dawho5

Both Stan Hansen vs. Jumbo matches in 86 are far better than the matches they had afterwards. Jumbo willing to brawl with Hansen is always a treat. The Funk vs. Choshu match from the same time period is a lot of fun with Funk really heeling it up and both bringing the fire and great brawling. The running punch through the ropes by Choshu was so sweet.

The Rocky Raymond stuff had me in tears. Fucking great!

I thought Jumbo vs. Kawada was great as a midcard guy doing whatever it took to hang with Jumbo. You have to remember that Kawada was way below Jumbo in 91. Him and Taue were always going to be at a disadvantage against Jumbo or Misawa and they had to find ways of working around that. The 2001 tag match is Nagata/Iizuka vs. Kawada/Fuchi 12/14/2000. It has my favorite indirect way of ending heel heat ever, screw hot tags. Another great 2000s Fuchi match is Tenry/Fuchi vs. Kawada/Araya 6/30/01. Not just Fuchi being a complete dick to the youngster, you get the added bonus of Tenryu doing the same. One of my favorite tag teams ever.

Why not shore up weak spots on the GWE stuff for the time being?

I hated that stuff when I started the 2000s project. After a while it became something I glossed over more often than not. Helped me enjoy the rest of the match.

Just started on the Jumbo vs. Choshu feud this weekend. Jumbo is really not suited for the kind of match that this kind of feud needs in 1985. Choshu keeps trying to get him fired up and Jumbo....goes into a hold. I think that Yatsu gets legit pissed at Jumbo in the 2/1/85 match for in no way engaging on the level that Tenryu has been for a few matches. After the blade job on the floor it looks like both Joe Higuchi and Choshu are trying to rein him in, but he's just not having it. My feeling is that's the reason for the goofy finish. Also, finished disc 1 of the AWA set. Brunzell is a revelation and the best match so far is Bock vs. Robinson. Although I will say Brunzell working a hold is by far his biggest weakness. Brunzell selling and making a fired-up comeback is great though.

His MUGA match against Saito from 06 is pretty damn good as well. It's not at the level of the Fujinami match, but it's still a match that's well worth your 20 minutes or so. He has a 2006 or 2007 match against Tajiri worth seeing just for how Nishimura and Tajiri work Tajiri's signature stuff into MUGA style. I can see him being in the 90 to 100 range based on the limited amount I've seen of him. He's incredible at selling, works the "king of the mountain" stuff like nobody else I've ever seen, keeps his matches really, really compact, and his striking is far better than you would ever think it is. If you like the 70s/early 80s NWA/AWA style of working at all he's worth checking out. Especially for how he blends that style in against opponents as varied as Takayama, Kanemoto and Tajiri almost seamlessly.

Great post Will. As usual you don't leave much else to be said. Personally, I'm thankful for all the folks who talk about wrestling here and the great wrestling I might not otherwise have found in the more obscure corners of the internet. And on a personal level, I'm thankful that Martin was going through the 2000s Japan at around the same time I was. We may not always agree on what constitutes a great match, but that's part of the fun of it. Let's get to that 94 Champion Carnival soon, buddy.

Great stuff again, but that's no surprise. I'm starting to think the reason Steven has his own podcast is so he can actually talk for more then thirty seconds at a time. Although I may have popped if Steven had cut off Will. Not that Will isn't making good points, just the fan of fiery babyfaces in me talking.

PWO isn't really about who you like as far as wrestling goes. It's about wanting to talk about wrestling and why you like the wrestlers you do. I think that's why most of the people here like it so much.

Just watched Cortez vs. Grey and that's right up there with Breaks vs. Street and Breaks vs. Faulkner. Tremendous amount of heat between them as the match goes on. Great escalation throughout with some chippy stuff near the end. I really love how Cortez starts the bout normally but ever so subtly becomes more and more heelish throughout. Even in the early going everything is really well-worked. They set a great tone early with the intensity they work headlocks and chinlocks and ramp up from there. Reccomended watch for sure. Jon Cortez seems like the guy they wanted Dean Malenko to be in WCW.

