ohtani's jacket

Solid undercard action. Not as charming as some of the other undercard stuff we've seen but a fun mix of personalities and some decent lucha action.

Once again, this wasn't as heated as I would have liked. I keep waiting for a frenzied Satanico be unleashed but he hasn't brought the same intensity to this month's matches. There's been a bit too much showboating and not enough violence. The crowd doesn't seem that into it either, possibly because it's rudos vs rudos. The "injured" Bucanero makes a run-in at the end to make matters worse. I really thought I would be all over the build-up to their PPV match but it's been a series of misfires this month.

This match saw Villano III and Atlantis team up as partners almost a year after their historic mask match. Atlantis looked good here albeit in a limited role. I liked his exchanges with Mascara Ano 2k. Mascara wasn't an all-time great but he was a seasoned pro and knew his way around the ring. The match ended with the Dinamitas ripping off Atlantis' mask and stomping the shit out of him until they disqualified. I guess they were sending a message to Perro with the PPV just ten days away.

Bit of a random tecnico lineup here, and not much of a match. Universo's ribs were heavily taped but he guided his team to victory in straight falls.

CMLL is WAR! It's been a while since we've seen one of these WWF style main events in CMLL. The Guapos did a great job of stooging for the old guys. Bestia was superb at putting over Perro as an ass kicker. It was the best Perro had looked in ages. He injured Bestia's ribs on a foot stomp from the top rope and threatened to do it again before they coaxed him down. The Dinamitas hit the ring but even they couldn't stop Stone Cold Perro Aguayo, who ripped off Univero's wrestling singlet and attacked his injured ribs with another foot stop. I can't remember when Universo picked up the injury but Perro showed no mercy whatsoever. Perro kicked some ass in this. Bring on the pay-per-view.

Not as heated or as violent as you'd expect. At least not until after the bell where Satanico & Co. kicked the shit out of the Infernales. But it featured some decent stuff. Black Warrior got stuck into Ultimo Guerrero, Shocker mugged for the audience as much as he possibly could, and there was a bizarre cameo by Cien Caras, who ended up turning on his partners. There was one part where Caras had Satanico in the ropes and he was questioning to the audience whether he should hit Satanico or not, and I swear you forget how big Caras was compared to a guy like Satanico. It looked like a giant choking a midget. His hands were huge. I keep waiting for Satanico to erupt but the match never boiled over. The focus was on getting a win and getting those bragging rights. I don't think the build-up to the PPV match has been as compelling in March as it was in February. Nice vignette beforehand, though, with Satanico summoning Black Warrior and Shocker to his lair with his magical lighting bolt powers. Looked like a 50s Mexican horror film.

It's hard to believe it's been 20 years since Owen died. 20 years.

This was the pay-per-view match. Y'know, I'm not sure why this isn't talked about more. This was a really good trios match. Easily among the top handful of trios matches that CMLL produced in 2000-01. I can't tell you how happy I am to see Signo and Fuerza showcased this way, especially Fuerza. It's clear from watching this that Fuerza was just as good as he was in the 90s. He'd just been lost in the CMLL wastelands for far too long. That happens to guys especially in a company with a large, revolving roster, and of course, Fuerza was one of the guys who jumped to AAA with Pena so you never know what his relationship with the front office was like. But finally, they gave him something to do and he took his opportunity and ran with it. Signo also looks super motivated to have landed this gig since we all know the Misioneros post-peak career wasn't exactly draped in glory. Here he is back on the big stage, and I'm telling you, he can still go. Hell, this feud even lit a fire under Niebla and that's not easy to do. There was an old-school feel to the opening caida with the old heads like Signo making sure this felt like a championship match and not the crash TV that was in vogue at the time. I impressed with the way they worked the finish to each fall. There were no generic finishes where guys walk into pinfalls or submissions. Each finish was laid out in a decisive manner. The first fall was an elaborate momentum reversal, the second fall was a stand and deliver fall, and the third fall was a big-time play. This was an action-packed trios match with a solid foundation. Never a dull moment, tremendous chemistry between the captains (I want a Panther/Niebla singles match), and a memorable finish/result. I hope the Panther/Fuerza/Signo band doesn't break up but I have a sneaking suspicion they stick Wagner in Signo's place. Let's see.

