Savage v Bruno in Boston! Hogan v Mr. Wonderful in the cage!

Randy Savage v Bruno Sammartino (WWF, 1/3/87)

Hard to ask for much more out of the Macho Man v the Living Legend for six minutes in 1987. Bruno's stomps and forearm strikes just drip with energy and Savage's bumping and stooging is electric so obviously this worked a treat. Savage tries to hide behind Elizabeth at the start until Bruno grabs him by the hair and rams him head-first into the buckles so for the next couple minutes Savage tries to hightail it out of there. Each attempt is unsuccessful as Bruno will not RELENT and Savage almost gets his trunks yanked off and of course the crowd eats it up completely. The Boston Garden still loves Bruno and it's not difficult to understand why he was a megastar in the Northeast for like 15 years. Eventually Savage uses Liz as enough of a distraction to knee Bruno in the kidneys and Lord Al on commentary is convinced Elizabeth is shown too much sympathy from the public. She's in on the whole thing and knows what she's doing, by god. Savage is frantic energy, hitting axe handles off the top to the floor and Bruno's old legend who is now an old man selling is great. He's never beaten but at any moment he might just be broken. Savage wellying Bruno in the back with a chair not being called by Marella is interesting and Bruno was well within his rights to be apoplectic afterwards at losing by count out. Maybe Monsoon was right about his adopted son's incompetence all along.

Hulk Hogan v Paul Orndorff (Cage Match) (WWF Saturday Night's Main Event, 1/3/87)

Really fun WWF-style cage match. It started great with Hogan ripping the shirt off as he climbs over the cage into the ring only to be jumped by Orndorff. There are obviously allowances you have to afford the wrestlers when it comes to these escape the cage rules, but I thought they mostly worked around the inherent limitations well and if nothing else they used them to their advantage by cutting a quick pace. Orndorff had Hogan rocked from the start, whipping him with the title belt and immediately trying to escape out the door. Makes sense because why wouldn't you walk out the door as soon as you could? Hogan cut him off a couple times so Orndorff must've figured that wasn't for working and instead tried climbing up and over in the opposite corner. Seems sensible enough. Hogan regrouping and dragging Orndorff back in, slamming his head off the cage repeatedly while he was upside down, was a great transition spot and Jesse's call is perfect - "Hogan would've lost the title if Mr. Wonderful was bald!" Hogan even uses his own discarded bandana to choke Orndorff, much to Jesse's disgust. If the match ended after the stereo escapes it would've been a nice cage match sprint, but the restart allowed it to build some more and gave Orndorff a chance to run up some proper heat on Hogan. Orndorff's falling elbows and stomps are always exceptional and that was no different here. There was also a cool double head knock into the cage that served as a reset of sorts, which was a neat choice structurally. Orndorff even gets a bit of colour on network TV and then post-match Heenan takes three absolutely world class bumps. I'm a fan of Orndorff so I kind of like how he never lost this feud decisively, only being defeated in the end by not escaping a cage quick enough and even then with the argument that he should've been declared the winner before it got to that point. I don't actually remember what he ends up doing the rest of the year and by early '88 he's gone from the company entirely. It was a hell of a four-year run, though. 

It's a Reoccurring Memory, Familiar Old Refrain. If Tenryu had Been Born a Hundred Years Ago, this Bus Would be a Train

Genichiro Tenryu & Great Kabuki v George Takano & Shunji Nakano (SWS, 10/18/90) - GREAT

This was the finals of a one-night tag tournament, either for title belts or a wealth of prestige, perhaps both. Tenryu and Kabuki made quick work of a Bob Orton/Jeff Jarrett team earlier in the night while Takano and Nakano had to go through Takagi and Yatsu in the match immediately preceding this one. So you'd think the advantage would be with the team of Tenryu and Kabuki; even more so than simply by virtue of the fact that team has Tenryu and the other team does not. The cool thing about these early SWS shows with the match timer in the bottom corner is that it lets you see exactly how long it takes for Tenryu to come in and kick someone in the face unprompted (it was one minute and 31 seconds on the dot). Kabuki hasn't bothered repainting his face after the earlier match and my world has been shaken but he will still thrust kick someone straight under the chin. And this was largely a stomping from Tenryu and Kabuki, the young lads floundering and trying to stay afloat, swimming upstream while getting some shots in sporadically. It was a pretty awesome underdog performance from both of them and they really made those shots count when they threw them, hitting some killer dropkicks and high knees as hope spots with Tenryu taking all of them clean in the face. Then with every shotgun blast Tenryu receives he comes back meaner and more aggressive than before and it leads to several instances of someone getting punted in the spine. Nakano must've picked up a knee injury in the semi-finals because it's taped up here and targeted in the back half. As the match goes on the crowd get properly behind the underdogs and they do not like it when Kabuki comes in to break up pins and the like. At one point he walked over and just stomped on Nakano's knee to major heat. Tenryu eating a pin off the German suplex must've been a shock at the time. Maybe he saw where All Japan were going with Misawa and the boys and he wanted his own Jumbo passing the torch moment. You can see why he'd want that because the SWS roster was not particularly deep and the hierarchal gap between Tenryu and the rest was substantial. We'll see how Takano progresses from here and perhaps one day we'll be talking about him like we do Misawa. 

Genichiro Tenryu & The Undertaker v Yokozuna & Bam Bam Bigelow (WWF, 5/7/94) - FUN

This started great and I wondered if we were going to get some big SPECTACLE wrestling. Undertaker is what Undertaker is but the crowd were into him and his zombie shtick so I figured he and Tenryu could make for a fun pairing. The first few minutes were the best and after that it kind of meandered at points, but Yoko and Bigelow working over Tenryu for a stretch was decent enough. If nothing else it made me interested in a Tenryu/Bigelow singles match. Some of the Fuji interference stuff towards the end dragged on for an age and Hebner really should've been taken to task by whatever governing body the referees had. If this was the English FA he'd have been given a STERN talking to about something or other. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Tully! Rude! Some '87 Crockett

Tully Blanchard v Tim Horner (JCP World Championship Wrestling, 1/3/87)

This match made me think about workrate. Or at least the term workrate and what it means now. Or what it MIGHT mean because honestly I'm not sure myself. And this probably sounds like a weird match to bring that term to the forefront of my mind, but it did all the same and mostly it was Tully. If you're taking workrate to literally mean the rate of work then Tully is a phenomenal workrate guy. He does not stop working. I guess the old talking point about headlocks and armbars and stuff is that they were "rest holds" and setting aside that that's pretty much nonsense, there are very few people who work holds like Tully, both from above as well as beneath. He's making other people work for things too, nothing given up easy or without a fight, always creating that sense of struggle. The first half of this, about eight minutes of a 16ish-minute match, was mostly Horner working the arm and controlling Tully. Or at least TRYING to control him because Tully was looking to escape and take shots and shortcuts whenever Horner gave him enough space. Horner tries to whip him from one corner to the other but Tully isn't satisfied and grabs a handful of hair to drag Horner to the mat, stumbles over into the other corner where Horner quickly follows up with a few strikes, THEN successfully whips Tully across to the buckles. Tully making him earn it made something fairly rudimentary feel significant. Before the match JJ puts up 10 grand of the Horsemen's money and even extends the TV title time limit to 25 minutes so you know before long he's sweating bullets on the floor, periodically pulling the wad of bills out his pocket and nervously counting them like a kid worrying about his Pokemon cards. Horner has lots of neat ways to drag Tully back into armbars and hammerlocks - a cool flying takedown, rolling through on a bodyslam to keep hold of the hammerlock, using the ropes to flip out of a wristlock and yank Tully back to the mat. Tully is the champ for a reason and always looks dangerous throwing body shots, short headbutts to the gut, pressing every advantage when he can. In the end it's his resourcefulness that wins out. I guess a handful of tights will work in a pinch. Horner got to look really strong and Tully going back for another bite after the bell shows how frustrated he was. Just solid pro wrestling all around.

Rick Rude v Robert Gibson (JCP Pro, 1/3/86)

I need to re-watch the Ragin' and Ravishing v Rock n Rolls series from '86. It's been a very long time. This would suggest there's still more to come in '87. It starts with Rude applying a headlock and shutting down Gibson the first couple times he tries to reverse it into a top wrist lock. Rude is too strong for a man with a mullet like that. On the third attempt Gibson just slips out the back and turns it into a hammerlock. Thus we establish that whatever Robert Gibson lacks in braun he more than makes up for in brains prolly. They do a leapfrog spot where Rude comes down selling the knee and I'd have bet my kidneys on it being a RUSE, but he actually plays it up the rest of the match which is sort of random but also very cool. Gibson working the leg is fine. Highlight of the match is the atomic drop where Rude sells the knee AND his buttocks. When Gibson hoisted him up for it I immediately hoped for a signature Rick Rude atomic drop sell while clutching the knee, and while he hadn't developed FULL Rick Rude atomic drop selling at this point he did indeed sell his butt and knee at the same time. If that's not worth three and one quarter stars I don't know what is.

Dump v Bull! The King v Wildfire! A couple very good wrestling matches from 1986

Dump Matsumoto v Bull Nakano (AJW, 5/17/86)

This was less outrageous than many of the Dump singles matches (or just Dump matches) of the time, at least in that she wasn't trying to chop Bull's hair off mid-match or stab her in the arm with scissors. Given that they were stablemates maybe she respected Bull enough to only clobber her across the head with a kendo stick. Dump has always been and maybe always will be a bit of a strange case to me. An ENIGMA, if you will. I don't always love the act and all of the bells and whistles, sometimes I don't find her particularly compelling working from beneath, but on those occasions where she does lean all the way into selling vulnerability, however briefly, it makes it feel like the opponent's climbed a mountain. Bull would be cut off at every turn here, usually by one of Dump's other underlings bowing to her commands and jumping Bull, so any time Dump looked in danger it wouldn't last. Bull might hit a German suplex and rock Dump, might even retaliate with some weapon shots of her own, but Dump had the game rigged fifty ways in her favour. There was one point where Bull went at her with a kendo stick and Dump produced two more from who knows where. At another point Bull strung together some offence, then Dump's cronies halted her, and that gave Dump enough time to wrap a chain around Bull's neck and dog walk her around ringside. I don't have a clue where she even got the chain from, didn't see her grab it from anywhere, it just appeared when she needed it, some black magic from a deal Dump might've made with the devil. All of that made the moment where Bull actually got the upper hand feel momentous. She turned the tables and Dump went down, clearly in trouble, then came up bloody, and for a second there I was desperate for Bull to press the advantage and take Dump down a peg. It never happened because sometimes the deck is stacked just too high, but there will frequently be a moment in a Dump Matsumoto match where it hits me that, even if I don't love it personally, it's just about impossible to ignore how effective all of the surrounding bullshit is in delaying that gratification. Even if it only leads to a chink in the armour, the opponent comes off all the better for it. Imagine the reaction if someone were to actually beat her. This was pretty awesome and easily one of my favourite Dump matches.

