ohtani's jacket

Not feeling that.

There are some good matches on there, but it's not a particularly well made comp. It would be fun to make a better one. I will say that the comp has some of Takada's better matches on it, such as: Nobuhiko Takada vs. Akira Maeda (11/10/88) Nobuhiko Takada vs. Bob Backlund (12/22/88) Nobuhiko Takada vs Naoki Sano ***1/2 (12/20/92)

This has put me off getting the UWF-i set, I was going to get that and the Bryan Danielson or the 6 disk Ultimo set. Don't let me put you off. There are UWF-i matches that a lot of people like. I doubt that they're on the comp, however.

Nope. And you don't hate UWF-I nearly as much as I hate WWE, too much Sano and Yamazaki in it for you to truly hate it. I don't much care for Yamazaki and Sano could've been so much more in UWF-i.

The best shoot style is RINGS since it most closely resembles Pancrase and Vale Tudo. My favourite is UWF-2, though I'm partial to PWFG as well. No prizes for guessing the worst. UWF-i is to shoot style what Jerome thinks WWE is to pro-wrestling.

Nobody said Baba was laying the matches out. The point is that whether it was Baba who came up Kawada punching Misawa et al., he almost certainly knew about it beforehand. If Baba trusted his workers to come up with "something shooty" and kicked back on commentary waiting to see what would happen, it was only because HE'D overseen them become "collectively smart workers who'd spent their entire careers in All Japan training, watching, listening to how you're suppose to work." I don't buy that the workers were left to their own devices for the simple reason that in no facet of Japanese culture are subordinates empowered to make decisions of their own, but I agree that it doesn't matter whether Baba came up with the ideas or someone else. My point was that it could've just as easily been Baba who thought it was a good idea to have the 1993 RWTL match resemble the one from '88. You don't even have to give that much instruction for that to happen. Or perhaps he poked his head into the locker, with top hat and cape, and told them to make it "shooty boys." Hell, maybe he didn't go into the locker at all. Perhaps he was daydreaming about his next trip to Hawaii and only noticed the match when he was distracted by the crowd. If Baba didn't have a big hand in the final product, I'd love to know why the booking and the matches declined as his health did. The fact that he "allowed" it to happen is generally what you'd expect as his heatlh deteriorated.

I'm gonna throw out a couple: Must see high flyers match -- Bracito De Oro/Cicloncito Ramirez/Mascarita Magica vs Damiancito El Guerrero/El Fierito/Pierrothito, 10/3/97 Must see match with blood -- Trio Fantasia v. Thundercats (Masks vs. Masks), 12/8/91 Must see mat work -- Blue Panther vs. Atlantis from 1997 Must see 1970s match -- Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (7/26/78) Must see 1980s match -- Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Super Tiger (1/16/85 handheld) Must see 1990s match -- Espanto Jr. vs. El Hijo Del Santo (UWA World Welterweight Title Match), 5/14/92 Must see tag match -- Kung Fu/Pete Roberts vs. Johnny Kincaid/Dave Bond (10/4/77)

Watched a couple of things, none of which really grabbed me. The Doink vs. Marty Jannetty 2/3 falls match was okay for a 1993 WWF match but I didn't get the sense that it was some kind of hidden gem. Watched the Regal vs. Austin strap match from 2001 as well and thought that was also predictable. After that, I tried to get some kind of Savage tribute going and watched a match against Steamboat from Houston, but it was after Wrestlemania III and I didn't see much point in a match after the blow off. It was also a pro-shot match with no commentary which was a bit weird.

I think you're getting confused with the Rey Mysterio Jr./Psicosis match from '95. I can't think of anyone who cites Santo vs. Psicosis as the best lucha match and in truth it's not very good.

Just take this bit: and add Baba to it. Do you really think that the workers worked out all that out by themselves with no input from Baba? If Baba's only job was deciding who went over, he can't have had a difficult time of it considering how conservative his booking was.

I don't see how Savage looking the way he did in that photo on the TMZ website could've made any sort of comeback.

Shachou means company president, but it loses something in translation. If you hear Jumbo or someone talk about Baba they will address him as shachou similar to how a teacher or doctor is always called sensei or an athlete senshu.

I have a hard time believing Baba took a hands-off approach simply because Japan doesn't work that way. Baba was too much of a shachou in all other respects to not have a major hand in what was happening in the ring. Not only that, but if you give workers too much "leash," so to speak, you're more likely to see a spotfest than an All Japan match.

My understanding of it is quite different from John's. I've always heard that Baba was quite hands on about how he wanted his native talent to work (which you'd expect from a shachou), and was directly involved in the stylistic change that occurred in the early 90s.

Nobody knows what's going to happen down the pike.

I think it's entirely possible that Baba instructed them to do specific things in matches given what we know about Baba and his control over the ringwork. In fact., I'd argue that the decline in All Japan ringwork corresponded directly with the deterioration in Baba's health and the lessening of his input. If Baba had died earlier, I don't think you would've ever seen a match on the level of 12/93.

It doesn't really make a difference. Romaji is only really used for passports.

"Oh" is a non-Hepburn method of representing the long vowel sound without using a macron above the "o". Most of the time the macron is left off and the name written as otani or muto, but people with these names can choose to add an "h" if they wish.

Well, there are only half a dozen essential matches from any promotion in a given year. Obviously with a Yearbook format there's going to be times when you wish you'd seen more of wrestler x, y or z, but I wonder if theme based selections wouldn't be a better idea at times. If you take 1990, for example, is there a way to document just how much a push Angel Azteca received or Funaki's blazing push to the top? That sort of thing.

