ohtani's jacket

You'd think this was Starrcade '97 the way people are going on about it. Personally, I thought it made more sense to have Brock lose than job Cena out. If Cena is leaving for a few months, you can build Brock up and then have Cena return as the guy who beat him last time out.

Two guys both claim to be the best in the World, and this obviously leads to an issue between the two. How, in theory, is that a bad idea? C'mon, they're not even the two best guys in their company. Look at how simple and effective Brock vs. Cena was. You don't need a huge amount of motivation in wrestling because the conflict is already inherent. Just cut some promos and do a wrestling angle. Punk can't act and Jericho can't cut serious promos. They'd have to be great promos to make this sort of bad writing work, but they're not.

What's good about them?

I kind of have fond memories of this. My friends and I used to imitate and parody the Undertaker's speech all the time. If Robert Stack had spoken those lines I bet it would have been awesome.

This isn't exactly what you were talking about, but it was pretty unique --

None of those things are good ideas. That's the problem.

I think it would be awesome if wrestlers started talking like us after matches. "My use of negative space was superior!"

A trope you loathe isn't a trope anymore if we're going to play by the rules.

Chigusa was free to close GAEA any time she wanted. It was her company. Running one of these companies is no mean feat and she did it for a decade. Forget about the future of Joshi, nobody gets decent rookies anymore because there's less kids in Japan every year and no reason for them to be interested in pro-wrestling. A lot of the girls in the business now would've been weeded out before ever being accepted into a dojo twenty or thirty years ago. It's a credit to them if they go through the training and try to make a go at being a wrestler -- most kids today wouldn't want to go through that sort of training -- but whatever people saw in GAEA Girls was nothing compared to the old days.

My point was really that no style of professional wrestling makes sense. I don't see the point in breaking down tropes.

I don't think Tarantino and Russo belong in the same sentence, either. At least Tarantino likes cool shit.

Sounds like the second UWF or RINGS.

I don't think anyone who watches lucha seriously cares about any of this stuff. I mean, face in peril is stupid as shit if you think about it. How dumb do the babyfaces have to be to get themselves stuck in the same situation against the same opposition night after night? They must be thick as shit, not to mention the referees. And how can you work the next night with the injuries you were supposed to have sustained in a FIP match? Some of these guys have some miraculously fast healing bodies. If you hold FIP up to the light, heels should have gotten away with it for a while before action was taken to stop it from happening. All the NWA would've had to do is follow Gorilla Monsoon's old bugaboo about having a second ref at ringside. The first two falls in lucha aren't always rushed through and the finishes are often elaborate. The first two falls being rushed through is not always a bad thing, either. There is good lucha and then there is bad lucha. There is more bad lucha than good lucha. And there is a lot of bad lucha on Galavision. By the same token, sometimes FIP works and sometimes it doesn't. Watching all those 80s WWF tags where the entire FIP structure is shortened to about 10 minutes, FIP becomes worthless. I would rather watch a sprint then watch a 10 minute WWF FIP match.

You're missing the set-up to the double hair/mask vs. hair/mask match: El Hijo Del Santo y Negro Casas vs. Bestia Salvaje y Scorpio Jr. (CMLL 2/5/99) El Hijo Del Santo y Negro Casas vs. Bestia Salvaje y Scorpio Jr. (CMLL 2/26/99) El Hijo Del Santo y Negro Casas vs. Bestia Salvaje y Scorpio Jr. (CMLL 3/12/99) In the first match, Santo and Casas win the tag titles but refuse to accept them as it was on a DQ. The second match is a title match for the same vacant titles. The third match I can't remember anything about.

It was long and drawn out, but the actual turn happened around these events: El Hijo Del Santo, Scorpio Jr. y Villano III vs. Negro Casas, Pantera y La Fiera (CMLL 7/17/98) El Hijo Del Santo vs. Scorpio Jr. (CMLL 7/31/98) El Hijo Del Santo, Fuerza Guerrera y Villano III vs. Negro Casas, Atlantis y La Fiera (CMLL 9/11/98) El Hijo Del Santo, Negro Casas, Atlantis y La Fiera vs. Fuerza Guerrera, Villano III, Bestia Salvaje y Scorpio Jr. (CMLL 9/18/98) There were some brawling trios later in the year that further set up the Santo/Casas vs. Bestia/Scorpio matches that will feature on the '99 yearbook. These were neat matches: Olimpico vs. Halcon Negro, 10/23/98 Olimpico vs. Halcon Negro, mask vs. mask, 10/30/98

1998 was a weak year for lucha, but since it's a yearbook don't you want to include the Santo face turn?

