ohtani's jacket

There is a lot of stuff that I haven't seen (mostly post-2000). I'm not going to squabble or pick hairs about the matches that were chosen. The people who participated are great contributors to these sites and always give well thought out, well-reasoned arguments about the matches they enjoy. I do think there are some areas that continue to be under-represented, however. Firstly, Europe, whether it's French catch, Germany and Austria, or old-school WoS, people need to devote a bit more time to exploring it. 80s Joshi is another era that had no representation despite Joshi doing better than expected on the overall list. I think Europe and Joshi are hurt by the fact that there weren't DVDVR 80s sets. Historical 30s-50s stuff needs more championing as well but I can understand people not watching that sort of thing. It took me a long time to get around to it. Those would be my main three areas although you could argue that deathmatch wrestling and lucharesu need revisiting too. I love the way wrestling opinions continue to morph and change and people move from one extreme to the other. Can't wait to see how your list changes from here on out.

This was easily the best thing AJW had done since the cage match. Toyota had turned heel a few days prior at a Korakuen show, which was a questionable booking decision but it led to more Toyota vs. Ito, which is one of my favorite match-ups from this era. Great action here with a minimal amount of bullshit. Strong commitment to the gimmick and everyone played their role well. I didn't love the outside interference down the stretch but it didn't ruin anything. Loved the current ace getting the win over the former ace. Definitely one of the better matches from the AJW renaissance.

This was supposed to be a shoot but it's hard to tell whether it was. I have my doubts, but it was worked like one which made it a hell of a lot more interesting than it would have been if it were a regular pro-wrestling match.

I'm impressed that you guys stuck with this and finished it. I am going to pore over the lists and check out anything that sticks out.

Giant Baba vs. Dick the Bruiser (2/28/68) I expected a different sort of Dick the Bruiser here compared to his 50s stuff, and sure enough, this had a lot of brawling and cheating. I still kind of liked it even if it was bare-bones wrestling. I've seen enough 50s Bruiser that he's become likeable to me. It's interesting that I'm always talking about Baba's opponents in these matches. It seems as though Baba's performance never really changes from one match to another. You plug him in there and he either does leg work or retaliatory chops. To be fair, these matches are predominantly about the foreign heels so it's no surprise that their cheating takes the spotlight but does Baba come across as a great babyface? If he did these matches might be better. Giant Baba vs. Dick the Bruiser (4/10/75) It's interesting to me how much wilder these mid-70s All Japan bouts are than the late 60s JWA bouts. I wonder if that reflected some sort of cultural change in Japanese society. At any rate, Baba was rocking longer hair here and working a rougher style. There was a ton of carnage, a double bladejob and the match broke down completely. Worth watching to see Dick raise a little hell but not memorable otherwise.

This was part of the build-up to the Perro Aguayo vs Universo 2000 apuesta match that Raging Noodles and I loved so much back in the day. I have no idea whether that match will hold up anymore having watched the 14 months proceeding it but the feud raged on (pun intended.) Perro had taken Caras' hair on the December pay-per-view and Mascara Ano 2000's hair earlier in the month at a Tijuana show, so the bad blood continued to boil. It doesn't always work for me since Perro looks like he needs to be reminded where he is half the time, but I did like the throwbacks to Atlantis vs. Emilio that we got here.

Just checking in on what Villano III was up to in the new year. This didn't have much bite to it but it did have Satanico vs Villano IV exchanges, which is a match-up made in heaven.

Well, I guess Blue Panther vs. Olimpico is officially a thing again. I can get behind that. This was a decent shakedown. Nothing spectacular but Fuerza had his working boots on for a change and I'm enjoying this unexpected Signo run. Signo is one of my favorite luchadors of all-time and I didn't know he had these booking dates in 2001. Not a huge amount of edge to Panther vs. Olimpico at this stage -- not like the first time around -- but it's something to keep an eye on.

I love stripped back Kawada matches with their focus on gritty matwork and hard strikes. This was a simple and relatively straightforward struggle, but thanks to Kawada's selling, it was damn near Herculean at times. Of all the All Japan guys, only Kawada had the arsenal to pull off a match like this. I kind of wish we'd seen more of this. Can you imagine Kawada vs. Sakuraba? Tamura? Sano? Anjoh? Yamazaki? Hell, even Takada. I never really had any faith in the other All Japan guys to make those match-ups work but their fights with Kawada would have been something to behold.

