UFC on ESPN 43 3/25/23: Victor Altamirano vs. Vinicius Salvador 3R. This was the best opening fight we've seen on a UFC show in a long time. These two are fast and creative strikers who are very aggressive and willing to take chances. Altamirano threw a lot of spinning strikes, while Salvador tried to utilize capoeira and karate, with a decided Anderson Silva bend. Certainly, neither fighter was there to play it safe. The big difference was Altamirano was the better wrestler, and had control time that distinguished him from the striking sequences, which were rather even. Well, at least that's normally what happens in this sort of match, but later on we saw horrible judging rob Andrea Lee of what would normally have been the most clearcut of victories, with good old corrupt Kimbo favoring official Dan Mirogliotta, who by now should, at best, have been relegated to the role of Steve Mazzagatti's assistant timekeeper, instead being elevated to judge as well, where he conveniently "did what was best for the company" by giving an insane 30-27 to the young fighter the promotion is trying to push in Maycee Barber. Salvador had takedowns and a hip wheel of his own in the second round, which he won despite no control time, but the highlight of the round was Altamirano landing a superkick that actually had some impact. Altamirano also connected with a nice high kick late in the round. Altamirano had a take down early in the third, and he was able to control with his takedowns, with 2+ minutes in both the 1st & 3rd rounds compared to Salvador's 0:14 in the 2nd. Salvador was pursuing in the second-half of this round once he got up, but his hooks were awfully wide. Altamirano had two spinning backfists in the 3rd, though the 1st just hit the shoulder. Definitely though, this fight was more notable for the wild things they were trying than the ground control that resulted in no damage, but Altamirano was also the better striker because his shots were tighter and more compact. Altamirano won a unanimous decision 29–28. Good match.

AEW Dynamite #181 3/23/23: El Hijo del Vikingo vs. Kenny Omega 16:53.
DC: AAA Mega Champion Hijo del Vikingo attacked Kenny Omega right away with a top suicida, followed up with a tope con giro and a springboard dropkick. While this match wasn’t for any title, it was a true dream match for pro wrestling fans, as it featured two of the most talented performers in the world of pro wrestling today. The match continued in spectacular fashion, with Vikingo hitting his spots so well and so cleanly. The amount of amazing moves executed by Vikingo is basically too numerous to mentioned here. Furthermore, this match simply should be watched by anyone interested in seeing a great current era pro wrestling match. It’s rare for a match featuring Omega for Omega not to be the one who is the most spectacular worker in the match. Vikingo really got his opportunity to shine in his AEW debut, and this is the perfect introduction to his work in front of a wide audience, many of whom may or may not be familiar with Vikingo’s work. Vikingo’s reputation was known to many of the wrestling fans paying attention to international wrestling, but this match really gave this Mexican superstar the exposure he deserves. While Omega gave a strong performance, it seemed that he wasn’t working at 100% here, perhaps due to residues of injuries. Even if this was indeed the case, Omega not at 100% is still a lot better than most wrestlers. This was the great match that those of us familiar with Vikingo’s work knew that Vikingo was capable of, and here with a top notch opponent, he was able to reach peak levels of greatness. The chemistry between these two was tremendous, the execution was so crisp and smooth, and the difficulty level was really high. The amount of insanely crazy moves was quite amazing. Overall, this was a great match, a MOTYC and the best AEW singles match in the history of the company. It was almost as great as the NJPW 1/4/23 Will Ospreay vs. Kenny Omega match, which was just slightly better. The Ospreay vs. Omega match had better storytelling, and it was twice the length of this AEW match, which was essentially a great spotfest. Either way, this was extremely enjoyable to watch. ****½   

ML: Kenny Omega has had a number of great matches, but this was much different than his typical great match, to the point it's the greatest Kenny Omega match that isn't a Kenny Omega match. Normally, Omega is the one that has to make the match with his offense, and the less competent and capable the opponent (*cough Okada *cough), the more he has to pull out all the stops to find a way to make it memorable. Vikingo is faster, more athletic and spectacular though than even a young healthy Omega. What he needed was to get over in his AEW debut because people who don't follow AAA probably haven't seen him, and as such Omega took on the role of being the base for Vikingo's flying, and did as much as he possibly could to create a new star in the USA and AEW, other than actually laying down for him, of course. This was also good for Omega because he isn't 100%, and thus letting Vikingo be the stuntman, including breaking Omega's signature big match table with a 630, made it more feasible for Omega to be trying to put on his second