ohtani's jacket

What I want to know is how you can complain so much about modern wrestling and yet hand out five star ratings to upper mid-card bouts.

Hashimoto vs. Victor Zangiev.

I don't think you can compare live streaming to the tape trading days. If this were 1997, we'd be reading about this match for months trying to figure out how to get hold of a copy then waiting weeks for it to be dubbed and sent out. It's like comparing Spotify to record hunting or Netflix to not having cable. When I was a kid and you wanted to build up your comic book collection you went through the back issues bin. Now you can get enitre back catalogs available for a few dollars a month. If you want to go back further than that, many of us grew up watching syndicated wrestling programs that had brief recaps of he major angles from shows we never got to see. When I was a kid, you lived from one PPV to the next. We're talking months not monthly shows. So, I kind of understand why it's so transient. And it's not just limited to the Twitter-sphere either. Look at the Last Battle of Atlanta. People waited decades to see that match and stopped talking about it after a month.

I actually quite like 80s music. 80s cinema is interesting too. You have to dig a little deeper than in other decades but in many ways that's more rewarding. I'm also a big fan of 80s sports and the comic books and toys carry a lot of nostalgia for me since it was the era I grew up in. By and large I feel the 80s get a bad rap in pop culture. As for the topic at hand, let the young people have their modern day wrestling. There's plenty of older stuff for us old farts to sink our teeth into.

Mine are pretty simple: 1. Finish going through Loss' top 500. 2. Continue watching Golden Age stuff until I run out of footage. 3. Keep up-to-date with modern lucha as it happens.

Thanks to the poster, Seabs, I got to see the Thesz vs. Silverstein bout that WWE put a copyright claim on. Steve Yohe wrote a long and fascinating post on this match once on Wrestling Classics about whether Thesz was deliberately trying to make Silverstein look bad -- http://wrestlingclassics.com/cgi-bin/.ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=004421;p=0 For the uninitiated, it looked like Thesz was playing the role of heel champ with his baiting and deliberate cheap shots. Whether he was stiffing Silverstein is something I'll have to watch out for when I view it again. It wasn't one of Thesz' better bouts but if read Yohe's account that may have been Thesz' intention. Another viewing is in order me thinks.

Here's the next batch of matches: Skull Murphy & Brute Bernard vs. The Bavarian Boys, Rudi Jacobs and Harry Wenzel was two gimmicked tag teams well before the days of The Killer Bees and the Bolsheviks, and so on. The match was deathly dull despite the fact that the Bavarians were German wrestlers and anybody who knows me knows that Euro wrestlers pique my interest. It's not really a knock on the wrestlers as such, it's just that matches where the heels are overtly cheating is not high on my list of what I want to see from Golden Era pro-wrestling. Nick Lutze vs. Pio Pico from 1937 is a wrestler vs, boxer match long before the Japanese ever thought of it. Proof positive that there's nothing new under the sun. Ali Baba vs. Dick Lever was amusing since the footage was sped up and the voice over narrator had to try and follow the action as best he could. Moose Cholak & The Mighty Atlas vs. The Fabulous Kangaroos, Roy Heffernan & Al Costello, was interesting. It was another wild brawl but Cholak made it memorable by working the Navy boys in the crowd and doing this weird spot where he tried to make a moose sound and charge at his opponent. The Gallagher Brothers vs. Bobo Brazil and Billy Red Lyons was more of the same with cheating heels and the babyfaces suffering injustice after injustice. No doubt it was what the paying customer wanted to see, but it means very little to me today. Bronco Nagurski vs. Vincent Lopez from 1937 was the most excited I was during this footage. Nagurski looks like he was a fine wrestler. I read a piece by Steve Yohe recently that said that Lopez couldn't really wrestle and perhaps that was the case here. He hung on for dear life during the hook-ups but Nagurski ended up knocking him silly. I don't know how much Lopez was selling as they carried him away, but if it was acting there hasn't been a better sell job on a TKO since 1937. Next was some film of Don Evans vs. Jim Corbett and Primo Carnera vs. Laverne Baxter. I didn't like the smart ass narrator on this newsreel. In the first match he shat all over kayfabe by explaining the psychology behind wrestling and in the second he shat all over Carnera's boxing career. Whether Carnera's boxing career is something that deserves to be shat over, I couldn't say. but Carnera was tried pretty poorly here and it definitely wasn't a star turning number from anyone involved. Sweet Daddy Siki & Sailor Art Thomas vs. Lou Albano and Jack Owens was the first time I have seen Captain Lou Albano wrestle. I guess I can tick that off mybucket list. He wasn't too bad actually, but this bout was all about Sweet Daddy Aki looking like a Sweet Daddy. Afterward, he had a medallion on and was presented with a gift from the official Sweet Daddy fan club. It was a personalized Sweet Daddy shirt that the members had chipped into have made. Siki cut an awkward response and suddenly the Kangaroos showed up to take a look at the jersey and tear it into shreds. Sweet Daddy couldn't string together a coherent promo after his shirt was torn but it was an awesome segment nonetheless. More clips from the 30s and 40s. The most interesting clip was a compilation of newsreel stories about wrestling from France, the US, Germany and Australia. Early French wrestling was interesting to say the least. Following that was a match between Pat O'Connor and Jack Wilson. I'd seen this before, but O'Connor is a New Zealander like myself and a pretty wrestler to watch. The best thing about it was the promo the commentator cut between falls about the NWA World Heavyweight belt. That was awesome. Howard Martin vs. Angelo Poffo wasn't notable for Poffo as such as it was for his manager Bronco Lubich. Yeah, that same Bronco Lubich who was a ref in Wiorld Class. He had a black suit and bow toe and tried interfering with his cane ala Sir William. Almost surreal if you've watched any amount of World Class.

