ohtani's jacket

I suppose that may be true for the big apuesta matches, especially the Pena booked Konnan ones. But I have a hard time believing that random, pointless trios matches were laid out in advance.

This was about a month out from the famous Dandy vs. Navarro singles match (well, famous to me.) There were any hot Dandy/Navarro exchanges, aside from one slap that knocked a few of Navarro's teeth out. It was a pretty mediocre match on the whole. A lot of house show Wagner and meaningless contributions from the Rayos. I can't really think of a reason to watch this.

I took a long hiatus from IWRG, so I don't have a clue what's going on. Super Astro is wrestling unmasked. That's something I've never seen before. He has a perfectly shaven cue ball head that's the same shape as his mask. Kato Kung Lee has a mustache that makes him look like Gomez Addams. Dr. Cerebro is supposed to be the main focus of the bout, but he's not beefing with anyone. This was a walk in the park for these guys, but it was leisurely. I'd like to see Cerebro start a feud with someone if possible.

This was a sweet return match. It was wrestled in a tiny ass ring, so they worked the mat a lot. These guys bring the right amount of intensity to their bouts. I find their work just as believable as the big name WWF acts despite the fact they're playing to tiny audiences. This was going along perfectly until Xavier ran in and caused a disqualification. I was pissed because I was enjoying the bout. To me, it's lazy booking. If you did it every now and again it would have shock value, but it happens on a nightly basis with these American feds. As you can probably tell, it's starting to grind my gears.

Since this was brought up, I assume it was impossible to Savage to script all of his matches. Can anybody point to a clear example of a Savage match where it's being called in the ring, or where Randy is letting the other guy call the match? What about the Hogan matches? How come we never hear any talk about Savage scripting those?

Gilbert Leduc & Jacky Corn vs. Der Henker (aired 7/3/72) For some reason, this was a handicap match. I didn't find it terribly exciting but the spectators sure did. Der Henker got rid of Jacky Corn and it became Der Henker vs. Leduc for a while. Corn returned all bandaged up and then it all kind of fizzled out into a draw with Leduc and Corn declared the winners. Der Henker vs. Marcel Montreal (aired 2/10/73) Montreal is a guy we've seen a few times. A good wrestler, but a bit dry. Like a lot of catch matches, this got better once they started clobbering each other. The Hangman ended up claiming another victim, but I couldn't help but wonder if some type of swinging neck breaker would have been a better finisher than his tombstone pile driver. Then again, at least it's a pile driver that everyone sells. Gilbert Leduc & Jacky Corn vs. Der Henker & Daniel Schmid (aired 3/30/74) This is the last Der Henker match we have. What can we say about him? Not the greatest masked worker of all time, but certainly not the least. I thought he would be a questionable worker like L'Homme Masque, but he ended up being a lot better. I would put him on the level of a guy like Villano V. This was a wildly entertaining bout and easily the best of Der Henker's tags. The reason for that was Daniel Schmid. Schmid is awesome. He really should be everyone's new wrestling hero. He's this chubby blonde kid who bumps and sells like a European Buddy Rose. I really need to devour everything we have from him. This was the first tag where Leduc and Corn felt like they were anything special. Together, that is. And to make things better, Pat Roach showed up between falls and challenged Der Henker to a match. It's too bad we don't have any of that, but it was nice to see Pat.

This was one of my favorite rivalries of 2000. I really dig Homicide, and I like Low Ki matches that have a harder edge to them. I don't know if this was good as their matches from 2000, but there were enough moments to remind me that this shit's my jam. The finish was amazing. One of the best submission finishes I can remember seeing. Indy wrestling can get a bit OTT with its hyperbole, but they hit the right level here .The wrestling might not have been at a MOTYC level, but the moment was.

This was the yusho for the Young Generation Battle Tournament 2001. As you can probably tell, a lot of these tournaments take place in August in Japan. It was good to see Ishikawa have a proper BattlARTS match. I'm not a big fan of Usuda (I feel like I say that every time I write about his matches), but he's a guy who'll give you a proper BattlARTS match. This wasn't great, but it was good, and I thought Usuda was a step above throughout the match and deserved his win. Ishikawa didn't quite salvage Japanese men's pro-wrestling with this performance, but that's a big ask for a tiny indy show, so I'll try not to hold it against him.

This was the yusho for the Japan Grand Prix '01. Both women had already wrestled once that evening, so they worked a sprint for the yusho. Some people would argue that a sprint is the best type of match for them because it trims the fat (and they don't have to watch them for as long), but I'll take their longer matches, warts and all. It made sense to work a sprint here after exerting so much energy earlier in the evening, but it was over in a flash and didn't settle into the sort of groove I'm used to. It was cool that they put Momoe over, but her match with Ito seemed more epic. She earned herself a title shot, and I loved the look on Ito's face when she shook Momoe's hand. How can you not love Ito? Easily the most badass champion in Japan at this point. I don't think it's even close.

