ohtani's jacket

#314 This is a match I never really cared for in the past, but I thought I'd give it another chance and I really enjoyed it this time round. It's nonstop action with constant tagging and big move after big move, and you really need to adjust to that otherwise it's just too much. I was listening to "Cantonese Boy" by Japan while watching this and that helped me concentrate on the ringwork. Once I found the rhythm, this was an enjoyable bout. The standard of execution was much higher than in their Dream Slam bout and there was a different edge to the bout with the FMW team being on home soil. I loved the competitive streak between Toyota and Kudo. That was a budding rivalry that never took off. I always dig how Toyoda brings 110% to her matches. It was a nice contrast to have a bigger brawler in there with the shooter and the two flyers. The Doomsday Device was devastating. I had to rewind and watch it twice. Nice bout if you can get into it, which I admit I may not have been able to do on another day.

I finally watched Trauma/Lupus and wrote a lengthy review of it here -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-488-2016-round-up-day-2/ The long, the short and the tall of it all: I thought the first two falls were rubbish but everything after the chair shots was amazing and the post-match unmasking was incredible.

Trauma I vs. Canis Lupus (mask vs. mask, IWRG 9/4/16) It seemed impossible for this match to live up to the hype. Over the past few weeks, I've seen it described as one of the best brawls ever, one of the best mask matches of all-time and a match of the decade contender. For the first two falls, it failed to live up to the hype. The work in the first fall wasn't bad but there was too much pandering to the crowd instead of the intense focus on maiming your opponent that you expect from an apuesta bout. It was a flashy rudo fall instead of a violent one. The finish was nice, though, and would play an important part later in the match. Lupus maintained his advantage in the second fall, but his strikes were weak and looked as though they were baring glancing Trauma's head and chest. That meant that the physical toll of the beating wasn't registering -- a cardinal sin in apuesta matches where pain and exhaustion are the biggest selling points. It didn't help, either, that the turning point in the fall was badly telegraphed and that the finish was poorly executed. At this point we were two falls into the bout and nothing that solid had happened. Then they did the double chair spots and I was ready to write this off as an average piece of business. But as soon as they bladed the bout took on a whole new dimension. They began selling the exhaustion, and fatigue, and blood loss, and moreover they began fighting for their masked lives. Suddenly, it didn't seem so bad that there was nothing behind Lupus' strikes because there he was bleeding half to death. They worked some classic nearfalls with both men clinging on for dear life. With every passing hold the bout began looking more and more like a classic mask match. And the fact that they didn't get there in the smartest, or best, way began to fade into insignificance. It was like watching a playoff game where the first couple of quarters are crap but the second half is engrossing. In those situations it doesn't matter how the match begins but how it ends. Like all great tercera caidas there were dramatic counters and near things. People often shit on the refs in lucha, but personally I think those added seconds it takes to reach a decision add to the drama over whether a near fall or near submission will succeed. You need to hang on for a little bit longer in lucha bouts and those seconds feel like an eternity if you're rooting for one gladiador over another. Not only were they working dramatic submission attempts and pulling out dramatic counters, they were bleeding buckets in the process, and you could pretty much track their desperation based by how much blood was on the canvas. There was blood all over Lupus' hands and forearms and Trauma's mask was taking on a hue not seen since the halcyon days of Santo and white costume La Parka. The bullshit with the ref bump and the tombstone piledriver was delicious bullshit served up on a plate. The foot under the ropes, the ref waving it off, Lupus sitting there leaning against Trauma having a spell, taking a breather, wiping blood off his hand, wondering what he should try next... that's an apuesta match on a razor's edge right there. Lupus slammed the mat out of frustration and it took him more energy to get to his feet and drag Trauma away from the ropes for a pin attempt. Trauma blocking the ref's three count with both palms was a fantastic touch and it really felt like the fight was ebbing out of him with every raised shoulder. Then drama! The all-or-nothing splash from the top from Lupus. Trauma didn't catch him cleanly, but he clipped Lupus' ribs and it sure looked like it hurt. How can anybody not like this? The canvas is growing redder and redder and a doctor comes in the ring to check Trauma's neck after the tombstone. It looks more like a crime scene investigation than first aid. Lupus pulls off a wonderful rudo move of attacking the medico and the finish literally sees Trauma attempting a reversal with a neck brace half attached. Lupus resists violently, but Trauma hooks on the same move that Lupus used to beat him the opening fall. It's not hard to imagine Trauma's father teaching him that move when he was ten years old and there it was saving his mask. Trauma's second rushed into the ring and dived on him. People began throwing money immediately. Lupus lay in a pool of his own blood while the doctor finally put a brace on Trauma's damaged neck. Lupus' second shed a tear into his towel while the medico went to check his man's cut. There were thick globs of blood everywhere at this point and the doctor's coat was a mess. The aftermath of this bout was incredible. The part where the seconds held both men up, Trauma in a neck brace and Lupus stricken from blood loss and they looked at other like trauma victims was disturbing and awe-inspiring all at once. Lupus collapsing in the ropes whether it was real or just selling was amazing. The close-up on Trauma's bloodied mask looked like he'd been to the gates of hell and back. Incredible scenes. It was almost beyond what they had done in the third caida but at the same time it was riveting. Lupus knelt against the ropes in front of a group of photographers recovering, recuperating, regathering his thoughts in silent recognition of what had happened and what was coming next. He'd given his name and his place of origin to the MC and in mask matches like these it's customary to give the loser some breathing space to prepare for their unmasking. There were plenty of support from his fellow luchadores and consolations from Trauma's camp. It was all heartfelt and emotional. I didn't know Lupus from a bar of soap before watching this match, but apart from Villano III in 2000 and Ultimo Guerrero in 2014 this was the most emotional unmasking I have seen. Lupus was defiant, proud, conflicted. He didn't want to unmask but he was fully aware of his responsibility. The spirit of lucha was alive and well on this evening. The two gladiadores embraced and it was a beautiful moment in an otherwise brutal match. Finally, Lupus unmasked in the time honoured tradition and if anything his proposal was a reminder that lucha is about family, brotherhood and the ties that bind. A tremendous tercera caida, a raw post-match unmasking and an incredible second half to a bout. I don't know if it deserves the accolades it's getting, but it's a match that I will never, ever forget.

