ohtani's jacket

Speaking as the complete opposite of you, digging harder to find the stuff you like can also be satisfying. My tastes are ever changing, ever evolving and ever-narrowing but that doesn't mean that I'm never happy. It just means I have to wade through more matches to get to the stuff that excites me. If I couldn't find anything I like then there would be a problem and I would probably stop watching.

I'm happy he lived to a ripe old age and that he got to hear from a younger generation how much they appreciated his work. He was always such a gentlemen when he'd appear on a podcast and completely down to earth. He may have been a performer on Memphis television but he had no gimmick other than being himself. He had a wonderful voice and thankfully his work will always be there for people to enjoy.

I was underwhelmed by this. Kansai tried to do her old style but she not only struggled physically, she also lacked the presence and the aura to perform that way anymore. Compare her with Aja and the difference is striking. She also perfected her style with the 4/97 Fukuoka title match and bouts like these are just her rehashing the plot.

Is there a consensus about the classic matches from Mexico? There are only 8 posts in the Atlantis/Panther thread and half of them are favorable. Some people compare the match disfavorably to Azteca/Dandy, which was a popular match at the time but went on to have its own detractors later on. I wouldn't put too much stock into what people are jotting down on a particular given night. A match will either stand the test of time or it won't. Unfortunately, Panther vs. Atlantis isn't an important enough match for people to revise their opinions on it every decade or so.

I have this image of Billy Gorgan sitting in his private lair hoarding Gino Hernandez matches.

This was classic New Japan booking with the home stars made to look better than the indy juniors but Fuji had a whale of a time out there and CIMA kept on making a name for himself. The dynamic between CIMA and Kanemoto was well staged with the brash youth irritating the shit out of the surly veteran. I thought Liger wasn't necessary on the Crazy Max team. It was meant to even the odds but Crazy Max had superior teamwork to the New Japan juniors and would have done better with their full complement. Once Fuji stopped trying to front one-on-one they started making some serious inroads but the home side were always the favourite to win this one. One thing that seems clear is that New Japan juniors wrestling didn't fall off a cliff after 1997. It may not have reached the dizzying heights of the 1990s but 17 years on it's perfectly watchable and what may have seemed like a step down in quality at the time now provides interesting wrinkles like Ohtani still being a good juniors worker through to 2000 and Kanemoto having a personality that folks were never really aware of before.

Togo looking like a contender for best in the biz. Super Delfin still in his prime. What a talented and underrated worker he was. Nice juniors action. Everything flowed well and it was one satisfying spot after another. Togo and Delfin were excellent at their craft.

This was pretty good but there's always something lacking when Japanese wrestlers do trios matches. Togo ruled but that's no revelation.

This was phenomenal while it lasted. How good were Delfin's takedowns? If it had gone a few more rounds it would have made my top 10 for the year.

In some cases, I think it's hazy who did the actual booking. I'm fairly certain, for example, that promoters like Baba had other people do the booking. Baba was responsible for the style of wrestling, the promotion's philosophies, and the bigger picture stuff, but I'm sure he had other people doing the booking. Pena's talent was creating gimmicks. He was Russo-like in the sense that his best period as a booker was a mixed product where you had the conservative Juan Herrera pushing the traditional EMLL style and Pena rocking the boat with his new ideas. He was a visionary in terms of his ideas about having EMLL return to television and marketing new stars but his actual booking wasn't that strong. Early on, he relied on shock finishes that went against the grain of traditional lucha and pushing new talent over established veterans, which rubbed the veterans up the wrong way. In AAA, he booked some outstanding programs during the boom period but also a ton of rubbish. I also think it's debatable whether he created a star in AAA that was as successful as Konnan, Octagon or Mascara Sagrada. And it wasn't for lack of trying either.

Is the Jimmy Savile match complete? And what is the Bruno Elrington footage from the 60s?

I hated this feud at the time and thought all of their matches were subpar but this was actually pretty good. The match wasn't hugely dramatic but the work was focused and exhibited good narrative economy. The result felt inconsequential but Jericho impressed me with how physical he was. I tend to think of him as a loose worker but he was quite snug here. Good match.

This was a pretty good match but too one-sided to be a classic of any sort. Tajiri kicked Corino's ass so bad that Styles began to portray Corino in a sympathetic light but I guess they were trying to put over how gutsy Corino was. Tajiri wasn't in any jeopardy, which is a squash in my books even if it was a violent and bloody one.

Whenever I think of "boy," I think of Pardon the Interruption so it's hard for me not to think "your boy" sarcastically. I'm gonna choose one randomly: Steve Blackman. Steve Blackman, that's my boy.

Ran is back in her element working midcard matches in JWP. She looked much more comfortable here than she did against Toyota.

