KB8

nope he was fully untraied before going in to rINGS is only training was Sambo I'm aware that he came in raw and that he was a Sambist. My point was that he'd sometimes do things that looked sort of carny for a shoot style promotion - like some of those Hapkido throws - yet everyone bought into it anyway because he was Volk Han and he was incredible. I don't doubt he'd have been able to translate all of that into a pro-style setting, is what I was getting at.

Some of Han's Hapkido was carny as fuck and everyone bought it regardless. I can only assume he'd have been amazing working pro-style. I mean, he's Han.

I'm not really sure comparing Shayna Baszler to Volk Han is entirely fair to Baszler. I mean, I guess I can kind of see why you'd want to, but Han is one of the very best that's ever done it and a ridiculous outlier. It's a huge bar to reach and I don't think you can call out anybody for not being as good as Volk Han straight out the gate. I literally don't think there's ever been anybody who has.

Man this was fun. It's about as pure babyface as I've ever seen Flair work. I guess he was already Slick Ric by mid-'81, but it wasn't the same babyface Slick Ric as we'd see later. A lot of babyface Flair felt like a guy who was naturally a prick taking time off from being a prick because he had issue with an even bigger prick. Old man babyface Flair was easy to root for because he was two hundred years old and being brutalised by people seventy years his junior. His biggest hope spots were still low blows or biting someone in the face. Sympathy was easy to come by and he was beloved, but there wasn't much difference between babyface Flair and heel Flair. He was wooing and strutting here, but he did it with a real babyface energy, like he figured he had to work for his reactions rather than taking for granted that he'd get them regardless. He was throwing dropkicks, super fast body punches in place of the chops, working much quicker than usual. No measured knee drops, no flopping, instead we got small packages and house o' fire. Even the figure four was applied quicker than I've ever seen him do it before, and he went into it as a reversal off a Piper knee drop so there was no methodical leg work beforehand. He just did everything at babyface speed and it was super refreshing. The stuff with Piper also ruled and Piper was an awesome shit head with the early stalling, the cheapshots, choking Flair with the tag rope, etc. Snuka didn't exude the same charisma, but he was a fine lieutenant and I liked how he was always trying to cut the ring off, keeping Flair in that heel corner and dragging him back whenever he tried to scoot away. I don't know who Dewey Robertson is but he was fine and played his part in the finish, so I guess he did what he needed to do. Flair even celebrated with him afterwards like he meant it, rather than patting him on the back because he's the Nature Boy and the plebs should be privileged to share in his victory glow. I've somehow seen hardly anything from this Flair/Piper feud, but based on this I'm hyped to check out more.

This was okay for parts and then a bit ropey for others. Standard criticism of Flair and/or Flair Formula is that he/it can sort of stifle guys because they need to change some aspects how they work when they're opposite Ric. They're forced to do press slams or always apply the figure four or whatever. If I'm watching a guy opposite Flair for the first time I'm usually interested in seeing how he'll plug his own stuff into Flair's formula, how much he'll delegate to Flair, etc. The first fifteen minutes of this was really just Kabuki being Kabuki and it didn't feel much like your typical Flair match at all. Kabuki threw a bunch of superkicks and I liked how Flair sold them as if he had no idea how to defend against them. He'd just walk into a superkick and have to scramble to the corner for a reprieve. Kabuki can hit them from anywhere and Flair had no answer for it. Kabuki's nerve hold wasn't the most compelling way to fill time, but I get a kick out of him switching it up a bit from the traps to the stomach to the obliques. Flair was really vocal with his selling too, and if nothing else you could buy him being frustrated at having such a hard time figuring Kabuki out. Then the last ten minutes kind of teetered on being not very good. They tried a bunch of the Flair staples, but only about half of them came off. I didn't mind that the headlock into bridge into backslide spot never worked, because Kabuki isn't necessarily the most athletic guy and sometimes things like that add to the sense of struggle, but then they just got back up and went into the backslide after a few beats anyway. If something didn't work they'd just...do it again. There was no improvisation, it was all sort of "checking the boxes" and then Flair chucked the referee and that was that.

I wouldn't have had Punk ahead of Rey, Andre or Backlund in a million years.

