ohtani's jacket

Tully Blanchard vs. Terry Taylor, 8/85 This was all right, but it was hard to get excited over anything Taylor did. It was really a TV match with a bit more time, and because it was a Tully match, Taylor had to work most of the match from one top, which wasn't that interesting. Tully was fine, but it wasn't a particularly special performance from him. The whole thing was like the minimum of what I'd expect from this match-up, and I don't think it deserves any sort of "near classic" rating. It would have had to have gone far deeper than the usual "Tully in peril" to warrant that sort of praise.

I think this was based on the TV versions.

Yumi Ikeshita vs. Mami Kumano, '79 Battle of the Black Pair with the general theme being that these girls were even nastier against each other. Kumano stood on Ikeshita's hair while putting her in a submission and Ikeshita choked her out, then they brawled all around ringside and used the house mic to maim each other. We've all seen better brawls, but this was still pretty cool. Yumi Ikeshita vs. Rimi Yokota, late 1980 This was worked as more of a Jaguar style match than a Black Pair vs. Idol match, though Ikeshita did cheat in tandem with Devil Masami, which the older fans didn't like. Ikeshita could go, so there were some nice exchanges and one nearfall that I bit on, but Yokota was perhaps a little rough around the edges compared to her later work. Yumi Ikeshita vs. Mami Kumano, 12/79 Short match that started off with a bit of workrate before Kumano started using a foreign object. Just when you thought it was Kumano who had been the nastiest of the Black Pair, Ikeshita took one of those chests that the TV crew use to carry their equipment and throttled Kumano and the ref with it. See, it's always the quiet ones. Devil Masami vs. Yumi Ikeshita, 11/79 These two matched up well. The size difference meant they could really play up Masami's strength against Ikeshita's guile.

It would be weird in lucha to have a rudo fall with a technico comeback followed by a rudo fall with a technico comeback.

You've got these listed as being the same date. Portland is tough going for me at times, mostly on the mat where I find a lot of the holds literally put me to sleep, and Rose never bowls me over like he's supposed to, but the first two falls of the title match I found rewarding. Long, but rewarding. The third fall was amazingly shitty, however, and killed my enthusiasm for the match. And Sandy Barr is just inexplicably bad at reffing, and that's coming from someone who can barely tell a good ref from bad. I'm sure I would like this stuff more if it was one fall. It's weird having falls that are like a match unto themselves with a FIP segment and everything, and then turning around and doing it again in the next fall. I still can't get used to that.

Dump Matsumoto & Bull Nakano & Leilani Kai vs. Lioness Asuka & Mika Komatsu & Noriyo Tateno, 6/85 Well, this was refreshing. It's interesting how most territories were in the midst of an irreversible decline by '85 yet Japan actually got better in the second half of the decade. Everybody knows about Dump vs. Chigusa, but this is the lesser known Dump/Asuka subplot. It was a nice change of pace from the pre-Crush Girls era, though I'm sure if you watched a whole bunch of it, it would get monotonous. Whenever people bring up the Bull vs. Aja debate, they always overlook Bull's 80s work. She was a really good worker, really early in her career. She even had me marking out for Asuka's Takada-like kicks during her nunchakus act, though Asuka killed it for me by botching the final take down. The finish saw Komatsu (IIRC) bump big on a Dump lariat.

Just type it in word, cut and paste it into notepad and copy the notepad text.

I don't agree that Hokuto stopped selling the knee. She sold it the way a legit knee injury should be sold, not in some kind of bullshit Bret Hart way where he sells the knee so much he should be out for the season. I liked the way they treated the injury here. It was an issue and everybody knew it, but there was no need to be demonstrative about it. Hotta went after it, but not in a frenzied way. She was like a tennis player taking advantage of an opponent's injury by hitting to the parts of the court the opponent can't get to. She could have gone after the knee in a more viscous way, but she wasn't a heel and Hokuto already had the crowd's sympathy. I expect a lot of people would prefer if they'd played it up more, but this kind of spartan approach is a nice antidote to overly loaded Japanese wrestling. Of course, they moved into the finishing stretch and there were some pretty big moves, but watching it off the cuff and not as part of the yearbook I thought it was pretty organic and not excessive. Hokuto sold the knee afterwards, though it wasn't really selling since she was dealing with actual pain. Not a spectacular match or anything, but better than Hokuto/Kong from Big Egg Universe as a comparison.

