ohtani's jacket

This was wrested the night after the Coventry match for some sort of Irish super show. I expected them to do a house show style match, but the Dublin crowd was even hotter than the Coventry crowd and I guess the workers decided to pull out all the stops. This really is the best match up in wrestling at this point in time. Neither guy is my ideal wrestler, but their matches are hugely entertaining. I particularly like Daniels. He does a great job of riling up the Irish crowd. The finish is badass with AJ standing over Daniels telling him he doesn't want the X Division title as he's going after the World Heavyweight title instead. That's exciting.

This was an entertaining trios match, albeit done in the "Televisa style" (as I like to call it.) Dos Caras Jr looked much better in this. His execution was still awkward, but he was so much taller than his opponents that you have to give him a bit of leeway with that. Wagner carried the match with his charisma, and the Mistico vs. Ultimo exchanges were entertaining reverse cat and mouse sequences with Mistico chasing Ultimo all over the ring. Ultimo ended up getting frustrated with Mistico and repeatedly elbowed him in the head, leading to a DQ finish where the doc hit the ring and Mistico was stretchered out. Wagner lost his shit over this and beat the crap out of Ultimo. We got a good look at Ultimo's mug and it was definitely a rudo face. Wagner cut a promo and set up a tag match for the following week's show. It was basically sports entertainment, but it generated a shit ton more heat than the other matches on the card.

It's been an age since I've seen the Capos work a regular match. It's not their calling card but they have it in their bag. It's been a while since I've seen Magica do anything either. I can't remember whether he's been injured or if they've just reduced his role. He's such a fantastic worker, but it's so easy to get lost in the shuffle in CMLL. I enjoyed watching Casas work with the Capos in this match as it's a matchup I can't recall seeing that often. Given that Casas isn't doing a lot at this point, it's probably the most enjoyable stuff he's been involved in during 2005. Match ended up being run-of-the-mill, but I enjoyed it.

This was the slowest lightning match ever. It wasn't bad, but the crowd didn't get into it until Black Warrior did his tope. Not sure why Vampiro was in this match. It doesn't seem like CMLL have any use for him anymore.

This was a decent match marred by the usual FIP shenanigans. Punk has greatly improved as worker, but I'm enamored with this heel character he's playing in FIP. Plucky James Gibson puts up the good fight seemed a bit predictable given they're pushing him to the moon in ROH. Punk's spot calling sticks out like a sore thumb. He really needs to stop whispering into his opponent's ear.

Warren Bockwinkel vs Billy Varga (05/19/1953, NWA Los Angeles) This has been in circulation for years, but you should definitely check out the old man if you're a fan of Nick. Harry Monte & Farmer Spatts vs Billy Curtis & Cowboy Clatt (NWA Los Angeles, 05/23/1953) This was a fun midgets match. It was presented with about as much respect as was possible at the time and most of the humorous stuff was playful. They played up the speed and quickness of the wrestlers and there were a number of fun exchanges.

What I'd like to know is who do people wish Angle wrestled like? Do people wish he was more like Jack Brisco or Bret Hart? Do they want him to be like Nick Bockwinkel? Buddy Rose? Billy Robinson? It's confusing. Some people like him as the goofy, three Is guy. Some people like him as a wrestling machine. Do folks want him to be Bryan Danielson? Ric Flair? I don't get it. The guy by all rights should have been a bust, but he became a star. It's always like this with the polarizing types whether it's Shawn Michaels, Manami Toyota, Keiji Mutoh or Hiroshi Tanahashi. They don't do this, they don't work like this wrestler, they're not as good as this person... At some point you need to accept them for who they are.

You enter junior high school aged 12 and it lasts for three years until you’re 15. Once you graduate junior high school, you’re allowed to quit school and start working. She would have been 15 when she made her wrestling debut.

@Matt D I don't know where else to put this, but I checked out your new 70s Joshi on Wednesday series and it says Mach Fumiake was a mainstream star when she joined All Japan Women. I don't believe that was the case. She did reach the final of the Star is Born talent show, but she wasn't scouted by any of the agencies. She didn't fit the image of what the agencies were looking for in an idol at the time. Momoe Yamaguchi, the second place winner at the same contest, went on to become one of the biggest J Pop stars of the 70s and was exactly the type of girl the scouts were looking for. After she failed to be scouted, she initially gave up on her singing dream and focused on sports instead. It wasn't until two years later when her older sister found an AJW recruitment ad in a magazine and encouraged her to try out. As far as I'm aware, she had just been living an ordinary Japanese junior high school life prior to becoming a wrestler. Her stardom came from becoming a popular pro-wrestler. I could be wrong, but that's the info I have.

Andre the Giant vs. Hulk Hogan (WWF, 3/21/81) This has got to be the best Andre vs Hogan match ever. Not only is it surreal watching a heel Hogan wrestle a face Andre, Andre channeling his inner Stan Hansen is incredible to watch. Just an incredible spectacle.

