ohtani's jacket

This was worked differently from how you'd expect heading into the bout. It threatened to erupt into a violent brawl, but Hashimoto went into the bout looking to keep a check on his emotions and for the most part this was worked like a slow burning marque fight. I had mixed feelings toward the bout. Hashimoto's strategy was interesting, but the fight was more cerebral than visceral. At certain points, it felt manipulative in terms of the selling and dramatisation. There'd be a bomb and a nearfall and then that slow, theatrical selling that's meant to be high drama but comes across as a Parv-like pregnant pause. But the crowd did bite on a couple of kick outs and the shot of a dozen or more fans punching the air was a cool visual. All's well that ends well and the final minutes delivered. I thought they could have delivered something better, but there were enough twists and turns to keep it interesting. One thing I've found is the more Tenryu you watch, the more you ignore his execution.

This was worked differently from how you'd expect heading into the bout. It threatened to erupt into a violent brawl, but Hashimoto went into the bout looking to keep a check on his emotions and for the most part this was worked like a slow burning marque fight. I had mixed feelings toward the bout. Hashimoto's strategy was interesting, but the fight was more cerebral than visceral. At certain points, it felt manipulative in terms of the selling and dramatisation. There'd be a bomb and a nearfall and then that slow, theatrical selling that's meant to be high drama but comes across as a Parv-like pregnant pause. But the crowd did bite on a couple of kick outs and the shot of a dozen or more fans punching the air was a cool visual. All's well that ends well and the final minutes delivered. I thought they could have delivered something better, but there were enough twists and turns to keep it interesting. One thing I've found is the more Tenryu you watch, the more you ignore his execution.

Wrestlers as nations is tough, but I'm totally seeing the All Blacks vs. Wallabies in NJPW/WAR. Too bad there isn't a Wallaby as cool as Tenryu.

This was okay. The crowd were amped for Hashimoto vs. Tenryu and every time we got that match-up it was rad, but the rest of the match wasn't very interesting. There was a loose narrative of the New Japan crew being too distracted by Tenryu while the WAR guys focused on wearing down Chono, but it was Chono so who really cares. Fujinami got in a couple of neat shots at Tenryu. I don't know if he was re-energised by this feud or not, but he didn't look that bad to me. He just looked like an older Tatsumi Fujinami. He worked a style that looked worse the older he got, and I guess you could argue that he should have reinvented himself; but while he was no longer one of the best in the world and not the kind of guy I'd want to see in a singles match, he's better than a lot of the New Japan guys in this feud. Tenryu was again pretty cool even if he didn't contribute that much. Also watched Liger/Fujinami vs. Tenryu/Kitahara (NJ 8/3/93). There's some value in watching Liger vs. Tenryu, but not much. Fujinami is again pretty feisty as though he's trying to reassert some natural superiority he felt over Tenryu in the 80s. Kitahara showed up dressed like it was a street fight (dunno if he regularly wore street clothes.) His bumping and selling sucked, but he was a vicious little shit on offence. The WAR guys are so rag tag, but the dynamic works well. Match was pretty short. Liger was shown a bit of a respect, but wasn't up to the level of the heavyweights and ultimately I don't think it was a good idea to have him in matches like these.

Doxa is a cool word. Pity it's only really a doxa among about six people and certainly not among people who dropped out of the hardcore scene. I'd probably go back and forward on whom the God of shoot style is. It's either Fujiwara or Han. Since Fujiwara came first he's more of a pioneer, which I guess makes Volk the shoot style Jesus. Either way, you should be praying at the altar. And btw, crappy foreigners and poor worked shoots is still more realistic than UWF-i. And UWF-i wasn't hot because of its in-ring product. Don't lend credibility to the farce!

This is kind of tough. For the All Blacks, what's the pro-wrestling equivalent of team that win everything then choke/get screwed on the big shows*? * Unless it's at home.

He still worked in the UK. He just wasn't on TV that much. In the 70s, he used to work the German tournaments and globe-trot a bit, but by the late 80s I think he was mainly traveling between the UK and Japan. After '86, his UK dates dropped off a bit, which I assume was a combination of UK wrestling being in the shitter and getting regular tours w/ Baba. I'm curious as to why you ask.

