ohtani's jacket

1990 UWF: Tatsuo Nakano vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, 1/16/90 Akira Maeda vs. Nobuhiko Takada, 1/16/90 Akira Maeda vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, 2/9/90 Nobuhiko Takada vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara, 2/27/90 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Kazuo Yamazaki, 4/15/90 Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Masaharu Funaki, 6/21/90 Akira Maeda vs. Nobuhiko Takada, 6/21/90 Yoji Anjoh vs. Wayne Shamrock, 10/25/90 Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Nobuhiko Takada, 10/25/90 Akira Maeda vs. Masaharu Funaki, 10/25/90 With the essential matches being: Akira Maeda vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara (2/9/90) Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Kazuo Yamazaki (4/15/90) Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Masakatsu Funaki (9/13/90) Nobuhiko Takada vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara (10/25/90) Akira Maeda vs. Masakatsu Funaki (10/25/90) Phil might have some other recommendations. Are you okay for CMLL?

Regarding these, I don't think there's anything worthwhile from JWP TV that wasn't released as a commercial tape. In fact, I don't think they even had weekly TV back then. I believe it was a monthly show called Champ Forum. The key JWP matches are: Dynamte Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue, 1/15/93 Devil Masami vs. Bull Nakano, 4/18/93 Thunderqueen, 7/31/93 Devil Masami & Plum Mariko vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Cutie Suzuki, 11/18/93 If you want a slightly more complete picture of JWP, I'd recommend these as well: Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki vs. Devil Masami & Dynamite Kansai - (JWP Tag Title), 3/21/93 Dynamite Kansai vs. Hikari Fukuoka - (JWP Title), 4/18/93 With AJW TV, you need to get the 11/14/93 TV that has TLTB matches on it (in particular the Kong/Hasegawa vs. Hokuto/Toyota match). Nothing else is essential. There's some handhelds from '93 but I haven't seen any of them.

Just to clarify, I meant that the Street/Mick McMichael match can also be found on youtube. Apparently, there's two non-TWC Adrian Street matches out there as well.

From memory the only Adrian Street that aired on TWC was the awesome Jim Breaks match and the not-as-good Mick McMichael match. The latter is on youtube if you haven't seen it.

I understand what you're saying in relation to it not being a classic, but wrestling is pretty much always about just working a match. Ohtani and Samurai's goal was to have as exciting a match as possible, and I think they achieved that. It's not the most perfectly executed match, but the live audience don't care about how the stretch run relates to the opening matwork; they're just popping for the nearfalls like all Japanese crowds do. The match doesn't have a great narrative like some Japanese wrestling matches, but it hardly has any booking behind it either. It's difficult to achieve what you're asking them to do without any sort of storyline heading into the match. What's there to pay off?

Ohtani's father is awesome.

Unfortunately, WoS starts to nose dive after '84, so I hope we can get as much original broadcast stuff as possible. There's a Saint/Grey match from 1980 that wasn't broadcast on TWC that might just be the MOTD for Europe. Would be awesome to release a 70s set at some point, too.

Went ahead and watched this for the sake of discussion (skimmed through it, actually, since it's so damn long), and I thought it was the same boring style that they've been using since '93 up until the present. I don't think you can pin it on Toyota, however. This was the style of match that everyone was working in tag matches at the time and it had already begun to get stale by '96. In 1997, they'd start turning these matches into garbage brawls in an attempt to freshen things up a bit, but this was pretty much the Toyota vs. Kyoko feud stretched about as far as one of Mr. Fantastic's limbs in an old Fantastic Four comic book. 1996 had some high points in Japan, but it was also the year that the rut began and the last time I watched a significant amount of All Japan I thought they were struggling with what to do with the style. In the case of All Japan they began sprinting to a greater degree, but All Japan Women more or less did nothing. In all honesty, I think Kyoko is just as much to blame as Toyota. She shouldn't escape criticism just because she was charismatic and had a number of good years as a worker. She was as stale as everyone else. In a sense, the idea was to get Shimoda and Takako over more but that boat had already sailed. Shimoda did well to reinvent herself with Mita from the looks of it.

Variety shows and TV drama. J-Pop has exploded since then as well, and recently K-Pop (Korean Pop) has become a phenomenon in Japan. In Tokyo, even Giants games struggle to get network time, but IIRC AJW's TV was early prime time on a Sat or Sun afternoon. That should've been easier to keep than golden time.

