Beech27

I imagine everyone is being tongue-in-cheek, but Dexamethasone is an anti inflammatory—not anabolic—steroid. There’s rodent evidence it actually decreases testosterone levels.

Ishikawa vs Murakami I have a real fondness for the post-90's-boom era of Japanese wrestling, this promotion, and these wrestlers. So, this match is a favorite for me as well. It is something new and something old, immediate and evocative. Murakami is a reckless dickhead. 4 ounce gloves. Kickpads. Hair gel. And the goddamn eyebrows, that sneer enough for the rest of his face--though the rest does participate with cartoonish enthusiasm. Ishikawa is here to defend pro wrestling, and his home promotion. Black trunks. Taped fists. And a stern countenance. Inoki isn't here, but his presence is. Murakami starts how Murakami always starts: swinging. He connects plenty, and with some velocity, but not with enough technique or focus to finish Ishikawa. If you're fighting the "Terrorist of Heisei", you can't give in to terror, and must instead rely on your skills, and the patient application of them. Real confidence over bravado. Ishikawa surviving this way is the story of basically every exchange. He gets caught, but he can get things to the mat and slowly pull Murakami out into deeper waters. Murakami doesn't learn. And so, he gets beat. One perfect punch and one perfect hold. I think @Lamp, broken circa 1988is right about the history here. Both the history each wrestler brings, and the history they represent. Pro wrestling as a fighting sport, fighting other fighting sports. But you don't need any of that, really. If you're steeped in American mythology and pop culture alone, you recognize the young itchy trigger-finger standing in the middle of a red dirt road, facing the old steady shooter, who moves once, and decisively. And on a moment-to-moment level, it's thrilling violence. Love it.

The next time he wrestles Ibushi, that’s going to be countered into a disgusting head drop. (He’s basically leaping into an Emerald Flowsion.) Although, Okada countering into a tombstone is probably the spot to look out for.

Edge attributed the “greatest match ever” thing to Vince in an ESPN interview, and is pretty blunt about not liking it. He thought it was a rib at first.

Murakami/Ishikawa is on YouTube (unlisted) in higher quality, if no one minds an extra post.

The diving headbutt also gives us an anecdote demonstrating how far back "killing the business" critiques go. From a Karl Gotch 1990 interview in the WON: WON: One of the things Larry Malenko told me and I don't mean necessarily Billington or Satoru Sayama is that a lot of wrestlers nowadays look like a trampoline act. KG: That's it. Nowhere could you ever see a guy crawl up on the turnbuckles. It's just like the Empire State building. Just stand there and wait for someone to push you off. Where is it ever logical to put a guy on the turnbuckle while you stand on the second rope? WON: You mean for a suplex? KG: Right. Then there was this other idiot that they made World Champion. This clown who was like a kamikaze. WON: Harley Race? KG: Yeah, Harley Race. He'd dive with the head-butt and he looked like a kamikaze coming in. That's the trip of no return that all these guys travel on the yellow brick road. It's not believable. How do you want people to believe this?

This is maybe a bit pointless to go over, but there still isn't much current news to discuss. Of course, people are jumping on the fact that Dave's source here almost certainly is Omega. But I'm really less interested in that, if only because people fighting about Kenny and Dave on twitter is tiresome. I think the second post is interesting, if not unexpected. Maybe Gedo should say "25 minutes, rainmaker" a little more often, but I digress. Regarding the first post, I admit my first reaction was that that seems unlikely, if only because Okada's such a big deal. But we've discussed at length that Okada basically has his template, and lets the other guy work around it. He's the standard, the constant with which they must contest, however they can. That's the story in almost all of his matches, so perhaps it shouldn't be surprising if the process matches the presentation.

Kawada vs Taue, before they tagged, and before the 90's All Japan main event style would mostly phase out matches of this length and structure.

One possibility that comes to mind, seeing Hayashi on a NOAH card: Kenoh seemed to be building a feud with Tamura before Lidet sold NOAH. So, there's a pretty easy invasion angle to write, considering their sniping at one another, and Kenoh's open disdain for his former corporate bosses.

Well, that is an interesting braintrust, whatever happens. Potentially, they could be to shoot style what DDT is to comedy, and BJW is to deathmatch wrestling, mixing a more stylized variant with relatively conventional pro wrestling. Or they could go all the way with their niche. Either way, at least it's an identity. Wrestle-1 also always did produce good youtube content, which made them very easy to legally follow. They should bring along whomever was behind that work. It's also vaguely relevant now, so I'll post this, which rules.

