ohtani's jacket

This was a solid match marred by the usual boring Samurai TV commentary. Man, do they ever drone on. I ended up having to turn the sound off to appreciate the action more. We know Hyuga and Bolshoi are good workers but the one that impressed me most was Bennett. That girl could work. Really great agility for a woman her size. She looked in control the whole time and came across as highly talented. Kana wasnt bad either but Reggie was the standout.

There's something so 'meh' about NOAH. I think I'll be taking it off my viewing list unless Chad rates something particularly high. It doesn't help that I was never a big fan of Kobashi or Akiyama. Their work here didn't interest me which is a shame because I was hoping to follow their narrative through the coming months but I had an inkling that I'd feel this way heading into the bout. There were some okay moments between Takayama and Kikuchi, and the crowd got into the match when Kikuchi made his run, but for the most part, this was plodding heavyweight action.

Ha, go Fuchi! He was like a man possessed in the early going. Chono looked stupid wrestling in a black shirt and pants but his cheap tricks fired up Wada and the crowd. The match started off fun but it went on for too long and Fuchi's comeback lacked the bite that his early work had. I really wanted to see him get one big nearfall before Chono put him away but it didn't happen.

The All Japan split has made what would have been a pretty average year for Kawada a heck of a lot more interesting. The irony of it being Kawada who's left to pick up the broken pieces of Baba's dream certainly isn't lost on the viewer. Unfortunately. he gives a fairly listless performance here. He had this amazing dynamic with Tenryu served up for him on a platter but he couldn't generate the type of heat you'd expect from such a key match-up. Tenryu tried a few tricks but Kawada wasn't up for it. Hansen was slow and plodding and looked gassed most of the time. Williams spent most of the time close to the mat in an effort to avoid doing any real work. You wished those two would just disappear and let us have Tenryu vs. Kawada. This should have been electric but it ended up being pretty disappointing. Perhaps I've been spoiled by Kawada's artistry in the past but I really expected more from him. He's got some work to do in the next couple of months if he's going to leave a positive impression on his calendary year.

This was a nice exhibition match. It had a snappy beat to it and the pace never slackened. I liked the personal duel between Mochizuki and CIMA. It didn't have the depth of that really hot Korakuen Hall match they had but that's difficult to achieve on the undercard of another promotion's show. Clean shaven Fuji was a shock. Looks like it cost him his magic powers too. The pendulum sure has swung when it comes to Crazy Max dominating everyone.

This was pretty average compared to a lot of the juniors action we've seen. Cool crowd, though. Liger doesn't add much to his matches in 2000 and is having a pretty bad year for a worker of his stature. Kashin is about as good as Lizmark Jr so that didn't help matters either. Match needed Ohtani.

This started off as another juniors stiffest but it ended up being a bit too cute with all the nearfalls and saves. And I couldn't quite figure out why Liger didn't make an effort to storm the ring at the end and at least try to get to Makabe. But it's another match that shows how good Kanemoto is in 2000 at least in tag matches.

This was tremendous. I've been waiting for something to light a fire under Ishikawa and Murakami is just the punk to do it. Normally, I'd hate a shoot style match where there's crowd brawling but this was sweet. Hey, like Ishikawa said afterward, Murakami is a "fucking crazy fighter." Carl Malenko and Taira pretty much have a match on their own but their work is equally sweet. I love how Malenko doesn't have a clue what's going on between Ishikawa and Murakami but keeps doing the only thing he knows how and that's fight. Great show from BattlARTs. Topped anything they'd done since the 1999 Ishikawa vs. Ikeda fight.

Otsuka deserves a ton of credit for this match. It's not an easy task to make Mohammed Yone seem interesting and especially not for a good 10-12 minutes, but Otsuka managed to do it through a combination of active matwork, tremendous selling, and terrific counters. Yone was Yone throughout but Otsuka was compelling the entire way. I think you can make an argument for this being the best night of his career to this point. Great performance from him.

God, I hate the Samurai TV commentators. Otsuka and Nagai are having a gutsy mat exchange and they're having a conversation about Okinawa. I liked this a lot. The beginning was loose but then they tightened it up and build the bout from the mat up, which to me is a lot more satisfying than a stand-up contest. Nagai's big kick and Otsuka's improbable victory made this pretty memorable for a 10 minute bout. But I would have liked to have seen more of the yusho celebration instead of seeing dates for the Road Warriors 2000 tour of Japan.

