ohtani's jacket

I will try to watch Tito/Bockwinkel over the weekend.

Yeah, Owen had the Bret match, but if he'd been a more ambitious worker, I doubt he would have felt it was *his* match, or the best he could do. It's possible that Arn could have had that sort of match, but so could everyone theoretically. If you look at Arn's career, I think it's pretty clear that it was unlikely to happen.

I don't think we were meant to do much against England were we? It's not really the same side that won the Test championship. We had a couple of good sessions. England played a lot of positive cricket thanks to their New Zealand coach and captain Anyway, you lot get a turn now.

Id like to know what Raven envisions as his best match, as I fail to see how he didn’t get the opportunities in ECW or ROH. I can only imagine his ideal is either something more than a brawl or an impossibly high standard. Does Raven have a self-depreciating view of his own work, or does he have an over-inflated opinion of himself as a worker? "I never had my best match" could mean a lot of things. It’s hard for me to imagine Regal having better matches than he did. I wonder how exactly they were supposed to be better. Seems like wishful thinking.

Did he explain why he never had his best match? Perhaps he simply wasn't capable of it. He certainly had the opportunities. There are a lot of great workers that come to mind (Owen Hart, Steve Regal, Arn Anderson), who I don't believe were capable of more. Would I be surprised to discover a great match of theirs I haven't seen? No. Would I be surprised to discover their best match ever? You betcha. It's easy to imagine a mindblowing Tito Santana classic, but anybody can have mindblowing classics in your imagination. The reality is that they weren't having mindblowing classics and weren't likely to ever have them. Maybe if some promoter somewhere booked them as the centerpiece of the promotion, or they wrestled in a magical void where there were no limits to what they could accomplish, but a lot of great workers that are technically great can't work big enough to have the great of heralded matches we're talking about. I'm not sure you'd even want them do. Regal working a small match against another great worker or working a big match against Shawn Michaels? Which would you prefer to see?

I finished Martin Wagner's Hepcats. Ed Piskor unfairly shat on this series when Cartoonist Kayfabe were going through Palmer's Picks in an old Wizard mag. Wagner was a friend of Dave Sim's, and part of that small wave of self-publishers that grew up around Sim and clashed with Gary Groth all the time. Hepcats started off as a story about anthropomorphic college buddies and grew into a more ambitious story when one of their girlfriends tried to commit suicide and we slowly discovered the harrowing details about her past. On the surface, it was "famous" for showing nudity and having anthropomorphic characters have sex, but there was more to it than that. Unfortunately, like most self-published titles it was beset by poor sales and production delays and only lasted 12 issues. I actually read the reprint series, which contained new material and was supposed to restart the series with issue 13, but issue 13 never happened, and Wagner left the comics industry instead. Kind of a shame as I thought Hepcats had the potential to go down as one of the seminal books of the 90s instead of a footnote. There's an argument to be made that the writing was shallow. I wouldn't go that far, but I do think Wagner was still finding his voice. He only made 12 issues. Can you imagine how well regarded Cerebus would be today if it only lasted 12 issues? I couldn't find a lot of fault with the art. Wagner used a lot of cross hatching and screentone, and never short changed the reader on background details. In fact, he probably would have been a lot faster if like Sim, he had someone else doing the backgrounds. I'm not a huge fan of the way Wagner's anthropomorphic characters look, but then again, I'm not a fan of how Sim's humans look, so I can live with that. There's not a whole lot to recommend as Wagner never finished the series, but if you're interested in the early 90s period of creator-owned comics (Bone, Cerebus, A Distant Soil, Strangers in Paradise, etc.), it's worth checking out.

