JerryvonKramer

It's weird to me Steven, we seem to like such different things. I'll never understand LA Park love, for example. And yet on the All Japan stuff we are seldom far apart.

I know a lot of people are high on it. Marty also spoke very highly of it. It maybe suffered from being watched back-to-back with Dream Rush, but I thought it actively sucked and can only say what I think.

Also, hey, there's no accounting for taste. I love David Crockett, late 80s Vince, and Kal Rudman, defend Gorilla Monsoon, dig Gene Okerlund on play-by-play, and have Sean Mooney as my avatar. For me the commentary team maybe took off half a star from that match and did the opposite of making it. The narrative they were selling didn't fit the match I was seeing.

Wow, he sounds a lot like Tazz.

Tell me when a death of the territories mod is released and I'll get it.

It's easier said that done. I have chemistry with Kelly built up over 50+ shows, just as Justin has chemistry with Scott and Graham has chemistry with this lads. Watching footage while talking is not like doing a regular podcast, and needs that chemistry already to be in place. And while we might have done guest spots on each other's shows over the years, we move in different circles. I say this from experience. The first time Chad and I "met" Will and Johnny on a show was during an AWA watching party. It was awkward as hell. I've now done dozens of shows with Will and Johnny and could talk to them while watching any footage. But it takes time to build up chemistry with anyone.

AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe (12/11/05) Tenay's voice just screams "this is wrestling for wieners" to me. Makes TNA hard to watch. Talk about the least cool thing on earth, ha ha. Stupid six-sided ring of course. Styles comes out firing. Snap suplex. Kawada kicks . Misawa elbows. Who's been watching 90s All Japan then! Snapmare. Big dropkick sends Joe down. Crowd pissing me off already and need to stop being so self aware. It's so unfair on these guys that they have to work in these sub-optimal conditions. Joe comes back with slaps and kicks. Tazz Don West a bit over the top on commentary. The presentation is a real hindrance, and so hard to look past. Massive reverse knife edge by Joe. Elbow exchanges. Joe kicks Styles's legs right from off the apron. Giant swing into the railings. Whip into the railings. Joe stops and waits for Styles to get up. One of my least favourite modern wrestling tropes that -- waiting for the opponent to get up. Just a style thing. Joe is stiff as a hell of course. Big knee drop. Back splash. Joe stays on top for some time now. Tenay reminding us that this is for the X Division title, couldn't make this feel less important. I feel like this heat sequence and the level of Joe's dominance is being a little oversold by the announce team. Maybe I'm just used to watching Bob Backlund matches, but Joe hasn't been that dominant. Styles hits a kick. Fucking hell Tazz is so bad, such a outrageous shill. Boston crab by Joe. I'm sorry but Joe just hasn't been on top long enough for Tenay and West to be selling this narrative of him having been on the end of a tremendous beating. Egregious flip over the top by Styles, the "Fosbury flop"? Whatever it was, totally stupid in the context of this match. Terrible spot that makes no sense there. Styles outrageously spotty in this stretch. No rhyme or reason, not cool at all. This is awesome chant from the crowd cements my diminishing patience. Joe with the kicks again. Styles with some comeback offense. Styles has colour, he's bleeding from the mouth. Joe is too. Powerbomb by Styles. Two only. Clothesline by Joe takes his head off. Cover doesn't even get two and Joe is shocked. Sit out powerbomb. Rear choke. Styles with a flashy kick to come back. Styles splash gets two. Announce team have worked to suck all excitement out of this. I never believed that would finish the match. Royce Gracie choke by Joe. And that knocks Styles out. My god. How terribly disappointing this match was. Just bad. I mean the environment does everything it can not to help and the commentary team is abysmal, but I was so disappointed by this. This is the opposite of working smart. Styles was the worst sort of spotty here. Joe's offense and the heat stretch did not adequately set up the story they were trying to tell. The match needed more time. The heated needed greater psychology and cohesion and focus. Styles needed to do a better job of getting over pain beyond just bumping big. I was fully expecting to like this match and I'm surprised by how much it left me cold. Styles and Joe were my great 00s hope, Styles especially was one of the very few guys that stood out as being good when I watched those Low-Ki matches, but with this being as bad as it was, I'm thinking of probably pulling the plug on any further exploration of this era. Is there any point? **

