William Bologna

Dynamite shrunk, but Davey just got bigger and bigger. I wonder if there's any rhyme or reason as to what makes it onto Cagematch. The thread about the best match you've seen in person reminded me of an indy show in Baltimore I attended; when I went to look for it, it turns out it never happened. But the fact that it also missed Dynamite's Welsh retirement tour makes me think Cagematch is just gaslighting me.

Johnny Smith vs. Randy Taylor (CNWA 4/6/1990) CNWA is practically Stampede, and it has the bad video quality and announcing to prove it. This time we've got Bulldog Bob Brown and someone who's not Ed Whalen but seems to wish he were. Johnny wrestles a a long squash match while these knuckleheads try to get him over. This is the longest I've ever heard anyone talk about Johnny Smith. Brown likes him because he's a bad guy; the other guy sings his praises as an athlete while lamenting that he's fallen under the influence of the evil Arab Abu Weasel. Bulldog Bob Brown speaks English like it's his second language. He has issues with syntax. His idioms are off. "Getting on the bad track of Johnny Smith, you're in for a big, big trouble." You know what he's saying, but it's not how you would have said it. But he does provide us with fascinating insights into Johnny's personal life (he has girls chasing him. They hail not only from England, but also from Alberta and even British Columbia) and his day-to-day routine (early morning run, two workouts with Dynamite Kid interrupted by a nap). Not much happens in the ring, and the narration is the main thing here. Smith does come off like a heel, despite constantly adjusting his trunks. I don't know what it is, but has a little bit of dickhead swagger here. I didn't think it was possible. He's still working on the kip-up routine at this point. Here he gets knocked down, but as Taylor comes off the ropes, he kips up and clotheslines him. Pretty nifty. The other highlight of the match was the ref giving Johnny a yellow card. BBB and I are once again on the same page. We both like Johnny Smith, and we both think yellow cards in a wrestling match are dumb.

