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This is a bit better than I remember it being but still far misses the mark on the MOTYC/MOTDC hype I've seen it get. I sort of feel like people are rating this more on the story they attempted than the one they actually executed. If we were rating this solely on the story attempted, this would indeed be one of the best of the decade. Playing up Nigel's concussion from the Aries match was very topical and served as solid meta-commentary on the demands that fans place on wrestlers. What actually makes Nigel the heel here, though, is his own hypocrisy. Even though Bryan challenges on the condition that he not attack Nigel's head, a lot of Nigel's own offense (lariats, tower of London, european uppercuts) is itself targeted at Bryan's head. By the finish, he takes it even a step beyond that when he starts headbutting Bryan and then attacks Bryan's own injured eye from the Morishima match. In essense, Nigel is a guy who had a legit point but ended up abandoning his principles and his own personal health in the name of getting a win over someone who he couldn't beat before. Unfortunately a lot of the nuance here was lost on the commentators, but Joseph Montecillo's video was a great help in me being able to understand the story these guys were trying to tell. Also unfortunate is that I probably enjoyed hearing Joseph Montecillo talk about the match more than I actually enjoyed watching it. As great as the framework that they had was, the work doesn't go nearly far enough into exploring it. Like, yeah, it's cool seeing Bryan go for the body during signature spots where he'd normally target the head, but that's about the extent of how he changes up his attack. Otherwise, he still runs through standard workrate-y offense like Tiger Suplexes, backdrops, and suicide dives. Why not do something special for the occasion, like make the body a focal point of his attack and pull out moves to specifically target it? You can't convince me that a top rope backdrop is less damaging to the head than those wimpy hammer and anvil elbows. Also, even though it seemed to be accidental hardway blood, Nigel as the guy bleeding after a head collision was the wrong visual for their story. I felt it could have added a lot if they'd called an audible and have Bryan blade as well. The stuff with the restart was good and I liked how Nigel seemed to be getting legit heat and not the wink-wink type heat Bryan got during his own heel run, but I felt he could have shown more of a mean streak to him. The last few minutes were great, but I felt he could have done more to sell his desperation in getting the win before that. I dunno. Bryan's selling for the head targeted stuff Nigel ended up doing was fine, but maybe some glassy eyed Kawada selling on one of those lariats could have been the missing piece of the puzzle.

I have to admit to being a bit skeptical of this being that it's post-neck injury Chono, but after watching it I'm officially on the hype train for this match. It blows away the overrated Hash/Hase matches in pretty much every facet whether it's focused psychology, crowd heat, pacing, or selling. I really love the clear throughline here of them spending the whole match working over each others' injuries. It might have just been the camera angle, but the hotshot that started Hase's neck attack looked a lot rougher than how I'm used to seeing that spot. He goes full-on dick mode from there attacking Chono's neck in all kinds of ways, and Chono deserves a lot of credit here not only for his selling but also in being willing to eat such an attack in the first place less than a year removed from the injury. Chono's comeback leg work was also made pretty compelling by Hase's selling, and the Yakuza kick that got Chono back in the match looked snug. There's also some nice details in the matwork like Chono moving his leg away when Hase tries to grab it to counter an Indian deathlock, or Chono using his hand to stop Hase from raising up Chono's head during Hase's first STF attempt. Unlike a lot of post-80's NJPW matwork where it just feels like they're killing time, they put a lot of let of effort into selling the cumulative impact of the holds while still keeping things moving. Watching Hash matwork made me think that 90's crowds just didn't buy into submissions anymore, but this match has me rethinking that as the crowd got huge into the submissions here, especially down the stretch. Hase's rolling outside figure four and Chono's receipt were both fantastic and really got me into the match. Last few minutes were perfectly laid out and had the crowd biting on everything they did. Much of the second half saw Hase try to retaliate against Chono's leg attack with some leg work of his own, so him shutting Chono down with an uranage was a great surprise that paid off the earlier neck work. Ditto him not being able to fully capitalize on his follow-up Northern Lights due to the bad leg. Even Chono just kind of getting up afterwards and hitting a Yakuza kick instead of doing some big counter transition worked to sell Hase's fading cardio. I loved the struggle for Hase's failed attempt to land one more uranage on Chono. When Chono escapes it really looked like Hase was spent. Then just when you think Chono's weathered the storm, Hase busts out a surprise reverse STF and Chono has no choice but to tap. Brilliant stuff.

