jdw

Looks like it's the 1979 title match. They had a singles match in each of those years that aired on TV: 03/17/78 Tatsumi Fujinami dko El Canek (10:11) 06/07/79 WWF Jr Title: Tatsumi Fujinami p Canek (17:02) This looks to line up with the 1979 result and time, and with the trophies coming out at the end.

Yes, this, of course. Old discussion as well.

Misawa-Mutoh in 1996 since one of them wanted it. Mutoh-Takada and Takada-Hash wasn't remotely as big in that stretch, and look at the business those three did. Misawa-Hash would have been bigger, but it wasn't talked about as being on the table at the period. When the chance came to make it (and it wasn't made), it wasn't as big given Hashimoto getting Ogawa'd up the tailpipe.

BREAK! BREAK GARY! GARY.... BREEAAAAKKKK!

Yep, Nov 1962. Kanji Inoki: Sep-30-1960 - Nov-08-1962 Antonio Inoki: Nov-09-1962 (6th and final show of Okinawa tour) http://www.puroresu.com/jwa/results/jwa196209.html Rikidozan died the following December, 1963. Riki took his time in rolling out the Antonio name. One could speculate that it was to give Inoki a push when Baba (who was higher from the start) was sent overseas to "grow up". But that happened back at the end of June 1961. The name change was a while after that. Perhaps a push up that cards? Looks a little bit, but not massive and he was still getting his clock cleaned by high ranked guys all the time and not that high on the cards consistently. Nothing like how Baba was pushed the following year when he got back from overseas. Again, there's a lot of Inoki Myth Making. So much bullshit that he and the people around him have claimed/said/stated over the years that who knows where the truth is anymore.

In 1998, I would have shot notes to the 3-4 people online that I dealt with, and faxed the reporter I dealt with to get the info. The 3-4 people that I dealt with online largely would have less info than the reporter, though one might be more skeptical about Inoki myth bullshit... though he frankly was a big Inoki fan, so who knows. Dave wasn't online at all. Instead he would have talked to the same reporter than I would have faxed, and probably 2 other reporters, and probably someone in the NJPW office that he knew (if I recall correctly). There was no Wiki in 1998 he could pull up where it clearly says Inoki was born in Japan, lived there until 14, his family moved to Brasil at that point, and he was back to Japan for JWA by the time he was 17. Then taking that info and asking his 3 reporter contacts and one NJPW office contact to see what really is the truth: Inoki myth that has been passed around, or what he's seen online. Different world, and nothing that would make someone who was entirely offline like Dave (other than Radio GaGa) think that he hadn't gotten good info from his contacts directly in Japan, whenever he got that info. Now it's quite possible that someone told Dave that "Inoki is Brasilian" story in the 80s, he never got it corrected, and kept running with it. Someone can look up the Dave's Who's Who piece on Inoki (which would have been written in 1986) to see if he talks about it in there. I can't remember... haven't looked at that thing in ages. Edit: in 2008 I would cut Dave less slack. Info wasn't as easy or detailed as it is now, but there were starting points to get stuff. If Dave was ignoring it, that's his fault and not something he can as easily pawn off on "I was told it by folks in Japan". At a certain point you can more readily get conflicting info and more easily ask follow ups from sources on whether it's true or wrong. It's kind of the stuff that folks have been doing here for a decade or more.

1998 would have been getting info the same way he got it in 1988. It's not like the Net was a robust way to get info in 1998 compared to 2015.

Looks like he made the Kanji --> Antonio transition in JWA in November 1962. The family (or at least Kanji) appears to have only been in Brasil only for three years in his mid-teens as Dan points out. He was back in Japan with JWA by the time he was 17. I'd give Dave just a slight about of slack on the bio: Inoki's background was mythologized so much from the 60s through the 90s... we're talking about 30+ years of bullshit by the time people in Japan were giving Dave info for that bio. While Dave might be able to sift through Hogan bullshit, we've seen that some Flair and Funk bullshit passed him by when their books came out. Imagine trying to sift through Inoki Mythmaking Bullshit in the years before the net as it is today, and Dave having to rely on reporters and mag editors over there who've been hearing the myths their entire adult lives. It's a bitch.

It's a better porn name.

1993: Starcade Was going to be Vader-Sid to give Sid the big push. That feel through due to his stabbing Arn, so Flair got the spot. Big build. 1994: Bash at the Beach All in with Hogan. 1995: Halloween Havoc They were trying to create a new star. They did push the hell out of Bash at the Beach. That it didn't draw a live gate wasn't relevant to Eric. 1996: Starcade Kind of built the nWo to that point, with it running rough over WCW until Piper won. 1997: Starcade The whole year built to it. 1998: Road Wild Pushed even harder than Bash at the Beach. The Celeb stuff in 1998 built to and climxed there.

