ohtani's jacket

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #35 -- w/ Virgil When people talk about the greatest tag teams of all time, they somehow manage to neglect the team of Virgil and "El Matador" Tito Santana. These guys had some really solid, fun TV matches against the likes of Money Inc., the Headshrinkers and the Beverly Brothers. It probably wasn't what Tito wanted to be doing, but I thought it was a nice little coda on his WWF career, and he looked great in just about all of their matches. Does anybody know why Tito didn't have a WCW run at this point of his career? Did they even approach him? Everybody else did, why not Tito? TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #36 -- "The Bad Guy" Razor Ramon I'm not a fan of the way Hall works as I think the things he tries make him look clumsy for a guy his size, but this was a match-up that had potential. To exploit that potential they had to go longer than five minutes, however. TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #37 -- The Dream Team, Greg "the Hammer" Valentine and Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake Tito and a rotating cast of partners vs. the Dream Team, Valiant and Hart. Folks probably know about the Steamboat and Santana vs. Dream Team match, but the other bouts are fun too. Mainly it's a chance to see more Tito vs. Greg, which is probably the best thing Tito was ever involved with, and their exchanges at MSG in particular are memorable, but you also get to see Beefcake on his roll and watch Valentine beat up David Sammartino. Heck, you can even watch Oprah commentate wrestling. Fun stuff. I thought Sammartino would be worse than he was, but maybe Greg was that good. The whole time I kept thinking I need to watch more Dream Team. Morales had some fun exchanges against the heels as well. I always kind of dug Morales.

I only saw the one Christian/Orton match, but the counters seemed to happen faster and smoother than I expected. The last Orton match I watched before this one was his 2006 match against Mysterio Jr. that was really spot sequence heavy. Another thing that struck me was the commentating. It was far from great, but an improvement over Cole trying to put over how emotional everything was.

I liked the work better in Christian/Orton, but I thought it needed another four minutes or so to be a truly great match. It seemed like they were just getting into the stretch run when the match ended but that may have been a result of the finish being clean. Cena/Punk was more of a main event spectacle, had the hot hometown crowd and all the BS with Vince was well laid out, but there were some weak periods because they were going long-ish. Modern WWE is really heavy on counters and the longer the go the more of those type of spots they do, but compared to a lot of WWE stuff I've watched both these matches felt less telegraphed.

CM Punk vs. Cena from Money In The Bank was another strong match. I think you're losing this one, Jerome.

All of those movies he made, as crappy as they were, made him a better promo.

Randy Orton vs. Christian from Over the Limit 5/22/11 was an excellent match from two workers I've never really cared for. Orton in particular was awesome.

I don't think it matters what your name is if you become a star. If you get over, they'll give you a bunch of nicknames. Nobody wants plain workers, but on the other hand they don't want stupid gimmicks. The problem is that guys look cheesy as shit as that picture depicts. Calling him Nick "the Hammer" doesn't work in 2012, but he can stop smiling like a dickhead.

Japanese wrestling was screwed long before Hashimoto ever fought Ogawa.

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #34 -- The Islanders This was the feud that gave birth to Strike Force, with Tito Santana leaving his position in the Spanish broadcasting booth to rescue Martel from an Islanders beatdown. The Islanders attacked Tito in the booth at some point and the pair got together and coined the name "Strike Force" in a cheesy backstage promo. From there they wrestled the Islanders a million times, half of which I watched. I can't tell you which was the best as they all blurred together with the same people, places and faces. The standout may have been one of their MSG bouts but only because it was a 2/3 falls bout which left a more indelible impression. Given that they were WWF tag matches with only half the psychology of a regular US tag match from the time, the things I liked most tended to be spots. The Islanders in a way seemed to be a quasi Samoan Bulldogs with Haku playing DBS and Tama Dynamite Kid. That may not be quite true, but there was a definite workrate element to their matches and Tama's flying was cool even if it was more direct than spectacular. Strike Force also brought a lot of strikes to this feud as well, actually "striking with force" as Tito promised. That was cool. They also mixed it up a bit with Martel playing the FIP in a few of the matches. On the Gorilla front, they finally did the second referee at ringside stip that he was forever moaning about; and wouldn't you know it, he wouldn't shut up about how poor a job of offciating the second official was doing and kept getting into arguments with Nick Bockwinkel about it.

