ohtani's jacket

What a great match. Calling it an exhibition doesn't do it justice. Sure, it isn't worked like it would be in Mexico, and they do modify some stuff for the Japanese audience, but what a battle. I wasn't expecting this to be so good. I figured it would be a softer version of their AAA trios work, but is there a better post-Monterrey Santo vs. Panther match on tape? I don't remember their England matches being anywhere near this good, though I may have had a bug in my ass about them not being "lucha" enough when I watched them. Usually, I'd complain about the audience reaction and how you could hear a pin drop, but I actually found it captivating how you could hear every grunt and groan and Santo and Panther speaking Spanish the way Japanese wrestlers always talk to each other in Japanese. I'm not really sure what Jetlag was referring to about the transitions since they were miles better than your average lucha bout let alone a fish out of water bout like this. That was one area that kept impressing me as they moved from hold to hold and crowd brawling to in-ring submissions. There were a lot of stiff shots used to set up moves and it really felt like an extension of the Japanese influence on lucha in the late 90s. The bar for lucha in Japan is pretty low, but has there ever been a better lucha match than this on Japanese soil? Maybe Wagner vs. Caras? It was also one of the better matches of January 2001. I would put it in the same ballpark as Wagner vs. Atlantis and Felino vs. Cerebro. Surprisingly great match.

This was a decent match but a bit heatless and too short to leave its mark in the annals of pro-wrestling history. Ayako had spent her entire 2000 year chasing glory and now she was in the position of having to defend what she'd won, and as we all know it can be a difficult transition from the underdog role to the champion's mentality. A transition which is full of growing pains. Ayako was okay in this but not a dominant force. In fairness to her, it was too short for her to have to dig deep and show her mettle. The match and her opponent never pushed her to any of those places. That said, she didn't really show an edge in any of the little things she did either. I guess not every match can make a statement even if we'd like them to. There were some decent passages of action and never boring.

I'll ask around.

Really good BattlARTS match. Otsuka vs. Creco was the highlight for sure, but I thought Tiger Mask and Hidaka might drag this down and they never did. If you know me then you know I'm a massive Creco fanboy. I LOVED the match-up with Otsuka here even though I'm not an Alexander fanboy. The match was worked in the hybrid style but there was enough grappling to satisfy a barnacle like me.

This was another Ishikawa vs. Murakami tag. If you like that match-up then it should get the juices flowing, but personally, I thought it was a bunch of posturing without any serious wrestling. Great dynamic but it added nothing to their feud. The finish was kind of awful too.

I don't have the personal affiliation with these workers that Gordi does but I thought this was a decent bout with a fun Pavillon Azteca feel to it.

Liger and Samurai visit Osaka Pro and work a long form tag match. At first, you can be forgiven for wishing that Delfin had partnered with someone other than a gimmick worker like Monster Zeta Mandora, but once the bout gets going, you start to realize that this match isn't really about individual talent. The match is a chance for the New Japan workers to play the outsider heels and beating on Mandora is a good way to accomplish that. Delfin is masterful just like he was in 2000 and still on top of his game. The more I watch this stuff, the more it seems like Deflin riding off into the sunset was one of the great losses of 2000s wrestling.

From the Chicago Archives: Ned Taylor vs. Rafael Alvarez is short but full of niggle. I liked it a lot. Taylor was an older wrestler who looked like the lovechild of Verne Gagne and Dory Funk, Jr. Alvarez was a young Puerto Rican wrestler. Really good filler match. Tiger Jack Moore vs. Don Leo Jonathan was Jonathan's TV debut in the Chicago territory. He was obviously a huge physical specimen and had surprisingly long hair for the 50s. He was a bit loose in the ring but enjoyed his television debut immensely with plenty of showboating. Following those two bouts were some long ass tag team bouts: El Hombre Montana & Ramone Cernades vs Al Williams and Rudy Kay and El Hombre Montana & Ramone Cernades vs The Schnabel Brothers (Hans & Fritz). I can only speak for myself, but 50s tag wrestling isn't very interesting. It's quite possibly the most generic pro-wrestling I can think of. Others may disagree. If you like journeymen wrestlers loafing their way through a 30-minute bout you may like these. I know I'm in trouble when the bout needs to be carried by Russ Davis and he's pretending he's way up in the bleachers instead of sitting at ringside. The dub overs of silent footage make these even more painful to watch. Onwards and upwards.