Haven't seen much of the lead-up to this. Not sure if that's because US tape traders had a hard time getting the shows from Mexico or because folks aren't interested in uploading 2003 CMLL. It doesn't really make much difference. Shocker is the rudo, Vampiro is the tecnico, and that's about all you need to know. Amazing atmosphere for this match. Makes you think they should have waited until the Anniversary Show to run this. Then again, CMLL don't always save their best match for the Anniversary Show, and it has been known to peak during the first quarter of the season, as was the case with Atlantis/Villano in 2000. Vampiro wore a gi to the fight. Did he think this was a MMA fight? Maybe I'm missing something and he was working out at a MMA gym at the time. He did try to incorporate a few MMA spots into the bout. Maybe he was doing the while Undertaker "MMA fan" shtick. Come to think of it, there's quite a few parallels between Vampiro and Undertaker. It makes you wonder whether Vampiro was trying to mimic Undertaker's career. Remember when Undertaker began having so many good good matches that people thought, "Hey, wait a second, maybe Undertaker is actually a good worker?" Could the same thing be happening with Vampiro? Shitting on Vampiro used to be a thing, but I don't see how anyone could watch this match and not come to the conclusion that Vampiro has improved. Compare it to Vampiro vs. Pirata from '92 and tell me Vampiro isn't a better worker in '03. The match was largely a hybrid between lucha apuesta brawling and American indy wrestling. It was very move heavy for a lucha match, and Shocker did a lot of things that you wouldn't see a luchador ordinarily do. I mean all of this in the best possible way. Shocker was fantastic throughout, and I thought his second fall comeback was brilliant, especially the punch to the face that cut Vampiro off on the apron. This may have been Shocker at the height of his powers. From the moment he hit the ring, he was intensity personified. I'm not sure why Shocker left CMLL when he did, and can't be bothered digging for the answer right now, but watching this match, you think you'd be looking at a guy who's going to headline Arena Mexico for at least another decade. Two things stood out about the match to me -- first was the length and second was how dramatic it was. We see a lot of luchadores work half-assed, generic mano a mano or apuesta matches in the 2000s, and we're quick to chalk it up as "the modern style," but here Vampiro and Shocker worked a very modern apuesta match that the crowd fully dug. So perhaps the veterans are being lazy and failing to adapt, or perhaps the promotion isn't fully behind some of the other matches. In any event, Shocker and Vampiro showed you can still have a great apuesta match if the promotion's prepared to give you the time, and you're prepared to put in the work. This is going to take some beating for Lucha MOTY, and has to rank among the best matches of the year. Certainly, one of the best big matches. The match was so good that the crowd kind of forgot that Shocker was a rudo and cheered for him like a national hero, and that's against a tecnico who's insanely over in Arena Mexico. That's how good the bout was.

Man, Mysterio's son was 6 years old here. That'll make you feel old. Mysterio was a great television match worker. One of the best ever. But this was an extremely generic television match. In fact, the only reason it's remotely memorable is that Mysterio pulls off the victory and beats Matt Hardy for the Cruiserweight championship despite a dodgy groin and some outside interference from some shmucks. Matt Hardy was a boring worker who tried hard to be a clever and cerebral worker. He had no business being a cruiserweight and was taking up someone else's spot in the division. That said, you've got wrestle whomever they put you up against. It can't be Rey vs. Eddie every week. From that perspective, both guys were pros. I just didn't care for how generic it was. Especially for a title match where Mysterio was supposed to get the big hometown pop.

This was underwhelming. If the old adage that styles make fights is true, then these two are too similar to have a great fight. The stalemate stuff in the beginning was boring, and then they cranked it up without taking me along for the ride. Crappy finish too. I like AJ Styles a hell of a lot more than I ever thought I would, but this was not a great AJ Styles match by my reckoning.

Holy shit, what an awesome match. This had the best start to a match I've seen in ages. The crowd was absolutely brilliant in the way they willed Taue on. To the seasoned viewer, it was obvious that Nagata was going to weather the storm and work his way back into the match, but it's been a long time since I've seen a heat segment like that. It had the same kind of heat that you'd find in a finishing stretch. Nagata's comeback wasn't spectacular, but it was well-built, and Taue sold his demise like an absolute champ. That was his All Japan pedigree rising to the top. I didn't know I love the Nagata locks so much. Maybe I don't. Maybe it was Taue's selling, but those were fantastic looking spots and Taue sold them beautifully. Taue worked so hard in this match only for it to all slip away, but what a cracking bout. One of the best Japanese matches of the decade thus far.

