aaeo_

Aoki continues to be extremely interesting but his opening matwork feels more like "opening matwork" now. The fact that his approach to an armwork match was so much stomping on it and slamming it against shit rather than pure submissions is disappointing on some level. Those are nitpicks though, he still pulls out pinfall attempts and submissions literally out of thin air (and there's an upside to him becoming more prowres-like, which is his increased willingness to take bumps). I thought Takeshita was too over-the-top in his first singles match with Aoki but he's very convincing with the arm in this one. He also moves at a crazy pace here, like when they struggle to get an octopus hold and then Aoki tries to do a Gotch piledriver, which would be a throwaway sequence in most matches, but there's a ton of urgency to Takeshita's movement. Obviously the same is true for the sequence where he gets caught in the Fujiwara armbar, which is fucking insane by the way. I don't think this is Aoki's best DDT match, which seems to be the consensus, but it was great regardless.

Catching up on the last 3 months of DDT before watching UP and the first thing I'm seeing is a Gabai Ji-chan match. What a great company.

This fiend shit is like a funny student film. I think I get why people watch WWE now.

Something to consider is that the cheapest ticket for Triplemania was almost as expensive as ringside tickets for their last show I considered going to. They're playing to two pretty different crowds with Triplemania and the rest of their shows.

Cain's match was perfect. This show has been great.

Red belt title match. I think Maki Ueda is one of the color commentators that they show throughout the early parts of the match. Sato comes out in black! She's working heel! Not really going as hard as the Black Pair, but I doubt that was an accident. She's stronger than Yokota in pretty much every exchange, so Yokota has to be smart and use some of her flashier offense (was she the first one to stand up with a bridge out of a pin?) to win. This doesn't have all the wild drama of other AJW matches, but it's great on a technical level and the build-up to the finishing stretch is good. Jaguar wins by just pinning Sato, she just struggles to pin her shoulders as Sato tries to get out, and after a while she keeps her down for the three count. I thought that was great.

Hagiwara is a very weird wrestler, she's a good babyface but all her offense looks incredibly unorthodox, like it's done wrong. My favorite one was the calf slicer she gets near the end, which I'd never seen but is a cool idea. That type of energy goes pretty well with how frantic Ikeshita is though. Hagiwara is in control for a lot of the match and she looks strong, starts the match throwing a wild flurry of punches and then applies the weirdest sleeper hold after some outside brawling. There's a brief section of armwork and then Ikeshita goes out the ring and her seconds pull her arm a bunch of times, as if it was dislocated and they were popping it back in. That's the type of thing that makes AJW from this era great to watch.Ikeshita gets a few breaks, she fights for a boston crab and a couple other submissions but she comes across as mostly trying to survive against Hagiwara. Hagiwara's selling in submissions is great. The finish is very botched or an angle, with Ikeshita getting pinned with one shoulder nowhere near the mat. The matches where Ikeshita brutalizes one of the faces all the way through are more fun but this is still good.

I think the TV show version clips some early matwork out, which is a shame because I thought the early exchanges were amazing. Really enjoyed Sato's knee work, the takedown into a calf slicer that gets reversed into a pin, as well as the kneebar he applies shortly afterwards are really cool. Perhaps some of the strikes are not stiff enough, but it didn't bother me too much. Loved Togo's selling for it. This has a similar focus to HARASHIMA/Sato with the dueling limbwork, the other one was more coherently structured but I loved the execution of most moves in this match. Everything is pretty great technically, Sato's trip takedowns, Togo's armdrags, every submission is tight enough, etc. The finish was kind of whatever, but it was a very good title bout overall.

AAA on Galavision, pretty much. CMLL and IWRG had TV shows too, but I never saw them and I'm not sure which channel they were on. I stopped watching around 2006 and a bit later Raw and Smackdown started being shown on some major channel. Also, TVC started doing Tercera Caída, which covered indie lucha and the two major companies. If anyone speaks spanish, look Tercera Caída up on youtube, they're interesting shows.

