elliott

What do we know about 80s JWP in terms of how they drew? Same for LLPW? I presume the answer is "not well" and certainly not "hall of fame level." But I don't really know much about that and I'm a little curious. One thing I was struck by watching Kandori vs Devil from 88 recently was the crowd. It wasn't enormous, but it appears to be a mostly adult male audience. One thing that is always pointed to in Aja Kong's favor is her influence in drawing the hardcore male fans based on appearing on those Hamada's UWF shows and helping move Joshi away from catering to the younger girl audience. I'm wondering if that was fairly consistent at JWP shows in the 80s or if that match was an anomaly. Its not an entire HOF case by any means, but looking back at the "Golden Age" of Joshi Wrestling, Hokuto vs Kandori is one of the first things to come to mind. I guess I'm just more curious about her career. She comes across like a big deal watching footage but discussion of that era, where it exists, is usually centered around ring work. All this said, I agree with everything Tim said above except for the part about Kyoko. Kandori and Kansai strike me as the two best candidates from that era. Neither strike me as particularly strong candidates for the Hall in general, but I think both, especially Kandori, are pretty interesting figures to think about on some level.

Any updates on when we'll get results? Additionally, I was wondering if Shinobu Kandori is someone worth looking at as a candidate. Is she the biggest Joshi star not to work in AJW regularly?

The top pick is awesome. One of my all time favorite matches and not out of place at #1 at all

