ohtani's jacket

For the record, I didn't watch the 9/25 Mysterio vs. Tajiri match. That's definitely the best of the three matches they had around that time, though the circumstances surrounding the finish kind of reduce it to another chapter in their feud rather than a stand alone good-to-great match.

We have the exact same pick for the exact same reason. My first thought is Misawa/Jumbo but the fact that it never had a true conclusion the way Jumbo/Tenryu did and kinda just kept going after the climax of it on 6/8/90 makes me lean towards Tenryu/Jumbo as my true favorite Feud. 6/8/90 wasn't meant to be the climax. It was more like the first act turning point in a screenplay.

But they had two more matches on 10/11/89 and 4/19/90 and would have no doubt had more if Tenryu hadn't left.

It's a bit redundant at this stage, but the 6/23 Sasuke/Delphin vs. Togo/Teioh/Shiryu handicap match is another fun M-Pro match. I actually thought the beatdown Kaientai put on Sasuke and Delphin was the best heel beatdown during the feud. There's a neat split screen of Togo ripping the shit out of Delphin's mask while Teioh and Shiryu put Sasuke through a table. I'd like to see a good M-Pro singles match though. The 8/3 Naniwa vs. Shiryu match was all kinds of disappointing.

This was a match I never really liked in the past, possibly because I was always more of a Hokuto fan and this isn't a match where she asserts a lot of control over the bout, but I liked it more this time round. It doesn't break a lot of new ground, which is probably its biggest flaw, but it's not a spotfest. They spend more time selling during the stretch run than they do hitting spots, and Toyota no-selling the finish is patently false. I get the feeling that if the workers are uninteresting to people that they kind of gloss over what's happening and don't pay a lot of attention. There was far too much detail in this to call it a spotfest and way too much selling. Toyota gets such a bad rap.

It's just a way of classifying matches. Fun Good Very good Great Excellent I suppose you could look at it as average with a more positive spin on it.

