ohtani's jacket

Juan Botana vs Paul Villars (aired 1/1/59) God, I love Villars. I love how stoic he appears, but beneath the surface is that violent, psychotic temper. And we saw it here with the mauling he gave Botana. Shouldn't have raked the face during that head scissors. That was your big mistake, Botana.

This got better off the false finish (since when did a ref have the power to overturn a DQ?) I love Homicide, but injured babyface challenger isn't a role I wanna see him play. This heated up once he got some offense in. Was Danielson a good heel? The only heelish thing he did in this match was refuse to break the count, and even that was really on the nose. He jawed with the crowd a bit, but it almost feels like a post-modern heel champ act. I feel like Danielson never draws criticism. Every other worker gets scrutinized but Danielson seems untouchable. He did some cool shit in this match with his elbows and arm work, but other than that I wasn't hugely impressed. I suppose he sold the shoulder well, so he can have a couple of Bret Hart brownie points. The finish kind of sucked with the ring bell shit, but the post match was awesome. Homicide rules. I can only imagine how exciting this must have been for people following Homice and ROH since day one.

This was a good match. I would have liked it even more if the commentators hadn't screamed about the psychology every five seconds. Every time I watch Joe, I come away thinking he's the perfect wrestler. He had size, strength, skill, a great look, and he could cut a promo. I haven't watched the other matches in this trilogy, but I got the gist since they wouldn't stop talking about them. I actually thought Punk was gonna win this, so I was surprised when Joe put him away (I know nothing about ROH.) And didn't he put him away? That was a definitive finish.

This was a fun match. I really want to see Liger vs. Murahama after watching this match. Actually, I want to see Murahama vs. the World at this point. Is there a more exciting wrestler on the Japanese scene than Murahama? Liger and Samurai do their visiting rudo act similar to the year before. Samurai, in particular, seems to revel in the role. Deflin hasn't been at his world beating best this year (compared to 2000), but the real story here is Liger vs. Murahama. Did it happen? If not, why not?

This was a decent match. I forgot how busy Toryumon can be, but at least this felt fresh and sometime new not like the rest of the decaying men's promotions.

Awkward undercard Monterrey wrestling is interesting, I guess? I was hoping this would have a bit more of a punk rock, DIY feel, but it didn't.

Y'know, I never watched Chene vs. Cholak before. What a fantastic bout. Cholak was fucking huge. An absolute beast. And he could wrestle too. But the working over he gave Chene, and Chene fighting to stay in the fight despite the cut. This was great stuff.

Y'know, I've wanted to see this match ever since I got into Japanese wrestling, which is more than 20 years ago now. A match I've been wanting to see for 20 years. Weird. It's good. One of the better Hase matches I can remember seeing (not a guy I'm high on), and recently I've started to appreciate prime Liger again after viewing his Euro bouts. It didn't change my life, but it was a damn good match. I never really thought I'd want to watch a Liger match again, but I'm starting to see the similarities with Santo where both guys excel at working their formula. I loved the intensity at the beginning, and I was surprised by the shotei attack from Liger. I didn't realize he was using that move in '91. Great finishing stretch. Liger's dives looked great, and I liked how he sold his disappointment at the end.

I'm gonna start working through the matches I haven't seen. I hope you don't take my comments personally. I'm going into this match cold. I don't know who Masao Inoue is, and I've only seen one NOAH match that I liked. Perhaps if I had seen more NOAH, I'd have more context for this. I kept wondering why a limited guy with post-injury Chono level offense was in a big match with Jun Akiyama. I always have a problem with Akiyama matches. I just can't get into the guy. Lots of people like him. I don't know why I have this stubborn resistance towards him. One thing I did like about this were the knees to the head. He probably did one too many as it was verging on cruel, but I liked how he used them to put Inoue in his place.

