ohtani's jacket

This was the opener to the 50th ROH show, and worked the night before Punk vs. Joe II. It referenced a million ROH storylines to the point where I was raising an eyebrow as to whether this was sports entertainment. It doesn't seem like Punk vs. Homicide is a great matchup. It seems like they're both better off working top talent and don't really complement each other. That said, it was an opener on an angle driven show, and I don't think you can expect them to leave it all out there, especially with Punk doing double duty on this show and wrestling Joe the next night. Still, average is as average does.

I'm curious why you didn't review the Santo vs. Espanto Jr mask match.

Bob Backlund vs. Pat Patterson (WWF, 8/27/79) This was a standard Backlund/Patterson match with an exciting finish that set up their cage match. I love how Backlund doesn't give a fuck. He'll rip the foreign object from the heel and use the brass knuckles himself, and even has a go at the ref here. He gets grief for being all howdy doody, but he had to be one of the angriest babyfaces ever.

This was pretty cool, especially the finishing stretch. They really had everyone going that this would be the match where Joe lost.

Another match that was either too short or butchered in the edit. It's amazing how CMLL can swing from the hottest promotion in the world to the complete shits at a moment's notice. There was some great tecnico offense in this, but it didn't happen in rhythm because of the shitty editing. Mistico continued to look good, and I enjoyed the throw downs between Casas and Ultimo and Shocker and Ultimo, but this shit should be a walk in the park for CMLL yet they're fumbling it. Makes you wonder who's running the show.

Bruno Sammartino vs. Superstar Graham (WWWF, 2/18/78) This was my least favourite of the Bruno vs Superstar matches. It was an entertaining match by any standard, but it felt like an abbreviated version of their matches from '77, and I wasn't a far of the finish regardless of the circumstances surrounding it. Bob Backlund vs. Superstar Graham (WWWF, 9/16/78) This didn't match the intensity of Bruno vs. Superstar, but it was a good match. The early control segment from Superstar showed more versatility than he showed in the Bruno feud, and is a good example of what Superstar was capable of offensively. I wasn't a fan of the transitions surrounding the stretcher. The stretcher was awkward in general. It was an old hammock style stretcher that was difficult for the refs to use, and it appeared that they only had to dump the wrestler out of the ring to end the match. Backlund and Graham made up for it with some decent brawling and left me wanting more from them. Bruno Sammartino vs. Superstar Graham (WWWF, 10/23/78) This was a decent coda to their feud, and I liked the angle surrounding whether Bruno was the same as he used to be, but the magic was gone by this stage. It would have been nice fi Bruno had scored a more definitive victory, but I guess he proved his point.

Mistico was given a huge rub here by tagging with three bona fide legends, and Averno also got to play where the big boys play. Unfortunately, Televisa edited this match to be mostly about Santo and Mistico. To be fair, Mistico hit the spots he needed to hit (aside from slightly misjudging his final dive), but it would've benefited everyone if they'd shown the match in full. The best exchange in the entire bout was between Casas and Bucanero, and that would have wound up on the editing room floor if it hadn't been in the tercera. Monkey business from Televisa.

I don't remember the ref being an issue in every match. I feel like it was more prominent in Delaporte's promotion. I can't remember the name of the tall ref who looks like a wrestler, but I wasn't a huge fan of him. By the time, Saulnier was a ref, business was pretty rough. The big guy played a prominent role in the 60s when business was still good.

Who do you like more, Patera or Graham?

Bruno Sammartino vs. Superstar Billy Graham (WWWF, 9/17/77) This was another great Bruno vs. Graham match. Part of me wishes that Bruno had won the title back from Graham just so that we could have had a proper blow off to this feud. Graham is so good at stooging. I'm not a stooging guy for the most part. I'd rather watch a Thesz match over a Buddy Rogers match. However, I can appreciate the art of stooging when it's done well, and Graham was fantastic. These guys got so much mileage out of simple holds like a full nelson, test of strength, and a bear hug. That wouldn't impress me in a regular bout but when the heat is this molten, and the kick-punch stuff is so good, it's impossible to not have a dumb grin spread across everyone's face. For some reason, the ref was mic'ed in this bout, and boy did he talk. I guess most refs would sound the same if they were mic'ed, but it was as loud as the television commentators and provided a running commentary throughout the match. Just saying.

Bruno Sammartino vs. Superstar Billy Graham (WWWF, 8/1/77) This may be my favorite match in the Bruno/Superstar series. This was just a down and out fight. I'm not the biggest fan of special guest referees, but Gorllla was awesome here. I loved how they upped the ante so that Gorilla's presence was even more necessary than it was in the beginning. I also loved how they worked the finish. It may have been controversial and drawn "bullshit" chants, but if a ref's gonna do a blood stoppage, it helps to have your shirt covered in blood. There are still people in this world who think Superstar Billy Graham never bumped or sold. That's a wrong that needs to be righted. He was phenomenal in this bout. He couldn't have given any more. He's so good that a spot I would ordinary hate on the outside with Gorilla Monsoon had me marking like a punter in the crowd. One of the all-time great WWE brawls.

G. Cochisse/Solar II/Impacto vs. Franco Columbo/Espectro de Ultratumba/Lemus II (EMLL 3/29/85) Cochisse did nothing of note in this trios undercard bout. To be fair, neither did anyone else, but I'm going to be strict here. If Cochisse had produced a fun exchange with someone, or matched up better with his chief opponent, Franco Columbo, then I'd be singing his praises. So, I'll go ahead and declare this the first bad Cochisse performance. It also happened to be the most boring lucha match I've seen in quite some time. 3-1.

