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Childs

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Everything posted by Childs

  1. Childs
    This is unquestionably true, and yet, I have to admit that's how I have joshi classifed in my wrestling brain. So I'm less open to a joshi match that might be good than I would be to pimped matches in most other genres. You almost have to start out by convincing me that the match won't fall into my preconceived notions of what sucks about joshi. That's unlikely to change at this point, but yeah, sexism isn't at the root of my bias.
  2. Childs
    Like Will, I have developed an instinctive aversion to women's wrestling. I was actually really excited to dive into joshi a few years back, because I had read so many plaudits for the best workers and matches. But it never clicked for me. The go-go style epitomized by Toyota wears me out in a hurry. And there are a few aesthetic aspects linked to gender -- all the screaming, for example -- that bug me. I don't think of my resistance to joshi in gender terms. I'm just as skeptical of current puro and matches involving Davey Richards and Eddie Edwards, and for many of the same reasons. I still attempt to keep an open mind. In going through the yearbooks, I try to watch the matches that Loss praises with a fresh eye. Usually, they end up striking me as formless overkill, but not always. I have no problem saying that Hokuto, Kong, Jaguar, etc. were great wrestlers and I see no reason at all why they can't be judged against Flair or Jumbo. Any GOAT poll requires cross-genre, cross-era comparisons, and any voter is going to harbor biases for and against certain styles. Aja vs. Flair is no different than Satanico vs. Flair or, I don't know, Vader vs. Jim Breaks.
  3. Childs
    These arguments invariably become a mess, because it really isn't clear what constitutes a WON Hall-of-Famer. We have some sense that it should take more than work (and the written guidelines say so) but there are clearly inductees who defy that logic. Loss, you talk about Windham not accomplishing enough, but is it clear that he accomplished less than Kurt Angle or Ultimo Dragon? It's a poorly defined honor, so it's easy for people to claim that it means whatever they want it to mean. This is a problem with all HOFs.
  4. Childs
    Fujiwara vs. Kawada was from All Japan, March 2001. To be fair, it might have been more disappointing than truly awful.
  5. Childs
    No, that's baseball.
  6. Childs
    Fujiwara had a match with Kawada. It was bad.
  7. Childs
    Was he actually suggesting that Edgar was a worse player than Tony Womack? Is that a DH thing? As for the Womack argument, I'd take him over Lenny Harris and Mark Davis. I think he's neck and neck with Bichette. The other guys at least hit higher peaks, though it was, of course, pointless to throw them on the HOF ballot.
  8. Childs
    I've never cared much about the Ventura debate, in part because Dave has couched it in terms of Jesse's wider fame, about which I couldn't give less of a shit. But I have to say, this discussion has made me consider what drove my love of 1980s WWF. And Jesse was a big part of it. I just loved listening to the guy, to the extent that I cared less about an event if it was called by Heenan and Gorilla. I still like listening to him when I watch 1990s WCW. I have less defined expectations of a wrestling announcer than Loss; I don't think getting over the sporting drama of a match is the only way to skin that cat. Jesse succeeded in creating a character that was, for me, one of the indelible ones from a hugely significant era. So I'd vote for him out of personal preference, though I don't think his case is a commanding one.
  9. Childs
    Maybe this is simply a cultural difference, because you show zero grasp of the way sport is consumed and talked about in the U.S. The New York Yankees, for example, are clearly viewed by fans across the country as a kind of evil empire that tries to buy championships the way Dibiase tried to buy the WWF title without wrestling. Fans of smaller-market teams talk about it in moral terms all the time. Now, it's true that the Yankees probably don't act out of a desire to make opposing fans view them as evil. But the narrative really isn't all that different, and it isn't a media fabrication. Besides, you're only looking at one aspect of wrestling storytelling. As stated before, there are many matches and angles that aren't based on over-the-top depictions of good and evil. There are underdog stories, stories of longtime rivalry, stories of overcoming injury, stories of matches tarnished by poor officiating -- in other words, stories that are quite common to competitive sport. If you refuse to recognize the overlap, you're just being obtuse. Wrestling borrows these storylines and heightens them because, hey, they work.
  10. Childs
    Sure, wrestling is generally goofier and more heightened than sport, but I don't think the narratives are as different as you're suggesting. Humble guy shuts up cocky, loquacious guy. Little guy tries to topple big guy. Poorly funded upstart takes on rich, established power. Team fights to get over the hump against a longtime rival. Games undermined by questionable officiating. These are all simple storylines that crop up repeatedly in sport and also lie at the heart of countless memorable wrestling matches and angles. Is wrestling the same as sport? No. As OJ said, it's not precisely like any other entertainment medium. But it certainly borrows durable narratives from sport.
