Matt D

The biggest problem with it is something that WWF still manages to get wrong today. Matches don't have stakes. The second biggest problem is that it made things a little too cutesy with the heel side and the face side, but that's just how things were (and still are to some degree). Fans didn't care that it didn't seem real. But you have to go back to 1990. I've mentioned this before, but the world was so different in 1990. Survivor Series didn't really need stakes because it was so different than what we got the rest of the year. The WWF was so regimented. People had six month house show programs. Angles on the weekend shows would set them up. There would be event center promos. Occasionally you'd get some JTTS matches or inconclusive lower card matches on PTW. SNME would set up the bigger angles and give you some (generally still inconclusive) matches with bigger wrestlers a few times a year. Then you'd have the PPVs. In general, though, the same wrestlers interacted with one another for months and months. The appeal of Survivor Series was that you got to see 4-5 of them wrestle 4-5 others. You got to see the promos with them together before hand. You got to see the faces interact with the faces. You got to see the heels interact with the heels. You got to see weird match-ups, be it Bret vs Dibiase or what. Survivor Series 87 felt important because Hogan and Andre were interacting for the first time in months. I don't think there was a lot of real importance in the two years that followed. This allowed the show to have some punctuation in a real feel good sort of way. It wasn't every day that you got to see Hogan and Warrior team up. To see them team up with Tito (and I loved Tito in 1990) made it feel even more special. Then they were up against a heel team that outnumbered them. Dibiase was in there, but you also got to see Hogan and Warrior interact with Power and Glory and Martel and Warlord. It was an extra fresh match up that doubled down on what made the night special to begin with. Moreover, it was something that the entire night felt like it was building to. It gave it punctuation instead of just fizzling out.

Decided to give Survivor Series 90 a listen. It's a formative PPV for me. I'm about ~33 minutes in and I think I'm tapping. It's just the lack of nuance on this one. When they mention Hogan vs Earthquake at Summerslam 90, it's not mentioned why they might do a countout. Conrad couldn't figure it out when it was to keep the program going, When they mentioned Savage vs Dusty in two minutes, it wasn't about Dusty being on his way out or even heating up Savage for Warrior. It was to transition Dusty on to Dibiase. When they mention Zhukov replacing Akeem, there's not mention there that there was the recent Nikolai/Zhukov split and Nikolai was fairly hot at the time (weirdly enough). There's interesting stuff (I don't know if I ever remember hearing that Buddy pitched the blowaway in a Denny's.). But it's sort of frustrating to sit through everything else to get to it. Also, the Ultimate Survival thing was awesome. It's pretty easy to defend. Tapping at 42 mins.

Goc, I think that's a different Duggan vs Sawyer dog collar match from a few months earlier. There was one on December 27, 1985 too according to the thread. I'm pretty certain that dog collar match here is from the same card as the Sheepherders/Guerreros and Doc & Dibiase vs Murdoch & Superstar matches (March 14, 1986), so it is in front of the best crowd ever, basically. Can't wait. EDIT: I could be wrong, of course since that 12/27/85 show has a Guerreros vs Fabs match too so it may be from that reel. It's just that of the Guerreros vs Fabs matches we have listed, the 12/27/85 is the first one with rematches on 12/29, 1/5(chain), 1/24(Mexican Death), and 2/28 (cage).

Ok, the Powerslam.tv thing has my attention with BT, Jr. but I can't access the site at work to check it out. What's the pricepoint, roll-out date, other stuff involved, etc.

