ohtani's jacket

Loss' #481. Tamura was still a little raw here and really hadn't had that many fights under his belt up until this point. I'm guessing that's the reason why it was such a scrappy affair. The mat stuff was okay but the stand up portions weren't as good as in later Tamura fights. Things got a bit loose down the finishing stretch and I disliked that Samoan drop thing Tamura did. Overall, it was better than anything I can remember Tamura doing in the UWF, so it was likely his best match to date, but like most novices they were a bit too ambitious down the stretch and lost their way a bit.

Loss' #483. Savage does his favourite trick of selling a knee injury, but there's no denying the man was good at it. I liked the transition from Savage's early brawling to Michaels and Sherri taking over on offense. I didn't mind Michaels going back to the figure four so much as they worked it differently each time and I loved the slaps to the face. Savage reversing it and Michaels clambering for the ropes was a nice touch and the crowd bought into Michael's finger across the throat on the final go through. The only thing I didn't like was the set-up to the flying elbow. The turnbuckle selling was great but I had a hard time believing Michaels would stay down that long from a posting and a clothesline. Nice post-match attack, though. And the rest of the match was rock solid. I wonder how good their other matches were that year.

My bad if that's the case. There were a few other channels that used to upload WoS matches like https://www.youtube.com/user/mike06052 and https://www.youtube.com/user/wrestlaz Recently, there have been some full length original WoS episodes uploaded by this guy -- https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcBjp6k-E-9Bh3Z7v9yxaA/videos?sort=dd&view=0&shelf_id=0 and full length M&M episodes here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6e_hofDmYgegf3_tHJMm0g

This has bothered me a lot since I read it. An awful thing. My condolences to his family, especially his brave wife.

What do we know about 80s JWP in terms of how they drew? Same for LLPW? I presume the answer is "not well" and certainly not "hall of fame level." But I don't really know much about that and I'm a little curious. One thing I was struck by watching Kandori vs Devil from 88 recently was the crowd. It wasn't enormous, but it appears to be a mostly adult male audience. One thing that is always pointed to in Aja Kong's favor is her influence in drawing the hardcore male fans based on appearing on those Hamada's UWF shows and helping move Joshi away from catering to the younger girl audience. I'm wondering if that was fairly consistent at JWP shows in the 80s or if that match was an anomaly. Its not an entire HOF case by any means, but looking back at the "Golden Age" of Joshi Wrestling, Hokuto vs Kandori is one of the first things to come to mind. I guess I'm just more curious about her career. She comes across like a big deal watching footage but discussion of that era, where it exists, is usually centered around ring work. All this said, I agree with everything Tim said above except for the part about Kyoko. Kandori and Kansai strike me as the two best candidates from that era. Neither strike me as particularly strong candidates for the Hall in general, but I think both, especially Kandori, are pretty interesting figures to think about on some level. I don't think the original JWP particularly catered to the school girl audience. They initially had some backing from the producer behind a popular idea group at the time, which was a large part of the reason why the wrestlers were dressed in more elaborate costumes than the traditional All Japan "bathing suits." But New Japan was quite heavily involved w/ the women training at the New Japan dojo and Kandori herself preferring to spar with men and eventually Shinma, Onita and Hamada started pulling it this way and that trying to turn it into a multi-style promotion ala the original UWF before the shoot style guys took over. The women wanted it to continue as a women's promotion and the internal split eventually led to the formation of FMW and Hamada's UWF. JWP up until that point hadn't been making any money. They mostly ran small venues like they do today and their video releases were these overpriced, terribly shot handhelds that you had to write away for. They had no TV presence whatsoever and mostly drew the hardcores. Kandori was either fired or suspended after she shot on Jackie Sato (I don't remember which) and when she returned she became the first freelance wrestler in Joshi puroresu history. All Japan wanted to bring her in for a big match with Chigusa prior to Chigusa's 1989 retirement but apparently they wanted Kandori to sign a five year contract and she was only prepared to sign a one year deal so the fight fell threw. That may have been her best chance to be a significant draw prior to the inter-promotional period. One of the cool things about the Hokuto vs. Kandori feud is that it was very much a worked shoot. Kandori was unpopular in the pro-wrestling community and seen as an outsider from the Judo world who didn't have a true love for professional wrestling and Hokuto called her out on that in her promos. There's no way Kandori was a HOF draw or even that big a star, but she was a regular on the late night comedy shows given many of the comedians were fans of wrestling and you can see some of that stuff on YouTube. You should watch Kandori and Kazama watching Fujiwara direct a porno, if you haven't. It's kind of ironic considering Kazama went on to do porn. And Fujiwara directing a porn is as great as you'd imagine. He sits in this chair drinking a bottle of whiskey and directing the sex scene. Anyway, Kandori was a regular on these type of shows and had a huge amount of charisma. Her nickname was Mr. Joshi Puroresu and they would often play off that image that she was more like a man than a female wrestler. She also gained some notoriety for running for the Upper House elections and eventually getting a seat as a Japanese lawmaker.

