|
|
Dai Nihon Saikyo Tag League
Yushoketteisen Geikoto (fluorescent light bulb) & Barbed Wire Board Death Match: Tomoaki Honma & Ryuji Yamakawa vs. Shadow WX & The Winger From Battle Station Big Japan 11/14/99 Taped 11/8 Hokkaido Sapporo Teison Hall ("1,800 sellout") |
|
|
The first ten minutes of the match was basically regular wrestling. They teased the gimmick spots a couple of times and did a few spots that involved the gimmicks, but nothing major. This section worked okay when Winger was in because these guys can work some and have some nice moves that don't have to involve gimmicks. WX basically sucked the life out of the match when he'd tag in during this portion though. He's slow and plodding with no real ability. What really killed the match though was that he doesn't sell, so Honma had to take all of WX's boring offense. At one point, Honma lifted Yamakawa onto his shoulders and Yamakawa tried to nadare shiki no brainbuster Winger. However, Winger countered with a kaiten ebigatame to both (sunset flip). This would be a really cool new spot if it could be done right, but it seems too difficult for one man to credibly take both opponents over at basically the same time into a sunset flip. In any case, the spot was totally butchered. "The spot was butchered, but they should get some credit for trying it, maybe, if they practiced it successfully. Even doing it right would probably look goofy though because one guy would basically have to flip himself over," wrote Jason. The match didn't get that interesting until WX broke a bulb over Honma then took the Awesome spot one step further by thunder fire powerbombing Honma over the top rope through a barbed wire board. This spot was really nasty because Honma took basically all of the impact on his neck. Honma had actually cut himself after the bulb shot, but you couldn't see his face on camera so it looked like the barbed wire shreaded his head because the showed his face immediately after he took the bump and he was bleeding profusely. Starting with the said sequence, the match was once again beyond the realms of sanity. Jason wrote,"The thunder fire powerbomb on the neck is incredibly stiff just in the ring, adding-on going over the top rope into barbed wire is NUTS!" WX put Yamakawa on a table outside of the ring and broke a bulb across his "stomach." If you think this didn't hurt since they "faked it" by having WX hit Yamakawa's crossed arms, try telling that to Yamakawa while he was pulling pieces of broken glass out of his elbow. The next nutty spot was WX putting some kind of a flammable pad or bag around his arm then lighting it on fire and giving Honma a lariat, which was called big fire lariat. With Honma out of the picture and Yamakawa still down on the table picking glass out of his appendages, WX and Winger ascended to the top of the balcony. Winger stood on the ledge of the balcony with one of those pad things on his back, jumping off as soon as WX lit it so he could deliver a fire senton to Yamakawa! As soon as Winger hit the ground, the seconds doused him with water to put the fire out. Even though the balcony is high, he actually didn't break the table because he hit the far end and got right off instead of landing on Yamakawa square and burning the hell out of his chest while he got up. Still, it was one of the most insane garbage spots of all time. Back in the ring, WX put a barbed wire board on Yamakawa and Winger did his diving senton for a near fall. WX suplexed Yamakawa onto a barbed wire board that was set across two chairs. WX then put the board on top of Yamakawa and laid across it for the cover, but Honma made the save. "Visually all of these spots look cool, especially the slow motion replay of WX blowing the fireball onto Winger before he delivered his senton off of the balcony. Getting past the visuals, you realize that these workers are in an entirely different league when it comes to pain," wrote Jason. Yeah, I wonder what all the people who said Cactus Jack wouldn't last until 30 would say if they saw this stuff. The sad thing is the league probably grossed less than $50,000 on this show, so I'd hate to see the kind of payoffs these guys wind up getting for risking life and limb over and over again. WX tried to nadare shiki no brainbuster Yamakawa through a barbed wire board with a lightbulb or two on it, but Honma came up from behind and broke a bulb on WX's butt. Honma then pulled WX off the top and powerbombed him onto the gimmicks he just set up. This took WX out long enough that Yamakawa could make a comeback beating up Winger. Yamakawa used his reverse Tigerdriver onto a board, but WX made the save. Honma set up a barbed wire board with some light bulbs on it and they gave Winger the nadare shiki no brainbuster with Yamakawa on Honma's shoulders that they had tried earlier for the win. This was not the most deadly spot in the match by any means, actually a lot of Winger's body didn't land on the board, but it made sense that it was the finish because it was one of the only spots that had backfired earlier. "It's nice to see that, surrounded by all the chaos of the garbage spots, they actually put some thought into the finish. It makes a difference, even if it is only a tiny one. I mean, the whole point of the match was the insane spots," wrote Jason. I think some of these guys are capable of more, but when there is no one to teach them because old guys never implemented a shread of psychology, there's little hope of the wrestlers maturing. It's more likely that when their bodies finally give out, they'll either become guys that don't take many bumps or they'll just be brushed aside for the next nutty kid that's willing to "do what it takes." The work from everyone not named WX was good enough. Honma & Yamakawa didn't an acceptable job of putting over the gimmick spots, and they were selling most of the way so WX and Winger weren't a huge issue in this regard. The selling of Yamakawa & Honma was important in that it allowed WX and Winger to set up gimmick spots without slowing down the match too much. The match was basically spots, but there was enough good ones to make the match since the wrestling itself was at least acceptable. Honma has been better, but Yamakawa picked up some of the slack here and Winger, while not particulary good overall, did the cool spots that made the match. "The match was decent enough for people like me who aren't drawn to these type of matches, so it was probably really good for people who like Big Japan and the death match style. Definetly Winger's flaming senton is the spot to see," wrote Jason. Special thanks to: Jason Higgs 19:55 (19:16 aired)
|
|
