MJH

Eddie looked every-bit one of the best in the world (as he was) here. Just great movement, athleticism, execution. Ohtani for his part was really good as well, but this was more of a one-man-show than any of the other juniors (/Ohtani) matches I've watched the last few days. The leg thing plays up down the stretch for those who that matters more than me for, but it's Eddie's attack that's more notable. The finish is quite sudden, the springboard dropkick/Tiger Suplex not having the kick of Ohtani's springboard DDT against Benoit as a sufficient spot to pull out the win against the flow/Eddie's dominance. But a very good smaller show match all-in-all, and like any of these junior matches, it's better than the stuff today in all bar flash.

I think the second half of this is better than the second half of Liger/Ohtani, actually. Much more one-sided (and Benoit's obviously the best dominant/power-junior there ever was), Ohtani has to work much more for his own offence and his selling, too, is much better, he's moving much slower and whilst he's animated (obviously) there's a much stronger balance between that and putting over the fact he's getting his ass handed to him. It doesn't have the great "aw, shucks" moment of the second Dragon (does he even manage two moves in succession at any point down the stretch?) but it's much tighter as a stretch from the dominant/underdog POV. That said, the first half's even more of a "kill time" than the Liger match where you can at least (perhaps clutching at straws somewhat but...) see Liger as flashier, getting his holds on easier or whatever. Even "Ohtani's better on the ground" plays no factor in the second half. If they'd scrapped the early "obligatory" matwork in favour of a quick opening sequence, give Ohtani a nice pop in there somewhere, and then transition right into Benoit dominating and letting Ohtani up for spurts, it'd be a JrMOTYC. The "TV Version", at least, is great.

Well this is actually slightly better than I remembered it being as a whole. It's still a bit too back-and-forth, Ohtani's transitions are a bit too quick (particularly after the Ligerbomb) and he's a bit too fresh/animated down the stretch when going for his finishes given the comparative beating he's taken... y'know for all the plaudits Ohtani's had for this match it's really Liger who makes this for me. It's the comparative flashiness of his matwork and submissions and the authority with which he beats on Ohtani that positions himself as dominant and Ohtani as the underdog and makes the story work as a whole, whereas it might've otherwise appeared too even. I'd've sooner seen an elongated controlling segment from him like, say, Kobashi might've worked Akiyama in comparative positions (I've got and never seen their 1997 Carnival match that'd make an interesting comparison; their '98 Carnival match being my favourite/best of theirs). But, I guess, with juniors you have to expect more back-and-forth action and what-have-you; it certainly works more than I remembered (I think going in expecting the first half to not matter helps that perception more than going in expecting a classic as I did the last time I watched it a few years ago). I still think it's slightly over-rated - and like I said I preferred Liger's performance to Ohtani's - but by no means is it wildly over-prasied and it's certainly a ****ish match were I to do the whole star thing. I have it ahead of the Samurai/Ohtani match but behind Benoit/Eddy. I don't remember Benoit/Ohtani being quite that great, though I generally prefer Benoit and Eddy to Liger and then to Ohtani/Samurai/etc... we'll see, I guess.

Really good tag without needing to go all-out. Nice to see them waste no time with generic opening sequences and go right into the heel control on Liger before Eddy can even tag in. Eddy's hot tag was a bit weak/short, but it lead into a payback spot which are one of my guilty (or not) pleasures. They lost momentum for a minute or so when Kanemoto came in on Eddy and did the Sayama headlock/toe hold for no reason - other than to get it in, I guess - but Liger quickly picked things up again and the finishing run was strong without being "big match". All looked at least good, Liger looking the best for me over Ohtani, and just a real good "TV" tag...

Well, I'm not the biggest NJ Juniors fan looking back on them, and so there's every chance that because there wasn't really any "dead time" here that if I were to go through all the matches I'd still have this around Top 5 - Top 10 or thereabouts. It's a better match than any Jr. Title match I've seen recently, and I can see the appeal of a very well-worked match that's different from the junior norm of the time of 'kill time/hot finish'. But there's a difference between a very good, well-worked 'niche' kind of match, and an 'all-time classic', certainly as you look back years later. My argument is that there's not a whole lot to the match, story-wise etc... beyond Ohtani attacks the leg/Samurai the arm. That'll suffice for interest to big Ohtani and Samurai fans, of course. But wrestling's never been about "just work a match and your fans will be into it". You lay-out roles, have a bit of a narrative, build to something, whatever... this is just leg vs. arm. Nothing changes, nothing really develops. What's the goal of the match? What's there to pull in casual/non-fans? Ohtani acts like the underdog down the stretch, but where's the stuff earlier in the match that puts that over? It's 50-50 and his transitions are generally one-move, keep up the pace sort of things... I'm not saying Ohtani needs to be an underdog, but there needs to be something more. You can exchange arm and leg for a respective move each, plenty of matches have been built around one/two moves for one/both of the guys. But the great ones have more to them than a 50/50 back-and-forth pacing/structure/etc... like I said I think it's a very good match, but next to something like Eddy/Benoit that has work just as good, if not even better, plus more story/narrative/character/drama... It's a nice deviation from the juniors formula, and absolutely is something people should watch/be watching years later, but I just don't see 'classic'. Incidentally the dive sequence I meant is the first one. I think Samurai hits a dropkick or something, Ohtani rolls out, Samurai casually pescados. Straight back inside, switch, Ohtani knocks him out and does his own dive. Return to the ring back to limb stuff. The springboard dropkicks to the legs/arms are nice moments and variations on their offence, but that initial dive exchange just felt "we need to get a dive each out the way" and not terribly in synch with the rest.