I finally finished matches #350-301. I thought I'd never get out of this section of the list as there was so many things I watched to watch and revisit. This list really does show how broad Loss' taste in wrestling is, though there was a bit too much All Japan this time round Tomoaki Honma Big Japan matches are officially the most difficult thing to find on the internet. Forget lucha, Big Japan death matches are what's truly underrepresented. As always, the matches I enjoyed most: 344. Rey Misterio Jr. vs Psicosis (ECW TV 10/17/95) 343. Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi vs Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi (AJPW New Years Giant Series 01/24/92) 337. Cactus Jack vs Sabu (NWC 10/30/94, Falls Count Anywhere) 316. Shinobu Kandori & Utazo Hozumi vs Bull Nakano & Takako Inoue (LLPW 11/09/93) 314. Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda (FMW Origin 05/05/93) 311. Keiji Muto vs Shinya Hashimoto (NJPW G-1 Climax 08/15/95) 307. Lightning Kid vs Jerry Lynn (PWA 04/18/91, No DQ)

I'm back again. How can Misawa/Taue compete? 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.

#311 Is there anything more spine-tingling in wrestling than Hashimoto's entrance? I absolutely love this match. There was some debate in the Misawa/Taue thread over which was the better match, but I thought this was the better match by several lengths. The drama, the selling, the missed moves from the top -- wonderful. The cagey beginning, Hashimoto's kicks, the great man urging Mutoh to get back up, Mutoh reopening the cut, the Sergio Leone standoff before the finish (an old Chris Coey line I'm stealing here) -- all of added to a Finals atmosphere and an epic G1 climax. You could pick holes in it if you like. I'm not the biggest fan of Keiji Mutoh's offense and the finish was iffy, but the rest of this was a slam dunk. I'm off to watch the Misawa/Taue match again to see how it can possibly compete.

#312 Give the Kliq their due. They may have been pricks backstage, but they knew how to work a good old Southern tag and make each other look good. I was also surprised by how good Nash looked in this. Makes you wonder if a super motivated Nash could have been closer to someone like Roman Reigns than Big Daddy Cool w/ apologies to people who think Big Daddy Cool was better than Roman Reigns. I mostly agree with everyone else's comments -- there was no excess here and no ego. Even the "Shawn accidentally superkicks his partner" storyline wasn't too overplayed. With this and the Kevin Greene six-man, Loss' list has been a win for the Kliq thus far.

#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.