Loss

Giant Baba v Bruno Sammartino - JWA 08/07/68 THIS is the Baba/Bruno match you want to see! Bruno is really motivated and fired up, and he and Baba have an excellent match with some really awesome matwork. The matwork is great more because of the passion of both guys than it is that they're doing anything all that out of the ordinary, but they also work at a pretty fast pace and do a terrific job building to a finish. I know that all sounds a little generic, but it's really the best way I know to surmise this. Better than any Bruno match I've ever seen, and another great match to add to Baba's resume as well. I've seen plenty of 70s Bruno and can't really recall him working the mat this much at any other time. Novelty!

Giant Baba v Gene Kiniski - JWA 08/14/67 Another really strong Baba match that I've never heard all that much about. Someone should really comp Baba, as I think it would do a lot for his reputation, and maybe convert a few people that just don't seem to get him. Kiniski is good in this match, but I was more impressed with Baba's fire and it seemed like he was actually calling spots in this match at times, which is weird considering the heel is usually in that role. A shade better than the Fritz match because there's more wrestling, but it escalates into a brawl which is also really well done, as the whole build is about tempers eventually flaring. Great match! Giant Baba v Bruno Sammartino - JWA 03/02/67 I like Bruno just fine, but this match was disappointing to me, and it really wasn't because of Baba so much as it was that Bruno seemed disconnected from the match and didn't really want to do much. Not really much of a showing here, and they'd have a far better match the next year. This largely bored me. I'm still including it on my list so it's known that I've watched it, but I don't recommend that everyone else run out and watch it too.

Giant Baba v Fritz Von Erich - JWA 12/03/66 This was a really outstanding brawl. Fritz seems to be a really capable worker, and I look forward to watching more of his stuff as I watch more and more 70s All Japan. Baba shows that he can work a really good brawl when matched with an opponent that remembers to work wrestling spots into the match, and both come out looking really good. Fritz is a monster, but he's a monster who sells. He dominates early and for a long time, but it leads to some good paybacks and Baba knows how to time a babyface comeback really well. Something everyone should see, as both guys had a really strong performance.

The Destroyer v Toyonobori - JWA 02/26/65 I don't really have a lot to say about this one, other than this is a valuable match to see because Toyonobori pretty much does nothing and Destroyer has to carry him every step of the way. He does a terrific job doing so, but in a match like this, the better worker is pretty much stripped down to formula, but lucky for Beyer, he has a great formula that's enough to make this a three-star match with virtually no help from his opponent. The difference between Destroyer going all out in a match with a slug and someone like Kurt Angle doing it is that Beyer doesn't forget that he needs to make his opponent look good in the process. Actually, there are a million differences in how Angle and Destroyer approach their opponents, but that's the most important distinction to me. An hour was really pushing it here, though, despite Dick's best efforts.

Rikidozan v The Destroyer - JWA 12/02/63 It was mentioned that I may be watching the clipped version of this, but this is apparently a version that aired on G+ within the past few years, so maybe not. Anyway, this was a really good match with lots of stalling, which is something I always enjoy when it's done right, but it's more of a showcase of Destroyer's heeldom than it is a great match. Of course, that's always pretty entertaining in its own right, as he does a lot to put over Rikidozan throughout the match, although at times it's to a point where he looks like a bit of a fool. A very good match, enjoyable and full of energy, but not a classic.

And yeah, I always thought that was ridiculous too, because Piper calling Rhonda Singh fat wasn't going to magically make WCW the number one company.

I believe that S & P probably restricted them from doing some things, but there's nothing they would have done where they needed to be more lewd than a show like Assy McGee if they wanted to equal the raunch of WWE. WWE wasn't really any more wild than that, and prime time is usually the easiest time slot to get away with stuff like that.

The only really interesting point from all of this to me is that Assy McGee is a pretty lewd cartoon that airs on Turner Broadcasting, yet Bischoff has always argued that Time Warner insisted on TBS shows being for the family, and used that as an excuse for why they couldn't be competitive with the WWF. Obviously, that's not true.

That actually sounds pretty accurate, and would make sense giving the match. I was thinking the figure four was a decision.

I'm a major Baba supporter, and you won't find any argument from me there. Baba was really great in this match, and perhaps I understated that. This was not a carry job, but I focused more on Destroyer because this was the first time I had seen him in the context of a really long match when I first watched this. The Mascaras and Hansen matches are terrific also (and I'll get to both of them soon enough), but this match I think is the best showcase for Destroyer I've come across thus far. As for Baba, you are right that he knew what to do with everything he was given. It's just very easy to overlook that because Destroyer has such a huge presence and does so many things so well.