Loss' #491 was a simple Choshu style match that was reasonably well executed. A lack of strikes and some dull matwork prevented it from being truly exciting and the finishing stretch was kind of predictable. Still, it accomplished what it set out to do, welcoming the returning Muto back into the fold and letting him know where he sat in the hierarchy.

Loss' #494. For once I agree with myself from four years ago. The match is decent but it's very much an aging Steamboat against a less experienced and more limited Austin than his WWF peak. Some of the action is good but there are small lulls too like Austin's bear hug. And a finish like that just makes the past 10-12 minutes seem inconsequential. The ode to WM III was a neat touch and something I didn't pick up on four years ago.

Loss' #493. I can't find this anywhere (if it's hiding somewhere), but I did find a bunch of Jake's SMW promos online and I've got to say that Jake was still the best promo guy in wrestling at this point. The best thing about Jake's heel act in '94 was his insistence that nothing was ever his fault. It didn't matter whether he DDT'ed the Dirty White Girl, or cut a promo sitting at home, he managed to be psychotic, scary and compelling.

Loss' #496. Like Matt, I watched the rematch first, but hey, two matches for the price of one. UWF-i is like the AAA of shoot style to me and pretty much made a mockery of the style, but I did get suckered into this. I mean where else can you see three US big men wrestle like a collegiate wrestler, a sumo wrestler and a boxer? That's pretty much what the UWF-i style allowed the US guys to do. You can argue til the cows come home how good they were at it, but at the end of the day the crowd were hot for the matches and everybody wanted to see Vader vs. Albright, which was clearly the selling point. Nothing really pure, but nothing you'd see in the US either. Great use of swearing too.

Loss' #498. DDP impressed me on commentary here and Goldberg's entrance predated the UFC in some ways, but the match itself didn't do much for me. Felt like a smart blockbuster flick at best, but way too short, and the finish let most of the air out of the balloon. A decent main event for 1998 television, but by no means historically great. 499 is available on Ditch's site, btw.

Loss' #499 is a fun match. Starts off by resembling a lucha tag, culminating in a pair of swank topes, then shifts to move of a juniors focus with a series of finishers and nearfalls. There's not a great deal of narrative to speak of, but the action moves at a steady pace and Hoshikawa's quasi-shooter gimmick provides a nice counter-balance to the lucha influences. Would have been an entertaining bout to watch live.

Mile Zrno vs. Steve Wright (Vienna, 1987) I've always had an irrational dislike for Steve Wright mostly due to the fact that I see him as a supremely talented guy who rarely ever brings it. If there were some sort of shtick over skill meter, Wright would set off alarm bells. The best match I've seen him as was as "Bull Blitzer", wrestling Marty Jones for the World Mid Heavyweight title in 1986. I saw this match against Zrno many years ago and for some reason it didn't leave much of an impression. This time I thought it was excellent. It was clipped, of course. which interrupted the flow at times, but the bulk of the action was Wright and Zrno trading the sort of holds the ol' noodle expects them to work. Competitive, skilled, mat-based; Wright lived up to his billing here. And Zrno was, well, Zrno. More matches like this, please.

It's time to get stuck into Loss' 500. 500 is a big number. I can't imagine ranking the top 500 of anything. I'm just going to give a straight take on this stuff. This struck me as nothing special. Ross spent the entire match shilling shit. The pay off to the finish was meant to be the Freebirds tagging in Badstreet but Badstreet didn't tag in with the Freebirds in peril or drive home the Freebirds' advantage and get in a quick cheap shot. Instead, Badstreet seemed to hold his own and then some, which begs the question of why Garvin and Hayes sheltered him from the tag. This would have been better as a house show match without Ross having to recap and re-advertise the Clash every five seconds but even then you've got to buy that the stalling and the slow burn payoff is any more than a stock standard TV match.