Stan Hansen/Johnny Smith vs. Dan Kroffat/Doug Furnas (AJPW 10/21/1995) This all seems so familiar. They ran the same match back in January, and they don't change the formula. To quote some nerd who's watched a lot of Johnny Smith matches, "Hansen runs over the Can-Ams like they're a couple of AWA title belts, and Smith wrestles them," and that's the template this time out as well. Stan really does shrug off a lot of stuff these guys do to him, but he at least reacts to the standard anti-Hansen technique of working on his arm. I'm not sure if this is the right term, but I always enjoys Hansen's naturalism. Non-formalism. I don't know what the word is, but here's an example: Furnas is trying to procure an armbar on him. Hansen gets to the ropes, but the Can-Ams are cheating in this match, so Furnas doesn't let go while Kroffat steps on his head. Hansen winds up just kicking Furnas in the back with the side of his boot. It's not, you know, a move. It's not something he learned when they broke him in or practiced before the show. It doesn't even actually look all that good, but it does look real. Also familiar is the finish, in which Hansen lariats both of his opponents into immobility and wins all by himself with Johnny not even bothering to get in the ring. This is what they did against Kawada and Omori (or, I suppose, will do against Kawada and Omori since that match is a year and a half in the future), and it's great this time too. This was better than either of the matches I'm comparing it to, mainly because Furnas and Kroffat are being evil. This spices up the work and makes their comeuppance all the more satisfying.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Johnny Ace/Sunny Beach (AJPW Real World Tag League 12/6/1991) I'd never heard of Sunny Beach in my life until I saw the Dark Side of the Ring episode about Herb Abrams, and here he is carrying an honest-to-God beach ball to the ring with him. Putting him together with Ace is a lot like making Johnny Smith Dynamite's partner when you can't get Davey Boy. Shane Douglas had other things to do, so Sunny Beach is the third Dynamic Dude. But this is all about Dynamite Kid, who announced his retirement before the match. As you would expect, he gets streamers and lots of applause. They get this over with so we can start the festivities. It's not even six minutes in before DK headbutts Beach, and suddenly the ring is full of guys in All Japan Pro Wrestling tracksuits bearing gifts. Baba comes in with gold, Jumbo has a handshake and myrrh, and Misawa actually smiles when he hands over the frankincense. Everyone else mobs Dynamite while he fights back tears and says "domo" to everyone, and they throw him in the air three times. It was actually pretty touching. Dynamite did mostly retire. He came back for two matches alongside Johnny in 1993, both of which we reviewed earlier (he looked bad). He did some shows in England and one match in Michinoku Pro in 1996. He made a hell of a contribution to this little project and the Fujinami one, and I'm going to miss him.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/16/1991) I'm thrilled to get a Jumbo appearance. Early 90s Jumbo is one of my favorite wrestlers, and there's something about his entrance music's thumping disco bassline accompanied by the promise of imminent violence . . . It's night one of the tag league, and the crowd is mad at Taue. They boo him during the introductions and at several points in the match. I wasn't too fond of him by the time it was over - every single thing he does looks bad - but this seemed like something else. Anyone know anything about it? Dynamite once again doesn't care that he's a head shorter than everyone. Jumbo gets punched. Taue gets punched. Jumbo gets headbutted twenty times in a row (I thought Dynamite was about to get disqualified). Johnny, meanwhile, just isn't violent enough. Dynamite dropkicks Jumbo before the before the bell and chases him outside, while Smith just kind of strolls over and locks up with Taue. Later, DK stomps Taue into the mat to the delight of the audience. He tags in Johnny, who gently picks Taue up and tries to cradle him. Come on, man, do something violent! The paying customers want to see Taue hurt for whatever reason. Give them what they want! It's interesting to watch the evolution of Smith's signature sequence. Fully developed it goes: Top rope dropkick Kip-up Arm pump Clothesline It always gets a pop, and its predictability lets them play around with it - by the end, that clothesline gets countered more often than not. But back in '91, it wasn't fully developed, and we only get: Top rope dropkick Kip-up Anyway, after Dynamite's gotten his licks in, Jumbo puts Smith away with a big boot and a backdrop. It was rad. Jumbo was rad.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Dan Kroffat/Doug Furnas (AJPW 4/20/1991) Only four minutes of this. Kroffat gets his back worked over, but when it's time to get his shit in acts like it never happened. The Brits act like they're in Stampede, cheating and stomping, until Dynamite takes a silly bump on a kick from Kroffat – was he taking the piss? - and Furnas gets Smith with the Frankensteiner. The play-by-play guy was going nuts for the finish, which was pretty nice, but I was too annoyed at Kroffat to enjoy it.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 3/29/1991) Johnny actually keeps up with Dynamite in the viciousness department here. He steals Dynamite's body language on a nasty clothesline (and later steals his fake brother's running powerslam). He slams Kikuchi on the timekeeper's table, and then DK stands on the table next to it and headbutts him through it. There's just something about Kikuchi that brings the monster out of people who aren't even Dynamite Kid. As is customary, most of this match is people beating the hell out of Kikuchi while the crowd cheers for him. There's a huge pop when he finally backdrops out of a piledriver attempt and tags in Kawada, but things could have gone better from there. Dynamite and Kawada run into each other a couple times until Dynamite tags in Smith, which ruins the momentum of the hot tag. He should have let Kawada beat on him a bit. They never really get the momentum back. We have an 80s WWF tag match moment toward the end. Kawada comes into to try to save his partner, but the ref is so concerned with getting him back in his corner that he somehow misses Smith superplexing Kikuchi off the top to set up the diving headbutt. Not bad, but it seemed like it was going to better. Smith didn't look completely out of place as a heel for once.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Stan Hansen/Dan Spivey (AJPW 10/7/1990) We're going back in time for a bit. Johnny's back in the Union Jack and hanging out with Dynamite. I can't believe how hot this crowd is. Smith is introduced first, and the response had me thinking, "They love Johnny!" As we proceed through the introductions, I realized that they love everything. This looks like a mismatch. Hansen is a large man, and Spivey is really, really tall; if one British Bruiser sat on the other's shoulders, he could maybe look Spivey in the eyes. So it was surprising to see just how evenly they work. They don't even try to do any size mismatch spots - nothing where, like, Stan tries to grab Dynamite but he slips behind him. They just wrestle like they're all more or less the same size. Dynamite should look ridiculous trying to fight Spivey, but he makes it convincing through the force of his own malevolence. The one spot that does look silly is an attempted spike piledriver on Spivey. Smith gets him up, but Dynamite can't reach much above his waist on the spike. Spivey is very tall. These fans love everything, but they extra love Dynamite (they didn't know him personally). They're cheering hard for the upset and chanting "Kid-o! Kid-o!" When that quiets down, Johnny hops up on the ropes and yells "Kid-o!" to get it started again. He knows his audience. The finish comes when Hansen, sick of these Englishmen, tries to end Smith with a lariat despite not being the legal man. But Dynamite trips him up, and he falls outside. It looks like they're setting up the upset, but Spivey puts Smith away with a DDT. This was awesome. It was nice to see Hansen in his prime again, when he never stopped moving or kicking ass. The crowd was MVP this time out. I don't think that I've seen a Spivey match since Waylon Mercy; he did not look out of place if you ignore his attire (red boots and extremely long purple tights - goddamn is that guy tall).