Lou Thesz v Rikidozan - JWA 10/13/57 Another great match! More of a fired up battle of wills than a wrestling clinic in this case, although there's plenty of wrestling to be had as well. Thesz was all about establishing Rikidozan as his evil in the previous match, while this match was more about Thesz showing his aggression. That's not to say he dominates, as Rikidozan gets in his fair share of offense too, but this is a more dynamite example of Thesz working as a threat while the idea behind the other match was one where the champ is pushed to the limit. Shorter, with quicker falls and more urgency, but only slightly below the longer match overall.

Bob Backlund & Bob Roop v Jumbo Tsuruta & Giant Baba - AJPW 07/25/74 Once you get past the novelty of Backlund in the same ring with Jumbo and Baba, there just isn't much here. Backlund seems pretty eager from the apron, but Bob Roop wrestles the lion's share of the match. I have nothing against Bob Roop or anything he's done here, and it's not that the match is bad, but it has virtually no heat, no suspense and no drama. It's just there. The things I do like in the match, like Jumbo's selling and the double-boot finisher from Jumbo and Baba, just aren't much worth writing home about. Perfectly okay.

This was about an hour and was only very slightly clipped. They have another match, on 10/13 I think, that runs shorter that I'm going to watch tonight. Unless the one on YouTube is an hour, I think it's the 10/13 one that's posted.

Added: Lou Thesz v Rikidozan (JWA 10/07/57) ****3/4

Lou Thesz v Rikidozan - JWA 10/07/57 What an awesome match! So much snap to every movement and so much great, inspired matwork. I have very little doubt that more footage availability would pretty clearly make the case for Lou Thesz as the greatest wrestler ever. One thing that I said bugged me about Baba/Destroyer when re-watching it was that they did so many standoffs after they teased going in a direction that was working, but this match is completely built around restarts and standoffs, and it works brilliantly, because Thesz tries a brand new strategy every time. He would start by going for a hammerlock, Rikidozan would counter it, so he'd force the ropes so they could start over again so he could try a single leg, and the match continues from there and maintains that same mindset the whole time. There are times when you're watching Thesz bounce off the ropes or bump that you swear you're watching in fast forward, as he gets some amazing height and snap behind all of his bumping. Still going through everything and things can change, but this is the best pre-1970 match I've seen up until this point.

I love that she rolled her eyes apparently when Stephanie told her who she was, and someone apparently said that she didn't believe Stephanie when she told her her father owned the company.

Rikishi?

Next up: Dory Funk Jr v Antonio Inoki - JWA 12/01/69 Pre-1969 matches I'm also going to watch: Whatever Rikidozan/JWA matches are complete from 1953-1963 The Destroyer v Toyonobori - JWA 02/26/65 Giant Baba v Fritz Von Erich - JWA 12/03/66 Giant Baba v Bruno Sammartino - JWA 03/07/67 Giant Baba v Bruno Sammartino - JWA 08/07/68 Fred Blassie v Rikidozan from Capitol Sports (unsure if this is on the JWA set or if they are two different matches) Then I'll start on 1970. There is more pre-1970 stuff I want to see, but this is everything I actually own, so it's a good start.

Added: Giant Baba & Kintaro Oki v Bobo Brazil & Chris Markoff (JWA 04/16/69) - Less than *** Antonio Inoki v Chris Markoff (JWA 05/16/69) ****1/4 Revised: Giant Baba v The Destroyer (JWA 03/05/69) Was: ***** Now: ****1/2

