Jetlag

I don't really get the strong praise this has received. This felt like a slightly better Kurt Angle/Davey Richards match to me. Both wrestlers have really fun offense, aside from Baszler's dweeby thigh slapping, but stylistically the match was a garbled mess. I don't wanna nitpick at every detail but the transitions and selling was all kinds of whack here and as a result the match never got me into it beyond a level of "wow that looked hurty/weird". I always enjoy wrestlers with a legit background, and Shayna looked good picking apart her opponent, but she was too much into working a junior type match to come across as menacing and Io isn't the kinda worker to push her into that territory. The spots and hits here looked great, but at other times this was irritating and close to self parody.

Liger beating Fuchi, nice one I gotta simulate this card in Fire Pro world.

It's been a while. Time to get this going! IBA Infoletter #2 After preparations have been made, all international stars have arrived in germany in their hotels and IBA begins it's first tour, which has been labelled the "qualifying round" and is seen as a way to introduce all the wrestlers to the new audience. Studio TV episodes will begin airing shortly. Houseshow results #1: "Grande International Catch Gala" @ Schneverdingen - this show was billed as "Europe vs. Rest of the World" 1. Markus Buchholz DRAW Emilio Charles Jr. - Buchholz pinned Emilio via. O'Connor Roll (1:0) - Emilio made the young german submit to a Fujiwara Armbar (1:1) - Time Limit ran out (20 Min.) - Emilio refused to shake hands after the match. 2. Jörg Chenok def. Lightning Kid - Chenok KO'd Lightning Kid via Missile Dropkick - Chenok refused to shake hands after the match. 3. Masayoshi Motegi DRAW Franz Schumann - Schumann made Motegi submit to a Fujiwara Armbar (0:1) - Motegi pinned Schumann with his Triple German Suplex (1:1) - Ref stoppage when Motegi injured himself as he tried a Suicide Dive. Schumann refuses to accept the victory. - Both men shook hands after the match. 4. Blue Panther DRAW Mile Zrno - Time Limit ran out (30 Min.) - Blue Panther refused to shake hands. Zrno asked for house mic and wants a rematch. 5. Kim Duk & Tarzan Goto def. Steve Regal & Klaus Wallas - Regal pinned Duk with a Sunset Flip (0:1) - Goto KO'd Regal via Ghostbuster - Wallas turned on his partner and left the building. Duk & Goto continue beating on a bloody Regal after the bell. Franz van Buyten, Tom Magee and several others make the safe. 6. Greg Valentine def. Franz van Buyten - Franz pinned Valentine via. Small Package (0:1) - Valentine made Franz submit to a Figure 4 Leglock (1:1) - Franz was DQ'd for excessive brutality when punching Valentine on the ground and refusing to let go. Valentine previously used a chair on Franz outside the ring. - Valentine asks for house mic, says european wrestlers ain't shit causing a big brawl with Franz and other european wrestlers jumping on Valentine, which further escalates when Goto & Duk return. Local newspapers receives angry complaints about the violent content of the wrestling show and the destruction caused to the building by Goto & Duk. IBA management has ensured that all rowdy wrestlers have been reprimanded and the tour will go on as planned. Franz van Buyten was interviewed by the local newspaper, saying it wasn't a great night but european wrestlers did well and will do better once they adapt to the ruthlessness of the foreigners, however not all foreigners are rough style wrestlers.

From my short-lived BML review a ton: Karaev is this giant russian blob-like dude who uses an iron claw for a finisher. No idea where they found this guy, but he feels like he should be in a different dimension. Fighting Big Show or Otto Wanz or Tenryu in WAR or something. This was mostly Karaev manhandling tiny Shibata around which was amusing enough, but I felt he looked like a giant baby with his "swatting at flies" style palm strikes. The crowd were postively into this and Shibata however, who had no chance but to go for a flash submission against the giant. And he succeeded in that in less than 4 minutes. I'd say this match achieved what they were going for, but can't help but feel feel that the full potential of Alan Karaev was squandered.

I've had no message from WingedEagle so far, but for those interested I gave him this 1950s/60s match between Lord Blears and Leo Garibaldi:

I was given a Memphis studio TV match between Jerry Lawler and Ric Flair: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/30920-ric-flair-vs-jerry-lawler-memphis-wrestling-082982/ Lots of promo work. All quite textbook stuff. Not much to write about I thought but it's always a joy to check out these highly efficient territory angles.

