ohtani's jacket

Roddy Piper vs. Bob Orton Jr., Philadelphia 11/8/86 Roddy Piper vs. Bob Orton Jr., SNME 11/29/86 These were pretty disappointing considering their break-up was a pretty big deal. The Philly match has its moments when they're brawling and with some of the offense Orton brings, but I wasn't feeling the Piper as face and Orton as heel dynamic, and Piper ran through him fair too easily. The SNME was the usual five minute nonsense. Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis, Buffalo, NY 12/27/86 Roddy Piper vs. Adrian Adonis, Toronto 2/15/87 The Buffalo match was again pretty much a perfect houseshow match. Roddy started out like a house on fire until Hart managed to turn the tables. Piper then sold for some time while the crowd screamed for him to make a comeback and Adonis bumped big for the finish. Simple stuff, but well done. The Toronto match had a whole bunch of interference from Hart, Roddy being blinded by Adrian's perfume and a whole bunch of other carry on. It was the kind of match that made me a fan of wrestling as a kid as the action was simple to follow and the heels and face were so clearly delineated. Not a great match or anything, but a lot of fun and better than most Adonis matches from this era or Piper matches for that matter. Roddy Piper vs. Randy Savage, Miami 1/22/90 Pretty typical Macho King Randy Savage match. Roddy's physique looked different during this comeback. I couldn't figure out whether he was out of shape or it was some kind of side effect on being on the gas. The long hair look didn't really suit him, I thought. Piper got his hands on Sherri towards the end of the match and the camera man gave us a super close-up of her thong. Amazingly, both Mooney and Lord Alfred Hayes refrained from commenting on it. Panty shot was probably the highlight of the match. Roddy Piper vs. Don Muraco, Boston 11/1/86 Roddy Piper vs. Don Muraco, Maple Leaf Gardens 11/16/86 Man, this Muraco matches were the worst. Fucking Don Muraco. Everytime you think it's going to the one Don Muraco match from the mid 80s where he doesn't suck ass and everytime he's awful.

The Piper/Snuka feud Jimmy Snuka vs. Roddy Piper, St. Louis 5/5/84 Jimmy Snuka vs. Roddy Piper, Philadelphia 7/7/84 Jimmy Snuka vs. Roddy Piper, MSG 8/25/84 Jimmy Snuka vs. Roddy Piper, Boston 3/2/85 Jimmy Snuka vs. Roddy Piper, Philadelphia 3/17/85 This stood in sharp contrast to the Piper/Orndorff feud in that it began with a classic angle but the matches were piss weak. The problem here was two-fold. Firstly, no matter how over or popular Snuka was, he didn't have the charisma or acting skills to get across his anger. The stone cold stare he gives Piper before their MSG match is kind of cool, but it doesn't translate into an electrifying match. It was almost like he was taking a cool, calm, calculated approach, but would end up getting his ass kicked by Piper. Orndorff was awful on the mic and his acting seemed forced or unnatural at times, but he at least got across that he was full of rage and that he wouldn't let anyone collect the bounty on his head no matter how fucked up he was at the end of the match. The other problem was that Piper was in full on stooge mode for most of the matches. Instead of the violent brawls he had with Orndorff, you'd get stereotypical heel/face schtick. The feud should have been bloodier and more intense than Piper/Ordnorff, but it was painfully run of the mill. The angle at the end of the MSG match is well done and makes Piper seem like a maniac, but that's about the only highlight from this feud.

You can read about the changes here -- http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2012/06/japan-downloading-law/ From what I can gather, every step of making Japanese TV available for download will be a criminal offense.

