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[1994-01-04-NJPW-Battlefield] Rick & Scott Steiner vs Keiji Muto & Hiroshi Hase


Loss

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  • 1 month later...

LOVED this one. Of all the 1/4 Tokyo Dome matches on any yearbook, this is the best one I've seen. The opening minutes between Scott and Hase really put the in-ring gap that existed at this point between the U.S. and Japan in perspective. I loved Sting/Austin and thought it was pretty high-end for U.S. matwork at the time, but the mat exchanges between Scott and Hase just completely outclass it in every way, and I don't expect this to finish in the top 30 for the year (although it just might).

 

I typically hate Muto's running dome show clothesline, but Hase deciding to try it because it looked so fun amused me. Rick holds his own. Muto does his trademark spots and gets them over. Hase is really good. But Scott Steiner is the star here. In this match, he looks like someone who should have been a singles star in New Japan, and I wish he hadn't even wasted time with U.S. runs after seeing this.

 

This is also *possibly* the debut of the screwdriver, which got an amazing pop. I question it only because the announcers had a name ready for it.

 

This was exactly what you want a Dome show match in the "wrestling spot" to be -- stiff with really good ebb and flow, good wrestling between the highspots, and really top-notch highspots to pop the crowd. Great match.

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This was awesome. Just a hair below MOTY contender status and on a rewatch it could make that level. The work was pretty awesome with Muto/Hase and Scotty looking just awesome. Rick was good but was really the weakest link here not that he was bad. From the mat wrestling, power moves, story telling, the running dome show clotheslines and a hot finish really makes it stand out as an awesome bout. One of the best Steiner Bros matches ever. Plus I love how they really get the Dome rockin. Just an easy 4 1/4 * bout.

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First time seeing this and thought it was great. Agreed that Steiner looked like a star. Love the Screwdriver move. Rewinded twice after the match to watch the move again. Probably want to try pin your opponent after delivering one of those though. Was WWF pretty much done with the Steiners at this point?

 

Got a good laugh at the end of this match with Mutoh comes off the top rope to try break up the pin fall but takes Hase hooked leg to the face.

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I wasn't as enamored with this as the rest of you guys. It was about what I expected from these teams in the dome, and the finishing stretch was exciting. But I felt I could have wandered away for five minutes at any time during the body of the match and missed very little. Not thatthe work was bad, but one moment didn't build to the next in any meaningful way. That's usually how I feel about the Steiners at this point in my life. I can still see why I loved them as a kid, but they don't much suck me in anymore.

 

As for ranking this against other 1/4 matches, I'd put it well behind Vader/Inoki from '96 and Choshu/Tenryu from '93 and probably behind the Hash matches from '95 and '96.

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  • 3 weeks later...

This was a tremendous match. Scott and Hase had excellent chemistry. The screwdriver was nuts and Hase sold it like he was near death. Scott came across HUGE to the Japanese. Hase's selling was superb throughout. Rick was perfectly fine in this. Muto did his usual stuff and the crowd loved it including the running Dome clothesline. The pace and structure was all there and this ruled because of it.

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I agree with Childs on this match. The opening mat work meandered to much for me. I really hated Rick's opening dog exchange with Muto that fell really flat. Watching a match from the Dome in a yearbook setting can really hurt also because we just saw a really hot crowd for a typical WCWSN main event and here it really took the Screwdriver to wake the crowd up fully. Finishing stretch was very well done but the finish looked a little awkward. Overall, definitely a good match but a match with many flaws in my opinion.

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  • 2 months later...

At first it bugged me that Scott didn't go for a pin after hitting the screwdriver, then I realized it's Scott Steiner. Of course he's going to run to the ropes and yell at everyone instead of trying to actually win the match.

 

First time seeing this and once it got rolling, it was great. Not sure the Japanese fans quite caught on to Rick's barking, though.

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  • 1 year later...

