Jetlag
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Jaguar Yokota vs. Jackie Sato, 12/16/1980 The rush of great Jaguar Yokota matches continues. This was frickin AWESOME. It was kind of a preliminary to the later, bigger Sato/Yokota title match and mainly served the purpose of building up Jaguar, but for a match that is essentially typical half baked young wrestler gets first taste against the star this is really outstanding. Jaguar was absolutely ferocious. Picture Hashimoto, except lighter, faster, girlier, and replace the brutal kicks with brutal matwork. The wrestling was as tight and on point, while still keeping a graceful note, but the struggle and fighting and wild-eyed determination from Jaguar is what pushes it over the top. People talk about Jaguar having ahead-of-her-time offense, but fuck that talking point. She didn't need any of it. The basic spots, such as boston crabs, body scissors or small package holds were made into holy shit spots here. I mean seriously the technique is flawless, but the timing and defensive use of the moves is stunning. Some might argue that structurally the match was messy and had the kind of meandering spots typical of young wrestlers in big matches, but the focus of the match was Jaguar Yokota sticking it to Jackie Sato with a vengeance and that was present at all times. Sato was somewhat reserved, but a great foil for Jaguar's fury and added a few slick moves to the match. Also, there is some arm work that gets paid off nicely, and the repeated leg attack stuff from Jaguar gets played up later in the match, building to an incredible last 5 minutes.
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[2008-08-17-IWA-MS-We Are Family] Necro Butcher vs 2 Cold Scorpio
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in August 2008
This was a fun match with these two doing their thing. Scorp gets the better of Necro doing wrestling early on, but the action spills to the outside and awesome reckless punch exchanges ensue. Then you get Necro working over Scorpio's kidney. Scorp has insanely sharp offense and really good selling. Strangely, when Necro was in control, the match felt more like a wrestling match than a crazy spectacle. He even busted out a convoluted Pumphandle move. The highlights were clearly the punches and Scorpio kicking the dogshit out of Necro. Good match otherwise. -
This was a damn good lightweight contest. If you like luchariffic freaked out grappling, awesome scarecrow spots and struggling in weird positions give this a shot. Boscik, like you expect a hungarian grappler named Zoltan to be is a tricky fox. Really loved his weird twisting of his body to shift the momentum when on the mat. Also, Cortez can do strength spots like a mini Cesaro, giving this a dimension beyond "grappler vs. grappler". Gets more aggressive from the 3rd round onwards, including some nasty strangleholds + great selling, awesome struggle over an octopus hold etc. Finish felt a little rushed, but that's a minor complaint.
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This was a quality wrestling match between two highly athletic heavyweights. There was no real hook or storyline to the match, so some might call it a dry technical bout, but there were enough nifty touches for me to enjoy it. Highlights include a dueling chickenwing battle, Veidor looking his arms in quirky fashion to prevent Moser from throwing him, and a few good submission and pin attempts. My favourite bit was a Moser armlock that nearly popped Veidor's wrist. Good match.
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This is interesting just because it's footage of Wright and Wanz from the mid 70s baby! The match wasn't much, because the japanese guys treated the europeans like nothing special at all. The match starts with the japanese guys working chinlocks on Otto which is not really what you want. Wanz and Wright tried to work as a heel team, double teaming the natives, but their attempts were thwarted. Wright didn't do any matwork or flashy stuff here, but you could tell from the way he moved and executed basic moves like a takedown that he was the real deal. Another interestig thing was Wanz throwing punch combos. He would bully his opponent into the ropes or corner, and then attack with shoulder blocks and fast punches, almost like a proto-Vader. Otto was a pretty good boxer before his wrestling days and still mobile at this point so he could throw some nice punches. A pity that none of this amounted to much of a match, but still cool to see the europeans in such unusual roles. Hopefully more of their 70s japan stuff can be unearthed.
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William Regal approves of this match! Intense as hell grappling match here and very unique match not just for World of Sport. After some light exchanges early on Trood catches Thomson in a headscissor which locks in around Clay's throat, causing Thomson to cough and wheeze as if he was dying. Thomson is badly injured, but quickly works his way back into the match and comes back going after Trood's bandaged leg with a vengeance, almost making this match a quasi-heelturn for the normally friendly technician vet. The holds and reversals here won't blow your mind but the selling and oozing intensity are off the charts. Great brutal fight with some smart touches.
