Jetlag

They end the debut show with a chaotic fast tag team match where everyone runs in and hits their stuff. Kind of pointless main event as the previous matches had done a good enough job to establish everyone, but I guess they had to work around having such a tiny roster to work with. Everyone has had matches before that evening so the execution wasn't at 100% anymore. Fukawa almost fell on her head doing an asai moonsault and then hit another reckless one inside the ring like a lunatic. Aja had solid interactions with everyone and I always get a kick out of watching Futagami work, but this wasn't much.

Michiko Ohmukai was this skinny girl with supermodel looks who worked like Daisuke Ikeda. I have no idea why she's not famous. She threw all those reckless kicks and impressive suplexes and was like a magic ingredient for matches that made everything crazier. Here she slaps Aja right at the bell and Aja just smirks at her and then Ohmukai starts dropping her with those 50 yards football kicks. Hell of an opening for a match. They get into a slugfest like this fucking BattlARTS or WAR and I am in love with this. Then they settle down a little with Aja dominating on the mat through size and Ohmukai trying to topple her. I think Aja was kind of mailing it in in Arsion which is such a disappointment but this match hit all the right spots and was really good stuff like it always is when Aja has someone to work with who brings the fight to her.

The first ARSION match. It is a very appropriate debut match. They mix the traditional joshi with lucharesu and tricked out submission work, and the whole thing has the flair of two overzealous young workers going all out to show the world especially with the bomb throwing at the end and Fukawa hitting those face-shattering moonsaults that nearly KO'd Candy. I give them a ton of credit because they really delivered a good match that sets the tone. They kept going back to the submissions and really had a hard fought battle to the very end that the crowd got into. Can't remember the last time I watched a „young workers showing the world“ match on this level. Side note, a Cagematch user mentioned that he went to a few ARSION shows and he felt that many guys there went for the pretty workers and the „product“ (apparently Arsion had lots of quality mags, posters etc. for sell) and not the wrestling, so Arsion matches had not as much heat as GAEA. It's not hard to see why especially with Okutsu wearing a ridiculous outfit that made her butt look gigantic but to their credit the wrestling was top notch and on the level of the presentation.

I meant in terms of skill-level. Well, I guess she can't do that twisty matwork as easily because she's tall and skinny, while Fukawa, Tamada etc. are tiny and compact. She also misses her kicks sometimes but I guess that's part of the charm. I've watched some IBUKI and Queen Bee (Lenny used to have all that stuff up... can someone reup? I remember a tag with Yabushita that looked especially interesting...) Ibuki doesn't have much footage and some of it is clipped. I mainly watched Yoshida stuff from Ibuki and it's all pretty good especially the interactions with Megumi Fuji. Anyways, back to ARSION! Semi-Finals of the ARS Tournament Rei Tamada vs. Candy Okutsu (5/5) This starts out great with Candy recklessly flying right into a Tamada dropkick. Then a weird thing happens when Okutsu tries a japanese leg roll pin and seems to dislocate Tamada's shoulder and she has to take a break. If that was intentional I'll have to give them points for creativity because I've never seen a simple rollup used in such a way. Tamada comes back and they take it to the mat and Okutsu is immediately going after her shoulder and Tamada fights back by going for the leg and this match is getting really really good now. They move back to standing and really smash into eachother, Tamada has a really great elbow smash and an awesome roaring elbow where she spins around really fast while keeping her elbow perfectly straight like a spinning top, while Candy just smashes her in the face with that forearm. Then Tamada starts busting out these missile dropkicks where she hits Candy right in the face. I guess it gets pretty joshi, where they forget the legwork and throw out a ton of moves, but it's hard to hate it when they do all these super neat standing exchanges, like Candy blocking a Dragon Suplex and eating an axe kick to the back of the head for it etc. I think joshi standing exchanges can be underrated and this was a good example of match with great ones. Match also ended just right. Another really good bout. Reggie Bennett vs. Mariko Yoshida (5/5) Reggie upset Aja in the 1st round, can she do it again against the submission queen? This match is totally perfect. They take it to the mat and Bennett just uses her weight advantage to squish Yoshida like a bug. Yoshida has to use all her skill and ride Bennett like a bull. I love this kind of stuff and Bennett could believably control on the mat and get in submissions which made things even better. Then Reggie starts busting out all these great power moves, just repeatedly crushing Yoshida who desperately tries to avoid and go for the submission. Great great stuff, absolutely one of the better skill vs. Power matches I can remember and I loved the final reversal. BONUS MATCH – This match is not on the Best Of comp but you can just watch it on Dailymotion. Yumi Fukawa vs. Michiko Ohmukai (4/11) This is some grainy handheld of a houseshow match which is better than a fuckload of highly praised matches. They start this of with some lucharesu then morph into a BattlARTS style match. The matwork wasn't high end slick and smooth like in other matches but they went out to tell a story. Ohmukai was battering Fukawa with kicks from left and right, and Fukawa made all these awesome desperation armbar attempts. All of Ohmukai's stuff landed with bad intention and Fukawa was as brilliant as ever. The finish was fucking brutal aswell. Great little match. I think I will create threads in 90s forum so people can discuss without flooding this thread.

