ohtani's jacket

The violence continues. Villano and Perro got stuck into Pierroth who took another hellacious beating. This feud has not been good for Pierroth's health. Pierroth ends up crashing through the CMLL sign on the stage and Villano and Perro use the broken pieces to inflict some further punishment. I'm looking forward to seeing Stone Cold Arturo Mendoza open a can of whoopass on Pierroth in their apuesta match.

This served its purpose in showcasing the trio of Felino, Antifaz, and Safari as well as the camera man's infatuation with that woman. CMLL needs some strong tecnico teams so I think this is a step in the right direction. There were some nice dives in the third caida and it was cool seeing Felino back in his classic costume and seeming relevant again. It's a shame we don't get to see more of Fuerza in Monterrey where he'd get to do more. He seems to be on the periphery a lot but then I suppose Blue Panther and Emilio Charles are as well to name two of his great contemporaries.

Man, the Villanos brutalized Pierroth here. They were just savage. It's nice to see some continuity in CMLL with the Villanos out for revenge after the electrocution. V3 vs. Pierroth is the best thing going in CMLL right now and this was a hell of a set-up for a potential hair match. And after all that violence the director cuts to a baby sleeping in its mother's arms.

CMLL matches continue to be butchered in the edit. This was another Infernales showcase with a heavy focus on the younger pair's bumping. My favorite part was the vaudeville-style bumping for the tecnico comeback. Some nice dives in the third fall but the edits make it hard to get a feel for the rhythm. Satanico vs. Felino seemed like it would be a fun showdown at the end but the double pin didn't serve any purpose. CMLL is lacking a hot summer feud, which isn't that surprising if you've been acquainted with CMLL for a while but frustrating nonetheless.

Fairly standard action between these two teams with the rudos working holds, to begin with before showing their true colours. As usual, there are some awkward jump cuts with the editing but nothing much happens anyway as the match stalls after Lizmark's injury.

This was a fun undercard match. In a sense, it was lucha in its purest sense. Six misfits doing a bit of everything to entertain the crowd -- comedy, brawling, high flying, double teaming and triple teaming. I love the other-the-top theatrics of Valentin Mayo. It's a blast watching him go out there and warm up the crowd. Virus and Marvin looked good in their limited minutes.

Pierroth! Is there a better rudo in all of Mexico now that Satanico doesn't have a regular program? This was pure, unadulterated BS, but it was fun. Not the most sophisticated lucha match you'll see but the rudos did a good job of stacking the odds against Parka and pissing off the crowd. That fan took his life into his own hands when he shoved Wagner and props to the fan who hit the ref with a bottle towards the end. Somewhere in all that was a bloody bladejob from Parka but unlike some of his other bloodstained epics, the wackiness continued to the end. The comedy finish was house show gold and Parka's against-the-odds win got a nice reaction from the crowd.

This was a fun match. I loved how indignant Tenryu was when Hayabusa kicked him in the chest as though Hayabusa didn't deserve a single lick of offense. I didn't really get the hype surrounding Tenryu until I did a deep dive on him during the GWE project and now my appreciation for him grows with every passing match. He's such a great seller and always adds tiny details to his bouts liking shaking out the cobwebs after kicking out of one of Hayabusa(s top rope moves. He was a bit lazy with his transitions in this bout but it was more of an exhibition than anything else and those WAR fans sure knew how to enjoy themselves. I loved that guy clapping after Tenryu(s old man dive. Worth watching simply because it's Tenryu.

