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ohtani's jacket

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  1. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #457. Man, I love Hashimoto's theme music, and his ring entrance was so fucking great. Hashimoto vs. Anjoh is a match-up I could watch all day long. Normally, I'd hate this shoot style vs. pro-style stuff, but I've never really considered Anjoh a great shoot stylist. To me, he's always been a pro-wrestler doing a shooter gimmick, and I mean that in all sincerity as I really do like Anjoh. Hashimoto vs. Takayama was another great looking match-up. Hell, Hashimoto vs. anyone seems like a great looking match up circa 1996. The match itself was really only half-decent. It was comparable to some of those WAR vs. New Japan tags but Hirata didn't have much on a guy like Hara. But it was prime Hashimoto, so I ate it up all the same.
  2. ohtani's jacket
    #458 -- History has not been kind to this match. I guess in '97 people expected more spectacular high spots from a cruiser weight bout, but this really was an excellent bout with great psychology and tremendous wrestling from both men. By far and away one of the best Jericho bouts I've seen, and the only time I ever like Chris Jericho is begrudgingly. Even Heenan and Schiavone seemed to forget about the NWO for five minutes and got drawn into this one. This is the kind of match I would have bypassed before this list thinking it was like other disappointing PPV matches like that Eddie vs. Malenko match from Starrcade, but this is super underrated. Worth a revisit if you haven't, people.
  3. ohtani's jacket
    #461 -- My takeaway from this is that there was a kernel of a really great Valentine vs. Garvin NWA bout in this amid all the goofy WWF bullshit and that kernel was stiff enough and hard-hitting enough to counter the missteps down the stretch like the repeated pin attempts or the face Garvin made. Most of all I love how this feud made the Hammer relevant again albeit for a short time. Valentine dropped the elbow on that phasing down. I wanna watch the rest of the matches in their series now.
  4. ohtani's jacket
    #466. The Bodies were good in this and everything, but I really don't need to see Lance Storm wrestle. This wouldn't have been all that memorable without Jericho's blade job. Ross was in his element here with the bah gawds coming thick and fast. It ended up being quite the spectacle, and the Bodies did an awesome job of working over Jericho's head injury. The finish was shoddy, though I did like Cornette kicking the bottom rope and hobbling about on his foot. Match gets points for being memorable.
  5. ohtani's jacket
    #467. Rapid fire spotfest that wasn't really for me. I prefer the earlier MPro stuff with a cast of characters I could get into.
  6. ohtani's jacket
    #468 I'm not a huge fan of Eddie from this era, but he was starting to show the type of poise and in-ring character that would go on to make him, in my view, one of the great performers of the modern era. This match was technically good as both men had superb execution, but I'm not sure that the whole "Mexican born" guy chasing his American dream story really meshed with what looked like more of a holdover from Los Gringos Locos. That may have just been Joey Styles' shitty commentary, or maybe it was because Eddie tried to work heel, was cheered by the crowd for his moves and then earned that now cliched "respect" from his opponent. I didn't see much cockiness or arrogance from Scorpio either. What I saw was what you get in most Scorpio bouts and that's a ton of bomb throwing. The latter half of the match really had too much bomb throwing to be honest. I also thought Scorpio lifted Eddie's shoulder after the two count but then I couldn't really understand what the ref was gesturing and Scorpio's reaction was one of disbelief not cockiness. Anyway, if there was that thread of a story there it wasn't set up or paid off in a satisfying way. The nice execution made for a good match, though.
  7. ohtani's jacket
    I'm gonna try to be positive about Loss' #469. Firstly, it appealed to that most Japanese of sensibilities of a fighter showing fighting spirit in a loss. Second, the flurry Tamura has where it seems like the impossible might happen is a really cool moment in the bout. Thirdly, these are the type of Vader bouts I liked in Germany. What irked me most, though, wasn't that this wasn't shoot style. I can live with it being a crazy spectacle. What bugged me was the finish. Couldn't Vader have learnt a shoot style hold instead of throwing out pro-style moves? If they didn't want Vader to TKO Tamura with strikes, I would have liked to have seen Vader grab an armbar or something unorthodox from the big man, But that's just me.
  8. ohtani's jacket
    I could only find a JIP version of Loss' #473 but loved it. There was nothing really special about what Flair or Morton were doing but the crowd were super hot and both guy's characters were so clearly defined that you just enjoyed the fact it was Flair vs. Morton in front of a hot crowd. I swear until my dying day that as soon as Flair cut his hair it was over. It's like Samson and Delilah.
  9. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #474. This started off well and Bourne looked like an absolute beast, but Kerry sucked too much for me to rate this too highly. Those discus punches were abysmal. I've always loathed matches that go backstage. I can barely tolerate matches that go around the arena. I'm kind of surprised by how many people thought it was cool that they half-arsed it on a pickup truck in the middle of a thunderstorm. The real fight here seemed to die out once they left the ring.
