ohtani's jacket

Japon vs. Mexico. This was pretty weak. It was something different, I guess. At least it gave Casas something to do. He seemed more energized than his usual second wheel in a midcard trios appearance. His exchanges with Black Tiger were good, but the trouble with Casas is that you expect something special.

I am a fan of hers. I also like Yumi Ikeshita from that era. If you watch enough of it, you pretty much get into everybody -- Victoria Fujimi, Nancy Kumi, Mami Kumano, Lucy Kayama, and a little bit later girls like Mimi Hagiwara, Jumbo Hori, Tarantula. You should definitely check out Jackie Sato vs. Jaguar Yokota. One girl that has a big rep who we have almost nothing from is Mariko Akagi.

It's too bad there was never an 80s Joshi set. Girls like Nagahori, Ogura, Condor Saito, etc. need more exposure.

What's the word on this Andre/Terry Rudge match?

Cap is disturbed.

I chose Fujinami because I think his 70s and 80s stuff is better than what Bret did in the 80s and 90s. I also think Fujinami's NJPW vs. WAR and MUGA stuff is better than Bret's final run in WCW. If you were to offer me a newly discovered Fujinami match over a newly discovered Bret match, I would take the Fujinami match any day of the week. I love Bret. He was one of my heroes growing up, but I feel like I've closed the book on him. It's difficult for me to imagine a new Bret match that would excite me. Perhaps a newly discovered Owen match or something with Hennig. I guess an Austin match, but less so.

Thanks for that info, Beast. I finished Red Nails. It's a classic no doubt, but what I really want to draw attention to was Roy Thomas saying it might be the last issue of Savage Tales. It really does seem like they had trouble publishing these magazine format comics, which is a shame because they are a clear precursor to the rise of independent comics, graphic novels, and comics for mature readers. If that trend had begun earlier we would have seen some amazing creator driven stuff in the 70s.

Does the book say Jumbo entered Chuo in '69? Jumbo was born in March of '51, so he should have entered University in April of '69, unless he failed his exams and went through a year of prep school. Assuming he finished his degree, and I've never heard anything to the contrary, he should have graduated University in March of '73. He left for Texas on March 22nd, 1973, which would have been shortly after his graduation ceremony. I have no idea what was going on with Chuo University club politics from 1969-73. I have read that Jumbo didn't think he had a future as a professional basketball player, which was one of the reasons why he ditched the sport. It seemed he was interested in making a living from sport at the time. The reason I suspect he faced some opposition from the wrestling club, regardless of what his teammate says, is the fact that he had to join the Self Defense Forces club, which was in Saitama and unaffiliated with the University. Just to save face with the Chuo basketball club? I have my doubts. Ultimately, he proved good enough to make the Olympics despite picking the sport up a few years out from Munich, which is extraordinary if you think about it, but by the same token, he wasn't as good a basketball player as people make out. Meltzer, in his usual overblown way, tries to compare Jumbo to top US college basketball players of the same era. I am pretty sure Jumbo realized he had no future in basketball, at least to the level that he wanted to pursue it. The Japanese basketball team actually ended up making the '72 Olympics, which is one of the few times Japan has qualified for Olympic basketball. What I would like to know is that if Mr. Pogo wasn't Jumbo's rival on the wrestling team, who was the wrestler who opposed Jumbo? Some sources say Pogo dropped out of Chuo after the first year, so it can't have been him.

I'm pretty sure that Jumbo didn't attend Chuo University on a basketball scholarship. Wikipedia says he entered The Faculty of Law at Chuo University through the entrance examination. My understanding is that he was rejected from the wrestling team because he was seen as a quitter. Jumbo didn't see basketball as a viable pathway to the Olympics and thought wrestling offered him a better chance because there was less competition for places. You can imagine how that went over with the wrestlers.

I finished up the Squadron Supreme mini-series today. Lots of interesting ideas about superhero comics in keeping with what a lot of the British writers were doing in the 80s. I can see the parallels with Watchmen except that the writing and artwork is obviously superior in Watchmen. The thing that kept bugging me is that even though I enjoyed the way Thomas used the Squadron Supreme in the Avengers, what's the point in introducing these DC copies into the Marvel Universe? If the DC characters are so iconic, and you want to work with them so desperately, then why not jump ship and work for the opposition? I get that Gruenwald used the characters, and their alternate universe, to tell the kind of story he couldn't with the Avengers or the Fantastic Four, but the entire concept of the Squadron Supreme is strange to me. And I say that as someone who loves Astro City and all of the homages/tributes in that series.

When they brought Savage Tales back it was as a Conan mag, and then a Ka-Zar mag. They didn't continue the stories that they'd started in the first issue.