Literally no one has said Duncan was as good or better offensively than Bird or that he was a better passer (what?). What has been pointed to a bunch is this... 1997-98 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 1998-99 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 1999-00 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2000-01 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2001-02 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2002-03 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2003-04 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2004-05 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2005-06 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2006-07 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2007-08 NBA All-Defensive (1st) 2008-09 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2009-10 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2012-13 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) 2014-15 NBA All-Defensive (2nd) You're ignoring that other half of the game. I get the argument for Duncan. My gut feeling is that if it boils down to who I'd rather have on a team the answer would be Bird. If you're talking about longevity, the arguments make sense for Duncan. I wouldn't necessarily agree that longevity means Duncan had the better career, but many would argue that he has. Certainly a case can be put forward that Duncan was the more all-round skilled player. I get all that. What I don't get, or rather never got, was the feeling that Duncan (even in his prime) was one of the five greatest players ever. Maybe over the course of his career, but it wasn't something it seemed as though we were witnessing in the early 00s. The rest of the argument was to do with this notion that Duncan led an otherwise lottery-bound Spurs team to a 60 win season and an NBA title, which I think is silly because after the re-signed him they build the team around him to be a title contender. That team doesn't really exist without Duncan. Also, I don't think Duncan dominated those playoffs to the degree that you can say he carried a team of nobodies to an NBA title. As I said, they relied on outside shooting, and while it was streaky, they got it from a number of different players. And I'm not talking Paxson or Kerr shooting the game winner either. We're talking about entire runs (in some cases rallying for a deficit) and in several cases an entire quarter. If his team had been so shit, that doesn't happen and Duncan doesn't win the title. That, to me, is as true as the Spurs not winning the title if Duncan had gone to Orlando. It's possible that the 2003 Spurs could have been part of a three peat. The more I think about it, the more crazy it is that they're being presented as a team of scrubs.

No, they wouldn't have won 60 games without Duncan, but they also may not have won 60 games without Pops shifting Parker to the starting point guard position the previous season, bringing in Kevin Willis, Steve Kerr, Speedy Claxton and Ginobili to strengthen the bench, and moving Stephen Jackson off the injured reserve list to cover for Steve Smith's dodgy knees. They also increased Malik Rose's role to account for Robinson's health. Of course, Duncan carried the load on both ends of the court, but he was helped by Parker, who was able to push the ball up the floor, get out in transition, make open jumpers and create more space for his big men. Even in his early seasons, where both his shooting and playmaking were erratic and Pops was forever on his case, he energised the team, and I would argue he was the second best player on the team during the 2003 regular season. I wouldn't call him the second most talented. Stephen Jackson was regarded by some within the organisation as the most talented player on the roster, and although Parker had some brilliant games in the playoffs, he also had moments where Pops pulled him for Speedy Claxton. There were also the Kidd rumours hanging over him in the Finals series and it was pretty clear he was upset with how hard Pops was riding him. Nevertheless, Parker had an impact on that team as did Ginobili becoming a major part of the rotation. It was the 2003 playoffs where he really came to prominence after his early injury set-back. I don't think it was incredible that the 2003 San Antonio Spurs won the NBA title. I think Duncan was incredible against the Lakers (with some help from Robert Horry) and after they got over that hump there was every chance they would win the title. They had some luck in the form of Dirk's injury, and also Webber tearing his ACL when the Kings were considered one of the favourites, but incredible? My point about the Spurs needing fourth quarter heroics from the likes of Jackson and Kerr is that as good a player as Duncan was/is, he wasn't the type like a Jordan or a Bird that could take over in those clutch situations. I can imagine Bird taking a large number of shots in those fourth quarters. Duncan was a different type of player with a different type of skill set. I don't think he was good offensively as Bird. I don't think he was the passer that Bird was. Were they the team with the least amount of help to win a star player an NBA championship? Nobody viewed them that way at the time. They were meant to be in a transition phase from the Duncan/Robinson era to the Duncan era, which later became the Big Three era, and they overachieved in that respect, but if they were as weak as claimed they would have faded back into the pack. How do they compare to the '75 Warriors?

