wrestling / Columns
The Wrestling Framework 03.27.12: That Kid Did WHAT?!
Welcome, every one, to The Wrestling Framework!
The last few weeks my column wasn’t up because it was my 1 year marriage anniversary and my wife and I spent a lot of time together leading me to have to take one week off. And then last weekend was drill weekend for me with the Air Force which was busy for me. And this last weekend I had lost my mojo, but I’m getting my shit together again. Sorry guys.
Let’s talk about some wrestling! The first match I’m bringing on was suggested by a reader. He/she wanted to see a Tajiri match, more specifically versus Super Crazy. Well, I picked their match from Living Dangerously. I thought about using the three way with Guido, but decided against it.
The second match features one of my known favorites, Kota Ibushi, taking on a guy that had seen some success in the WWF, TAKA Michinoku. Just having those two guys in a match alone is reason enough to want to watch it.
In the Bonus Round, I’ve got some extremely interesting videos and I’ll break them down with my thoughts. All you have to know, is that in Japan there is a 6 year old that can wrestle better than a lot of the guys you see on TV. Granted, a lot of it is the other person doing a lot of the work, but still.
Every category is rated 0-2.
0-.5: Bad
.5-1: Okay
1-1.5: Good
1.5-2: Excellent
Then the scores are added up from the five different categories of the Big 5; psychology, work rate, crowd, spots and finish. The final score will be a number 1-10.
0-1: Unwatchable
1-2: Terrible
2-3: Bad
3-4: Passable
4-5: Okay
5-6: Not Bad
6-7: Decent
7-8: Good
8-9: Really Good
9-10: Excellent
MATCH: Kota Ibushi vs. TAKA Michinoku
Psychology: 1.5
Work Rate: 2
Crowd: 2
Spots: 2
Finish: 1.8
Overall: 9.3
Psychology: Well, I can definitely see what the purpose of the match was here. This seems like it was one of ECW’s many, many showcases of talent from around the world. Super Crazy and Tajiri came out and really seemed to want to give the fans the greatest match they could give with the time that was provided. There was a great balance of in-ring work mixed with high spots. Everything they did worked to help the match flow with the purpose intended. I was really torn on how to score this as there was more of an emphasis on putting on a good match but not so much on any kind of story that I could see or even remember. Mind you, I wasn’t an overly huge fan of ECW at the time and didn’t watch it much. I’ll apologize right now about my ignorance on if there was a story involved between the two. But I only deducted .5 points from the score because I think that both men gelled excellently and it really help to make the match move along nice and smooth and that helped it be easy to follow and enjoyable to watch. There was a feeling of just raw emotion that was seeping off of these two guys. They had an aura about them that made me feel like they absolutely love what they do. Not that I would question if these two guys love their job or not, but they actually had noticeable emotion in this match that fed in to how they performed their moves and how they sold them. To me, that made up for the fact of no noticeable story between the two. When these two guys can go out there and have a believable match and entice the fans to invest so much emotion in to it when it’s not even a huge main event caliber match on that show.
Work Rate: The work rate here was fantastic! In this era you didn’t get a whole lot of stuff like this. As you may or may not know, ECW usually brought out the stuff from other countries that you would never see unless you were to go online and look for it or you took part in the old art of tape trading. Well, I’m pretty sure tape trading was dead at this point or at least dying out on its last leg. Paul Heyman was notorious for bringing in talent that would never be given a shot in the big leagues because he recognized talent that should be seen on a bigger scale. He brought the best of the world to ECW to give the fans something different. To show them that there was something else besides the stuff they saw on WCW and WWF. Super Crazy and Tajiri were two great examples of the raw in-ring talent that Paul Heyman brought to the world. And they both worked their asses off to desperately show all of you fans that level of talent. They both were able to show off the kind of talent that is so easily found in their respective countries of Japan and Mexico. And what these two were also able to do with their in-ring ability was show that the styles of two countries so far apart are damn near the same. I understand that a lot of guys from Japan go on sabbaticals to Mexico and the US to expand upon their trade, the same could be said about Mexican and American and even Canadian stars. But I think that Japan has a better grasp of this idea. They have been able to create so many memorable stars with this idea. Keiji Mutoh went to the US and came back with one of the greatest characters in wrestling: Great Muta. Point being, Crazy and Tajiri went in to this match and showed the world just what they can do, and they did it perfectly.