I don't think people needed a missing piece to realise that Steamboat as always going to work a clean title match on the biggest show of the year to try to take an important part of what made the Macho Man tick away from him. And I don't think you need a missing piece to realise that Owen would have climbed over the cage and won the match in 30 seconds if he could have since all he wanted to do was win the belt and prove he was better than Bret. And Bret was never going to beat the shit out of his younger brother in front of his entire family, so of course it's a match was about escape attempts. Owen vs. Bret was never a blood feud. It was two overgrown kids who became adult jocks having a childish and petty feud with each other. Owen whoo'ing and fist pumping is not something you're supposed to take overly seriously. Now if you find the constant escape attempts boring and overly repetitive or you don't like the way they worked them, I'm not gonna argue with that. I think too many people like the match for it to be considered the least deserving 5-star match, but it's always been a divisive match. Even my friend's kid brother once told us that the only reason we liked it is that it was Owen and Bret, so even some pretty casual fans find the escape attempts boring. I do think there's an element of that (people wanting to like it because of the workers), but the whole five stars thing is annoying. It's like people not being able to see the forest for the trees with Tanahashi because Dave keeps dropping five stars on him. But, you can't make it go away and it is what it is.

Dynamite Girls vs. Leilani Kai & Terri Shane, 11/83 Easily the worst thing I've seen so far. Whose decision was it to give the Dynamite Girls the WWA tag titles? Granted, everybody got a turn with the WWA tag titles, but trying to dress Jumbo Hori and Yuraki Omori up like babydoll idols is a strike against the Matsunagas in my book. This was just a rubbish match and so heatless that the highlight was Terri Shane letting out a huge "SHIT!" during a nearfall. I desperately need to see some good Jumbo Hori. Mimi Hagiwara & Yukari Ohmori vs Leilani Kai & Velvet McIntyre, '82 This wasn't much better. Mimi held up here end, but this was another really dull tag title match. I tend to blame the promotion here. Instead of booking week to week television like say, Portland, it was the filmed houseshow format. On one hand, you get to see all of the wrestlers facing each other instead of squash matches, but on the other hand it gets redundant seeing the same matches over and over again with little or no progression. It's fun seeing these girls running around in the early 80s, but there's nothing to sink your teeth into. Mimi Hagiwara & Nancy Kumi vs. Devil Masami & Leilani Kai, '81 Having said all that, there's a match with four of the best workers in the company at the time that's not perfect but manages to deliver what you'd expect from the girls involved. The 2/3 falls format hinders it and on top of that you have the clipping for television, but it's as good as it gets on a regular card as far as I can tell. I definitely think Joshi Pro would have been better off with single fall tag matches, but 2/3 falls was in vogue at the time. On a lighter note, Devil Masami's perm here is a monstrosity.

The criticisms of the Bret/Owen cage match and just like the old criticisms of the Steamboat/Savage Wrestlemania match.

