ohtani's jacket

To be honest, I think it's in the eye of the beholder. If you're into a match, and you're biting on the nearfalls, then you can't call that excessive. But if you're not into it, or they lose you somehow, then you're probably going to find it too much. I'm a big believer that the rhythm of a match is important when it comes to different styles, especially faster styles with a lot of non-stop action. It's hard to be in sync with that rhythm if you're coming in cold. In general, though, I think most wrestling promotions were guilty of trying to outdo themselves from the mid-90s onward. Look at Japanese wrestling, particularly the reoccurring match-ups in different promotions. They fought each other so many times that all they could do was wrestle bigger and bigger matches with an ever-increasing number of kickouts and nearfalls. That's not really unusual. It happens in movie sequels and many other forms of entertainment, and most people reach a point where they've had enough of watching something even a favourite TV show. (How many times do you start watching a TV series that you never finish?) For me it became excessive, and I can't think of many late period match ups between workers that I like as much as their middle period work. For a lot of people, though, especially those who jumped on at a later point, the matches became more exciting. That's why I say it's in the eye of the beholder.

This was like choosing between your kids. In the end, I went with shoot style because it was the most evolved style, involved the highest amount of skill and included a lot of the basics of catch and other styles I like. To me these matwork styles are almost like different genres with different genre expectations. I don't like it when lucha matwork gets too "shooty," for example. Grittier stuff like Dandy vs. Llanes is cool, but it bothered me when they started doing cross armbreakers in the mid-90s. British matwork depends entirely upon the weight class. I enjoy the heavyweight stuff as much as the lightweight work but I don't think you can really lump them together. NWA matwork and Strong Style are another level down. I can appreciate NWA matwork when Thesz does it, but the further away from Thesz you get the more distilled it is. Strong style can be exciting depending on the worker but it's pretty much a poor man's shoot style.

Hey elliott, The TV Tropes page for Tamura has some interesting tidbits -- http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Wrestling/KiyoshiTamura Lorefice's old news page has some good info about the dying days of RINGS (probably cribbed straight from the Observer) -- http://www.quebrada.net/news/NewsRINGS1.html

A few British ones: The White Angel vs. Dr. Death, 1962 (famous mask match from Paul Lincoln Promotions, probably not taped) Mick McManus vs .Jackie Pallo, 5/25/63 (McManus vs. Pallo II, said to be better than their first match) Kendo Nagasaki vs. Count Bartelli, 3/5/66 (famous mask match, probably not taped) Mick McManus vs. Peter Preston, 1/14/67 (Preston shoots on McManus, famous double cross finish)

I've spent the past few weeks watching as many Gorgeous George matches as I could find. There's nothing that original about the stuff George does since it's been copied so many times over the years. Though I did like some of his more elaborate shtick like having his servant provide pure "Florida air" for him to breathe between rounds. Not a great mechanic, but he could work. His matches followed the same formula regardless of whom he was wrestling. They'd take the toughest bloke they could find and stick him in the ring with the Orchid. George would stall and refuse to engage. They'd scrap and George would have his hair ruffled. He'd cheat and beg off, but show just enough toughness to prove he belonged in the fight game. His offensive repertoire was limited but he was a pretty good seller. If you watch the lengthy Frankie Talabar match it's not that dissimilar from a Ric Flair match. The Talabar bout is probably the best example of George's work, though Russ Davis got on my nerves after a while. I much prefer Los Angeles commentator Dick Lane when it comes to that type of commentary. Another match worth watching is the Don Eagle one where the crowd gets quite violent and someone strikes George on his way out of the arena. Fun worker but he reminded me more of a Jackie Pallo than a Mick McManus in terms of ability. Incredible cultural figure considering he influenced guys like Ali and Bob Dylan. The missing piece from this fan's perspective is a bout against a really top shelf wrestler like Thesz. I'd be fascinated in seeing how George changed up his shtick in a big time title fight.

