Jetlag

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.

It's a wild, bloody Puerto Rican brawl; what's not to love? Miguelito looks so great here as the worlds most badass/hairiest Freddy Mercury. A guy with great punches, throwing lots of punches is probably the easiest match formula for a good match. He had some fucking crazy "fired up" selling too and I liked how he started bitch slapping his opponent as if he wanted more of a fight. Both guys get thrown over the announce table awkwardly, barfight style, and chairs thrown in their face while security guards anxiously watch for potential knife attackers. Castillo's transition to offense was a little weak but his offense looked plenty violent. I also liked his bloody 1000 yard stare. Some bullshit going on for the finish involving Carlos Colon and some other guy which actually ended up being cool aswell.

Damn, I didn't expect to like this so much. Any Fujinami big match is guaranteed to have a ton of wrestling, and there was a lot of that here, but there was also a ton of disdain right from the opening which has Chono spitting Fujinami in the face. Chono is far from a great matworker, but he was game here, busting out an awesome calf slicer and a flying clothesline that was like something Necro Butcher would do. He also wasn't afraid to get into stiff slap battles and I liked his headbutts and mafia kicks he would use to combat Fujinami's mat prowess. Fujinami on his side had one of the most brutal dropkicks I've ever seen and an epic dive. This was a very typical NJPW style match, there was no grand finishing run with a ton of big moves to be kicked out of or something, instead it was about avoiding the other guy's finisher when push came to shove. That and the fact both guys sold a ton of exhaustion made the second half of this pretty great. Little bit of a lucha title match influence here with some dramatic bumps for momentum shifts and that sick guardrail dive from Fujinami. Great stuff, glad that this was brought up as the 232nd best match of the 90s

The Thesz/Gotch team may be old school wrestling incarnated. You have Gotch, that gentleman european technician who is just a trip to watch, with his beautiful judo-esque throws, slick transitions and all kinds of funky moves, including a physics defying bridge. And then there's Thesz, who will cheap shot and stall incessantly and knee you in the face in the middle of a grappling exchange. Don't get me wrong, Thesz was gold here. In fact the whole match was gold. This was really long, but there was not a single dull moment. Just one cool exchange after another. Well, if you like grappling, that is. I really enjoyed Thesz' psychology as his strategy was basically about countering into a backdrop or Thesz press. He hits some great backdrops too. The whole match was built like, there would be hold exchanges, but occasionally one guy would attempt a move and then the other would try to counter into a potential finisher and then it was all about squirming out of that situation. And sometimes one guy would slap the other's shit too. That's how you keep a viewer on the edge of his seat. Well, it worked for me atleast. Also, Sakaguchi's reaction to Gotch lifting Inoki with one arm was priceless. I also really liked how he got fed up and almost choked Thesz out with a nasty front choke. The japanese team won't leave a huge impression on you but they are perfectly fine in their roles and the Thesz/Gotch duo was a delight to watch.

Probably the strangest and most wonderous grappling in a World of Sport match that there is. Not counting anything hypnosis related that may or may not have happened in certain Kendo Nagasaki matches. It's not just about the moves and escapes, but the sheer consequence this is wrestled with. Normally, in WoS you will see a lot of guys agreeing to a stalemate and giving up their position and holds. Here, that is reduced to a minimum and both guys are determined to wrestle to the limit. This leads to them pretzeling into and out of positions that would make Solar step back and say "Woah there" for a moment. They really explore the basic holds, like a toe hold and short arm scissor to the max. There's also lots of tripping the other guy in mid movement and struggle over escapes to make you appreciate the eventual succesful counters. The short arm scissor sequence seen here may be text book example of how to work a damn hold and escape sequence without much flash. Also, I dug the old lady giving advice.

3 rounds of high end slick WoS grappling. Thomson is a great guy, not only because he knows a million tricks, but because he always cranks up the intensity. It was a friendly, loosy goosy polite contest, but Thomson would constantly chuck Sarjeant to the mat really violently and try to force a submission. Sarjeant is like the british reverse-Volk Han and Thomson gave him plenty to work with. Too many great moves to name them all, but my favourite was probably Thomson's ultra fast arm takedown from the strangle hold, aswell as the proto-Omoplata escape. Also, him grabbing the chin and pushing his opponent further into the bridge is such an "oh shit" spot. I'll leave no comment on the finish.

This was pretty much a rehashed version of the match they had earlier in the year. Mostly Breaks torturing Saint and bumping and selling in hilarious exaggerated fashion and Saint looking impressive with some fast technical moves and great agility. Breaks is bitching about Saint the whole match but when attacks Saints nose he gets his own smashed and bloodied. Saint continues to attack the nose which in turn leads Breaks to start smashing his face into the canvas, bloodying Saint in return. There aren't many WoS matches where both guys bleed and the face bumps by Saint near the end were really intense. The finish wasn't clean but I thought it was really smart. You can never go wrong with Jimmy Breaks and him against Saint is some of his best work.

This is just a masterfully worked match between two wrestling masters. The early hold exchanges are textbook old school goodness - simple, tight, with both guys fighting in and out of them. At no point would one guy sit in a hold. Billy would put on a headlock, and the next thing was that Verne was pushing his knuckles into his face. Verne would get an armlock, and Billy would start maneuvering and shifting his weight. Because of Billy using his holds to set up impact moves and Gagne's dangerous sleeper hold, the hold for hold work never feels pointless. Billy is a wrestling machine, but Gagne looked really great too and at least as good. In the first fall, Billy would get the advantage in the grappling, so Gagne was forced to try and outsmart him. The shoulderblocks in this match were just awesome and Gagne's use of them so inspiring. Should also mention that Gagne's selling and bumping was worldclass. When he would get thrown into turnbuckles, he made it look like he was launched out of a car with his back to a steel post. The final shoulderblock bump looked like it would force a KO aswell. First two falls had brilliant finishes, each fall playing off the previous one, and the last fall had superb build with Robinson chasing his opponent down. That bearhug was one for the ages for sure. By the end of this the folks in the crowd are jumping up and down with excitement, smiling and going bonkers for ever false finish. Man I wish I had a bulk of matches from the 70s of Verne available.

Thanks. Your match is

I wrote up the Starr/Invader scaffold match. Good match, but it's def. not the kind of wrestling I love. Not to sound overly conservative, but it's a wrestling match. What the fuck is a scaffold doing there?

Scaffold Match. What a fucking stupid stipulation. Putting the utter absurdity of all things relating to two guys having a wrestling match on a scaffold aside (those being, how come anyone stay on the scaffold longer than 2 minutes when in a regular match dudes get bumped around the ring within seconds? how anyone who's halfway dangling off of a scaffold can hang on while another grown man is punching and kicking him? why didn't he just suplex him straight off of that thing? etc.) this was pretty good mostly due to Invader's excellent punches and the wobbly selling mentioned above. Chicky doesn't have punches as good or very interesting tactics but what do ya want, he was busy having a wrestling match while not falling to his death. Altough I gotta admit I do not take kindly to this kind of idiotic spectacle. Also, even while 30 feet in the air heels aren't safe from having trash flung at them, so that's great.

Match for dawho5: Tarzan Goto/Masashi Aoyagi/Azteca vs. Kai En Tai (Indy World 7/22/98) https://youtu.be/NbkZPy6JU8s