So did you love it or not? There seems to be a conflict between your opening and closing statements I haven't watched this for years, but the story is pretty obvious isn't it? It's probably the greatest "sports story" ever told in a wrestling match. The finish gets a pop for the "lift", a louder pop for the beginning of the count and a standing ovation/chant after the fact. Takako had a breakout year in '93, but it was all downhill for Joshi from this point on. She was a hard worker, but she lacked the tools that were necessary to be a top star. Unfortunately, you left off a lot of her best matches from this year.

This --- Volk Han vs. Yoshihisa Yamamoto (6/15/95)

The best WOS match I have ever seen. Mind you, it is the only WOS match I have seen, but it is like Misawa-Kawada good to me. Do any other WOS matches compete with this one? I don't really know the answer to this question, but I liked Myers/Grey so much I wanted to see everything else World of Sport had to offer. Suffice to say, I haven't been disappointed. Grey, in particular, was fantastic and in my opinion one of the all-time great babyfaces in professional wrestling. Myers was also a great worker but ended up working a bullshit Bruce Lee type gimmick that ruled everything that was cool about him in the early to mid-70s.

Nothing could have prevented the downward spiral of New Japan. The seeds were there when they were doing bumper business.

Sadly, that's the only Billy Robinson match that The Wrestling Channel guys found in the ITV faults. It's a very good match with a lot of great Greco-Roman stuff, but it's not very representative of WoS as a whole. The purest representation of wrestling as a legit sport was shoot-style. Here are my recommended WoS matches from Wrestling KO. Most of these are on youtube: Jim Breaks vs. Adrian Street (2/12/72) Jack Fallon vs. Tibor Szakacs (aired 4/19/72) Les Kellett vs. Johnny Czeslaw (11/16/72) Clay Thomson vs. Reg Trood (12/30/72 TV) Jim Breaks vs Johnny Saint (3/14/73) Pete Roberts vs. Caswell Martin (4/4/73) Jim Breaks vs Johnny Saint (5/3/73) Jackie Pallo vs. Johnny Kwango (5/3/73) Alan Sarjeant vs. Clay Thomson (6/6/73) Alan Sarjeant vs. Eddie Capelli (12/13/73) Robby Baron vs. Peter Szacaks (3/14/74) Mick McManus vs. Tony St. Clair (3/14/74) Alan Sarjeant vs. Mick McManus (11/20/74) Johnny Czeslaw vs. Romany Riley (12/4/74) Sid Cooper vs. Clive Myers (1/23/75) Tibor Szakacs vs. Prince Kumali (2/13/75) Robby Baron vs. Alan Sarjeant (4/17/75) Steve Grey vs. Ken Joyce (7/31/75) Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (10/8/75) Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (11/20/75) Johnny Saint vs. Mick McManus (11/20/75) Kung Fu vs. Mick McManus (4/21/76) Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (6/30/76) Terry Rudge vs. Marty Jones (11/30/76) Zoltan Boscik vs. Alan Sarjeant (12/29/76) Clive Myers vs. Alan Sarjeant (2/21/77) Steve Grey vs. Mick McManus (5/21/77) [Cup Final Day] Jim Breaks vs. Vic Faulkner (7/5/77) Kung Fu/Pete Roberts vs. Johnny Kincaid/Dave Bond (10/4/77) Clive Myers vs. Steve Grey (12/6/77) Tony St. Clair vs. Dave Bond (12/6/77) Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones (7/26/78) Bobby Barnes vs. Steve Grey (7/26/78) Steve Grey vs. Mark Rocco (10/11/78) Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (12/3/79) Jon Cortez vs. Pete Lapaque (1/28/80) Johnny Saint vs Steve Grey (1/28/80) [Walton rant match] John Cortez vs. Jeff Kaye (2/5/80) Pete Roberts vs. Pat Roach (2/13/80) Jim Breaks vs. Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (2/13/80) Pat Roach vs. Gil Singh (4/21/80) Mark Rocco vs. Pete Roberts (5/28/80) Johnny South vs. Ringo Rigby (8/5/80) Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez (2/2/81) Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey (2/11/81) Jon Cortez vs. Bobby Barnes (3/31/81) Steve Grey vs. Jim Breaks (5/12/81) Marty Jones vs. Johnny South (10/7/81) Johnny Saint vs. Vic Faulkner (11/18/81) Ken Joyce vs. Johnny Kidd (JIP Rd 4, 1/27/82) Fit Finlay vs Young David (Davey Boy Smith) (3/9/82) Marty Jones vs. Dynamite Kid (1/19/83) Fit Finlay vs. Alan Kilby (3/23/83) Terry Rudge vs. Dalibar Singh (10/11/83) Marty Jones vs. Dave Finlay (4/4/84) Marty Jones vs Bull Blitzer (Steve Wright) (4/23/86) Johnny Saint vs. Robbie Brookside (4/28/87)

Rumi Kazama was the owner of LLPW not Kandori. Kandori had a rep for being tough because she was a legit judoka and shot on Jackie Sato and all the rest. Hokuto trash talked her a bunch in the lead-up to the fight including the promo at the beginning of the match where she rubbishes Kandori's talent. Most of the feud was about Hokuto claiming Kandori didn't have the heart for pro-wrestling because she wasn't a real pro-wrestler.