ohtani's jacket

I'm kind of surprised by the comments here as this was far more conservative than I expected. BattlARTS is often a balancing act between Strong Style and Shoot Style but I thought this veered towards the former and Ono wasn't nearly as violent as I expected. Perhaps I should watch it again.

This was a solid atomicos. I didn't care much for the beef between Zumbido and Antifaz del Norte but there was plenty of other stuff going on to bypass that. Pierroth continues to be one of my favorite performers in 2000. Usually, I harp on about how good a worker is based on how well I think they can actually wrestle. In Pierroth's case, it's 90% charisma. He played the type of henchman role that Emilio Charles Jr or La Fiera used to do in the early 90s and was brilliant at it. Also impressive was Tarzan Boy. I don't know what he was drinking in Monterrey but he ought to have bottled it. He looks like a completely different worker outside of Mexico City and with the crowd behind him he keeps going from strength to strength. I've always said that it's harder to be an excellent tecnico than a quality rudo and Tarzan Boy sure is making strides toward being a credible tecnico. Can he keep it up? What's going to happen to him? Those are interesting questions for me since I wasn't following lucha closely at the time. Dandy was a bit innocuous in his first appearance for the year but the match was good enough that it made me forget that Lizmark Jr was in it.

I liked the heat in this feud early on but the apuesta match was disappointing. The first 2/3 was overbooked. Threeway apuesta matches always have perfunctory elimination falls and that was the case here regardless of how good a worker Cerebro was. Once you've got that out of the way you expect the meat and potatoes of the apuesta match but there was a bunch of bullshit here about replacing the ref and the first big move of the deciding fall didn't air in "real time." Instead of showing Ciclon's tope, the editor cut to highlights of earlier matches on the card. We saw the tope in slo-mo but the impact wasn't the same as if we had seen it in rhythm. The other problem with the deciding fall was that after waiting for the combatants to go at it hammer and tongs, Bombero went the old-school route of working a cut. That's great in a standard 2/3 falls apuesta match but not what we want to see after waiting to see who the final pair will be. I was amped for this feud but there was no real heat in the final exchanges and the result was a lot more meaningless than I imagined it would be after watching the May footage.

I'm not sure if Mascara Sagrada is the real Mascara Sagrada or not but he's bad enough. This was the worst trios match I've seen in a while. There was no heat between Ciclon and Bombero and not a single exchange in the entire match that left me enthused. Extremely average.

CMLL is WAR, apparently. This has to be the most WWF thing they've ever done with the backstage camera and the arrests. It was actually quite well done. It was chaotic and hard to follow just like a real brawl and there were wild scenes in and out of the building. Favorite moments included an out of breath Porky struggling to get back inside and Felino dressed like Al from Home Improvement.

All I could think about during this match was why was Fuerza wearing khakis. The CMLL roster is so loaded at this point that even these clipped trios matches are entertaining. A lot of slick action from the tecnicos in this one with Felino looking spry and Safari and Antifaz working flat tack. The rudos are excellent foils and Panther continues to look impressive in 2000.

Fancy duds for the tecnicos. CMLL match times have grown criminally short but the action is fast. Bestia celebrating with the cowbell was a nice touch and Shocker continues to look like the emerging WOTY.

This could have been a fun little Villanos vs. Capos brawl but Villano III gives up his spot to another wrestler... Uh oh, don't get too excited folks, it's Hijo del Lizmark! He rides to the ring on a motorbike and blows red mist for no apparent reason. lol at the motorbike falling over. HDL has a new mask with his hair poking out the top. It kind of makes him look like Beaker from the Muppet Show. The match has some decent action, particularly when the Villanos are on offense but HDL remains as wooden as ever.

I thought this was a pretty good apuesta match considering we had no idea who Silver Fox was. Was there any buildup to this? It was very much an Atlantis formula match but as we all know that formula has been successful in mask matches ever since the Villano feud. This had an appropriate level of violence. They didn't go all in with the mask ripping and bloodshed but the brawling was good and they sold well. The dives, submissions and pin attempts were all magnified like they should be in apuesta match and the Guadalajara crowd was passionate, especially that one woman who was screaming at the wrestlers while they brawling in the seats. The finishing stretch was sloppy but it wasn't a huge blight. I loved Silver Fox's posse of masked rudos and the joke about how his second, Asesino Negro, wasn't fooling anyone with his mask. There are other touches I liked as well -- like Atlantis' passion for taking a mask and the kids getting in the ring at the end to celebrate with their idol. It was a singles match, so it's easier to get noticed, but I'd put this on the shortlist for the most memorable CMLL matches of the year.

This was a short match but they packed it with plenty of action. I thought it was easily the best that Perro has looked aside from that one match in Japan. He seemed to have natural chemistry with Wagner and the pair worked well together. Satanico vs. Ringo took me back and I loved watching them reenact their battles from 20 years before. No false notes here. It was just too short.

Fun match with both Blue Panther & Santo and Tarzan Boy & Shocker going at it. Honestly speaking, the action between Tarzan Boy and Shocker leaves the Satanico feud for dead. They match up extremely well.