  10. ohtani's jacket
    I hadn't seen Loss' #477 in years so decided to give it a whirl. Great little match. It's Joshi so some of the transitions aren't the greatest but the battle from the mat to the high impact moves is as dogged and hard fought as any match in the 500-451 to date. Cutie was always a fierce competitor and she showed that in spades here, and the Scorpion was a talented "mystery girl" in the same vein that the Tarantula had been in the 80s. Stylistically, this reminded me of what Chigusa, Asuka and Omori were trying to do on the back of the UWF boom in the mid-to-late 80s. They really mixed up shoot style and Joshi puroresu well and had a committed, hard fought bout.
  11. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #488 was a great piece of TV. Solid promo from Baxter to start with, really good studio bout, and a well executed angle to finish with. Felt like classic Memphis TV. Entertaining from wire to wire.
  12. ohtani's jacket
    I could only see the clipped version of #484 w/ Zbyszko on commentary, but you take what you can get. The focus of the clipped version is Larry Z's commentary. Larry was a great talker and it was easy to get suckered into his outrageous take on the match. Some offensive comments, but hey, Zbyszko made a living out of being obnoxious. Would have to see the complete version to actually concentrate on the bout.
  13. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #480 was a well worked house show bout. I've enjoyed what little PG-13 I've seen in the past and this was another solid performance from them. It had all the ingredients of an enjoyable house show bout and just enough action to avoid being a match that was all about heat. I liked Dudley in this match too. His stuff on offense looked good and his bumping and selling helped carry the action. The hot tag wasn't that great and neither was the finish but Pete mentioned something about Whipwreck had a knee injury and he did look fairly immobile at times. Were PG-13 the best tag team in wrestling at this point?
  14. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #478 was better than I thought it would be. Hansen vs. Terry was still pretty fun in 1990, but I actually think I liked Dory taking the fight to Stan even more. The Funks were relics of a bygone age at this point but I guess there's nothing All Japan crowds like more than the Funks having one more last hurrah.
  15. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #481. Tamura was still a little raw here and really hadn't had that many fights under his belt up until this point. I'm guessing that's the reason why it was such a scrappy affair. The mat stuff was okay but the stand up portions weren't as good as in later Tamura fights. Things got a bit loose down the finishing stretch and I disliked that Samoan drop thing Tamura did. Overall, it was better than anything I can remember Tamura doing in the UWF, so it was likely his best match to date, but like most novices they were a bit too ambitious down the stretch and lost their way a bit.
  16. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #483. Savage does his favourite trick of selling a knee injury, but there's no denying the man was good at it. I liked the transition from Savage's early brawling to Michaels and Sherri taking over on offense. I didn't mind Michaels going back to the figure four so much as they worked it differently each time and I loved the slaps to the face. Savage reversing it and Michaels clambering for the ropes was a nice touch and the crowd bought into Michael's finger across the throat on the final go through. The only thing I didn't like was the set-up to the flying elbow. The turnbuckle selling was great but I had a hard time believing Michaels would stay down that long from a posting and a clothesline. Nice post-match attack, though. And the rest of the match was rock solid. I wonder how good their other matches were that year.
  17. ohtani's jacket
    My bad if that's the case. There were a few other channels that used to upload WoS matches like https://www.youtube.com/user/mike06052 and https://www.youtube.com/user/wrestlaz Recently, there have been some full length original WoS episodes uploaded by this guy -- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcBjp6k-E-9Bh3Z7v9yxaA/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0 and full length M&M episodes here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6e_hofDmYgegf3_tHJMm0g
  18. ohtani's jacket
    This has bothered me a lot since I read it. An awful thing. My condolences to his family, especially his brave wife.
