ohtani's jacket

There's no doubt in my mind that Arn Anderson during his early 90s peak was an A-list performer. He had smarts, charisma and talent and could cover the full range from hate-filled brawls to comic bumping and stooging often within the same match. His absolute peak was from 1991-1992, and IMO he was the co-MVP for 1992 alongside Ricky Steamboat. The standard knock on Arn is that his singles work isn't impressive enough for him to rank highly on a list like this, but he has an interesting body of singles work that more than complements his brilliance in tags. My argument against Arn would be that his peak was extremely short. Most would argue that he was no less than good throughout his entire run, but I don't believe he was a great worker in the 80s and I think he faded toward the end. What that leaves us with is a stellar run from '91 to '94 or so, and even that peters out in '93-94 due to scratchy booking and less opportunities. Length of peak wouldn't ordinarily bother me, but it was repeatedly held against other workers in this project, particularly Joshi workers and to a lesser extent lucha workers and workers with footage issues. If we're holding everyone to the same standards then 19 is questionable for Arn even if he was a master performer. Talent alone, sure. Overall greatness? Jury's still out for me.

Giant Baba vs. The Destroyer (3/5/69) This is a really good match and Baba is excellent in it, but it's nothing like Baba's other JWA performances and has probably done more than any other match to mythologize Baba as one of the smartest workers ever, a great worker, or better than average. I don't think it's automatically the best match from the 60s as people had a tendency to call it in the past, nor would I really rate it alongside a classic like Thesz vs. Gagne, but it's a strong bout with solid psychology, and it's easy to see why Baba looked like such a world beater when people first saw it. At the very least it's a feather in his cap that most workers would envy.

Yukon Eric? No problem for Verne Gagne. Gagne worked a smart, logical match around Yukon's size and strength advantage that might have been a bit ho-hum if it were any other worker trying it, but Gagne kept up a brisk pace and managed to make the match interesting instead of being bottled down in Yukon's strength holds. Gagne vs. Billy Goelz is a gem. I've been impressed with Gagne as a worker but it's when he shows his wrestling chops that he enters the upper echelon of wrestling greats. This was tough, gritty wrestling. Physical, uncompromising... no quarter given, none taken... And Goelz is just as good as Gagne in the bout. The only disappointments thus far have been the Mighty Atlas matches, but Atlas was an early bodybuilder type who did little more than flex his muscles. Gagne tried to play off Atlas' strength the way he did w/ Yukon, but give Yukon some credit, at least he followed Verne's lead.

So I've started watching Verne Gagne matches and it's clear what a major talent the guy was. And not just working holds either. His bumping and selling were fantastic and he had a flair for the dramatic when it came to pacing a bout and putting it over as a marquee contest. That's not the first thing I'd associate with Gagne, but in all of the 50s footage I've watched he's probably the most dynamic guy on the scene. I saw him have a tough, gritty contest with Canadian wrestler Roy McClarity and a fun game of cat and mouse with Don Leo Jonathan. Then I saw him work wonders with Dick the Bruiser. So far the only thing the Bruiser's shown me he looked like a brute, but against Gagne he was working holds and everything was nasty and great. Even against a guy like the Great Togo Verne bust his ass, and it's damn near impossible to get anything good out of a 1950s Japanese heel. Looking forward to seeing more.

WWE is mainstream regardless of how outdated some of the references are.

There's not as much Rogers out there as I was expecting and a lot of it is against fairly crappy workers like Haystacks Calhoun and Killer Kowalski. The Cyclone Ayana match is worth watching if you're interested in Buddy. I love watching Buddy cinch on a hold. He may not have been a shooter or a hooker, but he knew how to make a hold look good in a pro-wrestling match. Unfortunately the booking is flimsy, so I wouldn't really recommend it unless you want to see more Rogers. I enjoyed the Rogers/O'Connor match more than I did when I watched it for the O'Connor thread. I still think the dip in the second fall stops it from reaching the all-time classic level, but I got a lot more out of Rogers' performance now that I'm more familiar with Buddy. The great thing about watching Rogers is witnessing how much influence he had. You watch him work and you can see a bit of Patterson, Stevens, Flair. A lot of movement, charisma and toughness.