Johnny Ace/Johnny Smith/Wolf Hawkfield vs. Giant Kimala/Headhunters (AJPW 7/24/1998) I really thought I'd get through this without seeing the Mushroom Boys, but here are Swedenhouse and Ponderosa in the flesh, making up two-thirds of the fattest tag team I've ever seen. We start with a heat segment on Johnny Ace that's . . . actually pretty good. Kimala's gimmick kinda works when the crowd is playing along. Tonight we have a big house in the Budokan, and they're having a good time with it. You wouldn't have expected it, but these two work well together. Another good thing about this match is that our boy gets to show off. Smith surprises everyone by suplexing Kimala, and then he really gets to flex by winning the match with a German suplex hold on a Headhunter. (Is it B? Or is it A? We'll never know.) Sure, he jumped into it a little bit - he may be a savage Arab wild man from Puerto Rico, but he's still a pro - but it's an impressive visual nonetheless. This isn't the kind of match you go into with large expectations, but hell - they kept it moving, Kimala worked his ass off, and we all had a good time. I agree with a Google-translated YouTube comment: "It was more interesting than I expected!"

Stan Hansen/Johnny Smith vs.Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue (AJPW 2/20/2000) For whatever reason, they had Hansen and Smith take on all the real tag teams during this tour. They also had a match against Omori and Takayama. They didn't win any of them. There's an odd thread to this match where Hansen likes Taue. They almost won the tag league together a couple months ago, and I guess Stan remembers it fondly. Before the match, he goes over and shakes Taue's hand (not Kawada's), and early on he's got Taue backwards in the corner with his arm around the top rope, but he pats him on the back and backs off. You don't often see Hansen's sentimental side. I don't know what Kawada's problem is, but he once again has no interest in wrestling with Johnny Smith. Smith and Taue do some respectable grappling to get us to twelve minutes. Kawada tags in, and Smith puts on a body scissors. Kawada gets out of it and . . . just kind of lays on him. All the other top guys work great with Smith, but Kawada can't be bothered. In spite of that, this is a solid piece of work. Hansen still looks like a mean bastard when he's whaling on these guys and in turn being whaled upon. Taue puts Smith away with a chokeslam - the very turn events that cost Smith and Vader their chance at the tag league last year - and we all go home happy. I like all four of these fellows enough that they'd have had to screw up catastrophically before I didn't enjoy this match. It's too bad that we got through this little run of Hansen matches without getting to see him lay anyone out with a lariat.