Basing means selling for and countering high flying offense.

Virus/Maya Jr. as the top rated lucha singles on Cagematch doesn't really surprise me. It got a fair amount of play at the time as a lucha match that even people who normally disliked the style could get into. The matwork in the first 2 falls strikes a nice middle ground of milking the selling and struggle while also including some creative counters and flow sequences to satisfy people who are into more stylish stuff. It also has a neat structure of impact moves being used to set-up for submissions that they wouldn't be able to hit otherwise, instead of just dropping the matwork and going all in on impact moves after a point. The 3rd fall is a bit more CMLL-ish with lots of near falls and laying around, but they build it around some genuine holy shit moments to make it a bit more palatable to people who aren't big into stuff like Atlantis mask matches. For me the biggest thing holding the match back isn't even the fault of the workers, that being CMLL's incredibly obnoxious production and some clipping. Worst is when Maya hits a great dive outside as his biggest move of the match, then they replay it twice and go to commercial, before coming back to Virus controlling the match in the ring again.

This delivers exactly what you'd expect between these guys. That being you get some cool flippies interspersed between laughably phony set-ups for said flips, poor strikes, and questionable selling decisions. These guys also somehow managed to botch an irish whip, which had me howling with laughter at how Ospreay did a unprompted square dance while running into the corner. Watching a guy in the crowd laughing while they did their obligatory epic late-match strike exchange kind of confirmed a thought I had while watching Miyahara's goofy character work the Nakajima match. That being that maybe these NOAH epics of late are best viewed as having moved into some sort of lighthearted DDT-esque parody instead of being an unironic entry into the genre. In that light, the shitty forearms and missed kicks just kind of had me smirking instead of groaning. I have absolutely no clue what's going on with people trying to hype this as some MOTYC or whatever, but I had a pretty good time being awed at the athleticism while also laughing along with the crowd at the goofy ass facials and epic match tropes.

I watched this a few months ago and thought it was pretty mid, but that reversal Santo did on the figure four has for some reason stuck with me. After seeing how it's possible to completely reverse the hold by standing upright, the usual way guys work the hold of just screaming while rolling around comes across kind of lame. Also after years of just thinking the concept of reversing the pressure of the hold by flipping over was just some smoke and mirror shit I had to go along with, watching how it's done here makes me realize there's actually a solid principle underlying it. Flipping the hold over, particularly how Santo does it here, gives you the room necessary to bend your legs in a way to put pressure on the calf of the other guy, like a modified calf slicer. Understanding that has also kind of tainted other stuff where I don't see guys bothering to bend their legs much after reversing the hold, including in some otherwise great stuff like Fujinami/Nishimura 06. All this because of a single spot in a match that's not even all that great. Thanks, Santo.

Peak Kubrick stare

https://vk.com/video498684816_456239018 Bought the Big Heart match on DVD and uploaded it. Before watching it I thought I hated Flair formula, but here's Rogers working an awesome match that basically follows the Flair formula. So I guess Flair is just shit.

Smaller high flying guys like Sting, Eddie Kingston, and Samoa Joe? That narrative doesn't fit at all when you have all these vets with no issues fitting in, but then one lone guy whining about respect who keeps getting into shoot fights and cutting off-script promos.

Not my thing. I feel like I just watched Eddie Kingston pleasure himself in front of me. I'm happy that he got to wrestle his idol, but this was not good. Him coming out in Kawada tribute tights and trying to work a Kobashi cosplay act was cringe as hell. I couldn't believe Akiyama went along with this. For some reason Kingston's chops did not look that good, even despite Akiyama's chest turning red. I guess there's more to throwing good strikes than just hitting your opponent hard. Match lacked flow, seemingly driven by which 90's AJPW moments Kingston wanted to re-enact rather than any sort of narrative. One minute they're working Misawa/Kobashi tribute exchanges, the next Akiyama is doing his signature neck work, and then the next they're doing no-selling head drops. Akiyama's usually stellar offense also looked weirdly soft.

