ohtani's jacket

Maybe it's the fact that ROH made such a big deal of the CM Punk vs. Joe series, but I wasn't particularly impressed by them having a short match in a tiny ring after their long broadway matches. Perhaps others will enjoy this highlight reel version of a typical Punk/Joe match, but to me this felt like the Clash of the Champions version of a PPV Punk/Joe bout.

You look at a match listing like this and you hope for an extended sequence between Blue Panther and Black Tiger. That's something you instinctively learn to do as a lucha fan. Unlike other styles of wrestling where your forefathers have already critiqued every match under the sun, lucha remains this Wild West where a random IWRG match could have ammo to add to your case for such and such a wrestler being the greatest of all time or a complete dud. It's fun, but it can also be infuriating. Here, I didn't get anything close to the performance I wanted to see from Panther, but I did see him work fairly effectively as the lead face-in-peril for the tecnico side, which isn't something I'd regard as a strength of Blue Panther, but he was trying to turn this into something more than the sum of its parts. So he gets brownie points for this if I can remember to give them to him.

I was hoping to see more of a long form trios match here. We got that, but it was lazy trios match wrestling. I can't really blame them for taking a night off, but there were too many spots based around Tarzan Boy and Heavy Metal flashing their asses for my liking. I was hoping for more from Casas, but this wasn't the environment for it.

This picks up where they left off the week before in terms of energy but it's ridiculously short for a match of this magnitude. In fact, it's so short that reviewers at the time were wondering if the workers finished too early. The post-match is the usual hot air, but I do wonder what a Wagner vs. Ultimo apuestas match would have looked like.

Greg Valentine vs. Chief Jay Strongbow (WWF, 8/18/79) They can't recapture the magic of the July match, but this is still a really good bout that descends into a bloody brawl where both men are throwing chairs at each other outside of the ring. A few things ran through my mind watching this. The first was that it was amusing to me that it was a poor man's Wahoo McDaniel vs. Greg. The second was that I wish Kal Rudman was calling the bout as Vince was shit in this. The third was that as a kid I mostly knew of Valentine as the guy who feuded with the ref Ronnie Garvin and then was tag partners with the Honky Tonk Man. Little did I know that he was the fucking man a decade earlier.

Greg Valentine vs. Chief Jay Strongbow (WWF, 7/21/79) I can't find the DeNucci match online as it's too much of a deep cut for the internet. Instead, I went with one of my all-time favorite Valentine performances. It's one thing to have great matches against Bob Backlund or Tito Santana, but to have a feud this good against Chief Jay Strongbow? I'm sorry, you're somebody special. In theory, every feud should be this good, but somehow they aren't. It's not that workers don't try, I guess it's that the planets have to align somehow and you need a Philly crowd like this that is amped for the Chief to tear Valentine's head off. God bless old-school professional wrestling.

I haven't seen that much dislike for Navarro in a while. I'm glad you bring up releasing the holds, though, as it was definitely a thing.

He seems super broken down as an unmasked guy.

I can't believe this is how Kobashi goes down. There have been some baffling booking decisions of late like Austin Aries going over Joe and now Rikio beating Kobashi. Surely, this wasn't the guy NOAH fans wanted to see dethrone Kobashi. Unsurprisingly, the best parts of this were when Kobashi was on offense, though things do heat up during the finishing stretch as Japanese fan love to root for the underdog. I'm not sure how many of them actually thought Rikio would win the bout. The post-match is odd. Kobashi is all smiles. I thought they'd sell it like Kobashi had run out out of gas, but it's more like here's the belt, best of luck. Perhaps Rikio was supposed to be NOAH's answer to meatheads Kojima and Tenzan. What is going on, 2005 pro-wrestling?

btw, I assume you're referring to masked Pierroth and not the Los Boricuas Pierroth.

