ohtani's jacket

Just unionising isn't enough. You'd need a regulatory body and a licensing comission. If all you had was a union, McMahon would soon find a way to weaken the union's strength.

I wouldn't call it heroic, nor would I call it tragic, it's just a mess and has been since the economic bubble burst.

It's true that hair matches don't mean much these days, but I still think IWRG's booking is utter shit. A trios match one week, a revancha the next, then nothing... Guys win titles and lose them for no reason, apuestas have no build to them. Lucha booking has always been arbitrary at best, but if it weren't for cubsfan I wouldn't have a clue what was happening w/ this promotion. Granted, it's always been that way with IWRG but as you will see in our upcoming review of the Rambo/Villano III feud, at least they used to work hair matches properly.

Misawa was a wreck before he died -- couldn't stand or walk properly, smoke, drank, was constantly fatigued from going on the road and running his company at the same time, was under huge pressure from losing his major backer during an economic recession, and refused to take a medical examination because the finishing line was in sight, or so he thought. Misawa was in a situation that was difficult for him to walk away from and he chose to keep going against the advice of those who knew him best. A few months before he died, he visited his best friend in hospital who was recovering from cancer, and his friend urged him to get himself checked out. Misawa promised him he would, but never did. In January 2007, the doctors informed him of his neck injury when he was taken to hospital after that match against Morishima. Misawa knew the risks he was taking, but thought if he made it through the rest of the year he could step down at some point in 2010. Misawa was acutely aware of his health problems. He was also acutely aware of the industry's problems -- lack of regulation, no welfare system, poor medical support, no retirement schemes to speak of. These were issues he clashed with the Babas over and were at the fore of his decision to start-up NOAH, but at the end of the day, Misawa put his well being second to keeping his company alive. If Misawa had retired at any point in the last ten years, he would still be alive, albeit in constant pain. If he'd chosen to have neck surgery and take major time off, he would still be alive. But for a small company president with a thirty year mortgage and two kids to put through college, these aren't easy decisions to make, so I don't think it's right to judge. My point is that he was far from oblivious to the fact he was unwell, but like a guy who goes to the doctor and gets fair warning, he didn't take heed.

That's over-simplifying the issue. Misawa didn't die soley because of damage to his neck.

Dr. Cerebro vs. Suicida, hair vs. hair, 11/15/09 This was the most poorly booked hair match I've seen in a long time. There was no reason for these guys to be fighting, IWRG just threw the match out there like they usually do. The workers were given about a week's turnaround to have a hair match and there wasn't even time to have a series of low blow finishes like Policeman and Centella de Oro. Given the confines of what they were asked to do, it wasn't a bad match, but there wasn't a single bit of effort from the bookers. All year long, we've relied on a handful of good workers to provide us with entertainment but even they appear to be struggling. IWRG do a good job of dressing their frontmen in tuxs and having the editors go back, back and forth on cuts to make it seem like they're putting on a show, but they haven't given their workers shit to work with all year. Dr. Cerebro and Suicida falling out doesn't get the blood boiling on a week's notice, so what you got here wasn't really a hair match; it was a singles match where the loser lost his hair. There's a big difference, even if it appears to be lost on IWRG bookers. These guys tried as hard as they could to stiff each other on the punch exchanges, but it's a bit disheartening when tradition is replaced with modified spot after modified spot. Cerebro's old-school enough to know that you've got to take liberties in a hair match, but he's fallen prey to the idea that you have to modify the set-up to everything you do for the tens of people in attendance and the hundreds watching at home. The old-school approach to working a hair match was so simple, and so easy to pull off if you sold well, that it just seems like these guys are breaking their backs for nothing. Dr. Cerebro's been one of the top 5 workers this year, but he's no hair match worker. It wasn't so much that he didn't brawl -- at the rate things are going there won't be any brawling in lucha hair matches -- it was more a case that he didn't give Mike Segura anything to retaliate to. Segura tried, but it was difficult to spot where his grievance was. The reason there haven't been any great matches this year is because nobody's been bothered to work the second fall comeback. Even in the various Misioneros/Space Cadets matches that have popped up, there's been nothing tying the falls together. The attitude has been to get the first two falls out of the way and tack on the third fall which everyone knows is the one that counts. You might as well make them single fall contests if you're not going to use the structure that distinguishes lucha from other forms of wrestling. The highpoint of the match was a slick submission exchange that looked like it was cribbed from the Black Terry/Multifacetico match. I should've seen the writing on the wall at that point, but I'm dumb and wasn't expecting the seconds to get involved. It was the same rubbish as Terry/Multifacetico. Whoever's booking this shit, even if it's Terry himself, obviously thinks this little show number would be even better with dancing girls and a troupe of elephants. Ah well, the double tope spot from Segura and Freelance was pretty spectacular. Segura has the best tope in the business. Segura won and a minor dispute was settled. I wonder what Cerebro was thinking while he had his hair cut -- "Why the fuck did they book us in this?" would've been my first thought. That's a whole lot of bitching for what you'd probably call a three star match, but there was no effort to make this a great match. I honestly think as soon as Black Terry and Navarro are done, that's me done too.