The Piper/Orndorff feud Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff, MSG 7/13/85 Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff, Capital Centre 7/20/85 Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff, Philadelphia 7/27/85 Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff, Boston 8/3/85 Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff, Philadelphia 8/24/85 Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff, SNME 10/5/85 This was a heck of a feud. The mic work from Orndorff to set up his face turn was incredibly lame, but from New York to Washington through to Philly and Boston this feud was hot. What impressed me most was that while all the matches were short, intense, violent brawls and they all followed the same basic match structure there was very little in the way of repetition of spots. It was only really by the time they got to Boston that they started rehashing some of their earlier stuff. The first three matches from July are fabulous. The MSG match is probably the most complete of the three in terms of a full match, but the Cap Centre and Philly matches do a great job of continuing where the MSG match left off. The only real fault in the three match run is that the finish to the Cap Centre match is a bit awkward, but they make up for it with some wild post-match antics. The second Philly match is basically the set-up for a Piper/Orton vs. Orndorff/Sammartino program that I wasn't interested in watching and the SNME match rather than delivering a payoff is a truncated version of their houseshow circuit. I guess the lack of a blowoff match is fairly typical with 80s WWF, but it would've been nice to see a decisive outcome before Orndorff moved on to his Hogan program.

I started teaching an EMI record executive recently and we began talking about the issue of downloading in Japan since the new downloading laws come into effect from October. Japan's CD sales are still relatively high compared to say America or the UK, but downloading exists. According to the music industry, there were 440 million legal downloads of music in 2010 and ten times the number of illegal downloads. Perhaps your students or the people you socialise with aren't so young.

I wonder what effect the new downloading laws in Japan will have on puro rips.

Roddy Piper vs. Randy Savage, Hamilton, Ontario 12/13/86 Man, was Piper over as a babyface or what? Super fun houseshow match between these two. It was wrestled pretty much perfectly for a houseshow audience with a lot of big, easy to follow action. A little on the short side, but plenty of intensity. Crowd got what they wanted even if Piper didn't win the belt.

