ohtani's jacket

Finally, a showcase match for Satanico in 2002, and a very good one! For some reason, the Infernales have been a bit of an afterthought since the cage match. They had a program with the Villanos that was cut to shreds on TV, but now Satanico is back in the limelight. This trios is the catalyst for a singles feud between Satanico and Damian 666. Maybe not the feud I would have booked, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first chapter. Satanico brought his working boots to the bout, and La Familia Tijuana have proven to be a polished act in CMLL, so you better believe the work was tight. I bit so hard on the false finish at the end. They got me good with that one. I'm not going to set my hopes too high for the singles stuff since we've seen this trend all year of exciting trios matches leading to average singles matches (in fact, bizarrely, 2 on 2 tag matches have probably been more rewarding in '02.) I loved the set-up, though.

For the record, I don't know what Hokuto's house show work is like. I just think watching it would give us a clearer picture of her peak years.

I thought my point was pretty clear, but I'll elaborate for you. Hokuto, because of injuries and other factors, was not the most prolific wrestler. The company that she worked for, like most Japanese wrestling promotions, thought they could bypass the television networks that kept pushing their timeslots back by going straight to the VHS market. Therefore, the majority of the footage we have of Hokuto in her best year is from commercial VHS tapes, which is the equivalent of judging Eddie on his PPV bouts. Perhaps I was wrong in implying than more than 20-odd matches per year is normal for the average candidate. AJW TV wasn't a weekly TV show but rather a taped house show, and a lot of episodes are rendered redundant by having commercial releases later on, but I feel like we have a better understanding of Eddie in his prime runs than we do of Hokuto. Now, if you have watched the available handheld footage from 1993, or you have something to add about her comedy squash matches from that year, feel free to add something to the conversation.

Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas (CMLL September 29th, 1995) What a great match. The build-up wasn't vintage, but the mano a mano was outstanding. These two were part of a trios match on the Anniversary Show that I don't think we have on tape -- Casas & Universo 2000 & Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Santo & Dos Caras & Rayo de Jalisco, Jr. -- and I guess their feud continued to escalate in that bout. This was a slow and deliberately paced bout that turned into a brilliant spectacle. Instead of attacking each other in a frenzy, both men tried to gain the upper hand on the other in the ultimate show of alpha dominance. There were a lot of hard hitting shots and wrenching submissions. Naturally, two dogs barking at each other like that led to flared tempers and soon enough you had Casas bleeding and taking his huge bumps off the ropes and Santo with his mask tore off his face. The crowd was super hot, and Santo kept pushing the boundaries of what a tecnico can get away with, but at the same time it was hard to say it wasn't justified. You don't tug on Superman's cape and all that. Casas started unleashing on Santo and the ref took a back elbow flush to the face. That was one committed ref bump. The ref was replaced and Santo wound up being DQ'ed for a move that would be perfectly acceptable in most other territories. Casas' selling was phenomenal and the heat was through the roof. One of the great mano a mano bouts and one of the best matches of either man's career.

I wouldn't include 1994 as her prime as she didn't wrestle many dates that year. If we consider 1993 her best year, she wrestled at least 116 matches that year, probably more, though she did miss some time due to injury. Of those matches, excluding handhelds, we have an average of 1-2 matches a month on tape. Fortunately, AJW taped all of its big shows, and this was during the height of the VHS boom, but I don't think we have as much of week-to-week Hokuto as we do Eddie. There are quite a few matches from '93 that could shed some extra light on Hokuto -- the Debbie Malenko match in full, 30 minute draws against Hasegawa and Takako, perhaps some of the tag league matches, heck even those parking lot matches they used to run.

Two workers whose peak eclipses everything else they did. A blessing and a curse, I suppose. Hokuto told deeper and more personal stories in the ring while Eddie did more caricature based stuff. One point of difference is that we don't actually have a lot of Hokuto's prime whereas we have the week-to-week TV from Eddie's runs. What we mostly consider Hokuto's prime is from commercial tapes and a smattering of television. I'm not sure off the top of my head how many handhelds are available from that era, but it would be interesting to explore how Hokuto worked house shows. I will go with Hokuto because of the depth to her matches, but Eddie was also an excellent performer.

