ohtani's jacket

This was a pleasant surprise. I thought it would be e a bunch of silly buggers between Parka and Park, but the first fall had a bunch of traditional matwork and rope exchanges, including one awesome exchange between Safari and Panther, where Safari got the better of Panther and Panther took it out on the ring apron. Even when they switched gears to the brawling part of the match, there were some really cool exchanges between Parka and Park, and some inventive use of the plastic white chairs at ringside. They kept the bullshit to a minimum, and, believe it not, sold me on the Parka vs. Park match the following week.

I was a bit disappointed with Dan Clowe's Lloyd Llewellyn series, though suitably impressed that he went from that series to the mind-bending brilliance of Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron and the rest of Eightball. Even more disappointing was Six from Sirius, which I'd have to classify as a dud. It's one of those sci-fi comics where the author tries to explain everything through expository dialogue instead of captions, which made it confusing and difficult to follow. There also wasn't a ton of story to fill a four issue limited series. Gulacy's art felt a bit static to me and didn't have the level of composition I've come to expect from him. I'd be interested in hearing from a fan of this series.

I didn't like this quite as much as @Jetlagbut it was a kickass BattlARTS style AJW match. It was fought under "Kakugi rules," though they were pretty liberal with it since the only shoot style moves Hasegawa knew were a few kicks and the basic submissions that all All Japan trainees are taught. The main draw here was Hotta vs. Kong, but the heart of the match was Hotta and Yamada since they were the shooters. If you like the famous Hotta vs. Kong match from '94 then this is another chance to see Aja smack Hotta in the face with shoteis. Hotta bled hardway from the mouth in a continuation of the violence from their singles match. It was a typical AJW match in terms of roles -- Aja was the alpha, Hasegawa was the weak link, and so on. Yamada wast the most impressive worker of the bunch. She reminds me a lot of Kazuo Yamazaki in the sense that she doesn't have the charisma or personality of her piers, but her technique is exemplary. The finish could have been better. They teased Hotta going down for the 10 count, but instead Aja finished her off with a uraken and a sleeper, but Aja either needed to drag Hotta to the center of the ring, or the ref needed to wait a few more beats before calling for the bell, because the crowd didn't really get it and neither did the commentator. If I'm being cynical, Akira Hokuto on commentary telegraphed the promo she cut at the end, which made this feel like fodder for the dome show, but there was some decent faux shooting along the way.

Gotham Central = great series. Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker reimagine the Gotham Central Police Department as The Wire, or more accurately, Homicide: Life on the Streets. Spectacular ending too. Best Bat-book I've read in a long time.

Let's see if Kawada and Hashimoto can conjure up some magic to end the year. Hashimoto has really short hair. I'm not sure why you'd do that. It's like Samson cutting his hair. The Hashimoto vs. Kawada exchanges are pretty good. They would have been better during the mid-90s in a bigger setting, but for the most part they remind me of Hashimoto vs. Tenryu, and on the whole, Kawada vs Hashimoto is a match up you want to see from 2003 wrestling. I'll tell you this though: I'd much rather take Wataru Sakata to a fight than Kendo Kashin. Sakata and Kashin try to add something to the match with their exchanges, but it's a losing battle. Kawada vs Sakata was cool. They could have done something with that. The match is middling-to-good, then Ogawa shows up in a gi and luchador mask, beats some folks up and posts a sticker on the ring post, and you're instantly reminded that 2003 wrestling sucks compared to the past. Another go watch PRIDE instead bout.

I reached the end of the line for Ms. Tree, IMO one of the best characters of the 1980s and one of the best female characters in the history of comics. I'll admit that I preferred the stories where she fought the Muerta family more than the stories taken from the lastest issue of Newsweek magazine, but it was a tremendous run right up until the end. I'm feeling a bit wistful wondering what happened to the characters in their lives after the final special.

