ohtani's jacket

Sounds like a bunch of guesswork.

Wasn't there an Elimination Chamber Match that was one of the greatest matches ever? Seriously though, I thought you were high on the WWE through to Mania? Wouldn't Lesnar/Cena from SummerSlam, I think it was, count on the same level as some of that stuff reaction wise.

First bit of the Cota/Casas feud has surfaced -- http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/blog/8/entry-430-vintage-negro-casas-of-the-day-8/

I've seen all of the Mexico stuff and a fair bit of the Japanese stuff. He's in the conversation. I loved the Teranishi and Rocco bouts more than most people.

Is it just me or did Matt make it out to be the Return to Oz of the schoolgirl era? For what it's worth, AJW got in hot water over the match in Kansai and lost TV there for a while. Dump's parents also suffered some harassment during this period.

Mexico was loaded with light heavyweight talent in the late 70s and early 80s and Britain had its fair share of talent too. He didn't look better than Ray Mendoza when they fought at El Toreo.

What we ended up with in the standards argument was that neither side agreed and it keeps being brought up every few weeks.

Ultimo Dragon vs. Emilio Charles Jr, UWA World Middleweight Championship, CMLL 4/27/93 People shit on Ultimo a lot these days, but you won't find me badmouthing him. This won't make you forget 90s classics like Dandy vs. Azteca or Blue Panther vs. Atlantis, but it was on the same level as Emilio's matches with Azteca and a step down from his work with Atlantis, which is pretty good for a non-luchador. Had it been a classic it would have been a point in both men's favour, but as much as I love him, Emilio didn't exactly roll out the classics. Besides, great matches were thin on the ground in 1993 CMLL so you take what you can get. What we got here was the definition of a three star title match. Everything they did was good, but none of it was great. Emilio didn't take enough of the match, particularly on the mat, so it felt a bit lightweight at times. He wasn't able to put his imprint on the match through any of his characteristic work, and couldn't hang with Ultimo's Japanese offence, which also made it a bit one-sided. But the real problem was the length. At 15 minutes or less, it didn't have time to develop. On the positive side, Ultimo was again phenomenal between the ropes, and the transitions were smarter than you generally get in lucha matches. I really liked the knee lift Emilio used to lay Ultimo low in the opening fall, and Ultimo was very good offensively even if it wasn't exactly lucha friendly offence or laid out for full dramatic effect. Jerry Estrada vs. Stuka, hair vs. hair, AAA 10/31/94 These guys did a good job of straddling the line between an up tempo AAA style match and a traditional cabelleras match. There was just enough blood, just enough brawling and just enough highspots to keep everyone happy. An example of this would be Jerry Estrada's slingshot somersault senton onto a blood stained Stuka. Estrada got by far the worst of it and ended up landing on the guardrail. He crawled under the flimsy barricade AAA had and the two continued brawling on the floor. Another thing they did well was put over the physical toll the match was taking, so even though they did a lot more dives and arm drag exchanges than you'd usually expect from an apuesta match, they were clearly exerting a bunch of energy and the desire to win was strong. The match wasn't without its flaws. Stuka looked like he was working in slow motion at times and some of his transitions were poorly timed, but his bladejob was beautiful and you'd have to go a long way to find prettier planchas. Everybody knows how I feel about Jerry Estrada, but I thought this was a standout performance from him. It felt like he transplanted one of his Monterrey performances to an AAA ring, though to be fair, Moncolva (where they were wrestling) has had its share of bloody apuesta matches. Estrada was particularly good in the third caida where he carried a lot of the action. I loved his retaliatory abdominal stretch where he applied the fish hook. That was an awesome throwback to old school hair matches. The finish was screwy (a common theme with 1994 AAA), but it actually worked here, and Estrada delivered a nasty piledriver to put the exclamation mark on this puppy. I'm not sure that I'd call it an