Some background on this match: The commentator mentions that Akiyama had made Kobashi a promise that he'd beat Misawa here so that they'd fight each other for the Triple Crown later. No idea what became of that. Also, Akiyama landed a top rope exploder to Misawa in an untelevised match during CC 97, which started the neck injury angle and led to it become a big target in all his big matches after that. Hence, I sort of got a feeling here of things coming full circle. It sounds cynical to say the best match of the decade and by extension the best match so far of the 21st century happened only 2 months in. But fuck it, that's what this is. Perfect performance from both guys, perfect layout, perfect production, and perfect usage of an epic storyline going back nearly a decade. The opening is perfect tension building. The Greco-Roman lock-ups look awesome and feel like they play off both guys' amateur experience. Misawa digging into his juniors offense and Akiyama doing the Jumbo high knee were nice touches as well to conjure up images of Jumbo/Misawa from 10 years before this. Match really gets going when Akiyama starts working on Misawa's neck, and it's an early example of what an incredible offensive wrestler he was/is. Nasty looking neck cranks and even a routine spot like the apron knee looked wince-worthy. Misawa also delivers masterful selling with how he contorts his face and groans in a very realistic manner. I nearly cried just watching Akiyama elbow him in the corner. It makes me wonder how much was legit as he seemed to have lost some selling ability once the NOAH split happened. The bumps he took on the apron and on the outside were also killer. The close-up of him after the apron exploder and then him getting up to reveal a cut on his side gave me chills. As far as "young guy beats old guy" matches go, it is really interesting how they balance making you want to see the young guy win but also making you think about the hell the old guy has put himself through and make you feel sorry for him. All of Misawa's offense was damn awesome as well. Going back a bit, I love Misawa's initial offensive run and the surliness of him grinding a headlock right on Akiyama's cheekbone before trying to elbow him into oblivion. The dropkick aimed square at Akiyama's face that was one of Misawa's first offensive moves after Akiyama's big run was the perfect choice. I really loved the struggle over him getting the Tiger Driver and how the commentator speculated whether he'd go for the '91 or the regular version. I felt like him being too prideful to use the TD '91 was really what did him in, since Akiyama had just enough left to score some fighting spirit exploders and create some space. I admit I kind of got deja vu from the usage of fighting spirit in the stretch run given how overused similar moments were as lazy transitions in NOAH, but I'd say this and the 1998 Kobashi/Akiyama TC match are probably the best examples you'll find of the trope between the build to it and the selling. Anyway, that shot of Akiyama rising up after hitting those exploders is one of my favorites in all of wrestling and never ceases to give goosebumps. It looks like something you'd get in a movie if you had some genius director carefully controlling the production conditions, except it was just a spontaneous moment in a live match, making it even better. They do just enough near falls after that to build anticipation for Akiyama's win without going overboard and the end really feels like it's made Akiyama into a top tier guy after years of questionable booking.

I think I liked this just a tad more than others. Not a serious MOTYC, but I'd call it a great match. Between the quasi shoot-style grappling and the white ring, it had a similar feel to a PRIDE fight, which I'm guessing is what NJPW was going for here. I'd agree that both guys looked a lot more comfortable doing pro wrestling moves than working shoot submissions, but I think they kind of faked it till they made it. Even with some sloppiness, they sold the hell out of all their submissions as potential match enders and kept a good pace moving from hold to hold, so it worked for me. Seems the crowd also bought into it pretty well. The customary Muto legwork was pretty good, highlight being the dropkick he did on Nagata's knee while he was still sitting on the mat. The figure-four probably went a bit long, though, given the more urgent/realistic approach to submissions they were going for. I liked Nagata's Akiyama shout-outs with the early-match guillotine and late-match wrist-clutch exploder. Muto no-selling the exploder didn't bother me since it wasn't a regular move for Nagata and the shining wizard setup that followed looked neat. I took this match as a bit of a coda to the Akiyama/Misawa match from July that Akiyama brought Nagata out to watch, with it now being Nagata's turn to win the big one.