Steve Sims' HOF bio for Konnan is a good place to start. You should be able to find that with a simple google search. There's a couple of lucha books on Google Books with info about the era as well. When I researched about 80s and early 90s for the DVDVR Lucha discs there were endless discrepancies with facts. There is no way to get a completely accurate take on the period. For example, different sources will give you different dates on when EMLL first began airing on terrestrial television in Mexico City, and so on. But basically there was a television boom in the era you're researching about fueled by the ban on televised wrestling being lifted in Mexico City and the booking ideas of Antonio Pena who came up with gimmicks like Konnan and Octagon. Pena's ideas were pretty modern for the time even if they did hark back to the way lucha magazines were responsible for creating gimmicks in the past. Pena's modern thinking butt shoulders with co-booker Juan Herrera's old-school leanings and for a while the "old meets new" blend made for a potent product. The UWA was really late to get TV. They didn't have a show until November of '91 by which time the TV boom had based them by. Monterrey and the other territories really suffered in this era too. It wasn't exactly death of the territories, but pretty close. I mean if you compare how well the territories were doing in the 80s (post TV boom) to 1991, it's pretty sad. That follows a global pattern, though, so I guess it's the nature of the beast. The 1990-91 period is not really complete without researching the wrestlers' strike and the start-up AAA promotion, IMO. That was a direct result of the TV boom and I'd include it in whatever endeavor you're doing.

Choshu was a rebel. What you might call a "cool heel." When New Japan was super hot in the early 80s they went head-to-head with this police drama on Friday nights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qSGmoYw0qk Looks a bit like the Sabotage video, huh? Somebody else thought so and did a mash-up: The police chief was played by Yujiro Ishihara, who was the ultimate tough guy actor of the era. You think Yujiro Ishihara played by the rules? You bet your ass he didn't. Ishihara was macho. Choshu was macho. I can't emphasize enough how cool Choshu was. When I first watched Choshu I thought he was boring as shit but over the years I've come to understand why he was so popular. You need to understand that the majority of wrestling fans at the time were either young men or middle aged salary men. Japan working culture is based on a hierarchical system where promotions and pay increases are based on age not on performance. Choshu threw a middle finger to the establishment. He was coarse and rough. He had long hair but was every bit as macho as Ishihara. He was a heel but it resonated with young guys who wished they could stick a middle finger to their boss too. With Misawa it was the same except he was a face. To an extent, Misawa & Co. vs. Jumbo & Co. was a battle of ideologies. The wrinkle was that it wasn't like all the young guys supported Misawa and all the older fans supported Jumbo. Both Jumbo and Misawa were charismatic to the audience just as both Jumbo and Tenryu had been. No matter how much of an asshole Jumbo was, the crowd would still cheer for his "Oohs!" His partners did a lot of the dirty work for him, but Jumbo still transcended heel/face divides. Kawada and Taue did plenty of heel work in their matches, though when it was Misawa vs. Kawada in singles they played up the senpai vs. kohai aspects a lot. Senpai vs. kohai is again a hierarchical divide and I'm sure there were plenty of fans in the audience who knew what it was like to feel inferior to their senpai. That led to a certain amount of sympathy for Kawada, I'm sure, and when he was positioned against gaijins he was pushed as a native and therefore fan favourite. It was against Misawa and Kobashi that things were more complex. It's a tricky one because on commentary they would sometimes lambaste Kawada's tactics but at the same time they booked the classic babyface chase against Misawa and Misawa & Kobashi, which gave Kawada certain anti-hero qualities. You weren't supposed to hate Kawada, but you weren't meant to respect him more than Misawa or Kobashi. Despite that, he had recognizable fighting qualities. Jumbo was Jumbo and hugely popular. Kawada, I think, was more nuanced.

The OED says: "2 An object or undertaking that is unpleasant or badly made or carried out. Example sentences: ‘He didn't bring up one single argument in respect to the abortion of a budget that was tabled this year.’ ‘My introduction to advertising came to consist of thinking up such abortions as banana creme topping.’"

If If I like a worker, I generally want to see more of their work even if I've already formed an opinion on them. If I don't like a worker then I'm less inclined to watch more of their stuff. The former leads to diminishing returns at times. The latter doesn't really give you a chance to change your mind or have some sort of a breakthrough. But to me, the entire process is about finding stuff I like. I'd say I need far less than 100 matches to make up my mind about someone. A half dozen matches is enough for me. If I like you after a half dozen matches, I'm going to watch more of your stuff. If I'm not feeling it then I'll stop. Things might change in 2-3 years as my tastes are always shifting, but I'm a low volume watcher so I don't really have time to burn.