This is a rematch of their earlier Arena Mexico match. Despite the shorter running time, it was much more intense. The rudos were more aggressive and the tecnico comeback was edgier. They did a good job of blowing this up into a feud worthy of pay-per-view, which was still a new concept in Mexico. The tecnico trio is kind of the newest version of your whitebread tecnico trios team like we saw in 2000 with Felino, Safari and Antifaz, but at least it gives them something to do.

All right, I get the deal with the trios titles now. They were the Mexican National Trios tiles, not the CMLL versions. For some reason, those titles were resurrected for this feud.

This is another tremendous Atlantis vs. Wagner match. Now, I'm not going to say that these Atlantis/Wagner matches are Lucha Libre classics but I will say this -- they're extremely satisfying Wagner vs. Atlantis matches, they're brilliant mano a mano matches, and they're forgotten Atlantis singles matches. When people try to dissect Atlantis' career and start asking questions like "well, what has he really done?" to me these matches are better than a lot of his other singles matches. They're much better than the Mano Negra feud, for example, and Mano Negra is a guy who I love and whose post unmaking work I thought was a blast. Atlantis and Wagner simply had this chemistry the same way that Atlantis and Panther had chemistry. There is no doubt in my mind that if the stars had aligned and these two had faced off in a mask vs. mask match that it would be one of the classics of Lucha Libre. That never happened but they did provide us with some of the best stuff from the early part of 2001. And as a small side note, Wagner's mask came off twice during this match, exposing his face to the crowd. It's strange to think about it now after his actual unmasking but the resemblance between Wagner and Silver King was striking during this time and that's obviously a little bit more poignant with what happened this month.

This was clipped for television, which made it feel more truncated than it would have at the arena, but even with the shredding it still delivered a number of things that I personally wanted to see. Firstly, it was an Arena Mexico showcase for two of my favorite workers, Fuerza Guerrera and El Signo. Secondly, it continued the beefs that Panther had with Olimpico, and to a lesser extent, Niebla. And thirdly, Good Light/Bad Night Niebla was Good Light Niebla here and had a fun stretch run with Fuerza after Panther took the high-risk option with a plancha. There was some weird situation going on with the trios titles at this time and they ended up being vacated. I would have been more than happy if they'd continued with this team of Panther, Fuerza and Signo. And if this Niebla would show up each week that would be a positive as well.

I'm looking forward to getting weekly installments of this feud. This wasn't the smoothest, most well-polished trios you'll see but it had just enough Satanico vs. Ultimo Guerrero to keep you happy and there were some nice dives toward the end.

I think it's fine if people like the matches. To me, the booking had begun to stagnate and the match-ups had become stale. All Japan had found success with Misawa as the champion ace and Kawada and Kobashi as challengers but they didn't know where they should go next. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake to have so many irons in the fire. As fans, we wanted to see the blowoff to the Misawa vs. Kawada rivalry but it doesn't seem as though Baba had much faith in Kawada as the ace of his promotion. It would have made more sense for Kobashi to emerge as Misawa's successor and then, later on, have Akiyama challenge Kobashi for that position. That's more or less what happened but it was messy and I think the 1998 booking reflects that. The great thing about All Japan was that you got singles matches all the time. In other promotions, big singles matches are rare but in All Japan they were a regular fixture. Unfortunately, no matter how good the workers are, it was difficult to keep those match-ups fresh. Since Baba didn't want to co-promote and cash in on dream matches (and I can't say I blame him given what happened to his competitor's business after the sheen came off interpromotional feuds), it was left to Misawa & Co. to figure out a way to make each match better than the one before. And I guess the natural thing to do is to make the matches longer and more dangerous. For a lot of us, the individual match-ups in 90s All Japan peak with a certain match (and the matches either side of that) and then they escalate to something beyond our interest. But that's perfectly natural. The same thing will happen with modern-day New Japan. It is hard to keep any kind of style or genre progressing. Styles die out and new movements take their place. It wasn't like All Japan was suddenly going to adopt shoot style or anything like that. The real issue is that they didn't have a lot of young talent coming through to carry the torch. If you look back on it now, it's clear that New Japan was still the best recruiter of young talent at the time even if no-one could foresee what their early 00s rookies would achieve in the future. A lot of people have written about this topic in much more depth than me, but there are also younger fans who maintained their interest in the All Japan workers through the NOAH years so nothing is ever cut and dry. If you like the matches that's a win for you.

