ohtani's jacket

Virus vs. Titan, Mexican National Welterweight Championship, CMLL 1/28/14 Of all the older maestros in CMLL who regularly take on young guys, Virus is by far the best at putting young guys over. This was a title defence for Titan, and given the disparity in skill levels, Virus could have eaten him alive on the mat and just about everywhere else, but you never get the feeling that Virus needs to prove himself. He's not busting his workrate chops to prove he can still hang, he's just guiding a young guy through the closest he'll come to an old school lucha title match. The first fall is a classic lucha title match opening caida, featuring parity on the mat followed by some rope running and a submission maneuver. A mat section in a lucha title match shouldn't be a welcome sight, but too often even maestros forgo mat work against workers they know aren't technically proficient enough. When they do work the mat, they either spend too much time with back to canvas or put the young guy through a labyrinth of holds where the only way out is for the maestro to feed them an arm. Virus, respecting the old school traditions, went hold-for-hold, and while to the trained eye it was obvious that Titan isn't much of a mat wrestler, they successfully created the illusion that he was good enough to be a champion. Virus had the edge because he's a maestro, but he didn't flaunt it. After opening his account, the challenger did what he does best in working a methodical, slower paced fall where he kept the young flier grounded and stirred the pot for the champion's eventual comeback. Much has been made of Titan "popping up" after so much legwork, but the pop up didn't bother me as he couldn't follow through on his celebration and collapsed to one knee, making it obvious that adrenaline had propelled his pop up. What made me despair was the cartwheel he's added to his hurricanrana. I understand that he's young and concerned with what he can do to stand out and get noticed, but cut that shit out. The third fall was beautifully laid out and further proof that Virus is the best third caida guy in the business. Titan started to over power Virus on the strike exchanges and wouldn't bite on any of Virus' counters. A monkey flip off the apron led to Titan following up Virus' big bump with a gorgeous moonsault plancha that the crowd had been waiting for. Third caidas are traditionally 50/50 when it comes to offence, but Virus gave the champion a large part of the fall to put over the rising star. A spectacular somersault plancha was a crowd pleaser, with a shot of a little boy getting positively giddy over it. Virus rolled with the punches and drew on all his experience to put up a fight, but the young champion was moving from strength to strength and almost powerbombed the challenger out of his boots. The great thing about all this was that it wasn't rushed. The pace was measured, the camera work picked up on the selling and the crowd were into it. Virus had one last throw of the dice on an insane springboard senton to the concrete below, which led to a somewhat sloppy finishing stretch that unfortunately hurt the quality of the match, but the crowd didn't care and there was a genuine outpouring of emotion as the young champion proved his mettle by submitting Virus in the middle of the ring. Regardless of how I feel about the new breed, it's always great to see them earn a reaction like that, and I'd like to think it was because of the way the match built. Titan's second did a tremendous job of putting the victory over and his enthusiasm was palpable. I don't think this was as good as the Guerrero Maya Jr. match, which was my MOTY for 2013, but it's the best thing in 2014 by a fair distance, and an example of how you can do the modern style well while still retaining some old school sensibilities. Virus is the best singles worker in the company and it's odd that he's still so underrated even by hardcores.

They didn't start calling it King's Road until the 90s.

Today's fans would have considered Flair washed up and got behind Pillman instead. What I want to know is when did WWE crowds start doing that "this is awesome" crap.

English teachers show up to work drunk all the time.

Outlaw Ron Bass raking Beefcake's face with the spurs.

So, yesterday I heard that Chyna is over here in Japan teaching English and that she got fired from her job because she kept on showing up drunk.

Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Itsuki Yamazaki & Devil Masami, 8/8/83 A few years later this would have been a prime main event. As it was, it was a decent showcase for the impact the Crush Girls on the promotion as they were definitely the best thing AJW had going in 1983. I don't know how long Yamazaki belonged to Black Gundam, but it felt a bit arbitrary making her a heel. Worse than that, though, was how every match on the card had interference from Black Gundam and every match had the same spots outside the ring with the announcing table and the front row chairs. And they did this show after show, year after year. It's a miracle they didn't kill the territory. Jaguar Yokota vs. Masked Yu, 8/8/83 Yokota creamed Yu when she was on offence. She was just a machine. It actually left me wondering if it's possible to be too good in wrestling. Yu's work on top varied in quality, but really she was the latest in a long line of Jaguar squashes. Mimi Hagiwara vs. Judy Martin, 8/8/83 If this had been a bit tighter it would've been really good. It started off well with Martin kicking up a huge stink about Hagiwara being introduced first and using the commentator's microphone to choke her, but from there it all felt a bit off. Mimi had trouble executing her offence on the heavier Martin and the finish was one of the strangest I've seen. Mimi did a splash off the top rope, then lifted Martin's legs into a type of stepover hold and the ref counted three. Why Martin couldn't get a shoulder up is a mystery. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka, 1/4/83 You could already see in this juniors match what a force these two were going to be, and they were already putting forward new ideas about workrate and action that they would continue to develop over the next five or six years. And already they were neglecting to sell, but I think it's interesting to watch two young wrestlers actually being at the cutting edge of something instead of being green. Tarantula & Devil Masami vs. Jaguar Yokota & Mimi Hagiwara, 1/4/83 This was a common match-up in '81 or '82, IIRC, which was clearly reprogrammed into Tarantula and Devil vs. the Dynamite Girls. Naturally, I think this match-up is much better. Devil just loved torturing Mimi and there was plenty of hatred (and screaming) here. If you don't like watching women wailing after they lose, don't watch this. Devil bladed, which is always a cool visual. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Itsuki Yamazaki, 3/31/83 Very solid juniors match that even employed a bit of psychology with Yamazaki selling a rib injury. Yamazaki couldn't really work heel outside of token heel stuff, but you could clearly see she was a promising talent and Chigusa just seemed to be on a meteoric rise.

Didn't Tajiri get treated fairly well in the WWE?

Hey, I never said that Hansen wasn't an all-time great. I said I think it hurts his case as the greatest wrestler of all-time that he wasn't as good in the US as he was in Japan and Puerto Rico.

The Cesaro/Sheamus Smackdown match was also pretty kick ass.

The Rudge/Hurst match that's on YouTube is from 1981.

I didn't care for that Zayn/Cesaro match at all. Cesaro did some cool shit, but I guess I prefer him in heavyweight contests as Zayn looked like a mosquito trying to take on a mastodon. The layout and the selling were weak, and I didn't buy for a second that they were these fierce rivals because it was a spotfest. Zayn has some really awful looking indy offence. It's laughable that people shit on spots like the Rainmaker and then eat this shit up. The commentary was really awful as well.

Jaguar Yokota & Kanako Nagatomo vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka, 11/83 Oddly structured in that Jaguar took care of the Crush Girls with relative easy while Nagatomo got her ass handed to her, yet Jaguar never tried to save Nagatomo. One of those school of hard knocks, tough love deals, I suppose. Jaguar Yokota vs. Peggy Lee, 4/83 Peggy Lee jobbed. Hard. Mimi Hagiwara vs. Princess Victoria, 4/83 Watching these Moolah girls do their heel schtick can be brutal at times, especially when there's dead silence. This girl at least got the crowd to start up a Mimi chant, but she did the most awful Native American war cry, and I really question whether this is the kind of stuff the crowd wanted to see at this point. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Jumbo Hori & Yukari Omori, 4/83 This was better than the last time I saw these girls fight as it was a really niggly, bitchy brawl that got across that the two sides didn't like each other, but I still had trouble staying interested. Jumbo finally delivered a decent performance even if the match all sort of blurred together.

I don't see why Rey should be penalised because WWE crowds are so bad.

That Sheamus/Cesaro match was really, really good. I thought Cesaro would put Sheamus away after he caught him with that uppercut counter and then the huge air on the diving knee, and it was a bit weird seeing a crossface chickenwing that's not sold as death, but a really high octane bout.

Well, Russell says they're five minutes into the action (when there hasn't been any action), then there's a commercial break and when they return both guys are down on the mat and Russell's talking about what a brutal match it's been, so I figure the body of the match is missing. It's just a shame, that's all.

I didn't like the restart. If I was Savage, I wouldn't have agreed to it. The ref declared him the winner in a loser leaves town match, he should have left Lawler high and dry. Nonetheless, I thought the restart could have done with a wee bit more drama instead of Lawler going straight into his Hulking Up routine. It was still a cool match but with over half of it missing it's kind of hard to rate.

