El McKell

Oldest masked wrestler to have a match

I dunno how legit that world record is. I think it’s pretty likely some grimey indie lucha shows have had an older masked wrestler working them. I don’t know for sure but neither do the Guinness record people

I bet if we looked into it the people who do it the most are just going to be 90s NJPW juniors and 10s NJPW wrestlers. That’s it’s just about differences in the style rather than actual mentality of the wrestlers. A place and time where the expectation is begin slow and end spectacular just causes blowing off limbwork

An insane spot fest full of people doing cool shit for 15ish minutes. The blown finish does definitely detract from it, but it's got so much cool stuff and Eddie heel shenanigans put a smile on my face too ***3/4

The mat wrestling equivalent of a spot fest in the sense that it has no narrative and the entertainment is supposed to come from the cool moves. I found this boring as hell for the first half of the match before getting into it a bit more as it went along, the finish is cool but Dandy is doing the same stuff as he'd be doing 10 years earlier but at 60% speed and Navarro doesn't seem to know how to emote at all just goes from fancy submission to fancy submission (or in the first fall bland submission to bland submission). **

This is great. Thesz is such a fantastic prick in this, they somehow make the Harley Race style babyface just kills the heel champ for 90% of the match thing actually work. Amazing finish too.

Just wanted to bump this thread having looked into Matt Hardy but I can't see there being any way I'll vote for him. Comparing him to Jeff my view is he's worse than him in the straight up no plunder tags, way worse than him in the the crazy stunt show tags, his equal in long singles matches and the one area he outshines Jeff is in short TV matches. The only thing Matt Hardy has done with his case since 2016 is Broken Matt stuff, which I enjoyed for the first month before it got old pretty quick. Interested to see if there's any aspect of him people want to discuss. The Matt Hardy WWECW run is probably too forgotten now for anyone to be making a case for him based on it in 2026 like people were last time around.

If it's a photographer's personal 8mm film collection that means no sound right?

Not a big enough star, historical impact case is strong but not enough on it's own, not a great performer (I know there's plenty of people here who disagree but there's not enough people who think he is some great worker)

I feel like the finish of this is such a damp squib compared to the rest of it which is perfectly done for the environment it's in.

How is this possible?

It's weird to me that that upload was clipped. Surely WWE have the unedited version, no?

LOU THESZ vs RUFFY SILVERSTEIN (03/17/1950; NWA Chicago; 00:27:41) LOU THESZ vs CYCLONE ANAYA (03/31/1950; NWA Chicago; 00:27:45) LOU THESZ vs BUDDY ROGERS (06/21/1950; NWA Chicago; 00:36:25) LOU THESZ vs WALTER PALMER (10/10/1950; NWA Chicago; 00:15:58) LOU THESZ vs BUDDY ROGERS (01/26/1951; NWA Chicago; 00:51:08) LOU THESZ vs MIGHTY ATLAS (03/30/1951; NWA Chicago; 00:26:36) LOU THESZ vs WALTER PALMER (10/1951; NWA Chicago; 00:27:27) LOU THESZ vs VERNE GAGNE (01/25/1952; NWA Chicago; 00:55:41) LOU THESZ vs BILL LONGSON (06/17/1952; Southwest Sports; Dallas Sportatorium; 00:19:15) LOU THESZ vs RAY GUNKEL (09/16/1952; Southwest Sports; Dallas Sportatorium; 00:42:03) LOU THESZ vs HANS SCHMIDT (01/16/1953; NWA Chicago; 00:27:09) LOU THESZ vs TOM RICE (08/14/1954; NWA Los Angeles; 00:21:08) LOU THESZ vs DON LEO JONATHAN (02/26/1955; NWA Chicago; 00:24:22) LOU THESZ vs HANS SCHMIDT (01/27/1956; NWA Chicago; 00:23:48) LOU THESZ vs EDOUARD CARPENTIER (08/16/1957; NWA Chicago; 00:54:48) LOU THESZ vs RIKIDOZAN (10/07/1957; JWA World Championship Series; 01:04:38) LOU THESZ vs RIKIDOZAN (10/13/1957; JWA World Championship Series; 00:24:43) LOU THESZ vs ANTONINO ROCCA (05/10/1963; NWA Upstate; Buffalo Memorial Auditorium; 00:30:51) LOU THESZ & KARL GOTCH vs ANTONIO INOKI & SEIJI SAKAGUCHI (10/14/1973; NJPW World’s Strongest Tag Team Match; 00:51:00) I think that might cover all of the complete/near complete matches out there.

Does his work as Lingerie Muto improve his case or make it worse?

I don't think Kengo ever really shows me anything special in matches that don't also feature Fujinami.

I can’t imagine if that happened Grimmas & Co wouldn’t include the wrestler that got votes and was nominated just because there wasn’t a thread. But hopefully that won’t happen that everyone will get a thread in the months before voting at the latest. I do wish all these nominated wrestlers could have threads I 100% would not mind making the threads if I had the permission

Windham is great at this point of his career and is his usual self here. But Dusty in the early going of this gives so much more effort and works much harder than he normally does in this period. The fucking crossbody off the top caught me off guard and is awesome. The claw is definitely long but I think Dusty does a great job when he's in it of making it feel like there's always something happening, he's always trying to fire himself up out of it or falling deeper into it risking defeat (and does both of these things in an very very Dusty Rhodes manner). I really thought this was great until the shitty finish ***3/4 Also Barry Windham couldn't have dyed his roots before a PPV, c'mon

I'm starting to think Okada might be the best ever at execution of offense.

World class typo here, I wish Davey Richards called that move 'the alarm cock'.

There is also this: But yeah there's not much Beauty Pair you can watch out there

After being horribly disappointed with Onita's deathmatches against Tenryu & Great Sasuke this match being awesome came as a welcome surprise. I legit thought we were getting a time limit draw after the ring exploded but we continue with a new ref and just trade bombs. The tension before/build to the first explosion didn't come across as formulaic but actually built it for me emotionally. I cannot figure out why Hayabusa would try to reach for the exploding barbed wire cage like he was looking for the ropes when he was in the half crab though. ****

Imagine living in Okiyama, NJPW comes there only once a year and they give you a show like that.

I think he's a lot better when he's doing stuntshow stuff, whether that's flippy or deathmatchy, than when he decides to work like a b-rate version of an All Japan main eventer. I like how he looks but I don't think he carries himself well enough to maintain the mystique the look implies, the more I see him the less he seems like a larger than life figure

As amazing as the stuff before the bell rang was, calling it one of the greatest matches of all time is absolutely wild to me.

The gimmick is kinda cringe, he looks stupid in a brightly coloured gi especially when he has the headband on, but the matches aren't bad, I definitely like the Finlay match. But he absolutely rules in the 1970s, Steve Grey's best opponent and has really good matches with Kung Fu & Sid Cooper