So, this feud began because Steve Austin was jealous that McMahon was hugging Angle and not Austin? That has to be one of the more unique fire starters in wrestling history. I haven't been following this angle at all, and the only info I have on how the Invasion angle unfolded is from the video package before the match. I liked the way they made it seem like Austin and Angle were screaming and singing the song. Austin seems pretty great in the video montage. It seems kind of odd that Austin has betrayed Vince so soon after aligning with him, but like I said, I haven't been following it, and I'm too lazy to read up on it. The match is good. I don't know how much I buy Angle as a babyface all of a sudden, but it's a good match. It's amazing how much of these Attitude Era matches take place outside of the ring. I wonder what that was like for the live audience. Probably pretty awesome if you were on the right side of the ring. Things are going along swimmingly until the finish. Maybe the finish works in context, but to me it was a letdown, especially for a major PPV. You could get away with that on TV, but on pay-per-view? Jim Ross oversold it as well. He kept babbling about how Angle fought with everything he had, right down to his bone marrow. C'mon, Jim. He got screwed, but so did everybody else on every episode of RAW and Smackdown, and every pay-per-view. Don't act so bloody surprised. And I really do not like Heyman on commentary. The King needs to come back and talk about puppies or something. Good match, but Austin vs. Benoit was better.

@Matt D You really need to check out the new upload of Crybaby Bill Corby. Brilliantly entertaining match. The great Jack Little says the fans at the Hollywood Legion are eating it up -- "this is their whipped cream on the apple pie." Corby is your kind of heel, and there are a group of ladies at ringside who get heavily involved. I don't know if the guy who runs this YouTube channel still lurks here, but this upload was a delight. Thanks, buddy! Los Angeles was the best.

Sano took a big money offer from SWS. When they folded, he began working as shoot style wrestler for Pro-Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi and UWF-i. I believe Sano was working for Kingdom at this stage, which was a short-lived offshoot/continuation of the UWF-i and a predecessor to PRIDE.

Al Araujo vs. Marcel Parmentier (aired 7/25/58) We get the last minute of this. It looked like an entertaining bout. When this catch first dropped, it seemed like Parmentier was going to part of the regular cast of characters. but he's all but disappeared. That's too bad considering how entertaining his shtick is. Guy Mercier vs. Allan Le Foudre (aired 1/24/70) Charly Verhulst used the alias Allan Le Foudre in this match despite the fact that even the commentator and Guy Mercier referred to him as Charly Verhulst. I guess that was the name Verhulst went by in earlier appearances in France. It's not the first time a commentator has pointed out that a wrestler is using a different name. Anyway, Verhulst was a fine Belgian wrestler. This match was an experiment in using a rounds system. It featured five five-minute rounds with the winner decided by two referees at the end. I believe they were also wrestling for a purse of 10,000 francs. I'm not really sure if pinfalls or submissions counted. It seemed like the winner was determined at the end of the fifth round. Although in this case it appeared to be a draw, which defeats the purpose of determining a winner over five rounds. I'd have to watch it again to understand the rules. There was some great wrestling as the emphasis here was on catch as a sporting contest. Mercier looked better than in any other match I've seen him in. I do wish he would stop doing Leduc's moves, however. It's cool that we have so many different types of Verhulst matches. It's probably an artificial construct based on how few matches we have, but he feels like a traveling Naoki Sano type. The rounds stuff is an interesting experiment, but I think it works better with 2/3 falls.

Another Hijo del Lizmark singles match? I really want to know who was booking Arena Coliseo at this time. Lucha singles matches are rarer than hen's teeth and Lizmark gets booked in two of them in the same year? Fortunately, Shocker was entertaining in this. I was starting to get into a groove of appreciating this as a Shocker singles match and not worrying so much about Lizmark being his opponent. And there were these women in the front row who were really into it. The portion where Shocker was in control was actually really good, then BAM! The screwiness set in. I am really sick of screwy finishes in 2001 CMLL.

This starts off with some sweet Blue Panther vs. Villano IV exchanges. Panther has pretty much reconfirmed in his past two matches that he's the best worker in Mexico at this time. They follow that up with Negro vs. Fuerza, which is a match up with a lot of history. And then there's the more spot heavily Black Tiger vs. Black Warrior stuff, which a nice counter balance. The first fall is an excellent caida. Then they cut to the end of the second fall and try some sort of angle where Black Tiger turns rudo? I'm not sure where they're going with this. He drops Black Warrior on his head with his finishing move, and Casas and Villano think he's crazy. Then he cuts an awesome promo at ringside pretending to be Japanese, and attacks Black Warrior while he's being stretchered away. We'll have to see if they follow up on this.