Candy Okutsu vs. Mikiko Futagami (4/17) I am stoked to see serious Futagami. This was another match with a crazy amount of talent and innovation on display. You know how BattlARTS is shootstyle doped up with Lucharesu and AJPW headdrops? This was like joshi doped up with lucharesu which was in turn doped up with shootstyle. The opening minutes are some of the most fantastic sprint type work I've ever seen, joshi or not. The match was Futagami's armlocks and palm strike vs. Okutsu's athleticism. I can not emphasize how slick, smooth and intelligent some of the things they did were, and every few moments you had something like Okutsu crushing Futagami with a surprise moonsault, Futagami doing a slick reversal or Candy doing an awesome turnbuckle climbing spot that got you excited. It was like the world's greatest WCWSN match. The match turns into this kind of Kurt Angle-ish bombfest with multiple german suplex combos, which I don't love, but I will say it was better than any Kurt Angle style match I've seen by actual Kurt Angle. Plus it's cooler to watch Okutsu fly around because she is chunky. I want to say there were a number of spots here that could be stolen by current day workers and they would be praised as fresh and innovative. Hell the whole match could be copied at an EVOLVE show (if you can find two workers with this level of execution and athleticism) and would go down as near best possible Evolve match. My favourite moves here were probably the Solarina into Kimura and crazy Victory Roll into Fuchi style neck crank/legbar combo. ARS Tournament Round 1 Candy Okutsu vs. Yumi Fukawa (5/5) Double shot of Candy! They start this out with a typical joshi sprint section. The first move was a move that ended a previous match – but not a „death move“, so I am giving them big clever points. After that they settled down and had a more regular matwork-centered match. It was some great bantamweight style matwork with Fukawa constantly looking for the armbar. Too bad we have no 1998 IWRG to compare the matwork. Okutsu has these really amazing rope climbing spots. The match kept building nicely and the selling was spot-on, and then... Fukawa almost cripples herself by falling on her head TWICE trying an Asai Moonsault. Dear god that looked bad. They did a good job getting the match back on trail after that, and in a way it added drama to the finishing run, with Fukawa selling her neck and Okutsu suplexing her a bunch, but I felt that they ran out of ideas. I liked that it was mostly Fukawa submissions and roll ups vs. Candy's bombs. Good match despite all. Also, for continuety: Their first match ended in a draw, while this one goes just over the time limit. Watching stuff in context really adds to the enjoyment sometimes. Michiko Ohmukai vs. Rie Tamada (5/5) They start this out with a bunch of suplexes that they no sell. Ugh. This was the first match that really wasn't good. The matwork was boring and the standing stuff was mostly a mess. There's a big skill gap between Ohmukai and the others. Atleast it was over in less than 8 minutes. Mariko Yoshida vs. Mikiko Futagami (5/5) This was more like it. I love this matchup. Yoshida is the top girl on the mat, but Futagami is this crafty, unpredictable, stoic wrestler. They work this pretty much like a BattlARTs match with pinfalls and do all these awesome counters and transitions and kicks to the face. Yoshida does some neat selling of a choke and bandaged arm to allow Futagami to believably hang with her, which I dug. Another match that goes just over 10 minutes and is a blast. Reggie Bennett vs. Aja Kong (5/5) Reggie Bennett! Y'know with people in the past years gaining new appreciation for portly workers like Earthquake, maybe it's time to give her a reevaluation. She had pretty face and a fit-fat body that no one would have batted an eye on if she were a man. Along with Bull Nakano she feels like someone who could've been a postergirl for modern Tumblr/college feminist girls. They start this of like lumpy heavyweights and slapping the fuck out of eachother in the corner and Reggie ducks a really fast Uraken. Then Reggie locks in this Carl Greco-esque rolling neck crank and beats Aja in just two minutes!!! I like how this compilation included this to provide context for the next rounds.

Carl Greco/Naoyuki Taira vs. Alvin Ken/Ikuto Hidaka (BattlARTS 1/23/2001) See, the fun thing about going back and revisiting an indy guy is that you get to see all these fun obscure wrestlers. Alvin Ken was this tiny little punk who wore a dog collar around his neck during his entrance and retired the next year. Taira was this MMA fighter who showed up in BattlARTS in 2000 and was pretty pushed, holding the Indy Jr. Title (a very nice looking belt). Taira was very good on the mat and threw these graceful kicks that didn't always hit. But what do ya know, he was 37 years old here. Hidaka was wearing his strange facepaint. BattlARTS really was a colorful promotion. Greco and Hidaka were married to eachother for the opening sections and the finish, and what to ya know, it was really good, slick, fast matwork. Like you expect from two really talented dudes. I imagine the single matches they had were a sight to see for the 27 people in attendance. The middle was showcasing Taira and Ken and it was good stuff. You can see any of these 4 guys having a really good career on the japanese indy scene in the 2000s, but everyone except for Hidaka just disappeared. Hard to declare this a great Greco match with the weight of the match being shouldered so equally, but it was a very good Greco performance. I miss these kind of fun, skillful undercard matches. Carl Greco vs. Naoyuki Taira (Independent Jr. Title Match) (BattlARTS 7/20/2000) We go on to the best looking matchup from the previous combo (that I have available). I had commented that in 1999 BattlARTS was doing pro wrestling with shootstyle rather than the other way around. By 2001 they had gone back to the inital BattlARTS formula. The Indy Jr. Title allowed pinfall finishes so there are a few indyriffic bits, but the majority is shootstyle goodness. Taira was not Fujiwara or BattlARTS dojo trained (as far as I know), so he brought a little different mat style and he was a really good matchup for Greco's freaked out grappling. This was slick and full of fascinating holds like U-Style. Taira is good, but Greco really pushes him. Like I said they drift into pro-style a bit including a somewhat goofy random pinfall, but they quickly revert back to mat struggle that was more hardfought than usual „Grab a submission → rope break → repeat“ nearfalls, which I dug. Great little match.