The board swallowed my last post, so let's try this again... Barry Windham vs. Jake Roberts (1982) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Windham has his nose taped like Virgil in this one. It was pretty good while it lasted, but I wanted Jake to work over Windham's nose a bit more. I would have loved to have seen Jake DDT Windham on his nose, but I don't think Jake was doing the DDT at this point. His big move was a knee lift, which he used to collect the bounty on Windham in the last match I saw. Decent footage. Shades of Pillman/Windham. Cowboy Ron Bass vs. Jake Roberts (1983) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- hey look, it's Outlaw Ron Bass, the man who got me hooked on professional wrestling when he raked Beefcake's face with his spur. Considering the importance the man had in my life, I've seen precious little footage of him. I'm not sure where he ranks in the pantheon of cowboy wrestlers, but he seemed like a decent hoss to me. Jake was strangely subdued in this and was mostly there to get his ass kicked. OK footage. Kevin Sullivan & Jake Roberts vs.Terry Allen & Scott McGhee (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- I didn't know that Jake was one of Sullivan's men in Florida. This was a decent competitive squash with Allen and McGhee getting a few licks in before doing the job. Decent footage. Barry Windham Promo On Kevin Sullivan & Jake Roberts (1982) -- Windham struggles through a promo with Dusty right by his side. I dunno what Dusty was thinking, but he placed a hand on WIndham's shoulder for support. Fans like us kind of take promos for granted, but man, awkward pure babyface promos are a nightmare if you lack confidence on the mic. Especially when you're trying to double down and act dead serious. Nothing special. Barry Windham vs Jake Roberts (Kevin Sullivan & Angelo Mosca Attack Windham!) (1983) (CWF) -- this had some decent brawling before the interference. I wish we could get a proper length Windham/Roberts match in full. Sullivan looked like an idiot with his pink and blue hair. I thought he was supposed to be the creepy leader of a Satanic cult. Go tattoo your forehead or something. OK footage. Brian Blair vs. Jake 'The Snake' Roberts (1982) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Roberts and Blair went toe to toe in this one. Blair was clearly the better wrestler, but Roberts knew a few holds of his own and had plenty of ring smarts. They were given plenty of time here and had a strong showing. Blair is such an underrated worker. I guess he lacked the charisma to go far beyond the tag ranks, but it's not that difficult to imagine an alternate universe where territory wrestling doesn't die out and you still have Florida in the late 80s and early 90s with Blair as your heavyweight champion. Good footage.

This was OK. The first two falls were generic, modern style mano a mano wrestling, and were a bit disappointing given the level that these two can work at. The third fall was a lot better. It was one of those tercera caidas where one of the guys is going over clean so the loser puts a ton of effort into the fall. They started digging deeper into their offensive bags, and there was a lot more selling than they bothered to do in the first two falls. There are times when you're watching mano a manos where you have to remind yourself that it's only a mano a mano and you shouldn't expect too much, but the tercera here was pretty close to an apuestas level tercera. There were a very sloppy, awkward moments, but some great near falls as well. At the end of the day, the match was completely unnecessary, and I'm not sure why they even ran it, but I'd have to say that it overdelivered on the build while falling well short of their previous singles matches.

This was pretty good. It was really slow going in the beginning, then got super hot in the third fall before falling apart down the stretch. The problem I have with these early Danielson matches is that it always seems like he's trying too hard. Here it felt like he was trying too hard to have an old-school 2/3 falls match like Steamboat/Flair. Then I get into this conundrum where I start questioning myself about why I'm faulting him for trying to be a great worker, and just when I start thinking that maybe I'm judging him unfairly or reacting to things other people say about him, he does something that's way too "on the nose" like he's clearly trying to show everyone that he's a great pro-wrestler. What generally ends up happening is that there are moments of inspired character work and genuinely good ring-work and moments where I feel like I'm watching some sort of message board inspired pro-wrestling. It would help if the ROH commentators didn't bludgeon me to death with how great everything is, but basically a lot of the moments that people say are great character or heel work don't resonate for me. I did love that period after the second fall where they ratcheted up the intensity. That was some great pro-wrestling. I kind of wish that more of the bout had been worked in that vein.

Finally, a kickass Hashimoto match from the 2000s! And it only took three years. We'll overlook the fact that it's basically two New Japan guys having a New Japan match in an All Japan ring since All Japan didn't mean much at this point. What a great match. Vintage Hashimoto. I would put it on par with just about any match he had in New Japan. Man, if you had told me that Satoshi Kojima would emerge as a key guy in early 00s wrestling, I would have clicked x on the browser as fast as my chubby little fingers can carry me. But the dude has emerged. A lot of guys ride high on the wave when business is good, but to flourish in a crappy puro scene like this takes a special type of commitment. I don't know how long this run of his lasts, but my opinion of him has skyrocketed. This might actually be one of my favorite matches of the decade thus far simply because it delivered the type of performance I've been looking for from Hashimoto ever since the Ogawa debacle. The fact that he hasn't been having these types of matches in Zero-1 tells me Kojima played a big part in igniting a performance like this from Hashimoto. And that's left me feeling like one happy camper.

