Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

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Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by cero2k » Jun 23rd, '20, 15:29

DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020
June 19, 2020
Tokyo, Japan

Ok, this is gonna be complex. I can't even properly give it a number grade, it's an interesting event.

Money in the Bag Rules - This is basically a scavenger hunt inside the Chateau Ameba, ABEMA's Streaming Studio. The teams are searching for bags, one of which has money, donated by Yamaguchi, President of CyberZ. Understand that everything happened while other shows and channels were being broadcasted LIVE!

3 Trio teams will start the match doing the searching, BUT there are HUNTER teams inside the building. When two teams find each other, they must fight for the nearest bag. If a HUNTER wins, the losing team is eliminated, Hunters can keep the bag. If the SEARCH team wins, they can continue in the match and keep the bags.

Money In the Bag Match
Disaster Box (HARASHIMA, Naomi Yoshimura, & Yuki Ueno) vs ALL OUT (Konosuke Takeshita, Akito, & Shunma Katsumata ) vs Danshoku Dieno, Super Sasadango Machine, & Makoto Oishi - TONS OF FUN!
All wrestlers made sure to disinfect in the entrance after Saito-san gave them all their instructions.

Team Dieno were the first to start roaming around that encountered a HUNTER team of Sanshiro Takagi, Keigo Nakamura, and Shinya Aoki. They were recording their own I guess. They brawled a bit, the spilled into the ABEMAMix studio were a DJ was performing, they brawled around him. They brawled some more, did some Dieno butt stuff, and Oishi pinned Nakamura for the win. Team Dieno got a bag containing unsold books of Aoki and Takagi.

Next team was Disaster Box finding the HUNTER team of MAO, Mizuki Watase, & Yukio Naya. I think this was either like a Staff Room, or a Delivery and Copy Machine room, but there was a lot of lockers and boxes. Since HARASHIMA fights without shoes, the Hunters set up a bunch of mats with pebbles, so HARASHIMA could walk or run and thus have any offense, so he came up with some restroom slippers. There was a really scary Suplex by Naomi on Naya, were the ceiling was so low and Naya didn't want to hit it, that Naomi almost dropped him on his head because Naya bent himself and didn't throw his weight over, but Naomi being a freak of nature, just powered through. Disaster Box won with a Somato, but unfortunately, their bag only had brushes. Yes, brushes.

Next encounter was ALL OUT, who found the room with the announcing team and a bag. They tried to take the bag, but the announcers stopped them and called in the team of ERUPTION (Sakaguchi & Higuchi) & Gota Ihashi, and in DDT Tradition, Ihashi fell down the stairs. This was kinda fun, it was a lot of Higuchi being big and strong, Sakaguchi kicking people all over, and Ihashi being useless. They stumbled into a quiet set where they fought in silence because there was a tournament chess game being played in the Shogi studio, then Takeshita and Sakaguchi fought in a bycicle race gambling show's set. The lady was scared shitless of Sakaguchi.

Ihashi saved a woman from the action, but she was also scared off by him (who wouldn't) and so he attempted to kill her with a plastic cone, but Takeshita, the heroe that he is, stepped in and took the cone. Takeshita died for a minute while the rest of ALL OUT took out Ihashi and pinned him. The bag didn't have money, but it had a mysterious map.

Next up, Team Dieno walked into a photo studio were they happened to find that there is a photo shoot scheduling conflict between the pairs of Yuka Sakazaki & Mizuki and the pair of Mina Shirakawa & Kamiyu. This may had been the first ever Bikini-top-Crossface submission ever. They shot each other with fire extinguishers, they fought in and out of the set, and at the end, Yuka and Mizuki hit a double Crossbody from a ladder for the win. This had nothing to do with the Money in the Bag match, this was just your usual impromptu match that can happen on a normal day.

Anyway, Team Dieno continued with their day and found an actual HUNTER team of Yoshiko, Tachibana, and an evil version of Saki Akai. There was more Dieno butt stuff, but with a window inbetween for Social Isolation reasons, Dango was unmasked and got his face burnt by a bycicle, and at one point, Saki sodomized Dieno with a kendo stick. Yoshiko pinned Dango to eliminated Team Dieno from the match.

