Loss

There's little cooler to me about wrestling than watching a match that the crowd isn't predisposed to care about at all, only to see them very into it by the end.

Not too memorable, but a solid studio match between two of my favorite guys.

Rogers and Oates are a perfectly serviceable team, but Armstrong and Horner are on another level here, looking to be every bit as good of a babyface tag team as the Fantastics or Rock & Rolls. Saying they would have benefitted from better opposition here is overstating it, but I do wish they would have had a chance to work with the Dirty White Boys or MX around this time. Ron Garvin makes a save when the heels attempt a spike piledriver on Brad, and between that and Gordon Solie doing commentary with Lance, this is an odd collection of names not usually associated with Memphis. The match was fun TV fare, but there was a big talent gap between the two teams, and that usually works best when the better team is the heel team.

Kobayashi was always one of my favorite juniors and I’m reminded why watching this. He goes move for move with Tiger Mask and has an impressive variety of kicks at his disposal. This is better than the Dynamite Kid match, if only because you get the feeling watching those that fans are just waiting for the next big move. Here, the crowd even got into the submissions, chanting loudly for Tiger Mask when Kobayashi locked in the cross armbreaker. There is some sloppiness from Sayama here yet again, but he’s opposite a guy who seems to have the perfect understanding of how to work opposite him, so it doesn’t detract from the match as much as it does in some other cases. Kobayashi goes all rudo trying to unmask Sayama, which builds the heat in a big way. He even yanks Sayama from the ground by his mask at one point. The match ends when the referee can’t stop the mask ripping and I’m actually really looking forward to their January match. This was pretty great. ****1/4

I’m assuming Choshu had turned on Fujinami by this point, as Hamaguchi is a total heel and the crowd is all over his case. I was looking forward to this but it was really just two guys lying on the mat until the last few minutes, when the action was good but not really great. They started off with a super hot crowd and then sort of lost them the longer the match went. The most disappointing New Japan match thus far.

This seems to be the night they pulled a rabbit out of their hat and delivered the best match of their series. TM was pretty sloppy at times and there were moments where it looked like Dynamite was about to die from a botched move. But overall, if I saw this match, I would almost believe the hype, more for Dynamite's performance than Sayama's. His timing and bumping was top notch. Nothing I'd go to bat for, but I thought it was excellent, warts and all. ***3/4

Fujinami is just awesome, and he's made better by working with such a great foil. I loved the way Murdoch bumped for his dropkicks. This was a really aggressive match and the more cohesive layout missing from their match earlier in the month was on display here. Fujinami works the short-arm scissors and Murdoch works Fujinami's leg, which is a defensive tactic more than it is his offensive game -- he's just trying to get the guy to leave his freakin' arm alone. Murdoch also shows that sometimes, the differences between audiences internationally can be overstated, as he is able to hold the ropes for leverage while working holds to get a reaction. It's not the same big reaction that sort of thing gets in the U.S., but it was there. He's working a gasping-at-straws match throughout this match, while Fujinami is sticking to his gameplan. Every time Fujinami shows signs of his life, one of the first things Murdoch does is try to get Fujinami out of the ring to brawl on the floor. He even bites him squarely on the forehead a few times. Fujinami open-handed slapping his way out of Murdoch's spinning toehold was awesome. They aren't going after each other with reckless abandon or anything, but this is a match that is deceptively hate-filled. After several minutes of Murdoch dominance, Fujinami gets an opening and tries to go right back to the short-arm scissors and Murdoch swats him off. The match is filled with really cool detail work like that. The cumulative selling is really great here too. That's what good selling is -- not just selling each piece of offense, but also selling the toll match is taking. The best moment to show that was Murdoch hitting his move where he drives Fujinami's head into the canvas with his own knee behind him, but he rolls out of the ring and is unable to capitalize because he's running out of steam. The two are throwing every piece of cool early 80s offense in the book at each other down the stretch. And another thing -- because DCOR finishes were so common at this time, brawling outside the ring has the same crowd emotion that's generated today by a string of nearfalls. That's how Fujinami ends up winning this. Beautiful match that I didn't even come close to doing justice. ****

I liked this match. Thought it was solid and well-executed, but probably nothing I'll remember too much. Bret looked very good in this, but everyone did to varying degrees. ***

A weird case where two great performances don't add up to a great match. It's still worth seeing, but the layout was odd because instead of building to something, it started off hot, then cooled down and kept going back and forth without any clear story or anything. It's a good way to set up a rematch, though, and I'm glad I saw it. But I'm sure these two can do much better.