Well, this exceeded all expectations. This was a match-up I didn't want to see and it ended up being the best match Toyota has had all year. That was mostly due to the dynamic of her having to figure out how to beat a woman who was much heavier than her but they also did an excellent job of working in a spiteful, bitchy way that fit the buildup to the bout. That type of character work is something that often gets overlooked about Toyota. I wouldn't say she was the greatest actress in women's wrestling but she wasn't purely a spot monkey (to borrow an old internet term), especially when she grew older. The only criticism I would make off the bout was that I don't think the conflict had escalated enough to warrant those dives from the lighting setup. And they ended up being throwaway spots which was stupid. But I was heavily into the finishing stretch and I thought the match achieved a terrific crescendo where I was left wondering how exactly Toyota was going to put this woman away. Even the spots that Sawai was too big for Toyota to execute properly seemed to add some dramatic realism to the bout. I'll probably end up liking this more than anyone else but that's the neat thing about having expectations bowled over.

This looked like it took place in one of those old All Japan rings. Promising match on paper but I thought it was a boring, monotone bout that didn't pick up until the finishing stretch. Bad commentary didn't help either, not to mention the lukewarm crowd and the crappy angle.

This was a damn sight better than I thought it would be. The thing I look for in a match like this is whether it lives up to the video package. And for the most part, this lived up to the hype. I was expecting a lot of shitty looking work from the Rock but he worked pretty well with Benoit. I didn't love the restart or the finish but the pair matched up well and it was a hard fought fight. Gets the thumbs up from me.

This was a nice tag. I like the dynamic between NANA*MOMO with the big power girl and the smaller, energetic highflyer. Nanae was way better than I remembered her being. She was actually a pretty good power work if you ask me. Noumi and Wakizawa weren't the greatest opposition but they were able to keep things moving along. Wakizawa sure was mouthy even by Joshi standards.

Carl Greco is one of my favorite workers ever so you know I ate this up. Taira looked like he had improved since his debut. I loved all the grappling in this and the finish was awesome. I even liked that wayward moment where Carl tried a lariat off the ropes. The BattlARTS commentators sure are annoying though.

This was a nice piece of booking. On paper, the NANA*MOMO team were helplessly outmatched by the experienced LCO team. Throughout the bout, LCO had the advantage but they couldn't put the younger girls away and every time Nana or Momoe kicked out it gave them a glimmer of hope. The first time I watched this I was bored with LCO. I ended up getting distracted and didn't make it through to the end so I wound up watching it from the beginning again. LCO's heel work was more engrossing the second time 'round which led me to believe that my enjoyment of the average LCO brawl depends on my mood or how much wrestling I've watched that day. They're not an act that makes me take notice but what I did notice about this match was that Shimoda looked far better working with Momoe and Nana than she did working with Watanabe and Maekawa. Shimoda can be sloppy at times and shows a lot of daylight but with these girls her work looked snug. One of the reasons the dynamic worked was that Nana had a Taue-like vibe to her work. Taue probably isn't the best example, in fact, you could probably use Jumbo Hori instead. But by being a bigger girl she could negate the advantage that Mita brings to LCO matches with her height. Then you had a bloodied Momoe being a dynamo and bringing a ton of energy to the bout to offset the rudo ring generalship of Shimoda. This wasn't an iconic match because Joshi was in a down period but it did produce one of the endings that only seem to happen in Joshi matches -- that raw emotion that perfectly summarizes the passion on display. This was good enough to slot in behind Aja vs. Satomura as the second best Joshi match of the year, IMO.

Another fine match from Osaka Pro. This was an all-action tag highlighted by the Dick Togo vs. Murahama match-up. With all the praise Murahama has been getting in July it was Togo who shone here. IT wasn't a match with a ton of depth but Togo gave a swank performance all the same. Notch one up for the rudos in the Murahama Trial Series.

Ishii may have been close to unrecognizable with his full head of hair and his fluorescent get-up but this was exactly the time of hard-hitting match he likes to work. The shots came thick and fast and there was plenty of oomph to this undercard match. Solid bout

This was more of a straightforward heel vs. face match than the Buffalo bout w/ Murahama taking an extended beating from Osaka's Big Red Machine. That was all right though as Murahama has proven to be more than adept at working from underneath. Not as many dynamics at play as the previous trial but entertaining nonetheless.

