Ship Canal

As of yesterday, in no order yet whatsoever and so far only 73 names. Akira Taue Shinya Hashimto Tatsumi Funjinami Riki Choshu Akira Hokuto Barry Windham Black Terry Lou Thesz AJ Styles Bobby Eaton Bull Nakano Dave Finlay Masaaki Mochizuki Dick Murdoch Volk Han Kyoshi Tamura Ron Garvin Andre the Giant Dick Togo Great Sasuke Hayabusa Adrian Street Randy Savage Ricky Steamboat Ricky Morton William Regal Yoshiaki Fujiwara Vader Hiroshi Hase Aja Kong Manami Toyota Jaguar Yokota Chigusa Nagayo El Hijo Del Santo Negro Casas Rey Mysterio Blue Panther El Satanico El Dandy Brock Lesnar John Cena Masa Fuchi Mick Foley Bret Hart Rick Martel Megumi Kudo Greg Valentine Jusghin Liger Jumbo Tsuruta Genichiro Tenyru Giant Baba The Destroyer Nick Bockwinkel Billy Robinson Terry Funk Ric Flair Arn Anderson Tully Blanchard Jerry Lawler Stan Hansen Toshiaki Kawada Mitsuharu Misawa Kenta Kobashi Little Guido Jun Akiyama Yoshihito Tajiri Steve Austin Yoshiaki Yatsu Yuki Ishikawa Necrobutcher Stan Lane Dustin Rhodes Daniel Bryan Samoa Joe Eddie Guerrero Johnny Saint Steve Grey Jim Breaks

Chigusa, Jaguar Yokota, Kong, Hokuto and Toyota will all most likely make my top quarter. Manami Toyota is a funny one, because outside of this board she's largely acknowledged as one of the greatest of all time, but seemingly far less favoured round these parts, so I can see myself being one of the high voters on her, however I also think based on some of the responses I've been reading in these threads that joshi workers will fare better than I had first expected on a lot of ballots, which is cool.

I had the exact same thing with all those guys. I think I saw about four Hase matches (this is years before GWE project was started) and thought "this guy just has it, he was born to be a pro wrestler", then as I've been rewatching stuff for GWE he's been more or less outstanding in everything I've seen him in. I may have watched far less of him before this project, but he was already a lock even based on that. I guess sometimes there really just is that intangible sort of it factor that some people get seeing certain workers. As you say, you "just know".

I know this is a comparison that can probably be pretty easily picked apart by those who are coming at things from different angles but for me the amount of matches in someones career doesn't really factor into things largely because volume/output wouldn't necessarily factor into things if I was ranking artists or performers in other mediums. Other things like influence/historical importance/originality/all round quality of work/mastery of a particular style is enough to put an individual into my list despite the fact they have 115 or less matches like Tamura. As mentioned above, the lack of volume may well mean they don't get ranked as highly as Kawada or Bock or Funk or whoever, but I'd never consider not having them on the list at all. Just to use an example from outside wrestling, this week I picked up three reissues (2LP, 1EP) by this band This Heat who I absolutely adore. This Heat made completely singular, out there avant rock stuff that still sounds like nothing else I've ever heard 40 years after it first came out. If I'm required to rate them in a list of my greatest bands of all time, they would probably be rated pretty highly despite the fact their entire recorded studio output is about 30 tracks max. They'd get on a list like that almost entirely based on their originality, their influence and the quality of the relatively small amount of stuff they put out. Would they rank higher than someone who has been putting out awesome records more or less non stop for the last four decades, always managing to sound unique and relevant? Probably not, but there's a place for both: my criteria is deliberately not as demarcated as that because I find ranking less fun that way and want my list to have at least something of an element of my personality and how I judge the notion of the "greatest". Which is precisely why it will be fun to compare the end results with someone who thinks differently on that front. I know, I know, wrestling isn't music, wrestling isn't the novel and wrestling isn't cinema, but rightly or wrongly that's how I'm ranking.

Come to think of it, it eventually moved over the road, directly opposite the Coliseum when it closed, I think it lasted a few years more actually.

It was in the old Coliseum initially. Ground floor at the end just before the stairs. I never knew of one in Afflecks during the time I was hanging out there and as a teenage punk I was at Afflecks A LOT hahah. There could well have been one there at some point though and I just somehow missed it or it was short lived, a lot of stores in Afflecks used to last a matter of weeks it seemed. It was called Extreme Central (although there was no sign above the door heheh) and it was run by a bloke called Mike Hough. He kept a listing of every tape he had in stock (under the counter of course to avoid piracy laws, you had to know and ask him, which gave the whole place the strange air of the League of Gentlemen Hilary Briss scenes) in a big yellow binder we referred to as the "Bible". He told us he did all his own star ratings for every match but God knows if that was true or not, we believed any old shit at that age. He now has some involvement in HXC in Manchester I believe? At the very least he promotes their shows heavily on facebook.

Wait, did that actually happen? I totally wouldn't rule that out when I think about it.

I genuinely spat out my beer laughing at that Butch....

