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As we finish up April 1983 from a worldwide wrestling perspective, a lot of exciting things are happening. Very few of them are in WWF. Muraco and Snuka feel like the only "next guy up" stars they have at the moment. Sarge coming in late in the month hopefully will pump in some excitement. This match personifies the stagnation that the promotion was facing. A retread from the 80s and a slow, 28 minute developing match. The work here I thought was good with Ivan taking most of the match and focused by rudimentary but effective arm work over Bob including a long short arm scissor spot that required multiple attempts from Bob for him to lift Ivan out of. Eventually he gets sent into the turnbuckle and Bob returns the favor wringing out his arm before we head to the final stretch. I certainly never got the impression that Ivan was a threat to win the title here and with more and more finishers being exploited worldwide around wrestling, it struck me here how Ivan really doesn't have that one move that can be seen as frightening and create drama. He goes for the bearhug and locks it in after a chicken wing attempt and gets met with indifference from the MSG crowd. The flash pinfalls afterwards were much better received and Pat and Gorilla do a good job on commentary especially considering how early on this is in Gorilla's tenure behind the mic. More pressure from Ivan emphasized on Bob's back but he slips out of a suplex, locks on the chicken wing and that is all she wrote. A throwback match but one that feels dated and behind the times of where wrestling was heading. The fact that it is one of my highest ranked WWF matches of the year so far shows how the promotion is faring. I don't think it can be understated how quick the turnaround was with the national expansion from a presentation and excitement standpoint. ***1/4

Think that is just Blears flubbing it as he is the ref in the Verne return match right after and calls it straight not helping the heel in any way. Finished up my April 1983 watching and this remains a perplexing match where they were put into a booking corner and should have just bit the bullet and had Hogan win the title and appease NJPW. The finish as presented is so deflating and really covers up a lot of great work before it.

Easily the best match on the first batch of WCCW tv shows we have. Bugsy had some goofy selling but they cut a good pace and had an out of control feel that really stood out in the promotion at the time. ***1/4

They psychology felt a little off in the early goings of this for me. Heenan has 10 minutes to pin Zumhofe or he has to wear the weasel suit. Opening moments show Zumhofe running away, making goofy facials and being a dick to where I was becoming sympathetic towards Heenan. Heenan takes over with a rake to the eyes and the match picks up tremendously. Heenan has a great arsenal of offense and kept things moving along. Buck for his part took some great bumps including a nasty one into the ropes. Heenan overall displayed a lot of great ring awareness with how he got over the stipulation and his desperation to win. There is a moment in the early going where Heenan is frustrated and rolls to the outside but you see he can't regroup and waste time like he normally would or tell his charges and he has to roll right back in. The time ticks down and Heenan is unsuccessful in pinning Zumhofe. Crowd starts chanting weasel and Buck gets in on it over the house mic. Heenan pitches a great fit before putting on the suit. I understand the novelty of something like Heenan vs Hayes from 1980, but I thought this was a much stronger Heenan performance and overall a great bullshit match. This is one of the matches that breaks my spreadsheet as I will rank it favorably but it wont be in my top 100 matches of the year. However, it is certainly one of the most fun and memorable matches of the year. I liken it to something like the WM7 Blindfold match. ***1/2

Watched this in full and it frustrated me. Opening starts with Takako reeling off three DDTs that are shrugged off. Then Kyoko does some leg work that goes nowhere. The arm work done in the middle portion is easily the strongest portion of the match. Takako felt like a pretty big underdog in this match and they make it believable she could win with the arm submission. Kyoko comeback and finish is some of the most egregious fighting spirit nonsense you will see. She suddenly just shrugged off all prior work and bulked up into the finishing stretch. Tack onto that the botch by the ref on the power bomb and this was a match that didn’t leave me wanting to watch the reign of Kyoko at all. **1/2

This match essentially is the torch passing from Bob to Hulk. Hulk debuted the week before back with the promotion to fanfare but on this show when Sheik defends the title in a squash, the crowd is still holding up signs that Bob is the rightful champion. The numbers are against Bob in this match so he enlists Hogan for backup. Even though the color scheme changed from time to time, Hulk is here in the full red and yellow that he becomes most synonymous with.