Greg Valentine vs. Tony Garea (WWF, 11/14/81) First of all, I've got to thank @SAMS for turning me on to this gem of a match as I sure as hell wouldn't have found it by myself. I'm a massive Valentine mark, but it wouldn't occur to me to watch a Tony Garea match. There's so much to love about this match. I love how the Spectrum still uses a tough as nails ref and a geriatric ring announcer. That pair could have easily worked one of those black and white 50s matches that Loss has been uploading lately. Then there's the fact that Garea hails from Auckland, New Zealand, which also happens to be my home town. What should have been an extended squash turns into a competitive fight. Greg makes Garea look great. Dick and Kal treat Garea like he's a serious threat. The action is fantastic. Even the screwy finish is awesome as Dick and Kal get the ref and Garea to watch the replay on their monitor and have the ref explain the decision. Gaera has one messed up accent, but that happens to Kiwis living overseas (myself included.) I loved every thing about this. SAMS, you're a man of impeccable taste.

This was wrested the night after the Coventry match for some sort of Irish super show. I expected them to do a house show style match, but the Dublin crowd was even hotter than the Coventry crowd and I guess the workers decided to pull out all the stops. This really is the best match up in wrestling at this point in time. Neither guy is my ideal wrestler, but their matches are hugely entertaining. I particularly like Daniels. He does a great job of riling up the Irish crowd. The finish is badass with AJ standing over Daniels telling him he doesn't want the X Division title as he's going after the World Heavyweight title instead. That's exciting.

This was an entertaining trios match, albeit done in the "Televisa style" (as I like to call it.) Dos Caras Jr looked much better in this. His execution was still awkward, but he was so much taller than his opponents that you have to give him a bit of leeway with that. Wagner carried the match with his charisma, and the Mistico vs. Ultimo exchanges were entertaining reverse cat and mouse sequences with Mistico chasing Ultimo all over the ring. Ultimo ended up getting frustrated with Mistico and repeatedly elbowed him in the head, leading to a DQ finish where the doc hit the ring and Mistico was stretchered out. Wagner lost his shit over this and beat the crap out of Ultimo. We got a good look at Ultimo's mug and it was definitely a rudo face. Wagner cut a promo and set up a tag match for the following week's show. It was basically sports entertainment, but it generated a shit ton more heat than the other matches on the card.

It's been an age since I've seen the Capos work a regular match. It's not their calling card but they have it in their bag. It's been a while since I've seen Magica do anything either. I can't remember whether he's been injured or if they've just reduced his role. He's such a fantastic worker, but it's so easy to get lost in the shuffle in CMLL. I enjoyed watching Casas work with the Capos in this match as it's a matchup I can't recall seeing that often. Given that Casas isn't doing a lot at this point, it's probably the most enjoyable stuff he's been involved in during 2005. Match ended up being run-of-the-mill, but I enjoyed it.

This was the slowest lightning match ever. It wasn't bad, but the crowd didn't get into it until Black Warrior did his tope. Not sure why Vampiro was in this match. It doesn't seem like CMLL have any use for him anymore.

This was a decent match marred by the usual FIP shenanigans. Punk has greatly improved as worker, but I'm enamored with this heel character he's playing in FIP. Plucky James Gibson puts up the good fight seemed a bit predictable given they're pushing him to the moon in ROH. Punk's spot calling sticks out like a sore thumb. He really needs to stop whispering into his opponent's ear.

Warren Bockwinkel vs Billy Varga (05/19/1953, NWA Los Angeles) This has been in circulation for years, but you should definitely check out the old man if you're a fan of Nick. Harry Monte & Farmer Spatts vs Billy Curtis & Cowboy Clatt (NWA Los Angeles, 05/23/1953) This was a fun midgets match. It was presented with about as much respect as was possible at the time and most of the humorous stuff was playful. They played up the speed and quickness of the wrestlers and there were a number of fun exchanges.

