ohtani's jacket

Dave Finlay vs. Clive Myers (aired 6/29/85) This had a bit more potential than the last bout as it as one of those 20 minute matches without rounds which are essentially best two-out-of-three falls matches. They did all their schtick which people are either going to like or dislike. I think it's bullshit, but I can see people disagreeing with me. One thing I'll say for Finlay during this era was that he was over and the whole Princess Paula thing drew heat. The crowd liked this. Dave Finlay vs. Clive Myers (5/21/86) It says something when you're glad this is only a 10 minute bout. I thought a lightening bout might focus them more, but I can't get behind either of these workers at this point. After the match, they had a best two-out-of-three arm wrestling competition. Myers was a legit arm wrestling champion and you're watching this thing and you expect it to go somewhere, maybe Finlay attacking Myers and beating the shit out of him or something, but no, Myers wins, Finlay's humiliated a bit and that's all that happens. Needless to say, angles weren't British wrestling's strong point. Dave Finlay vs. Ringo Rigby (7/15/86) The 80s weren't kind to Rigby. Hard to believe he's the same guy from those early 80s bouts. I actually enjoyed this more than the Myers feud as Finlay beat the crap out of Ringo in a pretty tight match. Serviceable late period TV match.

Marty Jones vs. Bobby Gaetano (11/9/82) This wasn't a truly great match, but it was a heck of a spectacle. It was a 15 round title bout for Mike Marino's vacant World Mid-heavyweight championship and there was a lot of emotion centred around Marino's death and the title being decided. Gaetano was a French worker who often worked the summer German tournaments and I thought Walton did him a disservice by questioning his wrestling a bit, but Walton seemed to do that with guys he didn't have a handle on. The matwork wasn't all that great in this, but the stand-up action was good and it basically hit enough right notes to be a satisfying bout. After the match, Marino's widow and an old-time referee came to the ring to present flowers and Marino's belt to the victor and there were a few speeches. Walton was a pro and let the audience at home soak in the moment instead of speaking. Gaetano couldn't speak English very well, but he gave a speech anyway after the presentations. Very similar to the Joshi retirement ceremonies in terms of impact.

I thought the Bridges match was big and dopey and fun the same way a Rayo/Caras match is fun. Can't see why anyone would hate it.

I haven't watched all that many Nagasaki matches, not because he was an awful worker (he was passable), but because he usually didn't wrestle guys I'm interested in seeing. I'll see what I can scrape up for you. EDIT: For some reason, a lot of his stuff has been taken down from YouTube. I'd go with the Wayne Bridges, Lee Bronson, Peter Stewart and Johnny Kincaid bouts from what's available.

Silver King and Fiera were feuding at the time and had a hair match a few days later.

Firstly, I'd say that a 12.0% on Sundays outside of prime time was a pretty good television rating. From 7/9/84 to 9/22/86, AJW had a Monday night slot from 19:00-19:30 right at the beginning of prime time. The only other time AJW was shown in prime time was a similar period from 7/15/77 to 9/28/79. Aside from the 1960s matches mentioned, I believe Inoki drew some pretty high 30%+ ratings in the 70s for his proto-MMA fights such as the ones against Ruska. I think it was the consistency of the Friday night ratings for World Pro Wrestling along with the fact it went toe-to-toe with the police drama Taiyō ni Hoero!, which did some monster ratings in the late 70s, that made it more impressive than some of the one-off fights mentioned. It's difficult to compare them to Hogan because Japan already had its Hogan in Inoki. There's no easy US equivalent for the Crush Girls.

I'm pushed for time, but here's a blog that explains a bit about Japanese television ratings -- http://rz-jocelyn.livejournal.com/27387.html

Dibiase worked face in the UWF towns while they were debuting the Million Dollar Man vignettes. I think he worked one match in Houston against One Man Gang before the first vignette. They later gave a kayfabe reason in Texas for his heel turn saying that he'd inherited a bunch of money from a dead relative.

