ohtani's jacket

I should mention out of the gate that because this match is held in Benoit's hometown of Edmonton that there are a number of uncomfortable shots of Benoit's wife and son at ringside. The match is decent considering it's a rehash of the WrestleMania main event. I've got to believe that there were Benoit fans who were afraid that the WWE was going to have him job the title straight back to Triple H, and that they'd have the audacity to do it in his hometown. In fact, I'm pretty sure the WWE played that shit up as much as they could. There was a Montreal spot that came a bit too early in the match, but had the crowd booing Michaels the rest of the way and chanting "You screwed Bret!" at him. In the end, the WWE did the right thing, which was a surprise. I didn't know the result of the match and wasn't sure whether Benoit would drop the belt or not, so I was as pleasantly surprised as you can be by Benoit going over.

This was a hot 8-man tag featuring all the guys working against each other on Sunday's Backlash show. It was the kind of match you figure the WWE could roll out on every go-home show, but don't. Somehow RAW has become the most exciting thing in wrestling. I don't know if that was the reaction at the time, but business has definitely picked up as far as I'm concerned. I had no idea that Evolution were so entertaining. I always figured Triple H was stroking his ego by having some weak ass version of the Horsemen follow him around, but they're actually a pretty cool stable. I was really surprised by Flair. I expected him to be awful, but he was great in his role. He mostly threw chops and got beat up, but it was really solid veteran heel work and honestly a credit to him considering how hard it must be to accept that sort of role after being The Man for so many years. I'm sure he was doing some batshit insane things in his private life, but credit to him as an in ring performer. The segment ended with a lame Mexican standoff shot between Michaels, Hunter and Benoit that was almost comedic in its timing, but it was still a hot as TV match.

I always liked this match but watching it in context has made me appreciate it even more. This is easily the best match Park has had in CMLL so far and the best match that Ultimo, and CMLL for that matter, has had for several months. The reason for that is largely because they're working in Guadalajara, which is a hell of a lot closer to Park's old haunt of Monterrey than Arena Mexico. Why CMLL can't stage epic main events in Arena Mexico is beyond me, but the fact remains that if this had been held in Mexico City it would have been half the length (if not a third.) It's not a perfect match, I felt the rhythm of the match could have been better,, and it could have done with a few more dramatic beats. However, it was a lengthy title match, which is a plus, and one of the better matches from the first four months of the year. The finish was kind of lame, but it was an 80s territories finish and I guess that fits the Guadalajara setting to some extent.

Kobashi does it again. Despite being barely able to move, he manages to have arguably the best match of the year to date (it's either this or Eddie vs. Brock.) Several years, I would have scoffed at watching these NOAH matches, and I was never a big believer in Kobashi as a genius worker, but I'll be damned if he isn't a slow motion master, who'll lay in a shot and soak up every bit of heat he can. It's kind of amazing given that even in 2004 the younger guys were trending towards everything at a million miles per hour and here you've got this broken down warrior hobbling about having slow moving masterpieces. Takayama, fwiw, is a monster and a great foil for Kobashi.

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.