Jetlag

A guy on twitter has found a tape with Otto Wanz vs Big John Studd and Wanz vs Gian Haystacks, which sound new. I'm not sure if he has uploaded it anywhere yet, though.

Wow, a new 60s WoS match? Awesome! That was a nice match. Clay Thomson is clearly an excellent wrestler. He hit about a dozen cool takedowns on young Tony. He also did some neat arm attacks that I've never seen before. There was one sunset flip that was phenomenally smooth. Otherwise it was good clean technical wrestling for the most part. Neat, I wonder where the seller got this from?

There may have been a bit of wrestling-cultural exchange going on between France and Canada, with Edouard Carpentier spending the rest of his career up there. I remember one commenter saying Carpentier would always name drop French wrestlers while commentating.

I don't really have a problem with these comments. At the time I had watched a bit if 70s/early 70s AJW and I recall seeing cool matwork in other matches too. There were definitely lots of irish whips and typical joshi style 'hit the same move 3 times in a row' stuff. I think there are like 2 Mariko Akagi matches on tape and they are short forgettable undercard bouts so I'm not sure where that comparison ever came from, I am guessing that comment was based on hearsay. I'm just glad more people are checking out this era of AJW now.

You should check out some Mutoha, by far the best wrestling to come out in the 2020s imo! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1d-K3X3Sh4

I'd like to know more about their training.

I have the faint hope that there may be more French stuff that the INA has taped but not uploaded to their archive.

He might be a Top 100 all time wrestler now. He was always fun as the hard headed drunken master in Dragon Gate, but at some point he turned into a sneaky technical master in a grease monkey suit. Thanks to the promotion known as MUTOHA he has been in a string of epic lengthy main event matches. The GENTARO match is a MOTDC and Arai is a big part of that. Combing through his back catalogue in other promotions like HEAT UP, FREEDOMS, Asuka Project, the occasional sparse Dragon Gate appearance where he actually gets to craft a singles match, he has a lot of gems in his resume and is always worth watching. Really unique worker who turns the most basic moves like a cravate, flying headscissor or hammerlock into nearfalls, and he can work all kinds of different matches. I'll have to dig way more into his back catalogue but right now Arai definitely feels like someone who deserves consideration.

You have to make a Twitter account and DM them. They will send you a PayPal bill at the end of each month.

Bad Bones John Klinger has died at the age of merely 40. The cause of death is said to be a heart attack. Eerily enough on he same day as his idol Randy Savage. He had announced his retirement from pro wrestling just earlier this year and was still busy with his retirement tour. International fans may know him from his short stints with TNA and BJW. Down here he was a highly respected veteran and one of the go-to main eventers in any promotion. Incredibly hard working wrestler who committed 100% to the lifestyle and have a WWE-style pro wrestler look.

