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Liger made his debut, in the Tokyo Dome of all places and it was the most hyped Junior Heavyweight arrival since Tiger Mask's. Historic match, but not a great one as these two didn't click, probably because Liger was so quick and tried to do so much in these 10 minutes, while Kobayashi tried to take this slowly and to make his bumps mean more. It was an enjoyable debut anyway, even though a few moves fell redundant, as the finish was good at least. **3/4

This was not technically a dream match on that day, but it surely became one in hindsight. Amazing hoss fight, it was a very exciting 10 minutes with great strikes and a compelling selling throughout the match, especially Vader trying to keep his arm away from Hashimoto. Vader looked a bit lost, in terms of not being able to dominate Hash physically like he would usually do to his opponents, so they went all out and it was only a matter of time before one knocked down the other. The referee botched the 3 count though and that partially ruined the finish. ****

This was a cool spectacle, as they only went for 7 minutes and it fit both Hashimoto's stamina and Zangiev's lack of experience in a pro wrestling ring. Hash put his opponent over big time with some good selling and they had some meaningful struggle sequences on the mat, like Zangiev's creative way to get out of a headscissor hold. This included a spit from Hashimoto, something that was very rare in Japan. Really cool series of kicks from Hash and the submission finish on Zangiev got him over as a legitimate threat. ***1/2

After a couple of disappointing matches against each other, these two tore the Tokyo Dome down here. Fujinami tried everything he had, going back to his junior heavyweight days, and also managing to knock Vader off his feet a few times, but ultimately the monster was just too much for him. Fujinami did some solid arm work and tried to control the gaijin, it worked decently enough until Vader got the best and squashed Fujinami with his weight, going over clean as the bodyslam attempt was a mistake on Fujinami's part. ***3/4

First Triple Crown defense ever. This had a lot of potential and Tenryu showed his courage again, slapping Jumbo and dragging the worst out of the champion, once again making Tenryu look like the organic babyface he turned out to be. This match was famous for Jumbo knocking out Tenryu with a botched powerbomb, so they ended the match early at the 16/17 minutes mark. While this shut down a promising bout and a good nearfalls sequence, it is one of the few times a botch was actually good for business, because it helped putting over Jumbo as a ruthless prick and Tenryu as a resilient opponent. ***1/2

This was historic as the match that assigned the very first Triple Crown, but it wasn't a great one and not even on par with what these two did just 2 days earlier. While I appreciated the storytelling and the recalls to their previous bout, the action wasn't too exciting, despite some of the limb work looking very snug and putting over Hansen as the aggressor here, as he got dominated by Jumbo in their previous match. Not the best finish, but a good one in terms of leaving a door open to a rematch. ***1/4

First Triple Crown unification attempt, that went nowhere due to the non-finish, but the match was good and had tons of heat. Jumbo felt as heelish as ever, which made Hansen the improbable, but awesome, babyface here. Jumbo was so aggressive and arrogant that Hansen lost it in his comeback, targeting Jumbo's arm and making him eat the steel post. They hit really hard, even though this was a bit slowish at times, even though the count-out finish was decently executed. ***1/2

While this obviously pales in comparison to the Steamboat/Flair that WCW put on that same day, it was a good main event with a decent flow. I wasn't crazy about Hogan's stuff at the beginning, but they set the tone in a nice way, as Savage was intimated by the challenger and knew he had to resort to cheap tactics. Hogan was a very effective seller once Savage took over and focused on his throat and neck. Usual Hogan finish, clean as a whistle. ***

This was an excellent match and a good strategic development from their first bout, as Flair changed his pace due to losing the champion's advantage here. This was textbook Flair, working on the leg and relying on flashy pinfalls, while Steamboat put on some incredible selling and was very believable in his struggle to get control over the match. I think this would have been virtually perfect by trimming about 10 minutes, but their stamina was outstanding and it made sense for Steamboat to finally be the one to outshine Flair in a (almost) 60 minutes showdown. Decent finish, as of course it led to the rubber match. ****3/4

