ohtani's jacket

I can go months without watching any wrestling. When I do watch it, it's either early in the morning before everyone's gotten up or late at night after they've gone to bed. The thing is that it's always there when I get the itch. If this place disappeared I'm not sure whether I would have somewhere to touch base with wrestling so I'm fortunate that Loss and Will are committed to the site. Thanks, guys.

This won't go down as one of the legendary ciberneticos thanks to the clipping but it was chockful of big names and talented workers and capped off a great month for CMLL. The match was pretty much designed to cement the newly turned Panther as a certified tecnico star by giving him a bit of a rub from one legendary "blue" to another. Panther was wonderful from the outset even during the Battle Royale phase. In fact, this is a match I would point to that shows the full range of his talent -- not just the mat stuff but his flying and excellent selling. There were also strong showings from Satanico and Shocker, and Niebla who had one of those "on nights" where he looks like one of the best and most unique workers in Mexico almost like a modern-day version of Dos Caras. But it was Panther who took the honours with a hard-fought victory over Niebla that had tremendous crowd heat. Great match to watch if you're a Panther fan and neat seeing the two legends in the ring together at the end. Blue Demon looked frail and would die a few weeks later so this was his last appearance in front of the fans. Great month for CMLL. The booking was firing on all cylinders and every match was entertaining.

This was a decent mano a mano bout. Mano a mano bouts are meant to build heat and tease a future apuesta match and that's exactly what they accomplished. Atlantis showed his range as a performer with a fine performance as the spurned partner seeking vengeance and Tarzan Boy did well in the unfamiliar role of rudo. There are question marks over whether he's talented enough to play the rudo role but the beef here was enough to carry the action and Atlantis was excellent in his role. The finish was crap but the outcome wasn't meant to be definitive. Lucha history is littered with mano a manos that had no blowoff and I feel we're headed that way here but it was promising while it lasted especially during Atlantis' comeback.

This match oozed talent. It also oozed storyline. But that's okay. Better to have great TV than matches that lead nowhere. JR would have lost his shit commentating the ending with Panther turning tecnico, Santo and Casas officially forming a team again, and Stone Cold Perro Aguayo doing a "run" in. Shocker trying to escape from the tecnicos at the end was gold. CMLL is WAR.

This was the Relevos Increíbles that stemmed from all the hijinks in the Leyenda de Plata final. It was awesome for a number of reasons. First, you got to see Santo and Panther team up together like some modern-day version of Santo and Blue Demon. Then you got some absolutely amazing exchanges between Blue Panther and Negro Casas that were some of the best tag or trios exchanges of the year and totally worthy of two workers of their calibre and the expectations that come along with seeing them square off. Casas was somewhere close to his best after a fairly indifferent year. Some may say that he was never that bad just featured less than in previous years but the Wagner feud in September seems to have lit a fire under him. I particularly loved his selling of the La Tapatia (Romero Special.) And lastly, you had some awesome brawling between Santo and Scorpio as well as some of Santo's exquisite dives. Watching Santo and Scorpio beat the crap out of each other was fun. Scorpio is a made guy as far as I'm concerned. I now expect that he's going to be good in every match I see. There's been a lot of surprises in 2000 but Bestia and Scorpio being consistently great is up there. The only thing I didn't like about this was the finish which didn't seem like a particularly honorable move for a tecnico least of all one of Santo's stature. It wasn't as though Scorpio had been using dirty tactics. It was a pretty clean fight as far as brawling on the outside goes. Usually, tecnicos pull those kinds of moves to give rudos their comeuppance after a foul or some other dirty tactic. It seemed out of place here. And a wrestler like Santo should never voluntarily take his mask off. Never. On the whole it was another great bit of TV, though.

Firstly, it's always great to see rudos taking delight in dissension in the tecnico ranks. Secondly, I love how Satanico doesn't give a shit about Tarzan Boy being on the fence about turning rudo and attacks him for taking his hair two times. Thirdly, I love how fired up Atlantis is about Tarzan Boy's behaviour. I often hear about how weak Atlantis is on the mic but he seemed fine here. And he was ropeable anytime he was near Tarzan Boy. I don't think their match can possibly live up to my expectations but the build-up has been good.

So we didn't get Casas vs. Wagner, which could've potentially been some of the best stuff of the year, but we do get Casas vs. Santo, which even when it isn't special is still kind of special since it's Casas vs. Santo. The work here is excellent. If this had been a three fall match with the focus on Casas and Santo instead of the angles that dominated the bout I have no doubt that it would have been a classic and one of the best matches of the year. As it was, you won't see too many lucha tournament finals that are better than this. From a booking standpoint, they actually got a lot done with this segment. They began sewing the seeds for the Santo and Casas tag team and the feud with Los Infernales and they continued to lay the groundwork for Tarzan Boy's heel turn. The only problem was that they did it in the middle of a fucking Santo vs. Casas match. In real time, Santo absolutely nailed Scorpio Jr with his tope. And the post-match saw everyone fighting with each other as no-one could seem to make heads or tails of who was a rudo and who was a tecnico. This was pretty much the CMLL equivalent of a RAW main event. Disappointing if you seek this match out on paper but fun to watch in the context of the year's television.

