ohtani's jacket

I finished James Robinson's Starman today. I started off unsure whether I liked the main character and Robinson's dialogue and wound up heavily invested in the relationships between Jack, his father and brother, and the rest of the supporting cast. It was definitely a comic book for folks who grew up reading comic books, but it had plenty of heart. I was really impressed by the overall structure of the series and how all of the pieces fit. Robinson wasn't the first British writer to take DC property and reinvent it, but the way he built a mythos behind Starman was impressive. I'd definitely rank the series alongside any other series of its ilk, and I'll probably check out the spinoff titles at some point, but for now, I want to reflect on the journey. Starman is one of those books where there's a lot of foreshadowing and it's clear that things have been carefully planned in advance, but it's the emotional core of the book that truly matters. I feel like that was something that grew as the series developed. It went from being a book about collectibles, pop culture references, and comic book history callbacks, to a series about friendship, and family, and relationships, and children, and the sacrifices that heroes and their loved ones make, and mortality and death, and legacies and memories, and so many grand concepts. It was a heck of a book and a testament to Robinson's imagination.

The CFA released a Hans Schmidt match in colour. Unfortunately, it's against Yukon Eric so it's pretty slow going, but at least you get to see Schmidt in living colour.

I don't think they looked bad. The JBA were the only ones that had a proper run, though, I guess. Man, the Abdullah vs. Oki matches are everything you'd want them to be. I'm watching the second one right now and Oki attacking Abby's ribs with headbutts is incredible. I have to believe Yoshiaki Fujiwara saw these matches and thought they were the greatest thing ever. I also watched a crappy Animal Hamaguchi match. Animal Hamaguchi sucks. He's the kind of guy you assume must be good because of his name. Did he ever have a good match aside from the one against Jumbo?

One of my all-time favorite workers.

I don't get Otsuka. Everybody loves him. I feel like I wasn't invited to the party.

I thought Satanico was going to bow out on that amazing 2001 cage match, but every single performance I've seen from 2002 is excellent. His 2002 has actually been better than his 2001 so far. He's not the main guy in any of his matches, but he's outstanding in a secondary or third role, which is a tough role to nail.

I'm a lot higher on Panther than I was last time around after watching all of his early 00s stuff. I have a specific expectation for the type of Blue Panther match I want to see (Panther vs. Atlantis, some of the Santo matches), but unfortunately you don't get to see those types of matches very often because of the way lucha is booked, and the reality that the style of wrestling I like was more prevalent prior to lucha making tape. Watching his early 00s stuff, I was able to enjoy him on talent alone even when he wasn't being featured very prominently. That's one thing that's tough to swallow about lucha. Chad alluded to it the other day with Casas. When guys aren't being used, or they've had a main event run and are being dropped back down the card to make way for someone else, they get thrown into random trios matches and given little to do. Sometimes their talent shines through in random trios matches, or if you're lucky you get to see them working programs in other lucha territories, but it's a bugger when you see guys like Panther being under-utilized. One thing I do want to say about Panther as a candidate, and this is true for other candidates as well, is that I think he benefits from people pretty much only watching his most well known stuff. Now I could be wrong about that, but I have a feeling that not everyone sits through countless hours of meaningless lucha (which believe me, you shouldn't), but I think like it's easier for a candidate like Panther to stand out and criticisms to seem off base. Lucha candidates need a boost, but I think they should be held to the same standards as everyone else. Lastly, and this is a reach, if anybody has AWS Major Styles Clash lying around in a box somewhere, I have always hoped Panther vs. Dos Caras would magically appear on the internet some day.

He's definitely a formula guy, but probably one of the best formula guys ever.

Fujinami, Inoki, Dump, Bull, Chigusa, Lioness, Jumping Bomb Angels, Aja & the AJW crew, Hakushi, and early Taka and Sasuke looked okay.