Meanwhile, Disaster Box found Damnation (Endo, Sasaki, and Soma Takao) drinking in the staff meeting area, WHILE people were still working. Without spoiling anything yet, this was the most brutal brawl of the night, they broke keyboards on each other, there was a ladder, chairs, Endo got burnt with some liquid, and we saw Endo and Ueno's butt, like a lot. Sasaki was able to retrieve the bag before Disaster Box, and thus DB is eliminated. This bag only had ¥3,000, it wasn't the grand prize, but Damnation was ok with it and went to get more booze.

Finally, ALL OUT have followed the map to Club Harlem. Akito for some reason died in the process and Yuki Iino has joined them. Saito-san returns and tells them the real bag is in the club, but they must defeat the final team of HUNTERS, the dream team of The NEO Itoh Respect Army & mutherfucking Onita! In an Electrocution Explosion Deathmatch! Katsumata responds by going Super Hardcore Katsumata (read as Joker cosplay).

This being the deatmatch with Onita and Katsumata, this wasn't as brutal as the previous bout, but Onito using broken tables on people was particularly unsafe. They brawled around the club, Katsumata jumped from a balcony, Onito broke stuff in the restroom, Itoh jumped from a 6 foot ladder, but it all led to two spots, one were Takeshita is about to use an EE-Bat on Itoh, but Brookes jumps in to save her and takes the blow itself, taking them both out, and later on, for the finish, Onito used another EE-Bat on Katsumata for the win. They fought in the rain, so it was kinda dramatic.

Post-match - Saito-san reappears and is happy that no one takes the money (I guess he would keep it), but Onita confronts him and tortures him for not being booked in more comedy shows.

OVERALL THOUGHTS
This was about an hour and a half of fun.

Not to talk trash, but it's an obvious spoof of WWE's MITB show this year; however, I have to say, having multiple fake bags around, having one winning bag hidden around the building, having multiple teams of both participants and spoilers, eliminations happening throughout, it all made the idea soo much better and smarter. I don't have to ask myself why isn't anyone taking the elevator to the roof, when I know that the bags are all over the building, not just one. Kuddos DDT, you've done it again.
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Re: Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 23rd, '20, 17:14

But if they don't know where the bags are, how do they know where the nearest bag is?
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Re: Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by cero2k » Jun 23rd, '20, 20:12

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 23rd, '20, 17:14 But if they don't know where the bags are, how do they know where the nearest bag is?
idk, but fortunately, they always found the bags right before they fought the hunters. Maybe Hunters were guarding the bags and I missed that in translation.
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Re: Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 23rd, '20, 22:07

cero2k wrote: Jun 23rd, '20, 15:29

Not to talk trash, but it's an obvious spoof of WWE's MITB show this year; however, I have to say, having multiple fake bags around, having one winning bag hidden around the building, having multiple teams of both participants and spoilers, eliminations happening throughout, it all made the idea soo much better and smarter. I don't have to ask myself why isn't anyone taking the elevator to the roof, when I know that the bags are all over the building, not just one. Kuddos DDT, you've done it again.
This is a very good point. The only counter-arguments I have is that having a briefcase hidden at an unknown location in the building would:
1. Result in a situation where the wrestlers are opening all of the cabinets and stuff looking for the thing when the visual we want is a bunch of people fighting through each other to get to something, which requires the McaGuffin to be in a location that is known to everyone at the start.

2. That would add an unacceptable element of luck into the match, when what we want is a contest of skill (in this case speed and toughness).

I think the real problems was letting people use the elevators. They should have started everyone in one place (or the men at one end of the ground floor and the women at the other) and basically forced them to run along a course so you had to run all the way across each floor of the building and only then could you go up the stairs, and just one flight), because otherwise it's just a big race to the elevator/stairs.
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Re: Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by cero2k » Jun 24th, '20, 09:10

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 23rd, '20, 22:07
This is a very good point. The only counter-arguments I have is that having a briefcase hidden at an unknown location in the building would:
1. Result in a situation where the wrestlers are opening all of the cabinets and stuff looking for the thing when the visual we want is a bunch of people fighting through each other to get to something, which requires the McaGuffin to be in a location that is known to everyone at the start.