Crowd: Come on, this is a no-brainer. This was the ECW Arena. This was the most vocal crowd of the era. If you couldn’t get a reaction from the ECW crowd whether it is good or bad, then you couldn’t get a reaction ANYWHERE! This crowd this night was no exception to this rule. They let themselves be heard, loudly. They loved what they were seeing. They knew that this was what ECW was all about and that these two men, or at least the styles they used, were the future of the professional wrestling business. This is the kind of crowd that you want to have. Well, most of the time. Sometimes their overly vocal ways can be great to help the promoter and the wrestlers know what works and what doesn’t. But on the other hand, it can become quite annoying. In this case, they were the former. This crowd was going absolutely nuts for Tajiri and Super Crazy, and these two men knew it. They fed off of the energy this crowd was giving off and they made sure that if the rest of the show was a dud, the crowd would at least go home happy knowing they saw magic inside that ring. This right here is a great example of how a crowd and the wrestlers can feed off of each other and make a match in to something truly special. I often wish that I could have at least one time been a part of an ECW Arena crowd. I want so badly to have been in the crowd for this match because the emotions it brought up in me I’m sure would have been tenfold while sitting in the live crowd. Full points for this crowd because they were amazing and it made the match that much better.
Spots: The spots in this match was yet another great example of how you can have a spectacular technical match and throw in some big spots and not drag it down. They put in just enough big spots that it came off like they were really going out there and giving it their all leaving everything on the table and giving the fans their full 100%. And for being an ECW match, these spots were rather tame. By these standards, their little brawl and jumps to the outside were normal match procedures. However, the way these guys built the match, these spots came off as full ECW standard. They could have easily gone out and just had this match full of technical moves and holds mixed with kicks and dives. Adding the spots on the outside was not necessary for them to do. But this was EC F’N W! They went above and beyond and gave the fans there a damn good show. This was just really, really impressive to me because they didn’t have to result to weapon use to get the extreme part across. They decided to use their athleticism and work rate prowess to bring a match to the table that was just right for ECW standards. So I give them a full score of 2 and I want it to be known that even though the company promotes extreme or hardcore wrestling, there is always a way to make it so with a match that can provide on all aspects of wrestling without resorting to gratuitous violence. You may not agree with me here, and that’s okay. I know a lot of people enjoy watching two guys beat each other over the head with random objects until they’re disgusting, bloody messes. That’s okay! That’s what they like and that’s what they want to see. I’m just not a huge fan of it and think that this kind of match can equate to the same thing.
Finish: This was a good finish to the match. There was a lot of back and forth between the two and they looked like they were really fighting to get the upper hand and score that pinfall victory. It wasn’t really fast paced, more of a slower more methodical way of doing that exciting back and forth lead to the finish. I like the fact that it seemed they were moving a little slower because they just went through a hellacious battle beating the hell out of each other. I can understand that this idea would play in to the fact that there was no huge impact move used to get the victory. But at the same time, it just didn’t seem to flow like that. It didn’t seem that Tajiri was too beaten up, too tired to kick out of that reversal roll up. I understand that it seemed like a fluke win afterwards with Tajiri immediately popping up to complain to the ref that it wasn’t a three count. I mean, it wasn’t a bad ending at all. It definitely kept both guys looking somewhat strong, but it just didn’t make sense to me. Why wouldn’t you just make it decisive? I think the fans wouldn’t have minded a decisive victory. I don’t think it would have hurt the image of Tajiri if he had lost to Super Crazy here. That was a brutal, hard hitting match and it would have made sense that one would get the upper hand and score the win. But that’s just my opinion. You let me know what you thought. Was it a good finish? Did it seem to end well for you? Let me know.
Overall: These have been two guys that I would never say no to watching. A lot of matches I’ve seen them in were quite enjoyable. I think their WWE runs were lacking and they didn’t really get to showcase their talent in a way I think they deserved to, but that’s okay. Fans can look back on matches like this and know that these two wrestlers are truly talented and something special. Would I put these two guys, or a type of match like this in the main event of a big show? Probably not. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to say anything bad about it, but the style of shows these days don’t revolve their main events around flashy matches like this. Now, could that style be changed where the main events ARE like this? Well, yes and no. There are a lot of factors that can play in to this. Can these talented wrestlers cut promos? Can they connect with the fans? Another question you could ask would be do you think Tajiri or Super Crazy could have become WWE/WCW/TNA main event players? Maybe. I think I would give the nod to Super Crazy between the two. I think Crazy could have gone the Eddie Guerrero route and been that sort of lovable Mexican. Tajiri, well, to be honest, he’s Japanese. I haven’t seen a Japanese guy in the main event of a big company like this ever. Do I think Tajiri could pull it off given the right push? Not too sure about that. I can’t really tell how the American fans feel about Asian wrestlers. Of course, I haven’t seen enough of a Japanese wrestler in some sort of spotlight in the WWE, so it’s really hard to tell.
WINNER: Super Crazy
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Part 1. Don’t really know what’s going on, but it gets better with part 2 below.
MATCH: Kota Ibushi vs. TAKA Michinoku
Psychology: 2
Work Rate: 2
Crowd: 2
Spots: 2
Finish: 2
Overall: 10
Psychology: First of all, I was marking the hell out in this match because it was kind of a dream match I didn’t know existed. As you may know, I’m a huge Ibushi fan. What you may not know is that I’m also a huge TAKA fan as well. Ever since I saw him in WWF, I wanted to know more about him. I did my research and saw a lot of the stuff he has done, mostly in Japan, and I was hooked. The psychology in this match was great. This was a great example of the young star vs. veteran star dynamic. They came out full stop and just kept going at each other with every weapon in their wrestling arsenal. And you could see that Kota was doing everything he could to get the win over the veteran TAKA, but in the end his frustration led to his loss.