I want to keep Wrestlemania 30, since I was actually there. And of course, I'd change my mind a dozen times over a dozen days. But: Misawa vs Tsuruta 6/8/90 I already feel I've made a mistake not picking one of the six-man tags that led to this, or came out of it. Those were, of course, great matches with great crowds. But this too is a great match with a great crowd--"great" doesn't do them justice--and it is unique in seeming historical while it happens. The second Spartan X kicks in and the crowd erupts in MI-SA-WA it seems like they know, and they know because they've decided to manifest their want in the universe. (And if the story of Baba changing the finish because of how over Misawa seemed day-of is true, then they basically did.) I mean, I can't know that the people there felt that way, but it feels like it in hindsight. And if I could know, and be a part of it, and not guess--and maybe stick around in Tokyo and catch some tags, but I'd pay for them in order not to violate the rules of this thread--then I think I'd have to do that. Hashimoto vs Takada 4/29/96 This is, I think, the peak of Dome-stuffing King of Sports era New Japan. When Hash lands his first flush leg kick, and Takada looks just the slightest bit worried, and Hash nods "yeah, you should be" without really nodding at all, and the crowd just erupts... I feel like most great Dome matches would actually be more fun to watch anywhere else. But these guys fill it with their broad-strokes macho "legitimacy", which of course they were not, though of course it doesn't matter. Pro wrestling is believing in the fight and fighters you're watching, even though you know better, until you don't actually know better. Hokuto vs Satomura 4/29/01 I need a Hokuto match on this list. This is, of course, not her best--though it is great. I think it functions as a kind of companion piece to my first choice, though. That felt like a beginning--this, an ending. Not just for Hokuto's career, but for Joshi as a significant mainstream strand of wrestling in Japan. There are a million factors and timeline complexities, and so it's too simplistic--even flat out wrong--to say this match marks a clear change in direction. But wrestling is also about making symbolic realities real. And so there's a kind of present-tense nostalgia for a thing not yet entirely past, that seems worth presence.

There are external factors too, such as the rise of the original UWF and Maeda's accompanying outspokenness about the comparative "legitimacy" of his form of pro wrestling.

Just seems like such a pointless exercise, considering the Mutoh shine is long gone, the valuable roster pieces mostly have landed in AJPW or NOAH already, and neither Zero-1 nor Big Japan have closed.

Rollerball Rocco vs Kung Fu To be honest, I bounced right off this match a couple times, and just went to do something else. Which I have not done with many matches that were far worse. It's just that this... I wasn't quite sure what to do with it. But something about the weather suddenly being brutally hot reminded me of a day during summer vacation and my Grandma's house. She had cable, and didn't much care what I used it on, whereas my parents did not, and were relatively strict about violent entertainment. I sat there in the air conditioning with a bowl of cereal and watched a worked martial arts fighting show--probably WMAC Masters based on Googling, but I can't remember. Anyway, it seemed at the time to be the coolest thing anyone could ever see. This was a lot like that. If I had stumbled on this match at my Grandma's house during summer vacation while eating Raisin Bran--she didn't ever have kid's cereal, but that was fine--I would have had no interest in seeing wrestling that looked any other way. And the kids in the room seemed to agree. Even watching it as my present-tense self, the athleticism and execution is obviously impressive, and they're pretty creative deploying those strengths. Rocco gets his hand karate chopped, and then headbutted. That's pretty great. And it doesn't matter and he wins anyway after a low blow, but that's fine. I'm still not sure what to do with this now, but if it was funnel cake and I was 8, walking around the fair grounds, I'd eat it, love it, and maybe even remember it.

I've always wondered if Jumbo accidentally spiking Tenryu on a powerbomb--knocking him out--to emphatically end the first Triple Crown defense influenced Baba's thinking regarding the stylistic drift towards head-drops and violent, decisive finishes based off of them. (Video begins at the finish.) Also, the famous 6/9/95 tag happened 25 years ago today. Whatever the style was called, that was as good as it--or any other, I think--could be.

Wrestle-2 confirmed, I guess. (Why, though?)

New Japan is back on June 15, without fans at first, mostly to run the New Japan Cup. There are lots of juniors and some old folks, so we at least get some unique matches. (Okada vs Gedo in round one is pretty funny, for instance.) The finals will be in Osaka Hall, with 1/3 capacity, and the winner will challenge Naito for both belts the following day with the same seating arrangement.