The height of my comic fandom was in the 1980s. For my money, New Teen Titans and Legion of Superheroes were every bit as good as their Marvel counterparts. I adored Justice League International as well. Still one of my all-time favorite comic series. Suicide Squad is also excellent. Green Arrow and The Question were also good. And of course, the pre-Vertigo stuff -- Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol, Animal Man, Hellblazer.

It goes without saying that Satanico vs the Infernales is going to be a fun feud, but I didn't expect it to be this good. Satanico was amazing in this. He was punked from the outset by Tarzan Boy and proceeded to bleed for his sins while the rudos maimed Black Warrior's leg, We all know Satanico is one of the great sellers and the great performers. Watching him take his beating here, I kept wondering why I hadn't dived into this run sooner. It really was a sublime performance for a Coliseo bout. The Infernales were disqualified for excessive violence and the tide turned. Satanico led a ferocious comeback the likes of which only Satanico can do, and Black Warrior got his revenge with a sensational tope. A lot of trios matches splutter and stall but this kept building and building. Satanico and Guerrero squared off for a mano a mano confrontation and the match was electric. Then all of a sudden they pulled the plug. The cheap finish spoiled things slightly but I should have seen it coming. You can already guess what type of finish it was. Still, the hype is real. This promises to be as good a feud as we'll see all year.

I have no idea why Ultimo Guerrero and Satanico were on the same side here. Contract obligations? In any event, their allegiance didn't last long and again the tecnicos took advantage of what's turning into a pretty bad year for rudos.

This match was fun for reasons you wouldn't expect like reuniting old rivals El Signo and Brazo de Oro and sparking the flames of the forgotten Olimpico vs. Panther feud. Again, the tecnicos came on strong but that's been a theme of the first month of the year. At least we got to see Signo and Brazo stretch their legs, which was cool.

Tarzan Boy was wearing Infernales tights in this match. Hopefully, this angle is heading full steam ahead. Some great match-ups here: Tarzan Boy vs. Juventud Guerrera, Atlantis vs. Bucanero (always underrated) and Ultimo vs. Casas. The action was excellent in this bout but with Atlantis getting involved so much it was hard to fathom a tecnico lose. That said, at least it was clean and there was no Satanico run-in. CMLL continues to pump out great TV.

Here we see Los Guapos with their preferred partner of choice, Emilio Charles Jr. For some reason, Villano IV is in on the tecnico side, which is good news since he works the lion's share of the clips, reprising his IWRG feud with Scorpio and being generally awesome. Shocker does a run-in at the end in street clothes and it looks like the Los Guapos break up is a done deal. Another trio gone too soon.

Nooo, Los Guapos! Don't break up just yet. You're far too guapo for that. This was a great match considering that Juventud didn't really enter CMLL with a huge amount of fanfare and Lizmark Jr is Lizmark Jr. We know what Casas can do against each of the Guapos members but Shocker was on top of his game against Juventud and Lizmark didn't get in the way of a pulsating storyline.

This was an awesome rudo vs rudo contest with Guerrero & Bucanero attacking Satanico before the bell, a hellacious Satanico comeback and a banger of a tercera caida. Edited, spliced together, and served up by Televisa for your lucha enjoyment. No company in the world was delivering TV this good in early '01. It was masterful stuff from Satanico, who still dominated center stage but the electricity in the Infernales feud was palpable and everyone fed off it.

Continuing with Chicago: Angelo Poffo vs. Bobby Managoff was a decent watch. It was full of generic 50s holds, niggle from Poffo, and the crowd taking delight in Managoff retaliating, but it was well done and Poffo & Managoff were a good match-up for each other. Poffo was clearly a good worker and drew heat but he lacked that extra something to catapult him to the heights of professional wrestling. Dick the Bruiser vs. Chest Bernard was a decent strength vs. strength bout. Bruiser's early stuff where he's trying to overpower opponents with brute strength is better than his brawling shtick. From the same card was Rudy Kay vs. Jack Bauer. Regardless of what you might think of older journeymen like Kay, the crowd loved him and kept cracking jokes at his expense. He isn't the charismatic journeyman type that you see in lucha or WoS, but he had the same effect on the crowd, and the commentator considering he's one of Pappy Davis' favourites. Lastly, Bozo Brown vs. Johnny Balbo was a showcase for fat boy wrestler Brown. Entertaining bout in the grand tradition of fat boy wrestling.