This was all right. They tried to make it special and the crowd were into it but I don't think Nanae had the tools to carry a match like this. Miho worked mostly from the bottom which meant that Nanae had to carry most of the offense. She ran the same few spots over and over again until she'd run them into the ground. The body checks were the worst. A girl like her should be doing stiff arm lariats, not soft body checks. Miho is kind of an awkward worker too which didn't help things. Arguably, the best spot of the match was the botched Frankensteiner because of the great cover job the commentator did by putting over Nanae's strength. But there's no denying that they worked hard and tried to live up to a title match billing. To that end they should be praised for their efforts.

Chaotic and energetic brawl to start with on par with anything LLPW did during the '93-94 inter-promotional era. Then it gets a tad predictable down the stretch as Noumi is thrown to the wolves. The nearfalls didn't have the punch that you want from a stretch run and you could see the finish coming a mile away, but this was still pretty good for a match that involved some fairly average workers. Momoe was a spark plug as usual.

This was an excellent title match and one of the best Joshi matches of the year. In fact, it may be the best Joshi match of the year given the history behind it with Ito's rise through the ranks after the talent exodus and her growth from her Peter Pan days to this her third title shot. Aja and Meiko had amazing chemistry but this felt like a changing of the guard considering Toyota was Ito's senior. At least it should have been a changing of the guard if the company hadn't been in such a perilous state. Ito's main weapon is her double foot stomp and it's a move she uses a lot. If it were any other move it might get irritating but thanks to her build it looks brutal every time she makes contact. It's such a simple and direct move but so painful looking and debilitating for her opponent that it may be one of the most perfect moves in all of wrestling. Without that diving foot stomp, it's questionable how interesting she would be as she doesn't have the star quality of other Joshi aces. Toyota puts in a really solid performance. She really has to fight through the pain and she goes down swinging trying to give herself one last puncher's chance. This match isn't as poetic as Misawa beating Jumbo or matches of that caliber, but it is very similar. It's a great match if you know the history and you love foot stomps, that's for sure.

This was a blast. I'm not sure they could have done a better midcard mentor vs. student bout without it taking up a whole lot more time on the card. If you know the girls and you know their roles then this is about as satisfactory as you can imagine. As an Oz fan, I'm glad I watched it because it was another little feather in her cap as a worker. And as a Nagashima fan, it was a fun coming-of-age bout to see her get one up on her mentor. From a work standpoint, I really liked how they covered for Nagashima's blown Liger bomb spot at the end and still managed to steer the bout towards the upset finish. That was clever ad-libbing and capped off a frantic, emotion-packed bout. I'm glad I watched this chapter in the OZ Academy story.

I saw the 00s incarnation of the Crush Girls live which was a fun live wrestling experience. I imagine this match was also fun. Watching a match live you can enjoy the crowd response and get suckered into the near falls whereas on tape the action tends to come across as a movie and it's easy to slip into a more analytical way of thinkng about the match. From a critic's point of view, I thought this was a high energy sprint with some cool shit in it. The thing that stood out most was Kansai's work. In years gone by I would have watched this match and lamented the fact that Kansai wasn't as good as her JWP heyday. But watching this 2000 footage I've accepted the fact that she's past her prime and now I'm looking at her work from a different perspective. Her work wasn't as good as the other women in the match but it was next stage Dynamite Kansai and that's something I haven't really appreciated before. I thought Chigusa looked good and I liked Aja's personal battle with Lioness Asuka. The uraken spots were cool and Aja eating the pinfall at the end was wild. Main events should be spectacles and there was a pretty good one.

Devil was well past her prime here but still had amazing facials and the aura of a veteran worker who ate girls like Satomura live. She was doing her Super Heel schtick which was never that popular with Western Joshi fans but years later I think you can look back on this stuff and appreciate that she's pretty good as far as her character work goes. This isn't a great match but it is a pretty great match-up. Things get electric toward the end when Devil is kicking out of Death Valley Drivers and the commentators are calling her a monster. When Meiko wins at the end, they really play up the fact that she conquered a demon. Meiko was good but not outstanding. She brought a lot of passion but that's a given. Matches like this are always going to seem like a poor woman's version of Aja vs. Meiko but at least it's interesting to see her vanquish other vets. Devil got her heat back, for sure, but Meiko still felt like she was on the way up. This achieved what it set out to accomplish.