What I'd like to know is who do people wish Angle wrestled like? Do people wish he was more like Jack Brisco or Bret Hart? Do they want him to be like Nick Bockwinkel? Buddy Rose? Billy Robinson? It's confusing. Some people like him as the goofy, three Is guy. Some people like him as a wrestling machine. Do folks want him to be Bryan Danielson? Ric Flair? I don't get it. The guy by all rights should have been a bust, but he became a star. It's always like this with the polarizing types whether it's Shawn Michaels, Manami Toyota, Keiji Mutoh or Hiroshi Tanahashi. They don't do this, they don't work like this wrestler, they're not as good as this person... At some point you need to accept them for who they are.

You enter junior high school aged 12 and it lasts for three years until you’re 15. Once you graduate junior high school, you’re allowed to quit school and start working. She would have been 15 when she made her wrestling debut.

@Matt D I don't know where else to put this, but I checked out your new 70s Joshi on Wednesday series and it says Mach Fumiake was a mainstream star when she joined All Japan Women. I don't believe that was the case. She did reach the final of the Star is Born talent show, but she wasn't scouted by any of the agencies. She didn't fit the image of what the agencies were looking for in an idol at the time. Momoe Yamaguchi, the second place winner at the same contest, went on to become one of the biggest J Pop stars of the 70s and was exactly the type of girl the scouts were looking for. After she failed to be scouted, she initially gave up on her singing dream and focused on sports instead. It wasn't until two years later when her older sister found an AJW recruitment ad in a magazine and encouraged her to try out. As far as I'm aware, she had just been living an ordinary Japanese junior high school life prior to becoming a wrestler. Her stardom came from becoming a popular pro-wrestler. I could be wrong, but that's the info I have.

Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan (WWF, 3/21/81) This has got to be the best Andre vs Hogan match ever. Not only is it surreal watching a heel Hogan wrestle a face Andre, Andre channeling his inner Stan Hansen is incredible to watch. Just an incredible spectacle.

So much of the criticism of Angle back in the day was the fact that he couldn't jell with Guerrero, as though none of that was on Eddie. I'm an Angle fan. The last two matches I saw of his were a great Cena match followed by an excellent Marty Jannetty match. I don't agree with the notions that he had to be in the ring with the right guy, was a go-go-go worker and not a great technical wrestler. Add the Mysterio match from Japan and that's three long form, anti go-go-go matches in a row. The dude was a hell of a talent.

Lord James Blears & Dave Levin vs Tony Morelli & Angelo Cistoldi (NWA Los Angeles, 02/05/1951) Already in circulation, but you should watch all the Blears you can find. Bill Melby vs Sonny Myers (NWA Chicago, 01/16/1953) This match was uploaded 15 years ago, but I noticed that Loss' version is significantly longer. We now have around 10 minutes extra footage of a 30 minute draw. Very good match.

The Superstar category is a hard one to define. Who knows what makes a superstar. I can tell you that I loved the hell out of the Caras vs Rayo mask match, enjoy a lot of older Perro Aguayo matches, loved Pierroth's 1992 run, and I'm a huge sucker for Vampiro in Mexico, but I can't really explain why these things are special. Wagner has that superstar heat, but he was a fantastic worker when he wanted to be. I'm assuming that you're defining superstar as a worker who draws a ton of heat and knows how to work a crowd but doesn't do a hell of a lot in the ring. I assume that takes Perro off the board since he was a great brawler in his prime. We don't really have enough footage of Mil Mascaras in Mexico to know if he fits the bill, and we know that he could work when he wanted to. How about Rayo? He's not bad for a heavyweight, I suppose.

This was part of some random show Chigusa produced in Differ Ariake that was all mixed gender matches. It was JIP, but I'm not gonna miss an opportunity to see Ishikawa trade headbutts with Fujiwara. The men didn't want to wrestle the women at first and their interactions were mainly sex jokes that probably wouldn't fly in the US but are slightly more acceptable in Japan. That's a shame because I would love an actual serious Yoshida vs. Ishikawa contest. We did get some grappling between them towards the end but it turned into a crude sex joke. Fujiwara is a dirty old man in case you'd forgotten. GAEA folded a month after this show. I have no idea what was on Chigusa's mind with this mixed gender stuff.