stunning_grover

Terrific. This was really fun to watch and it’s a great example of how great AAA could be at the time. La Parka was the man of the match. Great bumping by La Parka. Lots of AAA hasn't aged well, but this match certainly is still entertaining to watch.

I am more than open to suggestions. I've watched a couple of Joshi matches this year, but nothing I saw was particularly good. I know Athena has a buzz around her here in the states. What/who should I be looking for? I haven't watched many 2013 matches to be honest (I've mostly been watching 70s, 80s and 90s wrestling lately), but there's an Athena vs. Ayako Hamada match from April 6 (SHIMMER Vol. 53 iPPV at Wrestlecon) that was good. Athena is definitely a worker to look out for. Arguably the best American female worker right now. Also, I think Ivelisse Velez has been quite impressive from what I've seen (she's a regular for the SHINE promotion based out of Florida). Even though I'm a joshi puroresu fan, I have to admit that 2013 hasn't produced too many good joshi puroresu matches (plenty of decent stuff, but nothing really good).

Are you going to include any women's wrestling?

I watched this today after not having seen this match for a long time. I think it doesn't really hold up that well. The work is really good and all, but it just doesn't stand out as much as I thought it would. I still think it's an excellent match and worth 4 stars, but I no longer feel it's an all-time great 5-star match like I used to think years ago. I even prefer the Ozaki & Cuty vs. Kyoko & Takako match from Dreamslam I over this match. I think I will re-watch the other two matches in the Toyota & Yamada vs. Ozaki & Kansai trilogy in the near future to see how they hold up. I think I will prefer both over this match from Dreamslam II. So I re-watched both Dreamslam I and Dreamslam II recently and I have to say that I'm a bit disappointed. They were very good shows, but not as legendary as I remembered them to be. It was somewhere around 1998 or so when I first saw them and I have obviously seen a lot of wrestling since then, so they don't have that overwhelming feeling like they had back when I first saw them. I still love Hokuto vs. Kandori and I still really enjoyed Ozaki & Cuty vs. Kyoko & Takako. And like I said earlier, I still think Toyota & Yamada vs. Ozaki & Kansai is excellent. But those are the only three memorable matches on the Dreamslam shows. Each of the two Dreamslam shows really comes off as just another AJW show from the early 1990s instead of one of the all-time great shows (which used to be their reputation).

80s joshi hasn't been covered in the 80s DVDVR project (yet). I'm looking forward to the 80s joshi set. Hopefully it will come out one day. I'm also looking forward to Dan Ginnetty's 1984-1991 AJW TV double DVD set. Hopefully that one will come out one day as well. The Crush Gals are one of my favorite joshi tag teams ever. I think old school AJW is definitely not "in fashion" at the moment, but is still respected and popular with some die-hard experts. Here are my favorite joshi tag teams: 1. Yumi Ikeshita & Mami Kumano, the Black Pair Great heels. Ikeshita was a fantastic worker. Kumano was really cool and awesome too. I also like the original Black Pair, which consisted of Shinobu Aso & Yumi Ikeshita (but there isn't much footage of them, unfortunately). 2. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka, the Crush Gals One of the best, most influential and most popular tag teams ever. Chigusa Nagayo was fantastic and I am currently looking forward to watch more of her 80s matches. Lioness was cool too, but the greatness of the Crush Gals was mostly about Chigusa, in my opinion. 3. Bison Kimura & Aja Kong, Jungle Jack I've really become a big fan of Bison Kimura lately. Jungle Jack was an awesome tag team. Everyone definitely needs to watch their matches. 4. Noriyo Tateno & Itsuki Yamazaki, Jumping Bomb Angels Most people know them from their appearances in WWF. Definitely a legendary tag team and their matches were fun to watch. 5. Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki Two of my favorite joshi workers ever. I love their matches. Not much else to say about them, other than that their match vs. Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue from Dream Slam I is quite famous. My favorite non-joshi tag teams: 1. Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi This is just an amazing tag team that has participated in some really great matches and they are two of my favorite wrestlers ever. 2. Stan Hansen & Genichiro Tenryu They were a great tag team in 1989. Their match vs. Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura is one of my favorite matches ever. They were a badass team that took care of some serious business in the ring. 3. Stan Hansen & Giant Baba It's Hansen & Baba... That's a dream team to me. 4. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue, the Holy Demon Army They were involved in many classic tag team matches. Simply one of the best tag teams ever. 5. Marty Jannetty & Shawn Michaels, the (Midnight) Rockers A bit of a nostalgic pick, but their matches are still loads of fun to watch and actually still hold up, in my opinion. I used to be a huge Michaels fan (I still am somewhat of a fan of his work), but nowadays I tend to prefer Jannetty.

This is, in my opinion, a match of the century candidate. Fantastic performance by both men, especially Stan Hansen. Great selling and stiff offense.

Adequate. Jesse Ventura & Tony Schiavone on commentary. Paul Roma as a babyface really doesn’t work. He’s actually a decent heel, but a lousy babyface. I also prefer Arn Anderson as a heel. The match was way too long (26 minutes) and totally dragged.

