Jetlag

I really loved this and it instantly became one of my favourite AJ matches. I'm one of those people who are bored by a lot of 90s AJPW so I guess it's a matter of preference. The opening work was tremendous. I enjoy watching talented workers battling over tight holds and they did a great job here. Even simple things like Hansen escaping a headlock or Misawa retaliating with a series of elbows to Hansen's arm felt really important. It also helped that Hansen just beat the shit out of Misawa throughout the match. His shoulder block might be one of my favourite spots ever - I mean just imagine this huge Texan with notoriously bad eyesight crashing his body into yours at full speed. The bit on the apron with both guys stubbornly battling for control and Misawa leaping into some kind of desperation elbow drop was also really great. The whole match was a hard stubborn battle for control really. Misawa trying to facelock Hansen with his weak arm then switching sides and almost putting him away was one of the coolest spots I've seen. The finishing run was also really great. It didn't have big bumps or anything but they really got you to believe they could put eachother away with basic submissions, and Hansen repeatedly crushing Misawa underneath him was brutal. The finish was the only real logical way for Misawa to beat this fucker and they had done a great job building toward it. You see so many shitty meaningless elbow exchanges these days that Misawa really looks like a GOAT contender just based on all his extremely well timed strikes that he lands with considerable smack. Great match, the bad rep is undeserved.

Actually, I thought the matwork in this was brilliant. Hashimoto may look clumsy, but anytime he did something it felt innovative, while Hase was really aggressive and trying to use his powerful takedowns to his advantage. Once they stood up this turned into a festival of pure distillated death. If I had been asked who threw the hardest chops before I probably would've said Tenryu or Kobashi, but Hase of all people may outdo them both in this one, just trying to fell a tree. The look Hashimoto gives him before getting up and damn near splitting Hase in half with one of his own says it all. That's the kinda moments why Hash is the fucking greatest. Then I believe to take Hase's speed advantage away he decides to knock the wind out of him in the nastiest manner possible. He really establishes basic moves like toe kicks or body scissors as deadly by doing them in the most violent manner possible. The last couple minutes felt like Shinya putting on some AJPW-ish touches to his game by busting out variations on his signature moves, but it had that distinct NJPW feel where they fight over posture and mini details like that, in between absolutely nuking eachother. Hard to believe anyone could get up from that spin kick alone. Badass match, Hashimoto is the king.

Looks like Le Petit Prince Daniel Dubail. According to french Wiki a he made his first TV appearance with Andre.

This reminds me a little of a situation I had with a friend of mine a while ago. She was really concerned that people would ridicule her if she admitted that she loved classical music, but at the same time had no problem talking about her love of cheesy hollywood movies. Maybe it's because I live in a country where pretty much everybody indulges in Trash TV, or because I'm younger (20) and the people I surround myself with, but hiding your love of wrestling seems silly in these days and ages, as long as it's not your only hobby (to be fair, if I met somebody who watches 5+ hours of WWE a week and spends lot of time gossiping about backstage stuff online I'd probably think that person is pretty weird too). Actually, I've gotten more shit on online message boards for watching "obscure" wrestling like lucha or shootstyle, while explaining the concepts of lucha de apuestas or exoticos makes for pretty amusing conversation with people who are foreign to the subject. I don't really have a fellow fan that I chat about current wrestling to, but then I don't follow current wrestling closely anyways. About girls and getting laid, I've experienced very little problem. I guess it helps that wrestling has inspired me to join BJJ and amateur wrestling classes - girls dig a guy who can handle himself on the mat.

Mother of fuck that Rudge/Hurst match is great. That is what I love about watching old wrestling, when they take offense that we think of as low end and make it interesting. Rudge may have turned a hairpull into a holy shit spot in that match.

I think Jeff Cobb was part of Guam's olympic wrestling team. Guy has some talent and really beautiful execution on some of his moves and especially really nice suplexes, he had a match vs. Timothy Thatcher that was really good I thought last year. Of course he could also turn into another Kurt Angle - when you mentioned a stupid powerslam move I thought you were talking about that backflip thing I've seen him do in another match. Personally I don't think that sort of move or the one you see in the video is as stupid as, say, most Go 2 Sleep variations or convoluted facebuster moves you see other indy wrestlers do, atleast it's athletically impressive enough. Oliver John I think is a guy who also had a good match with Timothy Thatcher (hey Meltzer if you are reading this why aren't you raving about that guy cause he really rules). He's been working US "lucha" shows for a while and when he fought Hijo del Santo in TXT he didn't show anything that would make him stand out amongst a million other US workers. In the US I think he works a generic Border Patrol stooging heel. Just a baldheaded wrestler dude.