2. That would add an unacceptable element of luck into the match, when what we want is a contest of skill (in this case speed and toughness).

I think the real problems was letting people use the elevators. They should have started everyone in one place (or the men at one end of the ground floor and the women at the other) and basically forced them to run along a course so you had to run all the way across each floor of the building and only then could you go up the stairs, and just one flight), because otherwise it's just a big race to the elevator/stairs.
1. maybe meet in the middle and have the briefcase be in a random room, but not necessarily hidden inside anything, just have people go room to room and see the briefcase hanging or on a table. I also really liked the idea of ALL OUT winning a 'treasure map' to the winning bag,

2. if you ask Guy and Kakashi from Naruto, luck is a skill in itself. Ladder matches have a history of luck to them, be it because your opponents all fell off the ladder and you have a clear path, or be it that the 'winner' dropped the title/briefcase and you took it (I don't agree with this one tho). Rumble is all sold as luck of the draw. It's ok to introduce luck into some wrestling matches, especially if there's more than 20 people involved.

This was what bothered me the most about the WWE MITB, it was more of a race without rules. To me there was no point in going into rooms or anything other than elevators and stairs, and for that matter, at least one of them should have enough money to rent a helicopter and get lifted all the way up while everyone fought in the inside.
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Re: Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 24th, '20, 12:59

cero2k wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 09:10

1. maybe meet in the middle and have the briefcase be in a random room, but not necessarily hidden inside anything, just have people go room to room and see the briefcase hanging or on a table. I also really liked the idea of ALL OUT winning a 'treasure map' to the winning bag,
Once everyone knows where it is, it doesn't matter if it's on the roof or not because you still run into the issue of why people aren't taking the elevator to that floor. That's why I think the "required course" idea is what's necessary(though making the course end in a random room on a high floor rather than the roof might make it a little more suspenseful because every time someone moved from one room to the next we'd be wondering if this might be the room with the briefcase).


cero2k wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 09:10 2. if you ask Guy and Kakashi from Naruto, luck is a skill in itself. Ladder matches have a history of luck to them, be it because your opponents all fell off the ladder and you have a clear path, or be it that the 'winner' dropped the title/briefcase and you took it (I don't agree with this one tho). Rumble is all sold as luck of the draw. It's ok to introduce luck into some wrestling matches, especially if there's more than 20 people involved.
You're not wrong, but it's something that a promotion should ideally try to minimize. When you opponents have fallen off the ladder, it's hopefully because you pushed the ladder over. Or because another competitor did, and then you laid him out with your skill. Stuff like the "Lockbox Challenge" that TNA did in 2010 or those Russo matches with four poles and the object you need is in one of them rightfully get sh*t on. Because they add way too much luck into things.
(Note that this doesn't apply to Feast or Fired, which worked because each box held something, and it was only later that we would learn if the something in question was the title shot or the pink slip).

I think the "luck" element of the Rumble is a key part of the presentation, but it's also designed so that superior skill can overcome the luck factor (we've had almost as many winners from 1 and 2 as we have from 29 and 30). The other thing about the Rumble is that because it's designed so that skill can overcome luck, you can use that to really put over someone who demonstrattes vast skill but has bad luck (like a guy who enters #1, eliminates a bunch of people, and gets thrown out at #28). That guy can argue "if I was #5 instead of #1, I would have won," and we can see his argument and sympathize with him.
It's a lot harder to do that when with bags in a random room because the argument in that case is stuck as "if only I had gone in this door and not that one, I would have won." There is no skill on display so you can't use the luck factor to get someone over.

cero2k wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 09:10 This was what bothered me the most about the WWE MITB, it was more of a race without rules. To me there was no point in going into rooms or anything other than elevators and stairs, and for that matter, at least one of them should have enough money to rent a helicopter and get lifted all the way up while everyone fought in the inside.
I don't think it was a race without rules so much as a very poor execution of the concept. There were definitely rules. WWE's mistake was that they didn't take the logic of those rules into account when putting the match together.
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Re: Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by cero2k » Jun 24th, '20, 13:55

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 12:59
cero2k wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 09:10

