ohtani's jacket

This was more of an angle than a match. Tarzan Boy jumped Shocker as Shocker was entering the ring, and when Vampiro arrived to pull Tarzan Boy off Shocker, Shocker shoved Vampiro out of the way and began attacking Tarzan Boy with punches. He tore Tarzan Boy's tights off to reveal a knee brace and began stomping away at the knee. The refs DQ'ed Shocker for using excessive violence, and Shocker and Vampiro got into a heated confrontation. There was a lot of pushing, and shoving and swiping at each other. Tarzan Boy had to be carried away on a stretcher. I'm not sure if the knee problem was real or not, but in any event, this was how they wrote him out of the Vampiro feud. It seemed that Shocker turned rudo based on the crowd support for Vampiro. Vampiro was in disbelief for most of the angle. To be fair, things did escalate quickly. I'm not sure if turning Shocker rudo was the right move for the company, but I am interested in how he performs in the feud.

There is some 60s McManus in the hands of private collectors, and presumably some more in the ITV Sports faults, but nothing that can be accessed with paying an arm and a leg.

Barry Windham Pins Ric Flair! (1982) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Flair is doing a wrestling workout on television with a pair of jobbers. He gets bored and challenges Barry Windham to wrestle him. Windham gets the better of him twice, and Flair snaps and attacks him. Barry gets the pin off a flying lariat, and Flair goes suitably berserk. To be honest, I thought it would have been cooler if Windham had pinned Flair during the workout. Flair was in amazing shape in '82 and really good at the amateur stuff. Decent footage. Dusty Rhodes vs. Dory Funk Jr. (May 12th, 1981) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Dory vs Dusty isn't the first match-up that comes to mind when thinking of late 70s-early 80s wrestling, but this looked pretty good. Great soundbite at the end from Dusty: "I hate Terry Funk. I hate Dory Funk. I hate Daddy Funk, and I hate Mother Funk. I hate all the Funks. There has never been a doubt that I was a Funk hater." Good stuff. Jake Roberts Breaks Barry Windham's Nose (August 25th, 1982) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Man, it's weird seeing Jake Roberts in trunks. I didn't know that Roberts broke Windham's nose. Then again, I guess there's a lot of stuff about territory wrestling I'm unaware of. Great angle. I had no idea Jake was a great promo as early as '82. He's upset at only getting 10 minutes for his match and takes it out on Windham, who takes a terrific looking bump from a running knee lift. Great stuff. Taped Fist Match: 'Nitro' Eric Embry vs. Cyclon Negro (1982) @The Sportatorium -- Pretty cool TV match. Props to whoever gave Cyclon Negro and Embry the greenlight to work a taped fist match in a studio bout. Embry had some strong flurries, but Negro was much too tough for him. Good stuff. Bunkhouse Match: Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair (June 15th, 1982) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Flair is wrestling in a white shirt with no pants kind of like Tom Cruise in Risky Business. Dusty busts out a butterfly suplex from nowhere and wins with a Japanese guillotine. I guess Dusty got a bit serious where the NWA title was concerned. Decent footage.

Juan Sepeda vs. Joe Pazandak Interestingly, this episode of Main Event Wrestling from Hollywood Legion Stadium didn't feature any flashy gimmicks, but it did have three clear heel vs babyface matches featuring roughly the same archetypes. Of the three heels, I thought Pazandak was clearly the best. Perhaps not the best stooge of the three, but definitely the best wrestler. Not only was he a great wrestler, but he looked like a right hard bastard as well. Tough as nails, dishing out the fish hooks along with the wristlocks. If he'd been a British wrestler, I could totally imagine wanting to see all of his four round television showcases. He did a fantastic job of jawing with the two hens at ringside as well. Sepeda looked good, and I especially loved the finish to the second fall, but this was a Parandak feature bout and he was the one who shone.

This is pretty good. They did some of the things that I want to see from Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar, but they had to contend with the fact that it was a stadium match and a crowd that wanted to see video game wrestling. They gave them plenty of that, but there were some neat touches here and there that suggested perhaps a smaller venue, or a TV bout maybe, might produce the sort of bout I want from these guys. I'm not actually sure whether Lesnar was good enough at this stage to deliver the type of work I'm talking about, as Angle seemed to be the one working in all the clever touches, but to be honest, I thought this had the potential to bomb and they definitely avoided that misfortune. The SSP left a sour taste in the mouth, and they could've done with a better finishing sequence if they really wanted to knock one out of the park, but they survived a horrendous botch and pulled off a difficult match in a tight spot going on last on a Wrestlemania show. Not bad, all things considered.