Dominic DeNucci vs The Magnificent Muraco (7/22/81) Yeah, this didn't work for me. The crowd antagonized Muraco, who spent loads of time yelling at them and ripping a sign, while DeNucci argued with the referee like an old man complaining about a construction site. This might be entertaining to some and at least the fan got involved, but I feel like stalling for 5 minutes when the match only goes 8 is just lazy. Admittedly, it got even worse once they actually started wrestling, as they spent the next 3 minutes doing a bunch of unconvincing stuff. Muraco's strikes felt very light and DeNucci didn't contribute much of anything. Muraco spiked DeNucci in the chest and DeNucci threw himself out of the ring, losing by count-out. DUD

The Magnificent Muraco vs SD Jones (6/27/81) Muraco, billed as "Morocco" for some reason, defended the IC Title here. Muraco took a few good bumps to build up SD's offense, while the challenger focused on a toehold. It wasn't the best, as they stalled quite a bit, but it was fine until Muraco completely ignored the leg work during his comeback and also started taking unnecessary moves, such as a punch from the top rope, without his ankle seemingly bothering him at all. There was also a very clumsy sequence where Muraco missed a punch on SD and they both fell on the floor for some reason, this was poor improvisation as SD stayed down selling despite the punch not landing. Good heel finish, but this didn't gel very well overall. 1/2*

Steve King vs Johnny Rodz (6/27/81) This was not terrible, easily the best match that I have seen so far in this project, but still quite a dull bout. I didn't mind the first few minutes, as they showcased some decent tests of strength, armdrags and upper-body holds. However, I felt that Rodz was very lazy during his control segment, failing to create any excitement and throwing some weak looking superkicks. He even moved out of the way of a crossbody too early, making King look silly for not being able to spot it. King also locked in a random toehold during the final part of the match and it went nowhere before Rodz won cleanly. This had a promising start, but it went downhill after that. 3/4*

Dominic DeNucci vs Killer Khan (4/29/81) Not good. Khan spent a few minutes smothering DeNucci and forcing an elbow against his face, while DeNucci did his signature bad selling by laying down on the first rope. DeNucci finally punched Khan on the nose and stared at him forever, hitting a punch every like 20/30 seconds and doing nothing else, so it would look like one of DeNucci's shitty punches meant much more than anything Khan did. Not only that, but DeNucci got immediately back on his feet after a cane shot from Freddie Blassie too. The referee apparently didn't know any of the rules, as he let DeNucci punch Khan to his contentment or Khan smother DeNucci into the ropes many times, until the official finally counted DeNucci out after he got trapped between the ropes. 1/2*

Food is a great parallel and I fully agree, there will always be some meals, seasonings or flavours we prefer and some we don't really fancy. It's all subjective and the recent GWE ballots proved it once again. I'm just having fun watching the matches, writing a few words about them and interacting with others here!

Thank you for watching the match and taking the time to share your thoughts. I see your points, I just don't enjoy stalling that much. I guess I am somewhat biased against comedy matches, it needs to be 'great comedy' to please me. The same goes for movies, 'unfunny comedy' just doesn't do it for me and it feels much worse than an average non-comedy movie. Moolah's spots with the referees are another example, they're quite stupid and also badly executed on most occasions. I agree on Scicluna's execution. Heenan had a few amazing bullshit matches in AWA and I remember being higher than anyone else on Flair & Eugene vs La Resistance. Can't comment on RJ City as I am not familiar with his work.

The Great Yatsu vs The Hangman (4/18/81) This was a mistake. Yatsu wasn't a great hand yet and he had to wrestle Hangman for 20 minutes. They insisted on doing a test of strength despite the poor crowd reaction and then a bad looking double KO spot after just 5 minutes, then Hangman took over by working on Yatsu's head. Yatsu put in some decent work on Hangman's leg, and Hangman actually sold it well before completely forgetting about it and hitting backbreakers with his bad leg. FFS. Hangman also tried some unconvincing arm work during his comeback, ignoring the previous focus on the head, which didn't make much sense. They rang the bell for a time limit draw after 18 minutes and I can't blame the few fans that cheered when this happened. 1/4*

Jill Fontaine vs The Fabulous Moolah (4/8/81) This was bad. Jill looked extremely green and Moolah either didn't want to make her look decent or simply couldn't. They did a stupid spot where the referee (finally) caught Moolah using a rope to strangle Jill, so Moolah strangled the referee himself and somehow wasn't disqualified. Go figure. Jill threw some horrible leg scissors and strikes, but she seemed lost and even tried a pinfall despite Moolah's legs being completely outside the ring. Moolah got her comeback when Jill was smart enough to spend 20 seconds pushing and arguing with the referee. Moolah then no sold a shitty running forearm from Jill, who fell to the mat like an idiot, before pinning her with a bad looking flapjack. Ugh. -*

