JerryvonKramer

Was I especially harsh on him then? I reviewed three matches and gave two of them 4+ What are people expecting here, I have no clue, five stars across the board for all this stuff?

Arn and Ole circa late 85 / early 86. Just awesome to see them destroy some jobber's leg. Ole likes to come off the top with a knee. How you been finding them liam?

Ron Garvin comes to mind. I thought he was extremely lame for many years, a view reinforced by the Scott Keiths and so on -- until I watched his stuff with Flair in the NWA and realised how wrong basically everyone had been on him.

Bolded thoughts on Sakaguchi in 1971:

Right enough of this One Man Punch bollocks. Go to Pro Anime Only. And for the record, I'm absolutely against an off-topic forum because I know where that will lead. We could all do without seeing political rants of any persuasion, left or right. AJ Styles vs. Abyss (4/24/05) Right come on now, self-control. Ignore Tenay. Ignore West.. Ignore the crowd. Ignore the fact it's in TNA. Ignore the six-side ring. Focus. Random fact: the attendance for this show was 775. AJ jumps through the door to start. Slides UNDER the railings. Well, that's something I've not seen before. Springboard hurricanrana. Abyss slows it down with a knee lift. Cuts momentum. AJ springboards over the railings and about five rows of fans. And then from there back on top of Abyss. Pretty spectacular. And now he goes flying over the railings again into the crowd. "Too much, too soon." - Tony Atlas. They brawl in the crowd. Abyss flings him toward the back of the arena where there is a fence. I've just realised this is a cage match in which they haven't actually entered the cage yet, huh. Certainly novel. Abyss dominates more, smashes Styles into the side of the cage and the apron, still outside. Bell possibly still hasn't rung. Styles comes back by throwing Abyss into the railing. Abyss smashes the door into Styles. Man that was a sick bump. And again. The level of bounce on those spots was pretty cool. Styles, of course, is cut open now. Abyss attacks the cut and now, finally, we enter the ring. 10 minutes gone. Abyss has a bag. It's full of tacks. Big clothesline by Abyss. Styles is very very good at bumping with impact. Wraps a chain around his neck. Big boot. Wraps the chain around the turnbuckle. Styles ends up taking a huge crash landing face first onto that chain. Abyss is throwing Styles around like Superman throwing a normal man around. The bumps into the cage are spectacular. Very red blood all over his face. Big lift again from Abyss. The height Styles is getting on this bumps in this match is something else. Gorilla press slam, but Styles somehow counters it into a DDT onto the chain. Well that was a counter. Big inzaguri. Tilt a whirl headscissors. Evades a charge. German suplex. Reverses a chokeslam into a pin attempt. Pretty cool counter, don't mind about slight slip on execution. Abyss hits his finisher but Styles kicks out. Out come the tacks. And AJ counters and pancakes Abyss into the tacks. Cover gets two only. Abyss is shivering with pain. AJ goes right to the very very top of the cage, but Abyss throws the ref into the cage to knock him off. Good tactics. Styles is hanging off the cage. Abyss tries to barge him off. Wraps the chain around his neck and hangs him from the very top of the cage with the chain. "Nothing exceeds like excess" - Michelle Pfeiffer in Scarface. Sunset flip powerbomb from the top of the cage onto the tacks by Styles is enough for three. Man. Trying to process what I've just seen. Pros: 1. Styles is an incredible bumper who is up there with anyone who ever laced them up for that. 2. There are lots of spots in this match that I've never seen before and for sheer spectacle, it's pretty amazing. 3. Told a great narrative, which at base is just your good old fashioned comeback against the odds story. 4. Some very innovative stuff in general, especially during that opening ten minutes before they even get into the ring. Points for originality. Cons: 1. Whatever the opposite of "less is more" is, this is it. Yes, the spectacle dazzles, but at the same time that circus show "what's he going to do now!" element also serves to cheapen and gimmick-ise the action in a way. It's hard to get into the idea of someone fighting a war against all odds when they are literally jumping ten feet in the air. 2. Because of 1. I was never able to buy into the idea that Abyss was going to win this match. I had no idea who won by the way, but it's up to them to get me invested in that and the way it was set up made it too obvious that