Águila Solitaria is an entertaining enough técnico, but Fuerza Guerrera is an amazing rudo, even though this is slightly less over the top than what he used to do/did later on. He gets all but ragdolled in the first fall. Águila still takes most of the second fall, but Fuerza comes back by pushing the rules a little bit. He doesn't brutally target the guy's nuts, he just throws a couple closed fists and throws him against the turnbuckles. It's really neat how Águila Solitaria hits the cleanest backbreaker you've ever seen and Fuerza Guerrera has to struggle to get Águila up. Third fall is a bit long and nearfall-heavy but Fuerza is still very fun in it. Cool match.

I saw a lot of praise for this match, but knowing the length and the result I honestly expected to be underwhelmed by it. I was not, this is very good! This is just the match where everything comes together for what this rivalry is supposed to be. I love that Takeshita's always kind of trying to target the back, even when Endo blocks his moves. And Takeshita hits his moves hard as fuck, which has always been something great about him. Doing that backbreaker and the leg wrap german out the ring back to back was insane. Endo's selling has always been very effective in getting sympathy for me, even if he can be inconsistent with it. I think it's great here. I liked the finish a lot, Takeshita uses the boston crab about five times in the match and Endo just tapping out after all the shit he took was unexpected in the best way.

she's scheduled to fight in two weeks but that's the last fight on her deal

This is the least good of their matches so far. There's a sense of caution when they grapple each other, like they are already familiar with each other's holds and how to get caught in them. But there's also a lot of sitting around in restholds, every hold still looks really good but the grappling is just less interesting. It was pretty surprising seeing a superplex out of the blue in this. Fujinami just gets more heated as the match goes on, and him putting on the sasori-gatame and then the DQ/post-match brawl is extremely cool.

A small wrestler vs. big wrestler which actually feels brutal. Manase gets overwhelmed by the smaller wrestler but fights until the bitter end. It's all very good. Mizuki's run in Tokyo Joshi's tournament has to be one of the best of the year.

Kenta had a couple great moments in that match but I was expecting striking exchanges between those two to be a bit more fluid, and the big spots were very spaced out with few interesting things happening in between. I think they may be having a bunch more matches going forward, with the way NJ books, so they probably didn't wanna go all out.

That was OK

Don't know if Kenta/Ibushi is going to a draw or I'm just not used to the pace of this company

Less nuances in the grappling here than in the previous match, but you do get a more focused attack from Choshu on Fujinami's bandaged knee. Starting with the extended figure four segment is cool, and watching them work that and reverse it is fun. Both of them limp once the hold is broken but since Fujinami already had that injury, that becomes the focus of the match. Fujinami's desperation as he tries to defend his knee is a side that he doesn't show often, but he does it amazingly. The squirming to get out of the sasori-gatame is incredible, makes it feel like a matter of life and death. I enjoyed this about as much as their previous match, even though this told a completely different story. A truly great series of matches.

Choshu comes in with a lot of intensity and with a specific gameplan, but Fujinami grinds him down and outclasses him in the mat. The way Choshu acts when pinning Fujinami on the ropes is a helpful signifier for where he's at in the match. Early on, he grapevines the leg, works a front headlock and tries to sneak strikes in before the referee breaks them up. After Fujinami has put him through hell on the mat, he just waits there for the referee. Choshu goads Fujinami into a sasori-gatame in a wonderful way, he threatens a toe hold from x-guard (or whatever the catch term for those things is). Fujinami kicks at him, which means Choshu now has both his legs and can try to get his hold. But he doesn't, he ends up falling on his ass and Fujinami gets a rope break. it's not really any of Choshu's tricks that get him the win but just heart and ~fighting spirit~. He turns the tide when Fujinami has him in big trouble following a dropkick and a suplex, by just dropping Fujinami with a backdrop suplex. The home stretch is dope. Choshu tries to submit Fujinami finally applying the sasori-gatame twice, but Fujinami manages to crawl to the ropes both times. Choshu's lariat on the outside is nasty as hell, as well as the one that ends the match but he still struggles to keep Fujinami pinned on the last one! Choshu and Masa Saito's reaction right after the match ends is so good. Outstanding story and world class grappling. Great match.

