ohtani's jacket

The video description makes it seem like Aledo vs. Kidd, but the actual match isn't. George Kidd footage from the 60s is a holy grail, so it was quite a disappointment.

You forgot the Machines, Parv.

Unfortunately, that match is actually Francis Louis vs. Bob Plantin.

Marcel Montreal vs. Jean Menard Another great catch video. This time it was a pair of veterans doing the French take on the rule-bender versus the blue eye. Marcel Montreal was a big thick set guy and a heavy hitter, and Menard was a great heel, a real Cien Caras type right down to the silver hair. The match was a brawl basically with Menard doing a bunch of dirty shit and Montreal retaliating. The parts where they went toe-to-toe were the kind of shit you'd love if you love Fit Finlay. Just real hard-arsed brawling. Menard threw in a chair at the end, which isn't the type of behaviour you usually associate with the Euro style, but I've heard in the halls there was a lot of blood, brawling and gimmick matches away from the prying eye of television censors. Lots of fun this.

Manami Toyota vs. Akira Hokuto (6/89) This was apparently the first singles match between these two. It's a short bout, but full of energy. Manami Toyota has been hands down one of the most interesting things about 1989, though I suppose it helps that I ignore a lot of her short comings. Hokuto wasn't outstanding here, but she struck to her match strategy and it paid off. Nice prelude to one of the more underrated feuds in Joshi.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Katsuyori Shibata (7/26/14) * I haven't enjoyed Shibata's bachi bachi style in the past despite being a big shoot style fan, but I thought it made for a great styles clash here. It helped that I read up about Tanahashi's views on Shibata prior to the match as there was a real tension there that I wouldn't have caught otherwise. * The opening was a little cutesy, but it worked for me. The body of the match was solid. I'm not a huge fan of outside brawling in Japanese wrestling, but I thought the ringside spots were good and the basic narrative of Tanahashi having to avoid the penalty kick and try to neutralise Shibata's kicking power was decent. Shibata managed to vary the strike exchanges so that they weren't all centre of the ring, and I thought his forearms in the corner were great. * Tanahashi going up for the second High Fly Flow was a bad mistake from a kayfabe perspective. You could see that wasn't going to end well. The finish itself was absolutely spectacular. As much as I've bitched about New Japan strike exchanges and as typical a one as it was (this being the "we're out on our feet" version where they're fighting through the fatigue), but the variations on the final strikes were fantastic and the Shibata spinning strike that knocked Tanahashi to the ground was beautiful. The ref was great here as well as it looked like he wanted to call for the doctor. And the set-up for the penalty kick was great. That's how you job in a big wrestling match. Tanahashi's no Misawa, but that was a Misawa style job. * Great match! At least ****. Maybe even **** 1/2 for the excitement levels. Shibata was great in this. Tanashi sold well and as usual the match layout was strong, but Shibata wrestled with so much purpose and really deserved his win.

Tanahashi/Shibata was a great match. That ending was incredible. I can't believe they worked an awesome finish out of a New Japan strike exchange.

Manami Toyota vs. Toshiyo Yamada, AJW title (12/9/89) I was really quite impressed by this. They went the full time limit, which was ambitious for such young wrestlers, and I was kind of dreading the match length, but apart from the down time during submissions, it was a well paced match with plenty of intensity. Toyota attacked Yamada before the bell and Yamada retaliated by whipping Toyota with her jacket, and that set the tone for an edgy bout that neither girl was prepared to lose. Toyota's selling was inconsistent and there were other problems you'd expect like repetitive spots (though the single leg Boston they kept going back to looked really good), but I loved the ongoing struggle over the waistlock, and again for young girls this was a hell of a performance.

Honma vs. Ishii was pretty good, but it was mostly two thickheaded guys trying to injure each other. I don't know much about Honma, but his gimmick seems to be that he has no sense of self-preservation. The strike exchanges were shit, especially the chops, but they fired up the crowd. The high impact stuff was good, but a bit telegraphed, and I didn't bite on any of the near falls. I like Ishii, but I think he's a bit overrated in some circles. Mind you, just about all modern wrestling is overrated. In ten year's time when people start revisiting this stuff, we'll probably see a more accurate appraisal of the work, similar to how not every Joshi match in the 90s was **** 3/4 ala Mike Lorefice.

