ohtani's jacket

This was a fun midcard bout. It's nothing special work-wise, mainly it's about the payoff to how badly Pierroth wanted the belts, but the champs look swank in their matching red outfits and they do cut lose a bit. The momentum halts a bit when Pierroth orders a guy to do a run-in with a baseball bat, but he never makes it into the ring. That bit didn't really work, but they pick things up again for the finish. Pierroth's reaction is priceless and one of the highlights of the show. He had such big dreams.

They threw this together at the last moment, didn't they? It's not a bad match, but it never really takes off. Casas tries to make his beef with Juventud a big deal, but it's hard to believe the tecnicos hate Juvie as much as they do when he's only been on the scene five minutes. There is a funny part where Casas puts him over his knee and gives him a good old spanking, but aside from that the angle with Juventud fizzles. The last time we saw Black Tiger he'd gone loco and was dropping guys on their heads. Not sure what happened to that development. I was disappointed that he didn't square off with Wagner and finish what they started a few months back. We do get Casas vs. Wagner, which we missed out on seeing last year, so there's that. But then Wagner does one of his bullshit Wagner finishes and spoils it.

Momoe gets the title shot she earned by winning the Japan Grand Prix. The most notable thing about this all these years later is how good her selling is. She does some amazing rag doll selling, really throwing her body about. Not only that, but she manages to make Joshi restholds look like the most excruciating pain ever. Realistically, she doesn't have much in her arsenal that can put Ito away, so she's pretty much relying on a flash pin. And boy does she sell each pin attempt like there's no tomorrow. I don't think I've seen another wrestler try as hard to hold someone down as Momoe does here. But she can't hold Ito down and eventually falls victim to the footstomps. The finish is a cool submission attempt followed by a footstomp from the top. She gets absolutely crushed as you can imagine. Of course, Momoe sells it like death. Not an all-time classic, or remotely close to it, but it was good and I'm struggling to think of anything as enjoyable in the Japanese men's leagues.

Serge Reggiori vs. Guy Mercier (aired 8/23/58) I'm gonna call him Serge Reggiori since that was the name he went by most often. I think they used "Sergio" when they wanted to play him up as Italian. I didn't realize we had Guy Mercier footage from the 50s. That means we have footage of him from the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, which is pretty cool. He looked like a new breed of athlete here, but he never really pushed Catch forward as far as I can gather (in-ring, I mean, not the unionizing outside of the ring), so it's hard to get excited about his early stuff. It looked like a hard fought, competitive draw, but we only have a few minutes at the end to show for it. Jacky Corn vs. Ted Lamar (aired 8/23/58) Again, I'm going with how Lamar is usually billed. I know they showed the poster at the beginning of the broadcast, but I think that may have been a typo. It's not unusual for promotions to misspell names on posters (don't get me started on how you're meant to spell Alan Sarjeant or Ivan Penzekoff.) I watched this twice. The first time I watched it, I thought it was kind of dry. The second time I watched it, I really enjoyed it. Just goes to show what you already know -- you have to be in the mood to watch these long technical matches. I'm a big fan of Corn, but it's easy to watch him have a slugfest with Cheri Bibi than work a slow burner with Lamar, but the fact that he could do both is a testament to how good he was in the 50s and 60s. The second time I watched this, I appreciated Ted Lamar's performance more. Ted Lamar means little to me. I think I've seen him one time before in a Bob ALPRA upload. Sometimes it's hard to get into a match when you hardly recognize a guy, but the second time I realized he was working super tight and super hard. The first time you have those moments where you're trying to work out who's who (okay, this guy's hair looks like this, etc.), but once I realized Lamar had a mustache, I could focus on what he brought to the table. This was almost worked like a title shot without a title. It's not the kind of bout that immediately draws you in, but without making excuses for it, if you adjust your mentality you'll find that it's a solid Catch bout. Inca Peruano vs. Jo Labat (aired 9/5/58) Peruano is an entertainer who doesn't mind telling a joke while he's in a hold. That's not uncommon in European wrestling. I think what makes Peruano unique is that he's a foreigner working the tongue and cheek European style. There's no denying that he's one of the characters of the 50s footage. Personally, I think he needs a dance partner to have a better than average match, and I thought Labat was a decent enough partner here, so I don't really buy into him being a wizard, but I do think he's entertaining. Is he better than the other South Americans? That's a question worth asking later on. It's all very footage dependent. Early on, La Barba seemed like a character, but he's disappeared. Parmentier seemed like he could be something special, but he disappeared. What we can do you is that the footage that aired here was a Peruano showcase and pretty soon we'll start to miss those.

