ohtani's jacket

The rudos came to the ring as Los Talibanes but still used Backstreet Boys. Typical CMLL. This was slow going. Fiera couldn't get anything cooking with the rudos, which was disappointing. Safari and Antifaz did Safari and Antifaz things, but the highlight of the match was a Three Stooges spot that saw Emilio interact playfully with the rudo fan who's at every show.

Adding the Villanos into the mix with the Boricuas was a nice idea, but this match is really just an excuse for Pierroth to finally signal a beatdown of Gran Markus Jr, which he does with a great punch to the face. The Boricuas beat Gran Markus Jr like a dog, and Pierroth cuts a promo.

There are basically two types of wrestlers for me, the type of wrestler I'll only watch against the right opponent and the type of wrestler I'll watch against anyone. You can probably guess which type of wrestler Tenryu is. This was everything you could want out of a Tenryu match. Tenryu beats the shit out of Kojima. Kojima is sick of beating beat on and strikes back. Tenryu beats the crap out of him some more. Any variation on that would have been a waste of time.

This was all right. Folks tend to go gaga for inter-promotional matches, but this wasn't all that different from other matches we've seen where Liger visits a rival promotion. He pretty much drew on the work he was doing in Osaka Pro, for example. The difference was that Kikuchi was an outstanding opponent. When you think of Kikuchi, you generally think of the beatings he took from Jumbo and Fuchi, and all of the times he was stretched like a pretzel. What impressed me here were his rabid attacks on offense. The Liger vs. Kikuchi exchanges delivered in spades, and I liked the Liger vs. Kanemaru exchanges as well. The problem, for me, was Inoue. Liger getting stuck with the weaker, younger partner is such a tired cliche in Japanese wrestling. When it's done well, you can point to it as a classic archetype, but to me, he just looked like a goofy ass, Ohtani wannabe, and a liability. In fact, his work was so bad, I'm even more impressed with the carry job Liger did the year before in the BOSJ. Inoue eating the pin was boring and predictable, but these matches are always slaves to hierarchy. Makes you wonder why Liger brought the kid with him when he was such a liability.

Are you kidding me? Zumbido? Virus? Ricky Marvin? An inspired La Fiera? This was great. CMLL always feels so exciting at the beginning of a new season. These guys were rocking the Coliseo. Perfect midcard wrestling with a Zumbido vs. La Fiera throughline that kicked ass.

This was a fun maestros style match. I definitely agree that Japan could have done with a full-time MUGA promotion at this stage.

This was a fun revancha. There was a ton of niggle in each exchange. Week to week lucha TV is some of my favorite stuff to watch, even if it doesn't pump out four star matches. Shocker looked pretty slick throughout, and the Tarzan Boy exchanges continue to look promising. The match ended with a run in from Rey Bucanero and a rudo beatdown on Shocker. Looks like we've got our first feud for 2002. Count me in.

I really enjoyed the matches these two had in 2001. I wasn't expecting this to be as good, especially when Wagner came to the ring with a sledgehammer and some lackey named Black Metal. The match was all right for what it was (wrestling wise), but there was a heavy WWF influence, and they got a bit cute with the mask removals. Not worth watching unless you particularly like Atlantis and Wagner.

This was really good. These guys always had good chemistry together. It's hard to believe the WWF could have a hot TV match like this then fall off a cliff with their Wrestlemania booking.

So Shocker is either a tecnico now or on his way to becoming one. (I can never keep up with how this sort of thing works.) This starts off as a holdover from the Porky vs. Tarzan Boy feud, then transitions into Shocker vs. Tarzan Boy. It will be interesting to see how good Shocker is as a tecnico. I thought he was easily one of the top five rudos in Mexico and arguably the most exciting given how fresh he was. I liked the match Shocker and Tarzan Boy had when Tarzan Boy was still finding his way as tecnico, and I liked their work in this match as well. Barring any bullshit, they could conceivably have a very good match. This was a fairly standard match, but it had several storylines going on at the same time and some nice interactions like Casas vs. Ultimo Guerrero. I was glad to see Casas still pissed at Black Tiger over what he did to Felino. Continuity! Black Tiger has been a maniac during this run. He wants to hurt every opponent he faces. I love it. The usual bullshit to finish, but a fun match all the same. And a pretty great episode.

