ohtani's jacket

Florida TV Title Match: Mr. Saito (c) vs. Barry Windham (Title Change!) (July 26th, 1980) -- a skinny Barry Windham takes on Saito at a house show. Mostly clips of Barry being valiant and scoring the upset win. Decent footage. Mike Graham vs. Hiro Matsuda (August 11th, 1981) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) (CWF) -- I really like Hiro Matsuda. If you think about the first two decades of Japanese professional wrestlers, he has to be in the top 10. This is basically clips of Graham trying to deal with Matsuda's superior wrestling ability and it's impressive the way that the crowd are behind Graham even though it's more of a wrestling contest than a brawl. Graham sure grows on you if you watch enough of this stuff. Very good footage. Ric Flair vs. Mr. Wrestling #2 (December 8th, 1981) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- If I'm going to watch any Flair at this point, it's probably gonna be young Flair. And the thing I'd be looking for most is new opponents. Mr. Wrestling II fits the bill. Wish we'd seen a bit more than the finish. OK footage. Mike Graham vs. Tully Blanchard (1981) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- this was supposed to be Dory Funk Jr vs. Mike Graham, but Tully slapped Graham in the face and a match broke out between the two. Tully wasn't anywhere near as good a TV worker as he'd become later on, but it was still an excellent studio bout. I actually didn't know that Tully cut his teeth in Florida. Solie did a tremendous job of putting the whole thing over, and even Dory served as a pretty decent heel. Very good footage. Dory Funk Jr. vs. Steve Keirn (Funk Goes Berserk!) (1981) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- really good TV match with a killer angle afterward. If you think Dory Funk couldn't to this pro-wrestling stuff, you need to watch this. Really good footage.

Bill Cody vs. Honest John Cretoria This was a nice, simple wrestling match. Cody was billed as a newcomer to the professional ranks and used a lot of amateur style "leg dives." Cretoria, on the other hand, used a lot of inside moves. Cody proved he could handle himself in the ring, and in the end he proved too skillful. Cretoria had a great moustache and beard. He looked like he could've been a fun worker, especially if he had a bit more time.

Lizmark, Love Machine & Vampiro Canadiense vs. MS-1, Satanico & Pirata Morgan (CMLL 7/10/92) This was better than you'd think. The Infernales were such good brawlers that they could make just about any scenario entertaining. They were particularly good at opening falls, which can oftentimes feel perfunctory in lucha. Here, they actually went against expectations and had the tecnicos pinch the opening fall. I like that booking as it breaks up the predictable formula of a lucha trios match and makes it seem like anything can happen in a match. Vampiro bled a shit ton here, including all over the ref's white shirt, and spent most of the bout getting the shit kicked out of him by Pirata. While that was happening, Lizmark and Satanico had a number of fiery exchanges. This was one of Lizmark's best performances of the year, and it actually left me thinking an apuesta match between the two would have been a better option than a title match since Lizmark came across as far more interesting in a brawling scenario. He also had a huge rip in his mask that gave us a pretty decent gawk at what he looked like. I've been raving about Vampiro vs. Bucanero, and I couldn't help but wonder if Rey had seen Pirata/Vampiro because the blueprint for getting the most out of Vampiro was definitely on show. I'm curious about their singles match now, which, of course, was the purpose of this match. Gotta love solid CMLL booking when you get it.

I finished a few things, which is pretty good going considering how many new books I've started. I really enjoyed Camelot 3000. Ordinarily, I would hate this sort of premise -- King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are resurrected and fight space aliens in the future -- but Bolland's art was brilliant. I understand there were all sorts of delays with the book because of how slowly he worked, but it left me wishing that he'd done more interior work during his career. Probably more of a triumph in collected form than it was off the shelves. Nonetheless, DC's 80s experiments were a fertile time in mainstream American comics. Stan Sakai's run at Mirage was nowhere near as good as his stuff at Fantagraphics. I prefer Usagi in black and white much like I prefer samurai films in black and white to color. The stories didn't seem to resonate as much, either. They were easy reads, but didn't have the same energy. I believe things pick up again with his Dark Horse work. The Aardvark-Vanaheim/Renegade Press Flaming Carrot Comics were a lot of fun. I really enjoy Bob Burden's sense of humour. His ideas didn't always stick, but he was the master of absurd situations and quirky one-liners. I'm interested to see how well Flaming Carrot transitions into the 90s.

I would be extremely surprised if a person living in a major city traveled to the rural areas to catch shows. Considering All Japan ran shows in all of the major cities, I can't envision why anyone would travel to see a house show. It's possible that folks traveled from out of town to see some of the bigger cards in another city, especially folks coming to Tokyo, but I'd wager that most fans only attended shows in their area.