I randomly stumbled over this today reading an old DVDVR looking for info on Arsion: INDY WORLD JAPAN PRO- 5/21/98 Goro Tsurumi/ Apollo Sugawara vs Bulldog/ Devil #1 (byRASMUSSEN) Phil Schneider in DVDVR #84 had THIS to say about the Devils match in Indy World Japan Pro Wrestling 5/21/98: "Kind of fun despite the hideous wrestling involved. The Devil's are these three little guys, in matching skeleton outfits (kind of like someone described La Parka's gear to them but they had never seen it) they do this thing where they stand in a circle and spin around so you can never tell whether the guy getting back in the ring is the one who left the ring, kind of human three card monte. They also do this shoulder shrug thing, which I don't get but kind of dug.... The Devil's win with a switcharoo they stole from the Power Twins." Don't get me wrong, Phil Schneider is VERY knowledgable wrestling fan and great human being and a true patriot who loves dogs and the kids, but I think his gift for understatement in trying to keep his veneer of objectivity about this match is pushing the limits of SANITY here. THE DEVILS #1,#2, and #3 ARE ABSOLUTELY FRICKING GREAT. They do this thing where they swirl around in a cluster and then one jumps into the ring! YOU CAN'T TELL WHICH ONE COMES OUT! THEY MIGHT NOT EVEN BE CHEATING! ISN'T THAT FUCKIGN GREAT OR WHAT!! And they do this shoulder shrugging thing that totally baffles me. This compares to the Space Aliens that cheated for Silver X against Ryama Go at the Tokyo Dome, the whole Antichristo interview and the freaked out procession taking Green Ant Boy Yakushiji in his masked debut as weirdest motherfrucking things I've seen in pro wrestling. Inexplicably baffling and that facet of greatness you ONLY get in the indies. Comparison to Antichristo is pretty high praise. Anybody have a video of this? Oh yeah and add that Ryuma Go vs. space jews match from the Tokyo Dome. Also, Keita Yano is entirely a meme by now.

I actually didn't see those three. Let's give it a try: 1. I'd say Mexican fans care about US wrestling as much as US fans care about Mexican wrestling. I know US and foreign wrestlers are treated as completely interchangeable. I remember a german lucha fan who lives in Mexico once jokingly remarking that AAA is the only promotion in the world that can book Bryan Danielson, Jack Evans, Jeff Jarrett, Abyss (and a plethora of others) as the same person. CMLL will have japanese guys once in a while getting token title shots where it's about the CMLL guy vs. "the japanese" There is a tiny of subset of mexican fans who are interested in US indy stuff or japanese stuff, the same way european fans are. I remember a mexican fashion store once ran an indy show that had guys like Jimmy Jacobs, MCMG or Masada and it bombed completely. The comment from online fans was: "What kind of mexican wrestling fan wouldn't want to see a bunch of workers he's never heard of?" I also remember hearing that there are mexican fan of AAA/WWE that view CMLL as low brow/entertainment for low class people. Another funny bit I remember: one time in CMLL there was a trios with japanese guys in it coming up. Alfonso Morales (or someone) finds and interviews an asian lady in the audience. He asks (in english) where she is from and she says she is korean. Alfonso then asks if she is in favor of the japanese wrestler. She explains Korea and Japan are two different things. Alfonso then explains to the camera (in spanish) that she is of course hoping the japanese wrestlers will win. The lady didn't look pleased... 2. I guess it matters if you are a promoter who wants to make money with US wrestlers in mexico. It doesn't matter to me at all.

I didn't read this thread, but can someone repost Ole Anderson's criticism of Ric Flair in his book?