The reason people compare performers is that it's fun. Even people who take it seriously get some form of fulfillment out of it. Does it really matter if people don't have a clue what they're talking about? At the end of the day, it tells you more about the poster and their preferences than it does about the worker. You can argue or disagree but you get to know the people who post a bit better and have a bit of fun debating age-old topics. If we just stopped and didn't compare anyone anymore it would be pretty boring.

So Tarzan Boy is turning rudo, huh? I'm sure if that is such a good idea. He was starting to improve after working in Monterrey and it's not as though there's a ton of good tecnicos running around. A decent tecnico is worth their weight in gold. But he was never fully embraced by the Arena Mexico crowd so perhaps this move makes sense. In any event, he seems fit for the role. I couldn't believe him stripping off his jorts. The match was really just an angle but it was pretty good storyline progression. I never tire of watching Bestia slap the shit out of people. It's one of those little things that remind me I'm watching lucha. I also liked the tecnicos' work in the second caida. In fact, I thought it was one of Atlantis' better performances in a while. The second half of his year has really suffered from the typical CMLL booking practice of pushing a worker back down the card after a big program. They didn't do it with Villano III but there was definitely a cooling off period for Atlantis. Perhaps this feud with Tarzan Boy will give him some fresh material. It's too bad that spot where he fell through the ropes looked like a blatant dive but I guess it was a hard spot to execute, And CMLL camerawork is never the best. Perhaps the highlight of the match was the crowd reaction when it seemed like Tarzan Boy would turn. The bemusement and puzzled looks were fun to watch. Shocker taunting the fans on the ramp was beyond awesome. What a stud he's been all year long. His in-ring work with Tarzan Boy was awesome as well. Those two have great chemistry. It's a shame that they didn't milk more from it prior to the turn. It seems like Monterrey got more out of the pairing than CMLL did. Anyway, time to sit back and see where it's al heading.

Hey, Sasuke still exists. This was a decent match held together by some solid grappling from Sasuke and steady transition work. It was a bit soft for my tastes but neither guy fits the mold of the type of wrestler I like. Marufuji never felt like a threat, which put a cap on how exciting the match was. But it was a well-worked bout from a technical standpoint and had a nice flow to it. I was kind of looking for a blow away veteran performance from Sasuke but I think I was expecting a bit too much from what was really a guest spot from Marufuji.

Pretty standard match. Liger and Samurai tried to build some heat for Tanaka but it wasn't very interesting. Easily skippable.

This sounds like Great Match Theory. I can't remember if I was for or against Great Match Theory. People can appreciate different aspects of the finished product but if I'm enjoying a match because of a wrestler's technique, for example, I never think about how it felt to be the guy he was wrestling. Just like I never think about how many takes it took to shoot a scene or whose idea it was to shoot something a certain way. Those things would be interesting to know but I don't think the people involved want you to know them. I think you can judge a wrestler by how consistently good they are. Whose stuff always looks good? Who always gives a solid performance? That sort of thing. Personally. I just like whoever I like at the moment but just like there are actors who can give good performances in bad films or with lousy scripts there are ways to judge wrestlers regardless of pre-production. I get the point about the modern worker and the new requirements they're faced with but even in that context surely it's possible to gauge who does a better job of working the agent style than others. The original point about Kim may have had as much to do with her not adjusting to the WWE house style as it did any failing on the production side. How many times did we see someone jump ship to the WWE and struggle to adjust to the wrestling style? In some cases it took them years to learn how to wrestle the "WWF way." Anyway, this is all very complicated. I like the guys who wrestle well and make interesting faces.

The juniors continue to bring the ruckus. This was a fun house show level match. The three Wagner fans in their masks made for a lively atmosphere early on and the bout kept ticking along with plenty of good action. The selling wasn't the greatest and guys accumulated a bit too much damage to keep realistically kicking out but if you just want to watch some fun juniors action then this was a breeze. Tanaka was always a junior at heart so has fit seamlessly into the division and Wagner in New Japan is always fun. I think he broke his own record for how many times you can audibly say the word 'motherfucker' on a live TV taping. Liger continued his run of indifferent performances in 2000 but he didn't need to be outstanding for this to be a decent hitout for the juniors division.

We dont really know the inner workings of any creative endeavour. All we can do is judge the final product. If certain folks get a disproportional amount of credit for the final result then thats the way it goes. Its not like the booker or road agent are looking to take credit for authoring the match. What they do is behind the scenes and meant to make the wrestlers look good. The same thing happens all the time in music, movies and television so while it would be great to praise matches as a collective effort I dont think its something we can achieve without production credits.

Grunge was still popular when Raven debuted.

