dawho5

Watch the Faulkner vs. Woods bout for a slow burn from trickster to pissed off. The Faulkner vs. Breaks match on youtube is pure badass Faulkner.

I second Nishimura. I think a few British guys deserve a good look as well. Vic Faulkner had two very distinct sides to his character, the cheeky guy with the trickster attitude and the "pissed off, I'm gonna punch you in the face even if it's illegal you son of a bitch" side to him. I've only seen a few matches where the aggressive aspect comes through but it's fucking great. Jon Cortez is a great, great (best ever?) technician who can ratchet up the heat when he wants to. He's like Dean Malenko if Dean ever learned how to work a crowd and was better on the mat.

Actually, yeah, Sasaki did come along right around that time. Either way, he held up far better than the All Japan guys did. And Tenryu had a pretty solid run into the 2000s, going strong past the point that Misawa and co. had started breaking down. Probably has something to do with him working a less dangerous and physically demanding style early in his career. And it's not so much the style Tanahashi or Nakamura works, but the style their opponents tend to favor. Taking all the punishment they do adds up over time. I'd say the lack of unnecessarily dangerous head drops has to help their chances of longevity. Even so, taking that many concussive shots has to add up. Plus Tanahashi has bad knees due to all of the high flying stuff. It's sort of similar to the Chris Benoit situation for me. Wrestlers (especially in japan nowadays) are very likely to do lasting damage to themselves in order to put on "better matches". It's something that I think will eventually be addressed in a similar manner to how the NFL did after all those retired players started having problems. Probably not anytime soon, but I think it will happen at some point.

Those Japanese stars who went into their 40s and 50s were from before Japanese wrestling became so physically demanding. Look at how beat up Misawa and crew got in the 90s and the effects in the 2000s. They were all still going in the late 2000s, but as shells of their former selves. Compare that to Tenryu and Sasaki from the generation of stars before who were still going relatively strong while those guys were fading. It's a different landscape now.

Yatsu is a mixed bag. His execution could be way off depending on the match and any chops/punches/lariats he threw were pretty likely to look really weak. He was never going to be more than a midcard guy as far as charisma goes. But man, the guy had fire and his suplexes and slams looked awesome. And he tended to work really smart most of the time, which is a huge plus.

Here's the thing for me on Choshu. I really, really, REALLY dislike how he used the sharpshooter (sasorigatame, whatever) so often, relied on restholds to get through large parts of matches and tended to use the backdrop exclusively as a transition. However, he somehow managed to keep doing all of that and make it seem important within the match. How he did that I'll never know. There are a few unquestionable things he had going for him. His charisma was off the charts and he had great fire, both of which he used to incredible effect. His look and his persona fit everything else he did. When he was in matches where he could just hit bursts of big offense he was fucking amazing. His execution was phenomenal as well, everything looked impactful. Ultimately I actually preferred Yatsu in that tag team for having more variety, selling and bumping far better and setting up his big spots well.

That video was all kinds of kitsch. Julius Caesar, complete with Cleopatra (who had a golden throne at ringside), what looked to be Genghis Khan, a mobster family, (could it be....) Satan, a very kayfabe cat gimmick, what looked to be the Grinch but as a gymnast-style babyface, there's just so much to mention I can't get to all of it. And that's based on 10 out of 16 minutes. Looks like it'd be a bit goofy on the whole, but the kitsch factor is certainly strong.

Both Stan Hansen vs. Jumbo matches in 86 are far better than the matches they had afterwards. Jumbo willing to brawl with Hansen is always a treat. The Funk vs. Choshu match from the same time period is a lot of fun with Funk really heeling it up and both bringing the fire and great brawling. The running punch through the ropes by Choshu was so sweet.

The Rocky Raymond stuff had me in tears. Fucking great!

I thought Jumbo vs. Kawada was great as a midcard guy doing whatever it took to hang with Jumbo. You have to remember that Kawada was way below Jumbo in 91. Him and Taue were always going to be at a disadvantage against Jumbo or Misawa and they had to find ways of working around that. The 2001 tag match is Nagata/Iizuka vs. Kawada/Fuchi 12/14/2000. It has my favorite indirect way of ending heel heat ever, screw hot tags. Another great 2000s Fuchi match is Tenry/Fuchi vs. Kawada/Araya 6/30/01. Not just Fuchi being a complete dick to the youngster, you get the added bonus of Tenryu doing the same. One of my favorite tag teams ever.

