ohtani's jacket

Thesz worked in Mexico as both a wrestler and a referee. His most famous bout was against Canek on 8/27/78 which drew a huge gate at the Palacio de los Deportes. Santo wrestled in the semi-main in a UWA Welterweight title match that led to a hair vs. mask match between them the following month. The card was billed as “Homenaje al Santo Enmascarado de Plata y Legendario Lou Thesz.” Thesz had been awarded the UWA World Heavyweight Championship in 1977 and had successfully defended it against Dr. Wagner and Mil Mascaras, the latter another huge sellout at the Palacio los Deportes. Thesz had a huge rep in Mexico as a world famous international wrestling star and Canek's victory over Thesz paved the way for him to become the top drawing heavyweight of the 1980s. Since Thesz and Santo were in different weight classes, I assume the only time they could have met in the ring was in a tag match or trios.

This was awesome. Another monster destroyed. Marvelously entertaining.

What a boring ass fight. I enjoy Kobashi but only to a point. I don't need to see him take on the world and certainly not uninteresting opponents like Omori. All Japan was obviously an excellent wrestling promotion but it had its systems and could feel formulaic at times. This felt more formulaic than inspired but Omori was a fairly big albatross. Match came alive at the end but you expect that in a Japanee match. I can see people having a completely different perspective on this based on what Kobashi was able to drag Omori too but I'm far less tolerant of wrestling that doesn't interest me than most fair-minded folks around here.

This was all right. I thought Smith looked more like Owen Hart or Chris Benoit working the European style than anything authentically British except for one or two holds. I guess I imagined something different when I read this was worked in the British style. There was more matwork than your average All Japan bout and Kobashi did some neat armwork but this was mostly a physical All Japan encounter with a bit of matwork instead of irish-whipping each other into the guard rails. Smith tried to take the fight to Kobashi in the second half of the bout but he was fighting a losing battle on that front. Korakuen Hall was a wee bit quiet on this night which didn't help inspire Smith. The finishing stretch was fairly standard but I didn't like the finish at all. Smith came off as fairly weak opposition if his German was so soft that Kobashi could counter like that. Not a bad match but I don't think it was a remarkable advertisement for Kobashi as a worker.

I thought this was excellent. If you compare it to their epic matches like 1/97 you'll be disappointed but to be frank they were past the point of being able to work those matches. This was an excellent match in the context of April 2000 and the first four months of the year. It was a Carnival bout so it wouldn't have made sense to work a match that was as outstanding as a Triple Crown bout or a Carnival final. That said, the bout was still hugely competitive. Misawa looked a healthier here than he did earlier in the year. Perhaps he had some nagging injuries to start the season. The commentator made note of how "slow starter" Misawa took a more aggressive approach than usual and used a few moves rarely seen from him and throughout the match there were further signs of the power shift from 90s Ace Misawa to the current Triple Crown champion. Misawa's selling was exquisite as usual and the finishing stretch made Kobashi look like a giant of the modern game. Not only did he withstand Misawa's usual barrage of offensive, he countered with immense strength and powerful offense. Sasaki has been good in 2000 -- great even -- but Kobashi is separating himself from the pack here with Misawa stepping down from the Ace role and Hashimoto being treated like shit.

This wasn't a match, it was a month full of RAW and Smackdown finishes rolled into one. Quite possibly the most over-booked match of all-time. It was entertaining in terms of its twists and turns but it wasn't a match. It was TV booking dressed up as a match.

This entire angle was well-booked and well-executed. Say what you want about Triple H but he did an excellent job with this material. He'll never be confused for one of the great promos in wrestling but he showed a tremendous amount of range in these two segments and his delivery was extremely polished compared to a lot of WWE talent. Hebner was surprisingly good too for a guy who was rarely called upon to act. He actually seemed like the most natural one out there especially with the McMahions hamming it up. Jericho's delivery has always been pretty hokey. He tries to cut promos like Mick Foley but Foley knew how to ratchet up the intensity and make his promos spinetingling. Compare the difference between Jericho getting his title shot and Foley getting his Hell in the Cell stip. Foley's in a different ballpark when it comes to promos. But this was still an entertaining angle and a great piece of WWF TV. It's hard to write TV that's this good all the time, so you have to appreciate the efforts of the writers here.

