ohtani's jacket

This was worked at a slower pace than Homicide vs Styles, and the commentators kept harping on about how Homicide had a different attitude this evening and they weren't sure what had come over him, which I guess was meant to be some sort of storyline where he was tired of losing and wanted to establish himself as a top contender for the world title. There was a fair bit of stalling and fluffing about, but it didn't bother me all that much. After hearing other workers diss Punk's ability as a wrestler during his ROH days, I can't unsee a lot of his weaknesses, but then Homicide's not exactly perfect either. Decent bout, but not the kind of thing you watch if you're searching for stone cold classics.

This was a decent debut match for a rookie. Hayashi was billed at 168cm and 75kg, which is quite big by Joshi standards, and Satomura allowed her to show off her strength and power by repeatedly knocking Meiko off her feet. Given that she was a rookie, she didn't have a lot to follow up with once she knocked Meiko down, but it was still an impressive feat for a new girl. In the end, Meiko was able to win comfortably, but in a way that was respectful of the rookie. Hayashi received a taste of what it was like and gained some motivation for future bouts. She didn't last the year, but it wasn't because her debut was poor. There's been some holes in my viewing when it comes to GAEA, but I'm prepared to accept Satomura as one of the best workers in Japan at the beginning of 2004. That may not be entirely accurate, but Japan needs a few heroes and this was a fine start to Meiko's 2004 campaign.

This was disappointing given the talent involved. I mean look at that tecnico lineup -- they should have kicked some serious ass. The match was clipped and severely disjointed, and it looked as though the workers didn't have a lot of experience working with Parka. It wasn't really clear who the top dog was meant to be, and they never really settled into roles. None of the wrestlers paired off, and there was no through line. I wasn't a huge fan of Parka getting his masked ripped so badly in a regular trios match, as it ruins the imagery of the skeleton mask and the overall impact of Parka being in CMLL, but that's a personal quibble. It seemed as though they were setting up Shocker and Parka vs. Ultimo and Rey for some future date. I'm not sure what spare parts Vampiro and Super Crazy were meant to do in that case. Not exactly the most natural pairing in the world.

Averno and Mephisto had split from Satanico at this point, so much of the focus here was on Satanico vs his former partners. To be honest, it wasn't all that great. Certainly not on the level of some of the work Satanico was capable of as late as 2002. Averno and Mephisto hadn't found a new identity for themselves now that they were no longer Infernales and wore generic outfits. Super Crazy has been less than impressive in his CMLL run, and I can't see him going anywhere as a rudo. Casas and Felino didn't add anything either. The match was butchered in the edit, which isn't a new thing for CMLL but was particularly bad on Coliseo shows. Skippable.

A staple of 90s and 00s CMLL. One of the best bullet topes ever.

They really should do this into a TV show.

It's like a YouTube comments section in him. Y'all inspiring me to listen to some of this music that's being derided.

Nirvana's MTV Unplugged was released in November of '94 and became the number one selling album. Pearl Jam's Vitalogy was number one in December. I bought Vitalogy the day it came out and saw Pearl Jam live in March '95, which changed my little teenage life. Nirvana and Pearl Jam were popular enough in the mid-90s that From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah and No Code both reached number one in 1996. Alice in Chains also reached number one with their 1995 album. The height of grunge was in the early 90s, but the wrestling landscape wasn't the same in 1991 as it was in 1995. The Raven gimmick worked for the edgy presentation ECW was pushing. I don't think the gimmick sucked. Raven was just crap at promos. He was trying to do Patrick Swayze in Point Break and didn't have the acting chops for it. And I just wanna point out that he used a skate punk song for his theme., so I think there was more of a Generation X/Alt Rock vibe going on than strictly being about grunge.

Grunge was still big when Raven made his debut, but I'd argue it had more to do with Raven's look than his promos. Raven delivered low rent Jake Roberts promos. He ended up being a step or two below early Taker interviews. Not even sure he was better than Hellwig, to be honest.