This rant that was recently posted by a well versed historian on a German messageboard feels very relevant: "It has long bothered me that everything that happened in Aut/BRD is automatically attributed to the CWA. A well-known data site even goes back to 1972, which is total bullshit. The CWA as an organised club that held events under the banner did not exist before 1988 event 87, but then only in Austria in Graz and then from 89 in Vienna. Before that, if you read CWA it was merely a title. Otto got the rights to a CWA title that Jan Wilkens had previously held in South Africa in 1977 (not 73 as is often stated on the net). There was also no tournament that is always mentioned here. Otto passed the title on to Don Leo, the date of 01.09.1977 is also incorrect here, I doubt whether there was a fight at all. The reason was that it was of course better for Wanz to win the title from a champion in his home town than to come home with a belt that nobody knows how and where and above all against whom he "won" it. Well DLJ got a good payday and Otto called himself world champion of the CWA from 1978. At that time it was still called the "Canadian Wrestling Association" (it didn't exist, but who cares). Otto defended the title at home at his shows, which he had been organising since 1972 and then mainly in Bremen, where Nico Selenkowitsch saw potential in Otto and built him up as a top European HW. Otto defended the title at home in his shows, which he organised from 1972 onwards and then above all in Bremen, where Nico Selenkowitsch saw potential in Otto and built him up as a top European HW. This was also reflected in the fact that Otto even won a second world championship title in 1978, the title played out in a tournament in Bremen with Nico of the IBV (International Professional Wrestling Federation). The success proved everyone right, Otto thrilled the crowds and Nico was able to fill the halls. However, the events were always organised under IBV, CWA only came into play on the final evening where Otto received a share per spectator in addition to the fee. When Nico resigned in 1987, more or less due to the intrigues of the new management of the Stadthalle in Bremen and other ricochets, Otto took over together with Peter William. The same thing happened in Vienna. After the 1988 tournament, Heinrich Kaiser (who did NOT organise CWA for the VDB) was booted out and Wanz and William also took over Waltz City. Hanover also belonged to Kaiser and the VDB until 90. Then in 1991 a discotheque owner called Jürgen Windolph took over for the VDB. But only for one year, then came Paul Violka and now the CWA with PEter William. Wanz was never an organiser in Hanover. Sure, he got his percentage for the name, but he had nothing to say, only William did. Cities like Karlsruhe, Hamburg and others were never CWA territory. I'm annoyed that I've been doing educational work for years and then, as in this case, everything is simply labelled CWA on various Twitter pages, sorry X or youtube. But it is not. If you're interested, you can read it. Most people don't care, they just stick with CWA." Source (German) -> https://www.moonsault.de/forum/thread/125606-aufklärung-zur-cwa-catch-wrestling-association/ FWIW, Roland Bock had a few matches against Jack Rowlands in 1974 for IBV, so the clip might be from one of those.

I've come across clips of this stuff on Youtube, highly interesting. There's a high level of athleticism and invetiveness on display that doesn't seem to be far below of what the mexican guys were doing around the same time. Check out this clip, some impressive stuff here: Makoto Morimitsu apparently is a Japanese guy who learned how to wrestle in South America and he has worked there since, trotting the globe during the 2000s. His channel has more stuff, although only highlights and usually doesn't show the finish of the matches sadly: https://www.youtube.com/@makotomorimitsu6249/videos He also has clips of him wrestling in places like Peru and Colombia, apparently wrestling in Peru was also called Catchascan tracing back to the catch as catch can wrestling style. This channel has a bunch more stuff, although quality is a nightmare as all the videos are grainy with a watermark overlaid and low fi heavy metal overdubbed. Gee I love low fi heavy metal as much as anyone but sometimes you can overdo it. https://www.youtube.com/@jaidercito1/videos This channel also has some stuff: https://www.youtube.com/@luchafuertextremabolivialf151/videos The high production value TV stuff from 1997-2002 ca. looks great. I'd love to see the full matches. I've no idea if maybe Bolivia has a TV archive like France and Chile or we need to find the Bolivian lucha super aficionado who has every episode on VHS in his garage. Also, add Bolivia to the list of countries where they fucking love wrestling mummies.

I would throw in her 2001 singles matches vs Ran Yu Yu, and the 2002 sprint against Meiko Satomura in for singles recommendations. I haven't yet done a full-on deep dive into Amano, but I can safely say she's always worth watching when she's not in some bullshit tag playing the jobber. The GAEAISM channel has put up lots of good stuff lately on YouTube.

Good-great undercarder type guy early in his career, who sometimes brought things into BattlARTS that didn't belong, tho he has a lot of stuff from that era that holds up well. But holy fuck when he put on the Joker makeup and became the god of the sleazy technical matches, it has to be the reinvention of the decade. He is doing pretty well in Tenryu Project right now too it seems having to wrestle in a ring is limiting his creativity a little. Amazing resume of matches considering he often fights without a ring, or opposite untrained karate guys and other sleazy phantom figures.

Somebody posted some 70s German wrestling clips to Youtube. Just about a minute each so don't get your hopes up but it's still something. Roland Bock vs Jack Rowland Bock vs Johnny El Corso Going by Cagematch, the Rowland match might have been as early as 1974.

