ohtani's jacket

This was joined in progress, but it looked like another fun chapter in one of the best women's pairings of the early 00s. I say this in every Ito match, but my god, the foot stomps. I am pretty sure that Kaoru Ito's double foot stomp is my favorite move of all-time. Ito is such a weird worker for me. She doesn't really fit the mold of what I think a great pro-wrestler should be, but every time I watch her matches I get drawn into the action. Ito pummels Momoe, as you'd imagine. Momoe takes some big bumps, including a fun one where she bounces off the top rope to the outside. And there is an endless series of crushing blows to the rib cage that never, ever gets old. I didn't really buy the finish as believable, but it was fun to see these two square off again. The overall Grand Prix was a disappointment compared to the year prior, and as I've said before, the AJW renaissance was dead, but this was one of the last good matches from the era.

I really dug this. They kept this super tight and fought over every hold. I really like Steve Corino. He doesn't have the athleticism that Low Ki has, or the arsenal of moves, but he's dogged. And he keeps fighting the entire match. Again, this was the perfect tonic for all of those Low Ki spotfests. I wasn't sure how Corino would match up with Low Ki since Corino seems like a guy Low Ki could murder with his kicking game, but Corino was tough as nails. Great scrap.

Decent mat based match. It was very much North American style mat wrestling. I didn't see a lot of Japanese or European influences in the work. Danielson's work at this point was more along the lines of something you'd see from Ricky Steamboat, Owen Hart, or maybe even Dean Malenko and Eddie Guerrero. Collyer was working heel here and made a decent fist of it.

This was such a cool looking match on paper, and the ring entrances had me kind of pumped, but what a dogshit match. It's basically a DQ and a reset followed by another DQ. Definitely a candidate for Worst Match of the Year. Interpromotional matches blew in the 00s.

Jonny Quest was a wonderful action-adventure series. It's a shame it couldn't hold onto its audience, but who knows how much longer it would have lasted for with all of Comico's financial troubles. The second issue is one of the most moving comics I've read. A real heartbreaker. I've always liked William Messner-Loebs, now I hold him in even higher esteem. Thankfully, Comico pumped out a number of JQ specials and mini-series before the license expired. The Doug Wildey Jonny Quest Classics were beautifully illustrated, and the Adam Kubert art in the Jezebel Jade miniseries is exquisite. A delightful series, but what a toxic letter column! I have no idea why Diana Schutz indulged David Malcolm Porta the way she did.

The Dustin pod was great. Had to have been a big moment for you. Congrats.

Rene Ben Chemoul/Gilbert Cesca vs. Teddy Boys (Adolphe Sevre/Robert Le Boulch) (aired 5/9/65) This was part of the original Bob ALPRA collection, and I have to say it's aged pretty well. I'm not sure I buy Robert Le Boulch as a "Teddy Boy," but he's wildly entertaining as a bumping, stooging heel. Teddy Sevre is at least a younger looking man, and more vicious in his approach. There was a nice rhythm to this match, and I enjoyed the ebb and flow. I'm not a huge fan of Rene Ben Chemoul's showboating style, but he provided a nice contrast to the workmanlike style of Gilbert Cesca. Cesca is solid, but it's pretty clear that he wasn't a great worker. Certainly not based on the expectations we had from the original Cesca/Catanzaro match. He tends to be invisible in some of these tags, but I kept an eye on him in this one and he was a capable hand throughout. I thought they might go off the air without a finish here, but it wasn't the case. I still don't really understanding the pacing of French tags. The first fall was incredibly long, and the second two were tacked on in rapid succession, but I don't think it hurt the match here. Good match.

I read the J.M. DeMatteis/Keith Giffen Doctor Fate mini-series from 1987. Another post-Crisis misfire for me. That Giffen art that I loved as a kid does not register with me at all as an adult. I was kind of hoping that reading the mini-series would prompt me to continue with ongoing title, but I might have to skip it unless someone can convince me otherwise.