This has some decent action, but it's screwy as fuck. This time the catch is that it's Tarzan Boy at ringside wearing Mascara Magica's mask. The best thing about this is that rudo fan with the mustache and the black leather glove gets involved in the argument at the end.

I see. I really need to start watching the vignettes attached to these matches.

I always liked this feud more than Momoe vs. Maekawa. The first half of this involves Momoe being hopelessly outmatched and scrapping like hell to stay in the fight. The second half is a lot more back-and-forth with Momoe trying to spring the upset. If you're looking for a believable transition from one half to the other, you've come to the wrong match. But I still think Momoe is one of the more exciting things about 2001. She ends up flaming out, but if you think about the year in isolation, there's not a lot to cheer about. At least she was giving it her all in the tradition of Mimi Hagiwara, Cutie Suzuki and Mayumi Ozaki.

This was a solid match, but maybe I'm not versed enough in the history of independent wrestling to realize how important this was. From my perspective, this was Bryan still finding his way, still trying to put things together, still leaning on his influences, against a pretty watered-down version of Low Ki. My image of Low Ki is from those matches he had with Homicide the year before. This wasn't as hardcore. It felt like a juniors match. I'm not saying this was bad or anything. It just didn't announce any sort of changing of the guard, which was what I imagined beforehand.

Wait, Bestia and Scorpio no longer have peroxide blond hair. I can't really tell whether they're still feuding with Shocker at this point. I guess that feud is treading water at this point since Shocker and Emilio have a hair match at the end of the year, and the Guapos become the Talibanes sometime after September 11th. This was a fairly standard bout, but not bad. Hopefully, Black Tiger hasn't slid to this level of match yet. It's too bad they couldn't have made a bigger deal out of the Wagner feud.

Mephisto came to the ring with his arm in a brace. Los Guerreros del Infierno attacked him on the ramp and Shocker wound up taking his place. This match seems out of order with the match from the week before, but I can't even keep tabs with when the Mephisto injury occurred. This is more of the same although Shocker plays a prominent role. The finish is cleaner than usual.

Look who's back. This starts off with a weird vignette where Mr. Niebla and Santo decide to catch a movie and have a chat over a couple of sodas. The match is a fall-out-of-bed performance from the tecnicos, but it has some nice Panther vs. Santo exchanges in case you'd forgotten what that match up looked like.

Jacky Corn vs. Der Henker (aired 12/12/70) I thought Der Henker would be some huge stiff, but he was actually the same height as Corn. He looked like a decent worker, but he was a masked guy getting a push, and his first priority was to put Corn away. Which he did with authority. Der Henker & Kamikaze vs. Jacky Corn & Gilbert Leduc (aired 6/14/71) Jacky Corn & Gilbert Leduc! I think I was more excited about this than anyone involved. It's hard to tell whether this was the original Kamikaze, the second Kamikaze, or some guy in a Kamikaze outfit. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the original Kamikaze as he didn't do any of his signature bumps. This was solid, but I wanted a bit more. Gilbert Leduc vs. Der Henker (aired 7/31/71) This was similar to Leduc vs. Le Bourreau. They even teased the same finish. It was slow going at times, but it also reminded me a bit of Leduc vs. a Villano. I'm not sure which Villano (maybe Villano V?) I'm not sure that Der Henker was as good as Le Bourreau, but this was the more complete bout. Leduc's selling was probably the strongest part of his performance. He's a pretty nuanced seller. He had me convinced that his goose was cooked. I think his age was creeping in a bit here as he didn't have that same air of invincibility as the 50s footage.

Mephisto gets some fancy new duds in Satanico's lair, but for some reason he's only involved on the outside (and he's not wearing his duds.) This was all right, but I'm starting to lose faith in this feud. There's not enough intensity or hatred, and the finish was another low blow. Hopefully, this heats up over the summer.

This was an odd match for them to run as it didn't involve Black Tiger vs. Wagner, Satanico vs. Guerrero, or Shocker vs. Los Guapos. I wonder if Wagner was a late scratch. It was nice to see a standard trios, though. Atlantis and Satanico squared off a few times, which was a highlight for me. Satanico's hair was starting to get filthy. I haven't checked to see who he loses it to next, but it was shaggy as fuck. Some nice action in this. Black Warrior's tope never gets old. Rubbish finish. Absolute garbage. But a bit of a Satanico specialty. I'm afraid.