Dave Finlay vs. Clive Myers (6/13/84) This was every bit as bad as I feared. I think it was made worse for me by the fact that Myers/Grey was the gateway drug for me for British Wrestling and in that match you had Myers as the West Indian guy with all these slick moves and awesome mat tricks and then by the end of the 70s he's cashing in on Bruce Lee's popularity and doing all this martial arts, kung fu fighter bullshit. And then you have Finlay getting more and more heat with Princess Paula while all the while wrestling less and less. This was a 15 round title match and joined about half way through with no score, and not much action either. The only matwork on show here was a wrestler's bridge and the odd submission attempt. It was pathetic when you consider pre-Iron Fist Clive Myers and the funky ass shit he did on the mat. But it as over and the crowd was into it, so much so that I actually wondered if it was really a type of new workrate approach to British wrestling where instead of the "boring" matwork you got more all-action, Mark Rocco style wrestling, not that I find there to be a lot of action in Finlay's matches while Paula had her hooks in him. There's a chance (a good one probably) that people would like this more than me since the crowd were into it and some people may love Finlay regardless of which era of his work it is, but the lame finish where Myers came off the top rope one too many times confirmed for me how far this was away from the great British wrestling I love. And this was from 1984, too, which is way too early to start sucking.

I really liked both of those Twin Towers/Demolition matches. At least I think I did.

Yeah, check out the 1993 one. Both Inoues had tremendous years in '93.

Hadn't watched this in donkey's years. It really does feel like the perfect middle match between the 3/96 match and a match that never happened, although I must say I liked the clipped version of one of their 1998 matches I saw. The matwork wasn't great here, but New Japan matwork never really is, and I thought Ohtani's acting as a bit iffy in the beginning, but once it got into the section of the match where they start unloading their offense on each other I thought it was a cracking match. Liger reminds me of El Hijo del Santo a lot in that everything he does is excellent but incredibly predictable and it's difficult to really care about him all that much, but Ohtani wasn't ready to step up here and they told that story really well. Ohtani had toned down on the facials here, but I wonder if he had it in him to take this feud to the next level where it was believable that he'd matured enough to beat Liger. I wish the economics of the industry had stayed stable and we could have seen it play out properly.

I think the Crush Girls were a phenomenal success in terms of wrestling but not pop culture. A lot of people like Meltzer and the folks who write online articles or information take facts about the Crush Girls and compare them what they know, i.e. American wrestling and the extend to which its stars have ever been mainstream, but when it comes to Japan they don't have a clue where wrestling fits into the rest of Japanese culture. And people assume things are true. That Wikipedia article on Chigusa Nagayo states that either she or the Crush Girls had several top 10 hits. I've scoured as much Oricon charts details as I can find and there is no evidence to date that any of their songs were in the top 10. They certainly weren't in the 100 best selling singles of any year during the Crush Girls craze. I suppose they may have spent a week or two in the top 10, but I can't find any evidence that their singles ever rose that high. If you want to look at what a pop star could do at the same time as the Crush Girls, Seiko Matsuda, the Queen of the Idols, had something like 24 consecutive number one hits between 1980 and 1988. And the ratings seem big by American standards, but something like Touch, for example, the wonderful baseball anime, consistently drew 30%+ ratings during its peak. The difference between something like Touch and Joshi Puroresu is that Touch had appeal for the whole family whereas the Crush Girls success was essentially a phenomenon among children not unlike the trends we grew up with (Transformers, Cabbage Patch Kids, TMNT, etc.) There is a morning television serial in Japan called Asadora where airs from 8:00-8:15 a.m. The most popular serial of all-time earnt on average a 52.6% rating with a 62/9% rating for its most popular episode, and remember that's at 8 o'clock in the morning and only for fifteen minutes. Considering how big the idol industry is in Japan, I don't think the Crush Girls made a terribly huge number of VHS tapes, albums, etc. They also weren't on the celebrity TV circuit as much as you'd think and after she retired Chigusa couldn't land a TV gig. To me overstating the spread or reach of the Crush Girls would be a bit like a Japanese fan claiming that Hogan or Flair were as popular as the most iconic Americans of the 80s.

There was no juniors division to dominate.

For what it's worth, I tend to think the Crush Girls cultural phenomenon is overstated. The Crush Girls were extremely popular in terms of female athletes but their popularity didn't compare to mainstream actresses, singers and idols of the day. In all honesty, they would probably rank below the more significant television prime time animes and popular mangas of the day which had wider audiences. They certainly weren't on the level of pop stars. Their success was good enough to get AJW a good time slot on Saturdays and they pushed a lot of merchandise and sold a lot of tickets but they weren't these huge crossover mainstream stars that they're sometimes portrayed as.