Osaka Pro is alive and well. This was a standard Japanese tag match, but I was happy to see that Osaka Pro is still the most genki promotion in Japan. Daio QUALLT is Osaka Pro's Big Red Machine and his partner here was clearly meant to be the Undertaker to Daio's Kane, so you can imagine how this played out. We didn't get to see the full repertoire from the little maestro, Delfin, as he was mainly doing tag spots, and his partner Demekin was getting most of the shine, but Delfin still looked like one of the best workers in Japan. Exciting finish and a nice payoff. Osaka Pro knew how to book for its audience. I wonder if any of @gordi's buddies were there.

I like both these workers, but a 40 minute Street Fight is far too long, especially when they're using the same boring style that LCO had already ran into the ground. I'm not wholly convinced by Hyuga as a brawler. Ran was better, and someone who's worth following throughout 2002, but I was getting restless after 10 minutes of this.

JAPW Low Ki is definitely my favorite Low Ki. This was a pretty basic match but it will wash some of the taste out of your mouth from those TNA spotfests. I'm not familiar with Tony Kozina, but he was game and appeared to have a variety of skills. I wasn't expecting him to take so much of the match, and for Low Ki to be working from underneath, but it was enjoyable all the same.

This was a good match. There's no way I'm watching a Zero-1 match unless Jetlag recommends it first, even though they were probably producing the closest thing to the style of Japanese wrestling I prefer. Sakata looked raw here, but he's an interesting guy to follow in 2002. Cool finish.

Dusty Rhodes & Sonny Myers vs. Pak Song, Mr. Uganda & The Missouri Mauler (November 21st, 1978) -- typically hot Dusty match. Bread and butter stuff. Decent footage. Dusty Rhodes vs. Dick Slater (January 4th, 1975) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Dustin Rhodes commentates over a decent looking match between his dad and Dick Slater. Not sure when this was recorded. Dusty is continuing to grow on me as a performer. Decent stuff. U.S. Tag Team Title Match: Mike Graham & Steve Keirn (c) vs. Jack & Jerry Brisco (March 7th, 1978) -- Fabulous looking match between two very good teams. The post match sees the Briscos save Keirn and Graham from an attack from Mr. Sato & Mr. Saito, and the two teams bury the hatchet. Jack Brisco's late 70s decline appears to be greatly exaggerated. Jerry is stellar as usual. Very good footage. Southern Heavyweight Title Match: The Zodiak (Bob Orton Sr.) (c) vs. Tim Woods (8-12-72) -- it's kind of trippy for me seeing these guys I'm familiar with from the 50s working Florida matches in the 70s. Tim Woods rules as always. Decent footage. Florida Tag Team Title Match (No DQ): The Hollywood Blondes (c) vs. Eddie Graham & Mike Graham (1974) -- Eddie Graham was so awesome. This is a pier six brawl finish to a title match. Lots of blood and flailing about. Another screwy title change. The NWA must have had their hands full reviewing all of these Florida bouts and sanctioning all these rematches. Decent stuff.

If I could get one piece of footage out of the ITV Archives it would be a George Kidd match. I have no doubt that he is a worthy HOF candidate, I'd just love to see him in his prime and gauge how good he was. I don't recall him being on TV that often, and from memory, folks have said that when he did appear it was mostly showcase matches. I'm not sure if he was a huge TV personality. My image of him is a guy who drew folks to see him at the halls. It would be interesting to uncover who originated the George Kidd style and whether there were other pioneers. I was surprised by how much of Kidd's schtick Mantopolous uses in the French Catch footage. I'm assuming there is a George Kidd influence there.

Dump is getting her own Netflix drama. Hope it's as good as The Naked Director.

I should know better than this, but I've been kind of high on Chris Jericho's 2002 work and I don't hate Triple H... but, yeah, what was the point in them having a Hell in a Cell match? Vince was feuding with Hunter at the time, and HIAC I guess was supposed to punish Hunter and stack the odds against him, but it also stacks the odds against Jericho. They tried to make out that Jericho was this ruthless, cutthroat heel and that he was in his element, but who's buying that? I have a hard time buying Jericho as the heel and Triple H the face let alone believing that Jericho can dominate a cage match against Hunter. The work is middling. It's not bad, but neither guy is prepared to take a big bump so it mostly revolves around using a ladder and the steel steps, and everyone, including the ref, suffering from lacerations. They take the fight to the roof like they're expected to, and everybody is waiting for something shocking to happen. Hunter takes a backdrop on top of the cage, which is as hairy as they get. Then they add the test of Hunter pinning Jericho on top of the cage, which doesn't make sense because it was never announced as falls count anywhere, and earlier the ref had told the wrestlers to get back in the ring because they couldn't win the bout on the outside. This felt like a lot of blood and hard work for nothing. Not one for the recommended viewing list.