Hashimoto was still the man but this was a weak fight. It was a crappy hybrid match and I couldn't find any redeeming features in it. I hated Hashimoto's performance. I couldn't believe that The Man had to take short cuts against such a crappy pro-wrestler. Yeah, it was his swan song and yeah he ate four STOs but nobody wanted to see their hero go down like that. There are so many Hashimoto matches I feel like watching to wash the taste out of my mouth from this shit.

This was a decent fight. The thing I like about this project is that it encourages you to watch matches you'd never dream of watching like Kanemoto vs. Frye. From that perspective I enjoyed it, but the big moments weren't exciting enough to garner the heat that Kanemoto was looking for. The difference between this and your average RINGS fight was stark in terms of the counters and crowd reaction. They probably could have worked a little harder to make it seem like Kanemoto had a chance at the upset. I liked Frye's promo afterward, though.

What happens if Flair signs with Vince in '88? We don't get the Steamboat matches, the feud with Funk or the Luger series. We also don't get any WWF matches better than the ones DiBiase had from '88 to '90, or Savage or Tito or Hennig or Hart. In other words, we lose.

Inoki would have found some way to keep New Japan afloat, he was that big a bullshitter. Fujinami would have spent a few years in UWF or AJPW and then come back to challenge Inoki. Inoki would have had to try to pull a few foreigner draws to compensate for the lack of natives but he would have managed it. Fujinami in UWF is more interesting than AJPW if you enjoy grappling. If you like standard pro-wrestling then AJPW is your ticket. There's a chance they would have had him tag with Jumbo and Tenryu vs. Choshu and Co. That makes sense given the lack of strength on the babyface side against Choshu's army.

Sounds like fun. I am sure common sense will dictate. Roman Reigns is not as good as Steve Austin. He is like an ideal version of Kevin Nash. That has its merits but I am sure you will rate Austin higher in the cold light of day.

Finally got to see my boy Chief Don Eagle have a feature length main event. Some clipping here and there but we got the lion's share of a one hour draw with Dangerous Danny McShain. As you would expect with a one hour draw there was a lot of time spent in hammerlocks and similar holds with McShain using a lot of punches and inside moves. But despite there being a lot of down time, the match was fluid and enjoyable to watch. McShain was a great heel and Eagle more than held up his head on the babyface side. It took a long time for Eagle to do the war dance but when he did it was a good 'un. Back to Chicago now. Great Karpozilos vs. Great Yamato was better than I expected. Karpozilos was a short Greek wrestler with huge muscles and Yamato was another of the 50s Japanese heels. As with other Japanese heel workers, they didn't spend a lot of time on the mat as most of the "action" took place in the clinch. Yamato was a decent worker but it's hard to tell with these Japanese American workers as they're playing to type. I think I've seen Angelo Poffo vs. Jerry Christie before. It's easy to lose track of what you've seen across these 50s YouTube channels especially when there are multiple versions of the same films. The crowd got right behind Christie in this fight so Poffo must have done something right. Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting... the midgets. Actually, Ivan the Terrible was a dwarf and Tiny Roe was a midget. They worked a fairly straight forward match and avoided many of the comedy trappings of midget matches. Instead, Russ Davis mostly took digs at the Russians. Not bad. The match that is.

This was a great trios match. Emotional vignette to begin with followed by a heated brawl that never let up. Villano vs. Pierroth was amazing. I hope we get more of them in the future as they were awesome together. Villano was like a man possessed and looked better than he has all year. The DDT on the outside was cool and I loved him giving Pierroth a taste of his own garbage. These are the type of matches that rudos usually dominate but Villano and Perro are harder edge tecnicos and former rudos. They're not about to put up with shit from anyone even if it means getting disqualified. In fact, the takeaway from the bout was that Villano hadn't lost any of his rudo instincts. If anything he was sharper than ever. The commentator called Villano vs. Pierroth rudo vs. rudo so it's unclear whether Villano is a full blown face yet but I want more of this feud. Also impressive were Atlantis and Shocker. Shocker looked like a million bucks here and Atlantis was on point. Whenever some doubts Atlantis, I always think back to matches like this where he flips the switch. He was hitting his shit like a knife through butter. But the real story was VIllano's breakout performance as a maskless wrestler. Working maskless isn't an easy thing for luchadores to do and not everyone succeeds at it, but you can tell how much of a legend Villano was when you see him own a match like this. And it was cool seeing Perro in his corner. God, the wars those two had been in together. With Satanico off TV, Villano is now lording it over CMLL. More Pierroth vs. Villano, please!