Emilio Charles Jr. vs. Dr. Wagner Jr. (CMLL 2/20/98) This was rudo contra rudo from what I could gather, but since Emilio was about to turn it was set up to garner him face heat. Broken down Emilio had his moments (as we'll see later), but a match this length was beyond him. He kind of struggled in that '93 hair match against Dandy let alone in a singles match five years later, and while I like Wagner he wasn't a good enough worker to make this interesting. They did all the things you're supposed to do in a mano a mano bout but with none of the intensity of say Santo and Casas. There was a title match the week after, but I'm not in any hurry to watch it. El Hijo Del Santo, Emilio Charles Jr. y Satanico vs. Shocker, Mr. Niebla y Negro Casas (CMLL 3/23/98) This set up the Emilio Charles Jr./Satanico hair match and was the catalyst for Emilio's face turn I suppose. Halfway through the match, Satanico was holding Shocker on the outside for Emilio to hit with his tope when Shocker ducked out the way. Emilio dove straight into Satanico's shoulder area and Satanico spent the rest of the match selling the injury. Apparently, accidental collisions between rudos do more damage than Emilio's tope would have done to Shocker, but bear with me. Later on, Satanico tagged in, but he bailed out and Emilio took his place. Emilio was on fire and cleaning house when Satanico suddenly attacked him. The execution of all this was a little off, but the brawling was good. There was one punch from Satanico which absolutely clocked Charles. Other than that it wasn't much of a trios. Rudo Santo was really old at this point and I was sick of Santo vs. Casas no matter how good their chemistry was. Lizmark and Atlantis vs. The Head Hunters (CMLL 10/25/96) Not a fan of tag matches in lucha. Trios are brilliant, but regular tags aren't something luchadores do well and this match was no exception. Lizmark and Atlantis are two of the greatest technicos of the latter half of the 20th century as far as classical, masked luchadores go, but at no point in this match did they seem like a great tag team. There just isn't the culture of standard two on two tag wrestling in lucha that there is in the States, for example, and I dislike the parejas psychology where one member from each team is pinned and effectively eliminated. It also didn't help that I wasn't into the spots that Atlantis and Lizmark did with the Head Hunters compared to the sort of things I saw Satanico, Dantes and Wagner do the other day. Misterioso, Volador y Mano Negra vs Javier Llanes, El Supremo y Espectro Jr. (CMLL 5/31/91) This was good stuff. You can tell a promotion is doing well when its lower card stuff is this enjoyable. The rudos didn't do much but the technicos were exciting. Match flowed well. Olimpico vs. Damian El Guerrero, mask vs. hair (CMLL 8/6/96) This was a really good lower card, almost junior-esque hair vs. mask match. It was mostly big dives with some brawling mixed in, but they really nailed it. The crowd threw them money after it was over and Olimpico was asked to kiss a baby. Universo 2000, Mascara Año 2000 y Dr.Wagner Jr vs Atlantis, Hector Garza y Canek (CMLL 11/24/95) This was also really good. 1995 was right around the time that Wagner started to get good and he had great chemistry with Atlantis here, but the guy who has impressed me most during all his random viewing has been Hector Garza. I don't think it's any secret that I don't really like young workers, but Garza in '95/96 was quite possibly the most exciting young worker I've seen. I don't find him charismatic like I did with a young Dantes, but his offense was insane and I swear I almost popped for the win he gets here. The match almost descends into the type of mask removing that gets a bout thrown out, but it gets back on track and features some great action. Villano III vs. Atlantis (CMLL 2/11/00) This was a title match that was part of the build-up to the famous mask match between these two. It was also proof that bullshit finishes involving the Villanos began as early as 2000. Atlantis injured Villano with his torture rack to end the second fall and it seemed like he was primed to take Villano's Light Heavyweight title until Villano IV draped his brother over his shoulders and took him backstage for what I guess amounted to an injury break. The ref began counting him out, but when he returned he had recovered enough to win, at least I think that's what was going on. Before all that was some pretty good wrestling. Not as good as what they had been capable of only a few years earlier, but some of the stuff they did was fantastic and made you wish they'd had a straight up title match instead of an angle. These two in particular really brought the fantastic submissions you think of when you think of lucha. Emilio Charles Jr. vs. Silver King, hair vs. hair (CMLL 9/27/96) I can't remember if I've seen this before, but I think I would have remembered it because it was really good. In fact, it's probably the best match I've seen Silver King have. I'm probably wrong in saying that, but I really dug this. It started off with Silver King getting a quick pinfall off a hot start. I guess most people dislike that trope in lucha, but his timing was perfect and it looked really good. Emilio's transition onto offensive after being rocked early was awesome. Silver King went for a plancha suicida and Emilio caught him with a punch. From there they bled and fought and all of the nearfalls were great. I think the key to the match was that it wasn't that long, which helped with Emilio's stamina issues. Emilio with his beard keeps reminding me of Helmsley if Helmsley ballooned out and suddenly had the body of Jim Duggan, but I think to a certain extent that the good part of his career was longer and more productive than I imagined. This was certainly choice. Brazo de Plata vs. Gran Markus Jr. (CMLL 5/29/98) In my world this should headline the Anniversary show.

