GOTNW

Ono was just unreal here. He's wearing gloves, but MMA type ones and not the boxing ones I'm used to seeing him wear, but he throws all the boxing combinations you loved his 2010 run for as well as all the junior flash submissions you could think of. It was like watching a combination of 2010 Ono and the world's greatest Ikuto Hidaka, a really remarkable performance. Of course Ishikawa is no slouch either, his stiffness and high level matwork added to the match as much as you'd expect but this was more of an Ono showcase. There was no wasted motion, the match pretty much started with a nearfall in Ishikawa catching an Ono takedown attempt into a Guillotine, and from there on it was just non stop smashmouth action. Ono hit a quick head kick combo to pay him back and then dramatically threw himself on the floor to recuperate which was a great spot, melodrama isn't exactly the first thing associated with Battlarts but in a small dose it can work great. ****1/4

Yeah, an absolutely great technical bout with a molten crowd to boot. And wokred in a wonderful style unfortunately lost to time. The match did feel like a caricature of a fight between two amateur wrestlers and I mean that in the nicest way possible. They always stayed close to one another and busted out a bunch of stuff you just don't see, not just today but in watching 70s stuff, you have them busting out these insane Twisting Snapmares and a million Armdrag variations, it's great stuff. I loved how focused they worked, always staying close to their opponent and how relentless they were when they'd attempt something. Another thing I loved in this type of match (and that's alaso featured in the UWF matches which are my favourite wrestling ever) is how you have to follow through on your throws and if you mess up just a little bit or aren't quick enough you get reversed and fail. Seeing them shoot for single legs and do weird leg submissions isn't that uncommon for the time but they'd also add neat stuff like leg trips and a sacrifice throw in those battles. The commentator mentioned Yoshiaki Fujiwara while talking about Zrno, and it looks like they had a bunch of matches in Europe. Zrno also used a Fujiwara Armbar during a control segment and did something resembling Thesz's Elbow trick, except he'd drive his Forearm into Hara's shoulder. I also remember seeing Zrno's no selling get mentioned and there were two moments here that caught my eye, the first was a one count after a Backdrop Suplex. That was a little weird, especially for 1979, but Hara put him away with an awesome combo in his very next attack. The other was after a Hara Dropkick, where he sold for a couple of seconds and then went back onto offence, and my thoughts in the moment and after replaying it were that that was fitting with how much the Dropkick connected. ****1/4

Very interesting match, particularly because the weird shooty junior style it's worked in doesn't exist anymore. The first half of so had the kind of unique matwork you could only see in Battlarts, where they'd work the counters and the flow of it like it was a lucha match but use holds that were either straight out of RINGS or a 1978 Fujinami match. That portion of the match was a little disappointing, since there wasn't really much struggle out urgence in it. A lot of ideas of used here could've turned out great, but it did feel a little exhibitiony. Maybe it's the fact that the 2/3 falls lucha structure allowed something like Atlantis-Panther to essentially work a 20 minute match where holds don't lose meaning because there's never a portion of the match in where they're doing matwork that couldn't lead to a finish, maybe it's that some of the shooty holds here weren't fit for this type of use. Maybe they could've just executed it better. As it was I don't think it's much different than the million other mmatches where the opening is slower and means less and then the second half is bigger and more exciting, and the matwork at least kept my attention. They did work an exciting fiishing stretch-getting the most out of simple cradles, building up Tanaka's Armbar and milking every properly locked in hold as much as they could without slowing the match down and keeping the pace they established. ***1/4

KENTA attacking Suzuki before the bell here was very well done, he just dashed at him and booted him in the head, and Suzuki's towel blocking his vision made for a great detail. KENTA brought great fire and his offence was as crisp as I remembered it to be. I loved the transitions Suzuki would use-the Front Necklock/Guillotine where he left KENTA hanging in particular was a fascinating visual, and he was at home when it was time to stretch KENTA, but I wasn't in love with the portions in the match where in the middle where he was outstriking KENTA. Due to their difference in stature KENTA had to sell really big for Suzuki and he did, but Suzuki isn't big enough and didn't hit hard enough that it'd make those long moments of selling after every strike fitting. The match went into another gear when they moved onto the finishing stretch and started working more evenly, Suzuki's Leglock counters were awesome as was him busting out a Giant Swing out of Half Crab and they smoothly worked them into the match since KENTA has enough kicking offence he doesn't have to to pointless rope running of doom with no moves being attempted in them, and the final slap battle was perfectly done with Suzuki evading KENTA's strikes and gaining a bigger and bigger advantage until finally just nuking him and putting him away. ***1/4

