ohtani's jacket

El Canek vs. Dos Caras, UWA 02/02/92 This was on one of the earliest lucha combo tapes I bought and I remember thinking it was pretty great. Not too many people had seen it at the time, but it's been floating around on YouTube for a while now and it was part of the yearbook project where it got positive feedback. I'm not in the habit of re-watching stuff and haven't seen his in a decade or more, so I'm coming at it from a different angle. Over the years, I've enjoyed piecing together this early 90s UWA TV bit by bit and I think it would make an interesting comp at some point. The UWA style was clearly different from what CMLL were doing at the time and what AAA would present and that includes the heavyweight style. On top of that, the UWA heavyweight style was different from what was happening on the promotion's under card. It's quite fascinating to watch what has become an antiquated style. Every time I watch Caras, I have to remind myself that he was a heavyweight and not a middle or welterweight like so many of the guys I enjoy. I also find I have to increasingly curb this notion I have that he's some kind of mat genius. I think that's a notion deeply ingrained in my generation because of the artistry of his match with El Samurai, which predated the lucha maestros era, and while he certainly could wrestle that way, it wasn't the way he worked heavyweight title matches from the footage which exists. This match was all Caras and all leg locks. The matwork was good, but not good in an "Oh my God, lucha is the best thing ever" kind of way. Probably the most outstanding thing about the match was that they worked a no-nonsense pace while adhering to the traditional structures, though I suspect that may have been because of how cold it was. Canek is a guy who I've thought in the past is mechanically good, but often dead weight. I don't think he added a ton to this, but he gave Caras a lot of the offence and put him over strongly and I was certainly pleased to see Caras win the match, so it wasn't a Canek performance you could really fault. I'm not so sure how great a match it was, however. There's nothing about it that's quintessentially "lucha," which for me is a big problem, and while I appreciate the difference in the more 70s stylised UWA heavyweight wrestling, I think if you were to study the mechanics of this as a wrestling match and not a particular style, the pace of the match didn't really make up for it not having the sort of dramatic, back and forth deciding fall you associate with lucha. It was good without really kicking into great territory, although Caras continued to salvage his reputation with me with another rock solid performance. Cien Caras, Máscara Año 2000 & Sangre Chicana vs. Konnan el Barbaro, Perro Aguayo & El Rayo de Jalisco Jr, CMLL 03/01/92 This was an excellent trios. It was actually uploaded for my benefit, but I slept on it the first time presumably because I wasn't in the mood for a brawling trios. It was more of a ringside brawl than a proper match, and it was really these guys plying their stock and trade, but the lengthy heat segment was extremely well done. The main narrative thrust was Konnan vs. Caras, but the star of the show was Sangre Chicana. It was one of those matches where you've got a guy who's charisma is so palpable it's like the glue holding everything together. Here it shone through when he tried to hold onto the leg of a guy in the crowd or when he accidentally slipped from the apron and drew laughs from the crowd. There was a tremendous range in what he was capable of, as he'd do these comedy spots where he looked like some half drunk vagabond and then jaw with the crowd and raise their ire. If you want to see a guy who is to lucha what Jake the Snake is supposed to be to US psychology then Chicana is the guy, especially this older version. Everybody else was solid and what you'd expect from this crew. Konnan had a few weak moments, but this made me want to go through his main events and see if any of them are worth a damn. That may be a dangerous proposition, but it speaks highly to how good this was.

Canek may be worse than both of them. Tinieblas Jr. is kind like watching a car crash. He's just so ungodly tall compared to his opponents.

Blue Demon Jr is the most boring wrestler of all time.

I'd just call it a cut-off spot. Maybe it can be a no hope spot.

Corrected. Ha, very good.

