substancej

I'm just trying to imagine what could possibly be the main event for Backlash in Richmond. Granted, it's Richmond. But holy crap, this roster.

It took me YEARS to figure out whether Ultimo was giving Eddy a bridging deathlock or vice versa in that old DVDVR front page image.

Clearly somebody who never wore Zubaz. They were incredible. It was like being naked while covered with a neon green zebra print, the best of all worlds.

You corrected the Kaientai angle but that's not what prompted Delfin's departure by any stretch. It was Michinoku's biggest money drawing angle and Delfin's biggest publicity since the '94 Super Juniors final. The story was that Dick Togo beat Delfin so badly that it broke his spirit, like WWE should have done when Brock destroyed Cena at Summerslam. Togo refused to end the match until Delfin submitted by crawling through his legs. It was a brutal beating to put over the angle. Delfin didn't wrestle for nearly a year, sporadically reappearing in sunglasses claiming to be retired and refusing visits from Sasuke and Naniwa & the camera crew. Delfin finally snapped out of it (camera crew conveniently on hand) and began training with Takehiro Murahama to develop the Osaka Rinkai Upper in addition to building up a bunch of muscle for his return match which would be the culmination of the Kaientai feud on 10.10.97 at Ryogoku. Delfin was always the hero and the focal point. There may have been more planned since NJPW wanted to bring in Kaientai for an invasion of the Juniors division (and even shot an opening angle at a dome show) but Kaientai left for WWF along with Sasuke. Between Sasuke trying to get into WWF and being injured, Delfin was left in charge of Michinoku with only a skeleton crew in early '98. When Sasuke returned his solution to the absence of Kaientai was to work his own heel program against Delfin. Sasuke got a little too into the whole SASUKE Gumi angle and began exposing Delfin's private life as promo material and generally ridiculing him. By the end of 1998 Delfin was either fed up or contractually free to escape to Osaka with his crew. Clearly Michinoku was a sinking ship as Teioh went to BJW and Togo went to Osaka upon leaving WWF. Certainly there was no bad blood between Delfin and Togo.

If you're staying at a hotel in downtown San Jose the light rail will get you to Mania in Santa Clara but that's the only place it'll take you. Getting to the indy shows at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds will require a car. Light rail technically connects to the street the fairgrounds are on but you'd be looking at a 1-2 mile walk through a sketchy as fuck area. A shuttle from downtown would make so much sense but this place just doesn't work that way. I get the impression ROH doesn't know where Redwood City is because that's a solid hour of the heaviest traffic in the south bay. As a lifelong San Jose resident, this sounds horrifying. What have you found so far?

Even his t-shirt hit the juice too hard.

Very much a modern day Hansen. No. No-no-no-no-no. Stan Fucking Hansen should never look like an elderly tourist. I hope whoever took that pic got Lariated into the stone age for that. Fuck. What are you talking about, Hansen has looked like an elderly tourist for the past 30 years. It's his calling card.

Yeah, he was from either Singapore or Taiwan, I forget which. Did a lot on the Spring tour in '98, which unfortunately there isn't a ton of footage of compared to previous and later years. They were low on guys with Kaientai and Sasuke mostly gone so the remaining crew got to shine a lot more. Fun stuff.

Thanks... these guys usually run the flea market down the street. Wouldn't have guessed Liger would show up. Does anyone local know how this was promoted? Was Liger even billed? I'm just baffled I didn't hear about this or that Meltzer didn't say something. Also, Liger wrestling in California less than 24 hours after the ROH show in New York... dude really is super human.

Where was this?! That looks like the rodeo arena in Morgan Hill... if I missed Liger in my back yard I'll be appropriately bummed.

That's pretty typical of the All Asia belts. Compare to Hayabusa & Shinzaki and AJ's relationship with FMW.

Nice shots! I think we must've brushed shoulders on the way in. I'm still going through my pics... I must've shot about 300 before I decided to relax and enjoy the show.

Don't want to burst anyone's bubble but I was at the Z1 show and if you're thinking Hoshikawa did anything "physical," that was not the case. He very slowly moved from his wheelchair to the ring using a 4-footed cane and leg braces. He had to be lifted in and out. He attempted to meet Marufuji in the center of the ring under his own power but his legs locked up and needed to be carried across. He and Marufuji took a sort of collar and elbow tie-up, which allowed Marufuji to hold him up. Hoshikawa did several extremely light and slow "slaps" to Marufuji's face. Marufuji then laid down and Hoshikawa slumped down to cover him for the 3 count. It would have been extremely uncomfortable to sit through if the atmosphere wasn't so surreal. I was actually experiencing the clinical symptoms of shock. At the end of the ceremony he spoke very briefly, just to lead the 3-2-1-Zero1 chant. His voice was very slow and shallow. He received some gag gifts and laughed at them so clearly he's got critical thinking abilities, but whatever brain damage he suffered is still evident. It was very emotional and I think his display of determination ranked as a positive for everyone in the building. One of those "only in Japan" type of things. But if you break it down by the details it was not a pretty scene. Still, I'm glad I was there.