The story that is always told in Japan is that after Jumbo defeated Brody for the NWA International Heavyweight title, Baba went into the dressing room and told Jumbo "kyo kara omae ga esu da" or "you are the ace from today."

Everyone and their dog were doing dropkicks from the 70s onwards if not earlier. It was a staple babyface move. I imagine the wrestlers who first started doing it used it as either a finisher or a specialty move, but as more and more wrestlers began doing it, it evolved into a regular move. Okada's dropkick is more of a specialty move than either a regular dropkick or an old-school dropkick. The height he gets on it is phenomenal, and surely that boils down to athleticism.

This has always been a problem in wrestling.

Walter Bordes/Gerard Bouvet vs. Pierre Payden/Le Samourai Another quality French tag albeit more about athleticism and rule-bending than cool European holds. Le Samourai was a masked wrestler with a body suit, who was sort of like a French version of the British wrestler Kung Fu, but without the kung fu. He's probably the worst catcheur I've seen from bob ALPRA's videos, but it might just be the gimmick. Without knowing who he was, it's hard to judge his skills as a wrestler. He didn't really do anything special, though, and that's what we're looking for when we watch this stuff. Bordes, Bouvet and Payden were excellent, so that made up for whatever shortcomings the Samurai had. EricR came up with a standard for this matches that I like -- "impossibly cool." This wasn't impossibly cool, but it was a glimpse of three top catcheurs, which helps expand our knowledge of one of wrestling's last frontiers.

Some rare 70s footage: Peter Rann vs, Bert Royal (aired 6/28/72) Rann was one of the biggest rule-benders in the middleweight division, but he wasn't at all flamboyant. Aside from his mop of grey hair, he was indistinguishable from the blue eyes he fought against, and this in the era of the Streets and the Maxines. A talented grappler, he'd usually spend the first round working a clean bout then start his tricks from round two. One of his favourite tricks was sitting on his opponent's chest while pretending to adjust his trunks. While the ref checked the shoulders, Rann would reach behind his trunks and punch his man in the stomach. Royal got royally fired up at this; disproportionately so it seemed. That led to a ton of niggle and any chance of a wrestling match got thrown out the window. Royal seemed just as guilty to me, but part of Rann's schtick was that he'd get himself DQ'ed in the stupidest of fashions. Here it was after he'd taken the opening fall. He picked Royal off the canvas and punched him in the face, after the bell and right in front of the ref. That was an automatic disqualification and a rather premature end to the bout. To be honest, I would have rather seen them wrestle as Rann wasn't domineering enough to work the sort of match where a blue eye gets roughed up by the heel and Royal took too much of the bout. Peter Rann vs. Alan Colbeck (6/27/73) I've only ever seen Colbeck as a ref. He was an excellent technical worker, though perhaps a little dry. His work had a real Ken Joyce feel it though. That classic British maestro feel. I loved the way he'd push down on the head when he executed a back breaker. Little details like that really make it seem like they've trapped their opponent. Rann again wrestled a straight bout before getting into his usual tricks. Another trick he did was untie his opponent's bootlaces. It wasn't clear why he did this, but he loved that spot. This followed along similar lines as the Royal bout, though Colbeck wasn't anywhere near as fazed as Bert was. Rann got himself DQ'ed again with a punch right in front of the referee, and it really seemed as though he needed help for this problem. Some kind of clinical psychiatrist or behavioural . Poor sod. I liked this better than the Royal match as when they wrestled it was high calibre stuff. Ray Steele vs. Ali Shan (3/29/77) Excellent heavyweight contest between Steele and a Pakistani wrestler that Walton tried to bill from the Kashmir, but who probably wasn't. Shan was carrying some sort of finger injury, which seemed legit, but Steele being the sportsman that he was didn't take advantage of it. He did get a bit fired up when he couldn't put the Pakistani away, but went after the leg and not the fingers. Good action in this one, as you'd expect from Steele, and in the end a quality draw. Another very good British heavyweight contest.

Michel de Santo vs. Michel Chaisne This was fantastic. Every move was a struggle whether it was a body scissors or a headlock and they put maximum effort into their holds and counter holds. It wasn't exactly what you'd call shoot style, but they exerted a similar amount of energy. Even interference from another wrestler (Fred Magnier, I think) and a non-finish couldn't detract from this.