Sorry for taking so long to reply. Just wanted to echo Stacey's appreciation for those who listened to the show, enjoyed it and gave positive feedback. We had a lot of fun. I must say I'm interested if anyone listened to it who didn't like the match and what their thoughts were. As Stacey said, there was actually a lot more we could have talked about. After we finished and continued chatting, we talked a little bit about the promotion of the match and whether or not deciding to put it in the main event slot as a last minute decision was a missed opportunity. I think there's an interesting discussion there and you could approach it from a number of different ways. On the one hand, yes a one month (or longer if possible somehow) would have been ideal to make it an even bigger moment. On the other hand, can you imagine the (likely) self aggrandizing behavior of the WWE in the month leading up to the event? You absolutely run a dangerous risk of blowing it and having everyone reject it and the match before it ever happens. Its a tough situation because its hard to rely on WWE not being annoying as fuck in their presentation. But on the other hand, yeah, deciding last minute to have the first women's main event feels like a huge missed opportunity. Also wanted to touch more on the format. Yeah, we deviated from it for the first show. But I think we kind of had to. It was an important match and we both had major opinions on it. It was a good representation for what we hope for as two different sorts of fans. But going forward it will be an I recommend a match, Stacey recommends a match, and then the mystery match. Ideally the mystery match will be something neither of us as seen or is something that we haven't watched in a long time or whatever. I sort of imagine that slot being a "listener recommendation" spot. Assuming we continue with more shows, I would expect my selections to be more in the realm of Lucha, Shoot Style, and Non WWF or JCP territories like Memphis, AWA, Portland, Puerto Rico etc. I think its fair to say that everything we watch will be available somewhere online so everyone will be able to see the matches for themselves. I would definitely encourage an "Elliott's ridiculous comparisons drinking game" for maximum enjoyment. In this first one alone I compared Sasha Banks to Rey Mysterio Jr, Akira Hokuto, Kyoko Inoue, Genichiro Tenryu, Riki Choshu and Terry Funk just for fun at the end. Getting back to Charlotte vs Sasha. One thing I forgot to mention is the Charlotte laying on the ropes and Sasha giving her the double knees shot. Ordinarily this is the sort of spot I hate. One of my least favorite spots ever is that spot where someone is lying face up on middle rope perfectly balanced while the other guy does a springboard leg drop or something like that. It always looks terribly because the wrestler taking the move is always holding onto the ropes and it is just awful. Rey Jr, Psicosis, & Juvy did this shit all the time in the mid-late 90s and it looked awful everytime. Even worse when dudes like Jerry Lynn would steal it. Sasha’s take on that tends to not bother me so much. She usually gets her opponent on the ropes in corner and goes right into the double knees. Its not quite one motion, but its usually about as close to one motion as you can get for something like that. Here, it started to drift into that taking to long this is ridiculous territory because Sasha took the time to get the chair also and set that up. I could see this as a criticism, but considering Sasha doesn’t normally take so long to execute that spot and the reason it took so long is because she was getting a chair to get revenge on Charlotte for putting her through the chair earlier in this hate filled gimmick match makes this another “not a real criticism” criticism. It took longer than you’d ideally like. But there was purpose behind why it took longer than it did. We also forgot to talk about Charlotte destroying Sasha’s face on the steel steps to end Sasha’s comeback which led to the table shenanigans. Perhaps this is where Matt gets lost on the back selling? Up to this point all of Charlotte’s focus has been on the back. Sasha has gotten brief flurries of offense before getting cut off because she can’t follow up due to the damage done to the back. The smash into the steps, like the earlier spot where Charlotte pulls Sashsa into the ring post, were Charlotte’s only non-back focused cut off or transition spots of the match. But they worked because they came about naturally. But we went from Sasaha’s longest sustained run of offense in the match to all the table stuff with a Sasha to Charlotte transition stemming from the brutal face slam into the steps. So I can see how we might lose the back work here. But since Sasha is having her longest sustained run of offense leading into the table spots, its hard to see how Charlotte can do anything to Sasha's back. When Charlotte goes back and offense and goes for the figure 8, she actually works in yet another back breaker variation in order to put Sasha down for her signature leg based submission she was about to attempt. Then it’s the short arm forearm “you will respect me” “no I fucking wont” spots which is like the best fucking thing ever. From there Sasha goes for the Banks Statement but CHarlotte hits two more backbreakers and then a spinning side slam. Charlotte sets Sasha up on the table for the moonsault but Sasha manages to avoid it and this leads directly into the failed powerbomb attempt. But she can’t do it. Which leads directly to the awesome ragdoll on the table spots where the table is clearly not supposed to break. Then finish. I’m just confused by Matt losing the “back injury thread by the final spots” when it was basically a series of backbreakers and then the failed powerbomb because of the back. Two powerbombs beat Sasha the Charlotte one in the beginning and her own failed attempt at the end. And I guess to Matt’s point about Sasha doing a lot of what she would have done anyway if they hadn’t worked the back storyline. That may be true, but it sort of misses the point that all of her offense combined beautifully for the backwork story plus the cell environment. Whether or not she would have done that double knees off the cell as her huge transition without the back work is incidental to the fact that it’s a logical, not to mention brutal looking move, that would work/worked as a game changer for someone like Sasha with a bad back going up against someone like Charlotte. Even if the back work wasn’t happening it would have been a great transition spot because of the size differential between them. I dunno, I thought they did a great job staying on point from start to finish. I agree with what Matt says about the conviction of the character work though. One of the 5-10 best WWE matches ever