I'm pretty confident in calling this the greatest under two minute match of all time. I was wondering how some of these NOAH matches would hold up for me but this one absolutely did. The match start off with probably theg reatest blindsight dive of all time, you've seen the spot where one wrestler attacks the other before the match starts a thousand times, and a fair share of those have been junior dives, here KENTA is just normally walking around the ring and Marvin comes out of nowhere crushing him. His next move is getting KENTA back into the ring and John Woo Dropkicking KENTA. That's a move that looks badass by itself, but here KENTA's skull crashes into the bottom turnbuckle. Marvin follows it up with a Powerbomb for an early nearfall setting the insane pace. That is followed by KENTA's transition back into control, which has KENTA try a couple of counters that Marvin adjusts to-first by Savate Kicking him, and then when Marvin bounces off the ropes and you already see KENTA countering that with a Front Head Kick Marvin does this amazing Jackie Chan kip-up combo. I really have nothing against flips in wrestling nor anyone wrestling any style, my problem most of the type is simply that many wrestlers don't possess the creativity and wrestling intelligence that Marvin displayed here. You could also have a situation where Marvin would do five of those while his opponent did some other flips, but that doesn't really convey the sense of struggle in that flashy move it did here, where Marvin legitimately looked like a kung fu master. KENTA takes all of Marvin's shots and still comes back with a Discus Lariat. This could've bothered me, but with their difference in hierarchy and how the match was worked I deemed it fitting. From then on it's a game of cat and mouse with KENTA blasting Marvin with huge kicks and attempting the G2S while Marvin attempts desperate flash pins and counters. The second time he goes for the same counters KENTA is ready-and he catches him, counters his counters, knees him and kicks him in the head and goes over. Wonderful pro wrestling. ****

I really liked the shine that started things off where Angle would try stuff only to get quickly cut off repeteadly. The Rock having signature ways of executing simple punches and stomps is something that really resonated with me when I was just starting to watch wrestling, for all the indy wrestlers coming in that love wrestling so much you'd expect them to show some dedication to their character and come up with something like that and at least try to get over. As the match went on it became way overreliant on their punches and they don't throw good ones, Lawler saying Angle throws open hands sounded especially ridiculous with how obvious them not connecting was, and there are a million other matches with basic offence and unmemorable transitions. What stood out to me most was Rock's signature take on the irish whip where he'd suddenly stop the momentum and turn Angle around and hit his move, again something distinctive and memorable that you don't see today. **

Angle's pre-match promo was pretty boring with long pauses inbetween sentences even before he'd switch to a different talking point, would fit right in on today's Raw. I didn't like the match, it just felt pointless, they have a three minute match designed to get one guy over and they're doing a suplex on the floor to no reaction in the first minute. The narrative with Angle has been that excess ruined him a couple of years in but it's absolutely on display here. The last second rope breeak is also something that can be used as a great dramatic spot but was absolutely unfitting here, not to mention how idiotic it looked to have Angle get suplexed off the top rope and almost beat and then go back onto offence five-ten seconds later. Angle's crappy bridge on a German Suplex is also infuriating, due to his amateur excellence, but then you remember how much his neck must have hurt even at the time and it becomes more understandable, still it's absolutely something he should've dropped. They manage to get a bunch of suplexes in, which is better than watching them throw bad worked punches for three minutes I gues, but the whole thing just reeks of the Angle/Benoit mentality of "technical wrestling is chops and suplex spamming" that was so prevalent at the time. **

