ohtani's jacket

This was short but violent. Don't ever screw Satanico out of some trios titles or you'll be stretchered out of the arena. One thing I don't love about Satanico is his penchant for low blow finishes. Must Satanico matches always involve his nuts?

I'm not sure why Mil was on this card. I've always liked his style of wrestling and would love to see more of his early stuff. This was polished lucha. It was Apolo Dantes' birthday and for some reason he painted his age on his forehead. The rudos treated Mil with the upmost respect and tried to make him look good. We got some Atlantis vs. Black Tiger and Atlantis vs. Wagner, which was the drawing card for me. It's a shame that the latter two never had an apuesta. There's every chance that it could have been as legendary as Atlantis vs. Villano. Good match.

Le Grand Vladimir vs. Bernard Vignal (aired 5/16/64) Vlad was younger and fitter here. His gimmick has been done better by other wrestlers, but I feel on the right night against the right opponent he could have produced something heated and fun. Les Copains (Dan Aubriot/Bob Plantin) vs. Blousons Noirs (Manuel Manneveau/Claude Gessat) (aired 5/16/64) Manneveau has one of the best moustaches in wrestling history. Just throwing that out there. He's a tremendous showman and deserving of a prominent place in the French Rogues Gallery. What I like about the Blousons Noirs is that the quiet one, Claude Gessat, is also the most vicious and nasty. Nice to see our friend, Bob Plantin. This wasn't new, but it still holds up well as one of the better matches in the blur of 60s tag matches. Arabet Said/Abdel Kader vs. Pierre Bernaert/Marcel Manneveau (aired 1/10/65) Bernaert and Manneveau is an interesting pairing. This had a lot of comic stooging from both guys. There was some decent wrestling here and there, but... the rhythm. I hate to keep harping on about it, but these tag matches had no rhythm whatsoever. It's almost as though you're watching three premiere manch stringed together. You could join this match at any point and think you're in the first fall. And I don't really understand the need to have each fall the same length. This wasn't a bad match, but it could have been a brilliant one if it had been paced differently. I really liked the breakdown in teamwork between Bernaert and Manneaveau late in the match, so I'll end this on a positive note.

Southern Heavyweight Title Match: Johnny Valentine (c) vs Tim Woods (1973) -- great looking brawl for the title. There's a lot of Greg in the way Valentine sells. Really cool sleeper spot that ends with Valentine punching Woods in the eye. Finish is forgettable, but Woods keeps pummeling Valentine afterward. Johnny rolls under the bottom rope with a bloodied forehead and the title in hand. Great footage. World Title! Jack Brisco vs Johnny Valentine (June 24th, 1975) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- Great looking title match. Tremendous selling from both men, and a cool looking submission from Valentine. Brisco was such an incredible athlete. Why don't we talk about him more? He should be in the upper echelons of discussions for the best ever, but his name is hardly ever brought up. Great dynamic here with Valentine's power vs. Brisco's skill & finesse. Great footage. Harley Race vs Bob Roop (June 11th, 1974) (Championship Wrestling From Florida) -- personally, I like Harley Race's bomb throwing style, but this clearly isn't as good as the Valentine matches. Harley doesn't really look like a guy who should be a Buddy Rogers type. You kind of wish he would just maul folks. Roop is a guy who I should love in theory, but I've never really seen any evidence that he was able to transfer his amateur skills to the pro game in a compelling or successful way. Nothing special. Eddie Graham & Paul Jones vs Buddy Colt & Chris Markoff (May 15th, 1973) (CWF) -- I'm interested to see what Eddie Graham brings to the table. He looked like a masterful old hand here. This was classic Southern style tag wrestling -- blood, sweat, tears, pain. Huge heat. Plenty of peroxide blonde hair. Always nice to see Chris Markoff again. He has some much credit in the bank for that Inoki match. Paul Jones pretty cool here. I'll definitely be checking him out. Good stuff.

If you told me I could watch a newly discovered Valentine match, or a newly discovered Regal match, I would pick Valentine. The reason for that is because the Valentine match is going to be The Hammer in his element. Greg came up at the perfect time for Greg "The Hammer" Valentine. Regal was a tremendous worker, but as a heavyweight I always felt like he came along too late in the European wrestling scene. Even if he had only been working from the late 70s onwards, he still would have had the chance to wrestle against some fantastic British heavyweights. I do respect the way he made a success of his WCW run, and eventually did some good WWF work after overcoming his drug problems. However, I feel like the Hammer had a better career.