great singles match of 2023 in as many attempts. This match was very much on the short side, but even if they weren't trying to half protect Omega's body, Vikingo isn't someone who benefits from more time as much as most wrestlers who actually try to do something with it. His game is all about being super spectacular, and thus he's better served when the action is as fast and frantic as possible. Finding ways to surprise and awe with athletic feats is his thing, and his amazing ability to balance on the ropes allows him to do a lot of his own variations on moves that were already more or less the best of their time, but there's only so many flips you can incorporate into a match, and exchanging submissions that are obviously fruitless and futile isn't going to help things. Also, Vikingo only has 37 singles matches in the Cagematch database, which even by lucha standards seems incredibly few over the course of 7 years, especially when 6 of them are AAA Mega Title matches since an injured Kenny Omega vacated on 11/22/21, and due to that Omega is unfortunately an opponent he has yet to wrestle in any capacity. Even though this just showed up out of nowhere and was lacking some of the substance, drama, and big offense we expect from Omega at his finest, this might still be the best match in the history of AEW. It's probably slightly better than Omega vs. Rey Fenix 1/6/21, Adam Page vs. Bryan Danielson 1/5/22, Omega vs. Danielson 9/22/21, and the Lucha Bros vs. Young Bucks 9/5/21 cage match, and on par with the 8/31/19 Lucha Bros vs. Young Bucks ladder match. It's one of those once in a lifetime kind of national TV matches, at least in America, but it's definitely not the best match they are capable of because Omega more or less plays rudo rather than himself. That being said, Vikingo goes above and beyond super spectacular, and Omega has so much natural talent that even when he isn't utilizing it to the fullest, he is still a thousand times more interesting than your generic roughhouser, as he was able to combine smarts with enough of his high impact offense and a few incredible athletic bumps. ****1/2

NJPW Wrestle Kingdom 17 In Tokyo Dome 1/4/23 IWGP United States Heavyweight Title Will Ospreay vs. Kenny Omega 34:38. Excluding an AEW Dark match against the artist formerly known as Mr. X3, this was Kenny Omega's first singles match since losing the AEW World Title to Hangman Page on 11/13/21. Omega was on top at the height of 21st century New Japan, managing to pull memorable matches out of both the overrated and over the hill, including corporate robot Okada, the staller Naito, and repetitive Tanahashi, as well as guys like Goto & Ishii that actually put forth the effort and are quite good, deserving of far better than whatever few scraps they got from Gedo. This was Omega's first match back since losing the IWGP Heavyweight Title to Tanahashi on 1/4/19, and boy has New Japan missed him, as their roster had no hope to recover once they lost so many of their top performers at the start of 2019, including their best singles wrestler in Omega, best tag team in the Young Bucks, and best junior KUSHIDA to WWE because they wouldn't give him any possibility of advancement despite the majority of their heavyweights having started off as juniors, including his former rivals Omega, Ibushi, Ospreay, & Prince Devitt. There wasn't much new of interest in NJPW since the formation of AEW other than Shingo Takagi getting a run and the promotion of Ospreay & Ibushi. Most of the foreigners were gone during COVID other than the great Zack Sabre Jr., who was mostly wasted teaming with awful Taichi, and all the natives in this aging company of 40+ year olds are just four years older and more broken down now, with the youngest native in the 2022 G1 Climax being SANADA, who was born in 1988, but there are still some dream matches for Omega in New Japan, and one that everyone has wanted to see was against Will Ospreay, who hadn't yet been shifted to heavyweight during the time he & Omega were in the promotion together. This was the best sort of high profile New Japan match, as when every big match is going 30-35 minutes, what becomes really important is consistency. This is also the thing that's most lacking, generally, as the length just puts guys, especially when they're old and broken, into time shaving mode, and for the most part at least half the match has technically passed before it really gets started. Omega vs. Ospreay didn't quite feel like a junior match in the sense of it being fast paced and explosive, it was more dramatic and hard hitting despite having all those moves, which were just spaced out more and done at a more moderate pace. Omega always felt like the favorite, and while Ospreay was the more spectacular of the two when he was on offense, unlike the AEW Vikingo match where Omega mostly was the rudo base, Omega got the majority of the offense here, and thus brought plenty of big, hard hitting power offense and athletic moves, whether it be the poisonrana or the avalanche style Dragon suplex that Ospreay landed on his feet to avoid. Omega's big show table was used, of course, with Omega putting a hole through it with a double footstomp off the apron then Ospreay suplexing Omega onto it to set up his sky twister press