My personal opinion on it is that the move should be allowed but used rarely. Misawa used it just over a dozen times over his whole career, and having it as something you can bust out very rarely for a huge match at a big event makes it a spectacle, an attraction. I wouldn't want to see it every week, but seeing it like I did at Forbidden Door 2, as a one off to show the enmity between these two competitors... That's some powerful storytelling right there. Bonus points if the move's kayfabe banned, make a big stink about it the following show with talk about wrestlers getting fined or being given a suspension. It adds to the reputation of these moves and makes it easier to get into the story.
fuck johnny ace. he was a mid-level worker that the japanese could work with to make him look decent and then went back to the u.s. as a lackey for vincenzo.
Fantastic video as always! Just 2 small things. 1. Ospreay actually debuted the move against Taichi earlier this year before the Davis match. 2. Marufuji kicked out of the Emerald Flowsion Kai immediately before Misawa hit the Tiger Driver ‘91 on him.
I personally loved the addition of the move. It subverted expectations. I was there live and I thought he was going for a 2nd Stormbreaker, but when Ospreay dropped Omega on his head/shoulder, I audibly gasped and leapt from my seat. The whole arena was in shock. I like to think Omega was able to kick out thanks to the energy the Canadian audience was giving him, but the final Hidden Blade/Stormbreaker combo was just too much. The way I see it, Ospreay/Omega put it in the match to show tribute to Misawa due to Ospreay encroaching on Misawa levels of Meltzer rated 5-star matches, this match being the one that gave him 26 compared to Misawa's 25. I also think it could possibly be a teaser for the trilogy's finale where one of the 2 potentially pulls out a Kobashi-style Burning Hammer. Either way, these 2 killed it in both their Wrestle Kingdom 17 and Forbidden Door 2023 matches. I fully expect them to have another instant classic whether it be at All In 2023 or next year's Wrestle Kingdom 18. Great videos as always Kim. Love your passion for Puroresu and I'm always looking forward to more videos!
@@LuisHGarcia Ganso Bomb is an obvious no-brainer for a retrospective along with the Burning Hammer. I wonder whether there should be a cameo for the Diamond Head powerbomb in any Burning Hammer documentary?
Loved that Omega said he doesnt do anything he doesnt believe he can do 100% perfectly its a healthy Mindset it just so happens hes really really good at pretending to fall directly on his Neck and Head and not die
One thing you can take away from this video going forward is this: If you see a modern wrestler pull out some kind of insane, awesome move in a match, chances are good that it was invented by a Joshi wrestler. Those women are crazy.
According to my old backyard buddy, Robbie Eagles (NJPW), Wil Osprey grew up obsessed with our old Aussie backyard wrestling scene in the 2000s. We we're obsessed with crazy neck bumps. Nobody ever got hurt. Here's a vid of what we used to do. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-YtgFMxncU_g.html Ps: Kyle from Aussie Open also came from our scene. I beat him once lol.
Oh ThunderFilez was an American yarder at the same time we were doing it in Aus. He wrestled under the name Tiny and he was amazing. Our scenes were good mates online. He's got footage of his matches on his channel.
I can’t believe Kim mentioned one of my favorite Luchadors Abismo Negro el Mejor Rudo Viper Xtreme LLL the true King of the Tombstone a forbidden technique in Lucha Libre which made Abismo a dangerous heel as he could pull it out anytime and end the match
06:48 - the only other people while he was alive, to my knowledge, were Hayabusa on Masato Tanaka during their FMW Double Titles Match, and Megumi Kudo hitting it on Combat Toyoda during Toyoda's retirement match
I like that two of the big supermoves, the other being the Ganso Bomb, are the result of mistakes. Also, I do wish Ospreay had named it Storm Driver '23 using the year of its debut like Misawa did, not the year of his birth.
I just want to point out that, with Misawa, they started to put his stepover facelock over on the tour after the 1991 Champion Carnival, where that Kobashi match had been booked. That's another factor of my theory that the first TD91 was botched, and that the move was most likely phased out because the two men most likely to take it (Jumbo and Taue) had that height difference with Misawa which could have made the proper rotation harder. Wada has recalled that they were worried that the facelock wouldn't go over as a finish when they made Jumbo submit to it in September. Perhaps a submission finish was where they would have gone anyway, but the timing of that move's emergence is still worth pointing out. Another remark, specifically on the product at the time. The way that I would describe post-Tenryu, pre-7/29/93 King's Road (which I call the "bright, fun, and violent" period, to roughly translate their slogan) is that it hinged on sequences of similar but distinct moves, to reap the aesthetic benefits of repetition without outright repeating moves. Baba didn't have as much specific input on matches as it's often assumed he did-that was more Fuchi's job as on-site supervisor (same position Choshu had in Nooj at the time)-but he had overarching critiques. One of these was that, if a move only got a 2-count, then it should not be used again as a finish, or even a false finish. Think of Misawa's German suplex->Tiger suplex sequence. I believe the TD91 as originally conceived was just going to be the followup to the standard TD.
I remember subscribing to your main channel after watching the top 10 best/worst wrestling games video a long time ago, being hungry for any kind of wrestling related content, and trying to learn English too. Now that I feel confident with my English level, I would like to thank you for all of your hard work during these years. These retrospectives are amazing! Like, OSW or Wrestling Bios levels of amazing. I really appreciate your effort in creating these videos, and I hope your channel keeps growing.