What an amazing badass violent brawl. I think UWFi did "shooty" tags before this, but I don't remember any of them having this kind of violent, out of control flair. This is really US style tag psychology fused with shootstyle at lucharesu pace. Ikeda and Ono are an awesome pair of bruiser heels. Right at the start they double team Ishikawa pasting him with kicks and cutting off the ring to isolate him while he busts out cool mat counters to defend himself. Otsuka has these really awesome moments of explosive hot tags where he just runs in and dumps somebody on his head right off the bat. Just like the Ishikawa/Ikeda dynamic (who spend most of the early going shoot punching eachother in the mouths) he has this dynamic with Takeshi Ono, who spends most of the fight on the apron waiting to sneak in and kick somebody in the eye to break a submission. At one point, Otsuka is visibly fed up with it an pummels Ono really aggressively into the corner almost like a sumo. He was looking pretty irate and Ono just taunts him even more. When Ono actually was in the ring, we got to see either his slick skinny ratboy grappling or his reckless kicks. We also get to see what Ishikawa is really about as later in the match he gets his comeuppance hooking one nastier and nastier submission on Ikeda. The finish is absolutely picture perfect as Ikeda and Ishikawa go back to the shoot punches while Otsuka finally catches Ono. Perfect introduction to the style. I've watched some top level 90s AJPW tags in the past weeks and I wouldn't hesitate to put this up there with them.

Fujiwara was definitely making an example of Taka here, while Taka gave one of the gutsiest underdog performances I remember seeing. Fujiwara really seemed to intent on driving the point home that Taka was nothing to him and gave him a stretching and beating that would Terry Rudge wince, while Taka never stepped back. All of his attacks were lightning quick and great looking and Fujiwara reversing every single one almost on the spot was freaky. It's PWFG so Taka couldn't do dives or anything and was stuck having to go for submissions, but he just wouldn't give up. Great, great match.

I remember being a little disappointed when I first saw this, but now I have to shake my head at myself because this kicked ass and delivered exactly what almost 10 minutes of Tenryu vs. Sano advertise. Right from the start Tenryu looks concerned that he has to play sportsmanlike in this foreign environment and Sano just keeps upsetting him and awakening his more Tenryuish tendencies. Tenryu is shockingly effective at working quick hold exchanges, but this is about the kicks and punches. Sano really lays in some heavy as lead kicks, refuses to break clean and annoys Tenryu with his junior stuff then even low blows him like he was Perro Aguayo. Really well done build to Tenryu unleashing and when that happens it's on. I love Tenryu's sumo attacks and the knees that busted Sano open were just sickening. Sano to his credit gave as good as he good and just pasted Tenryu's jaw with solebutts. Really simple match, really well done.

Little shocked this wasn't included on the yearbook. Some of the coolest stuff I've seen from the russian shooters. This was not just a showcase for cool mat stuff (as much as I love cool mat stuff) this was a wild fight that told a story. It was all about Kopylov's explosive power vs. all the things that make Volk Han Volk Han. Kopylov was really just tossing Han around and at one point even did that 70s spot where he body slams him while in an armlock, except he just dumped Volk right on his face. Volk was his usual self but in a desperate mode as he was really using all his quickness and at times seemed to go straight for dislocating Kopylov's shoulder. Match had lots of almost pro style spots like Kopylov riling up the crowd after Han goes to his back as if doing a Zbyszko stall. Finish is suitably brilliant with Han finally avoiding another deadlift. Match was as sharp an exciting as the best New Japan matches from this period, and peppered with all the awesome mat stuff you want from your russians.

This was a ridiculously fun match. It's Christmas Day so they work this match almost like Navarro and Solar just constantly tying eachother into the whackiest holds. Really tons of stuff that wouldn't look out of place in a lucha match. There's also one moment where Orlov tries a Koppu Kick and Kopylov nails him with almost a Kawada style enzuigiri. Despite the "show of this crazy matwork" nature of the match there was some nice selling. Orlov wound up using up lots of rope escapes and you could tell he was really desperate to get a good submission of his own. The finish sequence itself was flawless and emphasized Kopylov as the superior grappler well. These russians put on a really neat showcase and the crowd suitably ate it up.

I'm assuming you are talking about their 1992 match? Is that online somewhere? I've seen Morgan vs. Faraon some time ago and it made me fall in love with lucha. On topic, first thing that always pops into my mind is the Nakano/Funaki match from 1989. Nothing says all-out asskicking like that bout, in my book. But there's too many to mention.

Gernot Freiberger put this match of Martin on youtube vs Achim Chall, germany 1980 Not that much to it and it has a shit injury finish, but Caswell shows some nasty looking armwork. Chall looks old, but he moved well, I did like how he splashed Caswell with his gut to break the bridge and he busts out a nice neckbreaker type submission into a pin to counter the armwork.