I would have to go with Bobby Fulton. There's not nothing really wrong with Robert Gibson, but he's clearly the weak link of his team. Ricky Morton was just so much better in every way. As a matter of fact, I like to use the term "the Gibson of the team" when describing the weak link of the team. I don't like using "the Jannetty of the team" like some people do, because Marty Jannetty was never clearly the weak link of any team. Fulton was the weak link of his team too, but he usually brought some good stuff to the table. However, I would like to know more about the really off-nights Fulton supposedly had. Could someone point out some examples of Fulton matches where he really took away some of the match quality? I would be interested in finding out, because that could change my opinion.

Could anyone recommend me a match of Jim Breaks that is on YouTube where he is really heeling it up and being all dastardly? Preferably one where the crowd gets all riled up. EDIT: I'm sorry for kind of answering my own question here now, but I just read OJ's review of Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez match in the Microscope section and I think it's exactly the kind of Jim Breaks match I was looking for.

I was thinking more about a mixture of everything, the overall quality and importance of a wrestler. While guys like Funk and Hansen are mostly in it for in-ring work, Hogan should be included mostly for his incredible importance (and while he would never make it high on any list on in-ring work alone, I think he was good enough of a worker to justify calling him a great all-round performer).

I love his work in All Japan (especially the matches vs. Hansen). Plus, there's the run in WCW in 1989 that I really like. His WWF run isn't his best stuff out there, but I always thought it was fun. And then, there's stuff I haven't even seen yet, but expect to be great: his Puerto Rico work, for example. I'm not quite sure if the #1 spot is a bit too high (maybe the case for him being #1 in the 70s is even stronger than him being #1 in the 80s), but at this moment, I think he is the #1 American worker of the 1980s. But yeah, mostly based on his work in Japan.

I personally think the following four are the top 4 Americans of the 1980s: 1. Terry Funk 2. Stan Hansen 3. Hulk Hogan 4. Ric Flair Other names who deserve consideration are Randy Savage, Ted DiBiase and Jerry Lawler. By the way, what about Bobby Eaton and Barry Windham? I don't think they're top 4 candidates, but they could be top 10 candidates and at least deserve to be mentioned.

Sherri vs. Woman... I'd pick Sherri. They're both extremely good looking. They're both two of the greatest female managers ever. But... Sherri seemed to be more willing to go that extra mile. She would bump better than most of the men. She would constantly be working. She would constantly do something to add something to the match. And if I was a promoter, I would pick her because I could trust her on the fact that she would always go out there and give 110%. And most importantly... I think Sherri got more heat from the crowd than Woman. And about the promos, while Woman's promos were more coherent and sophisticated, Sherri's promos often added a lot to the promos of the workers she was managing. I mean, her promos seemed almost as crazy as Randy Savage's at times. So, I'm not sure if Woman has that much of an edge on Sherri when it comes to promos.

For those who hadn't figured it out yet, that's not Tarzan Goto in this match. It's Tatsutoshi Goto, who was one of the Blond Outlaws (along with Hiro Saito and Norio Honaga). Surprisingly, Hiro Saito was the man of the match, in my opinion. He worked really hard and those bumps into the guardrail were crazy. A lot of the 1980s NJPW elimination matches were better than this match. Still, this match was fun.

Austin was getting better and better on the mic. He still did those weird little jumping up and down movements while talking though. He probably watched too many Bill Dundee promos at the time.

Fairly good match. Espectrito was the best, as usual. Mascarita Sagrada was the most spectacular, but his execution wasn't as good as it would become a few years later. After the match, rudos Fuerza Guerrera, Jaque Mate and El Hijo del Gladiator attacked the tecnico minis. Mascara Sagrada, Misterioso and El Justiciero came to the rescue.

Impressive. 1990 AJW Grand Prix tournament final. Toyota starts off the match with a lot of energy and aggression. The execution of the final minutes wasn’t all that great though (especially on Hotta’s part). You can’t really blame them though, because this was Toyota’s second match of the night and Hotta’s third match of the night. I'm a big fan of joshi puroresu, but I wouldn't call this a MOTYC.

This was a mediocre match. Flair worked really hard, but I felt Jerry Lawler worked a smarter match with JYD earlier in the year. The Lawler vs. JYD match wasn't all that much better, but Lawler at least saved his energy and tried to work around JYD's terrible work and terrible shape a bit more. Flair simply did his usual bumping and selling routine, which works fine with workers that are at least decent (JYD was definitely less than decent and simply terrible at that point in his career though). The finish of this match didn't help things either, of course. A question for anyone who wants to share his view on this point: how would you compare this Flair vs. JYD match with the Lawler vs. JYD match from January in terms of quality (or lack of quality)?

Manami Toyota was the worker of the match, in my opinion. Everyone else was also really good though. I wish Bison Kimura & Grizzly Iwamoto would have shown a bit more than they did, but this wasn't the kind of match where they would stand out. This was fast-paced action-packed match with lots of moves. The match was impressive, but the crowd stood out as well. Not necessarily in a good way though. It seemed they didn't take the women all that seriously during the early stages of the match. However, they seemed to got into the match more seriously during the later stages of the match. The crowd acted like they had watched some WCW and played the Jim Ross drinking game. Perhaps they even had their own Hamada's UWF drinking game.

