ohtani's jacket

Mocho Cota/Silver King vs. Negro Casas/El Dandy, CMLL 3/18/94 When Cota was released from prison in '93, he went to work for Pena in AAA, and became embroiled in a feud with Latin Lover that was a hell of a lot better than it sounds. The matches were the typical rhythmless AAA affairs, but the brawling beteen Cota and Lover was fairly engaging and there was even a smattering of colour. A week before their hair match, Cota jumped to CMLL, leaving Latin Lover high and dry. In CMLL, he continued his habit of starting shit wherever he went and royally pissed off Casas during this relevos increíbles match. Forty years old at the time, Cota was mostly viewed as a joke by hardcore fans. There wasn't the same appreciation for maestros in 1994 that there is twenty years later let alone workers who relied on charisma more than workrate. 1994 was the Age of Workrate and a guy like Cota didn't fit the mould. People weren't familiar with his 80s work the way we are and nobody was clamouring for more. He always had a strange body type, and as he aged his skinny torso and chicken legs became even more outstanding the wilder his afro grew. Watching this match with 2015 eyes, firmly believing that Cota was a Machiavellian genius in the 80s, of course I want 90s Cota to be one of the great revelations; but I find myself leaning towards a more even handed view. He wasn't the decrepit, hopeless foggy he was made out to be at the time, but he wasn't exactly Emilio Charles Jr. either. Either prison took something out of him, or we weren't given the chance to familiarise ourselves with the slow, gradual change that time inflicts, making the contrast between the cool, slick Cota that seconded Sangre Chicana and the older ex-con that feuded with Casas too strong to comprehend. Any way you slice it, good but not great sums up my feelings on mid-90s Cota. This match was in effect an angle. Dandy looked even weirder than ex-con Cota. Knee high boots and a pair of trunks made it look like he was auditioning for a part in UWF-i. The way the match broke down, Cota had a problem tagging with Silver King while Casas simply had a problem with Cota in general. Spanish speakers may be able to understand why Casas disliked Cota. The rest of us will have to fill in the narrative ourselves, not that it's difficult to surmise why someone might dislike Cota. Dandy and Silver King had this whole Los Cowboys Explode workrate thing going on, but the main thrust of the match was Cota not giving a fuck if this was Casas' CMLL or not. After being dropkicked by all three men in the ring (inadvertently), Cota headed to the back and returned with a pair of plastic knuckles. He gave Dandy a shot to the ribs then hit Silver King flush in the jaw. Casas managed to wrest the knuckles from Cota, but the refs saw him wallop Mocho with them and awarded Cota the bout. Casas snapped and attacked the bloodied Cota further, and the refs weren't spared from his wrath either. It wasn't Casas' finest hour in terms of selling or acting, and to be honest the Cota/Lover brawling was stronger, but this was the beginning of several weeks of Casas switching between the tecnico and rudo sides, sometimes tagging with Cota and sometimes opposing him, in the lead up to a hair match pitting afro vs. greasy curls. I have no idea whether the hair match is any good since I've never heard a single soul speak of it. It's one of the great unknowns of the CMLL Lost Years, and though the build hasn't been classic, how can you not look forward to it as VIntage Negro Casas of the Day continues.

