fxnj

Good showcase for both teams. This erred on the side of being a human demolition derby with all kinds of props used and both teams covered in blood by the end, but the dynamic of it being two big dudes against the underdog team of the tournament provided enough structure to hold things together. Really dug Ishikawa's shining wizard . ***3/4

The 2009 MOTY talk made me want to rewatch my own pick at the time for MOTY and it delivers. Here we have two of the biggest names in the promotion in Yuko Miyamoto teaming with his former rival and longtime veteran Takashi Sasaki to take on the two big underdogs in Isami Kodaka and Masashi Takeda for BJW's Maximum Tag Leage. From what I understand, Kodaka broke into the business around the same time as Miyamoto but got passed over for years while Miyamoto got his big push in 2007 that culminated in the classic scaffold match with Sasaki. Meanwhile, Takeda has only been wrestling a few years by this point but started out as a big fan of the promotion getting autographs from and taking pictures from some of the wrestlers, including his opponents here. These teams also had a much more low key match at a smaller venue earlier in the year with Miyamoto and Sasaki winning, setting the stage for Kodaka and Takeda to get another shot at pulling off at the upset at the magic Korakuen Hall in the biggest match of their career to this point. The beauty of this match is how smart these guys are with using the props. Usually in deathmatches, the beginning of the match serves to build up and tease the big spots done in the latter half. This results in a match that lives and dies by how much you buy into the spot and the style as a whole. This is no time wasted on the teasing or on building up spots. Kodaka and Takeda hit each other with light tube shots before the bell even sounds and the opening the minutes of the match see them take bumps on barbed wire and do spots on tables. Rather than merely being done to shock the viewer, these spots play the far deeper role of establishing Kodaka/Takeda as being just as well adapted to the environment as Miyamoto/Sasaki and how much and what they're willing to go through this time around. The prop merely provide a backdrop to what is, at heart, a very well worked tag match between the underdogs and the establishment, and that's why I'd call this match accessible even to people who don't normally watch deathmatches. As things settle down, we get a nice middle section mostly consisting of Sasaki and Miyamoto laying on a stiff beatdown. The deathmatch format really works well here when combined with the face in peril, giving the nice visual of Kodaka and Takeda covered in blood as they take shots from the comparatively unscathed Sasaki and Miyamoto. The spots I described as taking place early on might lead one to the impression that this peaks early, but that isn't the case at all, as they're smart with spacing out big spots and sprinkling in comebacks that things get red hot for the finish run. Crowd is fantastic for the finish, pulling so hard for the upset they even start booing Sasaki and Miyamoto, meanwhile the commentators are going crazy and screaming for the underdogs to go for the cover at one point. Kodaka and Takeda are so good with their progressive selling that when they finally get a big opportunity for the upset there's still a lot of drama surrounding the question of if they have enough left to fully to capitalize on it. They dig down deep, find just enough to pull it off, and it's an incredible moment in itself. ****3/4 I remember this kick starting an awesome year for the promotion that included several other matches that made narrowing down a single MOTY difficult. Eager to revisit them.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2hvfv1 Arisa Nakajima is my new favorite female wrestler after watching this. This is a match I can point to that backs up what I've said before that making intergender matches a lot more common is the best way for women to gain respect in wrestling as this is a match that works primarily for how it toys around with common perceptions of the boundaries set on women in wrestling. Nakajima comes out looking and acting like an idol before a dance performance, but, after the obligatory brawling at the beginning, things really get going when she's in the ring alone with Hamada. They exchange some rough looking strikes, but there's still a feeling that those barbed wire boards are there for the men to use and not these women. They do some teases and it lasts just long enough that I really started to think there's no way they'd do it, except then Nakajima ran into the barbed wire. That's the turning point of the match. Following that, she takes a ridiculous beating from Ito and Hamada that includes multiple other bare back bumps into the barbed wire, a bump on a bent chair, and a suplex onto a ladder later in the match. It's an amazing spectacle not just to see the punishment she's willing to take and the visible effects of it on her body but the way her facial expressions change from the happiness at the start of the match to this shell shocked thousand yard stare. I also dug her late match comeback as she survived so much up to that point I had no problem with her working an even strike exchange with a much bigger man in Ito, though instead of settling for just that she had to pull out a nasty headbutt. The only flaw I can point out in the match, but one which I assume to have been a deliberate decision by the workers to highlight Nakajima, is that Kasai is involved so rarely that it feels like a handicap match at points. It was a bit jarring how he only seemed to be there to break up pin attempts so things didn't get too unbelievable For what they were going for, this was great. ****