This was a rare instance of them showing a match in full. It was shot kind of strangely for an Arena Coliseo match and almost felt like a house show match. The first two falls were fairly standard. Antifaz and Zumbido carried over some of their work from Monterrey, and everybody else was solid. The standout was Fiera, who gave an inspired old man performance. If you're a Fiera fan, you should check this out, as he rarely looked this good in the 00s. The match built to an exciting finish with a couple of dives into oblivion. (Safari's one will make you wince.) The finish was the usual BS, but it happened in rhythm, so it wasn't the buzz kill that it would have ordinarily been. Very good match. Hard to see anything topping it from this month.

Say what you will about Tanahashi -- and I think he's deserving of most of the later praise -- he wasn't afraid to get schooled on the mat by Ishikawa then go toe-to-toe with Murakami and get his ass kicked. Match was criminally short.

I was expecting a solid match between these two marred by a barrage of bullshit, and that's pretty much what I got. On a scale of one to ten, the bullshit wasn't as bad as in other matches, but I don't see how this style of main event wrestling was sustainable. When the bullshit and everything else involved with the style begins obligatory, it's time to take things in a different direction. The one thing I like about these Rock vs. Jericho matches is that it pays off Jericho's WWF debut where he interrupted the Rock's mic segment. The rest of the trappings I could do without. There were some neat counters by both men, and I guess the table spot was inventive, but the run-ins, the ref bump, the heel ref, etc. It felt passé for 2002, let alone all these years later.

This was a solid midcard match that continued to stoke the fire between Pierroth and Gran Markus Jr. Los Boricuas were such a fun unit. These aren't my favorite tecnicos, but they had enough flash and enough highspots to make for entertaining foils. The sequences between Blue Demon Jr and Gran Markus were surprisingly good, and Violencia did a great job as the glue man.

This was a decent match. Plenty of Felino and Fuerza took a lead role, which was nice. There was carnage in the third fall when the middle rope broke, and the rudos used it to choke Felino. The doctor called for a stretcher, but the rudos used that as a weapon as well. They finally carried the poor bugger out, only for the rudos to beat on him some more. Atlantis lost his mask, and Casas got a working over as well. Not content with leaving the tecnico team in tatters, Black Tiger wanted to dish out some more hurt after the bout. There's always that little piece of you that hopes this goes somewhere, but I've learned not to get my hopes up.

Run of the mill stuff. There were a lot of talented guys involved but nobody brought their A game. I expected more from Shocker and Bestia.

Josef Kovacs vs. Gaby Calderon (aired 10/23/59) Yuck. You'd have a hard time convincing me that either of these guys were ever any good. Quasimodo vs. Gilbert Leduc (aired 10/23/59) I've seen this a few times now. The first couple of times you watch it, it's to see the Monster Movie gimmick brought to life, but this time it was all about Leduc's performance. For a straight shooter, he was remarkably good at putting over gimmicked opponents. On the surface, it shouldn't be a strength of his, but he didn't mind selling for the latest Monster of the Month and was pretty good at the theatrics part of pro-wrestling. The Le Bourreau de Bethune bout is more shocking and dramatic, but this was further proof that Leduc was a multi-talented worker. Jose Arroyo vs. Michel Chaisne (aired 11/20/59) This was one of the better bouts in a while. It was a classic face vs. face bout where neither man can gain an advantage and the bout breaks down into a forearm smash contest. That was a pretty standard way of working face vs. face contests in Europe over the years. It was a tried and true way of getting heat for matches that didn't involve heels. It's not something that I ever tire of, but I will say that the lack of a finish here wasn't wholly satisfying. I don't know that 1959 Catch has been as good as the stuff from '57 and '58, however, so you should definitely add it to your watch list.

