Black Bart...Going for the Gold!

Midnight Express v Rock 'n' Roll Express (JCP, 3/22/86)

Pretty awesome abbreviated version of the classic MX/RnR formula. A few of their spots didn't come off perfectly just yet, but they were clearly starting to mess around with the difficulty sliders and find ways of getting all four involved in sequences (all five if you count Cornette; six if you count the ref'). This happened in Philly and it's cool to see how batshit wild even your non-southern crowds would go for all of this. Someone in the crowd has a sign with Cornette slander on it and Cornette immediately gets heat for throwing a tantrum. In an awesome spot I don't think I've seen them do before, Morton dropkicks Condrey into Eaton on the apron, and Cornette tries and fails incrementally to use his shoulder to keep Eaton from falling off. As Cornette's legs slowly buckle the heat goes up and up and the pop for the house of cards crumbling is why you can imagine this match-up working pretty much anywhere in the world. Morton in peril rules, Condrey dropping knees on his throat rules, Eaton's missed rocket launcher splash rules, even the Dusty Finish rules. Pretty much the definition of "this is pro-wrestling, motherfucker." 

Sam Houston v Black Bart (Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling, 3/29/86)

If - or perhaps I should say WHEN - I start that Complete & Accurate Black Bart, this gets a stonewall EPIC. What a badass wee match in front of an awesome crowd; a real treat that I wasn't expecting when I flung on a random episode of what was probably Crockett's C-level TV show. I feel like I've barely seen any Black Bart, but every time I have he's great. Just a hulking big presence with an amazing grizzly bear look, super fun bumping and killer looking offence. Houston also should've wound up being a megastar, or at least a moderatestar, and he looked great here with his energy and selling. A perfect combo of two perfect midcarders, stepping up and delivering in a TV main event. I liked how Bart would try and use the ropes to his advantage early, backing Houston into them and wailing on him, throwing a headbutt to the chest, trying to keep Houston from using any of that speed advantage. Loved the bit where Houston snuck underneath one of those blows so it was Bart against the ropes, hit three punches that brought Bart a little closer to teetering over the top each time, then finally sent him out and into the barricade with a dropkick. It was a great bit of milking from Bart, the sort of thing you'd see from your all-time burly giants squeezing every bit of juice out of a pop. Houston works the arm for a little bit and Bart is fun again as a big wounded animal, then he takes over with a huge hotshot and goes TWO-PRONGED with his attack, working the throat and forehead of Houston. It ruled. He'd hotshot Houston across the barricade and choke him across the ropes (and blatantly with his bare hands), then he'd bite and claw at the forehead. Plus he'd sell the arm, my favourite instance being when he hit an AWESOME single-handed delayed backbreaker. It looked fucking spectacular, how he held Houston in the air, damn near vertically, with that one arm doing all the work, letting Houston and everybody watching know what was coming, before snapping him in two with a perfectly executed backbreaker. When Tommy Young took a ref' bump I expected some sort of schmozz finish, but instead we got Houston taking a lunatic bump through the ropes after his visual pinfall, followed by Bart guillotining his head off as he climbed back in (another hotshot-type move! Continuity, motherfucker!). I will now watch every Black Bart Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Title defence. 

The Eagle and the Rose (and the Dog Collar)

Buddy Rose v Johnny Eagles (Portland, 5/26/79)

I'd never seen Eagles before. He looks a bit like Jack Charlton if Charlton smoked tar. There's something about the name Johnny that made me think he'd be much younger. Maybe it's a Scottish thing. Eagles is older than the earth itself and nobody in their hundreds up here is still going by Johnny. You're either Jim or Jo. Johnny is a young man's name, like Mikey or Robbie. At a certain age you're no longer Mikey or Robbie, you're Mick or Rab, or Jim. But maybe I should seek out a bunch of Johnny Eagles (who in actual fact is like 45 here, not 100 or even 70) because this was one of the most straight up fun matches I've watched in ages. It's pretty much all shtick, and even though Rose is an awesome shtick wrestler I don't recall seeing him work a match where that's about 90% of the content. You could tell he was having an absolute hoot though, as were the crowd who just ate it up completely. Eagles is obviously a fun WoS-type guy and has the nickname The Houdini of Wrestling, so you can imagine what you're getting with him straight away. The first fall lasted about a minute and a half and I loved it because it was almost entirely about Rose refusing to take his shirt off in case Eagles sucker punched him. He'd half take the shirt off, then change his mind, then start taking it off again, then change his mind again. Everybody got riled up and the pop for Eagles taking matters into his own hands by rolling him up for a quick pin was fantastic. And Rose never did get that shirt off. Some of the stuff they did in the second fall was tremendous. I fancy myself as a decent wordsmith - somewhat foolishly, perhaps - but I couldn't do this justice by trying to describe all of it. Honestly, go watch it for yourself and see how much fun everybody had with this (YOU, like myself, will probably have even more fun if you haven't watched any WoS in a while). The crowd loved it, Eagles loved it and you just knew Buddy loved getting to do it. Some genuinely funny comedy work and a couple hold escapes I've never seen before. It really speaks to the versatility of Rose when you consider this and the Piper matches from the previous two weeks - all completely different yet all awesome in their own ways. The post-match isn't too shabby either, with Brooks demanding a dog collar match and dragging a bloody Rose all around the arena with a chain. Rose violently pukes and I suppose being able to throw up on ceremony is a useful string to your bow for a pro-wrestler. 

Buddy Rose v Killer Tim Brooks (Dog Collar Match) (Portland, 6/2/79)

Still a blast, though not quite as life-affirming as I remembered. I mean I've watched Piper/Valentine in the last couple years so, fairly or unfairly, everything else will probably suffer in comparison. Then again there were a few spots in this that Piper clearly saw and thought to use when given the opportunity. The pre-match ruled and so did Rose. He agreed last week to take part in the match under duress (Brooks was trying to throttle him with the dog collar so he maybe has a point), but certainly not for it to be on TV. He refuses to let Sandy Barr fasten the collar to him, then makes to leave before Piper cuts him off as he heads to the locker room. Rose backs up slowly, still facing Piper, and you know what's coming. Rose's reaction to backing up right into Brooks slapping that dog collar on him is amazing. "Buddy Rose has been collared, folks." Bonnema is the best. Don Owen was so great during this opening stuff as well. He's an awkward wee fella and really doesn't want any of the shit the wrestlers keep throwing at him, but he's the promoter so of course Rose won't get out of his ear about being involved in this. He's trying to do the intros while Brooks drags Rose into the ring with the chain and I about lost it when he just went fuck it and walked away. "I should've known better than to put this on TV anyway." An actual line as he exits the ring, intros left unspoken. Awesome. This had some really great stuff in it and with maybe five more minutes they really could've built it into something sensational. Rose was unbelievable early on. I've never seen anybody look more horrified at what they're currently embroiled in. Just sheer wild-eyed terror as Brooks chokes him with the chain and smashes his head into turnbuckles. The low blow to take over is a great desperation spot on its own but the fact Brooks paid him back in kind later made it even better. Rose wrapping the chain around Brooks' mouth is a preview of the Piper/Valentine murderfest, as is him pulling the chain taut and driving it into the forehead. Bonnema tells us that Brooks is the master of this kind of match as this is how they settle things in Texas. Somebody, anybody, please confirm if this truth or fallacy. Rose ends up bleeding errrrrrywhere and Brooks wraps the chain around his head like a tiara. The spot where they transition back to Rose on top is wonderful. Obviously Brooks has been out for weeks because Rose and Wiskowski tried to break his neck, so I loved that he punched Rose so hard (probably with a chain-wrapped fist) that it sent him so far across the ring it caused the chain to yank Brooks' neck and buckle him over in pain. At that point you really want Rose going on a run where he tears Brooks' face open and laps up the blood like a psychopath, but alas we are not in Arena Mexico and fairly soon Brooks is back on the offensive and we get the double interference finish. Post-match stuff is incredible as well. Don Owen has HAD IT with these two, Wiskowski and Piper so he just chucks all four of them in a cage next Tuesday night and if those arena shows were actually taped and exist somewhere I very much hope to see them some day before this miserable earth breaks apart at the core and we all float away into the endlessness of space.