This was a classic studio TV angle. The opening promo work was so weird due to how calm everyone was. I'm just used to Memphis TV being a bunch of crazy characters yelling and hitting over the mark. The match was basic but had good intensity due to the stakes being so high. Afterwards the Ric we all know comes out and has a huge meltdown. Imagine being a kid in the 80s and seeing your guy Jerry Lawler kicking the world champ's ass on TV.

This was a fun striker vs. grappler match with Delfin dominating on the ground and with superior takedowns but eating shots standing. So, sort of like a UFC or PRIDE fight. Who would've fought Osaka Pro would reactivate the old FMW different style fight formula? Delfin had great takedown and throws here and Murahama couldn't do a thing on the ground to him. Pretty cool to see a character worker such as Delfin put the antics aside and show what a badass he is. Murahama, again, had great strike combos and I liked how he just gouged Delfin's eyes when he had enough of all that. Super simple match executed extremely well.

Not sure but I'm sure those guys could go far in pro wrestling if they added more nearfalls.

This had a really hot opening with Harley flooring the model with a huge kick before Inoue attempts to retaliate only to take a huge bump to the floor. Harley immediately follows up with sharp kicks to the side. If they had continued in this fashion this would've ended up being a serious MOTYC, but they settle down quickly and work the standard joshi stretch hold opening. Some shenanigans ensue with Takako choking her opponent and Harley getting boo'd when she retaliates. Match picks up again when Harley injures (re-injures?) her ribs and Takako starts torturing her. Harley finds an opening where she attacks Takako's arm and now it's Takako's turn to take a beating. This match is sort of an exercise in crowd manipulation as Harley is the outsider, but they end up putting the heat on both wrestlers with the crowd getting hugely being them both. This is a 30 minute draw so it's slow paced but they keep the action solid throughout and go bonkers with nearfalls in the last few minutes. This didn't have the kind of great transitions I like in a classic but as it stands Harley was really great here and Takako sold decently aswell and this ended up being one of the better women's matches of the year.

Long, excellent main event to make up for that shite midcard. These two had really gotten the hang of how to beat somebody up and make it look good while at the same time selling the punishment received, and they built a really good match around these qualities. It reminded me a bit of an AJPW style match rather than typical joshi, with a slow pace and some cool move progressions. Sawai stuck to her rough housing tactics which issomething she did really well at this point, but Harley was determined to lay an epic beating on her opponent. Really punishing contest with Saito teeing off on Sawai with rapid fire kicks and both girls using some grinding holds. The finishing run was not as great as the body of the match but not huge detriment. It could've used few more ideas but opinions on that will vary. They did a really good countout tease and then packed it up to end the match in style. Quality match, which shows Sawai could go and once again Harley Saito being the real deal.

The 7/14/91 Korakuen Hall show... this was filmed by TV crew so much better production than usual. Over The Generation Match: Miss A vs. Hikari Fukuoka A future JWP ace appears. This was a brutal 3 minute rookie squash and pretty cool. It starts out great immediately with both of them destroying the Korakuen Halls guardrails by bumping ridiculously hard into them. Kansai kicks wee swimsuit wearing Fukuoka to a pulp including a stiff kick to the mouth, but Fukuoka actually gets a nearfall when she catches here in a reverse Achilles Hold! It doesn't last long though as all here dropkicks leave Kansai unphased and a moment later Kansai puts her out with the most hellacious of lariats. About as good as this type of match can be in 3 minutes. Also, I noticed that the ref is TOMMY RAN, which is awesome. Devil Masami & Plum Mariko vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Dementia Dementia has a great look and very much not great wrestling skills. Masami was working invincible monster here and going to town on everyone with stiff lariats and powerbombs. Eventually Ozaki came after her with a chair. Not much of a much overall, though. Terri Power & Pink Cadillac vs. Shinobu Kandori & Itsuki Yamazaki Oh god, that Power/Cadillac team is pure cringe. Kandori and Yamazaki look really sharp even in this terrible matchup, but there was only so much they could achieve. UWA Title Match: Harley Saito vs. Eagle Sawai Long, excellent main event to make up for that shite midcard. These two had really gotten the hang of how to beat somebody up and make it look good while at the same time selling the punishment received, and they built a really good match around these qualities. It reminded me a bit of an AJPW style match rather than typical joshi, with a slow pace and some cool move progressions. Sawai stuck to her rough housing tactics which issomething she did really well at this point, but Harley was determined to lay an epic beating on her opponent. Really punishing contest with Saito teeing off on Sawai with rapid fire kicks and both girls using some grinding holds. The finishing run was not as great as the body of the match but not huge detriment. It could've used few more ideas but opinions on that will vary. They did a really good countout tease and then packed it up to end the match in style. Quality match, which shows Sawai could go and once again Harley Saito being the real deal.