Don Arnold vs. Ali Pasha is full of all sorts of interesting on screen facts about Don Arnold. Did you know that Don Arnold is currently residing in a nudist camp? Or that he wrote a book called "Basic Nudism"? Not as sordid as the YouTube comments. Arnold has a haircut that Kirk Douglas would have admired. Pasha is so good at playing a foreign heel. Miles better than any of the Japanese heels and arguably better than the Germans. He has a way of stooping about the ring that looks totally oriental and the way he works a hold seems exotic and strange. Primo Carnera vs. Jim Londos is notable for how much history there is in the ring. Carnera was a former boxing champ turned wrestler, and the ref was Max Baer, who had beaten Carnera for the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship in 1934 and an interesting character in his own right (lover of Greta Garbo, father of Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies.) I had no idea Londos was so small. I mean Carnera was a giant, but Londos was as short as Carnera was tall. Londos came out of retirement for this bout, which was a pretty ordinary affair. More noteworthy for the history intersecting in the ring than the bout itself. Lord James Blears vs. Leo Garibaldi was interesting. Blears was a complete prototype for Lord Stephen Regal. He even had a manager, Captain Leslie Holmes, who bore a striking resemblance to Sir William. Hell, the Blears and Lord Layton team could have easily been the Blue Bloods if Bobby Eaton had been 8 feet tall. Seriously, Layton was massive. Pretty entertaining match against Joe Pasandak & Mr. Moto, though, which is saying something because those guys weren't great workers by any means. There's a clip of Blears vs. Leone that I would have liked to have seen more from, but he definitely looked like a guy who made rough and tumble look good. Leone vs. Pasha is everything you'd expect it to be. I could pretty much book that match in my head in this point, but it was still fun to see. I'd love to know if Leone worked the same way against Thesz.

Think this is unfair to Panther. The mask vs mask with Love Machine drew a turnaway crowd to Arena Mexico, and that was for masked tecnico Art Barr. The people weren't there to see whether Love Machine kept his mask, they were there cheering on Panther. Barr's charisma didn't explode until he became a rudo. Also I think this overlooks that part of what got Love Machine over was that he was competitive against someone as good and as popular as Blue Panther. You really think substituting for Panther with somebody like Bestia Salvaje would have had the same result? It's possible. Might not have drawn as much as it wouldn't have been mask vs. mask but Pena had already created a string of successful gimmicks using the same formula. It depends on how popular the Love Machine gimmick was with the public. I don't think you can claim they drew a turn away crowd simply because he was programmed with Panther. If that were the case then surely Panther would have been booked in far more apuesta matches over the years. The Panther/Love Machine program was certainly successful. It drew in two different promotions and Panther certainly deserves some of the credit for that regardless of how hot Pena's booking was at the time. But it's offset by the fact that there were clear headliners like Caras, Aguayo and Konnan pulling the crowds. Panther/Love Machine is not that different from an IC title feud drawing during Hulkamania. None of Panther's other programs came close to touching it, and it doesn't really help that the matches are among his worst. I'm not saying that Panther mask matches automatically generated sellout crowds. It was a hot feud in a hot period for the company, but not every Arena Mexico show sold out. Bestia Salvaje vs Huracan Sevilla drew what was reported as a below average crowd (for the time--I'm sure it was better than some of the crowds later in the year). That was what happened when genuine midcarders headlined at Arena Mexico in early 1992. Panther vs Machine headlined what I believe was the biggest and most anticipated CMLL card that year. And Machine wasn't popular at all with the crowd. Despite being a well-meaning tecnico who'd been with the company for less than half a year, he had a packed house hoping he lost. Okay, he was an American going up against a Mexican, but for that to happen you still need a rudo the fans want to get behind. I don't think it follows that if Panther was primarily responsible for that crowd then he'd have been booked in more apuestas matches. For one thing he has as many to his name as Rayo Jr, Cien Caras, and Atlantis, and he didn't have much of an opportunity for them from 1995-97 because of the way he was hopping between promotions. As for the matches sucking, I don't see what that has to do with who was driving the feud. It's a shame that Bestia vs. Sevilla didn't draw more as that was a sweet little feud and an underrated hair match but it's not really surprising. I can only find a handful of instances of Sevilla working Arena Mexico in 1991 and most of those were in the opening bout. Bestia vs. Sevilla was more of an Arena Coliseo level feud. I do think it's worth mentioning that Panther vs. Love Machine headlined the Arena Mexico Anniversary Show and was a fairly stacked card with Atlantis vs. Fiera and Konnan/Aguayo/Rayo vs. Los Hermanos Dinamita as the semi-mains. It's been a while since I watched the build-up to the match but wasn't Love Machine acting more and more like a rudo heading into the match? From memory, he more or less wrestles like one in the bout and the crowd are chanting "Mexico" from the start. That seemed to be an element in terms of it being a match that people wanted to see. To be honest, I think Rayo, Caras and even Atlantis' apuesta records up until that point clearly outweighed Panther. The two biggest drawing gates of '89 and '90 were Rayo mask matches, and I believe that was in all of Mexico. The match quality doesn't have anything to do with Panther's drawing power, that's true.

