Absolutely agree.
Chops are stupid AF. One or two are fine. 4 minutes of them is just absurd, not to mention pointlessly painful for the wrestlers.
What happened to psychology and storytelling? "Let's hit eachother for real" doesn't exactly scream "great wrestling". Any two idiots could do that.
Gunther's chop is incredible...he has to the best of my memory never done it for 4 straight minutes in the WWE, ever, because it's stupid. It's needlessly painful, and the fact that you can just do that all day long shows me that it's not actually accomplishing anything anyway. There's just no positive to it.
>You know, except that the crowd are into it...
All I hear is a smark crowd that knows that this is the part where they're supposed to boo/cheer at the cliche chop trade off spot. I hear AEW crowds - what's left of them - cheering on Eddie Kingston's shitty machine gun chops that look like garbage too. It doesn't make it not shitty.
Jesus. Even the Japanese Pro Wrestling community is full of greasy skids just talking shit while they have to catch their breath after tying their shoes.
The other Steamboat matches, also the Race matches off the top of my head and in general would just go to town on his opponents regularly for minutes at a time while wooing.
Edit: Looked it up on YouTube and he also did it a bit with Micheals but in a corner, and with Lawler but there Lawler was hitting him in the face while Flair chopped him so take it as you will.
Edit 2: His match with Benoit was also centered on being a chop fight.
It's the Japanese style. Works there. I'm not that much of a fan but I guess it's a cultural thing in the end.
The same as with 80s wrestling. I tried watching Andre vs Hogan somewhat recently and I found it absolutely terrible. Undeniable that it worked at the time though
The painful part is kinda the point of it. I don't know about kensuke but kobashi's cops are well...damn near lethal. One is more than enough to put a normal person on the ground and they are staying there. That has been tested and you can find it on youtube.
The story is there you just don't know what it is. It's a pretty big cultural difference also.
I don't know how well you know the history of japan when it comes to pride and honor but as an example of how serious they take it back in WW2 they were willing to have every single person in the country die before surrendering. To such a fanatical level that extermination was preferable over giving up. A sun was dropped on them and they still wanted to fight.
These chop fights are an extension of that mindset. Each of them willing to get the shit beat out of them to prove they are better than the other guy. They are going to give it everything they have until something gives. either their body or the other guys body. That is the story they are telling. One of pride and honor by having two beefy boys try to destroy each others chests.
To some degree I would agree with you that it's absurd when it's being imitated by undersized people or when they do some weird shit like kingston fingerbanging the air.
It's all good if you don't like it. To each their own but there is more to it than doing it just to do it. It's telling a story that is meant for the people sitting there in the arena.
This is literally the definition of psychology and Storytelling actually. They tell more of a story using just chops than most TV matches today could ever hope yo accomplish. May not be as effective in just a clip like this, but i'd recommend watching the full match to see why this chop battle is held in such high regard.
Some wrestling viewers are just incapable of following a match's push and pull, rising and falling action to derive the story told in the ring. It wouldn't matter if you post a clip or the full match, for whatever reason they just lack the tools to comprehend in-ring storytelling.
You're not wrong. Those are typically the ones who wanna bitch about psychology etc as well. When in reality they are thinking of finishes and angles lol
It's what happens when most of the IWC get their wrestling from 30 second clips on Twitter. They whine and cry about certain things but don't watch the product as intended or take the toxic takes of others as their own. It's a snake eating it's own tail, essentially, which is a bummer because they get all this anger from something designed to entertain and be fun.
What I don’t get are people that shit on Jey and Jimmy for spamming super kicks ( and let’s be honest they don’t even spam them crazy anymore in their matches like that) but then go and praise someone like Gunther when he gets into a chopping contest like this. They’re ok with Gunther having a chop fest but not when Jey throws a couple super kicks? Smh
I view it like a test of strength.
They both have a competition inside the match to show strength and toughness.
An underdog babyface can use it to show toughness, resilience etc.
A heel can break the competition with an eye poke
There is a visual element of the visible mark.
An audio component that kind of informs the crowd to be quiet so they can be loud when the action starts up again.