I guess Dave was excited about the rating. It did something like a 43.1%. Everybody was talking about it the next day.

Riki Choshu aged dramatically between 1983 and 1989 and looks ancient these days. Not that it would really matter if any of these guys could work. If Flair and Hogan were 60 year old luchadores who could work a little, they'd be cool.

BLACK TERRY VS. MULTIFACETICO, hair vs. mask, 4/17/08 Black Terry in a singles match. This has gotta be good, right? RAGING NOODLES: The opening video promo for this match makes me want to get a hold of all the Black Terry footage that's available on video tape. Even of stuff that doesn't look too promising, I have this impression that it will at least have one bright moment somewhere. Black Terry's like Anthony Mann, as he is able to overcome a lot of tough limitations and still be able to do create something compelling that's fun to watch. Terry is very aware of the obstacles in front of him and he sets out to craft an entertaining gritty show around the weaknesses he observes. Since Multifacetico did not inherit his father's greatness, this is the Black Terry show and it's an easy show to appreciate. It seems like in this decade, babyfaces from all around the world have gotten worse at being able to work the crowd and getting the crowd to believe in them. Multifacetico is a bit limited offense wise, but that shouldn't be a problem in a match like this. But what is a problem is that his brawling is way too similar to that shitty sort of brawling that one finds on the American workrate indie scene and the way Bret Hart brawls on the DVDVR NJPW set. I did appreciate that there were moments were he at least attempted to sell the beating he was taking, although I won't say it was great selling at least the thought was here. As usual, this match has some great touches from Terry, like I loved his pre-bell attack back firing on him and the way he sold it was great. The 1st fall of offense is the usual stuff you see in these matches, and it takes someone with great basics to be able to make it work. Terry has some awesome basic stuff, like his punches (he hit some great hooks throughout the match), his overhand slaps, chokes, and some fierce kicks to a downed opponent. The idea of the ending was Multifacetico's high risk maneuver costing him the fall, but the execution was rough and it came off pretty bad. The awkward finish also injured Terry's ribs, although I admit I initially thought the injury was part of the match since it made some of the later nearfalls a bit more dramatic. The 2nd fall has Terry using the objects around him to continue his beating and I really dug his use of a beer bottle to bust Multifacetico open. Since Black Terry knows what these matches are all about, we get some bloody mask ripping, biting, kicks to the cut and some more great punches. Saying Multifacetico's comeback leaves a lot to be desired would be a huge understatement. It's really bad to the point that you can't blame the audience for shitting all over him and his comeback. In the 3rd fall, in another one of those brilliant Black Terry moments, Black Terry splits his own eyebrow open on Multifacetico head in a really violent headbutt. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the exchange of submissions and finishers in the first half of the 3rd fall. I think a large part of why I thought it worked was the excruciating pain that Terry revealed on his face, as it ended up adding a lot more drama than it would have had otherwise. But everything from the point of when the seconds got involved to the finish was very annoying and it felt like way too much bullshit for this match. With an ending unfolding the way it did here, it's really hard to come away thinking strongly about such a shitty technico. But man, what a great gutsy performance from Black Terry, it's really hard not to admire such a hard working maestro. I wish someone like Blue Center was in IWRG, as I could see him and Terry putting on a great show together. OHTANI'S JACKET: This was like one of those Peckinpah films from the 70s where the studios wouldn't give him any money anymore, so he rustled it up some other way and set about shooting a film. It didn't matter whether he had a script or not, so long as he was shooting. Black Terry didn't have shit to work with here, but with a bit of blood, and by injurying himself, he turned this into a match. It may have been a B-grade match, but it was gutsy as hell. Terry did a far better job carrying Multifacetico than I ever thought possible and the first three quarters was Black Terry playing Warren Oates in Bring Me the Head of Multifacetico. Noodles has a point about Multifacetico, but he bled, and sold about as well as he could. He can't throw a punch, but I dug how every time he hit Terry, Terry would hit him back twice as hard. I'm kind of leaning towards Terry's injury being real. He was like a deadman walking through the final two falls. For fans like us, Terry was the obvious technico here, and while I thought this was pretty much great for the first three quarters, I completely agree with Noodles about the finish. The best thing you can say about this match was that it was violent. Terry beat on his man, there was a mini concession stand brawl, Multifacetico bled from a bottleling, Terry worked the cut, dragged his own carcass around and split open his eyebrow... what the match needed was a Peckinpah style death scene. The submission battle in the third fall was epic and one of the best things I've seen in lucha this decade, but I'd rather the tape had cut out than the shit that followed. In the end, we got the dramatic head shaving and the post-match promo where it sounded like Terry had punctured a lung, but a killer finish and this would've been one of my favourite matches of the decade regardless of how good Multifacetico was. As I keep alluding to, it was Terry directing an apuestas match. Workers don't get enough credit for authorship in wrestling, and I've gotta say I dug Black Terry's take on an apuestas match in 2008, bar the ending, which probably wouldn't have been necessary if Multifacetico hadn't been such a failure as a technico. But what do you expect from a guy who came out to an A*Teens cover of Mama Mia? A little girl was dancing since it appealed to her fucking demographic. I did dig Santa Esmeralda's version of Gloria at the end. If Multifacetico had been the slightest bit cool that would've been worthy closing music. If Dandy had won to that music, he would've told everyone to keep on having that party. Anyway, Black Terry fans will want to see this. Ignore the finish and pretend he met his end like an anti-hero.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gsfg_ho...ld-be-lupus_fun