Enjoyable match, but I like their match from 3/2/90 better.

Yokozuna's last WWF match was at Surivor Series 1996.

The match was fairly good, but the real story is Jim Ross' commentary. I was laughing out loud throughout most of this match. That was because I kept thinking about the Jim Ross drinking game. Man, he was more annoying on commentary than ever before.

Wow! Awesome segment!

Ha! Good point. It was Yumiko Hotta who kicked out of Suzuka Minami's piledriver on a one count. I actually didn't noticed it at first (probably because I'm used to seeing piledrivers getting treated like that in puroresu by now). Still, I totally understand what you mean. This actually reminds me of the 80s New Japan set discussions at the DVDVR forum. At one point, there was even a separate thread about this subject. The lack of selling (or even no-selling) of piledrivers was not uncommon in puroresu (also in joshi puroresu, which was very workrate driven during the 1980s and 1990s). It's just a regular move and is not seen as a deadly move. I guess it helps to keep that in mind while watching (joshi) puroresu. It's similar to still enjoying a puroresu match despite the fact that the sasorigatame (Scorpion Death Lock/Sharpshooter) is not a deadly finisher (while perhaps being used to it as a deadly finisher in American wrestling). It also works the other way around (moves considered a finisher in Japan being sold as a resthold in the U.S.), for example, the Bret Hart vs. Shawn Michaels iron man match where Bret sold a jujigatame as a resthold. Or... maybe we could look at things from a more kayfabe-like perspective... we could think that Shawn Michaels can't execute a decent jujigatame and that Japanese wrestlers can't execute decent piledrivers. Especially when watching a yearbook like this, where we see wrestling from all over the world, we have to accept certain things that were considered normal in certain promotions/areas/styles. With lucha we have to accept the fact that two pinfalls almost always end up right after each other to decide a fall and that they submit to holds puroresu workers in Japan would never submit to. With WWF we have to accept that the Ultimate Warrior was considered championship material. With Memphis we have to accept the whole technical losses stuff. With USWA Texas we have to accept that they no-sell angles and title changes that happened in Memphis. With puroresu we have to accept that the piledriver is just a random, relatively ineffective move and not a finisher. Well... we don't have to accept it, but it makes the matches probably a lot more enjoyable if we do. I think a yearbook like this shows that great wrestling can happen in all kinds of forms, in different promotions and in different styles. When watching Memphis, for example, I tend to focus more on the angles and Jerry Lawler's great promos. When watching puroresu, I tend to focus more on in-ring work. When watching lucha, I tend to watch it in lucha viewing mode. It's all great stuff, but it comes in different forms with different characteristics and with different finishers. This 2-out-of-3 falls match was terrific. It was for the WWWA World Tag Team Championship. Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami, the Marine Wolves, defended the championship against Yumiko Hotta & Mitsuko Nishiwaki, the Fire Jets. There were still plenty of school girls in the crowd at AJW shows in May 1990. They were making a lot of noise, were doing a lot of chanting and they added a lot to the crowd heat of the match. The Marine Wolves was an excellent tag team. Suzuka Minami is, in my opinion, the most underrated pro wrestler of all time (when it comes to how she’s viewed by wrestling fans on the internet). She was a great worker, but hardly anyone talks about her. While Hokuto was the leader of the team, Minami proved to be the type of worker that’s great to have on your team. The Fire Jets won the first fall (which lasted about 7 minutes) after Nishiwaki pinned Minami. The Marine Wolves were desperate to score the equalizing fall. They executed all kinds of high impact moves. The Fire Jets weren’t going to let that happen too easily though and fought back. Still, the Marine Wolves managed to win the second fall (which lasted about 5 minutes) after Minami pinned Hotta. The third fall saw all kinds of great action, including brawling outside of the ring and plenty of great tag team wrestling. Hokuto scored the pinfall victory over Nishiwaki to win the third fall (which lasted about 8 minutes) and the match (which lasted about 20 minutes in total). The Marine Wolves retained the championship. I think this match was even better than the Akira Hokuto & Yumiko Hotta vs. Toshiyo Yamada & Etsuko Mita match from January 4, 1990. A great performance was given by all four workers, especially the Marine Wolves. This match is currently in my top 3 of 1990 so far. EDIT: By the way, I have to mention this after writing all that stuff about piledrivers in puroresu... On the same show as this tag match (May 13, 1990 AJW), there's a match between Manami Toyota and Etsuko Mita where Toyota actually wins the match after hitting four piledrivers on Mita! The match itself is really good, even though Toyota is almost Sabu-like when it comes to her reckless execution of a lot of the high risk moves.

I don't think this was a title match. The commentator (Michael St. John, I think) even mentions there's "no title on the line tonight" about 2 minutes into these highlights. Plus, Mid-South Coliseum shows took place on Mondays, right? So this match probably took place on Monday May 7 (then was shown in highlight form on this episode of USWA TV on Saturday May 12) and Lawler had won the USWA Unified World Heavyweight Championship for the sixth time on May 5 (according to online title history sources).