Hunter's Torn Quad

This isn't unusual for ROH to have booking decisions that leave us confused(although this doesn't really fit) but because the context is explained as the future booking develops, it makes sense. ROH is a continuing series of stories as opposed to WWE and TNA which are just two hour episodes loosely connected to the previous episode. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I'm not a fan of some of the booking decisions Gabe makes, but when they get played out, I can at least see the story he is trying to tell. This might look silly right now, but instead of saying it sucks, how about waiting to see how it plays out. People might just be surprised. If it plays out badly, then people can come back and rightfully say the whole deal sucked.

I think you should watch ROH, and then you might see how this booking fits in with how ROH works. It might not look like it can work if you don't watch ROH, but watching ROH might put the whole thing in the correct context.

The problem is that even if they use every gimmick under the sun, which they will have to do to work around the limitations of a match involving both men, it won't come anywhere close to being as good as Liger/Joe, Ultimate X and Styles/Daniels. The last thing TNA need, apart from Jarrett on top, as to have Jarrett and Nash in their first NWA title match on their first post-Spike PPV and have them so obviously upstaged by the guys underneath. What does it make TNA look like if they have two guys on top working a gimmick-laden match that will be **1/2 at best, and underneath them are guys working ****-level affairs? It makes them look like idiots for not putting what even their new found casual fans can see are their most talented workers on top. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> They may do what they did last month and go with the X-Division match as the Main Event. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The 'stars' would still be outworked and shown up no matter where they put the match. For TNA to have such top talents and not have their so-called 'world' title built around them just makes the NWA belt look like a belt for old guys.

I imagine Sapolsky is patterning this elevation along the lines of the Japanese groups, where he elevates Strong up the ladder and has him put in the match of his life in a losing effort to Dragon. That way, the fans know that Strong has improved his game a great deal, and while he can't beat the top guy just yet, he is good enough to give the top guy a run for his money.

At least there is one US booker who knows how, and is willing, to make new top stars for his company.

The problem is that even if they use every gimmick under the sun, which they will have to do to work around the limitations of a match involving both men, it won't come anywhere close to being as good as Liger/Joe, Ultimate X and Styles/Daniels. The last thing TNA need, apart from Jarrett on top, as to have Jarrett and Nash in their first NWA title match on their first post-Spike PPV and have them so obviously upstaged by the guys underneath. What does it make TNA look like if they have two guys on top working a gimmick-laden match that will be **1/2 at best, and underneath them are guys working ****-level affairs? It makes them look like idiots for not putting what even their new found casual fans can see are their most talented workers on top.

No, it isn't you. He's involved in a lot of them.

That's kinda like not tuning in to a football game until the last 5 minutes because it won't end before that. I hope they do it with no falls for 30 minutes, or at most 1 fall each with overtime, otherwise it won't be realistic and will just make them look bad. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> It's the truth. How many casual fans can honestly claim to have watched the entire 60 minutes of Benoit/HHH? Lesnar/Angle? On PPVs it's different because you PAID for it, but on free TV people are afforded the ability to switch on and off. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Porter is right. Iron Men matches never do good ratings, no matter who is in them, because the audience have been told beforehand when the match is ending. They usually do good for the first few minutes when people see how it starts out, but then people tune out until the end. Matches like that would do better if they just had them go out there and go to a 30:00 or 60:00 draw.

But they have 'star power', so we're stuck with them in the main event, while the guys who do have talent are forced into the background while a guy who refuses to accept he isn't a star and never will be and the worst drawing WWF Champion of all time get to play at being stars in a company that seems doomed to failiure on its current heading.

Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Suck – Part 6 The Undertaker v Triple H – King Of The Ring 2002 Yes, this long awaited rematch from Wrestlemania X7 finally makes it to PPV in the US. They had wrestled in a singles match on a UK PPV in April, but because almost nothing on UK PPV’s is ever acknowledged, as far as the US audience was concerned this was their first PPV singles match in 14 months. Maybe it was too long a wait, or maybe nobody really cared about watching these two wrestle in the main event, because this match had almost no heat at all until The Rock showed up near the end. It also might have been down to the fact this match was slow, laborious, and had all the intensity of something totally devoid of intensity, and so the crowd couldn’t get into it. Regardless of why the match had zero heat, the fact that it did made this even more painful to watch. Not that they did anything wrong as such, because there was only one overly blown spot in the match, but there was nothing behind it. While most people criticize US Indy matches today as being a case of your move-my move, this was a case of your attempt at slow brawling-my attempt at slow brawling. Almost every move outside of each man’s signature spots was a punch or kick of some kind, and it was delivered at a very leisurely pace, and you’d be forgiven for not realizing that they were fighting over this apparently major title, because the work and effort sure didn’t show it. There was nothing notable at all during the main body of this match, because each man seemed content to do a lot of punches and kicks, with the monotony only punctuated with the aforementioned signature spots, which still couldn’t get a peep out of the crowd. Paul Heyman, who was managing Brock Lesnar at the time, was doing color commentary here, and it’s a shame he couldn’t be involved, because then the crowd might have been something to care about for the majority of the match. In fact, the first thing to get any real reaction from the crowd was Earl Hebner getting bumped, which was done in such an obvious fashion, that you could see it being set up long before it happened. How it was done was Triple H went for his pedigree facing the corner, Undertaker upended him, had him set for a catapult into the ropes, and Earl found himself in the way of the move. The funny thing was as Undertaker was setting Triple H up, Earl was out of position to get hit, and he quite blatantly moved into position to get hit by the flying mass of muscle and chemicals that was Triple H. Shockingly, this didn’t knock Hebner down, and it was left to an errant punch from The Undertaker to do that. At this point, something happened that longtime NWA fans will be familiar with, and that was the entire arena stood up and turned their heads to the back to await the run-in. This is never a good sign, because anything that takes the attention away from the ring is wrong. Luckily, someone actually did do a run-in, as The Rock showed up, having been taunted by Paul Heyman as he did commentary. Heyman ran off through the crowd, and Rock sat himself down with Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler. The match spills to the floor, and Undertaker kicks Triple H down with a boot to the head before attacking The Rock, allowing Triple H to get his blade out of his elbow pad, which we got a nice close up of for some reason. Undertaker grabs Rock’s chair, and goes for Triple H with it, but Rock pulls it out of his hands, swings at Undertaker, who ducks, letting Rock, the babyface, look like a fool, as he hits Triple H in the face, and we have the prerequisite blade job from Triple H. Undertaker then rams Rock into the ringpost, before the match gets back to the ring, though the referee is still out of it. By now, the crowd is actually somewhat into this match, which is all down to The Rock being out there. Undertaker hits a Last Ride on Triple H, Nick Patrick runs in to count the fall, but Triple H raises a shoulder at two, which sees Undertaker decided to deck the referee. Then, The Rock hits the ring, and nails Undertaker with the Rock Bottom before walking away, and Earl Hebner finally recovers to make a slow count, but Undertaker raises his shoulder at two. With Hebner back down again, Triple H hits a pedigree, but the referee is somehow unable to make a count, and those paying attention will notice that this means that Rock and Undertaker had someone kick out of their big moves, but Triple H didn’t. Strange how that worked out, isn’t it. Anyway, Hunter goes to attend to the referee, letting Undertaker hit a lowblow, and roll Triple H to finally put an end to this affair and get the three count. Undertaker at this point taunts The Rock, who is still in the entranceway, which results in Rock hitting the ring, brawling with Undertaker, before hitting a spinebuster/People’s Elbow combo, before walking into a pedigree from Triple H, who then walked into a chokeslam from The Undertaker. It should be noted that after each man had hit his big move his music played, so everyone got to have their music played, but the Undisputed Champion was still the last man left standing. One can surmise that this was to set up a three-way match between the three men, but with Triple H having to undergo surgery on his right elbow for bone chips, we saw Kurt Angle injected into the mix. We all know the story by now on why matches between top guys that should be kept short are given way more time than common sense and logic dictates, so suffice it to say that between neither Triple H or Undertaker having the repertoire, or, it seems, the ability to keep the crowd engaged, giving this match 22 minutes was madness. On a side note, I should also point out that when this PPV got what for the time was a disappointing buy rate, it led to the demise of the KOTR tournament, because it was felt it was the fault of the tournament, because, after all, it couldn’t possibly be because nobody wanted to see Undertaker and Triple H in the main event, could it ? Rating: In the Army Of Suck, this here be a Colonel.

Well, now we get a classic main event for BFG, with Jeff Jarrett defending against that great worker, Kevin Nash. MOTY, without a doubt.