The '93 G1 final was another good match. Fujinami was definitely one of the instigators of using the other guy's finisher, which became one of the most annoying tropes in wrestling.

The rematch isn't as good, but you get a lot more Oki vs. Baba, and Oki is definitely my kind of wrestler. Kim Duk isn't half bad either. I was under the impression that he wasn't very good. Not sure where I got that idea from.

Panther and Santo were neck and neck for my Lucha WOTY for 2001, but in the end I gave it to Panther. Casas' issues in 2000-02 are largely due to with how the company uses him. The biggest singles program he has in that time period is against Wagner and it doesn't air because of the Olympics. The only time he's relevant aside from that is whenever Santo shows up to reignite the feud with GdI. Meanwhile, Santo benefits from working dates in CMLL Japan, Monterrey and IWRG. As for as Lucha WOTY goes, I have it like this so far: 2000: Villano III (Runner up: Blue Panther) 2001 Blue Panther (Runner up: El Hijo del Santo) 2002: Shocker (Runner up: Ultimo Guerrero)

I really need some new Bret to sink my teeth into. I think I'll hit up that list.

The 10/76 match is awesome. Kind of surreal watching Jumbo and Baba go after Kim Duk's nose like that, and Jumbo was downright rude to Joe. Those kids mugging for the camera at the end were hilarious, especially when one of them falls on the commentator.

That's an interesting take. Is there a specific reason for that?

Baba/Oki is okay, but nowhere near as good as Inoki/Oki. I've made it pretty clear since the last poll that I think Baba is overrated and that Inoki is much better. I doubt many people will agree, though.

The 5/91 Chono match is also very good, and a straight wrestling match too. Is it time to rewrite the narrative on 90s Fujinami?

Smarkschoice was very pro-Joshi. There was an entire forum devoted to Joshi and we wound up doing a separate list for women. I remember one poster working the forum by pretending to be Debbie Malenko. He told this great story about sneaking out of a birthday party to share a cigarette with Kyoko Inoue. Between '06 and '16, Joshi fandom became increasingly niche. The voters in 2016 weren't overly positive toward Joshi and there was no 80s set. It seems a lot of people are pro-women's wrestling these days. It looks like women in general will do better than in previous polls.

Breaks was versatile. He could wrestle technical bouts, work the light heavyweight style, brawl, do the cry baby act, and there were few better at carrying teenagers. If we had more footage of his early days, I think we'd see a more serious side to him. I am pretty sure he was a babyface when he got his big win over Mel Riss in '63. I would like to see some of his heel vs. heel stuff as well. Breaks vs. McManus sounds pretty wild: "They started wrestling, went hammer and tongs, ignored the ref, ignored the bells ending round one and two. And then I think they both got disqualified."

I recall her being very good at the Dump role during her time in All Japan. I liked her feud with Jackie Sato.

Omori is hurt by there not being a Joshi 80s set. Needs a reappraisal. Actually, she needs an appraisal before that. I have the vaguest of memories about her work against Chigusa and Lioness, but I can't remember if I was pro-Omori or not. I seem to remember her tag team with Hori being good as well. It's a shame that she wasn't interested in coming out of retirement in the 90s.

The only Miyahara match I've seen is one I saw live. He got the building to pop.

Beautiful wrestler. Every match of his is a gem. I wish we didn't have to rely so much on German handheld footage to see his matches, but from the stuff we have on tape, it's clear that he was good for a very long time.

This guy is absolutely phenomenal. Watching his matches was how tape traders must have felt in the 80s watching Tiger Mask and in the 90s watching Rey Mysterio, Jr. Absolutely one of the all-time great juniors, and not only because of his spots. He was a complete worker, a tremendous babyface, a brilliant seller, and he had a fantastic series of tags, six-mans and singles matches that are the high spot of 70s Catch. If he doesn't rocket into the top 100, I will be very surprised.

KAORU? Maeda Kaoru? The Aja match is amazing, I'll grant you that, but KAORU?