LA Backstage, Drank a Little Kool-Aid, Smoked a Cigarette with Slash. Piper Flew to Rome, had Coffee with the Pope, Talked about Johnny Cash

Roddy Piper v Buddy Rose (Lumberjack Match) (Portland, 5/19/79) - GREAT

Not as good as the previous week's match but I pretty much loved this as well. If nothing else it highlights how Piper is the absolute king of the punch drunk comeback. He has so much energy no matter what he's doing and any time he starts wildly throwing himself into offensive flurries people are hooked. Everything looks frantic, often reckless, never half-baked. It doesn't hurt that he has absurd amounts of charisma. Just fucking lorry-loads of it, so even the most standard of in-ring actions elicits a response. He's also an awesome bumper and I'm not really sure it's talked about enough. His bumping has the same reckless quality his offence has and he about killed himself here with one of the best back drop bumps I've ever seen. It was like an Eddie Guerrero monkey flip bump where his legs would catch the ropes on landing, but it never had the grace of Eddie with the perfect rotation on the flip and instead looked like he was taking a Jerry Estrada bump all the way over the top rope. I have no idea whether he meant it or not and that's really what makes it so crazy. This was a super fun use of the lumberjack stipulation. Piper starts out by just punching Rose in the wrist off a lock-up and obviously that leads to some arm work, because sometimes the simplest course of action is the most effective. Rose takes a huge flat back bump off a kick to the arm and you will hate that if you're a miserable bastard of a person but I, only sometimes a miserable bastard of a person, loved it to death. His big bump into the corner later off a kneelift was also majestic and one that even the most miserable of the miserable can appreciate. Rose backing Piper into the corner over by Wiskowski so Ed can trip him is your first big transition and the first great use of the stip. The second is Rose continually booting Piper out the ring so Wiskowski can throw him back in as roughly as possible, clearly taking some cheapshots while he's at it. When it's Rose's turn you know he's going to milk it for all it's worth. He's one of the all-time great stooges and I love how he goes absolutely all in on ALL of it. None of this "I'll roll out and you can shove me back in there nice and easy" carry on, he actively tries to run and then leap away from danger and the lumberjacks must EARN THEIR KEEP by securing this projectile of a body and flinging it back in the ring. After about six attempts at this he sort of deflates in defeat, rolls over and looks up to notice Piper standing over him, at which point he about shits himself and everybody loses it. It's an easy comedy spot to throw out there, but the timing of it was impeccable, he played the goof to perfection and you ten thousand percent buy a pissed off Roddy Piper as the last guy you want standing over you in an inescapable situation. Finish is one of the most satisfying bullshit finishes ever as the pop for Brooks coming in through the crowd is monumental. Portland is the greatest and Brooks' post-match promo ("I haven't worn these boots since I came back from Vietnam, but I'm wearing them now because I'm here to FIGHT!") is also the greatest. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Boss Man can Shove that Overtime up His Can, All Piper Wants is a Drink in His hand

Roddy Piper v Buddy Rose (Portland, 5/12/79) - EPIC

I needed a change of pace from all the joshi, so I started going through '79 Portland. Leading up to this Piper and Rose had been teaming together along with Tim Brooks and Wiskowski (like during the awesome 8-man tag from March), then they had the big falling out and spent the last few weeks taking shots at each other. I watched all of this stuff about ten years ago and I thought they turned Piper babyface in the traditional sense, where they had a specific moment that made you go "oh, he's one of the good guys now!" But apparently as this is Portland they just had him wrestle Buddy Rose. Piper was still Piper and mere days before this he was tossing women about the place in a battle royal, stating that their place was in the home doing menial chores, but he's not Buddy Rose and if you're AGAINST Buddy Rose then you will be cheered. Even Bonnema is stunned that people are actually behind Piper and ponders, "who would've thought two, three weeks ago that people would be cheering for Roddy Piper?" The first fall was badass. It picks up from their arena match a few days earlier that I assume wasn't taped, but Bonnema tells us it was a real barn-burner that went all over the place. Piper still has the plaster on his forehead so it doesn't take long for Rose to zero in on it. Some of the close-up camera work is gruesome as Rose just digs his knuckles into the wound and tries to peel it apart like a tangerine. At one point he has Piper in a sort of chinlock where Piper's neck is twisted and Rose is grinding away at that cut. Piper is all cross-eyed with his face contorted and turning purple, like the scene in Casino where Joe Pesci has the dude's head in a vice. There was lots of awesome limb/body part work in this match. It came in short spells as they'd transition out of it and move onto something else, but it was all focused and it made sense when they did move off whatever they'd been doing before. You get some working of THE CUT~, some neck work, some back work, and all of it came about inventively while still feeling organic. After Piper makes his comeback he jabs Rose in the throat - he's still the same Roddy Piper, after all - and starts working the neck. He clubbers the neck in really nasty ways, then we get an awesome end to the fall where he hits a big spinning neckbreaker, picks Rose up at 2 even though the fall is academic, and hits another just to put the exclamation on it. As the second fall starts he keeps up with the neck work, and I don't know if what happened next was entirely intentional but an Irish whip with some extra venom behind it results in the middle turnbuckle breaking off. Rose uses the turnbuckle bolt to choke Piper and that serves as our transition to him eventually working the back (after Roddy spills out to the floor and Rose slams him into the post). Rose was amazing during this, looking semi-crazed trying to stop anybody putting the ring back together, a man with his back truly up against the wall. Picking Piper up at 2 after the first Billy Robinson backbreaker almost leads to Piper making a comeback so I fucking love Rose immediately hitting it again and hooking the leg just to be sure. The third fall starts with Rose jumping Piper before the restart and staying on the back, and even if the finish is maybe a bit of an anticlimax it sure sets us up for the feud kicking into a higher gear. It wasn't just that the pacing, layout and execution all ruled. All those things can be great and a match can still fall flat because the wrestlers don't elevate it. These two were awesome and brought so many moments of individual brilliance to fill all the in-between stuff, to actually bring this thing to life. The selling of exhaustion, the hatred, the setups and payoffs, the way Rose went from begging for his life to immediately tasting blood in the water, the way Piper took his revenge, how they did all of it while leaving so much more on the table. A match-up made in heaven. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Kobashi & Kikuchi v Cam-Am Express

Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi v Doug Furnas & Dan Kroffat (All Japan, 5/25/92)

Probably the perfect blend of 90s All Japan and your traditional southern tag formula. I actually think this is the first time I've watched the full version. I couldn't even have told you anything specific from whenever I last watched the JIP version (probably about a decade ago), so I can't say one way or the other if those added minutes significantly enhanced the viewing experience, but I know they were GOOD and it never hurts to have a clear picture of the match they worked bell-to-bell. We can say for an absolute certainty that the crowd were nuclear hot right from the beginning. They're in Kikuchi's hometown as he and Kobashi try to win the All-Asia Tag Titles so they lose their whole entire mind for basically everything he does. I've seen it compared to a college basketball crowd and that's really how it feels. As soon as he steps in the ring the place goes nuts, any sort of offensive move he performs the place goes nuts, and the highlight early on was him fighting off a Can-Ams double-team and retaliating with a couple leg lariats. The place went nuts. Of course it only lasts so long and we get some DOUBLE PERIL. Furnas is built like a brick shithouse so Kikuchi biting off more than he could chew and getting ran over for it was a great transition spot. The first heat segment is good but the second one is excellent. Furnas and Kroffat just abuse the hell out of him and try to snap him in two with full and half crab variations, while Kobashi periodically comes in and stomps on someone's face to raucous applause. Danny Kroffat was an absolute hoot in this. He acts like a cocky dickhead whenever the Can-Ams pull off a mugging and his little strut after slamming Kobashi off the top turnbuckle (while Furnas held him in place) was godly. He also took Kikuchi's jaw off with one of the meanest superkicks he's ever thrown, which might've lit a fire under Kobashi because HE threw more superkicks in this than I've ever seen him throw in a match. Furnas putting Kobashi on his head with a Frankensteiner was maybe the best spot of 1992 and in general the finishing run was awesome. This is one of the most universally acclaimed matches in history and it's not very hard to see why. 

More 2000s Mariko Yoshida

Mariko Yoshida v Atsuko Emoto (IBUKI, 1/28/07)

It's a shame that most of these matches are clipped up a bit. Even if I'm not always into the idea of watching a 30-minute draw this had some truly awesome stuff in it and I'd like to see it in full. We get about 17 minutes overall though, so more than enough time to get a handle on what they were doing. It's another duelling limb work match, with Yoshida going after Emoto's arm and Emoto basically going after Yoshida's entire torso. I suppose it's hard to tell how consistent they were with the selling, but even with the editing it sure LOOKED like they were drawing constant attention to what ailed them. Sometimes it would be as simple as Emoto grabbing her arm after slamming or suplexing Yoshida, sometimes it would be something really cool like Yoshida grabbing her lower back WHILE being whipped into the turnbuckle. The actual offence was great all the way through and largely stayed focused. Emoto hitting a front suplex on the ring apron looked brutal, her Billy Robinson backbreaker looked brutal, that one release back suplex looked reckless AND brutal, and Yoshida was amazing at grabbing all sorts of submissions from unnatural positions. Loved the bit where Emoto applied a Boston crab and really leaned back at a nasty angle, then had to transition to a single-leg version because the bad arm couldn't keep hold of Yoshida's leg. Emoto was more than capable rolling around on the mat as well so there were a few sequences that were honestly breathtaking, not just because of how smooth they looked but because they felt appropriately desperate at the same time. I mean Emoto reversing a kimura into a stretch muffler was fucking badass. The last few minutes made up what was probably my least favourite part of the match, but Emoto's arm remained a factor right until the end. I don't even mind her gritting her teeth and going for a lariat with the bad arm - I'd assume it's one of her big moves and she'd approach it like a "this'll hurt me but it'll hurt you more" type of thing. They just ran out of ideas a little and you pretty much knew it was going to the time limit. Joshi feels dead as dirt in the mid-late 2000s but there was probably a decent amount of worthwhile stuff going on (never thought I'd be one of the folk going to bat for Kwame Brown/Laron Profit era joshi yet here we are. 2020 be wild as hell, boys). 

