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Great Match of the Day: Karl Anderson v. Hiroshi Tanahashi

14th February 2013 by Scott Keith

I’m sure from time to time, I pimp matches online to people and call them MOTYC’s and what not, when in reality they’re more of the “pretty good” variety as opposed to the “HOLY SHIT” variety. But this Tanahashi vs. Anderson match is the real friggin’ deal. A legitimate front runner for MOTY. So glad I avoided W.O.N. & spoilers for the last week.. Goddamn this match is amazing…

You know, if NJPW would produce an English commentary version of these and air them at a decent time, I’d be more than happy to drop $20 on one of their IPPVs, because they’ve all delivered thus far. And this match was far better than that overrated **1/4 Bryan-Punk indy geekfest from Over the Limit.  Who wants to see submission moves in 2012? 

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Match of the Day: CM Punk vs Daniel Bryan Money in the Bank 2012

13th February 2013 by Scott Keith
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHLQ70DPGTk


Figured I'd put this out there, even if you haven't watched it yet. Match of the year for 2012 in my opinion.

I saw Money In the Bank, I just didn't rant on it.  And I dunno, it's a stretch to call it a match of the year candidate when it seemed pretty long for the sake of being long. It's like ****1/4 for me.  I'm also not a big fan of putting YouTube links up for stuff that's so readily available on DVD and such because I am a huge fan of what WWE does with their library and I want to support them on it.  
Here's Punk v. Bryan from Over the Limit to compare and contrast, since we're already doing this thing.
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A match so brutal, its hilarious

9th February 2013 by Scott Keith
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsZaJqiyE54


Where do I begin with this…….

-Raja Lion is a shoot fighter hired to wrestle who can't throw a realistic strike. I swear to god, he throws a kick like some exaggerated workout video, AND ACTUALLY SLIPS LIKE A TOTAL RUBE DOING KICKS. TWICE. Bas Rutten would be all like "Bitch, please" to this shit.

-Raja Lion is a shoot fighter hired to wrestle who just does not have that "I could kick your ass so easily" aura.

-You'd think a shootfighter would not get a 50s tune for his entrance music, instead maybe getting something that, oh I don't know, gives him the illusion of being this bad dude from a karate discipline here to kick ass? Who booked this shit?

-Giant Baba looks like a skin-colored bag of shit. Clearly hes degenerated a lot going into this Roe v Wade-level abortion because he is over with the fans, presumably for work done years before.

-The "fight" starts with the typical Japanese "OOOOOOOOOHHHHHH" over a dogshit leg kick being the first move of the match. This strikes me as ridiculously hilarious, because you could literally hire most BoDers to throw kicks of the same caliber, which would generate that kind of reaction from the poor souls who had to sit through this one.

-A random shot of a guy looking like Jason Voorhees(who a friend told me actually has that ring name, being a primary example of that lovable Japanese indy sleaze) midway through, which is either a welcome reprieve from the match or additional hilarity, depending on how you look at this.

-WORST CHOPS EVER

-Baba, to give the "shoot" fight an illusion of reality and show the boys in the back where the power in his(?) fed really lies, no sells something like 4 head kicks from Raja Lion. Really, who can blame him?

-Giant Baba does 4 really basic moves for his total "offense" in the match, such as the catching kick followed by shove, the modified hammerlock, and the bitchslap and gets a tremendous pop for doing them. At least John Cena's have SOME credibility.

-WORST CHOPS EVER

-The fight goes for 2 rounds, and its under shootfight rules. This is a simultaneously stupid and smart decision. Stupid, in that a rigged fight with rounds should not end in round 2, and smart, in the sense that this match is being worked so loose I could ask my little brother and sister to have a playfight and it'd be more realistic, so presumably if this had to be booked thanks to death threats or Baba wanting to put himself over, its best to keep this alledged shootfight as short as possible because neither man can work worth a stool pigeon.

-WORST CHOPS EVER

-This match should win an award for "Shittiest Clean Finish". If a legit MMArtist saw Baba's ludicrous, alledged attempt at a cross armbreaker he'd piss his pants with laughter.

-You gotta feel for the announcers, cause this is clearly shit but they have to put over Raja Lion as meaning something when Baba treats him like a jobber, and they have to sell a match as worthwhile with literally zero help.

-To quote Maffew, who put clips of this gem in an old Botchamania vid…. "Whats the only way this match could be worse? IF TIGER JEET SINGH DID A RUN-IN!". WORST WEAPON STRIKES EVER. REFEREE ALMOST DIES FROM BEING SLASHED BY A SWORD. And to pay off the camera appearance, JASON VOORHEES ESCORTS HIM TO THE BACK!

-And after this absolute trainwreck, Baba raises Lion's hand in victory after treating him like a total jobber (justifiably) and beating him with the lamest clean finish in the history of pro wrestling. What the hell.

Overall, I'm torn on this match. I'm still not sure whether this is so awful its come full circle to being a Tony Schiavone-level "GREATEST MATCH IN THE HISTORY OF OUR SPORT", or whether its so awful its in the territory of Shiek/Volkoff v Bushwhackers and has no redeeming features. Scott, what do you think?

I don't know, man, the random Jason Voorhees appearance alone makes it better than the Bushwhackers match.  The problem was that they were basically asking Raja to work a match without any experience in the actual mechanics of working.  Like, he thought all you had to do was pull your kicks, but didn't bother to learn about cooperating and stuff.  Although I'm far from a fan of Baba in the first place, too.  
It was unique as far as trainwrecks go, you have to give it that.
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Great Match of the Day: The Midnight Express v. The Road Warriors

8th February 2013 by Scott Keith

You want to see a sympathetic babyface get the SHIT beaten out of him?  Witness the Midnight Express turning babyface in defeat, losing the tag titles to the Road Warriors in one of the most epic beatings you will ever witness outside of Brock Lesnar.  The Road Warriors were so awesome in this role that they turned themselves face again shortly afterwards.  Mad props to Stan Lane here for selling his ass off. 