Tenryu's wife has passed away after a battle with lung cancer.

I have been known to gush over Steve Grey on occasion. As far as I'm concerned, he is a great worker from the time he emerges on television in the mid-70s up until the end of wrestling on ITV. I'm not sure how much handheld work of his exists after that point, and I never got around to watching the matches he had later on in the 00s. There are at least 10 years of Steve Grey on tape being just about the best pro-wrestler imaginable. He obviously never worked heel, but he was one of the all-time great babyfaces, one of the great television match workers, and one of the great title match workers, and those three things go a long way in my book.

Another uninspiring match between these teams. I guess I kind of take it for granted that luchadores can fall out of bed and have an awesome lead in match. Superb lead in matches clearly require a greater level of effort and intensity than was shown here. You can't accuse the workers of not trying. To a certain extent, it wasn't their fault. The match was too short and felt rushed. The comebacks and turning points carried little weight. Universo was an awkward fit and didn't jell with Niebla. Worst of all, Atlantis and Wagner looked like cartoon characters shaking their fists at each other. There was no real hatred, and no reason for the wrestlers to be incensed. It's hard enough working a brawling trios without any hatred, let alone a bout that's meant to signal an apuestas match. A low blow, or a mask getting ripped or torn off, doesn't really cut it as far as motivation goes. You need to try harder if you're going to convince us that you hate each other. It's easy to blame Wagner for being lazy, but these types of apuestas feuds aren't exactly Atlantis' forte. Wagner needed to show more of a mean streak. I don't have high hopes for their singles match at this point, which is a shame because I thought they did some really underrated stuff together in the early 00s. I'll be surprised if the mano a mano is a continuation of those matches given the misfires in the lead in bouts; but you never know, maybe they'll work their magic together one more time. I can see it not being given a lot of time, though.

I can't remember why they decided to run this match back, but I thought it was a pretty average WWE main event. I didn't realize about Austin's health problems prior to the match, though. That's some scary shit. Greatest Hits package is a good way to describe this. I didn't find it very engaging, but I also had the attitude of "Eh, it's the Rock vs. Austin. I don't really wanna see this." Nothing they did changed my mind. The part where Rock wore Austin's jacket was stupid. Lawler and JR were mediocre on commentary, and even the finish didn't really draw me in. I can see it being different for other folks, though, especially if the Attitude Era means anything to you. I kind of feel like there were too many big matches on this Wrestlemania card. That might be looking a gift horse in the mouth considering how utterly forgettable the previous year was, but it's kind of exhausting watching all of these matches where the workers have personal vendettas against each other. I would have picked one or two and given the workers more time, but I guess they were cramming all the Smackdown and RAW storylines onto one show. As far as finales go, this was a decent swan song for Austin, but I do think it's a bit weird that Rock doesn't really a proper revenge for Wrestlemania X-Seven because this time it's Rock that's the heel. It's always weird when the heel goes over in a big match, and even the respect moment at the end couldn't really hide the "Oh wow, Austin lost" reaction among some of the fans. I'm pretty sure Austin would have gotten a much bigger pop if he'd countered that last Rock Bottom and hit a stunner. But that's sports.

This was such a badass spotfest. Jody Fleish is one of the flippiest flippers who ever did flip, but every flip is punctuated with an absolutely brutal counter. One of the most interesting things about Low Ki is that he could work small and take on the light heavyweights or work big and take the fight to bigger dudes. I prefer the latter, but if he's going to work junior spotfests like this at least he gets to kick ass. There may not be a better junior in wrestling at this stage than Low Ki, and it's not even his best work. Let that sink in for a moment. Dude has to be top 5 in the US at this point.

Hey look, Atlantis and Wagner have reignited their beef just so they can remind us how cool it would be if they had a mask match. Unfortunately, the match is a bit of a scrappy affair. There are some good moments between Tiger and Warrior, and some decent moments between Atlantis and Wagner, but it's a bit of a mess otherwise and ends with a low blow. Granted, it's quite creative by low blow standards, but it's still a shitty low blow. I was kind of hoping that this would have more pop to it.

