ohtani's jacket

Ladder matches suck, and this was a painfully mediocre one. This entire card has been poor. Benoit vs. Flair was by far the highlight of the PPV.

There's a difference between taking a break and being off air completely. When I went through the French archives, I didn't get a sense that this was a sport that was continuously broadcast for 30 years. The footage from the 70s onward feels extremely scattershot, and I don't think it's ever been fully explained what that retrospective show was about with Roger Delaporte and friends sitting in a theatre watching old black and white matches. Some of the footage has a very public broadcasting station feel to it, though I obviously don't know the details. It didn't particularly bother me as there were a lot of swimming pool matches and precious little of the Catch I liked outside of the odd tag match or two.

I've been debating about which of these guys is better at this stage of their careers and now we get this great match between them in front of 20-odd people. AJ played second fiddle to Danielson's heel act here, but it was still an excellent contest. I'm prepared to call it even on the basis of this match, but like I said, they were pushing the newly heel Danielson fairly hard.

Well, I didn't mean to watch any entire broadcast of WoS, but rather the matches they chose to show that week (prior to it becoming a standalone show.) These matches are available to a certain extent not from the vault or the matches that aired on the Wrestling Channel, but from the original VHS recordings of WoS bouts. This period covers the late 70s and early 80s.

Man, this Kane/Lita storyline hasn't aged well during the past 20 years. I'm not sure it aged well at the time. At least Kane throws himself into it with gusto. I don't think this was a carry job by Michaels. In fact, it felt like a fairly average performance from Shawn. It was a typical WWE match that was probably laid out by a road agent prior to the PPV. Despite the controversial angle, it's a predictable and boring fight, and Shawn's performance is nothing special. It picks up during the finishing stretch, but all WWE matches pick up during the finishing stretch. It's debatable whether this is better than Kane/Benoit, but I will say that the video package was better than the Triple H/Orton one.

That may have been what Walton liked, or at least what the persona he presented to the public liked, and it's generally what I like too, but it's stretch to say it's what the public wanted. The majority of the audience were into the characters and were there to cheer the blue eyes and boo the heels. Walton was an interesting guy. He could be fairly forthright with his opinions at times and wasn't shy about sharing his views on a wrestler or match. Some of the boys didn't particularly like him and would rib him by feeding him false stories to share on air like that lie about Ivan Penzekoff being a pig farmer. There are times when Kent had to BS about why the fans weren't responding to match he thought was technically excellent, and of course, he had to shill the main events. The way we've viewed WoS over the years has been largely inorganic. It would be more enlightening to watch full episodes than random matches, and fans like myself who have actively sought out the great workers and great matches don't usually put a huge amount of stock in the Catweazles of the world. At its best, there was something on the card for everyone. There tended to be more storytelling in the halls where the promotor would be looking to draw folks to the next show, but occasionally it would seep over onto the TV, especially when there was a title chase or the occasional angle. You have to piece the footage together since it's not week-to-week like US wrestling, but it's not completely absent from the broadcasts. Walton would often mention past bouts if they were relevant to the match at hand.

That's a shame. He was one tough dude.

I should point out that if we had full matches available from the 60s, 70s, and even the 80s, that German wrestling would have as many classics available as any other European country. It's the recorded history of German wrestling that's a mess, not the wrestling itself. Something is better than nothing, and beggar's can't be choosers, but I wish we had a better picture of German wrestling just like I wish we had more footage from Spain and Greece.

We don't have the details about this sort of thing. I'm not sure if we know what the final match was that broadcast on terrestrial television. As far as I know, it petered out sometime around 1987. It's difficult to draw parallels to the UK as it wasn't one promotion being continuously broadcast for 30 + years (including the years where they shared the timeslot with All-Star.) During its heyday in the 50s and 60s, it was different promotions in the time slot. At a certain point, it becomes predominantly Delaporte's promotion. It's unclear whether Catch was continuously on the air during the 70s and 80s or if it would disappear and reappear depending on whether a promoter managed to get TV time. The footage gets pretty random towards the end and some years have little to no footage available. That suggests, to me, that Catch wasn't broadcast continuously and appeared sporadically after the 60s ended. It stands to reason that If it had been on the air weekly throughout the 70s and 80s then there would be far more preserved footage from that era.

This was a decent opener. Evolution have had better matches on RAW, but it's pretty cool seeing Benoit tag with Regal. Old man Flair has honestly been one of the highlights of 2004 for me, and I never thought I would say that. There were plenty of Flair vs. Benoit exchanges in this, and they ruled each and every time. It made me want to check if they had a singles match during this run. Regal was a bit of an odd fit, and not as good as I would have hoped for, but his main role was to square off against Batista, whom he didn't match up with that well. Benoit vs. Flair was good enough that it didn't really matter, but it prevented this from reaching the heights it might have if Chris Jericho or Edge had been Benoit's partner.

Love you work, Marty, but you'll never convince me that Murakami and Ogawa are any good.