Think this is unfair to Panther. The mask vs mask with Love Machine drew a turnaway crowd to Arena Mexico, and that was for masked tecnico Art Barr. The people weren't there to see whether Love Machine kept his mask, they were there cheering on Panther. Barr's charisma didn't explode until he became a rudo. Also I think this overlooks that part of what got Love Machine over was that he was competitive against someone as good and as popular as Blue Panther. You really think substituting for Panther with somebody like Bestia Salvaje would have had the same result? It's possible. Might not have drawn as much as it wouldn't have been mask vs. mask but Pena had already created a string of successful gimmicks using the same formula. It depends on how popular the Love Machine gimmick was with the public. I don't think you can claim they drew a turn away crowd simply because he was programmed with Panther. If that were the case then surely Panther would have been booked in far more apuesta matches over the years. The Panther/Love Machine program was certainly successful. It drew in two different promotions and Panther certainly deserves some of the credit for that regardless of how hot Pena's booking was at the time. But it's offset by the fact that there were clear headliners like Caras, Aguayo and Konnan pulling the crowds. Panther/Love Machine is not that different from an IC title feud drawing during Hulkamania. None of Panther's other programs came close to touching it, and it doesn't really help that the matches are among his worst.

Steve Rickard being on the list amuses me. Lord James Blears is a non-wrestler? I just watched him wrestle yesterday. Didn't he wrestle from 1940 to 1965? Is he really that important as an agent/commentator/booker/dude who read the formalities in English on All Japan shows? Seems weird.

I do think there's a difference between people who seek out new wrestling and those people who are into a scene. But that's true of all forms of entertainment. When I was a kid, I was into the latest comics off the racks while older dudes were into collecting. Later on, I got tired of the latest comics off the rack and got hipped to collecting. PWO posters, for the most part, are like collectors. Regarding the white Angelo stuff, I think if you enjoy a particular genre, such as New Wave, it's silly to ignore Kino or Maanam. And even if you need to understand the lyrics how about Australia, New Zealand, or other English speaking countries?

You've been reading my music list so far, is that true? I wouldn't say your list is that eclectic. It covers a wide variety of eras but it's mostly artists from the same genres. Reading the list, a person gets a clear idea of what you value in music. Judging by what you've written in this thread, it seems you'd be suspicious of a list that is wildly eclectic. I don't recall you doing this w/ wrestling. It's easy to say that you have to come at something from within the genre or the tradition when you already like that thing. When you were faced with new things in wrestling you threw your standards at them. Ultimate question though: how can we really make that call across genres? Can we? Can we compare the rap artist to the bluesman to the jazz cat to the folk singer/songwriter to the punk band? Why not? They're musicians. They make music and write songs. It's just a question of whose music you like better. I don't think anyone is arguing with you over the universality point. You seem to be pushing the wagon that if someone's a shoot style fan they can't like garbage brawling because they're diametrically opposed when the reality is that people quite often do like things that are diametrically opposed.

Parv seems a bit distrustful of people with eclectic tastes.