Great TV match. These guys had some pretty clear cut chemistry. They set a new record for most suplexes in a television match but I'm sure that record was broken later on. I haven't watched RAW in more than a decade but during these days every episode needed a cliffhanger and the cliffhanger here was Austin vs. Helmsley. Even that interference was entertaining so there was no doubt that this was some quality TV.

Hashimoto was such a legend. I doubt we'll see another like him. Every time he walks down the ring it sends shivers down my spine. Misawa is obviously no slouch. In his prime, he was arguably the greatest pro-wrestler of all-time. However, there is no question in my mind that Hashimoto had him beat in terms of all of the bushido shit that we talk about when it comes to Japanese wrestlers. The match-up was 4-5 years too late for Misawa so I'm not sure how I'd feel about them squaring off in their primes but 2001 Hashimoto seemed greater than 2001 Misawa in my eyes. This was a fun scrap but didn't have a ton of depth. The inter-promotional bar is set pretty high in Japan so excuse me if this didn't knock my socks off. The fact that there wasn't a pay-off makes it a bit of a "what could have been" foxhole as well. But, as I said, it was a fun scrap.

This was a nice title fight. Ueda is a guy who usually leaves me cold but I respected his performance here. Junji's not really a shoot guy but Ueda allowed this to be a contest irrespective of their skill levels. Junji took the fight to Ueda and the champ was on the defensive from the get-go. The action was stiff and competitive and they never once fell back on any of the cliches of hierarchy or roles. It was pure competition the whole way through and they topped it off with a wonderful back-and-forth submission battle in the finest tradition of the flashier shoot style guys. That's not always my cup of tea but it suited this match to a tee. A top performance from Ueda and a fine under-the-radar bout to begin the year.

The runaway surprise promotion of the year in 2000 is back with another beautiful hybrid match. From the looks of things, Osaka Pro was still going strong which is good to see. This Gamna fellow had a falling out with Delfin at the end of 2000 and decided to turn his back on the good guys. He debuted a new look here complete with a bitchy new valet. I'm not sure if Togo had left the scene at this point but Gamna had formed a tag team with Daioh QUALLT and that Dudley manager was nowhere to be seen. As usual, Black Buffalo was the MVP of the match. He really is a tremendously underrated glue guy. Rookie of the Year, Takehiro Murahama, was a bit player here but his interactions with Gamna sewed the seeds for a dust-up somewhere down the line. Plenty of action in this as Osaka Pro continued to hold its title as the premier juniors fed. I was surprised that he heels jobbed here but they got their heat back in the post-match and there was potential for a series of rematches, which is the goal of any good trios match. I suspect we're battling against time in terms of how long the footage ran for but it was pleasing to see Osaka Pro off to a flying start in '01.

One thing I realized while watching the 2000 footage is that these guys were a better match-up than I gave them credit for, not necessarily in terms of the matches they put on but the way they worked together in the ring. Here they are again in one of my most hated gimmicks, the ladder match. They honestly had nothing to lose in this match since I hate the gimmick so much. Matches like these are always overshadowed by Shawn vs. Razor, and while this wasn't anywhere near as iconic or great as those matches, I was actually surprised by how much I enjoyed it. The rivalry had kind of outstayed its welcome but it wasn't the two Chrises fault that the WWF kept plugging them into the same feud. Their work was good as usual and they did some creative stuff with the ladder. It wasn't an epic encounter but it was well-paced and the selling was good. Jericho was worlds better than I would have given him credit for prior to revisiting this stuff, and for my money every bit Benoit's equal. Not a great match, as I said, but these bouts were such abject disappointments to me when I first saw them that even a "very good match" like this is a huge tick in both worker's favor.

This was a decent end to a one-night tournament but not a memorable match. There wasn't a single moment that stood out, not even the finishing stretch where Sasaki put Kawada away, and if you're familiar with Kawada's career you'll know that he was involved in some of the most memorable finishing stretches of all-time. The match lacked the atmosphere and electricity of their first meeting, and while they didn't rush things, they never really paused to let the magnitude of the bout sink in. The bout was competitive without being intense and hard fought without being taxing. In other words, it wasn't next level, which in most cases is what fans like me are looking for.

