No, I haven't seen that. I'll be on the lookout for it. Can't find it on youtube.

I got it on my YT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yux4F4E_gHU

Cheers dude. I'm using a tablet at the moment and the YouTube app is useless at times.

Got round to watching the ROH cage of death. I'm surprised Hero never fell into the crowd before that moonsault off the top, considering Homicide was ****ing chairs at him which were hitting him.

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That match is soooooo f'n good. A GOAT match for sure.

You should get the CZW VS ROH DVD. A few crappy promos but some good matches in there.

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I may have that. I have a 3 hour comp called "Honor goes Ultraviolent" that's all CZW vs ROH and that for some unknown reason lacks the 6 man tag from ROH's 100th Show which was one of the matches of the decade.

Smackdown Elimination Chamber 2010



Man, Punk used to be sooooooo good back then.

Thanks for that. I enjoyed that. Both of those guys can put on very good matches.

Watching NJPW's ppv from today:
Young Bucks vs Time Splitters (KUSHIDA & Alex Shelley) - I don't normally look forward to Jr's matches but they always deliver and this time I looked forward to it. It didn't disappoint at all. As the opening match they got a solid 16-19 minutes to play with and put on a very impressive sprint. Easily in my top 3 matches of the year for now.

no serena is one of many problems with the current product.

I watched the Starrcade 97 main event the other day. So terrible.

That match really was unforgivably bad. Such a letdown after a year-long build.

The rematch the next night was even worse. LOL Hogan. What a selfish prick.

Jim Duggan vs Steve Storm. This isn't so much about the match as Bobby Heenan being awesome on commentary.

Watched IRS vs Davey Boy from a 10/27/91 MSG event on the network. omg. It went to a 20 minute draw. Worst. Match. Ever.

Just read that this was the most bought ppv in WCW history too.

Cedric Alexander vs. AJ Styles. Cedric is one of the best young talents in ROH/across the independents and AJ Styles is AJ Styles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StAP-Q3YQ4s

I never understood why WCW didn't push La Parka to the main event scene. He was one of their best workers, and most over guys. When Smackdown put Eddie and RMJ into the main event scene they became the number 1 most watched show for the Hispanic American demographic. Pretty sure if WCW had gone all in on guys like La Parka they might have lasted a few years longer at least. It's also pretty sad that nobody has picked up the air guitar chair gimmick in the preceding years.

Just finished Flair vs. Vader 93 Starrcade. Said in another post that it's one of my first memories of wrestling, so I've caught it a few times since then, but noticed something I don't think I've seen before.

After a spot where Flair wraps Vader's leg around the post he chases Race off and then gets back to punching Vader who is now leaning against the ring apron. After one of the shots it appears Vader says "Hit me" as in harder, or really lay it in there. Well Flair doesn't disappoint. Throughout the remainder of the match he punches Vader in the face 30-40 times. He doesn't punch him like it's a bar fight or anything but he certainly isn't holding back, so much so Vader bleeds the hard way. Either way, certainly didn't remember thinking the match was that brutal when I was a kid, but looking at the nuisances of it now, I can tell they were really laying them in there.

Also, I thought the ending was a roll up from Flair because of a distraction from Race, but really it's just Flair taking Vader's leg out from under him and rolling him up somewhat awkwardly. They could have done a better ending, something like Race hitting Vader and leading straight to the pin, still a pretty good match, with a good build up and a good story to go with it (Ric Flair's career on the line against the guy who's broken everyone in WCW, etc.)

Watching Tyler Black vs Nigel McGuiness.

Met Nigel in Belfast last year. He was shilling his documentary, which I had zero interest in as I no longer watched, but a nice guy all the same.

Alright, so I've never really gotten into puro, but iso PM'd me and asked me to do a writeup on a match to give some perspective of what a non-puro fan would think of it. Apparently this is a 5-star match in Meltzer's book. I guess I'll put this writeup in this thread even though the thread title tilts me.

G-1 Climax: Shibata vs. Ishii

Date: August 4, 2013

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DGDu5UqiZk

Background (copy/pasted from a PM from iso): Shibata is a former MMA fighter who just came back to NJPW in January. His shtick is that he hits really hard and destroys everybody. Ishii is a 17 year veteran who's finally gaining some popularity for being the lovable underdog who can't pull out the big victory. His shtick is that he hits really hard, sells like a god, and plays the underdog role so perfectly that the crowd is starting to root for him despite being a heel.

The Match: Okay, language barrier made me Google these guys to even know which was which, but Ishii is the Samoa Joe-shaped guy and the other one is Shibata.

The two run and collide in mid-ring, one with a high knee and the other I couldn't tell. They hammer away on each other, neither getting an advantage. Couple of corner spots, then they seemt o knock heads and both take a moment to collect themselves. As they come to blows again, Shibata doesn't seem to sell forearms at all believably.

They seem to challenge each other by each taking a knee to willingly accept a kick or chop to the chest. They take turns doing this for a bit. Yeah, again I don't like how Shibata sells these. Ishii finally seems to get the worse of the striking battle, gets staggered, and then Shibata pounds him in the corner until the ref breaks it up. At that point he goes to the opposite corner and then runs in with a sick low dropkick. Liked that spot a lot. Ishii takes a walk.