I was given a really fun grappling heavy studio TV match between Sonny King and a young Ricky Morton. Review is here: http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/23843-ricky-morton-vs-sonny-king-memphis-tv-042680/&do=findComment&comment=5826946

NJPW handheld flood gives us Liger's first shot at the IWGP Jr. Title. Altough this is very different from the matches that would come in the future. Essentially young Yamada is a huge underdog against shootstylist Takada. During the early matwork portion Yamada is super cautious to avoid all of Takada's UWF submissions. Eventually Takada gets sick of this and blasts him with kicks. Takada goes for the Tombstone but Yamada desperately avoids that move aswell. Soon Yamada is selling big and the crowd is going bananas for every offensive move and counter he is able to land. Basic match executed extremely well and really fun to check out a way different Liger.

This was previously available as near unwatchable post stamp size handheld from a japanese site, however, due to recent flood in new japanese handheld footage we get a proper quality version where you see all the details of the grappling. Damn what an intense contest. Almost all on the mat, and Yamada looks really impressive. It's crazy that he was only in his 3rd year as a pro wrestler, but Fujiwara puts him over really strongly. Yamada was a stud and going at Fujiwara like a relentless amateur wrestler. No surfboards or anything from him here, instead he was rocking banana splits and flying legbars, even busting out a credible shootstyle Figure 4. He could've easily gone on and become a high end shootstylist - well, if he wasn't too small maybe. Fujiwara is awesome as you expect from a grappling master, doing lots of cool shit such as using his head to dig into Yamada's elbow joint or reversing the figure 4 into a toe hold. Early on Fujiwara seems to be disrespecting Yamada and mocking his submission attempts, bitchslapping him in the corner, but Yamada keeps pushing him, fighting back with huge slaps and a dropkick that almost kicked Fujiwara's head into th 3rd row. Fujiwara refuses to uses the ropes, but eventually is forced to resort to them. There are like half a dozen great armbar counters from Fujiwara in this match proving why he is the master of the move, several times he seems to be luring Yamada into a trap in order to snap him, but Yamada immediately curls into a pyramid in order to defend against the submission. My favourite moment my have been Fujiwara getting the armbar and flatting Yamada in order to prevent his defense and using his leg to apply the pressure, never seen him do that anywhere else. Yamada keeps pushing and escaping though and going after Fujiwara like a terrier until he goes for one shot too many. Great match.

I'm a Joe Malenko fan. This was all matwork, which is a good thing. Not exactly huge drama or storytelling going on here, but a total grappling clinic. Malenko mentions he is older than Tamura and there is def. a theme of the super fast young superstar taking on a wily veteran. This was a bit the opposite of the usual maestro match, as instead of Malenko using his experience to counter Tamura it was mostly Malenko twisting and pretzeling the fuck out of his younger opponent. It was almost like pro wrestling psychology vs. shootstyle psychology as Malenko was always grabbing a toe or ankle in order to twist it, digging a knee or elbow into Tamura's face etc. While Tamura was always looking for an armbar to finish his opponent immediately. Tamura looked slick as hell in the process and Joe put him over like a pro. Strong match albeit for the purists only.

This is the complete opposite of the February match. That match had slow build and very little points used. This has one of the hottest beginnings I've seen in a shoostyle match as Fujiwara immediately goes to pound the living shit out of Takada. Fujiwara was a grinning madman here out to teach Takada a lesson with his fists and cranium. Some people have pointed out that Takada was more cautious here than usualy, which I don't quite buy - to me it looked like Lazy Takada was in full swing for much of this match, to the point where it looked like Fujiwara vs. a dummy at times. They use up all their points equally, altough the actual finish was not quite as epic as what they seemed to be hinting at. I still like the February match better than this, but this was tremendous regardless.