This was a typical Monterrey bout. A lot of comedy, ref spots and dick jokes. Fun for the whole family. The fans got into it with the wrestlers a bit and were treated to the usual shit finish. There were a few good exchanges and some killer dives at the end, but probably too much Porky and La Parka for my liking. Zumbido was awesome. I wonder why he hasn't been appearing on the main shows. They were about to make him a Guapo at one point. Was he injured? (Looks like he got hurt in August.) I imagine if you were a Monterrey fan it was fun seeing the CMLL guys in person, but when they were leaving at the end, I kept wondering if they were really happy with that shit finish. The kids climbing into the ring is awesome. Reminds me of when kids used to invade the pitch after rugby games.

I haven't gotten around to revisiting the Chene match yet, but there's another sponsored upload from the Davis Collection. This time it's a women's match -- Rose Roman vs Ramona TeSelle. No sound, which might be a blessing. Typically solid women's match. Women's wrestling in the 50s was a lot different than people might expect. You'd think it would be all hair pulling and scratching, but they're technically sound wrestlers in the Mildred Burke ilk.

This was fun. Watching Ebessan try to work shoot style with Murahama was a hoot.

One thing I always remember about Kamala is a mate of my friend's older brother remarking, "Ugandan Giant? More like a cabby driver from Detroit." Close. More like a truck driver from Minnesota.

This was a cool match. Not every dream match needs to be a five star classic. Sometimes it's enough that the match made tape. These guys didn't know much about each other, presumably, and there was no hook or story to their match, but they still managed to work a pretty dynamic bout.

This is fascinating. I will devour this list in my free time.

Batman vs. Jo Gonzalez (aired 7/19/73) This wasn't as good as I was hoping for, but it had its moments. Larsen looked like he'd eaten a few too many French cheeses but he still busted out some of his neat arm drag work. Gonzalez was an awesome heel and I'm sure the gang is gonna love him. The best thing about him is that he has this distinctly 70s look. He was bald but grew out the rest of his hair. It's the sleaziest shit imaginable and I'm sure folks will have a field day with it once they get to this era. Batman vs. Klondyke BIll (aired 6/6/74) I'm pretty sure this was the British Klondyke Bill and not the Canadian wrestler with the panties fetish that Tony Schiavone likes to talk about. What an amazing gut. That has to be one of the mightiest guts in the history of professional wrestling. And he knew how to use it too. The tiny little rake thin ref took the hugest bumps off Klondyke's gut. You'd have to be crazy to expect this to be any good, but Batman did go to the top rope to try to put the big man away.

Love Kamala in these Mean Gene outakes.

Triple H, eat ya heart out! Shocker entered this match dressed as an Egyptian Pharaoh while Emilio came to the ring dressed like Caesar. After a fairly lackluster build up, this was about as good a match as you could have hoped for. It was smartly laid out with three solid falls. After weeks of running away from Shocker, Emilio went on the offensive and was the aggressor early on, which I liked. They dealt with the Babe Richard problem in the most WWF way possible w/ Shocker taking him out with one of his signature moves. Usually, I'd bitch about that sort of thing, but they made it work. Richard was replaced with a tecnico ref, which Emilio immediately latched onto during the post match. There was a lot of great work from the seconds in this match and everyone was on their game performance wise. One of the smart things about the match was that it constantly highlighted Shocker's athleticism as opposed to his rudoism. So, it wasn't a surprise when he cut a face promo afterward. Emilio getting his beautiful locks cut was quite the sight. I really liked this match. It was the CMLL equivalent of a smart WWF main event. Good stuff.

Thank you, sir.

Fit Finlay vs. Jushin Thunder Liger (Bremen '93) I didn't realize until recently that this match took place in Bremen. It's a fancam, so the camera angle isn't great, but it's a pretty good walk through of a Liger vs. Finlay bout. It doesn't resemble Catch whatsoever. It's basically a Liger tour match. You wouldn't put it on either man's resume, but that's a compliment in a way. I usually dislike fish out of water matches, but thid wasn't bad at all. Fit Finlay vs. Steve Casey (Wien '94) These guys are on my must-see list after their last match. I think Casey is still doing the Lord gimmick here, but he looks like a Chippendale's stripper. Finlay is wearing yellow, which doesn't sit well with me. This is one of those bouts where nothing happens. I mean, stuff happens, but nothing really happens. I wonder if wrestlers can explain why nights like these happen. Casey doesn't start wrestling the way I want him to until the finish. Finlay has another off night. And I do mean another.

