ohtani's jacket

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?

Whoa, I watched the Roland Bock bout from '82 and Bock wouldn't give him anything. I wish I could find their '78 bout from Stuttgart which is even more notorious. Bock had such an amazingly scummy look for a shooter. West German sleaze at its finest. Incredibly shitty match, but I was curious to see how it would finish.

That was cool. As a Kiwi, I got a kick out of hearing an Aussie on one of these shows. American folks always seem to have this ability to talk and talk whereas us Australians just end up swearing a lot.

Ha ha, Parv's Twitter feed is awesome. House of Un-GWE Activities is gonna be hard to beat as a meme.

We'll have to wait and see, but I think with the number of ballots ballooning the way it did even a guy like Breaks is gonna take a hit.

i keeping getting The Brains' Money Changes Everything stuck in my head when Parties compares the list to '06. Except it's more like Footage Changes Everything.

Pete Roberts is the first one to drop that kind of hurts. There's no way there's 400 better workers than Pete Roberts in my world.

I think there's more of a catch-as-catch-can influence to Inoki's matwork whereas the NWA style is more about grinding away at a hold and wearing your man down. I don't think anyone is going to confuse Inoki with the great catch exponents, but I generally find the catch style to have a greater display of speed and skill than the NWA stuff.

Schmidt is the first guy to drop who's really piqued my interest. Of course it helps that he was a Tim Cooke pick and I've always been fascinated by Tim's takes on pro-wrestling. Watched Schmidt vs. Kowalski and really enjoyed it. Will definitely be watching more.

I still agree with this guy ^ The 8/94 elimination tag is a bout I've never been that high on. I watched it twice over the past few days. Once when I was having some drinks and again in the cold light of day. I liked the early part where Kansai and Hokuto got into it but sadly that felt like the height of their exchanges. I can understand why Kansai and Hokuto were kept apart in singles, but it feels like someone, somewhere missed the boat on a Kansai/Hokuto singles match. After some early strike exchanges and some fairly average submission work, this turned into a typical workrate tag. Some of it was good, some of it was bad. There was a bit too much Hotta in peril, but she was in the midst of a singles push and All Japan wanted to put the spotlight on her. She sold about as well as she could. It was kind of average but didn't detract from the bout or anything. At the same time, a compelling selling performance would have made this more than just a Joshi workout. Even Hokuto didn't dig that deep and it was supposed to be her match and her countdown. I guess my main criticism of the bout was that they didn't milk the drama for what it's worth. There wasn't the strong narrative focus of a Southern style tag and the individual personalities and match-ups were drowned out by cutesy double team spots and a clip of nearfalls. Aja's elimination felt gimmicky and wasn't set up well. The stretch run felt academic instead of exhilarating and one thing I noticed was that as good a seller as Hokuto was, and as capable as she was at creating drama out of her backstory and persona, she no-sold stuff at the same rate as any other girl going. Not sure why she gets a pass on that. I was always kind of down on 1994 Joshi and that hasn't changed much. The bloom had fallen off the rose after a full on '93.

The 8/94 elimination tag is a bout I've never been that high on. I watched it twice over the past few days. Once when I was having some drinks and again in the cold light of day. I liked the early part where Kansai and Hokuto got into it but sadly that felt like the height of their exchanges. I can understand why Kansai and Hokuto were kept apart in singles, but it feels like someone, somewhere missed the boat on a Kansai/Hokuto singles match. After some early strike exchanges and some fairly average submission work, this turned into a typical workrate tag. Some of it was good, some of it was bad. There was a bit too much Hotta in peril, but she was in the midst of a singles push and All Japan wanted to put the spotlight on her. She sold about as well as she could. It was kind of average but didn't detract from the bout or anything. At the same time, a compelling selling performance would have made this more than just a Joshi workout. Even Hokuto didn't dig that deep and it was supposed to be her match and her countdown. I guess my main criticism of the bout was that they didn't milk the drama for what it's worth. There wasn't the strong narrative focus of a Southern style tag and the individual personalities and match-ups were drowned out by cutesy double team spots and a clip of nearfalls. Aja's elimination felt gimmicky and wasn't set up well. The stretch run felt academic instead of exhilarating and one thing I noticed was that as good a seller as Hokuto was, and as capable as she was at creating drama out of her backstory and persona, she no-sold stuff at the same rate as any other girl going. Not sure why she gets a pass on that. I was always kind of down on 1994 Joshi and that hasn't changed much. The bloom had fallen off the rose after a full on '93.

Things were so messy and political in New Japan that it's hard for me to judge his work from the point of view of an aging ace stepping back and letting a heir take over. Whether he jumped to the UWF or not, he was still going to be the top star of a thin roster. It's not a defense of him because the situation was a result of his own politicking and fraudulent business activities, but I have a hard time judging his work against the smooth transition of Baba to Jumbo. To me that's more an issue of booking and infighting and backstage politics. From what I've seen thus far, Inoki began declining physically as the 80s loomed and moreover the type of worker coming out of America and Europe had changed dramatically. Not only that but the roughhouse style had been popularised by that stage. I mean I'd rather watch Pat Roach vs. Inoki than Brody vs. Inoki but the scene had changed.

Rip Rogers.

Tim, recommend some Hans Schmidt.