He looks great whenever he steps in the ring, but he's only had about 40 matches, a chunk of which we don't even have on tape unless somebody is going to steal Kiyoshi Tamuras hard drive to get us the U-FILE files. Another guy who's worth considering if you really, really, really like shootstylists.

Oh hell no. He has some good matches but he's so often very lazy and lame, dragging down matches even though he clearly has the skill to do better. A travesty considering how much he was wrestled compared to other guys who almost never make tape.

Super talented and perhaps the best guy in Japan just based on raw ability, tho I'm still waiting for him to come out and have a bunch of great matches as he's stuck working subpar shooters in GLEAT. It seems they are moving him into a more vicious feud with Izuchi so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that that might give us something good.

Too spotty in my opinion, tho he has flashes of greatness. I'm a bit disappointed by his Kyushu Pro work. I could see him having more of a case if we a get a bunch of his FUTEN or perhaps early U-FILE matches somehow, there are some sick looking clips with him involved and that style is clearly is strongest suit.

I think guys like him really suffer from the overhype. Like, with the kind of praise that is getting heaped on him, I expect to see some seriously mindblowing shit, and instead I get tornado DDTs and spanish flys which every indy guy is doing now. Like yeah he is decently spectacular, but doesn't really stand up to someone like Rey Jr in the 90s or Le Petit Prince, or even the likes of Jerry Lynn and RVD. Also since I've seen French Catch I'm not very impressed by the fact that all his matches are insanely long. Pudgy bald guys like Angelito could do better exchanges over similiar timespans. All that and the fact he doesn't really excel through storytelling or selling makes me have zero interest in watching him.

@itako18jp have also started selling various never before seen indy footage on Twitter and Goto is another guy who benefits massively as they have released a couple gems involving him, including one match that goes 30+ minutes and is really great. One of those matches makes Tarzan Goto another wrestler who has had great matches in 4 decades.

I still stand by much of what I wrote about Pat Roach earlier. Great guy. While we have a good deal of him on tape, there is not much of his heel stuff. There's one match vs Mike Marino on YouTube where Roach is full on cocky giant and it's pretty amazing. He reminded me a bit of Andre there. He had surprisingly few TV matches in the UK at that point but there's some interesting looking stuff. He lost by KO to George Gordienko on TV in the early 70s, and had another TV match against a guy labeled "Seigi Sakaguchi" and I'll be damned if that's not Seiji Sakaguchi on a somehow forgotten foreign excursion. I'd give my toe to see that. Roach also had lots of nice performance very late in the game. There is a brief TV match with Johnny Kincaid that has some awe inspiringly painful looking holds and selling, and also an old man tag from Germany in 1994 featuring Axel Dieter, Klaus Kauroff and someone else that I recall being pretty fun.

I think he suffers from the fact that he was at his best when Japanese wrestling nerds had much higher standards so he wasn't considered anything special. Then the Okada shock happened and New Japan gained a ton of new fans when they became more available to an international audience. Then Shiozaki changed his look to Okada lite which was just weird and didn't make him super interesting to the new fans. If someone now was having the kind of matches Shiozaki had during his best years people would be all over him.