Mascara Año 2000, Fuerza Guerrera y Herodes vs. MS-1, El Dandy y Astro de Oro, circa '89 For some reason El Dandy and MS-1 were on the same side here. That didn't last long. Match was pretty much an angle to set up Dandy vs. MS-1 and Mascara Año 2000 vs. Astro de Oro matches. Wouldn't mind seeing that Dandy/MS-1 match if it ever took place. Satanico, Apolo Dantes y Dr.Wagner Jr vs. The Head Hunters y Emilio Charles Jr., circa '98 This was a lot of fun. Satanico was sporting a skinhead here and I'm guessing this was after Emilio took his hair as the rudos paid Emilio plenty of attention. Broken down Emilio was pretty spry here. The rudo side was really solid and he had to fight his way out of a number of predicaments. It's times like these you need a pair of fat men in your corner. The Head Hunters slotted into lucha well, which isn't usually the case with foreigners but these guys got a lot of mileage out of their girth. The rudos had a field day with the sight gags they were able to create but there was also some good hard hitting action. Most of all I was impressed with the amount of effort Emilio and Satanico put in to this midcard spot. Once a pro always a pro. Javier Monarca Cruz, Eddie y Mando Guerrero vs. Cachorro Mendoza, Apolo Dantes y Mano Negra, circa '91 This was a pretty standard trios. The match-ups were mostly good but nobody really stood out. I enjoyed watching Apolo Dantes. He was really young here and there was a real fire to everything he did. Watching him here I would have picked him to be a headliner in the mold of Cien Caras. I'm not sure he ever lived up to his potential, but I'm equally unsure that he was given the chance. The highlight of the match was Mando getting right in Apolo's face. He looked like somebody's dad who coaches the local football team, but he sure as hell didn't have any time for snot assed punks. Also worth tracking was Mano Negra, who was always a quietly solid worker. Eddie had a night to forget, including possibly the worst botch of his career. He tried leaping onto the top rope from the apron and fell over face first. I was always under the impression that when this happens in lucha the other worker (in this case Dantes) lays in some stiffer than usual shots to recover, but Dantes went for a rolling cradle where they came out looking even. Negro Casas vs. El Hijo del Santo, circa '95 I'm guessing this is their September '95 match. This was a really brilliant mano a mano bout. Neither guy could take the upper hand so it descended into this niggly, underhanded brawl with a lot of cheap shots. It was actually the worst I've seen Santo behave as a technico, which laid the seeds for his heel turn presumably. If you like Casas' stuff with Panther you'll love this as his brawling was even better here. He almost had Santo in a mount position and was pummeling him with great looking punches. I don't know if Casas bleed hardway or not, but he wound up with one of the most realistic looking cuts I've seen in wrestling. It was like a boxing cut and provided some great visuals. The finish was this wonderful mass of confusion as the ref caught an elbow from Casas flush in the face, then Santo gave Casas a sunset flip powerbomb off the apron. Somehow there was a DQ in all this and Santo wandered around with his mask torn to shit asking a member of the public whether he thought it was a DQ while Alfonso Morales tried to interview the ref. I need to watch this again. Pierroth, Satanico y Kung Fu vs. El Dandy, Mogur y Kato Kung Lee, circa '91 I'm not sure what the deal was with this match. There was some sort of karate exhibition before it began, which was embarrasing in how little it resembled karate, and then Satanico cut a promo. By the time all that was over there was only time for one fall. Whether this was a one fall match or the rest of the match is missing or the uploader made a mistake, I'm not sure, but they went through the pairs once and then a second time and that was all that was uploaded. The action was fantastic, though. Even Mogur looked good in this. Blue Panther, Black Panther y Fuerza Guerrera vs. Hector Garza, El Dandy y El Hijo del Santo, circa '95/96 This was the best of the lot. I don't know if Black Panther was the Puebla worker or not, but he was pretty damn good and led Garza through some pretty decent grappling exchanges to start this. That freed Dandy up to partner Panther and allowed Santo to pair off with Fuerza, two match-ups you don't see enough of. Hardcore fans may be disappointed that they brawl instead of having classic exchanges, but their brawling is every bit as good as you'd expect and the match is packed with wild spots. This was in that period where Garza did insane shit every match and I swear he takes this bump to the outside where his head bounces off the top rope. Deep into the third, Panther's mask is all torn up and it's amusing how easily you can recognise him now with half his face showing. Fuerza also has a torn mask and it never really occurred to me how much hair he has packed under that thing. Match ends with a sensational dive train: Garza's corkscrew plancha, Santo's plancha suicida and a double topes from Santo and Dandy that made them look like the greatest tag team that ever lived. Excellent match.