Jose: I always wondered what happened between Dec-02-1983 and Mar-20-1988 when he was without a belt. He was so consistently holding a title when he made the progression through Welterweight and Middleweight division (held a belt for 87% of the time between Apr-20-1978 and Dec-02-1983), then was a dynastic holder in the LHW division in 1988-94. What was he up to in 1985-87 that kept him away from the big EMLL titles?

There's next to nothing understated about Taue's performance in 12/03/93. He dominates the work for his team in the first 15 minutes, throwing and eating bombs as they can't be bothered working any holds. It's the same theatrical stuff we've seen him do the entire decade since he started teaming with Jumbo, just with some of the weaker stuff tossed (like the sumo slap shit), and the sloppy moments cut down to 2-3 in the 15 minutes by this point. The thing is that pretty much every time Kawada comes in prior to his long run to the finish in the last 9 minutes instantly run circles around Taue's work. Not only that, but after a long stretch of Kobashi, once Misawa finally gets back in for a stretch, he instantly runs circles around Taue, even taking pedestrian stuff that is stale by this point such as Taue's drops into the turnbuckles & ropes and making them look like gold by bumping and selling the fuck out of them. Kobashi is 1993 Kobashi: he has a lot of shit to do, he gets it in, he sells the fuck out of what he gets nailed with, and he pushes the match along with good shit. Kawada... well... it remains the performance of the decade in All Japan. I just spent 24 minutes watching it again, thinking that this might finally be the time when his performance doesn't floor me after 22 years... but no, fuck it... that's the best shit in the company in the decade. Probably ever, as I can't think of anything in All Japan that clearly strikes me as better. So yeah... Taue is the least of the four, doing solid stuff, cutting the cringey stuff down, and not fucking up master performances by the other team and a Touched By The Wrestling Gods performance by his partner. Would Taue's performance even rate as one of the 10 best in that very Tag League? I don't even think it's Taue's best performance of the League: he was more interesting against Doc & Bossman, some of it due to finally getting his shit together against Bossman after laying such a turd earlier in the year, some of it due to Doc picking up his game by this point, and some of it due to Taue knowing he had to carry more shit for his team than usual due to Kawada's injury. But beyond that, I'd also take Doc's performance against the top two native teams over Taue's in the Last Match of the Year, easily take Hansen & Misawa & Kobashi's performances from the 11/30/93 tag, all three other ones from this match... and frankly have always had vastly more fun watching Baba perform in the 11/30/93 tag than Taue in the Last Match of the Year. That's all the while saying that it's not one of the Taue performances through the years that I've tagged as sucking or being boring as all fuck like against the Can-Ams to start 1995. This is "Good Taue" for 1993. He's agressive and controlling the majority (as in "almost the entire match" type of majority) because Hansen came into the match with a pre-existing storyline: his ribs were destroyed the night before. There's nothing terribly remarkable about Taue's performance in the match other than He Followed The Plot. Well, except for a moment where he lost the plot and was reeled back in. He does good though often basic stuff targeting the ribs. It's a good performance. In contrast, Hansen has a sublime performance that stands out in contrast to the vast majority of his 12 years in All Japan up to that point. There had been occasions where he took a beating and sold the beating, like in the 6/3/93 tag match opposite Gordy & Williams. But in a singles match where it wasn't just the standard "work over Stan's Lariat Arm" stuff? Hard to point to something where he sold behind this useless pretty much just trying to hang on from start to finish with few exceptions... this was a pretty rare and awesome performance. Taue did a good job following the plot, for the most part. Kind of like playing Rhythm Guitar rather than Lead Singer or Lead Guitar or a wicked back bone Bass & Drum rhythm guitar... which was pretty much all the roles Hansen took on. He was less than three years into his career when he faced Rusher to headline a interpromotional card at the old Sumo Hall with no Baba on the card. He made Rusher's shit look really outstanding and was extra fired up. If Taue had a performance like that prior to the end of 1990, when his 3rd year in the ring closed out, I must of missed it. That's not to say he never was fired up, or didn't eat shit from Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi to make them look good. Simply that he wasn't close to that good. Again, unless I missed it. Dory bores the fuck out of me, but there were plenty of people at the time who think his shit didn't stink, and he still has his fans today. As for Baba, I tend to enjoy his stuff in the era. Better worked in 1975 than Taue was in 1993.

