El-P

That was one of the point of the propaganda (and yet segregation policy) : having tickets more accessible for men with women than for single men.

I can watch the greatest propaganda pro-wrestling card since WCW in Korea "almost live" right at happy hour time. Gotta get some beer. This has to be surreal. No woman. Segregated audience. A pause for prayer. And a Roman Reigns coronation (again!!!!!! (probably not)) ? What the fuck WWE ?

Listen to Tony watch ECW from this week. I'm not saying EVERYONE should, but you should. A little goes a long way but it's appropriately surreal and ridiculous. It loses a bit of steam by the end (which happens in every damn watch-along), but Tony Schiavone marking out watching RVD throw chairs into Lance Storm's face, loosing his shit over Francine and doing absurd commentary over the MPro match was gold. I love the fact Tony is a Raven fan too. (and damn, that PPV was fun, I never thought I'd watch it again) EDIT : damn, I forgot Terry Funk won with an inside craddle. Rewatching this, I'm so glad I was an ECW fan. It's still great shit and I got a kick out of Tony loving the main event. For a guy was was "bitter" about pro-wrestling for so long, it's so cool to hear him enjoying the hell out of this nonsense. We're living in amazing times for pro-wrestling (despite all the bullshit), honestly.

You're being way generous. Scott Keith is a relik from the previous millenium. I have no idea why there's still a thread about him going on here tbh. It's like complaining about Compuserve or the latest update of Netscape.

Indeed. But fuck "watching" that on Youtube. >>> Convert to mp3. The RVD episode was really good. I happened to agree with Prichard quite a bit, especially about being unique like RVD (or Cena) being very important. The HHH running gag was funny (although it seems obvious that HHH did contribute to hold RVD down at one point where he was one if not the most over guy in the company).

One of those two has to be a mega-heel there...

Sammy was pimped pretty heavily back in the glory days of the NJ junior fandom. To me he's maybe the greatest awkward worker ever this side of Taue. There's a topic for you, great awkward looking workers : Samurai, Angle, Taue. As opposed to great elegant workers (which are less) : Misawa, Windham. Totally agree about the pendulum effect on Kandori BTW. She was very underrated and she became quite overrated at one point. Since classic joshi is not very much talked about (although it's cool to see a younger generation discover it again now), the pages are probably blank now.

Gently go fuck yourself, TriPaul.

Is Cena booked for that one ?

Nothing screams more "Mid-00's NOAH" than the KENTA & Marufuji team. Total post 2000 blowjob babyface japanese tag team. Marufuji looks like some hostess-boy for geek girls too. Kenta had evolved past the Kobashi understudy then and was all kicking and hitting hard. Kanemaru shines again in his dickish glory. Meanwhile, Makoto Hashi (damn, forgot about that fellow) thought it was a good idea for a junior to emulate Tenzan. People are odd. Well, this is mostly excellent, especially when KENTA is in, either kicking the crap out of the heels either being punted around. Hashi slapping him for no reason just after KENTA took that brutal bodyslam from the ramp was neat. This is also very much a modern junior style match : apron spot, kicking out of what looked like death spots. Excess incoming, but that was the style and they do a really good job at it, as KENTA is actually a great babyface both in peril, hope and kicking back. Marufuji.... well, I like Maru. He's an innovator, he truly is. For better or worse, he's kinda the blueprint for what was to come. Some of his stuff looks amazing. Some looks cringeworthy. It would be neat if he could hit at least one superkick that looks good from time to time. This really isn't it (ok, the last one on Hashi was nice), and since he hits like four of five of them... The ending sequence is a pretty awful botch too that he tries to catch up doing some fucked up La Majistral. More power to him, but really, Maru... Well, overall it was still a very good match thanks to strong performances especially by KENTA & Kanemaru.