It's not only WWE that has this problem with all the young wrestlers looking alike. CMLL has been that way for years now and Japan isn't much better.

The 1/17/11 Punk/Cena match is something you might want to check out, Jerome. It's a pretty good match in spite of an awful backstage vignette, a shitty CM Punk gimmick and angle and a crappy finish.

Pierroth vs. Mascara Sagrada, Mexican National Light Heavyweight title, 2/1/91 If ever there was a test of how good Pierroth was during this time frame then this is it. Mascara Sagrada was not... very good... After a while, you accept him as part of the crew and sometimes you're impressed with what a rudo can do with him in trios, but we talking about trios. This was a twenty minute, two out of three falls title match. It wasn't exactly a miracle match, but it could've easily been a disaster. It was more of a heel vs. face match than a true title match, partially because Pierroth wasn't good enough on the mat to carry Sagrada but also because his strengths lay in being a "character worker," which he'd use to great effect the following year when his charisma exploded. The work is outrageously bad when Sagrada is on offense as you'd expect, but pretty entertaining when Pierroth is in control. Pierroth was sort of a second tier worker (as much as I like him), but he pulled this off. Would've loved to have seen him against Octagon, who was the best possible Mascara Sagrada on the roster.

Hoping to keep more up to date with lucha this year. Black Terry/El Hijo Del Pirata Morgan/Skyde vs. Negro Navarro/Trauma 1/Trauma 2 Arena Neza 1/1/12 -- This was ok. I read some criticism of the Terry/Trauma II matwork but it was nowhere near as frustrating as it can be. Navarro vs. Skyde was a nice change of pace but they could've done more. The best parts were the Terry/Navarro exchanges. Ever since those clips of Terry and Navarro fighting each other cut to Metallica's Unforgiven I've been clamouring for a singles match between the two. I could quit watching and die a happy man if it ever happens. El Hijo Del Pirata Morgan was a bit disappointing in this and played an odd role as fall guy. El Hijo Del Santo vs. Angel Mortal Jr., Arena Neza 1/1/12 -- This was boring as shit. The same match Santo's been working for twenty years against a bad worker. Blue Panther/Atlantis/Solar vs. Ultimo Guerrero/Felino/Negro Navarro, 1/14/12 -- This was a good match. Panther and Felino were awful on the mat, but the Solar/Navarro exchanges were amazing. I'm one of those people who think they wrestle too often, especially in matches like these, but I was floored by their work here. More surprising, though, were the Atlantis/Ultimo Guerrero exchanges. Atlantis looked great, but Ultimo Guerrero was fantastic. I don't want to get carried away and call it the best match he's ever had, but it was certainly the most I've enjoyed him. Atlantis, Delta, Guerrero Maya Jr. vs. Morphosis, Psicosis, Volador Jr. [MEX TRIOS] CMLL GDL 1/17/12 -- This seemed okay. I think you have to be in rhythm with the match to enjoy this type of wrestling as there's no breathing space between moves. Prefer the darkened arenas to the usual CMLL lighting. Chico Che vs. Black Terry, IWRG 1/22/12 Chico Che vs. Black Terry, hair vs. hair, IWRG 1/29/12 -- This is what I'm talking about when I say Terry is better at working brawls than maestro tags or IWRG matwork. Both these matches deserve their own posts, but let me just say that the first match is an excellent mano a mano bout and the second is best Terry match I've seen. You should all go watch it now instead of reading any more, but long time IWRG viewers will be pleased to know that it takes the best aspects of Terry's feuds from '06-08 and pits them against a legitimately good worker in Che. Both guys bleed buckets, the strikes are great and the headbutts legendary. The key spots in the hair match work really well, especially the stuff lifted from Terry's match against Multifacético that Raging Noodles and I reviewed a few years ago. Loved all the involvement with the seconds and thought Alan Extreme's tope was sensational (and extremely well caught by BTJr.) The opening falls were fleshed out, the decider was dramatic while still being appropriate for the size of the arena, and the bullshit with the ref was fun. Terry was in his element bleeding and selling and these matches ruled.

