Jetlag

No love for BattlARTS in 2008? Or 2010 Futen?

If it weren't for a few minor nitpicks, this match would head straight into GOAT territory. Hell, even with the nitpicks, this might be the GOAT as far as a certain vision of wrestling is concerned. The 1985 match was a tribute to the old style with an underdog story, here, they set out to wrestle straight into olymp with modernized high end grappling contest built around the traditional holds. At no point did they go through the motions; at no point (atleast in the first 30 minutes) did they make it obvious that they were going to go the full 60 minutes. Every sequence was worked in such a way that it could plausibly lead to a finish, which is exactly why they had the crowd by the balls the whole time. The holds they used were grinding and tight as it gets, and the suplexes were used in awesome ways. Too many great sequences to list them all, but Fujinami getting fired up when slapped only to get punched in the face and be nearly KO'd and put away may be the best I've ever seen. To be fair, some of Fujinami's transitions were poor, and Inoki may have looked better than him. Inoki looked like a world class grappler (check out that smooth armbreaker/suplex transition) and his selling was pretty cool – he seemed invincible, but was limping, going for desperation moves and clearly spent by the last few minutes. That was fascinating to watch for sure. They lose direction a little and run out of ideas by the last third, but they stuck to what works for them. It could have been better, but that's not a huge knock on what already was cemented as one of the greatest wrestling contests ever anyways. The #2 guy vs. #1 guy story was there too, but for me not as important as the grappling here.

This was a pure 70s grappling epic with an absolutely molten last 10 minutes or so. The grappling here wasn't intricate or anything, but they worked an ultra tight contest and did a good job bringing the intensity up and down. Most importantly, the match never felt slow or dry, so I'll take this over your Dory Funk Jr snoozefest. Inoki is very dominant early on, running through his holds including a great briding indian deathlock, but then Fujinami slaps him like a bitch and finally starts bringing the fight. I especially liked the sequence where Inoki teases the Butterfly Suplex and goes for a fireman carry. He didn't even hit that butterfly suplex later! Inoki's defensiveness ends up backfiring on him and Fujinami puts him in a Figure 4. The Figure 4 segment eats up a good chunk of thise 35 minuteish match so better have a good book ready. I didn't have a problem with it though because the payoff was strong and Inoki's selling was right on the money. Seeing Fujinami pushing the mythical Inoki to the limit was spectacular and the crowd was surface of the sun level hot for the possible dethroning. The finish was inevitable but atleast we get a massive pop for Fujinami powering out of the Octopus Hold. This went over half an hour with barely a bump in it but it was still totally spectacular pro wrestling.

Man, I love this matchup. Young Punk Choshu was the best. You can say what you want about Inoki, but he was great at portraying himself as an untouchable badass. You look at some of the stuff Inoki does here and it's no wonder people thought he was a genius. He also always has these crazy facial expressions. I think the first 15 minutes or so of this didn't even have a bump but still ended up mesmerizing pro wrestling. This was worked like a technical battle of megastars so that was really cool. Both guys struggled hard and every movement could possibly lead to a finish which is exactly what you want from a match with really high stakes. Choshu was aggressive and really putting Inoki through the wringer, not just when he throw punches and stomps, but also in his grappling, butting heads when looking up and uncorking a super tight front headlock roll. Inoki came across as calm and cool headed so exactly the perfect counterpart to Choshu's rage. His selling was really strong too, at the beginning of the match he was dominating on the ground, but after Choshu really put the torque on him with the Scorpion Deathlock he was limping and stalling. Seeing the cool headed Inoki getting into desperation mode when Choshu tried the move again was great too. A limping Inoki punching Choshu in the face from the knees was epic and so was Choshu trying to bulldoze the legend with lariats and suplexes. I think if they had continued in that vein the match would've cruised into my all time top 10-20, but instead they slowed down again and went back to the holds. It was still really strong work and they delivered a great, clean finish. For a clash of the titans type match in front of a super hot 80s crowd that was mostly built around matwork this pretty much delivered all you can ask for.

I like this list a lot. I will have fun going through it and tracking down all the matches. However, there seem to be many matches which don't seem to be available on video, so that's a little sad. Kudos to you for having seen all this stuff. One thing about this list is that it's fresh for sure. I had no idea I wanted to see a 30 minute Norio Honaga vs. Perro Aguayo match until. No idea who Hiroaki Hatanaka was either. Is NOW worth checking out?