1992 Kawada wasn't the #2 guy in the promotion. At the time of the singles match with Hansen, he was probably here: 1. Jumbo 2. Hansen 3. Misawa 4. Gordy 5. Kawada 6. Williams 7. Taue 8. Kobashi When Jumbo faced Terry in 1976, he was probably at the level of Misawa in 1990, except that Misawa got to beat the top guy in the promotion while Jumbo *never* got to be Baba, never beat the NWA Champ, and didn't get to beat a World Champ until Baba bought the AWA Title for him in 1984. In turn, Kawada never got to Jumbo's 1970's level until 1993 when Jumbo got sick and was done. 11 years into his career, five years after working his first Budokan main event. It's extremely hard to comp them, regardless of lines we want to draw. Misawa, Kawada & Co. weren't thrown off the deep end because they weren't breaking into the business in a start up company that had no other realistic option for #2 Native Side Kick To Baba. In turn, Jumbo didn't join a company with a number of natives (Baba, Jumbo, Tenryu) ahead of them, two of which (Jumbo & Baba) hadn't even reached their peak pushes yet, nor watch other folks join the company (Choshu & Yatsu) to take top spots. Anyway... I've been watching old 70s Jumbo since 90s. I never bothered to compare him with Young Misawa, Middle Misawa or Ace Misawa as they had wildly different paths. I tended to compare Jumbo with the 70s guys that I also was watching in All Japan and New Japan, along with the US workers who kind of worked that style into the 80s, with some variation.

The guys that jdw posted are interesting. Are there any 1971, 1972, 1973 Fujinami matches on tape? The earliest Fujinami I can find on Ditch's site is 1977. That's not a real comparison. If you keep it fair and include Fujinami's stuff until 1979 it's much more even. He was doing really phenomenal stuff by that time. I wouldn't disagree with Fujinami getting really good in 1978-79 when his stuff is more regularly available, and he had an amazing and fresh group of people to work with as Jr's champ. On some level, he kind of got to do his own thing similar to Liger though very likely with less control then Yamada, if that makes sense. Similar to Yamada in variety of opponents and very little pressure from "above" that he tone his shit down to not show up the Top Guy. Fujinami could just go out there and shine, with the promotion actually wanting it to help get over. Fujinami got the push in 1978 that Jumbo had been getting since... 1973. Of course Jumbo was going to be more developed, and have opportunities for matches on TV than Fujinami didn't have. Once Fujinami got it, he ran. Taue had good intense matches in singles with Kawada, some good with Kobashi, at least one good with Misawa though it was a bit more Misawa showing confidence in being able to carry a Budokan main event without someone else there to guide him through it. As much as those matches were fun, or really fun in the case of some of the Kawada matches, I don't think he kicked out any puroresu singles MOTYC until 1995 when he really got his shit together. That's 8 years into his career. Jumbo got there no later than 4 years. On the tags, Taue is the least of the wrestlers in the 12/03/93 match. I wouldn't say he was awful, but he was much more interesting in other matches. It's been a while since I watched the 4/91 six man, but I don't recall coming out of it thinking that Taue was better in the match than Jumbo, Fuchi, Kawada, Kobashi or Misawa. In contrast, in most of the Baba & Jumbo vs the Funks matches, I tend to wonder who is #2 in the match behind Terry, and given how much Dory tends to bore the fuck out of me, it's usually an issue whether Baba brought his A game or Jumbo is in a fun mode to see who is #2. I'd be hard pressed to say that Taue's contributions to classics in 1988-94 is at the same level as Jumbo in 1973-79. I thought Jun was perfectly fine in 1996. I also thought it was the best tag work of Misawa's career, Taue at his very peak, and Kawada getting through the doghouse to turn in another master performance in the Final. My problem with Jun is that he stagnated for a chunk of that period. There was the nice rookie stuff and the promise of 1993. But by the end of 1993 he was spinning his wheels, which continued through 1994-95. There are flashes that we see in the 1994 Carny, but the best of those matches (to me the Kawada and Doc ones) are more "solid" and "nice" and "fun" than powerful statements. I don't recall the 1995 Carny performances (Jun's 4th year) standing out in Japan that year like Jumbo's 1976 matches with Terry, Baba and Rusher. They were good, but it's not like they were among the best matches of the Carny, let alone the year. I've never been a massive fan of Jun's work in 1997-98, but a chunk of that is because I didn't really care for the direction the style was going in the promotion. There were elements of Jun's early work that are similar/close to Jumbo's. He just didn't have the push or opportunities or *need* to pick up his came as quickly.