The Big Stupid List of Great ARSION Matches 1998 Yumi Fukawa vs. Michiko Ohmukai (4/11) Mikiko Futagami vs. Rie Tamada (8/31) Mariko Yoshida vs. Rie Tamada (4/17) Rie Tamada/Hiromi Yagi vs. Tiger Dream/Ayako Hamada (Twinstar Tag Final, 12/7) Reggie Bennett vs. Mariko Yoshida (8/31) Mariko Yoshida vs. Ayako Hamada (8/31) Aja Kong vs. Mariko Yoshida (6/21) Aja Kong vs. Michiko Ohmukai (2/18) Mariko Yoshida vs. Candy Okutsu (Queen of ARSION Title, 12/18) Yumi Fukawa vs. Candy Okutsu (2/18) Reggie Bennett vs. Mariko Yoshida (5/5) Mariko Yoshida vs. Mikiko Futagami (5/5) Candy Okutsu vs. Mikiko Futagami (4/17) Michiko Ohmukai vs. Rie Tamada (8/9) Mariko Yoshida vs. Michiko Ohmukai (8/31) Mikiko Futagami vs. Michiko Ohmukai (7/21) Aja Kong vs. Ayako Hamada (12/18) Rie Tamada vs. Candy Okutsu (5/5) Yumi Fukawa vs. Rie Tamada (7/21) Best ARSION Matches of 1999 1. Mariko Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi (2/18) 2. Etsuko Mita/Mima Shimoda vs. Ayako Hamada/Mika Akino (12/11) 3. Mariko Yoshida vs. Mikiko Futagami (4/14) 4. Yumi Fukawa vs. Mariko Yoshida (9/26) 5. Mariko Yoshida vs. Hiromi Yagi (5/4) 6. Mariko Yoshida vs. Mika Akino (1/17) 7. Mariko Yoshida vs. Yumi Fukawa (5/4) 8. Mariko Yoshida vs. Aja Kong (8/6) 9. Mikiko Futagami vs. Michiko Ohmukai (5/4) 10. Ayako Hamada vs. Mari Apache (7/25) 11. Mari Apache vs. Chaparrita ASARI (7/25) 12. Mima Shimoda/Etsuko Mita vs. Yumi Fukawa/Rie Tamada (7/25) 13. Mika Akino vs. Chaparrita ASARI (7/25) Comprehensive list of the Best ARSION matches of 2000. The really good stuff is in bold. Aja Kong vs. Ayako Hamada (Queen of Arsion Title, 12/3/00 Tokyo) Chapparita Asari vs. Mika Akino (Sky High of Arsion Title, 12/3/00 Tokyo) Ayako Hamada vs. Mariko Yoshida (Arsion ZION Tournament Finals 10/17) Mariko Yoshida vs. Aja Kong (ZION Tournament '00 Semi-Finals, 10/17/00 Tokyo) Ayako Hamada vs. Mika Akino (SKY Tournament II Final, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Mika Akino vs. Mary Apache (SKY Tournament II Semi-Finals, 7/16/00 Tokyo) Aja Kong vs. Ayako Hamada (8/18/00 Tokyo) Ayako Hamada/Gran Hamada vs. Hiromi Yagi/Tiger Mask IV (P*MIX Grand Prix Semi-Finals, 6/29/00) Hiromi Yagi/Tiger Mask vs. Chapparita Asari/Great Sasuke (P*MIX Grand Prix Quarterfinals, 6/24/00) Yumi Fukawa/Minoru Tanaka vs. Mariko Yoshida/Alexander Otsuka (P*MIX Grand Prix Quarterfinals, 6/7/00) Aja Kong vs. Mariko Yoshida (ARS Tournament '00 Semi-Finals, 5/7 Tokyo) Michiko Omukai & Mima Shimoda vs Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida (ARSION 04/07/00) Ayako Hamada/Gran Hamada vs. Faby Apache/Gran Apache (4/7) Ayako Hamada/Mika Akino vs. Aja Kong/Mariko Yoshida (2/18) ARSION is such an interesting fed. Pretty much the joshi equivalent of BattlARTS with it's crossover style and tiny roster that they had to use efficiently. With this fed you get the ace run of the mighy Mariko Yoshida, a period of the work or Aja Kong or Lioness Asuka that doesn't get talked about much, and a handful of unexplored workers like Futagami or Rie Tamada that deserve some recognition. For this project I will go through the Best Of Arsion comp that is floating around and post my Top Matches for each year after finishing. Yes I know that's cherrypicking but for now I want to get the essence of it (judge a style by the best matches it produced etc) and compare to high end BattlARTS/RINGS/UWFi etc. If you know any essential ARSION that's not on the comp feel free to drop a comment. Yumi Fukawa vs. Candy Okutsu (2/18) The first ARSION match. It is a very appropriate debut match. They mix the traditional joshi with lucharesu and tricked out submission work, and the whole thing has the flair of two overzealous young workers going all out to show the world especially with the bomb throwing at the end and Fukawa hitting those face-shattering moonsaults that nearly KO'd Candy. I give them a ton of credit because they really delivered a good match that sets the tone. They kept going back to the submissions and really had a hard fought battle to the very end that the crowd got into. Can't remember the last time I watched a „young workers showing the world“ match on this level. Side note, a Cagematch user mentioned that he went to a few ARSION shows and he felt that many guys there went for the pretty workers and the „product“ (apparently Arsion had lots of quality mags, posters etc. for sell) and not the wrestling, so Arsion matches had not as much heat as GAEA. It's not hard to see why especially with Okutsu wearing a ridiculous outfit that made her butt look gigantic but to their credit the wrestling was top notch and on the level of the presentation. Aja Kong vs. Michiko Ohmukai (2/18) Michiko Ohmukai was this skinny girl with supermodel looks who worked like Daisuke Ikeda. I have no idea why she's not famous. She threw all those reckless kicks and impressive suplexes and was like a magic ingredient for matches that made everything crazier. Here she slaps Aja right at the bell and Aja just smirks at her and then Ohmukai starts dropping her with those 50 yards football kicks. Hell of an opening for a match. They get into a slugfest like this fucking BattlARTS or WAR and I am in love with this. Then they settle down a little with Aja dominating on the mat through size and Ohmukai trying to topple her. I think Aja was kind of mailing it in in Arsion which is such a disappointment but this match hit all the right spots and was really good stuff like it always is when Aja has someone to work with who brings the fight to her. Aja Kong/Yumi Fukawa/Michiko Ohmukai vs. Candy Okutsu/Rie Tamada/Mikiko Futagami (2/18) They end the debut show with a chaotic fast tag team match where everyone runs in and hits their stuff. Kind of pointless main event as the previous matches had done a good enough job to establish everyone, but I guess they had to work around having such a tiny roster to work with. Everyone has had matches before that evening so the execution wasn't at 100% anymore. Fukawa almost fell on her head doing an asai moonsault and then hit another reckless one inside the ring like a lunatic. Aja had solid interactions with everyone and I always get a kick out of watching Futagami work, but this wasn't much. Mariko Yoshida vs. Rei Tamada (4/17) WOAH! Apparently this was the debut match of Mariko in ARSION. I was expecting something good, but this was far more than a formative bout. Rei Tamada, for a name that never gets dropped, looked damn impressive. The bout was built around establishing Yoshida's new, signature style, and her focus was to take it to the mat no matter what. Tamada was far more than a piece of luggage for Yoshida to chuck around, however. Tamada could roll on the mat and I really liked her determination to get the match into standing position. I want to emphasize the standing exchanges here were also really good. Tamada hit a mean elbow and tried her darndest to cut Yoshida of, who rolled one submission counter after another out of her sleeve. Even some of the fancier lightweight moves landed as if to shut a door. It created a kind of intensity that I really love in a wrestling match and this was just an absolutely fabulous contest. 3 real hits out of 4 so far. Pretty damn good start for the project. Stay tuned & maybe come out of the woodwork and comment if you are an old ARSION superfan.