KOBASHI vs OMORI - 10.11.2000 This was clipped. Was this supposed to be clipped or did I mess up the download? I think it was supposed to be clipped because it comes off like some sort of snuff film. It's Faces of Death - Kobashi. Literally my only context (from GOTNW) is that it is "short, compact, and pretty surreal" and (from the site) that Kobashi's knees are shot. I have no idea who Omori is. Wikidpedia says he messed up a match with Hashimoto and got sent on excursion to Harley Race's promotion, which is a particularly amusing sort of limbo. In general, I don't think the clipping was a huge problem. We get most of the big moments, and like I said, it's almost like one of those horror movies where they achieve more by leaving it up to the imagination and showing you a little less. That said, I have no idea how he was able to get so much offense in towards the end, and I have to assume it was because Kobashi's knees? The start of the match is flat out awesome. It broke formula completely with Kobashi coming down to the ring and Omori ambushing him midway, hitting a DDT on the ramp. Kobashi still has his robe on. The blue light is still on. The music is going. He then drags him back to the ring and sets up the lariat. That's one of my favorite things about All Japan/Noah. There's no way to make a Lariat feel more important (other than selling it like death) than to wave your arm around menacingly to the crowd before doing here. Here, though, that was probably a mistake for Omori, because he charges right into a Dragon Suplex, pops up as part of his bumping and then stooges his way through the ropes and out of the ring. It's pretty much all mauling from there. I like how Kobashi is able to balance complete and utter fury with confident, serene calm, casually taking his robe off before heading out after Omori and chopping him over the guardrail. Omori had one last attempt to save himself with a chair, but it was futile. Kobashi kicked to block the attempt, crowned him with it, posted him, hit the world's most brutal spinning back chop against the post, and suplexed him on the floor. Omori's a bloody mess by this point. Kobashi was a total force of nature here, with the ref (and I assume other agents?) screaming at him at times to break a hold or let off on a beating or not to follow up on the outside. Omori's cohorts seem to be challenging him at multiple points and Kobashi has absolutely no problem with this. He will destroy any blonde Japanese wrestler who comes at him on this night. At one point, he hits the Orange Crush and follows it up with a nasty rear choke but he's too near the ropes. You get the sense that the ref should have just called it there, to the point, from a kayfabe perspective, that the ref actually regrets his decision not to by the end. Omori does fight back a bit, getting a foot up against the guardrail on the outside (and throwing his body at Kobashi since it's all he can do), and they have some sort of finishing stretch where Omori puts up a decent showing to save face somewhat, though with the clipping, I have no idea how he got back into it at all. All it really got him in the end was knocked out completely by clotheslines though. This was ~10 minutes, a brutal, fairly well-deserved, beating, and as someone who only really saw 90s Kobashi before this, it's interesting to see the progression from the guy surviving those tag matches through superhuman fighting spirit alone to an absolutely killer. The clipping helped the mood at times, almost felt loving at times, but ultimately hurt it because I missed how Omori got back into it towards the end. His chewing didn't help matters either. You're getting killed in there. Chewing your gum or chaw or whatever like a horse does not help the illusion, no matter how much your'e bleeding. Solid 4 Noahs. Notes (nothing to see here):

Parv has only a 1.5* ability to register sarcasm. He also drops his selling on offense. Some speculate that is because he hangs out too much backstage with Rob Van Dam, Matt Sydal, and Johnny Sorrow.

I only give wrestler star ratings, not match star ratings. Terry Funk is a 5* wrestler. Hercules Hernandez is a 2 1/4* wrestler.

Because past brief moments of lucha no one's seen in decades popping up on dataintcash, the WWE happening to find Last Battle of Atlanta, and something crazy getting unveiled by one of Our Friends in Japan, there's nothing more exciting in wrestling over the last few years than this? I don't know. It makes sense to have a central place due to the relatively poor archiving on the site (Sorry, but it's true. If you don't know to look for a specific match, you might miss it completely). I loved the six-man, though. Lothario/Hernandez is one of the absolute best feuds I've ever seen. This was billed as a Mexican attraction trios and it had plenty of moments including the multi-man headlock spot I'd never seen before. It was one ring, 2/3 falls, with Mascaras being giving, Gino great in delaying gratification of Lothario getting his hands on him (and every time he did, it was a big moment), and everyone else doing their part. We haven't seen a ton of Goliath and he was solidly stooging, doing a lot of little things in interesting ways. Another great chapter in the feud.

This is vaguely unrelated but I was flabbergasted how terrible the crowd for that House of Glory match between Kamaitachi and Dickerson posted on youtube was. It's the worst crowd I've seen in ages.

Wahoo from Tully is pretty much everything you'd want from a 10 minute Wahoo vs Tully match where Wahoo took 85% of the match. Tully bumps around the ring for him like a madman and Wahoo is completely unsympathetic. A lot of fun plus it's cool to see Wahoo and JYD interact in the post match promo.

