gordi

I'm really enjoying these. I really love a lot of the 50s and 60 pro wrestling I have seen. Great to read about- and get your take on - some more of that good stuff. My understanding is that Snyder had a reputation as a crazy bumper (by 50s standards) going over the top rope, taking bumps on the floor, and so on. Has his bumping stood out to you at all in your viewing?

I'm a big Irie fan. If he were a few inches taller, I think he'd be a major star. I love The Green Bears, his tag team with Kazuaki Mihara. Best under 5'9" power team in Japan, in my opinion. They do all the little things well.

Would you count Pat Patterson vs. Gerald Brisco in the Evening Gown Match? Definitely should consider the bizarrely one-sided Bob Backlund vs. Harley Race: Unification Match (9/22/80) - MSG. Pretty sure Loss did a great write-up of that one.

Wow. Thanks for the recommendation, Jerome, NotJay, and Jimmy! I've seen (and enjoyed) the famous "six sides of steel" match, but I had never seen this one. Damned fine match. Plus, watching it on youtube, the next match that autoplayed was the Batista v Kali Punjabi Prison match. Watched that one, too. Jerome, brother: I watched the Punjabi Prison Match. I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!

As goc said, he had improved by the time he ended up in TNA as Malice. But as The Wall/AWOL, he was godawful indeed. I'm glad to hear it. It's cool that he eventually got better. What this makes me think is that, in trying to find "The Worst Pro Wrestler Ever" we need to look not merely for wrestlers who lacked talent, but who also lacked the motivation or ability to develop whatever meager skills they might have had. An "I am what I am and that's all that I am" mindset seems to be key. That, or complete cluelessness when it comes to the art of pro wrestling. In my opinion, that's where Ron "Mighty Zulu" Pope and Greg Gulas really outshine their competition.

I'm really glad this thread exists, but it's kind of breaking my heart. After Stan Hansen gave his shout out to "the carpenters" in his HoF speech, I found this article online: http://www.prowrestlinghistoricalsociety.com/hg-carpenters.html The author, Harry Grover, is really effusive in his praise of Johnny Rodz, and after reading that I was all fired up for watching him work... but so far I just don't find myself agreeing with Grover's assessment at all. I mean... no doubt Rodz is a decent veteran hand... but he's sometimes sloppy, his selling is often goofy as all hell, he doesn't seem all that interested in telling much of a story in there... Whatever flaws RJ points out in his write-ups are really apparent when you watch the footage (as is the good stuff, such as it is). The perils of high expectations, I guess.

Going through Jerome's epic WCW thread brought this question to mind: Was The Wall/Sgt. A.W.O.L/Malice/Gigantes ever better than "flat-out terrible"? I'm honestly asking. I haven't seen much of him, but everything I have seen seems to me like bottom-20-contender level. Again and again in this thread, though, people keep bringing up legit examples of where almost everyone - even George Gulas - has some redeeming value. Curious if anyone wants to go to bat for the late Jerry Tuite.

I just finished reading your totally epic Death of WCW thread. The craziest part of it, for me, was probably realizing with a kind of creeping horror that you were actually glossing over or even skipping some of the absolute worst stuff. Is that the case here, too? I kind of hope not, in the sense that I can't even imagine what the "even worse than what's in the thread already" stuff might be.

Finally, with Tigers Mask, wearing his limited edition "Do you know Michael Jackson?" T. That particular XXXXL Matcha-green shirt was custom made, just for me. Probably the jewel of my (frankly ridiculous) collection.

My snazzy Destroyer Mask and thew original Big Guns T-Shirt (From when they were still in Osaka Pro - I am so proud of those guys)!

I LOVE my Giant Baba T-shirt. Wear it all the time.

Hey! GOTNW! In late 2002, one of my tape-trading friends gave me a set of tapes of NWATNA's weekly PPVs. I was working as the director of a children's summer camp, living at the camp year-round. There was really not too much to do there over the winter, other than organize the Christmas party and winter-proof the cabins. Even with so much free time, though... those tapes were pretty hard to watch. I don't think I got even a third of the way through them. The thing that struck me at the time: I kept feeling like Jeff Jarrett must have convinced himself that he could have been just as over as Stone Cold if only he had been the one to get that push. It just seemed so much like that was what those early TNA PPVs were all about: Jeff (and his dad) trying desperately to convince everyone that he was a badass, force-of-nature, redneck, ass-whooping machine... but somehow totally missing the whole point of why Austin got over and actually making Double J look like a misogynistic, narcissistic, delusional, clueless egomaniac. It was truly painful to watch. Was it still that bad in 2003? Kind of sounds like it, from your descriptions.

