ohtani's jacket

How much of that good stuff was from '87 onwards? Is it really Ted's fault that he never had a big IC title match? He had his own belt.

I’m not entirely convinced that any of the women mentioned are significantly better than Kansai. I guess Jaguar and Hokuto are their very best.

Fuerza was incredible under Pena in both CMLL and AAA but then it's a straight drop. Even when his stuff is decent, he's still not the same guy. The worst thing about it is that you lose all the schtick. There was always that one brilliant moment in every Fuerza performance where he did something completely phenomenal, but for some reason he stops doing it, and I can't figure out why as it mostly involved physical comedy. He just stops being entertaining. A brilliant performer under Pena, but a really short run by lucha standards.

This was a good match, but I found the result perplexing. Satomura looked extremely confident at the beginning of the bout and seemed to have grown into her role as the ace of the promotion and the leader of the next generation. She had dropped all of the 'young girl' selling and mannerisms that she sometimes prone to overdoing in matches against the veteran workers, and was working towards a more shoot style oriented moveset similar to when Chigusa came of age as a singles worker. Nagashima refused to be intimidated by the champ and took the match to her from the get-go. The early going was a brawl. There was a bit of crowd walking, but when they got back into the ring, the action was unrelenting. Satomura unleashed some awesome looking strikes on Nagashima, but she wasn't at that selfish veteran level where she refused to let anybody fight through her offense and land a few knockout blows. Nagashima is at heart a Toyota type, but she never backed down from an opponent and had a ton of fighting spirit. These two had been wrestling each other since GAEA began and both of them wanted the ultimate prize. The problem I had with the result wasn't that Nagashima stripped Satomura of the title. It's not like Nagashima wasn't a good worker. I like her a lot. The problem I had with the result was that after Satomura struggling for so long to beat Aja, and then finally taking the title from her, to have her drop it to Nagashima in a halfway decent match, felt like it took all of the steam out of Satomura's transformation into the GAEA ace. She fought so hard to overcome the challenges she faced then she drops the the title to her peer in pretty much no time at all. Not the call I would have made. Sorry, Nagashima.

I'm pretty sure I drove Parv nuts last time by claiming that The Big Bossman had a better WWF run than Ted. Ted has some good WWF stuff -- the early matches with Patterson, his performance in the '89 Rumble, his matches against Bret, the Virgil match, the Shawn match, a Savage match or two. He lacks that one definitive match, but how many of the territory guys had one? And even among the guys who did, take away Rude's carry of Warrior and his output is even thinner than Ted's. Now if you want to argue that his work against Hogan and Savage is disappointing, that's another story, but when it comes to late 80s-early 90s WWF, I feel like you need to adopt a Matt D approach to wrestling -- i.e. could Ted possibly have done a better job of putting over his feud with Dusty and Sapphire? I know damn well he couldn't have done a better job of feuding with Piper and Virgil. I wish this period of WWF had better matches, but it didn't, and so we're left making excuses.

Another cool chapter in their rivalry. These guys remind me a lot of Rey Mysterio Jr vs. Juventud Guerrera. Definitely watch it without the commentary, though.

This was awesome. Probably their best match yet. I could see that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets The Matrix sequence being loathsome if other workers began copying it, but it's something else when Low Ki and Red do it.

Fit Finlay vs. Steve Casey (Wien '94) This was a return bout from the week before. I don't remember too much about the first bout, but I didn't care for it much based on my comments above. The problem with these bouts is that they're mostly shitty house show matches. Casey is an interesting match-up for Finlay, but it's hardly a surprise that they're half-assing it on a house show. I didn't hate this, but they only really engaged in serious brawling a few times.

Poor Ted. Wasn't he voted the best wrestler on the Mid-South set? I've been rewatching the Duggan feud, and honestly if people hype up Sangre Chicana and Perro Aguayo then Ted should get hype for the "Doogan" feud alone.

The tecnicos mean business in this match with Casas back from his stretcher job, but the rudos aren't about to give them an inch. This is the type of tension you want from trios matches .Shocker is all over this match as The Man in CMLL at this point, and Magica is his mini-me right down to the hair, but surprisingly, Casas, who is out for revenge, winds up being the victim.

CMLL seems to be reigniting a few of its unresolved feuds. First it was Shocker vs. Tarzan Boy, then Atlantis vs. Wagner, and now Black Warrior vs. Black Tiger. It's been a great stretch for CMLL and this was another good match. It would have been better if Takemura had replaced Nosawa, but the positives far outweighed that negative. Niebla worked well with the Japanese guys, and I was excited to see Masada square off with Atlantis Black Tiger has been awesome throughout his run, and that tope from Warrior! This may not lead anywhere, but at least there was a clear through line and some great complementary match-ups.

Whatever I'm into right now.

The 1967 Kosak match shows Oki could wrestle too. That adds another wrinkle to his case. Great use of the headbutts too. They have this cool wrestling match and then Kosak is gold at the end. You've got to see what happens when he tries to punch Oki.

I'm only half way through his run, but I will whip something up later.

Awesome. I haven't seen that clip in years. Felino vs. Panther used to be on the internet, but I guess it went poof.

I have come around a bit on Finlay's German work. There is some decent stuff there, and it's definitely better than his matches with Paula. I still prefer the work from the beginning and end of his career, but it's worth seeing at least a few of Finlay's German bouts.

This was another excellent bout. The focal points were the captains battle between Shocker and Tarzan Boy and the rivalry between Santo and Ultimo. The Santo vs. Ultimo Guerrero mask vs. mask match never happens, we know that in 2021, but I'm glad they ran with it as a follow up feud to the tag titles switch. It's an apuestas match I would have loved to have seen. Shocker and Tarzan Boy reignite their rivalry and have some excellent exchanges. We get a glimpse or two of Shocker vs. Ultimo in this, which feels like the future of lucha libre, but Shocker mostly works with Tarzan Boy, and I realized in this bout that I have fully accepted Tarzan Boy as a worker. I am now pretty much pro-Tarzan Boy and thought he looked great here .

This match was built around Atlantis vs. Dr. Wagner Jr, which is one of my favorite ongoing feuds in lucha. Fusion Lagunera have been dominant in a lazy way, and I haven't been thrilled with Wagner in 2002, but at least Atlantis got to kick some ass in this match. I was happy to see him fire up if nothing else.

You should check it out. I would rank it alongside the best DC Stuff I've read: Moore's Swamp Thing, Morrison's Doom Patrol and Animal Man, Gaiman's Sandman, Elllis' Transmetropolitan, and Ennis' runs on Preacher and Hellblazer.

http://wrestlingclassics.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=10;t=005317

A thousand thank yous. That was everything I hoped it would be.

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.