Criminally short and butchered in the edit but can't complain about the action. Rey Bucanero and Ultimo Guerrero are such hard working rudos.They bump their hearts out in a bout that ends with a kick to the balls. That was vintage Casas, though. If you're going to be DQ'ed for a fake foul might as well kick a field goal.

Crowd-pleasing trios that featured plenty of good work to go along with the theatrics. Emilio and Panther produced one of the best exchanges of the month in the segunda caida, Tarzan Boy and Black Warrior added some spectacular highspots, and Alushe getting his revenge on Wagner provided one of the highlights of the bout. Fantastic dive from Emilio in the third caida and then Pierroth makes a surprise run-in to help orchestrate some mayhem against Alushe. Where are JR and the KIng when you need them?

I think the answer to this pretty clearly that Fujiwara had a better singles career than any of those wrestlers. If all Fujiwara had in his resume were multi-man tags during hot feuds like Choshu vs. Fujinami and UWF vs. New Japan then you could make a comparison to someone like Animal Hamaguchi but Fujiwara clearly had a more significant singles career than the names you listed and was an occasional headliner. I do think he is a marginal candidate but he wasn't a career midcarder.

This was an excellent match. It was easily the best that Tarzan Boy has looked all year and better than anything he produced in the Satanico feud. Ordinarily, there would be the potential for him to look pretty lame doing a Hulk up but in this instance, it felt like he'd finally had enough of all the shit he'd endured. I don't know if this is a step beyond his maligned pretty boy phase or not, but he looked like a real gladiador here and that's something I would never have imagined heading into the bout. And how smart was Shocker? The counter to win the opening fall, the sneak attack after Tarzan Boy was celebrating his dive... everything that Shocker did felt measured like he was in perfect control of the bout. I honestly felt like it was a "next level up" performance from him. Some of the footage was lost at the beginning of the third fall and the editing was poor with the editor preferring to focus on crowd reactions than highspots. It may be the only time I've seen an editor cut away from a highspot to show the crowd. I didn't love the finish either but it was fairly typical for Monterrey. I thought Tarzan Boy could have won clean for an even bigger pop but it was still a career match for him and a breakout performance if he manages things right.

The Pancrase guys left because they didn't want to work pro-wrestling matches. And the BattlARTS guys left because there was a problem with Fujiwara's sponsor and not Fujiwara himself. PWFG was a promotion of little significance. It was founded because Fujiwara didn't belong to any of the factions within the UWF and instead wanted to create a promotion for his students. It didn't operate any differently from any other small indy during the time period. It had backing from Super Megane and provided talent for their shows. After that dried up, there was a working agreement with New Japan. As a small-time promoter, he deserves credit for building the promotion back up after he was left with only Yuki Ishikawa,

This was house show lucha but they drew good heat. The crowds in Monterrey are much bigger than later on, I suppose because the big names are still working there week in, week out. The best thing about the meandering house show style is that it allows more time for character work, and Shocker, in particular, gets to shine with his rudo shtick. The finish is anticlimactic as the crowd is geared toward a dive train but instead Casas does this weird choke hold on Shocker and Scorpio sneaks in a foul to steal the bout. Now let's talk about Casas. There is not a single moment in this bout that you'd describe as vintage Casas. The most notable thing about him right now is that he's sporting a beard. It's hard to see but you can spot it at the end when they show him reacting to the rudos celebrating. I hope this puts to bed this notion people have that Casas is the best worker in Mexico year in, year out. He clearly has his down periods the same as any other wrestler. He'll have another run in 2001 but for now, there's no way that he makes the top 10.

Lucha house show wrestling if ever I saw it. Only worth watching if you want to see the heat between Santo and Blue Panther continue to build.

I remember a buddy of mine sending me this match back in the day. I can safely say that I like it more now than I did then. The first fall almost feels like the birth of the maestros match. I don't think that was their intention. They were probably working the same way that they always did but there were so many old-school ideas that it felt like a maestros match even if it wasn't. I loved the contrast between the hardnosed, no-nonsense Villano IV and Pimpi. Their mat exchanges were some of the best all year and the other pairings weren't far behind. The second and third fall disintigrated into a scrappy brawl but the dynamic between Pimpi and the Villanos remained strong and Villano III had his ribs worked over to dramatic effect. I love Pimpi's flailing strikes that look like slaps, and watching Panther mix it up with the Villanos had me flashing forward to the mask match. Worth watching for Pimpi alone.

