ohtani's jacket

Not sure what Yamada did to deserve that dubious distinction. The lucha graveyard continues. Must... fight... the... urge... to... have... backlash...against...token... picks.

That's Espanto Jr's son who's currently doing the gimmick in CMLL. I'm pretty sure Tim voted for dad.

Greco! Standing out like a diamond in the rough.

When push comes to shove is Bobby Heenan truly a wrestler? Alan Sargeant did extremely well for only 4 votes.

Kevin Cook uploaded a bunch of lucha during the watching and nominating period in '06 and among the smaller ballot turnout were some lists stacked with luchadores.

Who would have thought Smarkschoice would be more lucha savvy.

I don't think I'll be in a hurry to watch another Inoki worked shoot after the Karl Mildenberger fight. Nothing interesting about that fight whatsoever. The Brisco match from May '79 is okay, but I think the magic was gone from Brisco by that stage and Inoki didn't look great either.

I think I might have voted for Ikeshita in 2006.

Santo's dives are kind of classical though. They're more elegant than someone like Mysterio.

That skit was pretty good. Now I'm gonna imagine the Desolate Shore every time you struggle with a lucha match. One thing I don't really get is how you never got into Santo. He seems highly accessible, easy to understand and someone you'd be able to appreciate. I can't imagine a person who likes Liger, for example, not enjoying Santo.

When I think of Pat Roach I always think of Bomber spending all his money gambling and in the brothels of Dusseldorf in Auf Wiedersehen Pet! "Bomber likes the ladies does Bomber." I swear he was trying to imitate Burt Lancaster.

Whick Kubrick ones? A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon.

I'm waiting for the moment where everyone has too much to drink, or gets slightly depressed about the GWE, and the JSF start playing A Whiter Shade of Pale.

Lucha is the free jazz soundtrack to a post French New Wave Jacques Rivette film as far as Parv is concerned.

I'm not going to mention anything because people get annoyed when I criticise things, but here's the thing, Parv: you don't seem to like it when people criticise Flair, Jumbo, Kobashi or Hase, so why should people criticise Casas or Satanico? I'm not trying to attack your integrity or anything, but I don't really buy when you say it's me not lucha. Whenever you talk about lucha, I always think "oh, it's how he feels about jazz or prog-rock." What I really want to know is whether you like jazz vocalists and whether you like Brian Uno. Because I honestly think it's lucha not you.

Oh, that's good. That's very, very good. This keeps getting better and better.

That Jackie album cover is dope. Massive gap between the high and low vote. Octagon! 26th best wrestler of all-time.

Judy Martin is awesome. You really could piece together an awesome bottom of the ballot 25 with the some of the names that have dropped.

I listened to a strange mix of Yarbrough & Peoples, Merle Haggard and REO Speedwagon while watching it.

Are you seriously on this kick again? If you look through my blog or Matt's stuff at Segunda Caida you will find plenty of criticism of lucha bouts. It's hard to tell at this point whether your hang up is with lucha itself or the fact that anyone could possibly enjoy it. The one thing I'll say is that you've taken a top down approach to lucha where you're struggling to understand why the top matches are praised so much whereas some of the bigger fans around here have watched a metric shitload of lucha and have a different feel for why match XYZ is the best in its style. Dylan referred to it recently as immersing yourself in a style. It doesn't mean you'll come to the same conclusions as everybody else, but it's the only key to unlocking the style. In years gone by, people used to talk about how you needed "lucha eyes" when watching stuff from Mexico. I believe this was a Meltzer talking point because he really struggled with lucha in the 80s and early 90s up until the AAA boom where he really got into the live shows and the business side of things began to fascinate him. That may be the kind of "zone" Pete was referring to. I feel the same way about Joshi. You need to get into the rhythm of what it is you're watching and that's sometimes difficult when you're watching a one-off match on a random day of the week. "Lucha eyes" was rejected by hardcores because it's annoying and slightly derogatory. Do I use a different brain when I watch lucha? I guess so. I know what to expect and what not to expect. I know what I want to see and what I don't like. But I never think: "oh, you'd never see that in a US ring or this would never get over in Japan." I actually think that's complete bollocks because for a long time tweaked lucha libre in the form of Psicosis vs. Mysterio Jr. was considered one of the greatest openers in PPV history, and you only have to look at Tiger Mask or Mil Mascaras to see that Japanese audiences were enchanted by lucha even if there was an element of exoticism to it. I really don't get why you can't reject lucha wholesale. I mean you say you like Casas and Cota but it's not like you're using them as a hook to really explore lucha. Everybody starts with a favourite worker and works from there. Then they figure out that they like this type of lucha but not that and so on. I don't think there's anyone who likes every type of lucha, and I don't know where these "rah rah lucha" types are hanging out. Look at all those luchadores dropping like flies in the countdown. It's just not that popular.

The 7/78 bout with Backlund is another excellent Inoki match. Backlund was pretty fantastic in it. He does that weird thing where he sticks his ass out and looks like a duck, but aside from that I thought his selling performance was nuanced and rather good. Tons of fantastic action and work. Definitely in the running for best Inoki match ever.

If only he'd jump the fence at Mania like that old Brody/Hogan tale.

I don't think Veidor's trunks are skimpy enough in that pic. There was one point in the 70s where the guys seemed to be having a contest to see who could wear the most obscene pair of trunks to the ring. I once read an interview with McManus where he talked about how it drove the ladies wild.

Roach was in all three of the Indian Jones moves as well as Willow, a bunch of the Conan flicks, a Bond picture and two Kubrick films. He was even in Kevin Costner Robin Hood film. Woefully underrated on the list but for a long time I thought he wouldn't be nominated. Villano IV is also super underrated.

Can we get a set list for the JSF?