Brian Maxine vs. Mick McMichael (2/21/74) This more or less gelled with my original thoughts on it. I don't know when Maxine began wearing a hair piece, but every since I heard someone in the crowd make a crack about it, I can't stop staring at it. It really is a remarkable piece of work. It's a shame Maxine never did a spot where his opponent pulls it off. Once again, I was impressed with his tireless self-promotion. I don't know of anyone in British wrestling who worked harder to keep themselves over. And once again, McMichael struck me as the single most average competitor on TV. How that guy was on television for so many years is beyond me. Jim Breaks vs. Zoltan Boscik (12/2/72) Jon Cortez vs. Zoltan Boscik (aired 3/22/72) Steve Grey vs. Zoltan Boscik (3/8/78) Now that I've come round on Boscik, I had to go back and watch these matches since they're against three of the best lightweights in the history of wrestling. The Breaks match is fun, but it's by no means a Breaks classic. One thing you don't pick up on from later Breaks is how well built he was in his prime. Pound for pound, he was one of the best built wrestlers I can recall. I read recently that when he first turned pro other wrestlers told him he was too stiff. He soon figured out how to work lightly, but his work was always snug. The Cortez match is disappointing by Cortez standards, but I think he became a better worker in the early 80s than he was here, despite making his professional debut in '58. By '78, Boscik had come into his own. Somewhere along the way I guess he embraced the idea of becoming a fully fledged heel instead of just a hot head and the crowds were all over it. He didn't have to jaw with them, he just had this kind of sniveling look that the crowd ate up. Grey and Boscik had fantastic chemistry together and the three matches we have of theirs are all enjoyable. In one of these matches, Walton delivered what I thought was a brilliant piece of commentary. He explained that when guys bump for the Euro-style Irish whip, they have to go with the whip otherwise they'll break their shoulder. Works for me as a kayfabe reason for why they do those exaggerated flips. Or maybe not, but I'm going to believe it without giving it a second thought. Rene Lasartesse vs. Billy Samson (Graz 7/12/1980) This had a cool dynamic as Samson allegedly was a sparring partner for Muhammad Ali, so you've got Lasartesse doing all these dirty tricks and Samson getting all fired up and sparring with him, but because this is wrestling and not boxing he's kind of pulling his punches which allows Lasartesse to pull his dirty tricks again. My favourite story about Lasartesse is that in Britain they thought he was American, the Americans thought he was German, the Germans thought he was French, and the French thought he was German. That's the work of an accomplished rudo. After a bunch of fun and games, Rene did the McManus trick of selling his ears and won with a surprise small package. Could have done with a better finish, but this was fun and Lasartesse is one of the characters of European wrestling.

Lucy Kayama & Nancy Kumi vs Wendi Richter & Leilani Kai, 9/80 Nancy Kumi & Jackie Sato vs. Mami Kumano & Leilani Kai, 9/80 Being a Joshi pro-wrestler in these days was pretty tough, but at least they got to tour Guam. Both these matches were from a local high school and featured an American guy as the ref. They were the same kind of brawls you see on every other episode of AJW TV, but the locals were into it, especially the older folks. The 2/3 falls format tends to be a momentum killer and you often only get one really solid fall, but there was plenty of good stuff throughout. The first match is kind of ruined by the heels fighting with the ref, which leads to Leilani accidentally punching him and then posting him for real. The ref does a bladejob and DQs the heels. A know a lot of people don't like heel ref schtick, so that's one to avoid. Leilani had a really cool punch exchange in the first match where she did this bug-eyed selling as the girls whacked her. Arn Anderson would have been proud of that spot. Even though these matches aren't that great, Leilani always brings plenty of intensity to her performance. Kumano is the same. Kumi and Kayama have superb execution on their highspots, but Kayama is perhaps the epitome of an awkward Joshi pro-wrestler between the ropes. Sato sometimes looks like she doesn't care in matches like these.

I don't think anybody puts Hansen on the level of Johnny Ace or Scott Norton. Those are guys who found a niche in Japan. Hansen is compared to Ric Flair or Terry Funk.

Hansen had enough runs in the territories to have had better matches. He wasn't some guy who found his niche in Japan. I'd find it odd if other American stars had only had great matches in Japan.

The biggest problem I have with Hansen was that he wasn't as good in the US as he was in Puerto Rico and Japan. I can't think of a match he had stateside that came close to his career matches overseas. That's a pretty glaring mark on his GOAT candidacy in my book. He's also part of an early 80s Japanese era that I like less and less every time I see it, and he's not much of a mat worker. Not that you want Stan Hansen to work the mat, but he does from time to time and it's not great.

