ohtani's jacket

Whenever a luchadore loses a hair match they end up fully shaven. Some hair matches are the culmination of a heated feud or part of an ongoing rivalry. Others are thrown out there with very little build. Estrada's hair was part of his persona, but that's not important. Hair is hair as far as apuesta matches go. It doesn't really matter whether it's a big part of your look. It's a matter of pride.

Virus vs. Negro Navarro, Arena Olimpico Laguna, 11/15/14 When I first watched this, my initial thoughts were: "Was that even a match? That was some weird minimalist shit I didn't get. Was it some sort of anti-match?" Watching it again, I can see what they were going for, but I still wish it had been more of a match. The reason I like Charlie Lucero bouts so much is that even though there are execution problems he's trying to emulate a 1992 Monterrey title bout. This bout was like a gym sparring session which turned into a masochistic contest where they each took turns trying to make the other submit. I might have dug it if the grappling had been better, but it was that catch and release style matwork that lacks any sort of struggle. I did like the way the match escalated as a one fall contest, and I can see people digging it if they get into the whole "test of strength" vibe it had going, but I would have liked to have seen them wrestle a more traditional bout, or even worked a few more stand-up exchanges even if they were strikes. On one hand, this was just a YouTube clip we were fortunate enough to have recorded. On the other hand, it was a dream match five or six years too late. I would have liked something like those old Terry vs. Navarro clips that were set to Metallica. That would have been epic. Navarro forcing the win was cool; it just needed to be more of a slog. You always wanna feel that the guy who won knew he was in a fight, and I'm not sure this was grueling enough for the level of the guys involved. At no point did I think that any of this was bad ass and that's rare for Navarro. Still there was some nice escalation from the early castigos and their counters to the punch and the "say uncle" finale, even if I'm not sure that Virus was treated as entirely first rate.

I'm guessing I didn't like Rey's 2005 as much as most people. The Angle match that Meltzer gave four stars was a case of diminishing returns between them. The Michaels match was a tribute match thus beyond critical appraisal, but not very good nonetheless. The JBL match-up was a breath of fresh air and well done, but unfortunately the year was dominated by the Eddie feud. I actually don't know how people viewed the Guerrero feud at the time or even how it's viewed now, but IF it's supposed to be some sort of center piece for Rey's WWE run then count me as unimpressed. The 1/6 Smackdown match I thought was really good until the bullshit houseshow finish. The Wrestlemania match I thought was a missed opportunity to do something special on the biggest stage of all. The Judgment Day bout showed some pretty glaring weaknesses in terms of Rey being an all-round worker, namely that he can't really brawl. The famous Smackdown bout was a slow burner at first and I thought it was overrated for much of the beginning, but it got hotter and hotter and by the end was the best match from the feud. The GAB match was the best of their PPV efforts with the Dominic stuff not detracting majorly from what was a pretty good match, but the SummerSlam match was the pits. I hate ladder matches to begin with (it's a wrestling match, wtf is a ladder doing there?), but the angle the match revolved around was an absolute low point in the modern cinematic storytelling style and the big ladder spots were either botched or shit. By the time I got to the Cage match all I wanted was for the feud to end. I don't want to drag up the 619 discussion again, but I hated the way Eddy bumped for that spot. I was kind of burned out on Mysterio by the time I got to the MNM tags, but I could appreciate the excitement of the title switch even if Batista looked like a stiff. I think I'll take a small break before I get to 2006, because I never got the sense in 2005 that Rey was the one in control of his bouts or the driving force behind whether they were good or not and that's one of my barometers of whether I think someone is a great worker or not. I don't want to develop a prejudice that he's overrated simply because the Guerrero feud was underwhelming.

Isn't being a UFC judge a lot worse than commentating a wrestling show?

It can't be as bad as a match where Warrior talks to his hands.

Dynamite Kid was brilliant in England, as evidenced by them letting him take the British Lightweight title off Breaks at such a young age. I'm convinced that if he had stayed in England and bought a pub or something and never done steroids he would have been as good as Breaks, Grey and Jones in the 80s and possibly the best of the lot. His match against Jones in '83 is the best match of his I've seen and much better than his Portland work.