I'm not sure why I always had this pegged as a disappointment after watching it a few years ago. This was really good, possibly great. Most of it is just them running through their greatest hits in front of a hot Dome crowd, but that's really all I needed. We get an intense Hash/Choshu starting lock-up, Choshu slowly applying the sasorigatame, Hash and Chono doing a Spaghetti Western staredown before Hash wrecks him with kicks and a hard DDT, Hash and Choshu slapping each other, and Saito standing defiantly while Choshu unloads on him with strikes. If that sounds good to you, you'll dig this. Something that sets this apart a bit is these guys also decided to do a bunch of stiff headbutts on each other, starting with the opening Hash/Choshu lock-up and peppering them throughout the rest of the match. I initially wasn't sure why they'd give each other brain damage on what was basically a dark match, but I noticed a camera guy at ring side, so maybe it was a later decision not to show any of the NJPW matches on TV. Recommended if you don't mind the awful shaky fancam footage this is available as.

Not bad, but very underwhelming given the participants. I actually watched this both yesterday and today as I was a little shocked at how little I enjoyed it the first time, but it's just not that good. "Never got out of first gear" seems a good phrase to describe it. Matwork seemed kind of basic and somewhat sloppy, like with Inoki missing a headscissors but Gotch selling anyway. Inoki also seems weirdly dry here despite how charismatic he'd become in the coming years. Finish came out of nowhere and was actually a bit of a surprise as I could have sworn Gotch's beautiful German suplex was the finish. To respond to the person who thought that's the finish to the first fall, this was only a 1 fall match and Inoki's foot was on the ropes so it wasn't counted.

Man, what the fuck was this? After a fun start with Murakami rushing Misawa, it seems they had no idea what to do. Misawa spends some time pretending to respect Murakami with lots of boring circling and weird start-stop matwork. Murakami eventually throws several shoot punches at Misawa which he completely no-sells, and then comes back to wreck him with elbows. They go to the outside and Murakami blades off an ultra-safe looking ringpost shot. As he slowly rose up to reveal the blood, I expected a comeback, but instead they just go home after a few more elbows. I liked how Murakami bumped on Misawa's elbows and it was cool how he sold a leg kick from Misawa like death, but that's about it. Really weird performance from Misawa here. Have to assume his mind was on something else during this match.

I love and hate this match. Love because it's amazing, but hate because it was one of the first prime NOAH 6-mans I saw, and it doomed me to be disappointed by no other NOAH 6-man being nearly as good. The match is awesome from the ring intros with Tak and Kobashi lording their belts over each other, and then they give the fans what they want by starting out the match and doing a great lock-up sequence. From there we got some fun and creative double team submissions that both sides use to troll each other. Things soon move into a heat section on KENTA, and this would usually be where things start to drag with these NOAH tags, but instead the match just keeps getting better. It starts out with chaotic outside brawling that sees KENTA eat a pile driver, and then we get some really fun stuff with Ikeda and Takayama competing to see who can kick KENTA harder. For some reason this was one of the few NOAH matches where Ikeda was allowed to be something resembling his BattlArts self, and he brings it. It also has one of the funniest spots I've seen when Sugirua counts a Takayama pin on KENTA, and then him and Takayama celebrate like they've won. I love how Takayama taunts Kobashi as much as possible. It's here that the match starts to feel like a showcase for Takayama's side, and I'm ok with that. As has been said about other matches, there's nothing wrong with stepping aside when someone else is giving a brilliant performance. To be fair, KENTA deserves some credit here for being willing to eat some really hard shots, and he also does a good job milking the hot tag to Kobashi. The Kobashi tag is as hot as you'd expect with the crowd getting huge into his machine gun chops. Then the match throws one more curveball with giving us an awesome Sugiura/Honda stretch run with Sugiura trying to up-stage Honda by showing off his own dead lift suplexes. Match goes 24 minutes and I was sad to see it end, which is a big rarity for me and NOAH tags.

