Matt D

Kobashi vs Ogawa, GHC title, 11/1/03. Is it too late to start giving matches star ratings? Because if I could, I'd give this one five. It's probably as stereotypical as possible for me to love this one, but boy, did I ever. After one watch this feels like maybe my favorite match between Japanese natives. It had everything I tend to love about the 90s AJPW style: the attention to detail in both big and little moments, the continuity within a match (and presumably between them), the sense of struggle for each and every move, the roles and hierarchy (even if I don't always understand it fully). Due to the structure of the match, however, every move within the match mattered, and there was a clear sense of escalation. Nothing early on blurred the lines for what came later. The bombs were almost all kept to the end. I understand that, by its nature, body part driven matches can have a lower "level of difficulty" than bomb throwing main events when it comes to coherence and consistency and appropriate selling, but here, it was a strength, not a weakness, because Ogawa, by his nature, is a lower creature. It wasn't a case of them taking some sort of easy way out instead of doing a hundred headdrops but instead a hugely appropriate way to tackling the challenge of how to manage a 25 minute match between 2003 Kobashi and Ogawa. I'm probably going to just lay out the narrative here because the joy is in the details. How does Ogawa, who is opportunistic and desperate, who basically wrestles like the proverbial (Owen Hart-ian) "nugget," dirty, malodorous, and completely unflushable, survive against 2003 Kobashi? That's the question of the match. He manages not just to survive, but thrive, and it's by going to one of the most basic psychological templates. He goes after the leg like a man possessed. It's established early that he needs an equalizer. Right from the get go, he tries for an advantage, spitting at Kobashi and getting him down, splitting at his face, working his eyes. No meaningful effect but garnering anger and chops. They wrestle a bit after this, Ogawa just tricky enough to avoid early doom. He tries to contain Kobashi with a headlock, but Kobashi's able to just power him this way and that. Ogawa doesn't let go though and instead of getting shoved off, hangs on as he dives through the ropes to rake the eyes in a really novel little spot. He follows it up with a cravat, with a jumping sleeper, persistent and earnest, wrestling with a gumption that almost no one else could manage. None of it works though. Kobashi is just too much. To prove just how in control he is, Kobashi ends this sequence by forcing Ogawa around in a rolling cradle. Why? Just because he could. The punctuation? A nasty chop to the back of the neck that looks to put out Ogawa. That's the opening sequence. I wouldn't rightfully call it a shine. It certainly established the players, though. Ogawa is plucky, crafty. Kobashi is brutal, unstoppable, firmly in control, but with a cruel god's whimsy. Ogawa badly needs an equalizer, and he gets it here, playing dead as the ref tries to hold Kobashi back, and then leaping forward, having quite literally played possum in the face of a beast far above him upon the circle of life, to take out Kobashi's leg from behind. He pointed at his head after the fact, bless him. The match doesn't look back from there. The legwork's awesome and varied. Ogawa starts by working the leg against the post on the outside, and, hugely important, getting Kobashi's knee brace down to expose the tape underneath. Ogawa's unrelenting once that is done, twisting, kicking, kneeing, elbowing, contorting the leg. Whenever he's close enough for Kobashi to get his hands upon him, he cuts that off with rapid punches to the knee. He gets in little shots and big, visual ones like slamming it against the apron (and the crowd responds in kind, chanting for Kobashi). Kobashi is his usual double-tough self in this, but when he does get a chop in, he can't capitalize because he's selling the leg. There are some really strong sequences and hope spots too. For instance, at one point Ogawa goes for a knee-breaker, but Kobashi elbows him on the head, about to get out and get some distance. Ogawa, however, turns immediately and turns it into a dragon whip, something so in character for him, opportunistic and desperate, a hyena refusing to release its grip on its larger prey. Even when he makes the mistake of putting on the half-crab (so Kobashi can push-up out of it and hulk up), it's only a few mean chops in the corner before Ogawa unloads on the knee once again and takes back over. There's a sense, throughout this legwork, of escalation on both sides. Kobashi had started to fight back, so Ogawa takes him to the corner again and locks in a modified Hartlock around the post. He can't help himself though. His character always feels jarring to me in the hyperserious AJPW (and Noah) main event scene. Earlier on he had to point to his head. Here, he gets cocky, having taken the leg out of the king, and starts to mock Kobashi. Obviously, that doesn't go well for him, but Kobashi's ever move is earned, having to work through another kick to the knee (and missing a clothesline) to even get his jumping hangman's clothesline in. He can't fully capitalize with a suplex due to the leg, but Ogawa, once again sees the writing on the wall. He pushes him off desperately, causing a ref bump. It was not what I was expecting in a match like this, and what followed was even more jarring. With the ref down, Ogawa goes for the ring bell and starts to unload upon Kobashi's knee with it, both inside and outside the ring. Again, it's that escalation, the knowledge that it will take a superhuman effort upon Kobashi's current Achilles' heel to keep him down and maybe win this day. Again, though, due to his (to be quite honest) craven nature and his toad-like pride, Ogawa loses focus on the outside, if just a little, and it costs him dearly. He tries to whip Kobashi into the rail only to get reversed. Kobashi can't capitalize but it doesn't matter, because Ogawa closes the distance to slam his head into the post only to get it reversed, followed by Kobashi's killer spinning back chop to the neck against the pole, the most horrific of all chops. That drops Ogawa and allows for those at ringside to finally reconstruct