Toshiaki Kawada
Oct 4, 2019 2:54:51 GMT -5
Post by elliott on Oct 4, 2019 2:54:51 GMT -5
All wrestling has weird little fun wrestling quirks. No matter how much a promotion sells itself as legitimate.... its fake. If you pick the psychology apart at this level it all crumbles.
Lawler is the best puncher in wrestling history and his punching and brawling was played up in the narrative of Memphis wrestling. Why did it take him so many direct punches to the face and people weren't KOed? Whey weren't they bleeding more often? Where his punches really just that soft? He was a manly man... surely he hit harder than a child.
Muhammad Ali is universally regarded as the greatest boxer who ever lived. Did he take more than one punch to KO people? And that was real.
Lawler's punches are praised because of their variety and their aesthetic. He most often employed jabs, which were sold as such, but his heavier blows (uppercuts/crosses/mounted punches) were sold as heavier blows also. Everyone in pro-wrestling did punches & literally no one KO'd & bloodied people with one/few punches (unlesss it was specifically the storyline, of course there are exceptions). Kawada was the only one doing that KO spot. Also, Lawler did beat (and KO) people with punches & bloodied people.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6l_9reaLz0
What about shoot style... nothing is more legit than SHOOT. If Volk Han was such a master grappler why did he lose control of people's legs after having them so deep in controlling positions. Why didn't he finish heel hooks more often? Why didn't he just do the damn move right and cripple them?
Pick the best submission wrestler ever at their peak in MMA and ask yourself, did they immediately make top level talent submit to their first attempted submission in every fight or did other stuff have to happen first?
The people who we interact with that would praise Volk Han's grappling aren't praising it because he can beat everyone easily. We could give a fuck about that. I don't think I brought up Win-Loss record at all when I did the Gordy Lists on Han & Tamura. We like Volk Han's mat work because it is flashy, unique, exciting, colorful etc and that stands out especially because it comes from an unflashy seeming guy in an unflashy niche style.
Kawada got over tons of his opponents as murderers in the middle of the match and did so in a way that kept the drama and put over how dangerous the strikes are.
Take the 2/93 Hansen match I've been dumping on. Does Kawada need to do the KO spot in the middle of the early strike exchange to "get over Hansen as a dangerous striker" in 1993? Hansen? Against Kawada? That ludicrous. The crowd is already buzzing because Hansen vs Kawada is a semi-main at Budokan during AJPW's hottest era between two top stars and they have the hot early strike exchange. Kawada did it just to do it. Which is fine. Its like the Flair flop or Hogan's leg twitch selling.
Or against Misawa's elbow. The same elbow Misawa beat Hansen with to win the Triple Crown when Kawada was still Misawa's junior teammate? We need Kawada getting KO'd against Misawa in every match to put over Misawa's striking? What?
Kawada thought of a really cool spot to do and he did it in every match. It always popped the crowd so thats fine. But Hansen or Ace Misawa who Kawada took 5 years to beat one on one didn't need 5'6" Toshiaki "Lights Out" Kawada to put over their dangerous striking. Those moves would've been over whether Kawada was getting KO'd in every random TV match or not.
I was being somewhat flippant about the whole of the psychology being built around concussions, but much of it is built around trying to destroy your opponent with head and neck trama. In that setting - where it often takes a lot to put someone down - it makes total sense for Kawada to take one to the dome and be able to come to by the time someone can take advantage because its usually timed where people need a tick before they can capitalize... then boom, Kawada is back. Kawada taking getting his lights dimmed a lot doesn't feel at all egregious to me in the grand scheme of wrestling.
I basically view it as Kawada's equivalent of the Flair Flop. Cool spot that would pop the crowd. If it happened to occur at a time that made sense it was awesome. But it probably just happened instead
P.S. to be clear, I am also having fun with this post. This just boils down to different tastes being fleshed out in the interpretation of a singular phenomenon within that style.... and you hating the wrestling equivalent of a butterfly landing on a puppies nose.
I get why people like it, its just both not for me AND I find the specific "psychological genius/master seller" narrative that has always surrounded Kawada makes it stand out a little more. It would be like if Michael Bay's fans compared his films to Kurosawa or Tarantino. Like I'm fine if you wanna dig Toshiaki Bay. I get it. Just leave Kurosawler and Volkantino out of it.