This was decent enough for what it was. The chances of it being great were slim to none but it was interesting to see Kawada in this setting again. I thought he sold too much but in a way that illustrated the contrasting philosophies of New Japan vs. All Japan. I wasn't entirely convinced that he did enough to put Tenzan away but they would've outstayed their welcome if they'd gone any longer. Some interesting parallels to Tenryu's forays into New Japan but Kawada didn't have the charisma that Tenryu possessed which meant it wasn't as electric.

Hotta's crew vs Ito's crew. This was supposed to be a frenetic, all-action match but it wasn't as exciting as you'd imagine. Ordinarily, they'd maximize the emotional conflict in a bout like this but this felt lazy. There was plenty of beef between the wrestlers but I wasn't feeling any of it. AJW is off to a bit of a rough start in '01.

While I'm unlikely to ever join any revisionist school of thought about Yumiko Hotta, this was much better than I expected. Toyota brought her usual level of intensity which Hotta countered with an extremely clear and focused performance. Of course, there were all of the flaws that people usually pinpoint in Toyota matches, but they avoided the cardinal sin of wrestling (being boring.) The fact that they'd come up together and were the kind added gravity to the bout, but in all honesty, they built the match from the ground up and didn't really try too much or over-extended themselves. There was a natural style contrast, perhaps not as dramatic as Toyota vs. Kandori, but evident all the same and I really liked Hotta's use of the shotei as a similar weapon to Aja's uraken. There wasn't a huge amount at stake but they could have had a much more boring bout where they took a long tour around Korakuen and incorporated the garbage wrestling was so en vogue in 2000. I was grateful that they kept this simple and pleasantly surprised by the result.

I found a few more Kace matches online. The first was a title defense against Jim Hady. Kace worked from underneath and showed a lot of ass, so I guess the information that the commentator gave me in the Kramer bout wasn't very reliable. Even though he worked from below, he was extremely active and left a big imprint on the bout. It was a nice minor league touring champ performance. This match was also notable for Fred Kohler appearing on camera. Finally, we got to see what the old boy looked like. Next up was a TV bout from the WWA territory. This was from the late 60s and Kace was a journeyman at this stage. He took on Blackjack Lanza in a bout that was really only notable for a young Bobby Heenan being in Lanza's corner, and boy did Bobby have amazing hair, but Kace had a firm grasp of his role and delivered a solid performance against a guy who wasn't all that sharp in the ring. The last match was a mauling from Bobo Brazil. It's not that uncommon to see Bobo dominate and give little or nothing to his opponent but I was impressed with the way Kace sold. He had a ton of cool tricks and was constantly moving and trying something. Even though Bobo wiped the canvas with him, this cemented his position as a quality performer as he managed to make Bobo's holds interesting. I knew there was a little Dick Murdoch to this guy and he proved it here.

Giant Baba vs. Fritz Von Erich (12/19/69) Good ol' Fritz sure brings out the best in Baba. This was a nasty little fight that pitted Fritz' claw against Baba's chops to the face and throat. There wasn't a moment's peace for the referee as it threatened to get out of control right from the referee's instructions. And it was Fritz vs. Baba, so it ended with an epic claw struggle, a mad glint in Fritz' eye, and a Baba bladejob. Fritz really was the master of the DQ finish.

Giant Baba/Antonio Inoki vs. Gene Kiniski/Johnny Valentine (2/1/72) This is indeed the Johnny Valentine show, and he's great in it as the Segunda boys said. It's actually a bit disconcerting the first time you see him in close-up as he looks so much like Greg. Valentine and Kiniski put a solid heel shift here. It was easily the best foreign heel stuff I've seen Kiniski do. He picked his spots well and didn't get in the way of Valentine. Baba and Inoki were serviceable but by no means spectacular. They were serviceable in the same way that the Misawa/Kawada tag team was serviceable against foreign heel teams in the early 90s. The bout was highlighted by Baba and Valentine going toe-to-toe but you got the impression that Baba wasn't using his size to full effect. It was as though he wanted to be treated as a normal athlete. The Japanese team could have shown a bit more fire in general, I thought. The structure was too choppy for it to a classic and it ran out of steam toward the end but that is often the case with these overly long JWA bouts that sacrifice rhythm and pacing for length. Valentine was awesome, though. A must-see if you're interested in the man.