I stand by my earlier praise

And here's all the U-Style I have write ups for: Kiyoshi Tamura vs Wataru Sakata 2/15/03 Tamura offers a handshake but Sakata opts to slap him in the face instead. You’re funeral Sakata. This is the main event of the first U-Style show so the crowd is into it. Tamura doesn’t look to have missed a beat which makes sense considering he’s spent the last 3 years doing shoots and probably the same training he’s been doing for years. This is all on the mat early with both guys looking good. Its not Tamura vs Han but its very good nonetheless. There’s an awesome sequence leading to a ropebreak where Tamura works for an armbar, triangle choke and back to the arm bar. This leads to a rope break and the first real strike exchange leading to Tamura’s awesome spinebuster, single leg crab combo that the crowd pops huge for. This has really picked up by this point and this is terrific from here with both guys desperately going for submissions and counters. Tamura honestly seems quicker now than he was when he was younger. AMAZING spot where Tamura is doing repeated knee strikes with the crowd cheering along and Tamura hitting an awesome jumping kick for the knockdown. Tamura’s selling is SO fucking good here. He’s incredible at the sort of “almost knocked out dead on your feet” selling mixed with desperation diving for the ropes. Finishing stretch was great. Tamura looks out of this world great. EPIC. Kiyoshi Tamura vs Dokonjonosuke Mishima 4/6/03 This looks slightly JIP on youtube. Crowd is into this early. Great throw by Mishima. Mishima wins my heart right away by taking some really creative chances for the sake of positioning. This is cool because its Tamura getting to work with someone smaller than him which isn’t something we got to see a lot of throughout his career. Mishima is really quick so there are some really breathtaking “blink and you’ll miss it” moments in this. Mishima also pulls out some of the most bizarre submission attempts this side of Mikhail Ilioukhine including this totally fucking gnarly toe lock that looks so brutal and leads to a rope break. Oh my god, those handstand kick things Mishima does. Holy shit. Dokonjonosuke, where the fuck have you been all my life? Everyone who likes shoot style just a little bit needs to see this shit. Tamura is the perfect sort of opponent for a goofy fuck like Mishima. Tamura has superior technique but also is one of the great athletes and naturals in wrestling history so he’s able to deal with all of Mishima’s weirdo stuff. EPIC match. Million billion stars. This was just an absolute delight. I with they had 10 more matches together. Kiyoshi Tamura vs Katsuhisa Fujii 12/9/03 This is really good right away. They work a really quick and aggressive pace early with each guy trying to get the advantage. Fuji’s german suplex attempt and Tamura’s desperation “DON’T SUPLEX ME OH NO YOU’RE SUPLEXING ME NOOOO” selling is fucking awesome. Fuji is really cool trying to slam Tamura and throw him around but Tamura keeps fighting back with submissions. I’m watching this on Tabe’s best of Tamura comp and the match cuts out like right in the middle of a transition about 5 minutes in. DAMNIT. This was looking really good. Kiyoshi Tamura vs Tsuyoshi Kohsaka 2/4/04 Here we go! Really nice back and forth mat work early on. These two were just made for each other. Their matches together don’t have the hatred of Tamura vs Yamamoto or, I hate to say creativity because these are creative matches, so I’ll say this doesn’t have the unique Umami flavor of the Han series. But these two might be each other’s best opponent in a more classical Flair vs Steamboat sort of way. Like these two reach the closest ideal to what the shoot style founders were pushing for. I dunno if that makes sense. That said, they do some really fun and interesting counters/escapes in this and the work in generally is what you would expect from these two: Fucking Excellent. They do a really good job here of building to counters. Sometimes they are quick and see and opening, boom counter. But they also work in some slower escapes as well that are super dramatic and beautifully built to like the triangle choke Tamura slllllowly works his way out of. Phenomenal short knee and high kick combo by Tamura with a really great “I’m woozy but I’m ok” sell from Kohsaka followed up by an every better high kick by Tamura and an “OK, now I’m fucking out” sell by Kohsaka. Great segment. They continue on with more awesome strikes trading the advantage back and forth. Crowd is hot for this shit. Tamura’s selling on knockdowns is so damn good. They go back to the mat and they’re a little quicker now. Working towards submissions faster and going for rope breaks as business has picked up in a big way. They do a wildly entertaining trading leglocks section that is usually one of the worst spots in shoot style matches but these guys are so fucking good they know how to actually make that entertaining. Tamura’s single leg crab is SO over in U-Style. Pretty amazing to see that move get that reaction in 2004. The finishing stretch is predictably fantastic with these two. This was just a phenomenal match. Easy EPIC. I love this match. Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kyosuke Sasaki 3/13/04 Sasaki slaps Tamura when Tamura offers a handshake. I’m sensing a U-Style trend there. I really like watching Tamura get to match up with all these small athletic dudes after watching him face people bigger than him throughout his career. It makes these U-Style matches a great change of pace and allows Tamura to not only be more dominant and also really push himself athletically and talk more chances. This is another really good match with typically excellent mat work. Tamura actually lets Sasaki get ahead on points by locking in a few submissions leading to Tamura needing rope breaks. After his 2nd rope break, Tamura seems to get a little more focused like he’s determined not to let Sasaki get the better of him on the mat. Tamura has a really easy time standing with Sasaki. Tamura is bigger, stronger and as quick as Sasaki so he can just shrug off most of Sasaki’s strikes. Sasaki does a really bad job selling a knockdown off a Tamura slap but he makes up for it eating the vintage Tamura jumping kick. Love the guillotine choke by Tamura as well. Sasaki seems totally gassed and dead on his feet at the end of this. This didn’t quite live up to my expectations, but I think that has more to do with Sasaki. Tamura looked great, I just don’t think Sasaki could keep up. I’ll go with FUN. Kiyoshi Tamura vs Kazuki Okubo 4/28/04 Okubo changes up the prematch “Diss Tamura” routine by giving Tamura a shove intead of a slap. Okubo most really hate himself. They open with an awesome high kick exchange with Tamura getting the better of it and a quick knockdown. They go back to an awesome strike exchange before Tamura goes for a flipping armbar. Opening moments of this are terrific. They finally slow it down a bit when they go to the mat but its still really good shit and they keep the match moving along well. There’s a really nasty spot with Okubo doing almost a single leg crab but Tamura is lying on his back. Its gnarly. This is really hard fought back and forth mat work. The speed isn’t going to blow your mind, but it is quite intense and the flexibility required for some this shit is ridiculous. Tamura really makes Okubo work for every counter and submission attempt. They go to a strike exchange and its almost unfair. These guys are a similar size, Tamura’s a big bigger and certainly more muscular, but he’s also faster than Okubo so when they have a strike exchange, Tamura can just take a hard slap or kick and throw a more devastating strike right back. I remember the old “He’s a great thinking man’s wrestler” line about Takada calmly thinking his way through counters and reversals. You can really see that with Tamura in these U-Style matches. He seems completely in control at all times. Okubo ends up gassed and blown up and easy prey for Tamura to take apart with kicks. Tamura just goes after Okubo’s ribs with strike after strike getting two knockdowns. FINALLY Okubo gets a counter and puts Tamura in a single leg crab. Tamura’s really great selling it and inching slowly towards the ropes. But Okubo is too gassed to hang for the final strike exchange. Tamura even dances away making Okubo chase him a little and him with strikes before finally Tamura kinda gives him a “Ya done yet? Yeah you’re fucking done” before ending it. This was pretty awesome. Tamura was essentially playing the bully leading to a great finishing run. GREAT Kiyoshi Tamura vs Hiroyuki Ito 8/18/04 Ito opts to shake Tamura’s hand prematch. Smart decision. Oh but Ito runs right out at the bell with a slapping combo leading to an intense striking exchange to start this off. Ito with a quick takedown and an immediate rope break from Tamura like a minute in. Whoa. That’s not something you see often. Back to the groud and Ito almost gets a triangle choke and cross armbreaker before finally getting a second rope break with a triangle choke. And holy shit Tamura is down 2 points early. He