ohtani's jacket

Time to check in on the two poster boys of Japanese wrestling. This was worked in a minimalistic way and was closer to a Champion Carnival bout than a Budokan main event. That was okay but I think Strong Style has these guys beat when it comes to that type of wrestling. And to be honest, it wasn't a particularly memorable way to launch the voyage. You'd think they'd want to kick off with a bang but they seemed to be warming the table for matches yet to come. Lots of big shows happening in August so far but no big matches.

This was exactly what you'd expect from a Sasaki vs. Nakanishi G-1 Final. It was big, it was dumb, and it was goofy. But it was also oddly compelling and well on its way to being another surprising Sasaki performance when it suddenly ended. I was just getting into it and "snap" the bout was finished. At least they hooked me, though. Credit to Nakanishi. He may wrestle like a bit of a neanderthal but he was the best version of himself that he could be here. And he did a fantastic job of selling his disappointment afterward. As far as matches go, this was a near hit.

This was weak sauce. It reminded me of what a turn off this feud was at the time. it was clear that they were trying but after feuding with Triple H and The Rock, respectively, it would have taken the match of their lives to conceal the disappointment of being shuffled sideways. This feud along with Benoit vs. Angle were the nails in the coffin of my WWF fandom. I quit too soon in retrospect because the Smackdown Six era was closer to what I wanted to see from Benoit and Co. in the WWF but this was a reminder of why I was so frustrated with their early work.

I liked the pay-per-view match these two had to a large degree so when I saw Chad write that they had a strong match I had to give it a whirl. These two match up about a thousand times better than I would expect. Maybe Rock was a better worker than I give him credit for. I liked the match they had even with the screwy no-DQ stuff. It's a shame they transitioned back to Benoit vs. Jericho instead of a PPV rematch but I guess they figured Rock/Benoit II wouldn't generate buys.

This was cool it felt like the first important match between these teams and the first great Toryumon trios match. The intensity was high throughout but I really liked the finish with Crazy Max desperate to get the win, protecting the pinfall from interference but forgetting about the ref. The "ring out," as it's so colloquially called in Japan, was teased a couple of times and when it finally happened it seemed like a great way of signaling that the war was far from over. I liked the mad scramble that CIMA made to beat the count and the way Mochizuki celebrated when he dragged him from the apron kicking and screaming. Kudos to Fuji as well for adding another feather to his cap as an effective FIP and Taru for being the big time power offense.

This was really nice. Togo is a bad ass motherfucker and one of the best workers in Japan and Delfin is by far the best lightweight face in Japan in 2000. You put them together and you have great chemistry. But it was also a really well laid out juniors match with strong contributions from the other workers, particularly Black Buffalo who I think is an underrated talent. In this match alone he showed he could hit the mat, work power spots, work double teams, lucha exchanges, counters, reversals, you name it. The commentators referred to his all-round game which made me focus a bit more on him than usual. He really is quite a talented worker. I love his buffalo poses as well. If you're going to call yourself Black Buffalo why not do buffalo poses? Osaka Pro is in such a sweet little groove and this was another smoothly executed juniors bout. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected Osaka Pro to be the leading juniors company in 2000 though I'm sure many would argue that Toryumon holds that distinction. Personally, I have enjoyed the Osaka Pro matches work more but we'll see if Toryumon can do anything to change that. .

I wasn't expecting much from this but it turned out to be a decent display. Never underestimate Masato Yakushuiji. He may not look the way you imagine a pro-wrestler should but he was blessed with amazing speed and quickness. The match didn't play to Murahama's strengths so it was less interesting than some of the work he's done with other Osaka Pro talent but it was reasonably fluid nonetheless.

This was great while it lasted and for my money didn't need to be longer to make an impact. Even though this was part of Murahama's trial series it felt like it was less about him and more about Togo. And what a badass Dick was throughout. He bullied his way to victory here and the part where he walked through the chair shot and delivered a powerbomb was a cool moment as was the flex afterward.

Murahama has been the biggest discovery of 2000 for me and I agree with the WOTY talk. This was a great match. It continues to surprise me that the best shoot-style matches, or hybrid shoot-style matches, in 2000 are in Osaka Pro-Wrestling. This got a bit silly toward the end but for the most part was an absolute treat.

This was another Joshi match where the girls went at each other with brute force. Ito was a mess after taking a few chair shots and a DVDVR on the outside and bled profusely. The crowd got right behind her when she started fighting back and willed her toward the yusho. I will never get tired of Ito's diving foot stomp. She nailed Mita with it over and over again until no rib was left unbroken. The dive from the balcony was particularly nasty. Ito kicks out of a couple of DVDVRs and stomps her way to bloodshed glory. Hell of a way to win the tourney.

This was an interesting match. Instead of drawing things out and trying to create an epic they went hard and fast. I was impressed with Aja's early matwork, which traditionally isn't a strength of hers. From there it was punch-counter punch with Ayako not letting up. The transitions could have been better but Ayako rolled the dice here and went all-in. She almost pulled it off and you could feel her frustration at the end. She definitely made a statement here which was positive but Aja remained insurmountable.

This was the fun match you'd expect from these two workers. Lots of creative submission work. Nothing surprising if you're familiar with these workers but there was still a lot to appreciate especially the tug of war submission finish.