Even when Thesz and Gagne were in their primes, there were plenty of wrestlers working in a Shawn Michaels vein. It was never the case that there were all of these wrestlers working a believable Lou Thesz style. That would be my wrestling nirvana if it were true. It just so happened that Thesz and Gagne were better at actual wrestling than the Buddy Rogers style guys. Some people might argue that the Buddy Rogers types were better at working the crowd and getting the matches over, and that may be true, but it basically comes down to personal preference. I have a certain amount of respect for guys who can work the Buddy Rogers style well, but I'm never going to rate them above someone who can wrestle.

Welcome to the Gilbert Leduc fan club.

This was a good match. It was a Styles match, so it was work rate driven, but that's okay because I like work rate Homicide. It wasn't a huge, epic match. Instead, it was a smarter, tightly contained bout that played to the strengths of both men. There were a lot of counters and reversals, but also some cool punches and forearm strikes. Homicide took himself out with a tope con hilo into the crowd, but continued with the match. I'm not sure if he was legit hurt, or it was just a way to make him look strong in defeat, but either way he was too shook to beat Styles. We've gotta talk about Homicide's tope con hilo, though. It may have been a little self-hazardous, but what a badass move.

More Parka on Parka violence. This feud is better than expected, largely because Super Parka is having a better run than a lot of well known luchadores. I complain about Monterrey bullshit a lot, but if there was ever a match where it had its charms, this is it. Park was on form here -- celebrating between falls by gyrating against the ring post, running around with a white garden chair above his head just like his Chairman days, and even picking up a kid from the audience to use for a double team move. The match breaks down when Parka accidently hits a tope on his partner, then there's a run in from Texano of all people. If there's gonna be a run in during a match, it might as well be by freaking Texano! Parka's partner turns on him and there's a four-on-one beatdown before Parka gets so help. Then he goes into the crowd to celebrate with his people and lets members of the public cut promos on the house mic. I swear it's one of the best endings to a house show bout I've ever seen. I have a sneaking suspicion that 2004 is going to be the Year of the Park.

This was mostly Steve Corino wrapping Terry Funk in barbed wire and screaming at him to quit. If I were Steve Corino, I'd be stoked at getting the chance to recreate Funk vs. Lawler and Funk/Flair. Half the fun is listening to Funk's replies. Terry, God bless him, couldn't really do much at this stage, but he could still cut a promo and sell his ass off, and he does a pretty good job of coughing and spluttering while choking on barbed wire. Gary Hart shows up again and lays into Funk on the mic. He blames him for quitting against Flair and destroying J-Tex. Y'know, I kind of like that MLW is playing off past history and continuing old NWA feuds. The commentator needs to chill out a bit, though. Dude, we can clearly seeing that the barbed wire isn't slicing through anybody's flesh and that there aren't chunks of flesh hanging from anyone's back. And if you've never seen Corino act like this before, you clearly haven't been following his feud with Homicide, and God knows who else. I know commentators have a job to do, and I'm probably being overly critical, but Funk wrapping barbed wire around his neck is a big enough sell that you don't need to over hype it.

This was a badass little contest. I would have preferred a more even contest, but Suzuki looked awesome.

Triple H defends the World Heavyweight Title This was incredibly mediocre. It's hard to put a finger on why it was so bad. It was a WWE formula match with a horrific amount of blood (even more than Sasaki vs. Nagata, if I'm not mistaken), and had a storyline that was "seven years in the making." Yet it fell flat. Perhaps the audience was sick of seeing his match up. They'd already seen Shawn's return at SummerSlam '02, his title victory at Elimination Chamber, and the Three Stages of Hell. There's only so much Shawn Michaels vs. Triple H you can take. And it doesn't end here either. The finish was such a bullshit copout, and Michaels getting the "moral victory" of walking out on his own two feet was even worse. Michaels' ham acting is unbelievable. There's one part where he tries to do a stagger sell after going through the Spanish announcers' table, and he oversells it completely. Who the hell oversells trying to stand up? That's impressive. And shame on you King for claiming DX was one of the best things in the history of the WWE.

