No Point Stance

(179) Akira Nogami vs Kuniaki Kobayashi - Loser Haircut Match | NJPW Fighting Spirit '96 2/3/1996 - YouTube This is a great little upload that I'm guessing won't be online for long.

Wishing you a full and speedy recovery, Matt.

It has that great locandina look, like a repurposed spaghetti western poster.

RIP, Kobayashi-san. I had a real soft spot for the Tiger Hunter and his work. IIRC he had some really stiff, bloody and memorable 'different style fights' with the likes of Akitoshi Saito in the early 1990s too.

Are we doing Secret Satan again this year? The signup thread started mid-September last year and I'm stupidly excited that for once I've remembered S.S. before October was upon us.

This. I introduced m'lady to Spider Baby last night, having not seen it myself in decades, and we were both struck by how strong his performance was.

For some reason I always had it in my head that Johnny Rotten was Mark Hildreth, AKA Van Hammer. I remember the Apter mags around 1991 touting him as 'the next Sid Vicious'.

Anytime I think of Smokey Mountain I hear Kevin's voice yelling "Bahb Ahmstrahng!"

Awww no. One of my favourites. RIP

TAKA had the really cool Yamato suite #4 or whatever it was called, but I think he brought it with from Michinoku Pro.

71st, I reckon, but I respect the reference.

Wow! Thanks, Matt - I can't believe you have the Hase match! D/L'ing now

Wow! Thanks, Matt - I can't believe you have the Hase match! D/L'ing now

Man, I'd never heard of that Inoki-Fujinami-Choshu angle before. It sounds pretty unique, and cool for that reason. I love that the original jungle death match spawned at least two 'sequels' in the early-1990s; an FMW one pitting Atsushi Onita against Tiger Jeet Singh, and a second NJPW iteration with Singh again (did he somehow become synonymous with jungles somehow?), this time facing Hiroshi Hase. The former is easy to find online, albeit in highlight form, but I can't find the Hase match anywhere. I did see it once on VHS and remember enjoying the spectacle and the unique setting more than anything, but I'd love to see it again. Even better is that New Japan produced an action figure set a few years ago to commemorate the '87 Jungle Death Match, comprised of figures of Inoki and Saito, plus a plastic fire brazier. You can still pick them up on Ebay, and one of these days I might just make that purchase. I do own an original Japanese retail VHS tape of the '87 match that I got off Ebay decades ago actually.

El Signo supposedly was not someone to fuck with. I think I've read more than one reference to him being connected with scary people.

IIRC, the December rematch between Inoki, Fujinami and the North-South Connection is pretty great too.

I feel like watching a lengthy run of continuous territorial TV and I'm thinking mostly about starting on Watts' Mid-South. Can anyone recommend a good point to start, IE a hot or historically significant period with more or less the entire TV run available online? That reminds me, the last thing of this type I did was a chronological watch of the complete Smoky Mountain TV and IIRC it was missing an episode or two here and there, like episode 20. Did the absent episodes shown up online yet?

I had this for my Atari ST, because I loved the arcade game. It was dogshit, and immediate buyer's regret.

So Johnny Ace was describing himself as a victim of Vince but now he thinks that the wind's changing so he's denying McMahon did anything wrong? How is this supposed to have any credibility at all?

I'd love to see this one.

For some reason this reminded me of one of my best friends, back when we were kids in the 1980s. His parents got excited about modern living and went out and bought a Betamax VCR and a Commodore VIC-20. I think he still harbours some sort of psychological grievance to this day.

Well...both, IIRC.

Adrian Street and Miss Linda were paired up long before Garvin and Precious, weren't they?

When are we gonna wake up and just burn this corporate model of capitalism to the ground?

Since when have luchadors who dropped famous mask matches been allowed to re-mask? I guess another little grain of integrity in wrestling has been swept into the dustpan of history.