Nice guy, amiable and approachable on social media, dedicated to his craft, but there's no way he should have finished this far ahead of his forefathers. How can Regal be No.21, Marty Jones not make the top 100 and Pete Roberts languish in the 400s? Regal's case is based around his early WCW work, a handful of New Japan bouts and his latter day WWE & NXT work, but there's a big, self-inflicted chunk missing from what should have been prime years. Not only is his output patchy, but his best stuff (whatever you deem it to be -- vs. Larry, the Arn match, the Christian and Hero stuff) isn't in the same stratosphere as the rest of the top 20. Regal was a great artisan whose output was a honest reflection of his life as a wrestler. He wasn't a 5 star, MOTYC type. He wasn't a huge star. He wasn't even that naturally talented. In another time and place, he might have been a plumber or an electrician or maybe a bricklayer. Jobs where you do your apprenticeship and learn a trade. That was the approach he took to wrestling. He learned his craft and worked hard for everything he got. Keenly observant, he developed an in-ring persona, added depth and detail to it, incorporated humour, and entertained people, which is the name of the game. There's no doubt about Regal's merits -- his acting and selling, the detail work, the wrestling skill he acquired. The question is how to you weigh that up against guys who were better wrestlers, bigger stars or in better matches? How do you measure Regal's character work with say, Jim Breaks, other than exposure? Regal seems to be the guy who went the furthest on fan favouritedom/favouriteship. Maybe on another day I'd see that as a victory. Maybe I'm influenced by the fact the last Regal match I saw (against Mutoh) illustrated how quality Regal performances are diamonds in the rough rather than well worn classics. Usually, I'd find that cool, but 21? Higher than Marty Jones and Pete Roberts, that's where I'm hung up. Here's an example of how people can change: in 2006, I don't think there was a wrestler I thought was less cool than Tatsumi Fujinami. A decade later and there are a collection of Fujinami matches that I'd now deem "impossibly cool" -- the Ryuma Go series, the Teranishi fight, the Rocco match, the 2006 Nishimura MUGA bout -- and that's not including his more famous and critically acclaimed stuff. The epitome of an excellent wrestler. Polished all-round skills. One of the original Japanese globetrotters. Could work big or small both literally (heavyweight & lightweight) and figuratively (epic & intimate), and above all, cool. Very cool. Glad to see him get his recognition.

Giant Baba vs. Fritz Von Erich (12/3/66) This is probably the best non-Destroyer bout from Baba's early days. There's a serious lift in intensity from Fritz compared with other Baba opponents such as Kiniski or Bobo Brazil. His singular focus in wearing Baba down and overpowering him the claw is compelling even on a re-watch. Baba's brawling is gangly and exaggerated looking, but the chop vs. claw battle is a simple and effective narrative. It's really only Baba's selling that prevents this from being a sure fire rec. It's not that it's bad as such, it's just a fairly tepid response to Fritz' intensity. That's not the first time Baba has failed to impress due to a lack of fire. Chalk selling up as another weakness in the all-time great debate. The other thing I've noticed is that I'm starting to judge his matches' worth based on the quality of his opponent's performance, which shouldn't happen so often with an allegedly great worker. Then again perhaps Baba's case lies heavily on his 70s work. We shall see.

Casas, at his early 90s peak, was a wrestling genius & one of the greatest performers in wrestling history. And he did it by fucking with people. He fucked with other wrestlers' shit and he fucked with the fans' heads. In lucha there are tecnicos and rudos, but Casas defied category. He was cocky, flamboyant and brash. In a society where machismo rules, he blurred all sorts of cultural lines. He may not have been as provocative as someone like Prince, but as a worker who craved attention, he fed off any sort of outrageous behaviour. The thing that really got under people's skin, though, was the fouling. Casas would laugh at the devil in his prime, but if things weren't going his way he could be petty. He'd foul guys out of spite, out of cowardice, and sometimes for the sake of being outrageous. Yet he was also tough and one of the gutsiest apuesta workers around. He knew how to work the exact same shtick with a serious edge to it whenever the situation called for it and could play the scorned babyface just as convincingly as the provocateur. From the day he set foot in Arena Mexico in '92 he had the audience wrapped around his little finger and the Cathedral has belonged to him ever since. The amazing thing about Casas is that he did it with very little offence. He was a strong defensive worker, a solid mat worker, and able to make kick-punch strikes look effective, but he was similar to Buddy Rogers in that he was able to project an aura of toughness and work a compelling match with only a handful of well-executed holds. As he grew older and wrestling evolved, he moved with the times and added extra holds in a bid to stay relevant, but in his prime it was more the way he gallivanted about the ring that made him captivating. A showman par excellence, he was untouchable at his very best.

Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk vs. Giant Baba & Seiji Sakaguchi (5/19/72) This was more up Baba's alley. A pretty solid tag thanks to an energetic heel performance from the Funks, but a 50 minute tag? Even back then Baba was stretching these things out. Maybe it's just me but a tag match should never last 50 minutes. Having four men involved should shorten the odds of a match going broadway, drastically.

Finally got to see the full length Thesz/Gotch vs. Inoki/Sakaguchi tag. It's exhibition-y, but not as exhibition-y as it would have been if I hadn't watched a run of Thesz heading into it. On the flip side, it was noticeable that Thesz was having difficulty hitting his signature spots like the Lou Thesz Press and the back suplex. In general, I thought he as an excellent maestro though, particularly on the mat. I really dug his Memphis squash match against David Oswald.

Why would the WWE claim a copyright infringement on Lou Thesz vs. Ruffy Silverstein? Have they got that big Ruffy Silverstein DVD coming out?

Giant Baba vs. Crusher Lisowski (12/6/67) Pretty bad, but I wouldn't exactly say it was Baba's fault. I don't know what happened to the fun Lisowski from the 50s but he was replaced by a muscled stiff. Baba stood up for himself and made Liowski bleed, but that was about the only worthwhile thing that happened. Giant Baba vs. Abdullah the Butcher (5/19/71) Worth watching if you want to see a lithe looking Abby but a lousy match otherwise. Giant Baba/Kintaro Oki vs. Bobo Brazil/Chris Markoff (4/16/69) Really disappointing given how cool the Inoki/Markoff match was. Giant Baba/Kintaro Oki vs. Bobo Brazil/Earl Maynard (1972) Also uninspiring. One thing Baba hasn't proven to be is a great brawler.

The times were 12:58, 4:28, 7:34. Not a 60:00. You look to be switching between d/m/y and m/d/y format. The three Baba-Bruno matches mentioned are: 2/3/67 = Mar-02-1967 (9:04, 3:00, 3:52) 7/3/67 = Mar-07-1967 (17:30, 13:10, tl) 8/7/68 = Aug-07-1968 (12:58, 4:28, 7:34) Oops, I was being lazy and going with the uploaders' dates.

Thesz vs. Carpentier was so-so. Kohler was pushing Carpentier as the World's Heavyweight Champion despite the NWA refusing to recognise the title switch. We got to see a different side of Lou as he was pretty fairly ornery in trying to win his title back. Carpentier wrestled far more defensively than a lot of Thesz' other opponents (at least in this bout.) He got real low with his grappling stance and was extremely cautious. When he did strike, he was like a cat and used flashier and more agile moves than many of his contemporaries. Personally, I thought he lacked the toughness of a Rogers or Gagne and Davis even mentioned that he wasn't able to take a licking. He was shorter than Thesz and a few pounds lighter, and it didn't seem like he could quite match him physically. Some good moments but it flaked out a bit in the third fall.

The one hour draw between Thesz and Rogers is an excellent bout. I continue to be impressed with Rogers' toughness. He only knew a smidgen on holds compared to the truly elite wrestlers, but he knew how to execute them well, and you never felt like he was out of his depth or that Thesz should be eating him alive. The dynamic between the pair was tremendous, and I loved how it was a scrap every inch of the way. The Rikidozan draw, on the other hand, is a drag. An hour of Rikidozan is way too much Rikidozan. Thesz works the touring champ bit though I'm not sure it was necessary given much the Japanese respected him. Mostly it's a stalemate between Thesz trying to pin Rikidozan's shoulders to the mat and Rikidozan trying to apply an armbar. The shorter of their bouts on tape was more compelling. Now the Gagne one hour draw is Thesz' masterpiece. Despite only being in his early 30s, Thesz works the bout as a total veteran vs. youngster fight and gives the lion's share of it to Gagne, though I suppose in that era being in your early 30s really did amount to being a veteran. What was impressive about Thesz here wasn't his holds or the way he'd go on the prowl. Instead, it was his selling. Much of the bout was spent on Gagne softening Thesz up for his sleeper hold. I'm not one to praise a match that's headlock based, but this was one of the toughest, grittiest, best sold matches of its ilk. Thesz sold in a way I really didn't think he was capable of. It was a masterclass in being put through the wringer. On top of that, he made sure he got offside with the Chicago crowd by working a few illegal holds and a couple that weren't but had some venom behind them. . He allowed the younger man to run him ragged and by the end of the bout he was out with only the time limit saving him. I can't imagine there was anyone who watched that fight and didn't think Gagne was breathing down Thesz' neck for the World's Heavyweight Championship. I'd rank the bout alongside any veteran/youngster match you care to name, it was that good.