Axel Dieter vs. Karl Dauberger (Hannover 1981) This was a shorter match than a lot of the Hannover draws, so we got to see what Dieter could do when he upped his workrate. Fun match, but three rounds is too short. If Dieter could have maintained this sort of workrate over six rounds, his matches would have been really good. Franz van Buyten vs. Ivan Strogoff (May 1981) Strogoff looked a bit like Terry Rudge and wrestled like him too, which is a very good thing. I dug this a lot as I'm a mark for van Buyten. He did some cool strength holds where he had Strogoff in a submission and lifted him off the mat. Strogoff took control of the match with some solid brawling, but the match ended up being called off as Strogoff's second (possibly Lasartesse?) got involved and caused a big brawl. Giant Haystacks vs. Klaus Wallas (Hannover 1985) This was about as good as a Klaus Wallas vs. Giant Haystacks match could be. Don't tell me this means I need to search for good Haystacks matches. Oh God, I just did a YouTube search. Axel Dieter vs. Steve Wright (Hannover 1981) This was better than I remembered. I've kind of softened on Wright since I saw his early 70s World of Sport footage, but I still consider him something of a disappointment footage wise. Nevertheless, he looked like the best opponent Dieter faced in this tournament and we got to see much more of Dieter's technical ability than in previous fights. Unfortunately, it went to a draw as per most of these Hannover fights. It's a wonder anyone ever won the Cup with the number of draws there were. I wonder if draws forced a replay? Axel Dieter vs. Klaus Kauroff (Hannover 1981) This came across as a bit of a blockbuster since Dieter had won the Hannover tournament in 1980 and Kauroff would go on to win it in '81. Kauroff was a Maurice Vachon looking wrestler who was a pretty decent grappler. There was an intensity to this that was missing from a lot of Dieter's other matches and although it ended in a draw (again) it was a compelling and worthwhile match-up. Probably Dieter's best match of the tournament. Franz van Buyten & Bobby Gaetano vs. Le Grand Vladimir & Judd Harris (Recklinghausen 3/83) Fun tag match. Van Buyten and Gaetano made an awesome babyface pair. This was the best Gaetano has looked in the matches I've seen him in. He was balling in this match. I'm pretty confident in saying that Germany had better tags than England, though they haven't knocked one out of the park yet. This was quality houseshow-ish stuff, though.

I like my submissions to look like Picasso so my favourite are lucha and Euro holds. In terms of finishers, the Jim Breaks Special is a good one.

Everybody knows the peak of the company was Jimmy Golden.

What's the point in harping on about structure when his structure's not that bad?

I don't disagree with any of this, but I think the flipside to Tanahashi not doing anything interesting is that he doesn't really do anything poorly. He's wrestling a generic New Japan main event style for an audience that pops for that sort of thing. One thing I'll say for him is that I think the "shell of an epic main event" may work in his favour. Towards the end of the 90s Japanese wrestling became far too dense. Workers were trying far too hard to fill in their matches with interesting "stuff." They'd set the bar so high that the only way to outdo themselves was to go longer and add more spots. I expected Tanahashi to take this to another extreme like modern indy workers, so I was pleasantly surprised by his pared back style. Mileage may vary on how exciting he is, but it wouldn't be fair to accuse him of excess. As for his match layouts, the hardest thing to get right in any discipline are the basics. I think he has a good sense of match structure. It's really up to his opponent to fill in the details, because in the average Tanahashi build he's selling. And it's not like he's wrestling other all-time greats. When the best opponent you face is Minoru Suzuki that's not much of a receipe for greatness. Misawa wouldn't really be Misawa if he'd been feuding with Ogawa. I get bored easily during wrestling, but for me Tanahashi has good rhythm and doesn't labour with elements he's no good at. If your matwork's no good, don't do it. Tanahashi's matwork is just standard, but he doesn't bore me to death with it like Mutoh or Chono, who had too much confidence in their wrestling ability. I'm not going to penalise a guy for recognising his weaknesses. Strikes are Tanahashi's weakest area. He should just stick to chops and slaps to the face. Ultimately, I see him as a Bon Jovi song. Big chorus with a big outro. Gets stuck in your head from time to time and fun to sing at karaoke, but not something you're going to claim as your favourite music. The songwriting is solid, but musically uninteresting for the most part. There's a place for Tanahashi like there's a place for Ishikawa and Ikeda. Again, the trouble is his fans, who are arguing that Bon Jovi are The Beatles or The Rolling Stones or something.

It depends on how old the person is. Cecil B. DeMille, Charlie Chaplan, John Ford, Frank Capra and Alfred Hitchcock were all famous in their lifetimes. Actors like Ron Howard and Clint Eastwood obviously have added notoriety. More people would have heard of Woody Allen than have seen his films. Spike Lee would be known amongst sports fans. Oliver Stone was big for a while. People may know Kubrick too.

Hughes was his own genre in the 80s. That doesn't mean that everyone will remember his name just the folks with a particular connection to his films. Spy magazine claimed that Hughes was more Capra than Capra in the early 90s.