I gotta bring this thread back up again cause I've subscribed to the NJPW network and naturally, I've been watching a lot of Inoki matches for the past few weeks. So people have said that Inoki is boring and they can't understand why he was such a big star. To me, this is utterly mystifying. More often than not, he knew exactly how to get his audience by the balls and build heat. He also understood how to keep his matches unpredictable, especially post his match series against martial artists. Most importantly, Inoki was badass. Once in a while, he would look like the baddest dude on the planet by snapping someone's arm or knocking someone out with stomps and punches. He really knew how to punch someone in the face when it counted. In the 80s, there were times when he would look like a master grappler with crazy transitions. Some matches: - the 8/8/88 match against Fujinami is, for my money, the greatest 1 hour draw in history and honestly Inoki looks better than Fujinami there. The 85 match is great too but the 8888 match has amazing style - the whole series vs. Choshu. I am mystified the 84 singles match didn't make it on the DVDVR set because it's crazy good, low end MOTDC. - underrated matches in the 1970s against Strong Kobayashi and Kintaro Oki, two workers who as far as I can see did not have matches on that level against anyone else - figured out how to get watchable, genuinely exciting matches out of guys such as Rusher Kimura or Tiger Jeet Singh - the 1978 match against Roland Bock in Stuttgart, which is an uncooperative, hideous mess and somehow, great Inoki sucking is a bit of a myth, I think. Not saying he was a superworker, all the time, but he could certainly turn it up and look world class especially in that 80s stuff where he would work as untouchable wrestling god getting taken down a notch by his tenacious opponents. He may be the ultimate spectacle worker in a way, given that he got more out of his proto MMA voodoo bullshit than anyone else did out of their own shock acts. I do regret leaving him off my GWE Top 100.

This starts out hot with Inoki going to town on Singh by punching him in the face repeatedly. Of course they settle down do some matwork, but Singh looks shockingly competent here: actually wrestling Inoki, and using cheating tactics to keep the advantage. When Inoki grabs a basic wristlock, he really tortures Singh, who does a mindblowingly good job selling as he was walking around with a limp arm for minutes afterwards and wincing when Inoki reached for it again. He actually reminded me a bit of a Mick McManus/Jim Breaks type with his mix of fun highly exaggerated selling and cheating tactics. Inoki selling a Singh choke by drooling all nastily was a good way to establish Singh as dangerous again. The finishing run was extremely basic but fun. I especially liked them struggling over a suplex. Singh attacks Inoki with an umbrella and threatens to bring his spike into play, so Inoki starts throwing punches again. No finish because they had more matches to come. Shockingly fine match.

Inoki faces the ogre known as Strong Kobayashi again, who now has a creepy mustache too. Inoki was pretty much a bully in the last match, and he's acting outright heelish again. He throws the first punch, cheapshots constantly, goes for the eyes and some pretty nasty chokes and keeps taunting Kobayashi, who is really fired up. There is some really fun grappling again and the crowd really gets into Kobayashi as the face, implausible as it may be. The second half loses direction a little as Kobayashi was working Inoki's back and just... stops doing it. He liked to go for restholds too. The match gets hot again when Inoki bloodies Kobayashi and he fires up big time, going after Inoki with suitably troll-like punches and headbutts, only to be met with that devastating straight punch again. Another fun match in the Inoki resume altough the biggest problem was that you couldn't really buy Kobayashi as having a chance especially after he abandoned his back work strategy. You blew this one by yourself, Shozo.

For NintendoLogic The Amazing Red & The S.A.T vs. Brian XL & Devine Storm (CZW 6/8/2001)

It's still on Ditch's site.

Well, this was one old school epic you don't need to see. The opening grappling is a lot of fun with Dory working reverse Toe hold variations. Not a hold you can do a ton with but they find a few cool ways in and out of it. After a while Dory stops working the leg and starts working the arm a bit. Some blatant cheating from Dory's seconds going on too. Dory wrenching the fingers was interesting, but he just couldn't decide what to do that night. Couldn't decide if he wanted to work the arm or leg, couldn't decide if he wanted to work holds or brawl, if he wanted to wrestle clean or get heat. At one point Dory hits a really nice back suplex and doesn't even go for a cover. Another point Inoki is firing up and hitting big dropkicks but Dory cuts him off quickly. Later hits some dropkicks of his own. What were you thinking, Dory Funk Jr.? You can shit on Inoki for not theatratically selling the leg and arm work but atleast Inoki's facial expressions and body language told some kind of progression in the match. With Dory you have no idea if you are 55 minutes or 15 minutes into a match. I was yelling to just put on the Spinning Toe Hold when he started some opening match legwork in the last 10 minutes. This match was quite the mixed bag indeed. After the pretty drab 2nd third they move into some good nearfalls and I was popping for Inoki's surprise moves (Suplex, Airplane Spin outta nowhere) just cause I wanted him to end the damn match. Inoki can fire up the pace good and it's not rocket science to have a good match with him, but once again I ended up largely irritated with the Doryisms here.

