ohtani's jacket

I'm tired of sticking up for Toyota, but I will say two things: 1) I don't get people who say they love Joshi, or whatever, but they hate Toyota. To me, I don't know that those people really get Joshi. Even worse are people who don't like Toyota but think everyone else was great -- like we're supposed to believe that Hasegawa, Mita, Shimoda, Yoshida, Takako Inoue, etc. were better than Toyota. 2) Toyota was a better seller than most wrestlers who'll finish above her. She didn't sell pop up transitions. Not the only wrestler who didn't, but somehow the worse offender. The argument that she stopped selling all together is lazy and false. I would say that in Joshi only Hokuto, Ozaki and Chigusa were better at selling, and only at their absolute best. What I would really like to see is some proper critical analysis of Toyota from someone who doesn't dislike her. The first good Toyota match that I've seen is from 1989. The last great Toyota match is from 2002. That's 13 years as a good worker, which is a lot more than most Joshi workers. Her absolute peak is 92-94, IMO. I'm not a big fan of her '95-99 period, and prefer her '00-02 work, but I like her earlier work more than her period as the company ace.

Regal vs. Larry Z is his signature WCW match. You should check out his series with Flair as well.

I love both guys, especially Dangerous Alliance era Arn and WCW TV title era Regal, but I think 19 and 21 are ridiculously high. They're both great performers, but not that good. Regal was probably the better singles worker, but Arn had plenty of good singles matches and was a better tag and multi-man worker than Regal. Arn's run was short, but Regal pissed away a chunk of his prime with addictions. Regal started too late to work good WoS bouts while Arn took a while to piece it all together. Arn probably had more range. He could work like an Anderson and pinball like a Buddy Rogers. He was intense on the mic, but showed plenty of ass in the ring. Regal did a great job with his gimmick, but it was mostly comedy. Regal was the better wrestler. It's close, and I think it's fitting that they're paired together, but I went with Arn.

Inoki is in pretty rough shape.

I watched the Jaguar/Lioness 10/97 match the other day and it kept bothering me that Jaguar never played to the crowd, got in Asuka's face, or emoted in any sort of way. I also find her style awkward at times. She did a lot of flippy shit that she didn't really need to do, or doesn't fit into the flow of the match because she's not selling the performance. There's a really cool spot where she wraps a chain around her foot and nails Asuka with a missile dropkick, but it would have been a much better spot if she'd sold it. I'm not saying she has to stand on the turnbuckle and get the crowd clapping, but you can physically sell the fact that you're doing something extreme. I think her comeback work is a bit overrated.

This was disappointing. First of all, it would have made more sense for Black Tiger to have defeated Felino so that he could continue his beef with Black Warrior. And secondly, it was a weak match and a precursor to the poor singles matches that would follow in later years. Every now and again, they throw Felino a bone. This was one of those moments, but it didn't do anything to elevate Felino, Black Warrior or Black Tiger, so it has to be considered a failure in that sense.

This ended up being pretty cool. Shocker has apparently discovered Eminem and is rocking a B-Boy look. Magica looks like his mini. Vampiro is wearing some goofy Lestat shirt but doesn't really have a gimmick. He actually worked better with Black Tiger and Takemura than he did with Ultimo and Bucanero. The main reason you want to watch this, however, is the chemistry between Shocker and Wagner. I don't want to say they're CMLL's version of The Rock and Austin as they're not quite that electric, but they're definitely the most charismatic tecnico/rudo pairing in CMLL. Magica is great as Shocker's sidekick, and despite how solid the rudos are here, it's always cool to see a match where the tecnicos kick ass.

Decent little match with Casas stepping down into the midcard to have some fun exchanges with Virus(!) and Zumbido. Juventud continues to be pretty much dead weight. Could have used another fall.

Arena Coliseo handicap match. These matches are well done and it's always fun to see the heels pinballing for Silva. I'll take a stock match like this over Vampiro any day of the week.

This was a stock Arena Mexico handicap match, but I actually enjoy these matches. The problem is that there was an Infernales vs. Villanos feud going on at the time that they clipped to shreds, and I am dismayed that we didn't get to see more of Satanico's 2002 run.

I think the matches probably did more to help Foley's career than Austin's, but the WWF had only just started gaining momentum with the ratings and everybody was waiting to see what would happen next. I remember Dude Love being a left field choice and a bit of a surprise, but the matches satisfied the hardcores, especially the second one that laid out the template for the Attitude Era main event style. The buyrates were up from the previous year (business wouldn't really explode until the following year where the product was much crappier), but I think the matches solidified Austin in the hardcores' eyes as a main eventer and helped propel Foley to the next level.

This was the annual Leyenda de Plata Torneo Cibernetico Semi Final. Hijo del Santo came to the ring at the beginning wearing his father's original costume, which threw me off a bit. This was a fun Cibernetico. I feel as though people always hold Ciberneticos to the standards of those matches from '97. If you do that then no Cibernetico is ever going to compare. I prefer to focus on the action and the flow and the pairings that we get. There wasn't anything mind-blowing in this match, but there were plenty of excellent exchanges. There were a lot of boxes ticked for me personally -- Casas had a deep run, Satanico was actively involved, Black Tiger rose to the fore, and Felino shone in a match format he's renowned for. Solid thumbs up for this.

Okay, so GdI vs. Shocker & Casas is everything you want from CMLL in 2002 and features some great punch exchanges, but Vampiro drags things down with his dogshit performance. I swear there are times when he looks untrained. He made the flawlessly polished GdI look like shit because of his poor timing. They had no idea what to expect and were scrambling to be in the right spots. Rey Bucanero is usually a soldier and he looked completely out of sorts because of Vampiro's loose shit. There was enough good stuff to see this through to the end, but it would have been so much better if Vampiro hadn't been involved.

