Firstly, is anyone else as pissed about the time change for ECW on SciFi? I'm probably showing my age, but I really can't stay up until 11 PM on consecutive nights to watch wrestling anymore, not with when I wake up in the morning. Go ahead, make fun, but I just can't do it.
Aaaaaanyway, I promised a FtA from the 90s last week and didn't deliver, so I'm giving it to you this week. This match features Chris Jericho taking on cruiserweight puro legend Ultimo Dragon in the WAR promotion in the mid 90s. I can't find the date for this match anywhere, but I can only assume it takes place between 1994 and 1995.
It's no secret that my favorite wrestler of all time is Chris Jericho. I've been a fan since his ECW TV Championship match with Pitbull #2. Despite running into political troubles, Jericho has consistently been one of the most entertaining men in and out of the ring in wrestling and has been worthy of my praise. Dragon is another admirable wrestler. Despite losing a huge chunk of time due to a surgeon's error, Dragon made inroads in and out of the ring. In the ring, he was a very influential junior and important cog in WCW's cruiserweight renaissance. Out of the ring, he gave us Toryumon directly, and from that spawned Dragon's Gate.
This match features the two colliding in one of their many encounters. Now, if you're used to the slowly paced classic matches with a lot of selling, psychology and strategically placed big spots, well, this is a total 180 from that. There's not a whole lot of extensive selling or working of body parts. The feeling out process is short and the bombs start dropping early when Jericho nails Dragon with a bridging electric chair suplex while Dragon is appealing to the ref.
I won't lie. While I enjoy a good, classic wrestling match, I'm a workrate mark at heart. Give me a ton of moves and I'll be happy. This match does just that, yet it manages to keep a good pace and not devolve totally into an indieriffic/TNA X-Division styled "let's just do some spots" match. But there are super ranas countered into powerbombs. There are Tiger suplexes. There are counters and then there are more counters. This isn't for the feint of heart, and if you thought Ultimo Dragon was overrated before, this won't help that perception. I, however, don't find anything wrong with this style, and I think that you can find quality in any style of wrestling as long as the guys working it are competant, capable and charismatic. Jericho and Dragon definitely fit that bill.
So without further ado:
0 comments:
Post a Comment