This was business as usual with no signs of any Vampiro & Shocker dissension yet. In fact, it seemed like they were testing the waters for a Tarzan Boy/Vampiro feud. Vampiro had defeated Tarzan Boy for the NWA World Light Heavyweight title on a Coliseo show, and Vampiro came to the ring flaunting the belt. This match served as a return bout for that result plus Tarzan Boy's interference in the Shocker/Ultimo bout the week before, and it basically saw Vampiro toss Tarzan Boy around like an absolute rag doll. The Infernales held Vampiro down in a Jesus Christ pose while Tarzan Boy got his licks in, which you know Vampiro sold for all he was worth. The ref DQ'ed the rudos, as they usually do in these situations, and Vampiro spent the rest of the bout chucking Tarzan Boy around the ring. It was cool looking, but I was legit worried for TB's safety at times. The match ended with Vampiro issuing a title vs. hair challenge. Not sure how that works, or how or why they transition to Vampiro vs. Shocker, but it's nice to have a storyline to follow.

I quite enjoyed the 12/93 Hashimoto/Mutoh match. Mutoh spent the early part trying to take away Hashimoto's arm and leg, and Hashimoto grew increasingly frustrated at not being able to make any inroads in the match. Mutoh worked a strong defensive match, which makes sense when you're facing a guy with Hashimoto's striking power. Hash came off second best on one of their offensive flurries and bust his nose open. The blood trickling down his face seemed to add to his frustration, and you had a strong sense that things weren't going his way in the match. Even when they started trading near falls, Hash never stopped selling what a struggle the bout was. He wound up putting Mutoh away, but it took a huge effort and he had to battle to get the win. It wasn't a great match by either man's standards, but I'm not sure they were really shooting for an all out epic. I think they probably would have added extra near falls and made the finishing stretch longer if they were trying to go that route. Instead, what we got was an enjoyable and fairly realistic encounter between the two, which in some ways, was quite refreshing. There was no real overkill, in part because 90s wrestling was still on its upswing and the workers hadn't exhausted the audience yet but also because they didn't oversell any of the aspects I spoke about. Just a straight forward, enjoyable Hashimoto match.

Wait a second, the '95 Hashimoto/Mutoh match is a great match with one of the all-time great cinematic endings in a pro-wrestling match. They had another match in '95 that got 4 stars in the WON which I haven't seen, and now I kind of feel like watching their '93 match. 2000s Hashimoto has been extremely disappointing for me. I agree that Hashimoto has a short peak, though I would extend it to '89-98 because I like his early work a lot. I also want to add that I haven't watched every random Hashimoto match ever because New Japan is a boring promotion. I also have no problem with a short peak. It's better to have peaked than to have never peaked at all. I haven't been to this world where Nagata is a better pro-wrestler than Hashimoto but perhaps I will visit there someday.

Hopefully, Jetlag will chime in because he's been watching a lot of that stuff recently. I personally loved a lot of the OZ Academy vs. GAEA matches from '96-97 that revolved around Ozaki & girls vs. Chigusa & girls. If you're going to watch Chigusa from this period, it's probably better to start with Chigusa in tags and six-mans. Originally, a lot of these matches were clipped or JIP, but fortunately, GAEA's official YouTube channel has begun uploading full matches. It's worth noting that Chigusa's style changed again in the 90s. She became more a bruiser -- you hit me, I'll hit you, and we'll see who hits harder. This is particularly true against the younger girls where the vets are always screaming at them to hit them harder. You don't get the great babyface work of the Crush Girls era or the shoot style-influenced workrate of the late 80s. It's not for everyone, especially if you love 80s babyface Chigusa, but it represents a big chunk of her career (at least a third of it), so it's worth sampling.

At some point in the mid to late 80s, Chigusa made the conscious decision to move away from the super babyface idol role to something of a more serious pro-wrestler. It wasn't something that happened over night. She had always been a serious wrestler even at the height of the Dump feud, but there was a gradual transformation that saw her put on weight and start incorporating shoot style influences. This would eventually spawn imitators like Hotta and Yamada. The Chigusa from '88-89 was very different from the Chigusa from '84. When she made her comeback in '93, she was even heavier. She didn't really have a home at first. It doesn't seem that AJW were all that keen on using her, or that she was all that keen on working with them. I can't remember if AJW had scrapped their early retirement rule by then, but in any event the initial idea was that Chigusa would "invade" JWP, so to speak, and go through a series of wrestlers until she got to Kansai. They sold it like stages in a video game. Unfortunately, it didn't really pan out like a video game. Perhaps JWP didn't want Chigusa going over all of their talent. I believe she lost to Devil Masami before reaching Kansai, and later on challenged again and eventually lost to Kansai. As much as I love JWP, Chigusa trying to invade the promotion and go over their ace didn't have quite the same weight as if she had invaded AJW and tried to reclaim the Big Red Belt from Aja. Kansai challenging Aja as the ace of JWP worked because it was similar to Tenryu invading New Japan. It would have felt strange if Aja had tried to run roughshod over the smaller JWP. I would agree that Chigusa's 90s interpromotional work isn't the greatest, but once she settled into her own promotion, I think she had a definite aura that she carried about her. Chigusa vs. her students, and the younger generation against the older Showa workers, is one of the more interesting parts of late 90s-early 00s Joshi.