This was a brutal, hard-hitting 10-minute match with a nasty head drop thrown into the mix. These two were being positioned to have a Lioness Asuka vs.Chigusa style feud for the 00s but Kato's injuries laid waste to that. This was a taste of how hard fought it would have been.

This was a nice little match. Yone is a guy I've never cared for but he was able to kick and stomp away to his heart's delight while Ishikawa did some nice stuff with Hijikata. Hijikata impressed me with his all-round game. This may have been an outlier but he was busy here. Some nice flurries toward the end capped off a strong tag that was short and sweet and kept a steady beat.

This was a solid match. I didn't mind the comedy too much as this was a house show for these guys and they were taking it easy. Dandy vs. Antifaz provided some decent narrative thrust although Dandy somehow managed to be the least charismatic of the rudos. It was obvious during the comedy spots that he wasn't as flamboyant or outgoing as the other rudos. What helped this bout was having a stronger tecnico unit than usual, I also loved that spot where the ref did a tope and the old guy with the potbelly and the cowboy hat who had to get out of the way of the dive train. This is the type of match that would disappoint if you were scrolling through match lists and found all these names together in the same match but from a house show point of view it was reasonably entertaining.

Pimpi has been awesome in Monterrey. She's probably been my favourite all-round performer for the month of July. This was scrappy but I liked how all the different parts worked in tandem. There's something appealing about seeing a group of misfits work a regular trios match on a card like this. I liked that song at the beginning as well.

Awesome rudo team. I liked this even if it did veer toward comedy and the usual BS. Anytime you have Emilio Charles Jr exchanging strikes with Fuerza Guerrera and Wagner, and Pierroth and Parka trading chops, you're bound to have something worth watching.

This was a fun house show style match. Nothing that anybody should take too seriously. Pimpi looked sensational. If she had a regular spot somewhere she would be knocking on the door of the ten best workers in Mexico she was that good. It was fun watching Damian 666 work with what was in front of him and Arandu still had great hair in 2000. Everyone worked at a decent clip and even Gran Markus added to the melting pot of available talent.

This was a pretty good trios match all things considered. Dandy vs. Shu was fun and Silver King was busy working a lot of neat lucha exchanges. Black Dragon added an impressive dive and I liked the light-hearted beef that Dandy started with Hijo del Diablo. Nothing spectacular happened but it was still an example of guys working their craft.

I often criticise Blue Panther for his rudo performances but I thought he singlehandedly raised the level of this bout compared to the past few IWRG matches. He's clearly having a great year and looks to me to be one of the top 10 workers in Mexico at this point. I'm not a fan of mask ripping in lucha but I have to admit it was pretty cool how Panther had Parka in a hold while he did it. We got glimpses of Dandy vs. Panther, which isn't a matchup you see a lot of, but the real triumph here was that Panther got me interested in seeing a match with Parka. The last time I remember that happening was when he Volador and feuding with Fuerza. If you(re a Panther fan check this out.

This wasn't super-heated but it did give me more of what I wanted which was Super Crazy vs. El Dandy. Plus it had ageless maestro Shu el Guerrero and longtime Dandy partner, Silver King, so it wasn't too bad. They just failed to really ignite anything but you get that sometimes with trios matches.

IWRG continue to tease me with a blowoff to the Cerebro vs. Ciclon feud that I don't think we're going to get. At least we get to see them go at it again here. Cerebro is having a stellar year. I don't think he's as good a worker as Wagner but he sure is doing more relevant things in Mexico if you compare the two doctors. The great thing about this trios (aside from the fact that it was unedited) was that he also had a thing going with Mike Segura. You know you're good when you have two rifts going at the same time. The other workers were good and had fun indy gimmicks but this Cerebro's party and he'll beat the shot out of a tecnico if he wants to. I kind of wish he had hung onto his mask for longer.

Long atomicos match that featured a few match-ups I'd pay to see more of. Namely, Dandy vs. Super Crazy, Dandy vs. Dr. Cerebro and Cerebro vs. Ciclon Ramirez. Dandy may be a bit portly here but I thought he looked more like himself than in previous matches. It's clear to me now how he worked his way back into form for the Navarro feud in 2001. This is the sort of match where the workers improvise like free-form jazz. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't but it was entertaining as a whole. The pay off of fouls and mic work was predictable but at least IWRG appears to do some booking instead of throwing random matches out there. Worth watching to see Super Crazy in Mexico as well.

This was a solid title match. The surprising thing about it continues to be that Scorpio is capable of such performances although I think it's time to acknowledge that Scorpio has been pretty much excellent the entire year and is not, in fact, a Mexican version of Billy Gunn. It's hard to produce a big title match feel in Arena Naucalpan but it's nice to see some long-form lucha libre as an alternative to CMLL.

A quiet month for CMLL ends with a snappy trios match between these teams. Shocker looked fantastic in this. He really has blossomed into a world-class talent. There seems to be a lot of parallels between Shocker and CIMA as far as the year 2000 is concerned. Just like his Monterrey work with Tarzan Boy, he manages to make Niebla look ten times better than usual. The other exciting thing about this was the fire it lit under Casas. You'd think after all those years of Casas feuding with Bestia and Scorpio that the last thing you'd want is more of the same but their ugly mugs bring out a passion and intensity that's been missing from most of Casas' performances to date. There's nothing quite like pissed off Casas and to top it all off we get a fired up Emilio as well. That's hard to beat.