I wouldn't judge any Mexican or British worker on their matches in Japan. Credit to the guys who got over and had great matches, but for the average wrestler it could be an awkward place to work. It's a shame that Marty didn't get a proper run against Tiger Mask since Jones and Rocco pretty much invented the junior heavyweight wrestling style. Given enough chances, I don't see why they couldn't have created something similar to Tiger Mask vs. Dynamite Kid. I also wish they'd let Rocco wrestle Tiger Mask as himself and not that shitty Black Tiger gimmick. Rocco could have gotten over in Japan being Mark Rocco. The lucha guys may have regularly jobbed to Sayama in Japan, but they were well known UWA wrestlers. None of them were enhancement level talents. You had to be at a certain level to tour Japan in those days.

Le Petit Prince vs. Bobby Genele (aired 1/22/68) Early TV match from the Prince. He was still a bit raw and didn't string his moves together as well as he would he in the future, and Genele wasn't anywhere near the base that Michel Saulnier was, but man, getting on the ground floor here with the Prince is an experience only rivalled by fans who saw early Tiger Mask or Rey Mysterio Jr. Rene Ben Chemoul/Walter Bordes vs. Inca Peruano/Anton Tejero (aired 3/9/68) If you like dominant babyface tag teams then Ben Chemoul and Bordes are your bag. I swear the only time Ben Chemoul sells is when the heels need to win a fall. The heels were good in this, but Peruano was practically invisible compared to his 50s heydays and that was largely because no one gets to shine against Ben Chemoul. Eddie Williams vs. Robert Duranton (aired 3/23/68) A bunch of worthless shtick from Duranton. Mercifully the JIP match. Very poor compared to Gastel's match with Williams, and that annoying ref was at it again. Bob Plantin vs. Francis Louis (aired 4/6/68) Don't sleep on this one just because it's two lesser names. This was a very good stylists match with a lot of good technique. Some awkward moments at times, but pure Catch. Plantin is our friend Bob ALPRA and deserves our support. Jack de Lasartesse vs. Bernard Vignal (aired 8/24/68) I wish this had aired in full as Rene Lasartesse was probably the best heel in Europe at this point. Andre Bollet vs. Jacky Weicz (aired 8/24/68) I must be in an agreeable mood 'cos I didn't hate this like I thought I would. It was more needling than Catch, but I thought it was pretty tight. Bollet was less sluggish than in other matches from this time frame, and Weicz had plenty of fire. I could live with this. Pedro Cabrera/Albert Sanniez vs. Tony Martino/Bernard Caclard (aired 8/31/68) God bless the light weights. Best French match I've seen in a while. Great action, crisp pacing, good character work. No real crazy heat or fights in the crowd, but a proper Catch match that looks like a tag form of the gateway drug that was Catanzaro vs Cesca, and it features the great Albert Sanniez early in his career, and the great Tony Martino, whose name needs to be on more lips. Fab.

I'm almost two years in Mike Baron's Punisher run and it's just so... episodic. There's no overarching storyline. Nothing of consequence seems to happen. Even Microchip's kid dying didn't have any long term ramifications. And for a title that was presumably hot at the time, they didn't seem to give two craps about who was drawing it, handing out assignments to young talent like Whilce Portacio and Erik Larsen. I'll tell you one other thing: Jim Shooter may have been the guy who created the mandate about characters re-introducing themselves to the reader each issue, but Tom DeFalco continued to fly the banner high. It amuses me at times the parts of the story where Baron slots it in. I do kind of dig reading a comic from 1989, though, which was my first full year of reading comics. And I laughed at the issue where the Punisher goes to Australia and Baron tries to paint King's Cross as the most deadly place on earth.

Great match. This was a revancha that started off like they were already in the third caida, and never let up. Really intense trios wrestling. Every exchange felt like they were fighting for the pinfall or submission. There was very little in the way of flashy moves or showmanship. This was all about winning the match. One of the more memorable Virus performances of the year. He really shone in this environment. Definite MOTYC as far as trios matches go. One of the top lucha matches as well. Make sure you watch the first match as well to get the full effect. And a Monterrey match without any bullshit! It's a Christmas miracle!

