Loss

Changed the thread to something less ... trollish, as S.L.L. maketh a valid point.

If at the very least, people know that When Worlds Collide is not the peak of the style and as good as it gets, then at least something has been accomplished.

I have no objection to people who can't get past that. I don't feel the same way, but there's nothing fundamentally wrong with seeing it that way. My original point was not that any discomfort is unwarranted, but more that you can compare match quality and wrestlers who are men and women to each other and easily have "Which match/wrestler is better?" debates.

You weren't really killed. Most people said they understood and to give it time. I think I even made a specific recommendation that is more "American" in style (Atlantis/Charles, also mentioned above.) Matwork is my favorite thing about lucha libre personally, mainly for the creativity of it.

Kudo was not as flashy as the AJW wrestlers, but she didn't have to be. Her command of the basics was so far above most of the AJW group. She reminds me of a female Norio Honaga more than a female Atsushi Onita.

Depends on who is doing the watching. I don't think teenage girls in Tokyo in the 80s are actively sexist necessarily, but hardcore fans who watch wrestling the way we do ... yeah, probably. Sexist and maybe some other problems there too.

The point is that some people don't know what to make of it and give up because it's so different they can't understand it. As a result, they miss out on some good stuff. I have always loved singles matches, but the trios matches were really hard for me to get into at first. From that thread: Instead of just telling people to basically learn to love it, why not give people who have these problems something to watch that they can enjoy and understand? I was pretty patient and eventually got it, but it took a while. I started looking at most lucha libre as a real life battle between superheroes more than a fake athletic competition, which helped a lot.

This is harder to do than the Joshi thread if only because all of my favorite matches are pretty true. But I'll try to point to good "gateway" matches that are really good and have enough American-style influence that they can be easily enjoyed. Atlantis vs Emilio Charles Jr, 8/11/92 Silver King vs Miguel Perez Jr, 9/22/95

Way too talked about a match to not be represented, even if it doesn't hold up.

So since most of HHH's peak stuff was years ago, I guess the more accurate question is to ask if it was harder to have a good main event during the Attitude era than it is to have a good undercard match now. I haven't paid enough attention to know if the main event style has really changed all that much since the early 2000s.

Maybe this thread is playing into perception that everyone in Joshi wrestles exactly like Manami Toyota, but that's the exact myth we're attempting to dispel.

We're evaluating many wrestlers who don't work in modern WWE and don't work undercard or main event matches in today's version of the promotion. So whether it applies to modern WWE or not, it's not a universal truth. It's probably not something that applies to Nord.

This is unquestionably true, and yet, I have to admit that's how I have joshi classifed in my wrestling brain. So I'm less open to a joshi match that might be good than I would be to pimped matches in most other genres. You almost have to start out by convincing me that the match won't fall into my preconceived notions of what sucks about joshi. That's unlikely to change at this point, but yeah, sexism isn't at the root of my bias. Have you watched Kansai/Kong yet? Main event slugfest with a two-year title chase finally being realized. It's not my favorite Joshi match of the year, but knowing what you like, I think it's the one you are most likely to like.

I guess I deserved that. I have no problem with anyone comparing them. I just hope it's not completely written off that wrestling decent 7-minute undercard matches is very easy compared to trying to work a really good 30-minute main event. As long as that's considered, so be it.

Just started a thread.

Just thought I'd post this for people who struggle to get into Joshi because of some of the stylistic things. If you want more long-term selling and meaningful shifts in momentum, these are matches I'd highly recommend checking out. Akira Hokuto vs Toshiyo Yamada, AJW 5/3/93 Aja Kong vs Megumi Kudo, AJW 12/6/93 Lioness Asuka vs Yumiko Hotta, AJW 3/26/95 My comments aren't overwhelmingly positive, but this is still worth checking out. Aja Kong vs Kyoko Inoue, AJW 8/30/96

I missed this before. Could you elaborate on what you meant?

Both great matches, but I was thinking more off the beaten path. Anyone who has dabbled in Joshi has likely seen both matches. Also, matches that aren't worked in such a go-go-go way with more long term selling and meaningful momentum shifts.

While I understand and more or less agree with the un-bolded part, the bolded part isn't really accurate at all. I mean, I'm not speaking for Will here, because I don't really know where he stands on it, but I talk to enough other wrestling fans that don't particularly like joshi to know that it's not because they dislike Japanese wrestling in general, and it's sure as shit not because they have some kind of psychosexual hang-up about women performing the manly art of professional wrestling. It's a stylistic issue with me, not a gender issue (and I know it's the same for a lot of the people that don't much like joshi). A lot of it is so go-go-go with transitions and momentum swings coming so often that I get taken out of it. That's not just limited to Manami Toyota. Shit, it's not just limited to joshi, either -- I get taken out of it when guys are wrestling like that as well. There are matches where they're running through so much stuff that the things they're doing before it are more or less rendered meaningless. That's obviously not always the case, but most of the joshi I've been watching on the '96 yearbook recently has definitely fallen into that category. Loss posted a Debbie Malenko quote (or paraphrased something she said, I don't remember exactly) in one of the yearbook threads that highlights the kind of allowances you have to make with a lot of joshi. I understand why people like the style and that they accept those allowances. I can accept them as well, and I know what I'm gonna get most of the time, but it doesn't mean I'll like it any more. This point of view I can respect, because it's a problem with style, not a problem with gender. He doesn't care much for Joshi not because they're women, but because the style isn't his thing. So be it. By the way, would YOU be interested in a short list of Joshi For People Who Don't Like Joshi recommendations?

Aja Kong headlined a major promotion during a boom period as world champion facing challengers who were varying degrees of over, with varying degrees of talent, from multiple organizations. Lots there to compare to Flair. Bringing Sherri into the argument is worthless and again is a matter of kayfabe. She wasn't going to headline Mania, but she was a manager/valet for the most part. And quite a few men weren't going to headline Wrestlemania either. Again, that's a point about booking and positioning when that has absolutely nothing to do with what is being talked about. The point is that you can compare match quality of women's matches to match quality of men's matches. Any list of the top 10 matches of the 90s that didn't contain at least one women's match (probably more than that) would be a list missing some stuff it should have.

I know you're right, and I cop to that. A lot of it is in how it's presented. You can do most things tastefully or tastelessly, I guess.

I think you're making the argument in kayfabe terms. The original point was to compare the quality of work. If wrestling was real, sure, keep them separate. But it's a work -- and a performance -- so there's no reason they can't be compared to each other.

I don't know that I have desire to see that personally, just because the implications of violence against women. I suppose that in a roundabout way, that's a progressive utopia. Wrestling is the illusion of sport, so I have no qualms with them being presented separately. But if women are going to be on a separate ballot than men, GOAT ballots should also be separated by weight class, which I suspect goodhelmet doesn't support.

Split off the women in wrestling talk

Well, I don't think those awards should be separate. I think it's archaic and a relic from an era where women were seen as inferior to men. I hate making assumptions, but it's hard not to see "I have no interest in watching women wrestle" as not being chauvinist.