Jetlag

And just the other do, I was thinking of doing a blogpost specifically dedicated to Regals 1994... dude was an animal that year. Looks like you got me beat! There was also a match against Jungle Jim Steele of all people that I really enjoyed. And that Armstrong match is a gem indeed. Great work!

Let him be a lesson to us all that we work on ourselves to be good people, so we don't have to leave this world as hated men.

Maybe I have mentioned it before, but the Modesto Aledo/Kamikaze looks reminds me a lot of something out of Fantomas

I'm not really buying this Bryan is a cosplay wrestler talk. Guy learned from Regal and Brookside and was in the Inoki dojo, he has as much claim to legitimate skill as any other guy. He also came up with a lot of stuff on his own, like who really used the Cattle Mutilation the way he did before him, he'd turn basic things like an elbow or face stomp into his signature stuff and plausible finishers. Even the stuff he lifted from other wrestlers (like the kneecap stomp from a surfboard setup or the surfboard dragon sleeper) he made into his own. Mind you this was in an era where a lot of guys wrestled like a puro move randomizer. Clearly that and his more ground based style elevated him a lot in the eyes of the fans back then compared to the more highspot centric stuff others were doing. Granted I've not watched as much of his RoH stuff so I don't know how indulgent it gets (probably a lot considering it was RoH).

That guy saying he's gonna shoot Finlay is actually Austrian Viktor Krueger of BattlARTS fame. AFAIK they actually had a 'shootfight' match at some point but I don't think I've ever seen footage of it.

He has racked up a number of technical epics in the last couple years, in part thanks to the promotion known as MUTOHA, since that is their signature style and they were gracious to make a lot of footage available that was hidden in storage for over a decade, but also in a number of other promotions whenever they let him do stuff. The 60 minute match he had with Arai is insane, and possibly a greater 60 minute long technical epic than almost anything from the classical era, which is pretty crazy. Other notable GENTARO matches: vs El Samurai, FREEDOMS 9/27/2009 vs Osamu Nishimura, VKF 11/16/2015 vs Akira Jo, Mutoha 7/7/2024 vs Dekai Ichimotsu, 4/15/2018 vs Yasushi Sato, Mutoha 3/19/2022 vs Hiroshi Watanabe 5/30/2009 vs Yuki Ishikawa, Batos Cafe 2/23/2020 vs Kazuhiro Tamura, Mr. Gannosuke Produce 3/31/2011 vs Kenichiro Arai, Masamune Produce 6/19/2022 Obviously the times are on his side, with him making tape often and even smalltime performances like the match against Ichimotsu being uploaded by generous providers, but it's hard to deny that his resume stacks up extremely well even against top tier wrestlers. It's a really impressive reinvention when you consider he transformed into the technical master only after suffering a stroke and has been a very different but also great wrestler up until that point.

No comments on Lufisto, what a crying shame! She really did trailblaze before it was cool. Fun stiffness, deathmatches, actually a pretty decent wrestler when they let her. Honestly thought she had a really cool career with lots of fun matches in so many different promotions throughout and you can tell she was insanely passionate about wrestling. I think she wouldn't make my Top 100 wrestlers ever because that's a high bar and she's not perfect, but definitely on the shortlist of my favourite wrestlers to come out of the north american indy scene, male or female. Few things embody the spirit of the mid 2000s indys as her holding her own in a savage punch exchange with the likes of Necro Butcher.

https://archive.org/details/2002.06.05-masahiro-chono-hiroyoshi-tenzan-vs.-osamu-nishimura-manabu-nakanishi

No comments for Michel Saulnier, which is a pity, because he's an amazing wrestler who looks great in every single match he shows up in, perhaps with the exception of his referee appearances. Just an incredibly fast, athletic, technically skilled wrestler. I am especially particular towards the 1972 Guy Renault match which is one of the finest title matches I've ever seen. A quick glance shows me we have 11 matches of him, with some of them being clipped or JIP. It's very little, but it's worth digging through.

NJPW world also released the full version of the tag where Nakanishi gets injured and Nishimura takes his boots off. Great match, probably one of the best Japanese tags ever especially when you consider the scale. At one point Nishimura gets so enraged he starts punching a bleeding Tenzan in the face and tossing the referee around and wrestling doesnt get much better than that if you ask me.

RIP, he did lots of good stuff in pro wrestling, I loved his one match with Yuki Ishikawa

Another good-great WoS guy though I think he doesn't have quite the high-end matches to stand out above the pack. He's still well worth watching for being such an excellent straight forward heel. The Dave Barrie match is one of the finest examples of a veteran roughing up a rookie and getting the most out of it that I can recall.

I think I'll place Regal higher next time. Him working like that rules.

I actually got into the Japanese amateur/university wrestling scene recently, a lot of nonsense but also some surprisingly good stuff here and there.

The crazy thing is we have seen now almost everyone of these guys so we know how absolutely loaded these cards were, European wrestling in the 1950s was insane. Another interesting bit is German Herman Iffland main eventing against Pellacani, so either Iffland was a face in France quite unlike the wicked Adolf Kaiser, or they ran a heel vs heel as a main bout.

I think Gilbert Leduc vs Rocco Lamban would be a good introduction for US fans, since it has the clear story with Rocco Lamban working the chokehold and some escalation with Leduc trying to bite his ear off. Not that Jim Cornette cares I think, his podcast is pretty much just pure rage porn with the occasional tidbit about older wrestlers that Jim knew.

Found it

No there wasn't. Though some German/Austrian footage was occasionally shown on Catch Up, a show that started around the late 80s and mainly showed NWA stuff from the US. One of the hosts of that show, Horst Brack, even had a mini-feud going on with Rene Lasartesse, culminating in the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTCBUfW9IZg

It was from Das Aktuelle Sportstudio, the top sports magazine in Germany at the time (or, well, the 'one' considering only like 3 TV channels existed at that point, I believe.) Laurent is just a Japanese translation (pronounciation?) of Roland. Bock was supposed to wrestle the bear on that show, but the two British wrestlers doing an exhibition, Danny Lynch and Pete Gurr, caused a minor scandal when Gurr started bleeding from Lynchs headbutts and the whole thing was cancelled. A rather infamous incident in the history of German wrestling because it cemented for wrestling to be kept off TV for years for being too violent.

That match is in Loss' google drive. It may be unlisted on Matt Ds channel but I can't find a link right now.

Both were a factor. Looking back at the late 90s transitional period, you can find matches where the likes of Ecki Eckstein are forsaking the traditional european uppercuts and hip tosses for the sake of US-style stomp punches an DDTs.

Also Rolo Brasil was a wrestler from Colombia, like Billy Samson. His grappling is more lucha libre than German, fitted to a European style, so you can see him doing things like a Reverse Gory Special. As we know from the French footage it wasn't unusual for South Americans to come over and find work in Europe.