El-P

Especially since he doesn't actually gives any sources at all. When the whole Battle Royal deal happened, he wasn't exactly that straight on the issue either, saying on the WOR show that these stories were "probably way exagerated", but he didn't give any of those straight "debunking" either. So it does comes out of the blue and without any actual sources on this one. Like Grimmas said, considering how he handled the Elgin & Swann situations, not exactly sure how to read that one. (to give him credit, he's saying this in the middle of an argument about how the Saudi Arabia issue is much more problematic and embarrassing, which I agree with)

Indeed, not at all. This is great. Wait, what ? Sometimes I wonder if people are actually watching the same matches I do... No offense. But Liger & Kanemoto absolutely work heel from the get-go, disrespecting NOAH junior belt even before the match starts. You'd expect Kikuchi & Kanemaru not taking that too well, hence the first chaotic brawling part of the match, peaking with that ridiculous (and stupid, let's be honest) headbutt by Kikuchi, allowing them to beat on NJ asshole Kanemoto. It's gonna haunt the old, fat, gassed up fuck later on, during a long heat sequence on his ass, which include the greatest camel clutch ever by the Liger/Kanemoto duo. Kikuchi finally manage to make a hot tag (as the babyface dynamic commands) to get onto the last stretch. Although some of his stuff looks downright bad, Kikuchi really is the star of the match, and some of his timing, as well as attitude, is quite awesome. Yet again, kudos to Misawa for booking that awesome Kikuchi resurgence in the early 00's after years of doing nothing in AJ after the great early 90's stuff. Liger shows again why he's probably the best interpromotionnal worker ever. Complete antagonist here. Kanemoto is crisp as ever, although he does no-sell on random at times like he always does (the brainbusters series interrupted after two for the worst offense to selling 101) while Kanemaru kinda takes a little step back to his old-ass elbowing partner but still working some cool shit against his NJ counterpart Kanemoto. Liger keeps on being a dick even after he won. Great match.

Funny and topical, as I'm waching the Back to the Territories Houston edition (which is excellent BTW, a real pleasure), at some point Cornette mentions Moolah in a rather sarcastic way, to which Bruce says "Hey, don't disparage the good name of Lilian". Cornette then goes "She was always wonderful to me". Bruce "To me too". Cornette, under his breath a bit "… we didn't train under her".

FWIW, from the French TV timeframe, this is gonna be a 4h 40 mn show (this include a commercial break or two here). Insane.

Tanaka still looks like FMW Tanaka here. Saito has blonde hair. So when they face off, it looks like Tanaka is workintg against an uncool looking erzatz of Mr. Gannosuke. Odd. Also odd to see Tanaka be a dick, as he always was a perenial babyface. He does it quite well though, as he should since the first half of the match is mostly him and Ohtani, who's used to being a dick and loves to slap people around, doing heelish stuff like they are the Fabulous Ones or something. They do get heat although the home team is also a bunch of dicks. Akiyama does no sell a ton at first, like "I'm not selling that second rate promotion weak shit", and he doesn't make a lot of effort to put the opposition over. Honestly, I'd go so far to say he was the worst of the four here, as Saito is getting used to get his ass kicked now and does it well. It's like Akiyama was a bit disinterested to make this compelling honestly. There's a ludicrous no-selling exchange with him and Ohtani early which doesn't look very good, but apart from that he was still at least (and at best) *good*. Maybe the fact he didn't work on top kinda took its toll on his motivation. Anyway, after an okay "let's heel up" period, the finishing stretch finaly gets things going and Tanaka finally shines doing what he does. Heavyweight Ohtani still can deliver a terrific top rope dropkick on the back of your head too. NOAH's booking really was putting emphasis on Saito, as he's the one who gets to shine at the end. Very good match in the end.

Same thing here. The idea of Jeff Hardy being a legit big main event star still seems baffling to me. Not to mention I consider him to be mostly a terrible worker (and I have seen a few of his main event push matches back then). To be frank, I never got the Hardys at all, but at least Matt was solid. Jeff was all stunts and crappy (and sloppy to boot) late 90's indierriffic work. His first few stints in TNA were godawful too. Never got his gimmick either. He doesn't look "artistic" or "mysterious" to me. He looks like a geeky art-school reject who accidentaly dropped a bucket of toxic waste on his arms.

