ohtani's jacket

Slow, methodical and boring. There were some exciting moments towards the end but it took way too long to get there. Takayama was in control for too much of the bout. Unless he's being brutally savage that's generally not a good thing. And this wasn't exactly prime Misawa when it came to selling either.

Ordinarily, I'd be tempted to say this was overrated, and I think that's probably true if you judge it as a stand-alone match or if you judge it against other matches from Kawada or Muto's career. However, if you're judging it from the point of view of April 2001, or more specifically, January 2001 to April 2001, it takes on a much different light. For better or worse, this was one of the better matches in Japan during that period. Japan wrestling wasn't historically great in 2000, but 2001 has been a hard slump. I thought Kawada was the best wrestler in Japan in 2000, although I'm sure people who are bigger NOAH fans than I am would favor Kobashi or Akiyama. Outside of the Nagai match, I don't think Kawada has delivered in 2001 and I was beginning to think that the pressures of the split had caught up with him a bit. This ended up being a step in the right direction. I actually liked how stripped back it was compared to the explosive "dream match" it would have been in the 90s. Muto basically had two things going for him -- he could sell, and he could build an attack around moves he could still do like dropkicks and the knee strikes. Kawada was one of the best ever at stripped back wrestling. You could argue that it suited him better than epic matches. This ended up being surprisingly gritty and far more substantial than the crappy inter-promotional tags going on at the time. I don't think it transcended the time and place that it was worked but hell, I'll take a MOTM at this stage.

This was a good match. I thought it was a step in the right direction for Hamada who had struggled to assert herself in her title defenses to date. It was pretty clear to me that she wasn't ready yet to step up to the role of The Woman yet and was much more comfortable testing herself against a superior opponent like Yoshida. In some respects, that makes Hamada's champion status an awkward fit, but from a match perspective, this was much more interesting than trying to watch her set the tone against inferior challengers. Honestly speaking, I wish they had made Yoshida the dominant force in ARSION and kept Hamada as the challenger but startup promotions like ARSION are never going to be perfectly booked. It's regrettable that they wasted some valuable years of Yoshida's prime, particularly in the new style that she'd forged, but while this wasn't great, it's an interesting and overlooked part of her back catalog.

This was a decent BattlARTS joint. Murakami and Ishikawa actually squared off for a change instead of skirting around their issue. I was interested to see how Tanaka would adapt to the BattlARTS style. He basically worked his own style but he was stiff and went at his opponents hard. Not a bad approach. Yone didn't drag things down too much. Ishikawa has the potential to be the best guy in Japan but the Murakami feud hasn't exactly caught fire. It started off like a house on fire, but I'd kind of like to see him move on to something else.

This was an interesting styles clash. Usually, I wouldn't be down with a styles clash in shoot style but Japanese wrestling has been in such a slump in 2001 that simply having a good match is a positive. Mens ended up being one of those fringe workers who have an interesting, eclectic career, so it's no surprise that he slotted straight into a BattlARTS match and managed to do well. Usuda's only crime is that he's boring. Other than that, he's probably a top 20 worker in Japan at this stage.

Andre the Giant vs. Stan Hansen (5/18/79) Wildly disappointing compared to the classic we know and love. Antoni Inoki vs. Crazy Leroy Brown (7/6/79) This was bad. Really bad. Antonio Inoki vs. Strong Kobayashi (5/16/75) Strong Kobayashi was an interesting fella, wasn't he? You never hear anyone talk about him but he was a player in the early days of New Japan. From memory, these two had an interesting bout in '74 but Inoki dominated him here. Wasn't much of a contest. Don't know why. Antonio Inoki vs. Killer Karl Krupp (5/16/75) This was surprisingly good. I guess I have a soft spot for Nazi gimmicks, especially ones that extend into the 70s, but this was as straight forward as it gets. Krupp had his diving knee and his claw hold, and no matter how much he bled, he wouldn't stay down. He was maniacal and hell-bent on putting Inoki in the claw. This was the New Japan version of Fritz vs. Baba and I loved every second of it. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Bob Backlund (8/5/82) People have always regarded this as a disappointment, I suppose because it doesn't really go anywhere. But I don't really have a problem watching 25 minutes of guys working holds that never really go anywhere. I saw this as a superior version of Brisco/Fujinami and would include it on a list of Fujinami matches you should watch. Antonio Inoki vs. Left Hook Dayton (4/3/79) This is some Game of Death shit right here. Dayton is everything you want from a 1970s kickboxer/martial arts practitioner. Dude looks like he walked straight off the set of a kung fu flick. A little research tells me that he used to offer a course in Chi Mind Control where he demonstrated how he could break handcuffs and survive a hanging. He couldn't survive Inoki's headbutts though or his backdrop suplexes. Weird fight, but I'll take this shit over a regular match any day of the week.