The next disc from my stack of World of Sport is a collection of matches from '85-88. Unlike 1980-84, I wasn't interested in getting all of the footage we have of the final few years, so this will be a pretty random selection of matches: Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Bully Boy Muir (5/22/85) Joined in progress getting started right at the point where the forearm smashes begin, which is basically what you want to see from these two. Some decent clobbering. Nice appetizer for better wrestling on the disc. King Ben vs. Little Prince (10/16/85) Rumour has it that these two didn't like each other, which you'd hope would lead to a stiffer than usual bout, but my god was this boring .Even Walton could barely mask his contempt, criticising the poor technique of each wrestler on their winning falls. Steve Grey vs. Rick Wiseman (6/24/85) Lord knows what Rick Wiseman had done to receive a British Lightweight title shot, but it should come as no surprise that Grey gave him the best match of his television career. It's a broken record at this point, but Grey's name really needs to be thrown in the hat for best television match worker ever, along with best babyface and a number of other plaudits. Somewhat oddly, this match aired on TWC but had no commentary. A television bout without Walton was a bit of a shock, but it gives you a different perspective on what watching a taping was really like. Wiseman put in a credible showing, but wasn't a match for the Lightweight champ and Grey ended up working knots around him. Ray Steele vs. Colin Joynson (5/22/85) This was Steele's first title defence as British Heavyweight Champion and another challenger that didn't make a lot of sense. Joynson was a fine worker, but the line on him was always that he was part time. So even if folks believed he could lift the heavyweight title, he wouldn't have been able to defend it. This was a slowish bout that didn't have a lot of the forearm smashes that make a select group of the British heavyweights exciting, mostly because it was a clean bout. Walton tried to stay enthused, but aside from the odd moment of skill, you could tell after a lifetime of watching this stuff he was burnt out. John Naylor vs. Little Prince (6/26/85) Better than the King Ben bout, but just about anything would be better than that. If Walton is to be believed, Little Prince was the same weight as a heavyweight, which seems hard to believe. This was okay, but ended with an injury. After watching the original broadcast stuff, the injury finish was a lot less common than it seems watching TWC footage, but it doesn't suck any less. Pat Roach vs. Colin Joynson (9/17/85) These two had better in-ring chemistry than Joynson and Steele. The size difference always makes for a fascinating match-up. At one point you had the short, tank like Johnson lifting the giant Roach in the air and I swear it was one of the more memorable images I've seen from British wrestling. They were also better on the mat against each other and just seemed to generally click better.

New Japan basically lost their prime-time Friday night spot in 1986. They were shunted around on Monday and Tuesday for a while before being moved to Saturday afternoon in 1988. That time slot wasn't popular with fans as the show was often preempted for golf. In 1994 it moved to a midnight slot and in 2004 was shortened to 30 minutes. New Japan was replaced on Friday nights by Music Station, a hugely popular music show that's still broadcast in the same time slot. If you want a neat piece of trivia, it was replaced on Mondays in 1987 by none other than Knight Rider. Most people in Japan only watch free-to-air terrestrial television. The major networks offer subscription based broadcast satellite channels that carry specialised content like American sports or television dramas. There are cable, satellite and internet TV providers, but most of the channels are privately owned and content gets scattered across all sorts of channels often leading to extra subscriptions on top of your basic package. If you like tennis for example, you've got to be subscribed to one channel to watch the ATP tour and another to watch the Grand Slams and the chances are neither are included in your basic package. I've had both satellite and internet TV in Japan but ended up getting rid of both. As Nintendo Logic mentioned, the pay TV penetration levels are extremely low in Japan. I don't think they've shown any significant growth in the time I've been here. NJPW has content spread out over Asahi's BS channels and a few other pay channels, but even on Asahi's BS channels the content airs in the dead of the night. Japanese people basically don't want to pay to watch television, are content with the variety shows and dramas that air during prime time, and only subscribe to pay channels if they have some sort of niche interest like American dramas or tennis or the NBA or professional wrestling. I assume the reason they lost their Friday night spot back in '86 is because ratings tanked after the shit hit the fan with everyone leaving. Both Inoki and Baba were forever battling with TV executives to keep their time slots throughout the latter half of the 80s and basically lost the battle.

New Japan know they can't sell out Seibu Dome or Tokyo Dome. To them 20k to the Seibu Dome and 35k to Tokyo Dome is a success. A straight comparison with WWE is pointless. It's like comparing American Major League Soccer with the Premier League.

I live in Japan, but I don't go to shows so please double check the info I give you. My (limited) outstanding is that people either order the tickets through pia (which then deliver them to your home) or buy them at convenience stores. You can also buy them from the New Japan shop in Suidobashi. A certain amount of tickets are reserved for door sales, but I'm pretty sure that the best seats sell out the day the tickets go on sale. I don't think there's any way that you can really buy a ringside seat from Europe unless you were able to get it through pia and delivered to an address in Japan. I'm not 100% sure on that, though. You might want to get in touch with that Eric gaijin guy on Twitter because he got the 50,000 yen tickets to Wrestle Kingdom and was seated right behind the press.

