ohtani's jacket

i watched that MVC vs. Hansen/Deaton match from '93 where the MVC jump Hansen and beat the shit out of him all match long. Great selling from Stan and everything, but I don't see how we're supposed to feel sorry for him. The guy had been doing the same shit to people his entire career. What goes around, comes around, Stan.

Ric Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin, 3/9/86 Now it's time for a handheld from the Omni in Atlanta. Pretty much what you'd expect from these two if you'd been following the TV. Flair had made every excuse under the sun for being knocked out by Garvin from a loaded fist to a cheap shot to a lucky punch. He spends the early part of the match goading Garvin into punching him. Garvin threatens to start boxing Flair and Ric starts begging off. Garvin beats Flair up until Flair does something underhanded to get back into the match. Garvin fights his way back and gets a pinfall opportunity. Flair manages to kick out and the crowd blame Tommy Young. The footage is clipped and there a lot of jump cuts, which makes it difficult to get into the flow of the bout, but it basically continues along similar lines. It's a lot slower than their studio stuff, which obviously suits Flair from a kayfabe point of view. They chase each other around the ring a lot and Garvin pulls Flair's tights down four times, which was probably three times too many. He knocks Flair out, but his leg buckles and he can't make the pin. Eventually, they get counted out and the heat just vanishes. Garvin knocks him out again and claps a three count, but the building is dead. Pretty average.

Yeah, I've seen the Mendoza match as well as the Angel Blanco match, though I was probably focusing more on the luchadores at the time. He's certainly a great worker in the '78-79 footage we have. The junior heavyweight style is a bit limiting in terms of the matches being sub 15 minutes for the most part and Fujinami pretty much always winning with a german or dragon suplex instead of on the mat, but he was as good as anyone I've seen from the period.

Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 3/1/86 Garvin cuts a weakish promo laying down a challenge to Arn Anderson and claiming he's become a carpenter as well as a truck driver. Ronnie Garvin vs. Arn Anderson, WCW, 3/1/86 Solid World Television title match between Garvin and Anderson. Flair shows up after the commercial break to add some spice on commentary. Flair's ongoing battle with Crockett has been one of the highlights of the discs thus far. The match goes the distance and Flair distracts Garvin long enough for Arn to deliver a gourdbuster. Flair is a little too excited by this counting three on Garvin and getting up in Crockett's face. The replay of the gourdbuster looked like it hurt Arn more than it did Garvin. Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 3/8/86 Garvin's an electrician now. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 3/8/86 One of those rambling promos Flair was guilty of from time to time. He salvages it though with a great line about a wrestler without a title being like a man with no country.

Some of Fujinami's other 70s stuff: The Seoul match against Hoshino is a fairly standard juniors match but has plenty of decent action. The Tony Rocco match from LA is nowhere near as good as their match from the 80s set, but still has its moments and Rocco is definitely a guy I wish we had more of. Fujinami vs. Ted Adams from the Garden is sloppy at times, but I enjoyed Lord Alfred Hayes' play-by-play. Fujinami vs. Mando Guerrero was probably the best match of the stuff I watched this evening, but even I'll admit it's a little dry. Fujinami vs. Greg Valentine was rad, but that may be the Hammer fan in me talking. I also saw a couple of minutes of Dynamite Kid vs. Fujinami from Stampede, but it wasn't a patch on Dynamite's UK stuff. So far, the Go stuff is head and shoulders above the rest of Fujinami's 70s output.

You've watched a lot of his well known singles matches already. I don't think there's much point in recommending trios matches. You could try the 1993 title match against Ultimo Dragon, the double hair vs. mask Scorpio/Bestia vs. Santo/Casas match from '99, and the Panther hair match from 2012, which is worked more like a title match than a hair match. I know you didn't like the '92 Santo match from the yearbook, but there's a 1991 handheld between them and a commercially released bout from '91. He's had a run of singles matches in recent years that others love more than me. If you want to go deeper than they're easily available.

The 2/93 Hansen match is one I've never been as high on as others and that continued to be the case this time. The match is too evenly weighted between the pair, and I just don't care about the transitions to and from offense, especially after watching so many other Hansen matches lately. It also bugs me that he works Kawada's leg over yet the entire stretch run is Kawada throwing kicks. That wouldn't bother me ordinarily but other workers get called on that all the time. I preferred Kawada's work with Williams to this.