Ah, the glorious period of New Japan when wrestlers were forced to shave their heads and wear gloves. It is always interesting to see what conclusions workers came to when doing matches like these. Kensuke's Lariats and Strangle Holds aren't exactly shooty, but they don't feel *that* out of place in these hybrid matches either, and certainly give the match a unique flair. There's a lot of face punching, which is enjoyable on its own but these two find smart ways to incorporate them into transitions as well as make it look like a struggle-you'll see dodging, shoving, blocking and so on. Kensuke's great timing maximized the value of his flash attacks and hearing the echo of the Dome crowd is always a special feeling. Fujita's side mount knees were a nice callback to what he was doing in PRIDE at the time and the TKO finish was worked about as well as it gets. ***1/2

This was a blast, Goto really took it to Fujita, busting out a bunch of nasty Backdrops together with Lariats and other offence you'd expect from a lumpy old guy who worked WAR. The match was essentially a three minute long finishing stretch, Fujita played FIP for most of the match and couldn't go all out with the violence because of who his opponent (the clubbing blows to the back and stomps don't really suit him) was but he still managed to throw a brutal counter forearm and a Frankensteiner of all things. ***

Fun little match in the vein of the faux shoots that started becoming more prominent around the time. McCully didn't do anything of note, lots of kicks and punches that looked ok but were mainly there so Fujita could counter them with takedowns and also picking McCully up in the air like a child and slamming him down. **3/4

Creating threads in the match discussion archive isn't that hard

A match I haven't seen anyone talk about that I randomly stumbled upon when looking for Lawler matches. Lawler has The Kat representing him and Malenko has Terri Runnells with the rules being that each time a wrestler is thrown over the top rope their representative must take off a piece of clothing. The match itself is ok-Lawler throws some nice punches, they build to the throwing over the top rope as good as you could in a three minute match, but the bizarre angle is what really makes it memorable, combined with a Right To Censor interference that prevents the "pay off". Very much a product of its time so opinions on it will depend on how you feel about the era and the prevailing political and social climate of the time.

One of the worst garbage brawls ever in one of the stupidest match formats ever. I watched a version with Foley and Kevin Kelly commentating and their dedication to putting over the dogs pissing and mating as well as the absolutely terrible action provided an amusing contrast. Really weak weapon shots, a bunch of cage climbing and stupid blade jobs, perfectly encapsulate the fallacy that is the narrative of the greatness of this era in american wrestling and simultaneously provide a good laugh.

I don't even know what to say about this match. It features a man fighting another man dressed as a box in a japanese microindy on front of maybe 30 people with mats instead of a ring. The whole match is just Tobita and Ken dramatically gauging each other and then Ken knocking Tobita down with punches over and over again. And Ken's weird hand movements were incredibly endearing and very over with the crowd. Wonderfully preposterous, easily makes the meme list.

I think no one's really accurately depicted the way modern NOAH matches are worked. Obviously that is in direct correlation with the dropping interest in it but when it gets some attention the focus is mostly put on the more obvious and uninteresting stuff. Looking at this match and thinking about how it's worked and how that relates to NOAH's recent success or lack thereof was interesting. The body of the match is worked with them exchanging control segments-but unlike in most workrate matches here the control segments actually last a good couple of minutes. The transitions used to get from one control segment to another were quite good-Nakajima's first High Kick in particular was just magical, the sheer speed and technique in that kick were unreal and Sugiura fell down as picture perfectly as it gets. Sugiura focused his offence on Nakajima's injured back as was the case in the transitions he used. The one thing I also liked in them is that there was danger behind the moves attempted-it's feasible Nakajima would do a Penalty Kick on the ramp or Sugiura would connect with a Big Boot after Gutbustering Nakajima on the ropes. I've seen them do spots like those a million times. What was most staggering about the match, and what feels most distinctive about NOAH is the pace it was worked at and the way they filled time. The complete lack of urgency in the movement inbetween spots is not something I remember seeing in any other promotion-and even if other promotions had the lack of trying to fight back from the wrestler eating offence they would at least get over with it faster. But you'd have a moment where Sugiura is holding Nakajima by the arm, and he's going to lift him up, he's kinda looking at him, and it takes him five to ten more seconds than it should and Nakajima just stands there. That's nowhere near as compelling as Sugiura lifting up Nakajima and Nakajima trying to fight back with all he can from Sugiura's big move would be. When they're walking around you have Sugiura eat a Nakajima kick, and he'll take few steps back, then eat another move and move more, it's inexplicable how they got so bad at projecting human movement naturally. There's also the fact that the pace they work it doesn't work for anything, with the way they work it they sell less and less as the match goes on but don't finish it with a big nearfall heavy clasically "exciting" finish you'd expect, they hit a couple of big moves that feel out of place and just finish the match. When Nakajima pulled out his Superkick/Dropkick combos at the end it felt big and important because everything beforehand had been so slow, but really at least the last 10 minutes of the match should be just them doing stuff like that. I still enjoyed the match because I like both guy's offence and there was enough violence in the knees, elbows, kicks etc. to keep me hooked, but to steal a phrase from Loss this definitely felt like a match that didn't know what it wanted to be, and I imagine the same is through for NOAH currently. ***