Another Day, Another Battlarts

Yuki Ishikawa v Minoru Tanaka (Battlarts, 12/25/96)

This sort of felt like Ishikawa's version of Fujiwara versus some bland kickpad junior. Ishikawa IS the spiritual successor, after all. They even had a headbutt exchange but unlike Fujiwara it appears Ishikawa's head isn't made entirely of vibranium (he does not lose that particular exchange, however). Ishikawa gave the young'un quite a lot and to be fair to him Tanaka held up his end well. He kicked hard and snappy and his submission attempts looked really sharp. I actually wished they went a few more minutes because it was starting to get really good, but I guess Ishikawa snapping Tanaka's arm out of nowhere was as fitting a Fujiwara tribute as you're likely to get. 

Daisuke Ikeda, Alexander Otsuka & Satoshi Yoneyama v Takeshi Ono, Katsumi Usuda & Minoru Tanaka (Battlarts, 12/25/96)

Six-man tags are a bit of an underutilised match type in Battlarts, which is a shame because they have all the ingredients for something spectacular. I mean the '08 match is one of the five best matches of the decade. This wasn't at that level but it was a pretty awesome Boxing Day feast. It took Ikeda approximately ten seconds to come in illegally and stomp on someone's neck and that basically set the tone for what was to come. There were about fifty amazing moments, my favourite of which might've been team Ono coming in like a pack of hungry hyenas and kicking the living shit out of Ikeda. Otsuka was a fucking dynamo in this and threw some of his best suplexes ever, most of them by just lifting dead weight and dropping that person on their neck. Ono takes them in this awesome limp-bodied sort of way where he'll land all awkward on his clavicle or elbow, then Ikeda will pick him up like an empty tracksuit and powerbomb him on his tailbone. Yone at this stage wasn't great - Yone at no stage has been great, I suppose - but his rolling koppo kick will absolutely crush someone's forehead and this time the unfortunate recipient was Ono, who it must be said was having a really shitty day. A couple minutes being clipped out will always be a bastard of a thing but this ruled all ends up. 

Takeshi Ono v Alexander Otsuka (Battlarts, 3/13/97)

This match-up rules so much. Ono is the gold standard for skinny crowbar bastards and while he never landed any particularly vile shots he was always probing, always looking for that opening, always dangerous. Otsuka did what Otsuka will do and tried to shoot in for takedowns and suplexes. It sometimes worked and led to Ono being dropped on his neck, but then sometimes it didn't and led to him getting high kicked in the ear. You really need to weigh those odds when you're in there with Ono. I liked their urgency as the match went on, how Ono would try to pounce before Otsuka even made it back to his feet from a count, and how Otsuka would immediately follow Ono outside when he tried to take a breather. The build to Ono's octopus stretch was awesome. He threw a bunch of testing little jabs that almost looked preposterous compared to his usual strikes. They had nowhere near the mustard on them you expect and you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd decided to take it easy on the night, but then as soon as Otsuka let his guard drop for that split second Ono shot in and wrapped him up in a straightjacket. I wish these guys wrestled six hundred times. 

Liger v Sasuke - The Rematch

Jushin Liger v Great Sasuke (New Japan, 7/8/94)

Here's a story I know you'll all give a shit about - this was the very first match I ever ripped from a DVD and uploaded to the internet. I know you can find basically anything and everything wrestling-related online nowadays, but back in the 2007 this was nowhere to be found, so I don't think it's an overstatement to say I was nothing short of a god when I put this on megaupload for the masses to download and watch at their leisure. Anyways this was pretty great, and very different to the J Cup match. Where Liger dominated that from the start, this time Sasuke dropkicks him at the bell, throws a few Liger-esque shoteis and a koppo kick, then wipes him out with an awesome psycho tope. Sasuke knows he can't let Liger come out the blocks hot again and tries to continually press the advantage. Whether it was a deliberate callback to the J Cup or just a standard "I think I'll work that body part tonight" decision, I liked how Sasuke was determined in going after Liger's arm, which was a cool role reversal from April. Sasuke isn't as assured working from above and at times he almost looks overeager, but you kind of expect that considering who he's in there with. Think of all those times Golden State would be down by double digits only to come back and blow teams away by 25. You can't let up for a second and Sasuke knew not to take his foot off the gas. That his flying was treated as being a proper game-changer was a nice and probably necessary touch. It helped that all of that flying looked great, especially the Asai moonsault where he ends up front row in someone's nachos. Finishing stretch hits a decent level of drama, one of the big nearfalls from the J Cup gets rolled out again to good effect, then Liger does what he does fisherman busters someone's neck to bits. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #25

Azumi Hyuga v Carlos Amano (JWP, 9/23/99)

This wasn't my favourite match of this little project. Then again it wasn't my least favourite either. By the end I was fairly into what they were doing and I liked the story they told, it just took me a little while to get properly hooked. Maybe going to this after watching so much ARSION/Mariko Yoshida lately was always going to be a bit jarring. Maybe being a little more familiar with Hyuga might've helped as well, because I think this is the first time I've ever actually seen her (last time I saw Amano was against yes you are very correct it was Mariko Yoshida). She impressed me, mostly with her selling, but beyond that it felt like she carried herself as an ace and yet I have no idea whether or not she actually was or would become one. Amano went after the leg most of the way while Hyuga had to kick and claw her off. Usually the kicking her off part meant full force booting her in the mouth and some of the early shots were especially nasty. The longer the match went the more focused Amano's attacks became, the more obvious Hyuga was in favouring that leg, and even if some of the selling might've been spotty I thought she was largely consistent with it, which at this point will do me fine. There were also times where it looked like Hyuga would go after Amano's arm. It only came in short spurts so it was looking like it wouldn't really amount to much, but they circled back to it at the end and it made for a cool finish (one I thought was sort of abrupt before engaging in some very deep and meaningful critical reflection and ultimately coming around to it). I think I'd enjoy this more if I watched some more Hyuga and then came back to it again later. So I suppose I'll watch some more Hyuga.

Jushin Liger Versus Michinoku Pro

Jushin Liger v Great Sasuke (New Japan, 4/16/94)

I always get a bit nostalgic watching the 90s New Japan juniors. That era with wrestlers like Liger, Ohtani, Eddie and Benoit as Black Tiger and Wild Pegasus, Kanemoto, Samurai, the M-Pro guys showing up, even Ultimo Dragon - I was drawn to that period in an almost obsessive way and it was the first time I properly tried to procure as much footage as I could get my hands on. Before RINGS or 1990s CMLL or Battlarts there was the New Japan juniors. Of course I've told that story before, and I've talked about how it's not really a period or style I care too much about at this point, but when it still clicks it CLICKS. It just hits different, as the wee ones today might say. It's like going back and watching a cartoon that you loved as a kid and finding that, hey, this shit actually DID rule and my childhood wasn't merely a façade. And I thought this held up as being one of the best juniors matches of the decade. Liger was fucking incredible here, a performance right up there with his very best. It's not something I'd call a carry-job because a big part of what made it so good is Sasuke's willingness to be crazy, but Liger pretty clearly holds it together and works most of it in control. He pretty much tortures Sasuke for about 10 minutes, stretches him at all sorts of angles, drops him on his head and firmly establishes himself as the king of kings. The longer it goes the more it looks like this indie scrub has no shot. It was a fool's errand rolling into Liger's town, thinking he could challenge Liger in his own tournament. It's the Super J Cup fer chrissakes, how could Sasuke ever hope to beat the Super J himself? I don't even know how many times I've said it on this dumb blog but it's always amazing how Liger can convey such obvious emotion despite never showing his face. His body language is impeccable and even with the mask you know exactly what his facial expressions are underneath. He's dismissive to start out and you can see it plainly. When he can't put Sasuke away he gets frustrated and I loved the part where he just recklessly suplexed him from the apron outside the ring. When Sasuke makes his comebacks - usually by being a maniac - Liger is almost desperate. You can tell he doesn't have that same level of control he had in the beginning. My favourite moment of the match might've been after he dickishly sat across Sasuke's chest to pin him and almost got rolled up for a three count. He about shit himself then, checking that the ref' only counted two, visibly relieved and fist pumping the air that he'd escaped. There was also an awesome bit of selling after Sasuke drilled him with a powerbomb. He kicked out, but he was clearly groggy for a little while after it, clearly had to shake the cobwebs, and it made you wonder if Sasuke might have a way back into the match despite being swung about for most of it. Obviously the finish is iconic. It's probably the best adlib to a botch ever, how Liger applauds this idiot for faceplanting on his one last Hail Mary, only to underestimate that same idiot one time too many.

