ohtani's jacket

You can call it storytelling if you like, or composition, but I don't see it as one of his strengths. He may be one of the greatest artists of all-time, but I wouldn't rank him as one of the better writer/artists. To be honest, I prefer his collaborations with Stan Lee to his solo work. He would have been better suited to doing graphic novels in the 70s. I personally see his 70s output as a series of grand failures. Brilliant ideas that fail to stick. There are times when comics have come close to literature, but personally I don't see the need for them to be accepted as such. I'm perfectly fine with appreciating comics for what they are. I have a higher opinion of comic book writing than you, however.

I actually kinda liked this. Marufuji and KENTA seem like pinup boys for a style of wrestling I don’t particularly like, but they went out there with the clear intention to pop the crowd, and having been part of Japanese crowds that pop for every nearfall, I know how fun that can be. Kanemaru brought the right amount of violence to counteract the floppy shit, and Hashi was a sneaky dynamo. It helps that I never did watch a lot of NOAH, so this is fresher to me than folks who’ve seen these workers dozens of times, but a lot of the time I find that “bloated” boils down to the rhythm of the match and whether you’re feeling it. They certainly had me paying attention, which isn’t easy at times

Man, the Elite wish they were as cool as a hardcore punk band playing rock songs.

Fit Finlay vs. Tony St. Clair (8/13/94) This was surprisingly good. It was a British Commonwealth title match, but instead of going ten, twelve rounds, as it may have done in the UK, they worked a tight 15 minute Tony St. Clair vs .Fit Finlay match. The kind of match they could have worked anywhere in the world in '94. It had a very 90s international wrestling feel to it (as opposed to a Catch feel.) The crowd really enjoyed it and were right behind St. Clair. What an interesting career Tony St. Clair had. Watching him from the late 70s, you'd never have guessed how he'd stretch his career out and the places he'd end up wrestling. I wonder why he never ended up following Taylor and Finlay to WCW.

MS-1, Pirata Morgan & Satánico vs Apolo Dantes, Black Magic & Oro (CMLL 9/4/92) Nothing of import happens in this match, but it's kind of fun seeing a young, fresh-faced Apolo Dantes taking on the Infernales, especially when so much of his bread and butter was earned as a rudo. Satanico and Black Magic do a comedy skit, but I would have preferred a legitimate exchange. There's potential in that match-up. Oro is given the Atlantis spot, but his work isn't very good. The tecnicos don't have great chemistry here, and the Infernales don't bother to go all out.

Half the battle with lucha is to get people to watch the good stuff, which is why you don't get a balanced critique of the workers. Satanico is not alone in this respect, and neither is lucha. His matches would have to be watched by a lot more people to get the type of critiques that other top flight candidates get. Satanico was very much a case of a handful of us saying: "Satanico's one of the all-time greats!" Not everyone agreed with us. I know of a few people who weren't big fans of his. That's all right. We should be at a place with lucha where there's enough great workers that folks can like different guys. I especially welcome the idea of folks having different ideas about who the best rudos were. Satanico had some rough patches in his career, and some lean times performance-wise. To be perfectly honest, I don't really care that the Octagon or Garza matches aren't good. It would be nice if they were great matches, but I'm not about to change my opinion about Satanico because he didn't carry Octagon the way Fuerza did. You could probably argue that he was unprofessional in that match, but it's no skin off my nose. I'm more frustrated by matches between good workers that don't reach their potential than a match like Octagon vs. Satanico. I don't really care enough about Garza to be offended by Satanico's performance. I guess he could have done more to get Garza over, but I have no idea bout the story behind it. He certainly redeemed himself in my eyes by helping to get Tarzan Boy, Rey and Ultimo over.

I totally understand about the early 90s vibe. I just prefer street level, grim and gritty Spectre to all-powerful, philosophical Spectre. Give me some of those violent Fleisher stories over Spectre debating with angels and demons. I would probably get some flack for saying this at the other site, but I don't think Kirby was a great writer.

The first time I read Shooter's Legion, I just read the famous stories. This time, I read the entire thing. I was impressed by how solid the rest of the stories were. It's not that long a run, especially if you skip the final year without Swan. I've been slowly reading Kamandi. It's the same as every other Kirby series from the 70s. It starts off with a bang and quickly fizzles out. Kirby diehards can't seem to accept that fact and are always looking to blame editorial, but how many times can it happen before it's no longer a coincidence? I had the opposite reaction to Spectre. I liked the storyline that run through the first year and pretty much hated everything that followed. I don't really like Tom Mandrake's art, either.