Atlantis vs. Emilio Charles Jr. (8/12/88) This marks the first appearance on the set of Emilio Charles Jr. Emilio, or "El Chino" as he as affectionately called because of his curly blonde hair, was born in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, the third son of Sergio Emilio Charles Lizcano y doña Cora Garduño Núñez. His father was a professional wrestler by the name of Emilio Charles Sr who had fought many of the great fighters of the golden age like El Santo, Black Shadow, Rolando Vera and Tarzan Lopez, and had gained huge respect for his professionalism, great technique and creativity in the practice of the sport. Charles Sr had contribute two beautiful and effective creations to lucha libre, namely the "rana" and "angelito," moves which are still used today. Unfortunately, Emilio Jr never got to see his father wrestle as he was forced to retire when Emilio was still very small due to a serious elbow injury that required screws to allow him to regain mobility in the arm. His father then decided to become a promoter of boxing and wrestling in his native San Luis Potosí as well as his residence of Monterrey. Despite never seeing him wrestle, Emilio had great admiration for his father. He knew how important his career had been and had heard from contemporary wrestlers the stories and anecdotes of what a great wrestler his father was. From the age of 13, Emilio dreamed of emulating his father's feats, but was afraid to tell him that he wanted to leave school and become a wrestler. Emilio Sr. was a man of strong ideas and strong discipline who could subdue his sons with a simple look and had a passion for books. Emilio was sure that his father would refuse to allow him to quit his studies, but don Emilio underdone a radical change since the death of his youngest son, Carlos, in a car accident. It took Emilio a few days to summon the nerve to talk with his father, but to his great surprise don Emilio accepted the arguments of his son and advised him to completely devote himself to training, noting that if he was going to be a fighter that he had to be the best, which meant training under Diablo Velazco. Taking his father's words to heart, Emilio spent most of his time in the gym. He would awake with great enthusiasm at 5:30 am and begin training at 6 o'clock for two or three hours before returning in the evening for Olympic wrestling classes at the Arena Coliseo de Guadalajara gym. Eventually, Emilio earned his first opportunity to get into the ring professionally at a show to honour his maestro. Without his knowing, don Emilio was in attendance and discovered that his son had enough qualities to fully devote himself to the difficult profession of professional wrestling. Such was his excitement that the first thing he did was tell his beloved wife Cora that their son was going to be a wrestler. Early on, Emilio got his start working at Arena Naucalpan. The most high profile of his early bouts was probably his 9/29/83 hair vs. mask match against Villano IV in Veracruz. Sometime around 1985 he began working for EMLL. His early run in the company was in a trios with Javier Llanes and Rino Castro. Slightly chubbier in those days, Charles and Castro were agile fat men who moved fairly quickly, had a spectacular style and were somewhat aggressive for tecnicos. On 3/3/85, Charles and Castro culminated a feud with Comando Ruso I y II that saw the big men take the Comandos' hair. Emilio was then given the opportunity to exploit his aggressive style by engaging with peers on the rudo side, eventually pairing with Tony Arce and Vulcano as a costumed trios team known as Los Destructores. Los Destructores were given a huge push at the beginning of 1988 when they defeated Los Bucaneros for the Mexican National Trios Titles on Jan 31st. The Destroyers held onto the belts for most of the season despite strong challenges from the Infernales, Brazos and Bucaneros. It was during this period of success for the Destructores that a slimmed down Emilio was given his first singles push. He took his first big singles scalp with a hair victory over Javier Cruz on 6/24/88 and immediately went after Atlantis' NWA World Middleweight title. The pair wrestled on at least five known occasions between July and September, trading the title three times. This match, originally thought to be from 1984, is believed to be Emilio's second title match victory over Atlantis. Atlantis would go on to have an incredible unbeaten reign with the title from 1990 to 1993 where Charles was a frequent challenger and the two developed a strong rivalry notable for their signature exchanges with each other. Emilio enjoyed a period in the final part of the '88 season as a double champion before the Destructores dropped the trios titles to Los Temerarios at the end of November. He then made way for new star Angel Azteca as middleweight champ in April, but would continue his strong singles push through 1989 in a memorable feud with El Dandy.

elliot, I didn't love this, but it's a long match with plenty of Santo vs. Satanico exchanges:

It means I thought the matches were fun but not that good.