does an awesome job selling the damage from the triangle. Back standing and Ito really stays on top of Tamura with strikes but Tamura is able to block most of them. Tamura manages to take Ito down but Ito is skilled on the mat immediately looking for counters and almost locking in a 3rd triangle choke. The grappling is fucking awesome in this match. Since Tamura is on the defensive so much we get to see a lot of really awesome counter attempts and he reminds you just how great he is at selling and building drama through holds. His selling during strike exchanges remains fantastic. The build and the pop for Ito’s first knockdown of Tamura is so so so great. And it makes Tamura mad so he fights back with his own wicked combo for a knockdown. But Tamura is still selling his ass off basically kneeling in the corner as Ito tries to beat the count. And Ito does so we get another amazing strike exchange. Goddamn this shit is amazing. Tamura actually gets down to his last point with Ito still having two left. So this is total desperation time. Tamura is just completely relentless going after Ito as the crowd goes bonkers. Finishing stretch here is just fantastic. This is a fucking classic match. Probably one of Tamura’s 10 best matches of his career. Easy EPIC. Stop everything and watch this fucking match if you haven’t seen it. Kiyoshi Tamura vs Alexander Otsuka 8/18/04 Otsuka is one of my all time favorite wrestlers and I have a pretty high opinion on this Tamura guy too. So I’m stoked for this matchup. Seriously, if Otsuka does a giant swing, I’m going to call this the greatest match ever no matter what. Tamura gets an instant knockdown with two high kicks. Whoa. Otsuka is awesome selling so if he just gets his ass kicked the whole time, I’m down for that. Otsuka charges at Tamura and they go to the mat for some nice grappling. Even though Otsuka worked shoots and was a shoot style worker, I feel like when most people think of him they think of the real human suplex machine and guy who does giant swings and rana’s in BattlArts. But he’s an extremely talented mat worker also and he gets to show that off in these exchanges with Tamura. Really Otsuka is able to keep up with Tamura on the mat but whenever they stand, Tamura just crushes Otsuka with kicks. I love Otsuka’s selling of them covering up, almost turning around before finally crumpling under the weight of these kicks. Otsuka can bock them but it doesn’t help him at all. . He finally manages to fight through them and get one big slam in but he just can’t keep Tamura off of him. Finish is NASTY. This was short, there was no giant swing or tope con hilo or dragon suplexes or hurricanranas or any of the things you love about Alexander Otsuka. Just awesome mat work and selling. GREAT Kiyoshi Tamura vs Josh Barnett 11/23/05 They go right to the mat for back and forth grappling. It’s all really good stuff and Barnett surprisingly is able to keep up with Tamura down there. This is so much better than you’d expect early on. Really fun mat work from both guys with cool counters and submission attempts. Tamura hits one of the greatest knees to the face in wrestling history for a knockdown. Barnett has one of Tamura’s legs and is going for a takedown and Tamura jumps up and just destroys Barnett with the other knee. It is so fast and so brutal. Just amazing. Barnett is furious and decides to come back with some of the best suplexes you’ve ever seen. Tamura is an awesome bumper and light enough that Barnett can do these incredible dead lift throws. Tamura has to fight back with strikes which Barnett is awesome selling or submission attempts, but Barnett shows himself to be a competent grappler capable of defending himself and using his strength and technique to put Tamura in peril on the mat. Tamura is really good at choosing when to sell one of Barnett’s throws as a knockout sort of throw and when to react as thought it was a takedown. Obviously the knockout throws probably hurt him way more, but I’m glad Tamura didn’t really sell the gut wrench suplex as a knockout because it didn’t really look all that devastating. Smart shit. The ensuing back and forth mat work is really good stuff. Their standing exchanges are super exciting too but Barnett starts to blow up a little bit as the match goes on. Tamura’s dead weight defense and rolling leg lock counter to a german suplex attempt was a fantastic spot. As was Barnett’s tribute to Maeda capture suplex. The finish is so so so so so so so good. Instantly one of my favorite finishes. Holy shit. This was really this great. Easy EPIC.

