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DIR Return to: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the Week
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#Post#: 12349--------------------------------------------------
Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the week: Everything you know is wrong
By: SheriffLonestar Date: May 18, 2013, 3:49 am
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What is the biggest wrestling show of all time? Wrestlemania
III? Nope. It is a common misconception that WMIII was the
biggest thing ever, and for its time it was. Vince really pushed
the boat out and gambled it all for the second time in four
years. If Hulkamania had not run wild then we would had a very
different wrestling landscape today. But no it was not the
biggest show of all time. That honour goes to a wrestling and
political oddity that directly or indirectly involved NJPW, WCW,
ECW, All Japan Pro Women and in a bizzare twist WWE. It was also
held in North Korea of all places. The show was called Collision
in Korea. So, well why?
Anotnio Inoki. As mentioned in my mid week special, Antonio
Inoki was the man that started NJPW. He was the visionary and
lead draw for the company that was really an upstart in the
early 70's to being the stadium filler it is today, and easily
the second biggest promotion in the world.
Inoki's ego though, is huge. Bigger than a really big thing. His
career highlight was facing Muhammad Ali in the boxer vs
wrestler match of the 1970's, which turned into a shoot fight
and a rather boring watch, but Inoki was a guy who took Ali the
distance when no boxer could. Laying on your back in a striking
contest will make that easy though. You can read about it here;
HTML http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/nov/11/the-forgotten-story-of-ali-inoki
HTML http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/nov/11/the-forgotten-story-of-ali-inoki.<br
/>
But yes Inoki was the man, sometimes to the chagrin of his
workers. Riki Chosu left a couple of times, Akira Maeda started
another company and took a load of people with him. But
generally everyone came back to the fold because they where
forgiven unlike in All Japan. That meant there where always big
money matches for NJPW to build around. As such by the 1980's
they where the top dogs in stadium filling excellence. Inoki
rode this success to political election in the 1990's.
So we have Inoki an influential politician and wrestler, we have
NJPW, we have the Japanese Government and Eric Bischoff then of
WCW and Executive Vice President in charge. Sound like fun with
all those egomaniacs on board? Okay lets add in the North Korean
government and we can have a party. Japan wanted to establish
some links with North Korea, for political reasons. Mainly
keeping the peace, as of late we now know they are a bit jumpy
around the old red button. Inoki, the protégé of Rikidozan
(actually a Korean, though that was a closely guarded secret as
Korean's where considered a lesser race in Japan in the 50's),
wanting to do something to commemorate his late master. And you
have WCW always willing to help NJPW, because they could outdraw
WCW any day of the week and it gave them access to their stellar
workers. Where do ECW and WWE? fall into it? We shall get to
that.
WCW's job was to provide Ric Flair for the dream match finale,
actually it wasn't that much of a dream match anymore. Flair had
been on the downhill slide since his epic 1992 Royal Rumble
performance, his 1993 World title match with Vader being his
last hurrah in the main event. He lost some zing off his
fastball after that match as well as some teeth. Inoki hadn't
been a productive main eventer since the early eighties. However
this was still big news in Japan, who care about their older
stars and always remember. WCW also had the PPV rights. This was
a mixed blessing. There are two downsides to this card. One is
the crowd, which I shall get to next, and the other its the piss
poor commentary. Easy E back in his play by play days was to
quote Joey Styles "the worst guy to ever pick up a friggin'
headset". It doesn't help that he is commentating on a tape, but
he is utterly devoid of excitement. I first heard him commentate
on the old World Wide shows that where being released to UK TV
companies in the early 90's. He replaced Lance Russell, which is
of course like replacing a Rolls Royce with 1982 Datsun Sunny.
He is not helped by a comedy Japanese heel sidekick who isn't
funny, and some bizzarely sexist opinions, especially towards
Bull Nakano and Akira Hokuto. The saving grace of this
commentary is Mike Tenay, coming in again as the international
expert.
The crowd, all shipped into the building by the North Korean
government, clearly have no clue what they are watching. They
don't light up until they see Manami Toyota. That is a long time
to be sat in silence. Even Japanese crowds where more lively
than this, but then Japanese crowds appreciate their wrestling,
even if at the time they sat quietly and clapped politely. This
does hamper things some what, but all in all the wrestling on
this show was outstanding. Until the main event, which was very
good but not as good as some of the matches on the card.
This is the edited highlights of two days of wrestling. The show
brought in 150,000 on day one and 190,000 on day two. Day two
setting the all time wrestling attendance record for wrestling
and out drawing WMIII by 100,000 people. It is one of those
strange oddity's of wrestling that happens every once in a while
when a Japanese promoter gets his head screwed on tight and goes
for it.
The matches featured two ECW regulars Chris Benoit and 2 Cold
Scorpio, and two WWE wrestlers the Steiner Brothers. The
Steiner's where then under contract to WWE, but had a get out
clause to go and wrestle in NJPW whenever they where needed. The
money was just to good to turn down and this probably hampered
their already dire WWE run. Though not on top form on this card,
they had the perfect opponents. Hase and Sasake had wrestled
them before in the Egg Dome in what I considered to be for a
long time the greatest tag match ever. The Steiners then went to
the WWE, where they where neutered quite quickly. No
Frankensteiner because no one in the WWE locker room dare take
it. No Steiner Driver, and please stop hurting people. In NJPW
where Sasake and Hasa hit as hard, if not harder than them, they
where fine. The first night main of Hashimoto (the NJPW champ)
and Norton was a classic big man match up of its era. Hashimoto
was slow build warrior so he really didn't get chance to tell
his story the way he wanted to here. He usually only got warmed
up around 20 minutes in so a 20 minute time limit cut him short.
The matches weren't truly great until we get to see Bull Nakano
and Akira Hokuto vs Manami Toyota and Mariko Yoshida. Three of
the 5 greatest female workers ever, and to be fair Yoshida was
no slow coach. Not as wild as they would have gone at it in
Osaka, but damn impressive none the less, and the crowd where
hot for them.
So this show is a bit of an oddity, but well worth seeing
because a lot of people working together out of their element
usually produce interesting results.
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFJ6uZ22fs
HTML http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43t1wUU_VHU
#Post#: 12581--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the week: Everything you know is w
rong
By: tnafanforum Date: May 24, 2013, 8:16 am
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Very good mate
#Post#: 12620--------------------------------------------------
Re: Sheriff Lonestar's PPV of the week: Everything you know is w
rong
By: SheriffLonestar Date: May 24, 2013, 4:24 pm
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Why thank you, tune in tomorrow to see what 1997 brings.
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