Or when All Japan really turned into a mid-90's WAR-like freakshow, only with New Japan guys passed their prime. I'm not sure the "new" Great Muta was as singular as the orginal one, although the mask looks creepy as hell. But I thought he did too much Shining Wizard, like old Mutoh would. As far as Hash goes, I dunno, not overly familiar with his 00's work, but he really never seemed the same after the Ogawa debacle. Match goes way too long, 16 minutes would have been enough, so we get a lot of Muta stalling and, it has to be said, kinda lame-ass brawling and Hash not doing much. It does picked up when blood gets flowing, as it usually does in Muta matches, but it lacks the real crazyness of old to me. Hash doesn't do much but his selling his excellent. It eventually develops into a good little match, but like its been said, a bit too much SW galore which by this point was getting old already. Hash winning the Triple Crown really wasn't anything it could have been against Kawada. Decent match I guess, but there was something missing. I thought the Tenryu match the previous year was better than this, although Tenryu fits the Muta bullshit bill much better than Hash anyway.

I have no idea where this "great Taue performance" comes from, he did his bit and was good at it, but he certainly wasn't anything special at all. Also, that last kick he gave to Chono toward the end looked like shit, even for Taue. If anything, he was the "less good" of the four here. I say "less good" because everything this match was about worked wonderfully. And although it is a "dream match" on paper, the whole dynamic really wasn't about that part. If there are "goal" and "way" matches, this was totally a "way" match, in that it was a way to build toward not only Misawa vs Kobashi (as showed by the ending stretch and the dynamic between those two) and the eventual Kobashi vs Chono match. But they still sure delivered the "dream match" part of it, like the first exchanges between Kobashi & Chono or the super sweet double team Misawa & Chono put together (aka "double elbow smash" followed by "double kenta kicks"). Chono here demonstrates that it's not about playing every notes, but playing the right ones at the right time, and Chono, washed up 2003 Chono that is, played the few meaningful notes he can play exactly how he should have and getting the most out of every of his spots. Of course Misawa & Kobashi were all about renewing their classic feud, with an ending foreshadowing the big title match to come. So yeah, very good/excellent match that accomplished everything you should expect from it.

This is the one. Tenryu is fucking with Mutoh from the get-go by doing a 52 years old Shining Wizard. Mutoh is butthurt about it, so he manages to hit the same spot outside, pushing the old geezer against the steel barricade, injury his left arm in the process. From there, it's focus on that arm, the kneecap dropkicks' only purpose being to keep Tenryu down, and eventually hit some SW too. There are also callbacks to the moonsault spot, which Mutoh insists on trying despite Tenryu always getting a way out. Good stuff here. And of course, a bunch of punches to the face, stiff chops, Mutoh doing this ridiculous backflip kick... This is everything you'd want from these two and then some as they really play off the first match without the kinda useless overlong legwork sequences, and with better selling too. Maybe not quite MOTYC level, but great match anyway.

For a while, this is everything the Tenryu vs Mutoh match the year before wasn't : actual hatred and intensity, leg work that looked crisp (thank you Kawada for making it seem so) and actually meant something and better selling down the stretch. Kawada is just as terrific as always here, although the regular no-selling comebacks back and forth I know annoyed the old AJ fans back then. Mutoh is also much crisper than during the Tenryu match and demonstrates a lot more heelish attitude too, as he should because he's still the fucking outsider with a title that should not belong to him, which Kawada reminds him in spades by kicking him in the face. The leg work with kneecaps dropkicks gets much more dramatic here as Kawada refuse to let them take him down, meanwhile letting himself open to Shining Wizards, the most copied spot of 2001/2002. This leads to a moonsault when he just can't take it anymore and lays down the mat, but Mutoh hitting his knee on the way down prevents him from covering Kawada immediately. Okay, so now this whole knee business led us somewhere. Some more cool counters incoming, including an attempt at delayed selling by Mutoh who just pops back up after a backdrop driver and runs to ShiningWIzard Kawada again. Well, if Kobashi can do it, why not Mutoh ? He doesn't do it as well (and by that I mean, he just pops out barely even registering the move he just took), but whatever. You gotta wonder what the hell happened toward the end though. I vote on Mutoh trolling Kawada by not going for the powerbomb then doing a miserable failed attempt at... something. Well, he ended up on his head, so no luck for him. Well, the match is great for enough time, despite this awful botch at the end. So, quite the terrific match with its share of Mutoh goofiness which is acceptable or not depending on your personal tolerance for Mutoh goofiness. Mine is high, so I really loved most of this match. Kawada was the glue, of course.