Hadn't seen this in years. A good match -- a great match even - but it didn't have the emotional resonance for me that it may have for big time All Japan fans. I couldn't shake the fact that it was 1998, the promotion as a whole wasn't doing well, and here's Kobashi vs. Kawada for the gazillionth time with Kobashi going over in questionable fashion. Even if the match was good it felt like things were going wrong. This was very good. I don't think I'll ever get used to Nakamura's bizarre antics (and I'm someone who likes flamboyant showmen), but apart from his weird charisma, this was a well-orchestrated bout. I don't think there were any false notes in terms of it being overloaded or too move heavy. It was an interesting styles clash and an engrossing contest. This was a great match. I have no idea why this isn't spoken about alongside the other great All Japan tag matches. I loved the ending stretch with Jumbo beating the crap out of Tenryu and Hansen beating the crap out of Yatsu. Quite possibly one of the most underrated matches of all-time. To me, it was a Hansen match more than anything else. Just red hot and relentless. But it reiterated how great Jumbo vs. Tenryu was. One of the best feuds ever in my mind and this was another chapter. Great match. This may be blasphemous but I've enjoyed this modern day New Japan matches far more than the classic All Japan matches. Perhaps that's because the New Japan matches are fresher, I dunno. I thought this was dang near perfect. I mean, if you took Shibata and Okada before the bout and blocked out the best match they could possibly have given their respective talents, this was as close to the perfect match as you could possibly imagine. There were a few iffy parts (mostly involving strike exchanges) but nothing terribly upsetting. The question this raised for me was how good is Okada? I always thought he was a Rock level worker but he's been in an awfully high number of good matches. Is he a generational talent or not? Terrible promos at the start, shitty commentary, on-the-nose presentation, over-emoting, very good match. A bit cutesy during the finishing stretch but a very good match.

Decent trios match that is mostly built around Villano IV vs Silver King, which is the best match-up we could have gotten out of the bout. It's not a transcendently great match-up. It won't have you dreaming of those lost Villano/Silver King classics or anything like that. But it's a perfectly solid throughline. The rest of the match is scrappy and the finish is terrible but it's Monterrey. I liked the tempo. It was brisk despite the monkey business.

Time to check in on Low Ki again. I've been trying to find recommended Low Ki matches in these folders but it seems like he hasn't done anything to match the Homicide feud in a while. These two are obviously going to be important players throughout the rest of the decade so it's an interesting match to watch. Nothing revolutionary but they match up fairly well. Early Danielson reminds me a bit of early Owen Hart. A ton of athleticism but the character work isn't there yet. Low Ki wasn't as agro in this as he has been in other matches but I guess this was less spiteful and more about indy work rate.

This was okay. It was definitely laid out to make Silver King and Wagner look strong but not in a way that created any real jeopardy surrounding Kanemoto and Tanaka's titles. Not that I would care if Kanemoto and Tanaka's title reign was in jeopardy, but you never know. Sometimes you get suckered in.

Y'know, I'm not sure if I've ever seen this before. This was right around the time that I gave up on the WWF and I don't think I rented this PPV from the video store. This was better than I expected given that the Austin/Triple H angle is the worst thing this side of the Tarzan Boy rudo turn and Triple H vs. Austin strikes me as a bit of a "meh" match up. The first fall was really good. Austin was on top of his game in terms of the intensity that he brought to the match. The one thing that Austin did better than anyone else was wrestle like a pissed off sumbitch. A lot of guys cut promos about how pissed off they are and how they're gonna do this and that once they get a guy in the ring but few guys ever backed it up like Austin. The second fall was okay. It's been a while since I've watched Attitude Era main events so even though they rehashed a slew of spots from that style, it wasn't as boring to me as it would have been at the time. The cage match section was also decent. They probably went a bit longer than they needed to overall but I wouldn't call it bloated. The problem I had with the bout was Austin losing. After making me suffer through that shitty angle, surely Austin could have won the blowoff match and put this Helmsley shit to rest? That was annoying but the bout itself could have been so much worse. I actually thought they showed a ton of restraint in not overbooking the crap out of this. So, despite the result, I think I'd call this a success.