Mile Zrno vs. Bobby "Power" Stahlhauer (IWW, Hannover 1/17/98) The German summer tournaments may have been held under a tent in a camping ground while the wrestlers lived out of caravans but at least they had some prestige to them. This German indie venue looks like something straight out of an early BattlARTS show. It's fair to say that Zrno didn't always face the most skilled of opponents during his illustrious career, but here he was in 1998 still trying to make a young guy look like. Tremendous commitment to his craft and as fine a veteran performance as I can remember seeing from a Euro guy in 90s. This a few years before "maestro wrestling" became a thing. Makes me wonder if I should take 00s Euro maestro work seriously. The answer to that is that I probably should.

Thanks for the correction. It's a wonderful channel and I hope you continue updating it. Vic Hill vs. Jack Gacek was awesome. I've always loved 30s cinema and judging by this I'll love 30s graps too. The Miller Brothers vs. Fabulous Kangaroos featured two legendary tag teams but was a bit generic for my liking. Stuff like cutting off the man and face in peril segments. Others might see that as vintage tag wrestling, tho. Jose Sevilla vs K.O. Koverley was a bit looser than Hill/Gacek but they did some really cool mat spots. Jules Strongbow vs. Hardy Kruskamp was especially intriguing after watching Strongbow do the ring-announcing at the Hollywood Legion Stadium, as well as commentating and the backstage interviews. He was a big guy and a power wrestler cum slugger, but I was impressed by his intensity. He really stuck to his man and gave him no leeway. Vincent Lopez vs. Man Mountain Dean was pretty much classic pro-wrestling in that it was basically a slug fest. The footage may have been slightly speed up in the transfer but there's no denying the intensity of the performers. The first thing that stood out to me about Ali Baba vs Red Brannigan was how Brannigan really did look like an Irishman and Baba, even if he wasn't really Turkish, fit the bill. It never ceases to amaze me how much more global wrestling was in the early days when people really did seem like they were coming from all over the world to compete in overseas territories. It makes professional wrestling seem like a sport with a global reach. Baba seems like an interesting story. Watching him bodyslam a guy into "submission" is a finish that probably wouldn't work these days but is an awesome way to get over one of wrestling's most basic moves.

THE ARTHUR PSYCHO HOUR Ep 57 Haven't done one of these in a while. Billy Joe Beck vs. Ringo Rigby (11/20/84) Rigby was never that great after returning from the States, but this was a solid enough television debut for Beck. It's a "Waltonism" if ever there was one, but he called Beck a "boy" despite the wrestler being grey and middle-aged. Beck was from Belfast but his style didn't really resemble FInlay or Moran unfortunately. Mel Stuart vs. Caswell Martin (1/9/79) Stuart was a seventh rate Dick Murdoch in his prime and he was already past his best here. You know you're on the slide when you're tinkering with your gimmick and here he was trying to do some "Pretty Boy" character that was going nowhere fast. Martin made this watchable but Walton had a bee in his bonnet about how Martin was giving Stuart too much "leeway" and would just not let it go. All-time great he may be, but he could sure be irritating at times and didn't he have his moods? Crusher Brannigan vs. Giant Haystacks (9/1/83) Wrestling Haystacks was an exercise in futility. Brannigan was a loud American heel who was the latest to suffer the indignity. I can't say he put much effort into it, but he did gig which was banned on TV so I guess he thought he'd make it colourful. Caswell Martin vs. Giant Haystacks (1/25/84) One of the dumber things about Dale Martin & Joint Promotions is that they'd fed Haystacks quality wrestlers like Caswell Martin, Marty Jones or Johnny Wilson for no good reason. And it's not like they get a fall against him or look like they have any chance of scoring an upset. They just get squashed, which is stupid. And they wonder why wrestling's popularity slipped. Steve Logan vs. Tiger Dalbir Singh (5/21/86) This was a good match, especially the first few rounds where the local lad Logan was looking to score the upset. Singh eventually took over and slowed the pace a bit, but he finished Logan off with some cool leg submission work instead of a bullshit injury finish or some other generic shit. Lacked a bit of meat in the middle but clearly the match of the day. Eddie Riley vs. Alan Gregg (6/8/88) Riley was one of the smallest men in the history of World of Sport and this was a quick "little" match against a newcomer to television. Mostly just falls. Inoffensive.