to the floor. The first half was all very good, useful, and interesting stuff, but the crux of the match came when when Ospreay tried to set up an avalanche style move of his own, but bladed when Omega countered it by DDTing him on the exposed top turnbuckle. This really slowed the match down, as Ospreay sold huge for several minutes, but it slowed it down in a very dramatic and effective manner, with a sadistic Kenny Omega essentially just beating him when he was down & out, but somehow never quite being able to finish the wounded but determined warrior. Although Will barely did anything for a lengthy stretch beyond show a ton of heart and fighting spirit in refusing to quit, the selling during this portion was quite good, as rather than Ospreay just laying around endlessly, Omega stayed on him, and thus the ref and officials looked good playing up the idea that they were contemplating stopping the match rather than ridiculous because they allowed a guy who was KO'd for 2 minutes to continue. They did a great job of building up to Ospreay finally coming back, only to fantastically fool us by having Omega counter the avalanche style Frankensteiner by dropping poor Ospreay headfirst onto the exposed turnbuckle again! This was such a great ironic spot, and after several more minutes of Ospreay getting beat within an inch of life, he finally got backflipped taking a clothesline, but in landing on his feet, he was able to come back with a Ligerbomb. My biggest criticism of this match, and this shows how amazing it was, is that they did such a great job of putting over near dead Ospreay that it was hard to buy his huge fast comeback without something equally massive as the big turnbuckle spot to slow Omega down. Ospreay threw all he had at Omega during this brief stretch, but was too far gone, and even though they were mostly exchanging big shots in the final few minutes, Omega just had too much more left in the tank for him. Although it shows how badly Tony Khan owns Gedo that Omega, coming off nearly a 14 month singles layoff, still takes the New Japan title on New Japan's biggest show of the year, with Gedo getting nothing comparable or even useful in return, the Ospreay underdog storyline was done so well by the wrestlers themselves that the loss still helped Ospreay, though obviously not as much as the win should have. ****1/2

UFC 286 3/18/23: Justin Gaethje vs. Rafael Fiziev 3R. Gaethje is just surefire excitement. The guy is never in a dull fight, and this was no exception. The difference here is he was the underdog against a fantastic, super fast striker that no one really wants to face because Fiziev's talent greatly exceeds his name value and ranking. Gaethje never shies away from a tough scrap though, and gave Fiziev a chance to really jump up in the rankings after Fiziev finished fading future Hall of Famer Rafael dos Anjos last July. Gaethje tried to fight on the outside in the first round, but Fiziev's speed is so outstanding that giving him space led to getting beat to the punch a little more often then not. Both are really good technical strikers, but Fiziev is more content to keep things technical and rely on beating the opponent with his physical advantages than Gaethje, who relies more on wearing the opponent down through endless pressure and getting a lot of little wins by forcing mistakes through what is sometimes considered more of a brawling game in the sense that he's exchanging shots at a really high pace. Gaethje might get hit in these exchanges, but he's great at avoiding or deflecting the majority of the damage, whereas his opponents who fight a slower and more conservative style tend to take the bigger shots more cleanly when they lose their gameplan and just start exchanging with him trying to go 1 for 1 or 2 for 2. That was again the case in this fight, though mainly in the 2nd half. Fiziev did a really good job of working the body, both with punches and kicks, but Gaethje also blocked or deflected a lot of these with his arms and elbows. Fiziev got off to a good start in the second after winning the first round narrowly, closing the distance explosively with a powerful body knee. Fiziev was doing a better job of reacting to Gaethje's entry, and backing up fast enough that Gaethje found himself reaching and coming up short on his punches. Gaethje began to step forward when Fiziev threw, which was both helping him get inside of Fiziev's kicks, as well as giving him a much better chance to land his counter punches. At close range, Gaethje might take a shot, but he was now able to land his counter hooks, and he was finishing the sequences at least, rather than allowing Fiziev to land and escape. Gaethje became accurate with his short hooks in the second-half of the second round, cutting Fiziev around both eyes. This was another close round, but if nothing else, the damage from the cuts probably swayed the judges Gaethje's favor. Basically Fiziev won the 1st half of the round, but Gaethje won the 2nd half of the round, and his short hooks landed cleaner than Fiziev's body shots, which were often partially deflected, though Fiziev appparently outlanded Gaethje by a handful, as in the 1st round. Fiziev again started the third round strong explosively closing the distance, but as the round