Yuriko Tagakai vs. Leilani Kai, 1/81 Leilani ate this girl for breakfast and they still wouldn't give her a win. Jumbo Hori vs Leilani Kai, 6/82 This was hugely disappointing, especially for a title match. I remember Hori being better than this, but I suppose that was from '84-85. Leilani did some cool shit like a delayed butterfly suplex, but Hori was off on most of his stuff and Leilani's second kept interfering all match long. Bullshit countout win for Hori in a championship match was the last straw. I am not enjoying this promotion's booking.

Emilio Charles Jr., Negro Casas & Bestia Salvaje vs. Atlantis, La Fiera & Apolo Dantes, 6/3/94 Fantastic looking match-up on paper that was just some bullshit excuse to turn Casas technico. CMLL became hopeless at turning people once the TV boom began. In the 80s when rudos turned on each other, it would lead to these incredibly heated matches where the rudos would ratchet up the violence and turn Arena Mexico into a madhouse. Rudos would have these ongoing feuds with each other that wouldn't be settled until there was a wager match and even then the bad blood would continue. Here, Casas whimpered and cowered while his rudo partners flogged him. Instead of fighting back and starting a blood feud, he looked meeker than at any point in his career. Casas had done the same thing to other rudos in the past and knew the rules that the rudo fraternity abide by, but the stupid thing about these matches is that it's not like you get the hot match and then the angle. There's no Good God Almighties in CMLL; they suck dry whatever dramatic potential there is in these turns with the shittiest of execution. The commercials you see on old lucha tapes for Mexican soap operas and B films look like brilliantly penned dramas compared to the amount of effort CMLL puts into its television angles. Not something you want to watch if you're one of those guys who believe all wrestling is story; but hey, you get a bit of Casas vs. Atlantis, which isn't a match-up you see a lot of. Hayabusa, Pantera & Ciclon Ramirez vs. Mogur, Cachorro Mendoza & Javier Cruz, 6/3/94 What was the point in turning Cachorro Mendoza heel? He ambles to ringside like a technico, patting kids on the head, looking to get a legend pop from the one or two guys who can remember when he was a big deal. In the ring he does a reasonable facsimile of a rudo, but it's not like his heart's in it. And then there's poor Mogur, the failed "next big thing." In case you didn't realise he's rudo, he's wearing a black leather jacket. And what about Ciclon Ramirez? Of all the bad ideas floating around CMLL at this time, his unmasking may have been the worst. So, okay, maybe I'm the biggest Ciclon Ramirez fan I know, but compare the masked guy with the best looking tope in lucha history with the goofy looking bugger who unmasked. And the faux pas of wearing the high top lucha tights without the mask. There was no way this unmasking was doing for him what it did for pretty boys like Faraon and MS-1. This was right before his hair match with Cruz and they both did these small bladejobs that were like trickles down the bridge of their nose. Nobody told Hayabusa what you're supposed to do in a trios where the wrestlers are brawling around ringside, so he just stayed in the ring and watched. Yip. Cachorro Mendoza, Mocho Cota & Jaque Mate vs. Hayabusa, Blue Demon Jr & Hijo del Solitario, 7/15/94 About as bad as it looks on paper. Didn't do the "Cota was never as bad as we thought in the 90s" bandwagon any favours. Emilio Charles Jr, El Satanico & Negro Casas vs. El Hijo del Santo, Corazon de Leon & Ultimo Dragon, 9/15/95 Someone forgot to tell Santo and Casas that this was a trios match and a mano a mano broke out. This was pretty badass, actually. Rayo de Jalisco, Atlantis & Pegasus Kid vs. Pierroth Jr, Emilio Charles Jr & Bestia Salvaje, 7/15/94 This wasn't the most spectacular trios you'll ever seen, but it was pretty comfortably the best of this week's batch. The action was carried by Atlantis and Emilio Charles, who had lost none of their chemistry in 1994. Even their brawling was good. Atlantis doesn't have much of a rep as a brawler, but I reckon he can throw a pretty good right hand and he delivers a pretty solid looking posting too. Pierroth vs. Rayo is almost like a dream match as far as I'm concerned and was every bit as dopey as I could have hoped for. Bestia was solid, but if anyone ever writes the Bestia Salvaje story they better acknowledge how quickly he fell from his '92 heights. Benoit was better than most foreigners. Only two falls here, but Atlantis vs. Emilio stuff is always worth seeing. Pierroth Jr. vs. El Boricua, mask vs. mask, 9/29/95 On one hand, this is the kind of big, cumbersome main event I love in lucha. I'm a sucker for Pierroth and he had his mask ripped here with a big dark crimson stain everywhere. And the crowd were heavily into the Mexico vs. Puerto Rico theme with people bringing full size Mexican flags to the area and fans running around on camera with huge Pierroth signs. On the other hand, it's pretty sad that this was the main event of the Anniversary show. It probably would have been better in Puerto Rico where they would have been able to bleed far more than at Arena Mexico, but when you look at the past apuestas on Anniversary shows this kind of sums up where the promotion was at. I'm not a huge of the Santo vs. Casas feud, but it sure did turn things around, and I have a new appreciation for it in that sense. At least Pierroth got to be the man here and score the winning goal for Mexico. That was cool to watch as a Pierroth mark.