These handicap matches are some of the most polished lucha of 2002, and arguably the best use of the majority of the workers in this match. Emilio has this plastic tooth that he likes to incorporate into his matches. Here, he gets hit hard by Niebla and the tooth shoots out of his mouth. Bestia catches it like a wicket keeper in cricket, and the rudos can barely conceal their laughter as Emilio puts his tooth back in. The rest of the match is a mixture of Niebla salsa spots and Porky squashing people. Great fun.

Negro Casas & Emilio Charles, Jr. & Satanico vs. Corazon de Leon & Ultimo Dragon & Hijo del Santo (CMLL September 15th, 1995) Return match that doesn't quite reach the same levels of hatred. Casas blades and takes some big bumps, but this isn't his best work. I usually love these types of trios matches, but there's nothing about the Satanico & Emilio vs. Ultimo & Jericho match-ups that complements the Santo/Casas feud. Satanico does a few cool things, but Jericho doesn't have a clue how to work these types of matches and Emilio is invisible. The match felt rushed by 90s standards. Guys were constantly tagging in and out instead of working sequences with each other. It would have made more sense to me if there had been a second feud involved or at least a beef. Ultimo vs. Satanico is interesting on paper, but they didn't throw down like they're capable of.

For a post-Anniversary Show hangover card, I thought this was pretty good. I'm not sure that this feud has any legs, but basically the Guerreras dictated terms before allowing Virus to get a few flash moves in. You can see why when Virus brought Hombre Sin Nombre to a fight, but it was pretty much rudo dominated throughout. Then, in a moment of vintage inspired madness, Fuerza went to the top rope and did the Karate Kid Crane Kick pose before missing Virus badly off the top rope splash. That gave Virus an opening and he pinched back a win after his mano a mano lose to Fuerza. I don't know if this goes anywhere, but you can tell a whole lot worse than watching Virus undercard matches.

Emilio Charles, Jr. & Negro Casas & Satanico vs. Hijo del Santo & Corazon de Leon & Ultimo Dragon (CMLL September 8th, 1995) This is worth watching for the sheer hatred between Santo and Casas. Santo dropkicked Casas in the mouth during the introductions and things spun out of control from there. It was a nice touch actually as Casas had cut a promo on Santo on the way to the ring, and I guess Santo felt like shutting him up. You've probably seen Santo and Casas go at it before. I thought it was interesting how much they focused on strikes. Casas was all about shoot style kicks to the head, which we'd seen him use against Ultimo, but not against other luchadores. Casas must have landed a good two dozen kicks in this match as retaliation for that initial dropkick. Santo's main strike was the knee lift, but it worked well in a brawling context. Santo hit a tope that felt grimier than usual, and Emilio and Satanico ended up holding Santo down in a Christ style pose while Casas was DQ'ed for repeatedly kicking Santo in the head. I wasn't super high on the parts that involved Emilio & Satanico vs. Ultimo & Jericho, but it didn't really matter. The Santo vs. Casas stuff was compelling enough.

Absolutely. It had the potential to be an excellent match if they'd worked 2/3 falls. It seems a lot of the matches on that show were rushed. The tag title match was shorter than usual, but they still made it work. Removing the 2/3 falls robs you of the drama that comes from going down 1-0, making your comeback, etc. You basically have to go straight into a tercera caida style fall where hoping you get the ebb and flow right and produce some exciting nearfalls. Unfortunately, they didn't quite nail it. Casas wasn't aggressive enough, and they didn't really pace the fall in a dramatic or compelling way.

The apuesta is a disappointment.