I've been hard on this match's status as a classic in the past, so I'll prefix the rest by stating it is a very good match, and if I've been overly harsh it's because my argument has been "why it's not a classic" rather than just a general feedback to the match. So, this is the best "dueling limb work" match I've ever seen. The matwork is very rugged and intense, the execution is generally strong throughout, the atmosphere is really good and it's far more believable as a "sporting contest" than pretty much any match I saw from 2010. That said, I don't think there's a great deal more to it than that. I'm not particularly bothered that juniors tended to "blow off" the limb work, because I don't place a great deal of importance on it, and the matches were really always about the closing stretch for the JIP TV. You're not given someone to root for until Ohtani goes into his underdog/crying schtick near the end, the match isn't laid out as a dominant/underdog story and it's not as if Ohtani hadn't beaten Samurai in a title match before (in the Dome, no less). The action is basically even, the transitions aren't particularly hard-fought (though the headbutts before the springboard are nice), and it's not as if one guy really ever has a sustained period of dominance. The dives are also one of the weakest "we're juniors, we must dive" sequences, too... The comparison I've always used has been Benoit/Eddy from June, aka the "sleepers" match. Their opening matwork is less rugged, but equally as believable/competitive, and even crisper (in fact it's probably the "crispest" match I can think of). But rather than do leg vs. arm and stick to that (which is fine, but it's not a "story" by any definition I can think of), they establish Eddy as the faster, more athletic and flashier guy. Which leads into Benoit using the sleeper to drain him of that advantage, and so whilst Eddy's always trying to fight back (juniors matches, after all, have to be more action-based than the heavyweights and they can't really work too long a one-man control like Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi would to tell the story, etc...) it's clear that Benoit's dominating the match after the 2nd or 3rd one, and Eddy is the underdog, setting up his struggle to fight back. Obviously he does (putting the dizzyness/etc. over sublimely) and so you have a clear and simple "story" there, you have clear roles; a well structured match executed brilliantly. Where's that structure in Ohtani/Samurai? What's the story there beyond "who's appendage will hold up the longest?" I mean there's a lot of nice moments, and the work is strong, but there's not a great deal to the match, for me, beyond "hey they stuck with the limbs!!" And that's not really worth much exalting fifteen years later even though juniors are still doing the same "kill time... hot finish" shit. Limb-work isn't everything, at the end of the day. No one's, to my knowledge, ever criticised Misawa/Kawada 6/94 because the neck/leg angles "disappear", because people are aware it's just a smallish part of a bigger story (though Misawa attacking the leg, with the history of not having done so before, is quite telling), as limb-work should always be (12/93 is about far more than "Kawada sells the leg", after all). There's an awful lot to like, if not love, about the match and in 2010, yes, we're talking a very, very strong MOTYC. In the US it'd be a MOTYC for 1996. It's very, very good. But next to Benoit/Eddy for Jrs. MOTY, next to the great AJPW matches (all bar the RWTL Final I'd put Benoit/Eddy on a level with)... I just don't see "classic".

Well... this is certainly special, though I'm not sure how 'great' it is. The opening few sequences set everything up perfectly; the slap, the casual, emphatic slam, the ear boxing in the corner and Vader no selling the shots before one big one sends Inoki down. The German suplex is, of course, infamous, but people forget both how early it is in the match (about 1/3rd of the way through) and that within thirty seconds Vader is calling a transition for Inoki into his (Inoki's) only real sustained run of offence leading into Vader juicing. Vader quickly takes over by punching his way out of a cover, kills Inoki with a huge chokeslam, Vader bomb and moonsault... and then another quick transition into a weak slam and the sudden armbar finish. The lay-out of the match is all over the place, really, even by what I've come to expect from most of Vader's work. You can't call Inoki on them as it's clearly Vader leading him through everything. I mean, the match is good, and more importantly it's very, very memorable and a strong spectacle... but as a wrestling match I can't really call it great at all.