progressed, finally Gaethje was able to be the one advancing, and that really changed the dynamic of the fight. Gaethje got his jab going, and was super accurate with it in the second half of this round, with Fiziev's right eye starting to look pretty bad. Once Gaethje had Fiziev thinking about the jab, he could lead with hooks, overhands, or uppercuts with some success, or he could just put these behind the jab. This was by no means a 10-8 round, as idiot judge Paul Sutherland scored it to make the fight a draw on his card, but everyone's scoring was just terrible all night. Sutherland giving all 3 rounds to Marvin Vettori may have been the most aggregious card (Roman Dolidze at least won R1), but Daniel Cormier's wrestling bias somehow convincing people that Kamaru Usman was having any actual success in a main event where Leon Edwards constantly either defended his takedown attempt or got back to his feet quickly without Usman doing any but try to hold onto him was the most annoying to me. I mean, even though Michael Bisping was clearly rooting for fellow Brit Edwards, he was doing less harm in the sense that this was a fight where Usman had no answer for Edwards low and middle kicks, nor had any real offense, yet people are somehow claiming was perhaps a draw because a couple of Usman's 15 takedown attempts were momentarily successful. In any case, Gaethje won a majority decision 29-28, 29-28, 28-28. The fight was perhaps the best we've seen thusfar in 2023, though insanely by Gaethje's own ridiculous standards it's just kind of average, to be expected action wise, with the bonus of him finding a way to finish big and steal it after being behind for the first half. Excellent match.

AJW 11/28/93 Osaka-Jo Hall, First Attack Captain Fall Survival War: Akira Hokuto & Suzuka Minami & Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Dynamite Kansai & Devil Masami & Plum Mariko 41:45.
DC: This was a great interpromotional battle between AJW and JWP. While AJW was the bigger league, in interpromotional matches in the months leading up to this show (AJW Wrestling Queendom), JWP had proven themselves to be a league that shouldn’t be overlooked. This match featured eight high caliber workers. Suzuka Minami and Devil Masami were the ones starting this match off for their respective teams. Masami showed a lot of intensity and power. Masami almost pinned Suzuka after about four minutes, but Suzuka managed to survive. After this first 5-minute period, Mima Shimoda and Mayumi Ozaki battled each other. The work shown by these two was super crisp, and they showed a lot of determination while still managing to work fluid sequences. After some intense slapping, there was some intense hair pulling. They never decreased their level of intensity, and they would always keep reacting to each other so well. Ozaki’s execution was slightly better than Shimoda’s execution, but this segment was overall quite excellent. The next segment was Etsuko Mita vs. Plum Mariko. These two couldn’t really live up to the excellence displayed by Shimoda and Ozaki (of course, there’s no shame in that), but it was still a very good segment. Mita was somewhat dominant at times, but Mariko’s ability to apply submission holds from out of nowhere made her a dangerous opponent. Mariko ended up being the more impressive of the two, because she used her speed to keep outmaneuvering Mita. Up next, were the big stars Akira Hokuto vs. Dynamite Kansai. Hokuto showed a lot of confidence and attitude. Hokuto was ready to defend the honor of AJW, but Kansai overwhelmed Hokuto early on with some stiff low kicks to the left leg that were sold well by Hokuto. Earlier that year, Hokuto had some severe trouble with her left knee, and that’s why these kicks by Kansai had even more of an impact. At some point, Kansai even kicked Hokuto right in the face. This excellent segment came to an end just as Kansai went for Splash Mountain. Hokuto’s tag team partners came to her rescue. Since the four singles match segments were now over, this match went to the 8-woman tag team elimination portion. This twist makes it slightly different from the legendary match that took place at JWP Thunder Queen Battle (since that match featured iron man rules instead of elimination rules). After several minutes of back-and-forth action between several pairings, Minami pinned Mariko, which meant Mariko was the first one eliminated from this match. With the help of her tag team partner Mita, Shimoda executed a beautiful springboard splash to the floor onto Kansai and Masami. After some brief brawling on the floor, the action moved back into the ring. Marine Wolves (Hokuto & Minami) went for a double missile dropkick attack on Masami, but Masami moved out of the way. Still, not long after that, Hokuto was able to pin Masami anyway. Team JWP was now down two people, while Team AJW still had all four participants on board. It would now have to take pretty much a miracle for Team JWP to win this, but if anyone could do it, perhaps Ozaki & Kansai would be the team to overcome the odds. After all, it was the team of Ozaki & Kansai that had participated in what was arguably the greatest tag team match in all of pro wrestling history on 11/26/92. Things weren’t looking good for Kansai when she was