Underrated return match. Austin threw Angle's medals off a bridge into the Detroit River, so Angle kidnapped Austin and threatened to throw him off a bridge as well. Austin was humiliated and ended up throwing Angle off the stage on RAW. The first half of this match is an intense brawl that builds to Angle throwing Austin off the Unforgiven stage. I quite liked that section of the match even though it was done to death in the Attitude Era. The second half of the match is mostly in ring and builds toward the finish. I have to admit, I didn't know what the finish of this was heading into the match. I assumed it would be another screw job, so I was surprised by the result. Really good match even though they quickly reversed the result.

This was cool and all, but it looked like an old Shaw Brothers film the way they choreographed it.

Here we go. We get the full show on PPV this year, which I'm pretty sure we didn't get the year before because of the Olympics. This feud has been going on for the better part of 18 months if you include the Tarzan Boy vs. Satanico feud. I can't say I've always loved it. I'm not sure if long term storytelling is one of lucha's strengths. Lucha seems to work best when there's three weeks worth of trios matches and then an apuestas. There are exceptions to the rule like the payoff to Rayo vs. Caras, but this Satanico vs. Ultimo feud went through many peaks and troughs. The good news is that the blow off match is excellent. It's an elimination cage match where the last two participants are forced to have an apuestas match. The elimination part is worked like the brawl on the go home show and resembles the elimination parts of a three or four way apuestas match. Ultimo's guys do a number on Averno, tying his mask to the ropes and beating him until he bleeds. Satanico heroically lets him escape the cage, forcing himself into an apuestas match up. The added stakes are that whoever wins gets to keep the "Infernales" name. I dare say that means more to Satanico than his hair at this point, as he wrestles with more intensity and passion than we've seen from him in a long time. He ends up facing Mascara Magica, who is the lowest ranked member of his side and the most obvious candidate to lose his mask. Satanico still treats it like it's life and death, and the crowd is into it as well with plenty of shots of concerned onlookers. Satanico is one of the all-time great apuestas match workers, and he comes through like you'd expect, but it was actually quite an emotional moment. Not because there was an unmasking but because of how much it meant to Satanico. It was probably the most emotional moment in lucha since Villano unmasked, and I'd have to say it's the best CMLL match since that mask match. I think this might be the last great Satanico match. If so, he went out on a high.

The story here was that Fuerza didn't want to wrestle his boy. Juventud has been teasing a rudo turn in recent weeks, so when they finally squared off it was no surprise that they did a Hulk Hogan Finger Poke of Doom. Santo demanded that they fight each other, which led to a big beatdown of Santo. While Santo took a beating, Juventud stood around doing nothing. The tecnicos finally mounted a comeback, and just as Santo as about to inflict some justice on Fuerza, Juventud intervened and turned rudo. As far as I'm aware, Juventud didn't last very long in CMLL, but at least this angle thrust Fuerza into the spotlight for a change.

Los Boricuas still want the belts. Pierroth really wants the belts. Uh oh, there's some dissension between Pierroth and the Boricuas, but it's all good, they win the third fall and the match. Pierroth is happy. Los Boricuas are coming for the belts next Friday.