Well, don't ever ask Dana White to report on your health condition.

Rumour mill says it's diverticulitis, which if it requires surgery probably indicates that they'll remove the area of the colon with the diverticula. In other words, a partial colectomy.

Dr. Cerebro & Suicida vs. Oficial Fierro & Trauma I, IWRG Castillo Del Terror, 11/01/09 This year has seen a lot of sources for IWRG come and go as guys get their accounts suspended or burn themselves out on uploading every single bit of TV. Not that I'm complaining. Without these people, I wouldn't have seen any IWRG this year. Thankfully, a new source for IWRG's Sunday show has emerged and I am hellbent on enjoying it while it lasts. Man, it was good to see Dr. Cerebro again. I dunno if it's because I haven't seen IWRG for months but everything about this match was a welcome return. It started out with some fairly typical IWRG matwork where you work your way into some kind of stretched out pose, hold it for a while and reverse, but they wrapped each other up in more knots than a month's worth of CMLL TV. Possibly two or three if you discount Puebla. There was some early dissension between Fierro and Trauma I and it looked like they wouldn't get along for the remainder of the match, but Trauma bowed to the wisdom of Oficial Fierro and they ended up having more chemistry than their opponents. The last time we saw Trauma I, he was making a strong case for the most improved wrestler of the year, and it looks like he's gotten even better. His brawling has come along nicely; lots of good looking knees and back elbows as opposed to chest slaps. El Suicida is Mike Segura, long time boy of Robert Bihari. He was on hand to trigger the comeback and did an awesome tope that sent Fierro all the way into next week's TV, which may or may not be uploaded. Fierro was really solid in this match and gave one of the better Oficial performances I can remember seeing this year. Modern lucha involves a lot of orchestrated spots, so once have the patterns down you just need to make sure you bump well and time everything okay and you'll be all right. That's pretty much what the did here and the match had impetus. It was a good enough match that I was looking forward to the third caida. As fate would have it, it was the team of Dr. Cerebro and Mike Segura who fell apart. The spot where it happened was actually mistimed, but it mattered not since it led to the two of them fighting on the outside and a twin tope spot from Fierro and Trauma. Cerebro attacked Segura after the match and I'm desperately hoping that their hair match airs next week. After the match, there was an entertaining vignette between Yack (Jack?) and Oficial 911. I don't speak a lick of Spanish so it may not have been funny but it seemed amusing. Can't tell you how happy I am to have IWRG back and with it the possibility of maaaybe following something on a weekly basis.

