pantherwagner

I'm sure many people hate the style but I wonder why somebody who finds a style (British or lucha or whatever) being a turnoff would then vote in those regions.

Who's making that argument? Saint seems to mostly get support as a workrate candidate but I'd classify him as a special attraction worker. I'd expect a workrate candidate's merit to be somebody who you want to see wrestle every week.

Interesting that you put the style as a con. I also think Saint is a gimmick worker that is great to see once in a while but not every week, maybe like a Super Kendo or something. However I believe that most (all?) of the people that will vote for him will mainly do so for his style.

Many of the Tijuana guys and independents like the Villanos got away for a very long time working dates secretly. This sounds crazy because there was internet back then but it wasn't the same. I'm sure some of you remember Psicosis rushing to lose his mask in Tijuana for a payday a few weeks before WCW made him drop it.

Konnan used WCW dates as the hook to get people in to Promo Azteca. That's one of the reasons why he got apparent CMLL lifers like Silver King, Hector Garza and Dandy to jump. Garza easily came back, SK was eventually forgotten partly thanks to his brother being such a big star, Dandy has never been forgotten. Konnan is a great conman and hustler. A lot of the Mexicans thought that this would be like getting Tijuana Friday night spots or to an extent like New Japan and a different crew of guys would go in every month for a different "tour". Many where upset when they realised the same guys were the only ones being called over and over.

It was indeed a fantastic run. I guess it would have been as good but also a much longer feud had it been Funk though (Konnan wanted Funk, Pena didn't even know who he was and he wanted the guy he had seen on WWF TV who he thought was a much bigger star). Funk could have also feuded with Aguayo which may have resulted in a hair vs hair match in between five and ten stars.

This is correct. I think there was even a graphic on TV for Bret coming over but instead they got Jake and the two fakes.

You are absolutely right Phil, for some reason I thought that was from the stuff Fredo got when he bought Mike Tenay's tapes. If we ever meet I'll buy you as much beer as you want just for that.

I don't know for sure one way or another but all the wrestlers I have had somewhat of a close relationship with have completely kayfabed their families. They are all old school guys (which Guerrero is kind of is old school in a way even though he was there at the tail end). Even 10 years ago there were many people who "knew" it was all arranged but also believed that Apuestas matches are real because there's too much at stake.

Cota was one of those guys that was a fast forward guy back in the 90s. That's why when Alfredo Esparza found the first Rocca vs Cota match it was such a holy shit moment. It would be worth revisiting some of his career but I don't know if I'd like to be the one doing it. His 80s stuff is mostly outstanding. Back in 1996 or 1998 I'd have laughed at all of you if you had told me that La Fiera was the third best worker of the Chicana/Cota/Fiera team and that it wasn't even close.

Match was awesome and it had the feeling of a modern classic that people will talk about in decades, like Cien Caras vs Rayo, Solitario vs Wagner or Atlantis vs Villano. I absolutely love how UG kayfabed his family about the result so his pretty wife and daughters were crying like babies and his dad looked to be desolate. It added to the atmosphere. The fans at Arena Mexico are all smart (you can say that about most fans at almost any major Arena in Mexico for the last decade) and at the big shows you get a more urban, affluent and educated crowd so nowadays it's difficult to get those 90s Perro Aguayo moments where he's bleeding like a stuck pig after the match and teenage girls, middle aged women and older ladies try to get close to give him a hug.

He was a fiat pick but Dynamite Kid was also either the biggest or second biggest draw in the history of Stampede Wrestling according to someone Bix mentioned to me who I can't remember at the moment. I can't imagine that was true. I'd assume that the guys who Stu flew around in chartered planes and who helped him build the big mansion were bigger draws than the guy on top as they declined and eventually sold out to Vince. I believe the story is that Dynamite drew the most dollars overall.. As in he consistently drew Stu money for years. Not a guy who came in for 3 months here, 3 months there. I have read Stu himself saying that Dynamite, not Abdullah or the Stomper, is the guy that made him the most money. Whether that's true or not is a different case but that's what he said.

