ohtani's jacket

Here's an old Gong interview between Sayama and Mil Mascaras from Hisa's site. They talk a bit about the origins of flying in Mexico. Or Mil's take on it anyway: http://www.puroresu.com/articles/sayama-mascaras.html

Atlantis/Angel Azteca/Satanico vs. Pirata Morgan/Emilio Charles, Jr./Jerry Estrada, 4/20/90 I haven't watched wrestling for a while, but I knew that when I started again it would have to be lucha. Anything that could possibly bother anyone about lucha is something I'm completely comfortable with. Lucha is predictable, but what that really means is that I get all the payoffs I'm looking for. Take this match for example. This isn't a spectacular match by any means. It's the type of match they ran all the time, leading into a big money bout. But if you know the characters, it's a real treat. And since we don't have much lucha from the 80s, it's an even bigger treat. I'm sure all lucha fans can get satisfaction from watching Pirata and Satanico brawl, Emilio putting on the full rudo act and Atlantis pulling out all the moves he usually does, just as the rhythm and flow of each fall is a comfort. Even the old lady in the front row is something synonymous with lucha. One other point... The top workers spent all of 1990 putting Angel Azteca over as the next big thing in lucha, but I gotta say his performance here was on point. One of the better performances I've seen from him actually.

I heard recently that Inoki is a muslim. His Islamic name is Mohammed Hussein. Is this common knowledge? The con thread should be full of Inoki stories.

Christ, I wouldn't use the Diet as evidence of a more important political career.

What's the difference between ROH doing a show in Japan and CMLL?

I see.

I suppose there's a distinct possibility that Benoit could have eventually died from the same causes as many other wrestlers. To me, the real unanswered question was how premeditated it was. In situations like this, I think it's natural for things to escalate to the point where people say it was bound to happen, but what exactly was going on when Benoit cancelled his PPV appearance and flew home? I guess we'll never know, but one way or the other he was a timebomb.

Funnily enough I remember my wife saying she really hated Dump Matsumoto at this time. I hope more people watch those Chigusa/Leilani Kai matches. Great stuff. And I'm sure Jose will agree that the best Asuka match is the '85 one against Jumbo Hori, but again it's because of Jumbo.

That's not really a Japanese thing to do. Besides, Chigusa showing her shame and humiliation just milked things more for the rematch. If I were Loss, I would've included the rematch, too, plus Dump attacking Chigusa while she sang and slitting the chicken's throat at the press conference. Asuka was just poor at selling & that included angles, too. I don't know why people in the 80s thought she was better than Chigusa, something that people like Lorefice have clung to. There's actually a Dump vs. Asuka match from the JGP '86 that shows how good Dump was at setting up spots that made the schoolgirls implode. One of Asuka's more dramatic matches, and one which doesn't involve divided loyalties. The other thing people don't realise about Dump is that either side of this period -- when she weighed less -- she wasn't such a bad athlete and did a lot more moves.

The UWF was massively popular and made a lot of money. The problem was that it wasn't managed well.

The people who "saw it coming" are sources for Keller, Meltzer or some newspaper reporter. It's just hearsay and likely retroactive. Most of the guys on TV who are saying it was out of character hadn't seen Benoit in some time. They probably didn't know a lot of what was going on, but that doesn't mean that they're not being genuine.

You're being way too cynical. The guy was answering a Q&A. He was asked questions about his book and Fozzy.

Whenever this type of thing occurs, there's people who reckon they could see it coming. But that's after the fact. If you're going to take their word for it then you might as well give Jericho the benefit of the doubt. We'll never know why Benoit did this. I can understand people wanting to read the Observer or news reports to get some inkling, but it's speculation and in many cases hearsay. It's one thing to say "it was bound to happen" after hearing the news, but an entirely different thing to suspect he's going to kill his family before he actually does it. Looking back, maybe there were signs, maybe you could cite something as a trigger point, but I find it hard to believe that anyone believed he was going to kill his family. There's a tendency to act as though Benoit was never a good person, never a good father or husband and never did anything decent in his life. Perhaps that's understandable, but people like Jericho have to reconcile the Benoit they (thought) knew with the Benoit that did this. That's not easy. Maybe Jericho knows more than he's letting on. Maybe looking back there were things that didn't seem right. But Benoit's father said something similar. Are you gonna call bullshit on that? Anyway, this whole thing is a mess. It's fucked up. It's easy to maintain a running internet commentary, but dealing with this shit must be tough.

Knowing someone has domestic problems doesn't mean you saw it coming.