Dave said he has at least 3 or 4 things wrong with him, at least 2 of which are known. I really liked the joke on DVDVR about people thinking they're Dr. House.

Blue Panther vs. Atlantis, La Copa Victoria final, CMLL 12/5/97 This was awesome. Twenty minutes of grappling with neither guy leaving their feet. Like a lot of lucha fans, I'm always on the look out for a pure mat contest. Most of the time, you get a caida or two of matwork before the match starts heading in a different direction, so to find a match like this is pretty rare. Searching through tape lists is a lot like digging for gold. You start digging in the wrong places and come up with nothing but dirt, but when you find a match like this it's like striking it rich. The match starts out with an amazing lock-up that's like two bulls locking horns. Atlantis works these awesome leverage spots from an armlock and Panther keeps trying to reverse into a dominant nelson position in what is basically a show of strength. Finally, they end up in the lock-up again and you know whoever comes out of the lock-up stronger will take the fall, because of the way the momentum is building. Mesmerising stuff and one of the best opening falls I can remember seeing. The whole time I kept thinking about how underrated Atlantis even among aficionados. Raging Noodles touched on this point recently. I think it's because I'm used to seeing him as a classic luchador in trios matches, so I forget what a good mat worker he was. Blue Panther brought out the best in Atlantis' wrestling ability, but at the same time, Atlantis is one of the best mat opponents that Panther's ever had. I haven't seen their 8/91 match in years, but this particular match is as good as any mat contest I've seen. Watching the slow motion replay of the first fall submission is a lot like watching the replay of a sumo bout, where you see exactly what it was they were doing coming out of the tachiai (the part where sumo wrestlers charge at each other and collide.) The fact that it's a Fujiwara armbar makes it all the sweeter. The second fall has the same arm lock and Atlantis does a series of armdrag takedowns into a crucifix armbar. All of this is ridiculously good. The armbar isn't as over as it is on all the New Japan we've been watching, but fuck it if Blue Panther doesn't reverse it about as well as you can in a lucha mat situation. Panther starts working some more traditional lucha holds, including an awesome "rolling surfboard variation" which Atlantis sells extremely well. The great thing about this match is the consistency in their approach. Atlantis keeps going back to the arm because it's working for him, whereas Panther is eager to get better position so he can start working from the top instead of from underneath. And just so I can avoid any of that 90s rubbish about limbwork and psychology, Panther is such a maestro that he doesn't target any limb in particular just the nearest opening. The reason for this is because he's a fucking great wrestler and not some mindless drone. I hadn't seen Panther work like this in a while, and just so you know, I'm immediately high on him again. I actually fibbed a little when I said they don't leave their feet. What they don't do is use the ropes. And it's a two fall match, which means the cut out the segunda caida and just give you one big long tercera caida with all the momentum shifts you could hope for. It's not until the end that they start working the rolls-ups, but it's not too bad. The finish is a bit staged, but you expect that when a guy loses in straight falls. The ego takes a battering whenever this happens in lucha and you've got to make it look a margin of error. Both guys were buffing hard down the stretch and you could tell they were working hard without that second break between falls. The upshot of that was some great selling towards the end. I managed to find the RSPW report for this match and the guy watching it said: "This was a good match, but too old fashioned. There were no dives, no brawling, just old fashioned wrestling." It's funny how values change. I sure as hell wouldn't mind if every match was like this. I dunno if I'd call it an old-school bout myself. If it had been wrestled in 1987, they would've worked the ropes more and had more flat back bumps. This was similar to the style that Santo, Casas and Felino were working at the time, pinching stuff from the juniors work they admired. Ray Mendoza was on hand to present the Copa Victoria, and considering he's my own personal god of lucha matwork it was all good to me. Just a great match from a great year for 1997. I really thought the old '97 mine shaft was barren but it struck gold again.

Well, we'll have to leave it at that. I hear what you're saying.