It would be cool to hear some of these Rene Lasartesse stories Regal mentioned on Twitter.

I always loved that match no matter the long hold spots. There's also a really fun OConnor vs. Lorenzo Parente match on youtube that has some good wrestling and almost lucha-ish flying headscissors.

Ohtani's Jacket wrote that this was pretty awful. I can kind of see where he's coming from, but I still enjoyed this match. I guess it's easier for me to accept two workers meandering and being clumsy when they are working shootstyle. I really dig this light heavyweight style with the gloves that they make good use of, and the finish despite being abrupt was a total killer. Enjoyable match.

Insane match, which you'd expect to see in Futen. Both guys are wearing gloves and giving eachother total hell with punches. Sakuraba spends most of the match working for submissions and he looks to rip Kanehara apart a couple times in truely Gracie Killer fashion, while Kanehara threw a few kicks that looked like nobody would get up from them. I can't remember many shootstyle matches this gritty and nasty.

There is a Caswell vs. Nobuhiko Takada match on tape which I assume is from UWF.

Excited to see what you dug up, OJ. If this info is correct, then Caswell must've been around 40 when he made his debut.

I went with Goldust mostly for his early career. No way I would watch more than a handful of Pre-MMA Cowboy Taker matches in a row, while Dustin Rhodes is seriously underrated and WWF Goldust has stuff like the Lawler match. I think they're kinda similiar later in their career, game old dudes with weird gimmicks who weren't afraid to slug it out, Taker has longer matches, but Goldust has a better punch and that awesome signature bump. I also think Goldust was less limited in his role, Taker is always Taker, I remember matches where Goldust would take a green worker to school, slug it out with another vet, or deliver a really good babyface performance like last monday.

Anybody have any George Gordienko stories? I only heard about him when he was mentioned by an old german globe trotting wrestler, who met him in England and said he was the most impressive wrestler he'd ever seen. Apparently Gordienko was a hooker and expelled from the US during the communist witchhunt. Then moved on to be an artist after his wrestling career and got quite some recognition. Why is he on the japan ballot? Are there any japan matches of his on tape?

I watched this for the first time yesterday. No way is this the greatest Stan Hansen match ever, atleast not for me. I much prefer his more all out brawls with Funk, Kawada, Andre hell even Colon. My favourite Hansen is the pissed off redneck badass Hansen and this didn't have much of that. I mean, just to make that clear this match is really great mostly thanks to Hansen's masterful selling. It's not something that people think of first about Hansen but it's something that he could do extremely well and seemingly whenever he wanted. I really dug how every attack that Kobashi tried he did five times in a row, because it's fucking Hansen you better give him twice the normal dose and then twice again. I mean it's weird, I can't think of a thing to make the match better, except maybe remove that dumb ropewalking move Kobashi tried, it's flawless for what they were doing and it does a heck of a job putting Kobashi over, it's by far the best of their matches that I've seen, but it's just that another match in their series to put Kobashi over. I can't call it a top level classic. Maybe I'll love it on the rewatch. But right now I just think it's "only" really good. Victim of hype, I guess?

I actually tried watching this earlier but found it very off-putting. I'm not big on joshi, but I don't hate it, the first couple minutes however struck some negatives with me, Tamura's dumb flying chest tap move that she did 3 times in a row, the annoying shrieking and that spot where they're lightly clubbering eachother's chests on the spot - still one of my least favourite spots ever, maybe I've watched too much BattlARTS. I mean, it's not awful, there was some decent action going on and Toshie was always positively abrasive, but trying to watch the match for the first time I felt it was for the joshi purists and just gave up. Reading this thread I gave it another chance and was ready to tag this match with a big "I don't get it" in my mind until about that halfway point when Tamura randomly grabbed that first of many sudden leglocks. After that the match took an incredibly steep upward curve. All the surprise leg submissions were really great, and Toshie was amazing at selling and falling into a more defensive role compared to her aggressiveness early on. Other pimped joshi matches have annoyed me in the past with the constant rhymeless switching of who's on offense, this match did a really neat job morphing into the kind of 50/50 chance deal that you will find in Lucha title matches, and man they did a beautiful job at that sort of finishing run. So many great counters, beautiful suplex moves, an epic self-devastating dive and one hell of a match story, almost entirely thanks to Toshie. So, I guess I have to thank Loss and Tim for pimping this now? And damn my ignorance. I'll just keep this post a reminder that a match doesn't have to be 100% flawless to turn out really great.

I'm pretty sure you could find a few people who despise that particular TM/DK match. There's always someone who doesn't care about the bits that some people love. Or people who just don't care about japanese wrestling, slow paced wrestling, "psychology!!!" etc. I find it more interesting that there's always people longing for some kind of consensus. That kind of defeats the purpose of argueing on the internet.