Well, I've got a final big stack of British pro-wrestling to wade through and then my enjoyment will come from watching other folks get into this stuff. Johnny Kwango vs. Kevin Conneely (4/4/73) Conneely's not really my cup of tea, but there's no denying the crowd found him hilarious. The crowd here at Southend were in stitches with one guy howling the entire way through. I do think his humour may have played better live as there are times where you can't hear what he's said, or he makes a joke about something off-screen, and if Walton doesn't explain what's going on it's difficult to follow what's happening. If you liked Father Ted and you want to see an Irish comedian wrestling you might enjoy him. Personally, I prefer Kellett as he also brought some hard-nosed grappling. Johnny Kwango vs. Bobby Barnes (7/29/77) Barnes hadn't been on television for 18 months when this aired, which I can only assume was because he was working elsewhere. Walton makes a very odd reference to Adrian Street in this bout claiming that he'd given up the game. I'm fairly certain that Street was working all over the indy circuit at this point. It's odd for Walton to make a comment like that. Barnes looked good here but this was all over in a meager two rounds which left me feeling short changed. Clive Myers & Chris Adams vs. Johnny Kwango & Bully Boy Muir (4/23/79) Now here's something I've never seen in a WoS bout. Kwango replaced the billed Bronco Wells so his team with Muir became a type of parejas increibles. Of course, this being British wrestling they didn't exactly milk it for all it was worth. Instead, it was incredibly awkward with Kwango refusing to tag Muir in despite taking a battering from Myers. When Muir did finally tag in he preceded with his rule-bending, but Kwango stayed on the apron instead of doing anything about it. There were VQ issues and the match skipped to the end with Kwango raising Myers' hand. Who knows if there was any payoff. Kevin Conneely vs. Johnny Kwango (5/8/74) I wasn't sure which Conneely vs. Kwango bout I'd seen so I ordered them both. This was the better of the two. I actually found it reasonably amusing and got a few chuckles out of it. It always impresses me how Walton can handle the comedy stuff without it seeming like a complete breech of kayfabe. Perhaps it's the way he laughs along with the crowd or explains the joke that allows you to take it at face value. It's interesting whatever the case. Bobby Graham vs. Billy Torontos (5/21/75) Bobby Graham was a Sheffield local but the crowd boo'ed him anyway. This actually answered a question I had about the banned moves in Sheffield and whether the heels ever used them to get heat as Graham receives a public warning for using a banned move whereas Torontos is allowed to retaliate with the headbutt. At first, Graham controlled this so much that I thought Torontos worked like a regular human being at this stage of his career. Then the Torontos we all know began running about waving his arms in the air. The crowd were right behind him and didn't like the result, but Graham punched Torontos after the bout and the ref reversed the decision for a nice pop. Kung Fu vs. Peter Preston (5/21/75) This is the one and only Peter Preston match on tape. Preston was part of one of the most famous matches in British wrestling history when as a relative unknown he defeated Mick McManus two falls to nil at a London television taping in 1967. For years speculation was rife that McManus had been scheduled to win the bout by knockout but that Preston and promoter Norman Morrell had orchestrated a double cross. In any event, McManus got himself disqualified and Preson became an overnight star in the North. By 1975 he was on the wane and diabetes had slowed him down, but he came across as a great heel worker and someone I'd love to see more of. He was awesome at reacting to Kung Fu's kicks and did some awesome feinting before getting his clock cleaned. Quite a fun Kung Fu bout this.

Rey's 2003 was a step down from the freshness of the Smackdown Six era. Through no fault of his own, his matches began to seem spottier and more convoluted without the support of the previous year's booking. I watched some of the other bouts that Meltzer rated and there were only a few highlights to Rey's year. Winning the Cruiserweight title in front of his family was a nice moment, and he had two memorable spots -- an Asai moonsault in one of the WGTT matches and his tope against Taijiri during their Smackdown bout -- but none of the matches were great. I was looking forward to the Taijri bouts but they were more fun than good. The best bout was probably the match against Lesnar since it was an interesting cat vs. mouse narrative, but overall a down year

Trios matches have always been hit and miss with the overwhelming majority being average. That's why we're always on the lookout for hidden gems. Having said that, the modern guys don't have the same bags of tricks to draw upon to make the matches entertaining and tend to follow the match formulas rather slavishly. Great trios workers like the Infernales had dozens of ways to work a bout. Modern workers have a handful.

Watched the 6/17 LCO vs. Toyota & Yamada tag. Not an essential bout, but it's something seeing the once great Toyota and Yamada team jobbed to LCO complete with Toyota bladejob.

I've always spelled it as "Hiromi" so I can't think of why I would have done that. In Japanese her katakana is ひろみ which is Hiromi.

In this case, can you make sure you use Hiromi Yagi in your e-book? A million thank yous.

SELLING BODY PARTS Cena vs Shawn Michaels - Wrestlemania 23 I liked this a lot. The early stuff didn't bother me at all. They chose a story and stuck with it. I disagree that there was no flow or psychology to it. I thought it was psychologically sound and fairly straight forward. You could certainly argue that the psych-outs and pensive looks were lame, but I appreciate that they stuck to their guns, and importantly (for me) I was pleased that Michaels made an effort to make the momentum shift significant by blading from the shoulder-into-the-corner post transition. That made Cena's rush of adrenaline more tolerable than usual and I didn't even mind the five knuckle shuffle in that context. The bridge from the early psych-out work to the finishing stretch wasn't so smooth; Michaels was worn too a little too quickly for my liking, but the finishing stretch itself I thought was excellent. I actually thought it was an example of finishing trading done well as opposed to the more video game looking stuff. There were enough variations on the set-up for each finisher to keep me interested and the nearfalls were great. I especially liked the superkick where Cena was caught off guard by arguing with the ref. In fact, Cena's acting during that stretch deserves some praise considering how harsh I've been on a lot of his selling/acting throughout this thread. The match wasn't an all-time classic or anything, but they exceeded my expectations and delivered a strong main event match. I liked it better than the RAW rematch. I'll give it ****