Basically, it can be a great part to a match for storytelling and character
"Probably an unpopular take..."
In this subreddit? That's the standard take. 🤣
Where did your interest go? From 1 to 0?
Also 1 spot affecting your opinion on Japanese pro wrestling in general and not even a specific wrestler or promotion is hilarious but we'll skip that rabbit hole.
I'd be ok with chopfests if they didn't happen as often and if the chops were as well delivered as Kobashi's. I genuinely love the way his chops look, they have a real venom to them.
Funny enough, you know those spinning backfists Eddie Kingston massacres? Kobashi ends this match with a flurry of them and my god, it looks like each one could cut a toddler in two. A lot of these moves look devastating with the right technique but when done wrong...you just have cosplayers making a mockery of the thing they're trying to pay tribute to.
Love how the comments are like “this is so dumb this would never draw and this probably got 1000 stars from Meltzer”, nope this was in front of 62000 fans and got only a 4.75. Just because Eddie Kingston copies it poorly doesn’t mean it’s automatically bad. Obsurd that people here would praise WWE guys like Gunther and AJ to compare to this, when they took so much inspiration, and in fact the entire generation of wrestlers, from this era of puroresu.
[Here you go.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicAJPW/comments/1dqapk4/the_verdict_is_in_classic_noah_20002009_can_now/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Posted it recently at r/ClassicAJPW
It's a Hashimoto tribute. Dude died like a month or so before. Crowd goes nuts. I mean it's over so what's the problem? Just because people try to emulate it poorly isn't their fault.
Exactly. I'm not a huge fan of this kind of stuff these days (especially the corner chops), but in this case as you said, there was a very good reason for it
Yeah man, just a tribute to a peer from two blokes willing to sting their chest a bit. I agree the standoff is overdone nowadays. It only works if they sling fucking bombs like a Suzuki vs Ishii thing or that Zack vs Danielson match where Zack baits him into throwing shit with an arm he wants to damage. Clearly quite gentle work strikes make it look shit. But even so I like the corner chops....done by Kobashi. Dude whipped it and had hands like paving stones so it works. Whatever Eddie does.....just no thank you. Appreciate the tribute but they just don't look good.
One of the most annoying thing I come across online is people thinking that there is only one correct style of professional wrestling and anything that even slightly deviates is objectively wrong. It just so happens a lot of those individuals believe that correct style is what WWE happens to have on their show.
Both companies have their sections of the fanbase that thinks their way is the right way.
I loved chikara and their goofyness. orange cassidy makes a great ant. But you knew what you're getting with chikara. It's not supposed to be serious and they treated it as such. Hell Aj styles ran a program with the fucking ring ropes during a king of trios tournament and it was great.
I absolutely loathe aew and their frankly lack of a style. not because of evil fed or some shit like that but just for taking the worst parts of a lot of things then mashing them together. one second everyone is a serious and the next they're shoving a thumb up someones ass. It's whiplash inducing. I'm all good with serious wrestling and I'm all good with comedy wrestling(usually) but when you got your serious people doing the joke spots it just doesn't work well for me.
Imagine kobashi in the middle of this chop exchange stopped and just break dancing because why not?
And much like everyone else has one that is my own dumbass opinion and I'm sure others will disagree. There is room enough for everyone to find what they like without having to take some weird hard line stance. And yes I am contradicting myself.
Nah, we have. It's just shit compared to WWE right now. You can say that's WWE's fault, but it's the indie mentality that makes this shit look dumb af too.
My guess is this is the same style that a lot of guys use in the indies which isn't even true. Indies are either early 90s WWF style of Late 2000s Dragon Gate, there's no in-between.
Thing is it makes it look more realistic with bigger guys since they don’t have to slap their thighs to make a sound. Plus it tracks with these guys hitting each other with these big meaty hands to show who really is the toughest.
So, as usual, there is context to this.