This was a nice match. They know there's a big IWGP Title match and Inoki/Vader to follow them so they don't go all-out, but just have a good, simple, smart little match to sow the seeds for further work down the line. And, yeah, as Hollinger said, they work really, really well together.

I don't think much NJ '90s Juniors holds up too well, but this was never really considered a classic and so doesn't bring with it the disappointment I've felt for Liger's more revered matches with El Samurai or Ohtani. It's good, but nothing ground breaking or revelatory or anything particularly special. And, yeah, juniors in the dome...

To make something of an additional defence for Toyota (though I hardly disagree with the criticisms...) sprinting has always had a stronger role in Joshi than elsewhere. I mean you can judge a company by how it has its' rookies work. NJ it was always the five-minute opening "sparring" mat work with an odd move or two and quick finish. AJ tended to stick guys in roles as the underdog much more. WWE have their whole developmental system now where you work a set routine of this face shine spot, these 5 moves and this rest hold for your heel control, this set face comeback, etc... with Zenjo it was generally "keep the action quick with what moves you have and show fire/look competitive". And I still think Toyota is the best pure 'go-go-go' worker they ever produced. The comparison with Angle works to a point... though Toyota had a greater array of spots and she's probably the best Ricky Morton too. Taking the "long term selling" out of the equation for a second and hypothetically saying she tags someone in as opposed to transitions at that point, she was a great great bumper, uber-flexible, sympathetic and really just a great punching bag. Hokuto might be a more dramatic and certainly greater long-term seller, say, but in terms of purely taking an ass-kicking, Toyota was great. Actually as the Robert Gibson hot tag whilst we're at it, Aja might be more dominating/ass-kicking, so might Hokuto, actually, but when Toyota picks up the pace, too, again out of context I know, she was as great as anyone at it. And, yeah, I mean the # of classic matches, too... vs. Yamada hair vs. hair/Dream Rush/Hokuto JGP Semi's/Aja Big Egg... they're all sure-fire Top 10 picks for the decade and whilst she's not the best worker in the last three, she's by no means baggage either. I'd put the Kyoko 60:00 on there, too, for all its faults, just because it's ungodly to me that they managed to work their match for almost fifty minutes before they got gassed and, of course, it really fell apart. It's the definitive example for me of that old guys cliche "leaving it all out there" (which is often bullshit but...). She's infuriating even without the sloppiness because you do think "if only...", but... if you take her as she is she's pretty much elite-level at everything she was focused on. It'd kinda take the fun out of it for me if she didn't fuck up at exactly the wrong time, all the time...

I always thought Yokozuna was pretty good, actually, at least until he got really really big by late-'94 into '95. I mean, pretty good considering his size. Some nice stooge bumps and a decent handful of solid spots that due to his girth looked killer. I even think the first Taker casket match is a fun sprint (or as much as could be expected) before the run ins start. Mika Takahashi was a good hand for Zenjo before her early retirement in '91. More graceful than most at that time. In an entirely different way Bull Nakano doesn't get as much credit as she should. I know OJ, Flik and a few others have given her strong write-ups in the last few years but she never featured in the "classic" list of Hokuto, Jaguar, Aja, Kyoko, Toyota etc... as Chigusa's retirement-mid '92 was (is?) a dark period of sorts for the company in terms of what's known. You could give Chigusa a similar nod, really. I know the Zenjo Classics set has swayed a lot of people but I still remember the late-90s/early-00s Chigusa-hate (probably more in lieu of GAEA but whatever)...

They don't even trust the crowd to understand how to pronounce Seamus (hence the "h"), and expect a very obviously Irish surname?

I'd say it probably holds up better than any of the 1998 (or 1999 for that matter) main events, with the possible exception of the second Austin/Foley match. Maybe not in a "WWF Attitude Era" crazy sense (and so not to, say, what I'd imagine Russo's tastes would be) but still...

So what's the over/under on this one?

This could make Steamboat's kid too... done well.

Blaming WWE for this would be just ridiculous. Vince took the same beating a week earlier and it looked more vicious on him (especially Barrett's slam). It could very likely have been the cause, but there's a difference between that and it being the company's fault. There was nothing excessively dangerous, nothing went wrong in execution... some things just happen a certain way where nobody's to blame and I'd put this in that category although that'd hardly stop media or whomever should they want to. But I do hate the way that the company feel they have to distance themselves from it. "We are all concerned for Ricky, unfortunately this things can happen" is hardly a hard nor uncompassionate statement to make. It's the "Don't Try This At Home" shit that drives me crazy... just call them idiots and be done with it. Hopefully Steamboat is OK, though.