That makes sense. '95 seemed to me the year that the core group of workers perfected the AAA style. The '95 trios and atomicos from memory are better than the '93-94 stuff. Lucha suffers from not enough people going through it with a fine tooth comb. There's plenty of stuff good enough to make a supplementary set, it just needs to be watched. The problem is the best stuff really ties into the feuds that were going in at the time, the history of the workers or the lead in to singles matches. I'm not sure a lot of it works on a stand alone level. In that case, it may be better as part of a Lucha Yearbook than an overall global one. There's two guys who upload quite a lot of interesting stuff on YouTube and I know Loss has handpicked a lot of promising stuff. The mid-90s were dark years for CMLL in particular, but I'm hoping we'll shed some light on them in the near future.

Fuerza Guerrera/Emilio Charles Jr./La Fiera vs. El Hijo del Santo/Mascara Sagrada/Misterioso, CMLL 11/29/91 You all like Fuerza right? Everyone likes Fuerza, but not enough is written or said about him. So whenever I have an hour to spare I'm going to write one of these. I read something cool about Fuerza when I was doing some research for the Lucha History Lessons. Apparently he was a big lucha fan growing up, but his family didn't have enough money for him to attend the big arenas in the Federal District, so he would go to the smaller shows instead. There he was exposed to a lot of costumed gimmick workers, who maybe weren't as talented as the guys working in the larger arenas, but who were great entertainers. That experience clearly had an influence on his own wrestling philosophy, and throughout this series I'm going to point that one Fuerza moment in every match that typifies the charm of Mexican lucha libre. This was trios was part of the build up to a rematch between Guerrera and Misterioso for the NWA World Welterweight Title on 12/8. Misterioso, for the unaware, was a protege of Rey Misterio Sr, who'd knocked around the Tijuana/California area for a number of years before being brought in by Pena on the advice of Konnan. Pena, as you'll know, was always looking for fresh new talent to play the gimmicks he'd dreamt up in the CMLL back office, and this feud with Fuerza was the fabled rocket strap you hear so much about on wrestling forums. The rudos attacked from the get-go, and I tell you, if there was ever a guy I'd want to take to the ring with me to attack from the get-go it would be Emilio Charles Jr. He was so great as the secondary guy in a classic rudo fall. In the span of a few short minutes, he'd done a number on his own man (Mascara Sagrada), helped Fuerza work over his own man, got the crowd all hyped up, worked beautifully in tandem with the other rudos, and made Santo submit while biting his fingers. Fiera was also good in this fall, really fucking with Santo and the referees, which made me think two things: one, maybe that chain match with Estrada wasn't an anomaly and I just haven't been paying attention to early 90s Fiera, and two, Fuerza was good at choosing rudo partners. A really succinct and efficient rudo fall. It wasn't particularly violent, but everything the rudos did was bound to piss the tecnicos off, and Fiera's frog splash was picture perfect. There was a great shot between falls of the tecnicos recouping on the outside and Santo raring to go. Fiera had worn his bandanna for the entire first fall, but he pulled it down around his neck during the interval like a bandito. The stage was set for a tecnico comeback attempt and with the bell came a charge of sorts. It was more like a confrontation really as Misterioso was determined to show he wouldn't back down from Guerrera. The rudos tried to double team the young man, but both Emilio and Fiera at Fuerza right hands, and in the ring Santo went to town on Fiera as the son of El Santo has been known to do. Fiera's exaggerated sell of Sagrada's backbreaker was one of the golden moments of the bout as he froze in pain while twisting and contorting himself like Wild E. Coyote. I don't know if it was the quality of the rudos, or if Sagrada was particularly on this day, but he was a perfect clog in this. He did a series of nice drop toeholds on Emilio, which led to the Fuerza Moment of the Match. This one was a double act. Every time Sagrada hit his toehold, Emilio would sell his nose being smacked into the canvas. Finally, he became irate and kicked the bottom rope that Fuerza had been leaning on. Fuerza took the most brilliant spill between the ropes. It even looked in real time like he'd hit his head on the middle rope. It was the kind of spot Psicosis would have been proud of and there was probably a boyish glint in his eye recalling those long ago cards in tiny arenas. The match dipped a bit as Fuerza began dancing about feigning a foul and ripping Misterioso's mask, which are tactics I'm not particularly fond of, but there were still a lot of great moments in the tercera caida. I loved the camaraderie of the rudos to begin with. Fiera put his arm around Fuerza to reassure him they weren't letting this one get away and gave Emilio the same kind of assurances. The fall began with Emilio vs. Santo, which is an absolute dream match-up. If those two had been booked in a match during this time period and given more than the truncated amount of time that Emilio often got for singles matches then you'd probably be looking at an all time classic. The mask ripping sucked, but interspersed between it all was some tremendous bumping from Emilio and Fiera. Fiera took a glorious posting while Emilio got his legs caught in the bottom ropes and had his head rammed into the hoardings. Later on, Fiera missed his spinning heel kick and sent Emilio flailing to the outside, which set up the tope de cristo sequence that ends with Santo running across the ring, going through the corner and hitting the tope suicida. No matter how many times he's hit that, it's still the best sequence in lucha. This time was kind of cool as he entered from off camera and dove into the darkness. Afterwards there was a clear replay of it, but I dug the spontaneity. (The replay also showed Fiera shuffling into position, which was too bad.) That was pretty much the end of the fun, though, as Misterioso got the big win over Fuerza, whose mask was sprouting tuffs of dark black hair. Not really a showcase match for Fuerza as his partners did a lot of the heavy lifting, but this is the kind of lucha I love. It wasn't a four star classic or a hidden gem, but the kind of lucha you can sit back and enjoy and trust you're in competent hands. Hopefully, we'll have much more of that and more as the Fuerza hours continue.

