ohtani's jacket

More specifically, the old Studio 102.

If it's from Tele-Dimanche, as Matt mentioned in his review, then it was shot at Maison de la Radio in one of its auditoriums.

I should preface my comments by saying that the largest number of Danielson matches I've seen to date have been from the first half of the 00s. I'm currently watching bits and pieces of his heel run in 2006. I like Danielson. I mean, you'd be hard pressed not to. However, I don't get why he was elevated above his peers from the same era. I don't think Danielson was any better than AJ Styles, Samoa Joe, Low Ki, or Christopher Daniels, to name some of his fellow indy workers. I get that he was a hero to people the same way that Bret was a hero to me, but when people elevate a guy that high and you don't feel a connection with him then you start to pick holes. The same is true of any wrestler, I suppose, but Danielson struck a particular chord with fans who cared a lot about the wrestling that came after I stopped watching. When I watch Danielson, I see a guy who is highly influenced by the tape trading culture and who pieced together a bunch of cool shit from tapes, but had a hard time selling himself as legit. The other guys I named all feel like true versions of themselves. Danielson feels like a community theater actor at times. Perhaps I don't appreciate the irony of his heel act, but everything he does, someone else did better. It's kind of unfair in a way since the people he borrowed from were working on bigger stages in larger arenas, but it doesn't play that well when you're trying to be Nick Bockwinkel in front of a smart crowd. I wouldn't call myself anti-Danielson. I just wish people would chill out with the hyperbole. I'm also aware that the workers I mention all faded to one extent or another while Danielson had stronger runs in the big leagues. I'm not sure I care all that much about that, though. Some of the TNA stuff that Styles, Joe and Daniels have been doing is clearly better or on par with WWE/AEW Danielson. So yeah, great worker, in the mix, not head and shoulders above anyone.

I don't know why I thought Billy Finlay was Fit Finlay's dad. I'd love to tell you, but it was ten years ago. Thanks for clearing that up for me, though. I was really worried about it.

I'm a non-believer when it comes to Danielson, but he did have some high profile ROH tag matches outside of the WWE stuff.

Le Petit Prince vs. Jacky Richard (11/6/66) Wow, a Petit Prince match. How did this one slip through the cracks? With all the discourse shifting to Twitter these days, you'd think Petit Prince would have blown up more, but alas. This was a fairly simple match, but highlighted the Prince's babyface fire and his awesome selling ability. His wrestling skills were mostly used to tease his opponent before enacting a little revenge, but we saw flashes of what made Prince so amazing. We also received confirmation that Jacky Richard was young once. Richard was always a limited worker but good in his role and that's what you get from the younger Richard. Not one of the Prince's better matches, but he only had a finite amount of matches on television so it's better to not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Speaking of this admin thing, why do we still need to wait for mod approval on posts when the match database clearly isn't a priority anymore?

This was a solid match. I thought it would be more workrate heavy, but there was a nice internal logic to it and they built to the finish with a sense of clarity. As others have mentioned, the execution and crowd heat were strong positives in its favor. I can see why it's overlooked as they didn't ratchet up the selling or near falls towards the end, but not every match needs to be an epic.

I really need to watch more Necro Butcher. This was okay. The part where the audience threw their chairs into the ring was unlike anything I've ever seen in a pro-wrestling ring, but I also thought it was pretty fucking stupid. That said, seeing them perform moves on each other amid a sea of chairs was trippy. What they couldn't do is match the sheer intensity and brutality of the Joe match, which gave this a bit of an also ran feel.

One of my favorite WWE matches. I actually got this on television and it revived my interest in the WWE after four years of being completely disinterested in the product. I initially stopped watching the WWE because I was frustrated by the style that Angle and Benoit were working in 2001. I've since come to appreciate the early 00s more than I did at the time, but this match stands out as the type of no nonsense, hard hitting wrestling that I was looking for at the time. I'll admit that it's not the type of match that your average WWE fan wants to see, but we with so many broadcast hours per week, I'm glad that somebody in creative was able to sneak this one past Vince. They get a decent amount of time too, which was a show of respect. They even made a screwy WWE finish seem decisive. Great match.

Kind of surreal seeing the WWE produce an authentic looking ECW show. Kudos to Rey for working Sabu's style even if it was a slightly watered down version. We never did get to see Rey work in many apuestas matches, but he had some brawling chops to him. It's amusing how much they overstate the importance of Rey's early ECW appearances while completing ignoring his WCW run. The finish was a copout, but if you're gonna cop out then I guess a springboard DDT through a table is the way to do it.

This was Kurt Angle's farewell match on Smackdown before jumping to ECW. It was the millionth match he'd had with Mysterio Jr, but at the same time it was a fitting sendoff given their five year history. They kept pushing Angle as having his competitiveness renewed by his jump to ECW, which was stupid given that Angle was always pushed as being highly competitive. He had a mouthpiece that spelt out the word "machine," which was supposed to mean wrestling machine but could have easily meant roid machine. They didn't break any new ground with this bout, but there were some exciting moments down the stretch. They managed to give Angle the win without making Rey look stupid, and the pair had a nice embrace post-match. I guess what people didn't realize at the time were the problems Angle was having that led to his departure from the company. Well, I guess the dirt sheet readers knew, but the fans didn't. If you tuned into this on a Friday night on June 2nd, you sure as hell didn't know that the end was nigh. I'm an unashamed Angle fan. I like watching Angle matches. I thought this was kind of sad even if it wasn't designed that way. I was glad they embraced at least.