Terry Funk vs. Pedro Morales (WWF, 1/11/86) I'm not particularly interested in this era of the WWF at the moment, but someone mentioned this match in a Funk thread and I thought I'd check it out. Really fun match. I love how Terry came to New York and was still able to be Terry, adlibbing like mad and doing the wildest shit he could get away with. He even takes a swipe at Gorilla at the commentary table, which is amusing.

Bruno Sammartino vs. Superstar Billy Graham (WWWF, 6/27/77) This is such a great match. If you want to start the art of the middle chapter in a feud, look no further than this match. Bruno whips Graham's ass in this match but only gets a piece of the Superstar. They do an amazing job of doing just enough to send the Garden into a frenzy without giving them the payoff. A wild finish sees Superstar escape by the skin of his teeth, and this feud is far from over. You can't beat late 70s WWWF. It was by far the most exciting time in WWE history.

Boy, I didn't hold back about the Royals, did I? I must have softened on them over the years as I don't have any negative opinions about them now.

I've gotta give Punk his due here. This was an excellent performance. It may be the Punk performance to date, at least in the matches I've seen. What impressed me most was that it was a great wrestling performance. Punk sometimes gets knocked for his technical ability, but he was excellent here. AJ is happy to follow Punk's lead, and the end result is one of the better indy matches in a while.

This is so depressing

I ended up obtaining both matches, and they were in colour.

This was everything I could have hoped for from a Dandy vs. Park match from this point in time. I'm not sure what I thought of it in the past, but I've sat through my fair share of Parka indy matches, and his disappointing CMLL run, since then, and this is far better than Park's match against Ultimo. In fact, I thought it was one of the highlights of the year until the finish. That was such a bad finish. It reeked of 2004 indy wrestling in general. It was so shitty it took the shine off the match to the point where I couldn't, in good faith, rank it among the best lucha matches of the year. It's too bad because I wanted to sing their praises and now I feel like the match is forgettable.

Bob Backlund vs. Don Muraco (WWF, 3/20/83) I've got nothing against Gorilla, but his commentary here wasn't nearly as good as solo VInce or Rudman and Graham. This ended better than it began which is never a bad thing. I really liked the beating Bob dished out. It was slow paced and felt like he was laying in the shots. You've got to hand it to Bob. For a guy whose gimmick was the technical stuff, he sure could throw a decent punch. I'm not sure why people are always on Muraco's ass about being boring. I have zero problems with Don Muraco. The finishing combo (which wasn't really a combo, but I'll call it one) was so badass. Bob's strength game was second to none.

Gran Cochisse vs. Mocho Cota (EMLL, 12/07/84) It's impossible to tell from watching this footage whether it was a good match, but it does include a large part of the tercera and we can at least see that Cochisse was selling for Cota's offense. Some of the transitions were a bit iffy, but that was true for both men. Cota was by far the more dynamic of the two, but I didn't see Cochisse do anything that I would consider remotely bad. He fought exactly how you'd expect Gran Cochisse to fight and the result wasn't a surprise. 3-0.

Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 2/14/81) This was a decent match, but I think I prefer Sarge as a face than chickenshit heel. In all of these matches, Backlund whips the shit out of Slaughter. I think Slaughter shows ass way too much in this feud. The best thing about the bout was Rudman losing his shit over Backlund trying to kill Slaughter, but I couldn't understand why Bob was so pissed. I get that he was upset that Slaughter ran away, but there was nothing Slaughter did that a million over heels haven't done to Backlund already, yet for some reason Bob just loses his shit. Everybody about Bob is weird. His selling and mannerisms are weird. The way he reacts to feuds is weird. His voice is weird. It's cool, but weird.

Cien Caras/Javier Cruz/Arandu vs. Herodes/Volador/Angel Azteca (Monterrey 1991) This was during the period where Pena had Herodes do that gimmick where he pretended to be crazy and wore a different gimmick to the ring each time. This time he was dressed as a surgeon. Folks say Herodes was past his prime at this time, and that may be true, but he was still capable of doing bullshit house show lucha. This was the type of match where you look for the potential in specific match-ups. There was a decent looking exchange between Javier Cruz and Volador, which had me thinking that might be an all right match, and a bunch of smoke and mirrors between Arandu and Azteca. Arandu is always fun, but a lot of it is the hair. Caras had some fun exchanges with Herodes, and Cruz was rocking it in general with his black glove, but I actually think if I had to choose one match-up I'd like to see, it might be Arandu vs. Herodes. I think that would be a ton of fun.

I love Homicide's theme.

Gran Cochisse, Villano III y Rayo De Jalisco Jr. vs. Fishman, Mocho Cota y Tony Bennetto (EMLL, 11/30/84) This made the DVDVR set and with good reason. This was an excellent lead-in match to the following week's Cota vs. Cochisse hair match. The Cota vs. Cochisse segments were excellent. Cota bumped the way you'd expect him to, but Cochisse brought the gristle and grit. I had a hard time finding any fault in his performance here. He was an older guy who looked like a Mexican Wahoo McDaniel and was a tough, no-nonsense foil for the flamboyant Cota. He's clearly the dude from the Satanico match and not some bum. The rest of the guys chip in and make this a cracking bout. Cochisse is 2-0 so far.