Styles was never taking a pin here. 3. The business around the tacks was all a bit Wile E. Coyote. Yes, it's a pretty standard trope in wrestling for a heel to be hoist by his own petard, but when you set a precedent as Styles did in this match, you are kind of expecting them to take it to that extreme and have him land in them, which never happens, I think it's Abyss twice into the tacks unless I missed something. Which is not saying I expect anyone to take it, but rather that they set up the expectation for it. All in all, it's a very good match. These are reasons why the rating is not higher. But maybe I was wrong to write Stlyes off. ****1/2 AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe (8/14/05) After some initial exchanges, Joe takes Styles out with a big knee charge and a huge diving forearm through the apron. Back in, suplex by Styles. Cool little back somersault breaks momentum. I guess he could have just stopped running? Inverted DDT by Styles. Springboard senton. Bit too much flash here from Styles for my tastes. Rolling cradle. Styles is dazed and just tries a dropkick in the middle of nowhere. Huge lariat by Joe gets two only. Dismissive kicks by Joe. Forearm exchanges. Hundred hand slap from Joe. Shades of E. Honda. Some shenanigans now involving Daniels. Muscle buster by Joe and he locks on his submission finisher. Styles taps out. Sorry, these two just don't do it for me. I don't like this match up at all. Trying to put my finger on why. Can't get invested in it. Too much flash from Styles in general. And I want a more genuine sense of grit out of Joe. If people are high on these guys together, I have to accept that I don't get it. ** AJ Stlyes vs. Bully Ray (6/12/11) True story: when I was looking up the date for this match, my searches were frustrated by the fact there was some TV show called "Last Man Standing" that came out in 2011 and dominated the Google results. I hate Bully Ray's shorts here and his lack of proper wrestling boots. Get some proper boots! And wear knee pads! One of my pet hates. Styles jaws Bully to start and assaults him with some speed and temerity. Still think Styles's character work isn't very authentic. Seems like someone trying to play a wrestler to me. But y'know, I generally hate the character work of the 00s and 10s. Seems fake to me. Ray comes back with some stiff punches. Big back body drop. Styles gets so much height, he's possibly a bigger bumper even than Mr. Perfect. Ray dominates some now. Next few mins inside and outside the ring. Big chop. Styles screams as Ray "hit me again! Hit me again!" Find it hard to buy into it, sorry guys. The parody of character work as opposed to the real deal. Just don't believe for a second that this is who Styles is. Ray, looks perturbed though all of this. Hey, I've just noticed the ring is square again. Sit out powerbomb. Big shot with a chain outside by Styles. Ray is busted open. Styles shows some great intensity attacking the cut. Springboard 450. Ray barely gets up by eight. Styles throws Ray over the top into the upturned steps. Up on the staging area now. Huge huge dive from the stage onto Ray. The height and distance of that leap was absolutely massive. Ray up by nine. Styles gets a table. Very stiff shot with the fist. Grabs chair. Shot across the back. Lays him on the table. Goes back on the stage. No. He gets up on the lighting rig. Climbs up higher. Goes even higher. About a fifteen foot drop onto the table. Holy shit is right. Wow. As Styles is getting up, Ray kicks him into the staging and gets up to his feet as Styles is out for the win. God, I don't know what to do with these matches. I mean ... Yes, wow, holy shit, amazing, etc. But isn't this the definition of diminishing returns? What crazy shit can he possibly do next? Where can he take it? But then again, well, I've never seen someone dive fifteen feet from a lighting rig before. Styles did bring real violence and intensity in this match and, even if I didn't buy his character work, I did buy Ray's general look of shock and awe being caught up in the storm. He had that genuine rabbit in headlights "oh fuck what have I gotten into here" look to him, and I did buy the Tasmanian Devil aspect of Styles's performance. It's a good match. And a great performance from Styles. However, for me there are built in inherent limitations to the style and indeed the setting. The sour taste of inauthenticity never quite washes out for me. And I'm not sure how far I can venerate a style built on ultimate holy shit spectacle high spots. But for what it is, it's really good. ****

Ha ha, I lolled again.