Are there any Hellboy fans here? I re-read the original mini-series, and the DHP serial that followed. I don't want to judge it too harshly since Byrne scripted the first series, and the serial was Mignola's first crack at doing the writing, but is there a point where Hellboy comes into its own?

A better worker than he's given credit for. Good enough to be accepted as a main eventer, and going through the early 00s footage, his absence was sorely felt when he blew his quad, to the same extent as Kobashi and Benoit. Hell of a career all things considered.

MS-1 vs. El Faraon, hair vs. hair (CMLL 7/3/92) This was really good. I feel like we overlooked these smaller scale apuesta matches in our pursuit of 4 star lucha libre. Case in point, this is the main event of the show with the Casas vs. Dandy match. MS-1 was in his element here. He takes a backseat at times to his Infernales partners who are super workers and have huge personalities (egos?), but he was a great worker in his own right. I love his methodical style. He's almost like a heavyweight Satanico in that respect. Faraon was pretty much a relic in terms of what was popular in lucha libre at this point, but he comes to fight. I love how his big comeback is punching the guy harder than the guy punched him. The third fall is great. Both guys bleed like stuck pigs, and put each other in increasingly elaborate submission and pinning combinations. There's some tremendous visuals with the blood and the wrestlers screaming that they won't submit. The tape glitches before the finish, which is a bummer but also a reminder of how lucky we are that somebody taped this stuff off TV back in the day. This is like a 3 to 3.5 star match, but not because it's lacking something that would have made it a 4 star match. They earn those stars. It's a glass half full 3 star match. Folks should watch it and remember the great MS-1.

This falls in the "If it's a Tenryu match, it's a match worth watching" basket. Miyamoto was the first post-split graduate of the All Japan dojo. Jesus, what a time to make your debut. I feel sorry for the kid. Still, he attacks Tenryu with plenty of guts and fire, and gets his nose busted open for his pains. Miyamoto hangs in there for longer than expected, and shows his fighting spirit and all of that important stuff, but Tenryu is cold blooded. He shows the kid no mercy. What a bastard.

L‘Homme Masque vs. Andre Drapp (aired 3/4/66) I thought I'd seen this already but apparently not. I'm not going to try to guess who was under the hood at this point. The main attraction here is seeing an older Drapp in action. They tumble about and do some fun stuff, but they don't take is as seriously as something like Leduc vs. Le Bourreau de Bethune. I'm not gonna lie, I would have preferred a more serious wrestling match to the crowd pleasing shtick they ran with, but it was more entertaining than 30 minutes of Kiyomigawa. I'm not sure how regularly Drapp was working in France at this point, but the bout did leave me curious as to how good he might have been against a better worker.

This was pretty short and was mainly notable for the charming mic work from Yoneyama afterward. I never really know what to make of Tamura, and still have no idea how good she really was. She had a solid rep back in the day, but I haven't the heart to watch long NEO matches. Yoneyama came across as a lovable loser in this. JWP seemed to have quite a few of those types in the early 00s.

This went 30 minutes, which is too long for these two. (So, naturally, they went out and worked 40 minutes in their next singles match.) Slow start with a lot of time killing. Heats up in the back half, and has some really strong action, which begs the question of why they had to stretch out the beginning. Bitching aside, these two match up well and make for strong rivals. The finishing stretch is very good. Hyuga continues to impress as an all-round worker, and Ran's game is strong. Lukewarm recommendation.

These two never disappoint. Easily one of my favorite match-ups of the early 2000s. This was their version of a touring match. I could easily imagine them having the exact same match in Zero-1. The commentators kept riffing on it being teacher vs. student, the work being shoot style, and other annoying shit, but if you can block out the college radio crap , the end result is Homicide and Low Ki hitting each other as hard as they can. Otherwise known as the good stuff.

Guy Mercier/Claude Montourcy vs. Chati Yokouchi/Kiyomigawa (aired 2/20/66) This was like watching paint dry. They keep having these guys on TV who aren't true catcheurs. Surely, there was something better they could have shown us than this. Mercier and Montourcy were decent workers, but Kiyomigawa and Yokouchi were part of that first generation of Japanese wrestlers who were boring hands. If they'd cheated here with more conviction, and thrown manchettes with a bit more gusto, this would have been all right, but as it was, they only exciting parts were the finishes to each fall. You can go ahead and skip this.