Matches like this never work that well in Japan but the heat wasn't bad and was comparable to other Japanese indy shows. The priceless thing about this was that we got to see Virus in his physical prime. It's a shame we don't have more footage of him from this period as he is clearly a premier talent. Marvin had a pretty poor bout truth be told, but Virus was mesmerizing. It's a wonder and a miracle that he got that showcase title match run a decade later.

This felt like they were commentating over the top of a handheld. Dandy vs. Parka sure is a hell of a lot more interesting than Dandy vs. Antifaz. In fact, their work was so good it was one of my favorite match-ups all month. I was kind of pissed when Antifaz did a run in at the end but by Gawd did he beat the shit out of Dandy. It's rare to see a tecnico take it to a rudo like that. Dandy was a mess and had to be stretchered out. Kind of bemusing considering how little heat their earlier work had but at least it was memorable. I really wanted Parka vs. Dandy, though.

With the talent in the ring this could have been better but at least Dandy finally showed some spark as a rudo. The tecnico comeback in the second fall was excellent after the long heat section. Unfortunately, they went for comedy in the third fall instead of intense brawling. I was glad to see Dandy come to life, though.

I wish they had shown this in full since the crowd was so hot in the final fall. Tony Rivera seemed popular with the tecnico fans who were in full voice for this one. Usually, they're drowned out by the rudo fans and their bells but this time there were large "Tony!" chants ringing through Coliseo. I was just happy to see Lizmark working with Blue Panther and Fuerza Guerrera. It's a shame his health prevented him from working the maestro circuit. I can only imagine how great some of his work could have been in the indies There was nothing remarkable about the match to start with but it really started rocking in the tercera and ended up being thoroughly entertaining. They should have brought all these guys back the following week. Btw, I loved how that guy got out of his seat for the Black Warrior tope and then got a full on side view of it. That tope really is one of the best in the business.

Well, the feud between the Infernales and Niebla is starting to heat up, especially the personal battle between Niebla and Ultimo Guerrero. This featured the usual slick three-man work of the Infernales who did a number on Niebla in the early going. A decent response from the tecnicos led to some more inspiring work from Niebla than usual. Maybe it's me, but I always get the feeling that CMLL are always looking for the next big thing from one of their masked tecnicos. Shocker and Niebla were poised as breakthrough stars at the end of the 90s and we've seen Shocker bloom into one of the finest rudos in the country but despite his unique style Niebla is still there or thereabouts. He just can't seem to break through to the next level. Even here he looks like a foil for the Infernales to move further up the ladder. But at least he's interesting for a change.

Fairly simple opener that was probably better than what they showed on TV. Pimpi had to really tone down her act for Arena Mexico. The one comedy spot that she did they cut away to a small boy in the audience. Looks like she's lost her hair as well. Nothing outstanding in any of the match-ups they showed. The TV director seemed more interested in the crowd.

This was a solid long-form trios match but they never really took it up a gear. Instead of having a dramatic and exciting tercera caida they ran through some classic trios spots (the types you'd see in your average Brazos bout.) It's difficult to go out there and have a classic in Arena Naucalpan because of the size of the venue and the small crowds. They tried to work this in a classic way but it was a bit creaky down the stretch. It was still a solid bout, however. The best thing about it was the personal battle between Satanico and Villano V, which featured some great strength battles. If you're a Satanico fan it was one of the better matches he's had all year on the strength of that match-up alone. Wagner and Villano III keep teasing something potentially good as well.

The Ciclon Ramirez rudo tease is the most random thing I've seen in 2000. It's not something that I saw coming and not something I can remember happening. I guess it explains why the big Ramirez vs. Cerebro match never happened. Even though there wasn't a full turn I thought this was a good storyline match. And Ciclon refusing to tag in meant we got plenty of Cerebro vs. Suicida which was a good thing. Cerebro looked legit hurt at the end and I have no idea whether the Ramirez tease will lead anywhere but it looks as though Ramirez vs. Black Dragon is the obvious outcome.

I guess this was the match that was supposed to happen at the PPV. This was snappier than the PPV match. It was another hatchet job in the editing suite but even the cuts couldn't dampen the energy that Emilio brought to the bout. The third fall was the type of all-out action that would become the norm in years to come but was still in its infancy in 2000 CMLL. At one stage it seemed like Emilio and Niebla were in control of the fall but the Infernales with their backs to the wall managed to pull off a clean win. I was surprised by that. It almost seemed like the Infernales were being positioned as workrate kings. It's not the first time their workrate has been pushed to the fore but it was noticeable here.