Jerry Lawler v Tommy Rich (Memphis, 12/29/86)

It's a bummer that we miss what sounds like about half of this, if we're going by the time calls. Even what we get is pretty great, though. The clips of their match from the previous week make that one look like an all-timer, how it built to them trying to punch each other's head off and Lawler even getting knocked off the bleachers, and this one didn't take long to match the vibe of that. They at least TRY and not turn it into a fist fight straight away but you can tell it won't be long before it goes that way. Even with both being babyface I loved how Rich was sort of underhanded early about throwing forearms. Not even underhanded really; it was a legal strike, it just came quickly off the clean breaks and there's a part of you that knew he was doing it to goad Lawler into losing his cool. Of course Lawler did and responded not with forearms but with punches. You knew Rich took some satisfaction in that, even with having to eat those punches. I would bet money on that being deliberate, a bit of heel subtlety considering the crowd probably would've been MORE inclined to get behind him had he just dropped the charade, been up front about everything and punched Lawler in the face. Knowing where this feud goes and what it leads to a few months down the line it's a cool piece of progression towards Rich and Idol dishing Lawler the ultimate humiliation and inciting a riot in the process. Rich's first punch of the match might not have been the one where he's falling backwards into the sunset flip, but that's the one that sticks out most and what a fucking punch it was. Then by the end they do what you knew they'd end up doing and that's trying to punch each other's lights out. Again. I haven't revisited the Lawler/Rich-Idol feud since going through the DVDVR Memphis set in 2008 (holy fuck that is nearly half my life ago) and I feel like I should do it justice by re-watching the whole thing in its entirety. This was a hell of a place to start.

Fujinami! Choshu! Fujiwara and Saito and six other guys! Panther and Atlantis! A couple very good wrestling matches!

Riki Choshu, Masa Saito, Super Strong Machine, Kuniaki Kobayashi & Hiro Saito v Tatsumi Fujinami, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Kengo Kimura, Keiichi Yamada & Shiro Koshinaka (New Japan, 9/12/88)

I've said it probably three dozen times by now, on this nonsense blog of 15 years and any other message board I've posted drivel on, but the New Japan multi-man tag really is a can't-fail prospect. This was another killer iteration of it, you'll be shocked to hear. Yamada was like an enthusiastic younger brother from the start, holding the ropes open for his teammates to get in the ring pre-match then coming close to scoring the elimination on Kobayashi. He didn't quite manage it but maybe one day his time will come. Fujiwara wasn't as featured in this as he was in the previous couple years' iterations, which will always bum me out, but he did get to clonk someone with a headbutt and rip off a lethal armbar. I didn't think the body of this was as engaging as some of the real classic New Japan multi-mans - nothing grabbed me as a through line narratively the way a few of the others from this period did. All the same it's impossible for these guys with this much time not to produce plenty of individual moments. Then there's the final pairing with Fujinami and Saito, the latter slowly bleeding himself into a state of unconsciousness. You could see Saito had untied the turnbuckle padding while Fujinami and Choshu were still going at it. He doesn't need to do stuff like that, he's built like a small tank and dangerous enough as is, but I guess sometimes he can't help himself. That it backfired was pretty much justice, but then the beating he takes afterwards almost forces you into showing sympathy. His selling was obviously amazing and the blade job is nuts and then in the end his last gambit was practically to fall down and let momentum take its course. A hell of a match, if maybe only my sixth or seventh favourite version of it. 

Blue Panther v Atlantis (CMLL, 12/5/97)

Of course this is amazing, and having watched their 1991 match a couple months ago, still finding that one great too, I'd rank this one even higher. Maybe this sort of lucha matwork-heavy contest is the only thing that challenges the New Japan multi-man as the best match type ever. Even though six years had passed since the '91 title match there was still a sense here that Atlantis had and maybe would always have Panther's number. He needed to win two straight while Panther only needed one fall, as per the rules of this tournament? Didn't matter. Atlantis' use of wrist control at the start was awesome and even when Panther managed to work his way out and turn it into a full nelson, you kind of knew Atlantis would have him where he wanted him again pretty soon. The primera wasn't long but it was a tremendous example of why us nerds love the lucha grappling and the last minute of it set us up for the segunda, with Panther continually having to kick out of pin attempts or escape holds, Atlantis winning out in the end through attrition if nothing else. You could say Panther knew he had a bit of wiggle room in the first fall given that Atlantis needed to win both, but even if he did it didn't seem to do him any favours because Atlantis was still a force after that. Panther was determined to lock in that Gory Special and Atlantis would not allow it for more than five seconds, then I thought Panther might've cracked the code with the rolling surfboard. I loved the finish too. Panther gets up and celebrates after reversing a victory roll and almost pinning Atlantis, I guess thinking he's finally figured out how to beat the man, but Atlantis was one step ahead as always and yoinked him into La Atlantida. Just a fantastic match.

GCW at the Omni (2/26/84)

The WWE Vault has been doing the lord's work over the past few months. Just last week they dropped a never before seen Lawler/Savage match from '85, the week before that THE mother of all Omni shows with a Piper/Sawyer dog collar main event, and a while before that they dropped this, in full, pretty much out of nowhere. I finally got around to finishing it. You can read words about it if you like. 

Pez Whatley v Jesse Barr

A serviceable enough opener; nothing remotely spectacular but it had a couple moments that you'll remember a week or two later. The only Whatley I've watched over the last five years has been '86 heel turn Shaska Whatley who cut Jimmy Valiant's hair but this was the whimsical babyface Whatley we all know and love (I assume). His big flying cross body was neat but it quite simply paled in comparison to Barr's kneelift as Pez was trying to get back in the ring. It sounded like it took Whatley's head off and a really good kneelift is sorely missed in today's pro wrestling. He went for it again at the end and surely would've put the proverbial nail in Pez Whatley's coffin, but Pez moved and Barr took an awesome bump off the miss. Bring back the kneelift. 

The Spoiler v Johnny Rich

Man I really wish we had a ton of Spoiler footage. I've said that every time I've watched a Spoiler match in the last 10 years, so probably four times in total, and the statement rings truer every time. He has such a cool presence - a calmness, a composure where you know he's dangerous. For such a unit of a guy he has remarkable grace whenever he walks along the top rope or climbs the turnbuckle, perching up there with the ease of a gymnast before jumping off and clubbering someone in the neck. Eventually it would backfire and when it did he took a great bump across the ring as Rich threw him off the ropes. There was another awesome moment involving the ropes, this time with Spoiler sort of draping Rich's shoulders and throat over the top while he hung between that and the middle rope, and Spoiler kicking the top rope into Rich's throat about sent him flying out the ring like a crash test dummy. There was an audible gasp as Rich barely managed to hang on upside down. I like how the ref' made a point of checking Spoiler's mask at the start for a hidden object and later when Rich went for a monkey flip out the corner he started going for the mask. You'd think that would foreshadow a shady headbutt but no, Spoiler just grabbed Rich by the face instead and tried to squeeze his brains out. Rich even juices and the finishing claw/sleeper hold combo looked properly brutal. The Vault releasing a couple dozen Spoiler matches wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

Ted DiBiase v Mr. R

This wasn't much of a match as opposed to an angle. I don't think I've seen any of the DiBiase/Rich feud from Georgia but of course Mr. R is Rich under a mask. They worked five minutes of decent enough headlock takeovers and Rich frustrating DiBiase, then DiBiase's crew, Spoiler and Jesse Bar among them, hit the ring to get at Rich. They never manged to collar him and in the end were left looking foolish. Honestly I'd rather see a Spoiler/Rich match than DiBiase/Rich, but I guess that's because there's really nothing more to learn about Ted at this point. Spoiler v Rich would probably have Spoiler jumping off the rope with a loaded headbutt and Rich leaving puddles of blood on the floor.

Tommy Rogers v Les Thornton

Tommy Rogers was so good. It's always worth mentioning his great dropkick that he hit about five of here, and at least one was to Thornton's face. This had five minutes of really nice work around a headlock and Thornton ripping Tommy into a headdcissors by the hair. These were nasty hair pulls too, really yanking Rogers in there and the headscissors itself was super tight. Tommy would manage to pop out and immediately leap into the headlock again just for the hair to be pulled, quick enough for the ref' to maybe miss it but for the crowd do the same. And that crowd got more and more frustrated and that's what you want, right? Cool spot where Tommy pops out and runs the ropes, Thornton raises his legs like he's about to hit the monkey flip, and when you think Tommy will do the cartwheel spot he just grabs the legs and stomps him in the gut (after asking crowd if they want him to stomp the gut). Rogers' sunset flip is also wonderful, really quick and I love how he uses his legs to keep the arms down. An awesome pro wrestler. 

Wahoo McDaniel v Nikolai Volkoff 

This was a Big Boy Slugfest. It went six minutes and they used that whole time to throw meaty shots and bump into each other, which is about all I wanted out of Wahoo McDaniel v Nikolai Volkoff. Wahoo obviously has great chops and he caught Nikolai with one right to the face as he was coming out the corner. Volkoff takes big exaggerated bumps for Wahoo's shots, almost like he's surprised that a man of his BULK can be affected by regular chops. Volkoff has a real nice backbreaker and then hoists Wahoo, not a small man himself, into a military press that he turns into another backbreaker. Wahoo is on the apron getting clubbed in the neck so he just throws his shoulder into Nikolai's face and Volkoff goes flying. By that point ol Nikolai should not have been surprised. 

