ohtani's jacket

Cagematch says this is from September 3rd.

This wasn't a classic, but there was merit in seeing Misawa and the ratbag beat on KENTA and Marufuji.

We're getting a lot of Danielson this month. When I saw him manipulate Homicide's hand, I figured he must have read a thread about the Koshinaka vs. Takada match and bought a comp off some dude. Any match where a dude works over another dude's hand is a guaranteed three stars in my book. Danielson and Homicide isn't the most natural pairing in the world, but they manage to mix things up and work a decent match.

This was okay. Punk was a decent hand, but I can tell why people who worked the indies in this era don't have a ton of respect for his ability. He's not exactly the most gifted pro-wrestler. I don't really care for his heel work. I think he got much better at that type of stuff working in the big leagues. He comes across as whiny in ROH, to me anyway. Danielson tries too hard at times to be the best wrestler in the world, but I guess that's not a bad ambition to have. He's very good. I just wish his technical wizardry wasn't so forced. Mind you, technical master isn't an easy gimmick to pull off in wrestling

This felt a bit like a house show match at times, but the attritional parts were good. I still haven’t seen Joe have a great match yet, and I'm not sold on Danielson either, so I did watch this with a healthy dose of skepticism, but I enjoyed the hard hitting stuff.

My parents were big fans of Dusty Rhodes, who they used to watch when he toured New Zealand. When I got into wrestling, they would stay up and watch it with me until Dusty's match was over. They loved Sapphire and polka dot Dusty. My uncle was the person who introduced me to wrestling, but he's gone now, and I can't remember who his favorite wrestler was.

I'll have to check that out. Thanks! I made it to issue #34 of Age of Bronze. I don't know if Shanower will finish the series, but even if he doesn't, it stands as a monumental work. One of the best series I've read since I returned to comics. It's a cliche, but every panel is a work of art. I wish there was more of an audience for these types of comics, however putting them out so irregularly doesn't help with sales. Still, what an incredible labour of love. Hats off to you, Eric Shanower.

Total house show match. Probably a fun match to watch live, but not the sort of thing you're looking for if you're craving an alternative to CMLL. The highlight for me was the Satanico vs Zumbido match up, which is a match up I've never seen before and a pairing that I doubt occurred on a regular basis. Their exchanges were great but all too brief. Instead, there were a bunch of Niebla vs Wagner shenanigans, which ought to be a red flag for most folks if you're familiar enough with Monterrey.

I finished Sex Criminals. In the end, it went in a direction that I didn't particularly care for, and I could have absolutely done without the coda which did nothing for me. It was a fun ride, even if it did feel like they were changing things as they went along, but fell short of being one of the best series of the Eisners era. Some nice character moments, but I gotta have that tightly woven plot.

This was really good. It felt similar to Foley's matches with Sting and Orndorff in WCW except in a WWE environment, and a tad more violent with the ECW/Death match influences. Foley was noticeably trimmer than his final active years and moved pretty well. Credit to Orton for taking that back bump into the thumbtacks. Wasn't expecting him to do anything that nasty. He took a big bump off the stage as well. Mick kept coming up with fun hardcore spots. I usually hate low blows, but that barbed wire spot between the legs was something. Match deserves it's rep.

Tenryu vs Suzuki looks amazing on paper, as does Tenryu vs Takayama, but they never really get into it in the way that you'd like. Instead, Suzuki is an absolute dick towards Nakanishi, Match is on the short side, and once you realize it's a title defense, it doesn't feel like it was substantial enough.

Meltzer was relatively high on this, so I thought I'd give it a watch even though I have zero expectations for Liger at this point. But y'know what, I kind of liked it. It was solid, hard-hitting action. Hashi is a great no-frills worker. I like how NOAH shows close-ups of other wrestlers watching the bouts. Makes the title bouts very important. I got behind Hashi here and wanted to see him win. He got a huge nearfall before the finish that was super. The botched Liger Bomb attempt was really unfortunate and nothing Liger did after that could make up for it. If not for that mishap, I may have been even higher on this.