Am I the only one here who saw this when it happened? I don't think it's a ***** match as I agree it could have benefited a lot from slowing things down at points, but I also think it's too harsh to treat this as a forgettable MOVEZ~! match. A few things to keep in mind regarding the working style 1. This is 9 days after the death of Misawa and there's people in the crowd visibly crying or holding back tears as the match goes on. Similar to how you could say Undertaker/Michaels from a few months prior wouldn't work if it was 2 mid-carders doing on a Raw broadcast, I'd argue the unapologetically work-rate oriented style of this works only when you place yourself at the emotional point the promotion was at in this period. The incredible pace of this match could be seen as a reflection of the strong promotion the 4 guys involved wanted guys to see NOAH as in the wake of Misawa's death. 2. There was a lot of fear about head drops after Misawa's death, so the strike-oriented style of this could be seen in retrospect as the formal beginning of NOAH's move away from aping 90's AJPW and towards the neo-80's style seen in early 2010's. On that note, I also think 80's AJPW is a better comparison than 90's AJPW for this match, though I draw a similar sentiment that if Jumbo, Misawa, Tenryu, and Kawada had a match like this 9 days after Brody's death it would be remembered very fondly. I also don't really get why the magic is gone from the Shiozaki and Sasaki exchanges now that there's the added wrinkle of Shiozaki as the GHC title in the picture. This was the guy NOAH was trying to push as their new ace of the promotion, and they knew having him win it by beating Rikioh after Akiyama vacated it wasn't going to do much for him in the eyes of the fans. That's why Shiozaki, complete with his Kobashi cosplay chop exchange with Sasaki, is the most interesting guy in the match to me. It's a guy getting his opportunity to show he's The Man under some pretty shitty conditions and trying to run with it as best he can.

Although there seems to be a trend towards moving away from treating prime AJPW as the undisputed best wrestling ever, I'm such a big fan of the promotion I have difficulty finding motivation to seek matches from outside of it. I even think modern AJPW has been the best promotion in the world for both great top-to-bottom cards and high end matches for the few years since Akiyama took over. I would still much rather watch it than NJPW. It annoys me seeing people use event date for Japanese matches but air date for US matches. I dislike the cartoony and tropey style much mainstream US wrestling moved towards in the 80's and 90's and think 50's-70's was a much better period for American wrestling. I think it's very regrettable US wrestling moved away from the quasi-shoot style stuff seen in the surviving 20's and 30's footage. I see Brody, original Tiger Mask, and especially Inoki as all-time greats despite 80's set "reevaluation" leading many to see them as shit. I think Undertakers past 3 Wrestlemania matches against Brock, Bray, and Shane were all great in their own way and stand up fine with his matches before those.

As best I can tell it's the ditch list + the complete 1985-1993 original TV airings + some misc stuff from the now deleted AJPW history guy on YouTube and some other YouTube vids.

Posting this mainly because it's a look at early Buddy Rogers I hadn't seen talked about before. The commentary and cheesy sound effects kind of undermine the work these guys were doing, but it's still pretty entertaining stuff.

No clue for the date on this one so just went with the year the film was released. Enjoyed this about as much as I could enjoy a short match between guys I'd never heard of. Love how snug these guys work. The first few minutes see Terry rushing Davis with some hard forearms, only for Davis to take over and do some harsh looking stomps to the head. Things never really let up from there. As great as the strikes are, I should also note McGinnis pulls out a head lock later on and there's just the right amount of tightness in application and struggle from Davis that it doesn't look out of place at all from the violence that preceded it. Neat finish as well with McGinnis getting a bit reckless and running straight into a punch to the gut, which Davis then capitalizes on.

The episode is a huge part of WWE's modern history and played an undeniable role in shaping the climate of the time, most obviously with it leading to the McMahon death angle getting dropped. Skipping it just feels wrong. Anyone watching episodes from 2007 knows what happened, anyway, so I see no reason not to put it up.

Terrible music choice. For a much better viewing experience, I would suggest putting on Cowboy by Kid Rock instead. This is the only match on video from Sr, who is pretty much the splitting image of Jr. both in how he looks and in how he works. Very interesting watching him work just to pick out all he little things his sons took from, such as how he works holds and many of his overall mannerisms. Kind of a funny ending with Kashey repeatedly attempting something resembling Jr.'s toe hold only to get kicked away and leave himself open for a body slam to get pinned.

Went with this date after finding a newspaper clipping advertising this match presumably for later that night. Anyway, here's a rare early tag from before they even had tags and it was just a tornado match. Watching this, it's not hard to see why they stopped working team matches this way regularly. The deal with having 4 guys in the ring all the time just going back and forth pretty much prevents any heat from building and it just feels like a clusterfuck as a result. Too bad, since the last few minutes where it's just 1 guy in the ring desperately trying to fight off 2 people seems like it would be pretty compelling on a match with a better build. Edit: Just noticed I fucked up the title by accident. Would be nice to get it changed to "Nick Lutze & Tiny Roebuck vs. Vincent Lopez & El Pulpo (3/1/1940)"

The earliest tag I've seen video of. So early tags hadn't even been invented yet and it's basically a tornado match. Instead of doing lengthy control segments, it's worked more as two singles matches that sometimes intersect with the occasional double team move. As you'd expect, it's a bit confusing to keep track of what's going on at times, though, to their credit, they did work that into the psychology. Kind of sad this is apparently the only footage of Dropkick Murphy as he looks like a pretty good brawler and, for the first guy to do it, throws a pretty nice dropkick.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cr1KZpWNM9s Really neat mat sprint. I also dig the commentary with the tense and focused making the match feel important. Best part of the match might be the finish, though, with Gacek pulling out an early version of the sharpshooter to get the win.

