ohtani's jacket

The master stylist. I suspect a lot of people would find the Wigan trained heavyweights like Billy Joyce and Billy Robinson boring as bat shit, and there are a lot of other heavyweights out there who are dry and technical and a bad place to start. Veidor had a flair for making his bouts exciting and is the perfect gateway for the British heavyweights. There are a bunch of his matches on YouTube so you can start with the Davies bout and get stuck right in. My other favourite is against Tony Charles.

The other match is against a guy called Dennis Mitchell, who was one of wrestling's first golden boys in the 1960s. He's right at the end of his carer and I don't remember much about it. It's on YouTube. Boscik and Grey had a whole series of matches some of which aired on TWC and some from the original broadcasts. They had tremendous chemistry.

Ozaki worked Yagi's arm early on, which Yagi sold extremely well, but the only time I remember Yagi putting a hold on Ozaki's arm she was kicking the ribs with her heels. I'm not sure there was enough arm work for it to even matter if it was blown off. It certainly wasn't a focus. I don't remember an Ozaki pop up, but she was clutching her ribs on everything. Transcendent is a pretty big word, but that was a great selling performance for a regular TV match. I could see a lot of people going ga ga over that if it happened in a TV match these days. But even if it didn't seem that good, you don't usually see that kind of psychology in Joshi so I thought it was great detail work.

I'm glad you liked it.

I wanted to pick something from left field for Joshi and so I chose the Ozaki/Yagi match because it's a longish Ozaki match and I'm interested in what people think of her these days, plus it's from the JWP TV run that Jerome and Todd and others loved so much, wasn't on the yearbook, and features the as ever unheralded Hiromi Yagi. Man was this a pleasant surprise. Ozaki came into the match with taped ribs and the commentator mentioned it was her return bout. I don't know if her ribs were still hurting, but she sold them throughout the match and constantly had one hand clutched to her side. The limbwork Dylan mentioned was actually targeting the ribs and Ozaki sold it beautifully. This match reconfirmed for me that she really was one of the great sellers of all time. Just a beautiful seller. Yagi was in an unnatural position of being the aggressor, and I don't think it works when she takes an opponent to the outside, but on the mat the way she worked her fist into the ribs or kicked them with her feet while applying the armbar was awesome stuff, and the double stomp to the ribs was the most painful looking thing I've seen in wrestling since god knows when. Ozaki was an amazing seller. It bears repeating. I don't think she blew anything off, because her ribs were hurting her the entire time and she really didn't pull out that much offence during the stretch run. I don't think she needed to go to the dragon sleeper three times (the first time would have sufficed for me), but I understand her wanting to make sure Yagi hung on for long enough before the referee stopped the fight. This was a great TV bout, I thought. It got me right back into Ozaki. I feel a bit bad nominating a match for myself, but somebody else can choose the Joshi pick next week.

They didn't start airing EMLL on television until 1983 so there's nothing from before then. I haven't watched his 00s work or any of his recent stuff against Dandy. Please pass along anything good you discover.

This is the Ultimo Guerrero match: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i95WsMehcfQ

Well, I watched them both back-to-back and would probably put Chigusa/Dump at *** 1/2 and the Funks tag at ** so we are not on the same book let alone the same page.

It would sometimes lead to a DQ. It depended on how much the wrestler had been doing it, how many public warnings they had or how blatant it was. Literally everybody did the concealed punch spot. The public-warning system is something I take for granted these days, but there was also an unwritten rule that the ref would allow a certain amount of retaliation if he felt like the opponent had been using inside moves. They would also issue private warnings and would even give the faces public warnings so that Walton could exclaim how he'd never seen wrestler A receive a public warning to piss off all the nit pickers at home like me. The DQ for a punch is actually one of my least favourite finishes. Nine times out of ten it makes the heel look stupid as opposed to getting his just deserts.

I thought I'd do some of the homework too. The Funks tag did just about nothing for me. The visual of both Funks bleeding was strong and I liked their comeback, but the heels weren't domineering enough for me and I thought it was odd that Dory ended up being more psychotic and vicious than either of them. I'm not sure it was even a match, to be honest. It was as though the match never really started and just descended into an out of control brawl. I can appreciate Parv's review and his feelings on the match, but I don't really see how the stakes were high enough for Dory to go so crazy in the match.

Am I watching the wrong match or did Abdullah do even less before busting Terry open than Dump?

It happens a lot with 70s workers. Veidor at least has 21 matches on tape.

Unfortunately, there's only three Gwyn Davies matches on tape. We're pretty lucky to have the Veidor one as it was from the Royal Albert Hall, which wasn't usually taped.

Okay, for anybody else who watches, keep in mind that it was really a huge upset. Most people would have picked Chigusa to prevail in a close fought bout, but it wasn't even close really. Dump steamrolled her and the loss sent shockwaves through the audience at home.