Why not shore up weak spots on the GWE stuff for the time being?

I hated that stuff when I started the 2000s project. After a while it became something I glossed over more often than not. Helped me enjoy the rest of the match.

Just started on the Jumbo vs. Choshu feud this weekend. Jumbo is really not suited for the kind of match that this kind of feud needs in 1985. Choshu keeps trying to get him fired up and Jumbo....goes into a hold. I think that Yatsu gets legit pissed at Jumbo in the 2/1/85 match for in no way engaging on the level that Tenryu has been for a few matches. After the blade job on the floor it looks like both Joe Higuchi and Choshu are trying to rein him in, but he's just not having it. My feeling is that's the reason for the goofy finish. Also, finished disc 1 of the AWA set. Brunzell is a revelation and the best match so far is Bock vs. Robinson. Although I will say Brunzell working a hold is by far his biggest weakness. Brunzell selling and making a fired-up comeback is great though.

His MUGA match against Saito from 06 is pretty damn good as well. It's not at the level of the Fujinami match, but it's still a match that's well worth your 20 minutes or so. He has a 2006 or 2007 match against Tajiri worth seeing just for how Nishimura and Tajiri work Tajiri's signature stuff into MUGA style. I can see him being in the 90 to 100 range based on the limited amount I've seen of him. He's incredible at selling, works the "king of the mountain" stuff like nobody else I've ever seen, keeps his matches really, really compact, and his striking is far better than you would ever think it is. If you like the 70s/early 80s NWA/AWA style of working at all he's worth checking out. Especially for how he blends that style in against opponents as varied as Takayama, Kanemoto and Tajiri almost seamlessly.

Great post Will. As usual you don't leave much else to be said. Personally, I'm thankful for all the folks who talk about wrestling here and the great wrestling I might not otherwise have found in the more obscure corners of the internet. And on a personal level, I'm thankful that Martin was going through the 2000s Japan at around the same time I was. We may not always agree on what constitutes a great match, but that's part of the fun of it. Let's get to that 94 Champion Carnival soon, buddy.

Great stuff again, but that's no surprise. I'm starting to think the reason Steven has his own podcast is so he can actually talk for more then thirty seconds at a time. Although I may have popped if Steven had cut off Will. Not that Will isn't making good points, just the fan of fiery babyfaces in me talking.

PWO isn't really about who you like as far as wrestling goes. It's about wanting to talk about wrestling and why you like the wrestlers you do. I think that's why most of the people here like it so much.

Just watched Cortez vs. Grey and that's right up there with Breaks vs. Street and Breaks vs. Faulkner. Tremendous amount of heat between them as the match goes on. Great escalation throughout with some chippy stuff near the end. I really love how Cortez starts the bout normally but ever so subtly becomes more and more heelish throughout. Even in the early going everything is really well-worked. They set a great tone early with the intensity they work headlocks and chinlocks and ramp up from there. Reccomended watch for sure. Jon Cortez seems like the guy they wanted Dean Malenko to be in WCW.

I second the vote for Hansen vs. Colon. Hansen jawing with the crowd in a baseball stadium is great. Especially if you give any credence to the stories wrestlers tell of how crazy Puerto Rican fans were.

I'd have to say the Hashimoto/Ogawa feud deserves a look. Inoki's shooter phase was definitely a negative as a whole, but Hashimoto and Ogawa were a huge highlight. The Tokyo Dome was filled to the brim on a few occasions to see Hashimoto end Ogawa's reign of terror.

I'm thirding the vote to close this thread. If it's done and there's no more to do about it, it seems like a day and a half to argue about whether or not it should have happened is more than enough. Charles has a book to write, the rest of us have wrestling to watch and discuss. On a side note, I honestly don't think you have to worry Alan. Seems you get plenty of respect around here despite your different opinions on wrestling than most. My feeling is that's because you have your reasons and are very willing to share them.

