ohtani's jacket

So I watched the 1976 Rusher Kimura match, and despite the fact I'm skeptical of Jumbo being as good as the great 70s workers who had many more years experience, I do think it shows what a natural Jumbo was and how far he'd progressed in a few short years. It's by no means a great match, but already you can see a number of "Jumbo-isms" albeit in a more youthful context. It's weird seeing Kimura look like a smaller version of Hashimoto, but he's basically the same limited worker as the 80s version. Jumbo doesn't exactly defer to him, but he doesn't stamp his mark all over the match either. I'm sure Baba kept him under a tight leash, so he probably did what he was told at this point, but I think "Jumbo was one of the best young workers of the 70s" is a more apt description than Jumbo was already a top 10 worker. He looked better than most comparable young worker runs, but better than all but a handful of workers? It seems like a stretch.

Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 1/11/86 Ronnie Garvin's hobbies, WCW, 1/11/86 Garvin mangles a series of promos. The basic gist is that he has Flair's number, the Nature Boy is afraid of him, and Garvin is after the belt and the half a million dollars that comes along with it. It's a shame that Garvin wasn't a better talker, but at least it sounds like he was ad-libbing his stuff. Ric Flair/Ronnie Garvin brawl, WCW, 1/18/86 Flair butts his way into Garvin's interview time and cheap shots him. He throws Garvin into the ring, tosses the ref and jobber out and gives Garvin a hiding before sitting on his chest and mocking Garvin's signature pin. The Horsemen show up and it looks like they intend to send Garvin to the hospital, but Dusty and Co make the save. All hell breaks loose and Garvin knocks Flair out off camera. The segment ends with Garvin and friends cutting a defiant promo as the Horsemen carry Flair off. Later, the Horsemen are out with J.J. Dillion claiming it was a cheap shot and Garvin must have had something in his fist to knock Flair out. Tully wants Garvin & Co. to step in the ring like men and Arn considers it a personal insult since Flair is blood. Ronnie Garvin promo, WCW, 1/25/86 Tony calls Garvin's punch "the shot heard round the world," which is a cheeky bit of embellishment. Garvin stumbles through a decent promo about how Flair better call the IRS man and tell him next year when he files income tax he's going to be in a much lower bracket and how he better start selling his limousine and his jet plane and pawn his Rolex to pay his tax bill. Ric Flair promo, WCW, 1/25/86 Flair cuts a promo where he shows off his ass and promises the ladies he'll start wearing jeans like Magnum TA and the Rock 'n' Roll Express so they can see why Slick Ric and Space Mountain are synonymous. He claims Garvin had something in his hand and takes us through the footage. Flair was awesome here. I guess everybody loves it when heels commentate over footage and rattle off a biased account of what happened, but Flair really was sublime here. Crockett keeps goading him about the punch and Ric says he can understand why they're trying to embarrass him because he's gotten to the point in his career where he's so great and so good that once in a while they've got to show the people that he's an average human being on his worst day. Then he switches tack and fires off a series of great lines before pinching Tony's cheek and saying "Tony Schiavone, you tell your wife I said hello brother." Even by Flair's standards that was a pretty tremendous three and half minute promo. Ric Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin, 2/2/86 This wasn't as good as the studio bout from December. They only went about 15 minutes when really a main event length bout was what I wanted to see next. There really wasn't any way the action was going to be any more intense than what we'd already seen so the narrative scope needed to be wider. Instead there as an element of smoke and mirrors. Garvin had Flair pinned for a four count and then knocked him out for a seven count, but when he tried reviving Young, Flair struck with a knee from behind and him even though Garvin had a foot on the ropes. Crockett began blabbering about it and Flair screamed at him to shut up. Served its purpose in terms of making Flair look scared, and gave Garvin ammunition for future promos. but forgettable otherwise. Ron Garvin promo, WCW, 2/2/86 Ron Garvin promo, WCW, 2/9/86 Garvin says Flair is running on empty, Garvin has his number, and he's not gonna quit. He's going to keep trying harder and 1986 is the year Flair is going down.

