ohtani's jacket

Well, this was a pleasant surprise, and something I thought I'd never see again -- a great Kawada match! That was most due to a brilliant performance from Nishimura than anything Kawada did, but the end result was a great fight. Nishimura came across like a fired up Hiro Matsuda in this bout, which was a treat. This may have actually been the best match from September, and the first thing Kawada has done to rival a Kobashi match in forever. Low key one of the Japanese MOTYCs as well. I don't really follow Nishimura religiously, but for a guy with his skill set, he was exceptionally good at big time fights. Did Nishimura ever wrestle Ishikawa? Because if he did, it might just blow my mind.

Bob Backlund vs. Ivan Koloff (WWWF, 8/28/78) This was a good match, but to be honest, it kind of bothered me how they kept going back to holds after a brief spurt of offense. It created a stop-start rhythm that was hard to enjoy. The holds were slow going and not the most interesting mat work I've seen in a Backlund match. I would have preferred a shorter, more frantic bout. However, there's only so much I'm going to complain about in a Bob Backlund vs Ivan Koloff bout. The flurries of offense were worth the price of admission, especially Backlund's feats of strength.

Dr Wagner Jr/Blue Fish/Babe Face vs. Milo Caballero/Centurion/Monarca (Monterrey 1992) I was stoked to see the legendary Monterrey wrestler, Blue Fish, show up in this footage. He certainly didn't disappoint, but it was Babe Face who stole the show here. The tecnico side weren't a particularly talented bunch, but they reacted well to the rudo's actions and were able to dish out some decent looking shots. And boy did Babe Face stir the pot. He had this awesome bit of beef going with Milo Caballero, who made great fired up babyface faces. The match ended with the tecnicos taking turns slapping the shit out of Babe Face. Fun times.

Negro Casas vs. Panterita del Ring (Monterrey January 3rd, 1992) One of the exciting things about this new Monterrey footage is that we get see Casas matches from his UWA days. Up until now, footage of Casas from this time period has been fairly limited. This wasn't a great match, but it was awesome to see Casas in his prime working a very Casas-esque mano a mano with Panterita.

I'm not sure if anybody knows the complete truth behind the Hashimoto situation. Dave reported at the time that it was because Choshu found out that Hashimoto was negotiating to appear on the 12/23 NOAH show. Hashimoto was unhappy with the way he'd been treated during the Ogawa feud (and who can blame him?) His plan was to rebuild his career by forming a sub-promotion named NJPW ZERO then wage a war with NOAH. He had Fujinami's backing for this, but Choshu was against it because NJPW was still committed to co-promoting with All Japan. A lot of people thought the dismissal was a work, but Hashimoto wasn't the only one to leave New Japan around this time. In typical Inoki fashion, Antonio promised to back ZERO-ONE, just like he'd promised to join the original UWF, only to pull out at the last moment. This led to open enmity between the two that even extended to people believing Inoki mocked Hashimoto after his death. Choshu and Hashimoto hated each other and had a long history of hostility. It seems a lot of the talent were fed up with both Inoki and Choshu at the time. It all started going downhill when Ogawa shot on Hashimoto. Hashimoto lost face over that. Then he tried to force management's hand by claiming he'd retire if he couldn't beat Ogawa and they booked him to lose anyway.

The minis stuff from '96-97 is among the best lucha matches of the 90s, but for peak VIrus I would still go with the World Lightweight title run.

Blue Panther vs. Panterita del Ring (Monterrey 1991) This was a decent mano a mano bout. I'd rather watch Panther work a title match than do rudo shtick, but he did a respectable job of putting Panterita over. The finishing stretch wasn't perfect but the crowd was happy with the result. Happy to have another Panther singles match available from this era.

Love Machine/Dandy/Panterita del Ring vs Blue Panther/Emilio Charles Jr/J Estrada (Monterrey 1992) Run of the mill trios match with no standout performances. I was hoping for more from the names involved, but I've seen enough Monterrey to know that's always a crapshoot. There was still a lot of heat between Love Machine and Blue Panther, and I suspect that if I liked that feud more that I'd be more enthusiastic about this. They seemed to be setting up a match between Emilio and Panterita del Ring based on their interactions. Dandy was barely involved in the match, and the finish was weak yet typical of Monterrey.

Here's a bonus for you lucha fans -- another Santo vs Perro match! This was suitably violent and featured some solid brawling. They used the steel steps inside the ring, which I didn't love but was able to overlook in favor of the blood and hatred. The ref was involved in the finish (it's Monterrey, after all), but nobody's getting a decisive win at this stage of the feud. More than anything, it was great to see another singles match between them.

CMLL returns from the Olympics break with this banger. This feud has lit a fire under the promotion and they have become the best promotion in the world now that the WWE has cooled off. Park has been a disappointment in CMLL, but his matchup with Ultimo has been excellent and they tear it up here (literally!) Perro vs. Santo didn't even rate an honorable mention in the Observer awards, but there were footage issues, a chunk of it takes place in Monterrery, and it's lucha. It's easily a top three feud for the year.

This was a pretty crappy brawl that went all over the arena, outside the building, and into the men's urinal. I hate this type of wrestling. The in-ring action was just as weak. It's unclear how this promotion is trying to position itself in the market. I'd prefer something closer to old-school Florida wrestling than an ECW retread.