New Japan drew 20%+ ratings on Friday nights during the Tiger Mask craze.

Japan has cable television, but the overall penetration of pay TV is small. All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling's numbers were high but it was quite common for popular shows to do those sort of numbers and even higher.

Yeah, that period from 1986 until 1996 when he shows up in WCW is baffling.

Apparently, Finlay doesn't have his own topic yet. I'm going to concentrate on his European footage, but add whatever you like people. Dave Finlay vs. Chic Cullen (12/7/83) This aired on December 31st and was the last WoS match shown in 1983. That was neat of the promoters to let Finlay see out the year given how busy he'd been in 1983, appearing 11 times on television on 10 different shows. Such a large number of television appearances ought to give you an indication of how successful Finlay was early in his career. He really was fantastic from 1981-83. Then, somewhere along the way, he met Paula. This was right at the beginning of their relationship. Finlay was already donning his signature white and green tights, but his hair as still short and Paula hadn't become overbearing yet. I've been kind of down on Cullen lately, but after a tepid beginning to this match where Finlay seemed like another worker that Cullen didn't match up with particularly well, the match suddenly got really good as Cullen pulled finger and looked like the worker that was so good against Rocky Moran and other heels. You can always tell when Walton was legitimately excited and this was one of this occasions. He actually described Cullen as not being in the match to cover for the slowness of the early action and then put over Cullen's flurry of action big time. It was a good read of the match, I thought. Would have liked to have seen the whole thing to get a better feel for the flow, but this was the Finlay that I like. I have some footage of his rivalry with Clive Myers coming up and that will be interesting as I hate Iron Fist era Clive Myers and it's right in the middle of the Princess Paula phase. I'm intrigued by what they'll deliver and how I'll react.

Dave Finlay vs. Alan Kilby (10/11/82) This was one of Kilby's best feuds. The dynamic was almost perfect. It as never talked about on air, but you always got the feeling that Kilby had a bit of a chip on his shoulder, as though he felt he needed to work harder than everyone else to compensate for his disability. I think most of the fans watching in the halls and at home probably felt that too if only subconsciously. If true then there as no better opponent for Kilby than Finlay. You only had to take one look at Finlay and it became clear why every other wrestler wanted to wipe the shit eating grin from off his face. He was young, brash and full of himself and took real pleasure in the being an asshole. He didn't openly mock Kilby for his disability, but he made Kilby feel inferior in other ways and the subtext was clearly there. What's more, the Irishman had taken Kilby's British Heavy-Middleweight title from him, which was a real blow to Kilby's pride. Of the four Kilby/Finlay matches I've seen, I would probably place this as number two. It was joined in progress about a third of the way into the bout and while it started slow it got really good towards the end. Finlay had this spot he'd do in these early matches of his where he'd point at his opponent and give them a fair old warning about what to expect if they crossed some sort of imaginary line and because he was such an asshole his opponents wouldn't take to it too kindly. Here Kilby was so exasperated he used a mixture of his voice and sign language to complain bitterly to the ref, or as Walton so cringe worthily called it, "the deaf and dumb language." Kilby was so good at getting fired up. I'd put him in the top handful of babyfaces who could get fired up without seeming like complete dicks. It really was a beautiful dynamic between these two. The match went to a draw, but Walton did a really good job of laying out the stakes in the final rounds, what it would mean for Kilby to win and how the promoters would react to a Finlay win, that the final round felt like a title match and not a non-title bout. I wish there was more of this feud on tape.

You ought to be commended for sitting through those Powers of Pain/Demolition matches. Even as a kid I realized those matches were the drizzling shits.

Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. John Elijah (10/2/85) Tiger Dalibar Singh vs. Barry Douglas (4/26/84) Wrestling on ITV got really lame towards the end. I hate the cheesy voice over that introduces the wrestling and the whole Saturday lunch time wrestling schtick with the corny as shit Brian Crabtree MC'ing. Gil Singh could sure half-ass it when he wanted to, especially in one fall matches. I've seen no evidence so far that Barry Douglas was the Southern Terry Rudge, though he was well past his prime here and jobbed in about as short a time as WoS matches went. John Elijah vs. Tom Tyrone (7/15/86) John Elijah vs. Tom Tyrone (5/11/82) A guy whose stock is definitely rising for me is Tom Tyrone. John Elijah was basically reduced to comedy schtick at this point, but remained a decent worker, and Tyrone had the goods in what was unfortunately the wrong era. The '86 match was particularly impressive as it was an entertaining, spirited draw in a really shitty time period for British wrestling. It wasn't good enough to make an 80s set, but it was undoubtedly one of the highlights of that year. Dave Finlay vs. Ringo Rigby (2/24/83) Ringo Rigby was the guy who went to North America with Chris Adams and had significantly less success. It shouldn't be much of a surprise then that he was by far the better of the two when they worked the British halls and was one of the more likeable blue eyes around. This was the final few rounds of a match for the vacant British Light-Heavyweight title. It was a rematch from a match the week before that ended in double count out. Dale Martin loved booking rematches for matches that were supposed to decide vacant titles. Early Dave Finlay is awesome. I don't think he was ever this awesome again until his WWE run. But the match is only really notable for Marty Jones cutting a promo at the end. He was supposed to hand his vacant British Light Heavyweight title to the "deserving" winner and refused to hand it to Finlay. Finlay told Jones that winning the British title was only the beginning and that he was coming after Jones' World title and I guess this kick started their feud. The amusing thing about all this was that Jones was wearing glasses because of his lazy eye and they were really thick lenses that made his eyes look huge (as I'm sure you can imagine) and it was so odd to see this world class athlete looking like my old woodwork teacher. Can you imagine Vince letting a guy cut a promo with glasses like that? Ringo Rigby vs. Banger Walsh (12/7/81) Walsh wasn't have the worker that the truly great heels were, but I like his schtick and the general idea that such a regular looking bloke can be a heat drawing prick in the ring. It was one of those WoS matches that is basically about the heel cheating, the face retaliating and the referee intervening, but it entertained the punters and yours truly.

I never liked street fights in Joshi. I can see the appeal of this, but those chain spots were in incredibly bad taste I thought. The ending was stupid. This is supposed to be wrestling not attempted homicide. I really hated how so much garbage wrestling seeped into Joshi around this time, which made the already bloated main events even more detestable. I've got no problem with matches like Kandori/Devil, Hokuto/Kandori, Bull/Kandori or Kudo/Toyoda, but those were concentrated a lot more in the ring and not a type of violence I find abhorrent.

I would have to watch the G-1 match again, but from memory Sumo Hall is a much better atmosphere for these guys' style of match than the Dome. I don't have a good explanation for why I thought the narrative was better in '96 other than to say that if that was Choshu's last hurrah then I think Hashimoto should have stepped up more in this match. I guess what was missing was the turning point that Kevin alluded to where you get the sense that Hashimoto is going to put him away and there's nothing Choshu can do to stop him. Or perhaps Choshu could have had a bit more intensity at the beginning. I don't want to say that Hashimoto was taking it easy on him, but maybe Choshu could have rocked Hashimoto a bit more in terms of possibly winning. I'm really only talking about small tweaks in the narrative as I get what they were trying to do, I just think Choshu was a bit long in the tooth for them to be working like such equals regardless of respect or Choshu winning the G-1 Climax even. But the end result was the same with Hashimoto getting the win going forward.

Man, I haven't watched a Yagi match in years. She really was a fab worker. No doubt you'll enjoy the Yoshida matches when you get to them. This was a decent match. I suspect it would have meant more to me back in my Joshi days due to the rarity of a Yagi singles match. With JWP only having monthly TV and a commercial tape every now and again, there really weren't that many opportunities to see good Yagi matches. She got quite a few singles matches in '96 as she had that challenge against workers from other companies and that strong Ozaki singles match from TV, but the marriage retirement nipped that in the bud. The selling was typical Joshi, selling the accumulated damage from all of the action rather than focusing on any particular move. I don't think Kuzumi had an off night, this was simply where she was at this stage of her development. She wasn't the most convincing champion granted, but I don't think the finish was meant to be a fluke as she was the title holder, I think it was just a poor choice for the finish, plus she did the "was it a three count?" selling which made it seem like an upset. BTW, not to quibble or anything but it's "Hiromi" Yagi.