I don't how controversial this is until I see the results of course, but I reckon I might have more female workers in my top 100 than most. At last count it was as high as 12, but that's nowhere near set in stone yet, the whole thing keeps changing.

Hi all, I'm Daniel, Ship Canal on here as that's the name I make (weird, rubbish) music with and I couldn't think of anything more creative. I lurked here for about a year before signing up and I'm really glad I found this place. I'm from Manchester England originally but am now living in Newcastle Upon Tyner even further up north. I've been a fan since I was 6 years old and my auntie took me to rent a video and I picked a British Bulldog tape for no other reason than I thought the big muscly dude on the front looked badass and like a super hero. I'd never seen wrestling in my life. That began a life long (although fragmented) obsession and now here I am 24 years later. I'm particularly fascinated by the history of the business, cultural, social, political etc and love finding out about that sort of thing, often on the podcasts some of you guys do. I didn't watch wrestling between the age of 9 and 15 and came back big time during the Attitude era, as you can probably imagine for a teenager at that age who was also mainly into punk rock and drinking alcohol illegally. Through that me and my mate sourced a wrestling shop in the middle of a shopping arcade in central Manchester and would spend our weekends hanging out there with the guy who owned it watching tapes and talking about this ECW promotion that he was raving about (even though retrospectively it was probably past its peak by then). We'd buy these bootleg tapes off him of all sorts of shows, ECW, Japan, Mexico, shoot interviews, a ton of RF Best of compilations, everything we could get our hands on, all for six pounds per dubbed VHS. After that I had another long break from wrestling at university and that lasted until I finished there around 2008 from which point I would reconnect and watch most of the pimped matches in a year but no historical stuff, no standalone full shows. Then, not to get too all deep and shit, but about four years ago I was having some rough times in life and for some reason I just craved wanting to escape by watching wrestling again and I just got consumed like never before, because I hadn't realized how much the internet and the online footage boom had changed the way fans talked about and watched wrestling. I'm pretty much at the point now that pro wrestling is my number one priority in terms of hobbies and interests so starting to post here more seemed to make sense.

Yeah same here, got that sitting on the shelf too bit it got gazumped in the indie rock star autobiography stakes by Carrie Brownstein from Sleater Kinney's book as I'd been listening to their new record loads last year. Must get on it. We can post any fun WCW related stuff (if there is any in there) here once we've read it.

Apologies if this has been posted here previously, but I came across this video of Bob Mould talking wrestling on youtube. Its kind of a weird interview in that he seems to get a bit flinty half way through that they are asking him wrestling and not music based questions, but he seems to snap out of it and his thoughts on things are pretty interesting given his subsequent run in WCW creative. I have very little knowledge of any of what he was specifically involved with in terms of angles or talent in WCW but anyone who can fill me in please feel free. I always remember seeing that he was wearing an AWA t shirt in one of the photos used in Michael Azerad's book "Our Band Could Be Your Life" about the American indie rock and punk scene of the 80's/90's and thinking, as a Husker Du obsessed kid of 16: "Whoa, this guy likes wrestling too, that's pretty cool!" He also mentions that he got involved in a midget match at a Joshi show??? Erm, footage PLEASE NOW. So yeah, finding this interview was really nice.

Awesome, cheers folks. I'd looked it up on cagematch before but seemed to get much less substantial of a listing, no idea why, must have looked in the wrong place.

Oh, also, Brock's "blood, urine and vomit" promo directed towards Cena.

Another shout for Mark Henry's fake retirement speech. Masterful stuff. I happen to think the Cena/Henry program was deceptively strong, even I outside the Henry retirement angle it was more solid than spectacular. But yeah, that Angle was superb.

My resolutions for this year: Now that I'm working again, finally get hold of some of the compilations and sets so often discussed on here. In particular the 80's Lucha set and the Memphis and Mid South sets. To check out the local wrestling scene in my adopted hometown of Newcastle Upon Tyne in England. I get the feeling that things are not quite as advanced in this city as some of the other big British cities when it comes to promoting wrestling but there are a few groups - notably Main Event wrestling who seem to book a lot of ICW guys for their shows - that I hope to check out this year. I've also been toying with the idea of seeing if I can actually get involved in the business even on a small level - helping at the merch table of a local event or doing promotional stuff for a local promotion...

I can't remember who it was that said this but my feelings on workrate are generally summed up by the quote about ROH during that period of time when they were pushing a significant amount of main event epics/broadways - "its like these guys watched All Japan in the 90's and thought it was the moves themselves that made the matches special". While not being anti anything as such in wrestling - there will always come a moment where a number of intangibles coalesce into the perfect storm and a match you had absolutely no appetite for beforehand just blows your preconceptions away almost despite yourself - I do find myself these days prioritizing the simple, almost fundamental aspects of wrestling as a medium. Pacing, match structure, internal subplots, being excellent at the basics like bumping, crispness, selling, believability of character and motivation.... I just enjoy being given space to breathe and contemplate during a match, weigh up where things can go next instead of being pretty sure that more or less everything and anything that two people can pull off between the ropes will most probably happen between bell time. I think the definition of workrate is important here, as to me I almost exclusively associate the concept with a particular genre of wrestling (this goes back to the notion of wrestling being a medium with many subgenres that can in some senses be watched like genre film in terms of "in house" styles etc) from the indy scene of the 2000's, as opposed to it having a huge amount of meaning outside of that.

