ohtani's jacket

New Zealand deserves some joy against England this year but I suspect the result will be a draw.

Well, if Harley Race can die there's no hope for the rest of us.

I grew up in New Zealand. WWF Superstars began airing in 1988. We got to see the PPVs on television but we never got to see Saturday Night's Main Event aside from the clips that aired on Superstars. We were several months behind and were bombarded with spoilers in the TV guide, a trashy tabloid named "The Truth," the WWF magazine and the Apter mags. The video stores had a lot of random tapes with non-WWF stuff, and we also knew about the existence of other territories from the Apter magazines but I remember the territorial stuff seeming a bit bush league to me as a kid. The only guys who caught my imagination were guys like Sting or the Road Warriors because of their get-ups and face paint. The WWF aired until 1991. It was taken off the air because it was too violent and too many kids were copying the moves. The video shops still ordered the tapes but it was out of sight, out of mind for me. Worldwide began airing on Satellite TV in 1994 and eventually other WWF and WCW syndicated shows began to air as the mid-90s boom took over. Eventually, we had one-hour edited versions of Nitro and RAW, but on the whole, I think our wrestling experience was unique in that it really revolved around PPVs and magazines. I can't imagine too many fans who grew up with spoilers the way we did whether it was in the magazines, on the syndicated shows or later on the internet. We were such a small market, and so far behind when I was a kid (maybe six months or more), that you would literally tune into Worldwide to try to figure out the results of the PPV matches they had spent weeks building to. I used to really love it when they recapped the entire PPV with highlights because we couldn't get WCW tapes from the video store until 1997.

This was the semi-final of the ARS tournament. Quite a good match considering it was one-night tournament wrestling. GAMI scored the upset that they didn't portray it as a major shock. Instead, it was presented as something GAMI was capable of if she wrestled at her best. In the quarters, Hamada squared of against Yagi, one of my personal favorites, and that was also quite good. So not a bad night for Hamada work-wise despite bowing out early.

I liked this match. It didn't pretend to be anything different than what it was. You had Kim Duk, who was older than dirt and had stolen Rambo's gimmick from IWRG, and a perpetually grumpy Tenryu vs. two midcard guys who are suddenly more important to the company than before because of the departures. I haven't enjoyed too many things about Japanese wrestling in 2001 but I am enjoying Taiyo Kea's sudden rise. it's fun watching Smith get a bigger role too. Both guys were up for the challenge and good enough workers to make it work. If you like Tenryu, he was in vintage form here. He spent most of the bout being snarly and throwing punch combos.

Tournament final from the Toryumon show. This was given plenty of time but never really captured the imagination. There was a crappy reset at the beginning which didn't amuse me much. The upshot of the tourney was that Mochizuki proved he was the chief dog in Toryumon. Magnum was crying and pleading with CIMA after all. It was very emotional and poorly acted.

This was the other tournament semi from the Toryumon show. Fairly standard stuff but they made sure SUWA got enough licks in to look credible.

This was a pretty cool match. It was a tournament semi so it was quicker and spottier than usual but it felt decisive.

I liked this a lot. The premise was no different from an LCO match but it was interesting to watch Sakai scratch and claw her way back into the match. I thought she gave a tough, gritty performance. The match would have been better if The Bloody had been more expressive but I was impressed with Sakai's fight back.

One thing that's been missing from 2001 has been a steady stream of Osaka Pro on our screens. Minoru Tanaka has never been a favorite of mine, and this was very much a Minoru Tanaka bout, but at least it was a chance to see Murahama have a solid match and for that I'm grateful. Some nice moments here and there. A couple of nice "near falls" off submissions. It was a short match but they managed to main what I would call a "competitive pace" without too much back and forth. Murahama didn't really shine but it's hard to do that as the outsider. At least it was a good match. I'll take that in 2001.

I can't quite figure out which is worse, NOAH or Zero-One. What I do know is that Ogawa and Murakami have to be two of the most overrated workers in the history of Japanese wrestling. Japanese wrestling is in such a funk it's not funny.

I was expecting far more from this. Wildly disappointing.

I haven't come across the Piper or Patterson match. I haven't watched a Singh match yet but I'm sure my curiosity will get the better of me. Antonio Inoki vs. "The Monster Man" Everett Eddie (8/8/77) This was supposedly one of Inoki's better mixed fights. I suppose that's because it was mostly stand-up fighting with a lot of action and movement. Inoki won after an awkward-looking powerbomb and a leg drop. It amuses me that this headlined Budokan. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Killer Khan (3/26/83) If you've ever wanted to see Fujinami and Killer Khan have a long, hard-fought match, look no further. This was worth it just to see Khan work the mat with Fujinami. The long grueling battle afterward was the icing on the cake. Antonio Inoki vs. Hiro Matsuda (12/16/78) This was either going to be mind-numbingly boring or fascinating. The latter prevailed and we got some really good work out of this, including one of the best arm breaker sequences I've seen in a long time. Saito and Ueda kept lurking about threatening to derail it, and they ran out of steam toward the end, but it was pretty much everything you could have hoped for from a unique encounter like this. Antonio Inoki vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (3/19/83) This was never going to live up to the expectations in my head but it was hard fought and intense. Antonio Inoki vs. Seji Sakaguchi vs. Killer Karl Krupp (5/8/74) This was a three-way tournament final. Sakaguchi vs. Krupp was nothing special but set the tone for the carnage that would follow. Inoki's mutton chops were phenomenal in 1974. Inoki and Sakaguchi had amazing chemistry together. I bet that's something you didn't know. I might even go on record and call Sakaguchi Inoki's best native opponent. Krupp returns to bust Sakaguchi open and we get Krupp vs. Inoki, the Fritz vs. Baba of New Japan. It's not quite as good as their match from the following year but it's better than 90% of the Inoki vs. foreign dreck.

All Japan Women's has been up and down in terms of match quality but I thought this was a good bout. It didn't break any new ground in terms of the rivalries. Everybody on Hotta's team still hates everybody on Ito's team and vice versa, but aside from some of the usual Korakuen Hall tropes like crowd brawling this was a solid grudge match.

This was all right. I like the idea of crafty old Misawa trying to get by on his wiles except for the fact that he's still being presented as the top guy. That's pretty stupid given the fact that he doesn't have the same eye for detail that he did in his prime and his body keeps betraying the fact that he's broken down. Akiyama should be about to take him in these matches. To be honest, it makes him look bad that he still lays down for the boss. Remember that young rebellious guy who wouldn't lay down for the top guys anymore? The guy who threw away his mask and turned into a gigantic star overnight. Wrestling wasn't as hot in the early 00s as it had been a decade earlier but Akiyama needed some type of springboard to tell everyone he'd arrived and this wasn't gonna do it. I hated the reset, btw. That was lame. In the end, the result maintained the status quo, which I don't think was particularly helpful for these lean times but I'd probably have a gripe with Akiyama even if he'd won so I'm probably just bitching for the sake of it.

Slow and methodical, but a decent bout overall. I keep waiting for a superstar performance from Akiyama to justify some of the praise he gets at times. And, honestly speaking, I would have for him to snatch the mantle as the best worker in Japan and run with it because he has youth on his side. But I just don't see it. A guy I used to really love was Masakatsu Funaki. To me, he was poised to take over the mantle as the best shoot style worker in Japan and a major star in the business if he hadn't gotten into MMA, and in my mind, he still was a huge star. He had fire and charisma and the type of edge you need to be a big-time star. When I look at Akiyama, all of that seems missing. I keep telling myself that I'll turn the corner on Akiyama but it's hard to see where and when. But I'm keeping an open mind about it.

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.