I'd have to go through my blog to find the specific trios matches where I thought Satanico had great mat exchanges, but just recently I saw him have an exchange with Ultimo Dragon that gave me a flash of what a Satanico/Ultimo Dragon match might have been like.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the flaws of Satanico There are older fans who think he was never that good a technical wrestler and was favoured in terms of his push, but I'll speak on what I've seen. Satanico was a great mat worker and brawler, but he had obvious limitations in that he was never a huge bumper and wasn't a flier. If you were to do a straight up comparison between Satanico and Pirata Morgan, for example, Morgan would come out on top in most categories because he was a tremendous bumper, had flashier highspots and a better tope. Another flaw in Satanico's work is that he wasn't very forgiving of the Octagons of the world and wasn't always obliging in terms of carrying them. There's a match against Hector Garza from '95 that is atrocious by Satanico standards where he doesn't seem to give a fuck and won't put Garza over. His AAA run was really poor at a time where physically it needn't have been poor and he showed no willingness to adapt to their style or even produce work of the same standard as in CMLL. For that reason, his output drops off a cliff after the Infernales leave CMLL in '93 and he never really recovers his former position even if some of his post-prime stuff is fun. I also think you could argue that he didn't give his opponents enough of the match at times compared to other rudos who worked harder to put the technicos over, like Emilio and Morgan. That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Pointing out the flaws in a guy like Kanemoto, to me, is old hat. I'd much rather hear about the flaws in a guy like Stan Hansen.

Rimi Yokota & Tomoko Kitamura vs. Wendi Richter & Leilani Kai, 2/81 This is probably the best way to watch early Leilani, in tag matches where she gets more of an opportunity to shine. She was working some kind of whiny, high pitched heel gimmick at this stage. I'm not sure if she intended it to be comedic, but the audience found it funny. Yokota was impressive here. I'm not sure that she was in another universe when it came to work as some of the other girls were pretty good workers too, but the way she carried herself made her seem light years ahead of her peers. Asuka was okay, but mostly it was amusing watching her with a Jackie Sato-like mop top.

From memory, Ikeshita retired in June of '81 and Kumano retired in October. I don't think the heels had retirement ceremonies in those days, at least not ones that aired on television. I know they mentioned on commentary that she was getting married (the commentary on these matches is a relentless stream of facts about the wrestlers), but I've never read anything about her getting buried. The dates on early 80s footage are a mess. The guy who uploads that stuff, through no fault of his own, has summer footage listed as "early 80" and stuff like that.