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Post by lemming on Sept 4, 2022 6:03:36 GMT -5
A year or two back a friend introduced me to the mystifying Black Choshu action figure. Since then, whenever I think of this match I now can't help but vividly picture the finishing stretch, recreated unchanged except with a life-sized version of that action figure in place of the real wrestler. In my fever dream version, Hashimoto yells definitely at the giant action figure "Blaaaaaaack Chooshhuuu!" before eating that brutal final lariat. So anyway, this match is very clearly 5 stars.
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Post by KB8 on Mar 17, 2023 17:48:53 GMT -5
You know what these two are about. It might be the definitive Hashimoto v Choshu match, though every bit as easy to follow as their other bouts. By this point Choshu is past his peak, no longer the force he was even five years ago never mind ten. On the other hand Hashimoto is bang in the middle of his peak, the Ace, the IWGP champ, one of the best on the planet, out to win his first G1 tournament. The struggle over everything is just amazing, from the opening lock-ups to the strike exchanges to the selling of exhaustion, the whole match feels like an ordeal and best of all they didn't need forty minutes to achieve it. Hashimoto fucking annihilates Choshu with those overhand chops and Choshu looks like a man who's questioning his decision to keep at this game. The roundhouse kicks are some of the meanest of Hashimoto's career and I thought Choshu's selling was perfection, how he'd try and catch one only to quickly realise that's impossible, crumpling to his knees just the same as he would've had he not bothered trying in the first place. The part early on where Choshu just clocked Hash with a straight punch was incredible, like a man who knew he was fighting a juggernaut but would do so the only way he knew how. Christ if anything that hierarchal gap only made him even more belligerent, and that is a fuckin BAR to clear when you consider the history of Riki Choshu. But with age comes experience and I loved how he tried to snap Hashimoto's leg with the basement dropkick rather than going right to the lariat. Hash was on the apron and as soon as Choshu made a move towards the ropes there was a ripple of anticipation, just a roll of the shoulders from Choshu enough to make the crowd sit up, and a few years ago he would've hit those ropes and tried to decapitate Hash with the momentum he'd gathered. This time he knew the moment wasn't right, knew Hash needed softened up a little more, so he took out the leg and went from there. Nobody does defiance in the face of inevitability better than Hashimoto and that finish is one of the best there's ever been. You might need to kill him to keep him down but he'll look you dead in the eye while you do it. Going out on his shield is the only way he knows.
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Post by tetsujin on Mar 18, 2023 18:07:56 GMT -5
I hope this match makes it this year. Seems like a miracle match to me: a complex, three-act story with spectacular character work and action, done only in 12 minutes. There's nothing else like it anywhere, anytime, that I have seen.
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