I think the Matsunagas knew they had problems when they stretched out Dump and Omori's retirements in '88 with the knowledge that Chigusa and Asuka would retire in '89. Chigusa didn't want to go and I assume Asuka was the same. Dump and Omori went into TV and I've heard that Omori flirted with the idea of returning at one point, but the reason AJW let them go was that with JWP teetering on bankruptcy there was no rival to snap them up and challenge AJW's position. The Matsunagas believed they could start anew, and that's why there were so many young idol pairings around that period and why they continued with the singing even when it seemed inane. I once read an interview with Takako Inoue where she said when she first started with the company she desperately wanted to be a heel and join Bull's heel faction, but on her first day at the AJW office they showed her a big framed picture of Jackie Sato and lamented that they hadn't had an idol like her for a number of years. The thing about NJPW, AJPW and AJW's television contracts where that they were amazingly fickle. Even when they drew big ratings their position was as tenuous as prime time Japanese anime, which ultimately suffered the same fate as professional wrestling in Japan but not to the same extent. The mistake the wrestling companies made, however, was thinking that they didn't need TV anymore. In AJW's case, it was Rossy Ogawa who was behind the push to take everything in-house and exploit the home video market. They should've fought tooth and nail for their television slot but instead they thought they could outfox the network. Japan is so fast moving in terms of trends that as soon as they were out of sight, out of mind they were screwed.

The Joshi workers who fit this category would be workers like Mimi Hagiwara, Yumi Ikeshita, Jumbo Hori, Yumi Ogura, Kazue Nagahori and Hiromi Yagi. I'm not sure I buy into Bull as a forgotten worker because of her WWF run, but I agree that her time holding the company together is lost in the haze of the interpromotional stuff. Nevertheless, I think Kyoko, Ozaki, Kansai and Masami all fit the bill to a greater degree than Bull. Chigusa's 80s stuff will see the light of day when the DVDVR Joshi set is released, but I assume most people are aware that she was good in the 80s. The biggest reassessment there will be whether was better than Asuka, who was the Takada of 80s Joshi so to speak. In terms of a worker being misjudged in the past, I think Shinobu Kandori takes the cake there w/ Jackie Sato being another worker who people don't have a very well informed opinion about.

There will be plenty of new workers to discover on the Europe set.

My defence of Octagon would be along the lines of the ""Hey I Thought This Guy Was Supposed To Suck?" argument. I agree that he liked to do his couple of spots and get the hell out but really that's what all luchadores do. They may not want to leave in such a hurry, but they all have their routines they like to do. Octagon's stuff always looked better when he had a rudo like Fuerza bumping for him, but so long as he came in and executed his Fantásticos stuff well then that's more than satisfactory, IMO. It wasn't as though he was as bad as Máscara Sagrada or Super Muñeco, who maybe had one performance per year that rivalled a good Octagon showing. In fact, there are so few good technico workers that any technico who doesn't get you to think twice about ordering random trios matches can't be that bad. I'd say his biggest strengths were being the technico who clears the ring of one or more rudos (usually during the technico comeback after the rudo beatdown section) and a good offensive guy during the pinning sections. Again, a lot of that depends on the rudo eating the offence but that's ever the way with lucha libre. The other thing I've noticed about Octagon was that he could sell when he had to. I was watching a mano-a-mano the other day between Satanico and Octagon during their feud in '91 and Octagon sold his ass off. Workers generally had to do that against Satanico when he was calling the shots, but I've seen him do it in his feuds with Fuerza and Pentagon too. I remember that long Gringo Locos vs. Santo/Octagon tag being tortuous. Octagon no doubt struggled, but to be honest there's a lot of non-Octagon matches from Gringo Locos and Santo in that time period that don't hold up compared to CMLL. My memory of '94/95 Octagon is that he was generally good when working with the top guys. Sloppy yes, but so was Psicosis and I don't recall anyone saying he sucked.

I'd like for somebody to tell me what was wrong with Octagon.

Owen had some great promos in his career. All of his slammys schtick was gold.