Since I derailed my own celebratory thread about Tamura by eviscerating his HOF case, I wanted to take this back to Tamura the worker. I'll post my new reviews of missing matches & U-Style and then start working on my last Tamura project. I wrote up all of the missing UWF/UWFi/RINGS Tamura that I have gotten and watched recently. I edited those matches into the posts so the reviews remained chronological for anyone coming across this in the future. But I'll post those reviews here in spoilers for people who want to read them. Anyway, here we go.

My very general blueprint for UWFi is this: What do I want to see as a fan of the style and all of these wrestlers. I think I can walk the line between running a "successful" promotion from a business drawing standpoint but also make it a shoot style "smart fans" dream.

It makes me happy that folks as different as El-P, JVK, Childs, Grimmas etc all liked Sasha vs Charlotte so much.

Puerto RIco!

So, imagine I wanted to do something where I have wrestlers that are currently Free Agents "sit in the crowd" at one of my upcoming shows before officially debuting. Do I need to officially sign them to my roster? They wouldn't be doing any matches or promos or interview or anything. Just sitting in the crowd watching the show.

Sorry for the recent quietness/lack of any sort of update leading up to this show. Thanks for the positive words, guys. I feel like the Meltzer writing style is the best (well, at least easiest) possible way for my promotion to come to life (I say that because I'm not nearly as clever as gordi, who is some kind of wizard genius). And Jesse, Regal & Finlay were two guys I had focused on from the very beginning and was ready to take them like super super early but guys like Hash or Vader kept falling. Seriously, I was ready for Regal to be my 2nd pick overall. Just being a shoot style promotion limits me in who I can realistically have in my promotion (and I pushed those boundaries as far as I could) and Regal/Finlay were two guys who I could not only imagine working UWFi, but I think they'd be terrific at it. So with them being internet favorites and available for everyone to draft, I was ready to jump on those dudes quick. I always liked the idea of Regal & Finlay being a badass team beating the fuck out of people as a fun dynamic in a shoot style promotion. You know. Unless something happens along the way and they break up and Regal vs Finlay happens as a UWFi feud Anyway, on to the next show!

I thought about doing this too actually! edit: And I wanted to say third on the podcast request Also, I'm wondering if Loss can speak to the 95 G1 Final between Muto & Hash finishing 311th. Was that an oversight. I ask not soley because its one of my favorite matches, but also because Loss ranked it 8th in his 1995 top 100 and gave it ****3/4. Did your opinion on the match change at some point? Just curious. Loving this countdown.

I've been making him watch shooty inspired stuff like Murakami vs Ishikawa and the big 1/4/00 Dome show Tag. Someone needs to get Otsuka vs Matsunaga online for Matt & Parv both.

Thank you so much Boricua! Goddamn!

Man this rocks Loss! Thank you!

*blinks* *rubs eyes* Ummmmm. I don't remember eating mushrooms today. But apparently I did? The Misawa picture in your sig really ties this post together.

Awesome! Thank you! This is great! Touche' universe. Touche'

Oh shit for real? Awesome!

An Idea for a show that I couldn't do but I want someone to do... The historical podcasts are my favorite in general and specifically I love career retrospectives like the one's KrisZ did on the Freebirds, Colon, Dusty, etc or Wrestling Culture did on Terry Funk, Ken Patera etc. I'd like to see a regular-ish show dedicated towards going through the WON Hall of Famers and talking about a wrestler per episode. Either by doing a career retrospective like the above mentioned podcasts or if not maybe running each wrestler through the Gordy list would be a fun way to give a different perspective on a wrestler and an easy format to keep the show moving. The only negative to a show like the Nick Bockwinkel Exile is that Bock had to die for it to happen. It'd be cool if someone was already working on the Pat Patterson Podcast because wrestling history is awesome and so is Pat Patterson. I don't know as much about Frank Sexton or Ray Steele as I'd like to know about them. Even someone like Jim Londos who gets called the biggest star in wrestling history by a number of noted historians. I know bits and pieces but not nearly enough considering his reputation. Where the hell is the Jim Londos podcast? Technology hates me and I'd be trying to run and edit shows from a complete zero starting point. Plus I think I'd struggle to get knowledgeable guests unless KrisZ would be open to doing yet another podcast that is basically just "Elliott sits under the KrisZ learning tree" as he teaches us all even more about wrestling history. So because I don't think I could truly pull it off and because Kris gives us SO much great content already I hate to even jokingly suggest adding to his plate, I nominate Dave Musgrave to take this idea and bring it to life because of his experience & reputation as a great podcaster, his status as a HOF voter, and because he is clearly interested in and open to learning about wrestling history and would take it seriously enough that it'd be the sort of well researched show we've come to expect from the epic placetobenation wrestler breakdown podcasts. Just putting this out there into the universe in the hopes that somehow it will happen. The more cool history podcasts the better.

Yeah, less than 24 hours is WAY TOO LONG to be excited about the first women's main event.

My immediate immediate thoughts that I said to Matt & Stacey the moment the match ended and I closed the window were: "1. I love 2016 for making that possible but I hate 2016 for making blood in that match not possible. 2. That was the best WWE match since what Slaughter vs Sheik? Ever? Its in the conversation. 3. Can a brother get a motherfucking Sasha Banks comp already?" I'm not sure its better than something like Sheik vs Slaughter or Bret vs Austin or Cena vs Daniel Bryan, but I think it belongs in that conversation. Of course, I need to watch this like 50 more times.