ohtani's jacket

This was a decent opener but far from their best match in the WWE. They played off the fact that Eddie had fallen pretty far down the ladder since the last WrestleMania while planting the seeds for their feud. Definitely agree that it was TV quality, but that also says something for the improvement in the TV match quality.

It boggles my mind that anybody thinks this is a bad match. That's anti-Shawn Michaels/Kurt Angle rhetoric at its worst. This is the most interesting version of a Shawn Michaels vs. Kurt Angle match you could hope to see in your life. There are so many worse variations on a Shawn Michaels/Kurt Angle match that they could have worked that it surprises me that anybody listened to the contrarians. I don't understand people. I don't understand how anyone can watch a Kurt Angle match and not think he's a great technical wrestler. I can understand wishing that the entire bout was on the mat, but it's the WWE. I didn't love the immediate period after the big table spot, but it was fairly harmless in the long run. I also thought Angle rose from the dead too quickly on the double count to apply the ankle lock, but that's straight quibbling. Michaels trying to break the hold was epic. Michaels can be hammy but that was a perfect storm. I don't care what anyone says. Honestly, what is wrong with some people? This could have been a contender for the worst big match of all-time but it was thoroughly engrossing.

Is it just me or do Motorhead sound pretty shit playing Triple H's theme? This isn't that bad. It's a typical slow, methodical Hunter bout. Does Batista appear limited? Sure, but that's because he was limited. If you can't plug and play him into a Hunter match then perhaps he wasn't ready for the push. To be honest, I can't really see the match being worked any differently at this point. It was pretty much what I would expect from a Triple H/Batista match except that it happened to headline WrestleMania.

The video package at the start brings me up to speed with the angle. It's a fairly simple premise but it did give birth to the streak. I'm still unsure whether turning Orton heel was the best choice, but I did love Cowboy's involvement in the angle. He showed that he still had the business in his veins. The match itself is very much the Undertaker segment at WrestleMania. It's not as well laid out as some of Orton's other singles matches (most notably the match against Foley), but it's better than the average Undertaker match at WrestleMania.

It may be from pollen allergy, but there's still a lot of COVID and influenza going around. Personally, I don't wear a mask unless a family member is sick. Masks are mostly a courtesy to prevent others from getting ill.

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.