In the grand scheme of things, I agree with that. As far as Moolah goes, she was an asshole anyway you slice it and she's dead, so yeah, the collective bias probably plays a part. That being said, none of the stories about "She treated *me* right" are convincing that she didn't do any really dirty stuff. FWIW, Prichard (yeah, I know) said he never even heard about the Savage rumour until years after the fact. To me it's one of those things that came up during the infamous "sleaze thread" and became its own urban legend. Very hard to believe honestly. (now, you've told me Lawler, then it would be way different...)

Especially since he doesn't actually gives any sources at all. When the whole Battle Royal deal happened, he wasn't exactly that straight on the issue either, saying on the WOR show that these stories were "probably way exagerated", but he didn't give any of those straight "debunking" either. So it does comes out of the blue and without any actual sources on this one. Like Grimmas said, considering how he handled the Elgin & Swann situations, not exactly sure how to read that one. (to give him credit, he's saying this in the middle of an argument about how the Saudi Arabia issue is much more problematic and embarrassing, which I agree with)

Indeed, not at all. This is great. Wait, what ? Sometimes I wonder if people are actually watching the same matches I do... No offense. But Liger & Kanemoto absolutely work heel from the get-go, disrespecting NOAH junior belt even before the match starts. You'd expect Kikuchi & Kanemaru not taking that too well, hence the first chaotic brawling part of the match, peaking with that ridiculous (and stupid, let's be honest) headbutt by Kikuchi, allowing them to beat on NJ asshole Kanemoto. It's gonna haunt the old, fat, gassed up fuck later on, during a long heat sequence on his ass, which include the greatest camel clutch ever by the Liger/Kanemoto duo. Kikuchi finally manage to make a hot tag (as the babyface dynamic commands) to get onto the last stretch. Although some of his stuff looks downright bad, Kikuchi really is the star of the match, and some of his timing, as well as attitude, is quite awesome. Yet again, kudos to Misawa for booking that awesome Kikuchi resurgence in the early 00's after years of doing nothing in AJ after the great early 90's stuff. Liger shows again why he's probably the best interpromotionnal worker ever. Complete antagonist here. Kanemoto is crisp as ever, although he does no-sell on random at times like he always does (the brainbusters series interrupted after two for the worst offense to selling 101) while Kanemaru kinda takes a little step back to his old-ass elbowing partner but still working some cool shit against his NJ counterpart Kanemoto. Liger keeps on being a dick even after he won. Great match.

Funny and topical, as I'm waching the Back to the Territories Houston edition (which is excellent BTW, a real pleasure), at some point Cornette mentions Moolah in a rather sarcastic way, to which Bruce says "Hey, don't disparage the good name of Lilian". Cornette then goes "She was always wonderful to me". Bruce "To me too". Cornette, under his breath a bit "… we didn't train under her".

FWIW, from the French TV timeframe, this is gonna be a 4h 40 mn show (this include a commercial break or two here). Insane.

Tanaka still looks like FMW Tanaka here. Saito has blonde hair. So when they face off, it looks like Tanaka is workintg against an uncool looking erzatz of Mr. Gannosuke. Odd. Also odd to see Tanaka be a dick, as he always was a perenial babyface. He does it quite well though, as he should since the first half of the match is mostly him and Ohtani, who's used to being a dick and loves to slap people around, doing heelish stuff like they are the Fabulous Ones or something. They do get heat although the home team is also a bunch of dicks. Akiyama does no sell a ton at first, like "I'm not selling that second rate promotion weak shit", and he doesn't make a lot of effort to put the opposition over. Honestly, I'd go so far to say he was the worst of the four here, as Saito is getting used to get his ass kicked now and does it well. It's like Akiyama was a bit disinterested to make this compelling honestly. There's a ludicrous no-selling exchange with him and Ohtani early which doesn't look very good, but apart from that he was still at least (and at best) *good*. Maybe the fact he didn't work on top kinda took its toll on his motivation. Anyway, after an okay "let's heel up" period, the finishing stretch finaly gets things going and Tanaka finally shines doing what he does. Heavyweight Ohtani still can deliver a terrific top rope dropkick on the back of your head too. NOAH's booking really was putting emphasis on Saito, as he's the one who gets to shine at the end. Very good match in the end.