"Doing well" is a much better description than being "hot." I think they're doing well to draw 36k on the strength of word of mouth. The problem with its TV is that it airs in the dead of the night. Like tonight if I want to watch highlights of Naito vs. Styles and Ishii vs. Makabe it's on TV Asahi from 3:20 to 3:50 a.m. That's the worst that New Japan's TV situation has been in the history of the company. Not only that, but the time changes each Saturday. On 12/20 it was 3:15 to 3:45 while on 12/27 it was 3:30 to 4:00 a.m. Hardcores will subscribe to NJPW World or cable channels, but there's actually a fair chunk of hardcores that aren't interested in watching wrestling on TV and only go to the shows. I do think they should be commended for drawing stronger live gates. I just wanted to point out that continuous growth is a bigger hurdle than Okada and Tanahashi simply drawing more people.

I finally finished catching up on all of the Virus from last year. Overall, I thought his form in the first half of the year was stronger than the second, but with Hechicero being better in the indies than he was in CMLL, I don't think there was a better worker in the company at least singles wise.

It's not hot. It has a product that drew back some of the lapsed hardcores while drawing new fans for whom it may or may not be a fad. Those people bring casuals to the big shows (like my wife whose co-worker took her to a couple of Sumo Hall shows) and you get a boost in crowd numbers but not a hot product. The trouble is that online fans often have no context for how wrestling fits in to the million other entertainment options in Japan (and specifically Tokyo.) They perceive it as a bigger deal than it really is because it's a big deal to them. There are musical acts in Japan that are so hot you have to enter a lottery just to get to the chance to buy a ticket to their shows. Wrestling is very niche, but as a hobby it exists in a bubble in the area around Tokyo Dome and for people who make the pilgrimage it seems like a bit of a Mecca. What I don't put much stock in is jumping to conclusion over whether it's the main event's fault that they didn't draw more. I don't think the company is in a position to draw anymore than it does. Where are they supposed to conjure these fans up from? Wrestle Kingdom is their maxed out audience. Whatever success they've had has essentially been based on word of mouth. So I think their ceiling has to be taken into account.

The moral of the story is to check which seats are on sale. That info was on both the NJPW site and the official Wrestle Kingdom site. The Tokyo Dome website has a cool interactive seating guide that gives you panoramic views of the dome -- https://www.tokyo-dome.co.jp/dome/seat/# NJPW's goal is basically to fill the first and second floors. They don't sell tickets for the bleachers or the terraces. This will give you a better idea of the seating areas -- http://www.livehis.com/seat/seat2_tokyodome.html What's abundantly clear is that they're not filling the stands to the point where I doubt they put all the 1st and 2nd floor tickets on sale. You can see entire sections of the first and second floors empty in just about any picture of Wrestle Kingdom.

You are right, sorry. It's the vocal minority. It probably is, and that's why I made sure to say certain fans in my initial comment. Those fans are tiring though, and they give the rest of the fanbase a bad name. Don't you think you've made the odd provocative statement?

Dave doesn't seem to understand they put a limited number of tickets on sale.

I want to vouch for the Misterioso/Fuerza title match. I had a pretty cynical take on it at first, but the third fall won me over completely.

See, I told you to start with this stuff!