I'm not quite sure I go along with the logic of Raw being "consciously bad and goofy" prior to that angle to further make it stand out. It was well done, but how many people had they turned off by that point? I mean even by the worst of current Raw standards that was fucking awful for the first 2 3/4 hours.

It's one thing to call early PRIDE "pro-wrestling" when Takada is the chief star and a few matches are contentious to say the least and they're (supposedly) building their shows under a "pro wrestling" banner, so to speak. Calling UFC pro-wrestling on the other hand... I mean I get the MMA/Pro-Wrestling comparisons; talking about fighters as "good promos" or "great heels" (inc. Floyd Mayweather) is fine with me and if you want to say they "get that" from pro-wrestling, assuming that Ali quote about Gorgeous George is accurate then, y'know, fair enough. I don't object to any of it, and at this point (or at least the last few years) Dave'd've probably been forced into covering the UFC somewhat, anyway, given how it's kicking Vince's ass on pay-per-view with a similar kind of product that targets the same demographic that Vince's last boom period went for. Mayweather/Pacqiuao is the biggest story in any form of combat sport (or an exhibition deriving from such) so that whole thing is fine (and it was the Mayweather fight he covered round-by-round I'm sure). The whole "being pre-determined/worked isn't a prerequisite of pro-wrestling" line... I mean I guess in its earliest incarnations (going back much earlier than 1970) you could make the case if the earliest stuff billed as pro-wrestling was, in fact, legitimate competition. Anytime in the last hundred years though? You hear "pro-wrestling" and you assume "work".

He was the guy Shawn kicked at Mania 12, right?

Sting vs. Kerry If this were a vote I'd go Sting, primarilly for his early '90s stuff that I'm sure you all know what matches I mean. I like Kerry but there'd need to be a few big revelations in a detailed World Class set for me to change on this even though I find Sting does get, at least in some circles, a tad overrated. Sano vs. Tamura Versatility can get overrated. I'd take Volk Han as a better performer than a lot of guys who worked more styles. I wasn't terribly high on the Liger feud as I had been in the past the last time I watched it through and I'd take Tamura's handful of U-Style matches over Sano's NOAH stuff. I'd take Kiyoshi but it's certainly debatable. Steamboat vs. Bret This is one you could easilly swing either way on and not be wrong. Bret's my favourite wrestler ever so I'm taking him unless there's a strong case the other way (for a Kobashi, say). I think Bret's top half-dozen matches hold up as stronger from a story-telling perspective (I don't think that's a particular strong-point of the Flair/Steamboat series). Ricky's smoother. Steamboat's probably a better sympathetic seller in the typical American sense, but Bret was clearly thinking realistic over visual and I'd probably side on him as a better seller as a result. I think what it might even boil down to, perhaps unfairly, is that Steamboat's best matches, or a good number, the Flair stuff, Savage, are his opponent's matches rather than his, whereas even as a babyface, Bret's stuff is Bret's stuff, y'know? El Dandy vs.Marty Jones Marty's far too non-descript for me to pick him here. He was good, very good at times, but I can't really find myself ever remembering him strongly in my mind, he's not particularly captivating. Rocco, Dynamite, Breaks, (and to a different degree Saint and Grey) I think they were just more dynamic and memorable. Marty's a bit too Malenkoish for me, though I certainly like him.

I don't see why they can't include Benoit's matches and just pay whatever royalties to Nancy's family, just not make a big song and dance about it. Eddie's second set being free of Benoit (going so far as to cut footage of HHH in his place on the tribute show) felt like it was missing an important chapter. "We want to fairly chronicle Eddie/Jericho's career, Benoit was heavilly linked to both and the royalties are going to Nancy's family" hardly seems something people would be up-in-arms about.

I think it's more a combination of him not being as natural a babyface worker as a heel one, not (at least to them) seeming to be as happy to be working as a babyface, and not being a sympathetic seller (which of course is the key to being a strong face).

Well that was cashing in on him winning the title in '04... and they even went to the hassle (?) of getting some Japanese footage through TV-Asahi. I recall that VHS being better than most at the time, and I've heard there's one on deck, but yeah, it is strange, though putting that down to HHH is a bit of a stretch.

I never said it wasn't stupid... . I just don't find any of what she said offensive.

Thanks for the transcript, John. I still find Bradshaw's worse of the two. I'm sure in her mind Stephanie wasn't saying that the steroid trial was as horrific an act (although for her on a personal level it probably was), I still read that as more of a failed, horribly-stated attempt at a good message, whereas Bradshaw's just war mongering.