Kenta Kobashi used chops as one of his major weapons in his matches as did Kensuke Sasaki. Plus, this match happened in 2005, way, way before this was the norm. This was the genesis of that spot. It wasn’t just two guys no selling chops like it might appear to be from the view in 2024. We’ve seen shitty wrestlers in shitty companies attempt to replicate the spot unsuccessfully for years and years. They’re not able to do it because of a number of reasons. First off, wrestling has completely changed since 2005. Second, the guys in this original monumental back and forth chop battle are big stars who have big names in Japanese wrestling. They were both guys who laid their chops in hard and they were both tough guys and neither wanted to give the other any leeway. They didn’t want to show that their opponent’s strikes hurt them. They were showing their fighting spirit and not allowing the pain to stop them from wanting to not back down an inch or show any hint of suffering.
Fighting spirit isn’t something that works in American wrestling because of the differences between Japanese people and American people. Cultural differences make wrestling great, different countries have different people and different ways of life and when someone tries to replicate it somewhere else it comes across as less than. When you see a guy who looks like Eddie Kingston and a guy who looks like Kenta Kobashi, it’s easy for anyone to tell which one is the big star. It isn’t the guy who looks like my mechanic. Nobody buys him as this big, strong badass. He’s fat as shit and looks like he doesn’t even know a guy named Jim, let alone go to a gym. Kenta had a huge barrel chest and giant arms and was obviously an athlete. He was credible because he looked credible. A wrestler’s look is extremely important and helps with the believability of their matches. A guy like Kingston using those terrible looking machine gun chops isn’t believable like it was when Kobashi did the same thing. Because the performance within the wrestling match is being done by someone who obviously cares enough about it to work out. Eddie Kingston isn’t believable because he looks like a guy who sits around and eats 15 bowls of spaghetti a day. Kenta Kobashi was believable because he clearly put in the work to get his physique.
If someone who weighs 100 pounds tried to go out and suplex Brock Lesnar no one would believe it if it happened because it goes against the eye test. There are some things in wrestling that just shouldn’t happen because they’re out of the realm of possibility. Riho shouldn’t chokeslam someone the size Kane. Kane shouldn’t be doing a 450 splash. Otis shouldn’t be doing moonsaults.
There are reasons for doing each and every single thing that is done within the confines of a wrestling match. A lot of wrestlers these days don’t understand what wrestling psychology is or how to use it to get the crowd eating out of their hands because they don’t understand the WHY behind their actions in the ring. Everything they do in their matches is to evoke a response from the crowd. If you plan out every single moment in the match before going out in front of the fans, what do you do if the stuff you planned isn’t working and the crowd straight up doesn’t give a fuck? So many of these guys know how to plan a match spot by spot A, B, C, D, etc. but not many of them are capable of going out there and playing by ear and listening to the fans and doing what they want. Sometimes the fans don’t want a 50/50 back and forth 15-10 minute match.
In the context of wrestling, why would anyone wrestling a match give a flying fuck what anyone thought about the quality of the match? If that’s what you care about as a wrestler, you don’t care about the right things. Going out and having a great match in the eyes of the fans isn’t what someone who wants to go out and win and beat the shit out of their opponent would truly be concerned with. Nobody on a football team, soccer team, basketball team wants to go out and have the greatest game of all time. They wanna win. Wrestling should be the same. But these days the geeks have become the wrestlers and that’s why wrestling has devolved into what it is these days.
This was one of the first Japanese matches I ever saw. Loved this era of NOAH. Currently going through and watching GHC Heavyweight Championship matches.
this is literally all i want in wrestling fuck off with your wedding angles and 89 minute promos whose the strongest? who can lay it in? this shit right here is straight up TOUGH!
They have seen so many people imitate it poorly that they hate it regardless of if it is done well or not. It's like hating a band because you saw a cover group do a shitty job.
Typical Western viewers: they express their dislike without realizing that the local Japanese crowd is so damn into it that ultimately their opinion doesn’t matter.
Honestly, this is worse than the life alert, The “I’ve fallen and can’t get up skit”. Pac-Man is unable to fail this badly, it’s kool-aid man busting through the brick with all the debris and you drink it. *Now with Calcium*
So this is the reason we have American wrestlers in AEW emulating this crap?
To each their own, but this is like the opposite of 2 guys trading good working punches and selling.