Virus is my favourite guy left in lucha and yet I never watch his matches the week they air. That's terrible. Hopefully, I can catch up by the end of the year. Virus vs. Cachorro, lightning match, CMLL 10/21/14 This was pretty good. It was nice to watch a lightning match where you weren't reminded of the clock every five seconds. Props to the editor for concentrating on the action. Lightning matches are tricky even for maestros like Virus because they put the worker in two minds: you can either work them like one long primera caida or try to condense a three fall match into 10 minutes. The latter is more dynamic but often quite telegraphed in the way workers move from section to section without the natural break in falls. The first approach is sound, but it's rare that anyone works a primera caida that lasts 7-8 minutes so the workers run out of things to do. Here Virus seemed to take the primera caida approach, extend it out a bit, and loop it. It worked out pretty well despite some sloppiness from both men. The matwork in an opening caida usually ends in a stalemate or draw, which is basically what happened here. Virus kept going for the arm, and in true maestro fashion was thinking several moves ahead and all the rest of the cliches. Cachorro had no choice but to counter with the leg, which meant they switched positions a lot. There was a lot of movement on the mat although not a lot of fluidity. I wouldn't really call it great matwork as Cachorro's only real contribution was to trip Virus, though in fairness to him, Virus kept blocking his submission attempts and didn't really give him anything. Still, a good five minutes of holds and counter holds is nothing to sneeze at. In a typical primera caida, they end the stalemate by working some up tempo exchanges that usually end in a pinfall or submission. Here they had a bit more time to fill so Virus actually aborted the first rope exchange and went back to the mat and back to the arm. This led to the only real false note in the match when Cachorro hit a tope. It was a good looking tope and you can justify it in many ways, but to me the tope's not a primera caida move. Younger guys are increasingly doing it at any point in a match, but I was reared on a different sort of lucha where topes came deep in the match. Yes, it was a one fall bout and not a primera caida, but it didn't fit in with the general theme, Virus shouldn't have been dazed enough for Cachorro to even hit it, and it ended up being little more than a transition into a typical first fall finishing stretch where the workers chance their arm on a flash fall. Virus in fact shelved a lot of the bigger stuff that he probably would have done if the workers had been going for broke with a three fall narrative arc. The match ended with a final flourish and Virus came out on top with a flash submission that probably would have looked better if he hadn't lost his balance. Still, the muscle pose while in the Virus Clutch makes for a great statement, and he finally got that persistence with the arm to pay off. Definitely better than your typical lightning match, but not a match where Cachorro was made to look particular good. He looked better in the En Busca de un Idol, in my opinion. Virus could have done more to make him shine, but Cachorro could also do with taking a page out of his old man's book and mastering the mat before he worries about the mechanics of anything else. If he could become a bit more forceful on the mat in the way that say Trauma II did, he'd show a heap of potential. As for Virus, he's slowing down a bit as he approaches the wrong side of 45, but still a modern day genius. If only he had a running partner to create something special with. That's sort of the catch with Virus these days. He's getting more and more singles opportunities but it's mostly carrying young guys. Still, beggars can't be choosers, and we'll see what the rest of his year brought.