If someone offered me a 20 disc flair comp vs. 20 disc Poison Sawada comp I'd take the Sawada in a heartbeat. Japanese indy sleaze is underrated... plus, if you can make a career out of a poison gimmick, including getting turned into a statue, you are in every way a qualified pro wrestling genius. What did Michael Kovac do to earn your respect? Is it from his matches in BattlARTS? Also, what do you think of Hidetaka Aso?

Thanks. Haven't watched any russian pro wrestling in quite some time and it's still as bad as always.

Russia has produced many great athletes and martial artists. You'd expect even a russian backyard fed to have atleast one guy with some legit ability, but nope. This was dorky indy wrestling done by half professionals. Lotsa super kicks and "drop you headfirst on my knee" moves. None of these guys is in shape or able to execute a good looking move. The girls are cute and ability wise about on the same level as their male peers, I think if you shipped them to japan and let them work a joshi fed for 6 months they would be above average female workers. The fat guy with face paint was hilarious. I pretty much agree with the criticism above that there was no real flow to the match. There was something resembling a heat segment on Yuliana but after that it was all random move combos. I think in the whole match there were 2 good looking moves, one a corner dropkick from one of the girls and a flippy legdrop from the guy in the bandana. Pretty horrible stuff but atleast it was long.

Here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1nwwgy http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1nwwap

Pretty simple match. Tiger comes in with his goofy rapier and is ambushed by an overzealous Inoki throwing wild punches. Jeet produces forth a foreign object and stabs the fuck out of Inoki and from then it's Singh procuring every dirty tactic in the book to work over Inoki. Choking, hits to the throat, bashing his into turnbuckle post, tables and chairs, and then some more chairs... Inoki quickly comes up bloody and there seems to be a DQ of some sort but the match is restarted (or 2/3 falls?) and Singh continues the beating. Inoki finally makes a pretty cool comeback by ramming into Singh like a bull. After some good payback using the steel posts again Jeet is bloodied aswell and Inoki finishes him off by snapping his arm, forcing the ref stop. This match had good pace but at over 20 minutes it was far too long. You can argue whether Singh's tactics were effective heel work or lazy garbage brawling... if the later, atleast give him credit for being the patron saint of the art form. Inoki ate an epic beatdown and gave gruesome comeuppance, so the match did everything right in that regard.

This was another cool match altough way closer to your typical 70s match. The opening was pretty hot with Sakaguchi taking the fight to the outside to bash Inoki's head in and then landing a big press slam and atomic drop soon after. They move into a more technical bout and it's pretty much akin to something you'd see in WoS or AJPW. Lots of hold/counterhold stuff, monky flip sequences, Inoki working 4 or 5 Indian Deathlock variations etc.. Nothing mindblowing but they looked good working this style and the 30 minutes flew by.

I tried watching this match but it still says it's not complete even a week later. Sorry.

Kino opening here as Oki is busy with his coat (is that a damn mushroom cloud on his back?) and won't shake Inoki's hand, so Inoki floors him with a huge punch. Oki is down, covering his face and officials are swarming on Inoki. This match is ultra heated and really feels like a protoype for the kind of spectacles NJPW would run later on: there are no long headlocks or brainy 70s style hold exchanges here, they just go for broke. They lock up and immediately move into suplex and submission attempts. This is all really gritty hard fought stuff – when Inoki hits a suplex, he goes for another, but Oki reverses with all his might, then a mat scramble ensues with Oki breaking out of Inoki's grip. At one point Inoki just grounds Oki and grinds on his face with his forearm. Finally, Oki has had it and starts using his head as a battering ram and just wastes Inoki. Inoki is bloodied and beaten down and the crowd is roaring. When Inoki lands that punch you really feel why he is who he is. OJ compared this to a prehistoric Ishikawa/Ikeda match and that comparison is right on the money.

Some really great, hard fought action in this contest. Brisco's style is much more urgent than that of his peers, as he's always pushing the action and will put much more emphasis on selling holds. Really dug the quasi-amateur style matwork in the opening of this. Some great indian deathlock work from Inoki. In the following, there was lots of top notch scrambling to avoid specific moves and Brisco using his fists to punch his way out of a predicament a few times. I like Inoki, but his decision to randomly go into a short arm scissor in the middle of the 2nd fall was a little boneheaded. Thankfully Brisco did as much as he could to make that move interesting and the rest of the 2nd fall was strong. I thought the 3rd fall could've delivered something bigger even though Brisco's selling was world class. You see the „champ sells his butt off to signify match may be about over“ trope so much you actually end up surprised when it really signifies the end.