Saint was in some great matches. They tend to be more serious, competitive bouts or catchweight contests. I'm not a huge fan of showcase Johnny Saint bouts where he does some tricked out moves and gives the crowd a few laughs. I would rather watch other guys' showcase bouts. Saint was never my gateway into WoS, anyway. Steve Grey vs. Clive Myers was my gateway. Saint is this kind who has this idiosyntric style that's not really unique where you start to explore British and European wrestling, but was unique for overseas audiences in the same way that Dos Caras on an M-Pro style felt tricked out and unique. If you watch WoS, you soon discover that there's so many other guys. Now if the floodgates open with the archives, I may change my tune. It's possible that Saint has a ton of great undiscovered matches. We're kind of at the stage where we need more footage to validate a lot of the assumptions we have about British guys. But as of right now, I would say the big advantage Casas has over Saint is that he was great at working face or heel. I cannot imagine a heel Johnny Saint. I can't imagine any promoter would ever want to book that. IIRC, there is pissed off Johnny Saint out there, but no heel work. That's not a problem in and of itself, but it does limit the breadth of Saint's work compared to Casas who had multiple runs on both sides of the ledger.

El Dandy & Mascara Magica & Negro Casas vs. Bestia Salvaje & Mano Negra & Mocho Cota (CMLL 1/13/95) Casas was a tecnico here and an excellent one at that. It's interesting how he digs deep into his bag of flashy moves during a tecnico run. He does all sorts of moves he'd never do as a rudo. He was mostly paired with Mano Negra here. I love unmasked Mano Negra. I cannot over-emphasis how much better Mano Negra is unmasked. He's like a CMLL version of Dave Finlay. They work the mat in the primera caida, and honestly, I think I underrate Casas as a mat worker. He doesn't really work traditional lucha matwork. He works a far more realistic style. Dandy was similar, so I guess there was some influence coming from somewhere (possibly Japan?) You pretty much get every pairing in this with Casas and Dandy taking turns wrestling all three guys. Cota is entertaining but not Machiavellian. Bestia is mainly there to be a base for Magica, but what a partner to have in a trios match. One of the all-time great trios workers, IMO. The match is mostly about Cota and Negra, but Bestia makes sure that every exchange he has is excellent. Cota makes it clear that he hasn't forgotten his hair match with Casas, and you know I love callbacks in trios matches. Dandy & Casas make an invincible team. Dandy looks pretty good in this, which isn't always the case post '92. A strong showing from Casas and a good match. El Dandy & Mascara Magica & Negro Casas vs. Arkangel de la Muerte & Bestia Salvaje & Mano Negra (CMLL 1/20/95) Another entertaining trios match. We get a lot of Dandy vs. Negra in this, which is a great match-up, and one I didn't know I needed to see until I saw it. Casas works with Arkangel de la Muerte a lot, which is an interesting match-up. Arkangel's not quite as good as later work, and I'm not a huge fan of his costume during this era, but It was cool seeing Casas work so well with a midcarder. About halfway through the bout, they did this weird thing where it seemed like tempers were flaring between Casas and Dandy, and Bestia and Negra kept egging them on in hilarious fashion. Then they wound up doing a double team move together and high fiving. After the bout, they were back at it acting like they couldn't co-exist. I'm not sure what was going on there. Perhaps CMLL were testing the waters for something. Maybe a Dandy turn? Or perhaps they were simply trying to get the crowd behind Casas a tecnico. After all, nobody should trust a rudo explicitly when they turn tecnico. Not until they truly prove themselves. Another good showing from Casas, who makes a great tecnico.

Fit Finlay vs. Eddie Gilbert (Bremen 12/19/92) Eddie Gilbert, what is your Southern style ass doing in Germany in 1992? This didn't resemble Catch at all. It was a pretty great fight, though. It was one of those matches were they stall at a lot at the beginning then go hell for leather when it's too late and time is running out. I would have preferred a bit more back and forward action, but Finlay was a bit of a staller in his own right. Some really nice exchanges when they do hook up.

I can't remember if I've seen that match. I know it exists on tape but it's not really in circulation.

These two sure wrestled each other a lot in 2002, didn't they? This wasn't their best match together, but I thought it had excellent psychology for a 2/3 fall television 'cruiserweight' bout. (I can't help but think of it as one with Tenay on commentary, and the fact that the whole X Division thing doesn't really gel with me as someone watching this stuff for the first time twenty years later.) It's been interesting to watch Low Ki go from East Coast indies to a national promotion like this, and Japan as well, and not trade away a ton of his persona.

Lately, I've been able to reconcile how washed up Satanico looks in '94-95 with the beginning of a very promising program against Damian 666 in 2002. I am pretty sure the eventual singles matches between Satanico and Damian won't match his classic stuff from the past, but I'm glad he's finally getting a showcase run in '02 and the feud as a whole interests me. Not sure what was going on in '94-95. Was he uninspired with his role in the company? Was it something to do with his jump to AAA?