Why do they call it a media scrum? It's a god damn press conference. A media scrum is like those scenes from television where the media swarm around a figure on the courthouse steps.

I finished Jim Shooter's run on Adventure Comics. It loses its charm when Curt Swan leaves. Win Mortimer isn't a bad artist, but I was used to the aesthetic Swan gave the book. Shooter was getting older too, and didn't have quite the same youthful enthusiasm. It's a great run, though, with some classic stories and a ton of folklore. The first appearance of Mordru is a brilliant two-parter and the peak of the run to me. I understand that Shooter continued to write some backup Legion stories in Action Comics, but I can't imagine that they're much better than the final Win Mortimer stint.

This was okay. It was a cross between a brawl and a workrate sprint, neither of which are my favorite style of Homicide match, but both guys bled hard way and worked hard.

Kawada gets attacked by Mike Awesome (I think) right before the bell. What the fuck is that shit? Just when Japan was getting good. Did they think Ohtani needed some kind of leg up? That's kind of insulting. Why'd you book him in the final if you thought he didn't stand a chance against Kawada? This is an appealing matchup on paper since it features two of the most expressive wrestlers of the 90s, but it ends up being unimaginative and uninspiring. And a lousy Triple Crown match. Despite a bum wheel (when doesn't Kawada have a bum wheel?), Kawada steamrolls Ohtani and makes him look like a bitch. Ohtani does some goofy selling toward the end where he pops up and gets tangled in the ropes. That was cute in '96. And to think this was supposed to be Kawada vs. Hashimoto. This wasn't very good even through the lens of 2003 Toshiaki Kawada. I'm pretty sure Kawada vs. Kojima would have been better than this.

Hey look, Homicide wrestled Terry Funk in 2003! And it wasn't a tribute show, either, but a legitimate effing match. Funk totally outclassed Homicide here. I love Homicide, but he followed Funk around like a puppy dog in this match. I'm sure it's tough to go up against a legend like Funk, but Homicide treated him with kiddy gloves. The match was fun because nobody told Terry that there was no need to fight tooth and nail and bleed a gusher, but it ended with a ten minute angle setting up the 6th Anniversary Show that was apparently Funk and Sabu vs. Homicide and Mafia/Dan Maff.

So, Nicho no-shows this show and the commissioner decides to strip La Familia of the trio titles and hand them to the Infernales. The Infernales don't want to be awarded the trio titles that way and they're officially held up. The giant bear in the tecnicos' section isn't sure what to make of it all. Halloween and Damian call out Violencia. He comes to ringside but bails on the Familia. Then El Terrible takes his place. I'm sure it all makes sense in Spanish, or maybe not. The end result is a decent piece of business with Averno and Mephisto finally looking useful as Satanico's partners. Halloween and Damian continued to work for CMLL after this, so it wasn't exactly a kick in the pants on the way out, but the matchmaker was clearly done with this feud. Not sure what the scoop was with Nicho, but it was an odd month of CMLL wrestling.

I don't have much time for Ohtani as a heavyweight, but Kojima has been one of my favorites in 2003. Ohtani was an absolute genius as a junior heavyweight. I could write a tome about his junior heavyweight work. I've never really put much thought into why his heavyweight work disappoints. I suspect it's because he was never really The Man in the junior ranks. His juniors schtick was predicated on being the unlucky loser. It's hard to see where you go from there. Here, he was in two minds about whether to be the asshole heel invader or the plucky underdog. Kojima seemed unsure of his role too. Was he meant to be the gatekeeper to the Triple Crown title shot? The first stage boss? A contender as well? The finishing stretch was decent, but Japanese finishing stretches are almost always decent. I was looking for a reason to care and couldn't really find one. It wasn't a bad match. Just like of average. I actually kind of wish Kojima had gone over, but I guess inter-promotional crap was still the rage.

Liverpool fans also sing a version of it.

Just to make matters more confusing, Nicho decides to show up for this show. Halloween, during his Road Dogg style introduction of La Familia de Tijuana, introduces Nicho as Psicosis. I have no idea how far off script any of this is, but there's no denying that the Familia are much better with Nicho involved. This was easily the best of the matches so far simply because LFdT worked as more of a unit, and the Infernales were able to stage an inspired comeback. Halloween and Damian are very good as the pieces surrounding Nicho, and Halloween does an excellent job as the emotional leader of the Familia, but the trio works much better with Nicho as the No.1 guy. Whatever heat Nicho had with CMLL wasn't enough to stop the production people from replaying his spectacular dives. Towards the end, this looked like it might be the long-awaited coming out party for Averno, but the Familia used a kendo stick to rob him of the victory. The commissioner wasn't happy, however, and ruled the match a no contest. The titles were held up, and we're headed for another rematch that Nicho will no show.