The Ryuma Go series from '78 to '79 is frigging awesome. Individually, I wouldn't consider any of the matches among the greatest of all-time, but the series as a whole is one of the best I've seen from the 70s. The matches are mostly worked on the mat, which means the last few minutes are spent ditching all that beautiful matwork and trying to win the match with throws, but the way the matwork escalates over the three match series is phenomenal. The matwork is more shoot style like than other 70s stuff, and when they start using open handed palm strikes and Go's mouth is bloodied hard way, the series tips from exciting juniors work to classic match-up territory. Go was a fantastic worker, but I'm still impressed that Fujinami could have a series this good with a native peer during the same period where so many guys were billed with foreigners. Gem of a series. People should check it out if they haven't.

There are different theories about why he took the name Antonio but one of them is that Rikidozan wanted to push him as a Brazilian nisei whom he found working on the fields in Sao Paulo. Nisei is the name given to second generation children born to Japanese immigrants. Inoki made it public after Rikidozan's death that he was born in Yokohama, but the nisei thing must have stuck because you can find people writing about it prior to the Ali fight. The first time he used the name was on November 9th, 1962 in Okinawa according to a Baseball magazine reference on his Wikipedia page. In the early part of the 20th century, Brazil had a labour shortage on their coffee plantations and signed a treaty with the Japanese government permitting Japanese migration to Brazil. Roughly 240,000 people immigrated between 1906 and 1993 with the second biggest period being the post-war years of 1956-60.

Lizmark spent a lot of time working trios matches with Atlantis and Rayo Jalisco Jr. in those years. After he dropped the NWA World Middleweight title to Satanico at the end of '83, I think he challenged for it again during Satanico's reign, but in the light heavyweight class, Ringo Mendoza and then Rayo Jalisco Jr were the tecnico NWA champs in that time period and nobody seemed to care about the National title. Lizmark was involved in the establishment of the WWA title in '86, but not the promoters choice for the initial champ, which was El Cobrade II.

I couldn't find any more Liger matches so I ended up watching the 1993 Top of the Super Juniors final against El Samurai. It was a pretty good match actually. Better than any of the Liger bouts. I needed to go out, but I was keen to see the finish and toyed with being late, which has to be the sign of a good match. Benoit's selling and transitions sucked, and I thought El Samurai was easily the better worker, but like Dynamite Kid, Benoit brought the offense like few others. Good match in spite of Benoit's pop-ups.

I couldn't find any more Liger matches so I ended up watching the 1993 Top of the Super Juniors final against El Samurai. It was a pretty good match actually. Better than any of the Liger bouts. I needed to go out, but I was keen to see the finish and toyed with being late, which has to be the sign of a good match. Benoit's selling and transitions sucked, and I thought El Samurai was easily the better worker, but like Dynamite Kid, Benoit brought the offense like few others. Good match in spite of Benoit's pop-ups.

The 1996 Hansen/Kobashi match was... not very good. I was surprised by how many people liked this on the '96 Yearbook. It seems obvious to me that they didn't know how to work a match where Kobashi was the champion and Hansen the challenger. The commentator wouldn't stop mentioning how young Kobashi was, how he was the new champion and the fact Hansen was 47 and yet Kobashi looked worse here than he did in 1991-93 and the match was devoid of any new ideas.

The 1996 Hansen/Kobashi match was... not very good. I was surprised by how many people liked this on the '96 Yearbook. It seems obvious to me that they didn't know how to work a match where Kobashi was the champion and Hansen the challenger. The commentator wouldn't stop mentioning how young Kobashi was, how he was the new champion and the fact Hansen was 47 and yet Kobashi looked worse here than he did in 1991-93 and the match was devoid of any new ideas.

Review is up -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-478-vintage-negro-casas-of-the-day-19/