The cage match was only 13 mins long.

Aja Kong/Bull Nakano vs. Dream Orca (Mita/Yamada), 4/27/89 The future continued to look bright here for AJW, but every match was a learning curve and unless you really like watching rookies get a bit of seasoning and in-ring experience there isn't much to enjoy about this one. Bull held off and didn't participate as much as she could have, and really gave the reigns to Aja, who was still really green here. The Dream Orca bumped and sold, bumped and sold, bumped and sold, and never mounted any sustained offence. With the action so one-sided, my mind started to wander a bit and I couldn't help but wonder if Bull really needed to gain all that weight and become a monster. They were clearly trying to replicate Dump Matsumoto and Monster Ripper with the hope that one of their young girl pairings would take off, but the company ended up going in a much different direction that Bull probably could have stayed lean. As far as the yearbook goes, I can't see the need for much AJW footage past the last major Crush Girls matches, the retirement ceremonies and then a handful of matches to represent the promise that the late 80s classes had.

I've only been to two live shows in my life, but I really dug the Crush Girls vs. Nagashima/Sato match I saw. Japanese wrestling with all of the nearfalls and escalating moves strikes me as something that's better live than on television.

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Tomoaki Honma, 7/21/14 * This is the first time I've seen Honma. He's not a guy I know a whole lot about except that the Wrestling KO guys are high on him. He sure is an excitable fella. I was impressed with how much better he made Tanahashi's strikes look by having a slightly more exaggerated or theatrical style of selling that drew your attention toward the sell and away from the impact. He did no-sell a fair bit, including on a suplex late in the match, but his charisma makes it forgivable. * Tanahashi's lock-ups have really improved and his opening exchanges are much better these days. A small shift maybe, but it starts things off on the right note and makes me receptive to the match. Tanahashi wisely gave Honma much of the early going and I liked the way that Honma's direct style forced more physicality from Tanahashi than finesse. * Match had no real flaws and was a solid G1 league bout. They weren't going for an epic and instead produced a tidy bout. I'd peg it at around *** 1/2.

