Twelve hundred!!! If you'd told me when I started this thing that I'd make it to TWO hundred I'd have laughed in your face and spat on your shoes. But then my granny always did tell me I underestimate myself. To celebrate the milestone occasion, here are four matches I watched. Two are favourites, two I'd never seen before. Read on, or don't.
The Destroyer v Mil Mascaras (All Japan, 10/9/73)
You knew this would rule just from the threads both were wearing. Destroyer's white mask with the green trim was looking CRISP and Mil's black and white spray-paint Punisher mask might be the coolest fucking mask in the history of wrestling. Mascaras gets a lot of shit for being a sandbagging lout and maybe there's some truth to that. I honestly haven't watched more than three Mil Mascaras matches in the last 10 years and I personally have never been in the ring with him, so I can't draw on experience with the man. But physical peak Mascaras looked the part - and could therefore BE the part - in a way 95% of wrestlers never could, so I can't blame him for buying into his own bullshit. Also if I had that mask I wouldn't be selling shit for shit. I'm doing whatever I want and winning the lot. Anyway. The minimalism point always gets brought up about this and I don't even disagree with that, but I guess when I hear minimalism my head goes to something like a lengthy armbar segment or two folk working in and out of a headlock or whatever. I don't even know why it does go there, because I'm very much a fan of the Little Things and more than ever, in the year 2023, I appreciate minimalism in a world of wrestling excess. This didn't have a lengthy armbar segment and they never spent much time working in and out of a headlock, but the attention to detail on every hold they did work - or just on everything, really - was kind of mesmerising. Just the way they fought over a top wristlock, using leverage and stance and visibly straining for every inch of it. Mil tried to step over into a half crab at one point and Destroyer yanked away his leg, and the way Mil almost fell before recalibrating suggested he was not expecting to be met with such vehement resistance. I don't say this next part to take a jab at Bryan Danielson, but I bet if he was to do some of this stuff on Dynamite today we'd be hearing about his genius right away. These guys just had those moments down to perfection. I also loved how they built tension through rope breaks, where initially they'd be clean and then over time Mascaras would give Destroyer a condescending little pat on the cheek before stepping back. When it spilled over they started with the forearm shivers, and it wasn't an exchange that lasted long but it did signify that a shackle had come off. The figure-four at the end of the second fall might be the best ever just for the way Mascaras tried to escape it, then the subsequent sell of it was basically immaculate. And for a count-out finish you better believe Mil was going to make it look legit. He got absolutely yeeted to the floor. You don't come at Destroyer with the same trick as often as Mil did with that flying headbutt.
Terry Funk v Bob Orton Jr. (Southwest, 5/26/83)
You know, for a 20-minute draw in the first round of a title tournament, this was about as great as you could get. It's kind of striking how similar Orton was to Funk here with the mannerisms. Forget some of the selling and bumping, just the way he MOVED was Funk to a tee. I guess if you're going to emulate someone then you can't blame folk like Orton and Slater for aping Terry Funk. Hell I say more people should do it! Even if I'd rather watch a 12-minute match than a 30-minute one at this point, I thought both guys built this brilliantly from start to finish, upped the intensity as it went, progressed everything logically, and I'd have been all in on it getting another 10 minutes (or even a couple for a definitive ending). We had a gentleman's contest early. Everything was fought over and Funk's headlock was watertight, but nobody was throwing cheapshots or taking shortcuts and we even got a quick handshake off a rope break. Funk driving forearms into the kidneys to shake Orton probably hurt like a bastard but this isn't the playground and it's still above board. Forearms are legal, right? This is wrestling not hopscotch! Then Funk starts to get annoyed at things not going his way and he gives Orton a slap. Orton whipping Funk into the corner hard enough to move the ring was a great response, and that sets up Orton's run on offence. The bearhug isn't really a move that looks great unless it's a Patera or Bruno or Superstar Graham using it to crush someone, but Orton working the bearhug kind of ruled. Obviously Funk's selling put it over the top. There was one slow near-escape where Funk managed to shift onto his side and apply a headlock before Orton cut him off again that simultaneously felt like the best of 70s NWA matwork and the kind of thing Javier Llanes would do a decade later. It goes up another level after Funk kicks out of a pin attempt and hits Orton with the greatest crawling headbutt you've ever seen. This was totally out of nowhere and damn near unnecessary the way he lunged at Orton. Then he did it twice more and these were legit three of the nastiest headbutts ever, like something Shibata would've done if he'd had a career cosplaying the Junkyard Dog. When Orton comes back he chucks Funk clean out the ring and Funk wipes out a couple unsuspecting photographers at ringside. And from here the nastiness goes up yet another level. Orton morphs into a real mean bastard while Funk is basically turned full sympathetic babyface - despite the fact it was his tetchiness that pushed Orton in the first place - and with it we get all that sympathetic babyface Terry Funk entails. Of course there are a bunch of awesome Funk moments, like when Orton is plastering him with punches as Funk is on the apron and he punch-drunkenly slips and headers the ring post. When Funk comes back he goes to the leg and after that it's time for Orton to bring some magic little touches, like his leg buckling as he's trying to mount a comeback, which gives Funk the opening to cut him off again. Orton picking Funk up and crotching him on the top rope felt like an appropriate receipt for those headbutts earlier, then Funk mule kicks him in the balls and Orton's wobbly-legged sell is just out of this world incredible. Unsurprisingly it immediately brought to mind the person he was in the ring with. This was fantastic.