Jake Roberts v Ron Garvin

Awesome match with a tremendous slimeball Jake performance. He makes a point before the bell to highlight that he has taped up ribs, telling the ref' to make sure Garvin doesn't throw any punches there. The match is about 13 minutes long and probably nine of those minutes build to Garvin throwing his first punch to the midsection, then they continue building the next few minutes to him throwing his first punch to the face. It was a fantastic example of pacing and escalation and heat-building. Jake works a top wristlock and is pretty much masterful at manipulating the ref's position so he can cheat, moving Garvin around the ring so Ellering can involve himself when necessary, using different forms of leverage to keep Garvin grounded or cut him off. That leverage would come from simple things like his own physical height advantage, then he'd use the bottom turnbuckle to jump in the air and accentuate that height advantage even more, and of course the ropes were always in play for him to use when he needed to. He throws a bunch of little pot shots, grabs Garvin's hair and tights, and whenever Garvin cocks his fist to retaliate the ref' interjects long enough for Jake to sneak in another blow. Every time Garvin has a chance to swing on him and it's ripped away the heat goes up and up and they're itching for Jake to get cracked long before he does. Jake's selling of the ribs is really awesome too. There was a moment early where he threw an uppercut with maybe a little too much rotation and immediately grabbed his midsection in pain, then later he hit an elbow drop and clutched at his side when he hit the mat. This wasn't a match where he was on the back foot for very long or receiving much damage, so he was left to sell from above, while working his own offence, and I always love it when wrestlers pay attention to detail like that, to show how that injury is a constant and not a temporary inconvenience. It gives the crowd something to latch onto when they know the babyface can offset the rampant cheating with the right strike, so every hope spot or even a hint of a fight back gets a reaction. Garvin tries to escape holds by going for the tape around the ribs and Jake starts wrenching on the hold or shifting position straight away, desperate to keep Garvin from exploiting it. When Garvin starts building more steam Jake turns away from the ref' under the pretence that he's holding the ribs in agony only to unwrap tape from his wrist and use it to choke Garvin. When Garvin throws the first punch to the ribs Jake's selling is immaculate and he keeps it up after that, all the way to the end. Jake unloads with shots and Garvin won't budge before throwing that first big fist to the jaw, which Jake goes down like a ton of bricks for and also sells the midsection upon bumping on his back. The finish is great. Garvin getting planted fully on his cranium with the DDT on the chair would've been amazing on its own, but Jake waits until the ref comes to and he hits Garvin with another elbow drop, writhing in pain afterwards, just to show what he'll put his body through to win. It was almost heroic. 

Stan Hansen & King Kong Bundy v The Road Warriors 

You knew this would be sensational right from the lock-ups. Hansen and Hawk going at each other like a pair of bighorn rams trying to grind the other's ear off with their forearms was probably the best lock-up work I've ever seen and the crowd lapped up every second of it. Bundy and Hawk also have one of the best tests of strength you'll get and Bundy actually winning felt sort of unbelievable. The whole babyface shine was tremendous, basically. It might be the most I've seen the Roadies stooge ever. Hawk charges Bundy in the corner and runs face-first into a knee, taking this awesome falling KO bump and there were people back then who really thought these guys couldn't work a lick. The transition into Hansen working face in peril wasn't anything standout, but I guess sometimes two giant roided up bastards in face paint punching you repeatedly in the arm will do the trick. The actual heat segment itself was great. I wasn't used to seeing the Road Warriors show ass like they did early and I wasn't used to seeing them work as frantically as this on top. They're these menacing monsters who will more often than not obliterate people and not look particularly vulnerable in the process, so it was cool to see them do everything at double pace to make sure Hansen stays in their corner, or even just on the mat in general. When one would tag out they'd stay in the ring long enough to keep a hold of Hansen so the other could get in, both of them putting the boots to him for as long as they could without being disqualified. At one point they both just stormed Hansen in the corner with stomps and forearm clubs and it really put over how much of a force Hansen was, the fact that THESE two were having to resort to something like that, not because they wanted to beat on a guy for the hell of it but because on this occasion they needed to. Obviously Hansen will fire back any chance he gets and MAKES the Roadies keep him down, giving nothing for free in true Stan Hansen fashion. And Bundy coming in off the hot tag is yet another thing I don't remember seeing much of, but like everything else in this match it ruled. He was slamming both Road Warriors like they were sleeping bags fulla feathers and hit at least one huge splash. If you were expecting a clean finish I'm not sure what to tell you, but it breaks down into a nice brawl after the thing gets thrown out and that's about all I was hoping for. Hansen is the perfect sort of maniac in this setting because he won't settle until some proper shit has kicked off and here he just kept going after everyone, Ellering including, until they all cut and ran. This totally delivered everything I wanted from it. 

Ric Flair v Brad Armstrong 

You've possibly - nay, PROBABLY - seen this match before. Perhaps not this SPECIFIC match, between Ric Flair and Brad Armstrong from Atlanta's Omni Arena on the night of February 26th, 1984, but a Ric Flair match similar enough where you watch this one and have a fairly decent idea of how it's going to go. There's nothing wrong with that either. It can be fun knowing beforehand what you're about to dedicate 20 minutes of your life to.  This was Flair coming in respectful, taking the young local challenger seriously and working clean. There was no bullshit, no strutting, no mocking, no wooing. Before long he got frustrated at Armstrong winning exchanges and the composure started to crumble, his true colours peeking through. He sought a reprieve without outright begging off, threw a few potshots without resorting to anything below the belt. They did a few things Flair liked to do, messed one of them up, did it again a second later. In the end he was pushed, maybe not to the limit but far enough where he was concerned, yet found a way to escape with the belt. He was resourceful if nothing else. 

Re-Watching Jushin Thunder Liger (part 6)

Jushin Liger, El Samurai & Kendo Kashin v Shinjiro Ohtani, Koji Kanemoto & Tatsuhito Takaiwa (New Japan, 6/24/98)

Very decent stuff. At this point I have a pretty strong idea of what I like in my pro wrestling and I'd say ultimately it comes back to some good old ANIMOSITY. Everything else being equal, give me some folk who don't like each other making it known that they don't like each other and I'll probably get something out of it. This had lots of tetchiness, so even though it was mostly back and forth without really settling into anything standout from a story perspective, the ill will kept things interesting the whole way. Liger and Kashin almost come to blows at the start because they're so overcome with DISGUST for the opposition and both want to start. Ohtani gets sent to the floor early and Liger whips him into the barricade, then kicks a cameraman up the arse for almost getting in the way. I liked the moments where the masked gentlemen would take a page from the young punks' book and throw some real derisory shit at them, the punks responding later with the same, with gusto and the smugness that comes with youth prolly. Liger going for the rolling kick only to roll into a double powerbomb/death valley driver combo looked awesome and seamless and not telegraphed at all. They probably ran some variation of this match up a dozen times a tour and it would've worked pretty well on every occasion. Hate really is all you need. 

Jushin Liger v Kensuke Sasaki (New Japan, 4/7/00)

I wanted to check out something from what is probably Liger's least acclaimed run (outside of when he was like 30 years into his career, I guess) - black suit Liger. I got into Japanese wrestling primarily through Liger as my gateway, but at the time I did he wasn't long coming off the run where people were calling him things like Hollywood Liger, lamenting his transformation into a no-selling machine who was running roughshod over the rest of the junior heavyweight division. I don't know if that run was used specifically to build to this title match, but he mostly got steamrolled here and I'm not sure the crowd ever expected anything different. Sasaki was a fine enough brick wall and pulled no punches against his old tag partner from their 1992 WCW excursion. As far as Liger stepping to heavyweight champions go this was nowhere near the Hashimoto match from '94, but I'm glad I watched it just to revisit what was considered a down period of his career. 

Tenryu Knows that Dickel ain't Pappy, He's Broke but He's Happy, and as Drunk as Any Rich Man Could Be

Genichiro Tenryu & Jumbo Tsuruta v Yoshiaki Yatsu & Killer Khan (All Japan, 9/14/85) - GOOD

This was at its best when everyone was slapping each other about the face. There would be moments where someone would have a hold locked in and that would be fine and everything, but then wouldn't you know it someone would slap the other person in the face and things were just BETTER. Yatsu looked like he wanted to prove a point here, most likely the point that he could hang without Choshu in his corner, so he had a chip on his shoulder the whole way. Khan is a fun ruffian as always, super imposing, hit an awesome headbutt off the ropes and missed an equally awesome kneedrop. A missed kneedrop is an underrated quality to have and Khan has a better missed kneedrop than lots of guys. The work on Jumbo's arm is brief but good stuff and I really liked Khan taking off the elbow pad and wrapping the arm around the post repeatedly. I can only guess he was shrieking while doing it too and that always makes him seem like a feral maniac. 

Genichiro Tenryu v Randy Savage (All Japan/WWF, 4/13/90) - EPIC

Pretty much perfect pro wrestling. Big spectacle wrestling from two guys who do spectacle wrestling as well as anybody ever has? Of course I'm going to love it. Actually that does Sherri a disservice because her presence elevated this even more. She was an incredible menace here, a plague upon Tenryu and the ref' and the timekeeper and anybody else who peeved her. It might be her best performance as a manager and that is a HIGH bar. Her and Savage were 100% authentic, nothing about their act toned down remotely and if anything they ramped it up even more. The match hadn't started and they were already heatseeking and Sherri especially wouldn't be satisfied until someone tried to fight her. It fired up Tenryu even more than usual and he'd chucked his jacket at Savage before the match started. The opening was basically immaculate, with Savage ducking out the ring to avoid Tenryu winding up for a chop, Sherri letting the crowd know what she thinks of them for having the audacity to boo. I've seen Tenryu unleash hell on more people than I could ever recall, but his reaction after the first chop flurry here was biblical, pumping his arms and cussing out Savage who lay broken in the corner, the place erupting around him. It was unbelievable and he'd never get that animated after leaving someone in a heap. His outbursts would be sudden but he'd usually keep an air of calm about himself afterwards, all business at the end of the day. This felt personal, like it had been bubbling for hours, even days, which showed how far Savage and Sherri had gotten under his skin in a matter of minutes. No matter what Tenryu did though, Queen Sherri would be there. After the chop flurry Tenryu hit a flying cross body off the apron to the floor (it was awesome), but then Sherri would take a swing at him from behind and it would give Savage his chance to bite back. The timekeeper was apoplectic when Savage threw Tenryu off the Dome stage and onto the table and Sherri saw that as her opportunity to antagonise someone else, which she did expertly. I thought the wee fella was going to rip off his tuxedo. At one point Tenryu was trying to climb in the ring so Sherri clocked him with an enziguri, ran around the other side of the ring, put her shoe back on, then flashed the ref' her most genial smile when questioned. Savage was amazing taking all of Tenryu's shots, including a boot coming out of the corner where he went jelly-legged and cross-eyed and once again you wonder why Americans would come to Japan and think they had to be STOIC. I can't imagine Savage had ever suffered a powerbomb in his life and you could tell he was a little tentative about it, but Tenryu's celebration was as raw and visceral as I've ever seen from him. Sherri got an "up yours!" gesture and even when he won the Triple Crown Tenryu wasn't this animated. Perfect pro wrestling. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Flair and the Andersons v Magnum and the Rock 'n' Rolls!

