KB8

Yeah, this was pretty tremendous. It isn't ordinarily a style I like very much. I'd say it's somewhere between New Japan main event and junior heavyweight epic and neither of those things appeal too much to me, but I thought they managed to play to the strengths of those styles whilst circumventing their worst aspects. The first ten or so minutes didn't totally connect with me, but it was some decent slow build and I did like how they managed to work in the early parity/stand-off spots without looking like dorks. They didn't feel rote or cheesy and I'm someone who has an inexplicable hatred for parity/stand-off spots. So you know, fair play to them. The missed double stomp in the corner leading to Almas taking the overhead belly-to-belly into the turnbuckles was where they really grabbed me. There were still some iffy parts after that, like the way they sort of hinted at going with the back work without ever really following through on it, and at times I never got much of a sense of PERIL, but largely it built super well and the pacing was excellent. I've seen three Gargano matches in the last two years. He's always been a nutty bumper and he was a fucking lunatic in this, but more than anything else he came across as a true underdog you wanted to succeed. I already knew the result, but there were moments where I was all in on him somehow pulling it out the bag. I got goosebumps when he kicked out of that first hammerlock DDT. I wanted Almas to tap on the No-Escape and deflated like everyone else when he got a foot on the ropes. I thought his distant facials were pretty hokey, but I'll almost always take hokey facial expressions over someone burning through shit to get to the next part of their routine, and at no point did it feel like either one of them were guilty of cutting the moment short. There was some laying around, but it felt earned, and without the laying around there wouldn't be that sense of gravity. The Zelina Vega stuff was done super well too. Obviously Candice hopping the rail and spearing her out her boots was amazing, but beyond the pop it felt like a key part of both Johnny and Almas' story. I guess it was similar to Rock/Lesnar from Summerslam in a way, with Vega as Almas' Heyman and Candice's spear as the surrogate Rock Bottom. Had Vega stuck around there would always be the sense that she was the difference maker. I suppose she still was in a way, but in the end Almas had to go it alone and it wasn't Vega who dragged him to the ropes that second time. It wasn't Vega who hit the ludicrous running knees into the ring post. And it wasn't Vega who pinned Gargano clean as a sheet.

Man, the Authors of Pain have gotten reeeally good. Assuming this is what they are now. I think the last time I saw them was early last year and while I didn't think they looked bad or anything, they never left much of an impression. But they were a ton of fun here. This was a pretty great brutes v technicians match and I thought Akam especially was on point in showing some vulnerability. Fish and O'Reilly had a bunch of cool stuff to work over the knee and Akam sold it all great, trying to swat at flies when the UE would swarm him, doing lots of limping and hopping on one leg. He was always dangerous, but if it looked like he'd caught one of the two the other guy would usually manage to cut him off. At one point both Fish and O'Reilly took turns charging him in the corner and Akam would keep flinging them away, just tossing them over his shoulder or booting them with the good leg, but then Fish improvised and hit a dragon screw around the middle rope to down him again. Fish and O'Reilly worked like a true unit, basically. Rezar came in swinging off the hot tag and the whole finishing stretch was strong, with a couple awesome moments to boot, my favourite being Akam hitting an apron lariat across Bobby Fish's face. Finish with Akam's leg buckling under him leading the to miscue was a cool way to make Fish and O'Reilly look crafty without having either AoP come off as weak. It sets up a rematch pretty well too, and I'd absolutely be down for it.

I haven't gone back to this series since the DVDVR 80s set so I don't exactly remember much in the way of specifics, but I'm not getting the indie sleaze comparison at all. I mean, I'm all about the Japanese indie sleaze and I'll watch Kurisu potato someone all day, but unless my memory of the TM/DK series is WAY off (and, tbf, it very well might be), those matches were nothing like that (maybe it depends on your definition of indie sleazy?). To me they felt like juniors matches that had some fairly spectacular individual moments for the time period, one match where I thought it clicked and they managed to have a coherent contest while still capturing a sense of grittiness (I think it was the 8/5/82 match), but otherwise a whole lot of stuff going on without ever really bringing it together in a satisfying way. That 4/83 match is a total mess to me, and I'm someone who'll almost never not get a kick out of a guy threatening to bottle another guy mid-match. I don't know, it may have fallen out of fashion (or whatever) to an extent, but I honestly just don't think the matches hold up. There are plenty of highly regarded matches/series from the last twenty-thirty years that are still held in high regard. I don't buy this one as being an "it's cool to shit on established classics" thing.