Stan Hansen/Johnny Smith vs. Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama (AJPW 2/12/2000) Hansen and Smith are back together! These guys had some good matches back in the day, with Stan as the Greatest Wrestler Who Ever Lived and Johnny as the Other Guy Who Doesn't Mess Anything Up and Usually Gets Pinned. One of those classic teams. But, look. Time marches on, and there's nothing you can do about it. This is Hansen's last year, and he's definitely looking kind of grandfatherly. His movements are short and strained, and when he and Kobashi have their big tough guy chop exchange, it looks uncomfortably like Kenta's bullying a helpless old man. Still, Stan is capable of doing some things; important things like punching guys in the face and yelling. This thread lately has been mostly about how broken-down giant Americans are still OK at wrestling. Don't ask me why, but first it was Steve Williams, then Vader, and now it's Hansen's turn. This match turned out to be a letdown. Smith usually works really well with these guys - Akiyama might be his best opponent - but he doesn't get to do much. Hansen tags him in, and Burning beats on him while we look at our watches and wait for Stan to come back in. It's like they teamed him back up with Hansen and he regressed to his 1995 self. We only get half of this match - maybe the good stuff didn't make the cut. Lame finish. Kobashi winds up for a lariat, but Stan catches him against the ropes from outside. The crowd reacts as though they're expecting something cool to happen, but all that happens is Kobashi lands a half-speed clothesline on Smith and pins him. Hansen tries to hit everyone with a chair afterwards, but there are just too many guys in AJPW tracksuits trying to stop him.

Vader/Johnny Smith/Maunakea Mossman vs. Kenta Kobashi/Jun Akiyama/Kentaro Shiga (AJPW 11/27/1999) This is the Vader show. He brutalizes Japanese guys to big reactions. He gets his comeuppance to huge reactions. He's so damn good in this environment, surrounded by rough dudes who expect to be brutalized because that's how you get people involved. He's in his mid-40s, and he's pretty fat, but it doesn't matter. Vader doesn't need to do a lot of moving around to make his stuff work. Johnny is overshadowed just like he used to be standing next to Stan Hansen in the middle of the decade, but it is interesting how his stock his risen. When he procures the cross-face chicken wing on Akiyama, his partners immediately rush into the ring as if it's a potential match-ender, and the announcer goes on and on about "Johnny Magic." He's clearly a bigger deal and a more serious threat than he was five years ago. Mossman, meanwhile, has frosted tips and red satin pants. Interesting finish. I thought they were telegraphing this as blatantly as they ever do: Mossman and Shiga are in there, and the other four guys chase one another around and pretend not to notice what's going on, so naturally I assumed that Mossman was about to put Shiga's skinny ass away. But when he hoists the little fella into a fireman's carry, Shiga gets out and rolls him up for the three count. Mossman can't believe it, and neither can I. This is the kind of thing that registers only because of All Japans' super tight-ass booking. Upsets are as rare as unicorns, which is an approach that has its problems and its benefits. This is one of the times it pays off.

Johnny Ace/Johnny Smith vs. Akira Taue/Jinsei Shinzaki (AJPW 3/28/1999) This is like a group project where two people are doing all the work. Smith and Shinzaki give us two fun stretches: They start the match with inconsequential but entertaining grappling, and there's a sequence later on with Smith trying to put Shinzaki away that's really good. Ace and Taue, meanwhile, are coasting and/or old. Taue in particular is really awkward. Yeah, I know "awkward" is practically Taue's epithet, but he truly looks as though he's not in full control of his body in this match. He also doesn't show any interest in match construction. The first thing he does when he gets in is try to powerbomb Ace outside the ring; he has to settle for a chokeslam out there, but either way, that's something you build to. They artlessly give away the result well before it happens. Once Smith is in there with Taue while Shinzaki and Ace chase each other around and pretend not to notice what's going on, there's no hiding what's going to happen. I do not know why they decided to put this match on TV.