Atlantis, Black Magic & Ultimo Dragon vs. Negro Casas, Pirata Morgan & Satanico (CMLL 8/21/92) Quick trios match which serves as the lead in the Casas/Ultimo title match the following week. Casas and Ultimo have great chemistry as usual. Ultimo gets a big pin over Casas to show he has the pedigree to beat him for the title, but strangely, Casas seems more focused on seducing Black Magic over to the rudo side (a turn that ends up happening in the subsequent weeks.) Satanico and Pirata don't really do much. They pinball nicely for Atlantis, but that's a given. Pirata wears a bandana to hide his shaven head. Satanico has a fun exchange where he tries to manhandle Black Magic. Match ends abruptly. Despite all the talent, it's not the best lead in match you'll see.

If there's one thing Japanese wrestling has been missing in the 00s, aside from, I dunno, a motivated Toshiaki Kawada, a relevant Shinya Hashimoto, and a healthy Kenta Kobashi, it's been this man, Kiyoshi Tamura. This wasn't exactly a triumphant return, but it was the return of one of the best wrestlers of the 90s and another guy to add to the list of the dozen or so Japanese wrestlers worth watching from this era. I thought Tamura showed a bit of rust in this bout, and hadn't quite figured out what he wanted U-Style to be, but I was happy to see him back in a wrestling ring. I also know there's better things to come from this promotion, so I didn't hang my hat on this being special. Decent workout for Tamura.

This wasn't quite as red hot as their mano a mano the week before, but I thought the body of the match was excellent and pretty much the epitome of what a modern title match could be. It was shorter than old-school title matches. You didn't get a long primera caida with back and forth matwork, but the work was sharp, focused, and employed good psychology. These two were natural rivals and had great chemistry. Their era of CMLL didn't last that long, but it felt like the future at the time. I was in two minds about the finish here. Shocker saved face by getting the phantom 1-2-3, and Ultimo stayed strong by going over clean, but I don't think anyone was satisfied by the outcome. I think we were all looking forward to an epic tercera caida. Instead, we got a segue for Shocker to move onto his next big program against Vampiro. It ended up being a nice bookend to the mano a mano but on paper it was shaping up to be a MOTYC. Worth watching for the match up; just don't set your hopes too high.

That Patera/Bruno match was some old-school goodness. Not much of a Texas Death Match, though, even by WWWF standards. It's too bad they didn't play the gimmick up more.

If you wait a few months, the match will be reviewed and shared with folks on YouTube.

From what I can gather, they had another match on 9/15/89. Someone in the comments said they had four singles matches.

"Sockeye" Jack McDonald vs Dave Levin "Sockeye" Jack McDonald is definitely one of the characters of the 50s TV footage. I love how Jules Strongbow paints this picture of McDonald as a lumberjack learning to wrestle in lumber camps. It's slightly more flattering than Lou Thesz' description of him as "the barfly being pushed by the Texas office." This was a match between veterans. Most sources have Levin retiring the same year he worked this bout ('54), but there are records of him having matches later in the decade. In any event, both guys were far removed from their salad days, but they put on a neat preliminary bout with some fun leg scissors work and a strong build to the fast paced finish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imCcTj4jGhY

The Kandori/Devil Masami rematch has appeared on YouTube, and it is a doozy.

This ancient YouTube channel has footage of both women --- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQr3wPZzq6OaYPCUMIZc9jA

Well, Funaki vs. Rutten is better than anything Funaki did in a pro-wrestling ring. So, there's that.