  19. ohtani's jacket
    What do we know about 80s JWP in terms of how they drew? Same for LLPW? I presume the answer is "not well" and certainly not "hall of fame level." But I don't really know much about that and I'm a little curious. One thing I was struck by watching Kandori vs Devil from 88 recently was the crowd. It wasn't enormous, but it appears to be a mostly adult male audience. One thing that is always pointed to in Aja Kong's favor is her influence in drawing the hardcore male fans based on appearing on those Hamada's UWF shows and helping move Joshi away from catering to the younger girl audience. I'm wondering if that was fairly consistent at JWP shows in the 80s or if that match was an anomaly. Its not an entire HOF case by any means, but looking back at the "Golden Age" of Joshi Wrestling, Hokuto vs Kandori is one of the first things to come to mind. I guess I'm just more curious about her career. She comes across like a big deal watching footage but discussion of that era, where it exists, is usually centered around ring work. All this said, I agree with everything Tim said above except for the part about Kyoko. Kandori and Kansai strike me as the two best candidates from that era. Neither strike me as particularly strong candidates for the Hall in general, but I think both, especially Kandori, are pretty interesting figures to think about on some level. I don't think the original JWP particularly catered to the school girl audience. They initially had some backing from the producer behind a popular idea group at the time, which was a large part of the reason why the wrestlers were dressed in more elaborate costumes than the traditional All Japan "bathing suits." But New Japan was quite heavily involved w/ the women training at the New Japan dojo and Kandori herself preferring to spar with men and eventually Shinma, Onita and Hamada started pulling it this way and that trying to turn it into a multi-style promotion ala the original UWF before the shoot style guys took over. The women wanted it to continue as a women's promotion and the internal split eventually led to the formation of FMW and Hamada's UWF. JWP up until that point hadn't been making any money. They mostly ran small venues like they do today and their video releases were these overpriced, terribly shot handhelds that you had to write away for. They had no TV presence whatsoever and mostly drew the hardcores. Kandori was either fired or suspended after she shot on Jackie Sato (I don't remember which) and when she returned she became the first freelance wrestler in Joshi puroresu history. All Japan wanted to bring her in for a big match with Chigusa prior to Chigusa's 1989 retirement but apparently they wanted Kandori to sign a five year contract and she was only prepared to sign a one year deal so the fight fell threw. That may have been her best chance to be a significant draw prior to the inter-promotional period. One of the cool things about the Hokuto vs. Kandori feud is that it was very much a worked shoot. Kandori was unpopular in the pro-wrestling community and seen as an outsider from the Judo world who didn't have a true love for professional wrestling and Hokuto called her out on that in her promos. There's no way Kandori was a HOF draw or even that big a star, but she was a regular on the late night comedy shows given many of the comedians were fans of wrestling and you can see some of that stuff on YouTube. You should watch Kandori and Kazama watching Fujiwara direct a porno, if you haven't. It's kind of ironic considering Kazama went on to do porn. And Fujiwara directing a porn is as great as you'd imagine. He sits in this chair drinking a bottle of whiskey and directing the sex scene. Anyway, Kandori was a regular on these type of shows and had a huge amount of charisma. Her nickname was Mr. Joshi Puroresu and they would often play off that image that she was more like a man than a female wrestler. She also gained some notoriety for running for the Upper House elections and eventually getting a seat as a Japanese lawmaker.
  20. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #491 was a simple Choshu style match that was reasonably well executed. A lack of strikes and some dull matwork prevented it from being truly exciting and the finishing stretch was kind of predictable. Still, it accomplished what it set out to do, welcoming the returning Muto back into the fold and letting him know where he sat in the hierarchy.
  21. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #494. For once I agree with myself from four years ago. The match is decent but it's very much an aging Steamboat against a less experienced and more limited Austin than his WWF peak. Some of the action is good but there are small lulls too like Austin's bear hug. And a finish like that just makes the past 10-12 minutes seem inconsequential. The ode to WM III was a neat touch and something I didn't pick up on four years ago.
  22. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #493. I can't find this anywhere (if it's hiding somewhere), but I did find a bunch of Jake's SMW promos online and I've got to say that Jake was still the best promo guy in wrestling at this point. The best thing about Jake's heel act in '94 was his insistence that nothing was ever his fault. It didn't matter whether he DDT'ed the Dirty White Girl, or cut a promo sitting at home, he managed to be psychotic, scary and compelling.
  23. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #496. Like Matt, I watched the rematch first, but hey, two matches for the price of one. UWF-i is like the AAA of shoot style to me and pretty much made a mockery of the style, but I did get suckered into this. I mean where else can you see three US big men wrestle like a collegiate wrestler, a sumo wrestler and a boxer? That's pretty much what the UWF-i style allowed the US guys to do. You can argue til the cows come home how good they were at it, but at the end of the day the crowd were hot for the matches and everybody wanted to see Vader vs. Albright, which was clearly the selling point. Nothing really pure, but nothing you'd see in the US either. Great use of swearing too.
  24. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #498. DDP impressed me on commentary here and Goldberg's entrance predated the UFC in some ways, but the match itself didn't do much for me. Felt like a smart blockbuster flick at best, but way too short, and the finish let most of the air out of the balloon. A decent main event for 1998 television, but by no means historically great. 499 is available on Ditch's site, btw.
  25. ohtani's jacket
    Loss' #499 is a fun match. Starts off by resembling a lucha tag, culminating in a pair of swank topes, then shifts to move of a juniors focus with a series of finishers and nearfalls. There's not a great deal of narrative to speak of, but the action moves at a steady pace and Hoshikawa's quasi-shooter gimmick provides a nice counter-balance to the lucha influences. Would have been an entertaining bout to watch live.
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