Cena is a Marky Mark wannabee, but it was cool when he got potatoed on RAW.

I've always viewed a post match angle as part of the match. Personally, I don't see how a great match can do anything but add to a post match angle. A more interesting question might be whether a post match angle can be great if the match was poor. I imagine it can. Has anyone ever shed a positive light on the BATB '96 mainevent or the King of the Ring '96 final?

Added -- Jon Cortez vs. Steve Grey (7/27/81) This was awesome. It was everything you'd expect from Grey vs. Cortez with the added bonus of being extremely heated. Grey was British Lightweight champion at the time and Cortez European Lightweight champion, and the winner was due to get a shot at Johnny Saint's World Lightweight title so the bout was super competitive. Cortez wound up playing the subtle heel and Grey got testy as well, particularly when Cortez attacked after the bell. Later on, Grey threw a forearm smash which Cortez was unhappy about and this built until an injury finish that actually worked. Cortez claimed it as a KO victory and got some nice heel heat for doing so (usually the faces turn down the win in this situation and the match is ruled a no contest.) Really great stuff this. One of the best World of Sport matches I've seen

Tito Santana and Steve Grey spring to mind.

WCW Worldwide 12/5/92 -- http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xhq9az_er...rick-rude_sport WCW Saturday Night 12/26/92 -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJiC8-X0wb0

Roma's Pretty Wonderful run was solid stuff.

Added -- Steve Grey vs. John Naylor (4/10/75) I'm not sure whether I'm made this clear or not, but I hate John Naylor. This match, however, was too good to leave off as Grey was an excellent catchweight match-up for just about anybody including Naylor. Some really good wrestling in this bout. I'll have to watch their other match again and see if it was my prejudice against Naylor that caused me to dislike it. Didn't like the Naylor/Rickard match, but thought Saint/Hassouni was fun. I'm not a fan of Johnny Saint's style of wrestling but the match had a good Cup Final Day atmosphere.

Someone finally uploaded the Rick Rude vs. Eric Watts match in full. Probably not one of the greatest matches in WCW history as the clipped version had me thinking, but a quality piece of TV nonetheless and a must watch for Rude fans. The rematch from a week later has also been uploaded but it doesn't have the same dynamic. What it does prove, however, is how much better Jesse was at getting Watts over than JR.

Inoki only became directly involved after Dream Stage Entertainment took over PRIDE. They reached a business agreement prior to PRIDE 9 for Inoki to supply New Japan wrestlers for PRIDE fights. That was in May or June of 2000. PRIDE basically started when a guy named Xavier Cullars promoted a fight between Rickson Gracie and Nobuhiko Takada in October of 1997. Takada and Anjoh had called Gracie out several times back when UWF-i was at the height of its drawing power and Gracie was Vale Tudo Japan champion, which led to the infamous "fight" between Gracie and Anjoh in Gracie's LA gym where Anjoh got his ass kicked. This turned Gracie into a sensation in Japan and eventually Takada and Gracie had their fight which Gracie won. Sakuraba's rise happened by accident. At the time he was wrestling with the other UWF-i workers in the Kingdom promotion that rose out of UWF-i's closure. Anjoh and Kanehara signed on to compete in the UFC Japan show in December 1997, but Kanehara was injured in training and Sakuraba took his place. His fight ended with a ref mistake and to make a long story short he got a rematch as the final of the tournament they were particpating in due to an injury to the other finalist and he manged to win the rematch. And that's how Sakuraba got started. Pro-wrestler vs. shooter was very much the drawing point of the early PRIDE shows and in particular pro-wrestling vs. Gracie jiu-jitsu. Later on it became more of an MMA promotion and shat all over Japanese wrestling with its superior matchmaking, title fights and production values.