I finished Fables today, a series I first began reading back in December. It had its ups and downs as you’d expect any series to do that lasts 150 issues, but it consistently entertained me day in, day out for a solid five months. I read that Willingham originally envisioned the series running for one issue longer than Cerebus. I don’t know if Willingham had that many stories left to tell, but now I hear that the book is returning for another 12 issue arc, so we’ll see how that goes. A lot of people comment on how the book should’ve ended after the first 75 issues, and would have been better as a standard 60-75 issue Vertigo series. I never really felt that way reading it. In fact, I didn’t find the reveal of the Adversary’s identity, or the final battle against his Empire, to be hugely momentous. I actually felt that the conclusion to a lot of the arcs were anticlimactic. It got to the point where I started wondering if it was intentional on Willingham’s part or a weakness of his as a writer. What held the book together for me was the rich cast of characters and the uniform look that Buckingham and Leialoha gave the series. Willingham was lucky to have the same artists on the book for the majority of its run. Many people had strong opinions about this series. It almost rivaled the type of feedback you see from a television show. As I read the complaints, I began to develop a type of mentality of “Ok, let’s see what the writer chooses to do with these characters” instead of worrying about what I wanted to see happen. I didn’t agree with every decision Willingham made, but I wasn’t incensed by any of them, and I remained invested in the characters. Nobody’s forced to like the direction an artist goes in, but I sometimes think we lose track of an artist’s right to take things in a new direction. That said, I’m not sure where Fables would rank in my echelon of great comic book runs. Probably in my top 25 If it had been a bit more emotionally satisfying instead of intellectually stimulating it may have ranked higher. There were a few moments that were genuinely emotional, and well built, but the highs weren’t quite as high as other runs I’m fond of. Still, a remarkable achievement for any creative team to last that long, and now they want to come back for more?

Vampiro Canadiense vs. Pirata Morgan, hair vs hair (CMLL 7/17/92 ) Man, this match is something else. The thing you need to realize, and I know it may be difficult to understand, is that Vampiro was insanely over in Arena Mexico in 1992. I don't think there was anybody else in the world who was more over than Vampiro in that building in '92. Now, if you're anything like I was when I was younger, you don't want to watch Pirata Morgan have a hair match against Vampiro. You want to see him work hair matches against Dandy and Satanico. I get that. But actually, Morgan works the same way in this match that he did against Dandy and Satanico. The difference is that this is high stakes, high drama lucha at its absolute best. It's an absolute masterpiece of a performance by Morgan. Vampiro sells well, but pretty much everything he does on offence looks bad, but it doesn't matter because the stakes are so high. Morgan works the most beautiful tercera imaginable. He has the crowd on a string. They erupt when Vampiro wins. You can see the building shake on camera. I don't know what happened when Morgan jumped to AAA, but how the fuck didn't he have another run in CMLL? I'm not sure that I've ever seen this match before. If I have, I'm pretty sure I was predisposed towards hating it because of Vampiro. It's not that I don't like big spectacle lucha. I love Rayo vs. Caras, Perro vs. Mascara Ano 2000, and other matches from this era, but for whatever reason I ignored this. Watching it now, Pirata was at the height of his powers. He's almost godly. Again, how did he fall from grace so badly? I always talk about Arena Mexico being Casas' house in '92, and Dandy, and Pierroth, but Pirata was right up there. I just didn't realize it.

Cheri Bibi vs. Gilbert Cesca (aired 9/2/66) One of the questions that has bugged me the most about this Catch footage has been, "What type of worker was Gilbert Cesca?" Was he a super worker who looked good against anyone? Was he a foil for better workers? Or a guy who looked good against the right opponent? I don't think I'm any closer to answering the question, but I'm pretty sure I liked this a lot more now than I did when it first dropped. Back then I was like a junkie looking for my next hit of pure Catch. This was a brawler vs. stylist match, and far removed from the pure Catch of Catanzaro vs. Cesca, but as we've learned, matches like this were fairly common in French Catch and well received by the audience. This started with some fun cat and mouse stuff before Bibi took over and began taking Cesca apart. Cesca launched into a babyface rage, and the match ended with them brawling outside the ring with the cops and a spectator getting involved, a real flashback to late 50s Catch. Bibi looked a lot better than usual. I'm not sure if it was because he was trying harder or Cesca sold well. Probably six of one, half a dozen of the other. I've always said that so long as Bibi is moving forward and attacking his opponent, he's watchable. I thought he did a good job of varying the point of attack here and delivering different types of body blows. He even threw in some kicks. Cesca was playing the plucky underdog archetype, so we didn't get the full repertoire from him, but he deserves points for making this entertaining. It wasn't as exciting as Bibi vs. Jacky Corn, but it was definitely one of Bibi's best. And to be honest, probably one of the better matches from '66.

I'm struggling to recall what we have on tape, but I definitely think the McHoy match is the best carry job I've seen from him. Not that McHoy was bad, it's just that it was a big Royal Albert Show and McHoy was a last minute replacement for Rocco's billed opponent, Kung Fu. IIRC, they'd actually built that match up on television as well. McHoy was such a weird replacement for Kung Fu, but Rocco makes it work. I feel like the Pete Roberts bout was a lot slower as well. I can't remember if there any any other catchweight bouts where Rocco worked a slower pace. My favorite period is his late 70s explosion when he first takes off as a heel. I remember enjoying the matches against Bert Royal. Some of that might be original broadcast stuff, though, and not the Wrestling Channel footage. I think Lister uploaded all that stuff, though.