A couple of short Edouard Carpentier matches are on the jarrett421 channel. One of them is against a bigger man named Art Mahalik and the other is against a guy named Mike Gallagher. Pre-match Gallagher was doing a Gorgeous George exotico gimmick. Then he proceeded to wrestle like a tough guy. I can't understand when wrestlers do that. I still haven't decided whether I like Carpentier or not. His offense is either going to be something I grow to love or a perpetual turn-off. Baron Michele Leone vs. Fred Blassie is a great watch. Young Blassie is awesome and reminds me a bit of Terry Funk. Leone plays the not-so-subtle heel and the result is a memorable fight. I don't know how much Blassie there is on tape, but he seems like a wrestler worth taking a look at. The jarrett channel has one more Leone match against Jack "Sockeye" McDonald. Leone's approach is pretty much the same in every bout -- attack the leg, work the head over with knee drop, apply the neck breaker. In that regard, there's a fair amount of repetition. What I haven't figured out yet is whether that's because he was a limited worker or if it was just a relentless commitment to a singular attack mode. Elsewhere this is comedy heel wrestler The Great John L (great ring name) vs. Al Torres (the younger brother of Enrique Torres) and Nick Bockwinkel. Al Torres steamrolls John L as much as a young wrestler can be confident in steamrolling a more experienced wrestler and Bockwinkel looks like a stud. You know Bockwinkel but imagine him when he in tip top shape and conditioned. A superb athlete. Mike Sharpe (of The Sharpe Brothers fame) took on Negro Guzman of NWA On Demand fame and boy didn't Guzman give the bigger Sharpe all he could handle. Hell of a fight from the smaller Mexican. Guzman shone here. The last bit of footage I watched was a 1941 scrap between Dean Detton and Dick Raines and a nice contest between Al Massey and Larry Hamilton. Almost done with this channel but it was a blast.

"Ryu" is difficult to pronounce. A lot of people pronounce it as "roo," but that's not right either.

The full name in Japanese is something like: "Bridge of Dreams - Dome Spring in Full Bloom."

More sped up wrestling from the 1940s -- a young Ace Freeman vs. Billy Venable, Billy Raburn vs. Jack Hagen and Wild Red Berry vs. Yukon Jake. Seems the 50s style I'm enjoying was already well established by the early 40s. I need to follow fxnj's lead and dip back further in time. Roy McClarty vs. Tony Marino was a nice 10 minute TV bout w/ an established technical wrestling going up against a promising up and comer. Marino got a big kick out toward the end. Danny McShane vs. Pepper Gomez was a long and incomplete title match. Not as exciting as the Garibaldi fight but McShane again looked like a guy you wouldn't want to pick a fight with. Next up is an international heavyweight bout between Australia's Pat Meehan and Turkey's Ali Pasha. I like the international flavour to 50s wrestling. It reminds me of WoS where you'd have guys from all over the UK and Europe competing along with wrestlers from Africa, India, Pakistan, the West Indies, and other parts of the Commonwealth. Oddly, the impression it creates is that wrestling had more of a global reach in the 1950s than it does today. Perhaps that's changing though with the Cruiserweight tournament. Meehan is one of the more awkward looking guys I've seen so far but it's kind of endearing. He reminds me a bit of Ray Steele. Ali Pasha is a technical wrestler-cum-brawler with a bunch of inside moves. Think Sid Cooper, Zoltan Boscik or Tally Ho Kaye. That sort of worker. The mix of Meehan's awkward looking holds and Pasha's dirty tricks makes this an entertaining bout. Hot on the heels of that is a run of Baron Michele Leone matches. His opponents aren't the greatest in terms of skill. First up there's a guy called The Great Scott (with a jacket Pierroth Jr would be in awe of) and a tough brawler from Milwaukee by the name of Hans Schnabel. It's clear these aren't going to be mat classics, but the blend of Leone's oddball charisma and his direct brawling and grappling style makes them perfectly satisfying Leone showcases. I still don't know how good he actually was but watching him work I keep thinking what if a Jimmy Garvin worked this way or even a WWF era Jake Roberts. It would completely revolutionise what we think of those guys and seems like something they were capable of as the degree of difficulty isn't that high. Leone sticks to his man and never lets up. Maybe he's forsaking selling, but I like the contrast between his flamboyant (albeit slightly weird) entrances and his no nonsense grappling style.