The build up to this match was so weak that even the highlights package is second rate. They should have ran this at Survivor Series to give Orton more time to adjust to working face. He doesn't have a likeable persona. He's still the smug jerk who spits in other wrestlers' faces and brags about his accomplishments. The only thing he has going for him is the RKO, which they were banking on getting over the Stone Cold Stunner. In fact, the part where Orton takes on Evolution and RKOs everyone was reminiscent of Austin during the Attitude Era. The match s slow. There are some decent moments early on,, but it becomes a grind once Triple H starts doing his cerebral assassin shit. I don't mind Triple H matches, but there's nothing compelling about this particular match up. Triple H blades, but the blood adds nothing to the match. Orton is screwed over in his very first PPV defence, and you have to wonder if some of JR's disgust is legit. This felt like a momentum killer. There's a chance that RAW will nose dive now that Hunter is on top again

JR kept mentioning that this was the season premiere of RAW, which doesn't really matter much when you don't have an off-season. Triple H has won the belt back in a match I haven't watched yet, so this is a revenge bout. There's a weird dynamic where they decide to write Orton out of most of the bout after Batista cops him with a lariat and have Benoit and Benjamin garner most of the heat. Benoit vs Flair is worth the price of admission, but they do a shitty job of telegraphing Randy's return and JR oversells the RKO like it's the Stone Cold Stunner. Babyface Randy is pretty weak at this point.

This was a weird bout as there was a lot of great wrestling mixed with house show bullshit and the finish was shit. Cole and Taz are supremely annoying. Angle is a wrestling machine anc could probably wipe the mat with Eddie if he wanted to. I thought this was an Angle vs Eddie match that I liked until the bullshit began.

Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 5/4/81) This is a match that has never really clicked with me, but at least Slaughter gets his moment in the sun with the huge bladejob and wobbly feet selling. It's kind of weird, but I totally buy Dusty in these types of matches but I don't buy Pat Patterson in a street fight.

It's 11 years later, and German wrestling is still incomprehensible to me. It's hard enough to make sense of the handheld footage and clipping let alone understand the context of matches. There are some good matches, but it's frustrating.

I don't have the answers to your questions, but I can tell you that Phil was able to match listings for the television broadcasts from old newspapers, IIRC, so the info about TV channel switches may attainable somehow.

Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 3/21/81) Full disclosure -- I grew up on WWF cage matches. I like WWF cage matches. I have zero problems with WWF cage match rules. I find cage matches from other territories to be vastly overrated and have greater respect for promotions like AJW who adopted the WWF cage match style instead. That said, this is nothing like your typical WWF cage match. This is Bob Backlund kicking Sgt. Slaughter's ass inside a cage for 17 minutes straight. Backlund is such an oddball. Even Bruno didn't dominate his opponents this much. The match isn't bad per se, but it doesn't maximize the dramatic potential of a WWF cage match. I assume there were other blowoff matches like this whenever Backlund went around the horn, but it doesn't make for a great one off viewing experience. Especially since Sarge is such a good worker. It would be nice to see him actually do something. Matches like this are the reason Bobby is still a bit divisive, I suspect.

I don't hate everything about Kawada. I just have little use for him after '97-98 unless he's having matches against Tenryu, Mutoh, and possibly in MUGA against Nishimura. .

Mascara Sagrada? Jesus, they're bringing everybody back. Sagrada looks... fat. CMLL was preempted for a few weeks in August because of the Olympics. Unlike last time when we missed out on a Dr. Wagner vs. Casas program, I don't think we missed out on anything earthshattering. Luckily, there's plenty of footage available from this 8/13 show. This was the show that was originally thought to have been unaired, but which Phil Schneider found being bootlegged outside Arena Mexico. I don't know if the rest of the show is new footage or not, but it's kind of rare to get so much footage from a single CMLL show, so perhaps it aired in some fashion over the Olympics break. This was an out and out crowd pleaser. There was a bit too much KeMonito, but I did like his schtick with Garza. There was a lot to enjoy about this trios match. Casas and Tarzan Boy went back and forth. I always enjoy it when two guys who were in an apuesta feud acknowledge that they still hate each other's guts. I like the burgeoning Shocker vs. Garza feud as well. Terrible looked wild and is clearly looking for a hair match pay day. Fun way to pass the time.

This was really good. In many ways, it was better than Tamura vs Ito. I would say it definitely had better matwork whereas Tamura vs Ito had the better striking. I guess it helped that it was the main event of this Osaka show whereas Tamura pulled double duty on the next show. Mishima could be a goofy bugger at times, but in a lovable sort of way. Tamura isn't exactly saving our souls with U-Style, but it at least adds some variety to the dull Japanese scene.

This seemed like it would be a great little shoot style bout, but it ended up being a whole bunch of nothing . I can't take Shibata seriously with that goofy stance of his and his stupid facial expressions, and I am done with Minoru Suzuki. Hard pass.

I am really down on Kawada at the moment. I want him to disappear and take Minoru Suzuki with him. I am high on the immortal Tenzan and Randy Orton, though I think Triple H is about to fuck him up.

This was such a beautiful match. It wasn't just the CMLL match of the year, but one of the best matches from anywhere in the world in 2004. The reason for this wasn't because it was a classic Santo performance (although it was), but because it was easily the best Perro Jr performance to date and the first time he's truly looked like his father. The non-finish may bother some, but you have to remember that this was just a mano a mano bout. There's no reason on earth why it should have been these good other than they wanted to honor their fathers by having a match worthy of the famous bout their padres had. The other defining aspect of this bout is that's proof that an old-school lucha bout can get over with the Arena Mexico crowd. They worked a decidedly non-2004 match in front of the Arena Mexico faithful, but had them hooked. This might be one of my favorite lucha matches of all-time. It's definitely the best mano a mano bout I've seen. If you don't want to see these two square off again after watching this then you should probably consult your local GP.

No mention of Kent Walton!