Did AAA really have such a bad year in 1995? I think it's probably the best year of their '93-95 run in-ring wise.

I dunno about that. Rewatching and reevaluating stuff is all hunky dory when you're uncovering hidden gems or championing something that had a bad rep in the past, but when you start panning things that were popular in the past you do tend to lose a little perspective. The fact that reappraisals fall in and out of favour means they're more reflective of modern whims than some sort of timeless standard. Dave's default position always seems defensive, as though nobody would ever believe that older wrestling holds up, but I do think taking into account the history and context of what you're watching is important when re-evaluating matches and too often overlooked in favour of the immediacy of "did that do anything for me?"

I think the booking and the layout hurt him. The actual performance was fine, though it was mostly selling and not comparable with his best stuff. A few tweaks and I would have spoken highly of the match. I didn't like Dandy losing face at the end. Fiera took the easy way out in a lot of their trios matches, refusing to lock up at the end and resorting to the low blow. I didn't really like that either, but you figure there's going to be a payoff where Dandy finally gets his hands on Fiera and the rudo gets his just deserts. Unfortunately, that didn't really happen. I get the irony they were going for, but I thought Fiera came out of the feud looking stronger than Dandy. I guess it goes back to what we always bemoan: that CMLL doesn't put much thought into their booking. (Pena-less CMLL, that is.) On the plus side, for a match that was (likely) slapped together a few weeks before the show, it was a pretty cool feud. I have a new found respect for Fiera if only for this month long run.

I don't think it was a spotfest either. The first half of the match was submission filler and they didn't kick into high gear until the stretch run. It wasn't any different from a regular Joshi tag. I remember this as being one of Chris Coey's "discoveries" of sort since it came from television and not the commercial tapes that people would buy in EP mode. Hokuto and Toyota are any unfuckable with tag team, and Aja being paired with Hasegawa is an interesting dynamic, but I don't think the roles get fleshed out to any great degree. Perhaps that's what Loss meant by a spotfest. The ending is exciting, but Hasegawa drove me a bit loopy with all those exploders. I've always found Aja overrated and matches like this are the reason. This is the sort of match where she should come across as an indomitable force that can only be beaten because she's handicapped with a junior partner, but she's just another player. I always maintained that it took her time to grow into the Ace role. The passing of the torch at Dreamrush was more like Aja trying to keep a candle from going out. She needed to be fiercer here in the face of dream pairing in Hokuto and Toyota because when she's not dominating she comes across as surprisingly small. I never really noticed how short she was until I started rewatching this stuff. She's shorter than everyone else in the match and this idea that she was a monster mostly came from her bulk. Just to show I'm not picking on Aja, it wasn't a memorable performance from either Hokuto or Toyota either. I don't really think the bout is much of a discovery anymore, but as a mostly unknown league bout from a TV episode it's not too bad. Just supplementary.

I was less than enamoured with this one as well. It was better than the JWP vs. AJW match, but I've learnt my lesson about multi-women tags from this era. It gets better after a few of the girls have been eliminated, but I think you'd have the same problems with it that you had with Thunderqueen.

Fiera's performance was too good for the bout to be disappointing, but I had a lot of problems with it structurally. There was a great bout in there if they'd just rearranged a couple of things. Dandy lost face with the finish as far as I'm concerned. I don't see that as poetic justice. He just looked weak. Fiera was fading and Dandy should have put him away especially since in the lead up Fiera was often taking the easy way out in the third caida. I suspect they were trying to play off the finishes to those trios matches but it fell flat.