#316 This was better than I remembered. It had a clear and simple throughline of Kandori wanting a piece of Bull and acting as though Takako was below her. That didn't sit well with the upwardly mobile Takako, who had inched her way up the card and clearly saw herself as an established wrestler. Mr. Joshi Puroresu was awesome in this. She didn't care one bit if the things she said and did upset the stars from the big promotion and her interactions with Bull were fantastic. I loved the part where Bull finally ripped into her after all the needling. Their interactions was some of the best stuff on this selection of matches (#350-301.) Bull's legdrop to save Takako from the armbar was brutal, and I thought Takako did a great job of favouring her arm before the finish. There are lead-in matches and then there are firestarters. This was as good as any of the firestarters in the WAR vs. NJPW feud, IMO. It's too bad there aren't more matches with the Bull vs. Kandori pairing.

#315 This starts out with a wee bit of Taue in Peril, which as a nice change of pace. It didn't take long for the normal order of business to be restored. This feud had run its course by 1992 and All Japan feels stale as a result.

Mile Zrno vs. Danny Boy Collins (11/7/98) Another beautiful match. I'm so used to seeing Danny Boy Collins as a zit-faced teenager that it was odd seeing him here as a pudgy, blokey type. Not only was their grappling beautiful, but they went the Marty Jones route of having animosity slowly creep into the bout. Zrno started the niggle, but it was Collins who escalated it with a vicious looking kneedrop to Zrno's face. It was easily the best thing that Danny Collins has ever done. Zrno stayed he course, however, and was able to power through for the win. I'm not sure if this was Collins' best match or not, but it was his best match where he wasn't being carried by a vet like Jim Breaks or Mike Bennett. And certainly his best performance on the mat. For Zrno, it was ungodly that he was wrestling this well twenty years after the Hara bout. A national living treasure.

Congratulations, and Happy Birthday PWO!