This was a bit of an odd match. First of all, Tarzan Boy came to the ring with four ring girls and played up his sex appeal more than he has since joining GdI. He even wore his old ring attire wi ,tor h '69' plastered on the back of his trunks. Casas came to the ring by himself like a quiet, confident, focused veteran. The problem was that it was an una caida match, so it didn't have the same ebb and flow as a regular apuesta match. It almost felt like Casas and Tarzan Boy's take on a Best of the Super Juniors tournament match than a blood feud. They switched back and forward on offense, but there was no real drama and the finish was incredibly weak. Given how good Casas has been at brawling in 2002, this can only be described as a misfire. These guys are good workers so the work wasn't terrible. It may have made for a decent mano a mano bout, but not an apuesta. Some fan ran in at the end, which I assume was legit. My version of the match didn't include the hair cut, which was annoying. I always judge apuesta matches by how they deliver on the build, and by those standards, this was a failure. Perhaps the build was too good, or maybe the fall restriction was too much to overcome. In any event, there was no payoff to the visceral hatred from past weeks.

It's been a long time since I've watched that one hour Gorgeous George match. I would have to watch it again to see if I am under-selling him or if he incorporated both comedy and the Buddy Rogers style into his matches.

This was really good. I could see an argument for it being too short, but even at this length it seemed that Vampiro was fairly gassed. The key to me was you're running your Anniversary Show in the same building you use every week so how do you make the bout different from your weekly main events? I thought they did a really good job of making this feel like a spectacle. Ultimo & Rey deserve a ton of credit for making the CMLL tag belts seem like major titles. That's hard to do in a regular wrestling promotion let alone a lucha promotion. And then they laid out the match in a way that was different from the run-of-the-mill weekly main event. The primera caida seemed like it would be a typical rudo-won fall, but instead they pulled a double swerve that felt completely organic and not at all scripted. It was actually important in the grand scheme of things too as it took the wind out of the tecnico's sails and made them seem disconnected and disheartened. They made a comeback, of course, but it felt like they were wrestling as individuals and not a team. Vampiro threw Bucanero around like a rag doll to win the second fall and the doctor seemed concerned about Rey. I don't know if that was a work to add some drama to the bout, but you basically had Vampiro blown up, Bucanero shaking off the cobwebs, and a shit ton of drama heading into the deciding fall. The tercera was fascinating because it was where GdI's teamwork shone through, and when that teamwork proved superior, the rudo fans at ringside with the cowbells knew they were going over. GdI had another great celebration, and Vampiro gave Ultimo a handshake and a hug. I don't know if he was supposed to do that because it looked like it took Ultimo by surprise, and as great as their teamwork was, they still cheated in the primera caida, but it added the spectacle. If anyone says this was a disappointment because it was rushed, or the pacing felt off, my argument would be that it could've been a hell of a lot worse.

Little known fact -- that match was converted from VHS to DVD using the audio visual equipment at a Japanese junior high school.

How did Lawler fare better in Japan than Tenryu did in the States?

Danny Hodge is fucking amazing in the Brisco match. Jerry Brisco doesn't look half bad either, but Danny Hodge. Wow.

Meat and potatoes Coliseo match. Porky, Atlantis and Rayo wrestle Wagner and Los Hermanos Dinamita at the Anniversary show, so there was a bit of mask ripping/pulling between Rayo and Wagner. I liked the match-up between Atlantis and Black Tiger in the tercera, and there was some fun stuff between Porky and Takemura as well. This was the type of match you take the kids to so they can see the luchadores live in person.

For my money, Atlantis is the best tecnico trios match worker of all-time. I'm sure people would argue that Santo is better, and they have a point because Santo's trios spots are phenomenal, but Santo comes and goes. Atlantis was such a mainstay in CMLL and the glue in so many trios matches. He doesn't have a 1.000 batting average, but no one in lucha does. But if you have a trios or an atomico with 2-3 average tecnicos, there is nobody I would choose over Atlantis as the guy to salvage something from the wreck. The rudos are important too, but you've got to have at least one good tecnico that can work some exciting sequences into the bout. I never get tired of seeing how Atlantis matches up with some of the better rudos. It's something I anticipate every time Atlantis is in the bout. Trios matches are mostly about structure and form, but they're also about match-ups, and if you've been around the block a bit, the match-ups become one of the more intriguing parts of a trios match. I really like the way Atlantis matches up with a lot of guys. In many ways, instead of a list of great Atlantis matches in my head, I have a list of favored match-ups. He does have his limitations, however. I think some of the criticisms that have been made of him on this site are fair. Atlantis has been in some classic singles matches, but I don't think he's the lead. Great dance partner, but I'm not convinced he can lead. I don't think he's great as the lead guy in an apuesta build either. I didn't like a lot of the build to the Villano match or the Mano Negra match, for example. I like his work with Wagner, but they never had an apuesta. I've made my thoughts on Takada clear in the past. I'm not gonna bash him here. We probably went too far with it in the past. He's a guy who deserves a fresh take from different people.