Negro Casas/Fuerza Guerrera vs. El Hijo del Santo/Octagon, Cd. Juarez, circa 1990-91 I'm hopelessly out of the loop (not that I was ever really in it to begin with), but it looks like some Mexican channel is re-airing footage from the Cicudad Juarez territory that Alfredo Esparza grew up watching in El Paso, which is pretty cool to say the least. To me the single most interesting thing about this bout is watching Casas work with Octagon. It's almost like watching a proto version of the Casas/Dragon feud, and you can almost imagine an alternative universe where Octagon doesn't lead the jump to AAA and Casas becomes one of his regular opponents. Casas does some slick defensive takedown work in their opening exchange and makes Octagon look like a proper threat as a martial artist, which is impressive. I have a soft spot for Octagon as a poor man's version of Black Man zipping about the place, but not even Blue Panther or Satanico bothered or managed to make Octagon look this good in close quarters. Casas does this tremendously intricate sell of a front face lock that most wrestlers wouldn't bother doing so early in a match (if at all) where he's fighting it every inch of the way and trying to get his chin over the top of Octagon's forearm to alleviate the pressure. He counters with a backdrop suplex, staggers for a bit, then backs away grasping at his teeth. At that's just the detail he put into the opening exchange. He also does a tremendous job of selling Santo's matwork. Santo is super aggressive, but Casas is on another plane here. He makes Santo's signature mat spots look like Santo is out to get a piece of him and puts them over like nobody I've seen before. The Fuerza/Santo exchanges are fairly tame by comparison. Not bad per se just regular. Fuerza bumped harder and faster for Octagon than anybody else, and made his armdrags look like a million bucks, but this was a quiet night for him. Really great standoff between Casas and Octagon to end the first caida. Casas looks to assert himself physically and gets his feathers ruffled. You can see his temper flare as he points at Octagon and it proves his undoing as he rushes him, which is exactly what you don't want to do against a worker like Octagon, who if nothing else had fantastic reflexes. After spending most of the bout getting roughed up, Casas pops Octagon with a straight shot. The ref questions whether it was a closed fist and Casas threatens to pop him one too. Then he takes Octagon to school. There's something Ric Flair-ish about Casas at times. Different offense, but a similar approach. His barrage of kicks here is definitely a forerunner to the Dragon feud where he'd also add insult to injury by showing he could "shoot" too. Casas crouching low as they prepare to lock up and delivering a type of low angle enzuigiri kick is probably my favouite spot of the match. Octagon tears Casas to pieces with his retaliatory blows and Casas' selling is again sublime. The rudos finally get to assert a bit of control through the end of the second caida into the third, but they're dealing with superheroes in the classic tednico sense here and it doesn't last long. I can't stop talking about Casas' selling, but it's just non-stop great. He manages to get Santo in a hold for a few seconds until Santo grabs Casas' foot and begins his counter. Few wrestlers would sell agony in another worker taking the leg, but that's exactly what Casas does. He's just on all the time. He even fights the counter instead of giving up position, which a lot of lucha workers do when they're transitioning. Then he limps to his corner when Fuerza breaks the hold. That level of commitment on a run-of-the-mill Juarez appearance is impressive. The tercera caida doesn't have a whole lot of pizzazz to it despite some signature stuff from the tecnicos. The workers look a bit tired toward the end. Still, a pretty good match with an outstanding performance from Casas.

So, I'm watching Herodes on Eurosport in 1991 and the finish doesn't seem as though it went to plan. Any idea what's going on here?

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 44 Kwick-Kick Lee vs. Crusher Brannigan (4/7/82) East meets West in this international heavyweight contest. It's kind of weird watching a World of Sport match that doesn't feature a British or European worker, but it was actually pretty good for what it was. Maeda was over with the Bolton crowd and they reacted well to the all-in style of the two heavyweights. Maeda was actually a fairly decent worker in his pre-UWF days. The stories always say that he hated the wrestling he was exposed to at this time, but you couldn't tell it from his in-ring attitude. Then again it's hard to believe he'd be at the forefront of the shoot style revolution watching him sell for a guy like Brannigan. Brannigan cut a promo afterwards, which is always fun watching the North Americans do. Now it's turn for a big batch of Eurosport, which surprisingly enough isn't as bad as I was expecting. Steve Regal vs. Colonel Brody (Eurosport, circa 1990) Steve Regal vs. Drew McDonald (Eurosport, circa 1991) A couple of tidy Regal bouts. He looks really smooth here. Nice arm work, fluid bumping and selling. Orig Williams is the commentator here and makes the prophetic comment that Regal will end up working for WCW and the WWF. I have to say I much prefer Williams as a commentator to a wrestler, though he's shocking at times like in the McDonald bout where he won't stop calling Big Daddy the greatest British Heavyweight of all-time (greater than Assirati and Billy Robinson in Orig's words -- yuck.) At other times his duclet tones remind me of Bill McLaren. McDonald looked in pretty good shape in the Regal bout. He still seems like a case of unfulfilled potential to me, but he looked good here. Brody also looked better than usual. Perhaps the common factor was Regal. An astute observation there, huh? Steve Casey vs. Johnny South (Eurosport, circa 1991) I think a lot of these are from the same taping. Some catch promotion called EWF. For some reason, Williams was trying to push South as an Irishman. I guess that explains the name change in Reslo to "Shaun" South. I'm pretty sure he was from Manchester originally. Orig did drop a piece of knowledge on me that Casey was the son of Wild Angus. I either didn't know that or had forgotten it, as Walton never mentioned it on air. South is one of my favourite post-WoS workers when he dials down the shtick a bit and this was a fun bout with some good action. Steve Adonis vs. Herodes (Eurosport, circa 1991) Yes Herodes is that Herodes, and he looks pretty good in a non-lucha setting for a guy who was already past his prime in Mexico. Unfortunately, Orig goes off on this wild tangent about how Adonis is a first year guy and doesn't have the knowledge or know-how to compete with a guy like Herodes. He wouldn't shut up about it despite the fact Adonis had been around for a few years by that point. He name dropped Hogan here claiming that it was Adonis' ambition to reach the same heights as Hogan but he had a long way to go. It was almost bordering on a burial at times. McDonald got involved at ringside, but there was some sort of miscommunication over the finish, and after an amateurish mix-up, Adonis had the sheepish task of reacting on the mic to some outside interference that didn't really happen. The Eurosport matches are short, but they're better than a lot of the later Reslo stuff.

