Sunday, April 22, 2018

All Japan Pro Wrestling - Jumbo Tsuruta vs Don Leo Jonathan

All Japan Pro Wrestling - Jumbo Tsuruta vs Don Leo Jonathan











Don Leo Jonathan got the win after reversing the keylock as seen above inside the ring then getting on top of Jumbo for the win. Jumbo basically had Don in the keylock for the majority of the match.  They rolled through the keylock a bunch of times and even rolled out of the ring then back over it with it, but it just needed more than that to keep my attention. It was a unique and clever match, but it was just too slow and that hurt it.

All Japan Pro Wrestling - Jumbo Tsuruta vs Chris Taylor

All Japan Pro Wrestling - Jumbo Tsuruta vs Chris Taylor

Yay, a Chris Taylor match! There's always been really limited footage of him available and this is probably the first time I've seen him in a non-squash match. He was always kind of an enigma to me as he had the real life creds and size but he died only a few years after he started, so there's not much footage to go around.





Jumbo grabs the 1st fall with this at 11:20




2nd fall finish - The announcers call it the Flying Sausage LOL



Jumbo Tsuruta got the win 2 falls to 1 when in the last fall, both men fell out and Taylor didn't make it back in before the 10 count. It could have been worse but it could have been better.  Taylor might be a 10 in the real life credentials section, but he's a 0 in charisma and a 0 in striking. He had absolutely nothing personality wise and his strikes were so bad that I don't even think you could call some of them punches. He worked way too soft, when a guy his size doesn't even need to be real stiff to make things look good. Jumbo was younger here but fine. He could have been a little more fiery but he got a respectable match out of Taylor. The only true highlight here was the announcers calling Taylor's splash, "The Flying Sausage", which is one of the greatest move names I've ever heard. It's pretty clear why Taylor didn't make it and there's a reason he is completely forgotten in wrestling history. It's a shame too as I think a fat guy amateur wrestler is a trope that hasn't been explored and is something that really could work well if done right.

Thursday, April 12, 2018

WWF Superstars 4/29/1995 - Hakushi vs Kwang

WWF Superstars 4/29/1995 - Hakushi vs Kwang













"Here comes that..spew!: - Vince | "Now where has he been keeping that?" - Michael Hayes

"Sayonara, baby." - Michael Hayes
Hakushi got the win here. The story going into this was Kwang tried to help Hakushi win a match and it backfired, then they brawled about it. This was a strange match. Kwang worked the babyface role and was actually a bit over with it. It wasn't as hate filled as you'd want for something like this but there were some decent strikes. The pace was also a bit slow as that's just the way both guys work. The commentary was absolutely abysmal as they were pushing that Bret Hart was racist towards Hakushi the whole match and took away from this whole thing.