I know, Marty. I've got a list of matches to go through right now. I'm not dissuaded from moving forward. I'm going to hit my list (which isn't long) and then I'll fill in other suggestions and double back on some things.

Poor Dick Slater.

It was a quick scale-up for a Friday morning, jumping from Kobashi vs Inoue to this. That's all. Granted, most of the 20+ minute matches I watch these days are 2/3 falls which leads to a different sort of structuring with natural breaks. I thought this match had very clear natural breaks so it hardly mattered as much.

Kobashi vs Akiyama 8-6-00 Hell, what do I do with this one? Alright, for the most part, this had me until the finishing stretch. It was a very straightforward story. Akiyama and Kobashi were mostly even to start (with a slight advantage to Kobashi I'd say). Akiyama tried to escalate things on the outside. It backfired. Kobashi capitalized with a power bomb on the floor and started to nastily work over Akiyama's neck. Akiyama got hope spots in but they generally cost him by opening him up for the next move, which is, I think an underutilized way to give weight to them. Finally, though, he hit a desperation low dropkick to the knee and followed it with a lot of grounded holds. Ultimately, Akiyama thought Kobashi was softened up enough for a Northern Lights. He wasn't, and Kobashi hit two big suplexes to get back into it. They traded bombs until Akiyama landed multiple Exploder Suplexes and locked in a guillotine for the pass-out win. That's the match. There was a lot to like. Obviously, these two are excellent at portraying hierarchy and struggle in the feeling out process. They know how to milk a slight advantage in a single exchange and make every early chop mean something to the crowd. They don't just rush at each other again and again. After Kobashi got the better of an exchange, Akiyama went out to the floor and let it all sink in before they reset and went to the next. I appreciate that. Otherwise, the limbwork made the match, both the focused offense and the respective selling. Kobashi just torqued Akiyama's neck in the most grisly ways. I don't think neck selling is the easiest thing in the world to portray. It involves more of the entirety of the body than hobbling about with a leg. Akiyama presented it as a sluggishness, a weight upon him, that I thought was effective. Moreover, when he took out Kobashi's leg, he wasn't immediately back up hitting dragon screws or knee-breakers. His recovery from the neck damage was believable due to the time he spent on the mat locking on different and interesting holds. I loved how both wrestlers tried to control the body of the other in holds in order to prevent rope breaks, whether it be wrapping a leg around the head or just trying to press an arm against the body. I had a few problems with it though. Let's get the easy one out of the way first. I'm a little iffy on Kobashi's selling. I'm 100% okay with him dropping in the transition to the third act, when he blocked the Northern Lights Suplex and hit the headlock suplex/sleeper suplex. A burst of adrenaline in a transition spot is completely believable and he started selling again immediately there after as he worked back to gain control. The problem is that he made a point to start really selling again towards the end, which was, in part, why Akiyama was able to get the ultimate advantage over him. There was a moment of hesitation after a clothesline to the back of the head because the leg went out. This all really followed a brief burst of Akiyama advantage that came with a German suplex. Because it was so key to the end of the match, I would have liked a more definitive touch of causality in why Kobashi's leg went back out after the German. It was all too indirect considering he wasn't selling it much a few moments before. It's not a dealbreaker, but given the level of detail in other points of the match, I thought it was important. The bigger issue is one of the meaning and value of moves. There were four hugely important moves/moments in the match. The last was Kobashi's leg going out towards the end, which I just discussed. Before that it was the Headlock Suplex that ended the leg work control section and the low dropkick that started it. And then there was the first move, the powerbomb on the floor. It just didn't feel earned at all. I love that they almost never hit a move the first time out in this style, that they have to work and hammer down on someone, that there is that sense of struggle. There was none of that with that early powerbomb. It was six or seven minutes in after the feeling out process and following a reverse whip into the guardrail and chop over it by Kobashi onto Akiyama. It was so important for the rest of the match but it also felt completely unearned. That sort of thing just contributes to the general sense of an unbalancing. At this stage of the style's development, how much was a half-nelson suplex worth? It looked nasty. It landed Akiyama on his hurt neck. Kobashi generally had to fight for it. It was just ultimately another move in the match. As a viewer, there's a symbolic disconnect to the damage that a move does relative to the effort put in to hitting it. It's a duel edged sword to some degree. They impart meaning on mostly everything in the struggle to hit the move and the amount of attempts, and the cost if they fail to hit it (like how much not hitting that Northern Lights cost Akiyama), but it was the move which had no struggle at all (the Powerbomb) that mattered and later on, for instance, when Kobashi hits a powerbomb in the ring, after working a bit more for it (I think with a chop, at least), Akiyama just turns it right into a tricky pin attempt reversal, not out of the ATTEMPT of the move, but after Kobashi hits it. There's no sense of consistent build within the match in that respect. It gets worse in the finishing stretch with exploder after exploder. I get why a guillotine has meaning in the year 2000 but I sort of hate so tight and visually unappealing and un-pro-wrestling-y a move finishing things after four exploders. But then, really, how much does an exploder matter, no matter how hard Akiyama fought to hit his first one and how hard Kobashi fought to not end up in one? After all, the first time that Akiyama DID hit it, very late in the match, Kobashi just popped up to hit a clothesline anyway. Am I glad I saw this? To a degree, sure. I'm not sure 26 minutes of glad though. The neck torquing was awesome. I liked Akiyama's desperation leg-targeting. There were individual elements I liked a lot. In a vacuum, the currency of the moves in the match, the effort put into them relative to the effect that they had, the impact of them in the first act relative to the third (or fourth in this case, since the match had four), was just so imbalanced. I'd put this between three and three and a half Noahs. notes (I don't suggest looking at this)

