ohtani's jacket

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?

Do you find any other styles of wrestling phony? What do you think of lucha and the Euro style? Do you like Yoshiaki Fujiwara?

El Hijo Del Santo, El Mariachi, El Mexicano, Octagon vs. Blue Panther, Espanto Jr., Fuerza Guerrera, Psicosis, AAA 8/19/94 I was expecting this to be mat heavy since it read Blue Panther vs. El Mariachi, but actually I don't think it had much to do with Blue Panther vs. El Mariachi at all. It was loosely structured around Fuerza and Mariachi ripping each other's masks, but the action was more tit for tat than anything else. I can't think of a solitary reason why anyone would watch this beyond the week it aired, but I will say that the work itself was extremely fluid. From the rudo side, I was impressed with Fuerza and Espanto. This wasn't the type of match where the rudos impose their will on proceedings and stem the flow of technico offence; it was the type of match where one worker takes over from the last and the exchanges continue along the same rhythm. To that end, I thought Fuerza and Espanto made near perfect working decisions. Wrestling is as much about the choices workers make as anything else. I've long admired the ability wrestlers have to make choices on the spur of the moment, but what set Fuerza and Espanto apart is the effort they put into even the most basic of choices. Even their transitions in and out of the ring were convincing, and that sort of care and attention to detail was in direct contrast to Blue Panther who had an off night. His open-handed strikes swiped the air a lot and his kicks weren't much better. As a result, he had a tendency to wander in and out of the match a lot. Psicosis was much tidier, but his participation was limited to guillotines off the top and so forth. The technicos were all pretty good in this. It wasn't a match with huge momentum shifts or important turning points, so the transitions onto technico offence were all pretty soft, but once they started busting out the ring clearing exchanges, the match had, for the briefest of moments, the sort of cracking pace and electrifying exchanges that wow even the most hardened of fans. This is one of the reasons why I don't like to criticise Octagon. While he'll never win the Palme d'Or for lucha workers, he was perfectly capable of pulling out these Black Man moments when a trios demanded it. Credit often goes to the rudo who bumped, but Octagon had a spectacular way of contorting his body. Santo was also industrious in this match and gave a good performance. Solid stuff, but like I said, not a lot to immortalise it beyond August of 1994.

One wonders what the voting base will be like in ten years time. Surely if people think it's bad now it's only going to get worse.

Sure, if you ignore the Korean War, the Cold War, the witchhunts, social and political conservativism, segregation, fear of the bomb, rigid sexual attitudes, paranoia over juvenile delinquency, the materialistic nuclear family and the "other America" who lived in poverty, the 50s were a great old time. Regardless of all that, winning the war doesn't really make up for the fact there was a war in the first place.

7/29/94 AAA: El Hijo Del Santo/Octagon/Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera/Jerry Estrada - Arena Coliseo De Monterrey Not a lot going on in this match. It seemed like they wanted to put their 20 minutes in and get it over with. The structure wasn't bad, since these guys know how to put on a 20 minute trios match, but there wasn't the extra bit of effort that's need to make a trios stand out from the hundreds of others that are wrestled each year. Can't say I blame them considering they probably worked somewhere else the same day or were on a back-to-back or something, but there wasn't a single highlight in 20 minutes of wrestling. Forgettable, really.

I don't get it.

I don't think they lost huge amounts of money. SWS mostly broke up due to in fighting. Megane scaled back their sponsorship, but they did help bankroll both WAR and NOW.

It's my understanding that he passed the New Japan entrance test but opted to go to Ashikaga-kodai High School because it was a famous wrestling school. He was also invited to join SWS, which would've changed his career significantly.

I don't see what Tamana, Kumamoto means even to hardcore fans, and Birmingham is pretty infamous for its crappiness. So is Cleveland, but they still announce the Miz from there. Presumably, Cleveland means something to US fans that Birmingham doesn't.

I don't see what Tamana, Kumamoto means even to hardcore fans, and Birmingham is pretty infamous for its crappiness.

Why is it so surprising that good bookers would have bad ideas? Isn't that kind of natural?

Hamada had a hand in training the original JWP girls. Ultimately, both he and Onita wanted the book. UWA and FMW are what JWP would've turned into had the girls not resisted.

Hey Graham, thanks for the feedback. As I said in my newest entry, I can understand why Peña booked AAA the way he did, but for the most part it was a colossal waste of talent. A successful waste of talent but a waste of talent nonetheless. Which isn't to say that Santo was booked poorly in AAA or given a raw deal because that's patently untrue. I'm sure if you asked Santo how he felt about his AAA days he'd have nothing but good things to say since we know that most wrestlers judge success on the size of the gate and the number of tickets sold, but for us fans (in our tiny little corner of fandom), I agree that it could've been so much more. Santo was far from the worst misuse, however. How does Espanto Jr. go from being on par with all the top guys in Mexico in 1992 to being so useless in AAA? It seems like he spent most of his time in AAA getting fucked up.

The cover to Love and Rockets 46 reminds me I have a blog to update. 7/15/94 AAA: El Hijo Del Santo/Octagon/Rey Misterio Jr. vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera/Psicosis - Gimnasio Juan De La Barera After saying my piece about Santo last time, allow me to turn around and praise him this week. Santo was phenomenal here and gave arguably his best AAA performance in this little known trios match. The difference between this and a lot of Santo's other performances is that this actually started out on the mat. One of the things that bugs me most about this era of AAA is the lack of matwork. The other day I was watching a match where Satanico squared off with Solar. Rather foolishly, I expected them to work like maestros, and well, you can imagine how I felt when all they did were shoulder-checks. I understand why AAA had the style that it did and I realise that my tastes in lucha are far more in line with Juan Herrera than Antonio Peña. I also acknowlege that there was a large fanbase for Peña's ideas and that many of them made money, but that money has been long since spent and it's just so frustrating to see great workers tumbling when they should be working the mat. That's what made this much such a wonderful exception. Santo and Panther wrestled on the mat for a good two to three minutes; and while it may not have been as deep or as long as some people would like, it was matwork that Blue Panther and Atlantis would be proud of. The thing that struck me most about watching them work is that unlike the lousy, assisted matwork of the Psicosis title match, their knowledge of the ins and outs of each hold extended to the proper counters, which meant that none of their escapes looked aided or assisted. It's not a very original thing to say, but for once the term "mat clinic" can be applied without sounding like a lazy cop out. I was also impressed with their second go-around, which was much more in keeping with the "Bull and the Matador" routine where one luchador clears the ring of the other but more inspired than usual. To top it all off, Santo produced once of the most exciting finishes to a caida I've ever seen. Octagon had Psicosis in the set-up position for a powerbomb, and all in one motion, Santo managed to turn a leapfrog into a forward somersault and a forward somersault into a huracarrana and the pin. Just a fantastic piece of athleticism from El Hijo del Santo and a kickass way for a technico to prove their superiority. The rest of the match was fairly decent too. It was pretty much standard fare for AAA with the technicos looking to get out on the break and the rudos being fooled into running with them, but it went down to the wire and had an exciting final play. AAA trios basically amount to either a technico showcase or a bone for the rudos and this was a case of the latter. None of the other parties gave an outstanding performance and Santo was less involved after the first caida, but he absolutely flew on one of this planchas to further prove he was on point.

You had me thinking he'd died.