Jushin Liger v Super Delfin (New Japan, 5/30/94)

Liger must be sick of these M-Pro numpties. They think they can roll up on his turf and win New Japan tournaments, and what's worse this particular numpty has shown up dressed like Liger himself. This wasn't as good as the Sasuke match but it was alright, if kind of weird. The roles were reversed a bit in that Delfin was the cocky one this time, although you'd think some of that was probably hubris. It's one thing showing up in Liger's house in a Liger suit; it's another thing dicking about with his usual shtick like this was a young Taka Michinoku he was in there with. You don't tug on Superman's cape and you sure don't pull the horns on Liger's mask. Liger giving him a shotei across the jaw was a fitting response and there was that body language again, showing you exactly what he thought of Delfin. Where it started to get weird was in the back half, not so much in terms of what they were doing or how it was paced because I thought all of that was good. It was weird because Delfin had obviously started out as cocky heel and even blatantly mule kicked Liger low, except the crowd were behind him doing the upset and so he more or less worked babyface from about halfway in. Liger never started working heel as such and it's not even a criticism really (Hogan/Rock basically did the same thing on a much grander scale and that match is bananas great), it was just a wee bit jarring. Finishing run had some big time dives and I liked Liger taking it upon himself to answer Delfin's flying by crushing him dead with an insane somersault senton. The Sasuke match was a blemish he wouldn't let be repeated. 

Team Jumbo v Team Misawa (ft. broken face)

Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue & Masa Fuchi v Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada & Kenta Kobashi (All Japan, 10/19/90)

This really has all the hallmarks of your classic 90s All Japan. You get the intertwining story threads, the primary and secondary (and I guess tertiary) feuds delivering the business, the heat and hate and all that good stuff everybody and their granny has talked about for the last twenty-odd years. This is one of the more special All Japan six-mans as well in that you get that extra hook to separate it somewhat from the crowd. Kobashi is 23 here and clearly the runt of the litter, so Fuchi decides to be a disgraceful old fuck and break his nose. It leads to a spell of Kobashi having his face stomped and kicked and punched by the three bastards while he crawls around bloody-nosed. Fuchi jabbing him in the nose with the edge of a chair looked as brutal as that spot can look, then he'd just stand on his face like he was putting out a cigarette. It didn't last as long as I remembered, but it was an awesome segment and has always stood out to me from this period, probably because it was one of the very first matches from Japan I ever watched. Kawada and Taue were only really starting to hate each other to death at this point but their exchanges were great. Taue instigated it by booting Kawada off the apron unprompted, and you could see that need to retaliate just bubbling in Kawada. They went after each other repeatedly, slammed and suplexed each other in amongst the crowd, threw cheapshots from the apron, it all ruled. Some of the Jumbo/Kobashi stuff was awesome as well. There was a great bit in the first half where Jumbo tried to break up a Kobashi half crab on Fuchi, but Kobashi wiped him out with a lariat instead (to an amazing crowd reaction). You knew Jumbo would pay him back for that tenfold and he about decapitated him later when he had the chance to. Jumbo/Misawa was still red hot, every match-up brought the goods, the finishing run was one of the more epic for the time...this was a Jumbo v Misawa six-man and all that entails. 

Mariko Yoshida...in the 2000s!

I've tackled 90s joshi and lived to tell the tale, so now...I won't be tackling the 2000s, because it's not really something I care about on the whole, but I've barely seen any post-90s Mariko Yoshida and I want to see what she was doing. She was still tremendous by 2004 and there's a bunch of other things that look promising. We'll see what we can find. 

Mariko Yoshida v Cheerleader Melissa (ARSION, 8/29/02)

This might be the first and only Cheerleader Melissa match I've ever seen. That seems unlikely considering she's been around forever, but other than her maybe showing up in ROH 12-15 years ago for a Shimmer showcase I can't think of any other reason I'd have been watching her. She'd just turned 20 here so you forgive her for not being great. She kind of worked like a slightly more spry Brian Lee, threw some clunky forearms to the chest, sort of lumbered around like you'd expect from someone who's only previous wrestling experience had been in a fairground. I don't know if it was the plan all along or Yoshida decided to take matters into her own hands but the match largely turned into Yoshida flinging her about the place with tricked out submissions. To Melissa's credit she actually grew into the match a bit and the last few minutes were pretty decent. It went 14 minutes all told and it never felt like that. So there you go. 

Mariko Yoshida v Yoshiko Tamura (NEO, 11/3/06)

This was edited to about half of its 27-minute runtime, although the editing was pretty damn good because it felt fairly complete as it was (I'd never have guessed so much was clipped out before seeing the runtime in the post-match graphic). You can't really judge the whole match (or maybe there's a full version somewhere in which case you can if you bloody well want to), but the 14 minutes we got were really good and Yoshida still looked fucking awesome in 2006. It started with some real Battlartsy grappling and Yoshida dropping punches from the mount, waiting for Tamura to cover up before grabbing a nasty key lock. Again, there may have been lots of dodgy no-selling going on during this and the editing did away with it, but for a match where one woman had their leg worked over and the other had their arm worked over I thought the long-term selling was totally on point, especially from Yoshida. Tamura worked it over initially with some cool fisherman busters where she dropped Yoshida face- and knee-first, and Yoshida never let you forget the knee was a problem the whole way through. Lots of times she'd hit a move and try to knock some feeling into that knee afterwards, or she'd attempt a move, fail, and slap the knee in frustration. The coolest example of it was when she went for a second air raid crash and just about muscled Tamura up, but then the leg buckled and she collapsed under the weight. She was also a machine going after Tamura's arm and I'll be fucked if I know where she got it from but there was one armbar that Han would've been proud of. Late in the match she wound up in the mount again and when Tamura wouldn't give up the arm Yoshida just started dropping Joe Riggs hammer fists on her face. I think this is the first Yoshiko Tamura match I've seen. She was clearly a compatible dance partner for Yoshida. Her grappling was strong, she threw mean forearms, and while her selling of the arm maybe wasn't as good on the whole as Yoshida's selling of the leg I sure bought her tapping on more than one occasion. I liked what was shown of this a lot. And I guess I should check out some more Tamura? 

Tenryu Shoulda Been a Cowboy Livin' in the Black Hills, Livin' on the Outside of the Law, Crazier than Wild Bill

Genichiro Tenryu v Antonio Inoki (New Japan, 1/4/94) - GREAT

I think it would be fair to say that this match is not going to be for everyone. It was a spectacle, and a  spectacle that only a few wrestlers and maybe one company could pull off the way they did. But I'm a sucker for a good spectacle and the involvement of Tenryu is usually a decent sign I'll enjoy something, so I kind of loved this. It starts out tentative and these two are just the best at building tension, making even a knuckle-lock feint feel important. Then Inoki does a Tenryu before Tenryu can do a Tenryu and starts throwing closed fists. I thought Tenryu was unreal here, especially with his selling. Inoki choking him out and Tenryu lying unconscious for about five minutes was obviously ridiculous, but they kept it about as compelling as you could ask for with everything surrounding it. Inoki decks the frantic ref' who's worried he has a murder on his hands, New Japan and WAR wrestlers outside the ring try to coax Tenryu back to life, then Choshu wakes him up with a slap and Tenryu staggers around ringside clueless of what's going on. He even takes a swing at one of his own wrestlers, like someone lunging at John McCarthy when they've had their lights dimmed and they instinctively grab someone after the fight is stopped. Tenryu's sell of the cross-armbreaker, his AMAZING dazed and confused look after Inoki tries to choke him to death for a second time, he was incredible. Inoki remains stoic even in the face of being chopped in the throat and his rolling koppo kick out the corner was a phenomenal spot. The Dome crowd are rocking for the last few minutes and Tenryu punting old man Inoki's head into row sixteen was truly vile. And even though we all knew Inoki would immediately dive on Tenryu after the pinfall, yer man Genichiro makes history by becoming the first - and I think only - Japanese wrestler to have pinned both Giant Baba and Antonio Inoki. Mr. Puroresu indeed!

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Let Us Watch Some ARSION (The Michiko Ohmukai Experience!)

Candy Okutsu & Michiko Ohmukai v Rie Tamada & Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 6/21/98)

The first ten things Ohmukai did in this: one - sidestep a dropkick; literally the other nine - kick someone dead in the face. I wasn't huge on this as it was less ARSION and more garden variety midcard sprint you could find on most joshi cards. They were fairly liberal with the transitions and momentum shifts and never bothered too much with the selling, though at this point I suppose I can handle a 12-minute joshi sprint for what it is. Ohmukai booting people in the mouth was by far the highlight, but she's one of those women where the pendulum will swing from being pretty awesome to pretty bad on a match to match basis, or sometimes even within a match. Throwing dangerous spin kicks under the chin? That'll work. Trying all sorts of contrived sequences where she struggles with the setups? I'd rather not. We got both Ohmukais in this and unfortunately it was more of the latter. 

Michiko Ohmukai v Mikiko Futagami (ARSION, 7/21/98)

The pendulum swings back! Ohmukai working as Battlarts crowbar is very much the best Ohmukai and this was badass as fuck. Just a gritty, nasty little scrap. Straight at the bell Ohmukai slaps away a handshake and everything they did from then on out had some malice behind it. Initially it was more tetchy, where you knew they WANTED to throttle each other but tried to keep a lid on it, but by the midpoint the lid had blown and potatoes were flying everywhere. Derisory little slaps to the head morphed into full on palm strikes under the nose. Ohmukai refused to break clean out the corner and threw about a dozen knees, so the first chance Futagami had to retaliate she Wanderlei punted her in the cheekbone. The matwork kept pace with the strikes and got progressively meaner the longer it went. During some of the chokes it looked like the recipient's tongue was turning purple and Futagami's chicken-wing was absolutely brutal. They end up on the top turnbuckle together, Ohmukai looking like she's on her last legs, and Futagami's "this one's for you, motherfucker" to a rabid middle-aged male Ohmukai fan was sensational (I imagine Ohmukai had a goodly number of those fans. You won't need more than one guess as to why). Loved the finish as well, with things getting really desperate as the 15 minute time limit approaches. Ohmukai throws a straight right to the jaw (amazing spot) and goes for the kill, but Futagami slaps her silly and grabs a choke in the middle of the ring. Either our crazy Ohmukai fan and his one-man percussion section can lend her enough strength to see out the time limit or Futagami can lock it in deep enough before the bell goes. They really worked the hell out of that time limit drama and other than a couple ropey fighting spiritish moments this was fantastic. 

