It’s funny, I’ve never been terribly attached to Kevin Nash as a wrestler.
Oddly enough, despite his presence in mainstream pop culture being almost entirely derived from his time spent as a wrestler, most of the reasons I’ve found to like the man have come from his acting career.
I found him and Eric Robert’s over-the-top performances in Dead Or Alive to be just about the only enjoyable portions of the movie, even though Nash’s character was clearly intended to be played by Hulk Hogan:
CLEARLY Bass was based off of Kevin Nash...
Hell, even though he barely did anything, I felt he did a decent job as Super Shredder in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2:
Pictured: One of the worst/dumbest moments in the movie.
Outside of these performances though, Nash was never the best wrestler, nor was he all that good on the mic.
Back in his Diesel days, it was kind of cool that they let him use the “illegal” Jacknife Powerbomb as his finisher, but outside of his stature and natural charisma, the man just never seemed to push himself as much some of the bigger names in the business.
Truth be told, I think my best memory of Kevin Nash was playing as him in the WCW vs. NWO game for the Nintendo 64:
Jesus fuck I miss that game…
Blunt force trauma inflicted KO’s were featured in that game, and using any (slow as fuck) power attack from Nash would result in an almost guaranteed instant KO.
I have many great memories of playing that game, mostly derived from playing as AKI and THQ Man; however playing as Nash ranks pretty high on my list of awesomeness.
Anyway, as the clip above indicates, Nash has clearly lost some of the (non-existent) spring in his step over the years.
Oh well, at least now his wrestling is funny to watch as opposed to boring.
You see, I’ve been a fan of boxing ever since the first time I watched Rocky with my old man; but up until 2005, there were no active Asian, or more specifically; Japanese fighters that caught my interest as being noteworthy in the sport.
Sure, Toshiaki Nishioka and Daisuke Naito were, and are pretty good fighters; but nothing about them ever seemed competitive on the world stage I.E. the elite level of the sport.
The simple fact of the matter is that boxing simply isn’t all that popular in Japan, nor do I believe the Japanese physiology is all that well-suited for the sport in the first place.
We’re short, we’ve got stubby limbs, we’ve got a reputation for being pillow-fisted, and we have a tendency to grope/fondle others in public.
Pictured: How we say "hello."
Bullshit aside, a major factor in the stunted progress of Japanese boxing, is the simple fact that the country is an island nation.
Combine the insane travel arrangements required to put fights together on Japanese soil between a foreigner and a national, with the public’s general lack of interest in the sport; and you have an equation that results in Japanese fighters rarely having the opportunity to test their mettle against the world’s best, nor having the in-house competition available to them to prepare them for said contests.
Needless to say, most of what I read (I never got to see an Asian boxer on TV until Manny Pacquiao’sHBO debut) about Japanese fighters consisted of Ring Magazine articles about them getting flattened by Mexicans, or worse yet, beaten by their countrymen in boring 12 round jab-fests.
That all changed for me when I discovered the Kobe based bantamweight, Hozumi Hasegawa.
Not a handsome man by any standard, but a good fighter nonetheless...
Hasegawa first caught my attention when he dethroned long-reigning bantamweight champion, Veeraphol Sahaprom.
To put things in perspective, Sahaprom had held the bantamweight title since 1998, not to mention had fought Toshiaki Nishioka 4 times prior to this, drawing and decisioning Nishioka on every occasion.
While the man had the kind of bloated record that only Thai fighters can produce in this day and age, few could argue that Sahaprom was a stiff challenge to any bantamweight of the time.
Seriously though, only a Thai could be so audacious as to defend his world title against debuting fighters, or worse yet, 0-1 fighters; on multiple occasions no less.
Hasegawa’s victory over Sahaprom would serve as the first of many happy moments I would be proud to witness as a half-Japanese boxing fan.
Pictured: The face of a half-Japanese boxing fan. That's right, we do exist!
For the first time in my life, I had found a contemporary Japanese fighter that was not only winning consistently, but seemingly growing and improving with every bout.
The funny part was, aside from being left-handed, Hasegawa never really seemed all that different or special compared to other Japanese fighters.
For most of his career he was a defensive minded out-boxer with with quick yet economical hands, sharp straight punches, and a good eye for counter-punching.
