ohtani's jacket
DVDVR 80s Project
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Everything posted by ohtani's jacket
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The chop exchanges really began with Hashimoto vs. Tenryu in 1998. I can't think of any instances of it before then. It was taken to the next level in the 00s by workers like Kobashi and Sasaki, but I don't think you can call that Strong Style. Modern NJPW (with the forearm exchanges in every bout) have explicitly said they don't adhere to Strong Style. -
Loss #443. Man, I was such a Hart Foundation mark back in the day and their entrance is still cool. I love Bret's swagger when he enters the ring. This was a pretty good match. A lot of the time, people look at teams like these and expect the WWF equivalent of The Rock 'n' Roll Express vs. The Midnight Express; something which was never going to happen but disappoints folks all the same. Taken on its own terms, this is a good bout. A touch too long maybe, and a little disjointed, but there was plenty to like. I especially liked the early work between Jannetty and Bret. That would have been an interesting singles match now that I think about it. Bret definitely seemed in a shitty mood in the third fall. Even though they'd fixed the rope, his timing was way off on the ropes. The spluttering end to the bout does deflate things a bit. The Rockers' win doesn't really feel like a big moment while Bret pulling an Isiah Thomas and not wanting to shake the Rockers' hands feels 3/4 legit given how grumpy he seems. But the first two falls pull the third fall up by its shoe laces and the end result is a good match.
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Next up was Ilio DiPaolo brawling with The Masked Marvel in quite a gimmicky sort of bout. The Marvel was unmasked at the end and the commentator rather sheepishly recognised him as "Bull Wright," a journeyman type the crowd didn't seem to remember or care about much. Following that was an old silent film from the mid-30s with "Mexican Champion" Vincent Lopez taking on Man Mountain Dean in a classic big man vs. wrestler bout. They duked it out in entertaining fashion. This match was also historically important as Lopez won Lou Daro's Los Angeles version of the World Heavyweight Championship amid some pretty intense politics -- http://www.wrestling-titles.com/personalities/lewis_ed/bio/lewisbio25.html Doc and Mike Gallagher vs. Johnny Barend and Billy Red Lyons was another look at the Gallagher stooges. Doc Gallagher's head was completely shaved here. He looked like he'd been in a hair match somewhere south of the border but the commentator said it was because he delights in going into steam rooms in the various athletic clubs around the country, and when the fellas all look at his fine physique he says "I'm 67," which the old boys get a kick out of. Alrighty then. I was interested in getting a look at Billy Red Lyons here as his friend the Destroyer likes to put him over in shoot interviews, but this isn't the type of bout where you can get a good look at the babyfaces as they're really just foils for the bigger name heels. The match was decent without anything really spectacular happening. Lindy Lawrence vs. Jacque LaMonte was the first ladies match I've seen from the 50s. Now I'm not going to lie, I thought it would be a bunch of hair pulling and cat fighting. That was just the stereotype I had in my head. Instead, it was a serious wrestling match with real holds and tremendous intensity. They did end up pulling the hair, but they did it while fighting for holds and that made it seem like the match was on a knife edge. Like Lewin vs. Garibaldi, this would make my personal list of the best matches from the 50s. June Byers vs. Cara Combs was closer to my stereotypical idea of 1950s female wrestling. It was actually a bit of a disappointment considering these two are far bigger names than Lawrence and LaMonte. This was Moolah level stuff for the most part, but the jury's still out and I'll try to keep an open mind about upcoming ladies stuff.
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Strong style is the fighting style that Inoki adopted when he established New Japan. It was directly influenced by Karl Gotch's European catch-as-can style but also had a certain number of martial arts influences as well. It's best demonstrated by the Inoki vs. Gotch fight from the inaugural New Japan show. The idea was to present wrestling as a combat sport. New Japan wrestlers wore nothing but black trunks and black shoes, and elbow and knee protectors, and concentrated primiarily on strength conditioning and offensive and defensive wrestling techniques. Inoki liked to claim that pro-wrestling had the strongest fighting spirit and that New Japan was the King of Sports and to back that up he had worked MMA fights with Willem Ruska, Mohammad Ali and Willie Williams that furthered the "legend" of New Japan pro-wrestling being the strongest fighting style in the world. Later, the house style shifted more toward Riki Choshu's style of wrestling and that house style became, IMO, what most fans associate strong style with -- long periods of mat work, a key focus on the lariat as a signature New Japan move, pretty much every wrestler utilizing submission finishers like the crucifix armbar (regardless of how much of a "technical" wrestler they are), the same generic Strong Style look (plain trucks and boots) and the added touch of workers having destructive moves like the brain buster in their repertoire. The best example of this version of Strong Style is probably the Choshu vs. Fujinami series. Personally, I think it as both a wrestling style and a marketing tool. But when other promotions adopt the Strong Style label they're really referring to the Choshu version. I don't think there are too many indie promotions around aping Inoki's philosophies. If there are, it's probably more of an influence from the so-called "Inokism" period of the late 90s-early 00s where he tried to reinstall the MMA element that had made him a star. I also think Strong Style is a classic case of Japanese English. This is just my assumption but I think it really refers to New Japan pro-wrestling being the "strongest style" rather than a certain style that is "strong" (i.e. hard-hitting, etc.)