Santo had the better career, but as a preference, if there two lost classics on the table from Dandy and Santo, I bet the Santo performance would be a whole lot more predictable than the Dandy one. On the other hand, the Santo one would be safer and the Dandy one more likely to disappoint. That speaks to the higher degree of difficulty of what Dandy achieved during his peak. I think his bouts were more complex wheres Santo leant more towards iconography. Santo clearly produced some powerful stuff doing so, but I prefer Dandy's brief peak.

Giant Baba vs. Gene Kiniski (8/14/67) This was a slog. A long, hard fought slog, but a slog all the same. The unique thing about Baba is that he worked like a normal man despite his tremendous size. You often don't pick up on how big Baba is because he's wrestling a guys like Kiniski who are tall and athletic, and he wrestles small most of the time, but there are a few shots of him in this where he's being attended to by his seconds and you can see how big he was next to the average Japanese *wrestler* let alone the salarymen in the stands. For some reason, Baba chose to work small. I'm sure he had his reasons, but if you judge his work against a normal guy then he seems average. Not markedly average, but all this talk about him being one of the smartest wrestlers ever, or a master of psychology, just seem like euphemisms for him being pretty good for a giant. I've yet to find one spark where I think Baba was as good as folks say.

Watched one of the Rikidozan bouts. The one with the colour film of his road trip in America, which stood in stark contrast to the mood and atmosphere in Tokyo. I thought the bout was a real feather in the cap of Lou the worker. For him to get something compelling out of a guy who, in all honesty, was more limited than the Mighty Atlas or Mr. Mojo, was one of his finest feats so far. I also enjoyed his matches against Tom Rice and Wild Bill Longson, two McManus type characters. Lou was particularly badass in the Rice match. Just constantly on the prowl looking to slap Rice about. Longson is the first guy I've seen hightail it when Lou is looking to dish out a receipt. Longson's piledriver was sweet.

Shawn Michaels, eat your heart out. That picture of Barry makes it difficult for me to concentrate on what I'm doing. Barry Windham... it's hard for me to pull all my thoughts on Windham together. I love Windham in the early 90s -- the Pillman feud, the Dangerous Alliance stuff, the turn on Dustin, the tag team with Pillman, the Lone Wolf period, all of it. That in itself is a great career. If I were a wrestler and I did all that I would be pleased as punch (provided I cared about such things and not getting paid and where to score.) It's his 80s stuff I'm less sold on. The long broadways and such. It was there that he showed the most potential in the eyes of the traders and the sheet readers and where he almost took on a mythical quality of the next biggest thing. But he had a bit of the ol' wanderlust and various problems that saw him move to and fro, and I think people were a bit heartbroken that Sting and Luger were deemed the future as though they'd driven a stake through wrestling's history and lineage. I'm not sure what the disparate parts of Windham's career add up to, but I do know that he passes the "would I really want to watch a match of this guy if I could be doing something else?" test, which becomes increasingly important as you get older and crankier kids. Yeah, nah... Maybe if he'd never injured his neck and maybe if his Attitude Era brawls had been more like territory brawls than by the numbers house style gimmick bouts. The majority of his WCW stuff is overrated. I'm not a fan of the Hollywood Blondes and think he was one of the lesser members of the Dangerous Alliance. I don't think his Steamboat stuff is untouchable either. It's just good. His '96-97 stuff was fresh and cutting edge. The majority of us wanted him to turn heel again when his face act wore stale. Then he did and people said it was bad for business, but his 2001 run salvaged what might have been a career cut short by injury. At his best he was a worthy heir to the long lineage of Texan wrestlers, but top 25 of all-time? I need some of that Vince Russo crash TV 1998 Kool-Aid. Take me back sweet Kool-Aid. The Irony of Hashimoto finishing one place above Austin is that he was a guy who rose to prominence roughly around the same time as Austin. He didn't fall into the role of ace by accident like Austin did, but '96-97 was when he rose above the pack. The difference between Austin and Hashimoto is that Hashimoto didn't become popular because of any change in society's values. Hashimoto wasn't an anti-hero. He didn't stick it to the man. He embodied traditional Japanese values and had an aura about him that is impossible to replicate. He was a warrior. He had honour. He had bushido. He had dignity. He carried himself the way a samurai should. The way a Yokozuna should. The way a Japanese man should. Death before dishonour; all those virtues that somehow become hackneyed when filtered through to the West but mean something in their original context. Hashimoto was a great warrior and a great fighter. Who doesn't get chills from a Hashimoto entrance? From the introductions, the finishing stretches, the spots, the triumphs and the failures? He was "epic" personified and it all came from a burning fire within him. More than being a great worker, he was a force to be reckoned with. And left an indelible mark on this list.