Kobashi's legbrace. That's the beginning of the end for Ogawa. The major selling from Kobashi in the match happened after Ogawa got the brace down. The major selling ends once the brace is back up. That doesn't mean there aren't moments of weakness and opportunity before and after, but the damage is thusly minimized. With the brace, reconstructed, Kobashi pulls Ogawa up and the crowd gasps when they realize he's been opened up. Kobashi targets the wound immediately with punches and chops. It's wonderfully brutal. Ogawa tries to roll out to the ramp, and when Kobashi follows him, to catch him with a kick to the leg, but it's too little, too late with the brace back on and Kobashi drops him with his first real move of the match, a ddt on to the ramp. They make it back into the ring, with Kobashi keeping the chops up. Ogawa still has something of a physical advantage, and can reverse a whip into the corner, but misses a charge, allowing Kobashi to hit a long delayed (and very earned) belly to back for what I think is the first two count of the match. Kobashi slowly and deliberately follows it with a power bomb with a jackknife pin. It means so much, here at the twenty minute mark, because there hasn't been a match full of bombs. This power bomb feels like it means far more than any single move in the Akiyama vs Kobashi match and that goes back to economy. It's the moment where it's not just Kobashi fighting back or reversing a move, or buying some space. He's now reestablished his dominance. It lets him work over the wound again, allows for the ref to try to stop him, and colors the Ogawa low blow that follows, a last ditch attempt to stay in the match. It's too late, though, as Ogawa is back to his weaselly but unfocused desperation attempts and Kobashi is able to power right through the low blow and the enziguri that followed, concluding with the hyperchops in the corner and a superplex. They could have done a few ducked moves here, a few suplexes, one last hope attempt from Ogawa and gone home, but that's not what this match is. Instead, they lean hard on the details and make everything worth so much. The finishing stretch is amazing. Kobashi finally goes for his half nelson suplex. Ogawa slams his foot back against the knee and gets behind him for a belly to back. Kobashi makes it back up and goes for it again. This time Ogawa grabs the leg and rolls him up. Kobashi runs into the corner and Ogawa ducks out of the way for another roll up, using the ropes for two. Kobashi goes for one last half nelson suplex. Ogawa grabs for the leg again, but this time Kobashi catches him, and gives him a wrist clutch exploder, which is maybe the fourth or fifth actual move Kobashi hits the entire match, but it's one with so much meaning and build and payoff behind it. Basically, the rat finally got caught and if the knee-brace being reconstructed was the beginning of the end, this was the end of the end. Ogawa gets one last desperate gasp, trying to avoid the clothesline with a crucifix but Kobashi, the angry god at the end of his patience, shoves him off, and hits two clotheslines (the second purely gratuitous) to finish him off. It was everything I could want from a Kobashi match at this point. Ogawa earned everything he got in this match, and none of it was enough to really put Kobashi away. Maybe he could have stayed on the leg forever, but his strength, the cunning underhandedness, the dogged desperation, is also his weakness. He spits upon his betters, needs to show them up, to show that he's smarter than them, better than them, despite what society thinks, what the hierarchy says, despite the crowd chanting for Kobashi. So he acts in hubris, goes big, shows arrogance (because that, even more than a pinfall, might have been his true victory; to do that and get away with it) and it leads to his downfall. This was a greek tragedy of a wrestling match. At no point was Kobashi more or less giving than he should have been. They saved all of the big bombs for the end and by doing so, everything mattered. In general, I really feel like they could have worked this style of match more, not even with limbwork to drive it. In some ways, it's easier with someone credible (maybe it reminded me of the dynamic of a Hansen vs Kobashi a little, actually, but with a more earnest underdog fighting from underneath instead of the craven underdog deseprately attacking its wounded better). It says a lot about me, I think, that I'm so much more comfortable with Japanese matches when they're one-sided, or at least when they fit into more of a shine(or feeling out)/heat/comeback dynamic. I get the argument that I'm just too ignorant to understand the meaning of some of the more nuanced transitions in the back and forth, even big matches that build and build and build, but this was just so damn primal and perfect. Five Noahs, without a doubt. And the ark too (unicorns and dinosaurs included). Notes

It's not even that I blame Conrad for not knowing some of this. Blame isn't at all the right word. He outright said he didn't have time to do all of his research this week. It's not about blame or me looking down upon him. I just don't have 2 hours + for this stuff. That's all. I'm too deep down the rabbit hole about some of these specific topics. That may be on me, not them. I listened to 42 minutes and basically felt like I could tell them more about what they'd talked about so far than what they could tell me. Obviously, he has specific insider stories, big and small, and bits of nuance I would have never heard before, but it just wasn't an enjoyable experience getting through the noise to get to it. For some shows that'd be fine. For a show like this, I just don't have the time.

It's up and is the Dec 27 one (with the usual good VQ). BUT we also get the Lawler vs Masked Superstar match too, which I know I haven't seen before and it's ten minutes of two of my favorite wrestlers of all time. Maybe that was circulating previously, but I don't think so.

I'm sure that's why people voted for it in the first place, but it's kind of the thing I was least interested in on paper. It feels like it's the most covered.

Vaguely unrelated, but I'm very curious to see how the timing will work out this year now that they've gone to 4 hours for the main show.

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.