Johnny Smith/Taiyo Kea vs. Steve Williams/Mike Rotunda (AJPW Real World Tag League 12/9/2000) All four semifinalist teams are in the ring to grab envelopes and determine seeding. Mike Barton really thinks about it. Kea just grabs one and then gets bumrushed by Williams! That leads to a hot start for the match, as Kea and Williams brawl and then botch a hurricanrana. That move may have been a little ambitious to attempt on year 2000 Dr. Death. This is only eight minutes since the 40-somethings have a wrestle the final after this, but that works in its favor, since the Versity Club is actually pretty good when they're not killing time. It lets them keep the heat up, too. Johnny actually looks mad when he comes into save Kea. He really puts some stank on a DDT, and he stomps Rotunda like he means it. But then the Versities take over, and Williams puts Smith away with a pretty cool backdrop. It's not the full on Kobashi-style where you land directly on the top of your head, but Doc whipped him back real fast and kind of spun around a bit. This marks the third time in this thread that Williams has pinned Smith with the backdrop driver. Johnny's Achilles heel is his neck. Williams and Rotunda go on to beat Kawada and Fuchi and win the whole thing, which I still find weird. They get to hold up a picture of Giant Baba in the middle of the ring and are front and center during the awards ceremony. Masahito Kakihara had Doc do the Triangle of Power thing with him. I wasn't expecting much, but all three of these 2000 RWTL matches were pretty good. Steve Williams clearly isn't the man he was, but it works. He still exudes menace and violence despite his pained movements, and even that gives him an aging gunslinger vibe. A few other notes on this tournament, which I skimmed through two hours of: I need to watch more Fujiwara. He does something cool every time I see him. Tricking Kakihara with the sneakiest submission ever, slapping Kawada straight in his face . . . he brings it every time. Dan Kroffat, on the other hand, looks extremely done. That guy fell off fast. Tenryu's teaming with Nobutaka Araya, and his fat boy moonsault looks just devastating. It probably is just devastating. I'm not sure about the wisdom of putting Kakihara and Mitsuya Nagai together. They do the same thing, but Kakihara is way, way better. It's a Vader/Bam Bam Bigelow situation. I didn't watch any Windhams.

Johnny Smith/Taiyo Kea vs. Steve Williams/Mike Rotunda (AJPW Real World Tag League 12/6/2000) We skip ahead to the penultimate night of the league and join this in progress. They must have had to fill some time because we get an endless heat segment on Kea - they could have cut this down a lot, and we wouldn't have missed it. Once they wrap that up, it turns into a pretty satisfying back and forth tag match. Kea and Smith show nice teamwork, and the “Versity Club 21” (per the prematch graphic) is a lot less boring when the other guys are on offense. Kea gets the pin on Rotunda, and this along with some other machinations sets up a four-way tie in the tag league. Stay tuned!

