ohtani's jacket

Gilbert Cesca/René Ben Chemoul vs. Chéri Bibi/Pierre Bernaert This looked like it was from some sort of 70s or 80s retrospective as it kept cutting back to colour footage of what may have been Ben Chemoul talking about the match. Cheri Bibi is a great name for a heel. Every time Couderc called his name I got a kick out of it. The match was pretty close to what you'd associate with classic 50s and 60s pro-wrestling w/ the heels bumping and stooging and the babyfaces working athletic payback spots. Bernaert got his head caught in the ropes at one point, and Bibi did the classic Andre caught up in the ropes, and the faces made them pay with slingshots to the gut and dropkicks off the top rope. Fun match with some neat comedy, but nothing distinctly Euro.

Minoru Suzuki was outstanding in that AJ Styles match. I still have a hard time reconciling his feral look with the cocksure kid with the pompadour, but it's great he's embraced his inner mongrel. I loved his strikes in this match, especially the apron spot where it looked like he was going to do the Perro Aguayo Lou Thesz Press, but instead just kicked Styles. It's hard not to like a match where there's finger manipulation, especially when a finger gun taunt gets turned into a finger hold, and I thought Styles a great job of selling both the arm and finger damage. I'm not a fan of the fancy little flourishes Styles adds to every move, but they made for some great counters here with Suzuki catching the flailing arms. The match should have ended on that arm breaker as that was the nastiest looking hold I've seen in forever, but the desperation Styles Clash looked great, especially the way he only got half of it. Suzuki's initial counter to the Styles Clash was fantastic as well. The ankle lock reversals and the strike exchange at the end are modern day tropes, but just about anything can work in pro-wrestling if it's exciting enough. Even the lamest of run-ins couldn't prevent this from being a cracking match. Incidentally, is it just me or is New Japan's audience predominantly middle aged?

I'm not a massive fan of Backlund -- like I wouldn't rate him as one of my all-time favourite guys or anything like that -- but he was really good at working those headlock spots. Maybe not so much the grinding, but switching out of the headlock into something interesting then going back to the headlock. He was really good at that sort of thing. I also don't think anybody in the NWA was a significantly better mat wrestler.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tomohiro Ishii (7/31/14) * This was all right, but nothing to write home about. * The way they shot it was kind of strange as a lot of it was done from ringside. This made some of their strikes look better than usual and a few of them look even more business exposing, but overall it made the strike exchanges seem different, which is a plus. * Tanahashi apparently injured himself the night before, but it was hard to pin point that as the reason for why the match failed to fire. I did like the big headbutt Ishii landed towards the end and the sliding lariat, but other than that my impression of this was a lot of sling blades and a couple of leg whips for good measure. Not really an inspired performance from Tanahashi. * I don't understand how people can think Ishii is the best worker in Japan, let alone the world, when he's so limited. That's not a knock on people who do, and I freely admit that I have no idea who the best worker in Japan is at the moment, but he seems like a cult figure to me and not a super worker. * I'd go ** 1/2 stars on this one. The commentator name dropping Buzz Sawyer in 2014 was cool.

Crush Girls vs. Calgary Typhoons (Yumi Ogura/Mika Komatsu) (3/4/89) The version of this I watched was strangely edited even though it appeared to be from AJW Classics. This struck me as a terrible booking decision on All Japan Women's part. Why put the belts on the Crush Girls when you know Chigusa is just about to retire? With the void Chigusa is about to leave, the last thing you need is to undermine your unheralded midcard by having the Crush Girls make them look second rate. This bugged me.

Jack de Lassartesse/Robert Duranton vs. Andre Drapp/Bernard Vignal (1/20/61) Another gem in the treasure trove. Lassartesse was so young here it was almost like watching Christopher Lee's Dracula compared to the 200 year-old version from the 1980s. He was this lanky, amazingly long-limbed brawler who just seemed to swallow people up like a spider. His partner was the famous Robert Duranton, a bodybuilder turned wrestler who worked a subtle exotico gimmick. As far as bodybuilders-turned-wrestlers go, his work was superlative, but it was his valet Firmin that made the act special. The heels had cool, detached personas, and sauntered about the ring while Firmin dialed up the heat at ringside. French crowds weren't afraid to have altercations with the performers, and Firmin was grabbed a few times at ringside, but the place came unhinged when he had a go at Roger Couderc. The usually good humoured and jovial Couderc dropped his mic and socked Firmin, forcing a policeman to drag Firmin away. Couderc went back to calling the match and was later shown holding a shoe and asking if anyone had lost it in the melee. The faces for their part were fine. Drapp was another guy with a tremendous bodybuilding physique. I believe he wrestled in the US as well, and was a member of the French Resistance, which is pretty cool. After all the commotion at ringside, the heels took the opening fall thanks to the world's boniest knee drop from Lassartesse, then the video cut out just as the second fall began. Obviously, I would've liked to have seen the entire thing, but if this is all that exists (which I kind of doubt), then it's still a valuable historical document, especially when you consider you've got Lassartesse, Duranton and Drapp all together in the same ring.