  11. Childs
    Both capable of enormous douchery, but Inoki's best performances blow Hunter's best stuff out of the water. And frankly, a cultural icon/lunatic with an affinity for dictators is a lot more interesting than a wannabe megalomaniac with delusions of old school credibility.
  12. Childs
    It's moronic to claim that narrative is unimportant to the way sports are sold and consumed. That narrative might be generated differently in the NBA than it is in wrestling, but there are absolutely strong elements of morality. If you don't think LeBron James was a heel and Dirk Nowitzki a babyface in the 2011 Finals, I'm not sure what to tell you. I can't speak to UK football culture, but in the U.S., there are different layers of sports fandom. There is the level Jerry alluded to on which fans support their local teams through thick and thin. But there's also an enormous pool of general sports fans who are more apt to tune in for big events if there's some sort of melodrama behind them (Red Sox finally win the World Series, LeBron goes down in the Finals, X challenger tries to shut Floyd Mayweather's mouth, etc.) Just because the drama occurs more organically in sports, that does not make it less intrinsic to their appeal. Wrestlers are often trying to recreate the sort of narrative excitement that arises naturally in sports.
  13. Childs
    Sasuke impressed me by sliding smoothly into the lucha mat sequences. I know it's been said numerous times , but it's amazing that dude can walk, much less wrestle, 17 years later. That dive to nowhere followed by the power bomb to the barely padded floor made for a ridiculous pair of bumps. Caras went over incredibly strong here. I was a little surprised that Sasuke didn't even hint at a comeback, though it was fitting, given the offense he ate. Great addition to the set, because I never would have thought to seek it out.
  14. Childs
    I watched Mutoh-Hash and this back-to-back, and I preferred this. The first half of Mutoh-Hash was a good version of NJ heavyweight time killing, but it still featured some unengaging groundwork by Mutoh (mitigated by Hash's selling). The match didn't really pick up until Hash started throwing bombs at about the 15-minute mark. The end run was really good, with both guys letting the big moments breath and Mutoh's win coming off as an epic conclusion. But Mutoh's just not a guy I see as a great wrestler, even in his good matches. Misawa-Taue produced a hell of a lot more action, without sacrificing selling or lapsing into overkill. I didn't mind Taue's dual focus. The leg thing almost felt like "found gold." Taue did the initial damage with a nifty counter on the outside, and he kept going back to it more as a way to cut off Misawa's runs than as a way to win the match directly. And Misawa's selling put over the idea that it was a vulnerable target deep into the match. Why wouldn't Taue try to attack Misawa on multiple fronts? He was sort of grasping for a strategy after his big gun failed to bag the elephant in April. The end run was very different; instead of the layered Misawa comeback, we got them going blow-for-blow and staggering one another. I loved Taue's sell of the last Misawa elbow. I guess Mutoh-Hash delivered more of a classic build, but Misawa and Taue started out with the intensity that their NJ counterparts reached mid-match, and they still had something left for the stretch.
  15. Childs
    Fujiwara and Yatsu were fun in the G-1 , which might not be captured in the WON ratings.
  16. Childs
    Really? I think Steamboat would be more of a candidate for the consistent list than the inconsistent.
  17. Childs
    He'd be pretty middle of the pack for a sports writer. His stuff isn't any better/worse than what you'd find on ESPN or CBS. There are some practically illiterate people writing about sports. I'm late replying to this, because I didn't see it before, but that's frankly a ridiculous statement. I've worked as a journalist for 12 years and and have been a high-volume consumer of sports writing for longer than that. And I never see the kind of shoddy writing that appears weekly in the WON in professionally edited publications. I have great respect for Dave's work ethic, contextual knowledge and overall source base. But he needs a real editor to help him clarify individual sentences and to organize his thinking. Just read his Yahoo work to see how much of a difference decent editing makes. The WON audience has never forced him to adopt higher standards in the newsletter, so it's understandable that he hasn't made the investment. But come on, ESPN.com, for all its flaws, would be ashamed to publish the kind of copy that appears regularly in the WON. Personally, I find it frustrating to read his work, especially the big historical pieces, because he comes up with great raw material that would really pop if it was presented more professionally. But like many of his subscribers, I read anyway, because no one else comes close to presenting a similar volume of interesting reportage on wrestling.
