gordi

A tremendously entertaining pro wrestler. Gama was a bad guy in Calgary by virtue of his race, but I had the great pleasure of seeing him wrestle as a good guy against Matt Bourne at what I believe was the one and only show promoted by Pro Wrestling Canada. It was a tremendous match, with classic chain wrestling, outside the ring brawling, and over-the-top crowd heat. As far as seeing how good he was on tape... like most of the guys who worked a lot in Stampede, it's tough to get footage of him at his best. Ed Whalen and Stu Hart used their TV show as a way to promote house show matches, so the best stuff was saved for live shows... and Whalen was notoriously sensitive to anything that might offend older viewers, so a lot of great stuff got clipped out.

Mike! Hilariously, I just went and dug up a printed copy of your review of "The Path To Becoming The Five Crown King." Sure enough, the match in question is on that comp, and sure enough your review of it pretty much echoes my thoughts on the match. You mention the hot crowd, Jumbo's selling, and so on. I'd be very interested in hearing how your thoughts on the match might have changed since you wrote that review. Sadly, I can't find it online, or I'd cut & paste it here. Reading that old review has got me psyched to watch some Misawa. I've got that set on tape in really good quality. I think I got it from Tabe a few years back. I'm going to watch that match and maybe a few others later today. Who knows, maybe I'll end up agreeing with goodhelmet! It's been a few months since I've seen that match... but I love every minute of anything I've seen that involves Misawa fighting Jumbo.

Good heavens! Why not? It's got a really nice structure: Building from Tiger Mask working the headlock and them coming up with various creative ways for Jumbo to get out of it. When they get into the high impact stuff building toward the finish, it's all believable within the context of it being Jumbo The Unstoppable vs. The New Guy. Jumbo sells really well and makes Misawa look great. They draw the crowd into it and the heat builds impressively as the match develops. For a match of the type "Company Ace vs. Young Athletic Upstart" I don't see what else you'd want.

If it's a wrestler I like, then I tend to prefer to stretch out any kind of argument I can think of to try and act like it made sense... Lately I've been making some kind of honest attempt at enjoying matches for what they are rather than for who is in them... but it's hard to shake my preconceptions. I mean, I haven't even seen the Harley vs. Koko match yet... but I'm already halfway convinced that the undersold piledriver was the most awesome thing ever.

Yeah, that pretty much describes the process by how I got into watching old Harley Race matches on tape. My first impression was that he was doing a variation of Flair's deal... then I thought I'd figured out that Flair was doing a version of Harley's deal... and I guess now I figure that they were both doing a variation of the touring NWA champion deal... "Flair with better offense" wouldn't be a bad way to describe how I first thought of Race. I'd forgotten about that. Edit: Regarding the strutting and preening stuff: I'm hoping that William unearths some "Handsome" Harley and "Pretty Boy" Larry tags from the AWA days, as I'd be willing to bet that's when Race started using the whole "playing up my studly qualities to the pretty girl in the front row before showing ass" method of building heat.

Snowden has his own site now (more or less his own, anyway. He seems to be the key guy there... but that might just be my impressions of things), Total-MMA. It's the most readable and enjoyable of the online MMA sites that I'm aware of. Sort of like a Smark's Choice or a Pro Wrestling Only for MMA in the sense that there's a fair bit of actual discussion among knowledgeable fans and relatively little empty blah blah blah. It's mainly ex-"Them's Fighting Words" posters, mixed in with former Total MMA newsletter guys and some others.