Mile Zrno & Abdullah Tamba vs. Tiger Mask & Kantaro Hoshino (New Japan, 3/4/83) Zrno vs. Hoshino = rad. Zrno was junior-rific here and it was stellar. Zrno could have a long and prosperous career as a junior in Japan if the Japanese brass had been paying attention. It's too bad his singles match with Tiger Mask was clipped to a handful of Tiger Mask's offensive moves. New Japan didn't know what they bloody had. New holy grail -- Zrno's series of matches with Fujiwara on the same tour that Inoki wrestled Bock. Tamba was alright in this, too. Imagine Abdullah the Butcher crossed with a Head Hunter and you have Tamba. Of course it was 1983 and that meant Tiger Mask kicked everyone's ass, but it's Zrno in Japan true believers.

Well, I saw Carpentier sell for Killer Kowalski, so I guess that shows you how big a deal Kowalski was in this era. But Kowalski... I just don't know... I've never seen him look any better than wooden. Alberto & Ramon Torres vs. Art Mahalick & Mike Sharpe is from the mid-60s but a hot bout with some great action. The Torres brothers are perhaps a little bit too dominant down the stretch, but if you like the Guerrero brothers then the entire Torres family are worth checking out. I'm not a fan of Dick the Bruiser, but I can take him in small doses. Five minutes of him vs. The Beast was some rowdy old fun. I think the next thing I'm going to do is go through the wrestlingfilms channel in chronological order. That will include a lot of 30s and 40s wrestling, but I think I'll keep everything together in this thread.

Mile Zrno vs. Jimmy Ocean (2/29/92) This was very cool. It was a German indie match wrestled inside a tiny ring in a Berlin hotel. In the previous matches, Zrno did a lot of dropkicks and head scissors and other flashy babyface moves but here he showed his full array of talent. Ocean is a guy I've only known as a two-bit comedy worker, but he too showed me a lot. Some of the short range stuff they were doing was awesome. Short arm lariats and standing dropkicks that were some of the most "in your face" stuff I've seen in ages, probably due to the size of the ring. Zrno brought every aspect of his game including a fair bit of his mat skill. This was the Zrno I was talking about when I said he was underrated. As for Ocean, either the guy could really work or Zrno was making him look good. Either way, I'd go as far as calling this my favourite European match from the 90s it was that cool.

Great pun.

I think that's a false dilemma. It's possible for it to be a combination. And it's the combination that makes the firing fair enough to me. I also bristle a bit at the suggestion from some it's gotta be about offensiveness. I'm not personally offended by the joke, but it's still way out of line for what I think are clear, obvious reasons, which Bix and others have highlighted. When someone deliberately disobeys their boss, does it in a flaunting, throw it in their face for all to see way, and not only disobeys by making a political joke, but also a joke where the punchline is that someone would get sexually assaulted bcs they're attractive...that's a confluence of a lot of bad stuff in the context of "disobeying the boss." 'm not sure it matters, but the joke didn't get over either. I'm just saying that if it was a different milder political joke no one would give a shit. Also, the more people weep about not getting called pussies, the more other people will want to CALL THEM pussies. Just basic psychology. Tell a kid they can't do something and their impulse is to do it, forbidden fruit. Trump was the guy who no one was meant to vote for. Turns out lots of Americans don't really like being told what to do. So they got in the booth and did their own personal little Stone Cold moment. Basic facts. I'd talked about which hills to die on before, picking and choosing battles. I've said before where all this leads. Now literally Donald Trump is the fucking president and Britain is leaving the EU. And there are still people saying "hey, don't use the word pussy" in earnest like that's the important thing going on. How about waking up and smelling the coffee and confronting exactly what that behaviour does and where it leads. I mean for fuck's sake, look at the year we've had and here people are arguing about the word "pussy". Jesus Christ, can't take it anymore. Also, I want to be clear. This is not a "meltdown", I'm not losing it. I'm angry at the extent to which sensible discussion in every realm has been hijacked by SJW-ism. Make no mistake, blindly dogmatic PC policing is part of the confluence of problems I blame for the present situation. And I get angry about it because it comes from people who are meant to be on my team, meant to be clever, meant to represent, broadly speaking, the left. Get your heads out of your arses for five minutes to see what where that method of approaching the problem gets you. I'm not apologising for this post. Someone has to say it. And at the same time, fuck Joey Styles. This type of thing is nothing. It's about words and their meaning. It's about definitions and usage. It's about connotations and baggage and history. You wait until there's a crisis and there are lives on the line. When there's no pressure people are free to talk big but when the shit hits the fan you know what the reality is like. I always thought of myself as left leaning; always supported leftist groups. But in a time of crisis they were of no help to me. So, since then a moderate approach has seemed like the only approach to take. If you can't trust the left and you can't trust the right then you have to forge your own path.