This reminds me of Mike Oles' old chestnut that Kobashi had a better '93 than Hokuto. I have a question: are people still bothered by crying Kobashi as much as they used to be?

Nobody is claiming that Toyota invented the basic Joshi style.. What we're claiming is that those "Toyotaisms" influenced the style and changed the way the matches were worked. Manami Toyota had a massive influence on the way Joshi matches were worked in the 90s. I will ignore any influence beyond the 90s because if people don't believe she was influential in the 90s then the argument stops there. Joshi changed in the 90s. Joshi changed dramatically from the early 90s to the mid 90s, then it shifted again in the late 90s. If you compare a match from 1983 to 1993, etc., you will see similarities but also key differences. One of the biggest changes is that there was more emphasis on the matches. As the workers became more athletic and the audience shifted from schoolgirls to male hardcore fans (a gradual shift), singles matches became more significant, tag matches became longer, the cards became deeper, and AJW gradually began to resemble AJPW or NJPW in the way they booked shows. Of course, it was the interpromotional era so a thing of things were possible that weren't achievable in the 80s. The promoters were able to play around with the cards, create new match-ups, and promote dream matches. Unfortunately, they ran it into the ground, which led to the bloated and excessive mid-90s style where the only alternative left was to do more, work for longer, do bigger and more dangerous spots, and try to outdo what they'd done before. And no-one was more guilty of that than Manami Toyota. Nevertheless, as the style began to change in the early 90s, Manami was at the forefront of this new wave of women's wrestling. She was influential not only in singles matches, but also in tag matches. In fact, you could argue that she was more influential in Joshi tag wrestling than singles, but from the time Meltzer anointed her as the most outstanding wrestler in the world, she was the standard bearer for what was then modern Joshi. And later she suffered the backlash toward Joshi and the things Meltzer wrote about her in the Observer. Why's that? Because she was synonymous with the style at the time. If you didn't like the Joshi style of working, then Toyota was the main target. We know she didn't create the go-go-go workrate style of Joshi. We know the roots of that style go back to the 70s. We know she wasn't the first highflyer, for want of a better term. It's very easy to trace her basic style back to the Jumping Bomb Angels. But she took the go-go-go style and worked matches that kept growing bigger and bigger, and more and more ambitious. She had an influence on the pace of matches, the rhythm,, the layout, how hard-hitting the action was. You could argue that lot of her opponents were forced to work her style and her type of match, but look at how the workrate began to increase across the board. Look at how tag matches began to be worked in the same style across different promotions. Again, there are tropes you see in the 80s, but watch the workrate creep up and up. The midcard girls started upping their workrate. The heavyweights started upping their workrate. Some girls were regarded as flat out Toyota clones. Hikari Fukuoka being the prime example. Now I'm not saying that Toyota was responsible for all of this, but she was sure as hell at the forefront of it. Hokuto was important and Kyoko Inoue too. Yamada actually deserves some credit too. I get why people like Hokuto, Bull and Aja but they don't like Toyota. Christ, that's been going on for the past 25 years. But outright dismissals of Toyota's influence or the role she played in women's wrestling? C'mon. Maybe we're going her too much credit, but you can't just give her no credit whatsoever. Think of a Joshi worker who people don't like -- Momoe Nakanishi, for example, or KAORU. Who do they more closely resemble in style? Jaguar Yokota, Hokuto, Chigusa, or Manami Toyota? I think the answer is pretty obvious. After Maki Ueda retired, Jackie Sato became a very serious worker with more focus on mat work then during the Beauty Pair era, though I can't say that with entire confidence since we don't have a lot of her singles stuff from that era. However, there was a definite shift from brawling to serious wrestler. The same thing happened with Chigusa. The difference is that she stole some moves from the UWF guys. I can't remember off the top of my head if Sato was influenced by Inoki or took any holds from strong style or men's wrestling in general. Nevertheless, idol star turned serious competitor was already a thing. I understand that the next generation of Joshi workers who idolized Chigusa wanted to work that hybrid style of hers. But it's strange to me that mock shooter gets accredited to Chigusa throughout modern Joshi history, but Toyota has no influence? The whole feminine thing was Toyota's own words about what she set out to do at the beginning of her career. Ring attire, image, the way a person looks, what type they are, etc. is a huge part of Joshi. We tend to not focus on it as much as Japanese fans do (although fans may do on other platforms), but in image conscious Japan it is a big deal. I was at a show once and some fans were discussing the size of Takako Inoue's nose compared to on tape. Crazy. I don't know if Toyota was the first to start wearing more elaborate attire, but she created a specific image for herself beyond bathing suits and wrestling boots. She even has this strange philosophy behind wearing black.