I second the vote for Hansen vs. Colon. Hansen jawing with the crowd in a baseball stadium is great. Especially if you give any credence to the stories wrestlers tell of how crazy Puerto Rican fans were.

I'd have to say the Hashimoto/Ogawa feud deserves a look. Inoki's shooter phase was definitely a negative as a whole, but Hashimoto and Ogawa were a huge highlight. The Tokyo Dome was filled to the brim on a few occasions to see Hashimoto end Ogawa's reign of terror.

I'm thirding the vote to close this thread. If it's done and there's no more to do about it, it seems like a day and a half to argue about whether or not it should have happened is more than enough. Charles has a book to write, the rest of us have wrestling to watch and discuss. On a side note, I honestly don't think you have to worry Alan. Seems you get plenty of respect around here despite your different opinions on wrestling than most. My feeling is that's because you have your reasons and are very willing to share them.

Eh, the meaty stuff is the early 90s. I missed a lot of the establishing stuff in 90 and 91, and I don't feel like I have a great handle on how things went up until 95 as a whole. The comprehensive viewing and better understanding of the later 90s just makes me need to do that for late 80s through 95 for sure. I feel like I got a lot out of the late 90s for what the general consensus on that period is and if that's the case I need to mine further into the much better thought of early 90s.

Looking forward to the e-book, the podcasts and the 500. Don't let it become too much of a slog though, Charles.

Recently I've been thinking about how this starting has affected the way I look at watching wrestling. It has me thinking a lot about all the things I want to do, wrestling wise and the sheer amount of time involved in it. First and foremost, there was the original plan of revisiting All Japan in some way after a short break. As it turns out, that is going to be a truly in-depth look at things. Which is both good and bad in terms of the GOAT. I'm seeing that my first run through, as complete as I would have liked it to be, was merely a surface look at the promotion in the 90s. And I do love a lot of it and think it deserves my time. That means a lot of time I ought to be spending on weak spots will be spent on my bigger goal. And I think this time through will be harder because of a lot of the awareness I picked up my first time through. I recently watched the making of video for the second Hugh Laurie blues album (great blues presented in a very interesting way), where the second attempt at something was described. What was said was that the second time through is harder because you are more aware of the thing you are doing and the pitfalls it may contain, compared to the chaos of trying to put everything together the first time. And I can see that pretty clearly, with not as much on the side of chaotic my first time through, but more of a gradual understanding of how all the pieces fit into the whole, both in the matches and the overarcing story of the rivalries as I went. It makes the next time through a little more daunting knowing that all of those things are there and still on a deeper level than I experienced the first time. Secondly, I really wanted to get into the 80s territories stuff after that, but this project has opened my eyes to how great 70s WoS can be. It makes me think that to truly "get" what's going on in the 80s I need to see the 70s work and how it translaytes into the 80s. It also makes me know for sure that good mat-based wrestling with brawling peppered in is a style I like. Which means that 70s American wrestling ought to work for me. Then you start to look at the 50s/60s stuff from the Chicago film archives and that has to be watched before the 70s wrestling to see how that moves into the next decade. The 90s is a decade I truly want to tackle in chronological order, with the earlier decades informing me as to how things got to where they were. I think that's one thing I got from watching 90s AJPW was the need to watch chronologically to see why and how things changed as they progressed. Next, I really wanted to get into 80s/90s NJPW and lucha, with a maybe on joshi. All of those things are a long way in the future now. Especially since 70s/80s WoS is going to come before that. I know I'm in the right place to be doing all of these things, but the time commitment is friggin' huge. I'll very likely still be working on all of this well into my 60s and 70s when I have more time to do things like that. I guess it's good in that I can spread the cost involved in acquiring all of that wrestling over years. It's something I hadn't really thought about in terms of scope, especially considering that I might want to keep up with current wrestling at some point. This is really an exciting time to be a wrestling fan due to the sheer amount of available footage, but that's a double edged sword in the volume it encompasses as well.