Just a heads up -- the date on Fuerza/Octagon is 2/1/91.

Because the Silver Hurricane deserves his own thread. Quite possibly one of the most underrated talents of all-time. Mile Zrno vs. Dave Morgan (Hannover 10/27/85) Morgan was a British dynamo who preferred to work abroad than traverse the U.K halls. This was clipped (in true German handheld fashion) and mostly a Morgan showcase, but you could tell it was a crowd-pleaser. Early on, they worked some comedy sequences with referee Mick McMichael but later they got serious and were pissed at one another. Zrno was mainly typecast here as the good looking babyface like some kind of glorified Tom Zenk, but the German tournaments are nothing if not nightly house shows and they gave the paying customers an enjoyable mid card whirl. Mile Zrno vs. Rambo (Heumarkt, Vienna 1988) Rambo is not the awesome UWA luchador who had a decades long blood feud with Villano III, but the significantly less awesome Canadian wrestler who made a name for himself in Europe and was later part of the Truth Commission. This is a good showcase for Zrno's ability to make his opponent look good but not a great showcase for his full range of talents.

As predicted, Enrique Torres vs. Ted Christy was more shtick than mat wizardry. One thing I've noticed so far about 50s wrestling is that champion caliber wrestlers like Torres are booked to look exceptionally strong. They hardly ever sell for the heels and rarely go off their feet. Instead, they spent most their time making the heels look like buffoons. Christy was a fun buffoon, though. He reminded me of Mick McManus' tag partner, Steve Logan. He even did the same wet hair trick his slicked back sides. Torres didn't really break a sweat here, but it was entertaining enough. Also fun was getting to see Joe Blanchard in a swift 15 minute time limit draw with Pierre LaSalle of Rougeau family fame. The only thing I'd seen from Blanchard previously as snippets of his awesome feud with Fritz Von Erich. He looked solid against LaSalle even if they didn't really hit the mat as hard as I'd like. It was more dancing about playing heel vs. face, but they made a go of it. I'm still trying to crack Edouard Carpentier. In theory, he's a wrestler I should like since he wrestles like a masked tecnico, but there's something that's not quite clicking. I still can't put my finger on it. I did like the match I watched against a thick set Mike Gallagher, but again it was a heavy offensive showcase with Carpentier barely putting over Gallagher's stuff. Carpentier was definitely one of the more dynamic and striking workers of his time but just how good he was remains elusive.

I finally got the chance to see the Inoki/Bock match from Stuttgart. It's a match that would bore the beejesus out of most folks, but I thought it was an absorbing contest and another addition to my list of Inoki classics; matches which may not be classics in the true sense of the word but certainly are in Inoki's case. What made it so interesting is that while it was clearly a work, Bock was about as uncooperative as anyone I've seen in a pro-wrestling bout. He no sold practically every thing Inoki threw at him and gave him precious little on the mat. And the strange thing about it was that Inoki seemed reluctant to do anything about it. Not that I blame him, as when the tension started to mount Bock appeared down right murderous. Now you might say that Bock being uncooperative is unprofessional and the very definition of a dangerous and poorly worked match. And you might be right if Bock hadn't been an absolute beast with vicious strikes and almighty dead lift suplexes, i.e. one badass motherfucker. His behavior gives the match even more of a shoot style feel than they intended, and while Inoki is made to look bad at times, it's as close to true Gotch style "professional wrestling" as I've seen. More so than any shoot style bout, to be honest, because it's non-cooperative. I think a few people here would appreciate it so check it out you guys.