Absolutely brilliant video. Your wrestling content is A1, and I find myself rewatching them in passing because there's such little else that hits on the topics you do with such detail and fandom.
Another great history, Kim. Always a quality watch. My opinion on the TD91’, is it should be a special occasion move. The risk is there and you want to make sure you do it crisp.
Would you be able to do a video on the Joshi wrestlers and the moves they innovated? I was surprised by how they preformed many of these super moves years before the men popularized them.
I may be misremembering, but didn't Kid Kash use the move in ECW? I vaguely remember hearing stories of him and Taz getting into a huge argument about it backstage because Kash used the move on Taz's cousin or something like that.
For what it's worth, HHH did an accidental pseudo Tiger Driver '91 once on TV back in his Connecticut blue blood days. The clip floated about the internet for a while. The guy landed right on his head and neck from the Pedigree because he thought he was taking a TD '91 or something ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gLnGnD92W68.html
Even in New Japan now, one rarely sees classic All Japan Finishers, I know Guenther does a version of The Emerald Flowson he calls the Last Symphony, but it is a much more safer version.
Just in case, "Martinete"'s last "e" is not silent, and martinete is the literal translation for piledriver (the construction device), so Abismo Negro would be "the king of the piledriver".
Obviously will is such a incredible wrestler and obviously has so many epic matches but I'd say he should only use tiger driver 91 once in a while in a mega match like against omega and it should always be the finish imo
Another amazing video! Thank you so much, Kim! Could there be more wrestling move deep dives on the horizon?? Also, it always brings a warm smile to my face when I'm reminded that so many awesome moves were likely invented by a Joshi. Those 80's and early 90's Joshi were so, so far ahead of their time. It's unreal.
I’ll definitely always prefer RVD over Nash any day Regardless of your feelings over CM Punk, his promos against Nash where great, and ironically to a degree true: him mocking the man for Kliq being both the sound of his knees and what people are doing when he’s on TV aren’t wrong Nash’s issues with his knees including the infamous immediate collapse during the nWo vs WWE multi-man match being prime example of his embarrassing history with them And him being the record holder practically of worst WWF/WWE champion via buyrates since no one really cared for him being over Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels, especially since by that point fans were more interested in workrate, technical, and skilled wrestler styles and matches as opposed to the over the top muscle bound giants Vince was pushing during and directly after Hogan’s Era
I think the one with Kawada from 1999 was actually a botch. You'll notice that Kawada lands far heavier on his right side on the impact, and given the state of he and Misawa's relationship at that point I doubt Kawada would have agreed to that kind of a finish where he's beaten so badly that a 10 second gap between finisher and pin makes no difference. Not to mention just the general oddity of him setting up for another move for an opponent he knew wasn't getting up. The other thing that leads me to believe this is that Misawa stopped using the move after that for about 4 years, almost like he saw the move as too dangerous and hung it up for a long while after.
Steiner messed up the double arm powerbomb and did this exact move in the NWA on Butch Reed back before Doom lost their masks? That would have been like late 1989 or early 1990. I'll see if I can find it and comment with a video's name, because we thought the Doom guy was dead LOL!!! So Scott had to have seen it in Japan before because 99% of his moves came from Japan!
Maybe Will Ospreay's Tiger Driver '91 move did not finish the match because he had not perfected the move yet. Hopefully in their 3rd match he would be able to master the usage of the move. (Goku can't properly use ultra instinct first time too 🤔)
1. botch move in 1991 2. be so awesome that you incorporate the botch into king's road lore and use it a small handful of times in your entire career 3. Will Ospreay uses it in a New Japan Cup match against a stablemate for the meme
I’m ngl some of these head drop bumps are just hard to watch, especially the ones on misowa because of the knowledge that these bumps are the reason he died, it’s sad these guys destroyed their bodies so recklessly then they didn’t need to
You got the botch story backwards. The kobashi bump was the botched one. Watch his arm slip loose from the underhook. He slipped out and Misawa reacted very quickly to protect him and the match.
@@Kr4ShSkeL There's no such thing as a tiger bomb unless you're referring to the Black Tiger Bomb, which is a sitout crucifix pin and not the move in question. It's a tiger driver.
@@Kr4ShSkeL Nope, not trolling. It's a Tiger Driver. There are many kinds. Tiger Mask never came up with a move called the Tiger Bomb. Search Tiger Bomb and all you'll get is ads for sports rub cream and little else.
Appreciate the raw truth and pretty much Gif of Johnny getting beaten by Misawa Especially since now a days any mockery is pretty much well deserved after all the Yesman crap he’s been doing for Vince
Bro are you really complaining that Omega kicked out ??? If people kicked out of the move when Misawa himself did it then why the fk can't they kick out when it's someone else ? And it's not like Omega no sold the move he was dead and lost 10 seconds later
This is just my opinion, but I hate the Tiger Driver 91. Any move that drops you on your head, where there is so much scope for it to go wrong… it makes me uncomfortable. But that’s my opinion and I’m not asking anyone to agree with me.
My finisher is a double underhook powerdriver from over the shoulder. It's almost certainly more dangerous than this move. You gotta catch the opponents head with your legs in midair to cradle them safely.