Antonio Inoki vs. Kintaro Oki (4/4/75) These two had a really good match the year before. Here, Oki jumped Inoki at the start and won with a shock ring out. Disappointing that they went with an angle here instead of another proto shoot style bout but that's the downside to old-school Japanese wrestling. Animal Hamaguchi vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (11/5/81) A fine match between these two but of course it was never going to resolve anything. Breaks down toward the end. Antonio Inoki vs. Stan Hansen (5/25/79) This was all right. Hansen hadn't come into his own yet and Inoki wrestling foreign heels isn't my favorite kind of Inoki. Andre gets involved in the end and has a pull-apart brawl with Hansen. Strong Kobayashi vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (5/4/79) This was a fun big man vs. little man bout. Fujinami was a right pest in this and Kobayashi made no bones about the little man being a pain in the ass. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. El Solitario (5/10/79) Solitario has a reputation for being not that great but he was okay here. Fujinami was clearly better but Solitario was no slug. A few of their exchanges were awkward but other than that they gelled okay. Canek attacked Fujinami at the end. Inoki & Fujinami vs. Saito & Ruska (7/17/79) Fujinami and Saito were excellent again. That's a new favorite pairing of mine. This was a chance to see Ruska do pro-wrestling. He did some nice, uncooperative looking judo holds. He didn't have much of a clue about selling, though. The commentator kept mentioning Bock. I don't think you can underestimate the effect that the Bock match had on the wrestling public. Not much flow to this. The match didn't build well and it finished abruptly. Andre the Giant vs. Chuck Wepner (7/25/76) Not really a New Japan match but it was on the feed. For the longest time, people have believed this was a legitimate shoot. I think it's pretty clearly a work. Fun match. Imagine a prime Andre working shoot-style matches like Vader. That would have been a blast.

Another foxhole: Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Jack Brisco (4/27/79) This was billed as a dream match but there was no way you get getting an all-time classic. Not in a catchweight contest like this. It went less than 15 minutes but they made the most with the time they had. The finish was abrupt but I've seen bigger letdowns in dream matches. Not a bad exhibition match. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Masa Saito (5/25/79) Holy crap was this awesome. We all know Masa Saito was a great worker but he could really go in his younger days. He was amazingly quick in this. Fujinami was such a beautiful worker. This period of his career was so graceful to watch. There were a few lulls in this but when they were active they went hard. Antonio Inoki vs. Tony Rocco (2/2/79) Here we got to see Inoki take on the great Tony Rocco. Rocco was on a hiding to nothing here. He had no chance of winning but he wasn't going to die wondering and got as much offense in as he could. Which was great if you're a Tony Rocco fan. Antonio Inoki vs Tatsumi Fujinami (6/1/79) I thought we were going to get a really cool early Inoki vs. Fujinami match here but Fujinami came to the ring with a leg injury and Inoki called the match off. Then he demanded a match with Andre. The end result was Andre and Inoki tumbling about until Hansen ran in and there was a threeway schmoz. That Inoki/Fujinami match would have been fascinating. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Kengo Kimura (12/13/79) This was a beautiful match between these two great rivals. It was done in the 70s light heavyweight style so it was different from their later encounters. Pretty to watch. Antonio Inoki vs. Chris Markoff (11/1/78) Not memorable like their JWA bout but watchable. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Ashura Hara (4/3/80) Great match. Hara was such a good worker. Not only did he have a cool look, but he was tough as nails. This was technically excellent and a dogfight. Fujinami's face was covered in blood at the end.

This was a rematch for the WWF title. Earlier in the show, Rock had assaulted Vince McMahon and demanded a title shot. Vince relented but on one condition -- he'd get his title shot inside a steel cage. Austin, meanwhile, said he didn't owe the fans an explanation for joining forces with Vince McMahon so his motivation remains unclear. I did like the segment they taped for Smackdown where Austin attacked Jim Ross. That was callous and I actually felt bad for Ross. This was a decent brawl. Austin bled. McMahon got involved again and physically abused the referee Tim White. Then Hunter showed up and the unthinkable happened -- an alliance between Stone Cold Steve Austin and the man who tried to end his career, Triple H. All those months of terrible booking and awful angles. The Survivor Series rubbish with the forklift. The attempted vehicular homicides. The layoff. The Three Stages of Hell. As far as I remember, the idea of turning Austin heel was always on the table. We used to fantasy book it back in the day. But while it was easy to believe the Bret Hart heel turn or the Hogan heel turn, this was perplexing. It was as though Austin had been hit on the head with a cinder block and his personality changed.