I got to 1977 and realized that there were a great number of these matches I had pretty much forgotten about watching and had no idea what to say about. This is why jdw was right when he said it's a good idea to at least say something, even if it's brief, because these matches start running together after a while. I decided to re-watch some stuff, and then decided that I might as well re-watch everything. Considering that I've been introduced to styles like lucha and UWF-style for the first time (in detail) in the past year or so, I thought it might be interesting to go back and see if more stuff I've watched has changed anything I thought before at all. It's also a good time to watch all the stuff from a given year that I want to see and haven't before moving to the next. At the end of each decade, I'll do a top 10 overall of the decade or something. Could be fun. Giant Baba v Destroyer - JWA 03/05/69 I watched this again and still thought it was an incredible, classic match. I gave Destroyer a lot of credit for doing so many things that inspired so many of my favorite heels before, but really, I think I even understated that before. The second fall of this match is a pretty typical mid-80s Ric Flair match in fast forward. And between the whining, trash talking, running to the ropes for safety, rolling out of the ring to avoid fighting, using the ropes behind the ref, Fargo strutting, pointing to his head whenever he makes a good tactical move and biting Baba's fingers, among other things, I think this is still a candidate for being the best heel performance I've ever seen. I would drop this down a peg after watching again, though. Selling to put over offense from both is great, but they wrestle with just as much speed and zest 35 minutes into the match as they do at the beginning, so there's not really much selling to put over the match itself. At about the same time frame in the match, Destroyer clips Baba's leg and I think we're about to finally progress past a lot of the stalemates in the matwork, but they standoff yet again after that and miss a really great opportunity to do something different than they were doing before. Once you get past the weird layout of the match, where they load all the important stuff in the final few minutes instead of swinging momentum in a meaningful way throughout the early parts of the match, you still have a pretty awesome match. Baba going after Destroyer's knee at the beginning of the second fall is really great, and Destroyer taking over after the missed kneedrop to lead to the figure four may be the best set up of a move I've ever seen in a match. I was a little down on the finish, as they were tied at one fall each, and still had a few minutes to go before hitting an hour, so I'm not sure why the match ended. Still, tremendous. Giant Baba & Kintaro Oki v Bobo Brazil & Chris Markoff - JWA 04/16/69 Not a bad match by any means, but aside from the heels hiding the foreign object between each other, neither team seemed to really wrestle as much of a team. I think my favorite thing about this match was the battle of the headbutts between Oki and Brazil, which was really well done both times they did it. Oki reminds me of a random guy you'd see in the undercard of SWS or WAR 20-25 years later, as headbutts are his biggest strength and he doesn't do a whole lot more than that, but the whole package comes together and he's effective. Baba is obviously the leader of his team and plays his role well, and I'll talk more about Chris Markoff below. Antonio Inoki v Chris Markoff - JWA 05/16/69 Awesome how Foreign Menace versus Local Boy is such a basic, effective story and can work in pretty much any pro wrestling environment. 17 minutes and just really, really good, with awesome pacing and heat, and Inoki playing the underdog role pretty brilliantly. I've never really heard of Chris Markoff before, but if he has family, someone should really send them a copy of the 1969 Digest, because it sure makes Markoff look like a million bucks. Inoki was obviously a superstar on the rise here. This isn't as good as Baba/Destroyer, but in some ways, it is less of a challenge to watch, because it's so energetic from the opening bell and also because it's so heated and more dramatic throughout. Kind of a slept on match that should be talked about much more than it is. I want to see more Chris Markoff, as he seems like a really great brawler.

Added: MS-1 v Sangre Chicana (EMLL 09/23/83, Hair v Hair) ***** Sangre Chicana, La Fiera & Mocho Cota v MS1, El Satanico & Espectro Jr (EMLL 09/30/83) **** Lizmark v El Satanico (EMLL 12/02/83) ****1/2 Will discuss later.

That's pretty big. Interesting question is what Spike expects out of them that night.

This has been up for a little while now, but I wanted to link it, as I think it's the best thing I've really ever seen written about TNA. http://board.deathvalleydriver.com/index.php?showtopic=30145

I remember hour shows from the 80s like Pro and Worldwide and Superstars that were important in the grand scheme of things, but were paced much better. The thing that I think hurts TNA is that they try to get every single wrestler on every single show every single week. That's not necessary. They'd make it a lot easier on themselves if they just had wrestlers make 1-2 appearance between every pay per view. They wouldn't burn them out quite so fast. And because of their time slot, I wish they'd find a way to work within what they have to make it successful instead of bemoaning that they don't have more time and just rushing everything. Truth is, it wouldn't bother me at all to see them focus on 2-3 storylines and fill out the card with other matches that just look good on paper, but maybe don't have quite as much build. It's almost always one or two matches that sell a show anyway, and at least those storylines would be built up really well. Russo is working really hard. I don't think anyone could ever take that away from him. But because TNA's booking is so overly focused on being creative -- more so than being effective -- and because he feels the need to advance every single storyline every single week, he's making it harder on himself than it has to be. But that's always been the story with Russo I guess. Also, there's been way too much male-on-female violence in the past few years, and I could live without ever seeing a male put his hands on a female in the context of wrestling ever again. I know there are some things they don't do. You don't see the women blade, and the guys never actually throw punches at the women. But it's pretty sad when a man beats up a woman on a wrestling show and no one really notices because it happens so often.

I have a question. It's known that Eddy Guerrero wasn't clean when he died, but what drugs was he taking? Is that known? Was he taking recreational drugs at all or drinking? Or was it just steroids and painkillers?