This ruled. I've been fascinated by the evolution of the Japanese 6-man tag structure, and this feels like patient zero for the epics of the early 90's. The hallmarks that made those Misawa/Jumbo tags are present here between clearly defined characters within a multi-layered hierarchy (Inoki/Butcher>Dynamite/Tiger/Fujinami>Babyface), there's an emphasis on history between the participants and ongoing feuds, and there's a focus on tag team strategy with them trying to zero in on weak links or use multi-person attacks. Fujinami and Dynamite open up with some incredible proto-shoot style mat exchanges done at breathtaking speed. This was apparently one of Fujinami's first matches since graduating into the heavyweight division, so there's a cool wrinkle there to the exchanges of Dynamite wanting to show he's still on Fujinami's level. The criticisms towards Tiger and Dynamite are total bullshit. Dynamite was a great asshole in this always laying in his stuff, and I loved one spot where he made a save on Babyface by just casually jumping in the ring and working as if he was the legal man while the ref frantically tried to get him out. Tiger leaned into his kickboxing backgrounds, focusing more on just stiffing people with cool looking kicks than doing high flying, and he was also fun pinballing around for Butcher. Babyface was pretty much the whipping boy, and he was a great whipping boy. He knew how to bump and emote to make the offense of the babyfaces look as painful as possible, but he also made sure to get in enough licks to not look like a total joke. Inoki and Butcher weren't in a lot, but they had some fun interactions building to their upcoming singles match. Even though the match is a little underwhelming if you just judge it bell-to-bell, the post-match brought things to a satisfying conclusion with Butcher and his entourage going nuts laying it into the babyfaces and brawling all over the building. It felt up there with the best of ECW arena brawls and it was a unique spectacle listening to the announcer frantically trying to hype upcoming cards before he ran out of TV time while you hear the sounds of clattering chairs in the background.

One for the "Eddie was only great in 1997 and 2004-2005" crowd. Eddie looks like the best in the world here carrying a somewhat unrefined but motivated guy to a great match. The opening matwork feels like the best possible rendition of lucha matwork with them constructing these elaborate sequences out of basic holds, but everything looks snug and hard fought. After some vintage Eddie character work involving a handshake, things transition to an American style heat sequence with Eddie being awesome on offense. Dude has such varied offense that he runs through so smoothly. The announcers point out how he transitions from attacking Nova's shoulders, to his back, and finally to his legs, and somehow it just flows together. Nova shows some fire on his comeback and tries his best, but he's clearly a step behind Eddie. His comeback is comparatively short, though, before they do some solid back-and-forth for the finish.

I was hoping to watch all the 2001 Misawa/Akiyama GHC build, but apparently there's a 6/24 tag I can't find where Akiyama pins Misawa with a wrist-clutch Exploder and challenges Misawa on the mic afterwards. Anyway, this is about 2/3's of a really solid build-up tag. Akiyama/Misawa work some impressive amateur style grappling exchanges. The juniors deliver the eye-popping action, albeit with some minor sloppiness. Am I crazy or is this the best Marufuji ever looked? There was insane speed on his spots even compared to a few years later, he took some nutty bumps for Akiyama on the outside, and I got a kick out of how he sold all of Akiyama's holds like death. Coming into Marufuji's work from his stuff in the late 2000's/early 2010's, I always thought he was kind of shit, but watching this I can see what Misawa saw in him. Anyway, this is NOAH so there's a dead crowd throughout most of the match and there's a point where it's obvious they're artificially extending the Marufuji beatdown to fill a 17 minute time slot when this would have worked better as a 12 minute sprint, but I enjoyed it.

Hey, it's a small show NOAH tag that isn't a total disappointment. I was hesitant to check this out as the 6-mans I've seen from this period have tended to settle into rote work. I guess it's the 8-mans that they were trying to get over as the main build-up match format as everyone put in a lot of effort here. Just non-stop action with enough hierarchy play to stop it from feeling like a spotfest. Marufuji and Kanemaru are probably at their best here, just playing the roles of token spot monkeys delivering on well-executed and fast paced juniors exchanges, with no pretentions about being anything more than that. Both teams have fun during their control segments and the finish stretch gives some beautiful chaos. Misawa/Akiyama exchanges were weirdly kept to a minimum, but the commentators explained that Misawa was recovering from a cold, so that's probably why.

"I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did" is a phrase that's fast becoming cliche for me to use when talking about 2000's NOAH but... yeah. Given Misawa's age and Akiyama's position as a rapidly rising star who's already beaten Misawa, this should have should have been about Akiyama dominating Misawa with Misawa having to use his ring savvy to stay in. The outside work at the beginning showed hints of such a narrative with Misawa taking a gnarly bump off a blocked outside elbow and doing a good job selling shoulder damage from the bump during Akiyama's control segment, but it pretty quickly settles into generic bomb throwing. Not bad, but not great either. I felt like the DCOR could have used more struggle, but the work after the reset had some hot exchanges for the minute it lasted.