The patchy hair match -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-437-the-fiera-vs-dandy-feud-3-the-finale/

La Fiera vs. El Dandy, hair vs, hair, CMLL 11/27/92 Here we go with the revisit then. Fiera attacked Dandy on his way to the ring, which comes as no surprise given he'd been doing it to him for weeks. Perhaps Dandy should have been better prepared for it, but I guess they were trying to sell that there was nothing he could do about it. The beginning wasn't as frenzied or as bloodthirsty as it could have been, and in truth some of the trios openings were better, but I liked the image of the big ring announcer scuttling away as he quickly finished his ring intros. Fiera's offence was excellent and he delivered a measured and precise beat down. It was excellent strategy actually. He took his time weakening Dandy, got some nice heat by standing on top of him, and made sure the audience got a good look at him writhing about in pain. I liked the way he wrapped him up for the pinfall as well. Very neat. But that's the thing: it was all a bit too neat and tidy for an apuesta match. Aside from a few of the high shots and the posing on Dandy's back, it could have been a title bout with a bit of an edge to it. Or perhaps a better way of looking at it is that it would have been okay for a mano a mano bout, but an apuesta match you expect to be wilder. The second fall was more like a classic apuesta match with Dandy bleeding and Fiera gnawing on the cut. It wasn't easy to see the blood on the Lynch copy, but the tone of the fall was classic wager stuff. Fiera did an excellent job of cutting off Dandy's comeback attempt and peppering him with chops that slipped up around the jaw. Probably my favourite spot of the bout was when Fiera threw him to the outside then delivered that vicious kick to the head. I loved the way he crouched in the ring letting Rangel administer the count while Dandy shuffled his way to the ring on his butt. In a typical wager match, Dandy would have caught an opening and fought his way back into the bout, but here he was felled by a big time DDT, and the next one would have been lights out so he had to counter it. A Northern Lights suplex isn't exactly your mama and papa's lucha, but it would have worked better if Rangel hadn't been slow to make the count. The slow counts in lucha never really bother me, but that needed a quick count. I'm not sure it was entirely Rangel's fault as he didn't seem out of position prior to the counter. He was just incredibly slow to react and stopped to check the shoulders. Fiera made it worse by wriggling about too much, which made it seem like he hadn't sustained enough damage to stay down. In any event it was in the books. Fiera may have had a slight gripe about his shoulder being up, but he chose to ignore it and pounce on Dandy instead. There was a clip at the beginning of the third fall. I'm not sure how much they cut out, but aside from a big lariat that sent they both careening over the top rope, Fiera maintained the upper hand. Watching it a second time in the stop/start manner of writing a review, you've got to appreciate how good Fiera's offence looks. Every thing he does is pinpoint. The shitty little foul in the corner and the finger wag to Rangel are other details I didn't pick up on the first time round. While it didn't have the feel of a classic apuesta match, there were a lot of great touches in this. Fiera delivered a performance that was almost on par with Satanico or Pirata Morgan. There was just something missing from the bout structurally. Dandy's big gambit was a tope suicida that lived up to its name. The match started to shape into a natural 50/50 tercera caida after that with both men struggling and missing dives. Fiera had taken a few knocks and was still trying to shake off the effects of the tope when he countered a Dandy sunset flip attempt. In a beautiful piece of selling, he checked the hand he'd used to counter and leaned into the ropes for a breather. A subtle moment in the context of a hair match, but it showed that Fiera was fading. Don't forget, he'd exerted plenty of energy pummeling Dandy, so while he'd had the momentum for most of the bout, he was feeling the pinch in the third caida. That was a tired and desperate foul on the inverted atomic drop. Was the finish the right call? That's the big question. I think Fiera was definitely fading and Dandy had just countered his power bomb attempt, so it made sense for him to try to steal the victory. Dandy on the other hand was gathering momentum. There's a certain leeway in apuesta matches for tecnicos to fight fire with fire and give rudos a dose of their own medicine, but that type of win isn't very satisfying and not exactly what you'd call payback. Fiera's selling was great throughout the post match as he complained to the ref about Dandy holding the ropes and wanted to continue the fight with a half shaven head, but to me Dandy hardly looked like a gladiator. Fiera looked great in this match; Dandy not so much. When I first sat down to write this, I considered what my angle would be. Was it a perfectly acceptable three star apuesta match or anticlimactic? A disappointment or something which couldn't be helped? While typing this out, the match struck me as slightly more nuanced than I'd imagined, but the overall flow wasn't that smooth and structurally things seemed out of place. It was an excellent performance from Fiera even if he didn't tear into Dandy, but the finish was all wrong. Dandy should have won cleanly and decisively. The order of the first and second falls could have been swapped around with the blood coming straight away followed by the clear and precise beat down and the third fall built to a bigger Dandy comeback. That would have made for at least a four star bout. Still, it was fun and there was a lot to enjoy about Fiera's performance. Dandy's selling was good without being outstanding and a clearer picture would have made the colour more dramatic. The build up promised more, but I was happy with the revisit. Moral of the story rudos? Don't wear yourself out pummeling an opponent's noggin.