All right, time to wrap up this Big Daddy/Haystacks feud: Big Daddy/Alan Kilby/Pat Patton vs. Giant Haystacks/Scrubber Daly/Lucky Gordon (11/1/83) This was just the pits. Fuck knows what Al Kilby or Pat Patton were thinking. Up until the Wembley bout there was at least some novelty to Daddy vs. Haystacks, but in '83 it was time to move on. Haystacks managed to scrounge Scrubber Daly and Lucky Gordon up from somewhere and looked to have an advantage over Daddy when Patton was unable to continue, but Daddy was in such bad shape that there wasn't even a FIP segment on Kilby. I've never seen a match where the faces are in such dire straits and there's no heat segment. This was a "fall out of bed" kind of match and they couldn't do it. Just awful. Giant Haystacks/Bully Boy Muir vs. Big Daddy/Tony St. Clair (4/19/78) Haystacks was rocking an amazing afro in this match. That's about all he was rocking though as he was disqualified straight away for attacking Tony St. Clair before the bell. That left Big Daddy one-on-one with Muir while St. Clair was laid out on the apron doing his best impersonation of an All Japan tag match. Muir got a decent cheap shot in on St. Clair when he was whipped into the corner and stuck a leg through the ropes, but this was one way traffic and God knows what the public thought of it as Cup Final Day fare. The finish was an absolute mess with nobody but the ref realising that one fall and one disqualification was enough to end the match. Hell, even Walton didn't know it was over and thought Muir had decided to quit. It's staggering how poorly executed a lot of these main events were. Big Daddy/Tony St. Clair vs. Giant Haystacks/Albert Hillbilly Hell-On (1/25/78) This was weird. Albert Hillbilly Hell-On was billed as being from Tennessee and literally all he did was look confused and eat the pinfalls. St. Clair shouldered the load here and had rope burn and a bloody nose to show for it. St. Clair was one of the lighter heavyweights at the time, but he looked like a twig next to Haysacks. Daddy looked remarkably thin by his standards and even had a specialty move (a kind of back body drop thing with a pin.) It was early days with his face turn and he was still fleshing things out. Dunno who Albert Hillbilly Hell-On was. It was all a bit baffling really. Big Daddy/Ritchie Brooks/Roy Regal vs. Giant Haystacks/Sid Cooper/Charlie McGhee (11/13/86) What can a person say? Daddy had a full on marching band here. At one point, I was a bit worried about one of the kid's drums with all these fat men flying around, but thank heavens no instruments were harmed. Regal and Brooks must have thought they'd made it making it onto ITV television. In the halls, they could have probably tore the place down. Sid Cooper was still plowing away in '86 and tried his best to work some decent exchanges with Brooks. I can't recall too much else about this other than Daddy inexplicably got a pinfall over Haystacks, and he had a marching band. Big Daddy/Jim Moser vs. Giant Haystacks/Big Bill Bromley (10/11/82) I've liked Moser in other stuff he's done, but Moser vs. Bromley was never going to be enough to hold my interest in this one. They teased a battle royal spot in this match where both Haystacks and Daddy looked like they might fall onto Walton's commentary desk, which quite frankly would have been brilliant, and it was amazing how gassed Daddy was after trying to lift Haystacks. He was hunched over in his corner and I was worried about his ticker for a second. Moser was taken out like so many before him and again there was no heat segment on Daddy. He even scored another pinfall over Haystacks. Is there no stopping this man? Apparently not when he's running into people. Big Daddy vs. Giant Haystacks (6/18/81) And finally here it is, Wembley Arena 1981. The Wrestlemania III of British wrestling. A no rounds, no falls, fight to the finish that could only be won on a knock out. Two referees, the Reverend Michael Brooks in Big Daddy's corner and Anaconda and Banger Tony Walsh in Haystacks' corner. Two minutes and fifty seconds of the most amazing wrestling you'll ever see. Two giants going at it hammer and tongs. Each showing the other no mercy. Haystacks came agonisingly close on the splash, but by some miracle Daddy rolled out of the way. On and on they battled with no end in sight until finally the fates intervened. A little sweat on the canvas? We'll never know, but Haystacks slid, then stumbled, and fell... fell over the top rope and down into the bowels of the earth. Unable to mobilise his gigantic frame, this lionheart was counted out. And to be bloody fair, it's not easy to move an ass that big in only 10 seconds. For a match that was four years in the making you'd think they might have actually teased Daddy losing, but at least it wasn't boring.

Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto, CMLL Women's World Title (7/15/92) I forgot there was a third match to this series. That's poor on my part as this is the match where Shimoda joins up with Hokuto. There's a pledging angle at the beginning that's not very well done then a sluggish match that's more of an angle than a title bout. Hokuto is injured as usual... Normally, it was the knee or sometimes the back or neck. This time it was the ribs. She takes a bunch of nasty shots to the mid section throughout the match w/ the coup de grace being Bull getting her knees up on a Hokuto splash attempt. From there, she manages to kick out of Bull's top rope guillotine leg drop, but when Bull heads back up for the moonsault, Mita and Shimoda panic and rush into the ring. The ringside doc checks if Hokuto is okay and calls for a stoppage, and the post-match is Hokuto crying and Bull cutting a promo on her. FLIK thought this was their second best match, but to me they were just progressing the storyline and the payoff was the cage match.