There's something about Flair's black and white robe. My first exposure to him as a kid was when he showed up at Survivor Series with the big gold belt, Bobby Heenan raving about him being the REAL World Champ, pomp out the wazoo...and that incredible robe. As a four year old it was the definition of regality and I've been a mark for it ever since. Maybe the black and white brings out his inner bastard as well, because there was a five minute stretch of this where he was as surly as I've ever seen him. The first fifteen minutes were fairly standard Big Match Flair. He wasn't rampant with the cheapshotting and mostly played by the rules. He'd beg off once or twice, kind of flirt with being a dickhead, but for the most part he behaved himself. Taylor wasn't buying whatever Flair was selling and Flair kept finding himself being taken over or having his head squashed in a front facelock. The build wasn't anything new, but these two work it well together. Then Flair got chippy and it led to them absolutely lacing into each other. At the best of times he's pure hubris, but this wasn't hubris; he was pissed and wanted to fight. He's the world fucking champ and who is this wannabe? Taylor backs him into the corner, winds up for a left hand, the ref' stops him short...and Flair knees him in the balls. I've made comment about being burnt out on Flair plenty of times, but I could watch this Flair all day and it's disappointing we didn't get to see him do it more often. He really cleaned Taylor's clock for a spell there, chopping him to ribbons, dropping the knee across his forehead, stomping him in the corner, throwing nasty little body shots, blatantly choking him, popping him with an AMAZING right hand that Terry sold like it broke his face -- just a great little segment. I wish it lasted longer. The last fifteen minutes never went off the rails as such, but it became more of your standard Flair fare. Standard isn't necessarily a knock because standard Flair fare is still a very awesome thing to lots of people, but I can really go either way these days and I much preferred it when he was bullying Taylor. They seemed to maybe run out of ideas down the stretch as well, going to the backslide spot a few times and reaching a point of diminishing returns with the nearfalls. I lost count of the number of times Taylor grabbed a headlock to set up the next rope running sequence, but it built to a fever pitch and it's hard to come away thinking Taylor didn't look all the better for it. Still though, some of the brawling in that mid-match stretch was as potatoey and awesome as the best Flair/Garvin or Flair/Wahoo exchanges I've seen. I'd rather they filled more time with that.

Owen had to feud with Bret for 9 years.

I'd lean towards Owen in that I prefer him in-ring to Davey by quite a bit and the King of Harts character was really fun (and he was interesting enough playing it that he remained relevant when he was injured), whereas Davey's character, heel or face, was basically just British guy who was proud to be British. Owen never had the extended stretch as part of an established team, but I'm not huge on the Bulldogs anyway, and honestly, I'd probably rather watch Owen and Yoko. Owen probably gets versatility points for the Blue Blazer run, the post-Montreal babyface run, and I guess the heel run with the Nation, which was at least different from deluded younger brother with a chip on his shoulder (I think). I don't know how good a promo Owen was, but I'll sure remember his rant after kicking Bret's leg out of his leg more than I'll remember anything Davey ever said.

I wouldn't have had Tito top 10 overall, but man was he fucking awesome and easily one of the best babyface workers the WWF have ever had. How many babyfaces brought the fire like Tito? If it was a pure in-ring poll then top 10 wouldn't have been crazy at all, I don't think. Between him and DiBiase, for something like this, I guess a lot of it depends on where you land between workrate and promo/character. To me, Tito pretty clearly walks the former while Ted pretty clearly walks the latter. Ted had the bigger Jump Up moments outside the ring and he was positioned higher on the card than Tito (though it's not like Tito was never placed in high profile positions). I put a lot of stock in guys being able to work tags and Tito has a bunch of really good to great tags in the WWF (Ted's tag run came at the tail end of his career and it was with an ageing Rotunda rather than prime Martel, but it is what it is). I flat out like Tito more so I guess I'd go with him.

Kind of under the radar gem and maybe one of the better Michaels TV matches of his second run. There are a couple other matches between them from around this time, one of which from Armageddon that I don't remember at all, so I guess they were feuding. I don't care much for Kennedy so I guess you can say it's faint praise, but this might be one of his best matches outright and I thought he was really good in it. Michaels worked over his leg early and I liked the sell of it, mostly in how he was super vocal. Michaels threw on a half crab variation where he sat across the hooked leg rather than doing the normal version of the hold that would target the back, which was a cool touch. He also yanked off Kennedy's knee pad during this section, and for someone I don't really think of as a "little things" guy he brought a bunch of neat touches. There was the aforementioned wrinkles with the leg work, the way he was dogged in fighting for a crossface, later on punching Kennedy in the knee to create some distance, it was good stuff. Most of Kennedy's run of offense consisted of back work as this is the 2000s and a Shawn Michaels match, but it was solid back work. The tackle to the floor that set it up was pretty gnarly (Michaels' bump was great) and he had a nice seated abdominal stretch where he was twisting the lower back at a mean angle. Shawn's comeback had some clutching at his spine like a pensioner with chronic sciatica tying his shoe laces and I know people hate that because he's a lame actor or whatever, but the hairline was on its way out and he was already cross-eyed so if nothing else I bought him as a pensioner with chronic sciatica tying his shoe laces (and, you know, I appreciate the selling whilst executing offence and such). Finish was surprising as well and I just enjoyed all of this a bunch. I haven't really watched any post-comeback Michaels in a long time, but I'm actually kind of interested in going back to see how a lot of it holds up. For a guy who was my favourite wrestler all the way through childhood and then for a minute after that, it's strange how little I've thought about him in around a decade.