Frank rematching with Tito after the Ken fights could have drawn huge as well. Fedor/Brock and GSP/Silva are also the obvious ones while we're talking MMA.

Would love to see a more detailed review making the case for that. This is definitely one of the lesser discussed prime NOAH big matches.

I've long thought of this as the first great match on film and, though I'm not sure if I'd still say that, it is easily my favorite match pre-1950's. It's also the only one feel comfortable giving a rating to as it's near-complete and in good quality. The main thing I remembered before this rewatch were those vicious forearm shots thrown by both guys in the lock-ups, but what struck me as well this was the intensity with which they locked up even before they started throwing those shots. It really makes the match stand out right from the beginning after seeing most guys look loose and relaxed in other matches, and it sets the tone for this as a tense match where every move feels meaningful. Even things that feel entirely mundane today, such as someone trying to block a snapmare or doing headbutts to a guy in the corner feel like a huge deal in here. Since it's a Nagurski match, we also get some sweet looking tackles towards the finish with Londos take some hard bumps for them. He manages to come back by capitalizing off an arm injury to Nagurski and win with a body slam to cap this off. ****1/2

Slightly better quality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI2Bh786bos I thought this was boring when I watched it a few years, but now that I've seen more from this time period I'd call it some pretty solid grappling, though still not really that special. Match picks up for the finish, though, with Sonnenberg pulling out these insane running headbutts and Nagurski weathering the storm and looking for an opportunity to capitalize on a mistake.

You know it's an old school match when facelocks are treated as near falls and body slams as a finish. I dug the dueling facelocks stuff in the first half of this, but it really picks up when Nagurski starts pulling out the football tackles and Lopez takes some hard bumps. Those body slams also looked pretty brutal with little to no give from the mat. Some nice drama with Lopez desperately desperately trying to stay in the match but getting overwhelmed. Good job putting over Nagurski overall.

Good slow building match. The cool thing with these guys is that they treated basic moves headlock or leg scissors as finishers when applied properly, so there's a nice tension in the opening moments when they do those otherwise mundane holds. They do a nice job getting mileage out of other holds, too, such as toeholds and arm locks. It's really not too different from 70's stuff with Inoki and Brisco. We only get 20 minutes but I also think it's pretty impressive Lewis worked an hour long match like this in his 40's. Good stuff towards the finish too with it looking like Shikat has his older opponent's number but Lewis finding just the right opportunity to pull out his strangle hold

Video is in a weird resolution, silent, and overall very poor quality, but this is still some amazing footage. You can see still see traces of shoot elements, specifically how hard they are laying everything in and the struggle behind it all, but overall this is pretty firmly entrenched into the modern working style. It makes me wish there was more footage of Man Mountain Dean as he looks like a great big man here, pretty much working like the best version of a horror movie monster in a wrestling ring. He just does such a great job of perfecting the way he slowly lumbars around the ring, and, though he doesn't always hit what he attempts, the first few minutes establish that the opponent is in some deep shit when he does. Lopez does fine as the underdog, but it's really a sight to behold the vicious beating he lays on in the 2nd fall. Loved the finish run as well, especially the whole section with Dean wrenching in the hammerlock and the ref having to pop Lopez's shoulder back into place after the rope break.

http://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A14567 Nice seeing some footage of Marshall, as I was on of the guys who had no idea who he was when he went into the WON HOF. Compared to the Wagner match just a few months before this, Marshall's presence seems to result that much more closely resembles the modern style. Seems like there's more of an emphasis on theatrical working of individual holds instead of the more back-and-forth grappling seen in the Wagner match. Marshall takes much of the first half of the match, throwing George around at will but it looks like he tires himself out towards the end and that leaves George an opening for a comeback. Nice stretch run for a hot crowd with both guys just charging into each other like two bulls.

http://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A14565 Some footage of a sparring and promo from the beginning of the wrestling career of former football star Joe Savoldi. It's a short clip but I thought it was interesting how he mentioned he chose wrestling over boxing because he didn't want to end up punch drunk. I've seen it implied the long-term effects of concussions weren't thought much about until the last decade, but this footage shows there was some fear this far back even if the science wasn't quite there yet.

http://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A14563 Really dig this. Feels like a BJJ exhibition match in that they're clearly feeding themselves into each other's moves, but there's still a pretty shooty feel to everything. Lots of really cool grappling on display here, including a banana split attempt towards the end of the file. Also interesting hearing the violinist during this as I had assumed before having live music during matches was just a new gimmick thought up by indy promotions in recent years. A bit hard to tell these guys apart, to the point that I'm not sure if George won in 2 straight falls and video is out of order or if it's 2/3 falls with a missing finish. Still enjoyed it a lot regardless.

There are natural limits to how much muscle the human body can handle regardless of training methods, and Brock Lesnar is clearly well past that point without even having to get into his age. Also, just look at his massive trapezius muscles. Those are a definite sign of doping as well, since they have a lot of androgen receptors and, thus, tend to grow quickly when one is using steroids.

Plenty of ways guys can cheat drug tests. Lance Armstrong never even failed one. Sure, false positives are possible but Lesnar doesn't even pass the eye test.