ohtani's jacket

I liked the Felino mask vs. mask match, but the title matches are underwhelming. Ramirez would have needed a much longer run to be a significant part of the lucha bloc. I doubt Solar will make the list and he's had a considerably better career. Hell, I'm not sure that Ramirez was better than Huracán Sevilla or Mano Negra.

Man, was that Taue match good. For a man the size of Hansen to sell that well was phenomenal. The thing that impressed me most was his comeback. One of my least favourite things in wrestling is when a guy takes a beating for what seems like an eternity and then the comeback starts and all of a sudden it's even stevens. The way Hansen worked his way back into the match here was as believable as it gets. He was basically like a wounded animal fighting and clawing his way out, Taue was fabulous as well. He could've easily oversold it, but instead he sold it just right, weathering the storm and not letting his opportunity to topple Hansen slip. Taue was on point in this bout. The opening exchange took me aback. What a great start to the bout. Almost like sumo brawling.

Man was that Taue match good. For a man the size of Hansen to sell that well was phenomenal. The thing that impressed me most was his comeback. One of my least favourite things in wrestling is when a guy takes a beating for what seems like an eternity and then the comeback starts and all of a sudden it's even stevens. The way Hansen worked his way back into the match here was as believable as it gets. He was basically like a wounded animal fighting and clawing his way out, Taue was fabulous as well. He could've easily oversold it, but instead he sold it just right, weathering the storm and not letting his opportunity to topple Hansen slip. Taue was on point in this bout. The opening exchange took me aback. What a great start to the bout. Almost like sumo brawling.

Watched the 11/94 Misawa/Kobashi vs. Kawada/Taue match, which I'm not sure I'd seen before. Kawada and Taue certainly did work as heels here and Kawada was much more aggressive and niggly. I wonder how many of my perceptions of Kawada are based on this tag feud. As for the match, I kind of drifted in and out of it. It was good, but I say that as more of an acknowledgement than with any real conviction. I wouldn't say they were going through the motions, but it was a standard All Japan tag and that involves a lot of the same old stuff. As usual my interest was piqued during the finishing stretch, but they weren't up for a big run home on this particular night and were booked into a corner anyway w/ the draw. I haven't watched All Japan for a while and Kobashi and Taue seemed foreign to me. Misawa didn't look anywhere near as good as the last time I watched him either. Personally, I need to be in the groove to watch individual styles of wrestling otherwise I zone out a bit, but nobody really struck me as delivering a world class performance on this night.

A poor finish generally sours me on a match, particularly if I've watching something random as it makes it seem like a waste of time. If it's a match I'm enjoying I can go both ways -- either sorely disappointed or philosophical -- but I don't think I've ever shrugged off a bad finish and thought "oh well." I may not be fussed if the match is mediocre, but they're almost always annoying and a match would almost always better with a proper finish. We spend a lot of time talking about the way matches build and by that we mean the way they build to a conclusion. If the conclusion's poor then it has an effect on the rest of the match. BS finishes can be effective if they're heated and well executed. I like a good BS finish if it's done right.

From memory, Arn was amazing in 1992. I had him and Steamboat as joint MVPs for that year during my WCW viewing. But after '93 he was average by his own standards. Not sure if that equated to bad matches, but nothing I saw from Arn in '95 against Alex Wright, etc. left much of an impression on me and that was a year where I was actively looking for anything good from a severely weak year. There was the Stars and Stripes tag w/Vader, but no singles matches of note.

Hashimoto vs. Tanaka was fun. Not sure I'd include it in his greatest hits parade, but if you want to see him deliver a full on ass kicking it's worth watching.

I'm also not that fond of Hansen's 80s All Japan work. But I'm not all that fond of the house style either and I think that compounds things.

Dunno if you've seen it Phil, but there's another Cesca singles match out there against Rene Ben Chemoul.

The 1994 Carnival final is a great match. I don't know if I've fully appreciated it up until now. Again, there's a noticeable lift in intensity from Kawada. Every move is sold as though as it means something, and not in a self-conscious way, but because the stakes are so high and the jeopardy increases as the match progresses. I realise he was working against a bigger American, but again I was surprised by how much Kawada worked from underneath. He's nowhere near as aggressive as I imagined, or recollected, even when he's working from the top. Not compared with Tenryu. He was working as a total babyface, which is to be expected under the circumstances, but he strikes me as a bit more cerebral than the likes of Hashimoto or Tenryu whereas before I would have paired them as naturally aggressive workers. Williams also sold well. He had good chemistry with Kawada despite, or perhaps because of, them not getting along outside the ring, but something clicked with him in '94 and he realised how he could use his size and strength to full effect. It reminds me of watching a football player (whether it be rugby or American football) who's a pretty good player and then finally discovers beast mode.

