Both are really nice tributes that sum up my feelings pretty well. I decided against doing an inferior tribute that's repetitive and late to the game, I decided to just comment on their blogs.
So instead, I thought I'd do a review. This will be nowhere near as well-written or thoughtful or as timely as Joe's. But it seemed like something to do, rather than just talk about how much I loved his blog.
I led my RHW casting post with the thought that The Cave wouldn't be viable. I based my opinion on the lack of regular content that combines my two passions of superheroes and wrestling. Occasionally, folks will dabble in it, but it's surprisingly tough to successfully combine the two elements on video.
The best work for me has been on the art/story side. The old "Rants, Roids and Rasslin" blog (there's still a few images shared on Deviant Art) did it really well. And now, Lucky Stallion's "Barbaric Brawn" is one of my favorite places on the web.
However, on the video side, apparently it's tough to make it work. In spite of that, if you try, it's still pretty easy to get me to buy at least one video from you. All you need is (1) for me to find out about it, and (2) sell downloads (no more DVDs for me, anymore). It's pretty much that easy.
The latest one I purchased is from Cameron Matthews site. It features Randy Winters as "Superman", even though he's wearing a 90's Superboy unitard. Fortunately, I can suppress my inner nerd and go with it. Maybe Kon-El has graduated in this universe. Anyway, it features him against Guido Genatto.
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| Hero and villain meet. |
Anyway, thanks to this review at Jose's LaSustanciaP blog, I found out about it and Cameron offers digital downloads. With both my criteria met, I bought it right away, but only managed to watch it this week.
Writing reviews isn't really my thing. I'm slow to watch these things and by the time I'm done, my opinion feels like old news. As well, tastes are so highly personal. Still, I'm going to give it a go. PLEASE NOTE: THE IMAGES ARE ALL MY CRUDE SCREEN GRABS. PLEASE DON'T INFER ANY NEGATIVE QUALITY ISSUES BECAUSE OF THIS. I feel bad that I can't pull/post better pics, but the video quality is pretty good, which I address below.
Overall, I liked it.
Great, review done. That was easier than I thought. No? You want to know more? Okay ...
Casting: Randy Winters is believable as a Superman analog. He's handsome and athletic, with the kind of looks you can see a city rallying around. He's not "clean cut" like Superman, but he's classically good looking. And personality-wise, Winters' Superman comes across as heroic, brave, caring and positive. So all is good for me on the hero front.
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| Our hero warming up. |
And on the other side, Guido Genatto is perfect as the villain in appearance, tone and style. In this match, he does a good job with typical villainous attributes, such as cocky, tough, cowardly and sneaky, shifting between them extremely well. While he doesn't wear a "costume", per se, his body and persona suit his minimal gear. In tiny black briefs (with the string hanging out ... oh, I love how he does that!) and gloves, his MMA Dirty Daddy is a very convincing bruiser.
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| MMA Dirty Daddy isn't a nice man. |
Action: These guys know how to wrestle. The match is well-designed, fluid and engaging. The huge plus for me is that this is surprisingly back-and-forth. Jose called it a squash, but the hero is very resilient and determined. Superman is heroic throughout, holding his own and fighting hard. It's not 50/50 by any means (probably 80/20 in favor of the villain), but it's not like the hero just lies down and suffers against his opponent. I'm not a fan of weak heroes who are pushovers and immediately get destroyed. In this video, you get to see some "Superman" shine through.
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| Super-strong legs. |
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| Super-strong torso. |
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| And the ability to fly! |
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| Don't trust him, Superman! He's eeeevil! |
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| I warned you. |
Some of the dialogue is awkward and, like most superhero-wrestling matches, involves too much unnatural narration by the characters. In a way, you could argue that it harkens back to Silver Age comic books and it didn't distract me in this match. Both guys stay in character and look great doing it.
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| Okay, the villain is strong, too |
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| Superman manages to get on top. |
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| But villains never fight fair. Ouch. |
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| Get him, Superman! |
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| Uh oh! Don't give up, Superman! |
Quality: Very good (4/5). I'd call this a standard def video, the audio is good and all the action is captured. I didn't notice any weird cuts or missed action where the camera is in the wrong spot. It's not RHW HD video quality, but it's certainly fine. And like I said, it looks better than my low res screen grabs might indicate.