Work Rate: The work rate here was phenomenal. I love the Japanese style. It’s can go from fast-paced and hard hitting hit massive kicks to slow and methodical with well-placed holds. Ibushi and TAKA also work very similar styles. This added a lot to the match. It made it feel like it was almost a match between a student and master. Or a fan that has long been an admirer and based a lot of his own moves off of his hero. This was easily ***** caliber wrestling at its finest. These guys were brutal as hell, too. They were beating the hell out of each other. I can’t imagine their bodies felt very good after this match. And if I can just say that if you look at this wrestling style here and compare it to the guys who have worked in Japan and are known in stateside as work rate powerhouses, there’s a reason for that. I think TNA or WWE should send their developmental guys to Japan for a year or two to get a bit of an idea how they can change up their styles a little and make things more exciting.
Crowd: Now, you would think this crowd was dead. But from what I know about Japanese crowds, these guys were hooked in to this match and watching every little thing these guys did. It just seemed like the fans didn’t dare turn away for a second lest they miss something awesome. I love Japanese crowds. I think their way of reacting to a match is a good way to gauge whether or not you’re doing the right stuff that they want to see. It’s funny how they can convey the same message as the ECW crowd did but without being as loud. But, I wouldn’t say this is the best crowd. I still love the way the American crowds will buzz with excitement during a big profile match. That buzzing in the crowd helps elevate that match a little giving it more of a feel that it’s an important bout.
Spots: Where there was a lack of really big spots in this match, they were made up with more subtle wrestling based spots. I hope that makes sense to you. They avoided doing a lot of flips and brawling to the outside but replaced all that with little things like Kota unleashing on TAKA and he no-sells that shit. Or how Kota would run off the ropes and try to knock TAKA down only to be hit by a brick wall, then TAKA tells him to try it again. It was fun and enjoyable to watch. This match reminded me that spots don’t always have to be big, noticeably flashy points in a match. They can be subtle and achieve the same desired effect.
Finish: What a great finish. As I said, the veteran vs. young star dynamic was working perfectly from start to finish. Kota was trying everything he could to beat TAKA. He tried so damn hard to put the man down but couldn’t get the job done. This led to Kota getting so frustrated he allowed himself to get caught in a submission maneuver and lose the match. And TAKA’s part in this finish played excellently in to this dynamic as well. He saw that opening the younger, frustrated star made and capitalized on it. Impressive way to finish the match in my eyes.
Overall: Wow, so I gave this match a perfect score. I’m sure a lot of people will easily refute that, and I am open to your interpretation. I want you to give me your thoughts on this match and tell me if you think it was the bomb diggity or it was the shits. I admit that I have a pretty biased outlook on this match. These are two wrestlers that are favorites of mine and I’m a huge fan of the Japanese style. I’d like a different look at this match from a different approach.
WINNER: TAKA Michinoku
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Part 2
B-B-B-BONUS ROUND!
Okay, so maybe my claim that this little kid is better than guys on TV now is extremely outlandish. But just look at that! This is cute, funny, and insane all in one. I was at a loss for words when I first stumbled upon this. I think I would say that this kid has a phenomenal grasp on the art of professional wrestling at such a young age. He knows how to perform certain moves and do them without getting hurt. If I were to try and get my little brother to do some of these things when he was 6, I think it would have resulted in a trip to the hospital from a botched move. Now, I’m sure the kid was taught by his father or whoever how to properly do it, but still. I would even go so far as to say this little guy has got some serious charisma already! He’s got a grasp on the showmanship of the craft and how to perform for the crowd and get them to react to him. Oh, well, of course a lot of this would probably have to do with the fact that HE’S A 6 YEAR OLD MASKED WRESTLER!
Okay, the real point I want to make with this will be short and sweet. It’s not really that this kid is head and shoulders above the guys here in the states. It’s that the people he gets in the ring with are able to make him look like a little monster. This is an aspect of wrestling that I rarely see anymore. It’s that age old saying that “wrestler x(I think it was originally said about Shawn Michaels) can have a ***** match with a broom.” How many guys these days actually go out there and bump like crazy for someone to make them look good? How many guys would actually sacrifice their own ego to elevate someone else? I can’t think of many. This is my final question to you guys. Who do you think does, could, or will go out in to the ring and bump for their opponent to make them look good? That’s not including jobbers. That’s kind of their job and even then, they’re not exactly that good at it. Point in case: Brodus Clay squash matches. So, there you go. Some good wrestling, my thoughts, and some question for you to ponder and come up with a good answer to.
I hope you guys have enjoyed reading the column this week as much as I have enjoyed writing it. See you next week.