Okay, let's try this again... El Dandy, Magico y Super Astro vs. Gran Cochise, Javier Cruz y Javier Rocca (11/11/87) -- Take 2 'Magico', or Mascara Sagrada as we know him, began his wrestling career in the city of Texcoco about 25 km northeast of Mexico City. Originally known as Hecatombe, his professional debut came in September 1978 and from there he began working as a preliminarista in the local area. Rookie of the Year honours soon followed and with them a title match victory over Mando Amezcua for the Texcoco Welterweight Title and a first hair win against Impala. This was enough to get him noticed by promoter Raul Reyes, who owned a few arenas on the outskirts of the Federal District, the so-called "Kings circuit' made up of the Azteca, Xochimilco, Apatlaco, and Puente Negro arenas. Sagrada worked the circuit from 1980-82 and it was during this time that he first met Antonio Pena. Pena was doing his Kahoz gimmick at the time, a type of horror act where he'd invoke dark spirits and bite the heads off live pigeons, smearing fake blood over himself and his opponent. The two became friends and it was this friendship which would play a pivotal role in Sagrada's national break through. In 1983, Sagrada began wrestling at Arena Naucalpan where he continued to have success taking the masks of some of the local talent and defeating Villano IV for the Naucalpan Middleweight Title. Over the next few years, he worked in the smaller arenas around the Federal District such as Arena Naucalpan, Arena Neza, Pista Arena Revolucion and Plaza de Toros el Cortijo. He may or may not have worked for EMLL during this time, but not in any major capacity. It was after a lengthy stint in Ciudad Juarez that Sagrada returned to Mexico City somewhat frustrated with how his career was progressing and fed up with how promoters like Marco Moreno were treating him. Pena had been forced to retire by this point and was working as an assistant in the EMLL programming department thanks to an old friendship with EMLL treasurer Juan Herrera. It was a minor office role, but it allowed Pena to channel his passion for lucha libre into coming up with new character ideas. Pena and Sagrada got together in the summer of '88 and began working on a new character for Hecatombe. That character became "Magico" and made its debut at Arena Coliseo de Guadalajara on 10/22/88 in the trios match I mentioned. From there, the rest of the story I told is accurate. It simply happened in a shorter time frame than I would've had you believe. After the Monterrey wrestler claimed the rights to the name, there was apparently a contest among the public to "name the nameless fighter," and Mascara Sagrada was chosen from the entries. When Paco was shown the character sketches which Paco had drawn for Octagon and Mascara Sagrada, he promoted him to director of programming and public relations. This upset the established hierarchy and eventually led to Pena making a secret deal with Televisa to start his own promotion. Sagrada followed Pena to AAA, but the two had a messy falling out when Sagrada discovered that Televisa were receiving royalties for merchandise bearing his likeness. Sagrada was ineligible for royalty payments as Pena had signed away the rights to the gimmick, and this along with other payments Pena was withholding from wrestlers (such as Japanese broadcasting rights) led to Sagrada quitting. AAA quickly put another wrestler in the costume and claimed that the original Sagrada had no rights to the name. The issue went through the courts and was finally settled in Sagrada's favour in 2005, but by then it had taken a decent chunk out of his later earning years. As for the state of Dandy's hair, it does appear that Dandy and Satanico began feuding at the end of '87, but their first hair match was on 4/8/88 and the return hair match was on 10/21/88. Satanico lost the first match and Dandy the second, which places this match some time after Magico's debut and the second Dandy/Satanico hair match. My apologies for the confusion. The clues were there, but I was working with a series of bad dates which I tried to make work. My thanks to the poster Gregor for providing the catalyst for the re-check. Much appreciated.

I don't recall when they began calling her Dangerous Queen, but the summer of '92 was when she adopted the look, dying her hair and changing her make-up. IIRC, she toured Mexico with Mita in April, and the changes happened shortly after that with Hokuto turning heel and forming LCO. In the March TV match she has her old Marine Wolves look.

The Bull/Hokuto stuff is worth checking out on YouTube.

Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto (3/15/92 TV) Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto, cage match (7/30/92) Man, these take me back. They totally remind me of the old Todd Yates and the old A1 board and how much we loved the Dangerous Queen. And now through the wonders of the internet, I can see them again. The first match is from before Hokuto's transformation into the Dangerous Queen, but she shows the same sort of spirit. It's an excellent TV match particularly after watching the disappointing Bull/Nishiwaki match. Hokuto shows plenty of guts and determination simply to hang with Bull, and while she often has trouble lifting her, she manages to nail the Northern Lights Bomb, which gives Bull a fright. Bull's selling was so good. It's where I think she had it all over Aja. Aja could sell, but not in a compelling way. Bull is outstanding. The second match is after Hokuto adopted the Dangerous Queen image and is a real watershed moment for her. Again, she's all guts and determination (and blood), but this time she won't be vanquished and fights tooth and nail to not only stay in the match, but win it. Both girls go beyond the level of danger you'd expect from a television cage match and in many ways it's a shame this wasn't done on a bigger stage, but nonetheless both girls try moves off the top of the cage and the finish is memorable. 1992 was a very good year for AJW and these are nice little additions to what was happening on the big shows as well as being important points on the Dangerous Queen's journey from promising youth to all-time great.