A few years ago I watched pretty much all the WCW I could find from 1992 for a dumb blog project and Saturday Night was an absolute treasure trove of good stuff. WCW TV during those first six months in particular was outrageous. Every week you had at least a couple matches that were decent at worst, a handful that were good and fairly regularly you'd get something really good to great. Most of the booking was built around the Dangerous Alliance and so you had tags and multi-mans pretty regularly, with most of them being at least good. Which you'd probably expect given the roster they had then. I might end up going through everything again if every episode of Saturday Night is right there on the Network (Worldwide and Pro had a few killer matches that year as well, though I'm not sure if any of that is up there yet).

Yeah, this was fun stuff. It's been a minute since I've watched Togo but he looked as good as ever working over that leg. You could see the transition off the ring post coming, but sometimes expecting the payoff only makes its arrival that much sweeter. Nomura seems to be getting better all the time. He was more assured here than the last time I saw him (middle of last year, I think) and his selling of the leg after throwing kicks was more believable than that of guys with tenfold his experience.

I can understand why people aren't all in on Misawa's selling - he's not particularly expressive, certainly - but I think Misawa's selling at its best is absolutely outstanding and maybe better than the best of anybody else's. The way he soldiered on through the last fifteen minutes of the '96 Tag League final was as captivating as I've ever seen in a wrestling match. It was pretty subtle, but it was an incredible performance and he mostly did it through his selling.

These guys seem to have matched up a bunch over the last year and a bit and for whatever reason this is only the second singles match between them that I've watched. They recapped the match from the previous week so I at least know where the 'Roman loses the belt on a DQ' stip comes from. They teased that early on as well, with Cole drawing attention to the fact it's the same ref' who DQd Roman last week, the ref' getting in between them like a slightly less obnoxious Tommy Gilbert, and Roman making a point of stepping back and keeping his cool just to erase any doubt. He's already on a tech, can't be pushing it any further just in case. Joe looked real good in this. He threw nasty jabs and meaty shots, hit a great tope that's totally different to every other tope in WWE, worked over the arm in pretty interesting ways and spent large parts of the match shit talking Reigns. That led to a cool bit later where Roman was shouting at Joe to hit him again as Joe slapped him with a little extra mustard. I liked how they started working in all of the stuff around the ref' and Joe trying to get Roman DQd, initially with Joe daring Reigns to hit him with the steps. Loved the whole sequence with Joe throwing Reigns into the ref', Reigns pleading with him because it was an accident, then turning around and getting planted with the Uranage. It felt like a huge nearfall and from that point on the crowd were all in. I thought it lulled a bit in the body, but it had a nice start and the home stretch was great. Joe going from dominant to maybe a touch overly confident to almost desperate for the ref' to do him a solid was a really fun story as well.

I have no clue how Satanico does it. He's nearly sixty now but he honestly doesn't move much differently than he did twenty years ago. It's sort of staggering. Sometimes when the legends are in there with the younger guys (and bare in mind Satanico is pretty much a pensioner) you can tell the latter need to slow it down a little, maybe work at three quarter speed. They have to scale it back a bit, or sell for stuff they maybe wouldn't sell for if it was a peer. You never really get that with Satanico. There were no elements of Hechicero having to sell for old man Baba's ropey chops or pare his own performance back so ninety year old Rusher Kimura wouldn't be killed. It's not a knock on Baba or Kimura, it's something you expect. They're wrestlers, of course they're going to be broken down and losing a step by the time they're sixty. And yet with Satanico you hardly see it. When he launched Hechicero face first into the post and flung him into the seats and then smacked him with one of those seats it didn't look like the younger guy giving the legend a little extra. It didn't look like Hechicero paying homage. It looked like Satanico, one of the best to ever do it, still being the biggest badass on the block. And I have no clue how he does it.

