ohtani's jacket

There has actually been a lot of heated discussion about this on Japanese Twitter. A lot of older fans, and a few people in the media, don't like the terminology that's used in the show. In particular, there's been a lot of controversy and confusion over the terms "book" and "breaking the book" (translated as "script" in the English subtitles.) The discussion stemmed from a writer or editor saying they never used those terms in the 80s and that they are recent internet slang (possibly a loan word from American pro-wrestling), and then it turned into a big debate over whether AJW was really booked, arguments about it being disrespectful to wrestling by using insider terms, what "book" actually means (some people seem to think it's a physical object like a paper script.) It seems a lot of Japanese fans would like to believe that it was real, and if it wasn't, they'd prefer not to hear about it. There's still a believe among some fans that the title matches were decided with shoot pins, which are called either gochinko or pistol matches in Japanese (I didn't know that.) It's not everyone one, as some trolls are asking if they also believe in Santa Claus. Some of the blame lies with the show's frontrunners, who deliberately chose to emphasis "breaking the book" as a means of rebelling against the system. The director admitted in an interview that it probably didn't happen as often as they portrayed in the series. Fans are interesting though. There are a lot of complaints about the Matsunagas cooking yakisoba indoors at Korakuen Hall, which I guess you couldn't do.

Very good juniors style match. This felt like a match they would have had in NOAH transported to US soil as opposed to a typical Low Ki bout, but that's okay. Low Ki has been lost in the shuffle since the early days of ROH so it was cool to see him main event for a change. I really liked the work Low Ki did on KENTA's midsection early on in the bout even if it didn't amount to much long term. Lots of hard hitting spots and cool cut off spots. Ki was able to produce a double stomp from just about every angle imaginable. Impressive debut from KENTA. Capped off a successful year for one of wrestling's brightest hopes.

Huge crowd for the Anniversary Show, and they're in full voice too. They don't put Mistico up against the strongest trio of wrestlers, but the crowd don't care. They're just happy to see him do spectacular spots. Unfortunately, the copy we have of his is choppy and skips key moments of action, but we get several cool replays of Wagner and Casas' moves off the ramp. Ultimo Guerrero appears afterwards to challenge Mistico to a mano a mano bout.

I thoroughly enjoyed this. It harkened back to Tamura's UWF-i days in the best possible way. The spot where Barnett suplexed Tamura while Tamura was trying to reach the ropes was an incredible display of power. Barnett was sucking in big ones for most of the bout but what a beast. There's nothing I like better in the morning than a game of human chess, and watching Tamura figure out a way to beat this guy was a joy to behold.

This wasn't great technically but for a sub-5 minute match it had some flashy moments that popped the crowd.

I was surprised to see Frank Shamrock's name pop up on this card. This wasn't a very exciting fight, but it reminded me of what an incredible worker Shamrock would have been if he'd worked for RINGS fulltime. After the bout he said he'd like to fight Tamura. I wonder if there were any serious discussions about that.

Santo is back on CMLL television and we immediately get the power trio of Wagner, Santo & Mistico. This was a fun showcase for an unstoppable trio. Having Santo back in the mix is a boon. Mistico does some cool dives, and Ultimo holds things together on his side as you'd expect.

This was more enjoyable than recent rudo contra rudo bouts as it was a bit more up tempo and Perro was so popular with the crowd that he almost played a de facto tecnico role. The Anniversary Show was drawing closer so there was a bit more pep in everyone's step. I liked the brief exchanges between Tarzan Boy and Satanico. It's always nice when wrestlers remember that they hate each other's guts.

Episode four is pure fantasy. Entertaining fantasy, but every single scene is fabricated. In most cases, it's more interesting than the event that actually took place, but it paints a somewhat distorted view of what Dump was really like. For some reason, they chose to make her unsympathetic, which was perplexing. The whole shoot thing is out of control as well. All Japan Women were not have matches decided on shoot pins in the 1980s. The series is entertaining, and I'm gad it's successful, but I wonder if this was how sumo fans felt watching Sanctuary.