Satanico has been slicking his hair back in recent weeks. It looks so smooth. What is Blue Demon Jr doing in CMLL? Riding on Santo's coat-tails, I presume. You'd think a week out from the Anniversary Show they'd have a big brawl between the Infernales teams, but we get a lot of Satanico vs. Atlantis here, so I'm happy. In fact, I genuinely think his work against Atlantis is better than anything he's done all year. Casas vs. Averno was also really good. Casas has been on a tear of late against the likes of Black Warrior and Averno. Things are shaping up nicely when suddenly the Infernales attack. You didn't think we'd have a go-home show with the Infernales fighting, did you? The tecnicos decide to help Satanico's side out and all hell breaks loose. Then, in classic Mexico fashion, the tecnicos get bored and leave the rudos to fare for themselves. The brawling goes on for too long and there's no real cliffhanger like on an episode of RAW or Smackdown, but you can imagine Ross losing his shit over what's gonna happen at the Anniversario when these two teams meet in a steel cage match.

This was a good match. Honda reminds me of a Japanese Gary Albright if Gary Albright were a plucky underdog who sold big instead of a suplex machine. (I guess he's not that similar to Albright after all.) The best thing about this match was that instead of the usual barrage of finishers and nearfalls, there was a submission battle down the stretch. That's rare in this style of wrestling and it was cool to see Akiyama doing something different for a change instead of an endless battle of "Can you top this?" One of the more enjoyable Akiyama matches so far.

So this is Tamon Honda, hmm? Not exactly what I was expecting. This was more amateur style matwork than shoot style, and Ikeda was treated like a junior going up against a heavy, which I guess was always going to happen once he left BattlARTS. There were some cool moves, but it didn't really strike me as a good Ikeda match. I will keep giving Honda a try, though.

Another Classics poster has sponsored some Chicago footage. Thanks, Matthew Gromala. The matches are Verne Gagne & Bobby Bruns vs. Al Williams & Rudy Kay (5/12/50) and Lou Thesz vs. Bronko Nagurski (10/5/51.) The tag match is fun. Al Williams and Rudy Kay were two of Russ Davis' favourites, and he actually has some decent one-liners for a change. Williams and Kay control the bout for the most bout, and the faces mostly retaliate, but it's good fun. Gagne doesn't do a whole lot since it's mainly a heat seeking brawl, but he's super young and super fit. I liked Thesz vs. Nagurski. It was minimalist, but I enjoyed watching Thesz sell for Nagurski. Nagurksi was well past his prime, but a monster. It was fun watching Thesz figure him out.

Negro Casas and Juventud aren't getting along. This was a decent trios, but it was mostly about the dissent between the tecnicos. Black Warrior was the most game of the rudos and continued to impress me with his form. Tarzan Boy looks like he's taken a few steps back from his peak 2000 work. I wasn't impressed with him in this match at all. There's no real developments with the Casas/Juventud beef. The match ends with everybody thinking Juvie's a dick, rudo and tecnico alike.

Jacky Corn & Gilbert Leduc vs. Daniel Schmid & Yanek Fryziuk (aired 12/17/72) This ran a bit hot and cold, but the Schmid and Leduc exchanges were sublime. I love the way Schmid sells a manchette. I'm pretty sure Yanek Fryziuk is Jean Fryziuk. Daniel Schmid vs. Rocky James (aired 4/13/75) This was really fun. I'm glad we have this. Schmid gets to shine in a singles match and be The Man for a change. I'm not sure where Rocky James figures into the grand scheme of things, but he was a willing opponent. Daniel Schmid vs. Mammouth Siki (aired 8/28/78) Schmid his best here, but Mammouth Siki sucks the life out of any match he's in. It's crazy how much time he spends in control of a bout given how shitty he is. I suppose Schmid could have sold more, but Siki is probably the worst worker in the archives. Shitty finish too.

Tony St. Clair vs. Fit Finlay (Hannover, 9/9/91) Tony St. Clair vs. FIt Finlay (Street FIght, Hannover, 9/11/91) Now these were MUCH BETTER. You want to watch these if you're a Finlay fan. The first match sets up the Street Fight, and the Street Fight is great. The best thing about it is that they only use a few props, but they use them to maximum effect. The rest of the match is a straight brawl. Both guys bleed. Finlay bumps like he did in his youth. The ending could have been better, but it hardly mattered. One of the better Finlay matches I've seen between '86 and the feud with Regal in '96.

