Rambles about the wonderful world of wrestling.
With the New Japan roster all rested up post-G1 (although a lot of them headed off around the world so they might not be as rested as they want to be), they are now heading back to work for the Destruction tour. Three B Shows and a host of Road To events don’t exactly scream unmissable, but there are a few gems hidden away over the next couple of weeks. Sadly, they aren’t on this show, but we trudge into the dark anyway. Let’s hand out those stars.
We’re into the semi-finals and it’s time for the Mae Young Classic to step up. Through no fault of the women involved and every fault of the minutes they’ve been given, the first few rounds have been good but unspectacular. All four of these wrestlers have equipped themselves well, but just needed a little bit more time to really show what they could do. With only two matches on this show, it should be their moment. Let’s hand out those stars.
We’re into the quarter finals of the Mae Young Classic and the action is steadily improving. We’re still yet to see anything like the highs of the Cruiserweight tournament, but with the competitors left there is still plenty of time for that to happen. Once again, I won’t be mentioning JR and Lita because they suck. Right, let’s dish out some stars.
We’ve already featured Jumbo Tsuruta and Genichiro Tenryu in Meltzer’s Classics when they faced off against each other in 1989. Today, however, we are going back a few years to 1986 when they were on the same team defending their NWA International Tag Team belts against Riki Choshu and Yoshiaki Yatsu. This is classic All Japan tag-team wrestling and it’s a whole lot of fun.
After a decent start to proceedings, the Mae Young Classic has cut out some of the deadwood as we move into round two. Most of the wrestlers left can work and there’s a handful who are truly special so the match quality should only improve from here. Once again, I won’t be bothering with talking about JR and Lita, they still suck. Let’s hand out some stars.
Hardcore is a simple genre. I love it, but it’s true, and its punk roots are still strong in that regard. However, even simplicity can be tinkered with and over the last few years, there has been an influx of bands who use hardcore as a base. A base from which they can branch out into other genres. A big part of this is melding hardcore with its metallic brothers but not in the vein of the million identikit metalcore bands that roam the planet. Instead, these are actual hardcore bands with actual metal influences.
There’s not much to say here that I didn’t say in the intro to the first review as we’re still in the first batch of matches. It’s worth noting, however, that I’m not going to bother mentioning JR and Lita. They are awful, but me continuing to moan about it won’t help. Right, let’s start dishing out those stars.
Continue reading “Mae Young Classic Episodes 3 and 4 Review”
After the discovery of a whole bunch of 5-star matches that we missed the first time around, Meltzer’s Classics has now dived back into 1985 and to the regular setting of Japan. This is our first women’s match to feature on the list as Jaguar Yokota defends her WWWA Championship against Lioness Asuka. Being honest, I hadn’t heard of either of these women, but a bit of research tells me that they are highly respected in Japan, if not in the West.
Continue reading “Meltzer’s Classics: Jaguar Yokota vs. Lioness Asuka, 22/8/85”
The best EPs are the ones that leave you unfulfilled. They tease you with greatness and as they finish all you can do is howl for more. With its five songs coming in at under ten minutes, Cycles of Grief, Volume 1: Growth from Australian metallic hardcore band Cursed Earth does exactly that. Although after it has punished you for its entire running time, there’s a chance you’ll be curled in a ball on the floor while you do the begging.
Continue reading “Cursed Earth – Cycles of Grief, Volume 1: Growth”
Over a month after it was taped, the Mae Young Classic finally came to the WWE Network yesterday and brought with it a swell of expectation. The Cruiserweight Classic was a highlight of last year and the pressure is on this tournament to compete. It’s also an important part of WWE’s attempts to alter history by convincing us that they’ve always liked women and that it wasn’t their fault there needed to be a ‘women’s revolution’ in the first place. Anyway, let’s not get too bitchy and instead have a look at how things went down during the first two episodes of this tournament.
Continue reading “Mae Young Classic Episodes 1 and 2 Review”
Ramblings About Wrestling 