Finally, a showcase match for Satanico in 2002, and a very good one! For some reason, the Infernales have been a bit of an afterthought since the cage match. They had a program with the Villanos that was cut to shreds on TV, but now Satanico is back in the limelight. This trios is the catalyst for a singles feud between Satanico and Damian 666. Maybe not the feud I would have booked, but I thoroughly enjoyed the first chapter. Satanico brought his working boots to the bout, and La Familia Tijuana have proven to be a polished act in CMLL, so you better believe the work was tight. I bit so hard on the false finish at the end. They got me good with that one. I'm not going to set my hopes too high for the singles stuff since we've seen this trend all year of exciting trios matches leading to average singles matches (in fact, bizarrely, 2 on 2 tag matches have probably been more rewarding in '02.) I loved the set-up, though.

For the record, I don't know what Hokuto's house show work is like. I just think watching it would give us a clearer picture of her peak years.

I thought my point was pretty clear, but I'll elaborate for you. Hokuto, because of injuries and other factors, was not the most prolific wrestler. The company that she worked for, like most Japanese wrestling promotions, thought they could bypass the television networks that kept pushing their timeslots back by going straight to the VHS market. Therefore, the majority of the footage we have of Hokuto in her best year is from commercial VHS tapes, which is the equivalent of judging Eddie on his PPV bouts. Perhaps I was wrong in implying than more than 20-odd matches per year is normal for the average candidate. AJW TV wasn't a weekly TV show but rather a taped house show, and a lot of episodes are rendered redundant by having commercial releases later on, but I feel like we have a better understanding of Eddie in his prime runs than we do of Hokuto. Now, if you have watched the available handheld footage from 1993, or you have something to add about her comedy squash matches from that year, feel free to add something to the conversation.

Hijo del Santo vs. Negro Casas (CMLL September 29th, 1995) What a great match. The build-up wasn't vintage, but the mano a mano was outstanding. These two were part of a trios match on the Anniversary Show that I don't think we have on tape -- Casas & Universo 2000 & Mascara Ano 2000 vs. Santo & Dos Caras & Rayo de Jalisco, Jr. -- and I guess their feud continued to escalate in that bout. This was a slow and deliberately paced bout that turned into a brilliant spectacle. Instead of attacking each other in a frenzy, both men tried to gain the upper hand on the other in the ultimate show of alpha dominance. There were a lot of hard hitting shots and wrenching submissions. Naturally, two dogs barking at each other like that led to flared tempers and soon enough you had Casas bleeding and taking his huge bumps off the ropes and Santo with his mask tore off his face. The crowd was super hot, and Santo kept pushing the boundaries of what a tecnico can get away with, but at the same time it was hard to say it wasn't justified. You don't tug on Superman's cape and all that. Casas started unleashing on Santo and the ref took a back elbow flush to the face. That was one committed ref bump. The ref was replaced and Santo wound up being DQ'ed for a move that would be perfectly acceptable in most other territories. Casas' selling was phenomenal and the heat was through the roof. One of the great mano a mano bouts and one of the best matches of either man's career.

I wouldn't include 1994 as her prime as she didn't wrestle many dates that year. If we consider 1993 her best year, she wrestled at least 116 matches that year, probably more, though she did miss some time due to injury. Of those matches, excluding handhelds, we have an average of 1-2 matches a month on tape. Fortunately, AJW taped all of its big shows, and this was during the height of the VHS boom, but I don't think we have as much of week-to-week Hokuto as we do Eddie. There are quite a few matches from '93 that could shed some extra light on Hokuto -- the Debbie Malenko match in full, 30 minute draws against Hasegawa and Takako, perhaps some of the tag league matches, heck even those parking lot matches they used to run.

Two workers whose peak eclipses everything else they did. A blessing and a curse, I suppose. Hokuto told deeper and more personal stories in the ring while Eddie did more caricature based stuff. One point of difference is that we don't actually have a lot of Hokuto's prime whereas we have the week-to-week TV from Eddie's runs. What we mostly consider Hokuto's prime is from commercial tapes and a smattering of television. I'm not sure off the top of my head how many handhelds are available from that era, but it would be interesting to explore how Hokuto worked house shows. I will go with Hokuto because of the depth to her matches, but Eddie was also an excellent performer.

