ohtani's jacket

I like Stan Hansen as much as the next guy, but he had more than his share of average matches. I can't remember ever seeing a good Hansen/Brody tag.

I was thinking more along the lines of his wrestler vs. martial artists fights v. Gerard Gordeau, Chris Dolman and Willie Wilhelm, though Don Nielsen was a popular Muay Thai fighter in Japan at the time. I can't find the Vrij match online so I don't know about the theatrics, but it's worth noting that the first RINGS card didn't feature a lot of native talent: Koichiro Kimura vs. Hideki Hosaka Peter Smit vs. Herman Renting Willie Peeters vs. Marcel Haarmans Chris Dolman vs. Bill Kazmier Akira Maeda vs. Dick Leon-Vrij Aside from an exhibition against Kimura on an all-kicking boxing card, Maeda didn't face a native until the 12/16/94 card. Vrij was always a bit of a douche, but I can't remember him being built up as a foreign heel type. Also, the comparable UWF-i match was Takada vs. Burton, not Tamura/Kakihara. Vrij was at least a legit kickboxer. Burton was an ex-WWF jobber, Global worker.

I didn't get the shoot style connection, either. It just seemed like a regular match between the two. It probably would have been more interesting if it had been a sub-10 minute shoot style bout as the stand-up portions was the only real action prior to the finish.

I'd just like to respectfully point out that Ta-Gar was lord of one volcano.

Wrestlemania III was supposed to have aired live on the original Sky channel w/ I and II broadcast in the lead-up. Apparently, it showed Superstars, Wrestling Challenge and Saturday Night's Main Event.

Screensport showed NWA, AWA, Stampede, ICW, GWA, South West Championship Wrestling and WCCW. The Lifestyle channel showed a bunch of wrestling too -- Glow, PoWW, Global (Florida), and Pro Wrestling This Week.

Maeda had a number of worked shoots against foreigners in both New Japan and UWF so I don't think it's much of a surprise.

Pardon my ignore, but you can bet on wrestling?

The part where Warrior starts talking to his hands is one of the stupidest things in wrestling history.

Harley Race vs. Terry Funk, Championship Wrestling From Florida 1974 This was Solie narrating over some short clips. Seemed pretty stip heavy -- a Texas Death Match to decide the number one contender for the NWA World Championship with the winner getting a minute to do whatever he likes to the loser. More of a Terry match than a Race match from the looks of it, at least that's how the clips made it appear. Terry did some cool shit like shuffling along the ropes to hit his knee drop and convulsing on the mat when Race hit his flying headbutt. Race didn't look that good from what was shown. Weak bumps to the outside. He sold well between falls when Roop was giving him water but that was about it.

Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard vs. Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff, 12/12/87 Today's random Tully match is a fun Worldwide match from a December Greensboro card. Tully does really do anything memorable outside of some sweet arm work on Rhodes, but I thought it was interesting how these guys were able to work a basic FIP tag match, have a DQ finish, outside interference from both Flair and Luger, and still manage to accomplish more than twelve minutes of your average WWF tag match.

Watched that Savage/Garvin cage match and man is Poffo's commentary brutal. Sucks all the life out of the match. I switched it to mute and could appreciate the match more, but it wasn't just Poffo's commentary that made the match feel monotonous. I didn't think much of the rhythm in this match. It pretty much followed the same note all match long, and for as much crap as the WWF gets for its cage match rules I don't really see why the cage was necessary here. They could have had the exact same match without it. Pretty average.

Managed to catch the 4/26/80 Rose/Martel match where Buddy is wearing the wig. The skeptic in me still can't see how Rose was the best worker of the 80s/early 80s, but I did think this was an excellent match for the first two falls. The final fall and finish wasn't what I was looking for in terms of watching an isolated match, but more importantly I'm still waiting to see Rose do all these amazingly little details that he gets pimped for.

I watched Flair vs. Sam Houston for a second time today, which I think is the match everyone talks about, and while I wouldn't call it the most amazing pro-wrestling moment, it is a good studio match for what should ordinarily be a relatively straight forward squash match. I absolutely disagree with anybody who says Flair gives Houston as much as he'd give a Nikita or a Magnum, however. It didn't strike me as a formula match whatsoever.

I quit watching the WWF partially because I was disappointed in Benoit's matches after he jumped, but when I went back and caught the stuff I'd missed during the WWF Smarkschoice Poll I thought he ended up adapting well to the WWF style. I'd rather watch his 2006 Smackdown match with Finlay than any of his mid-90s stuff. I don't get the criticism of the Smackdown Six era. After the shitty wrestling we endured during the boom years, you'd think people would've appreciated better television wrestling. Maybe it's a counter reaction to the era being overrated at the time, I don't know.

That's great. Do you know anything more about her career ohtani? There's nothing on youtube beyond 1980. She retired in June of '81. Her career ran from '75 to '81 which was fairly typical for those times. She got a singles push post-Beauty Pair/Black Pair era and held the All Pacific title a few times. In fact, she was the inaugural champion, IIRC. Her partner Kumano ended up having six kids.

Konnan was probably CMLL's biggest singles star at the this time as he was getting his big babyface push after losing his mask to Aguayo. I never had a problem with Octagon. He's a bit of a poor man's Black Man but I like his trios work. There were worse workers in CMLL at this time than Octagon. His best singles match is the Fuerza match from Nov '91.

Hey, somebody else has discovered the greatness of Yumi Ikeshita. I really love when she retires and they say she's leaving to get married and everyone is like "whoah, somebody's marrying one half of The Black Pair?"

I broke the "w" and the "l" key on my keyboard. Is my keyboard trying to tell me something?

Terry Rudge vs. Franz van Buyten (Hamburg 10/1/87) Fab contest between two of the best European workers of the 80s. Rudge had so much more scope to work in these German tournaments than he did on the crappy TV at the time and you can see why he was Regal's favourite worker, not only because of his style but because of his mannerisms and attention to detail. This was actually the first time I've heard Rudge speak and his Bedfordshire accent didn't quite match his asskicking image, but his hammerwork work sure did. Man, was he the king of the hammerlock. Van Buyten sold superbly as usual and provided his trademark comeback. I especially liked a desperation spot he did where he back body dropped Rudge over the top rope only for Rudge to re-enter the ring and kick his ass some more. The tiebreaker section of the match wasn't as good as the Lasartesse match as Rudge wasn't the theatrical type and I actually enjoyed the body of the match more, but it was still a treat to see these two go at it.

You can't say the word motel on Japanese TV either.

Those Spanish words are also misused, but lucha can at least loosely refer to a form of professional wrestling developed in Spanish speaking countries and a sombrero is still a hat. I think the usage of the Japanese words is worse, but I don't really care about it or anything. Finding gaijin offensive reminds me of a Zach Arnold talking point or Lorefice writing those incredibly long Japanese names for submission holds. It just seems goofy.

The same way anime and manga are used in English to mean Japanese things when they're simply blanket terms in Japanese.

Has anyone seen Randy work the mat? Legitimately curious.

Worst rest holds of all-time. Great worker but for that one terrible flaw.