When I think of aces, I think of guys who drew the loudest cheers on Dome shows like Tsuruta in 1990 and Misawa in '95. New Japan doesn't seem big enough to have an ace, at least not in the true drawing sense. To me he's just the best worker in the company, or the guy positioned as the best worker in the company. Calling him an ace is a bit like calling Dynamite Kansai or Kaoru Ito an ace. It doesn't really work without a big enough stage.

I thought I'd say my final piece on Tanahashi. If you compare him with a wrestler like Misawa he comes off second best in every category. Misawa had a command over his offence that allowed him to establish himself as the man both early in a match and in crunch time. And his selling went places Tanahashi doesn't go, as Misawa would take you right to the brink of an all-time great champion losing. If all the world's a stage then Misawa's was a bit more epic than most. Tanahashi doesn't have the aura of a New Japan legend either. He doesn't have the same fire as a Choshu or Hashimoto. You could argue that those workers' charisma wouldn't play to the kind of houses New Japan draws, but then again if Tanahashi had the aura of a Hashimoto perhaps they'd be drawing bigger houses. In any event, I can see the argument that he doesn't live up to past champions. His lineage is more along the lines of a Fujinami or Mutoh than the guys who defined the ace role. But he is a decent worker. He can't work the mat, his strikes aren't very good and he's not a details guy, but he's good at moving a match forward. I think he realises he's nothing special on the mat, so instead of spending large chunks of the match in boring holds he tends to move briskly through the build to each match and get to the meat and potatoes of what he's good at, which is dropping bombs and working near falls. Some workers like to control a match and use the same patterns to the extent that a formula develops, but Tanahashi tends to give the build to his opponent so that if he's wrestling Okada it feels like he's working an Okada style match, and if he's working Suzuki it feels like he's working a Suzuki style match, and so on. That's very different to say an Akira Hokuto or Aja Kong. But I don't think this means he's getting carried in the matches that his critics like. It's just the way he works. Personally, I don't have a problem with his offence. He likes to work light, but apart from that I think his move set is fine. He doesn't have any one particular outstanding hold or maneuver, but he has enough suplex and dive variations to produce the kind of excitement he's shooting for. The only thing I really hate is the oft mentioned forearm exchange and his shitty posing. His lock up stance is a bit annoying at times as well. The problem is that he's massively overrated by Meltzer and others. Why this is I'm not sure. For whatever reason, the timing is right for a new workrate fave. The things that are said about Tanahashi and the Okada series are like Meltzer being drunk on a cocktail of Kurt Angle and Edge. Unfortunately, this sort of championing creates a backlash against a guy who is basically working hard and trying to have good matches. I told myself I wouldn't hold the hype against him when I started this mini-project because it's ridiculously unfair to expect him to be one of the best workers ever. I can't say I became a fan, but I wouldn't turn my nose up at seeing him again or watching him live. Of all Dave's favourites with annoying traits like Toyota etc, I thought Tanahadhi was genuinely one of the least offensive. No he doesn't have brilliant psychology but neither do favourites like Cena, Daniel Bryan or CM Punk if we were to examine them a little harder. I mean I watched the Cena/Bryan SummerSlam match while watching these Tanahashi bouts and there were some cool spots, but it wasn't as dramatic as Tanahashi's biggest matches this year. The arc to Tanahashi's big matches is generally strong and you feel like you've watched a contest. So, better than the pretty boy wannabe rock star he looks like but not an all-time great. I'd rather watch him than all but a few workers in the history of New Japan, but too much has been made of him as both a great worker and a poor one.

I liked this a good bit more on re-watch. I still think it didn't do Tanahashi any favours by exposing his striking, but the match moved on from strike exchanges and so will I. I'm not sure this was better than most of Tanahashi's matches psychology-wise. Ishii had some nice little touches where he'd cut off Tanahashi's signature stuff, much like Minoru Suzuki, and I liked his selling, particularly the way he took the bump off that released suplex, but if you're being a stickler then this was very much a bout where they went down one avenue, took a right and went down another. Tanahashi worked over Ishii's legs, got some purchase on the Texas Clover Leaf and then it was off doing suplexes and lariats and High Fly Flows where they'd sell the impact well but pop up to attempt their next finisher. I can ignore that sort of stuff if the crowd is into it and it's not like I'm watching this stuff to get anything of real substance, I just thought the finishing stretch wasn't much different than your standard Tanahashi match.