Boy did it take some digging to find this match. So many mislabeled matches. One of their matches was uploaded three times with three different dates. Anyway, it turns out that people had their 5/30 and 6/6 matches confused. I can see why people would get confused since their matches are so generic. It's not that they aren't trying hard. It's similar to the Smackdown workers, who are trying hard to have good matches each week and good pay-per-view matches, but also deliver a generic product. A lot of the match is action for action's sake. I would rather see an electric exchange between Halloween and Averno, or Satanico and Damian, than crisp action. The Famila are handicapped by whatever problems Nicho was having with CMLL, and Halloween is trying his damnedest to hold everything together, but the feud either needed to be Averno's coming out party as the lead guy or a Satanic special. Unfortunately, it's neither.

Many of the international stars were legit. Some were gimmicks. A lot of the African and West Indian gimmicks were bullshit, as were the Russian gimmicks or anyone from the Communist Bloc. Some of the talent were naturalized British citizens. Others were born in the UK but billed from overseas. The Wrestling Heritage A-Z website is the best resource for finding out more information about the workers. Wrestling was a product for the working class, and the UK working class included a melting pot of immigrants from Europe and the Commonwealth. In the 60s and early 70s, it was common to see European workers on TV. That tapers off as the European wrestling scene dries up. There wasn't a ton of money to be made in Britain, which is why you rarely see American or Japanese stars, and why a lot of the British workers are often away working the European tournaments or touring other countries. IIRC, wrestling was initially shown at 4pm in the standalone spot, but gradually they started programming it earlier in the day. Eventually, it was on at lunchtime, which killed it off completely. I'm not entirely sure about why Big Daddy used "We Shall Not be Moved" other than the obvious imagery that Daddy was tough to move. The Seekers were hugely popular in the UK in the mid-60s, and it was their version that they originally used until Daddy recorded his own version. I guess the song was popular with the grannies.

This was a decent match that was part of the build for their mask match. It ends up being screwy because it's a Tijuana match, and that's what happens in Tijuana matches, but my immediate impression was a distinct reminder of what a great brawler Santo is, especially for a tecnico. He's one tecnico who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty, or bloodied, as the case may be. Super Parka isn't super, but we know this. It's still interesting seeing what Santo can do with him, and frankly this is an era of wrestling that could do with a little Santo on television. If they'd cut the shenanigans and had a more epic finish, this probably would have been a hidden gem. Instead, it's a footnote, but a footnote worth watching if you're skimming 2003.

This planted the seeds for their famous trilogy of matches by showing that Punk could be competitive with Joe. I don't have a lot of time for Punk's straight edge gimmick, and I see him as a loose and scrappy worker, but he has good ring sense. He's a much better matchup with Joe than you'd expect. That's largely because of how inventive he is. I haven't really enjoyed Joe steamrolling over folks even if they try to make the matches seem competitive, and I'm looking forward to seeing someone step up as the Sting to his Vader. I'm not sure what state Joe was in physically, but I kind of feel like an epic world title fight is something from ROH at this point in time. I haven't followed the promotion all that closely, but the general impression I get is one of second year growing pains. US wrestling in general seems to be down from 2002 while Japanese wrestling is up.

This match almost has me believing the hype surrounding Akiyama. I like Tenzan more in theory than reality. There's definitely a place for bruisers in wrestling, and Japan produces its fair share of meatheads. He's just not a very interesting meathead. Still, every dog has its day, and the G-1 Climax was Tenzan's time to shine. Akiyama was excellent in his role as the outsider, and Tenzan was convincing enough as a worker grappling with his destiny and the ultimate prize of being a G-1 winner. I absolutely love the reaction of Tenzan's father, who stands there almost in disbelief, with his hands in his pockets, as the crowd goes apeshit for his boy.

Probably because of the ban on women's wrestling. She did appear on WoS as a manger in a Big Daddy match. Other than that, I think the only footage of her is from Reslo and that French Catch Eurosport show. You're not missing much.

The honorable mentions section is random. I haven't updated this in a decade and would probably change some of the rankings if I did it again -- It doesn't feature any French workers since we barely had any footage at the time.