AAA classic, but for bloody wager matches it's up there with Satanico vs. Morgan and Rambo vs. Villano from the same era and certainly a match you should watch. El Hijo del Santo, Angel Azteca y Super Muneco vs. Satanico, Psicosis y La Parka, AAA 5/30/94 Matt D recommended this to me and holy shit is the technico offence off the chain. It may legitimately be the best technico offence I've seen, and a match I'll recommend from now on if you want to see great technico work. It started with a ferocious lock-up between Satanico and Angel Azteca that was like two wildebeest locking horns. It's well documented in these pages that Satanico was in decline around this time, but this was a vintage opening exchange from him. His defence and counter wrestling were brilliant, and I have no doubt on a different night when the exchange went for longer he could have pried open Azteca's defences and got the opening submission. Psicosis and La Parka let the crowd get to them in amusing fashion and Satanico being the brains and the nucleus gathered them together on the outside to regather their thoughts. Santo then launched into his headscissors routine, which ended up with La Parka crashing hard into the barricade. Super Muenco hit the ring and did his wobbly head shake taunt, and Psicosis' reaction was priceless. He bailed from the ring and mocked what he'd just seen with this classic "what the fuck was that head shaking shit?" indignation. He dove back into the ring with his tail up and of course got his ass handed to him. The great thing about it was that as Super Muneco was doing his Super Astro style celebration at clearing Psicosis from the ring, Parka tried to attack him and Muneco danced in his face. Parka was incensed and took it out on the bottom rope. The effortless interweaving of comedy into the fall was brilliant. Satanico and Azteca went around the horn a second time and cut loose with the armdrag exchanges, and it was fucking great. Hardcore lucha fans will hear me, you know you're into something when you pause to see whether there was a singles match or who Satanico fought for his hair in '94. He was growing it out in anticipation of fighting someone, but it looks like no-one booked him in a hair match until '95. Man was he good in this. You all know he's my favourite luchador and the guy who I think is the best luchador of the past 35 years, but this was a 1990 throwback and pretty special. The technicos then bamboozled the rudos with a tricky and intricate pinning sequence, and as Pepe Casas held their hands aloft it was a beautiful thing. The rudos licked their wounds on the outside and La Parka got into it with a fan. He threatened to climb over the barricade and continue the conversation, but Psicosis held him back. Psicosis then got pissed at the same fan while Parka puffed out his chest. Both guys were in fine form here. Super Muneco tried to the same wobbly head fake shit on Satanico and he just stepped back and popped the clown. Then a couple of exchanges later, Satanico showed some ass. I usually dislike Super Muneco but this was wildly entertaining. Azteca and Psicosis worked at a rapid pace, but Santo and La Parka was just mental. Maybe one of the all-time best El Hijo del Santo trios exchanges, and a lot of credit should go to La Parka for his crazy bumps into the ropes. The rudos wisely slowed things down from there by picking on the weak link Super Muneco. Satanico was the ring general here and orchestrated the rudos' second fall victory. They did a clever job of double teaming the danger man Santo and systematically took apart Azteca. Unfortunately, the third caida had some boring mask ripping and descended into the mediocrity so common with AAA trios, but there were still some golden moments. Satanico continued to brawl like a mofo and had a great punch exchange with Super Muneco and Psicosis took an awesome ring post bump on the outside. Azteca and La Parka ended up swapping masks, which I'm guessing was some idea of Pena's that he was overly fond of. The finish was kind of dumb after such a hot match as the rudos got DQ'ed for a miscommunication spot, but it did leave us with the fun image of the rudos trying to pick a fight with El Tirantes as the El Hijo del Santo's music played. Bad finish aside, I went back and watched the first two falls as soon as it was over, so that should tell you how good the majority of the bout was.