Daisuke Ikeda v Yuki Ishikawa (FUTEN, 4/24/05)
Well. What we have here is very possibly the least monkeyish of all monkey shows. Honestly, what a ridiculous hellstorm of a thing. Obviously the violence of it jumps off the page, the brutality and stiffness a giant neon TWO FOR ONE 'TIL 2 sign that's impossible to miss. It's hard to divert your eyes from people wellying each other in the face like this. While all of that is shocking though, Ikeda v Ishikawa has never been purely about the shock value. The same through line that exists in every other Ikeda v Ishikawa match I've written about here exists in this one. Ikeda is a walking thresher with wrecking balls for appendages. Ishikawa is an extraordinary grappler capable of pulling your arms and legs off. Those attributes become even more dangerous when you consider that they're both savage maniacs with little regard for their own basic motor functions. Ikeda is also kind of a prick who'll volley you in the face. He did that early on off a rope break, where he stood up and tried to punt Ishikawa's head through the far wall. This came AFTER he'd already cracked Ishikawa with a punch at the pre-match ref' checks. When Ikeda applies a legbar Ishikawa manages to grab the ropes without much trouble, but Ikeda doesn't release. That might've been when Ishikawa decided he wasn't playing anymore and quickly turned it into a legbar of his own, forcing Ikeda to the same rope immediately. As time goes on Ishikawa starts to lean into the violence, and even if none of it is below the belt his RAGE maybe does force him down a few corridors he might otherwise avoid. He'll get shot in the face and keep coming forward but that doesn't mean engaging in strike exchanges with Ikeda is smart. Sure enough he tries it a couple times and Ikeda vaporises him. There are several shots that could absolutely be the craziest version of those things ever done in a wrestling ring and the bit where Ishikawa breaks clean on an armbar and Ikeda tries to kick his head off is just about the wildest spot of the decade. I loved the part where Ikeda tried to grab one of Ishikawa's arms to apply a submission and when Ishikawa wouldn't give it up Ikeda just full on jumped on his head with his entire bodyweight. Some of the selling down the stretch is what separates this from two guys crowbarring each other for the hell of it. Ishikawa's glassy-eyed selling as he gets up after yet again having his brains scrambled, Ikeda staggering headlong into being backdropped on his neck, the latter a perfect encapsulation of who he is. The other perfect encapsulation being all those times he tried to cave Ishikawa's face in with his hands and feet.
Bryan Danielson v Ricky Starks (Strap Match) (AEW All Out, 9/3/23)
I like Ricky Starks. Even from the small handful of Starks matches I've watched from this year he seems like something different and he's more interesting to me than most of AEW right now. I don't know who said it, but the idea that he would fit well in the Attitude Era is something I can certainly get behind. For what it's worth I'm not using that as a means of championing him as a great wrestler, but he certainly has a unique presence and plenty of charisma. If I was going to champion him as a great wrestler - and I'm not saying he is - I'd talk about how he might be the closest thing to peak Michael Hayes that we have in 2023. This is the kind of street brawl Hayes was amazing at and sure enough Starks was pretty awesome as a rabid lunatic pushed past the point where he could conceivably horseshit his way free. Some of the shots with the strap were nuts and both of them took at least half a dozen whippings right to the neck or ear. Danielson doing strike exchanges maybe annoys me more than any other modern wrestler doing them, I think because first and foremost they're nearly always terrible, but also because he does so much other stuff I actually like and SELFISHLY I'd rather he did all of that and none of the nonsense. But the part where they started whipping each other in the face with the strap was about as enjoyable as I'll find a strike exchange these days, and not just for the absurdity of two people willingly lashing themselves in the face with a big bastard leather belt. Based on an admittedly small sample size it feels as though Danielson has started channelling some old man Minoru Suzuki (but less stupid), where he'll use strike exchanges to UNMAN his opponents. "Hit me as hard as you like, it won't drop me and I might even enjoy it and then I'll hit you back." I mean some of it feels goofy but Starks' reaction to it here was perfect, the way he'd half-heartedly keep whipping him with the belt as the realisation grew that Danielson was going to very soon start whipping him back ten times harder. Yet Starks was not WITHERED by it and came out the other end even more defiant. Danielson also headbutted him clean in the face at one point and that ruled. I wasn't bothered by the interference towards the end and Starks opting to be choked out rather than forced to tap out was a nice finish that played to the characters of both. I haven't watched a ton of 2023 AEW, but this is pretty easily my favourite thing the company's put out this year. I'd say it delivered on relatively high expectations.
And there we have it. 1200. Twelve hunner!
Here's to twelve hunner more, maybe.
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