So much of the criticism of Angle back in the day was the fact that he couldn't jell with Guerrero, as though none of that was on Eddie. I'm an Angle fan. The last two matches I saw of his were a great Cena match followed by an excellent Marty Jannetty match. I don't agree with the notions that he had to be in the ring with the right guy, was a go-go-go worker and not a great technical wrestler. Add the Mysterio match from Japan and that's three long form, anti go-go-go matches in a row. The dude was a hell of a talent.

Lord James Blears & Dave Levin vs Tony Morelli & Angelo Cistoldi (NWA Los Angeles, 02/05/1951) Already in circulation, but you should watch all the Blears you can find. Bill Melby vs Sonny Myers (NWA Chicago, 01/16/1953) This match was uploaded 15 years ago, but I noticed that Loss' version is significantly longer. We now have around 10 minutes extra footage of a 30 minute draw. Very good match.

The Superstar category is a hard one to define. Who knows what makes a superstar. I can tell you that I loved the hell out of the Caras vs Rayo mask match, enjoy a lot of older Perro Aguayo matches, loved Pierroth's 1992 run, and I'm a huge sucker for Vampiro in Mexico, but I can't really explain why these things are special. Wagner has that superstar heat, but he was a fantastic worker when he wanted to be. I'm assuming that you're defining superstar as a worker who draws a ton of heat and knows how to work a crowd but doesn't do a hell of a lot in the ring. I assume that takes Perro off the board since he was a great brawler in his prime. We don't really have enough footage of Mil Mascaras in Mexico to know if he fits the bill, and we know that he could work when he wanted to. How about Rayo? He's not bad for a heavyweight, I suppose.

This was part of some random show Chigusa produced in Differ Ariake that was all mixed gender matches. It was JIP, but I'm not gonna miss an opportunity to see Ishikawa trade headbutts with Fujiwara. The men didn't want to wrestle the women at first and their interactions were mainly sex jokes that probably wouldn't fly in the US but are slightly more acceptable in Japan. That's a shame because I would love an actual serious Yoshida vs. Ishikawa contest. We did get some grappling between them towards the end but it turned into a crude sex joke. Fujiwara is a dirty old man in case you'd forgotten. GAEA folded a month after this show. I have no idea what was on Chigusa's mind with this mixed gender stuff.

I thought this was a high quality match, though some of the FIP antics were annoying. I guess they were trying to differentiate themselves from ROH and the other high profile indies but it doesn't do much for me. It's been a while since we've seen Danielson work a long match like this, and Punk improved tremendously as a worker over the course of 2004. There were a lot more positives to this than negatives and it was definitely worth watching.

International Showdown was a supercard produced by The Wrestling Channel featuring several overseas stars wrestling in front of a red hot Coventry crowd. This was the main event of the show, and despite a stacked card, the crowd were far from spent. And who can blame them since Styles vs. Daniels is one of the best rivalries of this era. They worked this just days after Daniels had won the X Division title in a fatal four way match giving the bout an extra bit of spice. It was very much a TNA Styles/Daniels match, as opposed to some of their longer, more mat-based indy matches, but these two do a pretty good greatest hit match. Why this rivalry isn't talked about more is beyond me. Almost every single match they have is enjoyable.

They sure are strapping a rocket to James Gibson. He's barely been in the promotion for a month and already they're pushing him into the title picture. He's a good wrestler but that seems a bit much. These guys match up well and it's a pretty decent match. There was potential in ROH to have a strong lightweight division but I guess they didn't want to pigeonhole guys into different weight classes.

Steve Grey is one of my wrestling heroes, so I was happy to finally make the time to watch one of his maestro performances. It would have been more entertaining if he'd wrestled a fellow vet, but I was pleased to see he could still go.

Super Swedish Angel vs Tom Renesto (NWA Los Angeles, 1951) This was a bit of a find by Loss as Super Swedish Angel is none other than Tor Johnson, the Swedish wrestler who starred in the Ed Wood films Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 from Outer Space. You may remember that George "the Animal" Steele played the role of Johnson in the Tim Burton film. I believe this is the only footage we have of him wrestling. He's not very good. In fact, it's about as close to B-film wrestling as it gets. Some people may get a kick out of Johnson, however, especially if you're a fan of Ed Wood movies. Renesto went on to greater fame as one half of the original Assassins with Jody Hamilton.

To your point, I wouldn't say Fuerza is far off being a Buddy Rogers/Ric Flair type, which would differentiate him from the Arn Andersons of Mexico, except that he never really rose to the level of a Rogers or Flair, which would make him more like a Buddy Rose, I suppose. That said, I think it's important to remember that in American wrestling a lot of the skills a Fuerza shows are limited to house show matches where they work a lighter style. Lucha matches tend to be basically taped house shows so you get to see a lot more variety from luchadores. With Cota, we got those two matches against Rocca, but didn't get a full grasp of his gimmick and the different costumes he wore to the ring, so I'll concede that point. I do feel, however, that there is a dividing line between Porky and other workers where you know that with Porky it's going to be a comedy match and with other workers you're not sure what they'll give you.