I finally caught up with David Lapham's most recent work on Stray Bullets. Stray Bullets was one of the comics I bought when I was still collecting comics. I'm glad he's still producing it after all these years. His art and storytelling have improved immensely from the early issues. The most recent arc was bloated compared to the original series, especially given it was a prequel, and the obligatory Amy Racecar issues grated after a while, but when it was good, it was really, really good. I also finished Transmetropolitan. Warren Ellis can be smug at times, and the humour didn't always wash with me, but overall it was an excellent series. And scarily prescient of the Trump administration. I started working through Gene Colan's run on Batman. There aren't any classic stories, but I simply love Colan's artwork. I was enjoying the stories by Gerry Conway and Klaus Janson inking the pencils, but I just reached the point where they changed the writer and inker, and the artwork is nowhere near as good. I began reading Astro City based on the recommendations in this thread and so far I can't get enough of it. I've also started reading the 90s reboot of Starman. And I am continuing to enjoy Ennis' run on Hellblazer. I'm slowly trudging my way through 70s Marvel -- trying to finish Man Thing and Son of Satan. I recently began reading Omega the Unknown. I'm not a huge fan of Steve Gerber, to be perfectly honest (except for his Defenders run), but if you like his take on superhero comic books then Omega is perhaps the best encapsulation of it. I added Conan the Barbarian to the 70s slate. I love Savage Sword of Conan, but I had never checked out the main title. So far, it's enjoyable. Barry Smith tries a bit too hard to be Kirby at times, but I usually enjoy Roy Thomas comic books. Sticking with 70s Marvel, I watched an interview with Byrne today, so suddenly I want to check out his 70s work, which was before my time. Similarly, I've been slowly making my way through Mark Waid's run on The Flash. At first, I couldn't understand what the hype was about as I preferred William Messner-Loebs' run on the title with its quirky cast of supporting characters. However, that arc where Barry Allen returns. That was a great story. So I'm glad I stuck with it. I have also been revisiting the 5 years later era of Legion of Superheroes, which I know a lot of people hate, but I've always loved those types of resets. Giffen's art hasn't aged that well, however. I started reading Squadron Supreme today. I can understand the Watchmen comparisons, but man, how many word bubbles can a guy read before his eyes dry out? I also started reading Chris Claremont and Frank Miller's Wolverine. So 80s. Ninjas! Japan! Yakuza! Plus I've been reading J.M. DeMatteis and Mike Zeck's Captain America, which has been a bit boring, but Zeck's art is nice. Captain America seems like a difficult character to write, to be fair, like Superman or Wonder Woman.

I was really impressed with Takehiro Murahama when I went through the 2000 footage.

Bret was great in all his sitdown interviews from that era. The difference in his promo in ‘97 is that he had to cut live promos in front of a crowd. I’m sure he flubbed his lines a few times doing those sitdown interviews. Is it in Wrestling with Shadows where he can’t get his lines right?

Bret cut great promos in '94-96 as well. I'm pretty sure his rep for promos comes from his Hart Foundation days and his early singles push.

Jose Arroyo vs. Georges Gueret (aired 10/15/59) I love Gueret, and Arroyo has been a strong babyface foil for the heels, but you could tell by the finish that this wasn't as hot as previous Arroyo bouts. Zarak vs. Jean-Pierre Lecompte (aired 10/15/77) This was better than I expected. I thought it would be Dave Smith-Larsen playing silly buggers, but Lecompte took the fight to him, and they had some fun exchanges. A shame it only went 10 minutes.

I'll always remember him as Sancho.

Finished Jim Starlin's Captain Marvel & Warlock runs. They're good, but I wouldn't really rate them alongside my favorite stuff from the 70s. I can understand the appeal if you like cosmic superhero stories. I liked Starlin's work on Strange Tales best. What really impressed me was the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel. That was a beautiful piece of work and deeply moving. Definitely up there with Dark Phoenix Saga, Miller's Daredevil, and the other great works of the era.

I didn't realize that Taue had cancer. Total stomach removal.