Credit: Observer site While the rest of the card is excellent and trumps the NWA Title match, Jarrett-Nash is just beyond lame. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Unless Liger, Joe, Styles, Daniels, Bentley, Sabin and Williams all break their legs before getting to the ring, there isn't any camouflage in the world that is going to stop Jarrett and Nash from getting shown up.

Hector Guerrero. He was also the Gobbledy Gooker.

What they should do is have his opponent attack him before he can complete his ring introductions. Kennedy wins the match, but is too injured to announce himself as the winner. Then, at WM 23, they leave him off the card, and his only appearance will be to come out between matches, announce himself as the winner of his match from the year before, and then walk right back out.

Ok, here's the problem with that argument. In a relative sense, Misawa didn't take all that much punishment. Compare it to how much punishment Kobashi took in 12/23/00. Or compare it to Kobashi kicking out of both of Misawa's super finishers in 1/20/97. (Both of which you rated higher). I'll have to watch those matches again to properly compare the differences for myself. I haven't seen either of them in a while, so it should be interesting. Some other things that weren't mentioned by you. - The learned spots/transitions were worked in beautifully. Misawa blocking the high kick, Kawada blocking the tiger driver etc. That's one of my favorite parts of the Misawa-Kawada interraction in any match they have together; the blocking and anticipation of moves. The only big negative I've seen with this match after at least 5 or 6 viewings is Misawa's comeback near the end, after taking kicks in the corner. Kawada was laying them in there and it didn't make sense for a comeback at that point. It's a rather small gripe, considering some of the selling issues we see today. Judging the wrestling alone, I'd give it the highest possibly rating that it could get. Adding the story elements and it just becomes one the best matches ever. It could take me a while to get around to watching this four or five more times. I might rate it higher after watching it a few more times, but I still don't see myself rating any higher than ****1/2, tops. I certainly don't expect to rate this as one of the best matches ever, but we'll see.

The intended story makes sense, but I just think Misawa took too much to not be pinned. If he wasn't going to get pinned, I don't think Misawa should have taken so many big moves. It got to the point of overkill, and it really dragged the match down for me. I thought it was well on its way to ****1/2 level stuff until it got to that point.

If TNA have to put the belt on Nash, for whatever reason, then they've done a really shitty job of building up their talent over the last three years. Nash shouldn't be the singles champion of a backyard group, let alone a company trying to make it on a national level.

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada – June 6th 1994 Things that stood out: There were some teases of big moves right off the bat, showing that both men are familiar with each others moves and know when they’re coming. This would happen a lot during the match. When Kawada is working on his arm with an armbar, Misawa wiggles his fingers to stop them from going numb, and the referee also checks the hand a couple of times. This was one of numerous little subtleties that were littered throughout the match. Misawa started bleeding from his ear about a third of the way into the match, which really added to it. Kawada had a great spot when Misawa was down by the ropes, as he casually stepped on Misawa’s head and applied a half-crab. It was Kawada’s way of telling Misawa, “I don’t sweat you.” Misawa came back not long after, and hit a great, and safe, looking backdrop driver. Kawada took back the momentum in another great spot, where instead of countering some big move or Misawa making a mistake, they wearily locked up, and Kawada slipped behind Misawa and nailed him with a stiff forearm in the back of the neck, which knocked Misawa down to the mat. When Kawada would have Misawa down, you could one of his seconds gesturing wildly for Kawada to make the cover, but Kawada would be too exhausted to take advantage. About 22 minutes into the match, the announcer starts going nuts. Not long after, so do the crowd. There was a brief exchange of really stiff punches and forearms that lit the crowd up, probably because it was playing off of the legit heat the two had and the well known incident from years before where they actually shot on each for a brief moment during a tag match. The match really seemed structured for Kawada to win, and the crowd was going nuts for him as they were totally behind Kawada to win too. Rating: ****1/4. I wanted to rate the match higher at around the ****1/2 range stuff, but what kept it down for me was that I felt Kawada didn’t take enough punishment to get pinned when Misawa took too much punishment to not get pinned. That really bugged me, and it kept the match from reaching the kind of level that almost everyone else seems to have it at. Kenta Kobashi and Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue – June 1995 Things that stood out: There were lots of teases of spots and blocked spots from Misawa and Kawada. Toshiaki Kawada sells being knocked woozy better than anyone in the business. Even when he’s on the apron, he sells. Kenta Kobashi has some of the best facial expressions in the business. He gets across more with a look than a lot of wrestlers can do with a million crazy spots. Kawada delivers a great dangerous backdrop. The guy taking the move, in this case Misawa looks like he has head bouncing off the mat. It’s safer than it sounds, because the recipient doesn’t take the bump straight down on their neck. The set-up for Kobashi’s moonsault onto Kawada was great, with Misawa seeing off Taue so he could help lay Kawada out with a senton. Taue himself isn’t in the match a whole lot compared to the other three, and the match is probably better for it, as Taue is best in tag matches when he can come in and do his stuff then get out again. Taue chokeslams Misawa off the apron to the floor with help from Kawada who hits Misawa with a forearm to the back of the head to set up the move. Kobashi is almost on the other side of the ringside and valiantly crawls all the way over to Misawa and covers him to protect him for more punishment. When Kawada rolls Misawa into the ring to cover him, Misawa just keeps rolling across the ring all the way to the floor so Kawada can’t cover him. When Misawa is really down, Kobashi crawls back into the ring and covers Misawa again to protect him. Misawa was kept strong in the finishing stretch, as he kicked out of a lot of stuff, but so much as to detract from the finish of Kawada pinning him with a powerbomb. Rating: ****3/4. You really need to see this match to see a perfect example of how to work a tag match where both teams look strong, and how to portray one team as great babyfaces and one team as great heels within the context of a sporting contest, where no rules are actually broken. It sounds like a misnomer, but it works so well.