Lou pretty much bitched, stooged, cheap shotted and roughhoused his was through a one hour draw against Gagne in the early 50s, which gave a pretty good indication of how he worked as NWA Champ opposite an Ultra Babyface. The "NWA Champion Templete" already existed with Champion #2. Did he strut and preen? Not really. But then again, I wouldn't associate "strutting and preening" with Harley as much as I would with Buddy Rogers and Ric Flair. Harley tended to have other ways to show ass and stooge. Harley was a clearer, more theatrical heel than Dory and Jack... but both of those guys heeled when needed as champs. Jack was a good heel, frankly. Terry was even more over the top than Harley. I would say that Harley was *less* over the top than Buddy. John Yeesh. I am nowhere close to trying to argue that Harley was the only NWA World Champion to wrestle as a heel, to show ass, or to stooge. Of course he wasn't. The whole point is in the details of HOW he stooged and showed ass, and how Harley screwing up early builds into that... and how that in turn makes sense of Harley throwing out a big move early that the good guy can come right back from. Cheap shotting and rough housing is different from strutting your stuff before the match only to screw up early on... It's a subtle difference, but an important one for the purposes of this specific argument. It's the little things that make sense of what people are (in my eyes) trying to make into too much of a big thing. I agree with your descriptions of the styles fo the other NWA champs, by the way. There were many striking similarities with what they all did, as there should be because they all shared the role of touring champion. That's why the little things take on some importance when comparing them.

Really? Lou Thesz used to strut and preen for the crowd only to screw up in humiliating fashion early in his matches? Are you sure? I don't think so. That was Race's deal, not Thesz' deal... Dory, Terry, Jack Brisco... those guys had their own way of doing things and it was different from Harley's way. There were similarities, to be sure: The bad guy usually got frustrated by being outwrestled by the good guy one way or another... That's why I went into a wee bit of detail in describing things, though. The differences are in the details, and those details were what made Harkey who he was a champion and as a wrestler. Those deatils, in my mind, are what more than justify Harley throwing a big move out there in the early going in so many matches. That was his way, and Harley's way worked for a lot of people for a lot of years. If him giving piledrivers to Koko B. Ware and Corporal Kirchner invalidates that for you, though... I can dig that. Honestly. I just sincerely think that Harley's tendancy to overdo his early-match high spots is being grossly overplayed in this thread.

Frank can totally come across as a prick in the way he expresses his opinions... but on the other hand his opinions are almost always interesting and he is good at explaining and defending them. Overall, I'd say that the wrestling boards I go to are poorer for not having him around.

No, S.L.L. that's not what I'm saying at all. Of course we can question anybody's work. That and finding out about obscure matches to track down are pretty much the main points of visiting awesome elite snooty pro wrestling message boards like this one. I'd never try to argue that we need to just sit back and enjoy whatever is happening in the ring, and I'd never try to argue that we have no right to criticise. I love criticising pro wrestling, and I love reading other people's criticism. What I'm arguing is that we need to be fair when judging the work of pro wrestlers. Now that, to me, is an interesting argument, and one that actually addresses the point(s) I was making. Thank you. I might be tempted to go this far: Making his opponent under-sell a piledriver on the floor was possibly the right move in certain matches, given what Race needed to establish and how quickly and forcefully he needed to do so. I'm not sure, but I think that it isn't going to be neccessary for me to go that far. I'm hoping that when William releases his Race set, we'll see a somewhat different pattern emerging than the picture that Phil has painted. What I belive we will see is not so much Race endlessly piledriving jobbers onto the concrete floor with so little time left before count-out that they need to pop right up and dash straight back into the ring... No, what I think we'll see is that Harley tends to start out his matches with some kind of high spot that looks damaging, but that he quickly follows that up by making some kind of mistake that gives the advantage back to his opponent. Even that might seem like poor psychology, since the standard formula is to have the bad guy "slip on a banana peel" pretty late in the match, after having derailed the good guy's fiery comeback... But let's take a quick look at who Harley is and why he might start so many matches that way: He's the visiting champ. He struts into the arena, clearly a superior specimen of manly athleticism. If the local promoter has TV time, Harley would probably have cut a promo building up the local hero... only to end it by proclaiming his own obvious superiority. If the tape shows Harley's entrance, he's probably strutting his stuff for the fans, maybe even pulling a kind of Rick Rude deal: Posing for some pretty girl while insulting her boyfriend. The implications are clear: This bastard thinks he's better than us! So... when the champ starts out strong, only to screw up, that makes him the object of catcalls and derision. It successfully establishes him as the kind of heel who thinks he's the best and gets frustrated when the other guy gets one up on him. Then he builds from there. That's good, classic, 70s-style psychology. It's right that Harley Race should build his matches that way. Now, I have a lot of respect for Phil's opinions, (and for yours, S.L.L... and for those of many of the people posting here...) and if it turns out that all that is going on is that Harley is throwing out a big move with no real purpose, I'll eat my words. However... I also have a lot of respect for Harley Race. I imagine that (when there are a lot of matches available to look at) we will see that there is a bit more going on with his match structure than what might immediately meet the eye.