The most famous Breaks/Faulkner match is their bout from '77. They had four matches on television that year but we only have footage of the third match. John has incorrectly uploaded the same match twice on the ITV site. The other two matches are from '82 and '84.

Rambo & Bull Power vs. Eddy Steinblock & Steve Wright (Wien, Summer '87) Leon gets a partner this time, the incredibly shitty Rambo (though in Leon's case, I guess he just needs a body.) We get plenty of Bull Power vs. Steve Wright in this. That's a match up that makes perfect sense on paper but you don't realize is so great until you see Wright up cutting Leon in the corner. Once again, Eddy Steinblock was perfectly acceptable in this. Poor misunderstood Eddy Steinblock. I love Vader taking arm drag bumps. There's some cool continuity at the beginning as well with Vader cutting a promo about John Quinn.

The good news is that today it became the number one watched show on Japan Netflix. I finished episode 3, and I have to say the best thing about the show is the amount of training the main cast did to learn how to wrestle. That part of the show is fantastic. There's a strange insistence on the frontrunner's part to have every match turn into a shoot, but the fighting looks good. Personally, I think they did Jaguar Yokota dirty. There was an amusing article about Jaguar's husband watching the show and stopping it every few minutes to ask her whether it really happened like that in real life. I've been trying to rack my brains over who Lovely Yoneyama is supposed to be. Some Japanese fans are speculating that it's meant to be Nancy Kumi. Nancy Kumi had a reputation for being one of the worst bullies among the wrestlers. The weakest part of the show so far is the scene where "Dump" is born. That was totally over the top, the lightening effects were cheesy, as best I can tell, it was completely fictional, as was Dump coming to the ring, choking Chigusa out and acting like Nailz released from the psych ward. The disco story was a story Dump shared in some articles that the show is based on. Whether Chigusa's interview in the magazine ever happened, I'm not sure. It's definitely not how Dump because Dump. That wouldn't matter if it didn't come across as a cheesy horror flick, and once again everything being a shoot. I was far more taken with the jogging scene where Dump can't keep up with Chigusa and you see Chigusa running off into the distance. The actress who played Devil was having fun. She's a little undersized but the voice and mannerisms are great.

I would love to watch a great technical match from Germany, but it's fairly obvious from the footage that Germany and Austria, at least in the 80s and 90s, were predominantly brawling-focused territories. And even if there was a good technical bout, I doubt that it was shot in full or clear enough to see. Wright pulling off some tricks against Moondog Rex isn't particularly exciting to me, but it's the match that they booked and sometimes you have to accept what's in front of you and see what the workers are capable of. Wright had an advantage in being a good brawler. In fact, I'd rather watch his brawling than his technical stuff any day of the week. Wright in the mode of Rudge, Regal and Finlay is much more appealing than Wright doing flips and cartwheels. Even when he was doing that sort of thing in the early 70s on WoS it never really resonated with me.

Here you go, it's a post from before the board update so the format is messed up.

I'm being slightly facetious when I call Rudge the GOAT, but he is one of my favorite WoS workers. Let me see if I can dredge up the list.

Episode 2 is fun. The timeline is all over the place and it leans heavily into fictionalized drama, but the wrestling is great. Love Jackie's outfits. They went pretty soft on the bullying, but I guess that was to be expected. The Jaguar Yokota/Jackie Sato stuff was silly. Toshikuni Matsunaga never looked as cool as Takumi Saitoh, and I don't think he was pulling the strings as much as the show makes out. I did love Takuma Oto as Shiro Abe. Shout out to the luchadoras as well.

I don't remember the dates of his best matches off the top of my head. It's more of the transformation into the bald head and moustache look that marks the beginning of prime Rudge. He spent a lot of time working overseas, especially in Germany, Austria and Japan, so he's not a staple on TV. He probably doesn't have the personality that you like from workers, except for when he's at his grouchiest. The reason people like him is because he taught guys like Finlay and Regal everything they know about being real sons of bitches in the ring.