I think a lot of the "stale" aspect was either uninteresting opponents or working with some of the same gaijin over and over again. I liked the Race matches in 1982 and 1983 as being perfectly solid, but he'd been facing Race in big matches since 1977. Dittos Billy. Same with Brisco. The Funks were guys he'd been facing since 1973. Same with the Funks. Same with Mil. He also had a load of chum to work with. I could list his title matches in the 80s before 1986. You come across some interesting ones on paper that aren't in circulation, but then you'll pause to remember that he's been facing those guys for years. Get him in something interesting, and he's interesting.The Martel match was two months after dropping the title to Rick, and two months after the Kerry match. They've got their shit together, and it's fun as hell. His Bockwinkel match in the Twin Cities in 1980 was fun. It's still a fresh match up, they haven't run it into the ground, they're not working for a long draw, so they get to move things along and get the crowd going. By the time of the title change, they had worked together a ton. It's sold, it's good... but it's something they've been working on for six years. It's a bit like Misawa and Kawada facing each other forever. Put him in something "new" like Destroyer & Jimmy Snuka vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Ricky Steamboat where he's opposite his mentor, and it's a load of fun. The problem is that the same old same old is largely what's available. Some of the more potentially more interesting stuff got left off Classics and on comes out in trickles, liek the tag match above or the two Murdoch matches. You watch him with Murdoch and it's fresh because we haven't seen them together, nor with the title on the line, or it bouncing around. On the other hand, these guys had been working together since the mid-70s. There's likely more good tag matches sitting out there. Perhaps we would have been bored of it by 1980 rather than all hyper to see it.

I think it's a matter of what you're trying to say with the variety. The first three guys include a pair of brothers and the other basic NWA style champ of the era. Two trained Jumbo, and the other was there for him to cut his teeth on. It's kind of limited variety there. Slater was pretty much Terry Jr., so not much variety there. Rusher isn't really like anyone else on that list. Perhaps Choshu & Yatsu as outsiders, but most of what folks would point to with respect to high end matches with Jumbo opposite them happened after they had worked together for a year. Rusher was a true outsider when they had their match, which is quite different from most of what one would find from Jumbo in the 70s. Even "brawls" or "juice matches" with Abby weren't really like the "fight" vibe that Jumbo and Rusher gave off. Variety of guys working similar styles is limited variety. Flair's list including 5 guys like Nikita Koloff... who really gives a fuck. We get that Flair figured out how to work with a muscle head with Nikita, so there's no need to list Hawk and Animial and the like. If how he worked with Lex and Sting was different than Nikita (which one could argue if they want), go ahead and list them. But if one is trying to list 20 where the list can go past 20, it's more worthwhile to list a variety of wrestlers rather than similar guys. I like the match, which I've pimped for a decade or so and had fun poking at a lazy review of Dave's on the match. I'm not sure I'd list Animal rather than Rusher. There's value in seeing him work against a smaller and lower ranked wrestler, and how they make it "competitive". On the flip side, they have the comfort zone of having worked together for a year before that, and also their matches back in the 70s. One could bundle him in with the other Ishin Gundan guys.

That's what I'm watching to find out. It should jump off the screen if that's the case. When I watch his 70s work, I keep thinking about him in regard to Tatsumi Fujinami and Jaguar Yokota who also made their starts in the 70s, or even a comparison with Misawa & Co. in the early 90s. I can't shake the fact that he's still an up and comer. Here are some debuts: 1971 Fujinami 1973 Tsuruta 1976 Tenryu 1981 Misawa 1982 Kawada 1988 Taue 1988 Kobashi If one is comping Jumbo's 70s period, we'd be looking at this: 1971-77 Fujinami 1973-79 Tsuruta 1976-82 Tenryu 1981-87 Misawa 1982-88 Kawada 1988-94 Taue 1988-94 Kobashi I think it's safe to say that Jumbo's "first seven years" leaves all the rest in the dust, with the exception of Kobashi. None of the rest are even close. Fujinami didn't get his Jr's push until 1978, and had all of 8 television matches in New Japan prior to 1978. Tenryu wasn't a "good" wrestler by 1982. Misawa wasn't at the level in 1987 that Jumbo was in 1976, left alone with another three years under his belt. I like 1988 Kawada, but I don't think anyone can point to a strong quality singles match that he'd had up to that point. His high point came in his last match in that period, and as much as I love his performance in it, I'm not going to over pimp it. Taue in 1994 wasn't Jumbo, and at no point prior to that can one really draw a line between the two either. Kobashi is a different beast, though everyone knew it at the time, and has since. He does have the advantage of a much more "closed promotion" where by 1990 he was working with largely the same people over and over again, a fair number of them were quite good workers. Even those who might annoy is in the 1990-93 time frame (say Doc & Gordy), I suspect most would say that they were easier for Kobashi to work with than Jumbo having to work with Oki & Duk or Abdullah. It wasn't like he worked with the Funks as much in a year on TV as Kobashi got to be opposite of Jumbo & Co in 1990-92 or Kawada & Taue in 1993. There are benefits to a closed promotion, and there are set backs. It's kind of interesting that there are 35 matches from television featuring Jumbo in 1978 that are available, which is pretty close to the 39 television matches for Kobashi in 1993. There are a number of tapings that aren't complete in 1978, so there's more out there to bubble up. Though doing some research into the likely tapings, there's a limited amount that might be out there that looks super interesting with respect for Jumbo. There are only so many Ohki & Duk vs Baba & Tsuruta matches one wants to watch. Anyway, if one is doing a comp of where Jumbo was at the time, he's quite far ahead of the rest with the exception of Kobashi, which probably is a matter of taste for some. Misawa and Kawada in the early 90s were a decade into their careers. One would need to compare them with 1983-84 Jumbo.