Bob Platin used to spell it Lemagouroux in his videos. It's frustrating because the posters are unreliable. For Mantopoulos, I can never be sure if it's Vasilios or Vassilios. I guess it doesn't really matter, i suppose. Listening to the podcast right now. Neat accent.

Vassilios Mantopoulos/Ischa Israel vs. Billy Catanzaro/Gilbert Lemagourou, 6/19/66 Did we ever figure out how to spell Mantopoulos and Lemagourou's names correctly? That type of shit used to bother me all the time when I was writing up these reviews. This was the type of catch that I fell in love with. Just a bunch of tricked out matwork. You could argue that it was form over substance, but I thought they did a decent job of shaping the match for the studio audience. There was some stooging and brawling that I could have done without, but I realized that it was necessary for the spectators. It was great to see Catanzaro working some holds. Like so many others, Catanzaro was my gateway to catch back when we really only had the one match available. It's cool that he's part of this new haul, and I liked this match a lot better than the other tags he had with Lemagourou. Props to Israel, too. One of the most underrated guys in catch. I'm not as big a fan of Mantopoulos as I probably should be, but I thought having a rock solid guy like israel in his corner helped him do his stylist thing without seeming like he was off on his own island somewhere. Fun match within the confines of the setting.

This was the 1000th match between Kurt Angle and Rey Mysterio, but you can't go wrong with Mysterio and Angle as a matchup. What made this special is that it was wrestled in the Wembley Arena in London, England, site of some famous British wrestling matches. I don't know if I like them pushing Rey as an underdog champ who can lose at any given moment. .That feels like they're cutting him off at the knees booking wise. Interestingly, the Wembley crowd appeared to be pro-Angle. There were even boos for Rey. They worked their usual back and forth bout until Mark Henry showed up and pissed the crowd off by costing Angle the bout. Now we know the heat against Henry was orchestrated by British smarts. You'd think they'd appreciate Henry more given the proud tradition of Daddy's Wembley feats. They were probably pissed that they didn't get a clean finish to a pretty decent match.

This had flashes of what I wanted to see between these two kinds, but I wish it hadn't been worked within the confines of a cage match as it was obvious that it was going to lead to a typical BS ending. JBL was so good at his craft, and their brawling was so tight, that I remain convinced that these two had a classic in them. We just never got to see it because of some sort of shortsighted bullshit.

This started off as a shitty house show style triple threat match. I honestly thought any combination of Cena vs. Edge, Cena vs Triple H or Triple H vs Edge would have been better than the crap they rolled out at the start. I also thought it was annoying that they kept hiding Cena in triple threat matches instead of letting him grow and develop in single matches. The last 10 minutes, however, were full of classic WWE intrigue. Largely because Triple H did the slickest looking blade job I can remember from him. It was clear that Triple H was more versed in how to work the house style than the other two, but the post match revealed that there was a reward to his blood, sweat and toiling. He ended up taking everyone out and leaving with his entrance music playing despite losing the bout. Time to play the game. It's never bad when a match ends better than it started.

Guy Mercier/James Brown vs. Les Gorilles (Lou/Geo Marsallon) 7/1/65 I thought this was decent. It was clear from the get go that Mercer and Brown were the physically stronger team and that the Marsallons would have to resort to dirty tricks to make it a level playing field. That was pretty much how it played out. They didn't take it to any great extremes, but the match didn't suffer from too many lulls. The Marsallons were more workmanlike than super charismatic, but it was fun to see another tag combo from the era. It's always eerie watching James Brown so close to the accident.

Whooa, there are new catch matches?

My favorite thing about that interview is Kent shifting into his public persona. I wonder what Colbeck thought of Walton personally.

Prime Marino is a missing piece of the puzzle. That's for sure.

I watched the backend of that Marino/Yearsley bout, and I agree that it's not as bad as I was making out 10 years ago, but there is nothing that ought to excite a connoisseur. That argument, like so many, is silly. I have championed Marino many times ,but I don't think this match has much bearing on his legacy.

Decent title match. Some nice big man/small man psych. Orton's nasty looking matwork is an underrated part of his game. I liked the way they put the finishing stretch together with Rey catching Orton with the kick to the face then the 619 out of the corner. Taz laid it on a bit thick with his skepticism over Rey's chances but subtlety was never his strong point. For a Friday night TV match, I had no real complaints.

I felt obligated to watch this. It wasn't the worst match I've ever seen but it was still pretty shit. Way too much dicking around to get to the payoff. I could go the rest of my life without seeing Vince McMahon's leathery ass cheeks.

The version I head was from a podcast Debbie did. The footage issue depends on how much stock you put in her comeback.