How many of these workers were career lower midcarders?

According to Cubsfan, the following wrestlers are all lower mid carders: Arkangel de la Muerte Ciclon Ramirez Mano Negra Virus Halcon Negro El Cavernario

I'd actually seen a couple of these before (this shit happens.) Let's compare and see what I wrote a few years ago: Nice change of tune there!

A few oversights before I continue: Pat Patton vs. Johnny England (4/23/79) Patton's 70s hair was immense. He looked like the lead singer of Boston, Brad Delp. It took me a while to warm to Johnny England because he wasn't the most naturally gifted wrestler, but what a great character. An obnoxious little bodybuilding brat with a punk rock edge to him and a knack for getting under people's skins. We didn't see the entire match here, but already there was a chemistry between the workers and you could see why they'd go on to have such a good match in 1981. John Quinn/Yasu Fuji vs. Steve Veidor/Lee Bronson (5/13/80) This was a simple but effective tag match. It wasn't great or anything, but a damn sight better than those Big Daddy matches. The brief Quinn vs. Veidor exchanges had me imagining an alternate reality where Veidor and Quinn feuded for the World's Heavyweight title, but this was actually Veidor's last appearance on television. Walton tried to fob Quinn off as the NWA World Heavyweight Champion, which made me wonder whether if even Kent was clueless about this fake belt of Arion's. Wayne Bridges got on the house mic at the end and cut a passionate promo stating that Quinn had taken three things from his: his belt, his pride, and his blood. He told Quinn he had 90 days to defend the title and to pick the day. Quinn wanted to go there and then and Bridges had to be held back. Simple but effective stuff. Now for one last dig into 1983... Vic Faulkner vs. Mick McMichael (8/3/83) Typical Faulkner vs. McMichael bout. It took them a while to warm up but by the end they were cracking out the comedy. Walton kept saying it was impossible not to enjoy a Faulkner vs. McMichael bout. I don't know about that Kent. I will say that while the spots weren't ad-libbed in the slightest, the speed at which they were able to call them was impressive to watch. My problem is that I don't find McMichael that funny, but hey, comedy and humour is a personal thing. Alan Dennison vs. Black Jack Mulligan (8/3/83) These two always had good matches together. I'm not sure if it was because they were friends or because Mulligan always seemed to target Dennison's arms and bump big for his strength spots, but they had about as good a series as I can imagine from a run of extended squashes. Dennison always seemed to give him that little bit more. A few extra rounds, a bit more offense than usual, no bullshit comedy designed to embarrass his opponent. Quite different from a lot of the two fall maulings Mulligan received. Jim Breaks vs. Grasshopper (3/23/83) For what it's worth, this was the most fun Grasshopper match I've seen, but it was far from vintage Breaks. Even taking into account that it was a tournament bout, it wasn't up to his usual standards. Unfortunately, he got booked in a lot of these situations towards the end of his television run. Colin Joynson vs. Pat Roach (12/15/82) This was great stuff. Joynson hadn't appeared on TV since the very beginning of 1980 and this aired on 4/16/83 even though it was apparently taped five months before. Walton was excited to have him back just like he was any time an older face showed up, but what excited me was Joynson's initiation into the forearm smash club. I'm a huge fan of heavyweights who trade forearm smashes and Joynson slotted right in. They did a great job of establishing that Roach wouldn't have it all his own way while at the same time making it clear that nobody could stop him from performing a crotch hold and slam any time he wanted. Joynson was tenacious and really hung with Roach here. Every now and again, Pat would start throwing forearms and have to check himself since he was a blue eye in the movies now, but for sheer physicality this was everything you could hope for and more. Joynson was considerably shorter than Roach, but bigger than he'd ever been and he threw that bulk behind every move. I love this kind of power wrestling. This was also notable for an out of position Dave Rees getting taken out by Joynson. You don't see that too often. Even Walton commented that Rees looked a bit white around the gills after the collision. Vic Faulkner vs. Rocky Moran (11/2/83) This was one of Moran's early television bouts and he was still wrestling as though it was his first day in the company instead of as an out and out heel. That was a shame as I wanted to see him wipe that smug look from Faulkner's face. The match was disappointing short and ended on a lame injury note. Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Colin Joynson (11/2/83) The Colin Joynson television comeback continues. According to Walton, Joynson was only a part time wrestler now. I think he owned a pub or was running a boarding house. Something like that. At any rate, Colin Joynson in 1983 equaled smash mouth wrestling. These two were not afraid to throw forearm smashes or deliver hard body checks. There was so much weight in the ring that any time they slammed one another into the canvas it looked like the most forceful body slam imaginable. Even the back body drops were a thing of beauty here. Really great Singh bout. Almost at the level of the Terry Rudge stuff. The strikes were awesome and Joynson showed why he earned his "panzar" nickname. Keith Haward vs. Kurt Heinz (8/23/83) Poor old Kurt Heinz. He actually survived into the third round against Haward, but you wouldn't know based on the way ITV chose to edit it. Haward knocked him out on a release german suplex, which was pretty loose looking. Jim Breaks vs. Rick Wiseman (8/23/83) This was entertaining stuff. It was the semi-finals of a knockout tournament but Breaks still found a way to make their ten minutes memorable. Realistically, Wiseman stood no chance, but Breaks' performance was so good it made you wonder if the upset was possible. The Swadlincote crowd rode Breaks hard and were right behind Wiseman. Walton kept going on about how Wiseman was using Breaks' own moves against him, but practically everybody tried that at some point or another. The awesome thing about this was that when Breaks finally took over and executed the Breaks Special he went after the arm with a quiet fury that was designed to shut every mouth in the hall. Not as good as Murphy/Robinson, but one of the better pre-final tournament bouts you'll see.