Johnny Smith/Taiyo Kea vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Masanobu Fuchi (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/19/2000) It's only a year later, but somehow the tag league feels . . . different. Off. Weird. I never get tired of the cobbled-together lineups of late 2000 All Japan, so this RWTL is like catnip to me. Barry and Kendall Windham are here. Broken-down old Steve Williams is paired up with Irwin R. Schyster. Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Dan Kroffat comprise the one real odd couple team. They put Mike Barton and Jim Steele together, which makes me wonder if they were trying to punish the fans by concentrating so much boredom in one place, or if they were doing us a favor by keeping it from infecting two teams rather than one. The tag league headlines its first night with our heroes and the current tag champs up against the men they defeated to win those belts in a match we only got to see a couple minutes of. All Japan has dumbed itself down. This is a reasonable and probably necessary response to the roster they're working with these days, but we see fewer big moves and clever reversals. These days it's more about beating up Fuchi until his exploded blood vessels are visible from orbit. This radical stylistic simplification manifests itself most prominently when Kea and Kawada are in together: They mostly do the thing where they stand still and take turns hitting each other and yelling. Daisuke Sekimoto is probably watching this and taking notes. Fuchi is just great in this. His backdrop suplexes look superb, and he's showing a lot of personality. I skimmed through a couple of digest videos of this tournament, and he's awesome all through it. All Japan should be ashamed of itself for letting him languish in the old man comedy matches for all those years. He should have been in there with Kenta Kobashi, not Rusher Kimura. Smith is clearly trying to show some fire, bless his heart. He and Fuchi work really well together (aside from one fumbling episode), and this is the first time we've seen Smith/Kawada interactions that didn't embarrass anyone. The finish comes as Kawada and Kea frantically exchange moves, and if I knew Japanese I would have known that we were heading for a time limit draw. Our competitors must console themselves with one point each and gentlemanly handshakes all around. Solid stuff. Fuchi was MVP.

Vader/Johnny Smith vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Yoshinari Ogawa (AJPW Real World Tag League 11/13/1999) Vader's in town! He fit so nicely into All Japan at this point, and I always liked watching Misawa wrestle him. Misawa had really good anti-Vader offense, if you will. When he tees off on the big man with elbows, you can just about feel them. He also throws in three German suplexes on Vader, which seems like a bit much. Ogawa, on the other hand, does not have a good anti-Vader offense. It doesn't matter, because Vader brought some amazing anti-Ogawa material. Ogawa flies like a bird as Vader casually suplexes him to the heavens. He chokeslams his victim like the Cyclops taking out a few of Odysseus' idiot henchmen. This is joined in progress and clipped, with the result that for the first half Johnny Smith is edited out of it like he's Chris Benoit. It's all Vader beating the hell out of Misawa's overmatched sidekick. I'm afraid that the clipping may also have taken us out of the match's narrative. Vader stops Ogawa from making a desperate tag, prompting Misawa to run in, knock him down, and drag his partner to the corner and tag himself in. This seems like the result of an escalating series of frustrations on Misawa's part, but we didn't see most of it so it doesn't register. The finish is a long and pretty fun sequence between Ogawa and Smith. Ogawa gets in his eye gouges and jackknives and jawbreakers, but eventually Smith hits him with the British Fall (not yet named) to pick up the two points. This was fun. Vader just great beating everyone up and yelling cusses. Smith and Misawa always work great together. There were a couple awkward moments with Ogawa, but it worked well enough.

Johnny Smith vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW Champion Carnival 4/8/2000) Johnny didn't get into a whole lot of Carnivals, so we're actually seeing every single time he wrestled Kobashi in the CC. What has happened in the six years since the last time? Johnny got better! You wouldn't expect Smith's mat wrestling ability to improve the farther he gets from his World of Sport John Savage the Manx Man roots, but watching these two grapple was kind of a chore in '94, whereas now it's downright charming. Johnny does all kinds of crafty limey stuff, and Kobashi is right with him. It's a nice change of pace, and while they do eventually get to the bombs, it does play into the finish. Speaking of bombs: I really want to like Kenta Kobashi. Everyone else does. Nobody works harder, he seems like a total bro, and he goes out of his way to make Johnny Smith look good (this match and that 1998 tag with him and Ace versus Smith and Hawkfield - they treated Wolf like a chump but put Smith over big). But I can't past his Elginisms. This match did not need two half-nelson suplexes that had nothing to do with the finish. Every time I see AJPW Kobashi after, say, 1996, he's throwing out the head drops like they're chinlocks. But this is really good anyway. The finish comes when Smith German suplexes Kobashi, who grabs Smith's arm while in the bridge and puts on a hammerlock for an immediate tapout. The finish really was nifty, but I have some issues with it. During the body of the match, Smith did more to Kobashi's arm than vice versa, so it should have been Smith pouncing on the weakness. And Kobashi has countless ways to beat Smith - why have him beat Smith at the one thing Smith is supposed to be good at? It would have been a perfect finish if only it had gone the other way. That kind of upset is the kind of thing you can do in a tournament setting like the Carnival, and the crowd was certainly ready for it. But this year they ran the Carnival with a single elimination format rather than round robin, so they couldn't do it. I like to think they wanted to. Is this Johnny Smith's best singles match? It's the only one that occasioned any discussion on this here website. There really isn't much competition. The Stampede stuff is garbage. My favorite is the post-exodus match with Fujiwara, but we only saw a couple minutes of that. It's better than the Mossman match from the Gary Albright memorial show or any of his ECW work. Smith figured it out at some point in 1997, I'm thinking, and from there until the split he was a really good All Japan-style wrestler.