This was a match that originally turned me off Mistico, Ultimo Guerrero, or anything to do with the modern style of lucha libre. Watching it 19 years later and within the context of the five years that preceded it, it's not great but it's not a turnoff anymore. Booking-wise, they do their best to put Mistico over Ultimo without making Ultimo look bad. Work-wise, they're trying to bring the excitement the same way WWE workers do. They probably could have had a more traditional match in Guadalajara or some other territory, but for Arena Mexico purposes they delivered they hit the high notes and delivered the talking points that were required. That is far, far away from a MOTYC, however, and this match has no business in any such conversations.

Looking for signature matches from Mexican workers has always been tough due to the fact that they don't work as many singles matches as other wrestlers and the singles matches they do work are often on house shows. There are details we can quibble on. I think Bestia vs. Sevilla is a signature Bestia match, for example, but not enough people sing its praises for it to be considered a truly classic match. My rule of thumb for lucha tends to be that from XX to XX how many times did I see worker XYZ have a good performance? Yes, it means watching every trios match that's available, but this isn't All Japan tape collecting. Anyway, let's move onto the next category: Entertainers Mocho Cota, Fuerza Guerrera, Brazo de Plata, Jerry Estrada, La Parka Charismatic rudos who incorporated a lot of comedy and zany antics into their performances. Quite athletic as well, maybe because they needed to remind the fans that they were for real and not just pure comedians. Equally comfortable leading a team or in a backup role. Parka and Porky both spent most of their career as tecnicos, but with them I see it as their charisma engulfing the rest of their work until they were more charisma than wrestler. This is an interesting category as I feel that a lot of the workers from the previous category also incorporate comedy spots into their matches. It's almost a prerequisite of being a luchador as comedy bouts are a staple form of lucha libre and a common way to take a night off. That's not to say that the workers you chose didn't excel at comedy or being entertaining but rather that it was part of their bag of tricks. Cota I don't feel comfortable putting in this category since the two best matches we have of his are titles matches. Fuerza was flamboyant and hugely charismatic but also a tremendous foil. He was over the top but at the end of the day his role was to carry Pena creations like Octagon and Volador. Estrada could work just about any style. The results depended on how sober he was. Porky and Parka I complete agree with as they had full on routines. You could probably include a number of exoticos in this category. I would separate it as full comedy vs Fuerza/Psicosis style comedy spots like falling off the apron.

I remember there being quite a bit of buzz around this match when it happened. It's kind of surreal seeing Jannetty in the WWE in 2005. He was 45 years old when he wrestled this match and looked every bit his age, but still managed to put on a fantastic showing against Angle. This was the second Angle match I've enjoyed from 2005 after he went off the boil a bit in 2004. He's a guy who can take a flimsy premise like teaching Shawn Michaels to tap by submitting Marty Jannetty and make it seem utterly convincing. I also appreciate the way he works spots into his matches that the crowd have no interest in, but ignores the need to pander to the crowd and keeps working his match. Phenomenal intensity. People were excited for other Jannetty matchups, but he went and blew it. I'm sure his stint would have fizzled out one way or another, but this was a heck of a one night performance.

This was billed as a "Pick Your Poison" match where Bischoff let Batista choose an opponent for Triple H. Apparently, Triple H had never beaten Benoit before in a one-on-one match, and this was fitting the one year anniversary of Benoit's big moment at WrestleMania XX. Long story short, Triple H gets his win over Benoit but it takes a distraction by Flair and a low blow to get the pinfall. Benoit squeezes in a ton of offense before jobbing, including 10 German suplexes. Not their best match together, but a decent TV bout. Triple H is in full Lemmy mode with his facial hair. I believe he chose Kane as Batista's opponent, which is poison for everyone.

Well, we don't really know what other great matches a lot of these workers had. If we didn't happen to have MS-1 vs. Chicana on tape, we might not even consider him a great worker. Maybe he'd be viewed on the level of Masakre. So that skewers things a bit. Then it becomes a question of a lack of charisma or ability vs a Satancio or a Pirata, and I don't see it. I personally think Emilio and Bestia were every bit as charismatic as Satanico and Pirata. In my mind, there are other factors involved such as booking and timing., physical decline, etc. It's lucha -- it's not like these guys are getting only program after another leading to a singles match. They heat guys up then they drop them back down the card again. So it's not really fair to say they couldn't have great singles match after great singles match. Even Satanico and Casas were moved down the card. Now if we're talking about potential, each of those guys got a chance to shine in at least one high level feud and they produced. They're a step above the average rudo. In fact, they're some of the best rudos of all-time, work-wise, and they excel in multiple genres of lucha, for want of a better word, so I tend to have a high opinion of them. I get that there is a cap on what they achieved, but if I look at these guys closely, I would say that their biggest weakness would be that it would be hard for me to see them having successful tecnico runs.