Ric Flair, Arn Anderson & Ole Anderson v Magnum TA & Rock 'n' Roll Express (Elimination Match) (Pro, 8/3/86)

Fuck me if Magnum TA doesn't look like the future of the game. This was white LeBron with curls and a moustache, just a guy very obviously ready to explode. He was an amazing walking tall babyface here, a huge presence hitting everyone with press slams and belly-to-bellies while the crowd went full on apeshit berserk. He catches Ole - NOT a small individual - with a press slam, then throws Flair into the corner, roars like a lion as Flair comes running back out and heaves him into a press slam too. The pop for him hitting the belly-to-belly on Flair is ungodly but then if you thought he was merely here to throw some folks around you would be mistaken because his face in peril stint was magnificent. The heels essentially work over the scar tissue on his forehead which of course was fucking tremendous, raking his face across the ring ropes, grinding it into the mat, digging knuckles in there, all super nasty looking shit that probably gave Morton PTSD from a couple months earlier. Maybe Flair was just trying to disfigure anyone he thought was getting more attention from the ring rats than he was. Flair doing a reverse wheelbarrow thing where he drags Magnum around the ring as his face leaves blood trails on the mat is legitimately the first and only time I can remember him doing that. He never even did that to Morton and his whole motivation in that feud was to leave the wee fella as aesthetically undesirable as possible by the end of it. Morton himself was a rabid maniac around this time and tried to punch or rip someone's nose off at every turn. Prior to Magnum's elimination I think 90% of Morton's offence consisted of him punching someone in the nose, including Flair's when he came in the ring for the first time. He even headbutted him in the face at one point. The Horsemen breaking his nose really must've woken something in him, which leads to his own elimination when he drags Ole to the floor and tries to mash his face into the concrete, oblivious to the ref's count, driven purely by rage, fueled by several thousand shrieking women. Flair v Gibson to round things out is pretty great while it lasts, with Flair working over Gibson's taped up midsection. I love how Gibson sold them the whole way, almost like he was having back spasms and once or twice I wondered if he wasn't working thought a legit injury. Flair busted out a bow and arrow to work him over and that's another thing on the night that I'd never seen him do before or since. The extremely tepid DQ finish is extremely tepid, Morton merely shoving Flair as a response to being spat on and Tommy Young throwing it out, but otherwise this was fantastic and as blistering hot as anything else in wrestling at the time. 

Some stuff from the 7/26/86 Great American Bash that I watched last week and have mostly forgotten about

I wanted to watch and write about the whole 7/26 show. But then I only watched parts of it and then had to spend a few days in Orlando and never wrote about anything and now I can't remember things. Here are some words anyway. Accuracy may be questionable. 

Wahoo McDaniel v Jimmy Garvin (Indian Strap Match)

This wasn't all that different from the match they had earlier in the month, but this one hooked me a little more from the start. Or Precious did, as she told the ring announcer to expressly forbit people from smoking whilst Gorgeous Jimmy is wrestling. Obviously people were itching for Garvin to get mollywhopped after that and when Wahoo whipped Precious on the arse with the strap the place erupted. He then whipped both of them mid-smooch and sometimes yer pro wrestling doesn't need to be complicated, no matter what its most prominent historian and critic might say about it and the brain-rending complexities of how each wrestler worked for a specific crowd on a specific night in a specific point in history. Garvin realises the predicament he's in and tries to bolt several times so Wahoo yanks him straight back in. By the end he's pretty well bloodied up and his decision to wear white ring gear was a good one, at least for us vampires who appreciate such visuals. This is the sort of match I could watch 10 times in a row with a few wrinkles here and there and enjoy 10 times in a row. 

Magnum TA v Nikita Koloff

I loved this Magnum performance. It feels almost pointless to say at this point but you watch stuff from that '84-'86 run and think about where the wrestling business was at the time and it's hard not to conclude that he would've been a megastar had he not been involved in the car accident. His crowd connection here was incredible. This was match 4 in the Magnum/Nikita best of 7 series for the vacant US title, Magnum coming in already 3-0 down. His back is against the wall and the crowd knows it, but more importantly so does he. If the series was tied at 1-1 he might've swung for the fences with a little more abandon, some of that rabid Magnum intensity bursting out early on. He wouldn't be goaded into making a mistake though; wouldn't allow himself to bite when Nikita tried faking him out with a cheapshot early. Both guys are great at working around a top wrist lock in the opening third, really milking a basic hold and making it look like a struggle that needs to be overcome. To ram home how desperate a hole he was in Magnum spent most of this on the back foot. When Nikita rams his head into the turnbuckle bolt he's covered in blood within minutes, on the brink of being swept by the Russians. Nikita played king of the mountain and every time Magnum climbed back in the ring he'd be thrown out the other side, bleeding on the concrete selling the blood loss and fatigue like few other babyfaces of the era could. Nobody does a fired up, last-legs, blood-soaked comeback like Magnum, those little staggers and hesitations as he fires back, the crowd coming unglued with every punch. The pop for the sunset flip is out of this world. A very good wrestling match. 

Ric Flair v Dusty Rhodes (Cage Match)

This is the best Flair/Dusty match, right? I feel like I've asked that before, probably about a few of their matches. I also feel like I've written about those matches here and prefaced all of them with "I don't REALLY need to see another Flair/Dusty match for the rest of my life" and so I guess I needed to make a liar of myself one more time. But this is the best one. It felt similar in some ways to the Flair/Morton cage match from 7/5, which is the best Flair match, period. He had that nasty mean streak here when he got the chance to cut loose, albeit less spectacularly than against Morton. He was not acting the goofball here when he had Dusty where he wanted him and that Flair is the very best Flair. Both of them bled because of course Ric Flair and Dusty Rhodes bled in a cage match. Flair tried to run away, realised he couldn't run so tried to climb, then Dusty climbed after him and almost pulled his trunks off, Flair screaming bare-arsed as Dusty drags him back into the lion's den. It had a metric ton of drama down the stretch and built and built and they even ran a callback to Flair/Race from Starrcade '83. I wish I could remember more but it's been about 10 days now. Either way - the best Flair v Dusty match. Probably. 

Hard-Headed Listenin' to Some Rock and Roll, Tenryu's Driving a Hand-Me-Down Like it's One He Stole

Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya v Satoshi Kojima & Taiyo Kea (All Japan, 10/12/02) - GREAT

Why can't some people just let sleeping dogs lie? Our boy Tenryu was fairly quiet for the first half of this. Other than one moment where his rage almost got the better of him and he threatened to throw the ring bell he was damn near civilised. The early outburst might've even left him a little ashamed, emotionless as he was to any further prodding. Kojima takes a swing at him while he's standing on the apron and Tenryu is unmoved, literally so as he doesn't so much as blink in response. Didn't stare a hole through Kojima or nothin. Of course you wait in anticipation but maybe tonight will be different and he won't flip out and you don't really want that because why would you but it could also be cool as an anomaly one time? When Kea swings on him, again as he minds his business on the apron, he's so unbothered he even dusts his shoulder off. That's how unperturbed he is, how little his opponents are under his skin. Kea and Kojima isolate Araya for a spell and when Kojima spat on Tenryu I would've put the savings on him coming in rampaging. I'd have lost everything because once again he never rose to it. Then Kojima hits the ropes and out of nowhere Tenryu clobbers him with an enziguri from the apron, a real cannon of a shot and it did not look like Kojima expected to be getting hit in that moment. And really from there we're off to the races. Tenryu takes off the turnbuckle pad and smashes Kojima's face into it, throws blistering chops, punches to the jaw and eye socket, the full revenge tour that was expected deep down even if a small part of us questioned if we'd get it. Kojima in peril is good stuff and I loved Tenryu hitting his own flip senton as an insult. From the point he took the shackles off Tenryu was pretty much a total wrecking ball and looked as strong as he might've 10 years earlier. There was really only one instance of him properly being put on the back foot and that was late on when Kojima hammered him with a lariat. Because Tenryu was so dominant before then that one move landing felt huge and it was also the catalyst for them putting away Araya, much the same way all those boys would have to get Misawa out the road long enough to tear down Kobashi or Akiyama. Kea's never been someone I've thought too much about honestly, but he always hits like a bastard and his striking was world class here. At one point he hit a wild axe kick to the back of Tenryu's head and Tenryu sold it like he'd lost control of his limbs, almost falling into a Dick Murdoch face-first splatter. Kea will also open himself to BEING hit like a bastard and Tenryu lost the plot with him, dragging him to the floor and throwing a full table at him. I forgot Araya was one of those AGILE beefy boys and when he went up top I thought he was going to copy Kojima's elbow, which is the sort of petty shit you expect from Tenryu, but Araya was always pretty straight-laced. Then he hit a moonsault instead and I remembered he was wont to doing such things now and then. Everyone really leaned into establishing and playing off their status in the hierarchy and the match wound up being pretty awesome because of it, led by a wonderful second-half performance from Tenryu. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Dandy v Casas - the Lead-In Trios

Negro Casas, Espectro Jr. & Espectro de Ultratumba v El Dandy, Mano Negra & Ringo Mendoza (CMLL, 6/19/92)

This was the lead-in to Dandy v Casas for the world middleweight title a few weeks later. If I didn't know already that it was a title match they were building to I'd have bet the house on it being the lead-in to an apuestas match. It was not the title match lead-in I was expecting, basically. I figured we'd at least get a clean start, maybe some chain wrestling before it got tetchy, by the end both guys even throwing a fist or two. It did not start the least bit clean and Casas had fouled Dandy two times in the first 90 seconds, then fouled him a third time a couple minutes after that. First he kicked the middle rope into Dandy's privates, then hoisted him up on his shoulders and rammed him balls-first into the ring post. The third low blow came as a cut off from his own knees, practically a double punch to the nuts. This was a phenomenal Casas performance. He walked the line between cowardice and confidence as well as anyone. At points he was only properly willing to fight when his boys had his back, but then at other times he'd pare away the bullshit and go full force, no backing down. It was sort of Flair-esque, like when the latter would bare his teeth and attack with fury when he knew his title was in jeopardy. Even if there was no title on the line for Casas here there was still a point of pride and people weren't about to forget how good he was. In true Nature Boy fashion there was even a spot where Casas was throwing knife edge chops in the corner and the crowd exploded when Dandy turned the tables and unloaded with his own. It never needed any escalation as such, because Casas had turned it into a street fight from the jump, but Dandy going from the chops to the punches was amazing and of course these were some ungodly punches. Casas' signature running flip bump off the ropes might've been the best of his entire career, practically landing him in the middle of the ring, coming up affronted and holding his face only to be kicked in the jaw immediately. In a match loaded with awesome moments my favourite was when Casas had Dandy's leg stuck in one of the front row folding seats, repeatedly kicking the chair closed into Dandy's knee while some guy has to shield his poor mother in the seat directly next to them because she's too old or frail or both to get up and move. Dandy effectively spent the whole match chasing a one-on-one with Casas and the final exchange was the perfect payoff. Casas was always the sort to come out guns blazing when he knew he had no other choice and pretty often his hubris would bite him. It did again here when he charged Dandy and flung himself like a torpedo, Dandy moving and Casas taking a fucking absolute screwball face-first bump into the middle turnbuckle, something that I really can't do justice by typing nonsense on a page. The fight and STRUGGLE over the tapatia is as good as you'll get. There has never been a wrestler more belligerent than Negro Casas and he would not give up an arm for this hold, not when Dandy was punching him in the ribs, not when he was slapping him about the ears, not for anything. And not only did Casas manage to buck him off, he went and fucking pinned him with the man's own cradle! I don't even know where this would rank among Casas' best performances - probably not top 20, maybe not top 50 - but it had everything from wanton cheating to technical mastery and whatever else we might fawn over. I haven't said a single word about the other four guys in the match, not because they never added value but because Dandy v Casas needed however many hundred words they got. The Espectros were a really fun pair of idiots though, routinely complaining about being fouled when they very obviously hadn't, stooging to the back row while getting vicious when they needed to, sort of like their captain for the evening. Post-match Casas offers up a handshake, then kicks Dandy in the chest instead. Based on how livid Dandy was I'm surprised they never changed the title match to a hair match on the spot.  