He wasn’t a powerhouse, he wasn’t a physical specimen, he was just a good Japanese fighter that, for whatever reason; was on a helluva’ winning streak.
Following his victory over Sahaprom, Hasegawa would go on to win their rematch by TKO, as well as defend the bantamweight title more than any other Japanese fighter in history, all while amassing 7 KO’s, more than he had accrued in his entire career up until 2005.
Despite all of my apparent dick-sucking of Hasegawa, I feel it’s worth mentioning that there’s another little element to my hero worship of the man.
You see, way back when, my brother actually went to live in Kobe for a year.
While he was there, he joined a boxing gym headed by trainer Senrima Keitoku, the man who would one day go on to train Hozumi Hasegawa.
While it’s a loose connection at best, for whatever reason, it means something to me to know that the same goofy old Korean-Japanese that my brother told me used to cane fat kids in his gym, just happens to be same one that trained one of my personal sports heroes to world champion status.
Pictured: A pennant my brother back with him from Kobe.
Like I said, it’s hardly a connection, but to me it means something special.
Anyway, before I let things totally veer off into weird touchy/feely bullshit, I think it’s time we actually got down to addressing the subject heading of this post:
This is called a "filler" image. It bears no purpose other than breaking up the text in an eye-pleasing fashion.
Coming into the bout, the 2 men represented the top-tier of the division.
While a bantamweight tournament is currently being hosted by Showtime, a tournament which both Donaire and Montiel were invited to participate in; both opted out in favor of fighting each other due to the general belief being that they were “above” the majority of the other participants in the first place.
It was one helluva’ big deal, and a bout that I was very much anticipating.
On paper, both fighters were quick-fisted and fleet of foot, with Donaire having a slight edge in both categories, while Montiel held the more intangible advantages of caginess, fundamentals, and; arguably, tenacity.
Perhaps the most attractive aspect of the bout however, was the fact that both fighters were known to possess extraordinarily heavy hands for their weights.
Maybe not Carlos Zarate “heavy,” but heavy nonetheless.
Goofy 'stache or not, this man wrecked so many people's shit it wasn't even funny...
Despite all this, my interest in this bout came not as a result of their skill sets or attributes, but rather as a consequence of their previous in-ring achievements.
While Donaire had indeed caught my eye with with his revenge KO of his brother Glenn over Vic Darchinyan back in 2007, Montiel was the one that really got me invested in this match-up.
You see, Fernando Montiel actually fought Hozumi Hasegawa this past April.
While Hasegawa looked to be on the way to a comfortable points victory in the early goings, Montiel caught him on the point of the chin with a savage left hook.
Thoroughly knocked onto Queer Street, or rather; 2 blocks down the road onto the even queerer street that is “Queer Manor,” Hasegawa got hung up on the ropes and was brutalized for several seconds longer before the match was stopped, his titles were stripped from him, and his winning streak and reputation were sent down the shitter.
Despite how much I hate to watch it, here’s a clip:
Regardless of what Hasegawa’s gone on to accomplish, coming back to win a bout 2 weight classes North at featherweight and generally staying out of trouble; my heart sunk the day I saw the man utterly destroyed at the hands of Montiel.
While I would go on record saying I bore nothing but respect for Montiel, after all not that many Mexicans are willing to fly all the way out to Japan just to claim an alphabet title, I would be lying if I said I came into the Donaire/Montiel bout not hoping to see the man knocked silly.
Seriously, I wanted to see Montiel knocked the fuck out almost as much as I wanted to see Ricky Hatton get Pacquiao-ed in every fight he ever had.
Fortunately, tonight I had Nonito Donaire AKA “The Other Filipino” to sub in for tonight’s Pacquiao-ing of Montiel.
From the opening moments of the fight, it was quite clear that there was a palpable disparity in overall speed between Donaire and Montiel.
Both guys looked a little pensive, an expected consequence given both fighter’s punching power; however Montiel seemed almost too relaxed, holding his arms outstretched as if expecting to deflect the majority of the incoming punches.
Not exactly a sound tactic when the other guy is clearly the faster fighter.
Despite this, only about 2 punches of note were landed in the first round, a counter left hook to the chin, and a heavy body shot, both of which were landed, quite authoritatively I might add; by Donaire.