#321 I haven't watched this since the days when I was renting PWFG tapes from Champion. This was a lot of fun. It wasn't high end shoot style and not a classic like Fujiwara's bouts with Vale, Fuke and Malenko, but it's Fujiwara. One of my all-time favourites taking an opponent to school. That'll wash the taste out of your mouth from any bad wrestling experience.

#317 I remember liking matches like these back in '99 when we were starved for quality wrestling on TV. Now that we have so much quality wrestling at our finger tips it's not quite the same. I felt like tapping out a few seconds in but watched this out of respect for Loss calling it the best Nitro match ever. I'm about as big a fan of Fatal Fourways and Triple Threats as I am that influenza test where they stick a swab up your nostril and tickle your brain. This was awfully spotty and hard going. I didn't help that Bobby kept reminding us how long it was. At least Psicosis won. That was a cool result even if the Cruiserweight division was a shell of what it was in '96 and '97. Did Eddie and Rey clock the Cruiserweight division at Halloween Havoc '97? It all seemed to go downhill from there, but I suppose you could say the same about the entire promotion post Starrcade. Sorry for not liking this more, Loss!

#320 I've been meaning to revisit Williams & Gordy's WCW run for a while now. I remember liking it during the Smarkschoice poll but there's been a lot of water under the bridge since then. This was every bit as good as I remembered. As far as a match with four big men go, I thought it was much better than Doc & Gordy's match with Jumbo and Taue from the same year. A bit long maybe, especially since it's a match I've seen before, but I couldn't pick too many faults with it. Arn wasn't entirely comfortable on commentary for a guy with his promo ability, but he did a good job of fleshing out the psychology and providing insight into basic tag match strategy. Williams and Gordy's run is strangely unpopular among fans despite the fact there's no changing it now. You'd think people would have melllowed with age, but it's still largely viewed as a mistake by Watts. Give me a great TV match over retrospective booking any day of the week.

#323 I feel like I have a pretty firm grasp on the Jumbo vs. Misawa six-mans I liked best. This feels like an appetizer for the Jumbo/Misawa Budokan match rather than a great six man in and of itself, but I watched it for fun more than anything else. Misawa was amazingly athletic in 1990 and Kobashi did a great job of playing FIP in between all of the Jumbo and Misawa scuffling.

I've started using my blog to get caught up on 2016 using that playlist and whatever other recommendations I can find. The Black Terry/Aeroboy apuesta match was very good, especially when watched from all the different camera angles.

So, it's the first day of 2017, and as usual I've done a piss-poor job of following the modern lucha scene as it happens. But in this day and age of YouTube playlists, there's no excuse to not get caught up. I'm going to start with the Black Terry vs. Aeroboy apuesta match, which is where I left off last time. Black Terry vs. Aeroboy (mask vs. hair, 6/10/16) This was a nice, scuzzy apuesta match. I liked how they started fighting before Aeroboy had taken his jacket off just like in the good old days of yore. They ambled about a bit in the beginning despite Aeroboy hitting a nice looking tope; but as soon as both men were bleeding and Terry had his shirt off, it was another masterclass in how to have an indie apuesta match. Terry's forte is usually character work and brawling outside the ring. This was mostly worked between the ropes, and for an apuesta match, really only had a minimum of violence. What made it work was the stiffness. These days when you watch a lucha indie match, you can choose from all sorts of different angles. It's almost like watching the special features on a DVD. I watched this match from three different angles, and it was the handheld footage that added the most. A complain complaint with lucha is that it's not worked stiffly enough, but when it's shot from ringside, you can really hear them lay their shots in. Terry's always been good at working offense exchanges with young professionals like Aeroboy, and he's able to draw on years of experience in laying out a bout; but it was the stiffness, and laying those shots in, that made this seem like an apuesta match and not some regular bout. The submission work was also excellent. Terry, in particular, had a couple of pearlers. Both men sold them like death, and in the handheld footage you could hear them scream as soon as a submission was applied. Aeroboy only had one hold that he went to, but Terry was a maestro on the mat. Stiffness, submissions, some well-worked offense exchanges; these were the ingredients of an apuesta match as honest as the blood that was shed. Blow-for-blow, it was everything it should be with a wager on the line. While I was watching this, I saw the highlights of the Wofan match, which looked amazing. I desperately need to see that match as it looks like a prime example of a Terry masterpiece, but Wofan is a different worker to Aeroboy. I thought Terry did an excellent job here of working to his opponent's strengths and adapting to what they're good at and how they prefer to work. What we're witnessing now feels like Terry Funks' 90s run in ECW and other indies and the work Funk did in that era with younger workers. Yep, Black Terry is fast becoming the Terry Funk of Mexico.