Am I the only one? Yeaah. Am I sexual? Yeaah. Los Guapos' entrance continues to amuse me. We haven't seen fast paced lucha like this in a while. It was clipped to shit but it didn't prevent the workers from pulling out the stops. Zumbido was flying. I mean it. That dude achieved takeoff. Everyone else stepped it up a notch too. It was almost like a lucha workout. Worth watching for a different beat to most of the lucha we've seen this year.

Weird Increibles trios match that didn't make much sense until I realised it must have been part of a tournament. And yep, it was the final of tournament called the Carnaval Incrieble Trios torneo. The match was exceptonally short but the work from Casas and the Infernales was excellent. Can't wait for that feud to start.

There was so much bullshit in this match from Shocker and Scorpio being sent to the back to Máscara Año Dos Mil coming down to second Bestia and Scorpio slipping him the bottle that he used to smash Perro with. Covering Perro's head a towel led to the world's most obvious bladejob and all of the shit with the doctor took an eternity. When bloodied Perro made his comeback against Bestia the match hit the right note but there wasn't enough of that sort of work. Pierroth did an awesome job with the electrocution angle in the previous match but here the bullshit was too much. How many times did they cut to Perro's wife and kid? (I assume that's who they were.) The match wasn't exciting enough to justify that many cutaways. Too much smoke and mirrors and not enough blood and guts. The finish was brutal, though. It looked like it crushed Bestia's ribcage, Awesome stomp from old man Perro.

This was an excellent bout. It was obvious from the get-go that the rudos were going to turn on Villano and attack him simply because it was the third week that CMLL had been teasing the turn and that's generally the pattern: a couple of weeks of teasing it and then the turn. But it was extremely well executed with tensions rife from the beginning. You could tell that Pierroth, Fuerza, and Los Boricuas had concocted a contingency plan for dealing with Villano if he wouldn't play ball. The interplay between VIllano and Pierroth was fascinating to watch. I especially liked the part where Villano waved Pierroth off and grinned at the fans. And I loved Pierroth getting in the face of the commissioner. Pierroth had such a commanding presence. He was strong on the mic and everything he did seemed despicable. His in-ring work wasn't that great but he was saddled with Rayo who has been pretty poor in 2000 and really his worth here was being the mastermind behind the post-match angle. I thought they went to the well once too often with Villano refusing to attack the tecnicos. Surely, it would have made more sense if Atlantis had been the final tecnico that Villano refused to attack. But I loved Fuerza's DQ before turning on Villano.That had me hollering with delight. It was such a rudo thing to do. Fuck the match, Fuerza's sick of this shit. The post-match angle was like nothing I've seen in CMLL. The thing I liked about it the most is that Pierroth is not just working a Puerto Rico gimmick, he's bringing Puerto Rican style angles to Mexico. Villano sold the electrocution as though he was dead. He looked like a corpse. The doctor could have sold the gravity of the situation a bit more but it was a wild scene and made Pierroth look pretty hardcore. Plenty of rudos are braggarts but not many would go that far. Pierroth Jr. is a dangerous man and you have to wonder who cleared this with the stuffy CMLL suits. Aside from Pierroth being one of my five favorite things in Mexico, there was a lot of other things to enjoy here. We finally got to see the Casas we know and love strutting about the ring like a peacock. And any time you see him work with Fuerza you know you're in for a treat. The Villano vs. Atlantis exchanges were also good. For my money, some of the best stuff they did outside of the apuesta match. Even Rayo managed to produce his signature tope. The thing about most lucha, and wrestling in general for that matter, is that it's not very memorable. This was memorable even if it wasn't a fully fledged three fall classic. Easily the best thing to come out of Mexico so far this April.