I'd disagree. Rusher is probably the best example of "variety" for Jumbo since it got him out of his normal set of opponents. I think Mil's 1977 singles match is a great example of variety for Jumbo. Again, it's not one of the guys he worked with regularly. On the other hand... Mil and Jumbo had been opposite each other 40+ times by that point, had several singles matches, including a few 30:00 time limit draws. They were pretty familiar with each other. Nick and Jumbo had worked far fewer times together, but they did have the 30:00 draw the year before the Hawaii. With Rusher, this was a guy who was the #1 star of a rival promotion who he'd spent all of 9 minutes in the ring with. Interpromotional headaches to deal with, in the big drawing match on a big IWE vs AJPW card that Baba sits out. Shitloads of pressure. A match can both be "lesser worker" and "variety". The first Kawada-Albright checked off both boxes.

I actually would include that Kimura match in pointing to Jumbo's work in the 70s. It's not a regular guy he worked with so that he could get all "smooth" with. This was just the second time they'd been in the ring together. Their first time is also available: the 12/13/75 Open Championship league match. When I first watched it, I found it disappointing as it wasn't close to the level of the 03/28/76 match. That's one of the problems with Best Of or watching stuff out of order: you see some really good stuff first, then see some earlier stuff with an "expectation", and pretty much zone out on the fact the two had never been in the ring before and are booked into a short 9 minute match stuck in a League where there are other stories to be told. Rusher will occasionally have a watchable match, usually along the lines of what's going on in the 1976 match: a "war" where they're kicking the crap out of each other. It's kind of telling that not one of his matches with Inoki made the DVDVR set. I found at least one of them to be decent and compelling, but, yeah... they're not super loved. Another contrast would be Rusher in this series of Gagne matches in IWE: 11/13/79 Rusher Kimura vs Verne Gagne 11/14/79 Verne Gagne vs Ashura Hara 11/15/79 Verne Gagne vs Mighty Inoue The Hara matches isn't any good, but the Rusher match struck me as even worse. Then Verne & Mighty have a pretty fun little match. Nothing off the charts, but Mighty at least is on the same page with Verne in doing some solid stuff. Rusher... not so much. Anyway, I've always thought that Jumbo being able to have a very good intense match with Rusher as being one of his bigger props in the 70s.

Daniel watched 60+ Tenryu matches in about that amount of time, along with the other stuff he was watching. Most of those were from the 90s, with most that weren't coming from 1988-89. A lot of the stuff was rather randomish rather than just the pimped stuff. If people tossed out some stuff that tied in (like the 3/2/94 Tenryu & Hara vs Onita & Goto or the first Tenryu-Takada), he'd give it a look. My point was more in terms of a challenge. If someone thinks that Kawada's 00's is mediocre to the degree that it drags down what he did prior to it relative to what the others did prior to it, there's a good sample of matches to check rather than the old "Here's 5 Matches!" that represent a decade for these four wrestlers. I'm doubtful anyone is going to pick it up. I'd be interested to see if anyone even comes up with the equiv lists for Misawa, Kobashi and Taue.

The guide would be "This was the stuff Will thought this was good enough to include". People are saying that Kawada post-2000 was mediocre relative to Misawa (when he wasn't dead), Kobashi (when he wasn't missing years injured) and Taue in the 10-or-so years. That's roughly 100 matches, roughly 10 a year, a reasonable sample against a variety of matches. I don't think anyone is going to claim this is 1994 Kawada, anymore than anyone is saying Kobashi in the 00's was 1993 vintage Kobashi, or Misawa in the 00s was 1994 Misawa, or that Taue in the 00s was 1996 Taue.

Unlikely to be shooting. Coke rambling was much more likely.