ohtani's jacket

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.

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.