Eh, the meaty stuff is the early 90s. I missed a lot of the establishing stuff in 90 and 91, and I don't feel like I have a great handle on how things went up until 95 as a whole. The comprehensive viewing and better understanding of the later 90s just makes me need to do that for late 80s through 95 for sure. I feel like I got a lot out of the late 90s for what the general consensus on that period is and if that's the case I need to mine further into the much better thought of early 90s.

Looking forward to the e-book, the podcasts and the 500. Don't let it become too much of a slog though, Charles.

Recently I've been thinking about how this starting has affected the way I look at watching wrestling. It has me thinking a lot about all the things I want to do, wrestling wise and the sheer amount of time involved in it. First and foremost, there was the original plan of revisiting All Japan in some way after a short break. As it turns out, that is going to be a truly in-depth look at things. Which is both good and bad in terms of the GOAT. I'm seeing that my first run through, as complete as I would have liked it to be, was merely a surface look at the promotion in the 90s. And I do love a lot of it and think it deserves my time. That means a lot of time I ought to be spending on weak spots will be spent on my bigger goal. And I think this time through will be harder because of a lot of the awareness I picked up my first time through. I recently watched the making of video for the second Hugh Laurie blues album (great blues presented in a very interesting way), where the second attempt at something was described. What was said was that the second time through is harder because you are more aware of the thing you are doing and the pitfalls it may contain, compared to the chaos of trying to put everything together the first time. And I can see that pretty clearly, with not as much on the side of chaotic my first time through, but more of a gradual understanding of how all the pieces fit into the whole, both in the matches and the overarcing story of the rivalries as I went. It makes the next time through a little more daunting knowing that all of those things are there and still on a deeper level than I experienced the first time. Secondly, I really wanted to get into the 80s territories stuff after that, but this project has opened my eyes to how great 70s WoS can be. It makes me think that to truly "get" what's going on in the 80s I need to see the 70s work and how it translaytes into the 80s. It also makes me know for sure that good mat-based wrestling with brawling peppered in is a style I like. Which means that 70s American wrestling ought to work for me. Then you start to look at the 50s/60s stuff from the Chicago film archives and that has to be watched before the 70s wrestling to see how that moves into the next decade. The 90s is a decade I truly want to tackle in chronological order, with the earlier decades informing me as to how things got to where they were. I think that's one thing I got from watching 90s AJPW was the need to watch chronologically to see why and how things changed as they progressed. Next, I really wanted to get into 80s/90s NJPW and lucha, with a maybe on joshi. All of those things are a long way in the future now. Especially since 70s/80s WoS is going to come before that. I know I'm in the right place to be doing all of these things, but the time commitment is friggin' huge. I'll very likely still be working on all of this well into my 60s and 70s when I have more time to do things like that. I guess it's good in that I can spread the cost involved in acquiring all of that wrestling over years. It's something I hadn't really thought about in terms of scope, especially considering that I might want to keep up with current wrestling at some point. This is really an exciting time to be a wrestling fan due to the sheer amount of available footage, but that's a double edged sword in the volume it encompasses as well.

Like I said, any write-up I did in the 2000s is based on the things I recall from watching the match. I think a few matches I re-opened the file to get a few specifics or confirm the order on things. One of the main reasons for that is that taking notes had a tendency to take me out of the match in ways I didn't like. And my reviews got shorter and less detailed as a result. Looking back at them, I rarely get to play-by-play anymore, instead focusing on the general layout with stuff I found particularly memorable added. I also noticed that matches I didn't care for sometimes got a lot less than matches I liked. To be fair though, if I had to do a more detailed review (I do like Martin's style of play-by-play in the 2000s threads btw) I probably would have to go through a match twice at least to get all the finer points written down and organize them in an easy to understand way. For me, the highlights and lowlights are what matters and how they either got me into or took me out of the match. The other stuff just doesn't stand out as much. And that's not to say that small things don't matter. Because I haven't watched Hansen vs. Kawada 2/28/93 in ages and I can tell you that Hansen's facial expression during the stretch plum makes it probably the favorite time I have ever seen the hold applied.