I'll have to check that out. Giant Baba vs. Bobo Brazil (5/16/69) Baba brought more intensity here but his brawling looked like shit. Poor guy can't catch a break with me right now.

This bollocks is not what I want to see in professional wrestling.

If there's one thing 2001 has been crying out for it's a MOTYC. This match had the potential to deliver on that need since it was the biggest main event we'd seen to date, but I can't sit here and say this was a MOTYC. To me, it wasn't convincing. I couldn't believe that after such a long (some might say torturous) feud with Triple H, that Austin would be so desperate to beat the Rock that he'd sell his soul to the devil. And to a certain extent, I didn't even care. Okay, so you can't trust a rattlesnake. You couldn't really trust the Rock either. You couldn't trust anyone in the Attitude era with the way they slipped back and forth between a heel and a face. And I didn't like the execution of the angle either. Instead of being an instantaneous shock, it was a prolonged, drawn-out affair. Even the crowd seemed confused. At first, they wanted to cheer because Austin won the belt in Texas and then the allegiance with McMahon sunk in and they weren't sure how they were supposed to react. I know they were trying to play off Montreal but having Vince jump up and down and cheer like a gimp wasn't my idea of a killer angle. And the Rock kicked out too many times. Another problem I had with the match was the call. JR and Heyman had poor chemistry together. They spent too much time bickering and they belabored the same points over and over again. This wasn't an all-time great call by Ross. You'd expect him to be a hell of a lot more emotional over the finish but all he could muster at the end was the same line about "Satan himself" ad nauseum. The match itself was lackluster as well. The throwbacks to earlier Austin matches were a good idea in theory but they were too "on the nose." I don't think you should make it that obvious that you're playing off past history. I also hated the cutesy use of each other's finishers. I honestly expected more from Austin than aping that trend. I don't wanna come across like the match was bad or the work was terrible. But I don't think it was as good as the opening fall in the Three Stages of Hell match and that's a problem if you're looking at this from a MOTY viewpoint. I'm interested to see how this played out on RAW the following night but this main event sure as hell didn't make me regret my decision to stop watching the WWF.

Bobo Brazil vs. Giant Baba (6/27/68) Well, this wasn't terrible. You'd have to be insane to think it would be good but it didn't put me to sleep. I would've preferred them to beat the shit out of each other for 10 minutes and bleed but I understand there were loftier expectations when it came to title matches. I wish Baba would remember that he's a giant and stop working like a light heavyweight. Okay, maybe you want to show that you're a good seller and that you're quicker than a regular big man. And maybe you want to prove that you're an athlete and not some freak show. I get that. But the gentle giant stuff only goes so far. You're a big guy! Use your size. Kick some ass when you need to. It's no surprise that the best Baba looked at this was when he fired up for the second fall finish. The fans loved him no matter what. There were a lot of salaryman types and they were cheering and hollering and throwing cushions in the ring at the end. But I really want to see Baba take the fight to someone. It's hard because it's not like he was ever a heel. He doesn't have the sort of edge that comes with being an on again, off again bad boy, but fire up Baba!

Well, here it is. The match that killed my diehard WWF fandom. This match came in my younger years when I had just started getting into matches from the past and wrestling from around the world. I was no longer concerned about things like the Monday Night ratings, or who was better, Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels. With the influx of talent into the WWF, I really thought I could handle all the bullshit so long as they put guys in the position to have great matches on PPV as they'd done with Hart and Michaels. I desperately wanted this to be a great match. It was a match that HAD to be four stars, at a time when matches being four stars was all that mattered to me. And it wasn't. It wasn't four stars in 2001 and it's not four stars in 2019. And so I quit watching the WWF religiously. Ironically, they'd go on to produce the wrestling I wanted to see during the Smackdown Six era and beyond but I'm not sure whether I could have stomached the bullshit it took to reach that point. The amateur wrestling at the start was nice and probably more than you should reasonably expect from a WWF bout, but everything after that was nondescript. It wasn't bad but it wasn't special in any way, shape or form. There was a lot of great stuff in the Benoit vs. Jericho feud. A lot more great stuff than I ever gave that feud credit for in real time. But there weren't those sort of details here. Aside from a few counters, there was nothing that made you think you were watching two of the best. The match never got going and it sure as heck never made me think, "oh, you were wrong about this bout all those years." I dunno if it was because Angle wasn't ready for the kind of bout I wanted or because the match was short due to time constraints. They ended up having a divisive match at the Royal Rumble 2003 that I personally liked but this remains a disappointment to me years after the sting has gone.

Man, I really didn't expect to see La FIera in this match. He looked unrecognizable to me from his prime years. I mean, if I saw him on the street I couldn't recognize him as La Fiera. This was the weakest of all the Gigante Silva handicap matches. The Capos got the pin when they all sat on top of Silva. Dantes was grinning and laughing like they were riding a banana boat. Fiera didn't make a strong impression.

