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Missy's Manor: Hustle Review

Posted: Aug 13th 2008 By: CMBurnham

I admit I never really watched much Japanese wrestling until this year. The extent of my Japanese wrestling prior to this year was a Terry Funk All Japan compilation, a few Jushin Liger matches in the early 90's, and a couple of death matches. I am by no means a Puroresu expert by any extent. I did check out a NOAH DVD during February of this year. Granted I had nothing to watch, since there was a snow storm and my internet and cable went out.

Last month I checked out a bunch of the wackiest wrestling gimmicks ever. Several people recommended that I review Hustle. I had very little knowledge of Hustle. I heard about just the wacky names of the characters, but it was nothing for me to want to seek out and watch. Luckily "Missy's Militia" sent me a bunch of links to review. Big thanks to the many fans who gave me the wrestling names and back stories to the matches I watched. There is nothing worst than me typing that the dude in the gay-biker outfit VS. the dude in the Nazi character as a description to this unholy crap that I'm reviewing. That's why I emailed people for names and background. I actually do research for my articles.


Razor Ramon HG VS. Esperanza [Nobuhiko Takada]:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQyHov43HFc

Razor Ramon HG has nothing to do with the character played by Scott Hall. HG is dressed as a over the top Rob Halford of Judas Priest character. The character is "Helen Keller Gay" [a blind and deaf person can figure him out from a million miles away]. HG comes out dressed by your favorite S & M shop, minus the designer ball gagger. He got a leather cap and mini jumpsuit. The front of the jumpsuit got a big arrow that resembles a phallic symbol and the back got a arrow for where to put all deliveries. HG also comes to the ring with your favorite deluxe battery operated cocktail stirrer. Did I mention that he comes out to "La Vida Loca". Screw this! Let "Big Dave" describe this crap. Oh yeah, "Big Dave" got 5 hours of Japanese MMA to review at 3 AM from Japan on HD Net. What a loser!

HG's opponent is the legendary Nobuhiko Takada. Too bad Takada is dressed in some weird S & M gimmick/robot gimmick. Who in the hell is this promotion trying to appeal to? There is nothing more revolting than HG doing his pelvic thrusts with the phallic arrow on his outfit in to his opponents face. Takada is not selling for HG. All of a sudden some weird music is causing Takada to malfunction. It's some chick blowing on a flute that is coming to the ring. The flute playing is incapacitating Takada. This allows HG to make his comeback by wrapping Takada's head in to his crotch. Eventually Takada raises his open hand to the flute playing girl's direction. A small puff of smoke explodes in front of her. She is selling it like she's dead. This visually resembles a Broadway play. Trust me, download this crap. Takada knocks out HG with a kick. I'm so baffled on what the hell I watched. This soooo went over my head.

Did I mention HG is a licensing bonanza. Check out the Razor Ramon HG play set. It's all your favorite adult toy accessories. I'm serious about this. I'll stick to my John Cena play set of spinning necklace, wrist bands, and cap than this garbage. www.bakakage.net/index.php?showtopic=10278&st=15

Hustlemania '06 Opening Ceremony:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buKhXhUHsks
The whole promotion kicks off their mega-crap of a show with a lengthy choreographed musical song and dance number. I never seen Wrestlemania or Starrcade open up with a dance number. Is this a Broadway show or wrestling? Either way, it's pure crap. This promotion must be deeply in the red. What wrestling fan would buy a ticket to this?

Toshiaki Kawada Sings!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQM0UtNwT64
Lets take one of the toughest wrestlers and totally kill his tough guy aura. This promotion reduced Kawada to this musical performance. Ughh! This makes the 'Slammy Awards' look like UFC.

Great Muta & Razor Ramon HG VS. Yingling & Tajiri
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuXwQsep4S8
I got all the respect in the world for Muta. He got big time heat when he sprayed me in the face with the mist in NWA. Too bad he's teaming with HG. At least Tajiri got the stripper in leather and hooker boots. Luckily Giant Baba is not alive to see this promotion.