Virus vs. Dragon Lee, CMLL World Super Lightweight Championship, CMLL 12/9/14 Virus' Super Lightweight title reign has been like manna from heaven for lucha fans. For years, Virus was a guy who was only ever showcased in lightning matches. Frustratingly, a great many of those years were right smack dab in the middle of his prime. Even fans who don't see eye to eye wanted him featured in longer singles bouts. That opportunity arose in 2011 when CMLL took an overtimes overlooked and inactive belt and turned it into a showcase for not only Virus but some of the company's best young talent. Since then the maestro has proven to be, without a shadow of a doubt, the best title match worker in CMLL today and probably one of the greatest of all-time. 2014 was the year of the Virus title match with a whopping four of them. And while I think his form was generally better in the first half of the year, I was happy to see him him cranking out the near classics through to December. The first fall was less intricate than a lot of Virus' primera caida work this year. At first I thought Virus was trying to ground Lee, not only because he comes out all jacked up on Nelly, but because his kicks to the face had given Virus such grief in their lightning match. Watching it again, I noticed Virus trying to start something cool by fighting for the arm but Lee didn't follow his lead. That points to Lee's inexperience, but I could also listen to an argument that Virus should have worked from the top more and made Lee fight harder for his holds. Virus was schooled in that old-school mentality of "if you want the arm, you've got to take the arm." Here he really gave Lee the fall, said you're going over, and took a bit of a backseat to the direction the fall headed in. That led to a poorly coordinated finish that would have looked choreographed even if it had been smooth. The overlap between falls meant that Lee continued his momentum through to the segunda caida where his offence continued to appear haphazard, but a bigger sin was that Virus' transition back onto offence lacked imagination. A baseball slide to the outside and a fake out in the ropes was all it took for the maestro to take over, and even though it's cool that he can spring a flash submission from anywhere, this match up was two from two in average falls. The third fall was where things began to improve. Virus started the fall with some nasty looking arm work that was easily the most badass thing to happen in the match up to that point. Lee then sprang a tope from nowhere. Ordinarily, I'd hate a spot like that, but here I thought the structure was interesting. Oftentimes in lucha, missed moves carry more weight than moves which actually hit. Everyone at some point or another has made the criticism that the guy hit by the tope was the first to recover. If some grad student were to conduct research into the amount of times the injured party hit the very next move, the tope would probably be viewed as a poor option. In this instance, however, Lee was able to capitalise on it, and it really did function as a momentum shift. Suddenly, Lee's work had a zest to it and he barreled through a series of nearfalls. Another highlight reel dive followed and it was clear Lee was in his element now. Everything he did during the stretch run had a snap to it than the first fall lacked. The trading of german suplexes, and Virus only just managing to get a foot on the ropes during a count, reminded me of the adage I learnt during the Fuerza/Misterioso fight: it doesn't matter how you start so long as you finish strong. Virus took it to another level by countering Lee's sliding baseball kick into a crossface. Lee came back strong with his kick variations -- the front dropkick into the corner, the baseball slide to the face, and the tree of woe into the diving stomp. What cost Lee in the end wasn't that he couldn't go toe to toe with Virus, but that he sent him a letter during the final standoff first by telegraphing his hurricanrana attempt then feeding him the arm when Virus caught his leg. During the first caida, Lee had hit the hurricanrana and managed to out fake Virus in the same exchange where Virus caught his leg, but you don't give a wrestler the class of VIrus a second look at the same exchange. He was also a bit naive by not following up his big sliding kick to Virus' face with a cover (that actually seemed like a legitimate misread by Lee, but the narrative covered for it.) The actual finish wasn't executed as smoothly as Virus would have liked, but as usual he managed a well paced, well sold caida where it was believable that he might lose and his relief at getting the submission was palpable. In some respects, Virus' title matches got worse as the year progressed, or at least lazier in their build. There was a line of thinking that Lee hung better with Virus than some of this other title match opponents this year, but I don't know that I'd agree with that. He stepped up his execution in the tercera caida and his timing was a lot better, but he's a definitely work in progress. Virus should shoulder the blame for the first two falls being the average CMLL fare, but the final caida was the type of solid lucha you expect from a worker of his calibre. It'll be a sad day when they finally take this belt off him, but I'm curious to see whom they put over him.

This website has some photos of different sized Tokyo Dome crowds: http://enuhito.com/archives/51935637.html

That includes the seating behind the stage. For big musical acts, the stands to the right and left of the stage sell out, but New Japan doesn't bother trying to sell those tickets. Their Dome show set up (which they claim is 36k) is a cresant like shape facing the ring and stage.

I don't believe that Dave was worked on the advance ticket sales. It doesn't make much sense for New Japan to stop selling the best seats for the purpose of working an attendance number. My guess is that the best seats sold faster than last year and they thought they'd fill out the stands more. The stadium isn't set up for 50 or 60k because of the stage and ramp. That number is a misconception of what constitutes a sellout. A sellout is closer to 42k. I don't really believe they got 36k paid given they were selling tickets at the door. When an event sells out the Tokyo Dome, it's usually in a matter of minutes. I've never heard of it selling out over a mattet of weeks.

Prior to the show, almost all of the arena seats were sold out (the section where the baseball diamond is) and most of the 2F Stand A tickets (which are the middle priced tickets in the stands.) The rest of the tickets were sold right up until the day and they probably figured that since the advance was good they'd sell more tickets in the stands. I don't believe they set it up for 36k. That's bullshit. A few years back Tokyo hosted a rugby match between New Zealand and Australia at the old National Olympic Stadium. The exact same situation happened -- the most expensive tickets sold out along with the most moderately priced ones -- and to save face the Japan Rugby Football Union papered the crowd by giving away a bunch of tickets to high school players. You just stick the kanji for "manin" (full house, no vacancy) next to the figure and you've got a sell out. I doubt they even got 36k paid.