Ultraman, Stuka & Kung Fu vs. Herodes, Masakre & El Satanico, Arena Coliseo 80s This seemed like an exciting match on paper, but it was very much a houseshow match. That wasn't so bad, however, as there were a couple of good laughs. The first half of the match featured a bunch of physical comedy designed to make the rudos look foolish while the second half was a beatdown where the technicos paid for their cheekiness. I love how rudos from this generation could switch from comedy to asskickery without missing a beat, and of course they were led by Satanico, one of the all-time great workers at leading an ass kicking. Satanico's range never ceases to amaze me. He had a comical exchange with Kung Fu that was Shaw Brothers in its choreography then during the beatdown he paraded around like the joke was on the technicos only to lay in the type of shots that showed how pissed he was at being humiliated. I also dug watching Herodes in this match. He's a guy who there's not a lot of footage of but who deserves his rep. Some funky stuff as a base for Stuka, great barrel roll bumps to the outside and cool immovable object spots. Masakre was better later on with the Infernales and Ultraman and Kung Fu weren't at their best here, but for a regular night out at Coliseo it was a nice little slice of 80s lucha.

It sounds like you went back and forth between early RINGS and the later more Pancrase influenced stuff.

Don't quite see the correlation when MMA is pretty much dead in Japan well.

La Fiera vs. Babe Face, hair vs. hair, 8/15/86 This was a good match. It didn't really deliver like a great hair match does, but still worth a look. The first time I watched it I thought the first two falls were a bit innocuous looking. I always get defensive when people say the first two falls in lucha are nothing falls as most of the time I think they work within the rhythm of a lucha libre match, but with these 80s matches the crowds are so poorly mic'ed that it's difficult to get a feel for the rhythm at times. Watching it again, Fiera gave a slightly more nuanced performance in the opening falls than I realised but there were still a few things I had a problem with. One of those problems was Fiera's offense: I'm not a big fan of Fiera's high kick offense to begin with, but I thought it looked particularly strange with the size difference between the workers and Babe Face not being a big bumper. I also thought he used too much high end offense for the first fall of a hair match. I prefer hair matches to be straight out brawling; if they use big moves to try to win the match in the final caida then that's understandable, but I think the matches should start with some haymakers. These guys had some pretty good trash talking/finger pointing going on before the bell, and this was the 80s where a worker would show up for a hair match in some kind of awesome jacket and cut a promo at ringside directed at his opponent; but they went with a slow burning, smouldering start to this match and although there was blood I thought Babe Face's transition back onto offense and his winning submission was weak by hair match standards. Where this match got good was in the third caida. There wasn't any major catalyst for the improvement in the match; they just started brawling in earnest. Fiera's selling was top notch. I loved the slight delay on his flailing bump anytime Babe Face delivered a headbutt or knockdown punch. He was also excellent at pacing his way through the opening section of the fall. He had his back to the canvas a lot and was in danger of succumbing to a second straight submission, and his first comeback attempt was for naught as his arm was too weakened to punch properly. The rest of the match was filled with lots of great little details as that big Fiera offense I mentioned left him increasingly groggy every time he tried to land a knockout blow. The highlight of the match was a face plant he took off a missed plancha from the apron. True dedication to his art. I was just getting into this match and there had just been a moment of typically great controversy in a match like this when all of a sudden it ended. That was a real buzz killer. I thought they could have gone a few minutes longer, though it was pretty obvious that it was Fiera doing all the work. I'm not sure that Babe Face had much chops, at least at this point in his career. Still for what this was I enjoyed it and it was good to see some prime Fiera.