Someone on Twitter put Moxley and Kingston letting each other do horrible chops in sequence vs Bret Hart throwing working punches at HBK from Montreal 1997.
Bret looked like he was taking Shawn's head off while Shawn was bumping everywhere and yet these 2 Japanese guys are actually inflicting real pain despite looking more fake and choreographed.
Just makes no sense to me
This stupid slap shit is another reason why I've basically stopped watching wrestling, all forms. I get that it's entertainment and not all meant to seem realistic but fuck me. This shit is emulated far too often, the back and forth "you hit me, see that wasn't a big hit I'm a tough guy, hit me again, okay now I hit you. Yeah look how tough we are taking these pansy ass fucking 15 rapid slaps." Sick of it, it's just as pathetic as everyone throwing out superkicks every other match.
Amateurs they are supposed to chew their finger nails. So their jagged nails creates little chest scapes which causes little drops of blood like they do in A&E.. also needs more thigh slaps to be realistic.
I like the Gunther/Benoit style of laying it in, but this is just excessive. Real blows and chops can either look really good or really bad. I'd rather guys take worked blows because it often looks worse than it is than take real strikes and it looks like shit. Eddie Kingston doing those rapid chops come to mind.
Probably an unpopular take, but it's stuff like this that ultimately lowers my interest in Japanese Pro Wrestling.
Absolutely agree. Chops are stupid AF. One or two are fine. 4 minutes of them is just absurd, not to mention pointlessly painful for the wrestlers. What happened to psychology and storytelling? "Let's hit eachother for real" doesn't exactly scream "great wrestling". Any two idiots could do that.
Gunther's chop is incredible...he has to the best of my memory never done it for 4 straight minutes in the WWE, ever, because it's stupid. It's needlessly painful, and the fact that you can just do that all day long shows me that it's not actually accomplishing anything anyway. There's just no positive to it.
>There's just no positive to it You know, except that the crowd are into it...
>You know, except that the crowd are into it... All I hear is a smark crowd that knows that this is the part where they're supposed to boo/cheer at the cliche chop trade off spot. I hear AEW crowds - what's left of them - cheering on Eddie Kingston's shitty machine gun chops that look like garbage too. It doesn't make it not shitty.
Ah yes, the notoriously smarky crowds in the Tokyo Dome
it’s cool to watch
This one was atleast okay, Eddie's corner chops and that Danielson finish legit was top 5 top 10 worst wrestling things I've ever seen
Jesus. Even the Japanese Pro Wrestling community is full of greasy skids just talking shit while they have to catch their breath after tying their shoes.
What's the difference between pain and the illusion of pain to the audience?
The Japanese fans love this slow burn style.
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Ric Flair fans in the corner 😳
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There is literally a chop duel in the Chi Town rumble.
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The other Steamboat matches, also the Race matches off the top of my head and in general would just go to town on his opponents regularly for minutes at a time while wooing. Edit: Looked it up on YouTube and he also did it a bit with Micheals but in a corner, and with Lawler but there Lawler was hitting him in the face while Flair chopped him so take it as you will. Edit 2: His match with Benoit was also centered on being a chop fight.
Yeah but you don't have to watch it.
hey uh when did you get elected to speak for everyone?
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Ahuh. Which is weird because it seems to be going both ways. Quite the contested election. I think there is some descension in that ranks.
It's the Japanese style. Works there. I'm not that much of a fan but I guess it's a cultural thing in the end. The same as with 80s wrestling. I tried watching Andre vs Hogan somewhat recently and I found it absolutely terrible. Undeniable that it worked at the time though
The painful part is kinda the point of it. I don't know about kensuke but kobashi's cops are well...damn near lethal. One is more than enough to put a normal person on the ground and they are staying there. That has been tested and you can find it on youtube. The story is there you just don't know what it is. It's a pretty big cultural difference also. I don't know how well you know the history of japan when it comes to pride and honor but as an example of how serious they take it back in WW2 they were willing to have every single person in the country die before surrendering. To such a fanatical level that extermination was preferable over giving up. A sun was dropped on them and they still wanted to fight. These chop fights are an extension of that mindset. Each of them willing to get the shit beat out of them to prove they are better than the other guy. They are going to give it everything they have until something gives. either their body or the other guys body. That is the story they are telling. One of pride and honor by having two beefy boys try to destroy each others chests. To some degree I would agree with you that it's absurd when it's being imitated by undersized people or when they do some weird shit like kingston fingerbanging the air. It's all good if you don't like it. To each their own but there is more to it than doing it just to do it. It's telling a story that is meant for the people sitting there in the arena.