There was more criticism of Toyota ten years ago when people were into tape trading and starting up their own review sites. The only Joshi communities I'm aware of these days are Joshifans.com and the "I LIKE JOSHI!" thread at DVDVR. Aside from that, there's guys like Pozen and Lorefice floating around but they tend to keep a low profile. Lack of cricitism is hardly specific to Joshi, however. There's bugger all discussion about 90s Japanese wrestling in general. Newer fans tend to be more interested in the current product and older fans have seen it all before and aren't interested in 90s stuff unless it's a WAR revival or something like that. Personally, I think wrestling is becoming increasingly disposable because of its greater availability and that's why you don't see as much discussion as when people had to make more of an effort procuring tapes. Having said that, criticism of Toyota is by and large redundant these days. There's not much that can be added to what's already been said. Either you pick and choose the Toyota matches you wish to see or you ignore her altogether, because the things she's criticised for are things she never changed. You can watch 15 Toyota matches in a row and they'll be present in all 15 matches. Personally, I'd say away from a 1996 Toyota match against Kyoko Inoue and Takako Inoue because I know how those workers were by 1996. I tend to fall somewhere in the middle when it comes to Toyota. I think she made a valuable contribution to All Japan Women's and the company would've been worse off without her. When she was in rhythm, she was an exciting wrestler and fun to watch. Occasionally, she had a great match with her peers and a few times she carried a lesser worker to a good match. Her style was a progression of a style that was present as far back as the 70s in Joshi puroresu and which was extremely popular with live audiences. Having been to Joshi live, I'd argue that Toyota's style is indeed far more effective than any other style on show and that includes workrate favourites like Aja Kong. It's similar to someone like Mistico, who I don't much care for but my wife thought was amazing live. I didn't see prime Toyota, but I saw Toyota clones and the style is an engaging live experience. A couple of final points -- JWP was a far superior company than AJW in 1996 and produced much more enjoyable TV. There used to be a crew of us who were big JWP fans back in the day. And as for Toyota and the decline, the decline was a mix of the bubble bursting and poor business decisions (as well as financial investments.) The seeds of the decline were sown before the 90s boom period and they basically cashed in while they could on Joshi's short popularity in the 1990s. Toyota was one of those popular Joshi pro-wrestlers during the boom since there was an idol aspect to her. She probably wasn't a strong draw in her own right, but the business model was already fucked by the time she was on top. You're really looking at a situation like AJPW where some better booking decisions could have stretched things out a bit and drawn a couple of more big houses but still the decline was terminal.

The amazing thing about Goldust to me is that I don't remember a single period from Dustin's debut to the match where he was fired where the character seemed at all possible performance wise.

Personally, I think the Meltzer and WON threads can get a bit pedantic at times and it was a bit sad that they were always the threads with the little orange square next to them whenever I logged on, so I support the drive for fresher content.