This and Volk Han at #4 I mean, tbf, Han as a top 10 guy is something I’ve seen before. Kopylov as a top 10 guy is something I’ve never seen before and it wasn’t too long ago where we ran a poll and someone had Scott Steiner as their #1! (I am not knocking that list, btw. I’m all for more lists with obscure Russian sambists ahead of your Dynamite Kids and Bret Harts)

Andrei Kopylov as a top 10 all-timer is some wild shit that I’m all the way in on. Well...at least he had Dory ahead of Terry! Right?

So is this THAT Fuji/Strongbow match? The one I recall Parv pointing to as some kind of roundabout advocation for Strongbow being good/smart despite the fact he hates him? Watching it I figured it might’ve been, but I kind of hoped I was wrong and there was another awesome Fuji/Strongbow match out there.

This was like 70% carny horse shit and 30% nipple cripple. It was very Memphis, like something you'd expect to see in the Mid-South Coliseum rather than Madison Square Garden. Fuji takes his time early on and does his pre-match ritual, throwing salt around while some old lady comes up to the apron and hurriedly sweeps it away (in case he tries to use some of the residue later?). Strongbow is unmoved, stern faced and statuesque in the corner. They do a criss-cross rope running sequence and Fuji keeps going out to the apron for powders, but he only ends up being humiliated every time when Strongbow headscissors him back in the ring. Fuji then teases the foreign object, reaching into his tights, shifting his body away from the ref', taking it out before quickly having to hide it again. When he eventually uses it the crowd react exactly how the wrestlers would want them to. Then Strongbow steals it, uses it himself and everyone just loses it for Fuji stooging around the ring throwing blind punches and falling on his face. At this point Fuji goes to the pectoral nerve hold and for a hold that basically consists of you grabbing your opponent's nipples this was worked about as well as you'd want. Strongbow teases his comebacks, comes closer and closer to escaping, but Fuji keeps finding ways to clamp nipple. Then he makes a mistake and gets slammed off the top as the crowd hoot and holler for Strongbow lacing into him with kneelifts. This was two guys who knew their audience to a tee, who knew their audience knew THEM to a tee, working the exact match that audience wanted to see. And for what it was I kind of loved it.

I never got around to participating in this because I guess I'm about the only remaining person on the planet without a Facebook, but I've been slowly going through the countdown on PTBN and it really is tremendously fun stuff. It's also convinced me to check out some 70s/early 80s Mr. Fuji and I'm not the least bit sorry I did. One of the Titans should come up with a comprehensive list of the 100 (or like, 10) best Mr. Fuji matches one must check out...

I'm basically echoing most people, but the feel of hatred - communicated especially through those hellish chair shots - really stood out to me in this. It's hard to look back almost twenty years and find something new and unique about this considering how often the ground has been retrodden, but that sense of violence definitely elevated it to a point where I think I'd enjoy it more than just about everything that followed on from it (at least in the Hardyz/Dudleyz/Edge & Christian series). Where those later matches and TLCs escalated things through the scope of the highspots, I don't remember getting that feeling of escalated hatred. That this was fairly short and they mostly kept away from setting up overly convoluted scenarios certainly helped. I wouldn't call it a great match, but for better or worse it's an influential one and something that held up better than I'd have expected.