FEAR THE MAD DOG!!! This was a bloody, bloody match. Kimura bled. Vachon bled. THE REFEREE BLED!! All you vampires can mark this match as a rare TRIPLE JUICE BRAWL. This starts out with Vachon laying some nice stiff shots on Kimura before Kimura does some boring wrestling and Vachon just chucks him to the outside, piledrives him on the floor and carves him up with a chain. Vachon raking that chain across Kimura's face is some of the grizzlier imagery I've seen in a pro wrestling match. Then he also goes out of his way to piledrive the ref on the floor and do the exact same thing to him. I imagine this kind of stuff would have got fans storming the ring in other territories but here all the folks were amused by the carnage. Vachon was a force unleashed. I especially enjoyed the scene where he and Kimura traded blows in the crowd, Vachon landing these stone hard knocks in his face and Kimura throwing sumo-ish slaps. For some reason there is No DQ here and we get a proper finish. The ending could've been a little more exciting, but this was an amusing spectacle.

This starts JIP 5 minute into the match. Then they do another 5 minutes of pretty standard hammerlock work and then... things escalate and it turns into a gritty double juice bloodbath. Mulligan had a glove that he kept loading with gimmicks and reached into his pants god knows how many times, until Kimura took his glove to a big reaction. Mulligan had a nice punch and Kimura was fired up. Both guys bled buckets and Mulligan did a nice job selling "loss of blood" as the match went quite long. Not as epic as you'd hope for a 70s bloodbath to be, but a fun match regardless.

The mighty Red Bastien! Y'know IWE is cool just because you get to watch all these guys with no footage go to work. The problem is that it feels a little exhibition-y with the foreign guys just doing their shtick (a problem that Mile vs. Hara didn't have). But when it's a wrestling master like Bastien you don't complain because you just want to see what he could actually do. And this match was fun. They start of with this really intense lock-up and then do a long 70s style match where Bastien does all these neat things, like headbutting Shozo in the ear or pulling the tights from a weird angle. Shozo is solid but won't exactly set your world on fire. This was a good match with lots of nifty things in it and Bastien heeling it up constantly and it never dragged. I have to say that IWE matches have an abundance of nut shots. Almost every match I've seen so far has had atleast 1 or 2.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with these things. I was just pointing out those are the ingredients that the touted puroresu classics have. Almost all wrestling has nearfalls. It is true that japanese wrestling is very varied, but it's also true that the further they stray from the formula, the more niche they become. 90s AJPW and NJPW and to a lesser degree joshi (mosty AJW) are still the most widely known and pimped forms of older japanese wrestling, and they have all that. For the other feds you have to go to a place like this to get in-depth discussion (hell, and even here folks haven't exactly analyzed it to death like AJPW).

Are you serious ? People were criticizing headdropping *as it was happening*. It sure didn't stop them from watching japanese wrestling I wasn't around then, but it's clear as a day that a ton of japanese matches in the style I described get praised (maybe not on this board, but in general). People watched japanese wrestling because it gave them something they wanted. Headdrops may have been only small part of that, but I've noticed that nearly all praised/"legendary" japan matches of the 90s have nearfalls, brutality and clean endings I think this may be my favourite post in this thread because it just blatantly insinuates people watch japanese wrestling because they are insecure. And then namedrops Tanahashi, the most hypermasculine of japanese wrestlers!!! I'm starting to think this idea that people like certain wrestling because of some underlying neurosis or insecurity is fast bordering on Wild Pegasus levels of insanity. I thought Trauma/Canis Lupus was a pretty mediocre match and this insistence that it be Lucha MOTY is annoying me.