That Martel/Lawler match is pretty sweet. Martel did a good job playing the subtle heel. Definitely going to watch more Martel before it's all said and done. I'm curious who was better in the 80s, Hennig or Martel?

Negro Casas, Black Magic y Mano Negra vs. Mocho Cota, Bestia Salvaje y Emilio Charles Jr., CMLL 5/13/94 Jesus, Cota, Salvaje and Emilio! Check out the mugs on those three. This was rudos contra rudos and started off with some nifty matwork between Black Magic and Salvaje. It's been a while since I've seen Bestia look good in a match and I was instantly reminded of what an underrated talent he was. It was also the best Smiley has looked on the mat in CMLL, which was a nice surprise. Mano Negra and Emilio followed suit and were rock solid. Negra continued his inspired post mask loss run, which was miles better than the lead in to his apuesta match. As they grappled, Cota began stirring trouble from the apron in his usual maniacal fashion. The camera stayed on for quite some time and it was interesting watching him snap from one extreme to the other. As soon as Casas was in, he went straight after Cota, so I'm guessing this was early build towards their hair match. Cota ended up taking over and Bestia impressed me to no end with the sharpness of his rudo beatdown on Smiley. Great punches. A quick search of the Match Finder found no trace of a singles match. The things we miss out on. Emilio helped beat the shit out of Casas to end the fall, thus beginning perhaps the best thread to the match, Emilio vs. Casas. It's not every day you see Emilio Charles Jr and Casas work together, so you better drop what you're doing and watch this. While that particular ass kicking was going on, Bestia was giving one of the patrons a nice up close look at how great his punches look from a foot away. Casas sold his beating like he was in another postal code. At one point, he was trying to punch his way out of the corner and collapsed, desperately lunging at Cota's tights. There was some weird storyline going on where Smiley was trying to help Casas but Negra wasn't. I'm sure it didn't make much sense even in Spanish. Negra then tried this cool choke takedown on Cota, but the Cota team were no mugs in the ring. Bestia threw the most beautiful left hand I think I've ever seen, and of course Cota was in the thick of it all like some kind of vindictive ringmaster. Casas popped back up on the apron in a not-so-great moment of selling, but if you're going to pop up on the apron to lead your side's comeback then there's no better way than the headbutt he gave Cota to turn the tide. Unfortunately, Smiley's retaliatory beatdown of Bestia wasn't in the same league as the one he'd had dished out to him, but it got the job done. There was an amusing moment between falls when Casas began beating on Cota in front of some front row seats. The patrons cleared the seats to avoid being hurt and Casas used the woman's handbag to thrash Cota. Cota picked the thing up and flung it across to the other side of the ring, and you could see the woman aghast about her handbag. Eventually, the ref handed it back to her companion while Cota did his best Terry Funk impersonation and tried to pick a fight with a photographer. The third caida started with a series of exchanges where teammates were making saves for one another until finally it came down to Cota and Negra with no one from Negra's side willing to help him. Negra threw a punch at Casas, who was hugging the apron, but as you'd expect by now there was no big angle. Instead we got more Casas vs. Emilio and God was it great. The finishing stretch was a lot of fun with Cota doing a hilarious punch drunk sell off a Smiley body check then getting caught in a bear hug submission. But as Smiley was shaking Cota all over the ring, Casas ran straight into an Emilio power bomb and that was the match one, two, three. Not a vintage performance from Casas kayfabe wise. The match was fun, though there's definitely better rudos contra rudos stuff out there. Cota was good, but didn't have the same aura as his 80s stuff and was a bit of a sideshow act compared to his godliness on the 80s set. Still, he managed to amuse.

Johnny Saint Pros: * 'Overnight sensation' when debuting for Joint Promotions in 1969 after ten years on the independent circuit * Captured George Kidd's vacant World Lightweight Championship in 1976 defeating Jim Breaks for the title * Presented as the spiritual heir to Kidd and kayfabed as his pupil (actually had very little to do with Kidd and was trained by Billy Robinson) * 10 time World Lightweight Champion as well as British and European Lightweight Champion * Positioned as the top British lightweight wrestler of the 70s and 80s and more or less continental Europe as well * Featured on Cup Final Day three times in his 70s heyday and a regular at the Royal Albert Hall * A regular television fixture from his television debut in 1969 through to the end of wrestling on TV in 1988 * Enjoyed a late career comeback in part to the renaissance of World of Sport through The Wrestling Channel * Greater influence over modern indy workers than any other Euro candidate on the ballot Cons: * Was never really in demand in North America or Japan * Questionable whether he was as good an in-ring worker as other lightweights such as Grey, Breaks or Cortez * Idiosyncratic style * As with all lightweight candidates, actual drawing strength difficult to ascertain * Strangely, not on any of the Wembley Arena shows

If this were 1993 and people were saying wrestling has never been better, I wonder how many people would disagree. There's always going to be people who prefer the contemporary product and those who live in the past, and the same people saying Lanza are wrong and the same ones who'd turn around and say the WWE today is better than the Attitude era or the Smackdown Six era or whatever else suits them. The truth as always lies somewhere in the middle. Some things in wrestling are better today and some things are not, and the same maxim extends as far back into the past as you care to go. If you break the 1980s down from '80 to '89, some things were better in the early 80s and some things were better by the late 80s. Some promotions got stronger while some territories died out. In 1989 you could have argued whether things were better or worse than the 70s to early 80s.

No promotion wants blood on TV, no promotion wants a fan anywhere near the ring, and no promotions wants the threat of a riot. That doesn't mean the heels today couldn't incite those things. Wrestling has been sanitized. Didn't Finlay get fired as a road agent for some flag burning angle or something?

I don't get the emotion thing. Last night I watched the most emotional mask match in 14 years, and people went on a complete emotional roller coaster over Daniel Bryan.

So?

Navarro is their father.

6 man tag teams should absolutely be included. There is no fathomable reason why they shouldn't. Six man tag wrestling is tag wrestling.

Ricki Starr and Gorgeous George in the same ring together was pretty mind blowing. I'm not sure how much of a typical Starr showcase the Hermann match was, but it was neat seeing Starr cut loose at the end. Russ Davis, though... A little bit would be okay, but the guy doesn't have an off button.