SD Jones vs The Hangman (2/25/81) Yeah, this was not good at all. They started with some average lockups, then SD began no selling Hangman's offense for some reason, getting up immediately after a bodyslam and even headbutting the turnbuckle a few times by himself to mock his opponent's attempts. After Hangman's boring armbar, the real mess began, as they seemed unsure of what to do and had a few obvious miscommunications. They were clearly waiting for the time limit draw finish, but they tried to go home early and ended up improvising very badly. At one point, they stared at each other for about 15 seconds to kill time, then went back to a lockup (so SD never had a comeback), which made everything feel even more awkward. They rang the bell at 9:13 to signal the draw, thankfully somebody realized that another minute of this would have felt like an eternity. -1/2*

Dominic DeNucci vs Killer Khan (2/16/81) The MSG crowd wasn't too bad and kind of saved this. Their opening lockups weren't very interesting, as not much happened until Khan put DeNucci in a long armbar to kill some time. When a match goes 7/8 minutes, having a rest hold last for about 2 whole minutes is embarrassing. DeNucci finally made his comeback, throwing bad punches with his good hand, with his usual pace of throwing a punch and then staring at the opponent before hitting the next one. DeNucci then comically collapsed under Khan's weight once he lifted him, which fair enough as they were putting over Khan's size, but it looked so bad and uncoordinated. Khan went over clean after that. 1/2*

Pedro Morales vs The Hangman (11/8/80) So sloooooooooooooooow. They stalled a lot at the beginning, then Hangman trapped Morales in a few holds and Morales always managed to get out of them, which was at least consistent, albeit not very smoothly executed. Hangman finally got the upper hand with a long armbar that completely silenced the crowd. He sent Morales shoulder first into the turnbuckle and the announcer screamed "RIGHT INTO THE RING!". The arm work wasn't terrible, but it was incredibly boring and lacklustre. Hangman kicked Morales in the face about 10 times in a row, but Morales didn't sell it at all and immediately started a comeback, winning with a small package about 20 seconds later. I hate these abrupt endings. 1/2*

That is terrifying. I can't believe they kept him around until 1982.

Dominic DeNucci vs Larry Sharpe (10/20/80) Another bad DeNucci match, featuring yet another irritating stalling sequence, as Sharpe undressed very slowly to get some heat from the crowd. They did some decent arm-based limb work for a minute, but then Sharpe took over and simply started punching DeNucci in the back of the head for several minutes, leading to a few "boring" chants from the stands. DeNucci wasn't good at selling and his comeback had terrible timing, as he would get all fired up and create a lot of commotion just to hit his opponent once and then stare at him. Sharpe then punched DeNucci low right in front of the referee for some reason, but still lost to a small package 5 seconds later, so it's safe to say DeNucci had no balls. 1/2*

Their 1988 matches were a notch above this, but this bout was a nice one anyway. Hansen worked on the chin and tried to control Tenryu's head to dictate the pace of the match, which he did quite well for a few minutes. However, this match testified Tenryu's growth as he went toe to toe with Hansen at his own game, using a chair, striking his way out of holds and getting 2 incredible nearfalls that the crowd desperately wanted to be 3 counts. Decent finish, as Hansen retained in a somewhat lucky way, before putting Tenryu over after the match. ***1/2

Good juniors match. Momota came in hot and opened this with a dive, which I did not expect at all. Fuchi drew good heat with his arrogance and his arm work on Momota was good, at times nasty, feeding the opponent's underdog state. Momota clearly gave all he had here and the Korakuen Hall loved the nearfalls towards the end, with a flashy fashion that you wouldn't expect from either man. Decent flashy finish too. ***1/4

My usual comment on Lucha matches from the 80s is not being happy at the first two falls being so brief, so I finally saw something different here. This started with good matwork and the rudos trying to cut off the tecnicos at all times, even though Charles was somewhat more a sportsman, compared to Morgan. Atlantis was easily the best tecnico in here, taking care of the high spots and leading the selling for his trio. While not a masterpiece, this was refreshing from the usual formula. ***1/4