ohtani's jacket

Alan Sarjeant vs. Jon Cortez (8/25/76) Alan Sarjeant vs. Jon Cortez, could this be anything less than brilliant? Well, for the first two rounds it was completely mesmerising and I was ready to declare it one of the best WoS bouts ever. Then Sarjeant injured himself from an awkward fall and Cortez easily took the one fall required for victory. It looked like the planned finish, but if so, why couldn't they have gone another two rounds? Bitterly disappointing.

The 1/8/93 Tenryu/Hara vs. Aoyagi/Kabuki handheld is really good. Four older guys stiffing the heck out of each other while the feud rages on. Ditch called Aoyagi limited, but if anybody knows a guy who does a better karate gimmick let me know. Tenryu vs. Aoyagi is a thing of beauty and the best thing about the Mew Japan feud so far. They absolutely pelt each other every chance they get. Tenryu is a colossal prick and busts Aoyagi open with the heel of his boot, and there's a killer spot where Hara is holding Aoyagi's leg up and Tenryu does this running elbow strike that almost sends Aoyagi's leg two rows back. Tenryu was the goods in this. Momentum swings back in his favour after the ugly Tokyo Dome match.

The trouble is there wasn't much CMLL taped during that era because everyone wanted to trade AAA. We'll probably never know who had the best year in '94.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 9 Chic Cullen vs. Rasputin (Unknown location, taped 1983) One of the best guys around vs. one of the worst workers I've seen, what's gonna happen? Rasputin was a tall, Rasputin-looking Irishman who some of you may be familiar with from that Fit Finlay documentary. He was a classic kick/punch wrestler with almost nothing else in the way of offence aside from elbows and eye rakes and the occasional choke; but I'm happy to say that on this particular evening goodness won out and Cullen got the best match out of him I've seen. This was a lot of stomping the canvas to make the strikes sound good, but it at least looked like they were laying their shit in and Cullen sold well. Won't blow your mind, but would fool you into thinking Rasputin wasn't that bad if you didn't know better. Get back to me in six months and I'll probably be claming 'putin wasn't that bad, but that's my story for now. Greg Valentine vs. Jimmy Ocean (10/26/88) "Farmer's Boy" Greg Valentine? Shouldn't that be Promoter's Boy Greg Valentine? This was the second to last match on ITV ever. If you haven't seen Jimmy Ocean, he's actually worth checking out. A pint sized little showman with peroxide hair and an 80s tache doing an age old Adrian Street gimmick with a fair bit of panache. Pretty zippy worker and a big bumper; I think he would have carved out a niche for himself in the era of TV stars if he hadn't come along right at the end. Probably as an enhancement talent like Black Jack Mulligan. Marty Jones & Steve Taylor vs. Skull Murphy & Johnny South (8/24/88) This was hands down the biggest disappointment of The Arthur Psycho Hour to date. I thought this had the potential to be really good w/ Jones, Murphy and South all involved, but it was an incredibly shitty attempt at playing WWF style wrestling instead of beating the tar out of each other. It started off promising with South having shaved his head to form The Manchester Hardman with Murphy, who was bedecked in La Parka's wardrobe. Skull cut an amusing promo where he claimed he didn't even know who Steve Taylor was. Jones retorted in his inimitable style. One of the greatest workers to ever live and one of the single worst promos in the history of the racket. Steve Taylor was the older brother of Dave and I guess coming out of retirement for this. He should have stayed retired. This sucked. Murphy and South cheated like brats instead of dishing out an asskicking and Marty spent more time posturing with his lazy eye then proving he was still world class. Taylor might as well have been invisible. Not good. Alan Kilby vs. Colonel Brody (3/5/87) What's a South African colonel doing being valeted by a black French woman? I'd love to say that was a political statement but somehow I doubt it. You've got to love Walton mentioning Brody was born in England. Why don't you just tell everyone that he's Magnificent Maurice, Kent? You know you want to. They barely aired any of this, but I doubt we missed out on much. Gary Clwyd vs. Jack Davey (Porthmadog, taped 1988) I had to ask on another forum whether Mike Jordan and Jack Davey were one in the same or separated at birth, and it turns out that they are two different people and that Davey was a ref for Orig Williams. I'm not sure whether that means he was a legit proper worker or not because he looked like the world's poorest version of Mike Jordan and I've never been that high on Jordan, but man were they the splitting image of each other.

Santo seems as good as anyone else in trips that year. Rey and Psicosis weren't as good as they'd become in '95. Panther might have had a case if the Octagon matches hadn't been so bad. Satanico fell off in '94, and Patka and Lizmark were victims of Pena's irritating booking. I always have positive things to say about Mano Negra in '94! My pick would have been Dandy if he'd shown me anything outside of the Llanes feud and maybe some exchanges opposite Casas. I'm figuring it has to be an AAA guy.