Tajiri kicks the crap out of HG. HG bails out of the ring to rub a magic lantern. This causes a big pyro explosion. This causes Great Muta to emerge in the greatest Muta costume ever! Muta is facing off against Yingling. She actually throws a pretty cool kick in hooker boots. Muta retaliates and kicks her. She than puts Muta in a camel clutch. No, she doesn't break Muta's back or make him humble. I can't believe Muta is selling for the hooker. He reverses the camel clutch and puts her in a figure four leg lock. She puts Muta in a arm bar. Than HG drops his leather trunks and exposes his red thong to Yingling. Yingling smacks him in the ass with her whip. Tajiri sprays Muta with the mist. Yingling than hits Muta with the worst stunner ever. Muta makes his comeback and beats Tajiri with a shining wizard. Yingling passes out in horror. HG congratulates Muta on the win, while still having his red thong being displayed. He does a little dance and Muta sprays him in disgust.

I'm not homo phobic by any means, but what is the appeal to Razor Ramon HG?

Hustle Kamen Red, Blue, Pink, Green and Yellow vs Arizin Z, Neo Devil Peirroth 1, Monster Solder 1, Onigumo, and Dark Von Maestro 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3rCYcthelk

This match looks like the worst of Chikara on a way bigger budget. The heels consists of a clown, insect dude, masked woman, and a mask wrestler [apparently the normal gimmick out of this bunch]. They come to the ring with monster music. The baby faces are the Hustle Rangers. They look like the low budget version of the Power Rangers. I bet some money mark believes all of these characters are a licensing bonanza.

The Pink Ranger does some cool Lucha spots with the male wrestlers and they sell for her. Cool! The wrestling work looks fine. I have no idea whom is behind these wacky gimmicks. I think all of these gimmicks hurt the match quality. This is due to the wrestlers working harder on getting their lame ass gimmicks over than the match quality. The wannabe Powe Rangers annoy everybody with their pelvic thrusts in a lame attempt for a pop. The heels double teaming back fires when the insect guy hits the masked guy with silly string. Ughh! What ever happened to the concept of making wrestling look like a shoot in Japan? This allows the Pink Ranger to pin the masked dude. I really don't get this promotion.

Razor Ramon HG/Esperanza Promo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U65CJbJ2FU0

Takada dresses like a Nazi and plays the heel commisioner gimmick. He cuts a promo on HG. HG responds by shaking his package at Esperanza for two minutes. Where is Awesome Kong to kill off HG? Than we go right to HG's wrestling entance. Did I mention that they have towers that go up and down. Sigmund Freud would have a field day analizing everybody's obsession with phallic symbols in this promotion.

Ogawa/Ohtani/HG vs Kawada/Anjoh/Yinling from Hustlemania 2005 (HG's debut match):
Part 2 (match): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2LKPZi_vR4

HG does his lewd dance to Yingling. She responds by slapping the crap out of HG. I give HG alot of credit, he actually can wrestle for a comedian. He is very quick and does some cool highspots. HG eventually gets Yingling in a corner He than proceeds to ram his crotch in to her head. She's not selling. He than gives her the most erotic bronco buster ever! Put the kids to bed. I smell a sexual harassment and women being demeaned in the work place lawsuit. Yingling reponds by whipping HG and giving him the worst stunner ever. Yingling puts Naoya Ogawa in a arm bar. He's actually selling this crap. The crowd is stomping in unison. HG continues to make lewed gestures to Yingling. She slaps him. Yawn! I seen those spots too many times already. HG scoops her for a body slam and Yingling reverses it in to a cool small package. Business is starting to pick up. HG reverses it in to a lewd triangle choke with pelvic thrusts. This knocks out Yingling. HG is over big time.

Yingling's Offspring:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vPFeDazhpU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vPFeDazhpU

Great Muta got Yingling pregnated by spraying her with his mist. I got sprayed by Muta in 1989. I guess he sprayed me with blanks? Some how Yingling's future offspring was a egg. The egg would grow in size during several Hustle shows. Yingling would dissapear for awhile. Eventually the egg would hatch to be Newling. Is anybody writing "The Death Of Hustle" book yet?

The egg hatches to reveal a woman in leather with a whip. Didn't the Gobbledy Gooker hatch from a egg to the delight of nobody? This leads to Yingling's dominatrix offspring to go against HG. Can I ever escape doing a review on Hustle without discussing HG? Nothing to really note. Typical HG gets whipped by a dominatrix. HG puts Yin Li in a tombstone pile driver. HG starts shaking Yin Lin in a standing '69 position [I'm trying to accurately describe the hold]. He shakes Yin Lin and her head in bobbing back and forth on HG's package. He eventually drops her on her head. Yin Lin some how gets the win with a cradle.

