ohtani's jacket

I always loved that song. It reminds me of Honda Minako. Mimi wasn't a bad singer either.

Herodes was one of the guys I was waiting to see. I'd be interested to hear if you have any workhorse or journeyman favorites.

Angel Azteca/Misterioso/Volador vs. Blue Panther/Fishman/Mascara Ano 2000 (AAA, August 14th, 1992) You would think that a title match feud would be more up Panther's alley, but straight away they work this like an apuestas feud. I usually despise it when a title match feud is worked like an apuestas feud, especially when they start ripping at each other's masks, but this match had two things going for it. First of all, the crowd was red hot. There's something to be said for Pena taking TV out of Mexico City to areas like this. Secondly, Angel Azteca led a fantastic tecnico comeback. I thought he was far better than Panther in this match. It reminded me of the incredible potential he had. I honestly think if he had continued on this trajectory, he'd be as well regarded as Santo and Atlantis.

A lot of Kansai's best stuff is from 1996-1997, though. Her peak was probably from around '89-97, which is a fairly typical peak for a Joshi worker, or any wrestler really. Her GAEA work holds up in spots if you divorce yourself from any emotional investment you had in her as the heart and soul of JWP. It was hard to see her fade after being such an incredible leader for that promotion. One of the greats, for sure.

Jones vs. Mercier wasn't very good. Marty seemed to lose a clip after the outstanding match against Bull Blitzer (Steve Wright) in '86. I don't think he was ever the same. I'm not a big fan of the Owen match, however, so YMMV.

Blue Panther vs Vulcano (AAA April 18th, 1993) Finally, we reach the apuestas match. As soon as Tirantes was announced as the ref I knew he'd get involved. A few minutes later, he disqualified Panther and Vulcano won the opening fall. Then Pena got involved and removed Tirantes from the match. Casas' dad took over as the ref and then he disqualified Vulcano. Somebody remind me why this promotion was so hot? It reminds me of Vince Russo jumping to WCW. The tercera was mostly nearfalls. It speaks to the power of an apuestas match that the nearfalls were as good as they were considering the match had no body. In fact, the tercera was pretty much the match itself. There wasn't much in the way of brawling. For all intents and purposes, they could have been working a title match. However, the crowd was red hot, so at the very least it entertained its primary audience. It was better than Atlantis vs. Mano Negra, I suppose, but I kept wondering why they couldn't just let the two guys go out there and try to have the best match they could. Then, somewhat amusing, Vulcano had his hair cut instead of taking off his mask. I guess I didn't listen properly or was listening to music while watching the bout. I naturally assumed it was a mask vs, mask match since the thing Vulcano wears looks like a mask. All that for a haircut? I guess there was a reason why nobody ever talks about this feud. The redeeming feature in my eyes was how over Panther was with the crowd. Next up, I'm going to take a look at matches that may feature Panther in a more favorable light. Or not.

1958.11.8air Joachim la Barba vs Jakob Thoma + Hans Schwarz III vs Jose Marques (Berlin) la Barba is working a comedy catchweight bout here against an extremely limited heavyweight opponent. Schwarz vs Marques is the best footage so far. Instead of clips, we get extended sequences from the bout. Both men are skilled and work a style that is similar to French Catch. Marques was a Spanish wrestler, so I guess you could classify it as a continental style. It seemed that most of the skilled workers of this era could travel between France, Britain and Spain and work seamlessly with local opponents. 1960.10.18air Hans Schwarz III vs someone + Oskar Muller vs Bill Martinez (Munich) Here's Schwarz again. His opponent looks a bit like Inca and does a lot of fun, exaggerated selling. Schwarz is one of the most skilled workers I've seen thus far. Muller is the stereotypical German wrestler. It's like watching the love child of Axel Dieter and Roland Bock. Bill Martinez did this spot that modern wrestlers should ape. He scored the pin, do a backwards roll, rolled forward again so that he was standing over his opponent, then taunted him in his face. 1957.11 Hermann Iffland vs Josef Kovacs + James Brown & Matthias Rösges vs Roman Waniek & Hans Dillinger (Wiesbaden) There was a lot of excellent wrestling in this clip. Iffland and Kovacs wrestled like men, and Kovacs wore Dick Shikat style tights, which I always approve of. The tag match featured something I've never seen before. Instead of standing on the apron, the tag partners stood in each corner holding onto the tag rope. At first I thought it was because there was no space on the apron for them to stand, but then they did a spot where one guy was placed over the top rope onto the apron. A very weird but interesting visual dynamic. I'd be curious to know if all German tag wrestling was like this at the time or it was unique to Wiesbaden. The wrestling and comedy in this bout were first class.

