylines it is Sendai.

James

[Hooperman]

I don't come 'round these parts often, but I figured I'd chime in since I was mentioned ...late better than never.

I am Kevin, in a wacky disguise which I don't feel like explaining currently. Dean was part right, I don't keep up well with Japan but I'm not a DDT virgin.  I actually rather enjoyed the 6 man.  DDT is always different I just don't have the ability to keep up with it as well as I would like.

I don't know if it was just a long weekend but after the first Dutch Mantell match I was ready for something else...and the video quality of the 2nd Dutch Mantell v. Jerry Lawler was pretty horrid.  I found myself struggling to pay attention.

I came straight from a hockey game and only caught the tail end of the Minoru v Hayashi match and it was absolutely outstanding.

...ok, as you were :)

[WrestlingPower]

you saw the best part... I think I heard the official time was like 37min