I'm just saying that Dave's a guy who likes joining the dots between wrestling and other types of promoting. I doubt anyone else is as interested in Roller Derby as Dave is, it's just one of his quirks. Most people act like Dave & Co. saying MMA=pro-wrestling is trying to legitimise pro-wrestling in some fashion, but I don't see how Cornette saying MMA is doing a better job of promoting itself than pro-wrestling speaks well of the pro-wrestling business. Unless people think pro-wrestling carnies are taking credit for MMA's success. Carnies know how to sell a fight, or at least they think they do, and the way I read it, Cornette is saying that MMA is doing a better job of selling fights than wrestling is, which is pretty much the case. MMA has eaten in to a share of the WWE's market that it probably wouldn't have done if the WWE had compelling characters like The Rock or Austin. However successful MMA is, and however many buys it's doing, people are watching the shows on name value and it doesn't have a hell of a lot to do with the actual fighting. Not when it comes to the casual fan. I can accept that we're all mammals. If you wanna turn it into a MMA/wrestling analogy, I'd say apes are to humans what MMA is to pro-wrestling. Wasn't the fight supposed to be Evans/Jackson? I'm no expert but Evans wants to position himself as a light heavyweight title contender and didn't think the fight would help him move up the rankings. Plus it was on short notice in England. Mike Brown doesn't like getting boo'ed? Is that supposed to be the antithesis of a pro-wrestling heel or something? I'm sure that a lot of fighters have motives other than money, but they're pro-athletes and pro-athletes care about money. How is that different from the thousands of other martial arts dojos around, many of which are Olympic sanctioned sports? There's a difference between training and working out at a MMA dojo and entering the world of professional MMA. It's never existed in an amateur sense apart from the various disciplines that make up the mixed element of it. Can't see it ever making its way into the Olympics either. My argument isn't that fighters don't take it seriously. Most of them live and breathe it. My argument is that in trying to differentiate it from pro-wrestling people are legitimising it too much. It's still a developing sport.

Still, you can't deny that they're all birds. They're simply different types of birds. What's the one thing that old-timers always harp on about? Money. It's always about money, money, money. The thing most wrestlers are proudest of is the gates they drew and the thing that makes them the most bitter is that they didn't make any money for themselves. Everything else is secondary. Likewise, fighters are in MMA for a payday. I doubt many of them would do it as an amateur sport. Pro-wrestling and MMA is business first, everything else second.

They're all types of promoting, which is why Vince gets delusions of grandeur about branching out into other types of promoting. What Dave and his buddies are saying is that from a business point of view MMA=pro-wrestling, only real. I'm not sure if Dave really believes that MMA and pro-wrestling are the same thing in terms of content, I just think he's big on the business parallels. People who find that annoying tend to not be that interested in MMA and think Dave spends too much time covering it in the WON, but Dave's a guy who finds comparisons between wrestling and Roller Derby. You can see where Dave is coming from on the whole MMA thing, though obviously it's driven by the fact that he's a big MMA fan. It's possible to make connections between Vince and Don King, Vince and P.T. Barnum, etc., yet when people compare wrestling promoting to something else everyone gets a little fidgety as though it's not possible (unless it's porn or something of lower worth.) If you ask me it legitimises MMA too much as a sport. MMA has yet to have much of a global reach outside of the internet and if anything is just as hung up about what it promotes as wrestling. Vince didn't want to promote rasslin' and tried carving out his own niche in the promoting business. MMA has tried moving away from its barbaric image to present itself as a legit sport. Nevertheless, matchmaking (booking) occurs and is carefully controlled. The idea is to draw a gate and sell PPVs. It's the same basic idea. If a result doesn't go according to plan, they try to make money out of whoever wins. Booking plans change at the drop of a hat in wrestling anyway. It's obviously a distinct difference but the method of making money is the same. Well, I think PRIDE came pretty close to having angles at times. They definitely had feuds and promos. On the other hand, rivalries, whether they're real or played up by the company, were around long before pro-wrestling. I don't think the content is the same, I just think they're similar types of promoting. In Japan, I think it was a complete offshoot and they couldn't help do works. In the US, I think it's managed to stand on its own two feet. But until it becomes a recognised sport, I think it's firmly in the same category as wrestling. If WWE were to die and UFC never became a mainstream sport, I think it would essentially be the new pro-wrestling and provide Dave with his livelihood.

Read the full quote and explain why Cornette is wrong: Bill Dundee said running a circus is the same as running a wrestling promotion. Running a MMA outfit is the same as running a wrestling promotion. It's the promoting business pure and simple. Whether Dave takes that too far is up to people here to decide, but way too much is made out of Dave's opinions. It doesn't mean shit whether Meltzer thinks MMA is pro-wrestling. He's argued the point many times and I never saw the problem with his reasoning. It's the people who can't get over point number five that confuse me.