Re-Watching Jushin Thunder Liger (part 5)

Jushin Liger v Shinjiro Ohtani (New Japan, 2/7/98)

This felt like a story of Ohtani trying his absolute best to exorcise his demons, or at least the very singular demon that is Jushin Thunder Liger. Almost a year to the day earlier he came up short against Liger for the J Crown, 11 months before that stumbling at the last hurdle for the IWGP juniors title, letting his emotions get the best of him and paying for it. He'd beaten Liger in non-title matches, probably pinned him in tags (cagematch it or something), but never for a belt. Ohtani's journey over the previous couple years was one that had him primed for success, but it was also laden with hiccups in big moments and most were of his own doing. He wasn't about to let it happen again and this was as aggressive as I've ever seen him. The match started with a rugged collar-and-elbow tie-up, Ohtani then sprinting at Liger only to get flipped on his head with a shotei. After that he makes the conscious decision to not get hit in the face like that anymore and goes after Liger's arm because maybe trying to take that strike away would be smart. It was the same strike that put an end to him the year before so it's hard to question his judgment. Ohtani wasn't the least bit afraid to take liberties here, milking the ref's count on rope breaks and even outright ignoring it on occasion. This wasn't the same Ohtani of years past though, who'd get frustrated and start making weepy faces when things got rocky - he got MEAN but stayed focused and the aggressiveness was an asset rather than a hinderance. It felt like he could control it more, harness it in a way that he couldn't in some of his biggest matches previously. There were some callbacks to those matches too, like the springboard dropkick to the arm as Liger used the rope to pull himself up, which almost sealed him the deal a couple years earlier. And really just any time Liger smashes Ohtani in the face with a shoei feels like a callback of a sort, if for no reason other than it being the one thing in Liger's arsenal Ohtani has never quite been able to overcome. I thought Ohtani was pretty incredible at putting across a sense of desperation whenever Liger mounted any serious offence. Maybe desperation is the wrong word, maybe it was more urgency, but either way you knew HE knew he needed to put a halt to momentum whenever Liger started picking any up. Sometimes he'd take a bullet and immediately roll close to the safety of ropes, sometimes he'd crawl there and almost cling to them, then sometimes he'd just roll out the ring completely. After the initial stretch of arm work Liger hits a brainbuster and Ohtani rolls straight outside, so Liger hits a plancha and follows up with a brainbuster on the floor, a big bomb for the big occasion and one that tells you how serious he's taking this version of Ohtani. When Ohtani comes back from that he goes to the arm again and Liger progressively sells the damage incurred. Liger set the bar for selling a busted arm higher than anyone back during the Sano feud and I'll be honest with you, this doesn't come close to that, but even still if there's anyone who can make you buy that their arm is fucked it's Liger. The stretch run is super dramatic and not knowing the result going in I found myself pulling majorly for Ohtani to get the win, to finally get that monkey off his back. He seemed assured as they went into deeper waters, or at least more assured than he'd been in the past, not grasping at openings or getting too far ahead of himself. There was some by god growth and maturity and he didn't almost burst into tears when Liger refused to stay down, an unfortunate tendency of the past that never did him any favours. He also takes Liger's best shots and manages to stay in the fight, kicking out of the shotei and avalanche brainbuster, scrambling again to the ropes after the latter. When he escapes a second brainbuster off the top by the skin of his teeth, reversing it in mid-air and almost landing on Liger's chest, he pumps his fists like he knows this is his chance. He hits the release dragon suplex but composes himself right away, a stark contrast to a couple years earlier where he immediately went for a second but lost his bearings and dropped Liger too close to the ropes. When he took down the kneepad and followed up with a springboard wheel kick I thought for sure he'd pulled it off, only for Liger to slip out in an amazing nearfall. Maybe Ohtani should've stuck to the arm until the very end though because Liger always had that shotei in him. Even when Ohtani ducked Liger would improvise and the shotei to the back of the head was fucking diabolical. Honestly I could be convinced that there not being a payoff to the arm work IS the payoff, as Ohtani dropping a successful strategy a little too early had been his undoing in the past, one time against Liger himself. In the end maybe it wasn't a matter of strategy anyway; maybe Liger was still just that much better, the cream of the crop, an inevitable force like Pep's Barca. That might've stung Ohtani even more. He never fucked up or let any inexperience steer him off path, he just simply wasn't good enough to beat The Man in the biggest moments. This was fantastic and might be my favourite of all their matches together (even more than the '93 match I proclaimed my favourite not but three weeks ago). 

Tenryu's Grandaddy Ran Shine in East Tennessee. I Guess that's Where He Got His Need for Speed

Genichiro Tenryu, Masa Chono & Manabu Nakanishi v Yuji Nagata, Hiroshi Tanahashi & Yutaka Yoshie (New Japan, 6/13/04) - FUN

The old (somewhat) guard versus the new (sorta) guard. I could not have told you this before I looked up cagematch to confirm the date on this but apparently Tenryu, Chono and Nakanishi were in a stable together, along with Scott Norton (!), called Pirates Gundan. It was very much news to me but it feels right somehow. They didn't really work like they were in a stable, unless Nakanishi was always the unruly scruff going rogue and starting fights. He went rogue and started many fights here but maybe his partners were used to it. Either way you could boil this down to three main pairings - Nagata and Nakanishi, Chono and Tanahashi, Tenryu and Yoshie. Yoshie was the one I most wanted to see matching up with Tenryu so maybe sometimes life really does give you lemons. Chono was smart enough to almost goad Tanahashi into taking a yakuza kick, Tanahashi still a few years away from being the unquestioned Ace of the company and a little more prone to naivety. I think I prefer him hitting inverted atomic drops here to what he was doing against Okada and the boys years later. But then I would, wouldn't I. Tenryu hits Yoshie with many a punch and chop and even nails a vertical suplex, like Murdoch on Abdullah once upon a time. Yoshie responds with a PHAT Thesz Press then hits a Vader Bomb/bronco buster thing in the corner and Chono gets in irate like fuck sake mate is that even a wee bit necessary??? Nagata v Nakanishi made up the bulk of the match and both of them brought the testosterone-fuelled stupidity, but in a sort of endearing way maybe. They trade chops and headbutts and at a certain point Nakanishi can no longer be contained so he starts swinging on his own partners. He clobbers Tenryu for stepping in and throwing a cheapshot to Nagata, which begs the question why anyone would hang around with Tenryu if they didn't know for a fact he would do that at least once, but maybe you conclude Nakanishi is just a stickler for sportsmanship. Then he and Nagata start wellying each other with chairs so I guess it was never about the sportsmanship? Nakanishi finally wins the exchange by just smashing a broken piece of chair over Nagata's head and, you know, fair enough. Nakanishi is a drunk and aggressive cousin of the groom at a Yorkshire wedding starting fights with strangers and family alike so Tenryu just walks away like any sane person would. Always the bigger man, was Tenryu. Eventually Nakanishi gets counted out when he puts Nagata in a Torture Rack up by the bleachers and Chono looks on like what the fuck did I bother getting myself into. Pirates Gundan, fer cripes! A countout in 2004 Japan is rare as hen's teeth so I guess that was cool? 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Casas being Casas, Los Cowboys throwing punches, Rambo and Hamada! And Dr Wagner Jr!

Negro Casas, Dr Wagner Jr. & Rambo v Gran Hamada, Silver King & El Texano (UWA, 2/23/92)

About as pure a representation of the beautiful lucha libre trios match as you can get. It was sort of like a lucha version of the best Rock 'n' Roll Express v Midnight Express match, with all of the shtick and sequences and ridiculous fun while still having the serious edge to it when needed. And like the very best of your Rock 'n' Rolls v Midnights, it had so many cool and notable moments that to mention all of them would turn this into a play-by-play and not a single soul can be arsed with that. You'll just have to take my word for it and when have I ever steered you wrong before? In a broader sense, Rambo acting like a bully shithouse was amazing and definitely worth talking about. On the rudo side Wagner Jr. was the most low key of everyone given his standing and relative youth, Casas was Casas and as magnetic and captivating as only peak Casas can be and not even remotely low key, so Rambo was there to be the grizzled bruiser, just as happy to eat shit and look the fool as to run someone over like a boar in army fatigues. He also took one punch late on from Texano and I swear to god, this might've been the best KO sell of a punch I've ever seen. Your All Japan folks will tell you Kawada did it better but let me tell you he did not. Texano actually threw several - SEVERAL - amazing punches in this and clocked Casas with one that was absolutely impeccable. Some inventive rudo miscommunication results in Casas throwing his toys out the pram and defecting to the tecnico side, which of course is only a ruse and really he deserved to be punched in the face like he was, probably by both sides if we're being honest about it. He looked phenomenal in all of this though, Casas. Every time I watch him from this '92-'97 period in particular I feel like it's one of the very best runs of any wrestler in history; just a staggering level of consistency and peak output up and down the card. Outside of getting punched in the face by Los Cowboys his exchange with Hamada here was exceptional. He matched the wee fella for grace every step of the way and that it no small thing given Hamada is who he is. That guy is in the absolute top tier of hitting things clean as a whistle regardless of difficulty. He was damn near majestic in this and nobody flips out of a back body drop like Gran Hamada. The rudos must've taken exception, especially Casas, because they even bloody him up with Casas punching him in the cut and Wagner Jr. trying to guzzle blood out his head like a ghoul. At the core of it the rudos always had that nasty, vicious side. They'd be made to look like doofuses more than once and people might have a chuckle at their expense, but they'd always be able to regain credibility with some savagery. 