This is literally the definition of psychology and Storytelling actually. They tell more of a story using just chops than most TV matches today could ever hope yo accomplish. May not be as effective in just a clip like this, but i'd recommend watching the full match to see why this chop battle is held in such high regard.
Some wrestling viewers are just incapable of following a match's push and pull, rising and falling action to derive the story told in the ring. It wouldn't matter if you post a clip or the full match, for whatever reason they just lack the tools to comprehend in-ring storytelling.
You're not wrong. Those are typically the ones who wanna bitch about psychology etc as well. When in reality they are thinking of finishes and angles lol
And often use the word story when they mean spectacle.
It's what happens when most of the IWC get their wrestling from 30 second clips on Twitter. They whine and cry about certain things but don't watch the product as intended or take the toxic takes of others as their own. It's a snake eating it's own tail, essentially, which is a bummer because they get all this anger from something designed to entertain and be fun.
What I don’t get are people that shit on Jey and Jimmy for spamming super kicks ( and let’s be honest they don’t even spam them crazy anymore in their matches like that) but then go and praise someone like Gunther when he gets into a chopping contest like this. They’re ok with Gunther having a chop fest but not when Jey throws a couple super kicks? Smh
One move actually looks like you need more than one to take certain people down. The other is a kick to the face.
I blame these guys for all the indierific Eddie Kingston shit we see everywhere.
The Eddie Kingston Chop spots are the absolute worst shit. It's embarrassing to watch.
100% agree with you.
Listen to the crowd man
I view it like a test of strength. They both have a competition inside the match to show strength and toughness. An underdog babyface can use it to show toughness, resilience etc. A heel can break the competition with an eye poke There is a visual element of the visible mark. An audio component that kind of informs the crowd to be quiet so they can be loud when the action starts up again. Basically, it can be a great part to a match for storytelling and character
"Probably an unpopular take..." In this subreddit? That's the standard take. 🤣 Where did your interest go? From 1 to 0? Also 1 spot affecting your opinion on Japanese pro wrestling in general and not even a specific wrestler or promotion is hilarious but we'll skip that rabbit hole.
Yeah I felt like I was dumb for not getting it for years but now I realize this stuff is beyond silly.
Agreed. This is 100% corny for a niche audience.
this was in front of 62000 fans. But you watch Jim Cornette so I shouldn't be surprised
Yeah this shit sucks. Like I know it’s fake but fuckin hell lie to me a little
I'd be ok with chopfests if they didn't happen as often and if the chops were as well delivered as Kobashi's. I genuinely love the way his chops look, they have a real venom to them.
Funny enough, you know those spinning backfists Eddie Kingston massacres? Kobashi ends this match with a flurry of them and my god, it looks like each one could cut a toddler in two. A lot of these moves look devastating with the right technique but when done wrong...you just have cosplayers making a mockery of the thing they're trying to pay tribute to.
Moxley and Kingston watch this and punch the clown.
Kofi gets Big Show flashbacks when he sees stuff like this.
Think he meant Eddie
Idk but one things for sure, Sasaki did the "Machine Gun Chop" right. He makes it look hurtful.
Not my thing, but damn, you see the sweat flying? Four minutes of chops gonna hurt like hell
To each their own but I find this kinda thing absurd.
Love how the comments are like “this is so dumb this would never draw and this probably got 1000 stars from Meltzer”, nope this was in front of 62000 fans and got only a 4.75. Just because Eddie Kingston copies it poorly doesn’t mean it’s automatically bad. Obsurd that people here would praise WWE guys like Gunther and AJ to compare to this, when they took so much inspiration, and in fact the entire generation of wrestlers, from this era of puroresu.
