ohtani's jacket

Fit Finlay vs. Eddie Gilbert (Bremen 12/19/92) Eddie Gilbert, what is your Southern style ass doing in Germany in 1992? This didn't resemble Catch at all. It was a pretty great fight, though. It was one of those matches were they stall at a lot at the beginning then go hell for leather when it's too late and time is running out. I would have preferred a bit more back and forward action, but Finlay was a bit of a staller in his own right. Some really nice exchanges when they do hook up.

I can't remember if I've seen that match. I know it exists on tape but it's not really in circulation.

These two sure wrestled each other a lot in 2002, didn't they? This wasn't their best match together, but I thought it had excellent psychology for a 2/3 fall television 'cruiserweight' bout. (I can't help but think of it as one with Tenay on commentary, and the fact that the whole X Division thing doesn't really gel with me as someone watching this stuff for the first time twenty years later.) It's been interesting to watch Low Ki go from East Coast indies to a national promotion like this, and Japan as well, and not trade away a ton of his persona.

Lately, I've been able to reconcile how washed up Satanico looks in '94-95 with the beginning of a very promising program against Damian 666 in 2002. I am pretty sure the eventual singles matches between Satanico and Damian won't match his classic stuff from the past, but I'm glad he's finally getting a showcase run in '02 and the feud as a whole interests me. Not sure what was going on in '94-95. Was he uninspired with his role in the company? Was it something to do with his jump to AAA?

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?