Every day is a good day for me in Japan! I have two kids now, so I'm not online quite as much. Sorry I missed out on the GWE discussion. Still go drinking with my pro wrestling friends from time to time, but don't watch too much wrestling these days other than the occasional live show in Osaka. Managed to watch WrestleMania, and I was pleasantly surprised to see AJ Styles in WWE and over with the crowd, so it's cool to read about his TNA days here.

I'm sorry to hear that depression has driven you to suck extreme depths... but on the other hand, reading TNA reviews in that inimitable Jerome style is just too much fun.

Big Country Nelson!!

Sad news indeed. He was certainly one of the all time greats, and maybe the toughest pro wrestler of all time.

It really is! This apparent digression is also on topic, because it really does relate to how huge the Beauty Pair were as a cultural phenomenon. It really does depend on age, though. It's my experience that literally EVERY Japanese woman in their late thirties and older immediately recognizes that song and is delighted to hear it performed at karaoke by a white guy... but if a woman is under, say, 35 there's a decent chance she'll draw a complete blank. The Beauty Pair were hugely popular in their time. There's no disputing that! It's not just that Sato and Ueda paved the way for the Crush Gals, it's that the Beauty Pair were the mainstream joshi puroresu success story of the 1970s.

Do you ever do that? I do. Fairly often.

I have found the Budokan to be amazing if you've got decent seats on the floor level, but nothing great if you're up in the stands. I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by maniac fans both times I've been at ringside there. I agree with jdw's general thoughts on the Yokohama Bunka gymnasium but what impressed me when I was there was the incredible sound system. Misawa's theme music was just ear-bleedingly loud and awesome in that venue. The crowd noises carried well there, too. You could hear individual people chanting very clearly. Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium (Now called BODYMAKER Colosseum) has pretty poor acoustics for pro wrestling. In some areas the ring sounds and crowd sounds get washed out, which can subtract from the experience. The cheap seats have a pretty poor view of the ring, as well. On the upside, Osaka crowds can be pretty amazing when they get heated up, and everything looks and sounds just great from ringside there. For my money, Osaka Pro's Minami Move On Arena is the perfect place to see a live pro wrestling show. There literally isn't a bad seat in the house, and having a bar upstairs adds a lot to the fun. I'm definitely going to miss the place when they move to Umeda in November! I'm still looking forward to being part of a Korakuen Hall crowd one day.

Yes! Usually with other fans, though, rather than with wrestlers.

Nothing beats live Osaka Pro Wrestling when you're drinking in the Arena with a bunch of friends. It's literally not possibe to have more fun with your clothes on. Except, maybe, for drinking with Osaka Pro wrestlers: ...and so on...

It's also at least conceivable that the music industry might be wildly exaggerating the amount and degree of profit that they are losing through downloading and pirating... Interestingly, one of my six new students was really open with me about choosing to watch streaming videos online instead of buying DVD sets. She's in her early 20s, and just like the one other student who copped to occasionally downloading files, she's a huge anime nerd. It was during our fourth lesson that she admitted to watching a lot of anime streams. I often get to see some hidden side of my new students' personalities around the fourth or fifth lesson, once some trust has been established. She also gave me the name of a French streaming site, which I have subsequently forgotten... I totally agree with this. It matches up exactly with my experience over here. On the other hand, this has not been my experience here at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. In my case, I've often been surprised, pleased, and even moved by the effort that my Japanese drinking friends, training friends, music friends, and wrestling friends will make to ensure that I am included in outings and activities. Most of my various-hobby-buddies don't speak English, but they'll always make the effort to send me a cell phone email in hiragana and katakana or to patiently and repeatedly explain what's happening in simple Japanese... Maybe it's just part of the difference between Kansai and Tokyo culture? Maybe I've just been unusually fortunate with people (which has been true for me pretty much my entire adult life)?