I'm hardly arguing that people shouldn't think about it, jingus. Quite the contrary. I'm arguing that people need to think about what the actual purpose of Harley's psychology was. You hit on the most important point there: Lawler's matches require an entirely different psychology than Race's because they were generally playing quite different roles. One of the most important things to consider when comparing their matches is that a lot of the Lawler matches that you are going to see come from one territory, Memphis... where Lawler was so well known that people have compared his celebrity, straight-faced, with that of Elvis Presley. Being the local hero or the hated local villain is an entirely different scenario than being the visiting world champion (A role that Harley filled for ten years). Of course their psychology was different. It's more of a happy accident that Lawler's psychology stands up to repeated viewings and careful watching, I believe, than it is the result of Lawler carefully structuring his matches that way. The whole point of professional wrestling used to be to work the crowds in the arena. That may have changed, somewhat, in recent years as tapes and DVDs have become more widely available and ring work has become more self-aware. I don't know if that's necessarily a good thing, though.

Something worth considering is that wrestlers in Harley's era tended to wrestle in such a way as to: 1) Establish their roles for the people watching in the arena 2) Get the people in the arena behind the good guy and against the bad guy In Harley's case, and in particular with him being a bad guy champion, he wrestled in such a way as to: 3) Keep the people in the arena believing that the good guy had a real chance to triumph Harley wasn't wrestling in such a way as to please people like us who make a hobby of breaking down pro wrestling matches, analysing them, and comparing them to one another. Given Harley Race's role, and the way that he filled the role, stuff like an early-match dirty move that the good guy comes right back from makes a ton of sense. It fulfills all three criteria because it: 1) Establishes who the dirty cheater is, and who the underdog is 2) Gives the fans a reason to cheer for the good guy, as he has the spunk to come right back from something so devastating and 3) Shows that the good guy has got the fire and courage to keep fighting and that he can take the worst that Harley is going to dish out. Also, starting with a big high spot grabs the crowd and lets them know that they need to pay attention. Having Harley subsequently bump all over the place for the good guy's offense, even if that offense is relatively weak, just builds on what has already been established. When Harley then triumphs by guile, luck, or subterfuge, it is a fitting end to the emotional roller coaster ride, and one which leaves hope open that maybe next time fortune won't choose to smile on the bad guy. It's a smart match structure for what Harley spent most of his professional life doing. I can buy the idea that it breaks down when, for example, you watch a ton of his matches back to back on tape and notice the repeating pattern... but that's not the audience that he was performing for and, frankly, it's not how the matches were intended to be watched. If Lawler's matches hold up better to that kind of scrutiny, that's nice and it might make collecting Lawler tapes or DVDs more rewarding than collecting Harley tapes or DVDs... but it hardly proves that Lawler was a better professional wrestler.

Not surprising that it was a damn good article. Michael Lewis is among the very best writers covering sports in America. His book "The Blind Side" is amazing insightful about the way (American) football has evolved recently. It's refreshing to read something in the mainstream press where the writer has obviously done some actual research about pro wrestling. It's a shame that it took something like the Benoit murder-suicide to make that happen.

Well, I had been planning to argue that a lot of what the Yakuza and Mafia do is evil, dangerous, and harmful... but not neccessarily sleazy in the sense that it isn't neccessarily sordid, vulgar or tawdry. I hadn't thought about prostitution or human trafficking, though. I might be tempted to argue that sex trade workers employed by high-level organized crime have better working and living conditions than street hookers (and I'm sure that's true)... but I really don't want to argue that... To reiterate: I'm completely in favour of consensual sex, but there is too much stuff in both porno and prostituion that involves debasement and dehumanization and just don't want to argue that any of that is not sleazy.

