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Three of my absolute favourite matches of all time, and three wildly different takes on how to encorporate comic elements into pro wrestling. Oh, and also:

In that first match, no fooling, it was more shocking for me to see Billyken working heel than to see him fighting a three year old with a giant head. Also: Kinta-kun's lariat is devastating. That kid has a future.

Thanks, Badger! I would definitely go out of my way to see Kyoko and Ito fight again. They match up perfectly.

The guy in the second picture above is Maeiwa. He's another member of Kuuga's drinking crew. He promotes events in Osaka, including Big Japan Pro Wrestling. He's invited me to come to a few BJPW shows, but I have a personal Murphy's Law that I am always busy on those days. On Sunday, he invited me to a ワールド女子プロレス・ディアナ (World Joshi Pro Wrestling Diana) show. I knew basically nothing about the promotion, but since I had just returned from vacation in Canada I had a free day and I figured I might as well... Turns out Diana is Kyoko's promotion and since Jaguar trained Kyko, she's involved, too. They don't seem to get much exposure overseas... or in Japan, for that matter. I'm really glad I went. It was my second time seeing both Kyoko and Jaguar live, but my first opportunity to meet them. The lady running the gimmick table was an old friend from the Osaka Pro days, so I got a signed towel as well. I think this particular show may have been a co-promotion with Chigusa's promotion, Marvelous, since there were a few wrestlers from there on the card as well. I had a really good seat, particularly considering it was free, and the action spilled right into where I was sitting a couple of times. Jaguar Yokota teamed with Megumi Kinoshita against Tomoko Watanabe and Mei Hoshizuki. Jaguar and Kinoshita were surly, mean, nasty heels all the way. It was a lot of fun. The Main Event was Kyoko Inoue and Takumi Iroha vs Kaoru Ito and Sareee. Kyoko vs Ito was like a local joshi version of Vader vs Hansen or something, just a nasty, stiff, hoss fight. As El-P said, Kyoko was looing in good shape, tan and happy, and she moved really well. Kyoko vs Sareee or Ito vs Takumi Iroha were both really good David vs Goliath match-ups, and the two young girls worked really fast with a lot of counters and dodges when they were in there together. Ito's double foot stomps on Kyoko were sick. Sareee looks like someone who could be a star with more exposure, she is obviously talented and charismatic. Takumi Iroha was my favourite, though, she looked to be having the time of her life in there and she has a very kicky style. Just an excellent back and forth all-action match. According to Eivion over on DVDVR: "Takumi is a former Stardom wrestler who left to be mentored by Chigusa in Marvelous five years ago. She was already more or less a super rookie with the talent she showed back then. She has only gotten better. Sareee has been getting a good push this year among the promotions she works. She is a double champion holding Diana and Sendai's main titles." Other matches were: Ayako Sato vs Rina Yamashita, which spilled over into my section and sent my chair flying. Madeleine vs Fairy Nihonbashi (whom I met last time I went drinking with Kuuga). I was happy to see her again. She works a comedy style. Haruka Umezaki vs Sho Sekiguchi (which I missed because I had a hard time finding the venue).

It is! She is! I was surprised to find that I am bigger than Kyoko. If one more person responds to this thread, I'll give details

The team name reveal hype videos are unintentionally HILARIOUS

Jumbo is my #1, Misawa is my #2, forever and always. Terry Funk, Bryan Danielson, and Bret Hart tend to round out my top 5, most days. Ranking Bret above Flair feels wrong somehow, but that is my honest opinion. Even though Jumbo is my number one guy, ranking him vs Bryan is kind of too close to call. Both are right up there as the best ever in their particular style, so... that's a tie. 90s AJPW is always going to win out over 2010s NJPW in my book, but those are fairly interesting comparisons.

OK, so maybe the segment was poorly produced, but you guys have to admit: - It's EXTREMELY relatable. I am sure all of us have, at one time or another, had someone attempt to murder us with rigging or scaffolding. - It's a completely natural way to set up a pro wrestling match. If someone attempts to murder you, the logical end point is to meet in the ring, wearing tights, with a ref present to warn you if you keep a hold on too long while your would-be murderer is in the ropes.