What I wrote a few weeks ago in OJ's thread on Zrno: Well, I was wrong. This was not a 2 minute clip. It was 22 minutes, unedited, pro-shot, 2/3 falls clean title match with 3 clean finishes. What a time to be alive and get to see wrestling matches like this. The first amazing thing is getting to see Mile in 1979. God damn what a talent, and in what shape he was. I can't think of 5 guys from british TVs in top form like him. The yugoslavic flag with the big red star is hanging over the ring next to the japanese one, making this feel like the most surreal prelude to the russians in RINGS a decade later. Sure, Zrno is western european trained and Charley Verhulst is his second, but this feels like the home talent taking on a yugoslavian champion and not just any european technician. The wrestling here feels closer to amateur style (albeit very fast paced) than the stuff you'd see in britain, france or german. Maybe all 70s middle european wrestling was like this, but we'll never find out. Needless to say I loved the bridging work, rolling around and resistance to basic holds here. It wasn't the long brainy headlocks of 70s japanese wrestling or the fancy escapes that the brits did, but I loved it. Then you also get to see Ashura Hara, a guy I loved for being a rugged tough dude in WAR slugfests, as junior ace. He wore this absurd silver sparkling jacket and headband, and he was beloved by the crowdn a way I can't recall seeing with many other japanese wrestlers from the 70s. I have never seen anyone talk about his junior work, but this Ashura Hara feels worth discovering. His technique and form wasn't on the level of Zrno, but he was game to have a contest and totally held up his end. The air was bristling with excitement for this match and Zrno was selling this match like it was a sports contest the whole world was looking at. The crowd was willing Ashura forward to take the title off of Zrno no matter what and both athletes succeeded in giving them their moneys worth. The finish feels like a gigantic moment and the fans react accordingly My only complaint with the match is that it's too short. If there's ever a match that should've gone 60 it's this one. Just so many fascinating aspects to it. It's just the combination of having a Mile Zrno match (rare), a junior Ashura Hara match (rare), an IWE junior's match (bloody rare), an IWE match that is all clean with no bullshit (rare), and then it's something that was buried in complete obscurity for so long. Regardless of whether you care about Mile, Hara or IWE, this a nice fast paced 70s junior match worked in a way that nobody really does anymore in front of a hot crowd that feels fresh and interesting all the way to the end.

I just checked and that Casas/Fiera match that was sort of "rediscovered" last year got a **** 1/4 from the WON. Dandy/Casas also got a +**** rating from someone important. That's hardly a burial. If anything "the damage" (what?) was also done by the hardcore fans of the time not just Dave. People just weren't into mexican wrestling (or CMLL specifically) enough at the time. Hardcore fans like the DVDVR guys that watched all kinds of random tapes not knowing what they would get were the minority (still are). People got japanese wrestling tapes because it was what they wanted to see. I want to mention that death/black metal music from Mexico and south america was traded around the world in the 80s and 90s. Look at a band like Sepultura that got world famous with a demo tape that had terrible production. Simply because people wanted dark, fast and heavy stuff, and if it sounded rough and the lyrics were demented as if written by a teenager with a poor grasp of english, then even better. Wrestling fans in the 90s didn't want matwork or bloody brawls or trios built around graceful wrestling exchanges that lead to a DQ finish. They wanted headdrops and 2.9999999999 finishing runs and clean endings and production where they could hear the impact of all the strikes. And it makes sense when you look at the product of WWF and WCW at the time.

Let's look at it this way: - show in Belgium main evented by Hijo del Santo -> draws ~1000 fans - show in Germany main evented by Kenta Kobashi/Mitsuharu Misawa -> draws ~500 fans - show main event by Otto Wanz in austria -> draws ~6500 fans Now which of those three gets the least coverage on the internet & how unfair is that? (I have no records of how many white guys or non-white guys were at any of these shows) I think somebody is getting way too riled up by internet fans here, thinking lucha gets held down when lucha easily outdraws all other types of wrestling. Maybe you are the one who is giving the WON awards etc. too much weight.

Whole show is here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaGAfKPerZQ (I think this is filmed a little differently than the version that is on the Best Of set) This was some truely high end BattlARTS tag team action. The first thing you notice is how on point all 4 guys on the mat were. The opening exchanges felt slick like U-Style matwork and always highly competitive, with the violence upgraded to BattlARTS standards. The brutality was of the charts here. The "tag team partners running in to make the save from a submission" where some of the must vicious I've seen and felt like PRIDE ground stomping, Ikeda at one point started throwing mule kicks on the ground, and Usuda and Ono threw some kicks that looked like nobody would get up from them. Man I don't even care whether there was a story or anything this match because the work was so frantic, hard fought and believable and sold so, so well I was 100% engrossed the entire time. The match also felt like it could end at anytime: at one point, Ikeda got his leg worked over with a few kicks from Ono and nice holds by Ishikawa (note the teamwork there), then Ono landed a series of skull crushing kicks on him. Ikeda believably beat the count, but his entire body language was such that you could see he was moments away from being finished, so he did the only reasonable thing and quietly slipped to his corner to tag out before collapsing like a broken man. That may have been my favourite moment of the match and it made the finish feel even sweeter where it feels like Ishikawa and Ono have the match in the bag and Ikeda just comes in and turns Ono's lights out to set up the finish. All 4 guys had career highlight performances, Ono did some stuff on the mat only he could do, Usuda stepped up big time and Ishikawa and Ikeda had some incredible exchanges together. Great, great match and a really compelling fusion of top notch shootstyle matwork, brawling and top level stiffness.