The 5/3/95 Hashimoto vs. Mutoh match has the kind of matwork that most people would say goes nowhere and is a waste of time. I'd be inclined to think those folks are expecting too much from New Japan matwork, but just as Hashimoto is starting to do some interesting armwork on Mutoh, they drop it and never touch the mat again. They don't even tease a big armbar submission or anything like that. They basically start running the ropes, which leads to bigger moves like suplexes. You can almost seem the clogs in their minds move as they run about. Now, I don't mind how simple the bouts are. I prefer simple New Japan heavyweight bouts to workers trying to outdo themselves with excessively long bouts. However, this had Mutoh's stamp all over it and came across as somewhat erratic. He had this weird vagabond beard and was obsessed with using a three quarter stance against Hashimoto's kicks. He looked jumpy the entire bout like he was on something. And he blew the finish. It wasn't a bad bout, but I would have preferred a match where Hashimoto was this impossible mountain for Mutoh to climb rather than Mutoh balling. It felt like Mutoh controlled too much of the bout to me and wasn't in peril enough. The action was more than okay, but the layout could have been better.

I finished the first arc of Strangers in Paradise. I was surprised by how violent it was. I was expecting some sort of slice-of-life relationship drama like Maggie and Hopey, but instead there was a crime fiction element to the story. It had its moments, but I wasn't a fan of the poetry and prose, and I thought the final chapter was weak. I also managed to finish Bendis' run on Daredevil, which was very good, and at times excellent. It didn't really break any new ground as it was more or less an extended take on Born Again, but I liked the way that Bendis did a deep dive into Matt's psyche, and I thought he did some really cool things with the comic book form. I especially liked the storyline that was basically a group of people sitting around in a support meeting. I really liked Batman and the Monster Men. I'm sure some people might find the idea of taking a single issue Golden Age story and turning it into a six issue mini series to be of dubious merit, but I really like Matt Wagner's version of Batman and he has a great feel for the era. Personally, I found it to be one of the more interesting Batman stories I've read in a while. Darwyn Cooke's DC: The New Frontier wound up being one of the best things I've read in quite some time. I don't have a strong affinity for DC Silver Age characters, so I don't know how others would view his take on the era, but I thought it was fantastic. I wasn't sure at first whether I liked his Batman: The Animated Series style artwork, but he won me over by the end of the first issue and I wound up loving it. I haven't read Kingdom Come, but I thought it was easily better than James Robinson's The Golden Age and one of the best superhero books I've read in a mightily long time. I also finished Tyrant. I really loved that book. Just a fascinating and brilliant concept. It's a crying shame that Bissette couldn't finish it. Apparently, it's somewhat outdated in what paleontologists think dinosaur life was truly like, but I thought it was a riveting piece of work. The other series I finished this month was Terminal City, which was decent but somewhat confusing. I still have trouble following Dean Motter's writing at times. Nice art by Michael Lark, though. I also read the first Lucifer mini-series, which was okay but didn't leave me hankering to read the ongoing series. Not just yet. Howard Chaykin and Jose Luis García-Lopez' Twilight was really good. The story is a bit dense, but you really get to see Garcia-Lopez cut loose and show his penciling chops. I was super impressed. There's a couple of other lesser known projects of his I'm hoping to check out where I'm hoping he does the same. I started reading Maze Agency, which is charming, and I reached the point where Shade, the Changing Man starts getting good after a rough first year that is somewhat similar to the first Sandman storyline or the early Hellblazer in terms of being a little shaky.

Tarzan Goto passed away yesterday.

I do not get the appeal of Tamon Honda. I wish I did 'cos then I'd have one more wrestler to love. Maybe someday. I will say that Olympic Hell is a badass move, and it was cool watching him make a tough nut like Saito submit.

I was totally ready to crap on these guys for trying too hard, but I actually thought they produced a solid match. WWE Jericho is a much better worker than I ever remembered or gave him credit for, and I don't really have any knock on Michaels' comeback work. I thought this was similar to Michaels vs. RVD in terms of Michaels showing his ability to work a straight singles match vs a garbage-y brawl. They did some Ricky Steamboat style wrestling to start with. Not my favorite style of wrestling, but they pulled it off fairly well. The match built to a finisher contest, as so many of these WWF matches do, but for a finisher that is fairly lame (The Walls of Jericho), I thought they did a good job of getting me invested. For a regular match, and not some overblown Wrestlemania classic, I thought they drew tremendous heat from the stadium crowd. Hard not to view this as a success. Jericho had to be buzzing afterward. I thought this was better than Angle/Lesnar and possibly the best match on the card.