This match had a beautiful progression to it. Thesz is the referee and does a good job of being interactive without in the way. Match starts with some good grappling and Dory/Ricky and Jay/Terry are paired off. A standout is Jay hooking the arm of Terry, them spilling to the outside, Terry does an airplane spin on the outside, they roll back in.... and Jay still has the arm hooked. Jay continues to be the guy along with Gino that I miss the most from their young death when I watch 80s wrestling. The match continues to heat up and the final 3-4 minutes are outstanding. You can sense the Steamboat/Jay team gaining momentum and close to pulling off the upset. They work towards that with multiple pinfall attempts and frequent tags. It is very engaging and looks like a basketball team that keeps draining 3's and has a team on the ropes. Just then, Dory cuts off Ricky and Terry is able to reverse a flying press from Jay to get the victory showing the veteran wilyness of the Funks. Really entertaining match. **** (7.9)

Gave this a watch today as it didn't make the DVDVR set and I was unsure what to think as I am hot and cold on Race overall. I thought it was tremendous. Kerry worked underneath and was overcoming the vicious beating and then dishing it out as well. Race was vicious sending Kerry's head into any object and the brainbuster on the floor. Overall, this show is up and down in front of a sparse Texas Stadium crowd but this match was the clear highlight and if on the DVDVR set, I suspect it would have finished in my top 20. ****1/4 (8.6)

Great match. Worked a lot on the ground but things were compelling and it showed that Kyoko could certainly hang in that area. When things intensified, it felt like the right amount of desperation, bombs and speed were thrown out. This was the kind of "heat check' match that top wrestlers in a given year generally have. I don't think this will be the best offering from either even against each other, but it was a reminder that their consistent effort was high level. **** (7.8)

This had a few issues to make it fall just short of great for me. Aja comes out wrecking Korakuen which was really exciting. The match then kind of settles in before ramping up at various points. That stop/start made the match feel a bit disjointed even with the fall structure. There were other minor annoyances like Kimura absolutely splatting on a nasty dive on the floor and then being back on offense 1 minute later. The finish also took a while to set up as Bison had trouble lifting Yamada into position. When this match shined was in the flurries from Kyoko/Yamada against the big bullies. Especially when Aja showed vulnerability, the match really had a great David vs Goliath feel to it. I am unsure why the titles were vacated only for Jungle Jack to just win them back but...... booking. ***1/2

17 minutes of the first fall are clipped but this is one of the longer looks at Valentine we have. He looked pretty fantastic throughout. The match had a brutalizing style as the foreign heels tried to cut the ring off and then the finish of each fall would end in a flourish. Inoki/Baba complimented each other well and helped out showing continuity between them. With the full match, this is possibly a MOTYC for 1970. The final fall finish was predictably a lame count out with Inoki barely getting back in. The match worked to progress the upcoming Kiniski vs Baba matches but Valentine was the standout here to me just based on performance and scarcity of footage of him. ***1/2

This was my first time seeing Leone and it wanted me to seek him out more. He has a good gimmick of the Italian aristocrat that also wants to teach healthy virtues to the American youth with his vitamin suckers he passes out before the match. During the match, Leone controlled the action well. He cheated with the fish hooks effectively and you got a sense of progression of his growing frustration. He also was quick to lock on his finisher and kept the action going. Varga was mainly just there to be the foil and he did a decent job but this felt like a Leone carry job. ***1/4 (6.3)

Really cool footage. I agree that it was tough to distinguish at points but I believe George was the aggressor for most of the exchanges here and he looked pretty fantastic. The armbar counter in particular was really interesting to see in 1931 as it was a primitive version of a Fujiwara. This certainly made me want to seek out more George.

Akiyama won this for me over Villano III. I really enjoyed how Akiyama came into his own as top heel of early NOAH.

Austin for sure. I’m through October for the year and only contender for me would be Santo.

These are the matches that makes the year worth it. 2001 has had some good stuff lately but it feels like the narratives have already been established and were waiting on something like Kobashi coming back or ROH starting to change directions. This was easily one of the top 100 matches of the year. It feels like a match that may have been viewed by double digit people. It’s a one camera show with no commentary. It feels akin to taking a long road trip and finding that great BBQ place on the side of the road that delivers. They start friendly enough although Yu Yu declines the opening handshake. Amano throughout the match goes time and time to the armbar and it looks nasty. The finish works in that it was a speed vs power battle and one side won based true on that breakdown. Post match has Amano teasing a handshake and then locking in one more armbar for the road upping the animosity. Great match. **** (8.1)

One episode of the GWCW list is in the can. Just has to be edited.