This wasn't very good at all. Maybe legit one of the worst matches from the inter promotional era.

What a great crowd. Delphin seemed to feed off them and gave a stellar performance, which was impressive since he was only really there to make saves. Of course Funaki and Teoh's Southern style junior tag work was great as well. Sasuke, like Toyota, is blessed with amazing flexibility which allows him to be turned every which way but loose. There's no way having him hobble about trying to hit his signature stuff would have made this any better. They got enough heat with the nearfalls and diving saves as it was. The ending was hotter than a lot of bigger halls, and as Loss mentioned, very All Japan like. Tremendous scenes at the end with the Sendai fans. Did the New Japan juniors have a better tag than this? Great match that has to be one of the high points of late 90s juniors work.

This was okay, but the botched moonsaults and JOCS at the end were a killer. Both women have had better days.

This is naturally disappointing if you compare it with both women's best matches, their name value, or even the tag matches they had against each other; but once you get over the fact it's imperfect, it's actually a match with a lot going for it. The early going is mostly bitchiness and trash talking with Toyota applying submissions that Ozaki will never give into and Oz looking to cut down the height advantage by keeping Toyota grounded. Sticklers might argue that Ozaki's arm work doesn't lead anywhere, but it's not meant to. As with most Joshi matwork, it's needle, not a serious attempt at ending the match. Ozaki is focused on attack, which she needs to be with the height she's giving away, while Toyota is more dynamic. There's a really neat spot where Ozaki ducks a front dropkick and Toyota goes flying right through the ropes. It would have made a really good turning point in a more narrative driven match, but Toyota quickly takes back the momentum with her rolling cradle. The stretch run also has some cool spots. Toyota suplexing Ozaki on the outside looked great as Ozaki created that rag doll effect when she'd bump and the follow-up moonsault had a reckless edge to it. Toyota doesn't have to dig deep enough to put Ozaki away and Ozaki isn't really given any big nearfalls where it looks for a second like Toyota might lose, which is disappointing given what a tough cookie Oz was. But if you lower your expectations to *** from ****+, I thought this was eminently watchable.