There's the audience who reads those blogs and the audience who only get the reader's digest from them. Non-Lucha fans tend only to see and hear the pimping.

It's a turn off if the positivity feels blanket. Which is to say when people present themselves, they tend to be seen saying things like "I love Lucha" as opposed to being more balanced and measured in the way they talk about it. There might be historical reasons for it, but it is off-putting, because people don't tend to go around saying things like "I love Japanese wrestling" in quite the same way. At least not in these parts.

Ha ha. I lolled.

It isn't ridiculous if you consider that if the perception is that "Lucha is great, Lucha is great" is the narrative being pushed, it actually encourages a wholesale rejection of the thing. Non-Lucha fans aren't going to read your review of that show from last year. They only really see the pimping of what is great. I've been told in the past to think of Lucha just as normal wrestling but it seems to me that those who go in big for it don't really do that. That's my perception at least, and I'm almost certainly not alone.

I think one contributing factor to my general inability to get into Lucha has been that you seldom hear any real criticism of it. This thought occurred to me while listening to Between the Sheets #18 when their guest really went in on why a certain match was disappointing and I was like "wow, that's refreshing to hear, Lucha that isn't *the best thing evar*" I do think it would help those of us who have struggled greatly to get into it if its advocates treated it more like normal wrestling -- with its dose of crap and not very good workers etc. -- and less as this refied awesome thing with 250 workers better than Ricky Steamboat in it. I get that to an extent it might need championing in a way that stuff like 80s NWA or 90a AJ doesn't, but I do think the narrative of "Lucha is great, Lucha is great" is pushed pretty hard.

There is an expectation thing too going on though. Saw a match between Rene Goulet and B. Brian Blair on a Cap Centre card recently that blew me and Kelly away because we were going in expecting any nothing opener you've ever seen and they put on a good match, Flair is the opposite end of the spectrum, so I guess we can overreact when things fall short. It's why the series was called Fair to Flair, because expectations and taking him for granted means he gets graded on a curve like no one else does.

I think it's fair to say that I take those things so much for granted from Ric that they barely registered. Maybe it was me who wasn't Fair to Flair. The first match was your typical Flair vs any local guy match, which is a baseline ****, but for whatever reason this one felt like it had no direction and drifted for long portions. There was very little sense of excitement and it's not just because I know Taylor can't win, it's because it was devoid of anything really happening. The first match had a more coherent narrative and structure, and more focus to the action, it also had more action.

It makes me sad that this One Man Punch nonsense is more over than my 80s Catchup reviews. It would be fantastic if I could get this back to being a review thread too.

Yeah, I seem to recall the figures were debunked.

I recall discussing this after hearing some outrageous numbers on Kevin Sullivan's show. I've found it, discussion is here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30858-random-questions-thread/?p=5681654