It's really cool to see how over Hogan is in Japan at this point, with the fans chanting his name after the bell and popping huge for his posing during ring introductions. Right away, they establish that this is going to be worked Clash of the Titans-style with all the stalemates off of lock-ups and shoulderblocks. Then Abby rolls outside after Hulk hits a high jumping knee (!!) and we've got ourselves a cool layout. They work up to Hogan not just applying the bearhug on Abby, but doing it where Abby is off of his feet elevated. Then Abby puts his knees up on a splash coming off the ropes and the blood begins to flow, with Abby using his trademark pencil to inflict more damage. I don't really know what Hogan's work looks like before this and if this is par the course or a departure. from his typical New Japan working style. But you get the sense it was this stage of his career where he really learned to work "big" and create an electric atmosphere. The execution is a little off from both guys, but that actually adds to the match because it puts over the violence factor. I don't think they were blowing spots to make us think we were seeing a shoot, but I do think this is the essence of what Dave was trying to describe in that New Japan match not long ago, only he said it in a questionable way. Hogan's blood-soaked facial expressions are great, and he's quick to make sure Abby also juices when he gets some momentum going. They brawl outside the ring for the typical DCOR finish, but they have a hell of a brawl post-match. I know it's a cliched 80s finish, but in this case, it's a well-worked cliched 80s finish. (Hey, there's Hiroshi Hase as a young boy trying to break them up!) This shows a few possible paths both guys could have taken. Abby would have been an excellent early challenger for Hogan in the WWF, and you get the sense that if 1997 Johnny Ace could have a great match against Akira Taue, so could 1982 Hogan. Good stuff. *** (If you're not philosophically opposed to considering the post-match part of the match rating, which I'm not, tack on an extra 1/2*.)

I signed up for NWA Classics just to see this match (and others eventually, of course). I dropped my thoughts in the thread shoe linked before.

I was planning to sign up for NWA Classics very soon anyway, but this motivated me to go ahead and do it now. This was a tremendous tag team match, and I agree that it just might be Cornette's finest hour for the reasons shoe mentioned. The opening stuff was just awesome, mainly because the crowd was biting on everything. I don't think it's quite MOTYC-level for me, and I don't mean that as a huge slight or even really a slight at all. I loved Cornette throwing those punches at Bobby Fulton, but I wish they had taken longer to really pummel Tommy Rogers. The FIP seemed a little rushed. But that's hardly a glaring flaw. Well worth seeing. ****

From the 2/20/88 WON recap thread: -- A reader told Dave he was being offensive by using the term "abortion" to describe a bad match. Dave said this is an industry term, but there are other industry terms that are offensive to minorities that he doesn't use, so he'll stop using it going forward.

Before this match, Tiger Mask's matches suggest a guy who was doing some fresh stuff and was pretty good, but who was not really the transformative worker his reputation suggests. Still, he was pretty good and I would consider strong criticism to be hyperbolic. This is the worst performance he has had so far, slipping on the ropes quite a few times and looking very lost at other times. I also have never really liked the Black Tiger gimmick at all, probably because New Japan has taken two guys with great facial expressions and sleazeball charisma -- Mark Rocco and later Eddy Guerrero -- and pulled that personality into a vortex. It's the opposite of the Midas touch. Watching this also makes me appreciate other masked wrestlers even more for how demonstrative they are. Sayama eats plenty of moves, but there's no expressive selling or anything like that. My-turn, your-turn is a criticism that has always been difficult for me to understand, but it's awfully apparent here. You have Tiger Mask just working a wrestling match and doing things at the times wrestlers typically do those things in a match because that's what they typically do. But there's no mileage from the shifts in momentum and no real emotion driving the action. A match spotlighting the new style du jour shouldn't feel so joyless. And I realize I'm saying that even though the crowd ended up really into this by the finish, but this was still a disjointed mess.

Wow, this was great! Andre doing a basic chinlock or suplex looks like death. He has so much offense that would be so completely hokey in anyone else's hands but works well for Andre. This really picks up when Khan makes the comeback and goes after Andre's leg. I've never seen Khan work as a babyface, so him having so much fire surprised me. This feels kinda like a man in the wild trying to take it to a bear caught in a trap and having some success but still being overmatched. Still, they get over the damage Khan has been able to do in short spurts, because Andre sells and is wobbly even when he's in control. I love him covering himself so he can't feel Khan's punches anymore. No one really gets the cinematic possibilities of working as a giant quite like Andre. ****1/4

One of the very first videotapes I got my hands on when I discovered that bootlegging was a thing was a Best of Tiger Mask commercial release that included this. I REALLY loved it at the time, but I'm curious how I'll see it now. Steven Wright is incredible. I want to see hundreds and hundreds of Steven Wright matches. I like how he's outclassing Sayama both in his ground game and in flash. The flips working in and out of the cravate are just awesome. There's so much to love about his style, and they take a great approach to this in putting Wright over so convincingly because that gets the match over. The repeated theme is that standard counters just don't work against Wright because he's such a skillful wrestler and is prepared for everything. They also use the referee well. I always like it as a way to get over leg submissions when they are so tangled that the ref has to help them break the hold. Wright's abdominal stretch is the most legitimately painful looking version of that hold I have ever seen. If you like eccentric matwork, then this is the match for you. I don't think it's much more than that, which keeps it just shy of being great to me. But it's the best Tiger Mask match so far. ***3/4