Rie Tamada v Yumi Fukawa (ARSION, 7/21/98)

This was a little hectic at times and they probably overreached a bit, but on the whole I thought they managed to tell a fairly coherent story with well-established roles. They also fit it into around twelve minutes to keep it digestible. After teaming together on the last show I guess this was Fukawa's coming of age tale against a slightly more established opponent. Tamada is more strikes and bombs while Fukawa is more sudden submissions and counters from everywhere. The dynamic worked pretty nicely. The best examples were Tamada hitting a couple brutal missile dropkicks - one to the face followed by one to the back of the head - and Fukawa using the swanky rolling cross-armbreaker at the end, just when it looked like Tamada was going to finish her off. I'm looking forward to watching Fukawa's matches with Yoshida from the following year again and it's cool tracking her progress over the course of 1998. She's maybe the most fun blend of lucha and your Toryumon style junior heavyweight in the company at this point in time.

Michiko Ohmukai v Rie Tamada (ARSION, 8/9/98)

Well this had some good Ohmukai and some not so good Ohmuaki. To begin with it was not so good as they did an extended parity stand-off bit and Ohmukai will always struggle with those because she can't really do them in a way that doesn't look obviously choreographed. And parity stand-off sequences usually suck anyway so she's chasing fool's gold even trying it. Thankfully we got way more good Ohmukai than not so good and almost immediately after the stand-off she went about punting Rie in the liver. She threw very many nasty kicks from very many angles. Just volleyed Tamada in the face at one point. They do a sort of duelling arm work match that maybe worked more in theory than in practice, but the back half got pretty damn good. The duelling part falls by the wayside a bit and Tamada's arm mostly gets forgotten about, but everything around Ohmukai's was good. I liked as well how Tamada went after it briefly in the first half without making it a major focus, almost as a bit of FORESHADOWING that we all love in the pro wrestling storytelling. Transitions and selling were kinda wonky at the end but ARSION continues to make great use of that 15 minute time limit. This was a hunner times better than their match from earlier in the year. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #24

Shinobu Kandori v Manami Toyota (AJW, 8/23/98)

This was pretty great. When I first watched it a few years ago I thought it was one of Toyota's best performances, and that hasn't changed much on rewatch. How it was paced was very much a Kandori match, though. You know Toyota has a pace she likes to work at and that pace is fast and constant. Kandori will often slow things down, so in this you had a much slower pace than you normally get with Toyota, but there are still moments where she bursts into life and hits her stuff with all the ZEAL you expect from Manami Toyota hurling herself about the place. I get that if you're really into joshi and you're a Toyota fan then you have no problem with how she'd usually work (or actively like it), but for me personally she's much more enjoyable working at this pace. Makes her highspots feels so much more meaningful. She does a fucking headcase Sabu-style springboard somersault onto a table and a missile dropkick to the floor, but they feel appropriately crazy and huge because they aren't thrown out so quickly and in amongst a slew of other highspots. There are also a few bits where she just cracks Kandori in the face because Kandori will condescend to her or take her lightly, and once again Kandori's KO sell rules (there's a great payback spot later on and Toyota's own KO sell is just as great). No offence to her, but this is Toyota here, so you can expect one or two spots to come off looking ugly. The probability of her overreaching and botching something is simply higher than it is for others. It just...is what it is. Not everything was hit clean in this by any means, but the ugliness really worked, primarily because they were so good at throwing audibles. Usually those audibles involve Kandori just going fuck it and trying to yank a limb off, but I don't think it would be totally fair to attribute the quick thinking solely to her. By the end you've got a scenario where Toyota has to throw out the big bombs and go for broke before Kandori catches her in a submission far enough away from the ropes that Toyota can't escape. And at around twenty minutes in length there was no bloat and the stretch run never went too long. Some of the nearfalls were appropriately massive and, despite knowing the result this time, I still popped huge for one of those roll-ups. First time I watched this I thought it might be a top 10 joshi match of the 90s. While I'm not sure I'd still have it that high, I know it held up like I hoped and remains my favourite Toyota singles match. 

Whiskey & Wrestling 800!

Eight hundred! Who'd have thought after even a month of this nonsense, way back in the simpler times of 2010 when the big Rona-19 was unfathomable, that I'd still be doing it over ten years later (not bloody me, I'll tell you)? What a madness. Like Whiskey and Wrestling seven hundred I watched a few matches I've been saving (for whatever stupid reason) watching for a while. What better occasion than now, I ask. Here are some words. Read them if you think yourself enough of a fool. 

Atsushi Onita v Tarzan Goto (FMW, 2/26/91)

The skeezy indie filth snuff film is one of the best things in wrestling and this was pretty much a masterpiece of the genre. It was awesome right from the jump as they tried to dent each other's skull with headbutts even the FUTEN boys would wince at. Pretty soon they end up on the floor and Onita hits a tope, Goto jabs him in the eye with the back of a chair and chucks a full table at him, and naturally they're both bleeding profusely. The headbutts were the constant and they kept circling back to them. At one point Goto slapped on an STF but I don't think Onita even had to reach the ropes before they were back up on their feet conking heads. Goto was so great in this. He's the scummiest irresistible force and would not stop going at Onita no matter what was thrown at him. I suppose you can criticise the spot where he gets piledriven through a table - one of those indestructible Korakuen Hall tables, no less - and is back up moving forward seconds later, but he's Tarzan Goto and made of solid BEEF so why should we expect a mere table to fell him? He controlled most of the match offensively and I thought it was great how he progressively sold each of Onita's bombs towards the end. Kicking out of a finisher after a 1 count is a goofy fighting spirit nonsense of a spot today but this worked within the context of their grimy little horror story. One powerbomb is never going to be enough to put away this blood-coated fridge of a man, with his repulsive forehead and attitude to match. So Onita goes back to the well because why wouldn't he, I guess? From that piledriver on the table earlier to the DDTs and powerbombs you could see Goto being chipped away at, and I loved how they showed that simply enough through how long it took Goto to kick out each time. The piledriver had little effect, the first powerbomb only kept him down for a 1, but the second was a genuine nearfall! I suppose getting dropped on your neck repeatedly will make it difficult for anyone to get up, even the hideous goblin in the leopard-print singlet. 

Naoki Sano v Kiyoshi Tamura (UWFi, 5/6/94)

Maybe not a stone cold classic, but look at who's in it and tell me how it couldn't be good. They worked real tentative to begin with, like two guys who knew the other could kick it up a few gears in an instant. There was a hesitancy because either one could rip off a counter from nowhere and put the thing to bed. The strikes were mostly probing and it led to an awesome moment with Tamura getting caught a little more forcefully in the midsection. As Sano went to press on with a high kick Tamura had to dodge back so far he wound up on the canvas, but before Sano could even think of following up again Tamura immediately gave us the old HBK kip up and walked away cool as you like. The longer it went the more they settled into a nice rhythm and about halfway in things got pretty great. Sano might be the best of all time at believably incorporating pro style moves into shoot style bouts (I may have said this in the past. It feels like something I've said in the past) and this time it was a fisherman buster. On the flipside Tamura might be the best of all time at countering his way out of a shitty situation at the blink of an eye so that particular sequence ended in a stalemate. Sano has his moments of brilliance, like when he grabs a super awkward armbar and Tamura is left smarting even after the break, but Tamura keeps growing into the fight and soon evens up the score by forcing Sano to the ropes a couple times himself. When Sano whips him over with the German suplex you think it could be the set up to him closing out the fight, except there's that thing about Tamura being able to counter anything you throw at him. When he grabbed that wrist and went for the kimura you sort of knew he wasn't for letting go. 

Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata v Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan (New Japan, 6/12/95)

I thought this was good for about ten minutes and then REALLY good for six-seven minutes. And for the whole seventeen minutes Hashimoto was awesome. Tenzan and Chono are in full shithead mode and this is about the most I've enjoyed both of them in ages, especially Tenzan who's usually woeful. He has an extremely punchable face and demeanor in this, shit talks Hashimoto on the mic before the match starts, and Hashimoto stomping him to bits was just perfect. The brainbuster Hashimoto gave him was on a whole other level of ridiculous compared to most brainbusters you've ever seen. This might be my favourite period of Chono's career because he wouldn't dick around on the mat with boring matwork for three hours and instead leaned all the way into being a bastard, letting his charisma do a lot of the work. That first ten minutes was mostly back and forth, nothing really sticking too long, no stretch where someone was properly isolated. It meant there was plenty of Hashimoto coming in grumpy and squashing someone's spleen but I wanted something to really dig my teeth into. I was a bit worried they were going to work the whole match even until Hirata seemed to injure his leg and end up in PERIL. That didn't last too long either and so we never got a vintage Hashimoto hot tag, but it did lead to the best stretch of the match. As soon as Hash comes in he casually sweeps aside Tenzan's attempt at a wheel kick, and at that point you're thinking someone's getting their chest caved in. Except Chono jumps him and pretty soon Hashimoto is fighting both of them while Hirata is out on the floor with his bad leg. Every time Hirata tries to climb back in he'll be dragged out again by Chono's enforcer Hiro Saito, so Chono and Tenzan have an open lane to pile on Hash. So rather than getting the Hashimoto hot tag we get Hashimoto as face in peril, and wouldn't you believe it he was amazing at it. He fights back bloody-nosed, just whomping motherfuckers with overhand chops and roundhouse kicks. The last couple minutes feel more like All Japan than New Japan to an extent, with Hirata trying to fight his way to his partner's side before he's overwhelmed completely, only All Japan probably would've eschewed the low blow so maybe Chono > Misawa after all. And Hashimoto > everybody, which we already knew.

Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda v Yuki Ishikawa & Takeshi Ono (Battlarts, 1/21/97)

Geez Louise what a match. This was off the charts premium Battlarts that gave you everything you could want in such a thing. It might be my favourite kind of wrestling. The matwork was air tight without surrendering any of that Battlarts roughness, the striking was god tier violent, the partner saves were sheer madness and it had the cool wrinkle of Ikeda and Ono being on opposite sides for a change, which is a bit of a rarity but something we know always delivers. The first minute or so was absolute perfection as we opened with some amazing scrambling from Ono and Usuda, Ikeda coming in unprompted and punting his usual partner in the head, and Ishikawa following suit by dropping a headbutt on an unawares Usuda. Ono and Usuda had several exchanges during this that wouldn't have looked out of place in RINGS, only here there was that ever-present danger of rolling too close to a corner and getting your face stomped on mid-kneebar. Another ever-present is that Ikeda/Ishikawa rivalry and this had some of the all-time greatest Ikeda/Ishikawa exchanges. There was one part where Ikeda was absolutely hammering Ishikawa with kicks and Ishikawa refused to give him the satisfaction of winning even a single exchange, and I about lost it when he managed to get up and just throw his head clean into Ikeda's face. These two have thrown some truly disgusting headbutts at each other over the years and I honestly don't recall seeing one as reckless as that. Ishikawa and Ono paint a bullseye on Ikeda's leg and Ono tries to kick it apart at the knee while Ishikawa bends it at all angles. Ono is just teeing off on him at one point, leg kicks, kicks to the midsection, the back of the head, everything. Ikeda is stumbling around like a man who has no clue where he is and I loved that he eventually tagged out by just collapsing, maybe through luck and nothing more, into the general vicinity of his own corner. Also loved Ono saving his payback for that first Ikeda interjection by waiting until Ishikawa was trying to apply an armbar, casually coming in and kicking Ikeda's hands apart. If I was being hyper-critical I'd say the finish was maybe a touch anticlimactic, and I guess it lacked the drama of your absolute gold standard Battlarts finishing runs, but this was tremendous and stands out as one of the best matches in a ridiculously stacked year for good wrestling matches. 

Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama v Stan Hansen & Vader (All Japan, 12/5/98)

This was very un-90s All Japan-like, with a very un-90s All Japan-like finish, and I mean both of those things in the best way possible. It ruled, of course. Who knew a 19-minute borderline squash in the world of 40-minute epics would've been this much fun. There's no point going on about how I wish All Japan did this sort of thing more throughout the decade. The 90s All Japan target audience are more than happy with how that stuff went, but man, it might've just worked. Hansen and Vader are the ultimate pair of wrecking ball bastards and they pretty much annihilate Kobashi and Akiyama the entire time. Hansen is broken down yet always dangerous because he's the angriest human being to ever live, but even after a disappointing couple years in the WWF Vader feels like the most menacing presence imaginable. The way he just walks around is sort of terrifying. He's probably the more dangerous of the two at this stage of the game but he'll defer to Hansen because it's Stan Hansen and there can only be one sheriff in town. Kobashi was so great in this, from the way he takes and sells the beatings (there were many), the way he fires back, his general charisma, it was awesome. His first exchange with Vader was incredible and his KO sell for being clubbed across the ear was just perfect. Hansen holding him in place so Vader could punch him dead in the throat and nose was also perfect. Akiyama gets killed repeatedly. He tries a northern lights suplex on Vader and the way Vader just went dead weight and about crushed Akiyama's neck was insane. I don't even know how many times someone got clubbed ridiculously in the face but these were some of the ultimate Vader soup bones. Towards the end it looks like Kobashi and Akiyama might've found an inroad by going after Vader's leg, then Akiyama gets tossed outside and Vader hobbles over and squashes Kobashi's lungs with a splash. Loved how Hansen looked up at Vader after one Kobashi kickout and pointed like "okay, you can finish this motherfucker." In your more traditional All Japan fashion the last few minutes have one guy going it alone while his partner tries to crawl back into the fight, but they curveball us with the finish itself, which fucking ruled. Akiyama has been booted to the floor so many times you think there's no chance he can actually recover. Kobashi is just about dead so he has even less chance and when Vader holds him in place as Hansen adjusts the elbow pad you know it's curtains. Akiyama making his last ditch crawl up the turnbuckle and leaping off with a blind knee on Hansen was the perfect save, and it gives Kobashi the chance to follow up with the ugliest lariat to the ear you ever did see. Akiyama flings himself at Vader in his ultimate sacrifice as Kobashi seals the comeback of all comebacks, snatching victory from the jaws of murder. Vader obliterating everyone post-match feels fitting. All Japan should've done more of this. 

So there we have it. Eight hunner bastarding whiskey and wrestlings. As always, here's to eight hunner more. 

Ishikawa v Ikeda...in 2020!

Yuki Ishikawa v Daisuke Ikeda (wXw Ambition, 3/7/20)

These two motherfuckers. Two people doing this to each other is insane regardless, but I suppose it's been par for the course for these two going on a quarter century now so we can't really be surprised they're still at it in their fifties. Somehow they seem to add even more brutal wrinkles to every encounter, this one their first in nearly a decade. It was very much Ikeda v Ishikawa in all the ways Ikeda v Ishikawa is amazing, but at the same time this was maybe their most unique match together. Part of that is obviously the setting. Even though most if not all of the people in attendance would've been familiar with both guys and everything they're about, there was still a sense of "what in the fuck are these two old men doing to each other?" You could tell from the reactions that some in the crowd were mortified at what they were seeing. And then there was the referee, who had a few amusing interactions with both of them without it ever feeling like a planned comedy spot. He couldn't quite believe what he was happening either and it showed in how he winced at every headbutt or punch or kick. And good grief the headbutts and punches and kicks. They trade blows early, but not in your Okada/Tanahashi forearm exchange sort of way where it's all about the machismo and which good looking young gentleman is the most rugged. The entire history of Ishikawa and Ikeda is built on them being the toughest bastards in wrestling, both of them alone on top of that particular mountain, so their strike exchanges have a whole different level of not being a monkey show. And in very un-Okada/Tanahashi fashion they ditched the forearms and chops for straight punches and headbutts, every single one of them landing with a disgusting thud, leaving bloody smears on foreheads, Ikeda just about breaking his hand on Ishikawa's cranium. Their last singles match before this had a running thread of Ikeda throwing headbutts over and over despite Ishikawa being a Fujiwara trainee, thus having an indestructible head. Yet Ikeda would keep throwing those headbutts, even at great cost to his own brain cells, until he finally toppled Ishikawa. They carried that over to this and when Ikeda threw his first headbutt Ishikawa just came up smiling. Ikeda would keep trying it, keep clonking him with absurd headbutts, and Ishikawa would pretty much always come out on top. Through insane, disturbing persistence Ikeda eventually won out, just like he did in their last match, but the running headbutt he had to use to do so was truly vile. The roundhouse kick at the end was out of this world ridiculous and fully warranted the gasps of horror from our Oberhausen crowd. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #23

Aja Kong v Meiko Satomura (GAEA, 9/15/99)

