I've been on hiatus as I've been trying to pump out some fiction and I deal a lot better with reality, at least when it comes to writing. Nevertheless, an additional problem has been a lack of things to write about. Can't write something you're not feeling, and I've given my hand to trying to review this or that, but I guess I'm not a so-and-so did a move and then this guy hit another movie type of writer.
So I've been watching some great wrestling, and maybe I'll do a couple of posts of recommendations in a bit, but I was watching TNA Impact this evening and I caught Samoa Joe vs. Rob Van Dam. It was interesting to see Joe back him into the corner and throw these heavy punches that I can't imagine them not hurting. Then RVD turns him around and it looks like he's trying to shoo a fly off of Joe's face. The match was pretty good when he was just jumping and flipping, but man...what a lost chance Joe was.
In a little organization, which is still around today, called Ring of Honor, Joe was the MAN. Big Samoan guy, big offense, had charisma and presence and he could talk too. He looked like he could kill you. And while I'm not a big fan of the American crowd chants, the "Joe is gonna kill you" chant was always a pretty good one, and it actually kind of added something to his character.
At his peak, Joe was champion for nearly two years and had some of the best matches in America. In fact, he was in one of my favorite matches period. It was a match that was almost transcendental, at least in a wrestling sense. Wherein, it wasn't just a good wrestling match, it was an EVENT. It was a FIGHT. There wasn't really a big build up to this match, no angles shot, or interviews given where they run each other down. It was ROH's best guy, Samoa Joe vs., at the time, likely the best wrestler in the world, Kenta Kobashi. And I would probably add the most physical, as well. The Japanese style lends itself more to the athletic side of things, it treats itself more like a sport. With that in mind, the matches are often more hard hitting and just plain old painful. I'm sure Mitsuharu Misawa's elbow strikes hurt, and I'm sure Toshiaki Kawada's kicks hurt, but for sheer thud and smack and ye-ow! factor, I would nominate Kenta Kobashi's chops as some of the worst.
So, there it was. The best guy from Japan, the best guy from the USA. They got into the ring, shook hands and had a wrestling match. The ROH crowd is a knowledgeable crowd (read: geeks) and of course they know Kobashi. They know all his moves, they've seen his matches, and this is one of, if not the, first match he had on US soil. So every single person in the place is excited to see this stout, chop-throwing monster who enthralled them through the 80's and into the 00's.
They made the choice not to have announcers call this match, and I think it's a good one. It lends itself to the atmosphere and makes the event feel even bigger than it is. Anyway, enough hyperbole, I just watched this match and it made me want to write about it. So I've said my piece and I'll allow the match to say the rest.
Samoa Joe vs. Kenta Kobashi
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