1. maybe meet in the middle and have the briefcase be in a random room, but not necessarily hidden inside anything, just have people go room to room and see the briefcase hanging or on a table. I also really liked the idea of ALL OUT winning a 'treasure map' to the winning bag,
Once everyone knows where it is, it doesn't matter if it's on the roof or not because you still run into the issue of why people aren't taking the elevator to that floor. That's why I think the "required course" idea is what's necessary(though making the course end in a random room on a high floor rather than the roof might make it a little more suspenseful because every time someone moved from one room to the next we'd be wondering if this might be the room with the briefcase).
that's why i'm saying a middle point. You don't hide it inside a box or in the walls, but you also don't say what room it's in, in that sense it's 'hidden', but accessible. It's like when you're playing Silent Hill's hospital, you have 12 rooms, you know the darn key is in one of those rooms, and so you have to check each room, except this time around, you have other people trying to get the key too and you have to fight them to get it first.


As for the luck thing, I agree that you don't want for luck to affect things like pushes or titles, but I think it's a fair game when doing things like giving out money, or even advantages like in a war games match that used to be decided by coin flips.
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Re: Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by Big Red Machine » Jun 24th, '20, 14:53

cero2k wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 13:55
Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 12:59
cero2k wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 09:10

1. maybe meet in the middle and have the briefcase be in a random room, but not necessarily hidden inside anything, just have people go room to room and see the briefcase hanging or on a table. I also really liked the idea of ALL OUT winning a 'treasure map' to the winning bag,
Once everyone knows where it is, it doesn't matter if it's on the roof or not because you still run into the issue of why people aren't taking the elevator to that floor. That's why I think the "required course" idea is what's necessary(though making the course end in a random room on a high floor rather than the roof might make it a little more suspenseful because every time someone moved from one room to the next we'd be wondering if this might be the room with the briefcase).
that's why i'm saying a middle point. You don't hide it inside a box or in the walls, but you also don't say what room it's in, in that sense it's 'hidden', but accessible. It's like when you're playing Silent Hill's hospital, you have 12 rooms, you know the darn key is in one of those rooms, and so you have to check each room, except this time around, you have other people trying to get the key too and you have to fight them to get it first.
It's still too much luck, because a chunk of it becomes who happened to blindly guess the right room. Even if two people go to the right room and they have to fight each other for it's still luck giving them the major advantage over all of the others.
cero2k wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 13:55 As for the luck thing, I agree that you don't want for luck to affect things like pushes or titles, but I think it's a fair game when doing things like giving out money, or even advantages like in a war games match that used to be decided by coin flips.
Giving out money? Yes (though I thought you were proposing that WWE should have done MITB this way). As for the War Games thing, the coin flip was a convenient structural device. It was something that gave the illusion of fairness while allowing you to work the result (funny how the heels always seemed to win those coin tosses) without doing something like a match that would be more skill than luck but would require you to give away one of the match-ups. In today's day and age, I actually like the idea of a match to determine who gets the advantage, with the heels usually cheating to win (if you feel strongly that you need to keep the teams apart until War Games you can have them each pick a representative or something like that).
Also, to prevent the monotony of that, if you have some way that you can vary it up, you should. Something like if the heel team is a big stable and the babyfaces really want a certain heel in the match, you can have that be part of the negotiations (like, if ROH had done one and the babyfaces really wanted to get their hands on Cole but Bullet Club was going to protect Cole by having their team be Marty, Page, and the Bucks, the babyfaces could agree to let the heels have the man-advantage, so long as Cole was on the Bullet Club team). Or, on rare occasion, find a way to do what Gabe did for Cage of Death where ROH actually got the advantage but it got taken away from them during the course of the match when Dragon turned on Joe to take him out, then walked out of the match when they were carrying Joe out, so now CZW wound up with the numbers advantage).
I think it's a place where there is room for a clever booker to flex his/her creative muscles while avoiding the cliche of the coinflip that despite being fair, the babyfaces never seem to win.
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Re: Cero Reviews DDT Pro Money In The Bag 2020

Post by cero2k » Jun 24th, '20, 17:02

Big Red Machine wrote: Jun 24th, '20, 14:53
Giving out money? Yes (though I thought you were proposing that WWE should have done MITB this way).
I should have prefaced this whole conversation by saying that WWE should never do a Building MITB match again, but as for the idea in a building....and so on.
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