Mid-South 4.1 Kerry Von Erich vs. Ric Flair (4/28/85) Flair looks like the ultimate world champion in 1985, before the match has even started. His robe, aura, way he carries himself, don't think it's ever been equaled and I'd include Bock in that statement. Flair at this moment in time is the picture of what a champion should be. The women in the crowd basically wet themselves when Kerry takes his top off. Fair play, he did have a picture perfect body. Definitely someone getting laid tonight, no matter which locker room they ended up at ... So that's either two minutes with Kerry before he passes out or all night long on space mountain. Flair controls a lot of the early going. He's not giving Kerry his formula big man match. Kerry was a perfectly effective babyface in the mid-80s who could bump and sell. Tonight Flair is cutting him off a lot on his comebacks and hope spots. He even connects a forearm from the top rather than taking the slam. Let it not be said that Ric never hit that! Kerry gets in the figure four and I swear he loudly just calls a spot and tells Ric to reverse it. Bizarre! If so, one of the loudest called spots I've ever seen. I can't think from a kayfabe standpoint what else he might have been saying, he gestures for the reversal! Flair sells the leg like a champ during this next offensive stretch. Knee drop. Butterfly suplex. Snapmare. Okay, now he gets slammed off the top. Flair flip. Comes off the top and lands the forearm again. Twice in one match, ha ha. But doesn't connect it well and both men groggy. 20 minutes gone. Figure four by Flair now. Kerry wild in his selling. Crowd gets going. Reverses it. Quick break from Ric. Flair chop sends Kerry down. Knee lift. Shoulder charge. Gorilla press by Kerry. Sleeper. Ref goes down. Kerry hits a cross body. Counters a suplex attempt with a sleeper, and Flair drops him on the top rope. Elbow drop by Ric. Flair covers and gets the three count with Kerry's leg blatantly on the bottom rope. Poor refereeing there. Solid 27-minute match that never really tears the house down. ***1/2 Mid-South 4.2 Rock N Roll Express vs. Ted DiBiase & Dr. Death (5/3/85) I'm hoping we get to see my boy Ted go through all the gears on Morton in this one. Let's see. As we settle into the FIP, big back suplex by Williams. Some nasty shots by Williams. Ted in. Here we go. Backbreaker. Cover gets two. Knee drops. Bodyslam. Boston crab. Three moves in a row targeting the back. Psychology you see. Doc back in. Bear hug. Drops him. Back to the bear hug. Ted in. Big boot. Puts his head down allowing Morton in for an inside cradle. That's called a hope spot. You can't really go wrong with two good heels working over Morton can you? Hot tag comes to Gibson and he cleans house. Double flying body presses. Drop kicks by Gibson. Double dropkick on Ted. Gibson has Doc pinned as the ref is tied up with Ted and Morton. DiBiase gets the glove out and socks Gibson with it. Yeah, take that jobber! 1, 2, 3. And they win the belts. Really fun match made by the FIP sequence. I mean it's a Rock n Rolls match against DiBiase and Williams, you can't go wrong really. A bit short I guess. ***3/4 Mid-South 4.3 Ric Flair vs. Terry Taylor (5/3/85) This is from Houston with Paul Boesch on commentary. We've got to know him well on NWA Classics. This one seems like it is going to go long, somehow has long match written all over it. I've yet to be convinced by Taylor so let's see how he does against my boy here. Ten minutes gone and not a lot has happened so far. Second ten minutes, more action, back and forth chops. Big butterfly from Flair. Takes it outside. Posts him. Third ten minutes. Taylor has Flair in a sleeper and I'm the one losing consciousness around the thirty minute mark. This has been a snoozefest. Taylor hits a suplex. Flair dumps him. Ric, when is business going to pick up? Please! Side headlock takeover by him now. Backslide. Flair chop. Slammed off the top. Taylor misses a fist drop and hurts his hand on the canvas. Flying cross body by Taylor. Flair flip. Bails to the outside. One thing people don't talk about enough with the Flair flip is how many options it gives Ric. This match is boring the shit out of me so let me go into those options: Option 1: run over to the next turnbuckle for another move from top (which can connect or he can be slammed off) Option 2: run on the apron and drop down to outside and bail. Option 3: just the big bump over the turnbuckle to the outside Option 4: eat a clothesline running across apron It's not just a spot that pops the crowd, it's one that presents options for him as a worker and which gives you a lot of neat transitions. People talk about a "deeper appreciation" of the art form. Let me tell you that it's not quibbling over what workrate means, or any other pseudo-intellectual bollocks, it's THIS. Anyway, rant over. Similar finish to the Kerry match where Taylor had his leg on the rope but Flair gets the pin. This is one of the most tedious Flair matches in existence. Not at all recommended. ** Going to do something else for a bit, get the taste of this one out of the mouth.

Honestly, I'm just waiting for Yatsu to turn up to carry the load for him again

Just wanted to mention again how much I love this guy and he's an outside bet for making my list.

