jdw

Didn't hold up as well the last time I watched it. Kind of an indication of the level that I was thinking of in terms of "great".

In January 1997.

This really should be watched in the context of the entire G1, which is all available now. One would then get the sense of Choshu being 0-2 coming in, and Hash with 3 points while Chono already in the clubhouse with 5 points. There's no way Choshu is going 0-3 in the G1, so Chono will face the winner of Vader-Mutoh (which followed this on the card) in the Final. I mean... there can't be a Block playoff rematch between Hash and Chono... right? Short largely two movement match: * Choshu jumps Hash at the gun with a wicked strike and kicks the shit out of Hash * Hash hits a tremendous transition to turn things and then kicks the shit out of Choshu It's theatrical, it's stiff, is simple, they sell their asses off for each other, Choshu is an old pro at theatrical spectacles and Hash is coming into his own as the future master. The entire G1 is available now. With the exception of the Chono-Hash draw and the Final, none of the matches go 15+ minutes, and half of them don't go past 11 minutes. It doesn't take a lot of time to get through, and it's worth investing time in watching it. Six of the 13 matches made the Yearbook. I'd add this one as also Yearbook worthy, especially given the length. The rest, though, are worth watching as well even if they don't blow you away.

Context is useful and important, but it also can shift / change / morph over time. Take this match: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/11075-shinjiro-otani-vs-el-samurai-njpw-new-year-special-012196 The context of why it was cool at the time, beyond the specific work, is that it came in the middle of the New Japan vs UWFi feud. Sammy and Ohtani were incorporating a lot of focused limb work and submissions into the match on the first card after Takada lifted the IWGP Title off Mutoh at the Dome. The fans in the building got it, and if you were watching at home, you got it. Cool stuff. The New Japan vs UWFi feud fizzed out in the spring. Since this match was part of feud, when people look at the match and at the feud, they aren't really seen as linked now. Instead, the later context of the match is in the continuum of the NJPW Juniors Division going backwards to Fujinami and forwards to where ever the heck it is now. This gets tossed into the context of all those other famous juniors matches of the 90s, and the not so famous ones, as the masses of them got and get digested by more and more gaijin as time passes. Very simply: the way it was worked relative to the bulk of juniors matches in the era. If you look at the thread linked above, the NJPW vs UWFi context is mentioned twice in the nearly five years of discussions. It's not really required to enjoy the match, or to hit some puroresu nirvana with it. Most folks in the thread dug the shit out of the match. Even for those who get that part of the context, it doesn't have to be critical to enjoying it. When I originally watched it back in 1996, NJPW vs NJPW was at the forefront of my thoughts. The last time I watched it, my thoughts were similar in focus to what I wrote in the DVDVR 90's Ballot, which is the context of the match within that (at the time) beloved division. * * * * * Point? Hmm... there might be one in there. A good deal of "context" is what we bring to the table. Half, or more than half, of my original "context" for Hogan-Andre was what I brought to the table in 1987. I was Crockett fan. I hated most of the WWF. I hated Hogan. Andre bored the shit out of me as a massive guy who could barely move and was extremely hard for anyone to do anything with given his bulk. I thought the match blew chunks. My "context" for the match is different now. I'm much more accepting of Hogan's qualities as a worker now. I have less hate for chunks of 80s WWF than I did then. I can step back with a historical perspective after nearly 30 years, and have a different view on spectacles now than I did then. Has the match changed? No. I have. The point would be that even is the case with Sammy-Ohtani where a key context of the "moment" struck me/strikes me as being less important than the context over a longer period of time.

The matwork in the Lawler-Race draw is boring. Compare it with the 60 minutes Backlund-Valentine or the 60 minute Backlund-Inoki or the Funk-Jumbo title match or the long Jumbo-Mil match or Destroyer vs Mil or countless other matches of the era will get across what a snooze-fest the matwork in that match was. Just to be clear: it's not fully Jerry's fault. Race's strongest point wasn't matwork, especially when needed to fill that much time with it. His 30 minute draw with Baba is similarly filled with loads of subpar matwork, and pretty much everyone whose watched Baba in the 60s into the 70s knows that Baba could work it on the mat. So put this one on Jerry not being a strong matworker, Race not being a strong matworker, and then being stuck in a 60 minute match where you're forced to kill loads of time doing what neither is really all that good at. Second side note: it's because of stuff like the Jumbo-Funk or the Baba & Jumbo vs Funks 1977 match or Robinson & Horst vs Funks match that Terry is a really serious GOAT candidate. The sum beetch could flat out go on the mat in addition to all the other stuff that he was off the charts doing. Dory has the "worker of holds" rep, but not only could Terry work them as well, he would work them in really interesting and theatrical and dramatic ways.

I hate the Hash-Ogawa 2.0 feud. Worst booking in pro wrestling history to me. Yeah, Fuck Inoki.

At this point, you might need to take the entire UWF 2.0 body of work card-by-card top-to-bottom from the first to the last card and watch all of it for a thread like you did with WCW Suckville.

It's been around. Looking at Lynch's list, there are two versions of the 3/4/92 Budokan "television" on back-to-back six hour tapes: February-March 1992 March-April 1992 The first version just has the double main event: Misawa vs Hansen and Jumbo & Taue lifting the tag titles from Gordy & Dox. The second version is the last block on the second tape and has the tag match. Honestly don't recall watching this back in 1992, so my video story may have have had the two-match version. I'd have to look at the K-Tapes at home to see which version Koji got, or if he got both. One may have been a 90 minute "special". Jeff was kind of consistent in moving "specials" over into the Boot section of his Japan lists rather than rolling it into the TV section. On the other hand, the six hour tapes, if I recall correctly, were the format he got from his sources... so he seems to have gotten something twice.

What remains amazing is that as bad as Mutoh is in this, he's on an entirely different hell hole of a planet come January.

Bischoff would be a good addition to the list.

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/0nhuQ8UJ-k8 Looks like the full version. I've seen 15 minute edited versions on youtube. It's probably elsewhere on the web as well in better quality. Google search 大仁田 天龍 原 and poke around. Surprised that Ditch doesn't have it in one of his sites.