This was interesting. Bret really was mechanically very good even this early, when he had yet to see his 25th birthday. But my biggest takeaway from this is, "Oh, so that's why so many wrestlers have long hair." The right hair and ring attire gives everything a bit more umph, and that's a lot of what's lacking here -- just that everything seems so small. Besides that, the match is technically well worked but on the bland side, although by the standards of 1982, it's pretty action-packed. I like Bret working as a power junior, with the biggest aspect of his game being hard strikes and a great suplex. The timing on the dropkick as Bret was running the ropes was fantastic, and I'll never complain about a butterfly suplex getting a win. Not really hugely memorable, but a good, enjoyable match. ***1/4

I'm sorry. You did understand it, and my post was not addressed toward you. I should have been more specific. But to address your post and the questions you asked, I don't know. To me, motivation for charity is not important since others benefit from it regardless of that motivation. Sometimes, people do kind things that help others for selfish reasons and sometimes bad people do good things. So motive isn't something I really care about. I'd probably have the same opinion of Charlotte either way, which is "It's nice that she's doing that." We live in a country (we, meaning those of us who live in the US) where companies "go green" while lobbying Congress not to act on climate change. Things are never quite what they seem, and I've grown to accept that as just how the world works. However, in order to realize that a company going green is misleading, I'd have to read up on who they are lobbying and what their pet causes are. So it's something I'd have to actively seek out, and if I didn't, I would be none the wiser. If Wal-Mart airs a commercial promoting their environmental friendliness, chances are that it's going to be well-produced and feel authentic, even if it's not. So it surprises me that WWE, a company that employs many people that have become millionaires because of a great understanding of that, can't get that part right. Think about the best and most satisfying moments in the history of the company, and most of them are going to be because they got that part so right. You'd think it would be easy because it's how they make their living -- projecting sincerity where there may or may not be any to generate a specific reaction from those watching. I don't expect WWE to match Wal-Mart's production values or anything like that, but I do expect WWE to have better mastery of the art of manipulation when it comes to public relations. This expands past promotion of their charity work and actually speaks to their entire PR approach, an approach that they've invested a lot of time and money in improving in the post-Benoit landscape. So I would think the improved PR and the experience of those involved creating emotion is going to result in a segment that seems like the real deal, yet it doesn't at all. That's where my surprise comes in -- not that WWE promotes its charity work for selfish reasons, but that WWE can't mask that they promote their charity work for selfish reasons. They are supposed to be master manipulators, so when other companies that don't have a core business that requires that same degree of emotional manipulation do that better than WWE, it's a bit surprising, maybe more than it should be. I regret starting a thread about this. It really was a quick thought that was spawned from listening to WOR where Dave talked about his takeaways from the charity-promoting segments, and he said some things that I thought were interesting and astute.

Thanks for the posting tip. It worked. I'll ask you though -- do you think wrestling has hit a ceiling for how popular it can be? Are we at the maximum point where it can't really grow anymore than it already has? And do you think WWE has done anything really well that has facilitated the willingness of hardcore fans to spend more money? It's definitely an accomplishment, but it almost seems like dumb luck. I do get it with NXT because they've tapped into something and people are passionate about it. But otherwise, I don't really understand it.

Dave has made an interesting point about the current wrestling economy a few times lately that I think warrants more discussion. I'll quote a recent post of his at The Board: Seems like this is going to be more and more the case for the foreseeable future. Cord cutting hasn't gained a ton of momentum just yet, but that will probably have a big impact on wrestling as it gets more common too. So we are at an interesting point -- it's less about attracting more fans and more about getting more dollars out of the existing ones. I don't know if that's actually the stated goal of WWE at this point or not, but if so, it does change how we talk about this stuff, as the old metrics used to determine the most valuable guys in the company don't apply in the same way anymore. It probably requires a different booking approach too. This looks like something happening gradually more than all at once, but it's interesting.

Does anyone know if the scope of this includes investigating possible evidence tampering? Just curious.

He did a random job to Big Show on television and lost to Bray Wyatt on pay-per-view recently. His whole push seems like a social experiment. If we don't really push a guy very hard on television, but do an information campaign through the wrestling media that he's our pet project and we tell people that we are pushing him hard, will they believe it? Thus far, the answer seems to be yes. He won the Rumble. So did Sheamus. He rarely loses on television. Same is true for Rusev. He headlined a Wrestlemania. So did The Miz (and he won!) The backstage newz that he's the guy is not congruent at all with how he is presented week-to-week.

Well ...

But manipulating the masses to create or alter perceptions is what their entire business is, so they should be better at it than anyone.

Roman Reigns is less protected than John Cena, Randy Orton, Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, HHH, Stephanie McMahon, Brock Lesnar, Undertaker and Kane. Maybe we can now add Braun Strowman to that list. Someone barely in the top ten of most protected acts in WWE isn't really evidence of a guy being pushed too hard. Is he noticeably more protected than Kevin Owens, Cesaro or Dean Ambrose these days? I think if you asked WWE, they'd say yes, but in practice, not really.