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Could they have booked a more counterproductive ending to the show than that?

You were ahead of the curve on this one, Dylan. It's inarguable at this point, right? ICW just sold out a 4,000 seat arena and is running a ~13,000 seater next year. In these days of WWE dominance the question of which promotions are fastest growing is far more interesting than who's #1.

Watched a bunch of this guy's trios work recently. Is he the GOAT 'directing traffic' rudo trios worker? That counts for a lot for me, more than simply being regular old 'great in trios'.

His coverage of their business has been perfectly fine except for the one time he clearly got a little overhyped about what their purported Tokyo Dome "sellout" constituted, and once the real details came out he acknowledged that. It's worth noting that he's been predicting their current downturn for a good 2-3 years now.

Didn't he use ESPN guys working for companies they cover as an argument for why it would have been okay for him to do announcing for NJPW?

Eh, you don't ever have to have a match finish by that means, it's just there so that it actually makes sense for guys to kick out of pins. Kinda like the limited rope breaks in shoot style promotions - matches almost never finished because someone had no rope breaks left, but it gave guys a reason to try to escape submissions by other means rather than just going to the ropes immediately.

Always hated the Texas Death stipulation since there's no reason to EVER kick out of a pin. I can overlook it if the match is good enough but it is bothersome. Would be so easy to fix by saying a guy can lose either from a 10 count or from being pinned X number of times too.

It should count as a stip since they had special rules, right?

I rewatched Kawada/Albright. While this is definitely not a shoot style match, maybe it requires a little understanding of shoot style psychology to appreciate fully? The idea is that any submission hold from Albright can potentially end the match, and end it fast. The crowd reacts to them accordingly, as does Kawada by selling the hell out of holds - like your standard leglock - that are generally pretty mundane and unthreatening in pro style. Look at Kawada's facials and desperation to reach the ropes when Albright catches him in a hold early - he almost never shows that much vulnerability while selling period, let alone in the opening minutes of a match! I think Steven is right to label this as the AJPW style battling the UWFi style in an attempt to prove which is the strongest, but there's also an element of Kawada trying to show that he can hang in Albright's world. As I said in the previous post, the UWFi made a habit of calling pro-style promotions fake. By showing he can apply elements of the UWFi style into his own game (really in a very facile fashion, but it was enough for AJPW's audience), Kawada is saying "I can do that too, I just don't wanna!" I think this, as well as the general excitement of an interpromotional match, is why the fans were so into it despite, as Parv said, Kawada usually being the heel; here he's Their Guy defending the honour of the AJPW style. The times he counters out of Albright's holds into his own are significant, especially the finish, where he counters out of Albright's armbar into his own - beating Albright at his own game. It's worth bearing in mind that submission finishes were incredibly rare in 90s AJPW to the point where you can probably call out most of the submission finishes in main events from memory. That the armbar went on to become a signature move for Kawada is further indication of the significance of that spot.

I really enjoyed that Albright match when working my way through the 90s stuff. Was a really nice change of pace from the standard AJPW style. I felt there was a strong undertone of "these UWFi guys called everyone else fake, and now Kawada's going to beat one of them at his own game" to it. I always enjoy the rare spots in 90s AJPW where a new outside guy would get injected into the mix and allow the pillars to show a little bit of range. Hase/Kobashi is another good example.

Yeah. I began attempting to get into lucha around the time last year's Virus vs. Titán title match was being heavily talked up. I thought that match was fine, but not even close to something I would have called a MOTYC. Yet all these people with well-thought out, nuanced opinions were praising it. I wanted to understand what they saw in it. I spent a good year watching several modern CMLL matches a week before I even felt comfortable saying that any given match was bad, rather than that I just didn't understand it. I had to understand the form before I could have a proper appreciation for the matches. It's unfortunate that so little old lucha TV is available, because I think watching, say, CMLL's 1990 TV sequentially, all the good and bad, would be a far better way to get a handle on the style than cherry picking well-regarded matches. Of course, it would also be a huge commitment, and you can hardly blame someone for not wanting to trawl through a bunch of footage they don't like in the hope that maybe they'll like it at some point in the future.

Found this OJ post: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/26027-homogenization-of-wrestling-styles/&do=findComment&comment=5595132 My bad, it was Azteca, not Lizmark. Hopefully OJ sees this and can expound upon what consistutes "traditional lucha libre wrestling" vs. the new style.

This is something I've seen alluded to a bit lately. - When did it happen? Why? - What workers were responsible for it? - What elements were taken from the Japanese junior style? What matches highlight the style? A 'before and after' type comparison with examples of matches for each would be illuminating, I think. I believe OJ said before that Lizmark was the last classic style tecnico before the juniors influence started creeping in, but I'm not really sure what it is that he does (or doesn't do) that distinguishes him from the more juniors-influenced workers.

Wouldn't a list of candidates and the ability to vote Yes/No/Abstain on each of them individually work better than the current system? Obviously some kinks you'd need to work out, but it solves the problem of people voting in regions they aren't really qualified for.

It's understandable that someone coming from decades of inculcation into the American/Japanese style of wrestling is going to have difficulty appreciating lucha at first. The issue is when people come it at with the idea that the American/Japanese style is the norm and the Mexican style is a mutation with weird quirks that have to be adjusted to, rather than that all styles have their quirks and you're just more used to some than others. Speaking of which, I'm curious to see when Dylan is going to drop his further thoughts on the "not all styles are created equal" talking point that he's been threatening to upset us with for a while now.

Not sure how NJPW whiffed on signing Kazusada Higuchi. You'd think a 6'1 former sumo would be right up their alley. Coming up on a year in the business and he's already a very good worker and super charismatic. Tenryu is the obvious comparison that I'm sure has been made dozens of times. Looks like a future superstar.

This was so jarring to me when watching the 90s stuff through. Especially as All Japan always seemed to me like a promotion that put a lot of stock in how the champion should carry themselves. He did eventually grow into the role, but it took a while.

So was he the best wrestler in the world in 2000?

I feel like Akebono's role, by its very nature, is one that requires a capable dance partner. That's not even really an indictment of him as a worker, since I think he has some great offense, times his cutoffs well and knows when and how much to sell. But the very nature of his act requires someone else to provide the dynamism that he lacks and to sell their ass off for him. It's just not a role that can carry a broomstick to a great match like the "babyface that sells and sells and then comes back" can be.

Some quality circular logic right there.

Was just thinking myself that he seems like a sneaky pick for 2015 WOTY and a strong one for Japanese WOTY.

Nakamura vs. Akiyama does present an interesting dilemma re: whether you value relative or absolute success more. Accepting both of the following narratives as true for argument's sake, is Nakamura's role as a draw in NJPW's post-2012 turnaround more impressive than Akiyama's run as the top guy for NOAH, since Akiyama's run was down from where the promotion was before, even though in terms of raw numbers he was playing to far bigger houses? (I understand this isn't the only issue on which these two could be compared, and Akiyama's body of work pretty well eclipses Nakamura's, but it's interesting to think about in isolation.)

Lucha rings are still notoriously hard as far as I know. I imagine the fact that pay is low and guys have to preserve their bodies since they can work up to 10 matches a week has a lot to do with them not going all-out very often also.

Wasn't CMLL originally supposed to be a kayfabe governing body of which EMLL was a part, or something? I know you can see both the CMLL and EMLL logos on the ring skirt at least as late as '97.

I guess this would be a good place to ask: does anyone know exactly what the special title match rules were? I remember some 80s footage with Japanese commentary where they mention no toe kicks several times.