That's not outrageous.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Kazuchika Okada (1/4/15) * The Tanahashi/Okada match was far from the best in their series. If I didn't know better, I'd almost think that type of praise is predetermined. The early feeling out period was deathly dull. Striker tried to sell it like Tanahashi hadn't gotten out of the blocks yet, but early Okada control work is never that interesting. He even flirted with the same guardrail shit he does every match, but turned it into a DDT instead. * The match picked up when Tanahashi took over, and I actually think his strikes have improved in recent times, though there's still a lot of air when he sells them. The match built pretty well from there with the HFF to the outside over the guardrail being a memorable spot, but they missed a beat on that Rainmaker kick out. That should have been a much bigger moment. Why it wasn't part of the finishing stretch is beyond me? It didn't help that they cut to a long shot of Tanahashi's Rainmaker pose, then a crowd shot, before cutting back to the kick out sequence from a strange angle. * As usual, the finishing stretch was the best part of the bout and I dug Tanahashi immobilising Okada with the dragon screw leg whips before the finish. The match didn't feel at all special and wasn't helped by JR going into full on hype mode. JR praising it as an all-time great match was always going to be unconvincing, but it was annoying nonetheless. I wasn't down with Okada crying either, but at least Tanahashi was a prick to him on the mic. * I'm going *** 3/4 on this one with the 3/4 being a decent stretch run.

The Tanahashi/Okada match was far from the best in their series. If I didn't know better, I'd almost think that type of praise is predetermined. The early feeling out period was deathly dull. Striker tried to sell it like Tanahashi hadn't gotten out of the blocks yet, but early Okada control work is never that interesting. He even flirted with the same guardrail shit he does every match, but turned it into a DDT instead. The match picked up when Tanahashi took over, and I actually think his strikes have improved in recent times, though there's still a lot of air when he sells them. The match built pretty well from there with the HFF to the outside over the guardrail being a memorable spot, but they missed a beat on that Rainmaker kick out. That should have been a much bigger moment. Why it wasn't part of the finishing stretch is beyond me? It didn't help that they cut to a long shot of Tanahashi's Rainmaker pose, then a crowd shot, before cutting back to the kick out sequence from a strange angle. As usual, the finishing stretch was the best part of the bout and I dug Tanahashi immobilising Okada with the dragon screw leg whips before the finish. The match didn't feel at all special and wasn't helped by JR going into full on hype mode. JR praising it as an all-time great match was always going to be unconvincing, but it was annoying nonetheless. I wasn't down with Okada crying either, but at least Tanahashi was a prick to him on the mic. I'm going *** 3/4 on this one with the 3/4 being a decent stretch run.

Just watched the Nakamura/Ibushi fight with the JR/Striker commentary. I thought JR did a pretty good job on what can't have been any easy call and Striker was all right as well, aside from a couple of lame catchphrases and a snarky swipe at critics of their work. They were a bit over the top with the level of star they made Nakamura out to be, but that sort of thing's to be expected. The match started out slow and the highflying stuff from Ibushi's not really my thing, but once it turned into a slug fest it was a heck of a spectacle and JR got right into it. Nakamura still doesn't seem like much to me outside of knee strikes and the odd submission, but his stretch runs are exciting and he's excellent at timing his Bomba Ye attempts. The finish was well booked and it turned into an excellent bout, but the elephant in the room was the constant head shots. As much as we complain about Tanahashi being light as a feather, Nakamura is the other extreme. A lot of it looks sickeningly good, but is it really that skillful? I don't really like the image it portrays especially when they're trying to shove it down our throats as real sport. Those feelings aside, the match was very good, though not something I can see Ibushi replicating too often particularly given his standard offence.

This is true of just about every promotion there's ever been, which leads me to believe that it's not a coincidence and that promoters learnt from experience it was better to stack the top of the card and fill out the rest. Wasn't the early 80s peak of New Japan the product of Inoki, Tiger Mask and Choshu-Fujinami all peaking at the same time? And a great Friday night TV spot... but Tiger Mask matches were third from the top so it was still top heavy.

During the first ten years of Dome Shows there were legit sell outs, but there was also some rumoured papering like Big Egg Universe.

This is true of just about every promotion there's ever been, which leads me to believe that it's not a coincidence and that promoters learnt from experience it was better to stack the top of the card and fill out the rest.