It is the same thing.

Can you ask him about his trips to England?

Máscara Año 2000 vs. Mogur, mask vs. mask, 9/23/88 This is the other match on the Viva Lucha Libre Part II commercial tape. You've got to love the old school CMLL entrances. There's a bunch of kids at ringside to begin with, hoping to get Máscara Año 2000's autograph or something. Moguar has the most nonchalant entrance possible and the kids run back to their seats as the two start hitting each other. I remember Jose being keen to see this because he reckoned Máscara Año 2000 was a good worker in the 80s. It was reasonably okay, but so badly mic'ed that it seemed like they weren't getting any heat. That can't have been the case, because after it was over the arena floor was packed. I don't think I've ever seen such a big crowd at ringside. Nevertheless, whatever heat they got sounded like background noise on tape and that hurt the match because it was one of those slow, blow for blow matches where they work at a moderate tempo. It was a fairly simple match, actually. There wasn't much in the way of brawling or mask ripping, and no real blood that I noticed. No bullshit, either. They tried pacing the third caida like the all-important fall that it is, but the slowish tempo didn't go well with the poor mic'ing. Basically, they didn't do a hell of a lot wrong, it just seemed like they were going through the necessary motions, partially because of the structure but largely because we couldn't hear anything other than cat calls. The most interesting thing about the match was the finish, which was a fairly nasty looking backdrop driver by lucha standards. Mogur sold it like death afterwards. He was still unconscious when the ref unmasked him and photographers stood over him taking snapshots as he lay on the canvas. He slowly came to, and the crowd were bobbing to-and-fro trying to get a look at him. The whole thing was kind of downbeat and I wasn't sure what to make of it.

El Dandy vs. Pirata Morgan, hair vs. hair, 9/23/88 So, here it is -- the elusive hair match. Only available in Japan and at a rental store to boot. This will have its grand unveiling on the DVDVR Lucha set, so you'll have to wait until then to see it. I know a lot of people are dying to see it, so I won't tell you too much about what happens, but if you've ever scanned through lucha records and let all those untaped matches kill you, then have I got a present for you. Where it rates in the grand scheme of things is up to the voters to decide, it was hard enough just getting it. I've actually seen it once before, and took my sweet eff time getting it out to people, but it's in the can and ready to go. Consider this a teaser: Dandy blades from the get-go. He's still in his gym sweater when Morgan attacks and blades on the outside. Morgan knees him in the back and he spends most of the fall with his arms crossed in front of his chest. There's blood in his eye and shit splattered all over his chest. It even trickles down to his waist. Morgan gets a decent handprint out of it and licks it off his palm. They have these awesome punch exchanges where Dandy follows up a Morgan right with some flush uppercuts, but Gran Davis keeps hooking Dandy's arm and Morgan plays them both for suckers. Morgan has a field day in the opening minutes. The trigger spot for Dandy's comeback is awesome. I don't wanna give it away, but it leads to a flying headbutt right into the sternum. Morgan sells a foul on a Dandy leg trip, and Dandy is incredulous when Davis threatens him with a DQ. Lots of heavy breathing and finger pointing. Morgan bleeds from his eye socket in the third caida and the left hand side of his face is a mess. The third caida is the most tape inspired fall I've seen from El Dandy. He does a whole bunch of Dynamite Kid spots, including the standing version of the diving headbutt where you sell the impact afterward. Somebody tell me whether that was a regular El Dandy spot. To be honest, the selling wasn't as good as in later Dandy matches and they only needed half the amount of spots, but there's always a temptation to crank up the tercera caida. I wouldn't have minded so much if the transitions hadn't been there for all the world to see. Guess I'm used to a slower rhythm from these guys and not as many spots. I'll give you an example: after a swandive tope from El Dandy, he met up with Pirata Morgan in the ring and transitioned into a German suplex. It kind of made me want to watch that '89 title match with Emilio again to see whether juniors inspired El Dandy holds up. On the other hand, you never really know whether it's you or the match. A different day and I might go along with the nearfall blitz. I rewound it a couple of times and found some nice little touches. With so much New Japan on the brain, I think I'll watch it another day. Can't spoil the post-match but it wrapped up pretty well. The crowd gave them money, so don't let my two and a quarter falls worth of enjoyment curb your enthusiasm.