Pro wrestling is usually at its best when it's easy to follow. Keep it simple, stupid! Or, you know, whatever it was the Beastie Boys said. But really, it doesn't need to be complicated. Good versus bad, big versus small, strength versus speed, those are the sort of dynamics that have worked since time immemorial. This was a story of cold ruthlessness versus dogged determination - a little more purple than your good versus evil maybe, but I promise you it's no less easy to follow. Satomura was nineteen years old here. Nineteen, fuck sake! I don't even remember what I was doing at nineteen years of age. Probably drinking Jameson out a jug at the halfway line of the local ash park, still dreaming of making it as an Olympic level athlete, and here's Satomura doing this. It's damn near crazy how a nineteen year old could be involved in a match this good and be as responsible for its overall quality, but here we are. Aja was Aja and if you're reading this stupid blog then you know what that entails. You'll also have a pretty good idea who in this tale is responsible for the cold ruthlessness and who's responsible for the dogged determination. For the majority of this it's pretty much an Aja domination. Meiko fires back with a few short burst, one flurry of leg kicks that even takes Aja off her feet, but really she's pissing in the wind and it's barely even competitive. I liked how scrappy Satomura was though, how sometimes her offence never quite hit great and how her timing wasn't always perfect. It gave what she was doing a hint of desperation, like she was going off the cuff because what the hell else COULD she do? She'd chip away, but it looked like most of what she did had next to no effect and Aja just kept coming. Aja took her time as well, like she was savouring the moment before sticking Meiko with a piledriver or squashing her in the corner. Then the longer it went you could see Aja start to tire a bit, like she was having a little more trouble stringing all that offence together. Even if it might not have been her intended strategy it looked like Satomura had allowed herself to be beaten so badly that her assailant had worn herself out! The coolest part in the last third was how Meiko went about making her comeback. It still came in bursts, but those bursts were more frequent and they lasted a little longer too. She'd target Aja's arm, initially by pulling out an amazing cross-armbreaker counter to an Aja top rope elbow, and that sort of opened the door for her to try the death valley driver, which was treated as a huge deal and a legit (potential) match-ender. My favourite part of the whole match might've been when Meiko just started twisting Aja's arm at an ugly angle and how it allowed her to hit the DVD, which sent everyone completely ballistic. The finishing stretch was super tight as well; there was no excess and it felt epic without ever going overboard. Aja scooting out the back door of another DVD and taking Meiko's jaw off with a backfist was unbelievable, and I'd completely forgotten the result of this so I was as invested in that last sequence as I've been in ages. Just a sensational match and probably a joshi MOTD candidate. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #22

Aja Kong & Bison Kimura v Manami Toyota & Esther Moreno (AJW, 4/29/91)

Esther Moreno, motherfucker! I've seen a bit of her sisters going through early 90s CMLL, but I think this is my first look at Esther and that diminutive little woman is all sorts of awesome. Apparently her and Toyota were basically thrown together as a makeshift team to challenge Jungle Jack for the belts. You couldn't tell it from how they gelled though, and Esther seemed to bring out the best in Toyota as well. This was very much along the lines of Jungle Jack smash while Esther and Toyota need to be quicker than a hiccup. If Aja and Bison could isolate one of them they were fucked, but if Esther and Toyota could swarm either Aja or Bison then they maybe had a chance. That was basically how the first fall went, with the skinny girls doing everything rapid and stringing together double teams, flying around and avoiding being caught by one of the bruisers. You know what you're getting with Toyota already. She's a known commodity for most of us with even a passing interest in this era of joshi. There was a short spell where Aja and Bison worked over her hand that was pretty great, and from an offensive standpoint her missile dropkicks looked fine, but Esther hitting gorgeous armdrags and flipping out of stuff to avoid being splattered was mega cool. Their stereo dives ruled as well, one in particular where Toyota went low with a crossbody off the top while Esther went high, almost like a wild top rope Total Elimination. Then in the second fall Jungle Jack finally grab hold of Esther long enough to bludgeon her. Clearly Esther comes from a background in the beautiful art of lucha libre because she bleeds like an apuestas match is afoot and a barber dressed fully in white is about to be covered in blood. She's wearing the crimson mask in short order like Muta in his red face paint, and while I'd have liked the heat segment on her to go a bit longer she continued to sell great the rest of the way. It's not like Aja and Bison never got to beat on someone anyhow -- they got to beat on two someones and they did it like they meant it. The dive train in the third fall had a couple corkers, with Esther hitting an Asai Moonsault before Ultimo Dragon made it cool, and Aja wiping out everyone in a six mile radius with a plancha was amazing. This was a real blast. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #21

Akira Hokuto v Shinobu Kandori (AJW, 12/6/93)

Man, I don't know. Some of the matches I'm watching throughout this little project are ones I've seen before, matches that joshi fans often talk about as classics that I may not have liked in the past, where I can go back and look at them through eyes that find the style a little more palatable at this moment in time. That goes for things like Hokuto/Kandori from Dreamslam, the Dream Rush tag, individuals like Ozaki and Kansai, etc. This one I'd never seen before though, and watching it for the first time I thought it was unbelievable. Like, this is about as close to "cinema" as I think I've ever seen in a wrestling match (excluding stuff like the Boneyard match that has all the bells and whistles of actual cinema) and the more I think about it the more it feels like one of the greatest matches I've ever seen. 

The story they told might be my favourite in any match ever and I thought both women were exceptional from start to finish. The double KO punch from Dreamslam being used at the very start here might be a touch on the nose, but I'm never likely to complain about anybody punching each other dead in the face so for me it was yet another perfect opening from them. This time Kandori coming out ahead while Hokuta is left spitting teeth and blood really set the table for the rest of the match. This was all about Kandori out to even the score, to prove she's the one and only unfuckwithable presence in joshi, and she wants to make Hokuto's life a misery as she does it. Hokuto probably has more pride than sense and like at Dreamslam you wonder if Kandori will need to kill her just to keep her down. You get the feeling Hokuto would rather go out that way as well. No matter what she keeps coming, no matter how much punishment, no matter what Kandori does to her she continually finds an answer from somewhere, and as determined as Kandori is to prove she's the baddest, Hokuto is equally determined to prove that title should be hers. She's the Dangerous Queen, fer cripes! Even after that first KO punch where her lights are out, she manages to get up and take Kandori's jaw off with a spin kick, and I loved her being super aggressive and going to the gutwrench powerbombs from there. Last time she took it to the floor early on and lost six gallons of blood, so why not go for the kill early? At points it feels like Kandori is almost fucking with Hokuto and I loved all the little fake-outs early on, drawing Hokuto into that slap exchange just so she could yank her into the Fujiwara armbar. Then of course she lets her up with a wag of the finger. "Not like that. I'm not finished yet." I don't know if there was some backstory with Kandori's knee being wrapped but Hokuto is obviously smart to go after it...then Kandori just demoralises her by reversing a kneebar into a half crab and Hokuto is left scrambling to the ropes (and nobody scrambles to the ropes like Hokuto). 

The longer it goes the more Hokuto withstands, and in turn the more she dishes out in response. At a certain point you need to question whether Kandori's strategy is a viable one because Hokuto clearly isn't going away, and the longer she messes around the more chance there is of Hokuto beating her again. The northern lights bomb on the floor was insane and Kandori sold it like it about collapsed her lung. At that point it looks like Kandori might've made a mistake and maybe should've tapped Hokuto with the armbar when she had the chance, but then she comes back with the top rope tiger driver and that bit about needing to kill Hokuto to keep her down seems like it might've come true. Honestly, the selling from both of them for those two bombs was easily as good as anything in your lauded All Japan classics. Kandori realising she probably needs to stop pissing about and finally going to the kneebar felt like a huge moment, particularly as I'm assuming this was one of the many points in Hokuto's career where her knee(s) were battered to hell. Up until now Kandori never tried to exploit that taped up knee, nor did she bother going back to the armbar even though it nearly ripped Hokuto's arm out back in April. It wouldn't have been as easy as "go after the arm or knee and it's a win" because you knew Hokuto would never have allowed it to BE easy, but there were clearly bullseyes to be painted and Kandori ignored all of them until then. I suppose that in itself was a victory for Hokuto, that Kandori had to exploit an injury to prove her point. Not that it would've made Hokuto feel any better considering she wound up getting her nose punched through her brain. The most emphatic uppercut you ever did see. 

Incredible match, totally unique in not just all of joshi but wrestling in general. The camera shots of the AJW women in tears as Hokuto faces down the inevitable felt like it captured some real emotion and didn't come across as forced at all. She gave everything she had, went toe-to-toe with the Terminator, threw gut shot for gut shot, punch for punch, but in the end beating Kandori twice is a mountain too high for her to climb. I don't want to be that guy who's giving it all "WELL, I think the less-talked about match is BETTER than the more famous one," because honestly I'm not sure I actually believe that, but I know I was captivated by this in a way I've never been by Dreamslam, as great as that one is. Fuck me this was so good. Best thing I've watched in ages. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #20

Aja Kong & Akira Hokuto v Dynamite Kansai & Yumiko Hotta (AJW, 8/24/94)

This had some stuff I liked a lot and some stuff I wasn't so hot on. It's elimination rules and that changes up the dynamic a bit, namely in that it's going to lead to someone fighting uphill against a couple dogs when their partner goes down. Who would ever want to go it alone against one of those pairings? Who's going to be that unlucky woman, you ask! Well based on how nonchalant she was at the start you'd have put money on it being anyone other than Hokuto. This was as blase as I've ever seen her in a big contest and she was even laughing at Kansai getting in her face before the bell. Maybe it was pure hubris because she was clearly in a bad way here - retirement looming as it was - and I suppose it was fitting that she's the one who was left to fight the odds. I liked the Aja elimination with Hotta and Kansai just battering her about the head until she couldn't stand up. It felt a bit abrupt in one sense, like maybe they could've built to it a bit more, but it made for a cool moment and I guess two of the hardest kickers on the planet kicking your brains out is enough build in and of itself. Hokuto continues to impress the hell out of me and I thought there were moments of this where she was pretty much phenomenal. She can be as grandiose as anyone, but it was the subtleties in her performance this time that I loved. Her quick elimination of Hotta by capitalising on a miscue felt like her one and only chance of evening the odds, then during the finishing run with Kansai it looked like she was a kick in the arse off death's door. Those last few minutes were great and I'm shocked Hokuto and Kansai never had a big singles match. It might've been decent. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #19