Danielson v Bandido!

Bryan Danielson v Bandido (AEW Dynamite, 1/18/23)

It's kind of cool watching this two years after it happened, knowing how the Danielson retirement tour went and who he got to work with the following year. At the time I can only imagine that it must've made THOSE folks amongst us melancholy for the fact Danielson is clearly in his element working luchadores but we'd never get to see him against, say, a Blue Panther. What did we know, right? I actually think this is the first Bandido match I've ever seen. He got to look like quite the superstar and the crowd, who I guess were more familiar with him than me, were really into him. I liked the beginning of this with them going at least somewhat down the lucha matwork route, even if it had an Americanised spin on it. They traded the tapatia and Danielson stomped down on the knees when he couldn't quite grasp it, then Bandido teased the nudo lagunero which was a cool tip of the hat to Panther, a favourite of Danielson's but maybe an idol of Bandido's or maybe that's horse shit and just sounds cool in my head, who can say? Some of Bandido's stuff came off great. The delayed vertical suplex with Danielson trying to go dead weight only to be muscled up was awesome, there was a go to sleep thing out of an Atlantida that looked way better than I'd have thought it would running through the idea in my head, the double topes, and then the backflip fallaway slam off the top which was insanity. I usually can't be bothered with moves that use elaborate rope-bouncing prior to being hit - the jawbreaker lariat comes to mind - and when Bandido tried his 21 plex initially (which was reversed) I sort of hoped that would be the end of it. But he went back to it later and wouldn't you know it but it looked like the bounce off the rope while headstanding on a bent over man's back actually did generate extra momentum, as absolutely nonsensical as that sounds. I thought this was quality stuff and I definitely wouldn't be opposed to checking out more Bandido. 

Whiskey & Wrestling 1300!

It's now been 15 years and change since I started up this here stupidity of a blog. Fuckin 15 years! Who'd have thought I'd be 1300 posts deep by now? Not me, I'll tell ye that. As with every 100-post milestone I went BIG for the occasion, watching some matches I've been meaning to watch for ages. A time was had by all. Here are words to express such things. 

Harley Race v Wahoo McDaniel (Houston, 2/10/78)

This may be the most Wahoo performance I've ever seen. You hear a lot of stories about Wahoo being one of the toughest men to ever wrestle and if you watch enough of him you can see why people tell those stories (usually the people who wrestled him). Sometimes that stuff can sound like carny nonsense, old-timers waxing nostalgic about an era of REAL men who knew how to WORK and get HEAT. Our time was a better time, by god! My old man and his friends would tell me about some of the people they grew up with, the real basket cases, spouting all sorts of outlandish shit about big Billy McGilverie who once drank a litre of Grouse, beat up three policemen and punched a mountain goat to death. They don't make them like Wahoo or Billy McGilverie anymore, they tell us. Well I never did meet Billy McGilverie and as far as I know there's no footage on this here internet of him beating up policemen or punching mountain goats, but if the NWA Classics on Demand service did anything it was give us a look at the Wahoo we all heard about. This was the Wahoo who'd chop down trees with his bare hands, those chops looking like everything Flair told us they did. He was scooping Race up with body slams like Race was not the size of man Harley Race was, hitting a gorgeous butterfly suplex and his cross body block must've felt like getting smashed by a car. It was an awesome Wahoo performance. And yet somehow I thought he was only the second best guy in the match. This might be the best representation of Harley Race, NWA Champion that I've ever seen, or at the very least it's my favourite. I guess I say that through the lens of what I've come to expect from touring NWA champ, which honestly is mostly driven by years of watching Flair. I don't really know if the chicken or the egg came first, whether Flair was the obvious choice to succeed Race in the long term because of how he worked to begin with, or Flair took parts of what he admired about Race (and Stevens and whoever else) and used them himself. I haven't watched enough non-Flair touring champ stuff in too long to say one way or the other about Dory's reign or Brisco's reign, never mind Thesz or O'Connor or even Rogers. Plenty of what Race did here brought Flair to mind though; maybe less frantic and exaggerated, less constant motion and momentum, but still very much a keep things moving approach. I wonder if Flair got the kneedrops from Harley because there were some absolute corkers here and any sane person would want to steal these. One landed right across the eyebrow, one to the forehead, one to the gut that I thought was about to make Wahoo puke. The first fall was basically the inverse of a heel control segment, with Wahoo using the headlock to grind Race down, letting him up for air before cutting him off and bringing him back down again. Race was taking these awesome bumps off of Wahoo's chops, almost hanging in the air before crashing down on his back, really playing to that back row of the Sam Houston Coliseum. I loved how Race would go to the headbutts in desperation, nailing Wahoo in the gut several times and a few might've been lower than that. Again it reminded me of Flair, where he'd cut people off with those nasty short knees to the midsection. More than the headbutts to the gut it was the headbutts to the face that were truly savage. These were legitimately some of the best headbutts I've ever seen, total Fujiwara shots to the jaw and cheekbone, just ramming cranium into face and every single one of them looked brutal. He backed Wahoo into the ropes at one point and hit about five in succession, then later he outright jumped at Wahoo's face with one like a human battering ram. I also liked how Race would be a little more overt with the cheating the longer it went, the more desperate he got. The headbutts were entirely unnecessary but choking a guy in a front facelock is a steeper sort of cowardly. By the third fall he was fully scrambling and they'd whipped the crowd into enough of a frenzy that someone in the second row was cuffed and carted out by three cops! I guess Nigel McGuinness borrowed Helmsley's Harley Race tapes because Race was a fucking lunatic eating these post shots. I thought they were going to do a blood stoppage the way he was hunched in the ropes spurting blood out his head, but then he sneaks it in the end by reversing a roll-up and grabbing the tights, an NWA champion through and through. This was fantastic stuff. Maybe if I tell myself often enough to go back and watch a bunch of touring champ Harley Race I'll eventually do it some day. 

Rick Rude v Masa Chono (New Japan, 8/12/92)

I really wanted to love this. Rude is one of my 10 favourite North American wrestlers ever and I thought he was the best wrestler in the world in 1992, his absolute peak year. I don't know why it's taken me so long to get to this, something that's been heralded for years as a Rick Rude masterclass. Maybe my expectations were too high, maybe I still haven't recovered from Chono fatigue from years past, but it never really landed like I wanted it to. I did at least love Rude being unashamedly, 100% Ravishing Rick Rude. He never toned down anything about his act and it garnered some amazing heat for the occasion. Maybe someone else might've come in and thought to toe the line for the G1 Climax final, but not Rude. This was fully a Rick Rude match, something you could see him working in the States, like his match against Sasaki earlier in the tournament. That meant there were obvious pros and I'd rather see a Rick Rude match than a Masa Chono match anyway, but there were some cons as well. Early on he got bumped around for a string of clotheslines and even took an amusing sort of Flair Flop. I love Rude bumping around off clotheslines so I naturally loved this. When he swivelled the hips like we knew he would the crowd were on his case, then Chono mocked him with his own and the place erupted. Pro wrestling doesn't need to be hard, I guess. Once they brought it down it lost me for a while though, despite moments like Rude trying to break a headlock by yanking on Chono's goatee. Rude is someone who'd slow things to a crawl at times and really grind on a chinlock or whatever, and normally it would work for me and I find him compelling enough in control even when it's brought to a crawl, but this time I was left zoning out and I can't blame it all on Chono from underneath. Rude had used the top rope kneedrop throughout the tournament to get him to the final and it's presented as a big deal, so Chono working the leg makes sense. It neutralises a major offensive weapon and sets up his own STF. I just never found it all that engaging and they spent a chunk of time on it. The final third dragged me back in some, at least. They really put over everything from the top rope as being important and used it to tease or follow through on big momentum-changers. The superplexes swung the tide and any time Rude went up there it created real drama, because everyone knew the kneedrop could follow. Chono had to operate with some urgency to get him down and when he couldn't he at least needed to be upright, which made for a cool progression from Rude hitting the top rope axe handle to the missile dropkick to finally the kneedrop that he wanted all along. The pop for Chono kicking out of the latter was huge and of course Rude was off his chops that it didn't end things. Chono winning with his own top rope shoulderblock was cool too and maybe Rude really bought into Watts' philosophy about moves off the top being treated as death. 

LA Park v Dr Wagner Jr. (TXT, 5/11/13)

Is there anybody better at these insane plunder murderfests than Park? I've seen this referred to as the best ECW match ever and boy it might be, but you can take it a step further and say Park is the best ECW wrestler ever. Some FOOL, some uncultured SWINE, will take that as a slight, turning their nose up at such a notion, but I assure you I mean it as a compliment and there isn't a soul I'd rather see work this sort of thing more than our boy LA Park. This had the incredible pre-match image of Park draping a Wagner Jr. t-shirt over a chair in the middle of the ring, setting the thing on fire, then getting down on one knee and flipping Wagner the bird. The fire wasn't even extinguished by the time Park had taken the chair and walloped Wagner with it. The primera followed the tried and true path of a thorough rudo beatdown, only this rudo beatdown was loaded with the tecnico being annihilated with furniture. Some of these chair shots were ludicrous but he was also slamming Wagner on top of pieces of guardrail, throwing a step ladder at his kneecaps, powerbombing him onto a stack of upright chairs. He smashed Wagner's head against the ring post while the latter was sitting up on the turnbuckle, then he grabbed him by a torn piece of mask and smashed his head into the mat like he was trying to break open a piggy bank. To start the second caida we get an amazing grizzly image of Park licking Wagner's blood off his own fingers, the sort of thing that would've had those old ECW bingo halls in raptures. I was expecting the segunda to be a short tecnico comeback fall, but revenge is not a dish to be hastily prepared and I guess Wagner knew that too. The start of the comeback was amazing, Wagner spearing Park through a stack of chairs to counter some other madness Park was trying to cook up (something with the chairs, probably). After that he took his time and paid Park in kind for all of the shit he'd unleashed previously. Park basically takes a chair shot fully in the face and then Wagner bonks him with a glass bottle, smashes the bottle on the ramp and uses a piece of it to stab Park in the head. Park bled so much that at one point the doctor either tried to wrap tape around his head to stem the bleeding and keep part of his torn mask attached, or he was trying to keep his face attached to his face. You couldn't even SEE his face for the blood. It was wild stuff and some of the close-ups were ghoulish. All of those chair shots must've scrambled their brains because for a brief second they went about a rope running sequence. Thankfully Wagner cleared the cobwebs and stopped Park mid-run, put his hands up like "what are we even doing here?" and then went back to chopping him in the neck. You can even forgive the ref' shenanigans at the end with how they were booting each other in the balls before it. This was unbelievable and it's sort of crazy that Park has at least three matches like this that I'd easily call a match of the decade contender. What a mad bastard. 