Same thing here. The idea of Jeff Hardy being a legit big main event star still seems baffling to me. Not to mention I consider him to be mostly a terrible worker (and I have seen a few of his main event push matches back then). To be frank, I never got the Hardys at all, but at least Matt was solid. Jeff was all stunts and crappy (and sloppy to boot) late 90's indierriffic work. His first few stints in TNA were godawful too. Never got his gimmick either. He doesn't look "artistic" or "mysterious" to me. He looks like a geeky art-school reject who accidentaly dropped a bucket of toxic waste on his arms.

Or when All Japan really turned into a mid-90's WAR-like freakshow, only with New Japan guys passed their prime. I'm not sure the "new" Great Muta was as singular as the orginal one, although the mask looks creepy as hell. But I thought he did too much Shining Wizard, like old Mutoh would. As far as Hash goes, I dunno, not overly familiar with his 00's work, but he really never seemed the same after the Ogawa debacle. Match goes way too long, 16 minutes would have been enough, so we get a lot of Muta stalling and, it has to be said, kinda lame-ass brawling and Hash not doing much. It does picked up when blood gets flowing, as it usually does in Muta matches, but it lacks the real crazyness of old to me. Hash doesn't do much but his selling his excellent. It eventually develops into a good little match, but like its been said, a bit too much SW galore which by this point was getting old already. Hash winning the Triple Crown really wasn't anything it could have been against Kawada. Decent match I guess, but there was something missing. I thought the Tenryu match the previous year was better than this, although Tenryu fits the Muta bullshit bill much better than Hash anyway.

I have no idea where this "great Taue performance" comes from, he did his bit and was good at it, but he certainly wasn't anything special at all. Also, that last kick he gave to Chono toward the end looked like shit, even for Taue. If anything, he was the "less good" of the four here. I say "less good" because everything this match was about worked wonderfully. And although it is a "dream match" on paper, the whole dynamic really wasn't about that part. If there are "goal" and "way" matches, this was totally a "way" match, in that it was a way to build toward not only Misawa vs Kobashi (as showed by the ending stretch and the dynamic between those two) and the eventual Kobashi vs Chono match. But they still sure delivered the "dream match" part of it, like the first exchanges between Kobashi & Chono or the super sweet double team Misawa & Chono put together (aka "double elbow smash" followed by "double kenta kicks"). Chono here demonstrates that it's not about playing every notes, but playing the right ones at the right time, and Chono, washed up 2003 Chono that is, played the few meaningful notes he can play exactly how he should have and getting the most out of every of his spots. Of course Misawa & Kobashi were all about renewing their classic feud, with an ending foreshadowing the big title match to come. So yeah, very good/excellent match that accomplished everything you should expect from it.

This is the one. Tenryu is fucking with Mutoh from the get-go by doing a 52 years old Shining Wizard. Mutoh is butthurt about it, so he manages to hit the same spot outside, pushing the old geezer against the steel barricade, injury his left arm in the process. From there, it's focus on that arm, the kneecap dropkicks' only purpose being to keep Tenryu down, and eventually hit some SW too. There are also callbacks to the moonsault spot, which Mutoh insists on trying despite Tenryu always getting a way out. Good stuff here. And of course, a bunch of punches to the face, stiff chops, Mutoh doing this ridiculous backflip kick... This is everything you'd want from these two and then some as they really play off the first match without the kinda useless overlong legwork sequences, and with better selling too. Maybe not quite MOTYC level, but great match anyway.