Housekeeping New Japan d4 ****3/4 Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi (1/6/83) ****1/2 Antonio Inoki & Kengo Kimura vs. Adrian Adonis & Bob Orton Jr. (3/4/83) Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (7/7/83) Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid (4/21/83) ***3/4 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (4/21/83) Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (4/3/83) ***1/2 Tiger Mask & Kantaro Hoshino vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi & Gran Hamada (2/10/83) *** Akira Maeda vs. Killer Khan (5/17/83) **1/2 Hulk Hogan vs. Antonio Inoki (6/2/83) ** Dick Murdoch vs. Abdullah the Butcher (7/7/83) * Gran Hamada, Kantaro Hoshino & Tiger Mask vs. Missionaries De La Muerte (1/14/83)

Still not really convinced on Choshu as a singles guy. On the AJ set, I much preferred the tags to the singles matches. As I said in my last NJ reviews, I think he's a guy who was better reacting to things than leading the action. He's not the best at putting together a heat sequence or pressing an advantage when on top. He goes to ground a lot but then doesn't have that much he does when he's down there. The scorpion starts to look like a crutch. I much preferred 7/783 to the other matches because Fujinami was leading most of the action and things were so much more exciting as a result. I think it's because Fujinami was better on top than Choshu was. Anyone else find this with Choshu?

I reserve the right to roll my eyes at anyone saying that there are 250 people with a better arm drag than Ricky Steamboat.