Tanahashi vs. Okada, 10/13/13 * This had a solid albeit unspectacular build, but there were two things that were jarring for me. The first was that God awful spot where they were standing toe-to-toe and Tanahashi turned his head to face the crowd. Okada turned his head the same way and they soaked in the crowd applause, then they went right to left with the same synchronized bullshit. That was some weird Rock-like shit. * The other spot that took me out of the match was when Tanahashi faked a knee injury for no discernible reason. Who plays possum that early in a match? It got a pop from the crowd and the commentator made a big deal out of it, but I don't think it came across the way Tanahashi intended because I sure as hell missed the point. * This was a slow burner compared to some of their more highly rated bouts. Compared with their other slow burners (Tokyo Dome and the G-1 draw), I thought they made some headway on working a long bout. I appreciated that they tried new things. There was a greater focus on submissions as a possible finish and they teased both a countout and double knockout. There was the dreaded forearm exchange, but at least it led to some niggly armwork from Tanahashi. * I liked that instead of putting his knees up to counter the High-Fly Flow Okada rolled to the outside (which led to Tanahashi's plancha), but they did the knees up counter later on. Yeah, it's pro-wrestling and all, but they use that spot too often, especially when Tanahashi never misses if his opponent is face down. * I still love Okada's dropkicks and I liked that they factored into the finish. He looked pretty good in this match. Some of his stuff was a bit iffy, but the NJPW television production doesn't help at times. The finish was slightly botched, which stood out like a sore thumb since it was their counter sequence that a lot of people can't stomach, but setting that aside I thought the match did a really good job of presenting Okada as a worthy champion who withstood a strong challenge from the guy he's surpassed. It wasn't my favourite of their bouts, but I thought it achieved its goals. It was somewhere around the four star mark on my adjusted "this isn't as good as the stuff I grew up on, but I'm keeping an open mind about it" scale.

Maybe Virgil could've carried the Rougeaus' bags or been their pool cleaner in Memphis, Tennessee. Or maybe he was the guy telling all the girls the Rougeaus are on their way.

But the angle was rich white guy treats black bodyguard like a slave. If Honky replaces Dibiase does it become Elvis impersonator steals music from black bodyguard? Virgil pens Rhythm and Blues' hits and gets no royalties?

Why would Honky Tonk Man or Valentine have a bodyguard? The feud worked because people wanted to see Virgil turn on Dibiase not just turn face. I don't think anybody gave a crap about a Virgil face turn.

I'll watch it again in case I was in a funny mood.

Liz and Randy getting married? That was like daytime soap stars going to the altar. I'm in the Boss Man camp but the Virgil stuff was some of the best stuff Dibiase did in the WWF.

Of course it had something to do with Dibiase. Dibiase was brilliant in the Virgil feud. Vince had so little faith in Virgil that he got Piper to be his talking head.

Tanahashi vs. Ishii, 11/9/13 * I didn't care for this much. It seemed like they were trying to work a revenge/grudge match for Tanahashi's loss to Ishii in the G-1 as there was plenty of niggle and they "stiffed" each other a lot, but striking isn't Tanahashi's forte, and while he again showed his versatility by working a different style of match, it felt a bit forced, especially the crap they were saying to each other in Japanese. * It didn't help that they started off with that forearm exchange spot. That is worse than any chop exchange ever. This one was particularly bad because it was blatant that Ishii was hitting Tanahashi's hair and not his jaw. * Mostly, though, this suffered from not being as exciting as their G-1 match. There was no point in rehashing that bout, so they had the right idea with this match it just pointed too far in the direction of Tanahashi's limitations.

What case for Dibiase? That was part of your thousand and one aborted projects, mister.

The no selling doesn't really bother me as the limb work is only really there to fill in time and isn't that important. I suppose if Naito had consistently sold his injury the match may have been elevated to the kind of status that some people are giving Tanahashi's matches (i.e. all-time great match), but it doesn't bug me. I'm anti-limb work psychology to begin with, which is another reason why I don't care so much. I should also point out that I thought it was a MOTYC relative to 2013 and not some gold standard for MOTY. Since there has to be a MOTY for the concept to mean anything, I usually adjust my standards. Also, I only watched it once and will probably never watch it again and got caught up in the excitement along with the crowd. Tanahashi's not great at details. The only worker who's been any good at details so far has been Minoru Suzuki. Tanahashi and his contemporaries go for the big pop, but I think the layouts are generally good.