I thought this was cool. It was more dynamic than their return match in ROH and had a lot more dramatic selling, but like Sleeze said, it was a blur of competitive action. Styles walked a fine line between being cutesy and innovative, and the commentary was annoying as fuck, but you can't deny the intensity and hard hitting action. I don't really need that JR/Michael Cole "Good Gawd" Almighty School of Narrative Wrestling when watching pro-wrestling. I'm perfectly okay with grappling if you bring the ruckus. Low Ki was badass in 2002. Easily the US Wrestler of the Year in my opinion. I prefer watching him against some like Homicide than Styles, but it's cool that he can mesh with different dudes.

I haven't seen much Joshi since the 2007-09 period. I've seen Jaguar through social media recently but no matches. I haven't watched that much of her Jd' stuff for that matter. I might do a deep dive on that.

Jaguar retired early because of her shoulder injury. Jd' wasn't her own promotion. It was formed by the entertainment conglomerate Yoshimoto Kogyo. Jaguar was hired as a freelancer similar to Jackie Sato with the original JWP.

I went back and checked, and it's the show where Debbie Malenko is on commentary. Fumi Saito translates the promo for her.

I don't get what you mean by the challenge happening until after the tag finals was booked. Toyota challenged Yamada on the mic after Yamada won their JGP match on 6/21. The tag tournament didn't start until 7/30.

I just finished the Jonah Hex Spectacular, which tells the story of how Jonah Hex died while serving as a eulogy to the passing of the Old West as a whole. The twist ending, if you can call it that, is one of the most ballsy things I've read in any comic, mainstream or underground. An incredible ending to a brilliant one shot. I've been going through some of the Giant Size comics from the 70s. It's amazing to me that you had Conan the Barbarian, Savage Sword of Conan, Savage Tales, and Giant Size Conan, and yet I' m not sick of the character. A large part of that is due to the art as Thomas always seemed to get great artists working on his scripts, but it's also because Conan is such a reliable character. You know no matter what happens that Conan is going to be Conan. I think it's his nobility that appeals to me the most. That age-old trope that the uncouth barbarian is the most noble soul of all. I've also been impressed with the effort Gerber put into his Giant Size comics compared to other writers of the day. Gerber's Giant Size comics feel like proper issues of the regular title. I actually kind of enjoy his Giant Size Man-Thing issues more than the ongoing title. I wrapped up Gerber's run on Howard the Duck the other day. On the whole, I'd probably rate it higher than his Man-Thing, but I didn't find it as funny as folks did in the 70s. Colan's art was decent, but with Colan, I'm starting to believe that nothing outside of Tomb of Dracula compares. I started reading Werewolf By Night the other day, which I really want to like, but Mike Ploog's cartoony art was as off-putting to me as Michael Golden on 'The Nam. I guess I had a certain expectation of Werewolf as a horror title. I'll see how far I get on the book. I also finished Kirby's The Eternals, which I thought was a book that had a lot of great concepts and great art, but was deeply flawed. I enjoyed the first year or so of issues, but the book fell off the rails pretty quickly and was cancelled shortly thereafter.

I'm pretty sure the Yamada/Toyota hair match stemmed from their singles rivalry not their tag team. They had three time limit draws until Yamada beat her in June. Toyota was so incensed by the loss that she demanded a rematch, putting her hair and title on the line, which led to the famous ending where she regrets what she's done. This is pretty much one of the key matches to understanding Joshi. Folks interested in Joshi for the GWE should study it like the bible.

Vader vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (CWA Bremen 12/21/1991) Usually, I wouldn't care about a transplanted match like this, but Fujinami is a rare case of a Japanese wrestler who was great the world over and CWA Vader is just about my favorite Vader. This wasn't a great Catch match, but it was a decent Fujinami/Vader house show match. I was disappointed that they didn't use the rounds system since Vader's style lends itself perfectly to rounds, but I was happy enough with the strike exchanges. The finish was dumb, but I guess they wanted to cook up a schmoz. I just don't see a beast like Vader needing to surprise anybody with a flash pin. I guess pulverizing Fujinami into submission was off the cards.

There's not a lot to love about Japanese wrestling in 2002, but Takayama's G-1 run is up there. This was a great slugfest. Takayama looked like a beast, and they worked the exact way you'd hope Takayama and Sasaki would. Credit to Sasaki for making Takayama look good on his debut.

Great match. We've seen these two have some great TV matches in TNA. This was a chance for them to have a longer bout. They worked the same basic style just double the length. It was strike/counter strike, move/counter move, the entire way with no real dramatic pauses. I can live with that when the match is stiff and the intensity is full throttle.

Wrestling in Japan in 2002 would have been much better off if Togo had stayed in Osaka Pro, but I guess I'll take Togo and Takaiwa beating on each other in a half-decent juniors fight over no Togo at all.

This wasn't the follow up match you'd hope for after last week's title match, but Halloween and Damian deserved another main event. Halloween was really entertaining, grabbing the mic from the ring announcer and doing his trio's own intros, eating a nasty super kick from Lizmark, and taking a bump into the open arms of a ringside fan. It was a pretty shitty tecnico team, but the rudos made the most of it, and I enjoyed the one-on-one confrontations in the tercera. Vampiro was awful, of course. He came to the ring dressed like Biker Taker and looked spaced out. He's all over the match listings for the rest of the year. I'm not gonna jump the gun yet because of how quick I've been to dismiss the Japanese workers and La Familia de Tijuana, but I'm not super excited about this development especially since he pairs up with Shocker a lot, who had a perfectly good partner in Magica.