Bull was basically a good worker from the beginning. Once she over the fact that she had to be a heel (legend has it she cried when they cut her hair since nobody really wanted to be a heel in those days), she quickly blossomed. Her most difficult growth period was when they first pushed her as the top woman before she gained all the weight. She didn't really have the tools to be on top at first and there were some growing pains. She had been very comfortable in her tag roles up to that point. The Bull/Condor team was a strong mid card act and I remember enjoying a lot of their matches. The entire 80s mid card is underrated/unknown. You have to be into your Joshi to enjoy it, but they became a great crew around '87.

Why do you need to do more than have your forehead repeatedly stabbed with a pair of scissors to bleed? Dump works the cut open after Chigusa has tried to cut her hair, and Chigusa tries to cut Dump's hair because she's actually being owned on the mat and having all her comebacks cut off. She doesn't resist the hair cut at the end either. The crowd and her team don't want her to have her hair cut and especially not by the heels. I think the comparisons to Magnum/Tully are a bit off because it's not the blow off match. That was the second hair match. This match was designed to purely shock.

Slater vs. Roberts with Dark Journey in the cage was good, though it did expose Roberts' weakness as a worker. He was simply boring working from the top. The match doesn't get good until Slater takes over and Roberts begins selling the arm. The commentary dropping in and the crowd noise dropping out was a travesty, and the finish wasn't really the payoff the crowd wanted, but overall it was good stuff.

Good -- WCW Dangerous Alliance era produces probably the best period for television wrestling in company history (barring the NWA years.) Negro Casas jumps to CMLL and we finally get to see him work on a regular basis including a legendary feud against Dandy. 90s All Japan Women comes of age with their November Dream Rush show. Bad -- Wrestling hits a low in the US with the steroid trial. Pena's AAA deal with Televisa ends the golden era of 1989-92 lucha. Jumbo Tsuruta becomes ill. Ugly -- Ultimate Warrior vs .Papa Shango? The finish to Wrestlemania VIII? Rude vs. Chono?

Negro Casas vs. Ultimo Dragon, UWA World Middleweight Championship, CMLL 3/26/93 This managed to both thrill and confuse me. The first fall was worked using the international currency for juniors matwork. Usually it would bother me that the matwork wasn't 'lucha enough,' but in this case it was being presented as an international title fight so it made sense for the work to be more universal. Ultimo wasn't that great at working holds from the top, but Casas provided enough movement to keep it interesting. I thought they missed a trick by not doing more stand-up as the match began with Ultimo breaking through Casas' defences and giving him two open handed strikes. It was a psychological game Ultimo was playing after Casas had pushed around his second, but if Ultimo had a clear advantage anywhere it was with his stand-up game, and I would have liked to have seen him challenge Casas there. On the mat, they could have done with a bit more intensity after the aggression that Ultimo started with, but it wasn't a bad fall. When they worked the ropes it was pretty as Ultimo was the most acrobatic worker in Mexico at the time. Casas copped a shiner either around the eye or on his cheekbone (it was hard to make out from the footage), and Ultimo finished him off with a lariat to the face that would be a head high tackle in rugby. The second fall I thought as begging for a quick response from Casas no matter how much I complained about that trope with the Villano matches. I thought the crowd were ripe for it, and the circumstances of the first fall coupled with the foul Casas decided to give the Dragon would have worked better as a narrative if Casas had taken a quick fall. Instead they worked quite a long second fall where Casas tried to methodically win the fall and Ultimo kept frustrating Negro by reaching the ropes. That frustration and a sense of fatigue creeping in are the only explanations I can think of for why Casas fouled Ultimo in the break between rounds. A lot of people in the Yearbook thread loved that moment and I can understand it being the type of thing people get excited for (lucha libre extraordinaria and all that), but to me it made no sense. If Casas had lost the second fall I could understand it as an act of cowardice/desperation. If he'd won the second fall in dominant fashion, I could understand it as going in for the kill or even rubbing Ultimo's face in it. I could even buy it as retaliation for the shiner. But the way they did it felt like cheap heat. The match already had a lot of heat and the crowd seemed to be behind Ultimo even though he wasn't a native. The rules of a title match are such that you just don't do that. You don't break those traditions. Casas would laugh in the face of all that as he was the type of rudo who loved to do outrageous things, but he wanted to show how worried he was about the fight he should have taken the first and dropped the second with all the momentum in the Dragon's corner heading into the third. My comments seemed justified by how dull Casas' continued submissions efforts seemed in opening the third caida. It wasn't until they dropped the holds completely and went to a series of Cassa bumps to the outside that things picked up again. Ultimo hit a tope between the ropes that could have been used in every highlights package for weeks and months to come, and later hit a beautiful pin point dropkick to knock Casas off the apron and set-up his quebrada. If you want to make a fair argument for Ultimo, he was a fantastic athlete. He wasn't a detail guy and didn't add all sorts of great little psychological touches, but man could he run, jump and move. In some people's eyes that may make him a slightly superior version of Octagon or Mascara Sagrada, but lucha needs these types to have the proper rudo vs. technico morality plays it thrives on. Let the rudos be the great performers. Casas was running on empty late in the third caida. His cheek was swelling up and he sold every move as though it was using up the last of his energy. He did this interesting spot where he climbed to the top and either slipped or collapsed and fell to the mat. Moments before he'd put his knees up on an Ultimo dive, and I guess the majority of workers would have fed their opponent the same transition or gotten them to pop up, but not Casas. It was an interesting spot. I'm not sure it really worked, but it was an insight into the thinking process and what he was trying to achieve by selling so much fatigue. Ultimo got the best nearfall of the match off a power bomb, but the age old complaint of slow ref counts was never truer than on the kick out here. Casas ended up countering with a mirroring power bomb of his own, which I didn't really love, the finish was excellent. Ultimo overwhelmed Casas with kicks, which you'll note I said he should have done from the start, and Casas couldn't block Ultimo's tiger suplex. The crowd popped big for Ultimo's title victory and he received a continuous ovation. There was a cool moment where he stood on the ropes and posed for his new adoring public. Casas was bitterly disappointed afterwards, but begrudgingly shook hands with the victor. If it isn't obvious by now, I didn't love this bout, but I did think it was a bout that a lot of new fans to lucha might appreciate as there was an effort to work an epic sort of title switch where the champion tried to chart his downfall through a growing sense of frustration and fatigue, and even a sense that he couldn't really live with his opponent's martial arts skills. Casas sold well and there was that epic feel to the match that you don't always get from lucha (and was certainly missing from Ultimo's title defence against Emilio.) It may not seem quite as epic to fans of other styles where large scale bouts are par for the course, but Casas was certainly trying here. The 'I don't know how to put this guy away' narrative didn't quite work for me, but I can see it working for others as it's really just a personal thing in regards to whether it gels with you. The biggest plus I can say is that it was interesting, which is good because there's nothing worse than being boring. Casas wasn't as individually brilliant as I expect from him, and I actually wondered at times if he wasn't in the best of conditions. Maybe that was just brilliant selling and I have no idea how good his performance really was, but he was busy taking a blow at times when there weren't a lot of eyes on him. He did have amazingly cool wrestling shoes. They looked like track shoes rather than wrestling boots. He should have sold them and made a mil. The match is a must-watch since it's one of the biggest title matches from Casas' 90s runs, so you should watch it and see how much your feelings differ from mine. It received unanimously positive feedback on the Yearbook thread from people who aren't quite as finicky about what they want from their lucha, or don't have quite as many quirks as yours truly, so queue it up and see how you feel.