This was the go home show before the Angle vs. Rock vs. Undertaker Triple Threat match at Vengeance, and as you can imagine it was a well produced piece of TV from the WWE. Taker was looking on at ringside and predictably he got involved, but it's all part of the hype. The crowd was dead for the heat segment where Angle picked The Rock apart, but I think that was mainly because they wanted to see the returning Rock kick some ass. They put Angle over strong with this segment, and at this stage he had made pretty much every big star tap to the Angle Lock. Ross mentions that Angle could go on to the greatest superstar in WWE history. You have to wonder how high Angle's ceiling was at this point.

I was interested in seeing the ROH crew, or at least what I identify as the ROH crew, in another indy promotion. This match had some weird ass gimmick where Low Ki and Danielson were the tag champs, but they were feuding with each other so they agreed to a stip that whoever won the match could choose to tag team champions with whomever they pleased. Can't say I've seen anything like that before. The match was high octane stuff. It was nonstop action, but essentially a spotfest. It lacked the depth of the best ROH stuff, but it wasn't as bad as the TNA X Division stuff. It was somewhere in the middle like an amped up version of the Smackdown Six stuff. There's a lot of hype around these guys in '02 as the saviors of professional wrestling, but matches like these are extremely spot happy. Not seeing much salvation with this one.

Isn't he referring to Montreal? That was on November 9th.

Cheri Bibi vs. Mr. Montreal (aired 4/9/65) This was perfectly fine. So long as both guys are moving forward and striking each other, Bibi matches are generally fine, and this was no exception. Roger Delaporte vs. Warnia de Zarzecki (aired 4/9/65) This was solid. Delaporte did his grandpa shtick at the beginning, but when de Zarzecki pulled some whiskers from Roger's moustache, Roger fired back with a vicious beatdown. It was cool seeing that side of Delaporte again. He got de Zarzecki so riled up that he attacked Roger and the ref after the bout. Delaporte's singles matches are much more entertaining than Bollet's, and Delaporte was great with other tag partners as well, so I think he should have gone in as a solo representative on the WON HOF ballot.

South African wrestling from the 80s -- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnsIMf-oMGBUBR0OGNcAcrA/videos

I was hoping for more of a mat and strike based match from these two. They did a bit of that, but there was a lot of brawling and swearing outside of the ring. Hyuga was dominant throughout and Bolshoi never really threatened.

This was a nice old-school super libre match. They could have coasted by on showboating and cheap heat, but they actually made an effort to do some old school brawling. There was too much plunder for my liking, but by 2002 weapons of that sort were endemic. Of course, this being Monterrey, there was a ton of bullshit with the referee that went on forever and threatened to spoil the bout. Still, this was worth comparing to CMLL apuesta matches to get a feel for the differences.

This was really good. Tenryu is a guy who can work with pretty much anyone, which makes him an ideal fit for the post-split All Japan landscape where he pretty much has to work against anyone they have. Tenryu treated this like a WAR match, and while it "helped" that Miyamoto seemed to legitimately bust his nose, it wouldn't have been half as compelling if not for the sheer force of Tenryu's personality. He's a guy who can get other guys to work harder in the ring by barking from the apron, or stepping into the ring and punting someone, and a guy who can get you excited about Taiyo Kea. Miyamoto was also good in this. He took a hell of a beating and showed plenty of ticker. Don't skip this.

This was much better than their Judgment Day match. It was just shy of being a great match, and probably needed more dramatic selling to bump it up to the next level, but it had sustained heat throughout and the crowd bought into the contest. The finishing stretch was especially strong. They avoided any overkill and executed the nearfalls well. I loved the way Angle countered the spear with a punt. That looked awesome. Looking at the card, this was bang in the middle. That accounts for why they only got 13 minutes, and probably makes it more impressive that they stood out this much, especially on a show that had Hogan and Triple H on top.