I think Casas at his best is one of the true geniuses of professional wrestling, but there are plenty of years where he wouldn't be in the top 10 whether it's because of footage issues or the way CMLL is booked. When he had a program like the Dandy and Dragon feuds in '92 or the Santo feud from late '95 to 1998 and the tag feud that followed with Bestia and Scorpio Jr. then he has enough to consider him on, but the dark years of '94-95, or years where there's limited footage such as 1991, it's not really possible. You're going on faith. Then pick a random year like 2003 or 2007. Maybe I'm taking things too literally, but I think there's probably only half a dozen years or so where he was definitively top 10 in the world. Maybe more than that, but probably only around a third of his career on tape. And based on the UWA we do have, it's not really as good as his 90s CMLL stuff. I'm sure he had great stuff prior to '92 that we'll never see, but I'm not sure he had whole chunks of it.

Yip.

The 6/92 Hansen match has a strong performance from Kawada. Hansen took an interesting route of trying to work Kawada's leg over, which led to a lot of sustained leg selling (obviously a strength of Kawada's.) He let Hansen throw him around like a rag doll on a big gutwrench suplex and a high release power bomb. Hansen was licking his chops out there by the end of the bout. I wasn't crazy in love in the theatrical bump Kawada took off the final lariat, but one of the better pre-1994 singles matches from Kawada.

The 6/92 Hansen match has a strong performance from Kawada. Hansen took an interesting route of trying to work Kawada's leg over, which led to a lot of sustained leg selling (obviously a strength of Kawada's.) He let Hansen throw him around like a rag doll on a big gutwrench suplex and a high release power bomb. Hansen was licking his chops out there by the end of the bout. I wasn't crazy in love in the theatrical bump Kawada took off the final lariat, but one of the better pre-1994 singles matches from Kawada.

The Solar/Navarro matches are more quintessential than that Panther bout.

i watched a full length version of this with commentary from Taz and Michael Cole. A more rounded juniors match with the build included, but they drop shit and move to the next sequence with no concern for psychology (in the old parlance.) The internet, surprisingly, doesn't have that many Liger/Benoit matches floating about, so I guess I won't be watching the series in full.

Flair/Ole/Arn vs. Garvin/Whatley/Taylor, WCW, 11/16/85 Super fun six-man tag with Flair and the Andersons looking to cut the ring off and work their man over while the babyfaces keep making spirited comebacks. I love how Flair delivers a running commentary in these studio bouts telling guys how he's gonna take them to school and now they're gonna pay. The Flair fans are awesome as well ("take him to school Ric!") Some great Flair/Garvin action here even if Ronnie hadn't really gotten under his skin yet. Great energy to the bout. Really entertaining TV. Flair/Garvin confrontation and challenge, WCW, 12/21/85 I expect so much of Flair on the mic that sometimes I get a little disappointed when his riffs fall flat, but Flair was brilliant here. Garvin was a fairly limited mic worker and the way Flair played off him was masterful. Ric's at his best when he's indignant about some perceived slight or insult. His rising indignation at Garvin's defiance was a joy to watch. Garvin was limited, but he could get his point across, and this was a great challenge. Ric Flair promos, WCW, 12/21/85 and 12/28/85 Flair cuts a couple of promos hyping the upcoming Garvin match and talking about his sexual prowess. I liked Flair's annoyance at the insinuation he was afraid of Garvin, but this was mostly Flair getting off on being Flair. He was so high on himself in the second promo that he signed off the promo with: "Tony, you're a handsome man." I love the different ways he'd treat Schiavone depending on his mood. Ric Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin, WCW, 12/28/85 Awesome match. I love how serious Flair was after all the shit talking he'd done and the way the violence escalated to the point where they were just about fish hooking each other. Flair crying out "God damn you!" was an awesome moment. Ronnie looked like he was about to pop a blood vessel he was so fired up. Even when he was trying to put Flair in a front face lock it felt like a "shoot." That much intensity in a studio setting meant the bout could only end with a double countout or a run-in or some sort, so I didn't mind the interference, but it did keep in at the "great TV match" level rather than being anything transcendent. Ronnie Garvin/Dusty Rhodes/Magnum TA promo, WCW, 12/28/85 The babyfaces deliver a suitably fired up group promo condemning the actions of Flair and the Andersons. Dusty threw the set about playing off a riff about there not being enough room for all six men in the studio. Fun little riff from an all-time great promo guy.

alexoblivion put it up for us before that.

I only listened to the first 10 minutes out of curiosity, but the dude's Vince wasn't as good as he thought it was and the Flair wasn't worth snickering over. I doubt either of them were alive in 1984, though, so they're hardly going to have nostalgia for what was a fucking awesome year. I didn't realise Judy Bagwell was a Kiwi until I read this thread. I miss the days of getting wrestling news from The Truth and the TV guide, bubble gum cards, action cards and cheap knockoff sweaters. If your dad bought you the official WWF magazine from a stationary shop in the late 80s you were the coolest kid in school for a day. I still remember the used book stores being fill of comic books and Apter mags. It was sad when those stores closed one by one.