I don't see how Dandy and Satanico constitute a tag team, but they did have another big match in 1990 against Atlantis and Azteca.

Rollerball Mark Rocco Pros: * A television favourite particularly during the 1977-80 period * Arguably one of the most successful heel acts in British wrestling history * Decorated British and World Heavy-Middleweight Champion * Pioneered an explosive new work rate style in matches against Marty Jones and Dynamite Kid * Highly regarded by his peers * Wrestled frequently in North America and Japan * One of the key figures to jump to Brian Dixon's rival All-Star Promotions where he was heavily pushed and presumably a draw Cons: * Work has been negatively critiqued in recent years, particularly his work as Black Tiger in Japan * Strangely, never featured that prominently on Cup Final Days, Royal Albert Hall shows or the Wembley spectaculars, though in the case of the later his billed 1981 clash with Sammy Lee fell through, as did a heavily promoted Royal Albert Hall clash with Kung Fu in '82, which Rocco covered for brilliantly on the night * Not really an international light weight draw. Overshadowed by Dynamite Kid in that respect

Is that Blackwell/Lawler match the 10 minute one that was on the Memphis set or something else?

Brian Maxine vs. Mal Sanders (4/23/79) Turning Maxine face was an ill advised idea. Who wants to see Brian Maxine as a blue eye? Not me says the guy who slowly grew to love him as a heel. The trouble with giving Sanders a title when he was in his early 20s was that the veterans still didn't want to put him over cleanly so he either gets tainted wins or an unfortunate injury as was the case here. Mal Sanders vs. Young David (2/2/81) But then we have this bout where Sanders should have some kind of seniority over Davey Boy Smith but instead is wrestled with total parity. That bothered me a bit as it was another example of what little thought Joint put into their booking. They had this stacked array of talent, but didn't really do anything with it. To be fair, this was part of one of those Davis Cup style team competitions they loved to run so they were going for a draw, but it rubbed me up the wrong way. The match was a typical non-Jim Breaks Young David match. Nothing else he did in England came close to that trilogy. Mal Sanders vs. Keith Haward (3/17/81) These two matched up well, though ultimately Haward ran rough shot over Sanders and Mal kind of came out of the match-up looking second best, but this is the kind of pairing I would have written off without a second thought five years ago. I need to revisit their title match now as this was your classic title shot earner. Haward always blows me away that there was a guy like him in 1981. He's like a pro-type Ken Shamrock. Really something. Mal Sanders vs. Sid Cooper (9/29/81) This was the final of a knockout tournament to decide the Mike Marino Memorial Shield; Marino having died in August that year. Now I like Sid Cooper, and if people like Breaks he's another obvious guy to check out, but his rule bending here was ridiculous by any standard. I like the odd bout where the rule bending gets totally out of control, but it didn't fit the occasion here and detracted from what could have been a pretty good match. The final fall where Sanders was clutching his rib cage and went all out to win the shield was exciting, but a technical contest would have been a better homage to Marino in my eyes. Sanders winning did feel like a big moment, though. I could be wrong, but I think Sanders was with Marino when he died on the side of the road. They were definitely traveling together that night. So there was a bit of emotion there behind Mal's win. Sanders isn't doing too badly. I'm starting to warm to him so much I'm calling him Mal.

There are five Thomson matches on tape and another two where he's doing a masked Exorcist gimmick. Jetlag uploaded one of his bouts against Majid Ackra. The others are after his comeback from a career threatening back injury and aren't so good.

Atlantis vs. Ultimo Guerrero, mask vs. mask, 9/19/14 This was the most emotional mask match in lucha since the Atlantis/Villano III bout in 2000. The work was simple and effective. It was mostly built around nearfalls, and got better as the match went along, but the match itself didn't really matter. The result and the post-match afterwards were all about the emotion of a mask match. Jose Fernandez reckoned that Ultimo Guerrero kayfabed his family about the result and it's easy to believe. I've never been a fan of Ultimo Guerrero, but from the close-up of him telling the ring announcer his name and birthplace to the unmasking and the scenes that followed, the guy deserves a massive amount of props. In the days and weeks to come, I may go back and look at it as a match, but like the smart crowd with its large contingent of older fans there in anticipation of an Atlantis mask loss, let me just bask in the surprise. I never thought CMLL would do something to move me in 2014, not after the dog's breakfast that was the Rush/Casas hair match, but with one BS free main event they proved there's life in lucha libre yet. And that's enough to make a true believer out of anyone.

Clive was cool in the 70s, but that Ironfist kung fu gimmick killed it for me. He still had great matches with Grey in the 80s, but his matches against other top flight talent were disappointing. A good worker but not one I'd vote for.