Vampiro setting Sting on fire was probably the last time I bothered watching WCW. It wasn't that I thought it was so stupid that it was offensive to me personally, because I was thirteen and I was probably all about the stupid shit back then, but I'd been losing interest for a while and at that point I remember just kind of throwing my hands up and sticking to WWF from there. The WCW/ECW Invasion angle as a whole didn't turn me off WWF, but at some point during that run it sort of dawned on me that it was basically WWF v WWF with some WCW ham n eggers and so I stopped really paying attention (outside the Rumble and Wrestlemania each year) until Eddie won the title in 2004.

Yeah, this was alright. It was long as fuck but they never really lost me at any point. I mean, it had a few ropey forearm exchanges and the striking generally wasn't amazing, but this is 2018 and it is what it is. I've only seen Sabre a few times, but his tricky submissions are usually pretty fun and more than that he'll just dig his fist or elbow into a body part to manipulate joints. Tanahashi going to the headlock early on to keep from bring tied in knots was decent stuff, even if he doesn't exactly have a Finlay level headlock. The armwork from Sabre was cool and whether it was intentional or just another case of Tanahashi have crummy forearms, the shots thrown with the bad arm coming off as lame as they did actually worked. The progression from the armwork into the legwork was organic enough as well. Tanahashi's dragon screws were the best part of this. The first one felt like it was out of desperation, then the one where Sabre was already on the mat was maybe my favourite spot of the match. They brought it up again later as Sabre was dickishly kicking him in the arm, sort of daring him to grab the leg and try another dragon screw, then when he did Sabre just lunged on him and dragged him into a triangle. It also came up towards the end when Sabre reversed it again into a cradle, and from that point it felt like Tanahashi absolutely couldn't go back to it because Sabre had it so well scouted. Finish itself was pretty great. Long New Japan main events aren't my bag, but I liked this fine.

I make a point of tracking down at least one Fuerza Guerrera match per year so naturally I was hyped about the prospect of this, and naturally I pretty much loved it. Fuerza is about a hundred and six so this wasn't on the slick side, but it was as seedy and filthy as you'd want. It's taking place in what looks like a dirty aircraft hangar and any time they leave the ring we're literally right on top of the action. Thirty two people are in attendance and just about all of them are following along recording it on their phones, so it looks like a wild brawl between two psychopaths outside a nightclub that everyone wants to put on the Twitter. Some truly gruesome close-ups of face-biting and testicle-clamping. Fuerza was biting Demus on the forehead then covered his nose with the free hand, either to precipitate the blood loss or to I guess suffocate him. At one point Demus was on top of Fuerza biting him through the mask and just grabbed hold of his balls and squeezed. Fuerza applied a camel clutch with his grip across Demus' mouth, so Demus broke the hold by chewing Fuerza's wrist. It had so many nasty little moments like that. They were throwing each other around with reckless abandon too, one guy being squashed by Demus while a retreating child almost got trampled as Fuerza was flung into a row of chairs. For a match like this to end with a Boston crab it really needs to be a mean looking Boston crab, and this sure looked like a Boston crab that would put a guy away. This wasn't your granny's Walls of Jericho.

I had this top 5 on the New Japan 80s set. Unfortunately I don't remember much about it specifically now. Is this the one where they kind of lie there having grabbed a kneebar and briefly start shit talking each other? Because I'm pretty sure they did that in a match together and it was awesome. I should re-watch this.

I'm aware of how they work. The comparison's a little apples and oranges in some ways, but are you telling me you can't discern certain strengths and weaknesses - or even talent, I guess - from watching Japanese workers in the first few years of their career? Even in a promotion where the hierarchy was as rigid as All Japan's, people have written shit loads about how Kobashi looked like a prodigy a year in. You could see pretty early on that Naoki Sano was going to be good and I don't know if he won a match until year three. It didn't take long for it to look like Tamura was going to be shit hot. I've seen early Yoshida where she was already super fun. There are tonnes of examples. Taking a little while longer to "get it" doesn't necessarily mean you're a less talented wrestler anyway, but my point wasn't so much about the comparison between Danielson and those three as opposed to the broader idea of Danielson clearly looking great relatively early in his career. Certainly as talented in some ways as Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi.