You have to give people like Jericho a break here. If a friend of mine did something like this, I'm sure I'd have a hard time coming to terms with it as well.

In the rematch, Dump has the scariest motherfucking look on her face while they shave her head.

Drug laws in Japan are severe, though as Jose says, speed is fashionable & other drugs are easy to get (though you have to get them from scary dudes). Most Japanese people don't use drugs, however. They're simply afraid of them & if you get caught, as foreigners sometimes do, you're fucked. Drinking is a huge part of Japanese culture, however. As for painkillers, there's a 1993 commercial tape where the whole ending is Hokuto getting an injection from a doctor. (This is in Japan.) Taking painkillers and abusing painkillers is a totally different subject mind you. Most Japanese wrestlers seem to come off the roids and get fat. Their training and prep seems to be better, too. Kazuo Yamazaki has a book about how to stretch.

I went to a show about three years ago... It might be cheap heat, but it's actually really exciting live.

I think some of these "cut and paste-excite.co.jp" people would be shocked if they knew where many of these venues are. I was shocked when I discovered where Shinjuku Face is... As for the wrestlers there's always TV. Japan is the land of the variety TV show and there's a whole Variety TV circuit. Hokuto and Sasaki are firmly entrenched in this circuit. Their gimmick is that she wears the trousers in the household. Sometimes Sakaki brings along his NJPW buddies, and there's a comedian who does a Riki Choshu gimmick. Oh, and Inoki still has his face plastered everywhere. The other day he was on a truck promoting a Japanese rapper's new single... Other than that, puroresu is pachinko parlour theme music. If not for that area around Tokyo dome with all the expensive puroresu shops and a few major Tsutaya video stores and puroresu magazines, it would be completely dead. I did find one cool ramen shop that had pictures of Baba, Inoki and Rikidozan. And sometimes there's an ad for a show on the big TV screen in Shibuya. Waste of fucking money that.

Is "pro wres" really a romanization of that katakana? Anyway, Japanese people use different romaji all the time, so I won't quibble. If they can say Erikku Kuraputon and Makudonarudo, then Westerners can write and pronounce プロレス as "pro wres." I think in certain contexts saying puroresu is OK. Like, "I went to a puroresu show in Japan." It is, after all, puroresu[/] in Japan. And since it's katakana, some Japanese aren't sure how to pronounce it, either, especially if they have no interest in wrestling. As far as I can tell, there's a long way and a short way to pronounce it and it depends on how familiar you are with the term. Japanese is a bitch to pronounce anyway... I do have to say that on the radio show they mispronounced practically every single wrestler's name, but I can't pronounce Tsuruta or Tenryu to save my life. It's dead in Japan anyway. People on the internet care way more about it than Japanese people do. It's like a relic from the past over here. They're all about soccer in Japan.

I see what you mean. Actually if you ask a Japanese person about puroresu they'll usually say, "you mean WWE?" It would be better if people called it Japanese puroresu, but as the other guy said it's a tag like "anime". I can't stand that "pro wres" shit, though. That's annoying. And there's other words like Joshi and gaijin which are borderline. But Japanese misappropriates English all the time. It drives me crazy when people ask me if I'm "high tension." Oddly, people got crap for saying Zenjo. One of the more acceptable pinches.

Why does this bother you? Do you mind Lucha Libre?

In that case, what position is the fan supposed to take? I don't see too many people refraining from downloading, distributing or pimping matches and it's only a matter of time before people start criticising workers in the same way as before. Will this seriously change the way people judge wrestling matches, considering the things that made Benoit a good wrestler played a part in all of this? I mean, can a person justify criticising a wrestler or the way they work a match if working hard leads to your body breaking down and a safe style may still involve a risky lifestyle? And if the business is rotten to the core or just fucked to begin with, what are we doing watching it?

There was an article on DVDVR about common trends in men who kill their familes. From the sounds of things Benoit was pretty obsessed about his family.

I think most wrestling fans realise it's a shitty business, but nobody really wants to stop watching it. In that sense, Benoit exemplified what's good about wrestling, or rather what can be construed as "good." But in light of what's happened, the characteristics of a Benoit match (for me anyway) have taken on new meaning... It's probably stupid to feel that way, since these things never bothered me in the days leading up to the fact, but I don't think I can watch another Benoit match any time soon. I could probably watch another wrestling match given time, but at the moment wrestling is depressing to me. I live in Tokyo right now, and I will say that it's good to see someone like Hokuto on TV all the time, someone well adjusted who seems to have gotten out and stayed out.