That was pretty funny. Jerry should make an appointment to see a shrink.

You should watch his peak years from '96-99. I don't know how much of it is online still. Real Man's Man uploaded a bunch of it, but it was on Megaupload and went poof. I'm not a huge fan of the BattlARTS style, and I'm kind of anti tag matches in shoot style, but I do like Ishikawa and you probably won't have as many hangs-up as me. Plus you get to check out guys like Ono. Also worth checking out, if you really get into him, is his PWFG stuff. Looking through my old shoot style list on WKO, I have these matches listed as worth watching: Yuki Ishikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka (2/28/97) Yuki Ishikawa vs. Hiroyuki Ito (10/9/04)

Warriors aren't playing as well as you said they would, Elliot. The Cavs are uglifying things. It's Choshu vs. Tenryu out there.

If Tenta could have had all these great matches in mid-90s All Japan then how come Albright didn't? Williams not only held up his end of matches but grew as a worker in the promotion. Don't agree with this "plug and play" theory at all.

I can't speak for why people pimp modern day Parka matches, but it may have something to do with the fact that lucha brawls aren't what they used to be, particularly in CMLL. Similar to how maestros wrestling became a throwback for the old-school title match style, perhaps Parka brawls are a throwback to how wager matches used to be. I dunno. Just a theory.

I'm not a fan of the Mesias stuff, or even the Wagner stuff tbh, but I do remember liking the Monterrey brawl with Santo. It doesn't seem like you really dig the gimmick, though. Half the appeal with Parka is the dancing skeleton guy is having violent, bloody brawls.

WoS was chock full of heels. Aside from Breaks, the only ones people would consider super workers are Rocco and Finlay. For gimmicks, Tally Ho Kaye was always enjoyable. Brian Maxine was a shameless self-promoter and created a tremendous Jerry "the King" Lawler style gimmick for himself that allegedly predated Lawler. Boscik after he turned heel, especially against Grey whom he had tremendous chemistry with. Kendo Nagasaki in small doses. The Caribbean Sunshine Boys, which had a underlying racial element to it, but Kincaid especially was a brilliant heel. Skull Murphy, a bruiser who grew on me to become one of my top 10 workers of the 80s. Sid Cooper, who was perhaps the closest in character to Breaks and tremendous at putting over the faces. Bobby Barnes, who was the tag partner of Adrian Street and carried on the exotico gimmick when Street went to the indies. Steve Logan, the tag partner of McManus, but I think you'd find him a bit boring. Tony "Banger" Walsh, who basically made being a rugby player into a gimmick. These were all guys who appeared regularly.

There are a number of Saint matches I'd recommend, but largely because of his opponents. He may have looked good against Breaks; then again pretty much everyone looked good against Breaks from '72 through to '84 in the footage we have available. That's one of the reasons why Breaks was on TV so often. It's not until you see Saint against guys you've never heard of, where Saint is the focal point of the bout and the driver of the action, that you start to realise he's not capable of much more than a wink and a smile and an exhibition in escape holds. I've gone back and forward on guys in the seven years I've been doing this, but not with Saint. It doesn't help that for a long time he was treated as the poster boy of the old-school WoS style, which I kind of resent, but it's mostly because he doesn't have the same body of work as so many of the others. Even accounting for the fact that he wasn't a dramatist, his exhibition style isn't as fun as a guy like Ken Joyce or even Faulkner if you like his smart aleck shit. I do like Saint's early 70s work and he was good in the late 80s in the German tournaments, but Breaks and Grey blow him out of the water.

This is interesting. If you just go on talent then I think Casas has it sewn up for 1992 and 1993, but had a bit of a drop off in '94 from what I've seen. I like the idea of Fuerza for '91, but wonder if Pirata Morgan isn't a bit of a darkhorse candidate. 1994 is tough. It would require watching more AAA than I care to. Perhaps Santo?

Even though we don't have a lot of footage, Sangre Chicana clearly had an all-time great year.

Any Harley matches in particular? I agree it's not commonly mentioned. Believe it or not, I'd start with the Hogan feud. They had good matches together. Harley adapted better to working in the WWF than a lot of young territory workers, IMO. Really nice veteran run in an environment where you wouldn't expect him to do well.

You don't like the Destroyer bouts?