In 2nd (and final) round of the contest, Montiel rushed out the gate, landing a few decent shots here and there, and generally looking to set the pace of the fight.
Then, as if answering my prayers; Donaire flattened Montiel as I have seldom seem a fighter flattened.
Charging in and pressing the action, Montiel let loose with quick straight right hand, unaware of the monster left hook that Donaire had begun the process of uncorking just a millisecond earlier.
In short, Montiel landed his shot, and fairly cleanly at that; however in the process of doing so he overextended himself and quite literally ran chin-first into the sock full of quarters that is Nonito Donaire’s left fist.
Splayed out on the mat, eyes unseeing, and brain thoroughly checked at the front desk, Montiel rolled about like a turtle on it’s back, a very drunk and/or “special” turtle; for half of the referee’s count.
Like this, but on his back. And y'know, almost half-conscious.
Why the ref even bothered to count, or allowed Montiel to continue, even if it was only for a few seconds; is beyond me.
Despite my feelings leading up to the bout consisting of wanting to see Montiel punished, and my hero avenged; I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Fernando Montiel…
For about 2 minutes.
Seriously though, he’s a terrific fighter, that sadly doesn’t (and probably won’t) receive the press or fanfare that he likely deserves, but tonight, Nonito “The Master of the Revenge KO” Donaire was by far the better man.
Anyway, thus was the tale of the Azn Badger’s boxing hero, Hozumi Hasegawa; and his vengeance by proxy via the fists of Nonito Donaire.
Thanks for reading, I know it was long; but hopefully it was worth the trouble!
You can thank my good buddy JD for making this image for me. It basically encapsulates everything that is "me." Thanks again buddy.
I love movies.
Not only that, but for most of my life, I’ve wanted to be involved in making movies, as an actor, director, stunt man, pretty much as whatever, so long as I was involved.
The first distinct memory I have of myself wanting to be involved in filmmaking, was when I was very young, probably 8 or 9 years old.
We built a fortress out of cardboard blocks for one of the 2 factions, and basically spent the afternoon yelling at each other through the action figures splayed out across the basement floor, occasionally throwing a figure at the fort to simulate a death on the battlefield or an attempted siege.
Oh yeah, for whatever reason, we had Killer Cuts; the soundtrack CD that came packaged with Killer Instinct on the Super NES, blaring from a boombox.
I remember setting Jago’s theme, “Do It Now,” on a loop for the majority of the day:
Whatever man, it was the mid-90’s, America was culturally fucked; and therefore my friend and I were as well.
Still, I’d like to think we turned out okay.
Well, my friend did anyway...
Anyway, at some point during our “play date,” my mom overheard us, and decided to bring down our beefy-ass VHS camcorder to record some of our goofy bullshit.
While my friend and I kept playing as normal, barely even acknowledging my mother’s presence; I distinctly recall several instances where I asked her to film specific aspects of the action, from very specific angles.
While it was basically the equivalent to calling out, “Hey mom, watch me jump!” in many ways, this served as my first experience in playing director.
Over the years I’ve been involved with a number of film projects, mostly in front of the camera; but outside of a handful of stop-motion movies that I made entirely on my own, I feel like I’ve never really directed a movie.
Hell, I made every frame of this movie myself, and somehow I managed to not direct it:
Sure, I’ve been in-charge plenty of times, usually because I was the only person enthusiastic enough about the project to step up and do it, but I can’t recall an instance where I really took the time to take a step back and focus on getting exactly what I wanted for each shot.
Hell, when it comes to filmmaking, I don’t think I’ve ever taken my time with anything.
At this point in my life, pretty much every movie I’ve made has been an single afternoon/evening affair with my friends, usually amounting to little more than a single scene as opposed to an actual complete thought.
Pretty much every movie I’ve ever made with my local neighborhood buddies has involved guns, fighting, and very little, if any; dialogue.
Needless to say, we never worked from a script.
If that wasn’t ghetto enough, we always reserved all instances of bloodshed for scenes taking place in the bathroom so as to ease the clean-up process.
As silly as it seems, I treasure those memories.
The reason I’m making this post, is because last week I met with my buddies and proposed to them that we get together to make a movie again.
It’s been several years since any of us have made a movie together, and being as I am finally back living in Seattle; I figured now was as good a time as any for a reunion of sorts.