The first few issues of John Buscema's run on Conan the Barbarian were a bit rough, but I liked issue 27 enough that I decided to keep reading the book. I was still hankering for some Barry Smith Conan, though, so I read the first issue of Savage Tales. I'm pretty sure the Frost Giant's Daughter story was printed in Conan the Barbarian, Savage Sword of Conan and Savage Tales, but it's a nice short story. What really impressed me was how good the rest of Savage Tales was. An anthology with Barry Smith, John Romita, Gray Marrow, Gene Colan, and John Buscema doing non-Comic Code art? It's a travesty that it was cancelled after the first issue. It could have been an amazing outlet for Marvel's finest to do mature comic book work. Sure, the stories are full of scantily clad women, and Stan Lee has some weird sexual politics going on in his stories, but I don't think Man-Thing was ever better than the origin story in Savage Tales #1. Maybe I'm a sucker for the black and white art, but it felt closer to Bernie Wrightson's Swamp Thing than the Man-Thing stories that followed. I also started reading Michael Golden's run on Micronauts which has been supremely fun. It doesn't feel like a Marvel comic at all. I feel like I'm reading an 80s independent publisher like First or Comico.

I liked this a lot. Mutoh is a divisive figure in wrestling, but there's plenty of worse shit out there than shaven-head, no-knees Keiji Mutoh. It's kind of interesting to look back on these matches without caring about the split and what All Japan had become. What may have been lamentable decades ago comes across, at times, like a bright spot in a dead wrestling scene. I loved the arm work in this match. I'm not a big limb work guy, but I thought the arm work here was really engaging. It gave Mutoh something to target with those relentless dropkicks of his, and of course, Tenryu sold it beautifully. I actually don't mind Mutoh's nonstop dropkicks. At least he goes all out and pummels guys. To me it's no different from nonstop elbow strikes or lariat-based offense. Speaking of which, Tenryu made a cool comeback with the lariat after Mutoh blew his chances of winning the match by thrashing his poor old knees on pointless moonsault attempts. Should have kept working on the arm, Keiji. Opinion on this match doesn't seem to be very high, but I liked it more than their Tokyo Sports MOTY headscratcher.

Black Tiger is back. Haven't seen him in a while. This was billed as CMLL vs. New Japan. I'm not sure which is worse, Japanese guys trying to do lucha triple-team spots or the posing they do afterward. I was kind of hoping that Shibata would do some shoot style stuff, but actually, the match was much better when the Japanese guys did their regular spots instead of trying to play at lucha. This was better than the first match with Takemura. I was at least a little bit interested in seeing Shibata in CMLL since he's a guy whose work I've liked in the past. He was over-emoting the entire time, but he had some fun exchanges with Niebla. I thought Shocker would be slightly better against the Japanese guys with all of his experience working the Super Juniors, but he didn't shine. I really expected Shocker to be my lucha WOTY for 2002, but aside from one or two matches, he hasn't impressed.

Some young Japanese guys were on excursion in Mexico during this month. I don't like seeing Japanese guys in my lucha, but I'll try to keep an open mind about it since they're here all month. This rudos trio had no chemistry whatsoever. Takemura spent the entire match following the others around, trying to figure out what to do. Third wheels can usually make do in a trios match, but the Mexican guys seemed uninspired. Rey Buncero phoned in it, Casas as a tecnico is starting to bore me, and even Atlantis vs. Wagner failed to deliver. Wataru Inoue attacked Casas at the end of the match, which Wagner and Rey weren't happy about, so I guess Japan vs. Mexico will be the theme for the month with rudos and tecnicos teaming together to defend their country's honor.

Robert Duranton vs. Michel Chaisne (aired 6/3/60) Duranton is doing a Gorgeous George gimmick here but doesn't go all in. There's not even a hint of anything promiscuous. It's pretty tame really. Duranton wrestles the same as he did before. Personally, I think he's an average worker. I guess he's decent for a big man. It's a notion worth entertaining, but compare this to the Lasartesse showcase. Duranton's holds look better than Lasartesse's, but who delivered the better match? Chaisne wasn't great here, but his comeback centered around a weak spot with the valet. The match fell apart from there and turned into a squash. It was hard to say anything good about it when there were other workers doing the same gimmick better, and big men with more talent than Duranton.

I'm halfway through the Dark Age books in Astro City. People have mentioned that the Dark Age books were a slog to get through, but I haven't felt that way. I guess it helps that the arcs I enjoyed the most had a darker edge to them (The Confessor arc and the Steeljack arc). I grew up in the 80s and 90s when superheroes were meant to be darker, and I've spent the past few years exploring the 70s comics where the tonal shift first began. I'm still enjoying Starman. James Robinson enjoys writing about things he likes (to put it nicely), and there are moments where the characters have ridiculous debates about pop culture that seem to be influenced by Tarantino, but aren't as universal as Tarantino. Reservoir Dog characters argued about Madonna songs, but Robinson's characters argue about far more esoteric topics. All writers have bad habits, though. I feel like that's something his editor should have curbed. I pretty much love everything else Robinson does in terms of messing with comic book structure. There's no real emotional pull yet, where I have to keep reading, though I do like Jack's relationship with his dad. The art, and character design, is really 90s at times, but I do love the foreshadowing and the preordained sense that the book is leading somewhere. I was kind of disappointed by Barry Smith's second run on Conan the Barbarian after they announced he was leaving the book. He struggled to keep up with the deadlines and ended up doing a lot of breakdowns. Gil Kane did the fill-in issues between Smith's two stints. Opinion was divided in the letter column over Kane's work, but personally I thought it was much better than Smith's second run. I recently finished Omega the Unknown. I'm not a huge fan of Steve Gerber, but as far as deconstructionist takes on the superhero genre go, I think his unfinished run on Omega pretty much encapsulates the heart and soul of what he was trying to do. I've been slowly making my way through the Five Years Later Legion of Superheroes. I usually enjoy dystopian future stories, but I've got to be honest, it is really hard to follow what is going on. It's not like I haven't read the famous runs on Legion. Admittedly, it's been a few years, but still... I feel lost from issue to issue, and Giffen's art doesn't hold up.