This was a fascinating match up. Perro Jr, who we know is going to be a force in lucha for several years to come, vs a game, but past his prime, El Dandy. The action is excellent, and Dandy is having a good night, but there's so much fucking about. I swear there's more fucking about in a Monterrey match than in an Attitude Era main event. Fast forward through the bullshit if you watch this one.

This was pretty average. The only parts I liked were when Benoit was on offense, but of course they had to go with the narrative of Brock dominating and Benoit working his second match of the night. Brock was a good worker in 2003, but we've seen him work this kind of match several times and he didn't add anything new here. The ref bump and visual tap out were cliched, and even Benoit passing out instead of tapping out felt empty. I would have liked more of a straight up match with more striking and matwork.

Lucha was neglected for a long time, so I don't mind the tide turning there. Were Rocco's cheerleaders at it again? I guess they are officially trying to make Rocco one of the most overrated wrestlers of all time.

It's basically a comedy series, which was pretty radical for an X-book. It's especially weird when you consider that X-Force, the big early 90s spin-off, turned into a parody book.

I also finished X-Statix. The series never really lived up to that incredible first issue of X-Force, but it was still a lot of fun and a fairly daring thing for Marvel to publish. The best thing about it was that it allowed Mike Allred to play around with the Marvel characters. The series had a Giffen/DeMatteis feel to it at times, which I liked, but it was a bit too "on the nose" with its satire at times. That, and the fact that I don't really give a crap about celebrity culture, so it didn't really wow me in that respect. But mostly it was really hard to top that debut issue.

I finished Charles Burns’ Black Hole, which was published over a lengthy period of time from 1995 to 2005, first by Kitchen Sink Press, and then when they went out of business, picked up by Fantagraphics. Darker in tone than a lot of Burns’ early work, it retains the elements of surrealism you’d expect from Burns’ work but without the quirky, offbeat humour. Set in the 70s, it tells the story of a group of teenagers who catch a mysterious STD that causes strange mutations. It’s basically a metaphor for adolescence, sexual awakening, and coming of age, and largely focused on atmospherics over plot. The most striking feature of the book is the black and white art. Burns won the Harvey Award for Best Inker several times during the book’s publication, which is impressive given the black and white work of other artists during the time frame. The story isn’t as weird as it may seem at a glance, and the topic isn’t as weighty as a lot of other graphic novels at the time, but as a feat of cartooning, it rates as a seminal work among 80s and 90s cartoonists. Definitely worth a read for people who enjoy 90s comics as much as Ido. Burns, like many of his contemporaries, shifted to graphic novels after Black Hole was completed, and thus it represents one of the last floppy series of perhaps my favorite era of alternative comics. Paul Pope's Batman: Year 100 is okay. I prefer the projects Pope did for Vertigo (Heavy Liquid and 100%), and I actually kind of like the Batman stories he did in his issue of Solo more. Year 100 was all right as far as alternative cartoonist doing a mainstream superhero goes, but it didn't really add much to the Batman experience. Personally, I'm not that interested in seeing Batman in the future. I prefer modern reworkings of old Golden Age stories to future, Elseworlds stories. Pope draws a very distinctive Batman, though. He really plays up the bat element. He even has Batman use fake teeth to make himself look like more of a creature. I can understand why the series has its fans, but I'm far more interested in hunting down THB. I haven't read enough from this century to tell whether Asterios Polyp is the best work that's been produced thus far, but it's a major feat in cartooning. I think I may have mentioned that I was disappointed when David Mazzucchelli ditched penciling mainstream superhero comics to become an alternative cartoonist, largely because the change in style was so drastic, but it led a masterpiece. Mazzucchelli is one of the few artists who can claim to have created important works at both ends of the spectrum.

Not a match I'd usually watch, but I wanted to see out the year with some Danielson. Neat opener. I've never seen the Briscoes before. This had an old-school feel to it. Danielson actually reminded me quite a bit of Backlund in this match. Briscoe hung with Danielson in a fundamentally sound way that reminded you of studio matches of days gone by. Danielson didn't do anything terribly amazing, but I liked the flow here. I'm glad I decided it to watch it.