Pierrothito vs. Demus 3:16, CMLL 8/24/10 I can't be the only one who didn't know that Pequeño Damián 666 changed his name to Demus 3:16, can I? This was the final of a "Bicentenial tournament" to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Mexican independence and the 18th anniversary of CMLL's Mini-Estrella division, with the winner earning a shot in the regular CMLL weight classes much like Virus did many years ago. The finalists were determined with torneo cibernetico elimination matches, and in a neat piece of booking the final was rudo vs. rudo. Pequeño Damián has been one of the best workers in Mexico for a number of years now, and Pierrothito is a respected veteran of the Mini-Estrella division and a great worker in his own right, so this was one of those rare match-ups where you have two really good workers facing each other. The first two falls here were a perfect example of how you can be compact but still natural through beautiful execution. The first caida was full of jockeying both on the mat and with pin attempts, and there were some neat shows of strength as both guys engaged in the lucha equivalent of puffing your chest out. Demus is a beast in terms of both his look and physique (probably the complete package in Mexico right now) and had Pierrothito's barrel chest to line up in this match, so he brought the stiffness early on. Both these guys are built like a brick shithouse with Pierrothito looking like a smaller version of Rick Steiner and Demus being a hefty guy with a big upper body, and given that they weigh more than many of their compadres they also have the force of that extra weight behind their moves. Demus did a plancha in the second caida, for example, that had some extra venom to it because of his larger build. Stiffness wasn't the only standout feature, however. The finishing stretch to the second caida was a really standard stringing together of moves, but the pacing was just right, and the moves were weighted in such a way that it was an important two or three moves which had been strung together. That may seem a lot of fuss over small details but getting those first two falls to mean something takes some skill in lucha libre. There are thousands of matches worked in Mexico each year; many of which are really quite innocuous or tepid at best (I'm trying to be more polite this year.) This match was for promotion into the higher ranks, and I, for one, appreciated the extra effort. The third fall was the kicker, of course. Phil Schneider described the way the heavy hitting broke down into an actual slugfest as being like Frye vs. Takayama, which is an apt and clever description, but really the structure of the entire fall was brilliant. The only part that didn't work was the mask ripping and bladejob, which felt out of place but was clearly done to create a visual. It didn't really hamstring the match, however, as they were back to brawling within a few seconds, and to be honest it was better than IWRG. Early on in the third, they were like two bulls charging at each other, and then later, Pierrothito's headbutt and Demus' punch combos were just sick. This was a hell of a fight and probably my match of the year for 2010 lucha libre. Both of these guys have worked incredibly hard over the years and I was thrilled that they were able to have a match this good. And thanks to CMLL for letting it happen! Pierrothito/Demus 3:16/Pequeño Warrior vs. Astral/Mascarita Dorada/Ultimo Dragoncito, CMLL 8/13/10 This was a beautiful match. On a certain level it was what you'd expect from the CMLL Mini-Estrella division, but either I haven't watched the minis in a while or they hit upon the perfect rhythm, because I thought this was sensational. It wasn't a particularly long match, but well balanced over the three falls. Particularly impressive was the beatdown section on Mascarita Dorada. One of the things that turned me off CMLL was that the rudos would basically do the same beatdown in the same order in every match on the card, but the beatdown here struck me as far more imaginative -- making good use of not only Dorada's size, but also enjoying their work. If you were a rudo, then Mascarita Dorada would be the perfect target: this small, weedy guy, who looks like the runt of the litter but at the same time is extremely virtuous. The enjoyment in beating the shit out of Mascarita Dorada would be quite the adrenaline rush, I imagine. Dorada, for his part, did a good job underfoot. It's hard for him to sell anything in his suit (aside from shaking his head about and flapping his arms), so bumping becomes more important and I liked the way he was chewed up and spat out in this match. He really is awesome. His big offensive run in the third caida was exciting as shit and everyone followed suit with cool spots. Even spots that are hopelessly set-up looked awesome in this match, and the finish was Demus at his decapitating best. The minis rule. Two excellent matches from CMLL.

Comando Negro vs. Pollo, mask vs. mask, IWRG 12/26/10 This is the fantastic mask vs. mask match from Boxing Day between Comando Negro and a guy in a chicken suit. Just an outstanding rudo performance from Comando Negro -- everything you'd want from a rudo beating up a guy in a chicken suit. I really can't overstate how perfectly this worked. First you had Comando Negro completely and utterly outclassing his opponent, stepping out of the way on the best missed dive I've seen in ages. Then you had a really classic technico comeback with the chicken all battered and bloody and woozy, and a third fall where the chicken would not be vanquished. I mentioned in my previous entry that it's difficult to have great matches at Arena Naucalpan but this was positively epic. The crowd were in full voice and right behind Pollo, which gave them a nice rhythm to work from, but the timing on the selling was equally great. Pollo surprised me by throwing both himself and unfolded chairs with equal abandon; I never expected the chicken to put up such a fight. The timing on everything was positively old-school and if there was any sloppiness it didn't matter because it was a guy in a chicken suit who'd lost a bucket of blood. Comando Negro was far from sloppy, however. I don't know if this was his coming out party but it sure as hell impressed me. His finisher was sick. Thoroughly entertaining.