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Great Match of the Day: Windham/Luger v. Tully/Arn

7th February 2013 by Scott Keith

And here’s the SECOND title reign for Tully & Arn, as the match itself wasn’t a classic, but this might have been one of the greatest heel turns in wrestling.  My viewing partner at the time, the world’s biggest Barry Windham fan, was in TEARS because he was so crushed that his hero would betray him like that.  Even at 13 years old, I just thought it was super-badass. 

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Great Match of the Day: Tully & Arn v. RNR Express

6th February 2013 by Scott Keith

One day Tony Schiavone on commentary was like “Oh, the Horsemen have a new team, it’s Tully and Arn” after Tully had lost the TV title to Nikita Koloff.  This didn’t seem like a big deal at the time because the Horsemen cycled through random teams constantly in their quest to destroy Dusty Rhodes and they always failed, which made it all the more surprising to me when this combination won the tag titles a few weeks later, and then went on to become one of my all-time favorite teams.  This is more of a great ANGLE than a great match, but I still love it.

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Bret Hart on HHH (“He’s never had a great match” new interview)

1st February 2013 by Scott Keith
Hi Scott,

Awesome interview with Bret Hart and his current thoughts on HHH as a wrestler. Let the discussion begin…

Interview here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSNJX1aBDSw&feature=player_embedded

Article about interview here: http://www.wrestlinginc.com/wi/news/2013/0131/560023/bret-hart-shoots-on-triple-h-calls-him-overrated/

Go Bret!  Although HHH certainly has had several great matches.  But Bret is also the guy who thinks that Flair is overrated, so maybe he's just a really harsh critic.  I can only imagine what he thinks of Randy Orton.

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Totally Crappy Match of the Day: Tito Santana v. Randy Savage

27th January 2013 by Scott Keith

Yeah, it sucks, but it’s from the legendary Puerto Rico outdoor show in 1985, where they had to work in a torrential downpour.  Just as a sheer historical curiosity it’s worth a look for that, plus the answer to the question “Can Randy Savage save a terrible match while trying to escape a rainstorm?”  The answer may surprise you.  (Spoiler:  No.  No he can’t.)

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Great Match of the Day: Kurt Angle v. Shawn Michaels

26th January 2013 by Scott Keith

Who’s the jackass that artificially stretched it into widescreen?  Anyway, one of the best Wrestlemania matches ever, although I’ll probably try to do a more WM-specific great match countdown as we get closer.  This was the first PPV I saw in a movie theater, and the crowd was JACKED for Kurt Angle and just screaming for Shawn to tap out in that anklelock.  If it didn’t last for fucking TWO MINUTES it would have been a ***** match.

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Great Match of the Day: KENTA v. Marufuji

25th January 2013 by Scott Keith

Doctorfunkopolis from the blog here. What do you mean you don’t know me? Anyway, KENTA vs Marufuji from 1-22-2006 is a hell of a match all around. Some of the best in ring storytelling you’ll find this side of Hart/Austin at WM13 or the very first Jumbo/Misawa match. Plus, this one happened on my birthday.  I make it a point to watch it every year. Because why not? Worth seeing, although it may leave the viewer with a sudden desire to see Punk/KENTA.

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Great Match of the Day: Raven v. Some Dude

24th January 2013 by Scott Keith

Now we all know WHY this wasnt one of the WCW Top 20 matches of all-time, but this one is a forgotten classic…..the finish of the match, with Raven passing out is epic!

It is indeed an awesome match, but I’d like to also point out the immense irony of Wrestling Society X putting their copyright notice on the YouTube page when they’re stealing WWE’s content.  With a business model like that, it’s no wonder they went out of business. 

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Random Match of the Day: Monty Brown v. Samoa Joe v. Rhyno

23rd January 2013 by Scott Keith

Scott, this is Brian Bayless from the blog. Here is the awesome 3-way at Hardcore Justice 2006 between Samoa Joe vs. Rhyno vs. Monty Brown. I love this match and miss Monty Brown, he was really good in his role at TNA. The Marcus Cor Von stuff in ECW wasnt much but if not for family issues, he could have had a chance to break out in the WWE. Anyway, here is the match and I just love Joe’s brief promo at the end.

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Match of the Day: Bulldog v. Perfect

21st January 2013 by Scott Keith

When I was a kid I had a Coliseum Video I bought at K-Mart called WWF Greatest Champions.  It was about 2 hours long and profiled ‘The Ultimate Warrior’, ‘The Hart Foundation’, ‘Mr.Perfect’ and ‘Hulk Hogan’.  After a few clips of famous matches, they would show a full length match showcasing a successful title defense by the respective champion(s).  Because Mr. Perfect was the only heel profiled, they showed a match against ‘The British Bulldog’ in which Perfect retained in controversial fashion (the faces that were profiled had matches in which they won clean).  I searched for it after seeing your “Match of the Day” segments on the blog (which are great BTW) and re-watched it.  Not as good as I remembered, but I thought that Bulldog and Perfect had CRAZY chemistry and could have made for an awesome program, and I was hoping you could post this as a future “Match of the Day”.  The match is pure fun from the initial test of strength that has Perfect quite audibly calling Bulldog a “sonuvabitch” to Bret Hart’s CLASSIC “oh-you’re-not-gonna-BELIEVE-this-shit” look to Bulldog after hearing Hebner’s excuse for DQ.  Thanks for any thought you give to posting this.

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