This is such a great feud. The video montage gives you goosebumps, doesn't it? It's Pro-Wrestling 101. There are a million reasons why this feud works. One reason is that the context is similar to Misawa vs. Jumbo and other classic puroresu narratives. Another reason is that Satomura is a shooter type akin to Chigusa or Yamada and not an idol type like Toyota. From Aja's perspective, it reminds her of her struggle to dethrone Bull. From Satomura's perspective, it's reminiscent of her mentor's battles against Dump. Folks can write their own narratives about how the match unfolds but I thought it was pretty clearly the most anticipated Joshi match of the year and the one bout that felt like it belonged in the big time.

This feud has been one of the better things in Joshi during the first half of the year, but I'm not sure that this match worked all that well. The flash pin is an old staple in Joshi but it's usually reserved for the underdog team and not the champion. Maekawa and Watanabe taking the quick fall was meant to be a show of strength but it came across like a challenger move to me and did nothing to dispel the notion that LCO were the better team. The second fall was notable for how lightly Shimoda worked with Maekawa compared to Mita who was prepared to take her lumps, and we had to sit through some ponderous crowd brawling before the match settled into any sort of rhythm. Watanabe's bladejob looked gruesome, but it was completely pointless in terms of its impact on the match. There was a stretch where LCO worked the cut but it was short lived. Joshi usually has an extended finishing stretch and that portion of the match was compelling. I thought Mita was a workhorse and excellent throughout the match and there were some nice nearfalls down the stretch but despite Watanabe's crimson mask it lacked the passion that you expect from a bout like this, and it didn't go to the end of the line where no other ending is conceivable beyond the one they delivered. But at least things picked up once they stuck to the ring and not the bleachers.

Poor Bobby. That really closes another chapter in my fandom.

Ran Yu Yu gets a shot at the Big Red Belt. That's cool. She looks out of her depth to start with. Toyota had this habit as she got older of channeling the same bitch mode as Mima Shimoda and Takako Inoue. She treated Ran like a lower rung opponent and unfortunately Ran didn't have much of a reply to it. Then there was the botch. Now we've all seen Manami Toyota blow spots, but I can't recall anything that looked as painful as the botch here. It was hard to know how hurt she really was but it changed the complexion of the match completely. Suddenly, Ran was on the attack and the match was much more focused. Toyota favored her arm throughout the remainder of the bout, and if you know anything about Toyota you'll know she's not that good at sustaining her selling. Despite working with one arm, the injured stretch was by far the best part of the match. I can't imagine the finishing stretch being anything out of the ordinary if Toyota hadn't wrecked her shoulder, The one arm dives weren't exactly heroic but they were memorable. Ran ended up being overshadowed by the injury but she was too much of an unknown quantity to begin with. The match was more interesting than good but it picked up once Toyota got hurt. She wrestled again the following night so I guess she was all right. When I was a kid we used to call that "axing" yourself,

This was further proof of the genius of Ishikawa just in case you needed any. What more can be said about Ishikawa? A lyrist, a stylist, a Fujiwara for the 00s! Ishikawa played to Nagai's strengths here and made him look like a beast, but the real talking point was Nagai dominating him on the mat. I don't think anyone would have expected that heading into the match. Nagai winning by submission was a clever touch that legitimised him as more than just a striker while the rope breaks and Ishikawa's unrelenting toughness salvaged any credibility he may have lost by losing to a non-specialist wrestler. Nagai came out of this looking like a legit fighter and not just some meathead striker and clearly had an A game above anything that punters were aware of. Ishikawa got his tactics wrong in retrospect and that wry cockiness of his probably cost him the bout. But he wanted to front Nagai from a striking perspective and Nagai ended up surprising him on the mat. Strong bout that elevated Nagai and helped stamp his mark on BattlARTS.

This was all right but all that legwork reminded me of Takada and that's never a palatable thing.

This was pretty cool. I'm not a big Otsuka fan -- at least not as big a fan as some people I know -- but I thought this was one of his better performances. Taira was a 36-year-old shoot boxer on debut. If I hadn't told you that, you might have thought he had been around the pro-wrestling scene for longer such was the strength of Otsuka's performance. Taira was awkward at times but that's part of the charm of shoot guys doing works (unless they're being pushed to the moon like Ogawa.) Interestingly, the strength of Otsuka's performance didn't come from his matwork or power moves but rather his selling. That's not the first thing you look for in shoot style but his selling was excellent here and he reacted well to the offense Taira brought to the table. I didn't love the finishing stretch but Otsuka loves to throw in pro-wrestling moves as is his wont. It didn't take away from an extremely good effort from the man and a successful debut for Taira aesthetically, anyway.