I watched the 8/92 Liger vs. Benoit match, which is all right and everything, but after a while I began wondering: "well, what's the difference between Liger popping up when Benoit's climbing the turnbuckles and Angle doing it?" And then you start to wonder how the match is any worse than Toyota bout or anything else synonymous with the 90s. People talk a lot about Tiger Mask's stuff not holding up, but a decade on the same is surely true of 90s workrate heroes. I realise there's been a backlash to the juniors style over the years, but Liger somehow remains immune.

This is one I kind of disagree on. Maybe it's blasphemous to say, but Blue Panther usually disappoints me. The stuff against Atlantis is one of the all-time great in-ring rivalries and better than the rivalry with Santo, which I haven't seen deliver much outside of a few AAA exchanges and those two matches in Monterrey (wasn't a fan of the Essex, UK stuff.) I steadfast believe he had stuff as good as the Atlantis stuff, but not on tape. One of the most frustrating things about him is you *don't* get 4-5 minutes of great matwork in the average Panther trios. I wouldn't call him the best trio match worker for the simple fact that he wasn't that flash a rudo, but also because he doesn't bring the matwork on a regular basis. He can even be (dare I say it) sloppy on the mat at times. I'd take Fuerza, Emilio Charles Jr or Satanico over Panther any day when it comes to watching a random trios and that's just for starters. I also think he's weak at singles matches. I'm not even talking about his old man Panther stuff, which I think is overrated, but his weak stuff against Love Machine and Octagon. Pena may shoulder some of the blame there, but Fuerza excelled in the same environment and people don't put him in the same lofty sphere as Panther. I always feel kind of dirty typing this stuff, but is Panther really better than say Solar?

It's not really fathomable to me how someone could like that Cota match more than the Fiera match, but at least you found something you like.

The 4/91 match was a big step up from their 1990 match I watched. People will say that it wasn't worked the way a mask vs. mask match should be worked, but if you got to an Indian restaurant in Japan, or an Italian restaurant or a Mexican restaurant, it's not going to taste the way it's supposed to. The problem was that it wasn't a particularly dramatic match by *juniors* standards as opposed to not going to the places where a masks match should go. Offensively, it was much better than the 1990 bout and the excitement level was around a third.

I got these discs a long time ago and never watched them. With the winter season coming up it seems like a good time to hole up with some Flair/Garvin. Ric Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin, GCW, 6/17/84 This was Flair challenging for the television title instead of Garvin challenging for the world title, but let's just pretend that Flair was interested in using the television title as a coaster. The important thing is that the action was good. They kept up a rapid pace through the 10 minutes starting with some decent chain wrestling, moving through some mid-range and then letting the fists fly as Flair got a taste of what to expect from "Hands of Stone" Ronnie Garvin. Nice little appetizer for what was to come. Garvin looked good here as he did in his Georgia matches w/ Jake Roberts. Not one of the all-time great Flair studio appearances, but thoroughly entertaining.

So, it occurred to me that I've never watched the Liger/Pegasus Kid series in its entirety and I've been kind of wanting to watch Liger of late, whom I've been down on the past few years. The version of 8/19/90 I watched was JIP and showed the pair going through the motions of a finishing stretch. The excitement level for me barely rose above zero. There's something wrong w/ Benoit wearing a mask. It didn't fit Owen either. They seem too jacked up to wear one. Few luchadores had the builds they did and the ones that did looked stupid in a mask as well except for maybe Scorpio Jr. Benoit seems way too big for Liger as well even though Yamada was also juicing. Weird match-up. I'll give a point to the robot criticism since he was wrestling that way here and I remember him doing the same against the Villanos in his UWA run.

I watched the '94 CC bout again, and I think it's a shame that Kobashi's win came in probably their worst match. I can live with the ribs injury being the excuse for Hansen's loss, but it wasn't ideal given how close Kobashi had been to beating Hansen in their '93 bouts based on his own skill and ability. Granted, you could argue that Hansen was still dangerous when injured and could still hit the lariat at any time, and that Kobashi showed a certain amount of skill by evading the attack that led to Hansen's injury, but that's fishing for excuses. Mostly, they tread over old ground, and in some cases regressed on what they had accomplished in previous bouts. The crowd were thrilled with what they witnessed, though, and seemed to view it as something special. I did like Kobashi face down clinging to the streamers as the magnitude of what he'd accomplished set in. It's too bad it had low quality dubbed in commentary instead of Wakabayashi.