on the receiving end of a quadruple flying headbutt. Ozaki used quickness and technique to surprise Shimoda with a tequila sunrise, which resulted in a pinfall. Shimoda was the first member of the AJW team to be eliminated, and it seemed not too much of a stretch to believe that Ozaki & Kansai could indeed somehow pull this miracle off. Ozaki was on a roll now, and she hit several cool moves. Ozaki & Kansai hit a double flying headbutt attack, but it didn’t result in a pinfall. There were all kinds of near falls happening at this point, but everyone kept surviving. When Kansai pinned Mita, things were looking really good for Ozaki & Kansai. They kept the momentum going, and they even managed to pin AJW team captain Minami soon after! Due to the stipulation of the match ending once the team captain gets eliminated, Hokuto never needed to be eliminated. The match was now over, and Ozaki & Kansai had done what initially seemed impossible, as they overcame all odds and beat the AJW team after the other two JWP wrestlers on the JWP team had been eliminated. This was a particularly huge victory because of this JWP win happening at an AJW event (Wrestling Queendom). This was a great and exciting wrestling match featuring intriguing action from start to finish. ****¾

ML: For me, this has always been one of the most underrated matches of all-time. It is the closest thing, and only real legitimate successor to the JWP 7/31/93 First Attack Single Match Rule 60:00 Full Time Match, which is as much to its benefit as its detriment. In other words, had this match taken place in any other year, it would be a strong MOTY candidate, but coming just 4 months after the best gimmick match in the history of wrestling, which was also maybe the 2nd best women's tag match behind the 11/26/92 Toshiyo Yamada & Manami Toyota vs. Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki, even with a different structure and rules, it didn't quite seem original, and kind of ended up lost in the sea of ****+ joshi matches from the amazing interpromotional period. For Kansai & Ozaki, it was maybe their 6th best match in the year interpromotional period behind the 1/15/93 tag with Hotta & Takako and the other tags with Yamada & Toyota. There are a few other Ozaki vs. AJW tags that are in the conversation as well between the DREAMSLAM match with Cuty and the 12/1/92 JWP tag match with Hikari against Hotta & Takako, but even though you could make a case for a few other matches replacing this one since others felt more dramatic and/or substantial, and something like the first Ozaki vs. Kansai Dress Up Wild Fight has aged better since it was less tied to the now more dated offense of the era, give or take these wound up essentially being the best handful of matches of brilliant careers that spanned 4-5 decades packed into this one brief amazing period. The other thing that hurt the match it is the show itself, while 100,000 times better than something like AEW/NJPW Forbidden Door that is somehow considered show of 2022 despite only having one even semi notable match in ZSJ vs. Claudio Castagnoli (***1/4 at best, though still better than the Ospreay vs. Gedobot G1 "MOTY"), only had one other **** match in Toshiyo Yamada vs. Manami Toyota, which compared to DREAMSLAM I & 2, or even the Budokan Legacy of Queens and WRESTLE MARINEPIAD '93 shows, was a big step down from the sort of top to bottom off the charts standard the AJW interpromotional shows were setting. The format here is really interesting, and one that I wish was explored further. The four singles matches that start this tag match are both good for setting up competitive and interesting pairings, as well as building rivalries and creating future matches. Admittedly, the pairings here are a little awkward, as it's not so much an AJW team as just Hokuto's friends, so there aren't really choices given LCO has 4 members. The Thunder Queen Battle was thus better at actually finding more comparable opponents for the JWP team, but regardless being the newer and smaller league, the JWP team isn't really respected or seen to be on the same level as the AJW team, even though reasonably Kansai, Ozaki, & Masami are their 3 top wrestlers (Cuty is more of an attraction), whereas Minami was never really pushed to the level she should have been in AJW during the end of the 80's/early 90's transition period when she was legitimately among their handful of best workers, and while future hall of famers, Shimoda & Mita are just coming out of the developmental state at this point, as they lagged behind Yamada, Toyota, & Kyoko quite a bit in the early days, but more than made up for it in the later part of this decade. Masami is still in shape here, and wrestling like one of the few people who could go with her immortal trainer Jaguar Yokota in the early to mid 80's, rather than the Undertaker wannabe she too often portrayed in the middle of the 90's or the slower, heavier, and more lethargic worker that was predictably completely unmotived in the retirement home known as GAEA in the 00's. Her portion with Suzuka is not particularly competitive, but notable as I said for Masami largely doing the AJW high workrate style. Shimoda didn't really seem able to keep up with Ozaki, and their segment was a little sloppy due