Anyway, we spit-balled a bit, and came to the conclusion that we’d like to remake a past work of ours called “Get Stingray.”
Pictured: The Man That Would Be Stingray...
Basically, it’s a melodramatic and violent revenge movie, with the “Stingray” of the title being the beastly man on whom revenge is sought.
As with any movie I have a hand in from a conceptual standpoint, the plot and characters are pretty much paper-thin, serving as lame excuses to include gunplay and hand-to-hand combat scenes whenever possible.
You remember how exacting and critical I was with my evaluations of the fight choreography in all of my movie reviews?
Well, I’m hoping I can finally bring those perfectionist qualities to the fight work in “Get Stingray.”
What can I say, I know what I like; and this time I really look forward to being happy with the end results.
I hope to spend the next several weeks fleshing out “Get Stingray,” with filming starting ASAP.
Filming will hopefully be an “every weekend” sort of thing, with as many weeks as necessary/possible being utilized in the process.
I’m in no hurry, so long as it gets done.
I’ll keep you guys posted with plot summaries, storyboards (if I make them), production stills, and probably a trailer or 2 if I’m feeling up to it.
Our parent’s didn’t really have any objection to the idea of us playing video games, but after I was born, they insisted that a majority of the games they bought us have “two-player simultaneous gameplay.”
I remember my brother and I liked to say that ’cause it made us feel smart.
I can attest that my experiences with both games are largely responsible for my lifelong passion for side-scrollers.
As a child I largely preferred playing Ninja Turtles over Double Dragon, not because I thought it was a better game, but because I didn’t suck at it.
… And because you got to be one of the Ninja Turtles in it.
C'mon now, are you telling me you'd pick the guy with the pompadour over a Ninja FUCKING Turtle?
You see, even though my brother kept most of the instruction booklets for our video games, I almost never took the time to read them.
As far I could tell though, my brother did, ’cause throughout all of my childhood he seemed to know every game we owned like the back of his hand.
Well, maybe not as well as Batman knows his, but still...
The differences in the complexity of the gameplay and controls between the two games was typically what made me lean towards Ninja Turtles over Double Dragon, that and the overall difficulty.
The depth of Ninja Turtles II’s gameplay consisted of standard attacks, jumping, jump kicking, and the so-key-to-the-game-you-would-be-crazy-to-play-the-game-without-it-SPECIAL ATTACK.
See diagram below:
Double Dragon on the other hand, utilized an intuitive (or counter-intuitive, depending on how you feel about it) control scheme that permanently mapped the two NES face buttons to specific directional attacks, B for left, A for right.
On top of that, both buttons had to be pressed SIMULTANEOUSLY (love that word) to perform a jump, during which one could perform a jump kick with the additional press of either face button, or a spin kick by pressing both buttons at the height of the jump.
You know that last thing, about the spin kick? Yeah, nobody told me about that.
Whenever I’d play Double Dragon with my brother, or any other game for that matter, I would find myself whining to him:
“How do I play!? What’s this button do!? How did you DOOOOOO thaaaaat…?”
Of course, being as he was the older brother, he wouldn’t tell me… or he’d smack me upside the head and not tell me.
On the off chance we were playing a head-to-head, two-player versus game though, he’d school me with whatever move I wanted to know how to do.
Pretty much every match between my brother and I.
Needless to say, in a two-player co-op game like Double Dragon, I was more of a liability than a help to my brother’s progress, especially if we were playing “Game B” AKA “Let’s-forget-about-saving-the-world-and-beat-the-shit-out-of-each-other, ON ACCIDENT” mode.
I could only occasionally pull off the spin kick through mindless button mashing, and almost never pulled off the SUPER UPPERCUT or instant kill SUPER KNEE, (press both face buttons while recovering from a jump landing) but even so, the game was good fun, provided I had my brother there to do the fighting for me.
I remember shrieking in terror whenever we ran across any of the Abobo’s with hair.
Doesn't take a genius to know which one's more powerful.
Yeah, getting cornered and thrown into a fucking hole by a big asshole named Abobo EVERY FUCKING DAY will do that to you.
EVERY. FUCKING. DAY.
I remember late in level 4 there was a sequence where you are trapped in a one way corridor with spikes on the ceiling.