It was? Before you posed the Maeda question, the only talk of organized crime in this thread were tangential mentions of the yakuza's connection to wrestling and porn. No one was making that comparison. Seriously, how the fuck did you get that? It was Indikator who brought Maeda up, not me. I was teasing you about your comprehension skills before to push your buttons, SLL. edit I know from reading your posts here that you actually have a very good grasp of the English language. Maybe you're just having an off day. It was you, yourself, SLL, who provided the basis for my argument. Here's what you wrote in response to Indikator: 1. "Professional wrestling is better than organized crime, and therefore okay" isn't a very compelling point. 2. Pro wrestling in Japan has a pretty long history of being tied up with the yakuza anyway, thus rendering this question even less potent. Please notice, you do not go so far as to deny that pro wrestling is a step up from organized crime, you simply try to make the dim-witted and spurious point that pro wrestling isn't much better. So, we agree on this much: Pro Wrestling > Organized Crime. In order to prove, then, that porno is sleazier than pro wrestling, you'd need to prove that it's much sleazier than organized crime. And here, you try to suggest something along those lines: I remain unconvinced, I'm afraid. edit I don't really think that our society needs to get together to determine whether being a pornographer is more or less sleazy than being a member of the Yakuza. I think that the answer can just pretty much be taken granted.

Is any of this supposed to mean anything? Wow, are your reading comprehension skills really THAT low? Try hooked on phonics, it might help. This thread is a discussion of whether pro wrestling or pornography is the sleazier business. It was argued in the thread that Pro Wrestling is marginally less sleazy than organized crime. My point in the post that so baffles you is that nobody is going to argue that porn is even marginally less sleazy than organized crime. People can argue that Maeda made a step up in moving from the Yakuza to pro wrestling. Nobody is going to argue that moving from organized crime to porno is a step up. Therefore, it cannot be argued that moving from pro wrestling to porno is a step up. Therefore, pro wrestling cannot be seen as being more sleazy than porno. To put it in a way that you might be able to grasp: Pro Wrestling > Organized Crime > Porno

1. "Professional wrestling is better than organized crime, and therefore okay" isn't a very compelling point. 2. Pro wrestling in Japan has a pretty long history of being tied up with the yakuza anyway, thus rendering this question even less potent. So, if someone leaves organized crime to go into Pro Wrestling, it's only a slight improvement. I can accept that, I suppose. What if someone left organized crime to go into pornography? That would have to be seen as a huge step down, I'd imagine. Would anybody be all: Oh, good for pro wrestler X, he made the jump from wrestling to making hardcore sex dvds?

I think that anyone who thinks that what happens in porn is representative of what having sex is really like has probably never actually had sex. Hardcore porn has the same relation to sex that hardcore wrestling has to Greco-Roman. It's not the SEX that's icky about porn. Sex is beautiful. It's the far too pervasive degradation and dehumanization that's icky, sek69.

He LIVES in Japan, FH. There's nothing "creepy" about some of their saying making their way into how oj communicates. I live in Canada, but (as I never get tired of saying) I'm getting married to a Japanese woman, and just through spending time with her, her friends, and her family, some Japanese phrases have worked their way into the tools I use to cope with life. It's OK if those come out sometime. The thought of it being cool for Aoki to wash Akiyama's balls because Akiyama had to wash Misawa's had to wash Jumbo's had to wash Baba's balls balls which is cool because Baba washed Rikidozan's balls, though... maybe some traditions are outside of what I can comfortably comprehend. At least we can reast comfortably knowing that our AJPW heroes were clean down there much of the time. Nothing like those filthy-balled American Sleaze merchants. They are disgustingly dirty-balled,　for the most part. Still, ball-washing doesn't come close to the kind of sleaze that is taken for granted in the porn industry. Being the dude who shines up the genetalia is probably a pretty prime job for soemone breaking into pornography.

I must have gone to a pretty tame Love Hotel, then. Just as well, I'm not really interested in seeing twisted porn from any culture. Sitting near Yakuza-looking guys at a wrestling show is a blast. They always seem to get into it and yell and joke a lot...