I grabbed a bunch of 50s wrestling from LA off youtube a couple of years ago, unless you meant something else. I meant something else, but I'm curious about the footage that you got. The footage I am talking about is a big collection of early 80s L.A. wrestling probably from the Spanish channel (the commentator would alternate in between English and Spanish commentary during the same match) and also some local lucha libre program. Apparently the uploader (jellybeans with some number at the end) got tired of people asking him if he wanted to trade DVD's that he deleted the channel and vanished. This was during a time that I wasn't watching wrestling (I heard about the channel from a friend who told me) and I remember kicking myself for not downloading or even watching a long Perro Aguayo vs Mil Mascaras match from that era. There was also a Negro Navarro vs Mando Guerrero match that sounded interesting, and Chris Adams vs one of the misioneros (Navarro again I think).

Not only Japan. Dusty vs Inoki main eventing Starrcade 85?

Gotcha. Sorry shoe, I didn't listen to that show so I misunderstood the question. I'd say it was probably gimmicked but I'd also not be surprised if this had happened to him before. If you use jdownloader2 you can paste the channel's address and it will pick up all the videos for you so you don't have to convert them one by one. In fact I am currently creating a copy for myself and all 101 videos in the highest quality is only 15GB. I learned my lesson after the jellybeans collection of L.A. wrestling disappeared probably to never be seen again.

Do you think the Rogers/Calhoun match was gimmicked ? We reviewed this match for Titans of Wrestling and we were split 2-2 on it. We can't really know unless we start seeing more Calhoun, but the headlock spots (which I liked), the choke, the rope breaking... I'd say it was a patterned gimmick they probably had done quite a few times before.

At least Jumping Jeff is there.

I watched Verne vs Bastien and it was tremendous. As Graham (or Crackers?) said above it's a young lion vs veteran match, with plenty of fast paced athletic matwork. The second match I saw was Buddy Rogers vs Haystacks Calhoun. Of all the stuff, that's what I watched, yes. It was what it was (and I didn't expect otherwise) but I don't think I had ever seen Calhoun so I was curious, and I have seen Rogers once that I can recall. Calhoun was a total gimmick you can do only once every few months but he was also a lot more mobile than I expected.

Cien Caras would probably have a better case if we had more of his 80s stuff but even so I doubt it would be a top 100 case. I always heard (from veterans in Mexico) that the best worker in the family by far was Mascara Ano 2000.

Black hole is indeed a perfect way to define the EMLL/CMLL power structure of buddies and families.

Fuck, that is terrible. That same Friday he was sharing songs on his facebook. Jim was a great man with a tremendous sense of humour who always was helpful and friendly. Thanks for sharing.

I'm not sure what other US archives could pop up but I hope that someday the INA French Catch archive shows up online. There's some sort of local lucha archive in Monterrey too and I have seen only some clips with Huracan Ramirez and a couple others but whatever is there is in excellent video quality. It's great that money and time from an institution has been spent on this to restore it and give it away for free. It's surprising and refreshing to see wrestling getting that type of respect. If Televisa did this with their 80s lucha archive the heads of many people in this forum would explode. Don't worry though, Televisa is a black hole and will never do that.

Khawk - as our resident Verne expert I was going to ask about that Carpentier match. I guess that it's "new". There are two Thesz-Rogers matches, the one from the Japanese DVD that I bought over there was a 60 min draw that I felt was kind of boring when I watched it. I know that some people in Japan (and some in this board) had a copy obtained through other methods and had to lay low. I guess this stuff is now all in the open. Unrelated stuff: I had forgotten how annoying Scott Hall's fake accent was during the early nWo days.

They'e both been in developmental forever. I don't watch a lot of NXT either (mostly the specials and some TV here and there) but I got the same impression. They should either cut those guys or send them to the main roster and let them sink or swim.

I have seen Dave Meltzer make that argument many times too, but hey, short hair didn't stop the guy who shot all the Ginnetty set handhelds.