Giant Baba vs. Gene Kiniski (12/18/70) This had a real corporate feel to it with all the Mitsubishi suits at ringside. A decent return match. Kiniski was a pedestrian heel but he had at least one woman at ringside riled up. Some nice legwork as you'd expect from a Baba title match (a sensible strategy, I suppose, when you're taking on a giant.) Baba had to work for his victory. Both falls were hard earned. The title victory felt like an achievement and often that's the thing you're looking for -- something with a bit of meaning to it. It was fairly reserved compared to the emotional title matches you'd see later on in All Japan but a rock-solid part of Baba's resume. Giant Baba vs. Dory Funk Jr. (12/3/69) This didn't disappoint. It's been a long time since I watched the Dory vs. Inoki matches so I won't make any comparisons between the two, but I was super impressed with Dory. He looked good on the mat early on but it was his selling that bowled me over. He was channeling his father with his punch drunk selling and did a wonderful job putting over Baba's strikes. He ramped up the heel work in the second fall and pulled off a convincing Texas wildman performance as time ran out. He even threw a table in the ring! For a guy not known for his range, he put on a tour de force in this bout. Baba was good but it was Dory's performance that stood out. To some extent that it's because of how theatrical and over-the-top the touring champ's actions are when they go the spectacle route but honestly you don't expect Dory to be this good at being a Funk.

This was a decent cookie-cutter match. If you ignore the fact that all four men have been in some of the greatest matches ever and concentrate on some fun meathead stuff, you can't go wrong. Would have been a fun match to watch live.

Beautiful undercard match. One of the best I've seen in a long time. Primarily the Mike Segura show but everyone had their working boots on and just about every exchange is gorgeous for one reason or another. You live for this sort of undercard action when you're scouring the tapes. The fact it was on the Felino vs. Cerebro undercard makes this IWRG card one of the better shows of the month.

This was a decent match but when the most exciting part is a catfight between Trish Stratus and Steph, you know something's not clicking. They didn't seem to have faith in the wrestlers to deliver a dramatic WWF PPV bout. Instead, the heat was on all of the outside BS. Even the finish, which saw Austin get revenge on Triple H for interfering in his RAW title shot, took the heat away from the wrestlers and put it squarely on the outside shit. That sort of booking doesn't surprise me but they usually deliver a better match. Quite a step down from the previous year's Rumble if you look at it from that perspective. I think what surprised me the most is that while he worked a decent match, there wasn't that big star-making moment where Angle ascends to the next level. He still looks like a midcarder trying to get the big boys' attention while they continue with their feud. I wouldn't call this match a misfire, but it's not as good as the Austin TV match.

This was the exhibition match that I expected the CMLL Japan Panther/Santo match to be. It was basically Panther and Santo doing their trios match exchanges in a Dome Show setting while Mil ran through his signature spots to the older fans' delight. The Panther/Santo stuff didn't translate that well to the setting, and really the best things about the bout were Mil's "Sky High" entrance and his impromptu celebration with The Destroyer at the end.

This had the potential to be something special but it was surprisingly flat. The work was arguably better than that Hashimoto vs. Misawa tag but there wasn't a fraction of the heat and no-one could seem to get anything going. A strangely subdued performance from Tenryu and Kawada in particular. Missed chance to prove that All Japan still had the goods in a main event bout.

Another decent ARSION match. Hyuga hadn't really come into her own yet but she was working hard and trying to make each bout she was a part of memorable in some way. And really that's the goal when you're trying to find your way as a worker. This had a 15-minute time limit which didn't give them time to lay out a classic. They weren't good enough workers with a hot enough crowd to accomplish anything special in the time they were given, but I did like the way they worked toward their end goal, which was that both of them would have convincing nearfalls before the time expired. To that end, it was a competitive bout even if it was a stalemate. There were some nice contrasts between the luchadora and the Joshi worker as well.