Right, the finals. They had a league match on 11/29, which I had at ****1/4. I had their 11/29 match at ***1/2

If the Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue (12/6/96) match is their second from the 1996 Tag League, then I gave it ****1/2. I'm still going to watch it again, as I've not seen it for a while.

Wow, I've never seen such low ratings for these. Granted, they do play off previous matches (and in some case, multiple matches) but I still think even as complete standalones they're MOTDCs. In fact, those are probably my top 3 matches of all time. I think we're going to have to have it out over these, if you're interested. I haven't seen any of these matches in a while. I remember being completely underwhelmed by the infamous 6/94 match, and feeling it was nowhere near this all time classic that just about everyone said it was. I don't remember much about the 9/95 or 6/96 tag matches, so that might be an indication of how good they were to me. I'll rewatch all three matches again, and if I haven't changed my opinion on them that much, then can have it out.

Care to list the others? I'll list mine. Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (4/2/93) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (6/3/94) Misawa & Kobashi vs. Kawada & Taue (6/9/95) Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue (12/6/96) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (1/20/97) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (10/21/97) Samoa Joe vs. CM Punk - ROH Joe vs. Punk II, October 16th 2004 Hiroyoshi Tenzan vs. Satoshi Kojima - New Japan, February 20th 2005 Yuji Nagata vs. Masahiro Chono - New Japan, October 26th 2002 Ricky Steamboat vs. Ric Flair - NWA Clash VI 1989 I think that's about it, but I might be missing one or two. Akira Hokuto vs. Shinobu Kandori (4/2/93) - Not Seen Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (6/3/94) - ***3/4 Misawa & Kobashi vs. Kawada & Taue (6/9/95) - **** Misawa & Akiyama vs. Kawada & Taue (12/6/96) - ***3/4 (I think) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (1/20/97) - ****3/4 Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi (10/21/97) - Not Seen

The only NA matches that I have at ***** are Punk vs. Joe II and Steamboat vs. Flair from New Orleans. I might be forgetting one or two, but it's still a small list.

The idea is that AJ is the kind of spectacular and innovative wrestler that WWE has, but refuses to let wrestle like that. It's their way of showcasing that they have the kind of exciting and crazy matches that you don't get with WWE. They've got to go that route, showcase what they have and WWE doesn't.

IIRC, the **3/4 rating was probably out of disgust at only a few things in the match, so I unfairly rated it low with that in mind. A second viewing will probably give me a more accurate picture. Hase-Muto was weird because it was wrestled in such a retro style and caught me so off guard. I didn't mind the style they wrestled, but I just wasn't looking at it the right way I think. In general, I just have really high standards after **** I think. Like, I only have something like 7 matches at *****. It leads to me having A LOT of high quality matches in the upper *** range. Oh well, the discussion is what counts I loved the match and the style, because it was so different and unique to just about anything else being done at that time. I have very few matches at ***** myself, and most of those are listed above.