Look at that 2003 team again. There's not a lot of help there. http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SAS/2003.html We can presume that Bird could have carried a group of scrubs like that but there's no real evidence of it. With Duncan there is. Look at that team. I came across this great quote a couple of days ago actually about the 2003 team. “Stephen Jackson’s our second-best player. And the Nets cut him.” (Chicago Tribune) -Anonymous Spurs staffer on Duncan's 2003 MVP case. So I would reject the idea that he couldn't carry teams. Longevity is the key thing though. I admitted peak Bird is better than peak Duncan. I watched every single Spurs game of that 2003 post-season and they struggled for what was a 60 win team. It took them six games to close out each series. Duncan was double teamed a lot and often went scoreless for long stretches. In the close out game against Phoenix, Ginobili and Jackson took over in the fourth quarter. In the Western Conference finals it was that famous shooting display from Steve Kerr. Game 3 of the Finals it was Parker and Ginobili. Kerr again in Game 5. Robert Horry in Game 5 against the Lakers Duncan was huge against the Lakers and had some monster games at other times in the playoffs, but it's easy to look at a roster and say Steve Kerr 10 games, 2.2 ppg in the playoffs when in fact he was pivotal in two playoff victories, or to say that Parker and Ginobili weren't instrumental because they were better players later on. Or undervaluing their sixth man, Malik Rose, because he never won a Sixth Man of the Year award or anything of that nature. Even the Admiral had that huge double-double in the title clinching game. Duncan was the star, but it was a hodge-podge team that relied on a second scoring option from somewhere and everybody chipping in. With Bird, I could envision him taking over down the stretch more often than Duncan did. Perhaps that's an unfair comparison because Bird was clearly more of a shooter than Duncan, but it's who I'd opt for if I could switch players. I have a hard time believing Bird wouldn't have torched the 2003 Nets.

It really depends. A lot of it has to do with expectations. If I bother to watch the pre-match videos (and to be honest, a lot of the time I don't) then I expect to see a pay off, but if I'm going in cold I guess I would focus on the work. These days I watch most wrestling without the commentary or crowd noise because I want to kill two birds with one stone in regard to listening to a record and watching a match and because the WWE commentary makes the matches worse for me. So, oftentimes the narrative is whatever I pick up for the selling or the match layout. In the case of all that Mysterio I watched, a lot of the times I was enjoying the work for the work's sake instead of paying attention to what the narrative was per se. When it comes to the lead in to a lucha apuesta match or the WAR vs. NJPW feud watching the matches in chronological order definitely creates narrative expectations. The reason I listened to Owens/Cena with sound and watched the matches a couple of times each was because we were told the narrative was solid and also to make sure I wasn't dismissing them out of hand. Obviously, someone who's watching week-to-week is going to have a better understanding of the build than a guy who watched the highlights package, but I still think the narrative ought to be pretty straight forward so that anybody watching can get it. And really it's the way they delivered on the narrative that I didn't like. I don't get why they had a rematch two weeks after the first fight and I don't get why Cena went over. I'm aware of the sales hit on merchandise, but surely that match was begging for Owens to win even if it was by DQ or something. Cena winning killed the issue dead even if Owens pulled a Terry Funk in the post match. I can't imagine Liger beating Sano two weeks after their first bout, or Flair pinning Steamboat two weeks later, or Jumbo getting his win back over Misawa after a fortnight.