I watched the '94 CC bout again, and I think it's a shame that Kobashi's win came in probably their worst match. I can live with the ribs injury being the excuse for Hansen's loss, but it wasn't ideal given how close Kobashi had been to beating Hansen in their '93 bouts based on his own skill and ability. Granted, you could argue that Hansen was still dangerous when injured and could still hit the lariat at any time, and that Kobashi showed a certain amount of skill by evading the attack that led to Hansen's injury, but that's fishing for excuses. Mostly, they tread over old ground, and in some cases regressed on what they had accomplished in previous bouts. The crowd were thrilled with what they witnessed, though, and seemed to view it as something special. I did like Kobashi face down clinging to the streamers as the magnitude of what he'd accomplished set in. It's too bad it had low quality dubbed in commentary instead of Wakabayashi. Also, I keep overlooking the fact that Hansen had more than one match per year with a lot of these guys. The 1992 Carnival bout against Kobashi is JIP and doesn't add much to the feud, but it's an enjoyable 15 minutes or so.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 43 Pat Roach vs. Ray Steele (5/4/88) This was the lousiest of all the Roach/Steele matches I've seen. Usually, you can count on some pretty decent heavyweight action from them, but Steele retired hurt with an injury and Roach pleaded in an over emoting way for the decision not to stand. Lame. Jon Cox vs. Peter Stewart (aired 4/25/81) Iron Duke Pete Stewart! Love me some Pete Stewart. This one somehow slipped under my radar, but it was a tough as nails, gritty, no frills contest between the Duke and big Jon Cox. Cox was a bit docile for a man his size, but the great thing about British wrestling is that guys got to have their match (minimum four rounds or whatever it was) regardless of how dynamic they were. Everyone got to use the same canvas, and in many ways the form (as dictated by the Mountevans rules) was more important than personality. Meaning there was room for everyone even the John Coxs of the world, which is a roundabout way of saying I dug this even though Cox was colourless. John Elijah vs. Tony Francis (aired 4/18/81) This was supposed to be Al Kilby vs. Francis but Kilby was out injured. Francis is a guy who worked a lot for Stu Hart in Calgary and his most high profile stuff in England was as fodder for Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks, but this was a rare "serious" match and exactly what you'd expect from John Elijah. As sure as the sun will rise, John Elijah will have single pace, solid power wrestling matches. Kilby appeared on crutches at the end with a nurse at his side. Walton claimed he had a burst blood vessel in his leg, but he wanted to shake Elijah's hand. Francis was unspectacular, but I'm always lulled into a type of home comfort when I watch a John Elijah bout. Danny Boy Collins vs. Rick Wiseman (4/8/87) This was Collins' first British Welterweight title defence after his kidney operation. Nothing fancy. The mulleted look wasn't Collins' best. Walton kept telling porkies about Collins getting a title shot against the Welterweight champion of the world, Mando Ramos from Panama City. The only Mando Ramos I can find any record of was a popular Southern California boxer from the 60s. The last time Walton had mentioned the world champion he was a "Mexican." In any event, the title bout never happened.

So I watched the 7/93 Kobashi match for the first time in donkey years. It's kind of interesting watching it as the next chapter in the feud rather than in anticipation of one of the best All Japan matches of the 90s and one of the greatest matches of all-time. It's not quite as special as the work a lot of the same sequences they'd done previously, but I got behind Kobashi more than I would have if I'd watched it in isolation. People sometimes argue that Kawada should have gone over in his 6/94 match with Misawa, and I kind of thought that ignoring the lay of the land in 1993, the way they laid this out, Kobashi maybe should've gone over. I'm not sure he got much closer here than he did in the 4/93 Carnival match. Kobashi going over seemed like the next logical step in the way they worked the matches even if it didn't fit the booking. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of Kobashi doing the moonsault and that seemed his undoing here so thems the breaks. I think I'll rewatch the '94 CC match and see if I like it more in context.

Or Wrestlemania VIII... Who in the world is gonna protect your nose?

The 4/93 Kobashi handheld rocked pretty hard. Kobashi took it to Hansen's lariat arm at the start and was battering the shit out of Stan for a good while, but that damn lariat. Kobashi must have had nightmares about it. Still, getting closer...