I wanted to vote for Mighty Atlas but I thought you'd mock me too much if I did.

Has he had an encounter with Maximo recently then?

A quick (overly personal, I admit) point on "giving too much:" The only Bockwinkel matches I am relatively down upon are the ones vs Verne right around 1980 where I think he gives Verne almost the entirety of the match, stooging and bumping around the ring with a sort of verve and exuberance that you wouldn't really expect out of him. To a lesser extent, he works this way against Hogan and JYD. It's one reason why (Pete and) I thought the Atlas match that recently surfaced was so remarkable, because he makes Atlas look like a mat whiz instead of working like this which he could have easily done. It's much more of a traditional world title match. When it comes to comparative categorization of matches, I know Loss is a proponent of using time as the primary key field. Every match in January, 1990 around the world, etc. I am much more interested about situations. Broadly that could be narrative based: Big vs Little. Old vs Young. Strong vs Sneaky. But it could also be more purpose-driven. Return matches. Retirement matches. Matches to lead to a turn. Matches to establish a young lion as a star. And yes, matches vs the Boss, like Hansen vs Colon, for instance.

I'm not sure how frequently I'll do this or how far I'll get but I am going to watch some Noah. I have seen >5 Noah matches and could not tell you what they were if you asked. Except for Marifuji vs Taue. I'm pretty sure that was Noah. Young GOTNW has sent me a list of things he thinks I'd like. I'll do a write up, include my real time notes in a spoiler tag (probably best not to read those), and then conclude with a 1-5 Noahs ranking based on the following criteria solely: "How glad am I that I saw this match?" Don't look at them like star ratings. They're not. Let's begin. Kenta Kobashi vs Masao Inoue - 3/1/2009 This felt like Jerry Lawler returning to the Mid-South Coliseum in December, 1980, if he was ten years older and up against Carl Fergie instead of Dream Machine. That's a bit of a stretch. Maybe it was more like if 1980 Jose Lothario was up against 1980 Rip Rogers? We learn by building off of our pre-existing knowledge and that's where my mind went first. This was the returning babyface king, tough as nails, absolutely deadly, perhaps a step slower but as tough as ever against a stooging heel well over his head. It was pure Memphis to begin, with Inoue, who has a sort of jovial, friendly look to him, dodging an early chop. That's how the match began, with a lock up and the duck of a Kobashi chop. It was all heightened reality. The chop was a home run swing. The duck was exaggerated. The reaction from the crowd and Inoue was if he dodged a bullet. Realizing the climb before him and the fact that the last thing he wanted in the entire world was to get hit by one of those chops, Inoue, no longer jovial but instead a man with his own doom upon his mind, went straight for the eyes. He utilized these long, extended (again over-exaggerated in the best way) rakes and followed with some World of Sport styled positioning of the ref so as to punch repeatedly in a headlock (the ref didn't play along). He tried some shoulder blocks to no avail (selling the difference between the two with comedic running in place before the second one). When that didn't work, he went back to the eyes. Kobashi, partially blinded, responded with another home run shot, this time a spinning back chop. Inoue ducked it and then powdered hitting the floor to stall. The fans responded exactly as they should, seeing full well the symbolic value of every swing. Kobashi was patient and stoic, sitting upon the ropes, opening them to goad Inoue back in (another gasp). They reset and locked back up, but only for a moment, as Inoue went back to the eyes. This led to some comedically ineffective clubbering, a futile kick, and a second attempt, which Kobashi, perfectly serious and unaffected, caught. He slammed the foot down temporarily immobilizing Inoue, and the entire world came to a halt as the chops began. Kobashi knew 100% the value of his every strike here, built up both over the years and within this match itself. His windup was huge. Inoue dropped like a brick and rolled out