I thought this was pretty good to begin with as it was two hosses fighting and scrapping for a takedown, which is exactly how a match of this sort should be worked, but it all went downhill when Tenryu sold that lariat. It's easier said that done, but he should have played it like he avoided the move by ducking out of the way. As soon as Choshu took over, the match became a Choshu-style match in the worst sense of the term. Nearfalls and teased finishes are great, but when that's all of you've got things tend to drag. And to make matters worse, Tenryu was having a poor night on the offensive end. His execution issues are unfortunately the predominant image I have of him, and not that awesome worker from the Koshinaka match, and here they raised their ugly head. The finish was also weak. It wasn't so much because he had to repeat the powerbomb, as you could forgive the first one not being executed properly, but rather that the powerbomb put Choshu away at all. That didn't seem at all well built to. Pretty stark contrast between this and the Koshinaka bout.

I thought this was pretty good to begin with as it was two hosses fighting and scrapping for a takedown, which is exactly how a match of this sort should be worked, but it all went downhill when Tenryu sold that lariat. It's easier said that done, but he should have played it like he avoided the move by ducking out of the way. As soon as Choshu took over, the match became a Choshu-style match in the worst sense of the term. Nearfalls and teased finishes are great, but when that's all of you've got things tend to drag. And to make matters worse, Tenryu was having a poor night on the offensive end. His execution issues are unfortunately the predominant image I have of him, and not that awesome worker from the Koshinaka match, and here they raised their ugly head. The finish was also weak. It wasn't so much because he had to repeat the powerbomb, as you could forgive the first one not being executed properly, but rather that the powerbomb put Choshu away at all. That didn't seem at all well built to. Pretty stark contrast between this and the Koshinaka bout.

Satanico vs. Sangre Chicana, NWA World Light Heavyweight Championship, Arena Puebla 9/24/83 Ever wondered what a luchador does the night after a legendary hair match? Take a booking for a title match of course. This was very much a "house show title match" in that the fans were left short changed by the finish. I imagine a lot of matches from the 80s that look awesome on paper were booked this way. The really great thing about the footage is that it was a handheld shot from ringside; so you got a lot of close-ups of not only the work but the wrestler's features, instead of the fourth generation lucha footage we're used to where you can barely make out what people look like. That was almost enough to put it in the Smithsonian given 1983 was probably the most significant year of Sangre Chicana's career and also bang smack in the middle of Satanico's prime (Satanico being the greatest worker to make tape in these past 32 years.) Sangre looked a bit like Richard Gere in close-up. This wasn't an off the charts performance from him; but if anybody deserves a night off after a hair match, Chicana would be up there after the beating he took at the hands of MS-1. Chicana was never the greatest mat wrestler around, so the bout played out a bit like a mano a mano. There was a bit of mat work to start with, and some fantastic submission attempts deeper into the bout, but mostly it was built around some pretty heavy collisions involving a guy who didn't really come into the bout at 100%. He stayed down for a long time after Satanico hit a plancha, and there was a guy shining an industrial strength TV lamp on him as he grimaced on the outside. The match flirted with greatness, but never quite got there. It was like a 3 3/4 star match that you could convince yourself was a 4 star bout but ended just as it was getting good. The highlight for me was seeing the detail in Satanico's work in close-up. I love Satanico's grappling stance and could watch him tie up with motherfuckers all day long, and would probably love to visit the gym when he's training guys, but it's his selling that separates him from the rest. No matter the match situation, he's always "on." It doesn't matter whether he's in peril or completely in control, he makes every moment convey something. After the bout, which as I said ended prematurely, they squared off for a bit and Chicana caught Satanico with a right hand flush against the jaw. The handheld guy scrambled for an interview as Satanico was leaving and he was biting on a towel between his teeth and clutching at his jaw while rolling off a promo. Did he cop one for real or was it just selling? Who knows with a master like Satanico. I thought the bout finished too soon after Chicana's tope and was ultimately too short. If it had gone on for a bit longer I would have no hesitation in calling it a 4 star lucha libre bout. It's still a really good bout and an even better historical document, but incomplete in terms of its three act structure. I was really into the submission attempts and jeopardy they were creating there and the match was getting really good before they cut it short, so a wee bit frustrating as you can probably tell from my tone, but you can't escape from what it is -- a 1983 handheld between Satanico and Sangre Chicana. How this remained hidden for so long in that one guy's match list is a bit of a mystery, but I guess people figured it was their '89 bout, which was foreshadowed quite nicely, incidentally, by the punches at the end. Satanico nailing Chicana when he's turned to greet the fans was vintage Lopez, and if you're not going to finish with a result at least they loosened a few teeth and left a sore taste in each other's mouths. Still wish these two had met in a hair match instead of Chicana being suspended for throwing some chairs. Seems like one of the great lost opportunities from this era of lucha libre wrestling, but I guess you can say that about a lot of rudo vs. rudo match-ups. Anyway, enjoy this the way you'd enjoy old game footage from champion seasons past and you won't go wrong. Just try not to be let down by the too-soon finish and the blow off you'll never get to see. The sooner you do that, the sooner you'll no longer pine for the footage we don't have and the stuff that was never taped, because to be honest, a lot of it probably wasn't that great. Kinda like that girl you won't to date in high school but never could.