1983: Mimi Hagiwara vs Nancy Kumi, 3/83 Dullish match even with all the clipping. They tried to do an even, battle of respect type thing but it only got exciting as the clock expired. Jaguar Yokota vs. Monster Ripper, 6/17/83 Jaguar tried her best, but Ripper wasn't very good working on top and was outclassed by the detail that Jaguar put into her selling. Jaguar, it should be said, wasn't the most amazingly charismatic wrestler, so she could hardly carry this from underneath either. Not really a match-up that clicked. Devil Masami/Tarantula vs. The Dynamite Girls, 6/17/83 Devil and Tarantula were a fun team, so this was slightly better than other Dynamite Girls from this time, but I still dislike Omori and Hori more than any other girls on the roster. They did an angle here where an injury took Tarantula out of the match and then there was this big convoluted 2 on 1 finish which had a countout, a conference between the referees and the commissioner, and five more minutes added or some such bullshit. Mimi Hagiwara vs. Itsuki Yamazaki, 11/83 Yamazaki was still really young here and didn't get much of a rub from Mimi. The match was built around Mimi's strikes, which looked really girly here. Devil Masami vs. Monster Ripper, chain match, 11/83 They did some fun things with the chain, and Ripper's offence was a thousand times better than in the Yokota match, but either Leilani Kai is the all-time worst blader in the history of professional wrestling or these girls have the toughest, leatheriest foreheads around, because she bladed them over and over again and they wouldn't juice. It was hugely distracting as she'd do it right on camera, then laugh with Terri Shane about it, and you'd be looking for the blood and couldn't see any. Other than that, it wasn't as brutally violent as other chain matches, but I doubt it would have made TV if it had been. Mimi Hagiwara vs. Chigusa Nagayo, 9/83 This was the best thing I watched from this batch of Joshi. Like Yamazaki, Chigusa was also young here, but she was already brimming with self-confidence and showed the type of attitude that would take her to the top. Watching her here it was evident what a special talent she was. This was the even, battle of respect deal that Mimi and Nancy were hoping to achieve, but well paced and ultimately successful. Really good early Chigusa match. Lioness Asuka vs. Devil Masami, June/July '83 Nice competitive squash. Masami looked like the great worker we know here to be, and Asuka showed the same determination as Chigusa in her match against Mimi.

CMLL is doing poor business at the moment, so I wouldn't expect them to do particularly well in awards like these. Their in-ring product has improved in recent years, but is generally overrated. I don't think it's a bit deal that they didn't feature so much.

Tully Blanchard vs. Terry Taylor, 8/85 This was all right, but it was hard to get excited over anything Taylor did. It was really a TV match with a bit more time, and because it was a Tully match, Taylor had to work most of the match from one top, which wasn't that interesting. Tully was fine, but it wasn't a particularly special performance from him. The whole thing was like the minimum of what I'd expect from this match-up, and I don't think it deserves any sort of "near classic" rating. It would have had to have gone far deeper than the usual "Tully in peril" to warrant that sort of praise.

I think this was based on the TV versions.

Yumi Ikeshita vs. Mami Kumano, '79 Battle of the Black Pair with the general theme being that these girls were even nastier against each other. Kumano stood on Ikeshita's hair while putting her in a submission and Ikeshita choked her out, then they brawled all around ringside and used the house mic to maim each other. We've all seen better brawls, but this was still pretty cool. Yumi Ikeshita vs. Rimi Yokota, late 1980 This was worked as more of a Jaguar style match than a Black Pair vs. Idol match, though Ikeshita did cheat in tandem with Devil Masami, which the older fans didn't like. Ikeshita could go, so there were some nice exchanges and one nearfall that I bit on, but Yokota was perhaps a little rough around the edges compared to her later work. Yumi Ikeshita vs. Mami Kumano, 12/79 Short match that started off with a bit of workrate before Kumano started using a foreign object. Just when you thought it was Kumano who had been the nastiest of the Black Pair, Ikeshita took one of those chests that the TV crew use to carry their equipment and throttled Kumano and the ref with it. See, it's always the quiet ones. Devil Masami vs. Yumi Ikeshita, 11/79 These two matched up well. The size difference meant they could really play up Masami's strength against Ikeshita's guile.

It would be weird in lucha to have a rudo fall with a technico comeback followed by a rudo fall with a technico comeback.