to delay the crowd's gratification for just another moment. The tide had shifted though and the genie was out of the bottle. Kobashi immediately pressed Inoue into the ropes upon his entrance back to the ring and the chops continued, slow, methodological, paced with big set ups and time given for their effect to settle in. Standing, falling, to the throat, with a suplex and a few pins interspersed. At one point, Kobashi, having Inoue in the corner after a failed attempt from the latter to fight out, even hopped from foot to foot (small motions, but measured ones) in order to set up a chop. Inoue collapsed, sold and begged off but I would have liked to see a bit more active flailing. At times, it seemed like he almost went catatonic from the impact. It was effective and perhaps didn't take attention away from Kobashi, but I would have liked to see something a bit more broad and visual from him to get across the severity of the blows. In general though, it was a hugely effective opening that allowed for the establishment of symbolic meaning, anticipation and then satisfying payoff. The rest of the match was centered around Inoue doing anything in his power to get an advantage but being completely unable to capitalize. His lone advantage was his youth, shown first and foremost in his ability to reverse Kobashi's whips. One of these, into the guardrail, gave him his best chance. He was able to keep control for a minute after that by working over the back, but abandoned it after Kobashi decided to do some push ups out of a Boston Crab (Inoue's stooging facial reaction to that was great, it's worth noting). I'm guessing his finisher was some sort of contrived 2009 head drop out of a torture rack. He went for it twice only to have it fail and cost him each time. On the second, Kobashi reversed and went for the half-nelson suplex. Inoue gasped and escaped but at the cost that he was finally opened up and trapped in the corner for the rapid-fire chops. This felt like an almost religious experience for the crowd, who clapped along. The most striking image of the whole match to me was a middle-aged (maybe even older) man in a suit with glasses and a giddy look in his face as he clapped to the oscillating speed of the chops. Kobashi followed this by hitting the half-nelson suplex. Inoue took it like a champ but did make it back to his feet for one last eyerake (which I was okay with because he'd mostly taken pain but not punishment in the back so far), before eating a huge Kobashi clothesline for the win. Inoue played his role well, looking for any opportunity, treating Kobashi with the proper fear and respect. The one moment in the match where he dared to stand up and even ask for those chops, he could only take two (to huge effect; no no-selling here) before begging off in the corner (that didn't work). He was more comedic than credible but was persistent and frenetic enough to bring movement to the match and he made sure to react for the back row to every situation he found himself in. I appreciated how he let Kobashi embrace him after the match but continued to sell and almost melted out of the ring after a few seconds, letting Kobashi seem magnanimous while not making it about him at all. Kobashi's restraint was admirable and it more than paid off. He garnered a lot of value from almost every chop and the end result felt, as I indicated, almost like a religious experience for the crowd. I enjoyed this a lot. I loved the thought put into the opening of the match, and thought most of what Inoue did throughout the match as he tried to deal with the monolith that was Kobashi made sense and had meaning. They went home exactly when it should have. It had to be, more or less, what people wanted out of a feel-good Kobashi return match. Four and a half Noahs (not a star rating). Notes (I don't suggest reading these):

Truly the unsophisticated words of an undereducated, working class lout, lacking some sort of visceral thrill in his daily life and trying to make up for it though a voyeuristic vicariousness when it comes to men backhand chopping each other at high speed and frequency. Probably works in a coal mine and can only make analogies based on cheese appetizers. This is exactly why the Victorians insisted all the museums be free of charge.