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Johnny Czeslaw was a baldheaded polish toughguy who looked like a roman senator and survived a russian concentration camp as a boy, but seemingly enjoyed doing light hearted comedic technical wrestling a lot. Kellett is one of those 1 in 1000 characters that you have to see once in your life. This is easily the greatest comedy match ever. Even with all the jest going on here, they keep it highly competitive and do all these great moves and holds, especially Czeslaw who is such a wrestling master. Les Kellett, for a crusty old charlatan, wasn't afraid to take reckless bumps. The facial expressions, timing and body language on display here were incomparable. The jokes had an almost silent film like quality to it, and they never exposed the business. This match was funny, fascinating and impossibly british all at once.
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Ishikawa and Nagai had a match that year that was a pretty decent carryjob. Better than the Ikeda match IIRC. I remember this match being pretty fun but not blowaway. It was also one of the last Ikeda had in the company.
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This was a pretty rocking match. Tony Charles against the bigger Steve Veidor. It was a friendly old face vs. face match, but with a nice competitive edge and focus. Structurally the bout wasn't anything grand, but the match had a great pace, as they worked rock solid technical holds, building up, then doing an explosion and calming down again, all really stylish. Charles especially is a guy who has a real knack for doing nifty simple stuff without getting overly esoteric. Also, there are some damn great rope running exchanges here, building to some hot nearfalls.
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There were some fun, slick wrestling exchanges early on here. Nothing mindblowing but just nice entertaining stuff coming from a young guy wrestler like Barrie. You can forget about that though because the real money in this match was Cooper knocking the hell out of Barrie. Wily veteran against bland younger wrestler is a classic pro wrestling staple and this was really fun and well done. Fast paced the whole time and they get tremendous heat.The highlight was Cooper kicking Barrie while having him in a Boston Crab.
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This is just an excellent match which had both great wrestling and nice boiling hatred surges. You know it's gonna be good when a basic headscissor is reversed into a stretch muffler in the early going. The grappling was trippy and wonderful, like the greatest Negro Navarro vs. Black Terry match we never saw, and the match tells a nice story: the first two falls end in flash pins, setting up a cautious yet intense final round. Szakacs is like the most graceful wrestler ever, and Fallon looked pretty great too, totally up there as a maestro. He just went after Szakacs like a pitbull. However Fallon played a subtle and then not so subtle heel, adding more piss and vinegar to the bout, but they always went back to the mat. Szakacs uses a throat chop as finisher that KO's his opponent, and they do some really cool, unique stuff around Szakac trying to set it up and Fallon blocking it. The last round with Szakac uppercutting Fallon right in the jaw and then chopping him in the face was especially tense. Great unique match despite it being another match that feels like a teaser.
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[1977-06-11-AJPW] Harley Race vs Jumbo Tsuruta
Jetlag replied to Superstar Sleeze's topic in June 1977
This was a fun 70s style bomb throwing war. If you are phobic of matwork, this should be your match. Not the most mindful match, though. For example, Jumbo goes with his shoulder into the ringpost, which Race follows up with a leg submission. Race tries to do some legwork in the 3rd fall but Jumbo just no-sells his way back on offense. Race has a really great falling headbutt and kneedrops and it was alot of fun watching him try to explode Jumbo's head. This match didn't have anything clever or overly artful to it like some 70s classics and proves the limitations of both guys, but still built nicely and kept the crowd hot and pleased for Jumbo to take the title. -
I actually know a crazy guy who claims this match is the best that AJPW ran in the 70s. It is a pretty fun gory little spectacle. Ohki lands a series of headbutts on Abdullah, using his skull as a battering ram, including ramming Abby in the back and the side of the neck. Abdullah gets big bloody and has some crazy selling, but spills the match to the outside and chaos ensues. Unlike other japanese garbage brawls they actually fight while wandering in the crowd. JJ Dillon is narrating match and points out that while there is no winner, the match is a reminder that Abdullah brings chaos and madness wherever he goes.