Johnny Smith vs. Kenta Kobashi (AJPW Champion Carnival 3/29/1994) I kept this thing in chronological order for a long time, but that's out the window, so I need to remind myself where we are. This is actually our third Johnny Smith match from the 1994 Carnival. He took on Taue in a fun sprint on the last day of the tour (technically not a Carnival match), and on the first day he participated in the worst Toshiaki Kawada match I've ever seen. Johnny Smith in 1994: He's fine! This is the period where he's functional but overshadowed in 4- and 6-man tag matches a lot. He still has his Union Jack trunks, and man those are so much cooler than anything he wore afterwards. I wonder if something happened. Like, he got a call from the Queen telling him to stop wearing those because he was pretty much a Canadian. Anyway, we get the whole match, so we get to see how these guys fill time. It's very on-brand for Johnny Smith: Fine but colorless. He does a little bit of everything. Some matwork, some outside-the-ring brawling, power stuff, a little flying, some headbutts. He did some heelish things - Kobashi's the most likeable wrestler in history, so noisily shoving him against barricades doesn't make you look like the good guy - but it would have worked better if he'd gone all the way with it. This is friendly ol' Johnny Smith, though, so despite a bit of outré stuff during the match, he's a perfect hand-raising gentleman afterwards. We do not get the full AJPW parade of reversals and kickouts, but I can't say if this is owing to Smith's status or if the style hadn't gotten there yet. Kobashi wins with a moonsault, and we go to our post-game hosts, who show us these adorable hand-drawn Champion Carnival standings. I think Johnny's fourth from the bottom.

Johnny Smith vs. Satoshi Kojima (AJPW/MLW 1/3/2003) MLW is the John the Baptist of U.S. indies catering to puroresu fans. Satoshi Kojima holds their world title, and Johnny Smith gets a shot at it on this All Japan show. Kojima's entrance really makes you think. He's using the same music he uses today, which is reassuring. However, he's accompanied by a young Taichi Ishikari, whose wholesome appearance shows you that the future is unpredictable and you can never step in the same river twice. Joey Styles is calling this match, and that also makes you think. When Smith hits a sit-out powerbomb, Styles does not yell "TIGERBOMB," which shows us that it's never too late to improve ourselves. Sadly, though, when Kojima clotheslines Smith for the win, he screams "LARIATO" like some kind of moron, reminding us that perfection is unachievable. The match was kind of OK. Styles did make it feel like a bigger deal than the setting and the work would make you think, so kudos to him. They did stuff for a while, and then there was a finishing sequence where they went move/reversal/move for far too long; it felt like they were just going through the motions. And, it must be said, Johnny looks like he's done. He's sluggish and seems tired. And sure enough, a few months after this match he collapsed, went to the hospital, and then went home for good. It was clearly the correct move. I often think about the fact that in his last match, he teamed with Jerry Tuite/Malice/The Wall/Gigantes, who died a wrestler's death at the end of that year. Johnny avoided that fate and disappeared more or less completely. He may have become a cop in Calgary. He taught DBS Jr. some holds. He's kept his head down, and there's nothing wrong with that. I'd like to know how he's doing these days, but it's none of my business. Like Agamemnon talking about Odysseus, I praise him without knowing if he's alive or dead. So that's 61 Johnny Smith matches, and I thought I was done (which accounts for how morbid I got - endings always bring me down). But the internet is like Heraclitus' river or TJ Maxx: It's never, ever the same place twice. Many of the classics I enjoyed back in the middle of the year have disappeared, but new content has come to light. This is the risk you take when you wait five months to write up a damn MLW title match. So we'll watch a couple of Kobashi matches and see what we see before I come to any conclusions.