Someone give me a list of matches that I can find online and I will watch them.

It's a little funny in this specific situation because if there was anything wrong with the match, it was the layout. The actual performances, commitment to character, intensity... all of the things that feel like "performance elements" separated from practice-able ones or agent-lay-out or whatever, is what was we have pretty direct evidence of being strong.

Again, I think it's worthwhile then to think about the opportunities provided to cerebral wrestlers relative to ones more-heart focused, the drawbacks. What does it mean to "wrestle smart" if you're a wrestler like Kobashi? What does it mean if you're Andre? What does it mean if you're Kamala? What does it mean if you're Primo Colon in 2016? Or Mike Jackson in 1984? Working smart, to me, is generally about economy. It's about getting the most narrative and emotional value out of every single movement in the ring, every move, every bump, every bit of selling, every iota of crowd interaction, every two-count or cut off or bit of manager interference or rope break or reversal. It's about value, and then adding up all of that value to create a total effect (and likely over time with all of the context in the world mattering). You can do that in a match like AJ Styles vs John Cena, which was full of spots and kick-outs. You can do it a UWF Fujiwara match. You can do it a southern tag or a lucha trios spotfest or in a thumbtack death match. It's just getting the most out of everything you're doing and conversely, doing the things that you'll get the most out of. I'll admit that it may be easier or harder depending on the circumstance, however. Moreover, it doesn't need to be about intent, but instead what worked within a match (or over a series a matches or a career) or didn't. We can extrapolate backwards through our own lenses (and that's where the bias comes in, since we tend to decide what works and what doesn't and how to judge efficiency. But most of us are consistent between wrestlers at least).

Sure. I don't disagree that we should think about why someone is acting as they're acting. That said, just because it's potentially the right thing for him to be doing, doesn't mean it works to make good matches. Sometimes it hurts a match. That goes back to styles and crowds to some degree. I actually don't think RVD should have worked much differently than he did work. It got him over. It made the fans happy. It doesn't mean that I think his matches are good. In the Benoit vs RVD matches, for instance, Benoit is the one who works the matches wrong, focusing too much on limbwork against a guy who won't sell it properly and who the crowd doesn't really want to see sell it properly. I give Kobashi a lot of credit for getting over with his fighting spirit to the extent that he does. At times, I think it's amazingly effective and at times I think it goes too far and it takes me out of the match. Does it take the crowd out of the match? No. That's one of the biggest theoretically splits in wrestling analysis, isn't it? If it works for the crowd, is it objectively good or are there higher values, be they based on narratives or workrate or whatever?

We control for it, like any other bias. I think, as far as biases go, it's not at all a major one in the grand scheme of things. I'd be open to other sorts of arguments, like, for instance, that it's easier for someone to portray an intellectual heel, in-ring, than a high flying heel or a monster heel or a stooging one. I think that's an interesting discussion. I don't think "People can't distinguish between a wrestler and his character" is a very interesting discussion. It's how a wrestler plays his character that matters. There are different challenges to playing different characters and it's those challenges we should be looking at (even comparatively). I'm much more of an input guy than an output guy, but I do think it's possible that certain characters make for more consistently good matches. (And that's another interesting discussion). I think there are bunch of interesting discussions to have, just not the "People mistake Kamala for being a sloppy worker because he plays an out of control savage!" one.

I think a) It's a point that's been raised before, so if people weren't aware of their biases on this issue, then they've had plenty of notice to stop and look at it, and b ) we're far enough along in the analysis of character work to really look at the character being played. That's part of the entire point of it. We've spent years delving into this stuff. I think we're able to be aware of the difference between the wrestler and the character. We all have preferences, but everyone, from Parv to Chad to you to I to Sam to everyone here, often goes out of their ways to acknowledge preferences and try to control for them in looking at matches. It's what we do. To say we're not aware of that, almost half a year after the GWE project ended, years after it began, and after people have reviewed hundreds upon hundreds of matches here is pretty absurd to me.