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We only get the last couple minutes of what looks like a really good match that plays off of previous matches, starting with two move that ended previous matches in a flash. Common, this is for the belts! How can you JIP this? Gordy really lays into Hansen with some shots. Hansen selling and working underneath here was really great. Loved his desperation rollup and the sick collapsing spot where he gets squished underneath Gordy. Plus, Hansen nearly takes Gordy's head off with the lariat.
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The best part of this match was the opening where they get into eachothers face and slap eachother like a pair of angry schoolgirls. The rest of the match wasn't much. Kobashi gets in some surprising moves against Doc and Doc chucks him around a bit in return. I can't really get into early Kobashi with his pasted together random moveset, and Doc, while a wrestler who' built like a dishwasher with a good moveset and ability to get aggressive, can be pretty dull. Not much to see here unless you wanna familiarize yourself with the rankings in the company at the time.
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This is such a neat match. Regal is right when he's telling young wrestlers to aim for the technical standard of Terry Rudge matches: the holds in this bout were simple, but executed in tight and clinical fashion, and the focus on competiveness is awesome. It's almost all holds above the waist so it's like a greco roman style pro wrestling match, which is double cool. Rudge was not the shaven headed asskicker yet but looked like the real deal, and this is the most impressive I've seen Thornton look. There were some great forearm smashes in this match too, and I loved how Rudge sold them yanking his head back as if he was about to get decapitated.
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Misawa was so fascinating to watch here. Athletic and graceful like Super Astro, but equipped with razor sharp strikes. Jumbo was really great getting Misawa over here. He just ate one dive after another, sold his elbows like death and stooged for his spots like a seasoned rudo. However, Jumbo's eventual comeback was little lacking: Misawa had totally one-upped him in the opening and then to add insult to injury slapped him like a bitch, so he was in need of a real assbeating, but Jumbo just went his usual route. Maybe that was part of the story, that Jumbo didn't have the fire or inventiveness to put Misawa in his place that night, and in a way the somewhat dry routine middle portion adds to the match as it feels like a necessary testing for Misawa. When Jumbo went for the 2nd rope kneedrop the match started getting really good and gained a unique flair that was befitting for a build to a legendary moment. Some sequences here, such as the desperation elbow that knocks Jumbo outside or that fucking dropkick into the ropes felt really magic, and outlining Jumbo's defeat. The criticism for the match is deserved, but acknowledging all that there is still a strong match here.
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Fairly generic bomb throwing contest. It is fun to watch these two big dudes clansh into eachother, but it was a fairly uneventful affair overall.
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This was really fun big guys clobbering the hell out of eachother type match. Williams is solid but not super compelling when in control of a match here, but he had some nice moments of aggression and knew to go at Hansen with everything he had, leading to some really good telephone booth fighting. Hansen did his usual great selling performance and making these desperate comebacks. However, the match went about 5 minutes too long, considering the story was that Williams was this tough new badass who would push Hansen to the limit. In a way this feels right inbetween 80s and 90s AJPW. There's blood and it's just a big brawl, but the match is kind of clinical and there are no countouts anymore, and the feeling of wild and out of control isn't as present as it was before.
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Semi Finals Michiko Ohmukai vs. Mikiko Futagami (8/22) This was a cool match. Ohmukai's always no-selling her way back on offense, so hard to call it more than that. There were still a lot of neat touches and these are two wrestlers with very good offense. They also did a bit of matwork which was nice to see again and played off previous tournament finishes. Mima Shimoda vs. Aja Kong (8/22) This was a bog standard Aja match with Shimoda adding nothing. Shimoda has to be one of the vocally most annoying wrestlers, as she does this constant wailing in her raspy voice. Finals of the Tournament (8/22) Michiko Ohmukai vs. Mima Shimoda (8/22) Battle of the beauty queens. This was horrible. Just mindless bombthrowing. Not even the punches to the face could salvage this mess. Mima at this point was wheezing like a throat cancer patient. This was by far the worst tournament ARSION has done so far.