Mariko Yoshida v Kyoko Inoue (AJW, 8/30/92)

Yoshida is my favourite women's wrestler ever and ARSION is my favourite style of joshi. ARSION was something unique and Yoshida was the very best at doing what made it so fun. This wasn't that Yoshida and it sure as shit wasn't ARSION. This wasn't Yoshida with the awesome spider-suit and the grappling; it was young plucky flier Yoshida with about four years' experience as a wrestler. And it wasn't amazing or anything, but it was a neat look at one of the coolest wrestlers ever in her more formative years, like Springsteen throwing out word salads on 'Blinded by the Light' before settling into his true calling of telling us about Wendy and the highways jammed with broken heroes on a last chance power drive. She worked most of this from below with Kyoko controlling, often through half and full crabs. It wasn't always the most compelling honestly, but it was interesting how much more established Kyoko felt here than Yoshida despite them both debuting in 1988. Felt like Kyoko had her own style fleshed out a bit more while Yoshida worked almost as if she was a skinny rookie at times. I can't say I have much knowledge of early Yoshida overall though, so maybe she worked as the underdog often (and she was certainly good at it so I suppose that would make sense). It's not until she reels off a few big dives that Yoshida gains some even footing and that segues nicely into the short finishing stretch. It was a really good few minutes with a nice sense of drama. I never knew the result either so naturally I was pulling for Yoshida, and even if the finish wasn't TOTALLY perfect I liked the idea behind it a lot. It felt like a very Yoshida thing to do, just with a dive off the top rather than a Fujiwara armbar. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #18

Aja Kong v Yumiko Hotta (AJW, 1/24/94)

An absolute horror show of a thing. I'm glad I knew more of the backstory this time as well, as it gave all the brutality and violence an extra layer. Aja has been steamrolling everyone for a while now, but Hotta beat her recently in a non-title match and Aja will run through brick walls to see that rectified. These are also two of the stiffest maniacs to ever live so you knew you were getting some potatoes. Aja going apeshit at the start and piledriving Hotta through the table (then launching the table at her) was a great way to kick things off, but Hotta picking up a nasty cut on her hand around this point is what later makes the match so memorable. Until that comes into play they just eviscerate each other. Some of this is ludicrous. Hotta's kicks may never have looked meaner and if you know anything about her then that should tell you something. Aja was hurling them too though, really trying to punt teeth into the crowd and mangle spine, adding a little extra mustard with basically every passing minute. The palm strikes that leave Aja's face swollen up like Jocelyn Wildenstein were insane and that only made Aja even angrier, to the point where Hotta came across as a serious underdog even before all the hand stuff. Hotta, renowned crowbar bully, as de facto babyface because her opponent is THAT much of a bastard. That's wild. And I thought Hotta nailed the role, with probably her very best selling performance from below, garnering sympathy in a way I've never seen her  do before or after. There was a brief spell in the middle where they took it down a notch with a headlock segment, but then the ref' tells Hotta to get her bloody hand checked by the doctor and Aja, presumably on the fly because I can't imagine this was planned pre-match, decides she's going to punch, stomp, twist and kick the thing into uselessness. Any obscure body part work is going to be cool to me and this was right up there with some of the best ever. The close-up camera shots of Aja trying to rip her fingers apart were straight out of the Puerto Rico playbook and then she went and brought the finger-biting to really seal the deal. If I'm being critical I'd have liked them to stick with the hand a little longer, but the overall theme of Hotta being all the way up shit creek continued until the end regardless. I suppose you can boot someone in the face two dozen times as hard as humanly possible, but if that someone is Aja Kong then it might not matter. 

Your Friday FUTEN

Takeshi Ono v Hajime Moriyama (FUTEN, 1/30/11)

Good grief, this was some PREMIUM midcard FUTEN. What a way to open a show. I've seen Moriyama once before and that was against Ikeda, which went about how you'd think. This followed a similar pattern except Ono might've battered him worse. Ono is the best crowbar that ever lived and unloads the entire clip. Is his left jab/backfist combo the GOAT strike combo? A timeless bit of brutality. This actually started out fairly peacefully, at least by your usual FUTEN standards, then Ono got fed up and tried to punt Moriyama out the ring off a rope break. When Moriyama caught him in a heel hook you knew Ono would go buck wild for his disrespect. At least half a dozen moments got the full "holy fuck I can't believe he just did that" reaction from me, including a heinous flying knee to the back of Moriyama's head and then a full force sixty-yarder to the forehead out of a dragon screw. He also pretty much slide tackled him in the face at one point. Moriyama looked like he'd been hit with a shovel by the end but just kept getting up. Like an even more brain damaged Kikuchi, a comparison reinforced by him OPTING to thump Ono with headbutts. I bit on him scoring the upset with a few disgusting suplexes and there was one desperation armbar that I thought for sure was tapping Ono. Just an amazing opener. Ono is peerless, brothers. 

Hayato Jr. Fujita v NARITO (FUTEN, 1/30/11)

Unsurprisingly Hayato was right at home in an Ikeda fed. My goodness what a truculent young man. Please tell me Hayato/Ono is a thing that happened somewhere. This was largely an extended squash, but in FUTEN that usually means some horrific violence and honestly, at points this was beyond the pale even for that. The worst thing NARITO ever could've done was puff his chest out and ask for a fight because Hayato about slapped his jaw off. From then on NARITO took an almighty shit-kicking, coming out the other end with a face that was several shades of purple and two sizes bigger than it had been at the start. Some of Hayato's striking was ridiculous. The dismissive stomp to the face and the several hellish roundhouses were bad enough, but the running knee in the corner was appalling. Loved how NARITO's one inroad came about because Hayato got too cocky and went to the headbutts, forgetting that clonking your skull off someone else's is a double-edged sword and almost knocking himself loopy in the process. Of course it was a fleeting hope and pretty soon NARITO was getting kicked in the neck again. He gets suplexed so hard his mouthguard comes flying out and you're thinking that definitely won't be problematic. You're also dead fucking wrong. 

Some '96 Battlarts

Takeshi Ono v Alexander Otsuka (Battlarts, 1/13/96)

Badass eight minutes. This was the second match on the first ever Battlarts show and a great little intro to what makes these two awesome. It doesn't feel like a particularly prominent singles match-up in the history of Battlarts even though, along with Ishikawa and Ikeda, they're two of whatever your Battlarts equivalent of the All Japan 4 Pillars are (maybe just the Battlarts 4 Pillars?). Without doing a Cagematch check I'd guess this has actually happened as a televised match-up the least of the possible pairings. And that's unfortunate because it's an awesome styles clash sort of match. They gave us a bit of Otsuka chucking folk around with suplexes, a bit of Ono winging strikes, Otsuka rolling him around on the mat, Ono diving at limbs and trying to pull them off. A few moments were a bit tame by Battlarts standards, usually a punch or two by Otsuka, but Ono had already settled into his groove as a striker and reeled off a few corkers. We also got a glimpse of him stepping beyond the bounds of decorum by stomping Otsuka in the back of the head for a near TKO. Really liked a few of the little touches they added as well, like Ono kicking Otsuka's leg out from under him after a takedown attempt so he could properly sink in the heel hook. Super fun bout. 

Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono v Yuki Ishikawa & Katsumi Usuda (Battlarts, 10/4/96)

Look at those names, you know this was good. Even JIP with about five minutes missed, you know this was good. Every match-up works like it always does, but the crux of this was Ikeda and Ono being bigger bastards than their opponents and that leading to Ishikawa/Usuda getting the skin kicked off them for every submission break. Ono about punted Ishikawa's liver through the ceiling and there were several times where Ikeda, from the apron, would just stomp on Usuda's head whenever any action rolled over by that corner. There was also a bit of Ikeda being big brother in this, as most of the partner saves early on were by him when Ono was in a predicament. Ono returned the favour in time, but it was a cool little southern tag-ish wrinkle on the Battlarts formula. 

Taka Michinoku v Minoru Tanaka (Battlarts, 10/30/96)

This was alright. I don't really give a shit about Tanaka and never have, but I have plenty time for Taka and he looked really good in this, mostly with his selling. His springboard missile dropkick was a peach and in typical Battlarts fashion he hit it like he was trying to remove Tanaka's head from his shoulders. You could probably split this into two chapters - the first chapter being the matwork and the second chapter being the finishing run. The matwork part was fine as far as juniors matwork segments go. It at least felt like it had some urgency and wasn't just a way of killing time. There was a bit of duelling legwork for a second there that I actually wish they kept rolling with, because if nothing else Tanaka will throw pretty leg kicks and snap into kneebars with some HASTE. Finishing run was fine and nothing felt eye-rolly. Near-submissions and knockouts at least allow for some extra selling that your 2.999 counts don't so it never got ridiculous. So there you go.