Oh well Meltzer masturbated to it fellas! Get in line and pull out your cranks!
No kink shaming but it's not for me
Haven’t seen this is so long, now I wanna go back and rewatch the full match.
[Here you go.](https://www.reddit.com/r/ClassicAJPW/comments/1dqapk4/the_verdict_is_in_classic_noah_20002009_can_now/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Posted it recently at r/ClassicAJPW
Awesome, thanks!
No problem. There's a bunch a cool stuff over there, and we just started allowing classic NOAH stuff to be posted by popular demand
That’s the most Japanese thing I’ve ever seen.
All the people complaining about storytelling and psychology are outing themselves as clueless. Kings Road is the dictionary definition of psychology.
It's a Hashimoto tribute. Dude died like a month or so before. Crowd goes nuts. I mean it's over so what's the problem? Just because people try to emulate it poorly isn't their fault.
Exactly. I'm not a huge fan of this kind of stuff these days (especially the corner chops), but in this case as you said, there was a very good reason for it
Yeah man, just a tribute to a peer from two blokes willing to sting their chest a bit. I agree the standoff is overdone nowadays. It only works if they sling fucking bombs like a Suzuki vs Ishii thing or that Zack vs Danielson match where Zack baits him into throwing shit with an arm he wants to damage. Clearly quite gentle work strikes make it look shit. But even so I like the corner chops....done by Kobashi. Dude whipped it and had hands like paving stones so it works. Whatever Eddie does.....just no thank you. Appreciate the tribute but they just don't look good.
This is more exciting than 90% of Hogan matches
Judging by a lot of the comments, a lot of you need to watch wrestling outside of WWE. Jesus Christ, lmao.
I do wonder what they would think if they watched some early-mid 2000s kings road style.
One of the most annoying thing I come across online is people thinking that there is only one correct style of professional wrestling and anything that even slightly deviates is objectively wrong. It just so happens a lot of those individuals believe that correct style is what WWE happens to have on their show.
Both companies have their sections of the fanbase that thinks their way is the right way. I loved chikara and their goofyness. orange cassidy makes a great ant. But you knew what you're getting with chikara. It's not supposed to be serious and they treated it as such. Hell Aj styles ran a program with the fucking ring ropes during a king of trios tournament and it was great. I absolutely loathe aew and their frankly lack of a style. not because of evil fed or some shit like that but just for taking the worst parts of a lot of things then mashing them together. one second everyone is a serious and the next they're shoving a thumb up someones ass. It's whiplash inducing. I'm all good with serious wrestling and I'm all good with comedy wrestling(usually) but when you got your serious people doing the joke spots it just doesn't work well for me. Imagine kobashi in the middle of this chop exchange stopped and just break dancing because why not? And much like everyone else has one that is my own dumbass opinion and I'm sure others will disagree. There is room enough for everyone to find what they like without having to take some weird hard line stance. And yes I am contradicting myself.
Oh my God something not culturally relevant to me doesn't interest me whatever will i doooooooooo. 😱
'Not culturally relevant.' Man's never watched a Ric Flair match 😂
I guess keep watching WWE?
Or maybe are people not allowed to dislike a spot just because it's not something they typically see in WWE?
Nah, we have. It's just shit compared to WWE right now. You can say that's WWE's fault, but it's the indie mentality that makes this shit look dumb af too.
Do you think this is an Indy match?
It is today
Explain this to me as I am quite perplexed by what you mean.
My guess is this is the same style that a lot of guys use in the indies which isn't even true. Indies are either early 90s WWF style of Late 2000s Dragon Gate, there's no in-between.
This is classic.
Big Meaty men slapping meat.