A match where the work they do is more important than the narrative presented. Or, in some cases, where there is no narrative present. Not trolling here. At all. But I'm not sure I follow. Are we talking about a narrative as presented in commentary? Where they hit you over the head working a body part? Where there's a clearly identified storyline heading into the match which is played out? Is this generally as a much a subjective determination as whether you dug Cena/Owens, for example? The bolded part. The narrative in this case is the angle, including all of the promos and pre-match set-up. All of the stuff that's repeatedly ad nauseam by the commentators at the start of the match. In a narrative driven match, that would have been paid off by having a long heat segment on Cena where he fights through adversity, gets cut off a few times, and makes a comeback. In a workrate driven match, they're trading offence, kicking out of finishers, and coming within a hair's breath on pins. You can wrap a narrative around that, but it's hollow because we see that workrate pattern in just about every match regardless of whether there's heat between the workers. By the same token, you can have a long heat segment in a match where there's no issue between the workers, but that's generally boring. It's subjective in the sense one person can say they didn't build on the narrative and another can write a small treatise about it. It either hits you in the gut or it doesn't. The workers have a choice in how to build off the set-up. In this case, it didn't ring true for me, but it did for some pretty big Cena fans so I wouldn't call it concrete.

Race talking into the camera like that was hilarious and the commentator's reaction looked like something out of the old Aussie comedy Frontline.

Choshu's body of work in the 80s blows Maeda away and I say that as a huge Maeda fan. I can live with people thinking he's top five for the decade because it's a cool idea, but I dunno that it's actually fair.

God, Masa Chono is the worst. Who's worse between Chono, Mutoh and Koshinaka? That should be the subject of a podcast. One of the best things about the WAR vs. New Japan feud (and man do I refuse to call it W-A-R and not War) is that you get to see Tenryu belittle these substandard New Japan musketeers. He was at his dickish best here. I loved the flick of the sweat off his pecs. Chono's selling was goofy as shit, but man did Tenryu lay those chops in, and his lariats were pretty brutal too. Of course with Chono selling so much, New Japan were bound to take this, but Fujinami dialed back to the clock with the tope to take Tenryu out and the flying knee out of nowhere to knock Hara's block off. Not one of the better entries in the feud because of Chono, but Tenryu was awesome once again.

A lot of people seem to like Tamura/Yamamoto. Volk/Kohsaka was a good series, as was Volk/Yamamoto. Tamura/Kohsaka and Kohsaka/Yamamoto were notable series, but only really produced one great singles match (two in the case of Tamura/Kohsaka depending on your how view the U-Style bout.) You should check out the three Tamura/Sakuraba fights in UWF-i, which was a rarely case of the promotion actually doing shoot style. Also you need to watch Carl Greco against anybody and everybody. Another notable series was Shamrock/Funaki, but their fights were a tad boring IMO.

Something about Duncan being better than Bird doesn't sit right with me. I have a tremendous amount of respect for what Pops and Duncan have built since Timmy was drafted, and last year's Spurs were sublime in terms of ball movement and team basketball, but Game 7, who would you rather have, Duncan or Bird? Even in Duncan's prime where he was capable of putting up a quadruple double in a Finals game, it didn't seem like he could dominate a game like Shaq. jdw mentioned that 2003 side, but Duncan only carried them in terms of being the lead scorer. He needed help winning that title. He's a great, great player, but I don't think you could put as much on his back as you could Bird. Bird just seems so much more competitive to me even though Duncan is obvious competitive in his own stoic way, but Bird was at a Jordan level of competitiveness. The list of guys who were as competitive as Bird during Bird's prime NBA years (and even in his post-prime) would be a fairly short list. I get the longevity argument, though.

A match where the work they do is more important than the narrative presented. Or, in some cases, where there is no narrative present.