This was a fun little brawl. Definitely worth watching if you want to see two lower card guys given the opportunity to shine. You should be forewarned that there was a TON of Monterrey bullshit but that shouldn't come as a surprise if you're familiar with the territory. Not a breakout match or anything of that caliber but different from the norm in terms of showcasing two less recognized talents.

Not as lopsided as it looked on paper but not particularly good either. The highlight of the match was another classy performance from Blue Panther but there's enough of those on tape in 2001 to skip a match like this.

This was a mano a mano Super Libre bout. The first fall was a bit sloppy and the second fall was a standard comeback but the third fall was epic. It not only whet the appetite for an apuesta match, it was so good that it wouldn't have been out of place in a mask match. It's rare that you see a mano a mano bout where they go to these lengths but Cerebro's mask was so torn and so drenched in blood that he looked like Super Muneco. Santo, meanwhile. had this weird rip on the lower half of his mask that exposed his chin and a five o'clock shadow. It was kind of offputting but his performance in the tercera was world class. Depending on how the footage plays out, Santo may squeeze past Panther as the best worker in Mexico if the rest of his year holds up. I don't think Cerebro needed to drop his mask at this point in time but this mano a mano made me excited to see it. One of the better mano a mano bouts you'll see. That third fall was up there with anything I've seen from 2001 so far.

Nice bit of fluff that continued the beef between Rambo and Scorpio. I enjoyed the exchanges between Blue Panther and Niebla, which is saying something because Niebla is usually Blue Demon Jr-esque in his worthiness.

I don't have much to compare it to, but to me, Styles didn't have the offense or the necessary toughness to take the fight to Joe. I'm not an Akiyama fan so watching him chase guys doesn't do a lot for me, but this was solid in an All Japan kind of way. Kobashi sold well and the pop-ups and no sells didn't get silly until the finish, and even then it wasn't too outrageous. It didn't really strike me as one of the great All Japan matches but I guess this match-up is popular because of their NOAH years. I loved the beginning of this where Lesnar mauled Cena. I thought it was a bit contrived after the ref bump but I can understand that they couldn't work a faux MMA match for the entire bout. I didn't like Cena winning but his promo was kind of clever. I liked the way they wrote him out of the show with the injury. Fun match, and in some ways the very definition of pro-wrestling, but both guys have had better matches with other people. Funk's selling was off the charts, though. I thought he was dead when he was being strangled in the ropes. Cheap finish marred this but it was 80s All Japan so what can you do. This was the first time in my life to see Kenny Omega. What the fuck did I just watch? Most of you won't know who I'm talking about, but he reminded me of the old World of Sport comedy wrestler, Billy Torontos. I didn't have a horse in this, and it was overloaded with moves, but like most modern New Japan matches I still found myself invested in the stretch run. So, it was a decent enough match from my standpoint, but I was kind of confused about what made it stand out from all the other modern New Japan matches. 

This was a one fall singles match and was worked in a different style that you might expect from a best two-out-of-three falls singles match. They started off with the type of hot, blistering action you'd expect in the tercera caida, then they took it the mat before brawling outside the ring. After that, they fought tooth and nail to remove each other's masks before a prolonged period of submission holds and nearfall finishes. It almost felt like a regular match in reverse. It wasn't the classic I was looking for. In fact, it wasn't up there with the best matches of the first month and half, but I did find myself appreciating the intensity of what they were doing and I began pulling for Felino to win the bout, which is pretty good storytelling I guess. In some respects, it was an interesting deviation from the norm but my expectations for Panther matches are pretty high at this point. Worth watching but in the context of 2001 IWRG and not really the year as a whole.