It's all in the lawsuit.

Jay White made an interesting observation about accents: He pointed out that Americans talk with really open mouths. And sure enough, if I try to talk while opening my mouth as little as possible, it sounds kind of like a New Zealand accent. This also explains why, as an American, singers tend not to sound foreign when they're singing. When I was a kid, it blew my mind when I found out the Beatles were English.

I don't have that match - it's not on the Network or anything. I could see Smith being a good foil for RVD. I knew what I was in for when I picked the world's most obscure wrestler, but the record is so spotty. I can't even find that 2000 Carnival match against Kobashi anymore.

Genichiro Tenryu/Yoji Anjo/Koki Kitahara/Arashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Johnny Smith/Nobutaka Araya/George Hines (AJPW 10/18/2001) Weird gimmick in this match. Kitahara and Arashi are the All Asia champs; Tenryu and Anjo awkwardly won the World titles last time. Both sets of championships are on the line, but don't ask me how it works beyond that. There's a lot of intensity in Korakuen tonight. There's a dude reading the official title match proclamation at the beginning, and he reads the hell out of it. I didn't understand a word, but I was already all revved up. Then Kodo Fuyuki shows up, grabs the mic, and yells something until Kawada kicks him off the apron. Fuyuki's dragged away while Kawada and Tenryu start clubbering and the fans throw streamers. We're off! Tenryu acts like a total dick throughout this. He whips Araya into the barricade, then drops a chair on him and boots him in the face. This sets the tone for poor Araya, who winds up being the main punching bag. It's nice to see Kawada energized. He's been pretty checked out in every appearance he's made throughout this thing, but there's something about Fuyuki that just sets him off. Fuyuki makes another appearance during the match, and Kawada can't stop himself from running after him and beating him up on the floor surrounded by cameramen and Fuchi. The champs take turns beating up on Araya and then Anjo pins him after a knee, so we don't need to worry about the stipulation. This was clipped - we never saw Johnny Smith in the ring - but what we got was a lot of fun. Tenryu was great, Kawada was vicious, and Fuyuki may have been the MVP despite not being in the match. Even Arashi, in his XXXL-sized husky boy's Rikidozan pants, did a top rope dive that was really something to see. The word that most often comes to mind for post-split All Japan is dispirited. Everything's dim and bored and boring. This was a thrilling exception.

Johnny Smith/Taiyo Kea vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Yoji Anjo (AJPW 7/14/2001) Tenryu has brought in notorious shoot-style dickhead Yoji Anjo to be his partner as he mounts a quest for the tag titles. They're a fun team, in that they're both dickheads who hit guys really hard. If you have some kind of beef with Taiyo Kea or especially with Johnny Smith, this is the match for you. Our boys really get put through it this time out. The psychology revolves around the punch. It's against the rules, but not so against the rules that you're going to get disqualified for it. Tenryu and Anjo exploit this gray area to, well, punch Johnny Smith a lot. They do get something of a comeuppance, as we wind up with both of the champions punching the downed challengers for a while, but it's not enough to stop a title change. This had its moments, but it wasn't actually good. I think some wires got crossed while they built to the finish, and everything seems off. Maybe Smith got a concussion or something. The finish, Anjo defeating Smith with a spinebuster, looked improvised. Something went wrong.