You're contradicting yourself. At first you said stylistically she wasn't representative of even just her era. Now, you're saying all she did was general "Joshiisms." You seem to think that to have an influence on anything you have to have been an originator. If that is the case, there is nothing influential about Chigusa. What did she do that was any different from Jackie Sato? They were both part of idol tag teams. They both developed into serious singles wrestlers. They both feuded with monster heels. Influence doesn't work like that. Wrestlers build on what came before them. Of course, Toyota was inspired by her mentor, Yamazaki. Did she go out there and surpass what Yamazaki did? By most measures she did except for folks who'd claim that Yamazaki was a better and smarter worker. Comparing Toyota to idol workers like Cutie and Takako is so wrong. It's as wrong as me pigeonholing Takako and Cutie as idol workers. It reminds me of that show where Fumi says Toyota appeals to the male fan and Yamada appeals to the wrestling fan and Malenko pulls him up on it. Manami Toyota was incredibly serious about wrestling. She isolated herself from her peers, refused to ever watch male wrestling, and from all accounts was on her own island during her heyday. She may have looked like an idol type, but she had the mentality of a Misawa. Yes, there's nothing new on the sun. You can look at those Toyota/Yamada matches where she really cut her teeth and say they're just an extension of the Chigusa/Lioness series, but there is something there that made Toyota a star. Ironically, it's probably the no-selling and continuous offense, so you know that pops a crowd. But there was something in the rhythm and flow. She wasn't the only one who worked that style and she wasn't the only worker from her era that was influential. They took Joshi to new heights. People may prefer 80s Joshi in this day and age, but I don't see how anyone can claim that Toyota wasn't advancing the style or how the 90s style as a whole doesn't have a major influence on the Joshi that came after it. People give Jaguar credit for the modern style, but not Toyota. What's with that? I stopped watching Joshi in the 00s, but even then you could look at Hyuga and see some Toyota in her. Someone needs to explain this major paradigm shift to me.

I see. Not to derail the thread, but I really wanted him to be a tricked out stylist like he was in the States, but then perhaps French heavyweight wrestling wasn't the place for that. When I see him work the French style, he comes across like an ex-boxer turned pro for some reason.

This was disappointing compared to the excitement of previous weeks. I was wrong about Vampiro coming to the ring to Shocker's theme as Shocker was still using Eminem here. Why did they bring Lizmark Jr to the fight? That was the first mistake. Ultimo & Rey looked cool as fuck on their way to the ring, but this wasn't a top drawer performance from them, and Shocker and Vampiro didn't have as much chemistry as they did in the mano a mano the week before. Panther was absolutely useless here even as a clog. I can't figure out if Vampiro's reckless offense is dangerous for his opponent or kind of cool because it's off-kilter. This feud should really be Shocker & Magica vs. GdI or a big time smoker and mirrors Vampiro apuesta match. Hopefully, the Aniversario show match is better than this.