I can't find the hair matches anywhere, but we do get this fun return match. It's the holidays season, so the match is interspersed with clips from the year's best vignettes. It's been a fun year. We get Stone Cold Porky and Stone Cold Emilio Charles, Jr. in this bout. Emilio tries to wrestle with a beanie on, which is cute. Black Tiger remembers he has issues with Black Warrior, which pleases me. It's the holidays and the regular crowd don't seem to be there, so this is a bit of fun before everyone goes back home to their families. And that's how the year wraps up for CMLL, arguably the best company in the world in 2001.

I didn't expect them to have this match so soon after the PPV. The first fall was a super serious title match fall. During the second fall, the rudos began doing nasty things to the tecnicos and the tecnicos finally unleashed the can of whoop ass they'd been saving. The third fall was a bit of a mess. They teased a lowblow finish, which would have sucked, before the tecnicos got their win back from the PPV. This wasn't the match I was hoping it would be. It felt rushed and came too soon after the PPV. It would have made more sense to run it in the New Year, I would have thought.

This is the only match I can find from the PPV and it's the one I least wanted to see. I guess I'm the only person on the internet who's interested in Tarzan Boy vs. Porky and Shocker vs. Emilio (not to mention Atlantis vs. Wagner in a trios.) Juventud comes to the ring with his face painted like Damian 666, which makes sense. Then Rey enters with his face painted black.... okay... not one of Rey's more memorable nights. I guess he was trying to look like Hombre Sin Nombre, whose mask was completely black, but I can't imagine he looks back on the decision too fondly. Luckily, these guys saved their best match for the PPV. It had kind of a unique structure in that the tecnicos got all their best shots in during the first fall. The rudos controlled the second fall and got a big win in the tercera. I really liked the booking here. I haven't enjoyed La Familia de Tijuana's matches, but at least the angle hasn't been for naught. The focal point here was some vicious brawling between Casas and Nicho. Casas was great in this match. He hasn't done enough in 2001 to be in the running for Lucha WOTY, but when he's given a big match he's clearly up there with Santo and Panther. He had some good exchanges with Juventud as well, which was cool because that was the beef that started Juventud's rudo turn. They did this cool angle afterward where La Familia de Tijuana were cutting promos at ringside and Casas got upset and kicked Juventud through the ropes. That made me want to see a Santo/Casas vs. Juventud/Nicho match, bad.

So, Tarzan Boy and Brazo de Plata are feuding and have a contract signing for a hair match just like Emilio and Shocker. This is another match where the internet doesn't care to show us the build. Los Guerreros del Infierno have a new look (love the jackets). I was a bit skeptical of the Porky/Tarzan Boy feud. It seemed like a step down for the GdI after their recent high profile stuff, but I should have known better than to doubt Porky. It was actually a lot of fun, and the best thing Tarzan Boy has been involved in since his return. Now I'm looking forward to their hair match. It probably won't be that memorable, but the lead in was a hell of a lot better than Shocker and Emilio. Shocker, Satanico and Apolo Dantes came to Porky's aid when the GdI attacked the tecnicos after the bout. They're clearly pushing Shocker towards a tecnico turn in 2002, which is probably overdue.

This set this up on TV, but I can't find the matches anywhere. This was a fun, old-school mano a mano. I'll say the same thing I say every time -- VIllano IV in a singles match is always a welcome sight. Three solid falls here, no short changing us. Universo doesn't get enough credit as a singles worker. Well, Universo doesn't get much credit for anything in our fan circles, but he was really good at working the CMLL match formula. They could have run this as the semi-main of the December pay-per-view, but I'm cool with it as a Arena Coliseo B-show gem.