This week on Wrestling Omakase we debut our new format that we'll be using to get us through this current pandemic hell! Each week, John and the guest will each choose 2 matches to watch and talk about on the episode. Then we'll each choose a third match, which we'll put up to a vote on the @wrestleomakase Twitter account, letting the listeners choose our fifth and final match of the week! It's a fun retro format featuring all sorts of different wrestling!

Our first guest for the 5 Matches format is none other than the King of Banter himself, Joe Lanza of the Voices of Wrestling flagship podcast (@voiceswrestling). Joe and John open things up with some talk about how they're each adjusting to pandemic life, and John explains a little about why they're not all that interested in covering the few empty arena wrestling shows that are still happening. Once that's out of the way they get into their matches, and here they all are in order along with where you can watch them yourself:

1. Midnight Express vs. The Fantastics, WCCW 1/26/85 (WWE Network: https://watch.wwe.com/episode/WCCW-2268)

2. Meiko Satomura vs. Sareee, Sendai Girls 4/16/19 (https://rutube.ru/video/844658c07b4ad72f6c4b6417ce3dd504/)

3. Kota Ibushi vs. El Generico vs. Nick Jackson vs. Jigsaw, CHIKARA 3/28/09 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XesuznnHaA)

4. Sanshiro Takagi vs. Minoru Suzuki, DDT 6/1/17 (DDT Universe, no subscription required: https://www.ddtpro.com/universe/videos/2040)

5. Steve Austin vs. Chris Benoit, WWE 5/31/01 (WWE Network: https://watch.wwe.com/episode/SmackDown-4781)

These matches give us all sorts of jumping off points including John and Joe's history attending many of the same shows and venues (and a few they didn't attend!), the current CINEMATIC WRESTLING boom, US indie style from 11 years ago leading into AEW, and much more. It's a packed two hours covering all sorts of different wrestling, this week!

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