to her, at least for the level of Ozaki has been working on in this interpromotional program, which is wrestler of the year level for sure (along with Hokuto), more or less stealing the show every time. Though, at this point in her career, Mita was arguably the worst wrestler involved in the match, this pairing with Plum was really good because they were able to develop the large powerful woman vs. speedy opportunistic woman dynamic really well. It was almost like a lucha sequence in the sense that Mita was the base for Plum to work off of with her athletic moves, but they developed the submission aspect a more than you would usually see in that style. Hokuto was clearly the most dramatic in the match, and did the best job manufacturing the heat and rivalry, building anticipation, & telling the story. It didn't take Kansai long to attack Hokuto's bad knee, which played off the (by their standards) disaster main event last month at MARINEPIAD where Hokuto apparently really couldn't go against Aja Kong. Hokuto/Kansai went on last because they were the biggest stars, but really should have been the opening sequence in the sense that what they were able to bring to the table really set the tone for the match and dragged the viewer into it, unlike the other segments, which were all more or less entertaining, well worked action segments that didn't exactly go beyond that. In the end, the first two segments were fine, the third one was really good and felt exciting and fresh, and the final one was a mini main event between two of the biggest stars in the business where Kansai really impressed that much more due to Hokuto's story telling, already getting to the point where she theoretically could have pinned Hokuto in the splash mountain had the time not conveniently expired, allowing Hokuto's partners to save and start the elimination tag portion. The action really took off here, with a quadruple superplex from the JWP team. While the first ten minutes fall a bit short, the elimination tag second half of the match is much better than the 4 singles matches because now some of the lesser wrestlers really become an asset in the numbers game since they can all work, and thus that allows them to really push the pace and go wild with eight more or less fresh women for a 20 minute spotfest tag. It's unfortunate that Mariko was eliminated so quickly, as she was one of the better workers when she was involved. Despite everyone on the AJW side being at least an excellent worker at their peak, the JWP team is by far the more impressive lot, as they are more polished and well rounded workers as a group, and more towards their peak (outside of Masami, the other three were in the midst of the best say 18 months of their career), but Hokuto nonetheless was the one who was elevating the match beyond the typical array of impressive high paced sequences and counters, and if she were healthier, might have singlehandedly been able to even the scales. The booking begins to make the match with the continued JWP underdog storyline where Hokuto flips off the JWP corner after eliminating Devil to put the AJW team up two wrestlers, then goes hard trying to eliminate Ozaki to leave Kansai friendless and helpless. The work in the second-half is very frantic and urgent, and of a much higher caliber than we saw in the first half. These women are almost all better in tag than in singles because of the fast-paced athletic style, and the more women involved, the more they can really keep it coming hot and heavy. As you'd expect, Hokuto, Ozaki, & Kansai were the stars that shined brightest, and the match was really built around them anyway, which is one of the reasons it was so good. Definitely one of the best aspects of the match is there is almost no downtime, and what there waws all came early on before things really got going. Matches near this length have become common, but at the same time length has also become a detriment to the match quality in most cases because Naito is going to do his handful of meaningless big moves and absolutely nothing else whether the match is 35 minutes or 15, Punk will do 1 move a minute despite knowing real fights never stop from his immortal foray into being an MMA imposter, and of course will still manage to get injured, and certainly the less time devoted to MJF's comical drama and submission killing overselling and general buffoonery the better. Length made the match something special in this 90's era because they had to do a lot more to keep it entertaining for such a long period, and honestly you'd be hard pressed to find a joshi match from the early 90's that was exceptionally long without them going hard for at least the majority of the time because more or less everyone had an exceptional work ethic and, outside of needing a draw to make the JGP standings work out, they'd just book a shorter match if there was no reason for it to be long. If anything, despite being over 40 minutes, this match felt 5 minutes short, as the turnaround from JWP being down and out in Osaka hills to eliminating Mita then Minami to win came awfully quickly. Obviously Minami being the captain of LCO was awkward, so the booking waisn't flawless, but it's nonetheless another great match and against the odds upset for JWP. ****3/4