The 1994 Carnival final is a great match. I don't know if I've fully appreciated it up until now. Again, there's a noticeable lift in intensity from Kawada. Every move is sold as though as it means something, and not in a self-conscious way, but because the stakes are so high and the jeopardy increases as the match progresses. I realise he was working against a bigger American, but again I was surprised by how much Kawada worked from underneath. He's nowhere near as aggressive as I imagined, or recollected, even when he's working from the top. Not compared with Tenryu. He was working as a total babyface, which is to be expected under the circumstances, but he strikes me as a bit more cerebral than the likes of Hashimoto or Tenryu whereas before I would have paired them as naturally aggressive workers. Williams also sold well. He had good chemistry with Kawada despite, or perhaps because of, them not getting along outside the ring, but something clicked with him in '94 and he realised how he could use his size and strength to full effect. It reminds me of watching a football player (whether it be rugby or American football) who's a pretty good player and then finally discovers beast mode.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 39 Zoltan Boscik vs. Kid McCoy (9/3/86) Boscik was another of the aging television vets the promoters leaned on in the mid-80s to break in the next generation of talent. He was pudgy and middle-aged at this point, and a shadow of the worker from those great Steve Grey matches, but his carry was effective enough. Not as good as some of the latter day Tally Ho Kaye stuff, but McCoy was only 15 here and Boscik fed him well. Perhaps too well as it was a bit anti-climatic when Boscik won. The Kid did go on to beat Boscik in the final of a Christmas knockout tournament in December that year, but Walton didn't link the two bouts together. Danny Boy Collins vs. Jacques Le Jacques (12/11/85) This was a European Welterweight title bout. Not a patch on some of the classic WoS title bouts, but an interesting bout to watch, which is all you can really hope for when you're combing through the dregs, or to put it more nicely, the B-sides and rarities. Jacques Le Jacques didn't really work a classic catch style and was obsessed with working his opponent's legs like few workers I've seen, but he was a decent enough hand. He tried to work heel, but couldn't really bait the crowd. Walton mentioned that if Collins successfully defended his European title he would be in line for a title shot against the world champion, referring to him only as "the Mexican." Not sure whom he meant by that, but the world champ at the time was actually El Dandy. Le Jacques went for the leg a lot, but this was decent enough. Big Daddy & Danny Boy Collins vs. Scrubber Daly & Lucky Gordon (7/25/84) The enjoyment factor of these Daddy tags is totally dependent on the heels. Scrubber Daly and Lucky Gordon were extremely competent Daddy opponents and the dynamic of young Danny Boy Collins being Daddy's partner and being given the room to shine (ha) made this an entertaining 10 minutes. People have commented numerous times about wrestlers like Collins having to carry the load in Big Daddy tags, but I can't imagine a 17 year old Collins being disappointed at wrestling in front of such a hot crowd and getting this much heat so early in his career. Another fun thing about these tags is the way the ring literally moves two or three inches every time Daddy or Daly are posted. It seems like Walton is exaggerating until you actually pay attention to it. Tally Ho Kaye vs. Steve Fury (2/5/85) Fury's television debut. Kaye tied him in knots during a one fall, ten minute time limit. Danny Boy Collins vs. Eddie Riley (10/9/84) Riley was a trainee of Marty Jones and a decent worker. Walton was high on him (undoubtedly because he was a trainee of Jones') and put over how quick and decisive he was with his decision making while lamenting the fact that he kept running out of mat with his pinning maneuvers. Some good action here but nothing overly special.