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| Where's Jonny Firestorm's POV camera when you need it? |
Value: I'm definitely pleased with this purchase. I could see myself watching this again. Only you know your budget and level of interest, but for me, this was worth it. The download was $19.95 for 2 minutes of intro (hero posing, confronting the villain) then 18 minutes of all-out action. That's pretty fair these days.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the review. Let me know in the comments if you want to see more of them and how I could make them better. I'd also love to know if you bought the video what you thought! Am I right? Wrong? I love feedback!
Alex
Yeah, it is definitely not a squash. I think I was just too fixated with those parts!
ReplyDeleteWell, I can see why! Those were my favorite moments, too. Guido is a great villain.
DeleteAnd thanks for your original review with the GIFs. It made it a must-buy for me and, as I said, it was definitely a good purchase.
guido genatto/chris dickinson has one of the biggest cocks in wrestling and his balls are huge too, the number of times i have jerked off to him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI'll have to take your word for that, but he is really hot. His whole persona oozes raw sex appeal.
DeleteI've also seen his match vs. Flash LaCash in BGE and liked it a lot. His squash of Jake Jenkins in BGE is high on my list, too.
chris dickinson/guido genatto has a huge cock - check out bg easts new catologue 'heel bash' and genatto wears red trunks, the guys's flaccis cock is huge and he has bull balls. you will jerk off too!!!!!!
DeleteThanks, I'll have to check it out. Hopefully it's on VOD. As I mentioned, I don't buy DVDs any more.
DeleteI really like your reviews! The captions under the images are a great touch, also. I can also see your point from the other post about something like The Cave not being a successful venture in real life, as much as it sucks to admit. Still great to dream about, which, thankfully, is free to do. :D
ReplyDeleteIt actually got me thinking, when you were talking about your preferred background in the real life wrestling videos. With virtual reality technology quickly heading our way, I wonder if one day we'll be able to view these guys (or computer-generated matches) in whatever environment we want.
So if you were to watch a Batman and a Bane wrestling in the ring, with the push of a button, they'd suddenly go from fighting in an arena to the Batcave, or to Arkham prison with a bunch of inmates cheering on Bane -- or even to something simple and low-key as a dark, secluded room.
But yeah, I do love these reviews, man. Definitely keep them up so long as you're having fun doing them! It's nice to get exposure to these wrestlers I've never seen before.
Glad you liked it. I liked doing it. My main concern was that I'm watching stuff way after it's launched. I actually jumped my queue with this match just to write this.
DeleteYou bring up an interesting point. With technological advancements, the viewer could have much more control eventually. In the short-term, I think producers could do more, too. It's amazing to me how well amateurs can do superhero effects and fan films now. All you need is a cheap digital camera, computer, actors and an idea.
Alex R:
DeleteIn regards to this comment by Lucky Stallion :
"It actually got me thinking, when you were talking about your preferred background in the real life wrestling videos. With virtual reality technology quickly heading our way, I wonder if one day we'll be able to view these guys (or computer-generated matches) in whatever environment we want.
So if you were to watch a Batman and a Bane wrestling in the ring, with the push of a button, they'd suddenly go from fighting in an arena to the Batcave, or to Arkham prison with a bunch of inmates cheering on Bane -- or even to something simple and low-key as a dark, secluded room."
I always wondered if it was possible yet to for example take an image already published and manipulate it to move in other ways. Also to interact with another image. I have tried but failed miserably at this because we only have 2D images available. But if they could be changed to 3D and further manipulated then we could take a simple 2D image and make it almost "live". Any ideas on this?
Cameron's site has some interesting matches. It's kind of overpriced (Maybe BGE even Can Am sets the bar a bit too high for the rest of them) given the quality, however, and has been extremely inactive since.. June?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment.
DeleteYeah, Cameron says he has been working on a new website and offering, but it certainly seems to be taking awhile. Hopefully it dissuades him from his subscription service now that he sees how hard it is to produce content on a regular basis.
Man, I hope you're right that there all be no subscription service. It's hard to subscribe for a site where you're only interested in maybe 20% of the content.
Delete