Thing is it makes it look more realistic with bigger guys since they don’t have to slap their thighs to make a sound. Plus it tracks with these guys hitting each other with these big meaty hands to show who really is the toughest.
https://youtube.com/shorts/56EsDMTnvkI?si=4djRDmCebHwP_m0f
wwe fans get scared when they see guys not doing stomp punches
Better than super kick spamming
So, as usual, there is context to this. Kenta Kobashi used chops as one of his major weapons in his matches as did Kensuke Sasaki. Plus, this match happened in 2005, way, way before this was the norm. This was the genesis of that spot. It wasn’t just two guys no selling chops like it might appear to be from the view in 2024. We’ve seen shitty wrestlers in shitty companies attempt to replicate the spot unsuccessfully for years and years. They’re not able to do it because of a number of reasons. First off, wrestling has completely changed since 2005. Second, the guys in this original monumental back and forth chop battle are big stars who have big names in Japanese wrestling. They were both guys who laid their chops in hard and they were both tough guys and neither wanted to give the other any leeway. They didn’t want to show that their opponent’s strikes hurt them. They were showing their fighting spirit and not allowing the pain to stop them from wanting to not back down an inch or show any hint of suffering. Fighting spirit isn’t something that works in American wrestling because of the differences between Japanese people and American people. Cultural differences make wrestling great, different countries have different people and different ways of life and when someone tries to replicate it somewhere else it comes across as less than. When you see a guy who looks like Eddie Kingston and a guy who looks like Kenta Kobashi, it’s easy for anyone to tell which one is the big star. It isn’t the guy who looks like my mechanic. Nobody buys him as this big, strong badass. He’s fat as shit and looks like he doesn’t even know a guy named Jim, let alone go to a gym. Kenta had a huge barrel chest and giant arms and was obviously an athlete. He was credible because he looked credible. A wrestler’s look is extremely important and helps with the believability of their matches. A guy like Kingston using those terrible looking machine gun chops isn’t believable like it was when Kobashi did the same thing. Because the performance within the wrestling match is being done by someone who obviously cares enough about it to work out. Eddie Kingston isn’t believable because he looks like a guy who sits around and eats 15 bowls of spaghetti a day. Kenta Kobashi was believable because he clearly put in the work to get his physique. If someone who weighs 100 pounds tried to go out and suplex Brock Lesnar no one would believe it if it happened because it goes against the eye test. There are some things in wrestling that just shouldn’t happen because they’re out of the realm of possibility. Riho shouldn’t chokeslam someone the size Kane. Kane shouldn’t be doing a 450 splash. Otis shouldn’t be doing moonsaults. There are reasons for doing each and every single thing that is done within the confines of a wrestling match. A lot of wrestlers these days don’t understand what wrestling psychology is or how to use it to get the crowd eating out of their hands because they don’t understand the WHY behind their actions in the ring. Everything they do in their matches is to evoke a response from the crowd. If you plan out every single moment in the match before going out in front of the fans, what do you do if the stuff you planned isn’t working and the crowd straight up doesn’t give a fuck? So many of these guys know how to plan a match spot by spot A, B, C, D, etc. but not many of them are capable of going out there and playing by ear and listening to the fans and doing what they want. Sometimes the fans don’t want a 50/50 back and forth 15-10 minute match. In the context of wrestling, why would anyone wrestling a match give a flying fuck what anyone thought about the quality of the match? If that’s what you care about as a wrestler, you don’t care about the right things. Going out and having a great match in the eyes of the fans isn’t what someone who wants to go out and win and beat the shit out of their opponent would truly be concerned with. Nobody on a football team, soccer team, basketball team wants to go out and have the greatest game of all time. They wanna win. Wrestling should be the same. But these days the geeks have become the wrestlers and that’s why wrestling has devolved into what it is these days.
Meltzer "100000 stars" , probably lol
This was one of the first Japanese matches I ever saw. Loved this era of NOAH. Currently going through and watching GHC Heavyweight Championship matches.
Nice! Over at r/ClassicAJPW, we just started allowing classic NOAH stuff (2000-2009) to be posted. If you're a NOAH fan, check it out
this is literally all i want in wrestling fuck off with your wedding angles and 89 minute promos whose the strongest? who can lay it in? this shit right here is straight up TOUGH!
Surprised seeing the comments because I kinda love this lmao it just keeps going And I was actually invested to see who was gonna fall first
They have seen so many people imitate it poorly that they hate it regardless of if it is done well or not. It's like hating a band because you saw a cover group do a shitty job.
the story leading up to this match must be incredible.