Damn, this looks like the total death warrant of All Japan. Keiji Mutoh, bald and all after he got traumatized in RussoWCW and sick of Inkoism turning New Japan into a pit of MMAlite crap, comes as the brand new savior of the dying company to reclaim the Triple Crown (you know, Jumbo, Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Taue...) against redeemed Tenryu in the most Mutohesque fashion ever. By that I mean, a match where he moves at a snail pace from the very start, does a whole bunch of legwork for a long time that will ultimately amount to exactly zilch and then do a bunch of bomb throwing at the end because, why the fuck not. Tenryu does bust out a powerbomb after only five minutes because, ya know, it's gonna be one of these matches. So yeah, Mutoh does his deal, low dropkick then figure four. Tenryu's selling is really good as usual. When Tenryu bust out his own kneecap dropkick (best spot of the match) we get a "now it's your turn" figure-four spot, like in any good ol' Ric Flair match, with about the same results : none. Then fuck the leg selling because we don't have time for this anyway, despite spending the first half of the match (after five first minutes of nothing though, where Tenryu is more than happy to follow Mutoh's "let's do nothing" lead) on this shit. Yes, there are some cool moments. Yes, Tenryu does some crazy looking spot for a 51 years old guy. It's still basically your must okay New Japan heavy main event circa 1995. I'm not sure I'd even call it "very good" to be honest. Ok, let's be generous, it's a "very good" (about ***1/2 in snowflake language) match. I'm being way generous. I could deal with "Fuck me, Mutoh, are you serious ?" too, but's that for the insane Kawada match (from memory only, I've not seen it in ages).

Come on Sho, I'm an old Volk Han fan myself, he's old-school at this point.

Also, comparing every worker ever to Volk Han is funnier than comparing every worker ever to Ted DiBiase, and he won't have any of that.

If she was only pimping *one* of those girls, she was a scumbag. The old "Well, I have nothing but good things to say about her, she never did anything bad to me" ain't worth shit as far as telling what Moolah was really about (it reminds me of some of some actresses telling how Harvey W. never did anything to them and how he was a professional in their presence. Well, good for them, but that doesn't say much about what he actually did to others.). There's enough crummy stuff about her to not care about some probably semi-senile "legend" (really ?) blabbing about how Moolah "did a great job for women’s wrestling." when she actually, and that's a fact, destroyed it for her own benefit. For that reason and that reason only, it was ridiculous to name anything after her.

The idea that everything has to be meaningful in the grand scheme of thing is a big flaw of pro-wrestling analysis. Be pragmatic people. The leg work was fine was what it was. It did not *have* to be a focal point of the match. Come on, this is 50 year old legend yet traitor to AJ coming back as the "savior", or might you say the imperialist old fuck coming to grab what was his eleven years before and taking it from the hands of the only faithfull All Japan legend and his own understudy turned Ace-that-never-really-was. So they beat the shit out of each other, showing themselves up, trading the master/students spots like nobody's business. Tenryu is bigger, stronger and meaner. Kawada is quicker, younger and has the All Japan spirit in him. Tenryu has seen it all, he's the Gold Saint to Kawada's Shiryu. Or rather Hyoga, because Kawada's bit of a bitch. Damn, Kawada kicking Tenryu off the apron was stuff classics are made of. Such as the selling of every damn punch or kick to the face. You can see where Kawada got it from. This is every bit of a classic. MOTYC (and yes, probably a MOTDC). 50 year old Tenryu, damn, this guy was the best.

The board is absolutely fine, thank you very much.