I've seen footage of Günther Wagner from the 80s, and he was already laughably bad then. Truely a legendary awful worker. German wrestling was way in the shitter by this point though. I dunno, I'd totally go check out a bunch of brothel owners grappling it out. I wonder if the videos he taked about in that interview still exist?

This was one of the more "experimental" WoS bouts with all kinds of weird positions and transitions that you don't see in any other match and a story largely about Boscik trying different ways to break Baron's neck bridge. I'd like to see how this kind of bout would go over in today's pro wrestling. It was basically carny jiu jitsu to the max and a little bit ballet here or there. Boscik is much shorter and some of they stuff they did had the feel of a big rudo vs. mini exchange in a lucha match. Not the most heated match but I dug all the different pin attempts and there was one especially nice submission attempt on an Octopus Hold. Not everything needs to be fast paced and molten heated, sometimes deliberate and slow is cool. Top 3 spots: 1. Baron's spinning body scissor thing 2. Him bowling Boscik right out of the ring to counter a leg split and 3. Boscik getting his hand stuck under Baron's head.

If you've seen one McManus match you've pretty much seen them all, but don't let that stop you from watching him. McManus is an expert heel but more importantly an expert on how to build interesting matches around the same formula; that he never lost on TV for 20 years straight while still keeping it fresh speaks volumes about him. His clinical holds and violent jabs in this were pretty great. St. Clair is about as good as any other babyface would be in this situation, playing it pretty basic for the most part, altough he did have this cool flipping arm snap move that should be steal worthy to today's flip-loving indy wrestlers and McManus did this cool noodle arm sell in response. They work some believable near finishes (including a DQ tease that had the crowd by the balls) and a pretty nice eventual conclusion. Bread and butter stuff but it's a threat to watch McManus do his thing as even 45 years later his stuff hasn't aged a bit.

Strong Kobayashi, a rather troll-like looking wrestler (to put it mildly). Dude looked like a DNA experiment between Inoki and Baba. This was a rare early match between top natives and a hell of a fight. Basically Inoki bullies Kobayashi some and then gets his shit pushed in repeatedly. What a weird way to work a match against an outsider, but they did succeed in garnering tremendous heat. Inoki dominates the early going with a bunch of quasi-amateur holds which I dug a lot. He scored a really nice toe hold riding takedown and would constantly do leg rides and toe holds. After getting grinded for a while Kobayashi finally scored a simple arm roll which felt like a nice victory, but dickhead Inoki won't break clean in the ropes. Inoki keeps taunting and slapping Kobayashi between the holds and this is building tremendous intensity. Kobayashi is reacting to all this in really amusing exaggerated ways too. Finally, Kobayashi grabs a bear hug and just manhandles Inoki like a ragdoll. Inoki had pretty great facial expressions here, as he went from looking pained to annoyed to filled with contempt. Later on, when he had regained the upper hand he would look really smug and self satisfied. There was also a great moment where Inoki went for another back ride, only for Kobayashi to use his indicated by name strength to muscle up and reverse him into an awesome Cobra Twist of his own. Shozo smells blood and starts laying stiff clubbing blows to Inoki's neck, but as we learned from the Great Antonio's example Inoki does not take kindly to this and nearly KO's him with a huge punch in another awesome moment. Inoki is looking to finish this now with his grapevine moves but they end up on the outside and Kobayashi makes him eat a posting. Inoki is bleeding huge now and Kobayashi smells his chance going to town on him with punches. Really liked how a bloody Inoki would pop up with a smug grin after catching Shozo with a supex. Man what a spectacular match. Molten heat, cool grappling, blood, punches, neat story, it's all there. Thought both guys did a great job here. Also, gotta give them credit for working a pretty long match that still leaves plenty on the table. I'm surprised this isn't mentioned more often among the best of the 70s bouts, I found it highly captivating.

This was before Inoki started doing the „World's Greatest Martial Artist“ thing, so this was all JWA style old school grappling. Johnny Powers was kind of a poor man's Johnny Valentine, guy with a crazy stare who will drop elbows and knees on you. His holds and elbows and knees looked vicious especially when he was dropping elbows and knees on Inoki's throat. His googly eyed selling was pretty goofy and he also blew some highspots. I liked the opening 10 minutes of this a lot with Powers locking in a mean armlock and really chopping away at Inoki's arm and Inoki looking like a slick grappler countering with some super tight headscissors. The following 10 minutes Powers starts kicking ass altough the match gets a little restholdy here and there. Inoki is using more chops than punches here. The 2nd fall continues with both guys beating on eachother before Powers is able to lock in the Figure 4. He continues working over Inoki's leg in vicious fashion in the 3rd but hits his head on the rope when he tries for the Figure 4 again allowing Inoki an easy victory with the Octopus Stretch. This would have been pretty good were it not for the mentioned goofs.