Black Terry vs. Aero Boy, Funcion Estelar, 3/18/16 Black Terry, what drives this man? What keeps him in the fight game? Lacing up the boots, ignoring the lumps and bruises, tending to the cuts. Terry is almost the same age as my father but still he fights. The early exchanges here showed that Terry isn't as quick as he used to be. He can't bump like he used to, can't pull a kick to the back like a young man might, but as soon as this goes to the outside Terry is in his element. Outside the ring. Terry is a master. No matter how many times I've seen Terry brawl around ringside it's still an awesome sight. Aero Boy does his part by bumping into a row of chairs, but in the main it's Terry's measured brawling, his use of colour (blood) and the ripped shirt motif that make this memorable. Terry may not be able to work lucha exchanges like he used to, but he can still tease a lucha submission with the best of them and he also knows how to get plenty of bang for his buck out of that well worn backcracker of his. The aesthetics also help here. Lucha brawls always work best in a dingy environment. Back in the day, even when they held matches in major venues, the poor lightning and grainy footage created a unique environment for lucha brawls. That's been lost in the bright new era where major lucha venues are fully lit and have electronic hordings advertising Japanese camera makers. The handheld approach to Terry's apuesta feuds creates a Dogme style effect like we're watching some kind of documentary about Black Terry's soul searching on the 2016 circuit. This was only a mano a mano. What awaits us in the apuesta match?

That jarrett421 channel is a treasure trove of stuff most of it from the old Hollywood Legion. Some of the matches have been online for seven years, which just goes to show there's always stuff out there to discover. Whoever the uploader is, he has impeccable taste. Don Sugai Matsura vs. Dave Reynolds is a short bit of film from the 1940s and is sped up a bit, but check out the state of the art shit they were doing in 1940. That was a revelation. Baron Michelle Leone vs. Billy Varga is probably a better look at Leone than the Romero match as it's more of a Leone showcase bout than the equal billing of the Romeo fight. Really interesting worker. I'm trying to think of a comparison but all I can really think of is Ron Jeremy if Ron Jeremy were a wrestler star who could do a little bit of everything. Sandor Szabo vs. Roger Mackay is a much better look at Szabo than the Snyder tag match I saw him in and gives you an idea of why he was given the World Heavyweight title back in the day. So many new names for me from this era. Argentina Apollo is a really fun barefoot wrestler from Buenos Aires who has an entertaining bout with Bob Royer in some 60s footage. Danny McShane is perhaps my new favourite wrestler. A stiff brawler who allegedly killed two men with his pile driver, he has a sensational scrap with a guy named Gino Garibaldi. Garibaldi goes right after him and almost knocks his block off. Best brawl I've seen in a while. Ace Freeman is another new name. Sound technical wrestler who has a fine match with Frenchman Andre Drapp. Most recently I watched a another fine contest between Don Arnold and Tarzan Tourville, later known as Tarzan Tyler. The impressive thing about this 50s footage thus far is that the skill level of just about everyone has been really high. Particularly the journeymen types. Maybe the old timers like Buddy Rogers were right about the older generation having more holds. Of course I haven't really gotten in to looking at the gimmick workers yet, but McShane and Leone have strong personalities and have still impressed with their fundamentals.

I don't follow wrestling writing that closely. I mainly read this site and a few others like Segunda Caida and Paul Cooke's site. I honestly care more about match recs than anything else at this stage, but even if I were interested in new theories on wrestling I don't they would be able to escape the match as the primary text.

There's another McGill match against Mad Monty LeDux that's pretty cool. A real scrap with McGill showing plenty of aggression. Baron Michele Leone vs. Rito Romero is well worth watching. Leone had an amazing look. I don't think there's ever been a wrestler who looked quite like him. Maybe a jobber somewhere. Romero is, of course, a famous luchador. The dropkick attack he used to win a fall here is something I would ape if I were a professional wrestler. Very cool.

That McGill/Torres match was indeed awesome. I've love to see more Torres. He was pretty damn slick. I also saw a match between Larry Chene and Gordon Hessell where they teased some open palm strike exchanges and one of them every rolled up into a George Kidd ball albeit less compact.