This was a deecent match. The opening matwork didn't blow me away, but it was nice and tight enough and it was cool to see two workers with a "technician" reputation actually hitting the mat. I felt the chinlock work was kind of poor. They made clever use of it and Tiger did a nice job selling the dizziness later on, but ultimately it felt like a clever way to kill time to me. Tiger would get out of it and hit his explosive moves and then just get caught again. So, Tiger was explosive, but not explosive enough to evade Benoit's dreaded chinlock, and Benoit's chinlock didn't slow down the Tiger enough to stop him from hitting his explosive moves. The best spot of the match was the guardrail toss to set up Benoit's dive. That whole segment had "clever" written all over it, almost to the point where my old "wrestling match written by a computer" criticism of 90s Benoit came to my mind again, but that would be unfair. Then they move into the part where they hit all their big spots. It was all done in such a way that I felt the match deserved it's status as a classic, but I couldn't help but feel that modern workers would get grilled over some of the transitions here. The finish could have used a dramatic turn or something a little more grand but atleast they were wise enough to end it believably, with the biggest spot.

Show 3 - BML "Reallusion" 3/4/2006 The guy who is uploading all the BML stuff hasn't uploaded this show in full, but claims that he will put up the rest of it in 2017 (talk about someone who knows how to get people invested in his channel). To avoid delays and to follow the stories of Shibata/Murakami/Usuda, I will simply add the random thrown together undercards later and continue watching what is uploaded so far. Katsumi Usuda vs. Hiroyuki Ito The first thing that stands out is that this show took place in a big building and they had a gigantic banner with the BML logo on it hanging out, with the two wrestlers being eyed by that wrathful wolf. How cool is that? I assume buying such a large banner is kind of pointless because you can almost never use it, but whatever. It looked badass. And this match was fine. It was pretty much shootstyle with Usuda doing some Fujiwara headbutts and counters. Ito seemed better on the mat and on standup, so those counters were pretty much Usuda's only chance to get by in this match. Ito continues to look really good as he understands the balance between aggression and selling perfectly, but he kind of ate Usuda up. I am really starting to wonder what Usuda's story in this company is supposed to be as he just constantly gets the worst end. I guess he is just the jobber of the BML trio. Kazunari Murakami & Egan Inoue vs. Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka This one of those matchups you just can't wrap your brain around. Nagata and Murakami had a really good singles match together at some point. Iizuka hasn't turned into Tiger Jeet Singh at this point. Inoue is just reckless. This match was a trainwreck and an enjoyable one at that. Murakami was at his best here punching dudes in the face and in the balls. His exchanges with Nagata were the highlight of the match and came across as second rate Ishikawa/Ikeda, which I mean as a positive. They did this exhausted Lawler/Mantell exchange on their knees that was so good. And the rest of the match had some nice moments with nifty counters and Murakami getting dumped on his head at one point. I'm not going to pretend Inoue's sections were good but they weren't dull either. Match devolves into chaos and that seemed like the logical conclusion, even if things were bordering on silly as you had two clownfaces in Murakami and Nagata in there. Katsuyori Shibata vs. Alan Karaev Karaev is this giant russian blob-like dude who uses an iron claw for a finisher. No idea where they found this guy, but he feels like he should be in a different dimension. Fighting Big Show or Otto Wanz or Tenryu in WAR or something. This was mostly Karaev manhandling tiny Shibata around which was amusing enough, but I felt he looked like a giant baby with his "swatting at flies" style palm strikes. The crowd were postively into this and Shibata however, who had no chance but to go for a flash submission against the giant. And he succeeded in that in less than 4 minutes. I'd say this match achieved what they were going for, but can't help but feel feel that the full potential of Alan Karaev was squandered.

Kind of a formative match for these two. The story is that Bull shocked the world and took the title off of Wanz, now the question is can the old champ withstand the beast and take his title back? Wanz was already pretty slow and couldn't do much anymore, and this wasn't as violent as some of their matches, but it was a fight like all their matches are. You could argue that there were a lot of restholds, but they always moved right back to beating the snot out of eachother. Vader was mostly interested in bashing Wanz's skull in, while Wanz for some reason did a lot of knee strikes and european uppercuts. These super minimalist, long Wanz matches really make you appreciate the most basic spots, such as getting the boots up in the corner or catching a charging opponent with a clothesline. And the crowd really loved every single thing Wanz did. I can't think of 5 more beloved babyfaces of the top of my head. Folks were jumping up and down and waving the austrian flag at the most simple things. The recurring theme of the match was a) things kept spilling to the outside (something that seemed to happen a lot more often in the brightly lit Graz Ice Skating Hall) and guys kept getting safed by the bell. I think both themes were solved nicely in the finish, altough it would have looked dated even in the 70s. Still, Otto Wanz vs. Bull Power is always a special match.