There's 10 full matches, but just barely vs. Thesz 6/21/1950 and 1/5/1951 vs Anaya 1/5/1951 vs Chief Big Heart 5/27/1960 (I don't think this one is online) vs Abe Jacobs 11/16/1960 vs Haystacks Calhoun 4/14/1961 vs O'Connor 6/30/1961 vs Kowalski 2/22/63 w/ Barend/Maurice vs Brazil/Dixon/Thomas 3/15/1963 w/ Snuka vs Albano/Stevens 11/25/1982

I could have sworn I'd written about this before, but I guess not. This is very much a match that rewards attention to detail and repeat viewings, though I can understand why some might see it as overrated on first watch. I remember watching this the first time and thinking "where's the strikes," but the true hallmarks of the great 90's TC matches (thoughtful transitions, detail-oriented work punctuated by well-executed big moments, a beginning section that actually matters and naturally progresses into a hot stretch run) are all right here if you care to look. Even though they no doubt had that opening planned beforehand, my head canon is that Tenryu was taken aback by all the cheers Muto got, so he wasn't quite on his game with seeing Muto's big knee at the start. None of the matwork that follows is filler. Tenryu, whilst doing an amazing job of selling lingering cobwebs, tries to take it to the mat to stall for time to recover. Muto is able to turn the tables into head-focused holds (head lock, chinlock) that just make the situation worse. I guess Muto going for a kimura off a pin attempt doesn't fit the theme, but that's the tiniest of nitpicks when he's backing Tenryu into a corner and throwing shots at his head just seconds later. Sensing that things aren't going well, Tenryu immediately rolls out the big bombs starting with a powerbomb. Tenryu's bread and butter is normally wearing down an opponent with strikes, so him immediately going for the powerbomb is perfect to get across the situation as dire. What surprised me while rewatching this is just how dominant Muto seems in the first half. Pretty much every time Tenryu scores something a Muto cut-off comes right afterwards. The fight on the apron/outside is so good with getting across Tenryu's desperation to get back into the match, but even that backfires when Muto gets that dragon screw. Tenryu finally getting the upperhand by going in on Muto's own injured knee is great stuff between Tenryu's leg work and his selling while doing said leg work. I'm not bothered by the leg work not playing a factor in the stretch run since 1. neither guys' big moves are focused on the knee, so they both have time to recover and 2. the Tenryu leg work is already pretty important for the role it plays in Tenryu finally gaining momentum after the one-sided first half. The actual stretch run is really great between the set-ups, anticipation, execution, and selling of all the big spots. Just seeing Tenryu finally do his punches/chops corner spot for the first time late in the match feels huge because of how he never got the chance earlier. Stuff like both guys' frankensteiners and the final moonsault feel like they'd be highlight reel worthy for most young guys, let alone guys as old and with as much mileage as these guys. Also the Shining Wizard block -> Tenryu brainbuster -> fist pump section is perfection.

This was a total gem that absolutely lived up to the names involved. Story was pretty much built around Araya being really good at eating a beating but really bad at dishing it out. If this were a videogame, Araya's HP would be really high but his offensive stat would be really low. The commentators also mention some side story with Tenryu's pin over Baba happening in Sapporo (where this match took also place) and Kawada wanting to repeat history by getting a pin over Tenryu here, but that mostly takes a backseat to just opening a can of whoop ass on Araya. Fuchi is awesome wavering between sadistically picking apart Araya with punches and playing the over-matched old man when he's against Tenryu. Kawada delivers on the stiff kicks you'd want against Araya and the Tenryu exchanges are as intense as you'd want. Tenryu is just all-around pretty awesome whether he's in the ring or on the apron. I'm increasingly finding myself puzzled at the narrative around Tenryu's enzuigiri as some deep flaw in his work you just have to reluctantly look past, as I loved him sneaking in enzuigiri's from the apron and his opponents were great selling the move as deadly. Also, him shaking the ropes one time when Araya was getting pinned made the kick out feel like the most important thing in the world. I also enjoyed the mini-narrative that developed towards the end with Araya having to spam the moonsault because he knew he was outgunned in a striking match, and him eventually getting caught for it. This is exactly the sort of hard-hitting action driven by strong character work that made the 90's so great and way better than the phoned-in NOAH tags from this period.