The Japanese wikipedia doesn't really say that people missing their trains was a reason for the boom ending. Under the company timeline entry for Big Egg it mentions that the crowd number was disappointing, the show ran long and caused people to miss their trains and that the show as a whole marked the end of the boom period. Since the show was announced so far ahead of time, they had the opportunity to run any number of fresh interpromotional match-ups or book a main or semi-final far more memorable than the V*TOP tournament. What was the point of the V*TOP tournament, to give Hokuto a token win on the way out? If Toyota and Kong hadn't produced such a memorable first round match it would've been a total waste of time. Don't know why they wasted the Kong/Kansai match-up on a meaningless semi-final and all things considered they would have been better off giving Hokuto one last WWWA title shot out of respect instead of the tournament format regardless of how banged up she was. I think in terms of this particular show it was scheduled too far ahead of time. On the back of a hot '93, a year or more is a long time to maintain momentum.

Thirty reasons why the boom ended. Should be a piece of cake for an authority like you.

Jesse would have been awesome during the NWO angle. I can just picture him hanging out with Hall and Nash promising to call it straight down the middle like he did with the Mega Bucks vs the Mega Powers. I suppose they could have made a run at Lawler, Jerry.

One thing that crossed my mind is that Heenan played a character in the WWF (former manager turned broadcast journalist) and had a lot of running jokes. In WCW, he was kind of a third wheel. He'd add a joke every now and again, but they weren't that funny and they didn't take up stretches of the commentary like they did in the WWF. Plus, he'd have to make serious comments about feuds or WCW and the NWO and they were never particularly convincing either. But in a two man situation on their taped shows, there was no one for him to play off. I think he would have even struggled with Jim Ross. In a way, Bobby arriving in the booth was almost as jolting and out of place as Hogan's arrival. A bit cartoony compared with the first half of '94.

I could never figure out why Heenan had no chemistry with anyone in WCW. It wasn't as though his schtick only worked with Monsoon in the WWF. It was pretty effective with McMahon and Piper too. Different style of product?

You're so full of shit.

Can't think of too many wrestlers who've been good at guest colour spots, but from the opposite perspective I love Owen Hart promos but he's a guy who's not considered a great promo whom I thought was great on colour.

So go ahead and give us 30 reasons why the boom ended.

Jerome, that's all fine and good when you're on vacation, but not everyone wants to do that. I was over doing that in my first year. It may seem like I'm being anal and squabbling over a minor detail, but it really was a stupid thing to do in terms of running a major event in Tokyo.

I think they laid an egg as far as running the Dome goes (pun intended.) The show has a false rep among Western fans because it was the first time a woman's promotion had run the Tokyo Dome and for the longest time it was pimped alongside Dream Slam I and II as the three best shows ever, whereas in Japan it's generally remembered as being half full and a failure. Whether it really was the jumping off point for a lot of fans is debatable. I tend to think of the 90s Joshi boom as a borrowed audience who were always going to drop Joshi once the novelty wore off, but if you compare it to when the Matsunagas ran Budokan during the 70s boom period there simply wasn't the same care taken with running the Dome. My point about it being one of the worst major shows ever had more to do with the fact that they promoted it all year as the Dangerous Queen Countdown (as you're well aware from watching the yearbook) then reneged on the whole Dangerous Queen deal when they were struggling to draw the following year. That's hardly knocking one out of the park. To me that was a sign of a company in a major decline.

Hokuto/Kandori is considered one of the greatest Joshi matches of all-time, but people started missing their trains halfway through the match and had to spend the night in Shin-Yokohama station, or so the story goes. That's piss poor time management.

You missed your train because the show went past 12:30am? I find that hard to believe or that you were staying so far away that you needed to leave around 11. In any case, why would someone on a wrestling trip care as much as a local? I've never been to an event in Tokyo that left people without a train. It's just not done. Anyway, it's a common complaint about the AJW mega shows of that era. They did the same thing with Dream Slam in Yokohama. Worst major show ever, take it or leave it, but Flik asked why I said it was poorly run and I think a 10 hour card that runs over time with a lousy tournament instead of a real card and a proper retirement is a poor showing for such a milestone show. What's funny is that it's even mentioned on the AJW Japanese wiki page.