This was a great looking match on paper but was mostly a mediocre brawl with not one, but two, referee stretcher jobs. There was some slick running between the ropes from Felino and Black Tiger, and Casas vs. Wagner was good when they weren't busy fluffing about, but the finish was the kind of abject nonsense that makes people hate Monterrey. The ref started running the ropes like a madman and hit Wagner with a clothesline then counted the pin. The crowd loved it, which I guess should count for something, but how many great matches on paper have been ruined by Monterrey BS. I should know better at this point, but even if the matches are rarely above house show level, you still think there's going to be that one gem that slips through the cracks. Forgettable year for Negro Casas. The next time someone says he was one of the best in the world for every year of his career, call them out on it.

This was a fun, albeit predictable, television match. They played up the dynamic well. Rey seemed to have a bit of difficult hitting his usual counters on Brock, or maybe Brock wasn't used to taking hurricanranas. I quite liked the realistic finish. There was no shame in Rey losing to Brock, and I was pleased that Brock didn't need any gimmickry to defeat Rey. Won't get anywhere near MOTY for me personally, but definitely worth watching.

This was better than I expected given that Ogawa sucks and I've been generally down on Kawada of late. I liked how reckless and loose it felt. Given how poor inter-promotional matches are in the 00s, and how shitty the build up was with the emphasis on "mic performances" (the Japanese version of promos), they at least gave us a genuine fight. I didn't agree with the booking decisions (the restart and finish), but I was engrossed by the action, which I didn't think would happen. Fun match.

I appreciated the fact that they gave us a huge title fight on the final RAW of the year. As far as the wrestling went, Michaels' offence looked terrible in the early going and the match was much better when Triple H was in control no matter what people think of his poor man's Harley Race schtick. Triple H's haircut was weird. It reminded me of when I finally cut my hair in the late 90s and tried to keep some of the length. Michael's thinning hairline was also pretty off-putting. I spent a chunk of the match being weirded out by their hair. Eventually, I was suckered into the WWE melodrama that they do so well, especially when JR and the King were still around. It was a great crowd, which always helps. But, in typical WWE fashion, they couldn't pull the plug on Michaels winning the title in his hometown and had to get all cutesy with the finish. I couldn't give two shits about Bischoff at this point, and even Austin returning wasn't anything special. The real drama was in the finishing stretch and they shat all over it with the booking. Michaels' facial expressions were hilariously bad. I respect his comeback in general, but he's such a shitty actor. For a free TV match, this was a nice end of year gift, but I could have done without the Dusty finish.

I’m thankful I ain’t Ricky Rude.

Not best of seven, but Flair and Regal had that best of five Marquis of Queensbury cup, and I wanna say that Rick Rude and Dustin Rhodes had a best of three series. The problem with declaring a best of seven series is that you're telegraphing that it'll go seven.

Mark Rocco vs. Ashura Hara (10/4/79) I'm not a big fan of Rocco in Japan, but if he's wrestling as himself and his opponent is the great Ashura Hara, then I'm there. It's obvious watching this that Rocco doesn't know how he should wrestle in Japan considering he was on a tear in the UK. That said, the audience really only pops for Hara's nearfalls so maybe it was a tough crowd. Hara is awesome. Rocco probably could have done more to stand out.

Mile Zrno & Charly Verhulst vs. Ashura Hara & Jiro Inazuma (Gerry Morrow) IWE 5/9/1979 I'm a little upset that Jetlag didn't tell me he uploaded a Zrno vs Hara tag, and it has Charly Verhulst to boot! Zrno vs. Hara is one of the greatest match-ups in pro-wrestling history. I wish they had wrestled as many times as Flair and Steamboat. Verhulst was a better world traveler than the likes of Steve Wright, and Hara should be remembered as one of the great juniors. That is all.