Rene Ben Chemoul & Gilbert Cesca vs. Cheri Bibi & Pierre Bernaert (aired 5/6/60) This was a decent match, but there wasn't much depth to it. There were some fun moments when Bibi and Bernaert railed on Cesca and Ben Chemoul, and the faces retaliated in kind. I imagine it was the type of match that the average punter liked to see. Hell, if I'd been there, I would have probably loved it too. But in my ivory tower, I couldn't help but think, "Man, I wish we had Cesca's World of Sport stuff." My mind kept wandering, thinking of the singles matches that never made tape that would have been a better example of his wrestling ability. Ben Chemoul is probably better in these sort of tags based on what I've seen, but Cesca is more of an unknown. It's silly, really, since this is the type of match where they could've plugged in any babyface (within reason), so it was never going to answer the questions I have. There was some nice double-teaming from the heels, especially those elbows in the corner, and the way they took the trash out when returning Cesca to his corner. But I can't honestly say that Ben Chemoul or Cesca where better than Sola or Labat.

I like this more than the last Talibanes match we saw. For a quick midcard match it had plenty of polish. Bestia showed some of his old fire, and Black Warrior did a hellacious tope.

This was GREAT. I may be overrating it because of how frustrated I've been with CMLL lately, but a title match that's worked on the mat? Targeted limb work with sustained selling? Wagner looking like his usual self? I still think Shocker was better as a rudo, but this best match since his turn. There was a definite New Japan Juniors influence to this, though they dialed back the offense compared to what you'd see in Japan. The selling and continuity between falls was pretty rare in lucha around this time. The only problem I had with the match was the soft finish. I thought they ended on the wrong beat. The finish should have been a near fall or had another move or two proceed it. That took the rating down a notch, but it's the best match of the season so far.

Fusion Lagunera have fully fused masks this week. Panther even had fake hair to make him look like Fuerza. Disappointing match given the talent involved. Some of that may be due to butchering in the edit, but CMLL has been trending downward since my initial excitement over the new season. Fuerza blew a ton of shit in this. So did Tarzan Boy. The only one who was halfway decent was Panther, and he looked like Mili Vanilli. I don't think Wagner is fully engaged in this run. He's been far from his best. This was supposed to be a title match, but it was pretty much a series of finishes. Fusion Lagunera were interviewed after the match and a brawl broke out between Niebla, Antifaz, Fusion Lagunera, and GdI. Well, I say brawl, but it was piss weak.

This was a Grand Prix Torneo Cibernetico. Not the greatest cibernetico, but even an average cibernetico is better than most of the matches they show. They cut straight to the elimination portion where we discover that the Tijuana boys are still around. Remember when they were making waves? The way wrestlers come and go in CMLL is really frustrating. You think they're getting a push, and there'll be a blowoff down the line, then they up and disappear. Speaking of which, Santo is back for this match. Despite my bitching, I was curious to see who would win and who would make an impression. Satanico looked great again. I guess I was wrong about the cage match being his swan song. He's looked fantastic in 2002 every time he's made tape. Zumbido and Felino picked up where they left off in that cool trios match from the week before. Casas had a great exchange with Satanico, but he's having another one of those years where they have nothing for him. I'm pretty sure he'll only be relevant if Santo sticks around. More ammunition against the "Casas was best in the world for every year of his career" crowd. I sort of lost interest in this after Satanico was eliminated. The final pairing was Santo vs. Mascara Magica. Santo going the distance was no surprise, but I guess they saw something in Mascara Magica that I don't as he scored a huge upset victory. Yeeeah, I dunno. If you're gonna pay Santo to put someone over, why not the guys you've been trying to push like Shocker or Black Warrior? I like the fact that midcarders can win ciberneticos. We all remember how great it was when Felino won in '97. But Magica? I'm not convinced.

This is the only match I can find from the pay-per-view, and it's an absolute dog of a main event. How the hell this happened is beyond me. The Dos Leyendas show in 1999 had the famous Santo/Casas vs. Bestia/Scorpio mask vs. hair match. 2000 had the legendary Atlantis vs. Villano III match. 2001 had the masterfully booked Universo 2000 vs. Perro Aguayo match. 2002 has this. This has to be up there with the worst matches to ever headline a PPV.