I thought Mysterio continued to work to a high personal standard in 2011 but the quality of his opponents took a nosedive. The Alberto Del Rio bout was the best I saw them have and a pretty good TV bout up until the cheap finish, though I guess it gave us the age old image of the manager being beaten up in place of the heel. Elimination Chamber matches are gimmick stunt fests and a poor man's Wargames, so boo to that. The Rhodes "Phantom of the Opera" shit was more cheesy than a day time soap. Rhodes did his best to get it over and the match itself was tolerable for a falls count anywhere bout, though he did keep running away from Rey when Rey was setting up spots he wanted to do off the barricade and down the stairs. I thought Rhodes took the 619 really well, fwiw. The CM Punk match was a boring attempt at having a straight match wrestling match between the two and kind of highlighted how spot reliant the modern WWE style is in that they can't really build a traditional match in such a replay heavy era. The tag was completely unremarkable and I can only imagine it's memorable because the Miz and that Riley guy have few other memorable bouts. I really didn't see how Rey carried the bout in any way. He contributed an equal share to the other workers and oftentimes wasn't even in the ring. The Cena match was good. Very good actually. I can't state how much better JR is on commentary than the current crew. Even when he has to say stock phrases like "the WWE Universe" it's a thousand times more tolerable than Michael Cole. Lawler is a million times better with Ross than he is with Cole and JBL and together they make everything so much more tolerable. Really good TV match that was super competitive without the need to go epic. Cena looked really good in this and the nearfalls, finishers and kick outs were all logical, well build and far more memorable than the spamming in other bouts. I'll probably watch a few more bouts here and there, but I'll close by saying that I can understand why people think Mysterio is a great worker. He's extremely consistent and almost always delivers a good performance in spite of injuries, booking and the general repetitiveness of his character and wrestling style. Like most wrestlers, I think he's only had a handful of truly great matches, but he's had very few lows and that was something that impressed me over the 10 years I watched. If I were going to watch any of this stuff again, my preference would be for the Smackdown Six era, 2009 and 2006 in that order. His best opponent in terms of peak matches was Eddie, but his best feud was with Jericho. I think top 10 is too high, but if I were voting I would definitely consider him for the top 30.

Never presume -- Miquel Perez Jr and the Little Prince would give him a contest.

I have a hard time believing that a promotion with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer can have such rich psychology; and even if it does, I the question the logic in using narratives that fly over the head of most viewers. There's enough context provided from the pre-match video packages and from the commentators that even if you can't appreciate the hidden layers you should still be able to enjoy the narrative on a surface level, but I can't because I think it's poorly executed. I do want to take back what I said about him not being able to work workrate matches as I just watched his bout with Rey Mysterio Jr again, which is a perfectly good workrate bout.

John Cena vs. Kevin Owens (6/14/15) This was in all likelihood worse than the first match. I say "likelihood" because I'm not sure it's worth comparing. I don't recommend Parv watch this match at all. The two criticisms coming out of the MITB show thread that I strongly agree with are that if any other wrestler had this match they'd be criticised for it and that it was finisher spam. I thought Owens' character work was good before and after the match; it was everything between bells that was a problem. I'm not sure why people claim that Cena is good at workrate matches when it's clear that he's not. His transitions are so unbelievably poor, especially his counters into the STF, and his missed punch/clothesline choreographed spin arounds are the most choreographed thing you will see in a day's wrestling viewing. How many different finishers did Owens burn through here? He used Jericho's finisher and Michaels' to name two. I thought the WWE was a bit more protective about things like that. And man do they go to the finishers/nearfalls early. A couple of shoulder tackles and you're hitting finishers on each other? Some of the finishers looked good in isolation (i.e. on replay), but it's tough to care about the ebb and flow of it if you're an outsider looking in. The big storyline of Cena claiming to the ref (Cena never does this! Wow!) ought to be more ammo for the Bret vs. Cena thread since Bret was a million times better at losing it with an official, and isn't Cena's over-acting when he couldn't get a three count the kind of thing we criticise Orton and Edge for? As for pulling out new moves, it would help if they looked good. Or if it wasn't video game button mashing. The Code Red was stupid and doesn't fit Cena's character. He already has an ugly enough moveset without adding that sort of thing to it. And why is he working a Wrestlemania type epic in an upper midcard feud anyway? Doesn't he have any sense of scale vis a vis card placement? I'll stop now. Match was around **

Can't say I think much of Suzuki's early work. To me he's like a Negro Navarro or a Black Terry in that he completely reinvented himself as something better in his later years.

I hate ladder matches with a passion. Why is there a ladder in the ring? It's stupid. A ladder doesn't belong in a wrestling ring. A cage match makes sense to me conceptually but a ladder match is fundamentally wrong. And falls count anywhere matches; god I loath falls count anywhere matches.

What did you think of Cena in the match?