There was one brief exchange that gave a glimpse of the incredible potential of a Yoshida vs. Bolshoi match, but this was more of a standard Joshi tag match than a mat clinic. Akino vs Yabushita was pretty cool.

I enjoyed this a lot. In a sense, these Kobashi title matches are just as formulaic as WWE matches, however the slow pace and the incredible attention to detail almost makes them feel like novels. There's so much packed into these matches that you wind up getting more of them than any other style of match. I had my "Taue is the best of the pillars" phase years and years ago (it seems everyone goes through one), but I lost interest in him over the years. It was genuinely heart-warming to see him give such a great veteran performance in this match. Love that dude. Kobashi may have edged Eddie for WOTY given that Eddie is being dragged down by the Angle feud.

Did you watch the Yoshida/AKINO vs Bolshoi/Yabushita tag from 2004?

I love me some Dean Malenko.

The comments you're quoting are outdated, but I don' believe Steve Wright was in full Wonder Kid mode in the Maxine bout. Apprentice, to me, implies a boy or girl who has left school to learn a trade, and Wright is still very much in that phase at the time. You don't see a lot of teenager wrestlers in the States, so I was using boy apprentice in quotations to distinguish this type of bout from the norm. Outside of Mexico and All Japan Women, it's not that common to see teenagers wrestling in the ring, and while it's semantics, I don't think the teenagers that appeared on ITV had passed their apprenticeship yet.

Bob Backlund vs. Pat Patterson (WWF, 9/24/79) This was more of a traditional back and forth WWF cage match with both men desperately trying to escape. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Patterson created the template for how to work a WWF style cage match, since he was no doubt involved in booking the cage matches I grew up on. I'm not really a Pat Patterson guy. He's more of a Buddy Rogers type, which isn't my thing, but if you like that type of worker (and I figure most people do) then this is a consummate performance. Bob Backlund vs Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka (WWF, 6/28/82) I've never really gotten a feel for the phenom that was Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka. I remember when he made his return to the WWF in the late 80s and them hyping him up like he was a big deal, but you really had to be in New York at this time to appreciate the impact he made. Personally, I've seen so many Polynesian wrestlers in pro-wrestling that Snuka isn't that unique to me, and I come from a country with a large Pacific Island community to begin with, but there's no denying that Jimmy Snuka is the reason why people jump off the top of the cage in WWF cage matches. It costs him the match here, as it so often does in WWF cage matches, but it looks spectacular. Bob sure loved falling out of the cage door backwards. It's a cool looking bump but he ended so many of his cage matches that way.

That Dory/Robinson match was good. I have more time for Dory than most and enjoying watching his post-NWA champion phase. And t's always good to see more Billy Robinson, even if it's not prime Billy Robinson. It helps if you adjust your mentality to the fact that both men were well past their primes. Ten years earlier, this may have been a MOTY, if not MOTD, contender, but it's still pretty frigging cool as a competitive maestros bout.

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Bob Backlund (WWF, 1/10/81) For my money, this was much better than the cage match. Slaughter got to work Bob until he bled like a stuck pig and Bobby made a fantastic comeback and beat the shit out of Sarge until the screwy finish. I realize that Backlund cage matches are more about locking the heel inside a cage so that Bob can make mince meat out of them, but I prefer the heel to have a bit more shine. I've got to admit that the Gomer Pyle stuff was lost on me until I did a search, but that's the type of reference you don't see a lot of anymore in wrestling where they pretend they're in some kind of self-contained universe.

Big occasion, and another cracking installment of the best feud in wrestling. Perro alternated between brawling with Santo and Casas and both match ups ruled, but it was Casas vs Perro that caught my attention. This may be the best feud that Casas has been a part of in the 2000s, and definitely the best opposition he's had outside of GdI. Los Perros del Mal are a fun trio and business in CMLL has definitely picked up. Shocker was the odd man out, which is strange since he's been The Man for most of the 00s, but at least he had some history with El Terrible to play off.

Why would you hold onto a submission that's not getting you a submission? It's clearly not working.

This is some kind of Florida indy with commentary from Nulty and the ROH dude. I guess it was related to Ring of Honor somehow. It was an excellent technical bout up until the finish. The promoters probably thought the finish was old-school wrestling, but it came across as 100% sports entertainment, which was the shit indy wrestling was supposed to be rallying against. It was a really good bout, though, up until the crappy finish.

Santo vs. Perro Jr is the best feud in wrestling since Eddie vs. JBL, but I love the fact that they haven't forgotten that it was Casas vs. Perro that started all this beef. They had some fantastic exchanges in this trio, and Casas bust out his kicks. I love it when Casas starts kicking opponents like he's a shooter. Park got in on the act with some stiff sounding strikes and a fiery exchange with Ultimo, who's been his best opponent in CMLL. Kick ass TV match.

I quite enjoyed this. People often think of the famous gaijins in Japanese history history and think it's easy for a foreigner to get over in Japan, but that's never been the case. Low Ki bust his ass to make an impression here and did a fabulous job of carrying Kanemaru to a better match than the champ was capable of having on his own. He used a more exaggerated bumping style than we're used to and hit some fantastic looking spots.

This was a fairly decent lumberjack match that made good use of the gimmick. Things were going great until the Big Show showed up and destroyed everyone. Even that was handled fairly well, but I'm not hugely thrilled by the prospect of Angle vs. Big Show.