Man, this was a great mano a mano. You look at the match length and you figure it will be a disappointment, but the thing they did here that really set them apart from their contemporaries was to work incredibly stiff with each other. Both guys dished out some great looking shots, and their intensity never let up. Shocker was 1000% dialed in. Ultimo brought just enough matwork to make me happy by tying Shocker in knots, and they worked a dramatic tercera that wouldn't have looked out of place in a higher stakes bout. Really cool finish, apeshit crowd, and some killer promos afterward. As a piece of business, this had it all. There's no doubt that these two guys are the best workers in CMLL, and their rivalry matches AJ Styles vs. Low Ki and Benoit vs. Angle for the best in wrestling. Not only that, but there's a return match to look forward to.

I wasn't feeling this. It would have been pretty average for a Smackdown main event let alone a PPV match. It was a pure sprint with no heat section. Benoit was the best guy in the match, which comes as no surprise. The Brock vs. Angle exchanges weren't very inspiring. For some reason, Meltzer gave this four stars, but I don't see how.

This was an amazingly cool spotfest. That shouldn't come as a surprise as it involves Styles vs. Low Ki, but the London stuff was great as well. Man, there was some painful looking stuff in this .All three guys came up with inventive ways to hurt each other. There was some need camerawork in this at well. Some of it was shot from angles that aren't typically used in wrestling, which gives you a different perspective on the work. This wasn't the kind of match that will be etched in the memory forever, but it's a good example of enjoying three-way wrestling. Even the goofy spots are fun to watch. I love Styles' violent combos that look like they come straight out of a video game. With so many other workers they'd look stupid, but with Styles you're left wondering, "why did nobody ever think of that before?"

This was a decent match but it had a weird dynamic. It was heels vs. heels but wrestled like it was faces vs. faces. Haas and Benjamin don't even cheat to win. Instead, they get a babyface style victory. The action is good, but none of the match-ups are outstanding. Eddie is good but doesn't set the world on fire. I do agree that Team Angle have been handled well. They don't appear to have a tremendous ceiling, however, as they do lack charisma. It's hard to imagine that either of them would have been a breakout singles star. But it's cool to see some more amateurs in the WWE, and a bit more mat wrestling at times. I'm always down for that.

The promotion names is something that's always confused me. My understanding is that the promotion names weren't that important and that most people referred to the promoter or the venue rather than the promotion. The promotion names were all so similar that I've mostly forgotten which was which. James Brown & Ray Apollon vs. Jack de Lasartesse & Hans Hess (aired 2/11/66) This was a few months before James Brown's tragic death. It wasn't really anything remotely like French Catch. It was more of a beatdown, but if you're gonna have a match where the heels beat down the faces then there are few better at the delivering a beating than Lasartesse. I believe Hess was the same guy who worked in the UK as the "King of the Vikings", Leif Rasmussen. He was an Austrian wrestler, and pretty fun. But really this is about Lasartesse beating on Brown, who did a pretty solid job of taking a beating and working from underneath. Again, not really Catch, but solid enough.

I literally have no idea what any of those are, but thank you!

I used to hate Jericho, but his '00-02 stuff has gone up in my estimation since I started visiting and revisiting those years. So, he's off my shit list.

This had a lot of moves, but it was probably the most pure lucha match you'll see from January, 2003. For some reason, I thought it was going to be an apuestas match, but it was actually some sort of title match. I love the fact that there are guys doing a Rock 'n' Roll Express gimmick in Mexico. That's cool. I'm not sure whether you could get away with the Orientales gimmick in this day and age, but I like the mask designs. Lots of fun lucha exchanges in this and some nice dives. Unfortunately, the commentary is dubbed over the top of the footage so you lose the crowd noise, which is a bummer.

I thought this was a great television match. I was sick to death of this feud when they were tag partners, but their singles work keeps getting better and better. When you think of Benoit vs. Angle, the first thing that springs to mind is a bunch of endless Crossface into Ankle Lock into Crossface into Ankle Lock counters, and a million suplexes, but the bulk of this match was gritty as fuck matwork. Tremendous stuff that looked totally out of place on WWE TV. Benoit getting busted open hardway as cool as fuck. This feud has moved up in my estimation.

Name me 5 to start with.

I don't have as much access to 2003 CMLL TV as I did with '00-02, but I'll watch whatever I can. This was a short match. I'd call it a sprint, but they didn't do much sprinting. It was just really short. It ended up being a decent showcase for the Infernales, but the tecnicos didn't get to do much. You'd think Super Crazy was at least get a highspot in. Satanico and Blue Demon brawled at the end, and it goes to show what a Satanico mark I am as it had me thinking, "Hmm, that could be good."