I think this is my favourite Tiger Mask in NJPW match. Tiger Mask barely sold anything in most of his matches and he's the one doing the most selling in this match. Kobayashi just takes moves and fires back until about 15 minutes in. But the pace was pretty fast and the match is stiff, which makes up for most things for me. I didn't really see either standing around waiting to get kicked in this match, not in an egregious way. I liked Kobayashi's work when he had the upper hand, the kimura (?) trap sleeper hold a few minutes in is neat, and him slapping TM in full guard was great. The finish is pretty cool.

This match is raw as hell, the brawls between these two are pretty fun to watch. Inoki sticks and moves at the beginning and then has Kimura in trouble with a couple holds. Kimura gains the upper hand after trading some strikes. He gets Inoki pinned against the ropes, but Inoki flips everyone (referee included) to the outside, where one of Kimura's seconds produces a pair of scissors starts cutting Inoki's hair! Inoki's angry comeback is great, throwing Kimura into the ring post and then braining everyone with a chair, before throwing Kimura back into the ring and getting the pinfall just as the referee recovers. Ref's performance was a bit annoying, but him collapsing after counting the pinfall was neat.

Shunma and DASH are both the smallest members of their teams, and they often spend a lot of time in tag matches getting beat up and trying to tag out. But wouldn't you know it, they're both extremely evil and bloodthirsty in this match. The match is very brutal, even the outside brawling is just stiffer and wilder than what you usually see in Japan. Shunma and Dash both take insane bumps on the regular, and they do so here but it's really the intensity and the creativity of some of the spots which makes the match. The finish is very cool, Dash wins with a great splash off the ladder after Shunma kicked out of a gnarly sunset flip (also off the ladder). It's a great match! Katsumata has been in four hardcore matches in the past 18 months and they're all very good, DDT needs to get him some light tubes.

Match of the Year: Yuki Ishikawa vs. Tim Thatcher Best Major Wrestling Show: Chairo Kingdom Best Promotion: DDT Best on Interviews: LA Park would be my default pick for this  Feud of the Year: Few things have made more excited about wrestling than the teases of an Arez-Ricky Marvin mask match, so that's my pick. Most Improved: Titan  Wrestler of the Year: Thatcher

Cool thread. All of the Fujinami matches I've seen from this period are interesting, even that Hamaguchi match had some nice matwork in it. Will check out Saito/Fujinami, which I had missed somehow.

Uploaded to Universe last week. This match is weird, everything involving Kanemoto vs. HARASHIMA is great and absolutely everything else sucks. I've seen both Omega and Tanaka in matches I like but they're just really boring here. And since it's a tag match building up to an Omega All Japan junior defense against Tanaka, the body of the match is focused on them. Really brings down Kanemoto and HARASHIMA's performances, which is mostly what I wanted to write about here. They have great chemistry with each other, and you can tell even from the handshakes. Koji ignores Omega, and then goes to shake HARASHIMA's hand but Hara snubs him! Thought that was great. When they're in the ring against each other for the most part they're just punching each other, HARASHIMA just wildly throwing wide hooks like a hurt boxer. Referee Matsui has to break up HARASHIMA and Kanemoto after Kanemoto storms in to save Minoru, and they spend a while jawing at each other. This match also has the thing where the DDT crowd all ges behind HARASHIMA when he's up against someone from a big promotion, like in the tag match against Tanahashi and Komatsu. Around 15 minutes in, they get to do a few of their signature spots to each other. Kanemoto's strikes are wonderful as always. He takes Hara's legdrop to the outside with a really nasty bump. In return, he does the corner kicks, which look great. Then, they high kick each other at the same time and Tanaka and Omega tag in to do their finishing run. It's alright but this is Omega during the time when he did the most shtick, so your mileage may vary. Of course, HARASHIMA and Kanemoto never faced each other again after this match. Like tears in rain, am I right?