I didn't watch WCW at the time but I was watching Allan Blackstock's awesome "Introducing: Meng" playlist on youtube the other night (seriously, Allan, give yourself a massive pat on the back, your playlists RULE!) and I realized how strange it seemed to have Meng be part of such a cartoonish bunch of villains... being a real life eater of souls with a legit reputation just seemed to jar horribly against the other characters in there, but hey, that's hindsight. I think not having been subjected to them week in week out when I was younger helps me to be able to classify the DOD as so preposterously ridiculous that I kind of enjoy them in patches here and there now... I mean, I do have a penchant for really, really crap stuff and it can be really fun to dip into for a laugh now and again in 2016, but yeah, not sure I'd have the same opinion had I been a long time fan being subjected to that shite every week on Nitro!

I searched for Shingo vs Bryan Danielson for years after hearing all the hype. I came home to discover completely at random one night that someone had posted it up to youtube and I managed to finally see it. I woke up the next day completely hungover with zero memory of what I'd seen, went back to the same persons channel and it had been made private in the space of about 8 hours. I still have very little memory of the match, although I remember enjoying it, but that could have been the 9 pints of Stella.

Does anyone have or know of somewhere I can find a list of Fujinami vs Choshu matches that are in chronological order? I'd like to go through the feud in order and so far I'm struggling to work out whether I'm missing out on any matches... I've watched what I think are there first three singles matches so far but that's what I've pieced together through various different lists (DVDVR best of 80's New Japan list, some old posts on wrestling classics, a few posts here etc)... Funnily enough, as my wrestling fandom has taken on a more obsessive air in recent months I've begun to crave watching things in order far more than I used to, especially when it comes to feuds.

Also on the subject of Thesz if you want to get an idea of how he held up later in his career there's a Thesz/Gotch vs Inoki/Sakaguchi tag that goes long and is the first match on Ditch's chronological All Japan archive site. Its not a classic, but nor is it anything approaching bad. Its got some nice subtle heeling by Thesz as he plays the veteran who knows every trick in the book but he never veers over into a caricature, its more just stuff like stalling for time in holds and deliberately taking a while to get back into exchanges with the younger guys. He can still go and the year is like 1973 or something.

R.e Dragon Gate guys chad, I'm not even sure if Don Fuji is nominated, but even if he isn't, when you get more time I think you'll dig him. He's basically about as far away from the stereotype of a DG worker as possible, at least to my eyes. Just a salty pissed off fella who seemingly came out the womb middle aged and has no time for the frippery of these kids with their flippy doo antics.

R.e Martel: I know it been mentioned that Grimmas did a podcast on Martel (and it was a really good one too), but he's someone I've been watching a great deal of recently after being pretty unfamiliar with his pre WWF stuff until a few years ago. The Rose/Wikowski vs Piper/Martel tag from Portland (1979 or 1980 I think?) rapidly became one of my favourite tags ever after seeing it a few months ago. It also contains one of the best instances of teasing a hot tag I can recall in any match I've ever watched. Its also worth checking out the Islanders vs Strike Force feud that the Tag Teams Back Again lads have been chronicling on their podcast the last few episodes - in some ways I think Martel's famed babyface fire works even better in a tag setting, whereby he's able to milk each and every exchange and leave the audience craving more of the same, but the Islanders feud contains a solo outing against Tama as well which is worth a look. His bout against Jumbo on 31/7/84 is pretty damn fine too, but as I say I'm still watching more of his stuff myself. On the subject of Akiyama, I rewatched his debut against Kobashi earlier today and fuck me if he wasn't pretty awesome straight off the bat. He's a guy I've almost seen TOO much of though, in the sense that he's had so many matches I've loved that I often completely forget the dates/events they took place at... does this happen to anyone else? The Hashimoto and Ohtani lists provided above are both spot on I'd say.

It was always completely the other way round for me. By the end Power Slam always seemed badly formatted from a design point of view, incredibly repetitive in terms of content and outdated in terms of its writers, rarely containing much by anyone whose opinion on wrestling I particularly valued. FSM contains exactly the amount of PPV and TV roundups I want from a pro wrestling magazine: that is, a small percentage. I'd much rather be reading well written and thoroughly researched pieces on either new developments in or the history of pro wrestling than read three pages telling me how awful the last RAW was when I know because I watched it already (thanks Fin Martin). I want my pro wrestling magazines to take a similar approach as quality music or film magazines and give me features I can get my teeth into. Power Slam was too often rambling and in the main came off as the ramblings of one overworked person, which I'm guessing it often was. Its night and day for me.

Yeah, Hase vs Hashimto from 8/3/93 and 12/13/94 are both superb.