I have some 60s footage of Howes, Wall and Riley that show promise. The Howes match, in particular, is one of the better bouts from the 60s. The others are guys with big reps. I'm sure there are other workers I haven't considered. A lot of talent appeared on the small screen in the 60s. Terry Rudge s the GOAT, but his early 70s work is kind of bland. The first really great bout is the one against Marty Jones from '76, IIRC.

I've never seen Young Rock, but it takes a lot of liberties. Most of them are for the sake of the script. It's only 5 episodes long, so they need to tie a lot of things together quickly.

Watched the first episode. It's good, but I've got to say it's a highly fictionalized account of Dump Matsumoto's life. I hope people don't view it as a history lesson. Some of the scenes are based on actual events, but almost nothing happens the way it occurred in real life. It's a dramatization so that's understandable. I just hope fans don't get confused by it. The wrestling choreography looks great. They use a lot of sound effects, but the actual wrestling is better than I expected. For the most part, they get the retro stuff correct, though it's difficult for them to create the exact atmosphere of the wrestling matches. There also exterior scenes that are clearly not 1970s exteriors, but that can't be helped. The haircuts and clothes are awesome and the interior scenes look great. The way they present the inner workings of the wrestling business will cause a few eyes to roll, especially the unnecessary explanation for the Jackie Sato vs. Maki Ueda retirement match. The Matsunagas did manipulate the wrestlers' feelings a lot and cause dissension among them, but the locker room scene between Jackie and Maki is silly. The acting is good. Yuriyan does a terrific job as the lead. Some cool cameos from Devil Masami and Monster Ripper in the first episode.

Solar vs Flama Azul (Arena Naulcapan 1991) It's not every day a Solar apuestas match falls in your lap. Solar isn't quite as good at brawling as some of his contemporaries, but he makes up for it by making his offense look extra nasty. This wasn't structured like a blood feud. Instead, it was more of a Solar showcase, but I did like how the tercera was a straight up scrap instead of both men trading big moves. Azul's haircut was one of the best I've seen in a while.

She was basically talking about the feelings she had while playing the role. She talks about how hated Dump was by everyone in Japan, and a scene they shot where the audience were cheering for Chigusa and screaming for Dump to go home. Backstage Dump's hands were shaking, but she went out there and put on a show. Yuriyan says that she could understand how Dump must have felt at the time and was incredibly moved by it. I'm sure it will become clearer when you see the show. None of those heels wanted to be villains. They all wanted to be popular idols like their heroes. It was tough on them playing the heel.

Bull Power vs. Steve Wright & Eddy Steinblock (Wien, Summer '87) This was a handicap match that starts getting fun when the CWA guys work over Vader's arm. The Vader vs. Wright exchanges were cool. It breaks down in the end, but you get a great view of the fired up fans at ringside and Wright and Steinblock are super over with the fans.

Rambo vs. Otto Wanz (Wien, Summer '87) This was mislabeled as Rambo vs. Bull Power. The CWA Rambo is really lame compared to the lucha Rambo. Otto sleep walks through this bout. My interest in Otto definitely depends on his opponent. The crowd was annoying here. The horns were so loud that I had to mute the video. I guess this was he main event on the last night of the tournament. Afterwards there was a trophy ceremony where the wrestlers received flowers and awards. Indio Guajaro and some of the other lads wore suits. Billy Samson looked pretty fly. Leon looked like he couldn't afford a decent suit at this point. I was hoping that he'd attack Otto and destroy the trophy but instead he gave him a dirty look.

This Wien version of Bull Power wouldn't have been allowed on TV. I honestly think Vader would have been a better fit for All-Star since they had a wilder product. Regardless of whether Vader could take Big Daddy in a shoot, he would have made him work and I don't think the big guy would have liked that. Whatever people think of Wanz, he didn't shy away from trading blows with Vader.