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  19. Childs
    I always watch this match with a skeptical eye, thinking it might not be as great as I remember. But fuck that -- it's the greatest match of all time. I started counting the moments I love as I watched it last night, and the number got well into the 30s. In other words, I found about one moment per minute that would be the highlight of most other matches. Kawada booting Misawa off the apron, Misawa receipt-elbowing Kawada off the apron, the overzealous murder of Kobashi's leg, Misawa fighting his way up from Kawada's kicks in the corner, Kawada setting up for the stretch plum and instead grinding his forearm across Misawa's eye, Kobashi's gimpy moonsault, Taue hitting the pivotal move after taking a backseat for most of the match, Misawa starting to rally anyway, Kawada's look of absolute hunger throughout. I better stop, but two last things responding to Loss. First, I totally get how Kobashi's performance could strike people as over the top. I find his refuse-to-die schtick annoying in other matches. But it worked for me here, I guess because his leg was set up as a key story point early, and it seemed like such a Platonically ideal Kobashi thing to fight through it the way he did. It was a very broad performance in a match that was telling a very BIG story. Plus, it didn't work, which is kind of a great little kick in the ass. Second, I didn't think Misawa was clearly going to lose until the last minute of the match. He had come back from Taue's apron nodowa in April, and he did the same shit here that he did to kick off his rally then. It was only Kawada's desperate need to win that finally checked Misawa, and I can't think of a better possible ending. So yeah, this is still it for me, the be-all and end-all.
  20. Childs
    I really dig heel Rock & Roll. It's no surprise that Morton could do just about anything in the ring, but I did not expect Gibson to shine as a tubby, smarmy asskicker. Loss' point about them integrating their classic teamwork spots into a heel context is right on. PG-13 looked great too, sort of playing an updated version of the Rock & Rolls to Morton and Gibson' spin on the Midnight Express role. Lance Russell was excellent on commentary, explaining Morton and Gibson's heeling as a reasonable response to PG-13 rather than seeming unduly aggrieved by it. I'm glad I saw this.
  21. Childs
    I had somehow managed never to see this, but it was a lot of fun. RVD's more innovative spots translate to just about any wrestling audience, a virtue for which he probably doesn't get enough credit. And Kroffat put together sequences that allowed them both to look good. I did think RVD's strikes came off as embarrassingly weak in this context, but it wasn't like that killed the match or anything. In fact, I enjoyed the goofiness of their karate exchanges. I'd put this below the Hansen/Spivey vs. Doc/Gordy tags from the aforementioned list, but it's certainly a highlight of non-four-corners All Japan and one of the promotion's few memorable juniors single matches from the decade.
  22. Childs
    I hadn't watched this in a long time, but it's even greater when viewed in the context of the whole Carny. The first half was great fun with all kinds of nifty counter spots, very little fat and a nutty crowd. The build to Taue's nodowa off the apron took it to another level. No one had been able to recover from that move, and the crowd kind of roar/gasped at the real possibility of a Misawa loss. That, of course, made his long rally so much better. I loved the way he fell to his knees after the first few elbows, keeping open the possibility that he might not be able to fight his way back. Once his comeback picked up steam, he threw some of the fiercest elbows of his career. Taue took and sold them like a champ. Taue's last-ditch attempt to claw at Misawa's bad eye was also great, showing his desperation as his brilliant Carny run slipped away. They didn't go back and forth unnecessarily or push it a second too long. Hard not to feel energized after watching a match this fucking good. If this isn't MOTY, it's probably No. 2.
  23. Childs
    I like Toyota more against Aja than against anyone else, because she was forced to play the role for which she was best suited. She pretty much had to eat offense and sell for longer periods, and her rallies carried more drama because of it. She still blew off the back work, but at least she wasn't bouncing up every 30 seconds.
  24. Childs
    I don't know; it goes a long way for me.
  25. Childs
    You could definitely notice something "off" about Misawa's performance even if you didn't see the kick to the eye. He blew a couple of moves from his basic repertoire, which just wasn't something you saw from him at this point. I would put this in the bottom 1/3 of their matches; there wasn't a tremendous amount of focus to either guy's attack. But they were so fucking great that they still managed to settle in for an excellent match with a hot finishing stretch. When you take the injury into account, it's certainly a memorable effort if not a memorable match by their standards.
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