Great match. I agree this is a bit greatest hits for these two but they absolutely shine together. The main thing that drew me into this match were the teases. There were multiple points that usually signify momentum changes and they held off on them here. The finish was also well done by saying Flair got lucky but him as the NWA champ, he can twist it to saying he was resourceful. ****1/4 (8.3)

The day after a serious natured MSG show, the WWF crew arrives in Philly and produces this match which is a shit load of fun. The faces and heels are all cracking smiles at various points and it really feels like the type of match where everyone goes back to the hotel and pounds a case of beer afterwards. That isn't to say that people are taking it easy, they just knew the notes to hit to garner a reaction and they did so. Rose is bumping all over the place and being a pain in the ass. Fuji pops off a shockingly fast belly to belly to gain a fall on Bellamo. Muraco is in his prime run and has some more interaction with Snuka that will build later of course. Rocky fires off a great flurry of punches. Andre is using his size and laughing and kicking the shit out of the heels. A great popcorn match that could be used as a an example of the 1980-1983 era of pre-Hogan WWF and who was effective. ***1/2

February 83 is a good month for Flair with what we have on tape. No classics or even great matches but he works three distinctively different world title matches in three promotions. World Class vs Gordy has him as defacto face due to heat on Freebirds. Flair plays this off well as being ancillary in the whole feud. He has a demeanor of seeing there is a lot of shit going on and not wanting get directly involved. St. Louis vs Brody is a Ric vs bigger opponent template match but it goes an hour and Ric finds interesting ways to ground Brody and keep the match interesting. Florida vs Scott McGhee is most impressive. A no name challenger in the biggest match of his life. Ric plays it slow just looking for an opening and not going into deep waters against the inferior opponent. This match has no leg work by Flair and sure enough once Scott wipes out on a big charge in the corner, Ric suplexes him and wins clean.

Another great match in this feud marred by the crappy ending. Xavier has been impressive but he felt really show horned into this feud. I’m still hoping for some more long form Homicide vs Ki matches in the future as it’s still the current indie feud of the decade.

In the same sentiment, couldn’t the Hashimoto is better argument part of the “changing contrary opinion” canon. That is the trapping I’ve experienced the last few days and why these arguments get very tedious very quickly. Last GWE we had a TON of critique for Flair. He’s certainly not above that but in the end what happened? Flair won the overall vote comfortably. It seems so far this go around we are hearing loud opinions from a few but will that translate out to the finished list? That remains to be seen. All of that is to say that my original argument is simply that for me, Hashimoto doesn’t have the high end matches Jumbo has. As backing to that I pointed to other data points from three sources that seem to agree. Elliott spelled out his reasoning for Hashimoto above and that’s cool and what I would like to see more of. Stuff becoming a new canon doesn’t just make it correct in a way but an expectation has to be taken into effect that the new discoveries may not translate over the entire voter base. I haven’t seen many deep dive into Dragon Gate and we had open mocking of Alan’s list that was presented at the Torch. Is that what we want this to be representative of?

Yeah, of that list I agree they are all great and some reach the 4.75 level for me 1/4 tag, 8/98) but certainly not as many as Jumbo and that is where my point was centered toward. Hopefully if the consensus is Hash is better and has as much top end as Jumbo that will be reflected better in future GME lists.

Interested to hear what the MOTYC are for Hashimoto? I have plenty of his matches as great but few at 4.75-5 level and the sentiment seems to equate that from the yearbook viewing, Meltzer year end lists and Greatest Match Ever. The latter had 6 Jumbo matches in the top 100.

Damn, I’m shocked Hashimoto is winning. I love Hashimoto but I just don’t think he has that extra gear to produce MOTYC matches that I saw Jumbo utilize in the 76 Funk match, 1/28/86 tag, 6/5/89, 9/1/90, and 4/20/91. Hashimoto is a top 20 contender for me, Jumbo is top 5.