I don't think there's any argument that could convince me that Hansen and Funk were the two best wrestlers in the history of All Japan. I think that's patently wrong. For that to be true their work would have to be the pinnacle of All Japan and it's not. Jumbo vs. Tenryu in '88-89 blows away anything Hansen did in the promotion during the same time period. The Choshu/Yatsu vs. Jumbo/Tenryu series blows away Hansen's tag work from the 80s. So what are you left with? As far as Funk goes, I'm not convinced he had better matches in All Japan than Billy Robinson. I also haven't seen Baba give a performance remotely close to peak Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi. Those three guys have flaws no doubt about it, but what is this Baba stuff you're high on?

Giant Baba vs. Gene Kiniski (12/3/70) I'm never sure what to make of Gene Kiniski. The stuff he does is never bad, but he doesn't really do anything great. I'm not even sure what the consensus is on him as a worker. Man, Baba defers to his opponent a lot. He's so passive. I keep wanting him to be more aggressive in these fights. You're a giant, you should be mauling folks. When he cuts loose against Kiniski it's formidable, but then he goes straight back to the same empty holds. I get that he's a sportsman and a gentleman, but Pat Roach was probably the most articulate wrestler there's been out of the ring and he still wrestled like a bear with a sore head. This wasn't any good until they started trying to smash each other's skulls in during the third fall.

Thesz vs. Walter Palmer is a really good bout that might get overlooked these days as Palmer isn't a huge name. He was an amateur turned pro who was a favourite of Chicago promoter Fred Kohler and the inventor of the spinning toehold. Davis tells us Thesz vs. Palmer is a match the fans have been wanting to see and they deliver a nice mix of technical wrestling and grit. It lacks the gravity of a title match, but tempers flare, and like the best Thesz matches it has plenty of needle. Comparable to a strong WoS bout. .

Giant Baba vs. Bruno Sammartino (8/7/68) Bruno and Baba found their sweet spot here matching the physicality of their 15 minute draw with the psychology of their 60 minute bout. If you're going to watch a Baba/Bruno bout, I'd recommend this one as it's action packed without being overly long (or least it's clipped that way, I'm not sure how much is shown in full since Cagematch is trying to tell me it went 60 minutes.) It also has a more dynamic performance from Baba with wider ranging athleticism and better execution than their broadway. Hard to imagine they having a match much better than this.

I think a few of the West Indian wrestlers in World of Sport came close to this. The African workers absolutely not (Johnny Kwango, Masambula, Honey Boy Zimba), but workers like Clive Myers and Caswell Martin where almost exclusively presented on their in-ring ability. There was an element of "Caribbean cool" associated with them because they purportedly from the West Indies, but Martin in particular was a wrestler's wrestler. Walton would refer to his ethnicity and colour, but he did that with every worker. How you factor in Myer's Iron Fist gimmick, I'm not sure. It appeared to draw more upon his status as a World Arm-Wrestling Champion to me than any sort of racial stereotyping. On the other hand you had West Indian wrestlers like the Caribbean Sunshine Boys starting riots and guys like Jamaica George who had the Johnny Kwango style headbutt and Jim Moser who could leap high. So it wasn't as though the stereotypes weren't there for West Indian wrestlers, but generally speaking I think Myers, Martin and Lenny Hurst, managed to avoid them. And the Caribbean Sunshine Boys were later pushed individually without much reference to race.