New Japan 4.8 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (4/21/83) General NJPW style grappling and struggle in the early going that never really gives way to the all out war I want to see. There's a lot of jockeying for position over holds which I can see some people loving. All too Inoki-ish for me, and not typically the sort of thing that gets me excited. They do eventually start trading suplexes, but Choshu always wants to go back to that Scorpion. If you are someone who likes the idea of a single move being put over as deadly, this is one for you because much of the first fifteen minutes concerns the battle over the scorpion. The suplexes are not ends in themselves but rather moves towards applying or escaping the scorpion -- and if you are someone who plays chess, you can see that idea of executing a move that gets one closer to achieving a wider goal. It is cool to see how things escalate as part of that narrative -- and there's a very coherent one being told -- I'm just not entirely convinced that it's all that compelling. Generally I'm a bigger fan of limb psychology than move psychology. Fujinami does have his leg taped up here, but the storyline is centred on the scorpion, not the injured leg. I mean there are lots of other narratives available too, but this one is low down my list of stuff I find interesting. Disappointing finish to boot. Even if it does show Choshu getting frustrated and opting for a cheap way out. Choshu does show a lot of viciousness in his pursuit of Fujinami, who gives us a decent babyface performance himself, but so far this is a style that hasn't resonated with me like the AJ 85-86 stuff. Can see this being more of interest to guys who gravitate towards the shoot stuff and the general concept of "struggle". The matwork is simple and painted with broad brush strokes, not intricate, it's all about buying into the chess narrative I outlined above. So definitely watch if that sounds like it would be your thing. ***3/4 New Japan 4.9 Akira Maeda vs. Killer Khan (5/17/83) I recently saw Meada take on George Steele about a year after this, so interesting to see him here against another crazed opponent, albeit a much better wrestler. Khan really gets to go through the gears here, which is something I love to see a heel do -- basically he runs through pretty much every move in his repertoire but can't put Maeda away and gets more and more exasperated. I was talking about compelling narratives, this one is always an entertaining one. Sometimes the old ways are the best. I got nothing from Maeda to be honest, he was bland. Gritty but bland. But Khan gave a perfectly acceptable performance here. Good for what it was. *** New Japan 4.10 Hulk Hogan vs. Antonio Inoki (IWGP League Final) (6/2/83) Quite the all-star matchup here and talk about a big atmosphere. As this starts, I can tell this is going to be an Inoki match rather than a Hogan match which is probably bad news because it entails lying on the mat for god knows how long. Still, it's interesting to see Hogan work a match like this. He's a guy you'd associate more with being in the hold than working a hold himself. The crowd is absolutely mental, which helps emphasise the importance of the attritional exchanges. This gets bogged down in far too much Inoki boringness for me. I mean you've got that huge and hot crowd, you've got Hulk fucking Hogan there and, yeah, let's sit in a leglock for twenty fucking minutes. Couldn't hate him more. Hogan does do his best to generate interest out of this, but it is sapped by that void of excitement that is Inoki. Hogan does some great character stuff towards the end, milking the near falls, showing shock to the crowd, and generally doing stuff to engage us. Inoki, on the other hand, seems to have zero interest in doing anything but lay there. Probably my least favourite worker in terms of the positions he was in and the performances he gave. Eventually Hogan hits a suplex and drops the big leg. But this isn't WWF in 1986 so Inoki kicks out, and then hits a drop kick. Back in for a back suplex by Hogan. Dumps Inoki and plays King of the Mountain -- he learned that from Nick Bockwinkel. Crowd is white white white hot. And it's a count out as Inoki seems to be cold knocked out from the fall. Young boys and paramedics attend to him. I'd take Hogan over Inoki any day of the week and twice on Sundays, and a match like this ably demonstrates why. Big-chinned twat. Pretty good performance from Hogan and he made it a watchable match despite the aforementioned boring bastard. Genuinely hope he never gets up from the KO. Even watching him get treatment for the concussion is boring, the post-match angle goes on forever, like legit twenty minute of Inoki out cold. His performance in this match was far far below the magnitude of the occasion. This must have put Hogan over HUGE in Japan. **1/2 New Japan 4.11 Dick Murdoch vs. Abdullah the Butcher (7/7/83) I've probably seen enough Abby to last me a lifetime, but at least we know what we're going to get from him, so the microscope will be on what Murdoch can make out of that here. Here's my all-purpose Abby diagram in case you missed it: Murdoch is bleeding soon enough. There is a legitimate holy shit moment where Murdoch goes for a brainbuster and Abby's head slips from his arm as it is about to hit the mat. Wow, could have been a dead Abby there. One for the botchemania reels. After watching so many Terry Funk vs. Abby matches, I felt this was disappointing and lacked the energy and sense of danger that a lot of their encounters have as par-for-the-course. Also less bloody and exciting than those matches. Dory has a couple of singles matches with him that are better than this too. I was expecting this to be better than it was. Putting it on Murdoch. ** New Japan 4.12 Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (7/7/83) Fujinami comes out fighting here, and is clearly the aggressor going into the match, which makes sense given how the last one ended. He controls for portions with the figure four, which is a neat parallel to the last match where Choshu controlled with the scorpion. Fujinami targets the left leg, but I thought there was a great sense of Choshu working hard to counter and cut off momentum here. Maybe it is more compelling for whatever reason, when Fujinami is the guy leading the action and Choshu is selling / reacting. Certainly it has been that was for me so far when compared with 4/21. Choshu gives more moments of explodion when countering. As I say that Choshu takes over and works a very boring hammerlockto a very boring headscissors as if to demonstrate the point. Fujinami tries to come back with a surf board,b up Choshu shows a lot of urgency in fighting to get away from that. I do think he's better reacting to rather than controlling the action. Several nice Greg Valentine-ish elbow drops from him now. Into a headlock. Fujinami back with a dropkick, but Choshu drops him with a lariat which gives him an in for the scorpion. I liked how quickly he went for that scorpion after the lariat, it had a hint of desperation around it, and got over the opportunism of it all. Fujinami manages to get off a superplex as part of a comeback but Choshu levels him with a back suplex. But then Fujinami comes back with his own lariat and applies the scorpion himself, crowd lifts the actual roof off. Nice symmetry to that whole sequence with Fujinami not only putting on Choshu's move but also hitting the set up we'd just seen from him. Bell goes and a big old scrap breaks out with young boys and NJ guys fighting with an enraged Kimura raising Cain as Fujinami won't let go of the scorpion as if he were Bret Hart in the mid-90s. This was easily my favourite match between these two. Twenty minutes, great storytelling, not too much time on the mat, and what they did do on there was mainly driving a central narrative, good action, good heat, and a very cool finish that would sadly lead to endless iterations of Chris Benoit doing ankle locks on Kurt Angle or Kurt Angle doing crippler cross faces on Chris Benoit years down the line. But here, it didn't feel at all contrived and was great pay pack for what we saw in 4/21, very cool. I don't know which of their matches is most famous, but I feel it should probably be this one. ****1/2

Parv, Kelly and Johnny make a rare Titans foray into 1985 for this entertaining Boston card.

In fairness, I'm usually pretty calm and chilled on shows. This one being the big exception, I guess.