Jumping is obviously a bad idea here, which is unfortunate, seeing as nearly every useful attack in the game can only be executed after standing up or landing a jump.
In most cases this resulted in massive amounts of fail, typically generated by the long-haired Abobo that decides to show up at the last minute.
That is, unless you were a smart person and stood in the one safe spot in the entire corridor and let your enemies walk face-first into your attacks.
Guess which one I was, I dare you.
All in all, my relationship with Double Dragon II as a child was kind of love-hate, very similar to my relationship to Star Fox.
I wasn’t very good at the game, and only rarely reached the later stages, but had fun with it and kept playing it anyway.
To be honest, I believe I beat Double Dragon II only once, with the help of my brother, of course.
The last stage consisted of standard NES cheapness, including instant death spike traps and “clones” of pretty much every boss you faced in the game up to this point
Even these twin ninja fucks.
At the end of the stage you face off with a pair of purplish-black “shadow clones” of the two player characters, Billy and Jimmy Lee.
They were a pain in the ass, but no more so than your average Abobo. Although I don’t think they could measure up to an Abobo with hair…
Defeating the “shadow clones” normally results in a premature ending to the game, but because my brother always insisted we play on SUPREME WARRIOR mode, AKA hard mode, we were treated to a showdown with the real final boss.
And let me tell you, that last battle was fucking epic.
The whole thing begins in some sort of underground tunnel, where the only person standing before you is a woman that’s supposed to be Billy’s lady friend, Marian.
Kind of a big deal seeing as she was riddled with bullets at the beginning of the game.
Machine Gun Willy used M-16 on wild Marian! It's not very effective...
As soon as you step forward to embrace/punch Marian, the screen goes black, the girl disappears, and out of nowhere some crazy, cape wearing, green-haired fuck appears on a platform in the background!
Look at 'im... Standin' up there... bein' all cool n'shit... Ass.
The background fades up from black to reveal some sort of galactic/astral landscape where the Troll Doll dude apparently has god-like powers, ’cause believe me, he fights like a cheap bitch.
His move set basically consists punches, gravity defying mule kicks, spin punches, and back flips, lots and lots of back flips…
Oh yeah, and most of the time he’s invisible.
Just like this. Except without the red bullshit.
You’d think that as a kid I’d be pretty annoyed by this pig fucker and his broken ass fighting wouldn’t you?
Well, that would be the case, if I hadn’t drained all of my continues during the fight with the “shadow-clones.”
Behold: The extent of my Double Dragon skills circa 1990.
That’s right, the only time I got to see the last boss, and I didn’t even survive to fight him.
But that’s okay, I didn’t mind, so long as I got to stick around and watch.
Knowing me, I probably annoyed the shit out of my him by talking too much and generally being a pain-in-the-ass little brother, but regardless, I was happy just to be sitting in front of the TV with my brother.
Now that's just about the most adorable thing I've ever seen.
My brother fought long and hard, and by that I mean he stood in place and constantly performed the spin kick attack, causing the boss, invisible or not, to repeatedly walk into his attacks.
Okay maybe “epic” wasn’t the best word to describe the final battle, but as a kid, when your older brother is seconds away from beating the game, a game you’ve never seen the ending to; and the music suddenly changes to this*:
Yeah, you get pretty excited.
Ultimately it was these kind of moments that kept me coming back to Double Dragon, as well as most co-op in general.
Back then, video games were not something I devoted any time to outside of playing alongside my brother or my friends.
Somewhere down the road though, I think my attitude towards gaming changed from viewing it as a privilege, a precious experience granted to me by my friends and family, to that of disposable, time killing entertainment.
Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy video games, just on a more superficial level.
However, I used to look forward to playing games.
Nowadays I am only able to, and only do play games when I have some sort of gap to fill in my schedule.
I’m never expecting to, or even really want to be playing games, I just kind of fall back on it when I don’t have enough time to watch a movie, or it’s too cold to go for a walk.
Every now and again though, I’ll have a friend over and we’ll sit down in front of the TV for a quick game.
We don’t play all day like we used to, but it’s still every bit as fun as it was when I was a kid.
Games are fun, but they’re always even better with a friend.
Or a brother.
*Sidenote:Â This music track is called “Roar of the Double Dragons” and it is used, with good reason, as the final battle theme in most Double Dragon games.
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