Darby Allin v Konosuke Takeshita (AEW Dynamite, 1/3/24)

Speaking of mad bastards! This was an awesome Darby performance. It had all of his qualities on show -- the bumping, the selling, his knack for making creative yet sensible comebacks (sensible within the context of who Darby Allin is), his timing on nearfalls, everything you'd expect from him. I don't have a whole lot of time to watch a whole lot of pro wrestling these days so in that respect I don't have a whole lot of time for Konosuke Takeshita, but we are all about fairness and impartiality here so credit where it's due, I thought he was great in this and it's easily the most I've ever enjoyed him. It's kind of easy to forget that he's a pretty big dude but he really played up that size advantage here and almost worked like a Coke Zero Takayama with the knees and suplexes. He slowed the pace down and seemed to enjoy being able to chuck the little fella around, and some of those moments where he tried throwing him gave Darby a beautiful canvas to work escapes or teased momentum shifts on. Darby backflipping out of the first big high-angle German was gorgeous and seamless and could not been remotely easy to do, even if it looked like Darby did it with a graceful ease. Darby flies out for a tope and Takeshita hits him with one of the best looking knees to counter it you'll see. Following that up with the triple rolling German on the ramp was lunacy and Darby taking that last one on his neck looked hideous. Takeshita ends up in most trouble when he gets cocky, taking too long soaking up his own bullshit and giving Darby a window for recovery, smashing into the barricade off a missed flying knee. Darby's code red was perfection, partly in his timing of it and the speed with which he hit it, but also with how Takeshita set it up, hunched over selling the leg without making it obvious he was getting into place to take a move that requires an obvious level of cooperation. Allin is certifiable so those moments where he tells someone to hit him don't come off as typical macho strike-trading nonsense and more like a pain junky trying to rev himself up. Only here he asked for Takeshita to hit him again and Takeshita fucking obliterated him with an elbow. The Everest German was complete madness and then the running knee finish was a picture. It's been a while since I've watched Darby and it only took me a couple minutes of this starting to remember how good he is. He is very, very good, brothers and sisters. 

There we go then. 15 years, 1300 posts, all nonsense all the time. Here's to 1300 more. 

Re-Watching Jushin Thunder Liger (part 4)

Jushin Liger v Shinjiro Ohtani (New Japan, 5/28/93)

Outside of a couple brief moments where they frittered in a kneebar, this was pretty much fantastic. Ohtani was a phenomenal underdog with a chip on his shoulder and took it to Liger right from the start, slapping him when Liger offered up a handshake before the bell and really never letting up. His performance had a great balance of defiance and understanding of the gap in hierarchy between them at this point. It's kind of insane that he hadn't even made his debut 12 months prior so he was a literal rookie here. It felt like he went to the leg because that was what a young guy not even a year into his career would do, especially against the ace of the division. It's probably a decent enough strategy to begin with, nothing overly complicated, nothing that forces him too far out of his comfort zone, and he wouldn't have enough bombs to go at Liger more directly yet anyway. Liger is one of the best "okay he's about to kill this kid" wrestlers ever and there were a couple stellar moments where you knew he'd had enough. Ohtani had him in one of those leglocks and Liger broke it by rolling onto his back and heel kicking him in the face. When he stood up I would've put money on where it would go, and initially it went there when he fucking obliterated Ohtani with a shotei, but I loved how Ohtani fought back quickly and weathered the storm before Liger could really punish him. You could tell Liger made a point of giving him a ton, selling big for everything Ohtani hit and Ohtani absolutely made the most of it, to the point where the crowd were molten getting behind him. Liger hit one disgusting rolling kick to Ohtani's face, then whipped him into the corner to follow up with another, but at the last second Ohtani flipped out onto the apron as Liger crashed into the buckles, Ohtani hitting a springboard dropkick as Liger gets up and turns around. Ohtani followed that up with two more of the same, the second as Liger is down on one knee selling the leg and Ohtani basically lands across that leg while dropkicking him on the back of the head. It was an awesome sequence and people were going ballistic. Towards the end Liger starts picking apart Ohtani's arm, trying to break the thing across his own shoulder with some really nasty shots, and Ohtani was amazing selling all of that. Liger was always going to string together some proper offence and he wouldn't need much of it to put Ohtani away, but the Ligerbomb being as outrageous as any you've ever seen is sort of a compliment when you think about it. Liger might've been bang in the middle of his peak here - not a particularly short peak either - and honestly, this was probably par for the course for him in terms of performance level. He gave Ohtani the floor though, something that maybe isn't as easy as we take for granted, and you better believe Ohtani ran with it. I really think this might be my favourite of all their matches together. 

Re-Watching Jushin Thunder Liger (part 3)

Jushin Liger v Rey Misterio Jr. (WCW Starrcade, 12/29/96)

Imagine being a tape trader in 1996 and you hear they're running this match on PPV. Tenay as the voice of the wrestling nerds tells it true when he calls it a dream match and I can only guess how crazy people went when it was announced. It's cool to see Liger work as a base and get to bully a much smaller guy, even if he never truly mauls Rey like he might've if he were INVADING. Maybe there wasn't enough enmity between New Japan and WCW for that. I loved the early moment where Rey tried to take him to the mat with an ankle pick and Liger just looked down at him like no. If you're taking him down you're earning it and I guess Rey never earned it, although he never got stomped on the back of the head like Gran Naniwa would've. Liger hits Rey with a crazy suplex off the apron and then a powerbomb on the floor, sort of working the back for a little bit. Liger putting the clamps on someone in their own house is usually fun and I wish they played it up a bit more. They don't go for crazy epic here, probably due to card placement, but Rey still gets to hit some spectacular stuff, the springboard moonsault looking amazing as always. I think that finish might've been mistimed so I'm sure the 1996 internet wrestling community would've had a word or two to say about that. You know, probably. 

Jushin Liger v Chris Hero (PWG Battle of Los Angeles, 9/2/16)

This might be the most recent Liger match I've seen, four years shy of his eventual retirement. It was pretty minimalist, first round match of a tournament and all that, but also pretty awesome! It's ageing junior heavyweight legend versus peak beefboy heavyweight and Hero is extremely BEEFY here, looking almost Takayama-ish. He throws lots of really nice elbows and kicks, nice stomps and knees, some great running variations and rolling variations of everything. I usually cannot be arsed with most most modern strikes, all thigh-slapping for the audial effect, but these ones looked good and some were great. He's obviously substantially bigger than Liger and plays up the size difference in amusing ways, patting Liger on the head condescendingly before the bell, then challenging him to a shoulderblock contest, mockingly searching for Liger afterwards because he's a little guy and whatnot. When he got mean he got mean and there was one snap piledriver that looked brutal. Liger mostly played the hits when he got the chance to play anything at all, but the hits were probably what this crowd wanted out of a 51-year-old Liger at this stage of the game and of course he played them well. He also threw a number of palm thrust and koppu kicks and those still looked as great as always. I like that he couldn't hit the Liger Bomb due to the THICKNESS of Hero, so instead he used his veteran smarts and waited for Hero to climb the turnbuckles before catching him and hitting a regular powerbomb from there. In the end Hero was too much for someone at the tail end of their career, finishing the old man with a flurry of elbows that even prime Liger might've gone down to. I liked this a lot and I will endeavour to watch more old man Liger. 

Re-Watching Jushin Thunder Liger (part 2)

Jushin Liger, Riki Choshu & Kengo Kimura v Bam Bam Bigelow, Owen Hart & Pat Tanaka (New Japan, 8/31/89)

I think a pretty underrated Liger quality is his ability to be a part of obscure match-ups and really thrive, or at the very least make an effort to make those match-ups work. I love Choshu and wouldn't put more than 30 wrestlers in history ahead of him, but he struggled sometimes to make matches with some foreign talent interesting, and I'm not talking about the semi-obscure names like Biff Wellington or, say, Pat Tanaka. With Liger, you could throw out 50 names, from Hulk Hogan to Hillbilly Jim and I'm at least interested in seeing how he approaches every one of those match-ups. One of my favourite New Japan matches of the entire 80s was a six-man tag from earlier on this tour, with Liger on the opposite side of Vader, Buzz Sawyer and Manny Fernandez and each match-up fucking ruled. Liger against Bam Bam Bigelow? Couldn't not be awesome. Liger and Owen Hart? Haven't seen their singles matches in forever but I bet they work well together. Liger and Pat Tanaka??? Take my money. And this was indeed at its best when Liger was in there. A Liger/Bam Bam match would've been great based on this and their exchange early on here was the highlight. Bigelow whips Liger into the ropes and Liger slides under his legs quicker than just about anybody I've ever seen do that spot. Bam Bam barely needed to lift his foot off the ground or spread his base to allow Liger space to fit through; it was seamless and rapid and when he did it successfully you couldn't help but concede that it was the correct decision to make in that moment. Liger drilling Bigelow SQUARE in the face with a koppu kick as Bam Bam turned around further solidified Liger's decision. Liger v Tanaka was brief but culminated with Liger dropping him with a quick flurry of palm strikes to the jaw. Owen looked kind of lost at points honestly, but he's three years into his career at this stage so it's hard to be overly critical. Liger, who'd only been wrestling a couple years longer, was much quicker and more assured and absolutely hammered Owen with a tope into the barricade. Depending on how deep this Jushin Liger rabbit hole I go I should re-watch one of their singles matches. Bigelow was a total blast on the Americans' side. Amazing energy, great bumps, greater headbutts. His exchange with Choshu at the very start was only slightly below his exchange with Liger and I guess I'll take back what I said about Choshu working with foreigners. Tanaka isn't involved a ton and you can guess what his primary role in the match is, but there was one amusing spot where he came in illegally and ran across to the opposite corner, thrust kicked Kimura as he was stepping through the ropes, then bolted all the way back to his own corner. Bigelow's flip bump over the top off a Choshu lariat looked spectacular, then Tanaka tried to one-up him with his signature inside-out bump off another lariat. 

