[1999-08-28-NJPW-Jingu Climax] Great Muta vs Great Nita (No Rope Barbed Wire Land Mine Exploding Death)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Yep. This match happened in New Japan of all places. Great Nita is of course Onita doing a Muta gimmick. It was AWFUL when I watched it in full, and I didn't want to wish that on anyone else. The less seen of this, the better, even though it sounds like a decent morbid curiosity pick. Don't give into temptation and watch this in full.

[Tim Evans]

I'm a big Onita mark but even I don't think I could watch this in full. Muta looked just embarrassed even being in this. He had no idea what to do when the timer went off. Nita of course was awesome. Loved his walk to the back after the match just being a mad man. Shocking lack of crowd heat for the explosions too.

[soup23]

Action didn't look great here but it was quite a spectacle at points. Muto does look like he would rather be anywhere else through most of it. I would say that Onita leaving is the highlight.

[Superstar Sleeze]

Goddamnit, I should have read the review. I didn't know! I DIDNT KNOW! This is awful! Muta is so hit and miss. This is a big miss. Lazy, apathetic Muta at his worst. Onita looked like a Stooge instead of a madman. Nothing happens. There is this awful Sickle that makes me long for the sledgehammer. So slooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww and plodding. Only the fireball made me mark out. One of the worst matches I have seen in a long time. Mutoh is in the middle of a long IWGP title reign with lots of defenses, weird that this happened in NJPW given that context. Terrible.

[PeteF3]

Yeah, I'm not going to fire this full thing up but the clips we see didn't really compel me to care about either guy. Apparently the new-millennium NJPW business model revolves 100% around shooters or freak shows.

[cactus]

Nita's crazy acting was cheesy, Muta looked bored and unmotivated, and the timed explosion that went off around the ring was totally laughable. Props for Onita taking those barbed wire bumps, as the explosions were quite intense. The whole thing with Nita's sickle was dumb in the same way as when Triple H uses a sledgehammer. I didn't hate this as much as everyone else, but this was still a bad match. A bad spectacle is still a spectacle.

★★