OMG!! So it is!!

Oh, that shirt! Truly, I am not alone.

Does it make me a bad person that every time I see the first name of the Democratic junior Senator from California, Ms. Harris, in print or online, I cannot help but mentally add "The Ugandan Headhunter"? Does that happen to anyone else? Also, I was a bit disappointed to learn that her husband's name is not "Husky."

They have got to be feeling some buyers remorse right now.

I enjoyed the hell out of Naito v Ishii. As Coffey said, it is a *sick* finishing stretch.

https://variety.com/2019/tv/opinion/vince-mcmahon-wwe-woes-1203273548/ Pretty interesting.

As usual, I have just been cherry-picking rather than slogging through entire shows. Man, if you had tried to tell me back in 2011 that the two guys I'd be most psyched about watching in the 2019 G-1 would be Lance Archer and Tomohiro Ishii... There is NO WAY I would have believed you. Still, here we are... Out of what I have seen my top four matches are probably: Mox vs Ishii Ospreay vs Archer KENTA vs Archer and Jay White vs Ishii ...in that order. Seems like I enjoyed KENTA vs Archer more than most. I haven't watched Archer vs Tana yet. All four matches were largely character-based and all four featured some very good character work and some creative spots. The New Japan Cup Ospreay vs Archer match was held in my home town and I was there for it live and I marked out HARD for that.Easily one of the top 20 matches I have ever seen live, and I have been to a lot of live wrestling shows. I thought their rematch lived up to it. I liked KENTA vs Archer because of the crazy visual of Archer clearly being a full foot taller than KENTA, and I loved, loved, loved the character spot with the young boys, and the crowd popping when Archer yelled "Shut up!". I was pretty much just hoping to see Archer successfully pull of the David vs Goliath stuff with someone other than Ospreay, and I feel like I really got that with this match. I think maybe KENTA's attemot at being a classic "stoic" Japanese fighter character hurt the drama a little. Clearly this particular crowd preferred the New Japan heel to the outsider underdog face. I got a big kick out of that crowd reaction, though. I think I'm turning into a Lance Archer mark. In Mox vs Ishii I loved that Mox character spot with the two chairs, and Air Ishii was definitely not something I was expecting to see. I wonder if Jay White is going to be next on the list of New Japan guys who have won me over. I genuinely enjoyed his cowardly heel performance against Ishii. (Of course, I enjoyed White vs Yano as well). Ishii, of course, is absolutely on fire now.

We got together again over the (Japanese).long weekend. It was a pretty great evening. We went to four different places, starting with the Namba Parks rooftop BBQ, moving on to the Chinese restaurant I wrote about above, then moving on to a couple of different hole in the wall type Osaka Izakaya. Different special guests joined us at each location, including Pancrase veteran Fuke, MMA fighter and promoter and bar owner Tetsuo Kondo, and some referees and a Young Lion or two, and so on. It was hard to keep up. It was great to see some old friends again, particularly Taizou, whom I hadn't seen in maybe six years. He's the bald guy with glasses in the pictures above. We hung out all night, though I ended up tapping out and heading home after we left the fourth place (the party kept going for who knows how long). I was too drunk and too full to keep going. The food was pretty great, as usual. Beef and chicken at the BBQ, karaage at the Chinese place, spicy fries and shrimp chips at one Izakaya, various fresh vegetable dishes at the other... The highlight for me was meeting Osaka-based indie Joshi wrestler Fairy Nihonbashi. She was VERY nice, energetic, funny, and charming. I hope to meet her again.

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This is pretty f'n cool: https://www.cinemablend.com/television/2475448/dwayne-johnson-had-the-best-reaction-to-getting-his-own-jeopardy-category

Also Rocky Maivia to The Rock I will go so far as to assert that, in my opinion, both of my picks were quite successful after their image change.