Cookie cutter main event. This was only 11 minutes long and they still found ways to edit it. I can't understand why CMLL don't let their wrestlers work slower paced main events like they do in Monterrey. You can't tell me that a pair of veterans like Cien Caras and Mascara Ano 2000 aren't capable of working more interesting beatdown sections. You've got a captive audience, let your guys work. The tecnico comeback is the highlight here, as it is with most CMLL matches of late. Terrible has definitely improved. Kind of impressive that he was trusted enough to be Perro's partner here. There's a bunch of shenanigans as there always is with these apuesta matches. Apuesta matches may not be as good as they used to be, but one thing remains the same, the post matches are always interesting.

Perro Jr vs Universo 2000 is just about the best thing going in CMLL. Not that it's particularly great, but at least there's some passion behind it. Perro Sr looks feeble when he gets involved, but the tecnico comebacks are exciting and adding Dantes and Black Warrior to the mix helped elevate things a bit. Weak praise, but I'm trying.

I finished up Julie Doucet's Dirty Plotte. Wonderful stuff. Honest, surreal, funny. I wish she'd stayed in comics longer, but what a brilliant legacy to leave behind. Of all the great early 90s alternative comics, Dirty Plotte was the most fun to read.

You've given us so many wonderful things like pavlova, Crowded House and Phar Lap.

On behalf of the Black Caps, you're welcome. Beat Aussie.

This was by far the most pure lucha match of the month. Just a series of classic lucha exchanges without the hurried pace of Arena Mexico matches. Plus, it's a chance to see my boy Charlie Lucero work long mat exchanges.,

Another super fun locals match. This time you get the added bonus of the both the Orientales and the Rockeros squaring off against each other, which is cool.

CMLL has been extremely frustrating in 2004 thus far. This was JIP so they could run some shitty vignette beforehand, and the entire match was shot from ringside with a handheld camera. There were a ton of match ups I was interested in yet there was more focus on KeMonito than Shocker vs. Ultimo or Atlantis vs Wagner. CMLL is a peaks and valleys promotion by nature, but this is probably the weakest its been all decade.

Super fun debut match on RAW for Shelton Benjamin. Not only does he show more personal charisma than he did during his entire Smackdown run, but he instantly becomes JR's wet dream. Gotta give Triple H his props here. This is a superbly worked television match and another high profile job on the back of his WrestleMania loss. Lawler was in full heel commentary mode, but I actually found it kind of endearing. His mocking of JR was on point and far better than Michael Cole and Taz's squabbling.

Excellent world title match between Guerrero and Mysterio Jr that is notable for being non-formulaic. Eddie is on a roll at the moment. This is his second great match of the year and he's going from strength to strength as a performer. He's steadily getting over a new version of his character, and instead of pandering to the crowd with video game wrestling, he's incorporating all sorts of new moves and new sequences into his matches. He's neck and neck for best in the world alongside Meiko Satomura. Michael Cole and Taz keep squabbling throughout the bout, to the point where it's hard to tell whether it's scripted or legit heat. Either way, it's annoying. Heyman cuts a promo at the end about the upcoming draft and Undertaker shows up and tombstones him.

This was 10 minutes of a Santo vs. Park match that aired on Samurai TV of all places. Looked like a decent brawl and Park showed more charisma and character than he has in any of his CMLL matches so far,.

I have zero interest in this feud. It reminds me of the awful Raven vs. CM Punk feud. Eddie vs. Angle is the kind of matchup that sounds awesome on paper but ends up being awkward. The early matwork is decent, but not what the crowd wants to see. I can see the argument about how Smackdown video game style wrestling ruined WWE crowd heat. The crowd comes alive for the big spots, but this suffers in comparison to the Lesnar/Eddy match, and I didn't love the finish. The finish justified Angle's criticisms of Eddie as a champion and a person whereas I thought they should have put the WWE champ over cleanly. Not a bad match, but not particularly memorable.

CMLL continues to be a bit average. Business has not picked up with Park's arrival. I think it's because he's not doing any of his character stuff. Instead, he's just another guy doing spots. This was entertaining when the tecnicos were on offense, but nothing we haven't seen a million times before. In fact, the most interesting part was GdI and Shocker & Park continuing to brawl after the match was over. On the positive side, Terrible has figured out his role in these matches pretty well and no longer looks out of place.