Sloppy, reckless, violent, wonderful little mess. I don't know if Okamura had even offered to shake Kurisu's hand at the start or not but Kurisu just marched up to him and slapped the boy across the face. Okamura can't have been wrestling long at this point. He's green as goose shit but it adds to the chaos as he's just letting loose with wild spin kicks and axe kicks and landing all awkwardly on everything. Kurisu murders him severely. Once or twice it looked like Okamura caught him flush in the face with a high kick, but no, Kurisu wasn't interested and headbutted him repeatedly in the ear. There can't have been many things more hellish to be on the receiving end of than Kurisu's stomps. Fucking hell he was trying to give this kid brain damage. FUTEN stomps to the back of the head, stomps to the ear, the face, the throat, back of the neck. It didn't matter how Okamura tried to cover up, he was getting stood on and it was going to suck. The half crab at the end was about as nasty as you'll see as Kurisu applied it with zero regard for the angle Okamura's knee. Either he's turning onto his front or his ACL will never be the same again.

This is almost word for word where I'm at with Bryan, though I'd probably go Danielson/Nigel from 6th Anniversary as his best match. What would be your answer to the question of the poll? Most likely 'Yes.' I mean, I don't think Misawa/Kobashi/Kawada had a match three years into their career as good as Danielson/Ki's tapout match in JAPW, or a performance as good as Danielson's in that match (though one of the Kobashi/Hansen matches might've been close). There's obviously more to this than being good young, but yeah, I guess in terms of talent I'd say he's there with those three.

This is almost word for word where I'm at with Bryan, though I'd probably go Danielson/Nigel from 6th Anniversary as his best match.

Boss Loss is about to be a new thing for sure.

Yeah, poor man's Vader/Tamura is pretty apt. Poor man's Vader/Tamura still has a bit to live up to though and I thought it was a pretty damn cool seven minutes of shoot style. I don't think I've seen Ito before but he had some cool throws and those powerbombs mean enough that you could buy a TKO. Yamada threw a couple brutal wheel kicks and hung in there pretty well for a guy getting dropped on his neck eight times.

Truly awesome, unique match. The first time I watched it I thought it was about as close to RINGS as I'd ever seen in the US, but this time I thought it was equally derivative of Battlarts (whether it was intentional or not). It's a mash-up of the two and it sort of invites you to run wild with the comparisons. An American juniors version of Ishikawa v Ikeda with Dragon as Ishikawa and Ki as Ikeda? Danielson as Otsuka and Ki as Usuda? Sure, why not. Danielson was incredible in it and I think it's my all-time favourite performance of his. Some of the grappling might legitimately be the best I've ever seen in America; slick and fluid in parts then rugged and gritty in others. It was like Volk Han if Volk Han ever worked Battlarts, and I realise how preposterously hyperbolic that sounds but it's a pretty good indication of where I was at with Dragon here. Those crossface forearms were filthy as all get out and he was determined to take an arm or leg home with him as a trophy. There is absolutely no chance he'll get to stretch out and do anything like this now that WWE's cleared him to wrestle again, but I really wish it was the approach he took more often. Ditch the headbutts and crazy bumps, just twist people into pretzels. It's not like anybody in WWE hits like Low-Ki either, so he could probably manage to parley this sort of match into another five years' worth of work without having to worry about cauliflowering his brain. Ki wasn't simply a passenger in this, he held his own on the mat and his striking was obviously good, but it was hard not to look second best on the night. To say he was a poor man's Ikeda isn't an insult. Maybe he was actually a poor man's Takeshi Ono and that's not an insult either. But Danielson was the richest poor man's Ishikawa you could've asked for.