Roger Couderc was mostly a sports broadcaster (although he did a few sports oriented TV games too), who was most famous for being a rugby announcer. He indeed didn't know shit about wrestling, but he was so great on the mic, with that distinctive southern accent and colorful expressions (and tongue-in-cheek humour) that he's awesome to listen to. I know Eddie Carpentier really respected him. The only weird thing for me is when they tell a joke and they're still laughing a minute later. I'm pretty sure I've seen clips of Couderc commentating Jean Pierre-Rives, who looked like Ric Flair on the cover of an Apter mag w/ his blond hair and crimson mask.

Francis Sullivan/Albert Sanniez vs. Bernard Caclard/Tony Martino Wonderful lightweight match. Just a beautiful display of athletic dropkicks, head scissors takedowns and rapid lucha style exchanges mixed in with the usual strikes and heel tactics. Martino was the standout. This balding little man with an outstanding physique, who looked like he had a boxing background and used it to devastating effect. A vicious little shit, the working over he gave Sullivan in the second fall instantly made him one of my favourite guys in catch. As good as Martino was, a match can't be any good without the faces being valiant and their technique here was of the highest calibre. They also had a brilliant post-match celebration style, as though they'd just won the men's doubles. You've got to love a babyface team that can celebrate well. If this is indicative of French lightweight wrestling then it was a worthy counterpart to the UK scene. Note: The video has the wrong wrestlers listed for each team

Do you mean the faces? Vince commentating Shawn Michaels matches was something to behold.

Re: the Mega Powers... I started watching wrestling while Hogan was off filming No Holds Barred, so I literally had no idea who he was until Savage announced him as his partner for SummerSlam. I vividly remember Dibiase making some remark about Hogan crawling out of the rock he'd been hiding under and wondering just who this guy was. The cool thing about Savage is that when he became the Macho King he didn't lose any of the qualities that made you like him as a face. I guess that's because he was a heel who became popular.

It's easy to pick out Ross' flaws, but most announcers get annoying after a while. Walton had his Waltonisms that grate on you after a couple of hundred matches, and Russell would prattle on about the same old stuff, his intonation like a drunken slur. The newest commentator I've been listening to is Roger Couderc, who didn't know anything about wrestling but was unbelievably biased towards the babyfaces. Plus he got into fights with ringsiders and the occasional wrestler.

Some corrections: Gilbert Cesca/Ben Chemoul vs. Anton Tejero/Pierre Anou(sp?) (3/12/65) -- Pierre Anou was apparently called Inca Péruano, and Ben Chemoul should really be René Ben Chemoul. Kader Hassouni/Jean Corne vs. Albert Sanniez/Jacky Richard -- This is rather surprisingly from 9/3/83.

Les Copains (Dan Aubroit/Bob Plantin) vs. Les Blousons Noirs (Claude Gessat/Marcel Mannevau) (5/15/64) "Les Blousons Noirs" were the French version of the 1960 UK rocker subculture, and like the Teddy Boys from the 1950s were seen as hooligans and young thugs. This was a match which never saw the light of day because around the same time some les blouson noirs destroyed the seats at the Paris Olympia during a Johnny Hallyday concert, and the ORTF, the national agency which provided public radio and TV at the time, decided they didn't want to encourage these juveniles by airing a match where they went over. Fortunately for us, the footage was discovered in a drawer somewhere and can see some French catch that was never broadcast. Les Blousons Noirs are pretty tame in terms of heat-mongering, but their cheating was effective. Aubroit and Plantin, with the awesome team name of "the Buddies" bring the lucha-esque moves, and all in all this is another good tag. Bernard Vignal vs. Grand Vladimir (5/15/64) Whoah, Grand Vladimir in the 60s. I've only seen him in 80s footage so it was fascinating to see him so young. This was a nice little forearm smash contest until Vladimir was disqualified. I guess this proves that French Catch had throwaway nothing TV bouts as well.

Early Finlay is awesome, like a superior version of hoodlum Dynamite Kid. Then he adopts the "Fit Finlay" persona and gets a lot crowd heat, but his ring work stagnates for a good decade or so. If you've been watching a lot of 90s Finlay then I think most of that stuff is ultimately disappointing. His WWE run was great, but the 90s European and Japan work lacks psychology. The WCW stuff I'm not sure he can be blamed for as there wasn't the same opportunities to have fantastic television matches as there were in the 80s and first half of the 90s.

What's so contentious about claiming that New Japan is better than WWE?

Teddy Boys (Adolphe Sevre/Robert Le Boulch) vs. Gilbert Cesca/René Ben Chemoul Teddy Boys, for those of you who don't know, were teen rebels influenced by American rock 'n' roll music. The subculture started in London in the 1950s and spread across the UK, and was characterised by an overly macho, gang led philosophy that often led to violent clashes with rival subcultures such as the mods. Because of this violence, the Teddy Boys, along with rock 'n' roll were blamed for most of the social ills of the 1950s. It also meant that a lot of heels in the UK, as well as across the channel, adopted a 'Teddy Boy' look even if it wasn't entirely in keeping with how actual Teddy Boys dressed. In the 60s, it merged with the 'rocker' look and was basically a juvenile delinquent look. Even when you get to the 80s, rockers are still portrayed as heels, which is in stark contrast to the babyface rocker teams in the US. I'm not sure if Sevre and Le Boulch teamed regularly as the Teddy Boys, or if Le Boulch was just Sevre's partner for this particular evening, but Sevre did the Teddy Boy gimmick for years. Unfortunately, the VQ on this footage is terrible with the picture breaking up every few seconds and the tape cuts off before the finish, so it's really only snippets of what looked like a fun match.

Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka (1/22/89) This was the Crush Girls' last big singles encounter before Chigusa's retirement. Not their best match, but it should make it onto the Yearbook fairly easily. Both girls had bulked up by this point and looked more like their post-retirement selves than their ultra-skinny bathing suit days. As always, they were pushing the form and borrowing elements from other styles. Chigusa, in particular, seemed heavily influenced by the UWF style. There was a real emphasis on the knockout as a possible means of victory, which led to some great strike exchanges by Joshi standards. Chigusa did a really cool counter to the giant swing where she punched Asuka in the eye, and a lot of the moves like the dueling pile drivers seemed designed to bludgeon their opponent into submission. The matwork was also fairly tight, however the UWF influence meant the match was a lot more narrow in scope than your typical Crush Girls clash. Depending on your viewpoint, that may be a good thing, but I prefer their sprawling encounters where things are a lot more epic (and messy.) I didn't like the finish here either. Asuka kicked out of a german suplex from Chigusa and was able to counter into a backdrop suplex of her own which she held for a three count, but I thought there was a missing beat where Asuka did something to stun or daze Chigusa first; otherwise, why could Asuka kick out the suplex but Chigusa couldn't? They'd both sustained the same amount of damage, relatively speaking, so it didn't wash. Memorable enough match though, and the crowd heat was what you'd expect.

I do a lot of reading for recommendations, but I rarely participate in any film or music discussions. I don't know how to talk about music and film conversations are too involved. Rugby I talk about on another site, but certainly it's hard to find the PWO of other interests.

For the 80s, you should start with Chgusa vs. Dump and the Chigusa/Asuka rivalry. From there you can determine which style of wrestling you prefer, heated brawls or relentless workrate.

I also have multiple hobbies, but the worst thing about that is I'll be watching a match and suddenly I'll start thinking about a movie or some music and want to pause the match to do a quick search. Oftentimes I watch matches while listening to music to kill two birds with one stone. I also go through cycles where I'll barely watch any wrestling. Then I'll read the boards and get inspired. Without this place, I probably would have given up a long time ago. The strange thing is I don't rate wrestling as highly as my other hobbies yet I spent the most time talking about it. In terms of rekindling the spark, just wait until you're in the mood for some wrestling. In my experience that's better than forcing yourself to watch some.

I was never a strictly heel fan, but I can definitely relate to this. I got into comics right before I started to watch wrestling and I think the initial appeal of wrestling was that it was like a comic book come to life.

I don't know that Malenko was the sacred cow of the 90s IWC. That was Benoit. People were more into Jericho than Malenko.

Vince vs. Austin with one hand tied behind his back was a big deal when WWF won the ratings the next morning. Mankind's HITC spots. Foley winning the title. Halftime Heat. Vince being revealed as the Higher Power. Growing up, the Mega Powers explode, Hogan vs. Warrior, the snake biting Randy and Bret winning the title at Survivor Series '95 were big moments for me.

I like Malenko in short TV matches where he can bust out a bunch of cool shit without much need for rhyme or reason, but who was his best opponent in longer matches? Ultimo?

Arandu vs. Guerrero Negro (Hair vs. Hair) (1988) This is a hair match from Arena Coliseo de Monterrey in 1988. Guerrero Negro you'll be familiar with from his work with Los Bravos. I think I mentioned earlier that he returned to the Coahuila region after the '85 earthquake, but that doesn't appear to be the case as he worked in the Federal District up until 1993 and was rumoured to have been doing the La Avispa gimmick in AAA after that. Arandu was a Monterrey regular who was based in Eagle Pass, Texas just across the border from his hometown of Piedras Negras, Coahuila. In the States, he worked for Joe Blanchard's Southwest Championship Wrestling and was a main stay at Arena Valadez where he and his tag partner El Horoscopo headlined shows and trained new wrestlers. He also worked extensively in Southern California and throughout the lucha independent circuit. His main selling point was his hair, which drew strong reactions from crowds and allowed local promoters to book him in apuesta feuds wherever he went He originally wrestled under a mask as Principe Aries before losing it to Jorge Reyes (I believe) in 1981. He then adopted the Arandu gimmick based on the 1970s comic book, Arandú, El Príncipe de la Selva. Arandu's luchas de apuestas record is not well documented, but he had a notable match with Kato Kung Lee in Monterrey in September of 1990 and a hair vs. mask match with La Parka in '95. He still wrestles today in Baja California and has three kids in the business. I believe that Arandu's valet's name was Layla and that she was an American.