Carl Greco vs. Takeshi Ono (7/29/1999) Carl Greco vs. Mohammed Yone (8/29/1999) Another two JIP undercard matches maxing out at about 5 minutes each. These really weren't shootstyle at all. Yone is a guy who liked to play powerhouse and had a few silly signature moves, and Ono at this point was less interested in punching his opponent in the face and more into flying around and the occasional kick to the balls. I am actually wondering whether the BattlARTs guys changed their style at this time to appeal to the more casual Samurai TV audience, creating the infamous BattlARTS "post modernist" style, or if they were just getting lazy. Everyone had their signature moves and guys did rope running and dives. Greco even flew off the 2nd rope at one point. Anyways these two contests were solid. Yone was kind of shitty, on the other hand I know the guy would really look good in some matches, so I will say that Mohammed Yone was always simply a lazy bastard. Other than Yone being an embarassment and Ono playing indy sleaze superstar, these matches were worked tight enough and had enough unique counters/transitions to stay interesting for the duration. Carl Greco vs. Katsumi Usuda (7/20/1999) Carl Greco vs. Katsumi Usuda (8/5/1996) Let's do another time comparison for the fun of it. Comparing these two really illustrates the change in BattlARTS over the 3 years. The 1999 bout was worked closer to the previously discussed matches. It was a lot better though. Usuda was aggressive and clearly on another level, and the match had the stiff blows and cool submission work and counters you want from an 8 minute undercard match. The 1996 match was pure shootstyle. It was starkly minimalist compared to the showy-ness of these TV matches above. Usuda was booked pretty strong in 1996 - maybe stronger than Ishikawa - and he gave Greco a heck of a fight. He was less flashy but could smother an opponent on the mat. I guess some might call Usuda dull, but I thought he was effective enough and he did give Greco - who was decked out in wrestling shoes and ready to hit the mat - the opportunity to have a hard fought match. The bout had a nice arc to it with Greco really getting into it and finding different ways to crack Usuda. It wasn't flashy like a RINGS or UWFi match, but the resistance to basic holds and transitions made it quite the engrossing contest and Carl's technique was high end.

I think with Black Terry you kind of had to have been there to understand what makes him special. It was that period in 2010-2011 when Black Terry Jr. was uploading awesome fancam matches every week. It really cemented Terry and Navarro (and a few other guys) into my mind as all time greats. Of course, you can still watch all that if you contact BT Jr., but it'll cost you. Maybe that ominous powerbomb.tv service will make the entire library available sometime and we can all rewatch that stuff then. But really, Terry Jr. deserves some kind of wrestling journalism award for giving a glance at the mexican indy scene that was so different from the shitty lucha TV shows. Those matches you posted there are solid, but don't touch Terry's better stuff. Admittedly Terry didn't strike me as a superworker either on first glance but following BTJr's channel for a while made me get it. Terry and Navarro are kind of complementary, as Terry is the great brawler, and Navarro is the great matworker. They will sometimes take a backseat to eachother and they are two workers where you have to see their "small" performances too. They are mostly awesome characters and I got a lot of enjoyment from seeing them turn up in different situations. I've noticed before that some people really can't get into Black Terry/Negro Navarro matches. And mostly they just stay quiet, which makes me think they are trying to be polite and not shit on other people's fun. I remember one guy on another message board seemed to get genuinely angry at me for "liking those 60 year old lucha wet tissues so much" (I was pimping Charles Lucero at the time while making disparaging comments about Hiroshi Tanahashi). I also recall Daniel (kanji) causing a stir on DVDVR when he dismissed that Navarro/Solar match from that Ultimo Dragon show. If that is the case for you I want to ask if you can point to matches that do what these old man luchagrapplers are going for better. Because I'm wondering if people are having problems with matwork and lack of high impact moves in general.

Ah, that old 60s/70s style of matwork. I remember years ago when I was obsessed with this stuff and downloading everything from Ditch I could find. If you've seen lucha title matches, british matwork or really anything modern this stuff will seem rather prehistoric to you, but there's lots of good stuff here. The star of the bout was Gene Kiniski as he has such a simple, yet cool style. He did a number of nifty holds and all of his offense was extremely painful looking. It was almost like incubatory ground and pound, as he would get Baba on the mat and then just stomp and knee drop him into oblivion. He does have really great stomps and knee drops and he was constantly attacking Baba's throat. His selling for Baba was also off the charts. Baba - well, I am not the biggest fan of this guy. He is a good wrestler - much better than you expect a weird giant with matchsticks arms to be, but watching him against these legendary guys I always wonder what they could do against someone a little more gifted. Also, no matter what they do on the mat, his matches always turn into Baba throwing a guy around with his signature offense and chops. To his credit, I liked his use of his freaky long legs to reverse Kiniski's holds, busting out the flying headscissor which is a pretty crazy spot for him. The famous "Smart Baba" was also present as this 2/3 falls match had 3 very good, genuinely surprising finishes and some dramatic selling in the last 3rd. Very fun contest if you can stomach watching something slow.