https://mobile.twitter.com/i/moments/821702645681307648 The plan isn't to burn cash by flying in everyone and holding small shows, it's to restart the LA dojo and start an american offshoot that would hold its own shows with its own wrestlers, with the regular New Japan roster members appearing like they do for ROH and CMLL. I don't think there's anything they can do to compete with WWE in the US market, and think tryig to expand in other asian countries first would've been ideal but Kidani sees it as a changing time and if he doesn't make the move now he loses forever. Very interesting interview.

Or is it just a matter of the meaning of the word athletic shifting? I don't think there's any doubt that the gymnastic stunts done in today's wrestling are more impressive than those that were done in the past (now, I'm not of the opinion that automatically makes for better wrestling since I care more about the impact, but there's a story for another thread). Watching videos of the insane work-outs in the New Japan dojos as well as the stories of them is something that really made me think about this. It's true that wrestles may take more bumps today, but they also don't regularly do stuff like wrestle hour long matches, or if they do not nearly as often as it was the case before. Interestingly you'll see most people considering the best wrestling as what happened in 80s and 90s, which was when the two really met in the middle and you had the gymnastics and the creativity of modern wrestling as well as the old school work-outs, mentality, territories, washing your senior's balls, doing a 1000 squats every day and so on.

This really should go into the MIS sub. To answer the question.....it depends on the style. The obvious answer is you can't just wrestle by spamming highspots because that negates the very purpose of a highspot. What constitutes a "big move" will change over time but if you can still execute a basic spot good enough and dedicate yourself to building it the crowd will absolutely buy into it. I mean honestly from a standpoint of earlier wrestling much of 80s wrestling is just spamming highspots anyway. I don't think it really matters whether you're talking about taking a back suplex or a top rope dragon suplex-once that process was set in motion there was no going back. Of course this is why having something like a point system where you lose points for being suplexed serves perfectly since it attaches a meaning and a consequence to the move done whatever may follow.

There's no such thing.

Almost all of his singles matches and tag matches he's had on relevant shows were well received-and when they weren't it was due to Gracies or something similar. Sakuraba spent most of his time in New Japan having no program whatsoever or making Nagata feel a little better about losing real fights 15 years ago. I mean what exactly would have a satisfying run been to you then?

I enjoyed it like I would a horror movie, but I'm glad you're here to give me the moral pat on the head. I hope you enjoy your moral superiority while watching Misawa get dropped on his head over and over and over again as well as yakuza tied indy wrestlers bust themselves open on headbutts and wrestlers work through concussions. Not like that could lead to anything bad.

Nice narrative creation Joe. What did Sakuraba ever do except semi main a Dome in a fantastic match and put on good showings every time he was there? Pretty good for a middle aged man with a wrecked body doing a side gig. I must have imagined the fans cheering him and accepting him after the initial scepticism of the Laughter 7 angle.

The Ishii match was pretty much the only match from that G1 where he worked like that. His matches versus Kojima, Davey Boy Smith Jr., Tanahashi, Devitt etc. were all worked differently. Anything post 2012 is likely to have less matwork and shootiness to it but even after his return reckless 1 count pop up trainwrecks didn't immediately become the norm.