Even when the Dump vs. Crush Girls feud was at its height, Chigusa and Lioness were already trying to break the mold of what an idol should be and were beginning to incorporate a UWF influence into their work. Its kind of surreal watching the schoolgirls lose their shit over the Crush Girls while the Crush Girls are working a hybrid style. But if youre talking sporty then the ultimate test of how much you can enjoy or tolerate Joshi has to be the 87 Lioness vs. Asuka match. I wouldnt want people thinking that 80s Joshi was somehow different from the 90s stuff. There is a natural evolution and you can see the roots of the 90s stuff throughout the 70s and 80s footage.

Now that Ive settled on Hamada as one of the bright young stars of Josh, Im inclined to watch more of her stuff. I think she may have been better than Satomura at this point which is something I wouldnt have dreamed of saying a few weeks ago. I liked the way she wouldnt take any shit from Shimoda and beat the crap out of her, since frankly she was a much tougher specimen than Mima. The match was a bit disjointed since Im not sure that Ayakos sister fully understood the ebb and flow of Joshi pro-wrestling but it wasnt too bad. Omukai is a really awkward worker. She reminds me of KAORU in that respect. I know she has her fans but I find her work jarring. She paired up well with Shimoda though. This was pretty much only worth watching to track Hamadas progress but I did enjoy her performance.

This was a good match. The Samurai TV commentary was inane but all four girls were out there doing their thing. Sakai and Yabushita were good workers who came along at the wrong time and could have gotten a better run if they'd entered the business a bit earlier. I don't think that their idol combination worked that well but you could tell that they were Jaguar trainees. I thought Haruyama worked really hard in this and to be fair she was the glue that kept it together. Kuragaki was decent but the least impressive of the four. The match petered out toward the end and they probably kept it going for longer than necessary but they weren't that experienced so I thought this was fairly good for young talent.

I always liked the team of Nagashima, and Sato and Ozaki vs. Nagashima is almost always worth watching, so I was looking forward to this. The match was worked at a cracking pace and there was a lot of great teamwork from both combinations. Ozaki and Nagashima were every bit as good as I expected. They fought tooth and nail the entire way. They match up well in terms of size and both women are relentless in attack. Nagashima was the Queen of Reversals and here they had an extra edge to them. They seemed nasty and uncooperative and even the sloppy ones seemed gritty. Sato's role was to neutralise Masami, which is no task, but they played up her power and size a lot and she got two big moves on Devil. The young girls' strategy paid off in the end and it was great to see them get the win. A few more nearfalls would have made for an even better match but there was a long mic performance at the end. I quite like the faction of bitchy veterans in GAEA even if they're all well past their prime. This had much better booking than that Maekawa/Watanabe nonsense.

Remember that time that Maekawa turned on Watanabe and nobody gave a shit? This was a horribly executed turn. The commentators were far too "on the nose" about it and it wasn't built to in a meaningful way whatsoever. LCO may be the most tired act of 2000 which doesn't really help matters but Maekawa and Watanabe couldn't sell their way out of a paper bag when it comes to executing a dramatic angle. Watanabe did her usual bladejob and was whimpering on the way to the back and that was about as much emotion as we got. Pretty lame.

Growing up it was the WWF but I don't have any sentimental feelings towards it. My mate who I grew up watching wrestling with likes to listen to podcasts about old WWF shows (what's that popular one by the Irish guys?) He's forever encouraging me to listen to them but I have zero interest.

I've been watching some footage of Dick Shikat. What a wrestling specimen he was. I've said it before but he really was like a 1920s Horst Hoffman. There are outtakes of a grappling exhibition he did for some newsreel that showcase his beautiful technique. His matches seemed heated as well so it appears that he had a good sense of how to work the crowd. A fine wrestler if ever I saw one.

This was the opening night of the Tag League the Best tournament. Pretty standard round robin stuff. The Toyota vs. Ito rivalry has been one of my favourite things in Joshi but aside from one hellacious hiptoss from Ito they didn't do anything special. Toyota and Wakizawa had been the TLTB winners the year prior and watching them troll each other here was pretty cringeworthy. Wakizawa is kind of annoying in general. I like her Gap Band outfits even if they're twenty years out of date but she doesn't have enough charisma to oull off her jokey persona. At least not for me. I do like her headscissors spot, though. Noumi, on the other hand, is a bit bland. Neither of them look like the future and both of them dragged this down, but it was the round robin. I was looking forward to a bit more with Toyota and Ito on opposite sides, but a match with a couple of dives at the end was about as good as you could expect.

God, this was weak. New trunks don't disguise the fact that Kobashi is practically immobile. Watching him shuffle instead of walk is one of the more uncomfortable sights of the year. I suppose NOAH deserves some credit for changing their booking so that they weren't simply AJPW Redux but this was super weak compared to that AJPW vs. NJPW tag which also featured a broken down performer in the form of Masahiro Chono. You've got work to do NOAH if you're going to change my opinion by December.