Manami Toyota and Toshiyo Yamada vs Mayumi Ozaki and Dynamite Kansai (AJW 11/26/92) I don't like by stating the obvious, but Dynamite Kansai is pretty butch as women go. She starts out with Yamada. Toyota in. Osaki in. This is probably too fast for a running commentary, so I'll just want and make more substantive comments as they strike me. This Kansai is a fucking beast. The level of brutality so far has surprised me, I thought this was going to be more flippy flippy than this. Could almost be watching an All Japan men's match, but worked at a more frantic pace. It's a very all-action accessible style, and unlike much Lucha I haven't enjoyed in the past, it has a more satisfying sense of "heft" behind all the work. You can hear the kicks connect, and the mat slam. Nothing is "floaty". I also don't think it is spotty insomuch as it has none of that choreographed feel that sometimes irritates me about both 90s AAA and 00s indies. This might seem a lot for an initial impression, but I was expecting this style to feel a lot more ephemeral than it does, I don't like ephemeral. These girls work snug. Some of the suplexes and head drops in this first fall have been sick. But I don't think it has been too spotty. Tremendous first fall. Yamada's response to going 1-0 down is awesome. About 8 or 9 back suplexes in a row absolutely destroying Kansai. Suplex city bitch! Instant reply for 1-1, but the way it was done as a revenge mission with Yamada going full tilt was really cool. I loved that! One small criticism is that I'd have liked to have seen a little more long-term selling from Kensai after taking the fall. It's been a lot of Yamada vs. Kansai so far, it has been the story of the match. Since they shook hands at the start, I'm guessing there's a reason for that. Another small note -- I like the way that this match has slowed down as it progressed. We're very used to looking for the narrative of a slow start heating up to the hot finish. But I think that the idea of a frantic start followed by a cooling down period is just a compelling. Something to think about. In the third fall, we settle into what is essentially a one fall tag match worked double heat. First Yamada is FIP. Then Toyota. I love a heel beatdown, and Kensai and Ozaki destroy Yamada. And then Kensai basically kills Toyota with three back suplexes and a sharpshooter. Neat little moment as Ozaki sneaks across and applies additional leverage on the ropes, as if it needs that after three suplexes! Ha ha. Evil for its own sake. Yamada comes back to save her partner but Kensai annihilates her with kicks. She comes back with some of her own though and Toyota comes in to hit several Germans on Kensai. Tiger suplex by Ozaki. Powerbomb. Dropkick. Counters one by Toyota. Double teaming now. Lengthy back and forth finishing stretch. A lot of effective near falls. I could have sworn Ozaki kicks out on the finish. There's something really interesting about this match. It is clearly structured around Yamada and Kanasai kicking the shit out of each other, and Toyota seems to gravitate towards the high spots -- dropkicks, coming off the top, etc. -- but Ozaki, she is the rock, the base around which all this madness is structured. The other three are giving very "big" performances, she's giving a "little" performance. Her character work is off the charts, she's smug, bitchy, nasty, satisfied when she's on top, and thwarted when she's taking punishment, it's a tremendous heel performance and in the middle of at least two other amazing performances from Kensai, a real bully, and Yamada, who shows all sorts of babyface courage and fighting spirit. It is definitely a five star match. But when I think of my top 100, it's not one I see in the top 10 simply because it lacks the emotional punch for me. Looking at it, it would likely make top 25 though. *****

I thought he was listed as just Chavo, I recall we protested at the time. Older Chavo is listed as Chavo Sr. I'd like to nominate Mr. Fuji via Titans and the six hours we talked about him with Grimmas.

These guys continue to impress me a lot. They are having actually good and enjoyable matches with the Strongows for Christ's sake.

The only non-wrestler I'd give an outside bet to would be Bobby Heenan, who I think might be a legitimate 3/3 for selling and gets a +1 for his signature bump and could come close to maxing out variety with the 70s AWA stuff all the way to Survivor Series 89.

If I get a moment later, I can go through all the shows we watched for Titans and pick out any that stand out. Generally there's a lot more good and even great matches in the Backlund era. Not just because Bob was more of a worker than Bruno, but also because with guys like Valentine, Patterson, DiBiase, Patera, Slaughter, Hussein Arab (Iron Sheik), Adrian Adonis, Rick Martel, Bob Orton Jr, and Mr. Saito coming through, the workrate goes through the roof. The old 70s crew were lazy as hell. They didn't like bumping. There's a lot of lumbering around and matches that drift. And honestly, if I was alone watching some of that stuff rather than doing it for Titans I probably would have turned it off. Some of the 70s cards are really painful to get through. The 79-83 period on the other hand will usually deliver one or two really enjoyable matches in any given sitting. It's because, simply put, there are better workers around. One hidden gem off the top of my head though is Dominic Denucci vs. Great Hussein Arab. Denucci goes "middle aged and crazy". I think it's in Philly too.