These handicap matches are some of the most polished lucha of 2002, and arguably the best use of the majority of the workers in this match. Emilio has this plastic tooth that he likes to incorporate into his matches. Here, he gets hit hard by Niebla and the tooth shoots out of his mouth. Bestia catches it like a wicket keeper in cricket, and the rudos can barely conceal their laughter as Emilio puts his tooth back in. The rest of the match is a mixture of Niebla salsa spots and Porky squashing people. Great fun.

Negro Casas & Emilio Charles, Jr. & Satanico vs. Corazon de Leon & Ultimo Dragon & Hijo del Santo (CMLL September 15th, 1995) Return match that doesn't quite reach the same levels of hatred. Casas blades and takes some big bumps, but this isn't his best work. I usually love these types of trios matches, but there's nothing about the Satanico & Emilio vs. Ultimo & Jericho match-ups that complements the Santo/Casas feud. Satanico does a few cool things, but Jericho doesn't have a clue how to work these types of matches and Emilio is invisible. The match felt rushed by 90s standards. Guys were constantly tagging in and out instead of working sequences with each other. It would have made more sense to me if there had been a second feud involved or at least a beef. Ultimo vs. Satanico is interesting on paper, but they didn't throw down like they're capable of.

For a post-Anniversary Show hangover card, I thought this was pretty good. I'm not sure that this feud has any legs, but basically the Guerreras dictated terms before allowing Virus to get a few flash moves in. You can see why when Virus brought Hombre Sin Nombre to a fight, but it was pretty much rudo dominated throughout. Then, in a moment of vintage inspired madness, Fuerza went to the top rope and did the Karate Kid Crane Kick pose before missing Virus badly off the top rope splash. That gave Virus an opening and he pinched back a win after his mano a mano lose to Fuerza. I don't know if this goes anywhere, but you can tell a whole lot worse than watching Virus undercard matches.

Emilio Charles, Jr. & Negro Casas & Satanico vs. Hijo del Santo & Corazon de Leon & Ultimo Dragon (CMLL September 8th, 1995) This is worth watching for the sheer hatred between Santo and Casas. Santo dropkicked Casas in the mouth during the introductions and things spun out of control from there. It was a nice touch actually as Casas had cut a promo on Santo on the way to the ring, and I guess Santo felt like shutting him up. You've probably seen Santo and Casas go at it before. I thought it was interesting how much they focused on strikes. Casas was all about shoot style kicks to the head, which we'd seen him use against Ultimo, but not against other luchadores. Casas must have landed a good two dozen kicks in this match as retaliation for that initial dropkick. Santo's main strike was the knee lift, but it worked well in a brawling context. Santo hit a tope that felt grimier than usual, and Emilio and Satanico ended up holding Santo down in a Christ style pose while Casas was DQ'ed for repeatedly kicking Santo in the head. I wasn't super high on the parts that involved Emilio & Satanico vs. Ultimo & Jericho, but it didn't really matter. The Santo vs. Casas stuff was compelling enough.

Absolutely. It had the potential to be an excellent match if they'd worked 2/3 falls. It seems a lot of the matches on that show were rushed. The tag title match was shorter than usual, but they still made it work. Removing the 2/3 falls robs you of the drama that comes from going down 1-0, making your comeback, etc. You basically have to go straight into a tercera caida style fall where hoping you get the ebb and flow right and produce some exciting nearfalls. Unfortunately, they didn't quite nail it. Casas wasn't aggressive enough, and they didn't really pace the fall in a dramatic or compelling way.

The apuesta is a disappointment.

This was a bit of an odd match. First of all, Tarzan Boy came to the ring with four ring girls and played up his sex appeal more than he has since joining GdI. He even wore his old ring attire wi ,tor h '69' plastered on the back of his trunks. Casas came to the ring by himself like a quiet, confident, focused veteran. The problem was that it was an una caida match, so it didn't have the same ebb and flow as a regular apuesta match. It almost felt like Casas and Tarzan Boy's take on a Best of the Super Juniors tournament match than a blood feud. They switched back and forward on offense, but there was no real drama and the finish was incredibly weak. Given how good Casas has been at brawling in 2002, this can only be described as a misfire. These guys are good workers so the work wasn't terrible. It may have made for a decent mano a mano bout, but not an apuesta. Some fan ran in at the end, which I assume was legit. My version of the match didn't include the hair cut, which was annoying. I always judge apuesta matches by how they deliver on the build, and by those standards, this was a failure. Perhaps the build was too good, or maybe the fall restriction was too much to overcome. In any event, there was no payoff to the visceral hatred from past weeks.

It's been a long time since I've watched that one hour Gorgeous George match. I would have to watch it again to see if I am under-selling him or if he incorporated both comedy and the Buddy Rogers style into his matches.