This wasn't the best match in their series, but it was a decent tournament bout. The beginning and end were good, but the middle was largely forgettable. An exciting finishing stretch ensured the match finished on the right note.

This was a lively performance from Shimoda. Possibly the best thing she's done all year. Even in a short sprint, they still found time to go on a tour of Korakuen, but minor annoyances aside, this set up the yusho bout nicely.

This started off with the big contract signing between the two Infernales groups. Then there were some promos and shit, and finally we got into the match. Definitely a wilder and more intense brawl than in recent months. They turned it up a notch with the Anniversary Show right around the corner. Big melee at the end with Tarzan Boy rushing the ring and Shocker and Apolo Dantes evening up the numbers.

This followed a simple formula: Niebla, Olimpico & Safari have the National trios titles and Los Boricuas want them. Pierroth was sitting at ringside with a cigar. I've missed that crazy bastard.

This starts with Shocker trying to woo some woman who's been in the front row for Emilio Charles' matches in recent weeks. I have no idea who she was, and I'm too lazy to look it up. I'll assume she was a soap opera star. Excellent TV match, as you'd expect from the talent involved. My favorite match up was Black Warrior vs. Casas. That's not a match up I can remember seeing a lot of in the past, but I thought they were excellent. For some reason, there seems to be a lot of emphasis on dangerous moves in CMLL. I'm not sure if they're trying to get over how high risk some of these new moves are, or if they're still trying to put over the finish to Universo vs. Aguayo, but twice wrestlers had to receive attention because of some dangerous move. The match ended with an altercation between Juventud and Casas after Casas accidentally drop-kicked him. Casas can't seem to buy a break at the moment with screwy partners and screwy finishes.

Tony St. Clair vs. Dave Taylor (Wien '90) What was with Dave Taylor and the tassels around his arms? I think it was related to a gimmick he had in Reslo. It's weird and does nothing for him. Speaking of doing nothing for him, Tony St. Clair had a sickening mullet in 1990. Just ghastly. If you were hoping to see Taylor and St. Clair carry on the proud tradition of British heavyweight wrestling, you'll be sorely disappointed. This was a comedy match without any laughs. The ref in Wien gets involved too much. It's the same thing in every match. And that damn whistle. Tony St. Clair vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (Graz '95) This was better than expected. Our boy St. Clair could wrestle. He does some nice defensive work in this match against Takayama. Tony St. Clair vs. Fit Finlay (Boxing match, Bremen '96) Tony St. Clair vs. Fit Finlay (Chain match, Bremen '96) Weak, half-arsed gimmick matches. This was 1996, the same year Finlay had his amazing feud with Steve Regal. How can these be so bad? Am I the only one who watches bad Finlay matches? Or am I the only one who thinks these are shite?

Mile Zrno vs. Charley Verhulst (Graz,12/7/1980) This is delightful while it lasts, but it's too short. I would have liked a fleshed out 25 minute match between these two. They put on a wonderful exhibition of European style wrestling, however. Mile Zrno vs. Takayuki Iizuka (Bremen '91) This was pretty good considering Iizuka was a fish out of water and didn't know how to work the European style. Zrno was such a beautiful wrestler. He never ceases to amaze me. Some of the stuff he did in this match was gorgeous. This was actually quite testy with a lot of shoving and glaring. I'd love to see a return bout between these two.

Actually, I think he was 14 when he started.

Is that the stuff he wrote as a kid with the Curt Swan pencils? That stuff is good. My daughter is super into Kimetsu no Yaiba at the moment like most Japanese kids. We have been watching the anime together on Netflix. Today I bought her the first volume of the manga. It's the first time she's really been into a manga or anime of any sort. I remember I was the same age when my father bought me my first proper comics. It was at the airport and I got a copy of Uncanny X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man. Needless to say, I was glad to follow in my father's footsteps.