This was a good match. Brazo de Oro doesn't have it anymore, but Tony Rivera worked hard as usual and the rudos were good.

Most of the matches are accessible. There's a couple where you need to be resourceful. The 6/78 match is excellent. You can tell it's their first time wrestling each other. They try all sorts of strategies, feeling each other out, looking to get a feel for what works and what doesn't work There's a creativity to it that's missing from their 1979 matches. I think those matches are marred by the dodgy title switch. The 1978 trilogy has some hokey non-finishes (the 'ring out' being a popular cop-out instead of a pinfall or submission), but the matches follow the chess match strategy of old-school title matches and are highly enjoyable. I wouldn't call them historic matches or anything you should drop everything to track down but they were worthy successors to Thesz and Dory Funk Jr's title defenses in Japan albeit for a different heavyweight title.

This was clipped but there was enough action to warm the cockles of anybody's heart. Fantastic undercard action and a wonderful build-up to the Tiger Blanco vs Lagarde match. Of course, CMLL didn't air that match but the build sure was great. It's easy to overlook a match like this but it really is some of the better wrestling that CMLL produced in April.

This was Universo's first appearance since putting Perro in hospital. There were vignettes with Perro lying in a hospital bed while a doctor showed an x-ray of his spine and CMLL referees using undercard guys to demonstrate the difference between standard moves and Universo's piledriver. The match itself was short. It was worked as a standard lucha fall without any stooging. Silva tried to get revenge for Perro, Atlantis was the glue holding things together, and Porky hurt himself on his apron dive. In the end, the Capos were too strong. There was also a trios tournament on this show but it was a waste of time. The little things it did like fuel the situation between Shocker and the Guapos would have been better served in a regular match.

This was the main event of the Arena Mexico Anniversary Show. I had high hopes for this but it was disappointing. The only real storyline was Ultimo Guerrero vs. Satanico, and they had run so many rudo contra rudo bouts during their feud that what was the point of having relevos increibles? Santo and Casas squared off but it wasn't vintage Santo vs. Casas, and Dr. Wagner and Emilio got stuck into each other but Emilio looks like he's running on fumes at this point. And the match didn't go the distance either. Instead of a showpiece, it was another wrinkle in the Infernales fallout, which was a letdown given the talent level.

It's that time of year again. The time where they bring Gigante Silva in for a few dates the way they used to do with Andre back in the day. This was all right. The Silva spots were predictable but harmless. The Villano brothers were solid. I really love that Villano punch spot. This could have been a lot worse.

This was a heck of a match. To have a match this good at Arena Coliseo was impressive, and a match with Tinieblas Jr to boot! This can only be described as "the Panther effect." In fact, it was so good that the folks who put together the TV show decided to run it wit hit and air it uninterrupted. It was basically a transplanted Arena Mexico match both in size and momentum swings. It felt bigger than a regular Coliseo match. Panther, Warrior and Violencia were slick. It doesn't matter who Panther fronts up with in 2001, when he's in a trios match he runs a tight ship. I'm not sure if TInieblas was meant to be in this match originally. It felt like there was a late scratch somewhere. But he did the best he could and at no point did the rudos make a concession for him. He even got in on the high flying. Olimpico vs Blue Panther is still kind of a thing but this was mostly about grand lucha action. Check this out. It's a sleeper.

I really liked their 12/18/78 match. Instead of wrestling to a stalemate on the mat, they worked a really physical, gritty match. Mr. Saito and Ueda ended up attacking both wrestlers and busting them open and the closing stanza was a bloody brawl. After the match, Inoki had a towel wrapped around his head and kept screaming into the mic for one more chance at Backlund's bout. I definitely think their '78 matches are superior to their '79 matches.

Satanico's hair is growing out. You know what that means. This was action-packed while it lasted. Ultimo and the Guapos did a number on Satanico & Co. to start with. They tore Black Warrior's mask off and mangled Shocker's leg after it got stuck in the front row chairs. Black Warrior went backstage to get a new mask and led the comeback for his team. It was frenetic stuff with Satanico throwing punch combos, Shocker hopping around on one leg and Black Warrior hitting a spectacular tope. Of course, the finish was cheap and involved fouling, but at least Shocker and Emilio got stuck into each other at the end. I was glad to see they hadn't dropped that storyline completely. This blazed across the screen in less than 10 minutes and was pretty eventful. Not a bad piece of TV to cap off the month.

This was unspectacular. Casas was quiet. I saw this as an opportunity for him to do something brilliant but he didn't have it. The only interesting thing this threw at us was Rayo vs. Ultimo and it was mostly stooging.