Jerry Estrada/Vulcano vs. Blue Panther/Tony Arce (AAA April 11th, 1993) Man are they dragging this out. It's Panther vs Vulcano not the fight of the century. Early on, it felt like they had gone back to the square one in terms of the apuestas feud,, but that wasn't Panther's fault. It felt like bad booking on AAA's part. Then Panther was forced to work what you might consider standard, or perhaps even classic, lucha exchanges with Jerry Estrada and suddenly it was the best that had happened since the feud began. So, clearly Panther isn't a great brawler. Then, finally, Panther's mask was ripped open, and you could see the top half of his face for the rest of the bout. It took them long enough to reach that stage, and I can't really fault Panther's selling from that point on, but overall, perhaps not the best use of Panther. Then again, at least they were using him. That in itself is kind of a Catch 22.

Some German film footage. 1965.8air Horst Hoffmann vs Ian Campbell + Leif Rasmussen vs Micha Nador + Mustafa Shikane vs Josef Molnar (Wiesbaden Ian Campbell shows up in the most interesting places. It's a shame we don't have any of his matches from ITV. He was mostly playing a stooge heel in these clips. Shikane vs. Moinar was wild. Very stylized and strange lightweight wrestling. It almost felt like performance art. 1962 Geoff Portz vs Paul Berger + Rene Lasartesse vs Jose Arroyo (Berlin) The German newsreel directors liked to focus on crowd reactions a lot. Must be that history of expressionism. Not a lot you could really gauge from this other than Lasartesse worked the same way in the 60s that he did in the 80s. The only difference was that he looked younger. 1965.5.8 Josef Kovacs vs Ian Campbell + Horst Hoffmann vs Jose Marques + Ricki Starr vs Leif Rasmussen (Karlsruhe) Speaking of expressionism, this stands off as a montage of the matches shot at various different camera angles, then shows extended clips of Ricki Starr vs. Rasmussen. As best I can tell, Rasmussen was a Buddy Rose style worker who seemed like a real character. The clips are fun, and I imagine the full match would have been similar to the great Les Kellett vs. Bobby Barnes matches. 1971 Leif Rasmussen vs Hansi Roocks This clip is already in circulation. There are some decent exchanges but the main focus is on interviewing women at ringside, and boy are there some interesting hairdos.

How deep does this list go? I keep wondering if certain names will show up.

Zarak & La Bete Humaine vs. Michel Di Santo & Eddy Mores (9/30/81) I thought this was going to be the drizzling shits, but it actually wasn't that bad. Di Santo and Mores were incredibly game, and whoever was under the La Bete Humaine mask was a pretty good worker. He had to be, too, since he did the lion's share of the work. I'm assuming that Zarak was Dave Larsen. He was pretty average, but grew on me throughout the bout kind of like a French Rayo de Jalisco Jr. There wasn't a shred of technique, really, but for a heavy metal circus bout it wasn't bad.

Los Destructores vs. Blue Panther, Jerry Estrada & Herodes (AAA, April 4th, 1993) This was the most fired up Panther has been in the feud thus far. It didn't lead to anything great, but it was a step in the right direction. Panther and Vulcano finally began brawling in the tercera, however instead of the violence escalating, they did some cutesy shit where Vulcano got his win back from the week before by cheating. Not as enjoyable as the first match.

Los Destructores vs. Blue Panther, Jerry Estrada & Herodes (AAA, March 28th, 1993) Here was a chance to see how Panther does in a proper apuestas feud, and the answer is not that great. It's not entirely Panther's fault. He wants to square off with Vulcano but the Destructores wind up triple teaming him. The beatdown is okay, but Panther doesn't get any shine before the rudos take over. When Panther makes his comeback, it's no different from the tecnico comeback in any trios match, and he botches the finish to the segunda caida, which ruins the visual. He tries to punch Vulcano in the tercera, but the rudo ref won't let him. Again, not his fault. His big moment in the match is pinning Vulcano while holding the ropes, which is both a retaliatory move and a nod to the fact that Panther used to be a rudo himself and knows a trick or two. However, nowhere do you see the type of intensity you expect from this sort of match. I don't expect Panther to be as intense as El Dandy, for example, and I'm not sure that his role as a masked tecnico allows him to be, but the bout gave me a renewed appreciation for how good Santo was in these situations. I don't think the booking does Panther any favors, but I think it's because his selling isn't very good. The best guy in this is a broken down, past-his-prime Herodes, who was hugely charismatic. In fact, I actually thought a Herodes vs. Vulcano feud would have been more fun than this. If Panther sold more like Herodes, I'd be a lot higher on this matchup. That said, the bout wasn't boring, so it wasn't a major loss. I don't have much hope for them ratchetting things up, but I'm determined to see it through to the end.

Mark Rocco vs Terry Jowett (5/23/73) This is the earliest Rocco bout that I've seen and predates the 1974 Lee Thomas bout that I have in my collection (though that match is in color and I'm fairly certain exists in full.) This is an interesting bout from a historical perspective as it shows a young Rocco making headways in the world of professional wrestling. He hadn't come into his own yet. That happened when he began feuding with Marty Jones. However, it had an unexpected finish that was much better than what I was expecting,

Great stuff, Phil. Undoubtedly, my favorite era for catch. I was surprised by Adolf Kaiser being cancelled.