Like I said, any write-up I did in the 2000s is based on the things I recall from watching the match. I think a few matches I re-opened the file to get a few specifics or confirm the order on things. One of the main reasons for that is that taking notes had a tendency to take me out of the match in ways I didn't like. And my reviews got shorter and less detailed as a result. Looking back at them, I rarely get to play-by-play anymore, instead focusing on the general layout with stuff I found particularly memorable added. I also noticed that matches I didn't care for sometimes got a lot less than matches I liked. To be fair though, if I had to do a more detailed review (I do like Martin's style of play-by-play in the 2000s threads btw) I probably would have to go through a match twice at least to get all the finer points written down and organize them in an easy to understand way. For me, the highlights and lowlights are what matters and how they either got me into or took me out of the match. The other stuff just doesn't stand out as much. And that's not to say that small things don't matter. Because I haven't watched Hansen vs. Kawada 2/28/93 in ages and I can tell you that Hansen's facial expression during the stretch plum makes it probably the favorite time I have ever seen the hold applied.

When I watched WCW I grew to hate the Goldberg push, I was one of those "internet smart fans" after all. That being said, Goldberg vs. DDP does more for me now than it did then.

Great stuff so far, but that's expected. For me, I have started a new policy of always watching a match without taking notes or really analytically thinking it through as I watch it. I find that taking notes tends to break up the rhythm of the match for me and that can take you out of a match just as easily as anything else. I believe it was mentioned earlier about watching a match and feeling it at a very basic level, then later going back mentally and trying to identify the things that inspired those feelings. To me that is the best way to go about it on first watch. If it's something I need notes on, I'll rewatch it and take notes. One thing I recall reading on here is a thread about how wrestling now is more physical than emotional. And since I was in the middle of the 2000s Japan wrestling grind that really hit home with me as a truth. At the time I was questioning whether or not taking notes during matches would help me during the project. But it really drove home that what wrestling ought to be about is the emotion the match inspires in the viewer. That's always been the point. If you can't inspire emotion, why is anyone going to pay to see it? And moreover I want emotion out of my wrestling matches. Sure two guys beating the shit out of each other/stretching each other is entertaining, but adding a compelling story to that makes for far more entertaining matches. So I think that while we may all look for different things in our wrestling, we all attach emotional value to whatever it is we look for. I understand that some of us have a harder time turning off that analytical side of ourselves than others. And I also understand the pitfalls of going into a match expecting one thing and getting another. I also understand having an almost blinding hatred for certain workers based on a few things they do that drive you nuts. I think that last one (and it's opposite) is actually a pretty common part of watching wrestling on an emotional level. Nothing you're going to do about it other than admit that it's there. Also, great idea for a thread Martin.

I'd say the bit about the Freebirds was a pretty intense argument as well for 3 guys who seem pretty high on the Freebirds.

Will's Triple H impression was great, regardless of Johnny's reaction.

My favorite Tanahashi match is his great 2004 bout with Kazayuki Fujita. He works underdog (by a long ways) throughout and plays the plucky-but-outgunned young lion so well. The thing that struck me about the match in general was the hit Inoki-ism took despite Fujita winning. The crowd is 100% behind Tanahashi even after he loses. That match also struck me as Tanahashi playing the role he was born to play with constant movement away from that as his career progressed.

One of the reasons I enjoy Tanahashi is how much he stands out from the rest of the NJPW guys. He brings something completely different to the table that creates a different feel to his matches than most of your Japanese wrestling. I think the lack of impact is usually worked into the way the match plays out with Tanahashi having to make up for his lack of overt physicality in other ways. That's where I find the enjoyable parts of the matches anyway.

Breaks vs. Faulkner is one of the best wrestling matches I have seen hands down. Faulkner is not his usual self at all, coming in angry due to Breaks baiting him into a punch that the ref saw and DQed Faulkner (to take away the title on the line in this match no less) in their previous match. Either that didn't make tape or it's not on youtube. Whichever one it is, that is just plain criminal. Off the charts awesome by both and if you like any WoS at all I'd say it's a match to see for sure.