ohtani's jacket

i found the Jumbo/Yatsu vs. Tenryu/Kawada match a bit frustrating. Hierarchy is great and everything, but it's simply a reflection of the hierarchy that existed in real life and an aspect of Japanese culture that permeated numerous other stories. It's not something that was special to All Japan. Any wrestler in Kawada's position would have taken that beating regardless of the promotion. And to be honest, it wasn't much of a beating. This was a month after Kawada's iconic performance against Hansen and Gordy. Here we got more of the same, but it wasn't as good. In the end, it felt academic. Yatsu and Jumbo's reaction summed it up -- a couple of high fives, now it's time to clock off. What bothered me most was you had Tenryu vs. Jumbo, one of the greatest rivalries ever, and all of the focus went on Kawada. To me that's almost chicken shit. If I'm Jumbo, I'm telling Kawada to get the fuck out of the ring because it's Tenryu I want. Not a bad match, but a bit half baked considering what they could have done with it.

Not sure how a person goes through life without seeing Terry Rudge.

Playoff Giannis is ugly to watch. He almost did an ankle trying to force the issue.

You better hope PJ Tucker does a better job than Nurkic managed.

That Fuchi/Malenko match is a cool little bout. You won't see too many more bouts like that after '89. It was kind of a Fuchi special, but it felt like a match you could only see in the 80s. Fuchi went on to have a few more years of delivering bouts like that and then the TV slot change happened and this style of bout petered out. Malenko was kind of a unique worker as well. Not too many workers like him came along after '89.

Rockets fans shouldn't be allowed to talk shit about other team's players after that.

Nathan Fogg is what happens when your guy's never won a title.

One of my favorite acts from '82:

1982 Cont. Of course, we can't forget Maiden. Run to the Hills is one of their best and still works for me: A few other metal tracks: Hip hop in '82 was all about Afrika Bambaataa to me: Dance music was so great in '82: Best R&B/dance crossover of the year:

1982 In many ways, the 80s picks have been the most interesting part of the book. You never know what they're going to pick next. Personally, I think the 80s is a fascinating decade. A lot of people think it's a terrible decade for music, but those folks are only interested in a handful of genres or hate synthesizers. 1982 was a great year for music. Now here are a few talking points: The best song of the year is In Shreds by The Chameleons: Still no XTC? One of their biggest hits was from this year: How can there be no Flock of Seagulls? And now that we have Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel represented, where is Grace Jones? I unashamedly, unabashedly love jangle pop. Don't click on these spoilers if you don't feel the same: The best punk in '82 was UK82 with that crossover metal sound: Some other shit:

Raptors caught napping after the layoff. It happens. I'm expecting this to be a long series, but if the Raptors drop Game 2 they'll lose their whole "don't count as out" momentum.

Sorry to see Donic go, but Kawhi Leonard is a basketball machine.

It's worth noting that Davie Barrie is Les Kellet's kid.

Dort may be a great defender but he needs to stop taking threes.

So much for those Game 1 hot takes about the Bucks and Lakers being in trouble.

There's not a wrestler dead or alive who hasn't been repetitive in some form or another. I don't think there's ever been a wrestler who approached each match like it was an open canvas ready to paint a masterpiece. It's just not realistic. Not with the amount of matches a wrestler workers. You have bad nights, off nights, unimportant nights. The amount of effort and energy it requires to work a great match is impossible to produce night in, night out, and that's not taking into account how many great matches may have occurred simply by chance. It makes sense to fall back on a formula, a routine, some form of shtick. Fans like us like to point to half a dozen big matches where wrestlers are working at their best and tout their artistry, or find minute differences in an assortment of performances and expound on their versatility, but it's all a bit overblown. Having said that, I don't think All Japan's booking reflects the artistry of what the wrestlers were trying to do stylistically. And I'm not saying that as a super fan. In fact, the whole super fan thing turns me off a bit. But if you watch one of the matches outside of that bubble, and you're in the right mood for it, the sheer focus on the match, and really every moment or beat of that match, shows a staggering amount of concentration and focus. I am convinced that if they hadn't had a clear focus on what they wanted to do stylistically, they would have wrestled much looser matches. Escalation is a problem in all styles of wrestling. I can't think of a style that didn't suffer from it over time. There are limits to what can be achieved creatively. The wrestlers would have had to have re-imagined and reinvented the style and created something new. Who's to say they didn't use up all of their creativity creating the style in the first place? In the case of All Japan, I think you can clearly see that NOAH, while it had its differences, wasn't exactly some trailblazing new style. The root cause of the problems in Japan, IMO, is that they didn't get a new wave of wrestlers. For whatever reason, perhaps the diminishing TV presence, they didn't get as many rookie tryouts and new talent in the 90s as they did in the 80s. Without fresh talent, you become stale. New Japan managed to eventually develop some generational talent, but it took them a while. The Japanese wrestling business has always had severe peaks and troughs, even during the Showa era, but it's basically the same as the US market -- an act gets hot and business heats up. That didn't happen in the 90s. Instead, the promoters cashed in on inter-promotional feuds, had a few fat paydays, and nothing they could book after that which could capture the fans' imaginations. As for Hansen, I think there is good Hansen and bad Hansen. A problem I find with wrestling fans is that a lot of people only see the good. If they like a wrestler, everything about them has to be good. The only time you get a balanced take on a guy is when people have contrary views, but often those people think the wrestler is bad. So, it just becomes an argument, good vs. bad, when in fact a warts and all take would be more insightful. I don't think Hansen is complicated, though. He was bat shit blind when he took off his glasses, went full throttle swinging at folks and sometimes connected. If you could take the fight to him, the match was generally good. He was pretty good at selling and generous when the paycheck was good. There are things you wouldn't want to see Hansen do like matwork or bumping and stooging because that would be boring, un-Hansen like, and not cool. Generally speaking, you do not expect Hansen to be a super worker in the vein of Nick Bockwinkel. Hansen belongs in the big man category not the super worker category.

AJPW is the only place where Hansen could have remained great. He would have petered out in any other promotion. He deserves credit for adapting to Baba's new wrestling philosophies, though.

Because Lioness Asuka was a poor seller who only cared about getting her offense in.

Of all the great music Zappa made, they included Valley Girl? The only good thing about that song is that he was a cool dad.

Paul George finished quarantining and is ready to join the Clippers in the bubble.

Looks like Giannis is going to be MVP + DPOY. That ought to send some folks into a meltdown.

Parliament and Funkadelic were a huge influence on West Coast hip hop and G Funk, so it's no surprise that Clinton's solo stuff would also be sampled. I always preferred the shorter edit of The Message to the full length version. The Go-Betweens were a great band. They went on to release some great songs before splitting in '89.

How long are the Rockets going to stick with Mike D'Antoni?

21 point blowout turned into a great game.

The Rockets were toast once Harden fouled out.