This was all right. Anyone hoping for a classic title match will be disappointed. It was hard not to notice the influence from Casas and Wagner's recent Japan tours, iI don't like to see too much Japanese influence in lucha but it was inescapable at this point, Strangely, Wagner is more charismatic in Japan than he is in Mexico but he's not really top billing in CMLL. Panther was game early on but Tarzan Boy isn't a great opponent for him on the mat. Tarzan Boy looked like he put himself out of wrestling with that botch. Emilio didn't really add much here and it's always weird seeing him in alternate colours but the thing that really stopped me from loving this is that I don't really like tecnico Casas. Especially this Casas with his lack of swagger. Where's the cockiness that makes Casas great? The crowd was into him but he's going through this weird workman phase instead of outshining everyone on the card. I wonder when the real Casas will turn up.

lol at Los Guapos struggling to tear off their stripper pants. This was a standard beatdown but I won't complain about Bestia brawling with Perro. Tough night at the office for the tecnicos here. They were sprawled out all over the place at the end. Los Guapos give us a Jackie Fargo strut for good measure. Perro looked much better in Japan than he did here.

CMLL continues to drag out the Villano face turn. They've been during rudos tecnico this way since time immemorial. A bit of a nothing match but that was the point really as things quickly broke down on the rudo side. Fuerza tried to make this entertaining but I'm ready to cut to the chase. Let's see V3 turn.

I enjoyed this a lot more now that I'm more familiar with the Toryumon guys. The babyfaces here made a strong account of themselves. In fact, I thought it was probably the best term performance we've seen so far from the faces. Their performance was aided by a strong central narrative of Mochizuki being the one who's targeted throughout. He looked better than in any other match he's had thus far thanks in large part to Crazy Max who are excellent rudo workers. Sumo Fuji is one of the coolest guys in Japan during this period and CIMA is growing on me. I don't like that uppercut slap he does in the corner but he's pretty damn good at everything else. I did Makoto's glam rock vampire stylings too. Nice finish here and Crazy Max assaulting the cameraman afterward was great.

The Mae Young Classic has a nice ring to it. It should be the Mildred Burke classic but Mae Young sounds better.

I thought this was quite good. Possibly the best Toryumon match I've seen thus far. It had all the classic elements of a Lucha trios but with the pace of a Japanese Juniors match. It suffered from excess at times as many Japanese matches do but on the whole they hit the right rhythm. I thought Dragon Kid made a difference to the babyface side simply because of the highspots he was able to bring and the stylistic difference from his peers. Contrasting styles are important in trios matches and he added a high flying element that has been missing from most of these Toryumon tags. You can forgive any technical shortcomings he may have if he's having a positive impact in the flyer role.

McMahon vs. Austin still happens but loses some of its edge if Vince doesn't screw Michaels at some point, and let's be honest "Shawn screwed Shawn" doesn't have the same impact as "Bret screwed Bret." Screwing over the favorite of the coal miners and the lumberjacks is like screwing over the blue collar, working class demographic that Austin fed off. Who's going to care that Michaels was screwed over? 12-year-old girls? Screwing over DX Michaels isn't as effective as screwing over Bret in Canada. Bret drops the strap to Austin at WM 14. The match is possibly a classic but the Tyson involvement doesn't work as well without DX. People were surprised that Dude Love was Austin's first program after WM 14. I'm not so sure that program happens if Bret stays and if that program doesn't happen then the Mankind "socko" skits don't happen and Hell in the Cell doesn't happen and Foley probably doesn't become a main eventer. Or it's possible that Rock and the Nation of Domination feud with Bret and the Hart Foundation and Foley/Austin goes ahead. That would leave Hunter on the outer. pretty much trapped in the Owen situation. WCW would have been a mess with or without Michaels. I'm sure he would have cut a few memorable promos and given us a copious amount of groin chops. And wrestled high as a kite. Jericho still jumps. The Big Show still jumps. The Radicalz still jump. Bret has better matches than in 1998 and 1999 working in his WWF comfort zone but his style becomes outdated as he continues to slow down. I'm sure we get Bret vs. Undertaker again and Bret definitely makes a play for another WWF Championship run at some point. The big question is what happens when Austin has his surgery in '99. Does Vince fall back on Bret or pull the trigger on someone else? Is Bret really going to be happy working midcard feuds with the likes of Jericho? Was it Bret driving the car? Did he raise the briefcase? Was it Bret all along? Will Yokozuna be on RAW on Monday? Is Jake Roberts the Higher Power or Ted Dibiase? Will Flair jump to the WWF and become Vince's corporate champion? I think things worked out for the best in the end for the WWE but obviously not for the Hart family.