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I couldn't recall #444 standing out to me when I went through all of the WCW for the Smarkschoice poll and sure enough this was a little on the slow side. The commentators mentioning the animosity between the two and all we saw from Windham were subtle little heel tricks. Then there was a minor escalation and a pier six brawl broke out. Not only that but the wrong guy won. Perhaps they were saving Windham vs. Rhodes for down the road, but we never got to see that feud handled the way it should have been. I also think there's a noticeable drop off in Steamboat's work from 1992 to 1993 and 1994. It's not like he's bad or anything; he's simply "good" whereas in 1992 he was amazing.
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Loss #445. Hadn't seen this in donkey's years. Hate to be a killjoy since the crowd were so into Inoki but I've seen plenty of better Inoki fights and plenty of better Vader matches. Inoki sold pretty well, and afterward he claimed he couldn't remember a thing about the fight, but I don't think Vader was at his menacing best here. In fact, I think he was pretty clearly past his prime and well into his physical decline. Didn't really think this was any better than Flair/Vader, to be honest with you. EDIT: I forgot to mention that the commentators compared the fight to Inoki's matches with Andre, which I thought was a fairly apt comparison. And I didn't really love those matches, either.
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I went back and watched as much of this feud as I could find. The TV angle with the retirement match, the referee gig and the reinstatement brought back a lot of childhood memories. I was super into the WWF in 1989 and it's interesting that when you're a kid you're into all the angles and everything that's going on in the promotion (at least I was), especially when you're living all the way over on the other side of the world and following wrestling through Superstars, the TV Guide, the WWF magazine, PPVs that were months behind, and your local tabloid newspaper. I adsorbed it all like a sponge back then. Even watching Valentine and the Colonel Jimmy Hart appear on the Brother Love show brought back fond memories of how excited I would be to see any sort of confrontation on the Brother Love show and how long you'd have to wait at times for the wrestler to come out. Some of those segments seemed to drag on forever. Anyway, I watched quite a few of the Valentine/Garvin house show bouts: MSG 12/30/88 Boston Garden 1/13/89 Philadelphia Spectrum 1/14/89 MSG 9/30/89 Maple Leaf Gardens 10/18/89 They're all good matches but the one to watch, and I believe it made the old DVDVR WWF set, is the September '89 Madison Square Garden bout. That's an incredible fight with some of the stiffest work ever seen in a WWF ring. Structurally, it's similar to a Flair vs. Garvin house show bout and what makes it stand out from the others is that not only is it more brutal but just when you think it's over it goes on for another beat and there's even more stiff action to enjoy. Really great bout. Check it out if you enjoyed the submission match.
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Mile Zrno vs Franz Schumann (Berlin 1998) This was a seriously great wrestling match. I had no idea there was still European wrestling this good in 1998. Zrno looked out of this world here and I've seen Schumann have a wrestling match quite like this. Unfortunately, the match was heavily clipped. Every time they did a cool spot there would be a slow-mo closeup of it that served as a jump cut. The edit still retained the shape of the bout but it was largely a series of highlights. But what highlights and what wrestling. To be honest, this is the last place I would have gone looking for a good Zrno match if I'd been skimming through match lists, so here's proof once more than you can teach an old dog new tricks over, and over, again.