One performance that stands out is Rumble 99 (I think that's the one he wins right?). Now from a wrestling stand point, that is one of the less fondly remembered ones, but ... I recall watching it as it happened and marking out to see Vince exploit every rule I'd speculated about for years. I always wondered why guys DIDN'T do that, and there was Vince doing it. That sense of seeing the unthinkable is what made Vince so amazing as it was happening. You got to explore all those "what if" scenarios you (okay, well maybe just those of us of a certain nerdy disposition ) had thought about. What if the heel in a cage match just immediately bee-lined for the door? Stuff like that. It explored the limits of the universe and its internal rules. And I absolutely loved it. In hindsight we can see it ended up breaking wrestling, perhaps forever, but at the time it was so much fun, especially for a life long heel fan. However, Vince has zero chance at making my list because he'll score 0 in about three categories and wasn't a wrestler.

I think it was me who nominated him. I mainly just wanted a comment from our resident WoS expert OJ. I saw one match where I thought his character work stood out, even if he wasn't the greatest worker. Kendo Nagasaki is one guy -- other than Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks etc. -- that your average non-wrestling British person over a certain age might know. A bit like how those younger than a certain age might know the Undertaker.

My issue is with a lot of these Lucha matches I end up giving ****+ to is that they don't stay with me, for whatever reason. I always find myself saying "what match is that again?" and having to double check to see if I've already seen and reviewed it (sometimes I find I have). One of the exceptions is that Cota bout. However, knowing how my system works, I think Casas will do well on my list. He's been great in everything I've seen, even if I struggle to remember half of it. I am going to watch more soon. Casas should be my gateway guy to help me get into other Lucha guys, even if I've developed no great love for anyone else yet ... with the exception of Cota.

If we're ranging into to 1979, Pat Patterson has a string of impressive performances that year. I really like one of the ones vs. DiBiase.

Well, here's something new, more Mystery Science Theatre than commentary, but have a look: We did a watch-along audio show and this thread made me have a brain wave. So let us know what you think and if there's interest, we could make it a regular thing.

Here's the watch-along video version: Man that took a long time to upload. If you do watch that vid, be sure to check out the first 10 mins of the audio version for vital details of the LA Card that day, as well as info on Marvelous Marv Brooks, long-time Cap Centre ring announcer.

If you wait about an hour, I'm currently uploading a version of this to youtube with the audio laid over the video. We lose about 10 minutes of intro from the start, but otherwise, if this proves to have any interest, it could be a new thing we do.

Titans Xtra makes an unexpected comeback with this experiemental format: https://soundcloud.com/jerryvonkramer/titans-xtra-wwf-april-23rd-capital-centre Join Parv and Kelly in this Mystery Science Theatre-style experience, as they watch a random -- and perhaps rightly forgotten -- WWF card from April 23rd, 1983 at the Cap Centre. Be sure to watch along at home as you listen, by following the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCIQKfuENtg

It is better to go into Vince Sr-era WWF with a different mindset. It's not about great matches or workrate or even great wrestling. It's about ... something else. Something I cannot quite explain.

I don't know if there are two better feuds for promos than Jake vs. DiBiase and Jake vs. Savage. But then you watch the matches and ... One of those weird things actually. In Dibiase's mind him and Jake had great matches, I've heard him say that in many shoots. He also thought Jake was a tremendous worker and I've heard a lot of other guys say the same. Jake is the one worker who really is raved about by his peers who I just don't get. If this were a poll by wrestlers, I think he'd probably finish top half. And they always cite his psychology. I've also listened to many a Jake shoot where he sings from the same hymn sheet about himself. He talks a good game. But then in the matches, again, very limited goods. But he does control the crowd. Can someone be a top 100 worker purely on crowd control?

Thanks a lot buddy. It's not an ideal way to do things, but as long as I have enough to make the ratings it will be enough for me to rank them. This has been on my to do list since Chad devoted about a third of his top 100 matches list to them.

I hope that Styles is promptly assigned a gimmick and given months of skits to get him over a la Million Dollar Man, Mr. Perfect etc. Maybe Tax Tips with AJ Styles.

Loss, can you give me like ten essential Joshi matches to watch please. Just the best ten in your view.