Nominating Taro Yamada Taro Yamada has had an odd career. He works all kinds of undercard gigs on the Japanese indies, mostly short tags in promotions like 666 where he barely gets to do anything. Then Mutoha comes around and puts him into 20-30 minute long technical wrestling epics and he turns into an absolute monster wrestler. He along with Hiroshi Watanabe and Yasushi Sato really owes it to that promotion. Oh and he had a bunch of awesome matches with Keita Yano too. But yeah. When Taro Yamada is allowed to do stuff he absolutely is one of the best wrestlers of the 2010s-2020s. Great matworker, and beyond that has a really vicious side. His matches with Konaka, Keita Yano, Yasushi Sato, Hideya Iso etc. absolutely have some of the best wrestling you'll see and he also has some gems that go into a completely different direction like his bout with Takahiro Tababa. Fascinating wrestler and another case of someone who is completely out of nowhere great that we discovered mostly thanks to the Mutoha organizers being gentlemen and unveiling their footage to a wide audience. Recommended matches: vs Konaka, Mutoha 7/5/2015 Terrific match, Mutoha at its very best. It’s a rounds match that begins in a fashion inspired by World of Sport matches, with both guys displaying slick counters and moving in and out of holds very swiftly, but it quickly becomes a tangled nightmare as both guys would tie each other up in increasingly esoteric ways. Yamada was an absolute monster here, he looked like a true master of the llave style, and he just does things that nobody else does. He was tying up Konaka in so many different ways here, but also putting lots of creativity into his set ups and escapes, it was an absolute onslaught. Yamada is very much the driving force for most of the match, just tying Konaka in knots, and it seems Konaka only survives because Konaka is a flexibility demon and he can be put into contortions that not many other wrestlers could stand being put in. Although Konaka has a few moments where he really catches Yamada and it feels like a big victory each time. Not only were the submissions mind blowing, but so were their escapes from them. It was a display of mat wizardry in the truest sense. They do 20 minutes of outstanding grappling before the fifth round of 5, at which point Yamada loses his cool and finally nails Konaka with that curb stomp he likes to use. After that the time was running out and each moment felt frantic. Really edge of your seat stuff with both guys displaying incredible technical proficiency and body control while maintaining a competitive aura. I have been watching technical matches from Europe, Japan, Mexico, America for 15 years now and this was as good as any that I’ve seen. vs Hideya Iso 1/13/2020 Another really good match from Mumejuku. Very mat based as you expect. Iso has that Osamu Kido-like vibe, he’s a dumpy technician who doesn’t look like much and doesn’t do fancy moves but he has that easily overlooked kind of charisma and he can pull out some cool crafty stuff. This was Isos best performance that I’ve seen and Yamada looked like one of the best wrestlers in the world. It was pretty much Isos traditional, basic skillset vs. Yamadas llave holds. Several really good mat exchanges here, I especially liked Yamada pulling off a Paradise Hold in plausible fashion. They just went out and wrestled so there wasn’t some kind of exceptional story although I was rooting for Iso to upset his opponent. Sometimes you just want to watch two guys wrestle for 20 minutes and they delivered. Gnarly finish. This stuff is why Mumei was maybe the most important promotion in the world during that time period. vs Keita Yano, Wallabee 6/14/2012 Damn great match, I imagine if Yano had never stunk up BattlARTS and instead was only known for doing weird technical matches while wearing his joker makeup and clown singlet in a tiny gym we’d all be Yano superfans. Taro Yamada is the last guy in Japan still holding up the T2P style matwork and one of the most underrated grapplers on the independent scene. This was 25 minutes of matwork that was like a great IWRG style title match. It was a mix of Yamadas llave holds with Yano going along and some cool RINGs-like leglock work thrown in, with both guys doing a great job escaping and transitioning between holds. Whole match felt fresh and competitive and never was like a derivative or weird LARP, these guys were trying to pop each others shoulders and/or ankles the whole time. There were one or two geeky moments where Yano did some “rope running” although it was more like a comedy spot with Yano hooting like an owl, and both these moments lead to cool spots, one where Yamada actually trips Keita with a drop down and another where Yano tricks Yamada into his special hold. There wasn’t some kind of story if you are into that but there were a few great nearfalls and I deeply respect these two for just grappling it out for 25 minutes without slowing down, and never throwing a strike or even a body slam, it was all submissions and funky cradle pins (especially loved Yamadas weird Delfin Clutch variation), just really tightly worked stuff that wouldn’t look out of place in a WoS or lucha title match. I did love Yanos dickish knee slide across Yamadas face and the moment where Yano had enough of the llave holds and challenged Yamada to an amateur match was really cool. Finish was great aswell. Best Yano match I’ve seen by far and actively a great match, which is a major shocker. Yamada played a huge part too but I’ll be damned if Yano wasn’t feeling it that night. Apparently there have been a few matches between these two and I look forward to checking them all out but as it stands this is the best I’ve seen from Yano by a mile.