This is still one of my favourite shootstyle matches. Top notch contest with a masterful build. It may feel like a cliche shootstyle main event, even having a standoff post matwork exchange, but what the hell. This opens up with a bunch great, high resistance shoostyle exchanges building towards the first rope break and down in the minutest details. They spend a good 12 minutes without a rope break and 18 minutes without a down and that sparingness pays dividends when the bombs start dropping. There is of course the theme of whily old Fujiwara always having a counter in his sleeve, there are lures where Takada is overwhelming him for minutes at a time only to be caught and forcing a rope break immediately. Takada is a guy I dislike often, but he was fine here as he was going at Fujiwara with some aggression, and when he starts reigning shots at Fujiwara you can tell he feels that he'll just blow the old bastard away. On the other hand Fujiwara is tougher than he thought, as there are several moments where Fujiwara is eating shoots, trying to catch and counter but unable to. Finally Takada knocks him down but he just turns and ties his shoelace before getting up. Then Fujiwara starts bouncing around and grinning and you know it's on. Shootstyle has a reputation for being dry and sportslike but that is some amazing acting and timing in this contest.

Looking forward to everyone burning out even worse than GWE after watching too many five star classics and nit picking which should go higher.

Yes yes, what a find... 10 minutes of straight up amateur style matwork, all working for pin attempts. Apparently this was one of Ricky's first matches and mit makes sense to work an amateur match against a young wrestler with an amateur background. Lots of close quarter fighting and very much not clean breaking in the ropes to add intensity. Ricky had all the cool takedowns, but Sonny made for a strong antagonist against the spry young face. My favourite move may have been the cravate/cradle thing Ricky tried. Dug all the rolling around.

Can I still join in? I need to get watching again.

Some matches from february 1991 2/23: Cuty Suzuki vs. Eagle Sawai For a fairly basic speed vs. Size undercardmatch between two not very great workers this was kind of fun. Eagle Sawai has pretty much no rep, but her body checks, back elbows, splashes and slams look real sharp and she knows how to rough her opponent up. This was a little restholdy for a match that wasn't very long to begin with, but they pick up the pace good when Sawai starts targeting Cuties back and Cuty starts countering her power moves in freaked out twisty rollups until Sawai reverses one and uses her massive size to pin her for the 3. 2/24: Mayumi Ozaki vs. Utako Hozumi Weird match, which was almost a total squash on behalf of Miss Ozaki. Oz is one of the all time best at beating someone up and making it look good while being a teeny tiny lady herself, and this almost approached Arn Anderson TV squash tier where the jobber actually looks legit. Ozaki has really nice simple moves, nice snap suplex, elbow drop, elbow to the throat etc. but Utako came back with almost nothing before Ozaki drops her with her badass leg capture suplex. 2/11 Cuty Suzuki & Oscar Tomo vs. Eagle Sawai & Yukari Osawa It says 2/24 in the matchlist, but this is clearly in Korakuen Hall like the next match on the tape. This was pretty much your typical run of the mill joshi tag. Some may like it, but for me this kind of tag just holds little interesting. It was just a bunch of control segments that go nowhere before a random reversal and tag and then the whole process started again. They didn't even have high workrate, altough the finishing run was tricked out as is guaranteed with JWP matches. Oscar Tomo had an interesting look – like a mini Kansai, but did nothing so interesting otherwise. Osawa and Sawai played the heel role well but it was nothing you haven't seen in a thousand Black Pair matches. 2/11 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Shinobu Kandori vs. The Scorpion I guess this is the downside to watching old Kandori matches. Scorpion gets a 2 minute string of offense before Kansai catches her in a submission and that's it. It was fun and mildly exciting and they needed matches like this to put over Kandori as a badass.... still, The motherfucking Scorpion deserved better.

The motherfucking Scorpion. This was a really cool match and most of that was thanks to the lady in the mask, who was seriously ahead of the curve with her junior/shootstyle hybrid wrestling, bringing both the flips and the kicks and the kimuras, but this match is good due to STORY~ and not due to style. Utako is on the blander side, as she is Japanese Prettygirl #1245 which is the joshi equivalent to being a hairless kickpadded indy junior. Her offense is not as high end as Scorpion, but she redeems herself with some excellent selling. These two could go braindead and just do some athetic moves, lotsa filler holds and then bust out a bunch of 2,9999s and call it a day, but we get so much more than that here. There is some really cool battle for control stuff including Scorpion working almost a full guard before Hozumi digs her elbow into the thigh and locks in an achilles hold. Hozumi cannot seem to get the upper hand but pulls out a well executed control segment before Scorpion gets her again. A BACK SUPLEX is turned into a nearfall and Scorpion has it all over Hozumi here. Scorpion targets the back and really clever injury spot ensues to increase the tension further. I really liked how while Scorpion was in control so much there was a palpable tension about Hozumi eventually pulling out the victory because JWP is flukey, and Hozumi actually looked strong despite getting in little offense. Really entertaining stuff, this is why JWP was gold.