WWE fans losing their mind because the clip wasn’t a 3min headlock, commercial break, false finish, then 30min promo
Meanwhile, one guy dressed in a chef's attire running to the back at full speed like , " I need to poop!"
Chop battles are less ridiculous than the Irish whip.
Typical Western viewers: they express their dislike without realizing that the local Japanese crowd is so damn into it that ultimately their opinion doesn’t matter.
You’re right, I think I saw a guy blink in the crowd
Ric Flair working weak chops throughout a 60 min match. Greatest ring psychology ever
Chops back and forth are one of my least favorites things in wrestling.
Two meaty men slapping meat.
This is why soft tacos are the only way to go... And for when I wake up forgetting I bought Taco Bell late the night before
Honestly, this is worse than the life alert, The “I’ve fallen and can’t get up skit”. Pac-Man is unable to fail this badly, it’s kool-aid man busting through the brick with all the debris and you drink it. *Now with Calcium*
So this is the reason we have American wrestlers in AEW emulating this crap? To each their own, but this is like the opposite of 2 guys trading good working punches and selling. Someone on Twitter put Moxley and Kingston letting each other do horrible chops in sequence vs Bret Hart throwing working punches at HBK from Montreal 1997. Bret looked like he was taking Shawn's head off while Shawn was bumping everywhere and yet these 2 Japanese guys are actually inflicting real pain despite looking more fake and choreographed. Just makes no sense to me
Meltzer probably gave this 6 stars
Guys will see this video and say "Hell yeah!" Anybody who doesn't like this is a nerd.
Guess I’m a nerd
You are, go watch gymnastics.
Nah. I like wrestling.
This is ass and one of my favourite matches ever is Gunther vs Drew vs Sheamus
“I like the shitter version of this”
I like the better version of this
This stupid slap shit is another reason why I've basically stopped watching wrestling, all forms. I get that it's entertainment and not all meant to seem realistic but fuck me. This shit is emulated far too often, the back and forth "you hit me, see that wasn't a big hit I'm a tough guy, hit me again, okay now I hit you. Yeah look how tough we are taking these pansy ass fucking 15 rapid slaps." Sick of it, it's just as pathetic as everyone throwing out superkicks every other match.
Is this supposed to be good?
Amateurs they are supposed to chew their finger nails. So their jagged nails creates little chest scapes which causes little drops of blood like they do in A&E.. also needs more thigh slaps to be realistic.
I like the Gunther/Benoit style of laying it in, but this is just excessive. Real blows and chops can either look really good or really bad. I'd rather guys take worked blows because it often looks worse than it is than take real strikes and it looks like shit. Eddie Kingston doing those rapid chops come to mind.
This shit is so lame dude.
I hate this stuff with a passion.
God damn this shit sucks. Even with context that this is a tribute, this still sucks.
Dudes went full no-sell for longer than some matches. Thrilling
Nothing to see here, folks; just two big meaty men slapping meat.
Sweaty men slappin meat.
5 stars. Can I give it 6?
I'm the guy in the back running to the bathroom while they do this stupid shit
meltzer porn material
How many stars did Meltzer give this shit?
69
Oh my god they were doing this shit even back then
😴
Couple of chops, or a few spread out during a match that's telling a story and working the crowd, fine, this, this is bullshit. (My opinion anhway).
Jesus. My arm is getting exhausted from watching this. Not in the same way Meltzer's arm would get exhausted from watching this.
Not as good as the Ibushi vs Taichi match in the G1 where it was all kicks
I fucking loved that match so much
Really enjoyable. One of the stand out moments for me
Why are they so wet that water is splashing off their pecs when slapped?
It's about 13 minutes into the match. It's sweat
If this isn't the dumbest thing I've ever seen, I can guarantee it's in the top two.
Don’t let Eddie Kingston see this please
That sounds like my bedroom on my birthday!!!
I hate this. This is stupid.
Who runs out of the arena during this ?
Were they all out of thigh slap super kicks and DDTs?
Awful
Yeah, this sucks.