I thought it might've been a bad idea to watch this as the first wrestling I've given eyeballs to in months. I usually find it hard to jump back into joshi and get acclimated to the shifts in momentum and rhythm without a bit of a teething problem. This was a breeze, though. Jackie Sato is a treasure. She carried herself like a Fujinami level ace, cool and confident while selling the danger of Aoyama. I'd never seen Aoyama before but she was all about the dropkicks early and there were two moments where she went for broke only for Sato to calmly walk out of dodge (and on the first occasion Aoyama crashed and burned). This had some cool tricked out matwork, though most of it was built around Aoyama working the leg and going to the figure-four. Sato would repeatedly roll out or manage to block it, so at one point Aoyama grabbed an Indian deathlock type thing and started stomping on Sato's back. She also went to the shin breaker a handful of times and man did that crowd live and die with Jackie Sato. When Sato took over she rolled out a bunch of neat offence. Her backdrops looked killer - super high angle and impactful - and she did a sort of hair-pull Slingblade that ruled. Finish might be a touch anticlimactic, but it certainly looked plausible. Whole match pretty much flew by as well. Feels like way more people should be talking about Jackie Sato. I mean, I know WHY she isn't brought up as often as Ozaki and Kansai and so on, but I guess what I'm saying is someone should do a deep dive on her and chronicle their findings in the Microscope and I nominate Jetlag.

This was what you wanted in a Maeda main event. It's fine seeing him fight guys like Hans Nyman and Willie Williams if for no reason other than to see how he'll approach them, but this was against a guy closer to his skill level and more like something you'd see from peak UWF Maeda. Fight itself felt more like a UWF fight than a RINGS fight, actually. The matwork was pretty deliberate, lots of shifting for position, not too many "highspots," and the parts where Maeda let loose with strikes were straight out of Maeda/Fujiwara when Fujiwara would get too dominant on the ground. Kopylov is for real. He doesn't quite have Han's ability to pull out a submission from the most unexpected of situations, but he's a dynamo and everything looked great. The crowd being completely bonkers did not hurt one bit. Really good stuff, possibly my favourite Maeda RINGS fight to date.

I signed up and I'll hopefully get a list together by the end. I'll step away for a few months at some point as I always do and I won't watch a single thing in that time, but then I'll pick it back up for the home stretch and come up with something I'm happy with, yet not as happy as I could be because I'd never be able to watch everything I want to even if this was a decade-long project. So, similar to the GWE, basically.

I'm not sure if it's on youtube or the likes, but this is one of the yearbook threads for a '93 promo that people loved. I thought it was maybe the best Lawler promo I'd seen and it's still the one I remember most when talking about Lawler on the mic.

Yoshihisa Yamamoto v Nobuaki Kakuta (12/19/92) Well this was sort of a miracle. For starters, I think it might've been a shoot, and so far there haven't really been any of those that've been good. Secondly, it's Kakuta, and history tells us you don't really want to be watching Kakuta in a shoot for 20+ minutes (or an anything for 20+ minutes). And yet this actually kind of ruled! It's the earliest version of the Yamamoto we know and love (I assume we all love Yamamoto). Those bouts with Naruse offered glimpses of what he could do, but they were very much about the young guys finding their feet. This was him turned loose and just all over an opponent. He gave Kakuta no reprieve and thoroughly dominated him on the ground through the first three rounds. Then Kakuta started swinging with the leg kicks and body shots, managing to narrowly avoid being submitted, always being in with a striker's chance. Crowd were crazy into the last couple rounds and I found myself all the way behind Yamamoto pulling off the upset. Just as the final round was coming to a close we got some controversy, as Kakuta seemed to maybe catch Yamamoto low with a knee, and the ref' apparently called for the TKO as the time limit expired. Yamamoto was having none of it and eventually they - the judges at ringside, I guess? - decided it wasn't a knockdown and the fight would continue into a sixth round. It only lasted another fourteen seconds, but man were the people all in on those fourteen seconds. Best thing Kakuta's done by a pretty significant margin and our first real look at the Yamamoto we'd come to adore. Mitsuya Nagai v Sergei Susserov (12/19/92) This was pretty good stuff as well. Susserov looked like a machine at points with the way he'd toss Nagai around, plus he had some flashy stand-up and a couple neat moments on the mat (fitting, as Han is his cornerman/possible trainer). A few of those throws were awesome -- he'd really snap into them, all hips and torque. You look at him initially and wonder if he's maybe going to be another kickboxer, but he was much more along the lines of your Eastern European grappler. Nagai had his moments and looked pretty solid as well. He was never full blown manhandled or anything, and on the "if this was a real fight" scale it looked like he could've held his own okay. His final flurry of strikes certainly looked brutal enough that you could buy it as a stoppage. Susserov's name is familiar to me so I'm guessing he shows up again later down the road, and I'm more than okay with that. Rudy Ewoldt v Georgi Keandelaki (12/19/92) If I were to guess, based on Keandelaki LAYING IT IN with the body punches, I'd maybe venture that this was a shoot. It would be a ropey guess at best, however. This was a round and a half and they kept it moving along, no real pissing about, but after the scintillating five and a bit rounds of Nobuaki Kakuta that you never thought you'd ever live to see, this was always going to struggle to pop.