Jushin Liger v Dr Wagner Jr. (New Japan, 2/6/99)

The problem with this match is that it lasted like two hours. Or it didn't but by the end it kind of felt like it had. It wasn't terrible or anything and it actually started great, with Wagner doing a backwards roll after giving Liger a clean break in the corner, seeking the crowd's recognition for his act of cordiality, only for Liger to blitz him with a running shotei. The first half and then some was basically Wagner working Liger's leg. It had some decent stuff but it was very...deliberate. Methodical, if you want to be generous, uninteresting if you don't. I did like how Liger was more vocal with his selling the longer it went, a little more desperate with each hold applied, but by the fifth figure-four I was sort of ready for it to be over. The back half wasn't mindblowing. I don't even think people would've been going nuts over it at the time if only the last 10 minutes had been shown on TV. Liger's leg never once came into play after he transitioned out of the heat segment either so I guess that's 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back. And at this point I'm not even stodgy about limbwork always needing to GO SOMEWHERE or whatever. This really did just feel like a perfect example of why some of the 90s New Japan juniors fell out of style, where everything before the finishing stretch felt disconnected, like the wrestlers knew it wasn't going on TV so they chose to sleepwalk their way through that segment of the match, turning something that could've been a tight 13 minutes into a tedious 25. I've also seen Liger shotei a man's nose all the way across his face and the ones he went to as an equaliser down the stretch were nothing to write home about. Wagner hitting the Michinoku Driver on the ramp was at least cool and I thought Liger milked about as much out of the 20 count as he realistically could. Too long for me overall but the less impatient sort might dig it. 

Re-Watching Jushin Thunder Liger (part 1 of possibly a few parts maybe?)

Jushin Liger was one of the first two or three wrestlers from Japan that I really dove into back when I decided to devote a quite frankly stupid amount of time to this nonsense of a hobby. There was a point in time where I'd have considered him a top 3-5 wrestler ever, maybe even number 1. Then as the years went by my tastes changed and I guess there was a part of me that got a little bored by him. When we did the PWO GWE poll in 2016 he was just outside my top 40; unthinkable 10 years earlier. I don't feel like he's someone I need to re-evaluate or whatever, because at the end of the day this is supposed to be fun and there's only enough time in the day to treat it as a PhD project. 

But over the last few years I've gone back and watched smatterings of him and you know what? That dude was awesome basically right out the gate. The '86 stuff with Fujiwara and Takada and the UWF boys while he was going by his government name? Ruled. Early masked Liger against Sano? Amazing. Peak Liger putting people like Sasuke, Kanemoto and Ohtani in their place? Great. Post-peak defending the New Japan turf against snarling goblin NOAH bastards like Kikuchi? Tremendous. He ultimately works a style that isn't always my favourite and some of the stuff I used to love doesn't do a ton for me nowadays, but that match against Ohara I wrote about the other day was killer and now I want to watch a bunch of Jushin Liger. 

We'll see where it takes us. 

Jushin Liger & Masa Chono v Shinya Hashimoto & Naoki Sano (New Japan, 1/6/90)

Any Liger v Sano we can get is a real treat so seeing that this handheld from a quarter-century ago even exists at all is a beautiful thing. Liger v Hashimoto is also one of those match-ups that looks amazing on paper and pretty much always delivers in execution, and this was some of their best stuff together, even on an untaped house show. Liger was fucking great in this. The match starts with him and Hashimoto going at each other with shoulderblocks. Liger manages to keep things at a stalemate on the first couple but probably realises that can't last very long, so on the third he zips past Hash for an extra run of the ropes and hits a diving shoulderblock that sends Hashimoto to a knee, then Liger follows up with a rolling kick right to the top of Hashimoto's head. You know Hashimoto will make him pay for that later, and you get giddy at the prospect and then it happens and you nod your head because this is why you watch the professional wrestling. The shoulderbreaker Hash hits on Liger was less shoulderbreaker and more tombstone, dropping Liger on the top of his head like he was trying to nail him to the mat by the horns on his mask. They had a martial arts stand-off mid-match with Liger taking up a sort of crane stance, ducking out the way of a couple Hashimoto roundhouse kicks that would've decapitated him. I haven't seen their February '94 match in probably 16 years and I'm hyped to check that out again. Sano hitting a bullet tope on Chono was a thing of beauty and there aren't many people who will torpedo a guy with a tope better than Sano. But then Chono just kind of decides he's going on offense again and they transition into a brief Sano in peril segment. Brief but awesome, as Chono holds Sano down and Liger crushes him with a double stomp to the guts off the top rope. I don't think Chono expected Liger to do that because he shoots him a look afterwards like "fuck sake steady on there, mate." I'd have been happy with either Liger/Sano or Liger/Hashimoto pairing taking us home and the Liger/Hashimoto we got kept pace with earlier. Hashimoto's running brainbuster thing was even wilder than the shoulderbreaker/tombstone monstrosity, then he throws his whole weight behind a wheel kick and that is a whole lot of weight being thrown, particularly from a man so prone to violent outbursts. I loved this. 

Jushin Liger & Takehiro Murahama v Naomichi Marufuji & KENTA (NOAH, 7/16/03)

I didn't think this was quite as good overall as Liger's run against the NOAH boys the previous year, though it was still a really good Liger performance. There was probably a bit too much Marufuji for me. The story seemed to be about him scoring the big win for his team and establishing himself as someone on semi-level footing with the horned one. He's by a significant margin the least interesting person in the match. I haven't watched any Marufuji in forever but his offence was still as flimsy as I remembered, though he did hit one spectacular dive. That springboard moonsault over the barricade always did look amazing. The general WIMPINESS of his offence stands out even more when you compare it to his partner's. I'm not even a KENTA fan but he'll absolutely kick the living shit out of someone and both he and Murahama did that often and to each other. It's also hard to take Marufuji seriously when you've got Liger on the other side ready to throttle someone before the bell even rings. I guess Marufuji was never really one to thrive on HATRED and such though so it's probably an unfair criticism. Maybe. But Liger had his hackles up during the intros and you knew someone was getting cracked in the temple with the palm of his hand. The first exchange with him and Marufuji has Marufuji leapfrogging and finessing his way around Liger, so Liger just stops running the ropes and takes his jaw off with a shotei. It makes so much sense you can only wonder why everyone doesn't do it. I liked the structure and layout overall, with each team having one guy play face-in-peril before it builds to the finish. The video file was like 35 minutes long so when they started trading nearfalls around the 20-minutes mark a part of me was looking for an excuse to dip out, but they never went overboard and I thought it hit that feeling of epic. Marufuji winning with the Shooting Star Press while Liger was out of commission on the floor was a cool finish, tbf. It looked like it really meant something to Marufuji too. 

Casas v Santo - the end of the road (for a little while...)

Negro Casas v El Hijo del Santo (Mask vs Hair) (CMLL, 9/19/87)

Not to labour a point, but this really is a singular match in lucha libre history; maybe all of wrestling history. An apuestas match with no blood that starts with several minutes of mat work and it's somehow more violent and visceral than 99% of apuestas matches ever? I suppose trying to rip your hated rival's blood-soaked mask off or cave their skull in with the ring post will communicate an adequate level of enmity. It's also very fun to watch if you're a bloodthirsty degenerate who enjoys that in your pro wrestling. On the other hand, these two trying to stomp each other's face into the ground repeatedly might've been even more effective in laying out their history. The Battlarts/FUTEN comparison is apt and obvious if you've seen any Battlarts/FUTEN, but there are also elements of the wildest Choshu brawls, the nastiest WAR potato-fests and even the pacing at times reminded me a little of the best 90s interpromotional joshi. Never for a second though did I forget that these two fucking despise each other. 

Casas was grinning like a dog eyeing a pork chop before the bell and while the opening was cagey, the first strike thrown in the whole match being a disgusting kick to Santo's knee really set the tone for everything that followed. It looked like Santo did not expect to be kicked side-on in the leg like that, half planted as it was, the knee almost buckling inwards underneath him. Santo responding with an armdrag that was really more of a judo throw, landing Casas high on his shoulder and neck, also provided some nice foreshadowing of how Santo would ultimately win out. The matwork had none of the grace and beauty of lucha grappling, instead it was rough and gritty and coarse and every time they went to the mat it felt like things were about to go off the rails. I don't even remember who started it now but before long they were throwing slaps and punches to the face, stomps to the head, kicking each other in the shoulder and liver and ear. I've seen Wanderlei try and volley a man's head off his shoulders and somehow it looked less TRUCULENT than some of the stomps Casas was throwing here. Maybe it's because those Wanderlei kicks were business, a largely impersonal endeavour in pursuit of victory, whereas these were steeped in murderous intent. The way he ran and jumped on Santo's knee as it was draped over the bottom rope was putrid, then when Santo grabbed that rope to break a half crab Casas just punted him in the wrist. The violence just escalated and escalated and there were a hundred different moments both subtle and not so subtle that you could mention. I think my favourite part of the whole match was when Santo grabbed Casas by the hair to apply a tapatia, yanking him back and forth with enough force that he wound up having to release it because he ripped a handful of Casas' hair out. Then Casas spun around into the mount and started headbutting Santo in the face while he held the eye holes in his mask. 

They almost do a reset of sorts with about 10 minutes to go, coming after Santo slides out the ring - or is kicked out the ring - and smashes Casas' face into the ring board before kneeing him in the head half a dozen times. When they make it back in after that they stand in opposite corners staring a hole in each other, and if they hadn't the measure of one other before that then they absolutely knew what the rest of the match was going to be. Santo's rocker dropper/shoulderbreaker thing was nuts and I like how that really set us up for the finish, even if Casas never sold it to a huge extent afterwards. Casas dropkicks Santo in the face while the latter is hung up in a tree of woe, then when Santo slips out of la Casita Casas decides he'll hang him up in the corner again, unperturbed and maybe even a little pleased that he needs to dish out some more punishment. You could see it in how he casually walked over and dropped an elbow to the back of Santo's head and I'm pretty sure he did it with a smile on his face. Of course Santo is who he is and avoids the second dropkick, Casas goes sliding out the ring, and Santo sits up and immediately crushes him with a plancha to the floor. His gradual comeback after that was almost All Japan-ish and brought to mind some of those Misawa comebacks where you knew deep down the other guy had missed his chance, even if he'd still get some licks in as he went down swinging. Santo brutally headbutting Casas in the face before hitting the corner senton was amazing, then when he couldn't hook the Caballo he transitioned into the nastiest cross armbreaker you ever did see. 

Before watching this again I went through everything between these two from the point where Santo turned rudo in November '96, through the three awesome trios matches in June '97, even both Santo/Felino matches from July since Casas was there in Felino's corner. There were elements of the feud from everything that came before it that they touched on here, like the powerbomb that Felino had used to put away Santo in trios and singles matches. Callbacks like that aren't really what I think of with lucha, but I guess it makes sense that they'd do it here since this is such an abnormal sort of match. There's really nothing else like it and I wouldn't argue with anyone who called it the best match there's ever been.