Will Ospreay is looks like he's taking Daisuke Sekimoto's prescriptions, says he's 227 lbs now, and that his Aerial Assassin days are probably past. (Though he'll still do some flips.)

An anonymous listener wrote in to tell the story of Omega attending a 2005 camp hosted by Harley Race/Pro Wrestling NOAH. It goes that Omega messed up a warm-up leapfrog spot and accidentally headbutted his partner. Because of this and a general feeling he was working too fast and messy, he was shunted into the beginner section of the camp, which meant he wasn't going to get to work matches, which meant there was no way NOAH was going to bring him over. Race did book him in one match for his WLW promotion while Omega was there, after which he was given a developmental deal by WWE. The listener writes that Johnny Ace--who was there to offer one developmental deal and say hi to Kenta Kobashi--was more impressed with Omega than anyone else was, because he saw something in his personality. Overall it basically corroborates what Omega has said, but of course argues that he was sloppy/reckless, whereas Omega says he wasn't, and they just missed on him. He believes Harley was biased towards his own students, and criticized/sidelined him so one of them would get an offer instead.

Quack vs ZSJ I have to admit that, given the two participants and the intro given, I wasn't expecting to like this much. It's not that I dislike either wrestler, so much as I worried this match would bring out the tendency I like least in each: namely, an indulgence in exhibition-style grappling that doesn't look the least bit combative. Of course, they do precisely that; but I found my ready criticism disarmed for the most part. Fancy grapples for their own sake are "bad" insofar as the story of a given match is usually that the involved parties are having an athletic contest and trying to win. So, holds-as-filigree detracts from that narrative. But when the story is that they're having a quasi-friendly (start to the) match, that kind of work suddenly makes sense. And it makes yet more sense in a tournament setting, when both men ought to have one eye on winning, and the other on having enough left to fight again soon. They keep going that way until they don't. Sabre gets grumpy, lays in some strikes, and things pick up. The work here is good, clean, and quickly decisive. This was cleverly done, and a fun example of story and work complimenting.

I’m not sure anyone could have balanced the role of unimpeachable ace/bully with selectively-timed bumping/stooging as well as Jumbo did during this period.

Juice is awesome. He’s just undercut by the fact that his best skill is coming up just short, and then cutting a soul-baring promo about it. That’s incredibly valuable, but might put his ceiling lower than it otherwise could be in New Japan.

Some do for sure. Now, when draws and DQs are much more rare, tournaments are the most likely place to see them. It’s the standard way to eliminate favorites without having them lose a ton. You are right to note that clean finishes were more common as relates to the par of the time than the modern context.

That's a really good point. It's not just surprising that Jumbo gets the clean fall; it's surprising that anyone does. This is amplified by the fact that Mil's rushing of and brawling with Baba is exactly what you'd expect to precede a total breakdown and DQ. So you get to quickly cycle through emotions, going from "ok, they've given us enough of a match, and now they'll avoid a real finish" to "wait, he could actually win this" to "wow, he did win it!"

Chris Brookes vs Gene Munny I had a good time with this. I've never seen Munny before, but he projects the... well, let's say he projects inappropriate charisma appropriately well, and combines it with credible offense when things get serious. Brookes, I know quite a bit better. He spent the last year wrestling in DDT--his manager here has his DDT stable's shirt on--and at the time of this match, had just decided to move to Japan in order to wrestle there full-time. So that, I think, explains his insistence on being billed as an appropriately big deal--while still sneaking in a quick jab at NXT UK. I've seen Brookes work tighter than this--and I've been told he's done good work in more classically catch adjacent promotions--but he's clearly game, even if his execution isn't at its best. I think it's also easy enough to see this as a very DDT match, combining comedy, a little crowd brawling, props, while ultimately being structured around modern indie "strong style". Mostly, all of that worked for me. Brookes is the cocky, traveling heel, who nonetheless resorts to cheating. Munny is the everyman babyface (at least in this match) who proves more capable, and more resilient in the final reckoning. I thought both men tried a couple bits of offense they weren't quite up to executing--though with Munny, that almost fits his character--and Brookes got very leg-slappy with kicks and knees that clearly didn't connect. I also would have preferred a delayed cover on Munny's final kick out--but since Brookes is "leaving the territory", as it were, I can easily see the other side of things. On the whole I found it hit the beats it wanted to: I grinned a few times, and the finishing stretch had some clever in-match call-backs, and an ending that the work built to.