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Ilio DiPaolo vs. "Big" Bill Miller was a really good heavyweight match. They pretty much did everything you'd want from two big men. A little bit of technical wrestling, a bit of strength stuff, some roughhousing, you name it. A really good match. Chief Don Eagle vs. Walter Palmer surprised me. I'd only seen Don Eagle against Gorgeous George and that clearly wasn't an indicator of his in-ring ability. He had a slightly idiosyncratic grappling style but I love little quirks like that. Palmer I had seen against Thesz and was stoked to see him again. A fine wrestler indeed. This was another quality match w/ Don Eagle really catching my eye. Next up was Jim Londos vs. Bronko Nagurski. This is a really famous match that most people would have at least heard of. It's a match I've known about since I first discovered people talking about wrestling on the internet but it's taken me this long to watch it. That's not a bad thing as I'm sure that I appreciate it more now than I ever would have in the past. Anyway, it's truly sublime. From the opening moments where they'd fighting to get into a referee's hold up until the decisive moments, it's an epic wrestling match. They just keep fighting and fighting and wrestling each other. There was a thread about the perfect wrestling style elsewhere and for me this may be it. Following up that is hard to do but Doc and Mike Gallagher vs. Dick Beyer and Bobby Brown is a fun match. The Gallagher brothers are your typical goon squad types but clever with it, and it's always fun to see Dick Beyer flying about pre-mask. It's not a match where you get to see him wrestle much but he had his babyface act down pat. Last up was Donn Lewin vs. Leo Garibaldi from the Los Angeles territory. This was a complete surprise. I knew that Garibaldi was good but this was a phenomenal bout. Lewin was a New York boy that they'd brought in for television and they gave him a two fall showcase against one of their local stars, Garibaldi. Super competitive, fast paced wrestling match with exciting holds and nonstop action. When you consider the premise of the New York boy being brought in to showcase some new, out of state talent, it was sensational. This was just the bee's knees. A top 10 contender from the 50s stuff I've watched. So there you go, five great matches in a row. This channel is on a roll.
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Loss' #448. This was the first Jeff Jarrett USWA match I could find so it was impossible for me to consider it generic. I thought the action between Jarrett and Pritchard was strong and Jarrett looked like a much better worker than later on in his career, but the stuff with Dundee and Tojo on the outside was weak and Embry coming out at the end wasn't really vintage either. I appreciated getting a look at Jarrett, though.
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Well, I made it through the first 50 matches of Loss' list. Some of the stuff is available and there were a few things I didn't feel like revisiting, but it's a really eclectic and interesting list. These were the matches I liked the best: 496. Super Vader & John Tenta vs Gary Albright & Kazuo Yamazaki (UWFI Kings Road 10/08/94) 488. PG-13 vs Tracy Smothers & Jesse James Armstrong (USWA TV 02/17/96) 477. The Scorpion vs Cutie Suzuki (JWP 08/30/91) 483. Randy Savage vs Shawn Michaels (WWF Munich, Germany 04/14/92) 458. Eddy Guerrero vs Chris Jericho (WCW Fall Brawl 09/14/97)
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Loss' #464. This was one of my favourites back in the day and it still holds up. I love how minimalist it is. It's very much like a "small film" in terms of its narrative struck, but like the best small films it packs a powerful emotional punch in terms of Ohtani's endearing and over the top reactions to the nearfalls down the stretch. There are some imperfections for sure just like they are when you revisit films or records you liked in the past, but these two had great chemistry and I'm still a big fan of this pairing.
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The April 19th match from Sheffield, England is also a really good match. Savage doesn't sell the knee, but it's a Savage babyface match so you know he sells the crap out of everything anyway. The match is a bit more back and forth in terms of which wrestler is in control and Elizabeth gets involved at both the beginning and the end. Michaels does one absolutely amazing reversal and is just as solid as the Munich bout. Sherri tries to attack Savage with her boots afterwards but clobbers Michaels instead and Savage knocks both their noggins together before posing with Elizabeth. Crowd pleasing stuff made all the more enjoyable by having Gorilla and Bobby on commentary. Bobby slagging off Elizabeth and lusting after Sherri is classic Brain shtick and he gets in another dozen zingers like claiming he taught Michaels the reversal in the hall that morning.
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Loss' #451 is a slow burner. Hashimoto is a vicious bastard in this and Yamazaki does an excellent job of selling his ribs. The parts with Hirata and Iizuka are a bit boring but the match is really about the ferocity of Hashimoto's attacks and the pain that Yamazaki is in. A perennial underdog (some might say under achiever), Yamazaki gets a rare moment in the sun and Hashimoto's disbelief is palpable. Not a match that ever really touched greatness, IMO, but I can see folks feeling differently if they've seen the build up and are invested in the narrative.