He crawls back in, but Shibata is right back on the offensive. More striking. The referee backs Shibata off while he checks on Ishii. Shibata gets Ishii back to his feet, hits a couple of chops, but off the ropes he runs into a belly-to-belly. Now it's Ishii laying in some kicks to the chest, and as Shibata gets to his feet Ishii connects on a spinning heel kick. Pulls him back up for a clothesline, attempts the pin but only gets two.

Ishii leaves Shibata sitting, tries to lay in a kick off a running start but Shibata catches his leg, gets up, and pulls him through a vicious short clothesline. After gathering himself for a moment, he locks in a Boston crab. I wonder if they call it a Boston crab in Japan. Ishii gets a rope break, but as soon as the break happens Shibata pulls him away and locks in an STF. Ishii musters enough adrenaline to force another rope break.

Shibata pulls him back to his feet, executes a release German suplex, Ishii 100% no-sells it, hits own release German, Shibata no-sells that, but Ishii turns around and levels him with a clothesline. WTF, why were they no-selling those suplexes? Both slowly make their way back to their feet and get into another striking contest. Again Shibata comes out on top, but Ishii gets back up quickly, hammers a big clothesline, then tries to quickly capitalize with a pin but can only get two.

Another striking exchange, Ishii seems to win it when he substitutes a headbutt instead of a forearm, but as he tries to lock in a suplex attempt, Shibata slips out and delibers a headbutt of his own. Both men down, slowly back to their feet. Shibata is able to apply a reverse chinlock that Ishii succeeds in making look legit painful. He manages a rope break. Shibata kicks at him, Ishii counters with an enziguiri, another complete no-sell that I don't understand, back and forth with a couple of moves with neither guy selling. Ishii hits a clothesline for a near-fall, then hits a brainbuster that finally gets the three-count.

Result: Ishii via pinfall (12:18)

Thoughts:
*Ishii impressed me far more than Shibata did. Thought he was a way better seller and easily matched Shibata's offensive abilities.
*The no-selling in a couple of spots really made no sense to me and I didn't like it.
*The pace was excellent and certainly made the whole thing watchable at the very least, and I would call it good.
*The striking sequences were fine but not exactly my thing, would have been happy to only see one or two of those rather than seemingly having them as a focal point.
*All in all, as an outsider with no context outside of that which iso gave me, I can't see the five stars this match got, but I would solidly give it something like 3.25 or 3.5 stars out of 5.

Ha, gonna admit that only now did I even process that iso's background included "sells like a god" for Ishii. I was making those comments complimenting his selling ability completely independently. I liked him quite a bit.

Thanks LKJ, appreciate it a lot. I didn't think it would be near 5* for you precisely because of the no selling. Perhaps I should've given a backstory on that but even then I doubt it changes your mind much.

The doing a counter move, followed by getting hit with a big move from the aggressor, followed by doing another counter is a staple of heavy hitters in Japan.

As far back as 1998 I remember these spots happening with Kobashi vs Akiyama and later on a bunch of Kobashi/Misawa/Kawada/Go Shiozaki/KENTA/Akyiyama/more puro guys. I'm guessing it's "ADRENALINE!!!!!". I always enjoy those spots but sometimes they can get silly (see Kobashi vs Akiyama in 2004 where they each traded three suplexes 30+ mins into a match). Sometimes these things are brought to the states to...In the much heralded KENTA vs Danielson in ROH they did these trading suplexes. Joe vs Kobashi is another example. Just really standard for guys who work really stiff for some reason.

It appears (or maybe I'm missing it) that you didn't catch the one counts they got on each other very late in the match. That, more than anything shows "ADRENALINE!!!" and even more than that, their will to win and one up the other.

I put the match at 5* and actually feel bad that I can't call that the MOTY for 2013 because Tanahashi/Okada at Invasion Attack was so much better (match of the 2000's afaic).

Yeah, the one-counts I must have missed. When I'm trying to type as I watch, even when I will stop and rewind it 30 seconds to catch stuff I think I missed, I'll still miss some little things here and there. Or maybe I'm just used to the WWE style where one-counts are barely a thing, and was mentally inserting some two-counts.

Anyway, I'd certainly be happy to take requests from time to time and write them up ITT or maybe in another thread. Not just puro necessarily either; I've barely seen any ROH, and for the most part haven't caught most non-WWE stuff. Since I'm doing another tribute thread right now I'll be focusing most of my writing on that, but I'd still take matches here and there from outside.

Just watched a highlight clip of a Generico/Steen ladder match and man ROH commentary is awful, and actively made it hard to watch. The match didn't impress me much, but I think that may have been the result of some really poor editing choices.

Now watching a "Cesaro"/Danielson ROH match, and commentary still terrible. The match is good now (2/3rds in), but the first few minutes were some really slow, not at all convincing looking chain stuff that surprised me with how bad it was.