Chico Che vs. Comando Negro, hair vs. mask, IWRG 12/9/10 Chico Che had a fantastic year in 2010. Last year it was Trauma II getting all the plaudits as most improved; this year it has to be Che. He started off as something of a fatboy novelty I suppose, but this match confirms what a good worker he's become. Usually, I'd fire off a bit of hyperbole about how much better he is than everyone else for the hell of it, but the message I want to get across is that he's a guy who everyone should be following. If you have even an inkling of interest in lucha then Che is a guy who can spark that interest further. He reminds me of a latter day version of prime Brazo de Plata, which is another way of saying that he reminds me of the characters who first drew me to lucha. Plata was part of a carefully orchestrated and successful act and as such used a lot more schtick than Che, but you can see a lot of Plata in Che particularly in the way he moves. We've seen a lot of good offence from Che this year and some fine brawling and selling in his trios matches with the Cerebros, but I was surprised to see it all come together here. This wasn't a great apuestas match, but in terms of what passes for a good apuestas in IWRG it was really good. You could tell that both guys were drawing upon every hair and mask match they'd ever seen, and there were a number of cool touches that in the hundreds of matches I've reviewed for this blog I've come to view as real staples of lucha apuestas matches. There were a few moments which were less than desirable, but you get that with any match. What I liked here was the attempt to make the match meaning something. The first two caidas are often the most difficult in an apuestas match because you have to get them out of the way before the big back and forth third caida, and that was pretty much the case here despite some nice looking punches from Chico. The third fall, however, was a real gem. That was where the brawling and the blood and the topes all came together. I haven't seen much lucha in the past few months, but there seemed to be an edge to Chico's work. He threw his full weight into each move and his offence was almighty. Comando Negro looked the part mainly by having a ripped mask and bloodied forehead, but I was also impressed with his impact moves. Arena Naucalpan is a difficult place to have a great match because it's so small. You have to hold back a bit and realise that smaller is bigger when there's bugger all people watching. With this in mind, I thought they did a good job of picking their spots. Their transitions could do with a bit of work and they could spend more time selling instead of pausing a beat or two before continuing but it's not a big arena match and I know these things are difficult to concentrate on. The end result was that there was blood, controversy, a bit of heat and some classy, classy offence from Che.

El Hijo Del Santo, Octagon, Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Blue Panther, Fuerza Guerrera, Psicosis (AAA 6/30/95) Perhaps it's just me, but I've always considered Santo/Octagon/Mysterio Jr vs. Blue Panther/Psicosis/Fuerza Guerrera to be the premier trios match-up from this era of AAA. I guess it's because their 3/16/95 match was one of the first tapes that was recommended to me when I was starting out. I can still remember the enjoyment I got from that early taste of lucha libre; and while I've seen many better matches since, I would be remiss in ignoring the role it played in my infatuation with lucha. These days, much of my enjoyment of pro-wrestling comes from discovering new and better matches/workers, which often smacks of revisionism (in so much as one can revise something which has had as little written about it as the wrestling which I presently enjoy); but after watching two more matches from these two teams, I can safely say that their position is unchallenged despite my natural bent towards revisionism. In other words, their matches are still good. This wasn't a huge, operatic trios, but it was a well worked match, and as I've said many times on this blog I take great heart in watching professionals perform lucha libre well. It was a match where the rudos essentially decided to pick on Rey Misterio Jr; not excessive rudoism, but sometimes the rudos' general demeanour is all it takes to piss off a technico. It was the technicos who started throwing punches in this match with Santo throwing better rights than when he was a rudo. He had some awesome exchanges with Psicosis, who was having one of those nights where his contribution was immeasurable. Their exchanges were wilder, and far better, than anything they ever did against other in singles competition. The real star of the match, however, was Rey Misterio Jr., who had the heat put on him early and rose to the occasion with one of the best performances of his young career. I'm not always impressed by early Rey, but he had wonderful control here and the timing of his moves matched the narrative well. The only downer was the finish, which, while not completely unrelated to what had gone before, was gutless in light of Misterio's strong performance. Nice body to this match. I recommend checking it out on youtube.

What does it matter if it's a work? The work is that Luger is a choke artist.

Yeah. Like that fucking hack Shakespeare, for example. That idiot always made his protagonists doubt themselves and commit unspeakably horrible acts. Clearly he didn't know anything about storytelling. The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark would have totally been better if the babyface had just Hammed Up and kicked the heel's ass, instead of whining about all his insecurities for three hours in a row. Wrestling isn't Hamlet. It's not A Wonderful Life, either. It doesn't even have the depth of a comic book. The trouble with the WWE is that you have these writers who want to write for film or TV who've read all the right books or graduated from college writing courses and want to write all these "great" stories in a medium that doesn't let itself well to depth in storytelling and is not properly serviced by it. Look at the angles that people brought up in Dean's WWF thread on DVDVR: they were all simple and direct. A lot of great promos, strong characterisations and decent narratives, but none of this bullshit you see with ham actors like Shawn Michaels making that patented Shawn Michaels look of concern. The WWE became so EMO last decade (for want of a far better word.) Way too many promos about people's feelings.

What is it about Japanese crowds that you like so much?