#324 This was all right. The Can-Ams threw Kawada and Kikuchi around like rag dolls to begin with, and it was a bit like video game wrestling with the classic 90s trope of hitting a finisher to start the match. I liked the heat segment where the Can-Ams were abusing Kikuchi, especially that cobra clutch where Kroffat tried to rip his heat off. You could tell Kawada was itching to get into the match, but the hot tag was a huge let down and the match wound up being a pretty cliched finisher spurt with partners saving each other and all the rest. I really wanted to see Kawada clean Kroffat's clock. I've never gotten the appeal of Kroffat, but he was a king sized dick here to an underdog whom Korakuen had a love affair with. Kawada should have gone to town. Instead, he ended up on the apron again for another hot tag (warmish, really.) Didn't like that. Kick him in the head, Kawada! Lance Storm his ass.

#307 This was great. Indie wrestling from 1991. Looked a bit like Fight Club. Would have loved to have seen Pillman work in this setting in 1991. That would have been mind blowing.

#302 Try as I may, I just can't get into Onita. Perhaps I'll come around to him in the end similar to the way I resisted Tenryu for so long. This was a good little match. though. If you can call a match with a double blade job and a piledriver through a table "a good little match."

#333 This was much better than I remembered it being. I was really into Bret Hart around this time so I got a kick out of his entrance. I always dug his "best there is" pose when he stepped through the ropes. They did a good job here of playing up Bret's desire for revenge against both Backlund and Owen. I thought Owen was awesome at putting the heat on Bret instead of stealing the show with his comic antics. Bret's selling was tremendous, but I agree that the heat segment could have used a few more hope spots. I wasn't enamored with Davey Boy's hot tag, either, and I couldn't understand why the ref didn't overturn the result when Bret refused to let go of the sharpshooter. To me that would have made sense with Bret being too irate to care about the win. I'd say the first half of the bout was better than the second, but it didn't take anyway from an outstanding WWF television bout. Ross was in his element and it felt closer to a Worldwide bout than your typical WWF fare. Even Todd "Didya get your free gift? Pettengill couldn't drag Ross down. Ross gets a lot of shit for prattling on about football and grade point averages, but when he's calling a match that he's into there are few better. Unfortunately, this match was the end of the road for the great Hart family feud that felt more like an old-school territory feud than the stuff the WWF usually put out. They went down the wrong path with the Bret vs. Backlund rematch at Wrestlemania XI. Bret would go into a funk after that, and while the Yokozuna/Owen team was fun at first, that too would ultimately see Owen lost in the mire. At the same time, I'm not sure if an Owen vs. Bret blowoff at Mania would have excited folks since they wrestled so many times in '94. Still, it was good to see a quality match from a year that almost killed off my interest in wrestling completely.

My memory isn't what it used to be, but I remember liking Yoshida's IBUKI stuff for the most part. It wasn't on par with her ARSION stuff, but if you're a Yoshida fan then I think her match with Emoto is worth checking out. I watched a couple of matches from first Queen Bee show. AKINO vs. Kimura was decent, as far as I recall.

#331 This was a recommended match back in the day, but it did come across as lightweight. At least it was breezy. EDIT: How does Misawa/Taue compete with the Hashimoto/Mutoh G1 Final? The answer is that it can't. Misawa's selling is beautiful and everything is very orderly. The build progresses logically and all the little boxes are ticked, but the bout is hurt by Taue not hitting his chokeslam cleanly. All of the early work and the heat segment on Misawa is building to Taue hitting the chokeslam and he barely gets a hold of him. A Triple Crown match where Taue doesn't fire his best shot? There's no way that Taue misfiring is as dramatic as the G1 Final. Misawa's pop up on the german was not cool. And his superman punches were too much. We've all seen Misawa make comebacks where the natural order is restored and it's business as usual just like Jumbo before him but knocking Taue out like that sucked. Your elbows aren't that bloody strong, Misawa.