I have to admit that Onita's look here was pretty cool. He'd moved away from the Hong Kong action star look to more of a veteran Yakuza look. His entrance was also pretty cool and he seemed to enjoy soaking up the atmosphere. Good thing too because as soon as Choshu arrived you could tell Onita was on a hiding to nothing. The size difference would have been too much for him to overcome let alone the hornet's nest he stirred up by pissing Riki off. Choshu manhandled him the entire bout and the end result was a lopsided bout where another promotional outsider gets squashed like a bug. Choshu was never going to take a bump into the wire or explosives but they could have at least given Onita some shine. Ah well, he talked a good game.

These teams don't like each other in case you needed a reminder but this was strangely flat and couldn't break out of the LCO mold. The only part I really liked was when Maekawa tried to rip off Shimoda's head. The rest of the bout failed to live up to that intensity.

I don't think these girls were capable of a MOTYC at this stage of their careers so what I was looking for was something good, and for the most part what they delivered was very good. As Jetlag mentioned, the biggest problem was that it was worked in front of a typically dead JWP crowd. That made the bout seem slow at times when in reality they were working at a steady clip. It was probably a bit long for the crowd they drew but there were some excellent transitions and the progression from matwork -> brawling -> nearfalls was solid. Ran Ran brings a different dynamic to Joshi with that right hand of hers. Striking is nothing new in Joshi. There was a wave of UWF inspired shooters from the 80s onward but Ran Ran is one of the few girls who can throw a decent punch. So while this wasn't spectacular, it ended up being a strong match that was the best match either girl has been in thus far and worth watching to see them try to deliver a great bout.

Even though this was joined in progress it had a nice flow to it and good energy. I got more of a yankii feel from M2K this time around and they gave Crazy Max another black eye. It was a weaker version of Crazy Max than usual but the humiliation is beginning to sting. They went from the bully boys of the promotion to getting a bloodied nose every time they square off with the new kids on the block. Surely, Crazy Max won't take this lying down. I expect all hell to break loose in the coming months.

Murahama continues to be one of the stories of the year. This was a really good match that had a bit of everything -- matwork, brawling, persistent rudo tactics from Black Buffalo and lots of good big man/little man work. Murahama let his selling slip at times and there were a few instances where he as out of position or his timing was off but he brought a tremendous amount of energy to the bout and was fantastic in his role as the little dog with plenty of fight in him. The finish was screwy but I enjoyed this a lot and Osaka Pro continues to be a must-watch promotion in the year 2000.

I'm not a fan of Usuda but he brought more to this bout than Ishikawa. Ishikawa seemed to lack his usual spark. Maybe he was trying to give Usuda what little limelight there was but I would have liked to have seen a few more counters from him and a bit more attitude. He didn't really have an answer for Usuda's strikes and it was a bad day at the office in terms of the result but maybe that's what they set out to portray. Personally, I think Usuda's win would have meant more if there'd been more of a struggle but he did have some nice moments with his ground game so it was a strong outing for him.

I think Blue Panther suffers from the burden of expectation. Every time you watch him you expect something awesome but more often than not you get something average. He's not like Santo who has enough signature stuff to look good in the most average of trios matches. He needs the right conditions to create his blend of mat wizardry. I went through a phase of finding him overrated but I've been enjoying his 2000 run of late. Most of picks would be under the radar so I'll go ahead and choose some well-known workers: Lou Thesz -- most people recognize Thesz' historical importance and are aware of his reputation but I don't think many people consider him an all-time great worker. Antonio Inoki -- not everyone's cup of tea but if you have an appreciation for strong style then he has a number of classics in the genre. Dory Funk Jr. -- shout out to Parv. I like watching Dory work the mat. Not so keen on his Funk Brothers stuff but I will watch his mat classics any day.

Yes, thanks to Charles, Chad, Will and everyone else involved. Merry Christmas. Looking forward to another year of discussing wrestling in 2018.