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ohtani's jacket

DVDVR 80s Project
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Everything posted by ohtani's jacket

  1. ohtani's jacket
    Really? Interesting. So you're not likely to youtube a match that you might have seen people discussing, because it's a one-off? I can see the point. If one jumps from AJPW 1994 to RAW 1994 (or vice versa), it would be a pretty big culture shock. But then once you get used to the flow, you can appreciate better what's happening. The match works better in context of a worker's development or an ongoing angle or a direction the whole company is taking. What I find is that if I youtube something that I haven't watched a lot of in recent times, it tends to annoy the shit out of me. 90s Joshi is a perfect example. I honestly believe that to enjoy Joshi you have to get into the rhythm of how the workers work (the flow of the match, the way they sell, the saving your partner and breaking up pins, the long finishing stretches, etc.) If you haven't watched it for awhile, it's tough to get back into the swing. The end result (for me anyway) is that I end up hating something I might have tolerated had I watched a whole batch of it. Having said that, sometimes tastes change for unknown reasons. I used to always hate Southern tag teams (don't ask me why, I just did), but when we did the WCW poll the Midnight Express etc. finally clicked for me. I can't explain why.
  2. ohtani's jacket
    I enjoy flip-flopping on wrestlers on a weekly basis, but the conclusion I've come to is that you have to be into the rhythm of whatever you're watching. Whenever I watch a big batch of stuff for a poll, I always have an easier time getting into a style/company than if I'm just watching a one-off match where I may not be in the right mood. With that in mind, recent shifts would be enjoying Inoki and Choshu's work on the NJPW set (with some reservations) and realising, for the first time, that Fujinami was a first class worker. With the WCW poll over at Smarkschoice, Arn stood out as a far better singles worker than people gave him credit for in the early 90s. I also grew to like Steamboat more than ever before after watching all the Dangerous Alliance stuff. That's a little boring, though, so I'll throw Marcus Alexander Bagwell out there as a tolerable guy when he first hit the scene. With my shootstyle thread, Carl Greco is my favourite discovery, but that's not really a flipped opinion. I also have a European wrestling thread, and as far as that goes I'm past the point of being excited over Johnny Saint and Marc Rocco. Regarding lucha, I'd pick Perro Aguayo and Los Hermanas Dinamita as workers I like more than I ever did before (particularly Universo 2000.) As for guys I like or have liked in the past who I'm down on -- Owen Hart's stock continues to drop for me (I was a huge Owen fan growing up), Regal's WCW TV run is a world of disappointment, I don't like a lot of Finlay's Euro stuff once he shacks up with Princess Paula, I think El Hijo del Santo is overrated, and I don't like Negro Casas' work from around '98 onwards.
  3. ohtani's jacket
    I liked all of Sting and Regal's matches even if none of them are great. It always surprises me how good Sting is on the mat in these matches. Folks are better off watching all three matches from this angle, as well as the slap that set the whole thing up. Such a great nothing angle.
  4. ohtani's jacket
    The Dustin/Cactus Jack feud was from '92. Dustin's 1993 started out with his Windham feud being reduced to houseshows and a couple of non-satisfying TV matches and never recovered from there. From memory, his best match was a TV bout against Rude during their awful feud.
  5. ohtani's jacket
    JWP was backed at first by a sort of talent agent company who were in the business of promoting idols. They were trying to capitalise on All Japan Women's success with idol wrestlers, but lost money from the beginning. Meltzer mentioned in the Observers Loss typed up that JWP was already bankrupt in 1988 (WON 12/12/88.) Their backers went bankrupt in '92.
  6. ohtani's jacket
    Mexico.
  7. ohtani's jacket
    Junior.
  8. ohtani's jacket
    In defence of Bobby, I really love his line about the fan not lasting long, which is particularly funny in the Lebron James version.
  9. ohtani's jacket
    Recently, I've been digging Miguel Pérez. Does he ever get his dues?
  10. ohtani's jacket
    Schiavone and Jesse are my favourite WCW announcing pair. I never really felt he gelled with Bobby right from the get go, but it's a damn shame that Schiavone became so loathed during the Monday Night Wars.
  11. 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?
  12. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  13. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  14. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  15. ohtani's jacket
    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?
  16. ohtani's jacket
    Ohtani's father is awesome.
  17. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  18. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  19. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  20. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  21. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  22. ohtani's jacket
    There will be plenty of new workers to discover on the Europe set.
  23. ohtani's jacket
    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.
  24. ohtani's jacket
    I'd like for somebody to tell me what was wrong with Octagon.
  25. ohtani's jacket
    Owen had some great promos in his career. All of his slammys schtick was gold.
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