I don't get how people can say Watts' WCW was a failure compared to the rest of WCW's existence. I'd rather watch something from Watts' run than 1994, '96, '97, you name it.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 38 Marty Jones vs. Mark Rocco (6/8/88) Rocco cut a pretty decent promo before this. Jones' wasn't bad either if you can appreciate the charm of a straight talking, cross-eyed Marty Jones staring at the camera in different directions. There's two ways you can view this bout (no pun intended): you can either view it as a bastardised version of their 70s classics and you can look at it as one of the better bouts of 1988. Jones and Rocco hadn't squared off for quite some time as Jones had stayed pretty loyal to Max Crabtree and Joint Promotions while Rocco had been one of Brian Dixon's key draws for All-Star Promotions. Toward the end of the television era, there were a lot of guys moving back and forward between the promotions for bookings and hence we got one last chapter in this feud. It was pretty much wrestled in the All-Star style. Short flurries of action were followed by contentious moments and style ruled over substance. Rocco had gone through major back surgery a few years prior (and was at death's door for a number of days according to Walton) and was slightly less mobile than in his prime. He was still a madman but his back looked stiff. Jones provided some sweet looking offense as you'd expect. He'd packed on the pounds since the last time they fought, but if there was anything resembling their classic fights it came from him. Rocco bled in this, which was rare on British television but tended to happen in bouts involving Rocco (hmm.) The finish was the kind of Americanised stuff Dixon made his coin shilling. Both men were DQ'ed for hitting the ref, Jones got on the mic demanding the bout continue and they half-arsed their way backstage where the "brawling" supposedly continued. It's actually an insult to American wrestling to call it "Americanised" as they did such a piss poor job at emulating US style wrestling. Dave Finlay vs. Boston Blackie (Ladder match, Caernarfon, taped 2/27/95) This was interesting. Finlay looked almost exactly the same as the guy who showed up in WCW and attacked Steve Regal, and his work was better than it had been in nigh on a decade. I can't stand ladder matches as a rule, but was taken by the fact that Finlay looked so good. So there you go: at some point before entering WCW, Finlay shook off his malaise and fixed whatever it was that was blogging down his matches. Kung Fu vs. Lucky Gordon (11/5/86) I'm surprised Kung Fu ever graced a Joint Promotions ring again after walking out on them ahead of the big Rocco match at the Royal Albert Hall. The 1985-86 period is better than I've given it credit for in the past as there was plenty of good stuff on the early stand alone shows, but matches like this show how thin the talent roster was. Lucky Gordon vs. Kung Fu didn't really mean anything to anybody in 1986 and wasn't going to get anyone excited about the crappy new time slot. That said, Kung Fu did enough to at least make it painless to watch, and as limited as Gordon was, he was a pro at putting guys over.

I watched the 4/94 Kawada bout and it's amazing the step up in intensity from anything else I've watched. Suddenly, every hold matters and the attention to detail is tenfold over anything else, and it's not even that good a match. The whole Kawada's a heel thing is all while and good except for the fact that he seldom works the same heel role against other opponents. And even against Misawa, I had a hard time buying him as the straight up heel he's meant to be. Maybe it's a mental block on my side, but the history between the two seems like it has more bearing on the match dynamic than heel/face structures.

The Rutten match was interesting. It was kind of like watching a guy who wasn't entirely comfortable at working a pro-wrestling match against a guy who wasn't entirely confident at doing a worked shoot. Rutten seems like a guy who would have been a natural at pro-wrestling if he'd spent more time doing it. He grew into the bout as it progressed, though at 10 three minute rounds you'd hope he might settle down a bit. Nothing they did blew me away, but it was perfectly solid. Rutten hadn't really moved on from mid-90s Pancrase in terms of his fighting style so it wasn't really cutting edge shoot style stuff, but I enjoyed it.

That's weird because I remember him being all over the WCW shows we got in New Zealand.

I liked the 3/94 Williams vs. Kawada Carnival bout a lot. In fact, it's probably the best Kawada bout I've seen since I started dabbling in his stuff. There were a couple of All Japan tropes that annoyed me like going to the outside early on and the even stevens, not quite my turn, your turn, flow to the bouts. But this was meant to be a bigger deal than the other Carnival bouts I've watched and Kawada's selling was several notches above his standard performance. That lift in selling seems to be a determining factor in how good a Kawada bout is going to be. A lot of back and forth in the finish, but I was hooked and I think if it wasn't a draw and had a definitive finish it would be remembered as more than just an extra in the build to the Carnival final.

I liked the 3/94 Williams vs. Kawada Carnival bout a lot. In fact, it's probably the best Kawada bout I've seen since I started dabbling in his stuff. There were a couple of All Japan tropes that annoyed me like going to the outside early on and the even stevens, not quite my turn, your turn, flow to the bouts. But this was meant to be a bigger deal than the other Carnival bouts I've watched and Kawada's selling was several notches above his standard performance. That lift in selling seems to be a determining factor in how good a Kawada bout is going to be. A lot of back and forth in the finish, but I was hooked and I think if it wasn't a draw and had a definitive finish it would be remembered as more than just an extra in the build to the Carnival final.