The only good parts of this were when KENTA was in the ring. He was fantastic here, from his "Where's the Hood At?" entrance to his flourish at the end to win it. Marufuji was awful. His timing was completely off. He kept on coming up short on his moves, barely grazing his opponent instead of hitting them flush. I've never understood the appeal of El Samurai. What's the deal with that guy? Why does he wear a mask and call himself El Samurai? KENTA was awesome.

I love me some Low Ki vs. Homicide, You can keep your Bryan Danielsons, I'll take Low Ki and Homicide stiffing the crap out of each other thanks. This was going along swimmingly until it turned into an angle where Gary Hart, of all people, ordered Homicide and Low Ki to attack the MLW owner, Court Bauer. I can't stand screeching indy commentators, but I dug Julius Smokes bringing up the Great Kabuki nearly blinding the Junkyard Dog with green mist, and the other dude squealing about Gary Hart trying to kill Ric Flair with a plastic bag.

I liked this better than any other Kawada match from the 2000s aside from the original Tenryu match from 2000 and the Muto matches. Not because it was a great Kawada performance (personally I don't think he was a great worker in the 2000s), but because Tenryu is a natural opponent for him. I'd gladly watch this matchup any day of the week. It suffers a bit in comparison to the tear Kobashi was on (I can't seem to separate the two in my mind), but as a New Year's match it's more than decent.

This was pretty dumb, but it did feature a shit ton of blood.

We were discussing it in the matches forum.

I stumbled upon this blog site looking for information about the backstage fight between Kandori and Hokuto at Big Egg Universe. The blogger often includes excerpts from interviews and books when doing his match reviews -- http://konjyaku.blog.jp/

A slightly different translation: Before the match, a happening occurred in the waiting room. This time, the waiting rooms for each team were concentrated on one floor on the outside side of the field. In the center of the room, there was a TV monitor, and the players of each organization were watching the matches without any sides. Hokuto walked through there with several pamphlets under his arm, and happened to run into Katori. Jintori said, "Hey, it's been a long time..." and then he punched Hokuto in the body. The punch hit a pamphlet, and Jantori slapped him further. Hotta was the one who controlled the irascible Kantori, and Hokuto was stunned by the suddenness of the incident. This was the "waiting room incident" that was reported in some quarters. (*Omitted). With such happenings, Hokuto vs. Eagle was in a strange mood. Kandori and Kazama were second fighters. They were saying, "Get him, get him, get him! Hold him down! were shouted. Eagle's expression was strange. He is clearly determined to crush Hokuto. The angle of the powerbomb is also very bad! Hokuto said, "I could tell he was trying to crush me," and he gets the pinfall victory with two Northern Lights in a row. The "waiting room incident" and "I knew he was going to crush me" were all things Hokuto told me after the match."

I wasn't trying hard enough. Here's a direct translation: Actually, just before this match, behind the back screen where the audience can't see, Hokuto and Kandori (LLPW) collide It was later revealed that there had been a fistfight (or rather, Kandori's one-sided assault?) . According to Rossi Ogawa, “Before the game, something happened in the waiting room. This time, the waiting rooms of each group were concentrated on one floor on the outfield side. As Hokuto carries several pamphlets under his arm , he runs into Kandori, who says, "Hey, it's been a long time..." and throws a gun at Hokuto, punching him in the body. It was Hotta who stopped the furious Kandori, and Hokuto was stunned by the sudden event.This was the "waiting room incident" reported by some . (*omitted) Hokuto vs. Eagle was in a strange mood, with Kandori and Kazama in second. Hokuto said, ``I know he was trying to crush Hokuto,'' but he took the pinfall win with two Northern Lights in a row. The 'waiting room incident' and 'it's about to be crushed' are all things I heard from Hokuto after the match." After all, all women are the best! Written by Rossi Ogawa Published September 30, 1995 First edition First printing Baseball magazine company P47-48 After All, Zenjo is Ichiban!　By Rossy Ogawa, September 30, 1995, 1st edition, 1st printing, Baseball Magazine, P47-48 I guess the heat between Kandori and Yamada was legit.

Didn't Dave attend Big Egg Universe? I wonder if he saw something backstage or if he just heard about it from Fumi Saito or someone else. It doesn't appear to be a very well known story as I can't find anything about it in Japanese.