A new Lord James Blears match has surfaced pitting Dave Levin Blears against Tony Morelli and Angelo Cistoldi. It's a tag match so there's not much in the way of technical wrestling. Blears does a decent job as a fired up babyface brawler but that's not really a role that you want to see Blears in any more than you'd want to see Steve Regal do the same thing in 1993, to make an obvious comparison. Also uploaded recently is an interesting Antonio Rocca showcase against Brother Frank Jares. This is filmed and edited to be pretty much all Rocca but they certainly made Rocca's offense seem cool. Jares bumps for Rocca well and they ramp up the sound effects to make the hits sound nastier. Better than most Rocca bouts even if it does come across as staged. Little Beaver vs. irish Jackie is your typical midgets match. Some stooging, a bit of comedy, the occasional flurry of activity. It's tailormade for the audience and gets a good reaction. Beaver looked good when he went on the offensive. Dick the Bruiser vs. Bil Melby is a solid affair. I'm pretty convinced that early Afflis is the best possible version of Dick the Bruiser. The only thing that would convince me otherwise is if he had a really hot feud somewhere. The bout doesn't really go anywhere since the ref has to constantly break things up, but you shouldn't expect anything different from a Dick the Bruiser bout. I enjoyed Johnny Kace vs. George Kramer. Kace was a Mid-West star who reminded me of Dick Murdoch. Kramer was your average blue-eyed technician. Together they put on an enjoyable bout trying to outfox each other. From the sounds of things, Kace gave Kramer a bit more than he usually did on his television appearances. The reason I plow through this stuff is to find good workers like Kace so I enjoyed this gem. Lastly, a few clips of Ricki Starr doing his act, a worker from the 30s named Joe Savoldi, and some footage of Londos. I'm not sure if I've seen the Londos footage before (it's hard to remember which clips you've seen when it's bits and pieces of a bout), but he's one of the all-time greats as far as I'm concerned.

I was kind of dreading this when I saw that the file length was 48 minutes. The last thing I want to do at this stage of my life is to watch a 50-minute LCO match. Needless to say, this didn't break any new ground. It was energetic but choppy. It didn't seem to flow very well and I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd see everything a million times before. The finish saw Maekawa and Hotta interfere, which was incredibly lame. LCO won in straight falls to reclaim their titles but it was a cheap and hollow victory. Hotta vs Ito was set up as the next big thing but it was piss poor stuff. Recommendation to avoid unless you like title matches that end with a whimper.

Y'know, Kaoru Ito did an even better job as champion than I remember. She did nothing to discredit the belt and was able to carry on the proud lineage of the WWWA title by fulfilling the role of The Woman in AJW. I have nothing but respect for the way she carried herself during her rise to the top even if it was during a disastrous period for the company. Etsuko Mita may not have been the most credible of title contenders -- indeed, she feels like she belongs at the All-Pacific level rather than challenging for the world title -- but the pair had history through their tag team wars and the Grand Prix final and Mita is an underrated worker who deserves a bit of the spotlight every now and again. As you can imagine, this bout was built around Mita's DVDVR vs. Ito's powerbomb/foot stomp combo. There was cool shit like you'd expect, and annoying shit like you'd expect. It never reached any great heights since Ito was the new champion and on top of her game, and Mita had no chance of toppling her reign, but it was a decent way to start the new year albeit without the emotional highs of the November cage match.

This started off as straight midcard fare that allowed us to see more of Pimpi in his prime and turned into an apuesta feud between Diluvio and Silver Star. For some reason which escaped me in Spanish, the ref was heavily involved in the feud. More involved than any ref I can remember from a lucha libre bout (and that includes a ton of rudo refs.) Mind you, this was the same ref that did a plancha from the top turnbuckle in the main event, so who knows what was going on. I don't know if I'll ever see a payoff to this but I was a witness to it.

This started off as a Parka match, which was pretty much its own thing at this stage, and morphed into a beef between Wagner and his rudo partners. In the middle of all that was some good stuff -- Parka and Wagner brawling, Dandy squaring off with Safari, and a nice finishing stretch between Parka and Psicosis -- but it was mostly a repetitive loop of Wagner and Psicosis interfering with each other's holds. Wagner vs. Psicosis showed plenty of promise but if you've watched enough lucha you'll know that it pays to be skeptical. There's no guarantee that they'll follow it up so don't get your hopes up. It was interesting to see Psicosis back in a lucha setting after his US run. He was a good worker, but nowhere near as charismatic as he was with the mask. No matter how hard he tried, he wasn't really "Psicosis." An interesting case of how larger than life most Pena gimmicks were.