Misawa is fascinating to watch when it's been a while. He does so many little things right. And damn, these elbows. This is not as great as their previous match together, but this is even more of a slugfest, which gets ugly in a good way toward the end. I don't even get the whiole "they blew up" argument. Hell, maybe they did, but it only made it look more real anyway, considering they were just smashing themselves in elbows and kicks. Finally, Takayama just doesn't have enough in him and even old gassed up Misawa can deliver an elbow that looks like it will knock the fuck out of anyone. Great ugly match. And now Misawa can do the job to yet another of his guys, trying to pass the torch because he's old and doesn't want to be that Ace anymore.

Quite the NJ B-team. Naruse, the poster-boy for late 90's early 00's random kickpad worker. He's quite ok. Sammy's sporting a shiny black outfit and is awkward and good as only he can be. NJ guys are heelish, but don't bring the disdain like Liger did. Kikuchi elbowing people left and right is always fun, although he really looks completely fried at points. Kanemaru was the best here, bringing in the work (yeah, he used a top-rope DDT as a transition, except it was very logical considering his positionning in the ring, and that makes it absolutely right and valid) and being a dick, but the in-house dick. Very good match with that cool interpromotionnal feel you really don't get much anymore, as these company really never mixed before.

The Takeshis. A blast from the past. Early NOAH was pretty fascinating as a company, they really were trying to build new stars left and right. This was not about Jun at all, akthough he was indeed the best of the four. It was about Wild Two taking on two veterans and trying to upstage them despite they lack of experience. Morishima already had tons of potential. Rikioh, less so in my eyes. He was a mauler, but never struck le as anything special apart from his size. Plus, this match was also about making Saito a legit upper-mid-card mainstay : he got the heat put on himslef and then got tons of offense and the pin. Saito is underrated. Superb striker, pretty good seller. The Wild Two working on top isn't the most interesting thing in the world, obviously, they're green and don't really have much in term of interesting stuff to do, but when they are reacting in the finishing stretch, it gets really good. Morishima was that young Terry Gordy like worker already. Tons of stiff shots back and forth as it should be. If one expect an old Four Pillars classic, of course he's gonna get badly disapointed, but it's really not the point. This match was four guys beating the hell out of each other, with two younger up and comer giving their all against a star pushing his new partner to stardom. In that way, it was actually quite good and successful.

I wish Backlund had worked a whole lot more in UWF. It was so freakin awesome to watch him out of his usual waters. Takada being the master of working with pro-style guys was the perfect guy for him.

The Ogawa project was quite interesting, although I don't think it was a success as a drawing card. But what a refreshing take from NOAH to even try it. Goes against about everything you'd expect from the AJ school of booking. Takayama was the hottest free agent in Japan at the time. Fun days. This of course is excellent as Ogawa is a sneaky bastard who gets killed by Monster-shooter Takayama for a while, then manage to make a comeback by being, well, a sneaky bastard. Despite the fact he was pretty much the Mickey Whipreck of puroresu, they manage to get true near-falls toward the end, with small packages and shit. Bret Hart would be so proud. Finally Takayama stomps the little bastard and rises to the top, but what an intricate piece of work, which also demonstrate that you can reach excellence in about 15 minutes and without having to do ridiculously dangerous stuff. Ogawa's in-ring stuff was indeed a success. Early NOAH was so much fun, it looked like the future of puroresu was right there.

Well, *that* is bad timing. (happens more often than you'd think though)

I guess that RVD would have asked Bruce to pick a hand pretty easily. And yeah, not listening to a "clean", WWE approved version of the podcast. I'm afraid it will take its toll on the original one.

Listen to Tony watch ECW from this week. I'm not saying EVERYONE should, but you should. A little goes a long way but it's appropriately surreal and ridiculous. I definitely will ! I agree this has become an issue. Just let Tony by funny when he wants to be.

Because a single tweet about facts prevent the Twitter crowd (consisting of people who never even met the guy, never knew him and most of them probably never even saw him back in the days) from "mourning" (which is a term that really should be reserved to the actual family and friends) ? Come on now... People really need to stop being so fucking sensitive about everything. Dave Meltzer was a friend of Bruno, so maybe the classeless ones in this story are the douchebags who pack up on Twitter to patronize and insult Dave in *his* time of mourning (of a man he actually KNEW) because they can't get over a single fucking tweet about MSG sell-outs which is actually a very important part of Bruno's legacy. Lack of decency indeed, but Twitter and social media in general are a cesspool.