If this were a list of guys who've had an awesome match on multiple 80s sets he'd be a shoe-in.

Yamada is a strange one. I like her in various matches, but I would never go out of my way to see her. Still, it's odd that a worker with as many great matches as she had on her resume would get so criminally overlooked. My guess is she lacks a punch outside of the Toyota feud and her famous tags w/ Manami. If her interpromotional singles matches had been a bit better she'd have a far better rep. I know in 2006 I wouldn't have taken her over the Takako Inoues or Cutie Suzukis of the world because of the roles they played. Too often Yamada's role was poor woman's Chigusa. The post-exodus GAEA stuff interests me a bit, but not that much if you know what I mean.

Age doesn't necessarily factor into seniority. Jumbo was Tenryu's senior because he started in AJPW in '73 while Tenryu started in '76.

I don't have time to add podcasts to my busy rotation, but I chucked this on. Parv is an entertaining man. Afterwards it flipped over to Titans and man is that entertaining. Anyway, Misawa's actions were the same sort of rebellion Choshu had shown against the hegemony the decade before. Most of the core All Japan fans were salary men (the Japanese name for white collar workers) who were part of the nenko jorestu seniority-wage system, so they automatically got the younger Misawa sticking it to his senior. I suspect there was a bit of a wish fulfillment fantasy going on. Later Kawada would also stick it to his senpai Misawa. Taue crossed over to Jumbo's side when Kabuki left for SWS just weeks after winning the tag titles with Tsuruta. I believe the explanation they gave the fans was that Jumbo asked Taue to join his group. As for pronunciation, it's not really pronounced SUE-ROO-TA, but it's a massively difficult name to pronounce correctly so just go with that.

Favourite Santo opponent is a fun topic. I think Casas and La Parka would be in contention. Blue Panther. He had really good chemistry with Perro Aguayo Jr as well. That feels like a million years ago. Blue Demon Jr? I jest. Edit: Espanto had a couple of lengthy tags on UWA TV. I don't think Dr. Wagner Jr. y Espanto Jr. vs. Celestial y Coloso is on YouTube, but their match against Villano IV y V is.

I gushed all over Satanico in my latest blog entry. If I were making my list tonight he would be number one.