Awesome Kong & Aja Kong:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ha0C_FObuQ
Hustle found a way to kill off the two biggest female monster heels. Lets take Aja & Awesome Kong and dress them in silly dresses. Than lets further kill them off by having comedy matches against male wrestlers. If they ever did this gimmick to Awesome Kong in the U.S., than her character and heel aura would be totally dead. I bet you that this promotion would make Bruiser Brody in to a wacky caveman or lumberjack if he was alive to wrestle for them.

Kamen Red, Blue & Yellow vs Dark Von Maestro 1, 2 and Frog Lesnar:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4882981027916286386

Lets take a guy and put him in a skin tight blue spandex outfit and a goofy frog mask. Than lets have him do every Brock Lesnar mannerism. The result is "Frog Lesnar". This is retched. We got the Red, Blue, and Yellow Power Rangers with upgraded costumes. I have no clue on how to describe Dark Von Maestro #1 & #2. I guess they are two guys in tuxedos with chicken masks. The Power Ranger knock offs are really fun to wach for fast paced Lucha moves. The Yellow Ranger doesn't sell for Frog Lesnar. This causes Frog to hop up and down. I don't see any humor in this group. The match is very fast paced. I'm sorry for the lack of details, but I don't enjoy bad comedy wrestling. These guys can wrestle a fast pace match, but the goofy characters hold the wrestlers back. Frog Lesnar teases a F-5 on the Red Ranger, unfortunately he' too tired and places him down. The crowd is eating up all of this comedy. Yellow Ranger gets the pin on Frog Lesnar with a frog splah. I can easily vote Hustle as the worst promotion ever.

Achichi (Shinjio Ohtani) vs Tajiri.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr1qe1Xp-Q0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6QuxDV4qEE

The backstory from the first clip is that both were Hustle Army, but Tajiri was turned to the dark side after being force-fed Yinling's breast milk. He carried around the baby bottle for months. Ohtani was knocked out during a match, kidnapped back to Takada's lair backstage and hypnotized. They lost a match as a team and blamed each other, leading to this matchAchichi (Shinjio Ohtani) vs Tajiri. The backstory from the first clip is that both were Hustle Army, but Tajiri was turned to the dark side after being force-fed Yinling's breast milk. He carried around the baby bottle for months. Ohtani was knocked out during a match, kidnapped back to Takada's lair backstage and hypnotized. They lost a match as a team and blamed each other, leading to this match

Achichi is dressed up like the poor man's Missing Link [Dewey Robertson]. Tajiri is addicted to breast milk and comes to the ring with a bottle. What drugs do I have to watch to enhance the enjoyment of this product? I'm assuming mushrooms or LSD. I can barely watch this crap being "Straight Edge".

If you block out the ridiculous back story, than this could have been a pretty decent match. They use chairs and stiff kicks and slaps. Achichi uses a stick to juice Tajiri. There is nothing worst than juicing and working stiff for a comedy match. Tajiri desperately tries to reach for his bottle of breast milk, but that dastardly Achichi cuts him off. Tajiri makes a comeback and hits Achichi with his cool kicks. Achichi tricks Tajiri by giving him his milk and than attacks him. Achichi than drinks the milk as Tajiri looks on in horror. Achichi finally pins Tajiri with a spinning power bomb.

The reason why I enjoy the wacky characters in Chikara is due them trying to compensate for not having name value wrestlers. The wrestlers work extremely hard in Lucha and comedy matches. The matches and psychology make sense to me. The difference with Mecha Mummy and Mokujin Ken is they work for tiny promotions that have no wrestlers of any real name value. Their cheesy characters on a small scale level don't insult my intelligence. This is similar to the joy I get in seeing a U.S. indy group advertising a Mummy, Zombie, or Wrestling Clown.

Hustle got such a large budget, this is evident in all of the name value wrestlers, pyro, production values, and big buildings they run in. They could have easily put together great wrestling shows. Instead they downgrade their wrestlers by having them playing ridiculous cartoon characters with special effects used in the story lines. I did not enjoy this promotion in any way.

http://store.hustlehustle.com/item.php?id=3090128-020028 Don't forget your Razor Ramon HG mask for Halloween. It's the best way to tell a bunch of angry wrestling fans that you are hardcore! I reccomend it be worn at all UFC shows

Tags: Missy Hyatt, NWA, Bruiser Brody, Missing Link, Dewey Robertson