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#452. I've never liked the Blonds and I don't remember any of their matches against Steamboat and Douglas being classics. A revisit of this hasn't changed my opinion. This is exactly what you expect it to be. Nothing more and nothing less. The trouble is that when you start out with middling expectations the end result turns out being pretty average. Austin was so awkward at this point. I actually thought he looked better working against Douglas than he did Steamboat. And as far as I'm concerned, this whole Blonds run was a massive step down from every single thing that Pillman did in 1992. Probably my biggest problem with the entire thing was that Steamboat/Douglas vs. Pillman\Windham had been perfect. Austin just downgraded things. The best part of the match was the post match where he Blonds acted like proper heels. The rest was pretty standard.
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#456. I've never been a Fantastics fan and I don't even really like Kikuchi that much. The guy I like the most in this is Joe Malenko and he was the one that was featured the least. Waay too much going on in this even for a sprint. I realise it was clipped, but I couldn't figure out where the hook was. Maybe I was supposed to care about Kikuchi, but unfortunately I don't. Even if I were a Fantastics fan, I'm not sure I'd really care about what they were doing in Japan based on this. Obviously, they were under time constraints but transplanted Southern tag would have been a lot stronger, IMO, than Japanese spotfest.
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Loss' #457. Man, I love Hashimoto's theme music, and his ring entrance was so fucking great. Hashimoto vs. Anjoh is a match-up I could watch all day long. Normally, I'd hate this shoot style vs. pro-style stuff, but I've never really considered Anjoh a great shoot stylist. To me, he's always been a pro-wrestler doing a shooter gimmick, and I mean that in all sincerity as I really do like Anjoh. Hashimoto vs. Takayama was another great looking match-up. Hell, Hashimoto vs. anyone seems like a great looking match up circa 1996. The match itself was really only half-decent. It was comparable to some of those WAR vs. New Japan tags but Hirata didn't have much on a guy like Hara. But it was prime Hashimoto, so I ate it up all the same.
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#458 -- History has not been kind to this match. I guess in '97 people expected more spectacular high spots from a cruiser weight bout, but this really was an excellent bout with great psychology and tremendous wrestling from both men. By far and away one of the best Jericho bouts I've seen, and the only time I ever like Chris Jericho is begrudgingly. Even Heenan and Schiavone seemed to forget about the NWO for five minutes and got drawn into this one. This is the kind of match I would have bypassed before this list thinking it was like other disappointing PPV matches like that Eddie vs. Malenko match from Starrcade, but this is super underrated. Worth a revisit if you haven't, people.
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#461 -- My takeaway from this is that there was a kernel of a really great Valentine vs. Garvin NWA bout in this amid all the goofy WWF bullshit and that kernel was stiff enough and hard-hitting enough to counter the missteps down the stretch like the repeated pin attempts or the face Garvin made. Most of all I love how this feud made the Hammer relevant again albeit for a short time. Valentine dropped the elbow on that phasing down. I wanna watch the rest of the matches in their series now.
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#466. The Bodies were good in this and everything, but I really don't need to see Lance Storm wrestle. This wouldn't have been all that memorable without Jericho's blade job. Ross was in his element here with the bah gawds coming thick and fast. It ended up being quite the spectacle, and the Bodies did an awesome job of working over Jericho's head injury. The finish was shoddy, though I did like Cornette kicking the bottom rope and hobbling about on his foot. Match gets points for being memorable.
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#468 I'm not a huge fan of Eddie from this era, but he was starting to show the type of poise and in-ring character that would go on to make him, in my view, one of the great performers of the modern era. This match was technically good as both men had superb execution, but I'm not sure that the whole "Mexican born" guy chasing his American dream story really meshed with what looked like more of a holdover from Los Gringos Locos. That may have just been Joey Styles' shitty commentary, or maybe it was because Eddie tried to work heel, was cheered by the crowd for his moves and then earned that now cliched "respect" from his opponent. I didn't see much cockiness or arrogance from Scorpio either. What I saw was what you get in most Scorpio bouts and that's a ton of bomb throwing. The latter half of the match really had too much bomb throwing to be honest. I also thought Scorpio lifted Eddie's shoulder after the two count but then I couldn't really understand what the ref was gesturing and Scorpio's reaction was one of disbelief not cockiness. Anyway, if there was that thread of a story there it wasn't set up or paid off in a satisfying way. The nice execution made for a good match, though.