I couldn't find it.

The 1994 Hansen match isn't as well known or famous as their '92 and '93 bouts, and probably not as good, but it's a nice companion piece. It may be my imagination, but Kawada seemed a more assured worker in '94 than in '93, though he didn't really stamp his authority on the bout and was still deferring to Hansen too much. The Carnival match against Akiyama is a fun bout, but pretty much a redux of whichever bout of theirs I saw from '93. They even ran through the same sequences. Kawada actually has a pretty standard match pattern and it was interesting that he did similar dropkick sequences with Hansen that he did with Akiyama.

If anybody wants to see an awesome Art Barr match from Mexico I strongly recommend the 7/23/93 trios where he puts on the Santo mask and attacks Eddy.

Hamada's big runs in Mexico were during the 70s and 80s. We don't have the footage to know the extent to which he, or Sayama for that matter, influenced the style. UWA finally got TV in November of '91 and Hamada was still working matches in Mexico at that time, but there's nothing that I've seen that suggests Hamada was changing the style in any way. If anything it was more the case that Hamada adapted to Mexican wrestling than bringing new elements to it. I could be wrong, though.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 37 Kung Fu vs. Chic Cullen (Unknown location, taped 1985) Some decent action. These two didn't match up especially well, it was blue eye vs. blue eye, and Cullen wasn't as good in '85 as he had been in the early 80s, but the match was okay. Orig Williams vs. Barcud Du (Unknown location, taped 1985) The big grudge match. This was full of posturing, half-arsed brawling, kids throwing trash at the ring, and South walking out on the bout. Williams threw himself to the mat, praised the Lord above, and looked like he'd just survived the biggest match of his career. I'd rip into it more, but it's my fault for not skipping it. Johnny Saint vs. Danny Boy Collins (Denbigh, taped 3/15/89) Outside of his early 70s work, I like Saint's late 80s work better than any point in his career. He still did all his escape holds, but he'd shelved the Vic Faulkner prankster element to his work and wrestled a more straight up version of the Saint style. This wasn't the best example of it and not much of a match, but I still liked what I saw from Saint. King Kendo vs. Romany Riley (11/5/86) Romany Riley looked like he'd pinched Sangre Chicana's tights here. It's so weird seeing a grey middle-aged Riley who looks like any other grey middle-aged Tom, Dick and Harry when he had such a counter-culture look in the 70s. It really is weird, but I guess it happens to everyone. Anyway, I have a lot of time for young Riley, but he was old and portly here and the fake Nagasaki was a tough load to carry. Nothing memorable. Sid Cooper vs. Greg Valentine (12/19/84) Cooper was doing the old £100 a round gimmick here. There's a complete lack of logic to these matches as instead of trying to knock Valentine out so he lasted as few rounds as possible, Cooper works a regular two pinfalls or submissions or a knockout bout and pisses away a bunch of money. But I suppose you've got to forget out that and just sit back and enjoy Cooper throwing a £100 at Valentine between rounds. He was past his best here, but still had a great snare and was a fun character.

It happened over time as more and more luchadores got regular bookings in Japan. It was around 1996/7 that it started having a noticeable impact on the bouts. Prior to that you had Dandy who was a tape watcher and cribbed stuff, but it was really Rey, Juventud, Santo, Casas and Wagner whom ratcheted things up. I would suggest watching the Rey/Juve 3/96 Barnett handheld, the Felino/Santo match from the summer of '97, the Casas/Santo hair vs. mask match from '97, and pre-Japan Wagner matches compared to his '97 work onward. The biggest influence was on moveset, but there were also stylistic elements like suddenly introducing crucifix arm bars and what not. In Lizmark's case, I think he ratcheted up his moveset in AAA to stay relevant as a guy in his 40s in a promotion that was breaking away from tradition. He may have introduced those moves earlier, I don't remember clearly. The classic style is more about arm drags and spinning backbreakers being big time high spots, a cross body block style move off the top being a finisher, and a single dive being built to in the third caida. The matwork is less "Japanese" looking and more Euro style; heavily stylized and full of tricked out submissions.