For a while, this is everything the Tenryu vs Mutoh match the year before wasn't : actual hatred and intensity, leg work that looked crisp (thank you Kawada for making it seem so) and actually meant something and better selling down the stretch. Kawada is just as terrific as always here, although the regular no-selling comebacks back and forth I know annoyed the old AJ fans back then. Mutoh is also much crisper than during the Tenryu match and demonstrates a lot more heelish attitude too, as he should because he's still the fucking outsider with a title that should not belong to him, which Kawada reminds him in spades by kicking him in the face. The leg work with kneecaps dropkicks gets much more dramatic here as Kawada refuse to let them take him down, meanwhile letting himself open to Shining Wizards, the most copied spot of 2001/2002. This leads to a moonsault when he just can't take it anymore and lays down the mat, but Mutoh hitting his knee on the way down prevents him from covering Kawada immediately. Okay, so now this whole knee business led us somewhere. Some more cool counters incoming, including an attempt at delayed selling by Mutoh who just pops back up after a backdrop driver and runs to ShiningWIzard Kawada again. Well, if Kobashi can do it, why not Mutoh ? He doesn't do it as well (and by that I mean, he just pops out barely even registering the move he just took), but whatever. You gotta wonder what the hell happened toward the end though. I vote on Mutoh trolling Kawada by not going for the powerbomb then doing a miserable failed attempt at... something. Well, he ended up on his head, so no luck for him. Well, the match is great for enough time, despite this awful botch at the end. So, quite the terrific match with its share of Mutoh goofiness which is acceptable or not depending on your personal tolerance for Mutoh goofiness. Mine is high, so I really loved most of this match. Kawada was the glue, of course.

Damn, this looks like the total death warrant of All Japan. Keiji Mutoh, bald and all after he got traumatized in RussoWCW and sick of Inkoism turning New Japan into a pit of MMAlite crap, comes as the brand new savior of the dying company to reclaim the Triple Crown (you know, Jumbo, Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Taue...) against redeemed Tenryu in the most Mutohesque fashion ever. By that I mean, a match where he moves at a snail pace from the very start, does a whole bunch of legwork for a long time that will ultimately amount to exactly zilch and then do a bunch of bomb throwing at the end because, why the fuck not. Tenryu does bust out a powerbomb after only five minutes because, ya know, it's gonna be one of these matches. So yeah, Mutoh does his deal, low dropkick then figure four. Tenryu's selling is really good as usual. When Tenryu bust out his own kneecap dropkick (best spot of the match) we get a "now it's your turn" figure-four spot, like in any good ol' Ric Flair match, with about the same results : none. Then fuck the leg selling because we don't have time for this anyway, despite spending the first half of the match (after five first minutes of nothing though, where Tenryu is more than happy to follow Mutoh's "let's do nothing" lead) on this shit. Yes, there are some cool moments. Yes, Tenryu does some crazy looking spot for a 51 years old guy. It's still basically your must okay New Japan heavy main event circa 1995. I'm not sure I'd even call it "very good" to be honest. Ok, let's be generous, it's a "very good" (about ***1/2 in snowflake language) match. I'm being way generous. I could deal with "Fuck me, Mutoh, are you serious ?" too, but's that for the insane Kawada match (from memory only, I've not seen it in ages).

Come on Sho, I'm an old Volk Han fan myself, he's old-school at this point.

Also, comparing every worker ever to Volk Han is funnier than comparing every worker ever to Ted DiBiase, and he won't have any of that.

If she was only pimping *one* of those girls, she was a scumbag. The old "Well, I have nothing but good things to say about her, she never did anything bad to me" ain't worth shit as far as telling what Moolah was really about (it reminds me of some of some actresses telling how Harvey W. never did anything to them and how he was a professional in their presence. Well, good for them, but that doesn't say much about what he actually did to others.). There's enough crummy stuff about her to not care about some probably semi-senile "legend" (really ?) blabbing about how Moolah "did a great job for women’s wrestling." when she actually, and that's a fact, destroyed it for her own benefit. For that reason and that reason only, it was ridiculous to name anything after her.