Ric Flair & Arn Anderson vs. Dusty Rhodes & Ronnie Garvin, WWW, 2/22/86 The Risky Business Boys. The crowd is super hot for this. Shortish bout with the faces dominating on offence. Flair takes a beating in the early going. The finish sees Garvin knock Flair out again and the faces celebrate like a "kid with a new toy." Crockett is super excited the punch during the wrap-up. Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 2/22/86 Tony suggests Garvin can knock Flair out any time he likes. Garvin compares people who like Flair to people who thought Adolf Hitler and Charlie Manson were great men. That's a bit harsh. Says he's driving a truck four hours a week so that he can claim a truck driver beat Ric Flair and that the new $30,000 big gold belt is a hell of an incentive. Ric Flair & Arn Anderson promo, WCW, 2/22/86 Arn cuts a solid promo about being the world television champ and running with Flair before Tony & David drop some footage of Garvin knocking Flair out after a 60 minute time limit draw. Flair delivers an impassioned rant about Crockett and Schiavone always looking to insult him. He tells Crockett to warn Garvin that if keeps messing around with him the same thing that happened to Dusty is going to happen to him. Tony has a smug look of satisfaction afterward. And that's the end of disc one.

I think Jumbo looks good in the 70s stuff I've watched and you can see him progressing and growing, but I do think he's being carried in the sense that I don't think he'd be having a laundry list of great matches if he was wrestling other young guys and not some of the bigger names in the business. The point is there's a disconnect between that and the claim that he's top 10 for the decade on tape or even top 30 in years where's enough footage to evaluate that. I don't have any say in what others have told you before, and I'm not suggesting you change anything about the way you rank Jumbo. I'm exploring the claim. I might even come around to your way of thinking who knows, but it's not entirely about leading a match. Steamboat's contributions to matches called by Flair seems greater thus far than what Jumbo has brought to his bouts.

I miss the Truth I came of age reading that paper, even if at times I needed shower after consuming it. The TV guide was the go to for WWF results for sure I had a WWF magazine subscription in 89-90 and it wasnt cheap either. First time I remembered WWF on screen here it was a Superstars where Hacksaw was being choked out by Andre. We owned a video store and WM4 was the first event we had on VHS The first episode of Suoerstars I saw had Hacksaw fight Andre and attack him with the 2x4 afterwards. I remember getting into the Summer Slam '88 build and then seeing the Beefcake/Outlaw Ron Bass angle and being hooked. I can still remember Hogan showing up after his hiatus and having no idea who he was.

The only time I got to see SNME growing up was the clips on Superstars. We got all the PPVs free-to-air, albeit months behind, so we lived from PPV to PPV with spoilers in the TV guide. I've seen matches from SNME but I've never seen an entire episode. Maybe I ought to rectify that.

Ted was a good worker, but regardless of his credentials. his WWF matches weren't as good as Boss Man's. I agreed with Matt on that point categorically after watching their matches, and since Boss Man wasn't being carried I don't see how the metric is skewered. I'm sure there is a point where Jumbo no longer defers to his more experienced opponent and begins asserting himself as a worker. When he reaches the point where he deserves the majority of the credit for how good his matches are is the point where his prime begins, IMO.