Title match Jerry Estrada is such a different animal from apuestas Jerry Estrada. It's sort of strange watching him run the ropes and not fall over because he's guttered. Maybe he goes on a detox in the lead up to a title match. Depending on the day you ask me he might be one of my ten favourite wrestlers ever so to me this match will always be about him, but I really did think he was excellent in it. Rudo starting out sportingly before losing his cool and embracing his true nature isn't a particularly complex or uncommon story for a wrestler to tell. Ric Flair stopped by every territory to wrestle every young babyface challenger there was and told that very story a hundred times. But it's not one I'd seen Jerry Estrada tell before. The primera doesn't have the sharpest or most interesting matwork. It certainly isn't flashy, but I enjoyed the struggle well enough. What it was most notable for was how Lizmark had the clear beating of Estrada. It didn't much matter what Jerry did, Lizmark was the champion for a reason and he had an answer for everything. I thought the segunda was a little abrupt even by the standards of short second falls in a lucha title match, but it did give us that moment where Estrada decided he was done playing nice. He started the match with a handshake and a round of applause for the champ, but it got him nowhere. His reaction after Lizmarkk submitted to the Media Cerrajera basically told you there'll be less respect and more aggression going forward. He even ditched the hairband, and if that's not a sign of what was to come then I don't know what is. The third caida was where they really ramped up the drama. Jerry had dropped the pretense of sportsmanship and roughed Lizmark up, much like Flair might have after he'd tired of breaking clean and started digging people in the ribs instead. He also knew the Media Cerrajera was his ticket and he kept going back to it. Both of the big dives looked great and by the end they'd managed to capture that sense that one mistake was all the other guy needed. And in the post-match, unlike Flair, Estrada even managed to show a little grace. Maybe he's not such a scumbag after all.

Well that is just tremendous news. I'll definitely need to hunt that down. EDIT: even better, it's on the yearbook.

What a delicious wee slice of indy sleaze. This had all the potato shots and grimy nastiness you want in an eight minute Kurisu/Tarzan Goto match. I remember reading the old DVDVRs and they'd refer to Goto as Tarzan Scroto and I guess I convinced myself he must be shit because he's a little fat guy working a deathmatch fed. Thankfully common sense has prevailed and general opinion on Goto has since improved. I mean he is a little fat guy working a deathmatch fed, but he's an awesome little fat guy working a deathmatch fed and at this point in my life as a fan I'd much rather watch him than most of the junior heavyweights I was hunting down tapes of back then. His ribs are all taped up in this and approximately thirty seconds into the match Kurisu leathers him repeatedly with a chair. Right across the ribs and midsection, just over and over. He took a quick break from hitting him with a chair so he could punch him in the kidneys and punt him in the side, then went and grabbed another chair and hit him with it a bunch more. Goto was super vocal with the selling and it was pretty great, trying to lift Kurisu for a slam before buckling over in pain, yelling in even greater pain as Kurisu headbutted his spleen and dug his elbow into the ribs. I loved all of the Kurisu offence as it was as simple and primal as you could get, and of course it was almost unnecessarily stiff. Why bother trying to get fancy? The guy has taped up ribs for a reason, just kick him and grind your fist into the general area. At some point they both start staring each other down while trading coconut headbutts. Headbutts to the ear, to the cheekbone, forehead to forehead like two bowling balls colliding. After the match Kurisu is either presented with a giant trophy or maybe steals one from somewhere and cracks it over Onita's head, which leads to Onita cutting one of his weepy promos about betrayal or whatever. I'm assuming it sets up a match and I'm assuming I'll want to watch it.

This was like 85% Bulldogs. You maybe expect them to run riot over Fuyuki, but Tenryu gave them a ton as well and that meant he never really got to stretch out on offence. When he did fire back he was pretty subdued. I don't think he threw any unnecessary chops to anybody's throat and nobody got kicked in the eye. Dynamite looked a little broken down at this point, but Davey's stuff mostly looked good and chucked Tenryu onto a table with a big gorilla press slam. The last five-six minutes took an interesting turn when Tenryu wound up with a split chin and the Bulldogs started working over the cut. It's a pretty unusual body part to work over, not like a cut on the forehead where you can bite and claw in obvious fashion, but Davey noticed it and went after it straight away. At one point he even started biting Tenryu's chin which was pretty awesome. Finish didn't come off too great as there was a bit of miscommunication, but Fuyuki bridging Davey Boy for about eight hours after hitting the German was sort of impressive.