ohtani's jacket

Jack Witzig vs. Sky Hi Lee (NWA Chicago, 03/05/1954) This was a fairly typical big man vs. little man match, but the nice thing about it is that in the 50s they gave the workers plenty of time to work their match so there was a chess match element to it. The finish was kind of wild for the era as the top rope came undone and Lee tried to use it as a weapon.

It's a low bar, but this was the best match of the best of 5 series. The fact that it ended with an airplane spin instead of the massive diving headbutt off the top almost felt like a tribute to snarky message board commentary.

FWIW, the correct date is 5/13. This was an excellent mano a mano bout. Some of the transitions could have been better, but they got the basic point across -- no matter how much you bully and beat Mistico, he's not going to quit. Traditionally, workers held back in mano a mano bouts in case a bigger match was booked down the line. Here, they gave us enough action and another dramatic moments that it could have easily been an apuesta match. It almost felt like they decided they were going to work an awesome main event regardless of the stipulations because that's what guys do each week in the States and Japan. They even gave us a clean fall in the tercera and a clear winner.

Usually, I wouldn't watch a match like this, but there's been so much discourse surrounding Kurt Angle lately and he's been in such a rich vein of form in 2005 that I thought I'd see what he could do with Booker. I had no idea about the angle between Angle and Booker's wife. My first thought was that given the recent allegations against Vince McMahon, this type of thing looks even worse, but even without the McMahon scandal this would still be completely and utterly inappropriate. You can flirt with crossing the line, like the Jake Roberts and Elizabeth stuff, but when you start cutting the type of promos that Angle did... Angle claims this angle was a punishment for the way he treated creative around this time. I have no idea what the truth is. It's a pretty good match sans the angle, but the finish is rubbish and I don't think the post-match angle justifies the storyline. I dunno how Angle went from having a MOTYC with Michaels to this sleaze. Perhaps he was getting too big for his britches but surely there was a better way to cut him down to size that didn't humiliate Booker's wife.

This was a really good match. Almost a mix of an Attitude Era brawl with an old-school territory bout. It was an important bout in terms of making Cena a made man and better than their WrestleMania match in every conceivable way. There may be more blood shed in this match than in any other WWE bout. You may find a voice in your head questioning whether this needed to be so violent, and whether there needed to be so much blood, but the blood and JBL's willingness to take crazy bumps made this match a grade A spectacle. Cena did a few goofy things. His failure to shatter the limo windscreen was awkward. He also didn't get the satisfaction of forcing JBL to utter the words "I Quit" into the microphone, which kind of sucks, but at least he drove him through the sign. If wrestling had its own breakfast sports shows, I can only imagine the hot takes the presenters would have had after this match.

Wild Red Berry vs. Carlos Guzman (Long Beach, CA, 05/22/1952) This managed to be both an entertaining Red Berry match and a fun little technical bout. Guzman was a machine, and Berry was no slouch either. As an added bonus, the bout is called by the legendary Dick Lane, and when Dick Lane gets excited, he gets excited. An odd detail about this match: Red Berry's ring robe remained in his corner for the entire bout. I don't think I've ever seen that before. The second went over and fetched it after the bell. At one point Berry was standing on it between falls.

The video package before the match fills me in on what's been happening between these two during the past few months. Eddie Guerrero is very good at this sports entertainment stuff. Seriously, he's got to be one of the better actors of this era. I love the promos where he's screaming at Mysterio's mask and threatening Rey's family. That's some old-school shit right there. Very reminiscent of Jake Roberts. They do a great job of working a hate-filled match without too much Attitude Era shit. Definitely the best Eddie match I've seen in a while. I didn't hate the finish as I thought the beatdown was some vicious shit. My only criticisms of the bout were that it was overly long and I was sick and tired of Cole and Taz harping on about how they couldn't recognize Eddie anymore. Jesus Christ, the guy changed heel as often as Lex Luger. They should have sold it as this being the real Eddie.

Decent cage match but nothing to write home about. I might have felt differently if I were more invested in the feud as the match was largely story driven. Once again, the post-match was more enjoyable than the actual bout with Punk declaring he going after Austin Aries.

This was a decent Edge vs. Shawn Michaels match. It was mostly a bunch of nearfalls and high risk maneuvers from Michaels, and nothing really inventive like the Angle or Benjamin matches. That said, it was action-packed and never boring. The ref got knocked out at the end and you'd have to be a first-time viewer not to figure out what would happen next. "Money in the Bank" Edge wouldn't be my first choice to challenge Batista. I'd much rather see a Batista/Michaels match. But Edge is the guy right now.

This was a cookie cutter match despite the talent involved. Very mid-tempo. I think it was a mistake having Hector Garza as the lead guy. I like his shtick, but it tends to slow the bout down and it's better as a secondary thread to whoever the main pairing are. Given that they'd just had a singles match, you'd think it would be Heavy Metal and Halloween, but they didn't make any sort of effort to steal the spotlight. it was never boring -- it's a match with Casas, Halloween and Damian, after all -- but a step down from some of the April spectacles involving Perros del Mal..

Will a 60 minute match dull my interest in this matchup? Nope, i's still the best matchup in wrestling. To be fair, there was a lot of time killing in this bout with a bunch of trashing talking and jawing with the crowd. It was far from their best match, and they've had better and more intense matches that 30 minutes plus. But when they did wrestle, they remained the best pair in the business.

This was no Valentine vs. Piper, but it was a decent dog collar match, I suppose. With so many of Rave's crew at ringside, it was obvious that the match was going to end with Rave's people beating on Punk. That made the dog collar gimmick somewhat unnecessary as they could have achieved the same thing with a straight brawl. Punk bled a huge amount for a bout that was basically a sampler for the following week's cage match. I liked his promo afterward.

This was less spectacle, more story. The rudos ruthlessly picked up on Mistico and didn't care if they were disqualified for it. In the first fall, Perro ripped Mistico's mask off to reveal his frosted tips. Mistico had to go to the back and get a new mask, but it didn't stop the beatdown. If I'd been a paying customer, I would have been pissed that of all the weeks I chose to go to Arena Mexico, it was a week where the rudos were prepared to throw the bout so they could foul an opponent. Mistico demanded a hair vs. mask match, so the weekly attendees were no doubt excited about that.

I really wanted to see the revancha between the Casas brothers and Halloween, Damian and Blue Demon Jr, but it's not available online. I'll have to settle for this entertaining spectacle instead. I'm not sure when and how Universo became a tecnico, but this is one of those rare instances where the lead rudo has beef with all three of his opponents. There were a lot of fun exchanges in the bout, but what stuck out most to me was the way the rudos treated Mistico. They were such dicks to him that it kind of had me rooting for the little guy. Garza, in particular, was a giant dick. By the end of the bout, you wanted to see Mistico wipe him out. The finish was some weak ass sports entertainment stuff that CMLL still can't do well, but the meat and potatoes of this was highly entertaining.

Sandor Szabo & Dr. Lee Grable vs Jack McDonald & Gino Garibaldi (NWA Los Angeles, 08/24/1953) Fairly typical 50s tag match, though the workers were energetic and Strongbow put over the pace of the match, which tells us that it was probably quicker and more action-packed than the fans were used to. There were a lot of cool rolling holds. Garibaldi, in particular, was a ball of energy every time he was in the ring. This is the second Szabo & Grable match we have, and they make quite a good team. I don't have a firm opinion on Szabo in his prime, but I've always enjoyed his elder statesman stuff from the 50s. A controversial finish leads to some great post-match interviews and some fun jawing with the crowd.