Surprised the WWF even allowed this to happen, but I'm not complaining. Slow start with the most notable happenings being Scott's spectacular hair and Rick actually doing a "pissing dog" taunt and then biting Mutoh in the rear end, which is absurd Bushwhacker-like shit but kind of amusing considering the setting. I'm closer to Childs and Chad on this--this was fun, like you'd expect a one-off Dome show match to be, but that's all. There were some great spots in this but I didn't feel anything from the matwork--and I really, really like Hase on the mat. The Screwdriver looked nasty, and yeah, Scott is exactly the kind of guy who'd leap to the turnbuckle and yell after doing it, rather than attempt a pin. I also liked the Frankensteiner as a transition move, thanks to the selling by both guys, and Hase is killed suitably dead at the finish. But as a Dome match it didn't hold a candle to the Steiners' bout with Hase & Sasaki

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  • 4 months later...

Mutoh and Hase were the ideal opponents in NJ for the Steiners. They could both go with them on the mat as well as put over all their offence. The earliest sighting of the Steiner Screwdriver. That can't not be a finisher. The action was consistently good over a full length, with all the flashy high points you'd be hoping for coming in. It could easily have jumped up a level had it been at Sumo Hall, and the finish fell a little flat also. Overall a top 10 Steiner Bros match.

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  • 1 year later...

Like every NJ Steiner Brothers match : overrated. Mutoh and Hase hold this one together, but although I enjoy some amateur stuff thrown in the right context, there it meandered for too long and really didn't mean much (as opposed to Doc & Gordy showing the Steiners they weren't all that). Some good action especially toward the end, but the Steiner can't work a smart tag match to save their life. Rick kinda sucked here, and was already sloppy as hell. Scott had awful hair and threw some terrific suplexes like they were nothing, as always. I don't think it was even that impressive in therm of bomb throwing match, but the screwdriver was *amazing*. Of course it led to : nothing. I'd call this a good match thanks to the action, but nothing special at all.

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  • 1 year later...

I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who found this lacking. I understand that New Japan likes its matches to begin with matwork, but I'd like to see it actually mean something to the rest of the match instead of being thrown in just because it's traditional, and here it doesn't.

 

Rick actually biting Muta's butt is something he wouldn't even try in the U.S. where the "Dogface Gremlin" stuff is actually understood, and it looked ridiculous here.

 

Those who call for the screwdriver to be a no-ifs-ands-or-buts finisher have it exactly right. It's one of those moves that exposes the business otherwise, as in "No way he's getting up from that if wrestling was real".

 

Rick couldn't execute the suplex off the top correctly either time he tried it, and it's only because he's so strong and Muta and Hase each took a big bump for it that it looked even halfway decent. I can see what most people mean about Rick getting sloppy by now, and it's a damn shame that Scotty chose to follow him down the same path a few years later.

 

Hase's running clothesline looked nice, but he took so long to get to Rick that Rick looked like an idiot for not dropping down. That's two moves in this match that non-fans looking to prove a point would ridicule mercilessly.

 

I think the crowd here was much more into Inoki-Tenryu for obvious reasons, but I still would have expected more heat for this. Maybe the Japanese were getting tired of the Steiners by now, since most of their matches in Japan have been basically the same since they started coming over. I know you can say that about most guys, but Rick and Scotty don't seem to have as much oomph, for lack of a better word, as they used to. I can see it in their American matches as well, although they looked really good against Bret and Owen earlier in the month.

 

Am I the only one who wonders how the third match of this unofficial round robin (Harts vs Muta/Hase) would have turned out? I guess it would depend on whether the match was held in America or Japan. In Japan, it could have been a classic. In America, Muta and Hase would most likely have come out with Fuji and been reduced to chops, nerveholds, and salt throwing (although Vince may have let Muta use the handspring elbow and moonsault).

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  • GSR changed the title to [1994-01-04-NJPW-Battlefield] Rick & Scott Steiner vs Keiji Muto & Hiroshi Hase

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