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This is (I believe) one of 3 Adrian Street singles matches from WoS that we have at the moment and a total super classic. Not only do you get that special sort of great british grappling, but also a great match story with a ton of aggression and pissed off-ness. Adrian Street was not as bizarre as later on, but already a surely, vivacious exotico. He starts the match prancing around and trying to get a rise out of Breaks. After Jim gets fed up with the antics he just tries to snap Adrian's wrist. Street gets a serious chip on his shoulder, drops the antics and goes after Breaks like a demon. Since they are both heels (getting mixed reactions in this match), there is nothing off limits for them and they just try to fuck eachother up the whole match. The grappling in the match was fucking great. It was not fancy or pretty (despite the nature of Street), just a brutal amateur style scrap. Both guys are really great at making simple moves look painful, and were utterly vicious. I especially loved all of Street's headlocks including an almost D'Arce choke like neck chancery, and how he would just yank at Breaks' chin or fishhook him when he tried a move. When Breaks goes for his trademark armlocks you can see his fingers clawing into Street's arm, and he shows some spectacular variations. Despite the rough nature of the bout, there were also a handful of swift go-behind or takedown wrestling moves, all done very neatly. Just great wrestling. Then you also get these great Street comebacks to get that weasel Breaks. Attacking his face by shoving his fist into it, bashing the nose with the forearm and just plain stomping on Breaks face aswell as his aggressive armwork were all great. Breaks was a total fucker including handing his irate opponent a towel in really condescending fashion and Street is almost like a 50% babyface with how he sells and he gets some nice reactions accordingly. By the end Street looks like a beaten dog, his pretty hair in a mess, and he just starts prancing again and that last desperation assault. Great great stuff, absolutely at the top of the list of great WoS matches and a serious MOTDC. The best exotico performance ever, technically brilliant and snug like a shootstyle match and heated and violent like a top flight US grudge match.The weirdest thing is that it goes 25 minutes and still feels like it ended early. Never slowed down and kept the tension up while still leaving plenty on the table for a rematch.
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JIP into the 2nd round. This was one of those friendly WoS bouts where it's all holds and grappling and we get 6 rounds of tricked out matwork. For those of you who don't know, Ken Joyce was this british maestro who wrestled like a british Solar. He had all these awesome crazy holds. Also, Grey was the world champion of his weight class here, but taking on a larger man, which plays into the match. At one point, Joyce was whipping the smaller Grey across the ring like he weighted 20 points. Grey fought hard as he usually does and had some really impressive escapes where he contorted his body. Also, the match had one of the best surfboard spots I've ever seen. It was like something from a Negro Casas/Blue Panther match except better. Great bout.
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Peter Szakacs is the brother of Tibor. He is not as charismatic, but on the mat he was fast and graceful like a panther. Baron is one of the more freaky WoS workers and this a terrific contest full of wonderful and outlandish matwork. Great moments include awesome body scissor work, Szakacs countering a roll up by just dropping on Baron's legs in really painful fashion, and some really dreamy luchaesque pin attempts. It almost resembled carny BJJ (which is how I fantasy booked brazilian wrestling in my mind to be). The bout also got a wee bit temperamental towards the end and then Peter busts out this nasty Volk Han-like choke hold. Great great match, may have the best matwork in a 70s WoS match I've seen.
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This is for the vacant CWA Intercontinental title. A fancam from germany where the crowd is hot for Fujinami as the babyface. Really awesome savage massacre. Vader was just obliterating Fujinami, like only Vader can, just trying to bash his skull in for the entire duration of the match, but eventually Vader ends up with a bloody eye and Fujinami gives it back to him, punching and chopping the cut, including a big leaping forearm smash right to Vader's eye. Vader is great as a wounded monster who can come back and crush his opponent anytime, and they work a nice finishing run where Fujinami looks really great, landing a GAEA Girls missile dropkick on Vader and catching him in believable fashion while remaining an underdog. This went 20+ minutes with no rounds and really could have been worked the exact same anywhere else in the world and would have worked. Best 90s Fujinami match I've seen and maybe the best Vader has had in Germany, depending on how much you like Otto Wanz.
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Formative match that does a great job setting up what's to come. Kobashi gets clobbered, Jumbo and pals are mean bastards who will make fools out of themselves, Taue shows off all his fun sumo spots, and Misawa gets to look like the coolest dude on the planet. Watching Misawa transform from a solid junior into this badass super athlete that just cleans house and sets everything on fire with his sheer ability is amazing. Jumbo can't be praised enough for his selflessness as he is constantly feeding and just taking every chance to get elbowed in the face. The intense Jumbo/Misawa scuffles were off the charts and the kind of stuff that is sorely missing from current wrestling.