This style of Joshi tag wrestling is not something I'm really into at the moment, but if you can get into the narrative of the underdog team of Watanabe and Maekawa pulling off the upset against Shimoda and Toyota you might enjoy it on a different level from the classic Joshi tag style. The first two falls are short with the third fall making up the bulk of the match. They go quite deep into their movesets without being overly repetitive and it's certainly competitive. If I had the inclination to watch it again, I could probably figure out how Toyota and Shimoda lost. I don't really feel like watching it again, but I'm sure that narrative is in there somehow. Worth watching for the upset at any rate.

Santo turned technico during the 9/11 Atlantis/Fiera/Casas vs. Santo/Fuerza/Villano III trios.

They say styles make fights but Toyota is one of the last people you'd think would match up well with Kandori. A little bit of attitude goes a long way I suppose. I thought Kandori did a superb job of putting over Toyota's dropkick/springboard counter offence as lethal. To my mind that gave Toyota a ton of credibility against an opponent who could have eaten her alive on the mat. Even the spots that Manami blew or mistimed worked out okay because it came across as Manami over-extending herself and Kandori was able to immediately counter with a submission. There was one botch that ended up with Toyota kneeing Kandori in the head. Kandori hung in there for a submission counter and I thought "this match is rocking." The other great thing Kandori did was let Toyota fight through the first couple of submission attempts. Toyota having a defensive game, even if it wasn't the prettiest, meant that she had a chance of surviving Kandori's ground game. I loved how it became increasingly difficult for Toyota to fight through the holds and how Kandori took the momentum with her strikes. This really was one of the best Joshi matches of the 90s. Manami's missile dropkick to the outside was stupendous.

Their 3/23 Wrestling Queendom match is also good. Ito injures Toyota's ankle and after some running repairs Manami is forced to work on a bad wheel. She does a good job of selling the injury and the action is straightforward and compelling as opposed to being melodramatic and drawn out.

Malenko wasn't a bad mat worker. He was bad at the selling and transitions that go along with mat work, but his stuff looked good. His best opponent in WCW was Ultimo Dragon in my opinion.

I don't know if it's possible to have a visceral response to every match you watch. The matches that hit you in the gut tend to be the ones you mark out for and lavish praise on. And to be honest, it's possible to feel that way from an analytical point of view if you feel that the match keeps getting better and better. It doesn't have to be a purely emotional response to excite you. Personally, I care about the scope of a match, how big the narrative arc is and how far they've come since the beginning. Those are the things that satisfy me. I don't really need to have an emotional response to enjoy wrestling. It sometimes happens and it's fine when it does, but pretty rare.

A friend of mine once told me there was a backstage skit where Angle said to Boss Man "you don't like the Big Show, right?" and Boss Man replied: "Are you kidding me? I dragged his daddy down the highway at high speed!"

This was really good. I liked how Ito thwarted the typical Toyota opening. She didn't put up with her bullshit with the test of strength either. Somewhere between '96 and this bout she morphed into a 1997 version of Yukari Omori. Not only did her foot stomps look vicious but the rest of her offence was badass as well. Looks like a revisit of 1997 Ito is in order. This was another minimalist Toyota bout which worked for me. I thought it was a fantastic league bout with an excellent finishing stretch. Ito's submission attempts ruled. I often liked Toyota's JGP bouts which were smaller matches with less bullshit. I'd rather watch her in this type of setting that her big match run from '94-96.

I envy you somehow.