Watched Yoshiaki Yatsu/Masayoshi Motegi v Isao Takagi/Hirofumi Miura from the 9/5/94 SPWF show. Thought it was really fun. You had the potato shots, the establishment of hierarchy with Yatsu and Takagi being the chunky team leaders, some nice peril segments, even a bit of blood and guys skidding around a grimy gym floor. Canek/Principe Maya v Motegi/Kamikaze from what I think is the first WYF show (3/31/95) is a totally badass little match that I kinda loved. Canek and Maya basically worked as Murdoch and Adonis for stretches, heeling it up and throwing out a bunch of cool offense. Motegi's hot tag ruled, not just because he came in and cleaned house and capped it off with a killer tope, but because the crowd loved him and one possibly-drunk section of fans were popping huge for everything he did. I don't know who Kamikaze is, nor do I know how good he might actually be, but he was fun in this. He took a beating early and when he got to reel off some offense he had some pretty neat stuff, including an enziguri flush under Maya's chin and a springboard moonsault where Motegi was a launch pad of sorts. Maybe a wee bit ragged in parts and it felt like the heat segment on Motegi ended a bit abruptly, but for twelve minutes this ticked all the boxes. It's also one of the better 90s Canek performances.

Willie Williams v Yukihiro Takenami (11/13/92) This was some spectacular carny horseshit and I loved it. The crowd is alllll about Williams and his hobo karate! Takenami is in the mood to fight! It lasted about three minutes and the heat was outrageous! I mean I can't explain why people were so thoroughly losing their mind for this but as a viewer I'm grateful that they were (because rabid crowds make the RINGS even better). Williams isn't good, but man he's fun in this type of short spectacle, with his sloppy palm thrusts and wheel kicks. I have absolutely no problem with him doing this every other show, which is not the stance I expected to take after seeing him for the first time however many shows back. Dick Vrij v Hans Nyman (11/13/92) Nyman is announced as "the one and only Hans Nyman," which is like that time back when I went to rent Devil May Cry from the Blockbuster and it was already taken but the guy behind the desk told me to rent Kabuki Warriors instead. This is a rematch from a previous show that I remember kind of sucking, This one was a wee bit better, but not really something you need to see for six rounds/hours. They at least had spurts of half decent stand-up and some of Nyman's strikes looked like they actually had some impact behind them, as opposed to just looking pretty. I don't know what the finish was all about. I don't think Nyman did either, though he was gracious about it despite being annoyed (with good reason!). Andrei Kopylov v Chris Dolman (11/13/92) Perhaps I was hasty in my assessment that Dolman, after his fight on the previous show, had little left to offer in the twilight of his career. Because this was way better. It probably helped being in there with a gamer like Kopylov. I liked how Dolman would try to control with his judo and use his size advantage on the mat. Kopylov is tricky and we've seen how he can submit guys in plenty of ways, but Dolman was patient and used the extra weight. Excellent finish, too. Pretty fun bout. Akira Maeda v Dimitri Petkov (11/13/92) I like how the booking of this was basically a rocket-fuelled version of Hulk Hogan v whatever member of the Heenan Family was up next for him to feud with. Petkov came in on the last show, looked good, picked up the win, and now he's onto the ace. That they did it as part of a tournament was smart, in that it wasn't completely obvious they were setting Petkov up as the next guy for Maeda to run through. As a standalone bout I also thought this was really good, so it gets thumbs up all around. Petkov was super fun as a sort of shoot style King Kong Bundy, shrugging off Maeda's strikes and telling him to bring it, being pretty damn solid on the ground and tossing Maeda around with some awesome slams. There was one cool bit where he just picked Maeda up like it was nothing and walked around the ring, Maeda helpless, Petkov soaking in the moment before slamming him. He also reeled off a killer headlock takedown that the crowd lost it for. I thought they were kind of obvious in setting up the finish at first, but they threw in a bit of a curve ball and overall I really dug this.

Yeah, I liked this a bunch, and for a match-up I feel like I've seen a hundred times, it never really gets stale. Is it the best match-up in ECW history? Tajiri was really fun again here and I liked how organic the Tarantula spot came across. The mocking of Guido's punch drunk selling was pretty great, too.