The Invader/Muta street fight was another good Invader match. I love how Muta showed up to the fight in street clothes. That was a swank belt buckle he had on. Nice pair of jeans too. Went a bit long for what it was, but Invader's blade job was commendable. The post match made me want to see Invader/Jaggers.

Some of the build to this has dropped, but I didn't think it was that good.

Atlantis/La Fiera/Vampiro Casanova vs. Negro Casas/Mano Negra/Black Magic, CMLL 9/17/93 Negro Casas/Dr. Wagner Jr./Sangre Chicana vs. La Fiera/King Haku/Pegasus Kid, CMLL 9/24/93 Some more of the lead in to the Casas vs. Fiera Anniversary Show match has become available. I think the Haku match was on YouTube previously but the account was deleted. Matt reviewed it a while back mostly for the novelty of seeing Haku in Mexico; which reminds me, since he's probably reading this, that he needs to check out Kamala's matches in Mexico, which are a lot more fun. Because these aren't that great. Fiera and Casas chase each other around a lot, and just about everything Casas does looks good, but the matches are far from compelling; certainly compared with the trios work in Casas/Dandy and Casas/Dragon. The first match has three issues going on at the same time without anything in the way of a common thread. A good lead in trios with have a central issue accompanied by supporting players. Here everyone's doing their own thing; sometimes in the foreground, sometimes in the background, and the TV director switches between match-ups looking for the best shot. The match establishes Fiera and Casas brawling into the crowd and Fiera smashing Casas' head against the arena seats. It also features Fiera throwing Casas into the seats, which seemed seemed like an original spot in the hair match, but was pre-established. Casas blades, but -- and here's a shock -- his selling is bad. Now when it comes to the faces a guy makes when he's bladed, you're talking about a highly subjective thing, but for me they didn't work at all, and that surprises me since Casas is normally outstanding at this sort of thing. Others may disagree or think it's a trivial thing, but that's on top of Fiera not really giving a strong babyface performance. I don't want to go overboard, but if I've watched these trios prior to seeing the hair match, the Anniversary bout would have strongly exceeded my expectations. The second match is hardly worth watching unless, like Matt, you're interested in King Haku. The only thing it really sets up is that Fiera can pin Casas with his german, but he flubs the german and it doesn't even look good. What really disappointed me was that they had this interesting wrinkle where Casas was tagging with Chicana, who was Fiera's former trios partner and the man he'd feuded with to turn tecnico; they could have conspired to make Fiera's life a living misery, but instead it was less violent than the trios the week before. Haku and Pegasus Kid were superfluous and distracted from what should have been Casas and Fiera at each other's throats. The hair match is starting to get some acclaim as an all-time great lucha match and one of the best of the 90s, but the build doesn't help the feud much and I wouldn't put the total package as high as a lot of other 90s stuff.

Okay, now this was good.. Very simple and direct, but they sold well and it built to a tremendous finishing stretch with a great nearfall that everyone bit on. Koshinaka gets shat on a lot, but he was excellent here both on top and underneath. His blade job turned things up a notch by creating the illusion that it was hard way, and his selling was beautiful. Tenryu was also fantastic in this. Lariats, elbows, chops and powerbomb attempts, but it was extremely focused and he kept his opponent in his sights the entire time. When he wrestles like this, I can believe the things people say about him. Mowing people down from behind, sticking the boot in. But what about that finishing stretch? I bit on that nearfall along with the rest of the crowd. I love it when 20 year old wrestling can do that. The sequence after the false finish was extremely well done and the finish came on the right beat. Great match. Easy four stars.

Okay, now this was good.. Very simple and direct, but they sold well and it built to a tremendous finishing stretch with a great nearfall that everyone bit on. Koshinaka gets shat on a lot, but he was excellent here both on top and underneath. His blade job turned things up a notch by creating the illusion that it was hard way, and his selling was beautiful. Tenryu was also fantastic in this. Lariats, elbows, chops and powerbomb attempts, but it was extremely focused and he kept his opponent in his sights the entire time. When he wrestles like this, I can believe the things people say about him. Mowing people down from behind, sticking the boot in. But what about that finishing stretch? I bit on that nearfall along with the rest of the crowd. I love it when 20 year old wrestling can do that. The sequence after the false finish was extremely well done and the finish came on the right beat. Great match. Easy four stars.