This was a slow burner that had a nice tercera caida. There was plenty of chemistry between the teams and Shocker vs. Villano III is shaping up nicely. 2000 was clearly an important year in the career of Villano III and arguably the most relevant he had been in the lucha scene since the very early 90s. He continued to have the fire in his belly here whether it was grievances with the ref or his rage at having his knee worked over. but what was nice to see was his wrestling skills in the early exchanges with Shocker, especially when they butt heads during the test of strength. One thing that struck me truly the lively tercera caida was that even though this was far removed from the golden era of trios team, 2000 has at least four solid trios teams in the Villanos, Los Guapos, Los Capos and the Infernales. We're lucky that IWRG had this ESPN deal at the time to show us some longer form trios bouts. The other thing I liked about this was the kids getting in the ring at the end. That used to be a staple of lucha libre but it's something you don't see a lot of these days. Check out the kid trying to take bumps and some of the others jumping off the top rope and trying to run the ropes. That coupled with the autograph signing at the start makes this seem like retro lucha libre.

Now, this was a treat. It's always a bonus to get a Villano IV singles match and this is possibly the best match of his on tape. It could have easily been the main event from one of those early 90s UWA television tapings and was definitely worked in the same style. Scorpio Jr. isn't the type of guy you associate with matwork. He's more of the roided-up power wrestler type. In fact, on paper, this match read like a lucha version of Arn Anderson vs. Lex Luger. But Scorpio' matwork was surprisingly effective. He kept things simple and used his strength to good advantage. Another thing that stood out was the bodywork. Lucha workers are often criticized for not targeting a body part and not using fundamental psychology in their matches, but here there was a strong focus on Scorpio's neck and Villano's leg. In fact, the psychology was so focused that Scorpio came out of the bout looking like a cerebral assassin. The Triple H of Mexico, if you will. Villano brought his usual brand of technical brawling and the pair put on an excellent show, One of the best lucha matches of the year for sure.

This was another classic, old-school trios match. I thought it was some of the best trios wrestling of the year -- not from the standpoint that it was a MOTYC because, frankly, trios wrestling doesn't produce a lot of MOTYCs but because of the traditional structure. There was the rudo beatdown, the tecnico comeback, and the back and forth finale. There was brawling, blood, and dives all in the same bout and even comedy spots. The tecnicos looked fabulous during their comeback and the dives were better than anything we've seen all year, and this was all within the context of a bout which really only served to set up some wager matches. That's classic trios wrestling -- you run 3 or 4 of these on television and set up the big singles matches. All of the best apuesta feuds have had these lead-in matches and they add to the bouts immensely. Whether we get a payoff to all this is uncertain but it's fun to watch the storylines develop particularly in a style of wrestling that can be short on story at times. The Shocker vs. Villano feud harkened back to the days where guys would work all over the country and have different feuds in different regions and Ciclon vs. Bombero & Cerebro continues to be an unheralded surprise. I thought Ciclon looked bad in the late 90s IWRG I've seen from him but he is kicking ass during this stretch and it was fun seeing him buddy up with the dude who took his mask. And didn't Felino look like he finally had something to do?

This was traditional trios wrestling with a lot of classic elements to it. The heat seems to have moved away from Ciclon vs. Cerebro toward Ciclon vs. Bombero Infernal but it was cool to see them work a classic lead-in match with their beef being at the forefront of the match. Ciclon looks like a middle-aged frontman from some band that was big in the 80s but his sleazy look fits the surroundings and I was impressed by his swank tecnico work. There was a time when he could have been the next Atlantis, IMO. That obviously didn't happen but his dives remain a thing of beauty and I definitely want to see him put that greasy hair on the line.

I'm talking about the really early handhelds with Smiley Mami and Dirty Yamato. I think it's fairly obvious that Harley Saito didn't have the goods to be a star. Her calling card was underrated midcard worker and she was very good in that role. Yamazaki was excellent in both AJW and JWP. She was a great worker that ought to be discussed more. It's too bad that she retired prior to the inter-promotional era but she'd already had a 10 year career at that point and was one of the pioneers in defying the retirement age. Jackie Sato wasn't the founder of JWP. It was formed by an entertainment group that wanted to cash in on the success of the Crush Girls. Jackie and Nancy Kumi were lured toward the new startup but it wasn't like Chigusa founding GAEA.

June Beyers vs. Penny Banner was one tough wrestling match. If you had asked me a few years back what I imagined women's wrestling was like in the 1950s I would have said catfighting and hair pulling. But these women could wrestle. And not only that, they worked at a faster pace than the men and took bigger bumps. For some reason, Russ Davis was extremely dismissive of "gal wrestling" but it's been some of the more enlightening footage from the Chicago region. Next up was Angelo Poffo vs. Maurice Roberre. Poffo isn't really a favourite of mine but he did more wrestling here than usual even if it was mostly grinding away at a hold. Roberre showed some nice agility for a big man and looked like he had more to give. I'll keep an eye out for him in other matches. Finally, Lorraine Johnson vs. Shirley Strimple was another hard-fought women's bout. The women's matches may not be the glamour pieces of the Chicago collection but they're consistently good and some of the best footage from the Archives. Both women's wrestling and midget wrestling have been a revelation for me thus far. It seems Kohler was intent on presenting both styles as serious wrestling and not a sideshow. There's still a fair share of xenophobia in the promotion and a lot of casual racism but the girls and he midgets shatter any stereotypes you may have of 1950s wrestling.