#338 This was a solid bout. In fact, it may have been the most solid bout in the countdown thus far. Taue had a game plan here and stuck to it, chipping away at Kobashi until he was able to put him away. I liked how the early stalemate led to heated sumo slaps and the general burliness of the first 15 minutes. Taue was still a bit blue-collar here, but Kobashi added plenty of pep to the bout. He did a great job of selling his destruction, which made it seem even more thorough than it was. I liked his theatrical selling of the choke slam struggle and the final lights out moment. Vintage All Japan, a notch or two below the best stuff.

#335 This was a good match. I have vague memories of downloading it on Hotline back in the day. IIRC, it took me three days to download it on my dodgy dial up connection. What made this entertaining was that Ohtani had transitioned into a surly juniors vet. He still did some of his signature selling, but he'd moved on from the lovable loser that he played in '96 and '97 and was beyond that now. I remember people thinking that Takaiwa was fairly bland outside of his signature power moves, but I think he's the perfect partner for Ohtani to take under his wing. Anyone above Ohtani's station wouldn't feel right. Kanemoto was fun in this as a poor man's Ikeda and his heat with Ohtani made it better than the average juniors' bout. Tanaka looked like he belonged in the New Japan Juniors division far more than in BattlARTS and his flash added to the bout. Good shit all-round.

#329 Decent big man contest. Taue does most of the work for his team, understandably, with Jumbo only working in brief flurries (one of which injures Gordy.) Nothing you haven't seen in a hundred All Japan tags (many of them involving Jumbo Tsuruta), but perhaps a fitting and familiar way for Tsuruta to end his competitive career.

I'm not sure I would put Satanico vs. Gran Cochisse on the level of Flair vs. Steamboat or Dory vs. Brisco. We don't have enough footage to judge how good it truly is. It's the best of the Satanico footage we have from '84, but for all we know he may have had better title matches with other people, or there may have been better title matches between different workers. What we do know for sure is that it was nowhere near as important as those NWA title feuds. All I can really say is that it's a wonderful match; one of the best from the limited footage we have. I'm not sure what star rating I would give it, but even if I agreed with you that it wasn't much higher than four stars, I would still consider it one of the all-time great lucha matches. I think I've said it before, but to me if a match is four stars it's in a pantheon along with every other match I've considered four stars or above. I honestly wouldn't give a match four stars if I had as many criticisms of it that you did of the bout. I had forgotten that Dylan thought so highly of it. I think it finished 6th in the DVDVR voting ahead of Perro Aguyao vs. Sangre Chicana, which is another of my all-time favourite lucha bouts.

I personally didn't have a problem with anything that happened during the "Puro vs. Lucha" thread, but I think it would be a good idea to draw up some guidelines. There's a lot more discussion about politics and social issues than there used to be, and while there was a call for the MIS forum, it's been under-utilized to date. So, I think you need to make a call on political you want the site to be since as we all know politics and message forums don't mix well.

A few things happened between Baba founding All Japan, becoming an NWA member in February '73, and Brisco's first tour in January of '74. After Baba left JWA to form All Japan, the Momota family presented him with Rikidozan's old NWA International Heavyweight belt, which he used o create a World Heavyweight title for his new promotion. On All Japan's second night (10/22/72), the World Heavyweight Championship Series began; a series of 10 matches which lasted through to 2/27/73 when Baba defeated Bobo Brazil and was awarded the World title. At that stage, the title didn't have a name yet so Baba came up with the idea of a sanctioning body with his old buddy, Blears. Baba was officially recognised by the Pacific Wrestling Federation as PWF World Heavyweight Champion on 3/16/73, the day before the first Champion Carnival series. Baba defended it as a World title throughout the rest of 1973, but after his double title match with Jack Brisco on 1/23/74, the title was reduced to the PWF Heavyweight title as per the NWA's demands that no promotion under its umbrella have their own World Championship titles. . So, basically the idea at first was for All Japan's top title to be a sanctioned World Heavyweight Championship and the plan changed slightly after Baba started bringing the NWA Champion in.