Well, I watched the pimped Bryan/Henry cage match from November and it was a whole bunch of nothing. Is it just me or are they using a smaller ring these days? Something about the whole arena & ring set-up always bothers me when I watch WWE.

Regal's had more of a Hall of Fame career than a lot of these other guys.

Y'know, watching the promos Jesse cut as an active wrestler it's striking how much he improved through commentating and doing The Body Shop. That's natural I guess, but you'd think Jesse the worker would've been a better promo than he was.

They were very similar.

They didn't really. Joshi girls were working the same style from the mid-70s on.

WWF production was also good in making them seem good at their jobs and a Big Deal. John A guy like Okerlund had a good voice, nice phrasing and a good sense of timing. Considering he worked with pretty simple camera set-ups most of the time I don't know that production values had much to do with it. The interviews he used to do inside the arenas had better production values than other companies, especially the promotions that did studio tapings, but I don't really see what that has to do with Gene. Replace him with another guy and he would've been in the same set-up. With Gene it was all about the voice and the demeanour.

TITO SANTANA VS. THE WORLD #33 -- Demolition Demolition vs. Strike Force was a fun series. I'm sure the matches were structurally flawed if you really want to get into it, but fun matches are a God send in 80s WWF. Their Wrestlemania match was the weakest of the lot, but the rematches were the best Strike Force stuff I've seen so far. The Demos were a good unit. I've really liked what I've seen from them in shorter up tempo matches. I dunno if they were the Kings of Psychology, but they definitely had a good thing going.

One day you'll have your eyes opened like Saul on the road to Damascus.

Well, I thought Yamazaki was the best worker in the second UWF (and probably in UWF-I too until Tamura matured), and I would point at Tamura's peak as being definitively during his RING years. It's not a big knock against Fujiwara, I thought he was still excellent then, and had several great matches. I'm not a huge Yamazaki fan as I think his matwork was lacking, but his stand-up game was fairly good and he often had burn burners with the lower-to-upper midcard guys. But he was jobbed out too much in 1990 for me to really consider him the best worker in the second UWF. Plus he continued his run of sickening matches with Nobuhiko Takada.

I think that's stretching things a bit. Gorilla Monsoon, Gene Okerlund, Jesse Ventura, Bobby Heenan, Vince McMahon and Howard Finkel were a large part of what people enjoyed about WWF during that era. Some of the praise they receive may be due to nostalgia, but I don't see how anyone can honestly argue that they weren't good at what they did and that their own screen personas were merely byproducts of the WWF's success. Monsoon was a crappy play-by-play announcer but his strength was insulting people and he was at least good at that. There is enough 80s footage available where those men are not involved to know that the alternatives were poor and that the overall product would've suffered without their involvement. Having said that, Nitro & WCW had some of the worst announcing in the history of professional wrestling and was for a time highly successful, so we can't give the frontmen too much credit. Instead, I would argue that those 80s WWF guys were simply talented performers and good at their jobs.

I always liked Larry Z as an announcer, pre-Nitro era and all that Bischoff bullshit. He had a good voice.

Gorilla was great as a foil for Heenan and Ventura as well as the various managers he used to interact with at ringside, but if the Tito project has taught me anything it's that he was unbelievably shitty as a play-by-play announcer.